Copyright © 2021 Naomi Ishiguro

The right of Naomi Ishiguro to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

First published as an Ebook in 2021 by Tinder Press

An imprint of Headline Publishing Group

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978 1 4722 7330 7

Cover design and illustration by Yeti Lambregts

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About the Author

Author pic © Rosie Powell

Naomi Ishiguro lives in London, and has worked as a bookseller and bibliotherapist. She is the author of a story collection, Escape Routes. Common Ground is her first novel.

Praise for Naomi Ishiguro:

‘Winsomely written and engagingly quirky’ The Sunday Times

‘Stories that start like delicate webs, and finish like unbreakable wire traps’ Neil Gaiman

‘Naomi Ishiguro threads magic through carefully observed realism. This is a writer whose voice I hope to be following for many years to come’ Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

‘A wonderful book, both tender and wise’ Okechukwu Nzelu

‘Immersive and timely . . . you will root for Charlie and Stan from the first page’ Deepa Anappara

Also by Naomi Ishiguro

Escape Routes

Common Ground

About the Book

From the acclaimed author of ESCAPE ROUTES, a bittersweet story of coming-of-age in a divided world, in the tradition of TIN MAN or BLACK SWAN GREEN.

It’s a lonely life for Stan, at a new school that feels more ordeal than fresh start, and at home where he and his mother struggle to break the silence after his father’s death. When he encounters fearless, clever Charlie on the local common, all of that begins to change. Charlie’s curiosity is infectious, and it is Charlie who teaches Stan, for the first time, to stand on his own two feet. But will their unit of two be strong enough to endure in a world that offers these boys such different prospects?

The pair part ways, until their paths cross once again, as adults in London. Now Stan is revelling in all that the city has to offer, while Charlie seems to have hit a brick wall. He needs Stan’s help, and above all his friendship, but is Stan really there for the man who once showed him the meaning of loyalty?

For Ben Noble, for my parents,

and – especially considering this is

a book about friendship – for

all my wonderful friends.

PART ONE

2003

1

Goshawk Common, Newford, Surrey. Not the most remarkable expanse of open country, scrubby grass and tumbling hillside in the south of England, just as Newford probably wasn’t the most remarkable town. Still, the common had its charm, especially on those early autumn afternoons when the heathland came to life with crispness and with colour, and when rabbits dodged through tufts of grass while thrushes, robins and blackbirds sang in the trees beyond.

It was on an afternoon like this that thirteen-year-old Stanley Gower rode his bike down Aldershot Road and along Goshawk Road, before turning off the tarmac and on to the grass of the common. He was pedalling fast, now. Maybe faster even than he’d ever pedalled before. Onwards he careered, a dart veering straight into the heart of the quiet, rustling peace of the heath, the wheels of his Falcon Stealth thundering over the terrain in such a way that even if he’d been cycling with his eyes closed – like in that Roald Dahl story, for instance, about the man who could see without his eyes – he’d have been able to tell that his wheels were rattling over grass and stones now, that he was away from the town completely.

He was free here. A free man. Or a free bird, even, because really why should he have to be a man – a boy – a human at all? He’d much rather be a bird, then he could fly around all day. And how weird and cool the world must look from above. Although probably the birds were used to it and wouldn’t think of it as weird or cool at all. Probably they’d think the way we see things from down here as we walk and run and cycle around is weird and cool. But his eyes were watering again a little now, tears escaping in spite of himself, making his broken, sticky-tape-mended glasses slip down his nose. Probably it was the cold air doing it, or because he was moving so fast. Probably that was definitely it. He blinked the tears away, anyway, trying not to think about it all too much because that was all done for the day, wasn’t it? That was all over till tomorrow, now that he’d arrived finally in this place where there were huge skies, and woods, and already fallen autumn leaves – now that he was here on the common, where no one cared that his school uniform was second-hand and didn’t fit properly, where he could finally be left alone. And look! There was even a rabbit, there, hopping up ahead, along the path in front of the Falcon Stealth’s thick wheels. Be careful, little rabbit! This world is harsh and merciless and it’ll give you no warning at all, that’s for certain, and you won’t last long in it if you keep jumping out into the paths of zooming bikes.

