Page 11

I check on Rowan—the trip to the base and the comms tower was too much for her. She felt very warm on the bike behind me and I’m worried she might have an infection. I come across Orly, hovering outside her door.

“You alright, mate?”

“I knocked, but she said not to go in.”

“She’s not feeling well.”

“Still?” He is worried, touching the door absently.

It makes my chest ache to see how quickly he has curled into her space, to realize how much he must have been yearning for it. Just for a second I allow a childish thought: I try so hard to be enough but I never will be —and then I banish it, come to my senses. His grief, his loneliness, the absence in our lives, none of that is about me. It’s only natural for a child to want his mum, it’s just that this wanting is being thrown into stark relief for the first time.

“You go back to your room now,” I tell Orly.

“Can’t I stay?” he asks. “I’ll just sneak in. She might get cold.”

“She’ll be right. You worry about yourself getting cold, okay, you sleep with Raff tonight.” I might even hop in with them, as much fun as three lads kicking each other all night will be.

He casts a long look at the door. “Will she go? If you fix the radio?”

“I can’t fix the radio. I’ve tried.”

He nods, relieved, and gives me a kiss before climbing the stairs to the room he shares with Raff.

I knock on the door and when I don’t hear a response I open it a crack, wanting to make sure she’s okay. I don’t want her here, or trust her, but I still have a duty of care. She is a lump under the covers. There is a candle burning beside her and a shaft of light from the window. I edge my way in and very gently feel her forehead for fever. She is warm but not burning hot. The touch causes her to roll in her sleep so her face is lit by the window.

Yen, she said his name was. I wonder if he was her partner. I wonder if it’s grief that pulls her back under. The room has the heavy feel of it.

Something catches my eye. A thing lying on the bed beside her, glinting in the light. I stare at it, slowly making sense of what it is, and then my heart is juddering.

Dazed, I cross to the window and pull the curtain closed so she won’t be woken too early. Moving, really, without thought. When I turn back, meaning to leave, it’s to see that her eyes are open and she’s watching me in the dark.

The single candle throws flickering shadows onto the walls.

Do I ask her about the photo or pretend I haven’t seen it?

She speaks first. “Did you break the radio?”

“No,” I say.

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

There is a nakedness in this room and within it she seems to take me at my word in a way she didn’t earlier.

Something in her relaxes a fraction. “Then you don’t mean to keep me here?”

“No,” I say softly. “For all our sakes I wish you’d never come.”