—
THE NEXT TIME she went into the kitchen there was a boy sitting at the table eating toast. Twelve years old, maybe twelve and a half. He looked like Jacob and he looked like Jill, and he had mad scientist hair that looked to be his own invention. She had to quickly pop back to the fifteenth century to find a word for how beautiful he was. The boy was makeless. From head to toe he couldn’t be equaled, the son she and Jacob hadn’t had time to have, their postwar baby. Having a kid of your own, yes, now she saw what all the fuss was about. “Thanks for opening the gherkin jar, my strong man,” she said, taking his other piece of toast. He could make more. He flexed his puny biceps and said: “You’re welcome.”
He was so new that all his clothes still had price tags attached; they looked the price tags over one by one: “Oh my god, how much? Thieves and bandits! This isn’t even going to fit you five minutes from now.” Her son rubbed her hands until they were warmer. She liked that, didn’t matter if he was just sucking up in the moments before he asked her for something. He wanted a skateboard, and launched into a list of reasons why she should let him have one, but she just said: “Yes. Stay there.” There was a fifty-pound note in her purse, and she went to get it. When she came back he was still there but a bit older now, about fifteen and a half, and he didn’t want a skateboard anymore, he wanted some video game console or other. She gave him all the cash she had on her and told him he’d have to get the rest from his dad.
Hugs, kisses; ah good, they’d raised him to be tactile. “You’re the best, Mum.”
“Yeah, yeah . . .”
He dried her sudden tears. “Don’t cry while I’m out, Mum.”
“You’re really coming back?”
“Yeah, but if you send me away I won’t.”
“I’m bloody well not sending you away.”
“Great. Bye for now then.” He threw his plate into the sink—more at the sink, no, really he threw the plate as if it were a Frisbee. But it did land in the sink. Sheer luck.
“Hang on . . . what’s your name?”
“Alex, innit.”
“Have you got friends? Who are your friends?”
He rolled his eyes, showed her a few photos on his phone, scrolled past certain other photos at lightning speed. “Mum, it’s almost twelve-thirty so . . . see you later, yeah?”
She didn’t bother listening for the front door this time. She wanted to say something to her husband about their son. She switched on her laptop and drafted an e-mail to Jacob with the subject line Have you seen what we made??? and plugged her headphones in instead of sending it. She played the third conversation they’d filmed. One question and one answer.
What’s the hottest time of day?
The answer, known only to them and hundreds of thousands of disciples of a certain K-pop band, was 2PM.
On-screen, Jacob waited for her question.
“Hey Jacob, what’s the hottest time of day?”
His reply: “The hottest time of day is 2PM.”
That niggled at her. Jill frowned. Actually two things bothered her—his having said, “The hottest time of day is 2PM” when the usual answer was simply “2PM,” and then there was the appearance of Vi’s hand in the shot. It was only there for a moment before it was withdrawn from the space in front of the lens with a barely audible “oops,” but Jill could see now that the waving hand was probably the reason why Jacob laughed a little as he talked his way back toward the answer (could be that he’d momentarily forgotten the question): “The hottest time of day is 2PM.”
Alex returned before she could replay the third conversation again. He was in his early twenties now, and was sporting chin stubble and red chinos. He didn’t grumble as much as she expected when she made her request that they just watch some telly together. He quite happily complied, putting his arm around the back of the sofa and keeping her warm that way. She didn’t have a clue what they were watching, but took the time to absorb every detail of his face so that later, when he was gone again and it was twelve-thirty at night, the man who looked like her and Jacob was superimposed on the darkness.
—
IN THE MORNING Alex came back in his late thirties with photos of his wife Amina and her granddaughter. Jill went down to the corner shop to try and prepare herself for her son’s arrival in her own decade of life. She hadn’t looked into the mirror before going out of the front door—Darren at the corner shop was shocked and asked her if she was OK. She told him she was fine, and asked about the date and time. It was four p.m. in the outside world, and a week and five days had passed since she’d begun testing Presence. Fox rain was falling (still?) and Jill said: “Time flies, time flies.” Darren asked her if she was OK again, and this time she asked him how he was. Darren was fine too, or so he said. Can’t complain . . . She bought some lip balm and went home.