On gentle, sloping ground now, Stanley coasted forward on his own momentum, steering round the rabbit – good luck, little guy! May you do a better job of looking after yourself than I have! – and then he was pedalling again, faster, switching back up the gears to give himself some resistance, something tangible to push against. And he was flying onward again now, over the grass and into the sunset-streaked sky up ahead, all the colours melting a bit since his eyes were running properly now in spite of his blinking, sending his glasses slipping down his nose again, the glasses he’d thought Mum would be so angry to see broken but which she hadn’t mentioned at all when she’d picked him up from school earlier – a not mentioning which somehow, instead of making things easier, had only made everything feel even worse.

And then there came an unhealthy clicking sound from the Falcon Stealth, and the feeling of something slipping out from under his feet, and suddenly the free-soaring falcon was faltering – his bike chain was slipping off, and his pedals were spinning and he was just a thirteen-year-old human boy again, wobbling on a stupid second-hand bike that couldn’t seem to make it more than ten minutes down the road without the stupid chain messing up.

Stanley braked, climbed off, laid the Falcon on its side in the grass and tried his best to force the chain back into place. Except bloody hell it was stiff and not going on like it usually would. He’d told Mum he’d sit quietly at home and read and eat the Hula Hoops she’d given him while she napped, and now there was bike oil all over his fingers and over his jeans where he’d wiped his stupid hands without thinking and now he would arrive back home in a mess with a broken bike – which she’d assume he’d broken today, seeing as he hadn’t told her the chain had been all messed up from the beginning. He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t told her. Just that the Falcon had been a birthday present from her, and some instinct had told him not to ruin everything by mentioning it at the time.

And of course he’d be late back, too, no doubt. She only ever slept for half an hour, forty minutes maximum if she was very tired, and she was working the night shift tonight, wasn’t she? So most likely she’d be awake in ten minutes from now at the latest, and home was more than ten minutes’ walk away, meaning that he’d have no time to get there and clean up and hide the stupid bike before she saw it. He’d have to turn up all covered in oil, having ruined his jeans probably, and now his fingers hurt too from trying and failing to fix it as well as the rest of him from all that in the playground earlier, and it really wasn’t his day, he wished he lived in Narnia, in Hogwarts, in anywhere but Newford – and then to top it all off here was another rabbit now, stopped still and staring at him. What is it you want, little guy? I’m kneeling, just kneeling here, in the grass. Is that allowed? Or is this your particular favourite patch of grass I’m kneeling on? Would you rather I moved?

But the rabbit’s head twitched, its eyes flicked to something behind Stanley, and then it turned on its tail and bounded away, just as he became aware of the sound of another bike coming up behind him, a less rusty bike from the sounds of it, a much smoother ride – how could it be that his bike was simultaneously so oily and so rusty? And then Stanley turned to the sound of brakes and there was an older boy there, wearing a motorcycle jacket with all these patches and things. And he had sunglasses on too, this older boy, and greased-back hair and earphones in that Stanley could hear were blasting loud, tinny music, and Stanley couldn’t even identify what type of bike he had at all because it had been spray-painted black and green – probably by this older boy himself, judging by the messiness of the paintwork. But how much older was this boy really? He seemed eighteen, seventeen maybe . . . except that then he raised his sunglasses, pushing them back on the top of his head, and Stanley started to think he was maybe a little younger than that. The boy tugged out his earphones, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a shiny Discman, and paused his music.

‘You alright, mate?’ he said, stowing the Discman and earphones carefully away again and frowning at Stanley like he was some strange curiosity found lying by the side of the road – which in a way, he was. ‘You always talk to rabbits? What happened to your glasses?’

Of course – of course this older boy would laugh at him. That same old nasty prickling feeling started up behind Stanley’s eyes again, and as he opened his mouth to say something, he found he’d lost all ability to summon and to order words. It was all just like at school, and yet a feeling that was so alien to being out here on Goshawk Common, where he was used to being free, permitted to come and go unharmed, unpicked on.

‘Chill out, mate,’ said the older boy, jumping off his bike now, setting it down in the grass next to Stanley’s. ‘I was just asking.’

