Wesley arrived at school half an hour later, and was surprised to find not just Aoife waiting outside the gate, but Robbie and Jae too. They were bundled in thick coats, as if expecting an arduous winter to arrive overnight.
‘My second Lonely People meeting,’ Wesley said as he reached them.
‘Unofficial,’ added Robbie pointedly.
Nobody moved, perhaps because nobody really knew why they were there. They met every week, as far as Wesley understood it, yet they still seemed like strangers to each other.
‘This is my little sister,’ he said, trying to keep Evie from hiding behind him. ‘Sorry, there was nobody else to look after her.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Aoife, smiling warmly at her.
‘Where does Aaron’s family live?’ asked Wesley.
‘Not far,’ said Aoife, pointing a direction and getting them moving. ‘He used to walk to school. I think.’
They trailed away from the school in silence, heading deeper into the knots of residential streets that contained it. Street lights were beginning to come awake. The unseasonably chilly evening seemed to have kept people indoors, bikes and footballs abandoned in front gardens. A lone car belched steam into the air as it started up on a driveway.
Wesley had asked for this trip, leaving him obligated to try and chip away at the awkward atmosphere between them. ‘So . . . you guys ever do stuff like this normally?’
‘Stuff like what?’ said Jae.
‘I don’t know. Hang out. Get some food, go to the cinema, whatever,’ said Wesley, listing things he himself never did.
Robbie kicked a stone, sending it skittering into the empty road. ‘The Lonely People isn’t a social club. We’re not just messing about.’
Changing the subject would avoid pushing the younger boy over the edge of his temper, but their group dynamic just didn’t make sense.
‘You shouldn’t be lonely. You have each other,’ Wesley said. ‘Just send each other a message now and again. How are you doing? or Look at my cat. Whatever.’
‘I don’t have a cat,’ said Aoife.
‘I do,’ said Jae, holding up his phone. ‘She’s called Minion.’
They all gathered around to look at a picture – all of them except for Robbie – Evie stroking the screen before she started telling Jae about Jeff. Wesley tore himself away from the cat.
‘Why are you all so determined to not actually be friends?’
Robbie scowled. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘More than you think,’ said Wesley. ‘All I know is I’d have killed to have people who understood what I was feeling.’
The silence as they continued walking was different this time, charged with every unspoken word of countless Lonely People meetings. It wasn’t their fault, not really. Loneliness could make you reach out for company in all the wrong places, or make it seem an impossibility, even if an outlet was staring you in the face. There was comfort in being alone, unable to disappoint or be disappointed by others. Tell yourself enough, and it’s not hard to believe that’s the best you’re ever likely to get from the world.
‘We agreed to take you so we could remind ourselves what we’re aiming for,’ said Robbie. ‘It’s good to remember it really can be done.’
The others remained quiet.
The house sat on the corner, weeds poking through the brickwork driveway. The wall running alongside the pavement on one side was daubed with random graffiti. They huddled across the road, an indecisive stakeout.
‘How long ago did Aaron disappear?’ asked Wesley.
Blank faces. After everything, he believed a boy could fade out of existence. It had happened to Kat, and apparently to this other girl who used to be part of the Lonely People. What he couldn’t believe – wouldn’t believe – was that the boy’s family could forget him. As if he’d never existed at all.
‘Tell me three things you remember about Aaron.’
Robbie went first. ‘He was tall.’
‘Short hair,’ added Jae.
‘He lived there,’ said Aoife, pointing to the house. ‘And walked to school.’
Week after week sitting with Aaron in their meetings, and now he was a cardboard cut-out in their memories. If any one of them succeeded in fading, would the others here forget them like this?
The boy had been in the year above him. Or so they said. Wesley had forgotten him just as easily.
‘When it’s over . . .’ he said. ‘Where is Aaron now?’
They stumbled over each other to talk, Robbie winning out. ‘He’ll have chosen a Cradle and merged with them. He’ll be somebody else now. He’ll be happy.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said Wesley, and set off across the road with Evie.
‘What are you doing?’
He didn’t look back. ‘I’m going to knock for Aaron.’
The woman who answered the door was tall with short hair, and Wesley fought the urge to laugh. The other members of the group clustered behind him, and she stared at them all as if they were unwelcome trick-or-treaters.
‘Mrs Musley?’ Wesley asked. ‘I’m looking for Aaron.’
She frowned a little, whether at the name or their presence on her doorstep. ‘I’m afraid you must have the wrong house.’
Somebody plucked at his T-shirt, whispered that they should go, but Wesley put out a hand to stop her closing the door.
‘He definitely used to live here.’
Mrs Musley shook her head, and for a moment sadness was etched into her face, dislodged from a shipwreck somewhere deep inside. She hadn’t forgotten her son. Not completely. Wesley would make her remember, conjure Aaron back into existence like a rabbit from a hat.
‘Can we come in?’ he asked.
An expression of indescribable yearning greeted the request, as if some part of her had been awaiting this moment for a long time. ‘Of course,’ she said, and opened the door wide so they could shuffle guiltily past.
It was quiet inside, just a clock ticking somewhere unseen and the shush of their feet on the thick carpet as they were led past the stairs and deeper into the house.
