Finders Keepers полностью

Nan made a fuss of the cardboard bird, although a couple of feathers fell out of it before she’d even finished hugging Davey. Lettie had bought her the Bumper Book of Daily Mail Crosswords, which Nan loved, of course. Then she turned to Steven’s present and admired the wrapping paper.

‘I’ll save that,’ she said, and he knew she would. Nan had quite the collection of carefully folded wrapping paper and a similar stash of used paper bags. She didn’t exactly iron them, but it was close.

‘With love from Steven and Davey,’ she read over the top of her glasses.

Davey gave Steven a puzzled look.

Nan opened the gift. ‘Oooh, a lovely umbrella.’

‘Open it, Nan,’ said Steven.

‘Not indoors! Bad luck to open a brolly indoors.’

Steven didn’t tell her that he’d already extended repeated invitations to bad luck while admiring the umbrella in his room. Instead he left his fake Weetabix to go soggy and took the umbrella from Nan. He stepped outside the back door and opened it so she could see the canopy.

‘Well!’ she said. ‘Well, do you see that? Pictures of everyone! Look at that! Isn’t that clever! Me squinting away, and you boys on the beach. I remember that day. Both got covered in tar off the pier. Charming. And Lettie! All pretty! Turn it round a bit, Steven. Did you make it?’

‘Got it online.’

Nan leaned in to Lettie, looking confused. ‘He got it where?’

‘Online, Mum. On the computer.’

Nan flapped a hand at technology, but couldn’t hide her pleasure. ‘Well, you boys are chocolate. Thank you.’

She hugged them both.

‘Welcome,’ said Steven.

‘Welcome,’ said Davey.

But Steven noticed that for some reason Davey still didn’t look happy.

Lettie ran through the rules of non-engagement one last time: no fighting; no leaving the house; no mess; no touching the stove until Uncle Jude had had a chance to fix it. There was bread, and they knew where the toaster was. Then she and Nan left at 9.25 to catch the 9.32 bus to Barnstaple. Nan made a show of taking the umbrella, even though the sun was already scorching the sky.

Twenty minutes after they left, Shane arrived with a bag of coconut mushrooms, and he and Davey switched on the TV and hooked up the PS2.

Steven took up his nan’s old station at the window, but for a very different purpose. His heart recognized the shape of Em while she was still a blur, and he smiled. As she got closer he saw she was wearing cut-off jeans with a white vest top and her favourite shoes. Flip-flops, his nan would have called them, but they went far beyond seaside plastic. They were soft leather and had turquoise beads and little shells sewn on to them. She’d got them on holiday in Spain. Steven had never been on holiday anywhere, let alone somewhere foreign. Weston-super-Mare was the furthest from home he’d ever been and that had only been day trips. When he’d told Em that, she’d laughed and hadn’t believed him. She lived in a different world half a mile away.

Em looked up and saw him, and smiled and raised a hand in brief greeting.

He grinned and hurdled the PS2 control cables on his way to the front door.

‘What’s with him?’ Shane said.

‘He thinks someone loves him,’ he heard Davey say.

The words sliced a cruel edge off his happiness, so that by the time he opened the door, his smile had faded.

‘What’s up?’ said Em.

‘Nothing. Hi. Come in,’ he said, and stood aside, wondering if he should be kissing Em hello. It seemed a bit … familiar, so he didn’t.

They faced each other a little awkwardly in the narrow hallway.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘Sorry we can’t – you know – go somewhere.’

‘No problem,’ said Em.

From the lounge they heard an overblown squeal of tyres and a crash.

‘Bullshit!’ yelled Shane, while Davey laughed and called him a twat.

‘Shall we go upstairs?’ said Steven, then realized how that sounded. ‘I don’t mean like that, I just mean … ’cos of them, you know …’

‘Sure,’ said Em, and reached out to touch his hand.

Reassured, he put his head round the front-room door. ‘We’ll be upstairs. Don’t touch the stove, OK?’

‘Fuck off,’ said Davey quietly. Steven let it go.

Em had never seen his bedroom and suddenly he was aware of how small it was; how messy – and that it smelled of Lynx and dirty socks. He opened a window and sat on the bed, but Em wandered around the room, inspecting it. For the first time in his life he wished he’d tidied up. Em tilted her head to the shelf and ran her eyes over all the books he’d ever read. Steven let his eyes drift along the spines in time with hers. He should definitely have tidied those up. There were still Famous Five books up there. And The Cucumber Pony – a picture book about a green talking horse, for God’s sake! She was going to think he was so gay.

But her eyes moved on without comment. ‘Who’s that boy?’ she said when she noticed the photo.

‘My Uncle Billy.’

‘Why d’you have a picture of him?’

‘He’s dead,’ he told her, and hoped that would be enough.

‘Yeah? How’d he die?’