What You Wish For Read Free Page B

the seafront. The town was eerily quiet. No cars or people, just a few large seagulls pecking at discarded chip wrappers.
    I watched them retreat along the promenade. I had wanted to ask Marie for her phone number, but I felt too awkward with the others standing there. The whole night had been like that. I’d yearned for an opportunity to talk to her on her own, but the three men stuck to her like they were her bodyguards.
    When she said goodbye she had raised her hand, smiled at me and fixed me with a look that I was sure was full of meaning.
    Kicking myself for being too passive, I set off up the hill. I didn’t expect to see any of them again.
     

3
    Two weeks passed. Simon’s piece appeared on page seven of the Herald , with my photograph of Pete and Andrew (caption: Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft), but we had heard nothing more about UFOs or impending alien contact. We received one crank letter, scribbled in green ink, in which a man recounted in great detail a sexual encounter with ‘a beautiful, golden-skinned lady alien with two mouths’, which we had pinned on the notice board in the office. And a woman phoned to say she had seen what she thought were alien craft while out walking her dogs on the West Hill. She saw white globes hovering over the sea. On closer inspection they turned out to be street lamps.
    That afternoon – the day when everything began to happen – had been, as Simon put it, ‘shit’. We had been called out to the scene of a house fire where two primary school age girls and their dad were trapped. The fire was still blazing when we got there, two fire engines sending great arcs of water into the flames. The heat coming from the building was indescribable. Eventually, the fire crew got the better of the elements and went into the house. A little while later I watched in horror as they carried out three bodies: two small, one my size. I could smell their charred flesh.
    Back home, afterwards, I couldn’t get the images of the dead girls out of my head. I lay in the bath and scrubbed myself, my face, my hair. I felt unclean and irrationally guilty. I had wished for this. I had wanted excitement.
    I sank beneath the water. When I surfaced the telephone was ringing. I didn’t want to answer it, but the caller was insistent.
    Cursing, I climbed out of the bath and wrapped a towel around me.
    It was Simon.
    ‘I feel like I’m in shock,’ he said. ‘Even though I didn’t know them. And I’m going to have to write about it. Two children died in a tragic fire in their home . . .’
    ‘Did you phone to make me feel worse?’ I asked.
    ‘I phoned to see if you wanted to go and get pissed.’
    I almost said no, but then I thought about my empty house. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’

    We drank to forget. Or, at least, we tried to.
    ‘Do you think they were already dead when the firemen carried them out of the house?’ Simon asked, staring into a half-empty pint of Guinness.
    ‘Can we not talk about it? Please? How’s Susan?’
    ‘Yeah. Fine.’ He fiddled with his coaster, tearing the edges off it. I sensed he wanted to talk about something but couldn’t spit the words out.
    I felt the alcohol start to work, getting into my bloodstream and clouding over the memory of the fire. The world around me lost clarity. The lager tasted good. I felt good. I drained my glass. I got up to the bar to buy another.
    We ended up in a club near the seafront. I felt old. There were a few other people in their late twenties, but most of the clubbers were late teens, early twenties, beautiful, skinny, fit. I hadn’t been to a club for months.
    Simon handed me a drink. We leaned against the bar, surveying the crowd. Simon eyed up the teenage girls in their strappy tops and little skirts. I watched the crowd. The club was packed, but still they let more people in, until we were forced away from the bar by people struggling for the attention of the staff.
    Two blonde girls in mini dresses that barely