His accent wasn’t quite like other people’s round here, Stanley noticed then. There was something else in it that conjured somewhere different, far away, outside and far beyond the little world of Newford. Somewhere, maybe, that reminded him a little of Coronation Street.

‘I’m Charlie, by the way,’ said this older boy. ‘D’you need a hand?’

Charlie talked as he messed with the chain. ‘It’s no bother at all,’ he was saying. ‘I just got off work and actually I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself. I mean, it’s a weird old place, Newford. Before I came down here I thought there’d be loads going on. My brother told me there was, anyway, but my theory is that was just a ploy to get me to come back. I was away for a bit, you see – but fucksake you’ve a bastard of a chain here, mate, you know that?’

At first Stanley felt a bit affronted, embarrassed at how obvious it clearly was that he wasn’t able to fix his bike himself, and annoyed at having the feeling of peace he’d almost found a moment ago so completely disrupted. A large part of him wanted to tell this Charlie to back off and leave him alone, as who did he think he was, after all? Muscling in like this and getting involved without even being asked, drawing attention to Stanley’s bike’s crappiness, not to mention to his general uselessness? Then again though, it wasn’t like Charlie was laughing at him, or anything. He didn’t seem to be at all, actually. And, really, when Stanley thought about it properly, it was probably kind of good of him to help. Good of him, in fact, that seemingly without thinking about it at all he’d got right off his own bike, stopped going wherever he was going and got down in the damp grass, without seeming to mind that his hands were covered in oil now, too.

And more than that, he also found himself strangely grateful for the fact that this Charlie was a talker. Stanley wasn’t a talker. He tended to stay quiet and stare at people – which made them feel uncomfortable, Mum said. He didn’t mean to do it. It was just that no matter how much he wanted to say stuff, it somehow never happened right. He never found it easy, and then whenever he forced himself to speak he would only end up saying something weird that no one outside his own head could ever understand.

Like on the first day at school, the first day of St Reginald’s, which felt like ages ago now – like he’d been there forever already, and not in a good way – though it could only have been a few weeks. They’d gone round the class saying what they wanted to be when they were older, and everyone had said stuff that made everyone else nod and ask questions and the teacher write whatever they’d said on the board – policeman, interior designer, singer, actor, dancer, all the usual stuff, he couldn’t say really what they’d said now, but anyway – he’d gone and said that when he was older he’d like to be either Merry or Pippin from The Lord of the Rings. He’d meant it to be funny, he supposed, but then Miss Kennedy had asked him why with this look on her face like he’d been deadly serious, and what he’d said had concerned her, and then everyone else in the class had stared at him too, of course. Stared at the new scholarship kid. The kid in the stupid, ill-fitting second-hand uniform, who was always tripping over his feet in shoes that had been bought ‘for growth’. Stanley had found himself paralysed, unable to talk, to conjure even a few words to explain even in the most basic terms what he’d meant, unable even to locate his vocal cords and say any simple set-piece phrase like it was a joke. He’d remained in that state for the rest of the lesson, sitting in silence while everyone else despised him and thought he was weird. Long story short, then, it was a nice change, the way this Charlie talked with ease, as if he didn’t even notice the difficulty Stanley was having in thinking of anything reasonable to say in reply.

‘I just moved here, see, from my dad’s,’ Charlie was saying. ‘Or, I wasn’t living with my dad, not really, only staying for a bit, but then the rest of my family were somewhere else before, and I was only a kid anyway last time we were here. So what I mean really is I haven’t met too many people round here yet – apart from my family of course, and then all the guys at work . . .’

Charlie finally managed to slide the chain back into place. He wasn’t just older. Though at first glance he looked a bit scrawny in that giant leather jacket, he was obviously much stronger, too. One of those wiry guys who could lift stuff and climb stuff and punch stuff harder than Stanley could ever dream of doing. Charlie sat back on his heels and wiped the oil off his hands and on to his jeans – without thinking twice about the mess, it seemed.

‘And the thing is,’ he continued, looking over the grass towards the trees, ‘even if I’m only somewhere for a few months or whatever it is, I still like to get to know it. You know, the history of the place. What it all means, why it’s there. All the people who lived their lives in it, and built things and had kids and died in it before we were even born, you know?’ Charlie stared out at the trees a little longer, then nodded down to the Falcon.

