Bone Jack Read Free Page A

waiting for him. So he got up, went down there.
    They were sitting at the kitchen table, mugs of tea in front of them. Typical, Ash thought. Everything falling apart and Mum had made a pot of tea.
    Dad looked exhausted. Bruises under his eyes, his skin too thin and too tight, greyish under his desert tan. He glanced at Ash and then away again.
    He looked ill. Injured, maybe, Ash thought. But the army would have told them if Dad had been injured, so not that. It wasn’t just drunkenness though. He’d seen Dad drunk before. Not often, but enough to know that this was different in some dark, deeper way that he didn’t understand.
    ‘Your dad’s home,’ said Mum. As if Dad wasn’t sitting right next to her.
    ‘I know,’ said Ash. He tried to smile, to make a joke of it. ‘I can see him.’
    He pulled out a chair. The chair legs screeched across the lino and Dad winced.
    Silence except for the tick of the wall clock.
    Mum shot him a look. He knew what she wanted him to do. He was supposed to talk to Dad, act as if everything was normal so they could all pretend it really was, that Dad was his old self and that everything would be wonderful now he was home.
    That was how it was supposed to be when your dad came back after months away at war. Family time. Hugs and laughter and love. A celebration.
    The silence filled the room. Then Dad’s eyes half closed and he slumped a bit in his chair, almost slid off it onto the floor, grabbed the edge of the table to save himself. Tea slopped out of the mugs.
    ‘He’s drunk,’ said Ash. The words punched out like machine-gun fire before he could stop them. ‘He stinks of beer.’
    ‘That’s enough, Ash,’ said Mum sharply. ‘You’re not helping.’
    He looked at her, looked at Dad. Tears burned behind his eyes.
    ‘I’m tired,’ said Dad, to no one in particular. The words slurring together. ‘If you don’t mind, I need to sleep now.’
    He stood up. So did Mum.
    ‘No!’ said Dad. Voice cracking out like a whip. Mum looked shocked. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I just need some sleep. I’ll be all right tomorrow.’
    He moved into the spare room with his rucksack, as if he was a guest.
    And Ash knew he wouldn’t be all right tomorrow.

FIVE
    Morning, and the distant mountains looked like a watercolour dissolving in rain, colours running together. But it was the heat haze that made the air shiver and blur, not rain. There hadn’t been any rain for almost two months. The grass was brittle and burned golden brown and the streams had shrunk to sluggish trickles that were more mud than water. Everything was tired, wilting, dusty, and Ash felt the same way, felt a hundred years old, all his strength and energy leached out.
    He had a shopping list and a folded ten-pound note in his pocket. He knew the shopping was just Mum’s excuse to get him out of the house but he didn’t care. It was a relief to get out for a while, not to be at home with Dad in such a mess, not to be saying stupid angry things like he had yesterday. He was better off out of it.
    He headed past the Old Rec, towards the row of little shops on the other side of the main street.
    Then he saw her out on the Rec, sitting on one of the swings. Callie Cullen, barefoot and still wearing the dusty red dress he’d seen her in yesterday. Her serious grey eyes watched him. He got the feeling she’d been waiting for him. But she couldn’t have been. She couldn’t have known Mum would send him out to the shops.
    He went over and sat on the swing next to hers. He breathed in the smells of hot tarmac, rubber, old bubble gum. Playground smells.
    ‘I saw you yesterday,’ he said. ‘Out in the mountains, up by Stag’s Leap.’
    ‘So what?’
    The edge of dislike in her voice shocked him. They’d never been friends exactly, but she’d always been there, at the edge of his life, a quiet, serious girl with a slow shy smile. He’d always thought she liked him well enough, as much as he’d thought about