All Sorts of Possible (23 page)

But, as he stepped over the threshold into the hallway, she clutched his arm. ‘Rosie’s here but she’s not well. The chemotherapy is making her feel very sick.’

‘Is it just that?’

‘I think so, yes.’ Agatha held on to his arm. ‘She told me what happened last night. She’s in no state to do anything if that’s why you’re here. I
wouldn’t allow it.’

‘I didn’t come for that. I just want to see her.’

Agatha nodded and then let go of Daniel and shut the door behind him.

Rosie was lying with a red bedspread pulled up to her chin. Her eyes opened when Daniel sat down on the bed and the grey in her face seemed to fade as she smiled.

‘Did you find the person you said might be able to help?’ Daniel nodded. But when he said nothing more, the grey rushed back into Rosie’s cheeks. He watched her eyes
contracting in their dark cups. When she sighed, something rattled in her chest. ‘I’ve got a splitting headache. Like I’m going to throw up. The tablets the hospital gave me
don’t seem to work that well.’

‘I went round to your house.’

‘Mum and Dad had an argument about money again. Dad stormed out. Packed a case and said he was leaving. I couldn’t stand it so I came round to Gran’s. I’m going to stay
here for now. I think the poison the hospital is putting in me is seeping into them. I’m making it worse between them.’

‘You can’t be.’

‘I’m their little girl. But they can’t do anything to help me.’ She coughed and her fingers felt for his hand, gripping it like the feet of a tiny bird. ‘Daniel,
what’s going to happen? If we don’t find the flask, what’s Mason going to do?’

Daniel picked at a thread in the bedspread. ‘I don’t want to think about it now.’ He lay down beside her and they held each other close. ‘Dad’s more ill than ever.
He’s got pneumonia.’

She stroked his hair.

He closed his eyes and shut out the world.

After falling asleep, he dreamt of Bobby sitting on his father’s bed, holding the darning needle and swishing it back and forth as if sewing a thread into the air in front of him.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Daniel.

‘Sewing in a bit that doesn’t make sense. Making up a story about your dad you can believe in.’

‘What are you sewing in, Bobby?’

‘He’s dead, Daniel, and you’ve got to accept it somehow because there’s nothing you can do to help him. I’ve almost sewn it in. I almost
have—’

When Daniel woke, it was warm and dark and there was a film of sweat under his shirt. Rosie was asleep. He stood up and let himself out of her bedroom without waking her.

Agatha was drinking tea and when he came in to say goodbye she turned the TV to mute and clinked her teacup down in its saucer.

‘It’s up to you to look after my granddaughter,’ she said. ‘Protect her from Mason. You’re the one who brought him into her life.’

‘I will,’ he replied.

But Agatha just turned on the volume again and started watching what was on the screen.

Daniel let himself out of the door and took his bike off the wall.

He cycled a little way down the street until he saw a nail on the path under a street lamp, and he braked and stooped to pick it up. He leant over, juggling his bike between his legs, and
scratched a word on the pavement in white, wiry letters.

HELP

He tossed the nail and waited.

But nothing happened this time.

He saw no way out from this new dark place he was in.

No one answered when Daniel rang the doorbell. He could hear the gentle thump of music inside and the murmur of voices, like the sea in his ears. He rolled a rhombus of stone
with the toe of his trainer, wondering whether to leave. And then a sash window lifted on the first floor of the house and Bennett stuck out his head and smiled, waving him round the back, the
music rolling out into the night air.

‘The back gate’s open!’ he shouted down, and before Daniel could give a reply he was gone.

The kitchen was full of warm bodies and smoke and conversation so earnest that nobody really noticed Daniel. He slipped through the noise like a ghost as people parted for him and then closed
ranks again without quite seeming to know why as they went on talking and laughing.

The kitchen island was sticky and covered with green bottles of beer like stalagmites sprouted out of the wood. Swollen cigarette butts were floating inside some of them like the ends of fingers
snipped off. Daniel picked up a giant pretzel from a bowl full of them and bit into it and suddenly felt like a five-year-old as the crumbs sprayed everywhere and he tried to catch them with his
hand.

