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I’m on my way home from the river, but I’ve got something in my shoe. A stone. Small one. I can’t be bothered to get rid of it – untying the laces, standing on one leg. The stone could have got into my sock. I’m not taking that off too. I’m on my way home anyway. It’ll be fine. I thrust my hands in my pockets. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a stone.
I see Claire on the other side of the river, without Yan this time. I’m pleased about that. Don’t know why, really. It’s no skin off my nose who she hangs out with. I don’t wave. Why would I? She hasn’t seen me anyway. She’s wearing one of the T-shirts she always wears when she’s not in school uniform. It’s black, with white writing on it. We are all just people.
All just people. Well, duh. She started wearing T-shirts like that a couple of years ago. Ones with writing on them. Humanity not Protectionism. No to Borders. She’s probably got a whole wardrobe full of them. They’re pretty ridiculous, in my opinion. It’s like Dad says, you have to look out for yourself. Countries have to do the same. If someone’s stupid enough to wind up homeless, it doesn’t mean they can expect to move in with you. So why should foreigners think they should be able to move here, take our jobs, just because their countries have run out of money? It’s not like we’ve got any to spare. It’s not like there are enough jobs for everyone here anyway.
I keep walking. Even though the stone is just under my little toe. Hurts every time I put my right foot down. I curse under my breath, then surreptitiously give my foot a shake. I start walking again – now it’s under my big toe. Hurts even more.
It’s been an all right afternoon, actually – can of Coke, sitting on a bench by the river. No freaks, so far as I could tell. No one interrupting me or getting in my way.
I could have been working, of course. Doing my assignments, revising for my GCSEs. Could have. Should have, Dad would say. I didn’t, though. Not worried about it either.
Not that worried anyway. There’s always tomorrow. Or the next day. It’s not that I don’t like school, it’s just . . . OK, I don’t like it. I don’t like the teachers, don’t like the way people look at me, the way everyone hangs around in groups that I’m so not interested in being a part of but which make me feel . . . you know, kind of weird, like I don’t belong anywhere.
Not that I need to belong anywhere. I’m fine as I am.
I shuffle home, walking on the side of my foot to stop the stone digging in. It’s a pointy little thing, more like a nail. I stop again, bang the toe of my shoe into the ground. The stone moves – it’s between my big toe and second one now. Tolerable.
A man walks by. He slows down as he approaches me, looks at me, right at me. He looks familiar. He’s staring; I force myself not to look at him, to look down at the ground. Freaks, I mutter under my breath. Leave me alone.
My hands are still in my pockets. You’re imagining it. It isn’t real.
A mother walks past with a pram and a toddler. She doesn’t look at me. She’s engrossed in the small boy, a little smile on her face. He’s tottering towards the river and she lets him take a few steps before scooping him up in her arms. She puts him on her hip and continues to push the pram. She hasn’t even noticed I’m there. It makes me feel better. Mothers and babies always do – they’re consumed with each other, no time to notice me.
It throws me off guard, though. I miss the girl walking towards me. Actually, the girls always catch me off guard. I don’t suspect them, especially the pretty ones. Pitiful, isn’t it?
This one’s older than me – seventeen, maybe eighteen. Long legs, curly hair. She’s looking at me and I fall for it, I look back and I think maybe I know her from somewhere. School? Town? But of course I don’t. I realise it too late – she’s one of them.
She’s looking at me intently now and I realise that her eyes have that glazed, hollow look. I try to look away but once they’ve locked on to you it’s hard to break away and I feel like I’m falling, like she’s leading me somewhere, but where? I don’t know. And then she’s passing me and she’s still looking but I manage to keep going forward without looking back, kicking myself for letting her suck me in. Or for letting my subconscious suck me in. The shrink said I was imprinting my own desires and fears on to strangers. He said I was looking for my mother. He said I should try to meet more people, not spend so much time alone. He was full of shit. People were the problem, that much I knew. I needed to see less of them, not more.
I want to turn around, to look at the girl, to see if she’s still looking at me. It’s like an itch, like a mosquito bite that you want to scratch and it drives you crazy but you know that even touching it will just make it worse. I don’t turn. I know she’ll be looking. They always are. I walk faster. I look down at the ground. If I don’t think about her, then she won’t be real. I list football teams in my head, do the alphabet backwards. I start to run.
I asked Claire once if she saw them. A few years ago when we were still friends. She just looked at me and frowned. If you asked Claire a question that interested her, or that perplexed her, or that she just thought was downright weird, she never looked at you oddly, or took the piss. She always thought hard and then gave a measured response. She never made me feel like a prat.
‘Sometimes I see people I think I recognise but I’ve mistaken them for someone else,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Often?’
