to place, day after day, it’s hard to watch yourself eat. You steal. You pick through the bins and try not to realise it’s you. You try not to think about what you’re doing. You learn where the shops dump their rubbish, what night’s the best night. You rely on what other people waste.
Finish your food? No, don’t, because somebody watching from outside might want it.
After meatballs there was ice cream. I let it melt in my mouth and it slipped, rich and over-sweet, down my throat. I did it without thinking.
“Why d’you always eat it like that?” Edie said. “It’s gross.”
Funny to have such a thing in common with Cassiel – the way we ate ice cream.
“Have you been in London? Or Bristol? Or Manchester? Or where?” Edie said.
“He’s tired,” Helen said, putting her cool hand on my forehead.
“Have you been living rough?” Edie said. “On the streets?”
What would the answer to that be? It was pretty likely. If you run away from home when you’re fourteen, you don’t usually end up in the penthouse suite.
“Now and then,” I said.
Helen shook her head. “And being on the streets was better than being here?” She looked at Edie and then at me. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I,” Edie said, “When you put it like that.”
My stomach was giddy with rich and strange food. I listened to their spoon scrapes, their soft slurps and swallows.
“Why did you go off?” Edie said.
I looked at her food, only at her food. I said, “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I don’t believe you,” Edie said.
I kept my voice soft. I kept it level. “You don’t have to.”
“What was so awful?” Helen said. “What was so bad that you had to go?”
I didn’t say anything.
Edie said, “You shouldn’t have punished us all like that.”
“Frank said you were in trouble,” Helen said. “He was worried about you.”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t call,” Edie said. “I’ll never understand why you let us all think you were dead.”
Was it OK to say sorry? Would Cassiel say sorry for that? I wanted to say it.
Edie couldn’t stop. “You didn’t think about what it would do to us,” she said. “It didn’t cross your mind.”
“You don’t know that,” Helen said.
“Yes I do, Mum. I know him better than you. I’m right, aren’t I, Cassiel?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I am,” she said. “And you do know. And I will never forgive you.”
“You said on the missing persons thing that you’d never give up,” I told her. “You didn’t say you’d never forgive.”
I worried instantly that I shouldn’t have spoken. In the silence that followed I thought I’d done something wrong.
“You didn’t make it easy,” Edie said.
Helen started to clear the plates. I got up to help her.
“Sit down,” I said, my hand on her shoulder. “I’ll do this.”
“Nice try,” Edie said. “Walk out for a couple of years and then tiptoe back in, all soft and sweet and helpful, like that’s going to fool anybody.”
I stacked the bowls as quietly as I could.
“Who the hell are you pretending to be, Cassiel Roadnight?” she said.
“Leave him,” Helen said. “That’s enough.”
“I’m sorry, Edie,” I said. “I’m sorry, Mum.”
Edie growled.
Helen looked at me and I smiled. “Your eyes have changed colour,” she said. She was surprised to hear herself say it.
I didn’t move. Edie pushed the ice cream away from her and leaned towards me. “They haven’t,” Edie said.
“They have,” said Helen. “They’re different. How’s that possible?”
Because I’m not him. Because I’m a grotesque copy. Because I’m a cuckoo in the nest.
“It’s not possible,” said Edie. “That’s the point.”
“Look at me,” Helen said.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want her to see me. “I am.”
“Your eyes used to be blue,” she said.
“They are blue.”
“They’ve changed,” Helen said. “They’re not the same blue. They’re darker.”
I waited for them both to notice. I waited for the horror to dawn on their faces. I knew his mother would see.
“Yeah, right,” Edie said under her breath. “And you can count how many fingers I’m holding up.”
“What?” Helen said.
“You’re not remembering them right,” Edie said. “That’s all it is.”
“I am,” Helen said. “I know my son’s eyes.”
Tears welled up suddenly in hers. I hated to see his mother so ruined and so upset and so completely right. It hurt. And it was my fault.
“Do you think I don’t know my own son?” she said, to neither of us.
I put my arms around her. I said, “It’s OK, Mum,” even though it wasn’t, even though if she knew the truth she would scream the house down if I tried to touch her.
“I’ve got to go to bed,” she said. “I’m suddenly so tired.”
Edie said, “Tranquillisers will do that.”
“Don’t, Edie,” I said, without thinking.
It stunned her. It stopped her dead. I knew what the look on her face meant. I knew what she was thinking. Cassiel wouldn’t have said that.
Helen took my hand and looked at it like she’d never seen it before. She kept hold of it until I moved away, until she had to let go.
She
