Ostrich Boys (14 page)

Joe wished us luck with our “mission.” “Got to admit to being kind of curious about how it’s all going to turn out. Let us know what this Ross place is like. If it’s cool enough, never know, maybe Gus can take my ashes there too. Seeing as there’s nowhere called
Joe.”

“There’s somewhere called
England,”
Kenny told him.

Sim and I grabbed him to pull him away.

But he wanted to shake Gus’s hand first. And he said, “Can I ask you something? Don’t you ever say anything? I mean, you
can
talk, can’t you?”

Sim rolled his eyes. And I thought, Oh God, here we go.

Gus seemed surprised by the question. He stepped away from Kenny and squinted at him, took a long hard look at him. He blew smoke. “Nice T-shirt,” he said.

Crappy, geriatric train from Blackpool to Preston. Changed onto what we all agreed was a “proper” train, a smart Virgin Pendolino with comfy seats and a bit of oomph, to Carlisle. Sim not letting Kenny keep hold of his new ticket—just in case.

The two of them had been doing their best to leave me alone, allowing me to stew in my self-pity. Anytime they tried speaking to me I’d only snapped back anyway—bad-mouthing Bacon, bungees and Blackpool every opportunity I got. Which then made Kenny keep repeating how sorry he was.

“Honest, Blake,” he’d go. “I’m telling you: I know it’s all my fault for losing my ticket, but I’m really,
really
sorry. Honest I am. And I shouldn’t have said about advertising or posters either. Sorry for that too.”

His solemn face and heartfelt apologies had begun to
grate on my nerves. We were sitting on opposite sides of the aisle, me looking one way up the carriage, Kenny and Sim facing the other. I’d leaned across and hissed, “Say sorry one more time, just once more, and I’ll punch you. Okay?”

Since then he’d let me be, played I Spy with Sim and bemoaned his lost Travel Scrabble instead.

“… something beginning with
M
.”

Kenny thought about it.
“Man.”

Sim shook his head.

“Magazine.”

“No.”

Kenny pointed at an ugly woman further up the carriage.
“Minger.”

Sim nodded. “Yeah. Your go.”

Kenny had a good look around. “Okay … Something beginning with
S
.”

Sim pointed a finger in Kenny’s face.
“Shithorn.”

It was a little after seven—nine hours since I’d been sitting with Caroline in the Fells’ claustrophobic kitchen, and yet it felt like far too much had happened. The June evening speeding by outside the train’s window was still sunshiny bright, but a whole week’s worth of stuff had gone on, hadn’t it? I was beginning to realize how tired I felt. And we still weren’t anywhere near where we were meant to be going yet.

I’d kept my rucksack on the seat next to me. I got the map out.

“Everything okay?” Sim asked. He leaned across the aisle
and kept his voice down. The train was busy and I suppose we couldn’t help wanting to stay secretive even this far from home. “We’re definitely going the right way?”

I nodded. “But I still don’t know if there’s any way we can make it to Ross tonight—we should have been there by now. I was just trying to think where we ought to stay. We’ve got to change trains at Carlisle, so we could try and find somewhere there. Or go all the way to Dumfries.”

“What d’you reckon’ll be best?”

“Not sure. Where would you vote for, Kenny? I suppose we should think about where’s going to be cheaper.”

“Can I vote for food instead?” Kenny asked. “I’m starved. We left the last of the Mars Bars in Joe’s taxi.”

And as if on cue, my stomach rumbled.

“I’d rather have something to eat too,” Sim said. “I reckon we should just keep going as far as we can. Get the train to Dumfries. And how far is it from there to Ross? What, ten miles or something? We can walk that if we have to. Just keep going.”

“Might actually come to that,” I admitted. But it looked a good bit further than ten miles on the map to me. Closer to thirty.

“I don’t think I could walk even two miles at the minute,” Kenny said. “Not without something to eat.”

My stomach rumbled again. “We’ve got fifty pee more than last time, thanks to the change from Bacon’s forty quid after buying your ticket. My vote is we keep every penny of
it until we get to Dumfries, because it’s gonna be cheaper than buying anything on a train.”

Kenny pulled a face. “But that’s ages.”

“Couple of hours at the most,” I said with my mouth.
Gimme something to eat
, my stomach replied. I decided to listen to my stomach.

