All material on this site, except where otherwise explicitly stated, is copyright of the author known as Ann Somerville. All art, except where otherwise explicitly stated, is copyright of the artist known as Kiriko Moth

  Slipping under

Copyright © 2006 Ann Somerville

“Fuck you, you pointless little tosser!”

The line went dead. I laid the receiver down with a sigh and rubbed my temples. Support calls by phone so often went badly. The users who sent reports in by email usually had a higher level of technical knowledge – phones were for the technophobes. Often by the time I got the report, our customers were already wound up and angry, and whatever I said wouldn’t change that. If the problem was that the customer wouldn’t follow instructions, and they wouldn’t listen to what I had to say either, the problem would never go away.

I duly made a note in the file that contact had been made, assistance offered, and that the customer had declined. I had a pile of twenty files on my desk, half with similar notes, and as many requests again in my in-box. I preferred email, because then I didn’t have to listen to them not listening to me.

I logged out, collected the files and went downstairs in the lift, carefully avoiding eye contact with Smith-Hetherington from Personnel, who’d never been the same after I had listed Jeremy as my next of kin. He said nothing to me as I got out on the third floor – anyone would think I was the only gay employee in the place. I knew I wasn’t.

Janice the receptionist didn’t look up as I dropped the files in her basket. “Goodnight,” I said, picking up my coat. She grunted something unintelligible. I tried to remember the last time she’d actually spoken to me of her own volition. Christmas party two years ago? She’d got very drunk and very cuddly and I was the only man she hadn’t kissed. Come to think of it, I thought she’d probably snogged more women than men that night. Another occupant for the company closet. It was probably big enough to hold board meetings in.

Outside it was snowing, the traffic ground almost to standstill. As I stood in the queue, the squash of bodies got a little more intense as the snow turned to sleet, everyone hunching under the inadequate shelter. The arrival of two buses, of no use to me, only relieved the pressure a little. After twenty minutes, I finally spotted my bus inching its way through the crawling traffic. The passengers shifted forward, sniffing victory, relief from their misery at hand.

And then I remembered. Groceries.

“Oh fucking hell!”

No one blinked – too many crazy people in London for anyone to care about a single swear word in this weather. Cursing my stupidity again, I forced my way out of the press and towards bloody Tesco’s. I’d have given anything to be able to leave this until tomorrow, but we were completely out of milk, bread and food for supper.

Tesco’s was heaving too, people killing time hoping the snow and sleet would let up. Some hope. I got what I could carry, resolved yet again to make sure I organised the internet shop in time next time, and waited while the checkout girl managed to process thirty quids’ worth of food without looking at me once, though I did learn a less than fascinating amount about her own shopping plans as discussed with her colleague in the next counter. Her chip and pin was broken, so I signed – I could have written ‘Mickey Mouse’ for all the checking she did, though I almost pushed my debit card in her face to encourage her to do so. I’d had my wallet stolen two years ago, and the thief had run up a thousand pounds on the credit card before the company managed to stop it, so I wasn’t happy with this casual attitude. I thought about complaining, and thought it would just go in one much-pierced ear and out the other. “Thank you,” I said, with only a smidgen of sarcasm, but she was already passing a pack of tampons across the scanner, my brief presence in her life not even a blip on her mental radar.

There’s an art to standing on an overfull bus in London which involves having your face directly in someone else’s – or their bum, their armpit or even their crotch – without ever actually seeing them, or them seeing you. It’s acceptable to smile apologetically if a sudden braking manoeuvre throws you hard against someone, but you have to be careful not to speak or initiate conversation because that moves you from the ‘fellow sufferer’ category directly into ‘creepy git’, and no one wants to be the creepy guy on a crowded bus. I’d mastered this trick years ago, and could now handle even the full collapse of a heavily obese woman complete with backpack onto my knee with only a murmured ‘Sorry, are you all right?’ and a wan smile. Offering to stand unless the woman is pregnant also moved you into ‘creepy git’ territory, so I didn’t do that either.

The bus took an hour and a half to cover a twenty-five minute route. I was starving, cold and well pissed off by the time I unlocked our front door. Jeremy was in his office – I’d seen the lights on as I walked towards our flat – and didn’t come down to see who was breaking in. In the end, I’d not done much better than bloody pizza – packet pasta, pre-fab sauce, and a bag of salad. Not exactly hearty winter fare, but anything more complicated seemed too much trouble.

“Food’s up!” I yelled up the stairs, then served out the pasta onto Jeremy’s plate.

I waited to see if he was going to come down, but clearly he wasn’t, so I took it up. He was still staring at the screen as I walked in. “Supper,” I said. He just grunted, so I put it on the desk – on top of books and papers, but there was no choice, and by now, I knew where was safe to stack plates. “Project still giving you trouble?”

“I’m busy, Euan,” he snapped. “I’ve got the...yes, sorry, Frank, friend came in. Can you repeat?”

Shit – I hadn’t noticed the earpiece. He was working on a multinational video game marketing project and having to work across three time zones, he spent more time on the phone than off these days. I bent and kissed the top of his head in apology. “Sorry,” I whispered. He waved me off in annoyance, still concentrating on ‘Frank’. I glanced at his screen, vaguely curious as to what he was working on right now, but it was dimmed. I started to turn away – but then I frowned. There was something peculiar about the screen. Jeremy’s reflection was clear on the dark glass, but...I wasn’t, even though I was just behind him. I reached over to rub at the screen.

“Euan!” He slapped my hand down.

“Sorry.” He shot me a irritated look, then turned around with a determined set to his shoulders. Leave me alone, he was saying.

Unnerved by what I’d seen and by having annoyed him, I went along the hall to the bathroom, not really sure what I was checking. I switched the light on, and with a weird sense of impending doom, I walked in front of the basin, and the little mirror above it. It was ridiculous how relieved I was to see my own face there. It had been a trick of the light in Jeremy’s dank little office, nothing more. I reached over to turn the light off again, amused by my own silliness. My arm moved in the reflection just as I expected – only...I could see the glint of the fluorescent light on the towel rail behind it. Through my arm.

“Fuck,” I whispered. I held my hand up in front of my face – and dimly, through the reflected flesh of my fingers, I could see my dark hair, the lighter skin of my ear. I dropped my hand quickly. This was stupid. People weren’t transparent!

I turned off the light and hurried downstairs, ignoring glimpses of my reflection in windows and the hall mirror. In the kitchen, I leaned against the counter, panting, swallowing back my terror, trying to rationalise what I’d just seen. I was tired, that was all. A bitch of a day, a lousy trip home, and.... That was it! I hadn’t eaten yet! I was feeling hollow, so I was imagining I was hollow.

The pasta was cooling, and not particularly good, but eating it gave me a sense of solidity, no pun intended. I decided that our diet lately had become atrocious, and along with the lack of exercise, long nights, and lousy weather, it was no wonder I was hallucinating. At least I could fix my diet.

Having calmed down, I felt up to doing the internet shop I should have done two days ago. My laptop screen didn’t reflect anything, so the fact it didn’t reflect me wasn’t strange – so I told myself. I enriched Tesco’s coffers by placing a huge order on their site, and emailed Jeremy to tell him to expect it tomorrow – leaving notes in the kitchen didn’t work, as I’d found to my cost, and I knew if I went in to remind him he’d be pissed off at me, and forget it anyway. I really hoped this project would be over with soon. I barely saw him these days.

