We Own the Sky(91)

George’s Cross hanging from his neighbor’s window. As I’m parking the car, some children who were playing football on the green stop and stare at me, scoping me out. I stare back, puffing myself up, so they might think I’m the debt collector, someone not to be messed with. And then, just as I am about to turn away and go through Nev’s gate, I see him.

I know instantly that it is Josh. He is playing football and his blond hair flows behind him, as he ducks and weaves and spins, head and shoulders above the rest. He looks out of place in the group, hunched under their hoodies, pinching drags between goals. I cannot stop watching as he rounds three players and then fakes out the goalkeeper before effortlessly sliding the ball between two gas cans.

I have looked at his photos enough times to know the exact color of his hair, the shape of his slightly rounded shoulders. Even though he has grown, I recognize his shy smile, how his hair flops over his face as he walks back to his teammates.

I have seen that smile before. A photo of Nev and Josh standing next to the Angel of the North. I have to stop myself, but I want to walk up to him, to see and touch this miracle boy. I want to hold his face in my hands, to feel the warm flush of his skin. I wave to him, but he doesn’t see me, doesn’t wave back.

The gate to Nev’s house is broken and needs to be lifted off the ground before it will open. I ring the doorbell and wait. Next to the door, there are some children’s shoes, trainers and blue rain boots, mud encrusted on the soles. Him and his little one.

I recognize the man who opens the door. It is definitely the Nev I have spoken to, who I have seen in the photos and videos, but it is not the Nev I remember.

His face is drawn, unshaved, his body gaunt, like a malnourished alcoholic. His jeans hang loosely off his hips, and there are holes in the elbows of his gray Fruit of the Loom sweatshirt. He seems thinner, older, like a man in his seventies wearing the clothes he wore when he was young. His lips are dry and chapped, and he swipes specks of dandruff from his shoulders.

“Hello, can I help?”

His accent is thick, much thicker than I remember when we spoke on the

phone. I notice his eyes flicker over my shoulder, toward the kids on the green.

“Nev?”

He pauses, and I think I see a flash of fear in his eyes.

“Yes, can I help you, mate?” Maaate. Long Lancashire vowels, a reminder that I was far from home.

“It’s Rob, Jack’s dad,” I say brightly. His face does not change, and I am not sure he remembers me. “Would you mind if we talked for a few minutes?”

Nev looks me up and down. The porch smells a little musty, like a

greenhouse, and in the corner there are stacks of free newspapers and a crumpled delivery cart.

“All right then,” Nev says, holding the door open.

Inside, the house is immaculate, a little oasis from the street outside. A worn but clean sofa, a fireplace and a mantelpiece, without a speck of dust. There are children’s books neatly piled in the corner, and through the doors to the kitchen I can see a child’s painting stuck to the fridge.

I sit down on the sofa and Nev takes a small hard chair in the corner. For a moment we don’t speak. Behind him on a shelf there is a collection of marble-white figurines of angels and galloping horses. They are arranged in perfect symmetry, like a silent ceramic army.

“I don’t remember you... I don’t think so, I don’t think I do,” Nev says. He looks diminutive in the corner, forlorn, like a man captured on film by a pedophile hunter.

“It’s okay. I know you wrote to lots of people. We spoke on the phone once a couple of years ago and exchanged emails. My son was Jack.”

Nothing, not even a flash of recognition. I know he wrote to lots of people.

But we had exchanged so many messages. I told him everything, about Jack’s treatment, my relationship with Anna. And now it seems like I am talking to a different person.

“We went to Prague for treatment, but my wife didn’t want to continue,” I say, hoping it would jog his memory. “Jack died not long after we came back.”

“Oh, very sorry about that,” Nev says, but it is as if he is somewhere else, listening to a different conversation. His words were choppy, sputtered out.

“How did you know where to find the house like?”

“Just asked around,” I say, and Nev starts to speak but there is a shout from outside as something, a football I think, hits one of the front windows. Nev does not move in his chair, as if it has happened many times before.

“Is that Josh out there playing football?” I ask. “The blond boy.”

Nev’s eyes dart to the window, and then he sits back in his chair. He does not speak for a moment, and it is as if the words are difficult for him to say, as if he is trying to overcome a stutter. On the coffee table, I can see some cheaply made flyers. Nev Barnes. No Job Too Small. Painting, Gardening, Odd Jobs. Call: 01632 532676.

“No, that’s not him,” he says after a while. “I think I know the one you mean, though. The lanky lad.”

I think about the boy outside, slotting the ball between the gas cans, sweeping his long blond hair out of his face. It was Josh; I was sure it was Josh.

Nev is motionless. One of the angels holds his attention for a moment, as if he notices that it has a speck of dust on its wing.

Suddenly, he stands up from his seat and takes a few paces toward me, and he is on edge now, tapping his legs with his hands, a red rash spreading across his neck.