She frowned again. ‘Maybe once every six months? I don’t know really.’
I digested this. ‘Do you notice people staring at me sometimes? Like really staring when they walk past me?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Will, I don’t. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.’
They’ve made me suspicious. The freaks, I mean. Whenever I meet someone new, I look at them aggressively. My dad’s sister, who I hadn’t seen for years, came to stay unexpectedly and no one warned me. When I got home and she walked towards me with her arms outstretched, I nearly ran out of the house.
I wish I wasn’t like that. I wish I was normal.
But what’s normal? Is anyone really normal?
I sigh; the stone’s back. Under the pad of my foot. I almost like the pain now – it takes my mind off the girl. Am I imagining it then? Do they really exist or is it just my mind playing tricks with me?
If I had the balls, I’d stop them, ask them what the hell they’re doing, staring at me. Tell them to take a running jump. I don’t have the balls, though. Anyway, if I am imagining it, I’ll end up ranting at someone who has no idea what I’m talking about. People already think I’m weird – if I started babbling at strangers I’d be put away. That would tip Dad over the edge. I honestly don’t know what he’d do.
I’m startled out of my rambling thoughts by something crossing my line of vision. Someone running. I stop instinctively and move back against the wall next to the pavement. I don’t know why; it’s like a reflex. I sometimes think I should join the army when I grow up. Or the secret service. I’ve kind of figured out how to blend into the background, how to keep myself hidden. You could call it prudence, or you could call it not wanting to get into any more trouble than is absolutely necessary. Claire used to call me Shadow Man. She used to tease me about it. Then, later, she said I was shifty. That was around the time she stopped smiling at me, stopped finding me at the end of school to walk home with.
But I’m not being shifty. I’m being cautious.
I edge along the wall to the corner. I’m only two streets away from our house. There’s a small parade of shops on the corner – I can see someone on the ground, with another man crouching over him. I think the one on the floor might be drunk, but I’m not sure. Something isn’t right about this. I can feel it in my bones.
I move closer. I narrow my eyes, try to focus. If I move, the person crouching might ask for my help. If I stay here, I won’t be noticed – I won’t have to do anything.
I frown, trying to work out what’s going on. And then I feel my stomach somersault. The man crouching isn’t a man at all. It’s Yan. I look at him suspiciously. His eyes are wide and he’s pulling at something. He’s crying out. He sounds weird, sounds scary.
I feel my heart beginning to pound in my chest. I can see what he’s pulling at now – it’s a knife. Yan’s staring at it in shock.
The man on the ground isn’t moving. I’m pretty sure he isn’t drunk after all. He looks like Mr Best. He’s got that green sweatshirt on he wears for work. A woman in a pink sari runs out of the shop, screaming. Mrs Rajkuma. I feel a weird feeling at the base of my spine – not pain, but not not pain, if you know what I mean. The body – it’s definitely Mr Best, the man who runs the post office in Mr Rajkuma’s store. Robber shop, Dad calls it. Open all hours and as expensive as Harrods. Yan is still holding the knife, still looking at it in horror; even from here I can see that it is stained deep red. Mrs Rajkuma is screaming and calling to her husband. Mr Rajkuma comes out of the store; he looks terrified.
‘He’s been stabbed,’ Yan cries out. ‘Someone call an ambulance.’
I realise with a jolt that he’s seen me, that he’s shouting at me. I freeze. He’s leaning over the body, holding Mr Best’s head. He’s breathing into his mouth.
I think about going to help, but know that I won’t. Shadow Man doesn’t get involved. Shadow Man isn’t brave.
‘Quick,’ Yan shouts. ‘He’s dying.’
I dig out my phone, but I needn’t have bothered. A police car turns up. Three policeman jump out and circle Yan, all pointing guns at his head.
‘Drop the weapon,’ a policeman shouts. Yan looks confused. He drops the knife.
‘You don’t understand,’ he shouts. ‘I just found him. It wasn’t me.’
An ambulance arrives; uniformed men and women jump out and put Mr Best on a stretcher, then they wheel him into the ambulance. Mrs Rajkuma is still wailing; a woman tries to comfort her.
The policemen grab Yan and bundle him into the car. He looks back at me. He mouths something. I think it’s ‘Please help’. I can feel the back of my neck prickling. Then it feels like it’s getting dark – from the edges of my vision inwards. Please help. I hear the words in my head, hear them rising, louder, more desperate. I shut my eyes. I need to find the wall, find something to hold on to. My back hits the wall. I’m OK. I take a few deep breaths. I open my eyes.
The car door is closed; it drives off. All that’s left is Mr Best’s blood on the pavement.