The shopping done, it was another exciting night in front of the television for me. A documentary about Morocco on the Beeb reminded me that once upon a time we’d had plans to travel around Africa and the Middle East on a motorbike. He’d been quite keen, I recalled – funny, he never mentioned it at all now. We were going to buy a Honda Goldwing and tour all over, just the two of us. Instead, he’d landed a contract with a developer in East London, I’d got a job in the west end, and we’d put down the cost of the Goldwing as a deposit on our flat. Five years we’d been mortgage holders. It was nice to own our place. But looking at the images of Fez, knowing it was probably going to be a city I would never see for myself – one of so many places I would probably never see – made me wonder if a roof over my head was worth selling out my dreams for.

I couldn’t delay going to bed forever, however cowardly I was feeling as the time approached to clean my teeth. The mirror in the bathroom was still trying to tell me I was see-through. “Atmospheric conditions,” I told it with all the authority of a man with a first class degree in English, and then went to bed.

I didn’t know if Jeremy joined me that night – he had a couch in his room, and he’d slept on it before, because he didn’t want to disturb me. He was gone when I got up, his office door firmly closed. I’d hoped he might be able to reassure me, but I supposed it was just as well I hadn’t tried to explain something so weird to him. He wasn’t much for ‘mystical crap’ – neither was I but yet it was happening to me. Still happening to me, so the mirror said when I took a shower. “Stop it,” I told it. The glass mutely ignored me.

My murky reflection was everywhere, but dirty bus windows and wet shop fronts weren’t reliable. I tried to stop myself obsessing. Vitamins, I told myself, thinking of all the fruit and veg I’d ordered. And more exercise. I got off two stops early and walked briskly through the milling, uncaring masses along to my building.

“Good morning,” I said to Janice. I didn’t think she heard me. She never looked up, anyway.

The pile of files on my desk had doubled overnight, and there were several dozen emails to deal with. I dealt with them first – I couldn’t handle actual people in the morning. I needed to work up to them.

I emailed Jeremy over lunch to ask him if the food had arrived, and what he fancied for supper. “Something Moroccan?” I suggested, wondering if he’d remember what I was getting at. I hadn’t had a reply by the time I had to go back to work, but that didn’t surprise me. Poor man barely had time to take a crap these last three months. We’d hoped to go up to Scotland over Christmas for a break – never happened because he just couldn’t get away. The best we could hope for now was Paris at Easter. We hadn’t done anything like that together for a couple of years. Sometimes I wished we’d never moved in together – it was too easy to use the television as a substitute for a social life. My fault for falling in love with a geek, I supposed.

I went to make myself some tea at four, and to my surprise, found the remains of a cake in the staff kitchen. From the look of it, it had been someone’s birthday – but no one had come to ask me to sign a card, or share in the goodies. I didn’t care for the ritual, but there was normally no way of avoiding it. Had my lack of enthusiasm over the years finally got the message through?

I should have been pleased, I supposed, but I was miffed to be ignored. There was gift wrapping paper half in, half out of the bin – a tag on it said “To Geoffrey”. Geoffrey Hyde, one of the accounting team. I was pretty sure I’d signed a card for him last year and coughed up a fiver. I wondered what they’d got him, and if another fiver would have made it better.

I made my tea, and stared at the black pottery glaze on the mug. Was it blurry because it was always blurry, or because I was? I put the mug down, and wished I could stop thinking about this.

Someone came into the kitchen – Janice. “Oh, Janice – why didn’t someone tell me it was Geoffrey’s birthday?” I asked as she made her way to the fridge.

She ignored me as she fetched milk. I waited until she filled her cup, expecting her to answer me when she was done. But to my surprise, she put the carton back in the fridge, picked up her coffee and left the room – as if I’d not spoken at all. I blinked. She was always a tad brusque, but to totally blank me.... I looked at my mug again, and nearly dropped it. I couldn’t see myself at all now. Panicked, I ran to the men’s room – but when I stood in front of the mirror, all I could see were the cubicles behind me.

Suddenly dizzy with fright, I had to grip the sides of a basin to stop myself falling. I couldn’t stop staring at the mirror, but though I knew I had to be pale from the shock, I couldn’t tell because there was no me to be seen.

Someone came in – Joshua from Technical. “Please,” I whispered, my throat thick with nausea and fear. “Help me. I’m sick.” But he ignored me as he walked past me over to a urinal and began to use it. Nearly three decades of socialisation made it impossible for me to grab another man’s arm while he was pissing, but terror forced a shout out of me regardless. “Josh! Help me!”

He flushed the urinal and zipped up, then came to stand at the sink next to mine to wash his hand. “Josh!” I grabbed his shoulder. I saw the cloth move, felt his skin and muscle under my hand, and his face indicated that he felt something – but still he said nothing, didn’t attempt to brush my hand away. He just seemed to accept the sensation as normal. Even when I wrenched at him, nearly pulling him off his feet, he let me do it, then walked back to the sink as if nothing had happened.

I screamed at him, followed him out of the bathroom, yelling the whole time – but no reaction. No one turned to look at who was making all the fuss, and he went back to his office without once acknowledging my presence.

I leaned against the wall, almost sobbing in panic. What the hell was going on? Was I really invisible? I held up my hand – it looked as substantial as ever. So why couldn’t I see it in the mirror? Why couldn’t Joshua see me? Or Janice?

“Someone! Help me!” I ran down the corridors, put my head into every office and yelled – nothing. I stood in people’s paths – they walked around me as if realising there was an obstruction, but without seeing what it was. Was it some kind of elaborate joke? For a moment or two I seized on that hope, until I remembered the mirror – no one could have set that up.

I pulled out my mobile and hit the speed dial for the flat. For a long time there was no answer. “Come on, come on, Jeremy,” I prayed, and nearly cried in relief when I heard his voice, until I realised it was just our fucking answering machine. I left a rambling, panicky message, then tried his mobile – got the voice mail. Left another message and then realised I needed to get out of here. Jeremy would be able to see me. If he couldn’t, no one would.

I sent him an email before I left, telling him I was coming home sick and begging him to be there when I got back. Then I grabbed my coat, shouted in Janice’s face that I was leaving and got no reaction, and headed out into the street.

There, it was just as bad – buses ignored my hail, and other passengers pushed onto the bus ahead of me. I had to be quick to make sure I wasn’t shut out of the bus when the driver closed the doors almost on top of me, and because my ringing the bell to stop was ignored, I had to walk back from the next one when someone else got off.

I half expected not to be able to get into the flat, but my key worked as normal, and I could hear Jeremy talking in his room. Thank God. “Jeremy!” I shouted, running up the stairs to his office. “Jeremy, love, please, help me!”

He was in his chair and as I came in, he swung around. “God, Jeremy, something’s happened!”

His eyes looked at me...and through me... as he spoke into his headpiece. “Yeah, Frank, that build was stable, it can go live...no, that’s just a demo page right now...yeah, that’s in the plan. Anything else?” And then he swung back around to type something onto his keyboard.

“Jeremy....” I walked over him and grabbed him by the shoulders, forced him to turn around. “Jeremy, it’s Euan. Please, listen to me!”

He kept talking to Frank as if nothing was going on, and the moment I let him go, he swung his chair to face the screen again.

I considering pulling out the power plugs on his computer, but I knew somehow that this would just be an annoyance he would fix without it drawing his attention to me.

I sank to the floor, holding my stomach and trying not to throw up in fear. Had I died and not realised it? Was I like that guy in that movie who he didn’t know he was dead and couldn’t understand why people ignored him? But I hadn’t been shot or run over or anything – nothing at all unusual had happened today right up until Janice ignoring me in the staff kitchen. Unless you counted me being left off a gift collection for a man I spoke to maybe six times in as many months. But they’d always asked me before....

