The first night was awful. Then things got worse.
The world was cold, that was the obvious thing. During the sweltering daytime, Richard's white shirt had been enough; but evening had been a warning, and when darkness fell, he was in trouble. Plus, a white shirt stands out in shadows. Why hadn't anyone told him that?
Because it never mattered before.
In the real world, where fear came from Father shouting and the stink of whisky on his breath, or being alone in a house with eight or ten people, depending on which staff were on duty… in that world, the colour of your clothes didn't mark you out, transform you into a target. Now he was alone in a city of five million people, all of them bigger and more violent than him; but the thing was, he could go anywhere, not trapped inside school boundaries with a maniac like Zajac intending to kill him.
A year ago, he was trailing his father into Selfridges and found his gaze hooked by a dirty blanket on the ground. On it, a young girl-woman slumped, a stained medical dressing on her hand, her features delicate beneath grime, and redness in her eyes that spoke of recent tears. Father had not stopped, so neither did he; but inside, riding up on the escalator, he'd said: "Did you see that girl?"
"What girl?"
"Outside by the doorway. Begging, I guess."
"No, nothing worth noticing."
Later, at home over dinner, he'd tried to ask about her again, explaining about the blanket and the gauze bandage. Father had explained that he hadn't seen a girl as such, but he might have glimpsed a beggar, an example of a generic type; and that her kind were an infestation, and would Richard pass the chocolate sauce, and how were the crepes tonight?
Today, a few people had asked if Richard had any spare change. Mostly he'd walked past. But now, a youth of his own age with weeping sores on neck and forearm was standing in front of him, asking the same thing: Spare any change? Richard reached into his pocket, thinking he could pay phone-to-phone, maybe get to an ATM… but the only thing he found was a used tissue. No phone meant no bank account, meant everything was gone. Bumping through the crowds in Leicester Square, that was when it must have happened.
"I'm sorry. I've got… nothing."
"Christ, mate." The youth wiped away snot-dribble with his sleeve. "You one of us?"
"I… think so. You mean beg… uh… homeless."
Runaway. That's what I am.
It was a frightening word, conjuring up stone-faced police officers chasing him down with dogs and stunguns. But it was hard to maintain the fright, because the hunger that had begun as deepening stomach pains had slowly metamorphosed into listlessness, a feeling of sleepiness despite the cold. Standing in front of the youth, he began to sway.
"I'm Jayce. Who are you?"
"Huh?"
"Jayce. What's your name?"
"Rich-, er, Richie. Hall."
"No surnames, mate, not round here. You ain't eaten today, huh?"
"Not since… No."
His mouth began to salivate.
"Well, Richie, you'll get used to it."
His stomach felt like a stone.
"Jee-zus," added Jayce after a moment. "All right, come with me."
He struggled to his feet, slung his blanket over his shoulder, and emptied a few coins out of a plastic cup. "Fuckin' poor day today. You'd think they'd have a heart."
As Jayce moved closer to Richard, a wave of sweet stink came from his mouth – the teeth were tinged with greyish green, speckled with black. His clothes smelled ripe.
"Who would?" Richard took a step back. "Who'd have a heart?"
"The rich ones with the money, who else?"
Father said that no one gave anything for nothing, and without money there'd be savagery. All you had to do was earn your living; and what else was life for?
"Come on," added Jayce. "You can do me a favour later."
"Favour?"
"Like I'm doing you. What, you want to eat, don't you?"
"Er… Yeah. Please."
"Well, ain't you polite. Come on, we're going to see Greaser Khan."
"Who's that?"
"Someone who'll like you for a messenger-boy, 'cause you still look clean. Won't last, mind."
"Being a messenger?" Richard trembled, not knowing why.
"Looking clean. You're respectable, see. So you'll be able to go inside, like, department stores and things, with no one noticing. Drop off little deliveries for old Greaser."
"Deliveries."
"Little ones. Not heavy."
"But-" Richard stopped.
"You want to eat or not?"
"Well, yeah."
"So this way. Oh, yeah… Fuck's sake, don't go calling him Greaser."
"I wouldn't-"
"Or if he asks if you'd like to go with him into the stockroom round back," said Jayce, "tell him no thanks, Mr Khan, I'd prefer to wait out here if that's OK. Trust me on this one."