He thought he heard someone laughing as he brushed them off his chest and he remembered what was written about him on the toilet wall at school.

When a hand squeezed his shoulder, he knew it belonged to Bennett so he didn’t say anything and just looked up and smiled as the pretzel churned into a dry, doughy ball in his mouth.

Bennett’s eyes were browner than normal. And the flecks in them seemed to be on fire. Daniel wondered what he had been taking as he swallowed hard to clear the pretzel.

‘More people came than my brother thought,’ said Bennett and he swigged from his bottle, his lips popping off the rim and the beer washing like surf against the glass.
‘I’m glad you made it. I thought maybe your aunt might not let you come. Did you talk to her?’

‘No. She wasn’t in. But I thought about what you said. I left her a note.’

‘A note! What did it say?’

‘Nothing.’ Daniel was already regretting mentioning it. When Bennett smiled, it was too big. His eyes seemed to pop. He reached for a beer and hoiked off the cap and handed it to
Daniel, the brown rim still smoking.

‘Where’s your mum?’ asked Daniel.

‘She took “little sister” away for some horsey thing.’

‘Point-to-point?’

‘What?’

‘Right.’ And Daniel just nodded and looked away.

‘So? This note?’

‘I’ll tell you about it later.’

‘Tell me about it now.’

‘It’s not really the time.’

‘Sure it is.’

‘There’s too many people.’

‘Well, let’s go somewhere else.’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Daniel took a big swig of beer and then another when he saw Bennett still staring. ‘It’s a party. I probably just need to relax.’ He clinked
his bottle against Bennett’s and it made an awkward off-key sound as Bennett swayed and his bottle moved with him. ‘You said there might be something going on tonight that could
help.’

Bennett brightened. ‘Absolutely. There’s a girl you need to meet. A friend of my brother’s. She was in charge of stuff at his last party. I’ve already told her about
you.’

Her name was Amanda. Her black bob had an edge as sharp as the blade of a kitchen knife. She was way older than Daniel. Early twenties. It was as though she was made from a
different sort of material from him. Her dress was black and clung to her like it had been painted on. Her plastic see-through shoes were strappy and sunset-coloured with laces that wound round her
shins almost to her knees.

‘Bennett’s a dick when he’s drunk,’ said Daniel after he had left them and they had smiled and said hello and listened to the conversations around them for long enough to
make the silence between them uncomfortably loud.

Amanda laughed. ‘I don’t really know him so I’ll take your word for it. He’s very fond of you though. Told me all about your troubles. About your accident and your
dad.’

Daniel nodded. ‘Life hasn’t been great lately.’ He figured that would be the end of the conversation. But, instead of wandering off or looking round the room for somebody more
interesting to talk to, she cocked her head to one side.

‘Bennett said you’ve been doing some weird stuff.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like psychic stuff.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘He said I should ask you about it. I’m into that kind of thing.’ She tapped her nails against the wine glass she was holding and Daniel noticed they were as black as
space.

‘I think Bennett’s making stuff up to make me sound more interesting than I am.’

But Amanda didn’t smile.

‘I get a feeling about people, you know. I can’t get a read on you though. Like you’re hiding something.’ She reached out a hand and then stopped. ‘Can
I?’

Before Daniel could reply, Amanda had placed her hand on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Daniel checked to see if anyone was watching, but no one was. The beer made everything warm around the
edges. He felt Amanda squeeze harder and then she opened her eyes and shook her head.

‘Damn!’

‘What?’

‘I must have drunk too much.’ Her laugh was harsh and sparkling, like a frost. She raked a set of fingers through her hair and it fell back into place exactly like a curtain.
‘You’re staying for a while, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’

And then she turned round and left him standing on his own as she pushed a path between the crowd in the room.

Daniel kept looking for her from time to time, intrigued by whatever she had in mind, and by what Bennett had mentioned had happened at the last party. But he gave up believing
she might come back after he had drunk another beer. Someone offered him a puff on a joint because he was standing in a ring and he took a sweet lungful and held it as long as he could, then
breathed out through his nostrils like a dragon and handed it on.