If I was dead, I couldn’t send emails, could I? Or leave messages on the answer machine? I went downstairs and checked the machine – nothing. Either Jeremy had cleared it, or I hadn’t left a message at all. My sending an email to myself worked – but I still had no response to the messages I’d sent Jeremy that day. So was I dead or just invisible, and was there a functional difference between the two states if I couldn’t get my lover’s attention, or anyone else’s? Could I eat and drink? Could I keep living in this limbo world indefinitely? A swig from the milk carton seemed to indicate I could, which was both good and bad news. But how indefinite was indefinitely?

Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I just thought I’d got up and gone to work, and maybe I was still sound asleep waiting for the alarm. Maybe all I had to do was wait, and wake up, and life would be back to normal.

I sat in Jeremy’s office for nearly an hour, and not once did he look my way, or even seem to notice that I was late back from work. But I suspected that would have been the case anyway. Not for the first time lately, I wondered just how much difference I made to his life. It had been a month and a half since we’d had sex – oh, yes, I’d been counting the days. But then most nights, I didn’t even know if he’d come to bed.

I got tired of listening to Jeremy talking technical at his American, and dream or not, I was getting stiff sitting on the floor. If I was dead, could I eat? If I was dreaming, would I be able to eat shellfish without puffing up and turning blue? If I had gone mad, did the NHS offer the heavy duty anti-psychotics I was surely in need of?

It was six, and long since dark outside. Downstairs, the shopping had arrived – and it had all been put away. Now I knew I was dreaming – Jeremy hadn’t put the groceries away once in the entire time we’d been living together. He didn’t do domestic. He always said he earned enough to pay for a fulltime housekeeper if the untidiness bothered me, but he wasn’t going to cook, clean or tidy when he earned about a hundred times an hour more than someone who could do it for him. Me, he didn’t have to pay. I didn’t like housework either, but I hated the idea of having some stranger picking through our stuff. We didn’t have people over. We both liked our privacy.

If I was dreaming, I would wake up in bed, because that was where I always was when I dreamed. Circular logic, I knew, but there was nothing at all logical about this situation, like the fact I could call our landline from my mobile, and it would ring – but Jeremy ignored it. Now how could he know it was me calling? It had to be a dream, or at least a world class delusion.

I got an answer to one question that night – Jeremy was coming back to bed. But he still ignored me, and my putting my arms around him made no difference, nor did any amount of begging. It was horrible lying next to him like this – like we’d had a row and gone to bed angry, only we hadn’t. I’d have given every penny in my bank account to have an argument with him right now. I’d sacrifice a testicle to wake up and have none of this be real.

Jeremy got up at five. I knew that because I was still awake. The nightmare still continued, and I was beginning to realise that this wasn’t any ordinary dream. I’d never had one this real, or in such detail. But it couldn’t be reality either.

I was tired, twitchy, frightened and thinking I should just get up and walk to a hospital emergency department. Even if I didn’t see the reactions, surely they would know what to do with a crazy man who thought he was invisible.

I tried again to talk to Jeremy before I left – squeezed him tight and told him how much I loved him. He just kept talking to someone called Davo in Sydney. I told him goodbye, and wondered if I would ever see him again.

The first buses were running, but getting onto one was a real pain, because there were so few people around and I couldn’t hail one without help. No point in using my Oystercard, but I did it anyway, just to see some validation of my existence – machinery seemed to know I existed at least, and hearing the beep of the register on the bus almost made me cry. The driver didn’t seem to notice he had an extra passenger to match the extra fare.

I sat next to a Chinese woman dressed in the uniform of the cleaning company who did our offices. “You might have seen me around,” I said to her. “Sometimes I work late.” She stared into space, the exhaustion of the night shift worker all that was needed to make the rest of the world disappear. She probably wouldn’t have answered me anyway. I told myself that. I tried to believe it too.

The hospital A&E was almost empty, but I couldn’t get anyone to pay any attention to me. Running up and down the corridors pressing every button and alarm and switch I could find, just annoyed people, but no one seemed interested in why their alarms and doors and bells and whistles were going crazy. I wasn’t trying to cause mayhem. I just wanted someone to talk to me.

I was hungry, but it was too early for the coffee shop to be open, and I didn’t have change for the machines. I wandered out into the freezing dark morning, wondering where the hell I was going to get breakfast, and how I could buy it. There was a convenience store open, with wrapped muffins and other greasy-looking pastries. I got a couple and walked up to the counter. The Asian women at the counter stared right through me, ignoring the goods in my hands in front of her face. I put the pastries back and walked out. I hadn’t stolen something from a shop since I was five. I couldn’t rob this lady.

I walked on for nearly an hour, almost all the way to the City, getting progressively hungrier and colder and more miserable. Eventually I had to steal – but only because I couldn’t get the service station to take the money for the coffee I got from their machine. I left the money on the counter and stood in the shop, sipping my drink and hoping to be arrested. A couple of minutes later, the console operator noticed the change, frowned, and dropped it into her cash drawer. I bet her till wouldn’t show a problem at the end of that day. Whatever was doing this, was smoothing out all the anomalies. I bet even if I killed someone, the police would explain it to themselves as a suicide.

Outside, it was still dark and bitterly cold. I thought about calling my dad, even though we hadn’t spoken since I was eighteen and told them I was gay. Mum had died six months later, knocked down by a car. At the funeral, Dad had barely looked at me. But even if he wanted to tell me how disgusting I was, surely he wouldn’t pretend I didn’t exist? I started to dial the number on my mobile, then cancelled it. No. If Jeremy couldn’t hear me yelling in his face an inch from his nose, no way would Dad hear me over the phone. Dad hadn’t listened to me when I lived at home.

I pinched another coffee, and a muffin – didn’t worry about the money this time, since there was no point. When this was over, I’d come back and...well, not say anything. How could you tell people you’d stole their stuff while invisible and now wanted to pay for it? If I wasn’t already crazy and locked up by then, I would be after that.

Sheer habit sent me back to the office. Habit had made someone leave the usual pile of files on my desk, even though Janice was still pretending I didn’t exist, and no one had answered my bellowed ‘Good morning!’ as I walked through Customer Services. I even sent out emailed responses, though I was no longer surprised that all my calls met with answer machines or no reply.

Janice didn’t even twitch as I tossed the pile back into her tray with an extra loud thump. She was surfing the BBC website – a report on green tea and breast cancer.

“I know you’re gay,” I announced, leaning right over her. “You shouldn’t hide it. Being a lesbian’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She clicked the mouse. Now she was reading about soap operas in Brazil. “Have you told your parents? That’s the tricky one. After that, everything else is easy.”

It was tapirs in Heidelberg now. I gave up. “I’m just going outside,” I told her. “I may be some time.” She clicked the mouse again. God only knew where on the globe she was visiting now.

I hadn’t taken a sick day in the whole time I’d been in the company, except that nasty flu I’d had in 2000, my own personal millennium bug. Being out on the streets during the day felt very weird, but everything was weird, like I was looking at it sideways. I didn’t know what else to try. Medicine had failed, and I was an atheist so religion was out. I didn’t know where to start with science. Maybe I needed Uri Geller? Had I sunk that low?

I walked the streets of central London for hours, being jostled and shoved by the New Year sale crowds. No one usually looked at me anyway, but it was a different kind of not looking today. Usually it was the ‘I see you but I refuse to let you occupy my emotional landscape’ kind of thing. Today – I just didn’t register. I was as invisible as oxygen, except people missed oxygen when it was gone.

I wasn’t dreaming. It didn’t feel like a dream. I could hope it was a hallucination, but I was just as helpless if it was. All I could do was ride it out. Maybe everyone was suffering the same thing – maybe the water supplies had been poisoned by terrorists. But if everyone thought they were invisible, why was I the only one panicking?