They were walking along broken pavement, beneath a streetlamp that was fizzing dull scarlet instead of orange. Up ahead was the brightness of an all-night store. Several people slouched outside.
"Out where?" said Richard.
"Huh?"
"You said, wait out here. Where?"
"In the shop, where else? And here's me thinking you weren't a tosser."
"I-"
Better to keep his mouth shut. Blabbermouths at school suffered; and this world was even harder. When Jayce removed his cap outside the shop, Richard did the same. Jayce nodded: "He don't like it, not seeing faces, like."
When they went in, a plump Asian lady smiled at them from behind the counter. From the rear of the shop, two men watched, hard-faced.
"Is Mr Khan in?" Jayce bobbed up and down, almost on tiptoe. "Got someone to meet him, like."
The lady remained smiling. One of the men turned and went through a bead curtain.
"Let's look at the mags," said Jayce.
"I-Right."
There was food and it was calling to him. He still had a little change; perhaps he could buy a Twix bar. But Jayce was tugging his sleeve, so he followed. A youth with dreadlocks and a steel chain spiralling around one arm was flicking through Blade Warriors, then holding open a double spread: two fighters clad in trunks, streaked with scarlet, blades wet and bloody.
Richard squeezed his eyes shut.
"So who's this?"
"This is Richie, Mr Khan."
Khan had high, square shoulders and a trimmed beard. The woman was no longer in sight. Behind Richard, the guy with dreadlocks placed the magazine back on the shelf and scurried out of the shop. Meanwhile music started playing: something old and fast, about Illuminati.
"You're not local, are you, Richie?"
"Er, no, sir."
"You know your way around?"
"I could help him, Mr Khan."
"Why would you do that, Jayce?"
"Look after a mate, like."
"Uh-huh." Khan rubbed his knuckles against his beard. "Since you ask, there's a little something needs to go to the Adult Education College. Bit of extra study material. So, you're in?"
"He's in, Mr Khan."
"All right." Khan fished a small red box from his pocket. "Mr Maxwell, teaching Chinese, class starts at eight. Be there ten minutes early."
Richard swallowed salty saliva – maybe tears? – as the world blurred.
I have to do this.
He didn't know what his reward was going to be, but there was a commitment now.
"You like the music, Richie?"
"Uh, sir?"
"Sir." Khan looked at Jayce, then at the hard-faced men behind the counter. "He called me 'sir'. I like this boy. I asked" – his eyes became large, focused on Richard – "if you like Fatboy Slim. We're talking classic here. None of your modern din."
"Um, yes. I do. Like it."
"Good."
The red box, when Khan handed it over, fitted in Richard's palm.
"And I'll pay you now, since I trust you." Khan gave Jayce a boiled sweet wrapped in cellophane: that was what it looked like. "You know what would happen if – you know, don't you?"
"Yes, Mr Khan. Thank you."
The music changed to Kids in Glass Houses, who Mrs Kovac liked to play in the kitchen while she was cooking, except that she was in his old life, where everything was clean and rich, taken for granted until now.
I'm so hungry.
But Jayce was leaving the shop. Richard hurried after, clutching the box, feeling acid pain inside. Could a stomach dissolve itself for lack of food?
This was so hard.
Out on the street, beyond the next corner, they stopped. Jayce took the "sweet" out of his pocket, and undid the cellophane a little, revealing caked green powder. It reminded Richard of the orange ammonium dichromate used in class to build a volcano, turning green and spewing everywhere when set alight. He thought about trying to explain chemical volcanoes to Jayce; instead he asked about the powder.
"You don't want to be trying this." Jayce dabbed some onto his tongue, and his eyes darkened. "Not till you need to."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Let's get you fed."
"We have to be at this college by ten to eight."
"Plenty of time. What time is it now?"
"I don't… I lost my phone."
"Probably why the Bill ain't picked you up. Come on."
Soon they were at a ramshackle establishment, once a furniture store, from the faded signs. From round back, the aroma of tomato soup and toast was overwhelming. Cracked doors, horizontal across piles of bricks, served as tables. Plastic chairs, with the frozen bubbles of burn marks, were set out in the yard. Some fifteen or twenty people, shabby-looking, were queuing for soup.
"No one asks no questions," said Jayce. "Why we come, ain't it?"
