The Bone Clocks

“True, but London’s very expensive, so I need to earn as well.”

I think of a pithy substitute for the florid “spaces between atoms” line, but my inbox pings. It’s only from Air France, but when I get back to my article I’ve forgotten my pithy substitute.

“Why is London expensive, Daddy?”

“Aoife, please. I’ve got to work. Close your eyes.”

“Okay.” She lies down in a mock huff and pretends to snore like a Teletubby. It’s reallyannoying, but I can’t think of anything to say that’s sharp enough to shut Aoife up but not so sharp that she won’t burst into tears. Better wait this one out.

My first thought was, I type, I’m alive. My second—

“Daddy, why can’t I go to see Dwight Silverwind on my own?”

Don’t snap. “Because you’re only six years old, Aoife.”

“But I know the way to Dwight Silverwind’s! Out of the hotel, over the zebra crossing, down the pier, and you’re there.”

Look at mini-Holly. “Your fortune’s what you make it. Not what a stranger with a made-up name says. Now, please. Let me work.”

She snuggles up with her Arctic fox. Back to my article: My first thought was, I’m alive. My second thought was, Stay down; if it was a rocket-propelled grenade attack, there could be more. My—

“Daddy, don’t you want to know what’ll happen in your future?”

I let a displeased few seconds pass. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because …” I think of Great-aunt Eilнsh’s mystic Script, and Nasser’s family, and Major Hackensack, and cycling along the Thames estuary footpath on a hot day in 1984 and recognizing a girl lying on the shingly beach, in her QuadropheniaT-shirt, her jeans as black as her cropped hair, and asleep, with a duffel bag as a pillow, and thinking, Cycle on, cycle on … And turning around. I shut my laptop, walk over to her bed, kick off my shoes, and lie down next to her. “Because what if I found out something bad was going to happen to me—or, worse, Mum, or you—but couldn’t change it? I’d be happier not knowing so I could just … enjoy the last sunny afternoon.”

Aoife’s eyes are big and serious. “What if you couldchange it?”

I squeeze her hair at her crown so it makes a sort of samurai topknot. “What if I couldn’t, Little Miss Pineapple Head?”

“ Hey, I’m not”—she yawns—“Pineapple Head.” I yawn too, and she says, “Ha! You caught my yawn.”

“Okay, I’ll take a snoozette with you.” This isn’t such a bad idea. Aoife’ll be out for an hour, at least, while I’ll wake up refreshed after a twenty-minute power nap, catch Rumsfeld’s latest denial, finish my article, and figure out how to tell Holly and the Cowardly Lion that I have to be in Cairo on Wednesday. “Sleep tight,” I tell Aoife, like Holly tells her. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“ED! ED!” I was dreaming Holly woke me up in a hotel room, her eyes panicky as a horse’s when it knows it’s going to die. It sounds like Holly’s saying “Where’s Aoife?” but she can’t be because Aoife’s asleep, next to me. Gravity’s wrong, my limbs are hollow, and I try to say, “What’s the matter?” Holly’s like someone doing a bad impression of Holly. “Ed, where’s Aoife?”

“Here.” I lift the blanket.

There’s only the Arctic fox.

Twenty thousand volts fry me into hyperalertness.

No need to panic. “In the bathroom.”

“I just looked! Ed! Where isshe?”

“Aoife? Come out, Aoife! This isn’t funny!” I stand up and slip on Animal Rescue Ranger Annual 2004, fallen to the floor. I check the wardrobes; in the two-inch gap under the bed; and the bathroom, in the shower cubicle. My bones turn to warm Blu Tack. She’s missing. “She was here. We were having a nap, just a minute ago.” I look at the time on the TV frame: 16:20. Shit shit shit. I lurch over to the windows as if—as if I’ll see her waving up at me from the teeming weekend crowds on the promenade below? My toe bangs something and the pain drills a hole: Aoife was asking where Dave and Kath’s room is; and why she couldn’t visit Dwight Silverwind. I look for Aoife’s sandals. Gone. Holly’s speaking but it’s like I’ve forgotten my English, it’s just vowels and consonants, and then she’s stopped, and is waiting for me to respond.