When it got dark again, I went home, hoping that by some miracle, this...whatever this was...would have worn off, but it hadn’t. Jeremy had made himself something to eat, and left nothing for me. My messages on the answering machine were gone again. I looked at his in-box over his shoulder, and my emails weren’t there either – deleted or never delivered, I didn’t know. “Jeremy, please. See me.” I caressed his sandy hair, ran my hand down the long ponytail, across his stubbled cheek. He paid less attention to me than if I’d been a mosquito.

I couldn’t bear sleeping in the same bed as him, knowing he wouldn’t know I was there. I grabbed our spare duvet and got comfortable on the couch. Sheer exhaustion made me sleep, but I woke a couple of hours later from a dream of falling, falling into the mouth of a volcano and screaming as I died, consumed by molten lava until nothing remained of me at all. As if I had never existed.

I lay in the dark and shivered, covered in sweat, disoriented from not being in my own bed and from the horror of the fire and pain my imagination had inflicted on me. Upstairs, I could hear Jeremy talking. Maybe it was all over now. I crept up the stairs, stood at his office door and called. Nothing – he still couldn’t hear me or see me. I went back to the couch, wrapped the duvet around me, and tried to decide what I was going to do.

I supposed I could keep living here. I supposed I could keep going into work, though there was probably no point, and maybe if people noticed I was gone, that might change things. I could steal what I needed to live if they stopped paying me. But I wasn’t any good at idleness. I’d gone straight from university into the job, and all my spare time had been spent with Jeremy. Never been into the club scene, or socialising, or playing sport...I was pretty damn boring, I knew that. All that had mattered was that Jeremy loved me, I made him laugh, and we had really fantastic sex together. Or we’d used to.

It was only midnight. Upstairs I heard Jeremy going to the loo, and presumably heading for bed. It was Saturday morning – he’d been working non-stop. Would he take a break today and wonder where I was? But he hadn’t wondered where I’d been the previous two days.

The overnight news seemed unreal to me. The newsreaders were speaking at me, but not seeing me. This was my life, behind a glass wall. A fish in a fish bowl that no one would remember to feed, with the big toilet in the sky all I had to look forward to.

I dozed off again, and woke when Jeremy slammed the front door. No idea where he was off to – work again, I supposed. I hung around until mid-morning but finally decided to leave the flat because it just felt wrong to be here, on my own, waiting...just waiting. At least it was cheap, being invisible. I saw three movies in a row, not because I wanted to but because the theatre was warm and the seats comfortable, and it didn’t seem so weird not to be spoken to. No one asked for a ticket, or seemed to notice I was in their seat. The world...adjusted around me. Rolled over the top of me, more like. I began to understand why some kids committed graffiti out of a frustrated urge to be noticed. By mid-afternoon, I was seriously considering stealing a spray can of red paint and setting to – or using a big fucking hammer to make an impression on the front window of the closest Marks & Sparks.

Nothing changed over the next few days, and I realised whatever this was, was probably permanent – at least, it wasn’t going to be changing soon. I had to get used to it, much as I hated it. I tried to look on the bright side. I was suddenly a man who could do whatever he liked – if it didn’t involve people. I could travel for free, go into any building without being hindered, eat what I liked, take what I wanted. If I got sick or injured, I would be royally fucked, of course, but in theory, the world was my oyster.

But my world had been my job, Jeremy and the flat, so by day, though I wandered the West End, poking in the shops, going to the museums, the theatres, the Wren churches and the concerts, every night I came home. Some nights I slept with Jeremy, needing his warmth, the feel of him, but it was an empty, lonely comfort, so most of the time I slept downstairs. The duvet was always put back in the cupboard when I got home in the evenings – Jeremy was erasing the evidence of my presence without even realising it. Partly as a way of passing the time, partly to feel like I was contributing a little to the household, I brought home fancy treats – chocolates from Fortnum and Masons, smoked salmon from Harrods (because I was discovering there was some satisfaction to be had from stealing from wankers like Fayed), Bollinger champagne – and left them in the fridge. Jeremy ate them, but never questioned their existence. I kept doing it though, because at least it was some small connection between us. I couldn’t touch him, but I could steal for him. He didn’t remember me, but he ate my gifts. It had to count for something, right?

I dropped by the office a couple of times. My desk still had files on it, different ones each day. Someone was answering the support requests, or at least, no one noticed that they weren’t being answered. If it was a spell, or magic, this was powerful stuff. But why waste it on me? I was no one. Never knowingly hurt a soul (except my parents, and that hadn’t been the intention), never knowingly crossed anyone. I hardly ever even argued with Jeremy. Why not send this plague of boils on someone deserving, like Ian Paisley? Why me, and why only me?

Whoever said ‘when you are tired of London, you’re tired of life,’ had never spent two months as a ghost. By then, I’d seen every musical, play, exhibition, attraction and art gallery, and pinched food from every posh shop from Tottenham Court Road to High Street Kensington. I’d walked around Buckingham Palace and watched the Queen feed the corgis (dirty little buggers they were too), and sat in while Charles had had a blazing row with Camilla over money (tightwad that he was). I discovered things about the current government I could have sold to The Sun for more money than God made, and watched some very attractive famous couples shag – some of them were even married to each other. But it was like watching a movie, as meaningless as reading a two-year-old copy of Hello magazine at the dentist’s. None of it touched me, and no one connected to me. I didn’t really care who Kate Moss was screwing, and in what positions, and frankly, once you’d seen George Michael take it up the arse, you’d seen it all.

For the first month, I tried to keep my spirits up. The second month, I thought, bugger it, and raged against the sheer fucking unfairness of it all. I took to standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and bellowing my anger – walking up to 10 Downing Street, and shouting at the Prime Minister as he went in and out that the government ought to do something, because I paid my taxes. But that was only to keep myself amused, because there was very little amusing about any of it. Most of the time, I just felt depressed and tired, dully resigned to my lot. Being depressed was a perfectly reasonable response to my situation. A perfectly sane response, though I didn’t feel very sane a lot of the time, especially when I was lying in bed with Jeremy and listening to him breathe. I wanted him so very much. More than I had when I could have had him for the asking. Typical, eh?

Politeness disappeared the second month too. I stopped apologising to the store owners I robbed, the people I jostled, the theatre goers whose seats I’d nicked. Manners were a necessary social oil but the machinery was buggered so what was the point? I got a kind of grumpy satisfaction from just barging straight through the crowds of shoppers and tourists on Oxford street, pushing in front of the group to see the pictures at the Tate, even though part of me was quietly horrified at my own behaviour. I wasn’t a rebel at heart. I was, apart from the whole gay thing, a devout conformist. I believed rules were there for a reason, and that consideration kept people from killing each other. I was a young fogey, and proud of it. Jeremy used to tease me. Oh, how I would have loved to be teased again.

March, and Spring, arrived, but nothing changed, not even the weather. I clung to my relationship with Jeremy as the only anchor I had, though I was still adrift. When his birthday came around, I was determined to find him something really nice for his supper – I’d have gone all out and stolen him a Cartier watch or a designer leather jacket or something, except he could afford all that stuff anyway and wasn’t really interested in it. But he never bothered about food unless I insisted, though he enjoyed it when I made something different, so I thought I could at least find him something special. Selfridges had the best choice, I considered, and so I headed up Oxford Street, for once having a distinct purpose in my day. I missed my job. It gave me a reason to get out of bed. Now only sheer perversity did that.

Someone charged right into me as I opened the heavy glass doors that led into Selfridge’s food hall, startling me, because this hardly ever happened. People seemed to avoid me, in an unconscious way. I recovered my shock, then cursed the clumsiness of the stranger, venting in a way that I’d never have dared to, if I thought the man could hear me.

“Sorry,” he said, looking taken aback at the stream of obscenities.

