All Sorts of Possible (8 page)

‘Thank you,’ whispered Daniel.

And Mason beamed. Slapped him on the shoulder.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘He’s being kept in a coma for now,’ said Daniel as he sat beside the bed. He clutched his father’s hand tight because he was afraid that death might
drag him away at any moment like it had done with Lawson.

Mason nodded approvingly. ‘So the papers say. I saw a piece about you both on the local news too.’ He clamped a big hand round Daniel’s shoulder and squeezed gently, like a
caring uncle might, then leant forward to observe the calm face looking up at him from the pillow. ‘I’m jealous he’s getting so much rest. It’s hard work being
me.’

Mason slumped into the chair opposite, lifting up his feet and placing one over the other on the bed. The pale leather soles of his black shoes were dimpled with black and green marks. He smiled
and waved to the nurse at her station and she looked away.

‘How much do you think a nurse gets paid?’ Daniel shrugged. ‘
Not enough
is the right answer.’ And Mason sighed as if he was managing all the worries of the
world.

‘What do you want?’ asked Daniel quietly.

‘Blimey, how long have you got?’ Mason laughed at his own joke and then he plucked the silver signet ring from his pocket and held it up, his right eye scrunching tight and the other
one staring through it at Daniel. ‘I want you to tell me where my briefcase of money is for starters.’

‘I’m not like Lawson.’

‘Neither of us is. Not now.’ Mason turned and looked through the ring at Daniel’s father like a jeweller inspecting something of great value. ‘Not even your
dad.’

‘I didn’t do anything to Lawson,’ replied Daniel softly. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

Mason hid the ring in a big fist. He looked around the room and then smiled and nodded as if another person was sitting to his left. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re
talking about, officer. The last time I saw Mr Lawson he was with a boy about so high with mousey brown hair. I recognized him too, you know; he was the one who fell down that sinkhole. The one in
the papers. Sad business that. And with his dad too. Do anyone’s head in, something like that. Least it would me. Send me la-la. I might go and see a psychic too, a charlatan like Lawson, a
defrocked vicar who dabbled in the occult, to try and find some hope in such an awful situation. Anyway, officer, maybe you should speak to the boy if you’re looking for Lawson.’

Mason grinned at Daniel, pleased with himself as he rubbed at an itch through his trouser leg. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I think that means we have an understanding, don’t
you?’ He raised his eyebrows and waited for Daniel to say something, but the boy kept quiet. ‘Marvellous. So tell me again about you and Lawson, how it worked.’

‘I don’t know any more than what you saw or what we told you.’

Mason licked his top front teeth like they were made of barley sugar. ‘Then run it by me again. Let’s see where we go from there.’

‘Lawson told me we could make the fit. He said I could help him do things he hadn’t done before. I don’t know anything about it except there’s something inside me. Right
here.’ Daniel tapped his chest. ‘Lawson plugged into it like a power cord, and when he did I could feel it happening, warm and golden inside me.’

Mason’s mouth flickered. ‘And that felt good, you said.’

‘Yes. Like everything felt better all of a sudden. Like the fit was something really special and meant to be.’

Mason nodded and then his eyes narrowed. ‘But whatever happened to Lawson means you didn’t fit as well as he thought?’

‘I don’t know why. One moment it was all OK and then the next it . . .’ Daniel tried not to remember how it had been or what had happened to Lawson. He put his hands together
to stop them shaking. ‘It just shut off,’ he said quietly.

Mason tutted. ‘I told you Lawson was my go-to guy for the weird. The strange. Whatever you want to call it.’ He raised his hands and clasped the back of his head. ‘So I guess
that means now you are, Daniel my boy.’ When Daniel looked up at him, Mason just shrugged. ‘You’re going to fill the vacancy on my books.’

‘But I’m not like Lawson. I told you I can’t do the things he could. I can’t tell you where your money is.’

‘So find someone else like him. Someone who can plug into you like Lawson did. Somebody else to make a fit with, but a better one.’

‘I don’t know anyone like that.’ Daniel felt a black panic rising in his stomach that was making it difficult to breathe. He glanced at his dad and wished he would wake up so
everything could be normal again. But the machines just went on blipping and beeping and his father lay there as if nothing untoward was happening at all.

