‘Scientists?’ Zannah chews the lid of her pen thoughtfully. ‘No. Even if a science genius invented a drug that stopped people ageing, they wouldn’t freeze their kids in time at three and five. Those are pain-in-the-arse ages. You might freeze your kids at, like, nine and eleven.’
‘Trust me, if Lewis Braid had invented a way to halt the ageing process, he’d have patented it, publicised it widely and made millions from it,’ says Dom. ‘He wouldn’t keep quiet about it.’
It ought to be possible for me to listen to this jokey back-and-forth and feel comforted. Instead, it’s making me feel lonely.No one but me saw what I saw.No one saw how wrong it was. Flora wasn’t okay – she didn’t look it and she didn’t sound it. Nothing about it was right.
‘Mum, you’ve not eaten anything,’ says Zannah.
‘I’m not hungry. You can have it if you want.’
‘Flora’d be what age now?’ Dom asks. ‘Forty-three, like us?’
‘Forty-two,’ I say. ‘She could easily have had two more children.’
Zannah says, ‘What about this possibility: Floradidhave two more kids after her first three. The youngest two look very similar to young Thomas and Emily, because siblings, and you saw them and freaked out, Mum. That’s why you thought you heard Flora call them Thomas and Emily, but actually she called them by their real names, whatever those are – Hayden, Truelove, whatever.’
‘No. I heard her say, “Thomas, Emily, out you get” before I saw their faces.’
‘Truelove?’ Dom raises his eyebrows.
‘That’s what me and Murad want to call our first baby. Boy or girl.’
‘Truelove Rasheed?’
‘Rasheed-Leeson – I don’t know why you’d think I’m ditching my surname, Dad. Think again.’
‘Truelove? Really?’
‘Didthe Braids dump you as friends?’ Zannah asks me. ‘Why?’
I look at Dom.
‘What?’ he says.
‘I’m waiting to hear your answer.’
‘I’ve no idea what happened. All I know is, one minute they were our friends and then we never saw them again.’
‘Wait, what?’ says Zan. ‘Dad, a minute ago you said they dumped you.’
‘Well, I assumed … Was it us that dumped them?’ he asks me.
‘By “us”, do you mean me? You’d remember if you’d been responsible for ending the friendship, presumably.’ Why am I pushing this? It’s the last thing I want to think or talk about.
I need to get away from this for a while.
‘Have I done or said something wrong?’ Dominic looks at Zannah, then at me. In a different frame of mind, I would find this endearing. Of the four of us, he’s always the most willing to accept that something might be his fault.
‘Dad has no idea why our friendship with the Braids ended,’ I tell Zannah, on my way out of the room.
3
I wake up. The curtains in our bedroom are open. It’s dark outside, in that thorough way that looks like the night trying to tell you it hasn’t finished.
I reach out and pat the top of my bedside cabinet but my phone’s not in the place it always spends the night, plugged into the charger. And I’m still in my clothes, lying on the bed, not in it. That’s right: I left Dom and Zannah in the kitchen and came in here, when I couldn’t stand to hear any more stupid, outlandish theories. I must have closed my eyes …
I hardly ever remember my dreams but this time I’ve dragged a vivid one out of sleep with me: Dominic and I found three new rooms in our house that we’d never noticed before, and were really excited about having more space.
Maybe it was real. Maybe if I looked now, I’d find those three extra rooms. It’s no more implausible than what happened in Hemingford Abbots.