‘Fixed your bike,’ he said.

Stanley opened his mouth, panicked a little in spite of himself, coughed, and managed to choke out a, ‘Thanks.’

‘What was your name again?’

‘Stanley. Stan.’

‘Which is it?’

‘Stan. If you like.’

Charlie stood up and made to head over to his own bike again. ‘Nice meeting you, Stan,’ he said.

‘Wait,’ Stan said, too quickly, surprising himself, as surely he’d be waiting for Charlie to leave, so he could relax again, just be on his own without having to worry about accidentally making anything go wrong?

But Charlie had stopped, and was watching him now, hands in pockets. Waiting, no doubt, for him to spit out whatever it might be that he had to say for himself, so he could get on his way.

‘So you’re from Manchester, then?’ Stan asked him, mainly just for something to say.

‘Nah,’ Charlie said. ‘Or my dad’s from there. I stayed with him almost a year, nearly. Or for the spring and summer, more like, I suppose. But I’m from round here, really,’ Charlie said. ‘Not Newford though. All over.’

‘Where d’you go to school?’ Stan asked Charlie.

‘Don’t go to school, do I?’

‘But . . . how? Don’t you have to? Don’t your parents make you go?’

‘Naw,’ Charlie sank his hands deeper into his pockets. ‘Not any more.’ He studied Stanley. ‘You’re a bit of an odd one, mate, aren’t you?’

And that should have hurt. Stanley knew it should have done. And yet somehow, he completely surprised himself by laughing. ‘What about you?’ he found himself replying, and the words sounded weird as he said them, as if someone else was in control of his vocal cords now, and he was listening to his own voice resonating out somewhere else, somewhere far away and separate from himself. ‘You’re not so normal yourself.’

Charlie laughed. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s the way I like it. See, I can’t help but think if people think you’re normal in a town like this then surely that just means you’re boring. No offence meant, like, if you grew up here. Did you grow up here?’

Stanley nodded.

‘Suppose someone had to,’ said Charlie. ‘Mind you, it’s not all bad. I always like a good common. D’you know the history of this place, Stan?’

Stan shook his head.

‘Neither do I, being honest, not really. But the thing is, right, the thing with commons is that it means they were common land, you know? That they still are, to some extent at least. So this place belongs to us, just as much as it belongs to anyone. We have just as much right to be here as anyone else.’

‘I never knew that,’ said Stan.

‘Right, well, now you do. Come and find me any other time you fancy a history lesson.’ Charlie picked up his bike and climbed on. ‘Anyway, I’d best be off. Got stuff to do and all. I’m sure I’ll see you round.’

‘Whereabouts d’you live?’ said Stan.

‘I work at the boxing gym. Just over the way,’ Charlie nodded his head, back down the path. ‘It’s a bit of a slog but you get to use the gym for free on Sundays, so it could be worse.’

And then he was off, cycling away down the path, leaving Stanley blinking at what had just happened, at the strangeness of having just had a full conversation with someone like Charlie, someone older and obviously so much cooler, with all the usual social rules and hierarchies that underpinned the days at school having somehow melted away.

And then of course the moment passed, and he was aware again of his mum back home, who’d be up by now and wondering where he’d got to. Aware of the oil on his jeans, and the tape on his glasses and the bruises on his ribs and the scrapes on his elbows hiding under the long sleeves of his sweater. He watched Charlie disappearing, just a retreating figure in the distance now, indistinct in his oversized jacket, hunched over the handlebars. And after only a moment’s hesitation—

‘Thanks for fixing my bike,’ Stan yelled down the path, after him.

He wasn’t even sure Charlie would hear him, whether his voice would be loud enough to carry over the distance between them. He was just about to turn around to go home when Charlie stuck out a hand, and waved.

2

Later, sitting opposite Helen, his mum, in the low, buzzing light of the kitchen, Stanley shovelled forkfuls of macaroni cheese into his mouth and wondered about what Charlie had said, out on the common.

I work at the boxing gym. Just over the way.

And thinking about it too, Charlie had seemed exactly the kind of person he had always imagined might be into boxing. Not to say he’d looked thuggish, or anything. Not at all. Just . . . unafraid. Authoritative. Capable.