I blinked. “You...you can see me?” I stood frozen, clasping the metal door handle like I was afraid I’d fall.

He was a young bloke, younger than me. Red-haired, fresh-faced, startled, with wide, innocent eyes. “You can see me?”

“You...you’re invisible too?” I let go of the handle, and instead grabbed him by the shoulders. “You can really see me?”

“Yes, and would you mind letting me go? Thank you.” He rubbed himself, and gave me a reproachful look. “Ouch.”

“Sorry.” I shook my head. “Um...are you the only one like me?”

“No.” He seemed a little wary – I hadn’t made a good impression – but then he straightened up. “We should talk.”

“Oh yes,” I said, feeling a little weak-kneed. “Where?”

“John Lewis’ café. They’ll be quieter.”

And it was self-serve, which was important when waitresses ignored your orders. We pushed our way through the morning shoppers – I kept close by my new friend, touching him ‘accidentally’ more than I needed to. Someone could see me. I was real. It was all I could do to stop myself bawling like a child with relief. That really would not impress him, I suspected.

We served ourselves some coffee and some sinful cheesecake. “You’ve got the hang of this, I see,” I told him as he carried the food over to our table.

He didn’t look particularly delighted about that. “It’s been two years, I should hope so,” he said quietly.

“Two years!” I was going mad after two months. “What’s your name?”

“Matthew. Matt.” He didn’t offer me his hand, or look at me. He stared at his cheesecake instead.

“I’m Euan. You said there were others? How come I haven’t seen them? How many of us are there, and what’s happened to us?”

He smiled briefly. “That’s a lot of questions.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but it’s been....”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I was just the same...I’m just a bit out of practice. It’s been a long time for me.”

He sipped his coffee, and still didn’t look at me. He was a nice looking man, if a little young for my tastes. His hair was untidy though, pulled into a pony tail, just like Jeremy’s. I knew the reason – cutting your own hair was really difficult, especially without a mirror, and for obvious reasons, a barber was right out. He had a Scottish accent. “Where are you from?”

“Penicuik. Near Edinburgh. I came down here six months ago. Hoped it would be more interesting. And warmer. You?”

“Guildford. But I live in East London. Where are you staying?”

For the first time, there was a genuine smile. “I’ll show you later,” he said, as if it was a great joke. My life was so boring, being surprised was really something to look forward to.

“So...the rest of us? And what’s going on?”

“Well, I’ve met about a dozen people, and they’ve met about the same number. I suppose, worldwide, there must be a few thousand, maybe tens of thousands of us. But you won’t know them, you see, unless you bump into them. We all look the same as the people in the real world...except we’re not in that world any more.”

“But we are,” I said, pointing at the cake with my fork. “We can eat, drink, use the buses. It’s just the people.”

He nodded. “Yes, but they’re the ones who make the reality. We’ve slipped through the holes in the net.”

“What net? And how do we get back?”

“The net between people. And we don’t.” He looked out the window. “I don’t really understand how it works, but up in Edinburgh, I met a man who said he thought he did. He said...humans weave a net between themselves with interactions, emotions, love – even hate. And you and me stopped making that net somehow, so we fell through it. We...died inside. Or we stopped living. So reality let us go and eventually it heals the net where we broke it, and then we can’t go back.”

“It must be possible. I mean, this is impossible!”

“It can’t be, since it’s happening. It made sense to me, anyway. If there’s a way back, I don’t know it. I know there’s no hole left in the world for me anymore. My old job’s been filled and now my parents tell people they have no son.” He looked at me with such misery in his eyes that I almost felt ill on his behalf. “When I heard them say that, that’s when I got the train down here.”

“Shit – Matt, that’s awful. I mean, my lover can’t hear me, but I don’t think my dad...well, he might have already disowned me but that’s because I’m gay.” He blushed suddenly. “Oh. That’s a problem for you?”

He shook his head. “No...it’s just people don’t usually tell me that kind of thing...I mean before.” He bit his lip. “I’m not great with people,” he said quietly.

“Me either. But hang on, there’s a flaw with this net theory thing – you had parents, I have a lover. They love us, know us.”

His gaze was unblinkingly sad. “Maybe they didn’t love us enough, Euan. Or maybe it’s the whole thing. We haven’t got enough threads to keep us in place.”

“We have to be able to get back! We’re not dead, our world still exists.”

“Not for us. This is the space between. With cheesecake,” he added with a thin smile. “It’s not so bad. You want to see where I live? It’s on Park Lane.”

“You live on Park Lane?” I said, boggling at him.

“Yes. Among others.”

We caught the bus – only a couple of stops. “You live in the Dorchester Hotel?” I said, stopping and staring.

“Yes. Like I said, it’s not so bad. I’ve stayed in a few of these places, but I like this one the best. The floors creak though.”

The idea of living in one of these ultra expensive playpens had never occurred to me. There was more to Matt than his shy exterior showed.

He was staying in a suite, though he said he had to move around, depending which rooms were vacant. “Did your friend with the theory have any idea why no one notices the traces we leave? Why the maids don’t care that rooms are being used that are supposed to be empty?”

“Stuart said reality was a flexible thing, like silly putty, and it flowed around us. Maybe it flows into the holes we leave, over the marks. He died before I could ask him more about it.”

“What happened to him, Matt?”

He stood with his back to me, examining a thick silken tassel on a bell pull with apparent fascination. “He killed himself. He’d been lost for four years, he said. It was after his divorce, his wife took the kids. He seemed like he was coping so well. We had lunch together and he told me what he thought about our situation. Then we walked to Waverley station – we were going to travel to Inverness for a few days. Just for a change, you know? But when we got to the station, he shook my hand, said that he was tired of being fate’s plaything – and jumped in front of a train.” He turned and grimaced at me. “I think...he didn’t want to be alone at the end, that he never meant to go to Inverness at all. The worst thing was...no one cleared up the body. It stayed there until...well, until a lot of trains had been over it. I...kept coming back. I felt I should. It’s not right, Euan. To not even have a grave.”

“No,” I whispered, sickened. “I’m sorry.”

He let the bell pull go, and turned to me. “So am I. But I knew why he did it. I’ve come close. That’s why I came to London. It’s all new to me, you see.”

I ran my hand over the luxurious cream silk on one of the sofas. I wondered what it would feel like to make love on one, and that reminded me of Jeremy. “I have something I need to do.”

He blushed again – he really was shy. “Right. Well, you can find me here....”

“No, you can come with me. I just need something for my boyfriend’s birthday.”

I’d piqued his curiosity, and he readily agreed to come with me, which was more of a relief than I was prepared to admit. As we walked back to Oxford Street, I explained my reasoning. He understood. “I bought stuff for Mum and Dad, but they just threw it away. I even thought about stealing some money for them – they’re not very well off – but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. There’s stealing and then there’s thieving.”

“True. Matt – did you not get on with your parents?”

Another blush. “I guess,” he said, his accent making the last word polysyllabic. “They’re very quiet people. Very religious. I...didn’t really follow all that. We didn’t fight, we just...didn’t talk.”

He’d worked in a call centre. I was sensing a pattern – he said the people he’d met were all in the kind of jobs where they had little interaction with others, or were unemployed. Several had been sufferers of chronic depression, or shut ins. But that had me all the more puzzled. I spoke to people, I had a boyfriend...didn’t I? I thought of how easily Jeremy had forgotten me, and wondered if I’d been deluding myself.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked as I suddenly turned on my heel and headed out of the food hall.

“Jeremy won’t care whatever I do. Let’s go to Brighton, Matt.”