“Just get the cheapest,” Sim said.

Our money was in the side pocket of my rucksack, and as I rooted around for it my fingers accidentally closed over something else that was in there. I made sure Sim and Kenny were too busy looking at the map to see what I was up to as I grabbed my mobile and slipped it into the front pocket of my jeans.

“Back in a minute. Watch my bag,” I told them, hoping it would stop them from following me.

I made my way through the carriages toward the train’s shop with my phone feeling hot enough to burn. I kept my eyes well averted from the other passengers in their seats as I passed. I checked over my shoulder twice to make sure Kenny and Sim weren’t behind me. And the first toilet I came to, I ducked inside.

It was a huge cubicle—a high-tech Tardis toilet, looking like the kind of place Doctor Who would take a dump. I waited for the automatic door to slide into place behind me and pushed the flashing button to lock it. Feeling both sneaky and nervous, I took my phone out of my pocket and switched it on. I watched the screen light up and blink—it
chimed a little welcome. It searched for my network. I saw the little bars grow taller as it found the signal.

It surprised me how anxious I felt. I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to know who’d been trying to contact me. But too late. The phone beeped with every text message and missed call. And I thought it was going to keep beeping until the seas dried.

Thirty texts. Thirty missed calls. It was full. It didn’t have the capacity to store any more.

I swore under my breath. Switched off the phone and shoved it back into my pocket. Not wanting to know. Really, really not wanting to know. I stabbed at the button to open the toilet door and got out of there as quick as I could. Almost ran for the shop.

But standing in the queue with two packs of sandwiches, a bottle of 7UP and a big bag of crisps, I could feel my phone heating up once more, even hotter this time, scorching my thigh through my jeans pocket. I knew all the missed calls and texts would be my mum, my dad, maybe Ross’s mum and dad, even Caroline. They’d all make me feel guilty—and petrified about going home to face the furor we’d caused. But what if Nina had called …?

We’re too far away, I told myself. Doesn’t matter what they say, we’re not turning back now. We can’t.

And yet I knew my mum might very well have some sly, fiendish trick up her sleeve that would make me want to. She was the Queen of Emotional Blackmail.

I realized I’d been mumbling to myself, and not heard the shop assistant in his red Virgin uniform talking to me. I apologized and fumbled to pay. £7.63. I should have been worrying about losing nearly a quarter of our cash in one chunk but could only think about my phone.

Thirty texts. Thirty missed calls.

On the way back to Kenny and Sim I ducked inside the toilet again.

I pushed the button to lock the door. Then pushed it again to be sure. I told myself I would check just one missed call and one text—that was it, no more. I put the sandwiches and crisps in the hand basin and sat down on the closed loo seat. The train rocked one way, then the other; it sounded much louder in here than in the carriages. I took my hot phone out of my pocket, switched it on. And assured myself I’d flush the bloody thing if it dared to ring right now.

I only wanted to check the last missed call, and although the phone confirmed that the last person who’d tried to contact me had been my mum, it also told me I’d missed nineteen of her calls in total—which was something I would have rather been left in the dark about. Was she angry, or worried? I guessed both. I couldn’t think about it, forced the guilt right to the back of my mind and checked the last text that had been sent. It was from Nina:

It was spelled and punctuated correctly, same as all of Nina’s texts. That was her way. It raised a small smile. I felt happy but flustered. Against my better judgment I started to type a reply. Then stopped. Then swore. Huffed and puffed a bit. Then did it anyway.

Problem was, now I felt tempted to listen to my voice mail. It would be great to hear Nina’s voice. I dialed before I could talk myself out of it. But then got nervous it was going to be my mum or dad … Or, worse, Ross’s mum. I thought of how she’d looked at the top of her stairs that morning. So sad and pale and weak. Like a soft wax ghost. I worried she might have left a message asking us to take her son back to her. It worried me because it might be so hard not to.

I wanted to delete them, get rid of them. But I had to listen to them to do that. I held the phone to my ear with my left hand and made sure the first finger of my right was ready on the three button. At the sound of the speakers’ first syllable I hit that delete button. Even so, I knew who everybody was.

Mum, Mum, Dad, Mum, Dad, Dad, Mr. Fell, Mum, Mum … On and on.