Stanley was distracted from his thoughts then though by the sound of Helen sighing, as she turned over a page in the magazine she had open on the table in front of her. He watched as she rubbed her eyes. Strands of her light brown hair were falling from her ponytail into her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was having her breakfast now, kind of. The meal she always had before going in to work the night shift. A cheese sandwich and a mug of coffee, with the coffee smelling so good Stanley would often nag her to let him have a mug of his own. Of course she never let him, saying he’d only be hyper and wouldn’t sleep – which he didn’t quite believe, seeing as she drank so much of it and still managed to be sleepy all the time. Anyway though, sometimes, if she was in a good mood, she’d let him try just a sip, and even though the bitter taste was inevitably a disappointment it would still always feel a bit like a special treat, a little victory, to have convinced her, even just for a moment, to have let him in on this particular aspect of adult life.

Looking up properly now from the sticky mass of food on his plate, he watched her across the table as she chewed a corner of her sandwich, slowly, and then as she rubbed her eyes again, still staring down at the magazine which was all pictures of some beach resort now. He decided he wouldn’t ask for any coffee tonight. It didn’t feel like that kind of evening.

‘Mum,’ he found himself saying instead. ‘You know the boxing club? Up past the common?’

A slight frown creased the skin between her eyebrows, and he knew this probably wasn’t right either, that he should just stop talking, keep quiet, let her have some peace before going into work, but still the words seemed somehow to cascade out of him, before he could stop them.

‘Dad used to box, didn’t he? Like when he was around my age?’

Helen put her sandwich down, and chewed her lip. ‘He was a bit older,’ she said. ‘Why was that in your head, Stanley?’ she asked.

But of course, he’d probably messed things up now. She always said she was happy to talk about Dad whenever he wanted, but it never went well when he tried, he knew that. He shrugged, ducked down to his plate, muffled the guilty feeling spreading through him now with another mouthful of pasta.

Before Helen had packed away most of the old photos that had been up around the house, taking them all to the attic, there had been this picture of Dad at the back of the cluster they’d always kept on the mantelpiece. It was strange to think now, but when Dad had still been here Stanley had never really asked him about it properly, had taken the photo completely for granted as just another familiar object he’d find out the full story behind later, all in good time. There were so many things like this, he was finding. Sometimes it seemed he came across a new one, a new thing he’d never get to ask Dad about, every day. In this picture anyway, Dad had been wearing boxing gloves, he’d had a medal around his neck, and he’d been smiling. More than anything though, he’d just looked so young, not much more than a boy himself and so lit up with life that, thinking about that photo now, it seemed almost unbelievable to Stanley that it really could have existed, and that the human being it captured could really be the same person he’d said goodbye to, in those last awful weeks at the hospital.

‘Wasn’t he once the best in Newford, or something?’ he asked Helen.

She brushed her hair out of her face and smiled, though it didn’t make her look any happier. ‘Third in Newford, love,’ she said. ‘Though that was all a long time ago now.’

And then the alarm clock went off in the hall, telling them both it was time for her to go to work. Stanley followed as she went to take her things from the pegs by the door. She always had to leave. She always had to be at work.

‘Sorry,’ he told her, hovering in the door frame as she shoved pen and notepad in her bag.

Helen only shrugged, and turned away, fastening the buttons on her coat. ‘You miss him,’ she said. ‘No need to be sorry for that.’ Then suddenly sounding bright and businesslike, speaking to him now in the blandly friendly, brisk tone Stanley suspected she might use while talking to patients at work, she asked him – ‘So what’ll you do with yourself this evening then? Anything nice on the telly?’

‘I think I’ll just carry on with my book. I’m reading that one about Greek and Roman myths. It’s really good.’

And she smiled at that, properly smiled. Even came over and tried to give him a hug, and though of course he wriggled away from her he found he was also kind of glad.

‘How ever did you get to be so clever?’ she said.

‘Mum,’ he groaned. ‘Stop it.’

She’d been prone to moments like this ever since Gran had put him in for the thirteen-plus scholarship exam for St Reginald’s, and he’d actually passed. Every time school or homework or even just books were mentioned these days, she’d only go and get all weepy and weird and embarrassing. He was just backing away again, thinking she might try and grab him for another hug, when her smile slipped a bit, and she looked so sad, suddenly.