‘Eves, can you wait out here for just a minute?’ Wesley asked, and she nodded, apparently glad not to go further.
They reached a big room flooded with dim light from glass sliding doors that overlooked the garden. Matching sofas edged the room, facing a huge TV. Every other patch of wall was taken up by mounted photographs. Family and individual portraits, candid shots from a wedding, photos of children taken in this very room. Wesley didn’t have much description to go on, but in almost every photograph stood a boy who had to be Aaron.
Tall. Short hair. Vanished into thin air.
‘Is that him?’ he whispered to Robbie, who had to study a photo hard before confirming with a nod.
‘Sit down, if you want,’ said Mrs Musley. ‘I’m sure we can figure out where your friend lived.’
Nobody sat. Wesley pointed to the largest family portrait: mother and father seated with their two boys behind them, one – Aaron – slouching so he wouldn’t tower over his little brother. Jordan would never have done that. ‘That’s a nice photo.’
Mrs Musley answered without looking at it. ‘Thank you.’
The others toured the photographs as if trying to commit them to memory. Jae took out his phone and snapped a picture of one where Aaron stood proudly in a sharp new suit.
‘I’m sorry to barge in,’ said Wesley, unable to keep himself from talking as if she were standing on a high ledge and threatening to jump. ‘I just really think my friend – Aaron – used to live here.’
He was sure she flinched at the name, as if failing to pretend it meant nothing to her. ‘We’ve lived here for over ten years,’ said Mrs Musley, pointing to the neat garden through the glass as if that proved it. ‘My son is home, I’ll see if he knows who it might be. Joseph!’
My son. As if she had only one.
Footsteps thudded above their heads, and then a voice shouted from the top of the stairs. ‘What?’
‘I have some people here who might need your help.’
Wesley knew them only from the photos, but Joseph looked just like his brother. A little stockier, perhaps, but bearing the same bright eyes and rounded jaw. It had to be like having a ghost living in the house. Joseph stopped in the doorway, glancing between them uncertainly.
‘They’re looking for somebody called Aaron,’ said Mrs Musley.
Something like anger bubbled to the surface before the boy could smother it. ‘There’s no Aaron here.’
There was a weight in Wesley’s stomach, and he would only lift it by breaking through to these people and forcing them to admit the truth. He stepped closer to the family portrait and pressed a finger to Aaron.
‘Who’s this?’
At first, neither mother or son looked at the photograph. It wasn’t deliberate denial; that might have been understandable. No, they seemed incapable of seeing him. Any memory of the other boy who used to live here was held just out of reach. They were surrounded by his image, and yet they never saw.
‘Leave it,’ said Robbie. The Lonely People had bunched together again, eyes on the carpet as if ashamed.
Wesley couldn’t. ‘You had another son. You had a brother. Now he’s gone.’ He looked between them pleadingly. ‘You can’t have forgotten him.’
Joseph spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Get out of our house.’
‘He’s right there!’ shouted Wesley, ripping the portrait from the wall and holding it out to them. ‘Can’t you see him?’
‘I see him!’ Mrs Musley cried, seeming to collapse. ‘Aaron is gone!’
‘Where? Where has he gone?’
She shook her head, dislodging tears that tracked down her cheeks. ‘I don’t know. He’s just gone. Most of the time I don’t even remember . . . it’s like he was never here at all. And then the absence hits me like a wave . . . oh god!’ She stumbled and slumped onto the nearest sofa, covering her face as sobs wracked her body.
Joseph grabbed hold of Wesley’s shoulder and wrestled him towards the door. ‘Get out of here!’
Still clutching the photograph, he was bundled along the hallway, the others grabbing Evie and following behind.
‘Please, I just need to know what happened,’ said Wesley. ‘It’s happening to somebody else and I need to stop it.’
‘You’re no better than the people who were sniffing around when we first realised he was gone!’ shouted Joseph, shoving him through the front door.
‘Who?’ said Wesley as the rest of the group joined him outside, hurrying quickly back onto the road. ‘Who was looking for your brother?’
The boy’s expression softened. ‘His friend Lukundo. He knew him from church.’
They hurried away and didn’t stop until they were well clear of the house. Jae began to cry, and Aoife let him push his face into her shoulder. Robbie shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked his toes hard into the ground, over and over.
The family portrait felt heavy in Wesley’s hands. He stared at it for a long moment, a bitter taste in his mouth.
‘Do you want that to happen for all of you?’ he said.
Not one of them would meet his gaze. They didn’t speak again until they had traipsed back to the school.
‘I want to know what happened to Aaron,’ said Aoife. ‘What really happened.’
‘Me too,’ said Jae.
Robbie watched them for a moment, and then nodded.
Wesley almost smiled, he was so relieved that he wouldn’t have to do it alone. ‘We’ll find this friend his brother mentioned. He might know something.’
They split up to head home, but Wesley wasn’t ready to go back to the flat. He had hardly learned anything new about the fade, and nothing that would help him pull Kat from its grasp.
He still remembered her when he shouldn’t. There had to be a chance that he could see her, speak to her, when others couldn’t. At the least, he still needed to return her MacBook. If he couldn’t do it at school, he would just have to try her at home.