There were ham sandwiches and Bovril crisps as well as soup and toast, an explosion of taste and sensation in Richard's mouth. Nothing had ever been like this: flavourfilled, urgent, seeping into his body through his tongue.
"Am I supposed to be getting paid?" The words just came out. "For the… you know."
"Would you have found this place by yourself?"
"Uh…"
"So, you've been paid, intya?"
Richard shook his head, then wiped the last of his bread round inside the soup cup, soaking up the last of it.
"All right, look," continued Jayce. "I'll see you all right afterward. We… never mind."
A big woman was standing next to Richard. "Did anyone explain that we don't ask questions?"
Richard nodded.
"So we don't, but if someone wants to talk, we listen. And you" – she thrust out a green sweatshirt – "need to put on an extra layer. Sorry we've no blankets tonight."
"Er… thank you."
"Uh-huh." She watched him a moment, gave a mouth movement that might have been anything, then walked away.
"Do-gooders," muttered Jayce.
"What?" Richard pulled on the sweatshirt. "What do you mean?"
"Feel sorry for you one minute, suck you into the machine the next."
"Machine?"
"The system. The thing, man."
"Oh. Right."
"Like teachers, like bosses, like yer fat cats in banks, telling you what to do."
"So what if we don't go to the college tonight, like Mr Khan said?"
"You crazy, Richie-boy? You don't let him down."
There was a contradiction there, invisible to Jayce. But so far being smart had not helped Richard at all; while Jayce with his teeth that looked covered in lichen, his breath stinking, survived.
"How long have you been here? On the streets?"
Some of the others were looking at them.
"Come on." Jayce kicked Richard's ankle. "Let's get gone."
Some time later, walking along a street of graffiti-tagged houses, Richard felt his bowels shifting.
"Uh… Jayce?"
"Yeah, man?"
"How far is the college? I mean, how long will it take to get there?"
"I dunno. Twenty minutes? Maybe a bit more."
"Are there any, uh, toilets closer than that?"
Jayce stared at him. "You're something else, intya?"
"What do you-?"
"'Sakes, lookit the street. No one here. Pick a doorway. I won't tell."
"What?" Desperate enough to cry, Richard looked around. There was nowhere else.
"And I ain't gonna watch, neither. See you at the next corner."
"Shit." Not the kind of language he used.
"Do whatever you like, Richie-boy."
"I-I'll see you in a bit."
There were three visible cameras – one on each pillar of the big gateway leading to the yard in front, the other beyond the yard, inside the main entrance – and all three were coated in a blackened mess.
"Been bubbled," said Jayce. "Know what I mean?"
"Sort of."
"Like a spray kind of thing. Shoots upward real high, sticks real well. Hard to clean off."
"So I just go straight in?" Richard felt the small box in his pocket. "Cap on?"
"Take the cap off until you're inside. Most of these dozy buggers" – Jayce pointed at the people, all adults, crossing the yard – "won't have noticed the cameras are screwed. You'll look more normal, like, with no cap."
"But I put it on inside? With the veil?"
"Of course, unless you're sure every cam's been fucked. Anyway, you'll do great."
"You're not coming in?"
"Your gig, not mine. I don't look like a student, or someone's kid."
And I do?
Not if he carried on living like this. He wanted to think there was something inside him that made him different; but he knew that if he stayed on the streets he would change.
"You're going to wait?"
"Sure. Fuck's sake go in, willya?"
Taking off his cap, Richard rubbed his face several times, wanting to hide his features as he passed through the gate, not trusting that the cameras were dead. His skin felt prickled as if by tiny ants migrating across him. Then, as he entered the foyer, someone coughed and his heart punched inside his chest. But he had to keep going.
A wall display showed a multicoloured list, including Intermediate Mandarin, 20:00, Room 17, instructor: T. Maxwell, M.A. (Oxon), which was what Mr Khan had said. The room was upstairs, so he climbed polished steps, pulling his cap on and tipping it low as he passed beneath a camera, his feet moving by themselves – sua sponte, Mr Robbins would have said, but Latin lessons were a world away, even though he was inside a college – taking him to Room 17.
"Uh, hello?" This must be T Maxwell. "Are you in this class?"
"No, sir."
"Well, it is for adults." A sick brightness rose in his eyes. "I don't suppose you're looking for me?"