Until a voice I didn’t recognize surprised me. Made my deleting finger pause. A man’s voice—deep as a dungeon,
solid and thick as a prison wall. I almost dropped the phone when he called himself Detective Sergeant Cropper. But I stabbed the three button and shoved the phone back in my pocket before he could say much more than
“… caused a lot of trouble and worry …”

I sat very still, not quite daring to move at first. When we were little kids Ross and I used to poke sticks into wasps’ nests we found under bushes at the park. Those wasps were in my belly now. I felt more scared than I had when I’d been standing on that bungee platform—ten million times more.

I walked back to Kenny and Sim with paranoia crawling up my spine, checking the passengers’ faces as I passed in between their seats. I knew it was ridiculous, of course I did, but I was looking for someone who might be chasing us. Or someone who might look like the police. But what if they were CID—Coppers In Disguise?

“You all right?” Sim asked, spotting how pale and twitchy I was.

“Is this all they had?” Kenny asked, turning his nose up at the goat’s cheese and sun-dried-tomato sandwiches.

“Fine,” I told Sim. “Shut up and eat it,” I said to Kenny.

I didn’t know whether to tell them or not.

Kenny ripped open the bag of crisps. Sim gave me a funny look. “You not having any?” he asked me.

“Feeling a bit travel sick,” I lied.

And then my phone started ringing.

My phone blared. But not as loud as Kenny.

“Your phone! You switched it on! You said … You agreed you’d …”

Sim just said, “Don’t answer it.”

I realized I’d been stupid enough to shove it back in my pocket without thinking to switch it off. As I fumbled to dig it out again I prayed it wasn’t going to be Detective Sergeant Cropper. But when I read the name on the caller display I was reluctant to turn it off. It was Nina—she might be able to tell us what was going on. I saw the looks of betrayal on Kenny and Sim’s faces, however, and hid my reluctance as I jabbed at the power button and killed the noise.

“Who was it?” Sim asked.

I thought about lying, but: “Nina.”

“Why’s she calling?”

“By the looks of my missed calls, everyone’s calling.”

“You should have answered it if it was her,” Kenny said. “Told her to shove it up her hole, whatever it is she wants.” The way he was carrying on was drawing stares from the other passengers.

“Simmer down, Kenny,” I told him.

“Bollocks to what you say! Bollocks to you, Blake. We agreed not to use our phones and that’s exactly what you’ve been doing. In fact, I want to use mine now. I want to know what my mum’s been saying.” Then he remembered his mobile was in his bag. “Bollocks!”

“I know we agreed,” I said. “It’s just …”

“You’ve let us down,” Kenny said. “You’ve let Ross down.”

I didn’t like that. “Hold on a minute. Who the hell are you to say something like that? I didn’t realize I was the one who refused to help him out on the day he died.”

Kenny looked like I’d punched him.

Which first made me think,
Good
. But then,
Shit
. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Kenny was furious. “Yes, you did. Why’d you say it if you didn’t mean it? That’s what you think, isn’t it? You think that if he
did
kill himself, it’s because of me.”

Sim turned on him. “Christ-on-a-bike, Kenny! What’re you on about?”

“Blake’s blaming me—”

“I’m not blaming you for anything.”

“And Ross didn’t even kill himself,” Sim said, eyes like snooker balls. “So shut up before I shut you up, all right?”

Kenny thumped his whole body back into his seat, like a petulant child getting over a tantrum.

I waited for all the nosy passengers to look the other way. “I’m sorry, Kenny, okay? I didn’t mean it—I opened my mouth without thinking.” He wouldn’t look at me but I plowed on anyway. “And the phone thing … I just thought something might have happened that we needed to know about.”

“And?” Sim asked. “Has it?”

I was scared that if I told them about Detective Sergeant Cropper they’d want to turn back. And I didn’t think I wanted to do that, not yet.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess so. I started looking to see how many missed calls and texts I had. And it’s loads. My mum mostly, but I reckon Ross’s parents too. But, you know, I can tell we’re in big trouble—it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Again I almost told them. Again held it back. “Put it this way: I don’t think we’re gonna get banners and balloons and a welcome-home party when we go back. I don’t think people are gonna understand.”