Garden Hill was the focal point of the nearest park, a lump of mud and grass rising tall enough to be seen above the houses around it, a ring of trees scratching at the sky from its top. By day it was the domain of dog walkers and joggers, and by night an unearned reputation for being dangerous meant it was studiously avoided.
A lifetime of warnings jangled in Wesley’s head as he shut the metal gate behind him and made his way up the concrete path. It was beginning to drizzle, fallen leaves growing slick underfoot. It wasn’t the idea of unknown assailants lingering in the dark that worried him. It was facing who he knew would be waiting at the top.
Jordan was silhouetted against the sky, a human shape blotting the town’s jumble of lights. When he heard Wesley’s approach and turned, it was impossible to see the expression on his face.
‘Haven’t been up here in a long time,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Wesley, trying to remember his last visit, sure it must have been together.
‘I remember when I first came here – not specifically, you know, but when I was little – it seemed so huge. I probably thought I could see the whole country from up here. It’s weird, thinking how small my world used to be.’
Wesley gritted his teeth. ‘I bet you saw a lot more impressive things in Australia.’
‘You don’t have to go that far to expand your horizons.’
Being stuck at home, looking after the mess Jordan had left behind, hadn’t given him much of a chance.
‘Why did you want to meet up here?’ said Jordan.
‘I thought it would bring back some memories.’
‘It does.’ The low light caught Jordan’s smile. ‘Remember when we had that frisbee, and we thought if we threw it from up here it would go all the way to our house?’
‘It’s probably still in that bush.’
‘We must have lost so many things up here, man. Like that random baseball you had from the charity shop.’
Wesley remembered it. ‘It was signed by some American player. I really loved it. You dropped it in the mud and rubbed it off.’
‘Ah, shit. I don’t remember that.’
They stood with an empty space between them, and Wesley kept his eyes on the view. Headlights traced familiar roads and cranes blinked red and white. If his brother had forgotten what used to happen there, Wesley was ready to help him remember.
‘What about that time you invited me to come up here with all your friends?’
Jordan frowned. ‘You came up here with us a few times, didn’t you?’
‘Twice,’ said Wesley. ‘I was so excited the first time because I’d been wanting an invite for ages instead of being stuck at home by myself. They were already up here, and soon as we joined them you ordered them all not to speak to me.’
Beside him, Jordan was silent, though he let out a sharp breath through his nose.
‘At first we were all just sitting around, and nobody would even look at me. When we played football, you made sure nobody passed it to me. It was like I didn’t exist. Then you went home and left me here by myself.’
‘Come on, I was probably just messing—’
‘The second time,’ said Wesley, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stop until he was finished, ‘you had to convince me because I didn’t want the same thing to happen again. You said you had just been messing around, that it was like a test, and I’d passed. So I went with you again.’
‘Look—’
This time Wesley could tell that his brother remembered, and he wanted to make him squirm. He had bottled these memories up for years, and now the cork had popped.
‘You put me in a fight against somebody else’s little brother. I didn’t want to do it, but you said I’d embarrass you if I chickened out. All your mates crowded round and I knew I didn’t have a choice. When I lost, you told me I’d let you down and you wished the other boy was your brother.’
‘What’s your point?’ said Jordan, rounding on him, feet scraping in the dirt. ‘I did shitty things as a kid. I’m sorry, all right.’
‘Why couldn’t you have been kind to me?’ said Wesley, feeling his throat grow thick. He fixed his eyes on the horizon’s lights, tried not to notice how they blurred.
Jordan laughed sharply. ‘Kind? What makes you think you deserved it?’
‘I needed it,’ Wesley said, turning to face his brother, noticing for the first time that they were almost the same height now.
‘Nobody was ever kind to me, you don’t see me crying about it.’
‘What about Dad?’ Wesley shouted.
‘You wanted to know if it was true, what he said about you? I think you’ve just proved it,’ spat Jordan. ‘You really are too soft to be his son.’
The garage seemed ten times more sinister by night, and the gravel underfoot ten times louder. Kat kept admonishing herself for not wearing a balaclava, each time remembering it would have been pointless.
‘A balaclava wrecks your peripheral vision, anyway,’ said Safa. ‘And your hair.’
They reached the flaking garage door, and Kat pushed its top. It rocked on its rail before the latch caught.
‘It’s locked,’ said Safa, who seemed to have a particular passion for stating the obvious.
The door was old. By leaning enough of her weight on it the bottom opened by a couple of inches before the locking mechanism could stop it. She transferred the pressure to Safa, and then dropped to her knees, snaking an arm into the gap. Paint and dust lodged in her fingernails. The mechanism was old, little more than a rusty latch, and a few hard tugs dislodged it.
‘Kat burglar,’ whispered Safa.