"I've got… something. From, er…"
"Shall we call him Mr K?"
Both their hands were shaking, Richard's as he handed over the box, Maxwell's as he took hold of it.
"OK." Maxwell pushed out a shaky breath that smelled of mint. "OK. And I've paid already, you know that, right?"
"Er…"
What to do next? Blankness floated in Richard's mind.
"Did you want to see me later on?" The voice was slick, like grease-stained silk. "Perhaps outside?"
"Um. No."
Fear sluiced down through Richard's body, then he was stumbling from the room, along the corridor and down the grimy stairs, forgetting the cap that was clutched in his hand, his head filled with images of wide-shouldered police with stun-batons and gauntlets, smashing his face before they snapped on magnetic cuffs, dragging him across the floor without regard for bloodstains, for he was a criminal now.
They'll arrest me. Father will kill me.
The world had changed.
I'm a criminal.
Last term, Ms Simms had talked about "phase transitions", the change from ice to liquid water to gas, the same molecules involved, their relationships snapping into new and different configurations. While some changes, like a broken egg, can never be reversed; and you can state the Second Law of Thermodynamics like this: You can't ever go back.
He had destroyed his life.
Someone was talking to Jayce outside the college. Had the police had found him already? But the man's silhouette was a little familiar – one of the men from Khan's shop. Maybe he was only a shop assistant; but the look that swivelled in Jayce's direction was dark and cold, then the man was stalking away, not looking back.
"Do me a favour, man." Jayce's hand trembled, holding out a pen. "Write this, will ya?"
The pen was a felt-tip, chewed and sticky. Jayce pulled up his sleeve and offered the pale inside of his forearm.
"Write, uh…" Jayce's eyes jiggled, dancing to ghost music. "Arches, Wandsworth, 9 o'clock Thursday."
A discarded sweet wrapper lay curled on the ground, containing no trace of green powder.
"Uh, how do you spell Wandsworth?"
"Shit, man. How it sounds."
Richard wrote: ARCHES WONZWORTH 9, thought for a moment, then added: PM THURSDAY.
"Great." Jayce pushed down his sleeve. "Yeah. Wow. Oh, wow."
He tilted his head to one side, eyes like slits.
"What?" Richard looked round. "What is it?"
"That light, man." Jayce pointed at a streetlamp. "You gotta squeeze your eyes nearly shut. See the pattern? In like your eyelashes?"
"Diffraction."
"Say what? You're mad in the head, pal."
But when Richard started to walk on, Jayce followed, his gait bouncing. Chemical springs in his heels.
"So where we going, man?"
"You tell me," said Richard.
Adrenalised fear was seeping away from him, his body staring to slump in on itself. The surrounding night was chill.
"Let's go up the West End. See what happens, right?"
"I was thinking of somewhere to sleep." Standing upright was becoming hard.
"Man, you want to sleep in the dark? Around here?"
A spurt of fear came back, a short-lived boost of energy. But if he didn't find someplace, he would end up sliding down and closing his eyes, fatigued, with no other options.
"I know a doorway." Jayce flicked his fingers at Richard's sleeve. "Come on."
"A doorway?"
"Better than it sounds. And look." Jayce pointed to a wheelie-bin in front of a house, filled with black bags for tomorrow's collection. "Take that."
"The bin?"
"That cardboard box beside it."
"Oh, right."
Insulation. Thermal insulation using cardboard.
Hey, Ms Simms. Physics can save your life.
"Tip the rubbish out, you moron. Quietly."
"Uh. Right." He did what he was told.
There was a doorway in shadow, part of some old building, not a house. Tucked in the corner of a cold porch, he was invisible from the road. Opposite him, Jayce spread his blanket on concrete.
"You really going to sleep, man?"
"Yeah." Invisible fingers were pushing down on Richard's eyelids. "Sorry."
"I'll keep watch, like. You're safe."
His chin dipped. It was too cold to sleep, but Richard slipped into a grey dream regardless, shivering but no longer fully conscious, while some minutes passed… until he trembled into wakefulness, and saw the dark green edge to the night sky. This was pre-dawn, and hours had slipped by, while Jayce must have gone, taking his blanket, for the porch was empty.
Richard slipped back into pseudo-sleep, trying to dream of a warm world and luxury, where enemies did not lurk in the night, and reality was no longer alien and hard.