We’re quiet for a bit as we watch Joe and Jerry playing sax and double bass in a cool jazz bar while the crims all drink milk around a tiny table.
“Hey, Lan?” Harry doesn’t turn to look at me. He keeps his eyes trained on the screen. “Did your dad make you take the job at his place?”
“He cut me off. Told me I need to start contributing to the family if I want to stay part of it.”
“That’s . . . rough.”
“Thanks.”
“Why don’t you just get a different job . . . like doing something you actually enjoy?”
I have thought about it, but in all honesty, where would I even begin? I have no formal training for anything, so I’d have to start at the entry level. I googled national minimum wage, and I don’t know how folk are supposed to survive on that. How do they pay their bills? Where do they shop?
“What would I do?” I ask him instead.
He shrugs. “Maybe you could become an official toilet paper tester.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” I say, genuinely fighting a smile. “I hate it when people I hate make me laugh.”
“Do you ever think about the night we first met?”
“Never. Do you?” I’m lying.
“No,” he says, too quickly. “I wish I never met you.”
“Same, girl.”
But Harry’s cheeks puff out into a smile, his lips tick up at the corner, and his eyes crinkle.
7
Sunday 2nd May 2027
Harry
Lando’s not asleep when I sneak out the next morning, but he’s pretending to be. It should bother me that I know the difference between his sleeping breaths and his conscious ones, but I can't muster the energy to care right now.
His waking breaths are quieter and shallower, and he’s curled up on his side facing away from me. He doesn’t usually snore, but he does fart a lot in his sleep, and he hasn’t farted once since I woke up fifteen minutes ago.
Ergo, he’s faking it.
I tiptoe around his room, gathering up my clothes, and take them to one of the guest bathrooms to get dressed. I don’t fully understand why I’m sneaking out or why Lando is feigning unconsciousness. All I know is that it’s consensual. Neither of us actually wants to speak with theother.
The drink and emotion-fuelled haze of last night’s playful banter has well and truly burnt off in the blazing light of the morning, and now I want nothing more than to be as far away from here as humanly possible.
I toy with leaving a note on the breakfast bar, but besides“Let’s never do this again,”what would I write?
It’s just before midday when I reach the end of the lane connecting Hooke Manor to the main road of Mudford-upon-Hooke. There’s a sign on the pub that says CLOSED FOR A FAMILY FUNCTION. Thankfully, they’ve still left their router switched on, and I connect to their Wi-Fi as I circle the deserted beer garden for the optimum spot. After ordering an Uber for myself, I sit at one of the picnic-style tables and wait. The app tells me it’ll be a thirty-eight minute wait. Considering how remote this place is, it’s about what I’m used to.
My phone battery is only on fourteen per cent, so instead of wasting the rest and finding myself stranded in case of an Uber cancellation, I pillow my face on my arms and shut my eyes for a bit. An unknown amount of time later—could be a couple of minutes, could be fifteen—a voice pulls me out of my stupor.
“Harry Ellis!”
I don’t need to lift my head or even open my eyes to know the voice belongs to Daisy Bosley.
“Not you doing the walk of shame, is it?” she says.
It’s not the first time Daisy has discovered me in this precise location, though in the past, Lando had accompanied me to the beer garden to wait for a taxi. He’d always said it was much easier this way, that drivers often struggled to find Hooke Manor.