It was completely the wrong weather for it, and Brighton was freezing and windy and devoid of tourists. But for the first time in two months I’d got out of London, and I had company. This was a vast improvement for me, though Matt was unimpressed with the sea front and the pier. “You should see it in summer,” I said. “I wish I had a motorbike though. I had one while I was a student, it was great.” The flat had nowhere to park it, and London was a shitty place to ride. I’d sold it, planning one day to replace it. I never had.

“I’ve never ridden one,” he said, looking embarrassed. “They’re supposed to be dangerous.”

“They are. But there’s only one thing better than sex, and that’s riding a big bike with a gorgeous bloke hanging onto you.” Okay, Matt was cream pale with that hair, so he blushed easily, but even in the bitter wind from the sea, he was so red I wondered if he was about to drop dead from a heart attack. “Now what did I say?”

“I’ve never done that.”

“Ridden a bike?”

“No...the other thing.” The blush, impossible though it seemed, got deeper.

“Sex? You’re a virgin?”

“You don’t have to say it so loudly!”

“No one can hear, Matt.”

“I can,” he muttered, before walking off.

“Wait,” I said, running to catch him up. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.” Four years younger than me. “How many twenty-four-year old virgins do you know?”

“Well, I don’t know. Most people don’t come out and admit it. It’s not a crime though.”

“I just...wonder if I’d...been a bit more adventurous...if it would have stopped all this happening.”

“Didn’t do me much good,” I said bitterly. “Come on, let’s walk.”

The wind off the Channel cut through us, knotted our hair, abraded our cheeks, but it was clean and real, and reminded me of being back on the bike, so I liked it. It really was bloody cold, but Matt didn’t mind either, and I was just glad of the company. It was nice, in a clean, uncomplicated way, and he wasn’t demanding. I wished he was a bit more demanding, actually. I’d had two months of silence, and though I’d always thought I was happy with my own company, I hadn’t realised how that was only true while it was my own choice. Matt said he didn’t mind so much, except for the business about his parents. He’d never been a popular person, or sociable. He liked walking in the countryside, and was a bit of a science fiction maven, without being obsessive about it. He was just a nice, quiet fellow who’d thought life happened to other people. I wasn’t like him. I’d engaged with the world. Lots of people lived lives a lot more boring than mine, and I bet they weren’t invisible.

We walked down to Hove, and then back, up through the town until it started to get dark, and then Matt said unless we wanted to walk back from Victoria station, we should catch the train in good time. He had the whole business of surviving in our strange world pretty well sussed. After losing a bag of clothes (though fortunately none of his important documents), he’d learned not to leave his pack in any room he slept in, because the maids threw it away. Instead he hid it during the day in service closets or in storage rooms. He said it was easier to eat during the day, because of self-service restaurants, but in the evening, unless he remembered to pick up some extra food, he had to rely on pizza places or late night supermarkets.

He said he missed having a home with his parents. He got sick, he said, of living like a tourist, and I realised that I was lucky that I still had our flat, however cold and lonely it felt at times. “You could doss at my place, if you like. I mean, we have a washing machine.”

His eyes lit up. “Really? That’d be great for a while.”

“Why a while?” I asked.

His smile faltered. “Euan...eventually the hole you fell through will seal up. Your boyfriend will...maybe he’ll change the locks, or something. But one day you’ll find you can’t get back in.”

A cold shiver went up my spine. “We’ll see,” I said flatly. “So, want to grab some pizza?”

I could see why he had quickly grown tired of the offerings from the pizza chains, but it was warm and filling, and good enough. Then we caught a train back at eight to London, claiming a first-class compartment all to ourselves. “Would it be weird going back to your normal life, if you could?” I asked him. “I mean, not living in five star hotels?”

“I don’t like it much,” he said glumly. “I’d give it all up just to speak to Mum again.”

“Mine’s dead. I feel the same,” I told him.

“I don’t know which is worse.” Neither did I.

When we got to Victoria, he hesitated before we walked over to the bus station. “Euan, would you like to...?”

“It’s Jeremy’s birthday,” I said quickly, though I’d not thought of him for hours, and felt rather guilty about that. Matt’s face fell. “But I can meet you tomorrow. What would you like to do?”

“Do?” he asked, blinking. “Um...I’ve never been to Dover.”

“Perfect. A day trip to Dover. Charing Cross at nine o’clock, by the monument.” He smiled as brightly as if I’d given him a puppy. “Good night, Matt.”

“Thank you, Euan,” he said. “It was a brilliant day.”

A cold miserable dash to Brighton was ‘brilliant’? “Matt....”

“What?”

“No, tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t want to use all the fun up in one go.”

He grinned a little. “No. Nine o’clock.”

I felt bad that I hadn’t got Jeremy a gift – I’d never once forgotten his birthday, and he’d never forgotten mine, though sometimes his gifts were a bit odd – but I also knew this year, it would make no difference. When I got back, he was eating in front of the computer, a bad habit I’d never been able to break him of. There were a couple of cards propped up on the printer – one from his sister, and one from ‘Mark’. Who the hell was Mark?

I sat on his sofa to watch him, yearning helplessly, fruitlessly, for him to turn around and see me, talk to me. He kept on staring at the characters on his screen, the food merely fuel for that fizzing brain of his. He was a lot smarter than me, a real genius. But he wasn’t just a geek, a computer whiz kid. He also had a fantastic sense of humour, and a sharp awareness of the reality of things. We used to watch the news together, listen to Peter Snow interviewing hapless politicians, and his analysis would put any of the top commentators to shame. We hadn’t done that for ages though. Had I lost him through laziness? Was Matt’s friend right, that I’d stopped making the net to hold myself in place? And who held Jeremy in place?

I kissed his cheek. “Happy birthday, love,” I whispered. I couldn’t face sleeping with him that night.

I didn’t sleep much – I had too much to think about – but I was on time to meet my new friend. Matt was already there, rugged up well against the cold – it was colder than it had been at Christmas. Spring, my arse. “We really need to nick a car,” I said as we boarded the train.

“I can’t drive,” he admitted. “Never needed to.”

“So – you’ve never driven, never been on a motorbike, never....” I stopped as he blushed again. “What else haven’t you done, Matthew? That you’d like to do, I mean, not stuff like sticking your hand in a blender.”

“Yuck. Who’d do that?”

“Well, no one,” I said with a grin. “Why don’t we make a list, and do them all in turn?”

He seemed slightly shocked at the idea. “What about you?”

“You’re younger, your list will be longer. And maybe some of them will be things I want to do too.”

It was an hour and a half journey to Dover, and we talked the whole time. At first, he just mentioned little things, like places he’d not visited in the UK. I nudged the conversation onto more personal stuff. ‘Never been drunk’ – check. ‘Never been on a rollercoaster’ – check. ‘Never been sailing’ – check. ‘Never kissed a boy’ – “What?” he said, edging away from me.

“Joke, Matt,” I said, cursing myself. He hadn’t really set my gaydar off, but I thought maybe the reason he was still a virgin was that he had been gay with Presbyterian parents in a small town. I looked at the list we’d written in his little notebook – it figured he’d be the type to carry one, like he probably tucked his shirt into his underpants. “I always wanted to travel. I went to New York once. I wanted to go back.”

“I thought about going to Australia,” he said almost shyly. “It’s warm.”

“Then why not? It’s summer there.”

“We can’t,” he said, slightly aghast.

“Why not? We just slip into first class, and fly on over. I’ll teach you to drive,” I wheedled. “And I bet they have some really scary roller coasters.”

“Let me think about it,” he said.

“There’s always Morocco instead.”

“Morocco – isn’t the food foreign there?”

“Says the man who had pizza for supper.”

“If we get sick, no one will treat us. We have to be careful, Euan. We can only count on ourselves.”

A sobering thought, and a good point. “We’ll be careful. Look, we’re nearly there.”