‘You’ll find someone,’ announced Mason. ‘I have every faith in you, Daniel. There are other psychics in the world. My mum was one. She did things you would never believe.
And believing it all keeps me top of the pile because people in my line of business tend to be cynical about such things. Lawson was a marvel who helped me no end, bless his cotton socks.’
Mason clicked his teeth as if he was remembering a favourite pet and then sat back in the chair. ‘I’ll give you three days to find someone else.’

Daniel shook his head. His body drooped as he turned away.

‘Look at me, Daniel.’ And Daniel dragged his eyes back to the man. ‘You want your dad to wake up, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I want my money back, which means we can do a deal.’

‘You can’t do anything to help my dad.’

‘No I can’t.’ Mason’s big hands made a boulder in his lap. ‘But
you
can keep him safe while he’s lying here by working for me.’ Mason smiled
when Daniel’s jaw began to tick. ‘So that’s what you’re going to do. You lost me a good man, someone I relied on to help with certain things, little projects of mine. So
it’s only fair you take up the slack. Lawson was using his talents to search for something very special I want. An antique flask. So, as soon as you find someone to make a fit with and locate
my money, then I’m hoping you can get a fix on that flask too. The money can just be a test. A way for you to learn more about this fit and how it works. You want to know as much as you can,
don’t you? About this talent of yours?’

Mason braced himself against the chair and something in his spine crackled. ‘Course you do. Back at the house, you and Lawson mentioned making the fit to help your father. So don’t
try telling me you don’t want to find someone else now that Lawson’s gone.’

Mason moved forward to the edge of his seat and inspected Daniel’s father again, tutting and shaking his head.

‘If your dad has to stay on a ventilator after the doctors try to wake him up, they’ll start asking questions about what’s best for him. They’ll want to know what he
would want to happen and talk to you about what’s in his best interests. They’ll listen to you. But it’ll be their decision about what to do, not yours. They have the power of
life and death.’

Mason sat back in his chair and grinned like a toad. ‘I’ve seen how it happens on those documentaries on the telly. I’ve got a plasma screen. Fifty-two inch. You can learn
anything watching that. I love tucking into a takeaway in front of it and expanding more than just my mind.’ He slapped his gut. ‘So how about it, you working for me for a bit? Finding
my money? That antique flask too? And helping your dad. We can both get what we want, Daniel.’

The boy stared at Mason, saying nothing.

‘Tell you what,’ suggested Mason brightly. ‘You find someone and I’ll break the bad news to them, tell them they’ll be working for me too, do the hard part for you.
I’m good at that. Telling people what to do.’

Daniel shifted in his chair, but stayed silent.

‘I’ll take that as a resounding yes then, shall I?’ Mason tousled Daniel’s father’s hair. ‘You’ve got a good son there. Isn’t that right, Daniel?
You’re a good lad, aren’t you? Do what you’re told.’

Daniel looked from Mason’s grin to his father’s soft white face. ‘Yeah,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m a good lad.’

Mason nodded. And then his voice dropped. ‘Stay away from Lawson’s house. There’s no need for you to go back there now.’ He kept staring until Daniel nodded that he had
understood. ‘Good lad.’ And Mason clapped his hands and laughed. ‘See!’ he shouted at Daniel’s father. ‘I told you!’

His aunt was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea. The sink was a bright tub of chrome. Daniel could smell the bleach. There were lilies on the old oak table, sitting in a
tall green vase he had never seen before.

It was like coming back to her house not his.

‘We’re going to have to get you another cellphone,’ she said, pulling the sleeve of her cardigan down over her watch. ‘I was getting worried. You’ve been out all
day.’

‘Me and Bennett lost track of time.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve got someone you can speak to. I’d worry if you didn’t.’

Daniel stayed sitting at the table as she prepared supper because he did not want to be alone. He watched as she went round the kitchen, never going to the wrong cupboard or drawer for anything,
which made it seem even more like her house. They talked about her work in California. She said she had her own start-up that could tick along without her so she could be in Cambridge for the whole
of the rest of the summer holidays if necessary.

