Ruler of the Realm

Twenty-two

‘May I come in?’ Anais asked quietly. She was dressed in sweater and jeans and designer runners. Henry shrugged and turned away. He walked back to sit on the bed, not looking at her.

Anais closed the door and stood just inside the room. Out of the corner of his eye he could see she looked concerned, maybe even a bit frightened. But her voice was steady enough as she said, ‘Henry, we need to talk.’

He could imagine his mother saying the same thing. What it usually meant was Henry, you need to listen. After which his mother would tell what he’d done wrong, why he should never do it again and how he could do a lot better in the future. But, of course, this wasn’t his mum. This was the other woman in the house.

He shrugged again, staring at his feet, and said, ‘So talk.’

‘Do you think I might sit down?’ Anais asked lightly. She gave a little smile.

‘Nowhere to sit,’ Henry muttered. Which was true enough. The only chair in his room – an ancient sagging armchair – was so buried under junk it was scarcely visible.

‘I could sit beside you on the bed.’ Anais tilted her head to one side quizzically.

‘I don’t want you sitting beside me on the bed!’ Henry snapped. He suddenly felt furiously angry and fought to control it.

The smile disappeared. Anais said, ‘All right, I’ll stand. And I’ll talk. At least until you feel like it. I mostly wanted to say I’m sorry.’

It was the last thing he expected. He was so startled his anger disappeared and he actually looked at her.

She licked her lips and went on, ‘Henry, I know how difficult this must be for you -’

‘No, you don’t,’ Henry said quickly, his anger flaring again. ‘No you bloody, bloody don’t!’ He looked down at his feet again. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to cry.

‘No, I don’t,’ Anais agreed. Part of the trouble was she looked so pretty. And so young. And she was so nice. That was the real problem. He wanted to hate her. He really, really wanted to hate her and she was so nice he just couldn’t. Nicer than his mother, that was for sure. He couldn’t imagine what Anais saw in her.

‘Of course, I don’t,’ Anais was saying. ‘But I do know you must be feeling awful. I wish you weren’t, but there’s not much I can do about that. But, Henry, running away isn’t the answer.’

‘I didn’t run away,’ Henry said. ‘I just stayed over at Charlie’s.’ He glared at her defiantly. ‘I’ve done it before.’

‘Henry,’ Anais said patiently, ‘you didn’t stay at Charlie’s. It was the first place we checked. She said you wanted to stay, but they had cousins or something and there wasn’t a spare bed. She was worried about you too.’

Bet she was, Henry thought. He’d just told her he’d been seeing fairies. What he hated was the way Anais said we as if she and Mum were an item. Which they were, of course, but he didn’t need to have his nose rubbed in it.

‘Did you call Dad?’ he asked.

Anais blinked. ‘Not right away,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘Why not?’ Henry demanded. ‘Didn’t you even think I might be staying with him?’

Anais said, ‘But you weren’t?’

‘No, I wasn’t, but that’s not the point. The point is you all got so worried and none of you, not Mum, not you, thought the first thing you should do was ring up Dad. Well, did you?’

Now Anais was looking down at her feet. ‘No.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘That was wrong. You’re right, Henry: that was very wrong. But sometimes people just… do the wrong things. We were worried. We didn’t know what had happened. You were gone for three days and we were frantic. Your mother loves you, Henry. I love you -’

‘Don’t you say you -’ Henry began furiously, then stopped. ‘I wasn’t away for three days.’

Anais moved across and sat beside him on the bed anyway. She looked into his eyes and reached over to take both his hands. ‘Yes, you were, Henry. That’s the whole point. We were out of our minds with worry – everybody was. Charlotte said you walked her home and then went off to go home yourself. She thought you caught the last bus. But that was Tuesday. Today’s Saturday.’

‘Today’s not Saturday,’ Henry whispered. For no reason he was suddenly feeling afraid.

‘What was it?’ Anais asked him quietly. ‘Were you doing drugs?’

‘I wasn’t doing drugs!’ Henry hissed. ‘I’ve never done drugs!’ He couldn’t have been away three days. It was just last night he’d missed the bus. Just last night.

There was something wrong. Not just confusion. Henry blinked several times and shook his head to clear it. He felt as if he really had been doing drugs. Something was happening to reality. The whole room was swimming around him. He looked at his hands to try to steady himself. They were clasped in Anais’s small, well-groomed hands with bright red varnish on her nails. But his hands in her hands were disappearing.

Henry watched with horrified fascination. His hands were crumbling into tiny sparkles like a special effect. He felt a growing nausea. He raised his eyes to look at Anais’s face. It was fading to white. And suddenly Henry was fading too.

He thought he must be dying.