The Fandom(51)

‘I know,’ I snap. If I don’t get Willow to fall for me, we’re stuck here. If I do get Willow to fall me, I end up pirouetting on a rope. I think I’m about to start crying. ‘Don’t pile on any more pressure, OK? I feel like I’m about to crack as it is.’ I suddenly long for Katie’s grounded presence, to hear her gentle Scouse voice telling me everything’s going to be OK.

Nate sits beside me. ‘But Willow said the thing about the last dance?’

‘Yeah. And I said that cheeseball line about dancing shoes.’

‘OK, so that’s when we get it back on track.’ Nate smiles, like he’s the older sibling again. ‘Don’t worry, sis. It was a rubbish first kiss scene anyway. Behind a stable? Come on now, Sally, sort it out.’

Ash enters the Imp-hut. He looks tired, the blue of his eyes somehow dimmed, his skin almost grey. But when he sees me, the tiredness lifts and his oversized smile explodes across his face. ‘You ready for another night of hard labour?’ he asks.

I swing my legs from my bunk, sending a shower of straw on to the floor. ‘Always.’

‘I’ll come too,’ Nate says.

The smile never drops from Ash’s face, but I can tell from the firmness in his voice he isn’t about to argue. ‘Sorry, buddy. It’s a two-man job.’

‘Yeah, I bet it is,’ Nate says.

I accidently-on-purpose clip Nate with my boot heel as I dismount from the bunk.

Stepping out into the night with Ash feels good. In canon, Rose and Ash spent several nights together, working on the estate. But most of these scenes were alluded to in the book and never made it into the film, so there’s no script even if I wanted one. Surprisingly, this thought leaves me feeling relieved – I don’t have to say the right thing or stand in the right way.

We cut around the back of the hut and into the meadows. Without the heady scent of pollen, the air seems a little lighter, cleaner.

‘Why don’t you sleep on the estate?’ I ask. ‘In the hut with the rest of us? Why do you go back to the city every day?’ I remember Willow calling the Imp-bus the big old car thing, and I wince.

‘It’s my home.’ He kicks a stray fir cone from his path and it bounces off a squat stone wall.

‘But it’s so dirty and unclean.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s what I know. It’s where my family live.’

There’s no place like home. I get this aching in my gut. ‘Have you ever had any trouble crossing the border?’

He shrugs. ‘Yeah. Once I tried to smuggle out some supplies for Ma. This guard found them.’

I study his profile, almost silver beneath the moon. ‘What happened?’

‘They took the supplies and beat me unconscious.’

My knees seem to jam up. I turn to face him. ‘Were you OK?’

He rubs my upper arm like I’m the one who needs comfort. ‘Yeah. It was lucky I passed out. They didn’t bother shooting me and when I woke up, I somehow managed to crawl back home.’

‘That’s awful.’ I feel anger pushing through me in waves.

‘That’s the Gems.’

I think of Willow again, his perfect mouth forming those hateful words: It’s just the way it’s always been. I begin to feel very guilty for trying to kiss him behind the stable.

‘What about you?’ Ash asks.

‘Yeah. Nearly, but this Symp stepped in.’ I feel my cheeks fill with blood, and I fold my arms across my chest.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Thanks. What were the supplies for?’

‘Just basic things – antiseptic, bandages. Stuff for Ma.’

‘Do you ever help her?’ I ask.

‘Deliver babies, you mean?’

I nod. Deliver babies. He makes it sounds so simple, so clean, like the postman just turns up and hands over a baby with a stamp on its head. But there will be no medication, no antiseptic or equipment. I bet it’s horrific.

‘Yeah, sometimes I help. I mostly just hand her a wet cloth and clean up the mess. General dogsbody.’

‘You must see some pretty scary things.’

He smiles. ‘Did I ever tell you how I got my name?’

I shake my head. More backstory King didn’t write, but it doesn’t feel like a backstory any more, it feels like something real and human. Something I desperately want to know.

He stares at the moon as though trying to remember. ‘So Ma laboured for hours before she had me. The midwife, this old lady from the other street, kept Ma calm by singing old nursery rhymes. Do you know the thistle counting song?’

‘No.’

‘Seriously? You didn’t used to skip to it as a kid?’

‘Never.’

He launches into the rhyme:

‘Count the thistles, one, two, three,

Soon the Imps will all be free.

Count the thistles, four, five, six,

Take up your guns, your stones and sticks.

The ash trees turn from green to red,

Spring has gone, the summer’s dead.’

He looks a little embarrassed. ‘Anyway, I came out with the cord wrapped around my neck, not breathing. Ma thought I was dead, but the midwife untangled the cord and smacked me on the back. She kept on singing the whole time. Ma swears I gasped my first little breath just as she heard the word ash. That’s why she decided to become a midwife – to replace the old lady when she died.’