“One of the reasons I dislike euphemisms,” Daniel said, shaking out his match and dropping it neatly into the ashtray, “is that they preclude any real communication. I think it’s a safe bet that Rafe has in fact done something stupid, but that covers such a wide variety of possibilities. I assume you’re worried that he’s busy committing suicide, which frankly I think is extremely unlikely.”
After a moment Justin said, without looking up, “Did he ever tell you about that time when he was sixteen? When his parents made him move school for the tenth time or whatever it was?”
“No pasts,” Daniel said.
“He wasn’t trying to kill himself,” Abby said. “He was trying to get some attention from his dickhead dad, and it didn’t work.”
“I said no pasts.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying this isn’t the same, Justin. Hasn’t Rafe been completely different, these last few months? Hasn’t he been way happier?”
“These last few months,” Justin said. “Not these last few weeks.”
“Yeah, well,” Abby said, and sliced an apple in half with a crisp snap, “we’ve none of us been at our best. It’s still not the same. Rafe knows he’s got a home, he knows he’s got people who care about him, he’s not about to hurt himself. He’s just having a hard time, and he’s gone off to get hammered and chase skirt. He’ll be back when he’s good and ready.”
“What if he’s…” Justin’s voice trailed off. “I hate this, you know,” he said softly, to his plate. “I really hate this.”
“Well, so do we all,” said Daniel briskly. “It’s been a trying time for all of us. We need to accept that and have patience with ourselves, and with one another, while we recover.”
“You said to just give it time and it would get better. It’s not getting better, Daniel. It’s getting worse.”
“I was thinking,” Daniel said, “of a little more time than three weeks. If you consider that unreasonable, then do by all means tell me.”
“How can you be so calm?” Justin wasn’t far off tears. “This is Rafe we’re talking about.”
“Whatever he’s doing,” Daniel said, turning his head politely to the side to blow smoke away from the rest of us, “I fail to see how it would make any difference if I became hysterical.”
“I am not hysterical. This is how normal people react when one of their friends vanishes.”
“Justin,” Abby said, gently, “it’s going to be fine,” but Justin didn’t hear her.
“Just because you’re a bloody robot… My God, Daniel, just once, just once I’d like to see you act as if you care about the rest of us, about anything-”
“I think you have every reason to be aware,” Daniel said coldly, “that I care very deeply about all four of you.”
“I do not. What reason? I’ve got every reason to think that you don’t give a damn-”
Abby made a small gesture, palm upturned to the ceiling, the room around us, the garden outside. There was something about it, about the way her hand fell back into her lap; something tired, almost resigned.
“That’s right,” Justin said, slumping down in his chair. The light caught him at a cruel angle, hollowing out his cheeks and raking a long vertical groove between his eyebrows, and for a second I saw like a time-slip overlaid on his face what he would look like in fifty years’ time. “Of course. The house. And look where that’s got us.”
There was a tiny, sharp silence. “I have never claimed,” Daniel said, and his voice had a dangerous depth of some emotion that I’d never heard there before, “to be infallible. All I’ve ever claimed is that I try, very hard, to do what’s best for the five of us. If you believe I’m doing such a bad job of it, feel free to make decisions of your own. If you think we shouldn’t be living together, then move out. If you think we need to report Rafe missing, then pick up the phone.”
After a moment Justin shrugged miserably and went back to picking at his plate. Daniel smoked, gazing into the middle distance. Abby ate her apple; I turned my peach into purée. Nobody said anything for a long time.
“I see you’ve lost the lady boy,” Frank said, when I rang him from my tree. We had apparently inspired him to have a health-food moment: he was eating something with seeds-I could hear him spitting them, attractively, into his hand or wherever. “If he turns up dead, then maybe everyone will start believing me about the mysterious stranger. I should’ve had money on it.”
“Stop being a git, Frankie,” I said.
Frank laughed. “You’re not worried about him, are you? Seriously?”
I shrugged. “I’d rather know where he is, that’s all.”
“You can relax, babe. A lovely young lady of my acquaintance was trying to find out where her friend Martin was this evening, and just happened to dial little Rafe’s number by mistake. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention where he was before the misunderstanding got cleared up, but the background noise gave us a general idea. Abby was bang on: your boy’s in a pub somewhere, getting gee-eyed and chasing the ladies. You’ll get him back safe and sound, except for a five-star hangover.”