‘What’s it like there?’ asked Daniel as they sat down to eat.

‘Maybe you’ll come see for yourself one day.’

Daniel kept asking as many questions as he could think up about her life on the other side of the world because, whenever there was a lull in the conversation, he imagined Mason peering in
through the window, grinning at him, or Lawson lying on the floor beside him, the bloody stump of his arm raised.

‘What’s wrong,’ asked his aunt when she noticed Daniel staring at his empty plate yet again.

‘Nothing. I’m just tired.’ He pinched a lily petal between his fingers and felt how smooth and delicate it was. ‘We’ve never had flowers before,’ he said.

His aunt just smiled and nodded and then she cleared her throat. ‘I had a call from the hospital today, updating me on your father. There’s been no change. But then I suppose you
know that. The charge nurse said you went to see him. She said you looked so sad sitting there on your own.’

Daniel nodded, remembering how Mason had whispered something to the nurse at her station to make her laugh before handing over a fold of twenty-pound notes and telling her he wasn’t really
there. It made a lock click shut in his stomach, trapping everything about Mason inside him.

‘Daniel, did you really see your friend today? I’m only asking because I don’t want to think you can’t be here with me, that you’re uncomfortable with me being
around.’

Daniel put his hands flat on the table to help himself breathe. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see Bennett. I’m sorry I lied.’

‘So what did you do all day?’

‘I just mooched around town,’ he said quietly, his toes flexing so tight inside his trainers he thought the seams might pop.

‘On your own?’

Daniel nodded.

Before she could ask anything else, the phone rang and Daniel sprang up to answer it and listened for a moment, and then shouted down the line in a rage that it was nothing to do with miracles
at all, that he had been cursed instead, before slamming the receiver back down in its cradle.

‘I’m having the number changed,’ said his aunt. ‘They just keep ringing.’ She poured another glass of red wine and took a sip. Cleared her throat. ‘Daniel, it
doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Let people believe what they want about what happened. All that matters is you. How
you
process it. So you can start to come to terms with it
all.’

‘I don’t know why any of it happened.’

His aunt nodded as if she understood. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how terrible it must have been for you down there. But if you want to talk to me, about anything, then you can
because it’s not healthy keeping everything bottled up. It’ll rot you on the inside. That’s what bad experiences do. Hollow you out and fill you up with all the questions you can
never answer.’

She reached forward and lifted up his dirty plate and stacked it on to hers. ‘We’re family, Daniel. We’re all we’ve got. So we need to stick together. If you want to tell
me anything, you can.’

‘I don’t think I’m ready to talk just yet,’ he said, picking a loose thread from the edge of the tablecloth.

When Daniel clicked his bedroom door shut, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and placed his hand on his chest, trying to feel for the secret space that Lawson had shown
him. But there was only the thump of his heart and his serried ribs, like the rungs of a ladder leading to somewhere mysterious inside him.

After finally falling asleep, he dreamt of a world where death was a long sleep from which everyone awoke, wide-eyed and smiling, with all the answers to how the world works and how to live
peacefully and well.
You have to die to know
, they said when Daniel asked them the secret to being happy, for they had all sworn not to tell a single person the truth.

Bennett was all tanned after his holiday. It looked like his teeth and the whites of his eyes had been freshly painted. He was goose-stepping over puddles on the path, making
every cloud in them shimmer, as Daniel wheeled his bike beside him, talking everything through, right up to the day before with Mason.

‘So?’ asked Daniel when he had finished. ‘What do you think?’

Bennett stopped to peer down at his reflection in a puddle, a cigarette between finger and thumb.

‘What do
you
think?’ asked Bennett, bending closer to the water as if expecting his reflection to answer for him. When it didn’t, he sighed and shook his head and
looked up at Daniel. ‘That you can’t tell anyone else about Mason, but then you know that already. Also, that you should be glad you’re not me. Because I’m the one
who’s supposed to tell you everything’s going to be OK. But I can’t do that. I can’t lie. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be acting like a best friend should. It wouldn’t
be me.’