When someone asked about his dad, he just shrugged and said it would all be fine. It wasn’t his voice, but he was happy to let someone else inside him do the talking for a change and he
watched the joint go round and licked his lips as it came close again.

A hand slipped into his.

The cold fingers shocked him.

When he looked up, Amanda was already turning round and pulling him away from the others. The soles of his feet were like suckers for a moment as he opened his mouth and then closed it, and then
he peeled them up off the floor and went with her, walking in the wake of her perfume. Faces swam as he passed them and he thought he heard someone shouting his name, but the voice seemed to come
from nowhere.

She led him upstairs into a master bedroom where other people sitting on the floor looked up as if they’d been waiting for him.

Bennett was sitting on the bed, grinning, toasting him with a half-empty bottle of vodka. The arm holding him up was wobbly and drunk, the elbow clicking out every now and then as if he was on a
waterbed, threatening to make him collapse. Amanda shut the door. Daniel nodded at Bennett’s brother who was sitting in the corner with a pretty-looking woman, not paying much attention to
anyone else.

‘Let’s get this PK party started,’ announced Amanda.

As Daniel looked around, he realized that everyone else had a piece of cutlery beside them. Spoons. Forks. Knives. The light flared in spots, catching the different metal stems as people picked
them up.

Amanda handed him a fork, folding his fingers round the elegant silver handle. He held on tight because a thought was blipping in his head, telling him he would fall over otherwise. He knew it
was the joint. The smoke he had inhaled earlier still seemed to be inside him, wafting round his head and making him unsteady.

‘We all need to make an emotional peak,’ said Amanda. ‘That’s how it happens.’

‘What?’ Daniel found himself asking.

‘The freaky stuff!’ shouted Bennett’s brother. Bennett cheered and swigged from his bottle of vodka, then passed it to the girl next to him on the bed.

‘Psychokinetic events for those of you who haven’t done this before,’ said Amanda and she smiled at Daniel. ‘People got together for parties in the eighties to prove that
we all have psychic energy. They called them PK parties and did all this whacked-out stuff, bending spoons, metal objects. All with the power of the mind.’

‘So that means we all have psychic energy,’ said Bennett and Daniel could see he was speaking directly to him. ‘We’re all the same. Some people just tap into it better
than others.’

‘Precisely.’ Amanda held out the spoon in her hand and stared at it. ‘All of us have to be focused on making something happen. Anyone who doesn’t want to be here, who
doesn’t believe that anything out of what we call the ordinary is possible, should leave.’

Everyone looked at everyone else, daring them to get up and go. Bennett was grinning, his lips loaded with a comment for anyone who might leave, but no one seemed to want to. Not even Daniel. He
gripped the fork harder.

‘Everyone’s got to think positively,’ said Amanda. ‘We don’t want negative energy. It’s not about bending the spoon or the fork in your hand, it’s about
harnessing the energy inside you and seeing what it can do. It’s called a kindergarten experience. If the metal bends, it’s just a way of showing you how powerful your mind really
is.’

When the giggling died away, the thump of the music downstairs seemed to hit Daniel harder in the soles of his feet. He was the only one standing up. He licked his lips and remembered what
Amanda had said, that no one should be negative. So he closed his eyes to try and concentrate, and saw Amanda’s face in the dark of him, smiling at how hard he was trying. He knew he was
smiling too, a goofy one, because he wanted Amanda to like him, so he tried being as positive as he could.

He heard a gasp somewhere outside of him and it broke his eyelids open. He saw a girl sitting on the floor with a spoon in her outstretched hand, the bowl starting to soften as if someone was
pushing it inside out.

Amanda was beaming. ‘Everyone keep positive. Shout. Holler. Make some noise!’

Bennett was staring at the spoon and then his eyes flickered to Daniel and he nodded and then he whooped. Other people in the room started making noises too. Daniel whooped as well. He shouted,
feeling invigorated by the energy in the room. He opened himself up and the energy centred itself in his chest where it sat, warm and golden. As he looked around, he watched things starting to
happen . . .

. . . a boy was sat against the wall with a spoon, its bowl crimped . . .