‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Right then.’ Owen leant over to retrieve his book. ‘You’ve told me now. So you can relax. I’ll stay clear of the ones who seem most dangerous.’ He opened the book again.
George was almost certain it was the same page.
The silence hung heavily. George had thought that telling Owen what Chas did for a living had broken the wall of silence, but he was wrong and now he could feel the wall rebuilding itself, brick by brick. Owen was going to disappear behind it again. George needed life to go back to normal or at least as normal as circumstances would allow. This place felt like a prison and he wanted to break out; he to see Millie.
He asked, ‘You wanna talk?’
‘Nope. I told you already.’
‘I won’t stop asking, you know.’
‘Fair enough, but I’ve got nothing worth saying, so you’re wasting your time.’
George turned onto his side. This silence couldn’t be healthy, and hewouldbreak it down if it was the last thing he did.
He asked, ‘Want something to eat?’
‘Nope.’
‘Drink?’
‘Nope.’
George sighed, looked again at his book, turned a page, and was confronted by dense text as impenetrable as Owen’s silence. He couldn’t stand either. His thoughts rushed back to Millie. It was torture not being able to see her. Three days of longing and all he’d managed was one short phone call to the pub’s landline.
Standing in the queue at the chip shop and with limited time, all he’d said was, ‘My best mate’s mum died. I’m sorry, I can’t get out. I can’t leave him alone right now.’
‘I understand,’ she’d said, making a hurried excuse to ring off. Her boss, Pete, didn’t like her getting private calls at work. She wasn’t even allowed to carry her mobile behind the bar.
Sprawled on his unmade bed, George considered the unfairness of life, tried to ignore the fact he was hating Owen for keeping him away from Millie, and flicked back to the previous page in his book.
He stared some more at Henry VIII–impossibly broad shoulders, skinny legs. The man looked ridiculous, wearing a hat with a feather at a jaunty angle.
Were you allowed to think a former king of England looked stupid?
Allowed to or not, George decided he was right to think the king was ridiculous. Unattractive too, with his mean eyes and puffy, puckered-up face, simultaneously hard and soft. He reminded George of his father. The three of them shared the same hair colour. Although his own was a shade lighter. A touch less red, a tone more butterscotch. He remembered the embarrassment his mother had caused him at the school gates when she ruffled his ten-year-old head and made his strawberry blond verging on ginger hair stand up in spikes, telling him he was her very own Steiff teddy bear.
George sighed and looked again at Owen.
‘You all right?’
Owen grunted.
Silly bloody question, George thought. Of course, Owen wasn’tall right. He didn’t know why he kept on asking. Perhaps a change of subject was what he needed. Owen had opened up (after a fashion) on the news that Chas Halcyon was a criminal. Maybe something else a bit left field would work?
George said, ‘Fancy a spliff?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Good, cos I’ve got no cannabis.’
He waited.
Usually, a remark like that would be followed by the throwing of a pillow or at least an insult (maybe a Welsh one like tymffat), tossed in his direction. This time, nothing.
Instead, without even looking up from his book, Owen raised one dark eyebrow.
