43
On the way home they stopped for dinner at a pub with dark varnished beams and flashing fruit machines. They found an empty table and ordered sausage and mash from the bar. The gas fire in the little saloon bar managed to throw out enough heat to make them drowsy. None of them felt inclined to speak, so they ate in silence.
‘Did you find your amber?’ Justin posed the question, through a mouthful of Agnes’s treacle pudding.
Peter reached into his pocket. ‘I guess I’ll have to come back. I found something that looks right, but I think it’s yellow quartz.’
Justin took the small yellowish stone from Peter. It looked as if you might see through it, but it was heavy and cold. Lifeless. He shrugged and gave it back.
They drove home in silence. Justin might have fallen asleep with Boy’s head in his lap, had it not been for the roaring of the motorway and the icy sliver of wind blowing down his neck through the loose window. Instead, he stared out into the blackness at the double pinpoints of light travelling in the opposite direction and thought about amber.
Warmth, he thought. And brilliance. Transparency. Timing too. Peter telling him what to look for.
Fifty-million-year-old sap.
Five minutes of illumination.
The sun at just the right height.
Chance.
A series of events, combined to make a coincidence.
Leading to a revelation.
He could have walked on that beach forever without noticing its treasures. Perhaps his past and future were also hidden somewhere on it, carved on to a single pebble, a Rosetta Stone with the key to the whole of his existence. Perhaps all the answers lay dormant somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
Justin thought of all the events of his life, collecting and dispersing like a handful of dust. Things happened and didn’t happen a billion times a second.
How many events add up to a coincidence?
How many coincidences add up to a conspiracy?
‘Justin?’ Agnes called softly, searching for eye contact in the rear mirror. ‘We’re nearly home. Peter’s fast asleep. Why are you so scrunched up in the corner?’
He didn’t talk to Agnes about Boy and so he didn’t answer, just frowned in the darkness. He stretched his cramped muscles as best he could without disturbing his dog.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ she said, her voice intimate, despite the rattling car. ‘I knew you’d like it there.’
He nodded again, but inside he felt hard and cold as quartz.
Of course you knew I’d like it. You know so much about me, so much more than I do. You know what’s real and what’s not. What’s useful and what’s not. What endures and what’s just for one night. So many things you know about me.
Agnes stopped the car in front of Peter’s house and he woke up immediately, the sudden absence of racket deafening. They all squeezed out of the car and stood, dazed and a little awkward, by the front gate.
‘Good night,’ said Agnes, kissing Peter on the cheek. But Justin backed away, afraid of the smell of her hair and the feel of her skin. The two boys began walking stiffly up the path.
‘Justin!’ called Agnes after him, and he turned back. ‘Justin, please don’t be angry with me.’ She caught up and took his arm, pulling him close. He didn’t move away and they remained at an impasse a few seconds too long, unable to move forward or back until finally Justin pulled free, dug a piece of amber out of his pocket and placed it in her hand, closing her fingers around it.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Amber.’ Warm and enduring like love, he thought, his heart contracting.
Before she could say anything, he had disappeared into the house. Agnes sat in the front seat of her little car with the amber in her hand for some time before starting the engine again.
Justin and Peter undressed at opposite ends of the room and turned off the lights without speaking. It was still early, but the long walk and salt air had left them feeling windswept and tired.
Peter fell asleep immediately and dreamt of a beach littered with fiery stones.
Justin returned to the warmth and safety of his rock pool and floated there weightless in the winter sunlight until dawn.