I Was Born for This(86)

‘Part of you?’

‘Without you … without The Ark … all I have is my dull life. You’re one of the few things I had in my life that was good and true. You’re part of my truth.’

He blinks. ‘You’re part of mine too.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yeah.’

He looks up. I follow his gaze and find him staring at the wall of photographs, his childhood and his parents and his whole life.

‘Does this place still feel like home?’ I ask him.

He nods. ‘Yeah.’

‘You must miss it a lot. And your grandad.’

He nods again. ‘Yeah.’ He looks at me. ‘My grandad gave me the knife for my sixteenth birthday. I know it’s stupid to carry it around, but it reminds me so much of home.’

He reaches into his back pocket, only to make a vaguely panicked face, and withdraw his hand, empty.

‘Must still be in my jeans from yesterday,’ he mumbles.

No wonder he wanted it back so desperately.

‘Is it an antique?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, it was my great-grandad’s.’

There’s a silence, and then he stands up abruptly from the sofa, his hand clenching and unclenching by his side.

‘I’m just … gonna go get it,’ he says.

I watch him exit the room. I glance back at the photographs on the wall, then get up to have a look, peering at the sepia photographs to find one labelled ‘Angelo Ricci’. I finally lay eyes on a man with high cheekbones, dark doe eyes, and a lost expression.

He looks just like Jimmy.

The sound of Jimmy’s voice draws me out of the room. I wander into the hallway, only for Jimmy to storm past me, followed by Piero, shaking his head.

‘I don’t understand,’ says Jimmy. ‘You must have taken it out of my jeans pocket and put it somewhere.’ He halts by a radiator in the middle of the hallway, where the jeans he wore yesterday are drying. He pats them down, but his knife clearly isn’t there.

Piero chuckles. ‘I haven’t seen it, lad! I know I’m old but my memory isn’t failing me that badly quite yet.’

‘Well, that’s the last place I had it. In my jeans. Which I took off last night and you put on the radiator this morning.’

‘Could you have dropped it outside somewhere?’

‘No, I had it last night! In my room! And it’s not there either!’

Rowan steps into the hallway. He’s got a coat on, phone in one hand, and looks like he’s just about to leave.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

Jimmy stuffs his jeans back onto the radiator. ‘It’s gone.’

‘What’s gone?’

Jimmy doesn’t answer. He just walks back down the hallway and disappears into his bedroom.

Juliet and Bliss appear behind Rowan, looking confused.

Piero sighs. ‘He’s lost his knife.’

Bliss’s eyes widen. ‘Knife? Wait, that family heirloom thing? Shit. Rowan told me about that. What does he want it for?’

‘It’s important to him,’ I pipe up, and everyone looks at me. Rowan frowns at me, apparently still very annoyed that I’m here.

‘Well,’ says Rowan, ‘me and Lister are leaving now.’ He peers down the hallway towards the bathroom and shouts, ‘Allister! We’re going now!’

Wait … they’re going?

They’re leaving Jimmy behind?

Lister fails to materialise, but Jimmy appears again out of his bedroom, looking markedly more ruffled than when he went in.

‘It’s not there,’ he says. His fists are curled tight and his eyes are moving frantically around the hallway, searching the dark corners and nooks.

‘It’ll turn up,’ says Rowan.

Jimmy stops suddenly, and looks at him.

‘You took it,’ Jimmy says.

‘What?’

‘Didn’t you?’ Jimmy steps closer to him. ‘You took my knife.’





Rowan has taken my knife. It’s gone from my bedside table. He must have seen it in my bedroom when he came to wake me up, or maybe later when we were talking in here, and decided that it’d be best if he took it away for good.

He overreacted. Typical Rowan. He turned up to the house thinking I’d had a massive breakdown and was now a danger to myself, and the first thing he saw when he stormed into my room this morning was the knife on my bedside table. So he took it.

That has to be it. That has to be it.

‘Are you having a fucking joke?’ Rowan shakes his head. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘My knife has gone. You’re the only one who would take it.’

‘Why would I take it?’ Rowan says. ‘I don’t even want to touch that thing.’ He looks around. ‘Come on. Why would I take it?’

Why is he lying?

‘Piero!’ Rowan gestures at Grandad, who is leaning against the hallway wall, arms folded. ‘You must have taken it off him, yeah?’

Grandad shakes his head, baffled. ‘No, no. It’s not mine to take.’

Rowan drops his hand.

‘Jimmy, you can search me; I swear I don’t have it—’

‘Just give it back!’ I shout.