Kat answered with a regal bow.
Inside, everything was as it had been just a few hours before, the old car blocking the shelves at the far end of the space. Kat slipped around it and checked the shelves quickly for anything she might have missed earlier, but there was nothing significant.
‘This is the bad guys’ lair?’ said Safa, swiping dust from the roof of the car.
On the walk over, Kat had told her everything she knew about their plot. Safa hadn’t seemed to care too much about foiling Nazi terrorists and saving Tinker, but she was very excited about stealing a car.
‘All the cars in the world and you want this pile of junk.’
The key was still in the wheel arch, and Kat held it up triumphantly. ‘If they don’t have the car, they can’t hit anybody with it.’
Safa shrugged her lip. ‘You don’t have to get involved at all.’
‘You said you didn’t fade so you could just mess around,’ said Kat, opening the driver door. ‘If it gives me a chance to stop them, I have to take it.’
She slipped in behind the wheel, and Safa dropped into the passenger side. The car smelled of cheap deodorant, the kind little boys were told would attract fantasy women.
‘Do you know how to drive?’
‘I’ve had a lesson.’
‘That isn’t at all the same thing.’
After fumbling the key into the ignition, Kat gripped the steering wheel in both hands. Stealing a car was not something she would usually do, or even think about doing. Maybe that was the point; she was either more herself than ever or not herself at all. The boundaries of her body had blurred. It was time to be boundless.
Kat fired up the engine. ‘You’d better put on your seatbelt.’
Safa urgently obeyed, and Kat put her foot down hard.
The car juddered forward, and stalled. They sat in confused silence for a moment.
‘That wasn’t quite as dramatic as I’d hoped,’ said Kat.
‘It hasn’t filled me with confidence about this whole endeavour.’
Again, and this time she did everything a little more gently. The car inched forward and out of the garage, gravel grinding under their wheels.
The hill and everything around it seemed to recede, and Wesley tried to brace himself against the shaking in his legs as he squared up to his brother.
‘I want you to apologise.’
Jordan choked out a laugh. ‘For what?’
For pretending he didn’t exist. For letting his friends beat him up. For making him feel worthless and running out on them when they needed him most.
‘For everything,’ he said.
Jordan kicked at a chunk of tree branch, sending it tumbling down the slope and into darkness. ‘You can’t go through life expecting apologies, Wes.’
‘You left us,’ said Wesley. ‘Do you know how difficult it was after you were gone?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘It seems pretty simple to me.’
Jordan lifted a hand, as if trying to dredge up the right words. Then he growled with frustration and wheeled away towards the trees, swinging his arms at the air as if fighting invisible enemies.
‘You think it’s fair I was expected to support my family when I was still at school?’ he said. ‘I had to work every night to bring money home, and it still wasn’t enough! I wanted to get my exams and see what I could do with myself, but there was no chance. It was too much pressure.’
‘But that’s how it was, and you still left,’ said Wesley, holding his voice steady. ‘You knew you were leaving that same pressure on me.’
Jordan turned back towards him, arms now hanging limp at his sides. ‘So you should know how it feels.’
‘Apologise, or I can’t let you come back.’
‘What are you going to do to stop me?’
Wesley’s punch caught his brother above the eye, a wide swing that landed with a dull thud and sent pain careening up his arm. Hardly flinching, Jordan replied by digging a fist into Wesley’s stomach, doubling him over. As he staggered away, gasping for breath, his brother walked him down.
‘You want me to say it’s all my fault?’
There was no air in his lungs to form the words, but Wesley forced himself to nod. Jordan answered by kicking him in the side, knocking him over into the dirt.
‘Just tell me one thing,’ said his brother. ‘Instead of blaming me, why don’t you blame Dad for anything? If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s his.’
‘At least he cared about you,’ Wesley gasped.
Their eyes met. Jordan lifted a foot to kick him again, and Wesley braced himself. The blow never came, his brother pulling out of it at the last moment.
‘If only you knew,’ he said. ‘Go.’
Wesley climbed to his feet. ‘You can’t just—’
‘Get out of here before I kick the shit out of you!’
Pain throbbed in his stomach and reached tendrils out into his body with every step. Back down the hill and onto the road. It was nothing compared to the shame that came crashing into his mind, like a wave breaking on rocks. He had sworn he would stop Jordan from hurting them again, and instead he had ended up in the dirt.
As he hurried past a row of local shops that were closed for the night, he knew he should head home, work out what his next move would be. Instead his feet led him somewhere else, and before he knew it he saw the McDonald’s sign glowing in the night.
Before he could turn into the car park, hands grabbed him from behind and slammed him into a shop’s metal shutter.
‘I told you he hangs out here.’
‘We’ve been looking for you.’
Blocking any route of escape, Luke and Justin took down their hoods.