It was a hell of a climb up to the cliffs, and freezing once we got there, even colder than it had been in Brighton, but Matt didn’t mind. “It’s just like the pictures,” he said, a little awed, staring at the famous sight, hard-wired into all of us as a symbol of what it meant to be British. I hadn’t expected a Scot to be so impressed.

“You should see the Seven Sisters,” I told him. “Now they’re beautiful.”

“You’ve seen so many things,” he said, sighing. “I feel like I was barely alive all the time I was in the real world.”

“This is the real world,” I said. “We’ll make it real. You’re only a kid. Plenty of time to see things.”

We walked for miles and miles along the cliffs, munching stolen food, and talking about the logistics of flying across the world. Matt loved getting out in the countryside – he’d done some hill walking while in Scotland, and preferred it to any entertainment London had to offer. Figured it would be a solitary activity that would get him excited, but had I been so different with my love of bike riding?

“Euan? Is something bothering you?”

He had such nice green eyes, I realised. “Not really. Just...still trying to work out why.”

“I did that for a while,” he said. “But then I thought, it doesn’t make any difference since I’ll never know the truth.”

Those pretty eyes clouded. “What?” I asked.

“I wonder if there’s a limit to how long we can live like this. Stuart lasted the longest of anyone I’ve met, and look what happened to him.”

“He killed himself, Matt. Lots of people do. You don’t have to do that.”

His eyes said what I was thinking. Sooner or later, death would be preferable to loneliness, to being ignored by those we loved. “I’m not ready to die yet,” I said firmly.

“Me either,” he said.

“Then don’t. That’s easy. So – where are we going tomorrow?”

I thought I’d pretty much exhausted Greater London’s entertainment possibilities, and Matt thought the same. But once we compared lists and experiences, we found a surprising number of things that either one or both of us had not done, and that didn’t even need a car to do, though I swore I was going to pinch one as soon as we ran out of ideas. Suddenly, every day had something to look forward to, a definite plan, and I lost the urge to shout rude things at Tony Blair (well, no more than I usually wanted to). We settled into a pattern, meeting early in the morning at train station or hotel, and heading off. Sometimes it was a destination that was two or three hours away by train – other times, it was a short bus or tube ride from the West End to something I considered almost dull, like Chelsea, that Matt hadn’t really thought to look around. He never said much, but he took it all in. In a bizarre way, he was having a great time. But every so often he’d go very still and quiet, and I knew he was thinking about his parents, and the situation, like I’d think of Jeremy and go all cold inside. Things were better than they had been before. But neither of us preferred it this way.

“Greenwich,” he said, a couple of weeks after we’d met.

“Surely you did that already?”

“No. I wasn’t sure if it was something I’d like.”

I shook my head in exasperation. “So? You’d have lost a few hours of time if you tried it and didn’t like it. What else are you doing with your life?”

“Nothing,” he said glumly. “Nothing at all. I never thought I’d miss my job, but I do.”

“I know what you mean. See this as your job, Matt – to explore as much as you can, while you can, and then maybe you can do something with the experience when we get out of here.”

I saw him draw breath to say we were never going to get out of here, but he saw the look in my eye, and only said, “Okay. How do we get there?”

Greenwich was never not busy in my experience, because of the tourists, but that didn’t matter to us. We did Observatory Hill first, and then walked back into the town where it was a little more sheltered and warm, and we could go inside the museums. Matt knew absolutely nothing about boats or naval history, and I wasn’t much better, but the Maritime Museum still fascinated us for a couple of hours, and you didn’t need to know a damn thing about the navy to enjoy the Wren chapel. We stood at the edge of the Royal Naval College, our backs to the Thames. “Reminds me of Edinburgh, a bit. All stone and grandeur,” he said.

“I’ve never been....” We both turned as we heard a child squeal. I saw a little girl, maybe only three, rubbing her head and crying. And then another kid, a little older, a few yards from her, screaming, and also rubbing its head. I peered around, looking for the cause – didn’t take long. “What the hell? Look – that woman’s throwing things at the kids.”

At this distance, I couldn’t see what she was chucking, except it had to be something hard if it was making the children cry – at the passing tourists, a grim, determined look on her face. She was shouting something, but I couldn’t make out what it was.

“Oy! You, stop that!” I ran over, not caring if she couldn’t hear me – I knew I could grab her arm and force her to knock it off.

Matt was on my heels. “Euan, wait!”

I stopped and turned to him. “Matt, she’s....”

“A loony. She’s one of us.”

I stared at him, then turned back towards the woman. “Then I really can stop her. Oy!”

She didn’t pay the least attention to me until I was almost on her. Then she screeched, and chucked one of her missiles at me. It hit me right in the middle of my forehead and bounced off. A coin. “Fuck! That hurt, you crazy bitch! What the hell do you think you’re doing!” I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. She tried to hit me, but I turned her around and held her arms down. Strangely, she didn’t really struggle – I was no giant, but I didn’t have any difficult controlling her. She almost seemed resigned that someone would try and stop her. Not exactly a big woman – the top of her head came up to mid chest on me – she felt very thin and smelled a bit. Her hair was filthy.

“Euan, leave her be. You’ll get no sense from her. She’s touched.”

“Maybe she is, but she’s throwing coins at kids and she’ll hurt....”

“They’re all bad children,” she suddenly growled, startling me into almost letting her go. “I’m going to punish them.”

“You’re bloody not,” I said, shaking her again. “What the fuck’s her problem, Matt? Who is she?”

“Jean Astin. Let her go, Euan. She won’t really hurt the bairns.”

“She’s throwing coins, Matt.” One of the kids she’d hit was being comforted by her mother – neither of them were looking our way, or noticed what the cause of the injury had been

“Och, she does that a bit, but she never hurts them really. Jeannie, you’ve got to stop this, you know.”

She twisted to look at him. Now I could see she was about thirty, might have been pretty once upon a time with a clean face – she looked like she’d been sleeping rough. “They all have to be punished, Matthew. They’re naughty.”

“No, they’re not, Jean,” he said quietly, taking her hand. “They’re not your bairns, they never hurt you. You mustn’t throw coins – you’ll end up hurting someone for real. You don’t really want to injure a baby, do you?”

Her face sort of crumpled up. “No,” she said in a small voice. “But they weren’t looking at me.”

“They can’t see you, that’s why. You know that. Only me and Euan and special people can see you now.”

“I want to go home, Matthew. Why can’t I go home?”

“I don’t know,” he said, glancing at me, a weary look in his eyes. “Why don’t you go find somewhere warm, get yourself a meal?”

“It’s wrong to steal. Naughty children steal. I don’t steal.” Her voice was almost child-like. It sent shivers up my spine – he was right. She was a proper loony.

“Aye, I know, but you have to eat to live.”

“Let me go,” she snapped at me, suddenly lucid. Matt nodded, and I released her. Immediately she moved away a few yards, eyeing me suspiciously. “You shouldn’t grab people. It’s naughty.”

“So is throwing coins at babies, you daft cow.” She gave me a dirty look. “Why don’t you do as Matt says and go get something to eat. Leave the kids alone.”

“He’s right, Jean. Go on.”

She’d dropped a plastic bag that seemed to hold all her worldly goods, and now she picked it up with immense dignity, before extending her arm and pointing a grimy finger at me. “Nasty,” she hissed. Then she stalked off, not sparing us a second glance. I waited to see if she’d start her coin-throwing again, but she didn’t, and in a couple of minutes she’d disappeared from our view.

“What a nutter,” I said, wiping myself down in distaste – she really hadn’t been all that clean, and had been rolling around in dirt and grass and God alone knew what else. “What the hell is her story, Matt?”

