“Likethat,” he added, crossing his fingers.
“It’s just,” I finished, “he’s sort of dead.”
The Cadillac screeched to a halt, very nearly getting us rear-ended by the much less obnoxious car behind. “Sorry, what?”
“He’s dead. He died in 2019.”
Saint didn’t look remotely close to believing me. “Bullshit.”
Sighing, I pulled out my phone and brought upGareth Bennet’s Guide to Mindful Eating. There were pictures that, despite the enormous beard and Alan Titchmarsh wellies, even Saint couldn’t deny were definitely of the man he’d known as Gary the Cosmic Fuckstone. The final update was a tasteful memorial postdated, as I’d told him, from 2019. It read, “Gareth’s family is sad to report that he passed away on Tuesday as a result of an improperly sorted mushroom foraging. Well-wishers are encouraged to donate to one of the following charities on Gareth’s behalf.”
“Fuck.” Saint looked like he was processing an entirely new concept. I liked to think it was “his own mortality,” but I suspected it was just “having to deal with inconvenience.” After a moment, he looked at me solemnly and said, “No wonder he wasn’t answering my texts.”
He pulled out his phone, ignoring the angry honking from behind us, and started scrolling. “The others are fine, though.”
“Fine in what way?” I asked, because from what I’d seen of Saint, his definition offinewas substantially different from most people’s.
He turned the screen to face me. Sure enough, the two most recent replies said:Love to catch up but really busy this monthandwhat part of “never call me again you narcissistic shitbag” did you not understand?
“If I’m honest,” I began, “those don’t look supersuperpromising.”
“I know the guys,” he said. “They’ll be solid.”
I let that go. But I made myself a private bet that they would be deeply, deeply unsolid.
* * *
I understand this is your job, said the latest in Oliver’s long line of texts,but I worry it’s setting a bad example for Jasmine.
I looked at Jaz. She seemed, more than anything, bored out of her skull. Which, given that we’d just been on a two-hour drive in an open-topped car in the middle of winter, said something for her resilience. I was feeling like my sinuses had been flushed through with dry ice.
Still, from a certain point of view, Ihadtaken Jaz to school. Okay, to a school. Okay, to a road opposite the primary school that Michael “MagiMix” Giffard now worked at.
I think were okay there, I sent back.If anything I think saints boring her straight.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to be doing?” I asked. Again.
“MagiMix’ll be out soon,” Saint insisted. “And once he sees me, he’ll remember what it was like back in the day.”
I nodded ambiguously. “I’m sure he will.”
Parents began flooding through the school gates, and then children began flooding out. We got some funny looks, but to my relief nobody actually called the cops on us. And Spud handled the whole situation really well, sitting on Jaz’s lap, wagging his tail, and only barking at passers-by in a friendly way.
Then nothing.
Fighting very hard to keep my expression non-told-you-soey, I said, “Howsoon exactly?”
Saint waved at the passing crowds. “The kids are all gone. How much can a teacher have to do in an empty school?”
Despite never having worked in education, I strongly suspected the answer to that question was “Quite a lot, actually.”
“Spud needs a piss,” Jaz remarked to me, Saint, and the world in general. And then, without waiting for permission—which was fair in a way because it wasn’t like Spud was going to—she climbed out of Saint’s open-topped car without bothering to open the door and lifted Spud after her.
Saint followed her with his eyes for a moment. “Come on. She’s got the right idea.”
“Taking a dog to piss on a wall?”
“If MagiMix won’t come to us, we’ll go to him.”