‘I’m so proud of you, Stanley,’ she said. ‘You do know that, don’t you?’

Stanley nodded, and didn’t know what to say.

Then pulling the folds of her coat tight around her, Helen opened the door and waved goodbye, heading out into the chill of the autumn night to the hospital.

He tried to read, he really did. And a lot of him actually wanted to as well. It hadn’t been a lie he’d told when he’d said he was enjoying his book. Of course he was. He was in the middle of the story about the Minotaur, and the Minotaur was awesome. So why, then, when he’d cleared up the plates and washed the pots and wiped the table, had he gone up to his room and picked up his book and sat on the bed and drawn the covers right up to his chin and pushed his glasses up to his nose again – why was it that in this setting, which should be so peaceful and so welcome and so cosy after all the trials of the day, that he just couldn’t seem to sit still?

There was simply no position he could twist himself into that seemed at all natural. It was like his limbs had suddenly got longer or more awkward, just unwieldy, and he didn’t know how to fold them or to organise them any more so that they fitted in the small space allotted to them. And then when he tried to read, his mind somehow seemed unable to focus on the words, getting caught up again in the day at school just passed, and the week before that, and then too in thoughts of the days ahead, the weeks ahead, the weeks stretching to months stretching to years, none of which seemed to offer any opportunity for escape. And of course it didn’t help take his mind off things that every five seconds he had to readjust his broken glasses.

He read the same paragraph three times, getting to the end of the page only to find he hadn’t paid attention to a single thing that had happened, and that what he was reading made no sense. And now he was too hot under the duvet too, and he found himself hating the way it made him feel like he’d been tucked in like a child when it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, when it was hardly even dark.

He threw the duvet off and went downstairs. He paced up and down for a while in the kitchen but found that it was too small, somehow; he felt as if he was always almost bumping into things and having to be careful where he stepped. He thought about making himself sit down, calm down and just turn on the telly. He wasn’t even sure what would be on. Neighbours or Top of the Pops, probably. Stuff the other kids were always on about at school. He picked up the remote and stared at it a moment. Then he put it back down, picked up his bike, and went out.

Where to, Stan? Where to? It felt weird being out like this on his own, after tea, in the twilight, under his own steam. Like he was breaking some kind of rule, though he wasn’t, not really. Mum had never said he couldn’t go out, he just never did, that was all. But where was he going, clicking round the quiet streets on his newly mended bike? Where would someone like that Charlie from the common go, for instance, if he were out and about like this of an evening? Surely this was the kind of thing someone like Charlie would do all the time, easy, not even thinking about it? Stan clicked his way down Woodside Lane. All the hedges and the matching houses – wheelie bins and mesh garden fencing, red brick and polished white doors and window frames.

If people think you’re normal in a town like this then surely that just means you’re boring, Charlie had said, hadn’t he? Could that be right? Looking around himself now it didn’t seem impossible. Everything Stan passed, after all, looked kind of the same to him as everything else. Well kept, net-curtained and neat. The same flowers in all the front gardens, and no one had so much as painted their door a different colour, or even decorated their wheelie bin. Come to think of it, neither had he and Mum – what did that mean? Did it mean anything?

Clicking on down Woodside Lane now, the houses fell away on his right, leaving the road open to the actual woods, or to a neatly clipped hedge, anyway, behind which there were woods . . . Oh but it was alright, Newford. What did Charlie know? Could Manchester really be all that much better than this? Stan turned down Foxburrows Road. What a good name for a street, Foxburrows Road. He bet there wasn’t a Foxburrows Road in Manchester. And where had Charlie lived before that? Where had he grown up? He hadn’t really said, had he? All over, had been about the extent of it.

The matching roofs of the houses lining the way either side of Stan stood solid and quiet against still-glowing sky, the trees from the woods just visible in silhouette behind them, and suddenly, Stan found himself thinking of Monopoly houses, wondering if this is how it’d feel to be shrunk down to the size of an ant, and creeping around the board.

