She looked as though she was going to say something else, but then seemed to change her mind and let out a long puff of air. ‘OK. For you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, clasping her hand. ‘Now, go and wait by the tree. I’ll come and find you when I’m done.’
And before she could say anything else, I turned and stepped into the bandstand.
‘You’re here!’
Nick was standing beside the bench, looking as though he was ready to leave.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I… I came before but you weren’t here so…’ I trailed off.
He frowned. ‘What time were you here?’
‘I’m not sure. About twenty minutes ago?’
He scratched his chin. ‘I was here then.’
I nodded, unsurprised. ‘I think it was because I was with Rachel.’
‘Your friend?’
I nodded. ‘I told her about you—’ I felt my face redden but carried on ‘—and of course she didn’t believe me so I wanted to show her, I wanted her to meet you so that she knew I wasn’t making this up. So we came together and you… well, you weren’t here.’ When I stopped, Nick was watching me with a curious expression on his face. ‘What?’ I said.
‘I was just thinking,’ he said, slowly. ‘We don’t really know how any of this works – or why. All we know is that it doeswork. We know that we can’t see the same things out there.’ He gestured towards the park. ‘And we know that we can only see each other when we’re inside this thing together. But maybe that’s another “rule” of this, that other people can’t see us.’
‘And when we’re with other people, we can’t see each other either,’ I finished.
‘Blimey,’ he said, sitting down heavily. ‘This is a lot to take in.’
‘It is.’ I looked down at him, at his handsome face, his clean-shaven chin, the dimple in his cheek, and sat beside him.
‘What?’ he said, rubbing his hair self-consciously. ‘Have I got something on my face?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I wanted to ask you a favour actually.’
‘Oh?’ He arched an eyebrow.
‘Rachel’s waiting for me, out there.’ I pointed to the tree, and he glanced over and quickly back again. ‘She doesn’t believe me, about you, and I wanted to prove to her that you’re real. That it’s not just the grief making me go doolally.’
‘So how can I help?’
‘I need concrete proof.’
He nodded. ‘And I assume you’ve had an idea?’
‘I have.’ I told him the idea I’d come up with. He considered it for a moment, then nodded, dug out his pocket knife, and turned to me. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said. Then he got up and disappeared into the park.
While I waited I looked over at the tree. Rachel was sitting on the ground, her back leaning against it, and I looked away before she noticed me. Even though I knew I wouldn’t see Nick there, it still felt strange to me, to know he was both here and not here at the same time.
Just as I was beginning to wonder whether Nick was ever coming back, he appeared in the opening.
‘I did it,’ he said, his eyes shining.
‘Thank you,’ I said. I glanced behind me. Rachel was still there. ‘Do you need to get going soon?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Can you give me five minutes?’
