‘I told them to feed him,’ Leaf says, settling on the bench. ‘I want you to see.’ Adam sits too. He knows the lake water can’t get in, but he feels like it might.
A silvery corpse drops from the surface above. Blood leaks in threads through the fish’s gills into the water.
A great dark shape stirs in the depths, in the distance, sinuous, great body swimming.
The crocodile comes into view. Adam can see its eyes, each dark warty scale, every tooth that protrudes from its ancient jaws.
‘No,’ he says. ‘No …’
Leaf holds him in place, gentle but firm. ‘It’s ok. Tinkerbell can’t hurt you. The glass is four feet thick.’
The crocodile parts its jaws and takes the fish. It turns slowly, its scales scraping on the glass, and goes back into the darkness of its tank.
Adam gasps a great breath. The water on either side presses in on him.
‘I know,’ Leaf says. ‘I know, I know, I know.’
Adam is interested to find that he is actually trembling. His hand, when he holds it level, cannot maintain a stillness. ‘What do you know?’ he asks, almost absent.
‘I keep him to remind me,’ says Leaf. ‘My family sold me toshowbusiness. Then my mother let them eat me. Then I took control, and I decided how much they ate.’
‘And me?’ Adam asks. ‘How much of you do you think I—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Leaf calls as Adam runs up the steps, into the fresh air. Leaf runs after, into the light.
Adam is leaning against a tree as Leaf stumbles out. He strokes the bark because it’s real under his fingers.
‘I’m sorry,’ Leaf says. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you with Tinkerbell.I—’
‘It isn’t the crocodile that scares me,’ Adam says. ‘It’s you. Stop it. Stop hiding behind all this – stuff.’
‘I don’t know what—’
‘You say things but you don’t really talk. You tell stories. I’m not interested in stories.’ Adam comes close to Leaf. ‘You’re going away tomorrow. What do you feel about that?’
Leaf gasps like he’s just come up from deep water. ‘I can’t wait,’ he says. ‘When I’m away I can be whoever I want. But also—’ Leaf takes another hard breath. ‘It also means being away from you.’
Adam says, quiet, ‘You don’t get to eat me alive.’
‘It’s other people who eat me,’ Leaf says, ‘they all take, take …’
‘None of that is happening now,’ Adam says. ‘You and I are both here.’ Adam puts his thumb to Leaf’s cheek, touches his warm skin, fingers making roads in Leaf’s hair. ‘Can’t you see that?’
‘These are easy things to say,’ Leaf hisses. ‘So easy.’
Adam pushes down panic and reaches for a still place inside himself. ‘Either you want me,’ he says, ‘or you don’t.’
‘It’s not that easy,’ Leaf says.
‘No.’ Adam pushes down thoughts of Christie and the baby. ‘But I can’t go on like this.’
Leaf looks at him, cold. ‘Learn to go on,’ he says. ‘Like everyone else.’
In the distance Adam thinks he hears the crocodile, moving dark beneath the water.
8Riley
They sit beneath an apple tree. Riley holds Oliver close and he rests his head against her heart. They watch the sun sinking behind the peaks. Nowhere sinks into gentle dusk. Kids are running everywhere.