He turned off and picked up the pace, cycling faster through the sleepy silent streets, cutting through the estate and up on to Spelman Road – and he’d be lying to himself now if he said he was just meandering, that he didn’t know exactly where he was going, that he hadn’t, in fact, had a plan from the second he’d locked the front door behind him, even from the moment he’d shut his Greek myths book and got back out of bed. The boxing club, that was where he was headed. That was where Charlie would go.

He pedalled hard then free-wheeled round the long curve of tarmac until the rows of houses stopped suddenly, space opening out, and then there it was, up ahead, lights in the windows glimmering at him across the expanse of an empty car park – a sprawling almost-bungalow, every wall a different shade of grey. He coasted up to it and braked.

He could hear voices coming from inside. Male voices, shouting and laughing. Cracking jokes, it sounded like. He couldn’t make out any words from here but he recognised the rhythm of the sounds. There were lulls, dips dominated by singular, more prominent voices, then sudden explosions back into noise, everyone talking over each other again. Was Charlie among them? Stan listened harder, trying to pick him out. Tall shadows moved in the windows, behind the blinds, then the lights in the far corner of the building began to click off, and then more lights followed, darkness spreading inwards, taking over – before the front door swung open and two tallish boys strode out across the car park, big bags over their shoulders, sweat in their hair, tracksuit tops zipped up against the now quite chilly night air. Stan could see their breath in the air as they talked.

‘It’s not about that though,’ one of them was saying. ‘If he keeps up with all that then it’s over, he’s fucked, I promise you . . .’

They were older than Stan was, obviously. And bigger, too. But he still couldn’t help but be a little surprised that they were still so young. Surprised and disappointed, even. He’d expected men, coming out bruised and black-eyed and bleeding. Not boys like this – just like anyone, like people from school, who were probably off home for their tea now, and then maths homework, and the school bus in the morning.

Stan stood up on his pedals and began riding around in a slow circle, turning to face back the way he’d come, still keeping an eye on the boxing club door but with a kind of I shouldn’t be here feeling creeping up on him now. This place isn’t for me. And then another group of boys stepped out, one of whom he recognised. It was Charlie, of course, and Stan felt such a rush of triumph then to find he’d been so dead right in guessing where Charlie might go, and at having actually managed to find him again like this so easily when part of him had been wondering if he’d ever see Charlie again, if that conversation on the common hadn’t been some weird kind of fluke.

Charlie looked so at home here though, amongst these people. He had a bag over his shoulder and tracksuit on like the rest of them, and was rolling a cigarette, licking the paper like it was automatic for him, that action, like he’d done it a million times before – which he probably had, come to think of it – and he was laughing a little at something someone was saying.

It was a terrible mistake to have come here. Stan understood that now. He couldn’t let Charlie see him like this, hovering like some pathetic kind of stalker, waiting outside where he’d known Charlie worked. Why had he come here? What a weird thing to do – what a fucking creepy thing to do, even. He hadn’t meant it like that at all, though. He’d been curious, that’s all. And also maybe – maybe even hopeful? Hopeful that he might have stumbled upon a place which, though it was only round the corner from all the usual familiar haunts and streets, might have offered him a way to step outside the endless maze that life felt like these days, an alternative to both the unspoken sadness of home and the daily battle of school. A place he could go to learn how to feel like he had for those ten minutes on the common with Charlie – as if he were a person just like anyone else, with a solid right to be there, and to take up the space he was occupying.

Who had he been kidding, though? This place was just like anywhere else – worse, even, as it was boxing, and Mum hated boxing – or at least was weird about it, in that way that she was weird about anything these days that reminded her of Dad. What was he doing? He had no business looking for another world here when he knew how it would upset her. Really he had no business looking for other worlds at all. This was Newford, not Narnia. Things like other worlds simply didn’t happen here. He should get himself home now, before any of them clocked him. He should go back to bed to read so that he wouldn’t have lied to Mum at all when he’d told her earlier he would read his book, making her look so proud and also . . . what had that look been? Just as she’d been leaving the house?

He pushed down on the pedals and was setting off into the night just as he heard a voice ring out behind him – loud, confident, a little bit northern.

‘Oi, Stan, is that you?’

And then more voices . . . But he was off now on his way and couldn’t hear what they were saying.