He didn’t answer, but began to walk off, his back stiff. He was upset – unsettled. Couldn’t blame him. I caught up with him. “I don’t know. I met her almost as soon as I got to London – seen her a few times. She’s up and down – once or twice she was almost sane, but most of the time....” He gestured towards where she’d gone. “She usually throws a few things at groups of people, sometimes kids, sometimes the parents – just to get their attention, I think. It’s usually sweets – this is the first time she’s used coins. I’ve not seen her do any serious harm. The kids react better, I don’t know why, but she’s got a bee in her bonnet about them as well. She’s just crazy and lonely.”

“She’s a menace,” I muttered. “She could really hurt someone, throwing pennies.”

“Oh aye, but I don’t think she wants to. She just found a way to get a little bit of attention and she can’t let go.” He stopped and turned to me. “She’s our future.”

“No she’s bloody not,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “She’s only one future. She was probably cracked to begin with. You’re not, neither am I.”

“Maybe,” he said. “I...think I’ve had enough for the day, Euan.”

I couldn’t really blame him – that crazy woman had cast a pall over what had been, up to then, a really nice day. I didn’t believe it was inevitable that we would end up like her, but Matt had seen more of our kind than I had. “Would you like to...stay over at my flat tonight?” I surprised myself by saying it, but I couldn’t exactly unsay it.

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Thought you might like a change. You can leave your gear in our loft for a couple of nights.”

He smiled a little. “Yes, I’d like that. So long as you won’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I did. We can set out earlier tomorrow, once we figure out what we want to do.”

We collected his pack from the hotel, and then caught the bus out to East London. He didn’t think much of the area – but I couldn’t blame him. It hadn’t been a day for seeing the prettier side of London. Hackney had been all we could afford at the time, and now we could afford more, it seemed more effort than it was worth to move.

“Is he home?” Matt asked, setting his pack on the floor.

“Yes, upstairs. I’ll just go say hello,” I said, a little bitterness creeping into my voice. After mad Jeannie, I so badly wanted to talk to Jeremy about it.

It was early – only four – so I fully expected to find him in his office, but he wasn’t. Our bedroom door was shut. Was he sick? I hadn’t seen him that morning, but that wasn’t unusual these days. He never got sick – he didn’t even catch my ‘flu that time.

I opened the door, looked inside, then closed the door quickly again, before leaning on the wall and trying very hard not to throw up. The expression ‘the bottom dropped out of my stomach’ suddenly had a very vivid meaning for me. The bottom had just dropped out of my fucking world too.

Matt had warned me. I should have expected it, really. But I still hadn’t been prepared for the sight of Jeremy screwing another guy in our bed. Not yet. And not to see him looking so...ecstatic, so carefree. How long had it been since I had seen that expression turned on me?

I forced down the jealousy, the anger, the nausea of betrayal. There was literally nothing I could do about it – not kick this new guy’s arse or throw him out of our home, not confront Jeremy, or even blame him, because I simply didn’t exist in his world, and for all I knew, never had. I guess the only thing I could legitimately bitch about was that if Jeremy had all this energy for sex during his working day, why hadn’t he been able to spare a little for me in the evenings – or was this the reason he’d been so uninterested lately? I really didn’t want to go there. I was already miserable enough.

It took me a few minutes before I thought I could face Matt again, but he knew something was wrong as soon as I walked into the kitchen. “Euan? What’s happened.”

“It’s....” I shook my head. I really couldn’t talk about this. “So, you ready to leave for the Antipodes tomorrow?”

He blinked in shock. “T-Tomorrow?”

“Why wait? We don’t have to pack, or get passports, or tickets. If we don’t like it, we can come back.”

“I guess,” he said dubiously. “What about your boyfriend?”

“He’ll never miss me,” I said lightly. “And I’ll be coming back.” I wouldn’t let the hole close, I swore. It might not be fair to be angry at either of them, but who said I had to be rational? I wondered if the guy’s name was ‘Mark’.

“Of course,” Matt agreed politely. “Could I leave my stuff here while we’re gone?”

“Sure. Jeremy never goes up in the loft.” And he was too busy to notice anything right now. “But...let’s go to the pub. Jeremy’s got...a friend over. I feel a bit odd hanging around, and I could do with a drink.”

Matt gave me a look then, but didn’t ask any questions as we walked to my local, which wasn’t the greatest pub in the world but it had a conspicuous lack of unfaithful boyfriends which made up for a lot. “Do you drink beer?” I asked.

“No. Never got the taste for it, and my parents don’t drink.”

I wasn’t surprised. “They serve all kinds of stuff – I’ll have to swipe bottles, unless I can sneak a pint.” I felt bad about doing this to Dennis and the lads, but I really didn’t want to be in the flat right now, and it wasn’t the kind of area where walking around at dusk was much fun.

I was actually able to pour myself a drink because it was so quiet and Dennis was at the other end of the bar, and I got Matt a glass of red wine which he examined suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you’ve not had that either,” I said, slightly impatiently. “You really didn’t get out much, did you?”

That blush again. “No. I always thought there’d be time.”

I toasted him. “And now there is. Here’s to Australia.”

“You’re really serious?”

“Yep. You don’t have to come, but I’m going. I’ve decided.”

He laid his glass down and looked at me. “Euan, is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just fancy a change. Drink up. Hope the lazy sod’s got some food in the fridge.”

He frowned at my unkind words about my boyfriend as he drank more of the wine. I’d embarrassed him. I was finding it hard to care over the top of my own raging anger and hurt, but none of it was his fault. I didn’t want to drive him away. I knew that somehow, he was about the only chance I had of not ending up like the mad woman today. Left on my own, left to watch Jeremy drifting further and further away each day, into another man’s arms, out of my life and my heart, I knew I would go mad. Maybe that was what had happened to mad Jeannie. Maybe she’d lost a lover, or her children – or parents, perhaps. “You think she was abused?” I said.

From the lack of surprise, I knew his thoughts had been turning in the same direction. “Who knows? She’s not very bright, I suspect, and maybe her parents were strict. But when she’s more normal, she’s quite nice. Quiet, though.” He sipped his wine, looking unhappy.

“You get to know many of these people?”

“Not really. Most are pretty pleased to speak to someone for a little while, then they wander off, like it’s too much for them. You and Stuart and Jean are the only ones I’ve spent much time talking to.” He sighed, looking wistful, sad. “Funny in a way that I’ve got more friends now than I had back then, even if one’s dead and one’s mad.”

“You must have known some people, surely. Did your parents not have friends? What about neighbours, or relatives?”

“We were never close to them. Neighbours, to say hello, but Mum and Dad didn’t encourage people to visit. Mum goes to the kirk a fair bit, but that wasn’t for me. I had friends online though. It was enough, that and the job.” He looked up at me. “What about you?”

“I....” I knew people, I had friends in and out of the scene. But...they were people I mostly used to see at University, or clubbing, and that was long behind me. It’d been months – no, a year at least – since I’d gone out socially, more than just to the pub. I’d just let it all wither, thought it wasn’t important any more. “Well, the gay scene in London’s pretty active,” I said, not exactly answering his question.

“Oh. I don’t think we had a gay scene in Penicuik.”

“Maybe a gay balcony,” I joked.

He smiled. “More like a window box.”

“But painted pink. With sequins.”

He sipped his wine and looked at me over the edge of the glass, assessing. “You don’t wear pink or sequins. You don’t look gay at all.”

“And how does a gay man look, Matt?” I said, slightly snappish.

“I thought there’d be nail polish at least.”

He wasn’t letting me bait him, and I let the instinctive irritation slip down. “Only on my toes. You need to see me naked for that.” He blushed right on cue and I laughed at him. “God, Matt, did you not even watch the telly? Ever seen Graham Norton?”

“I just...it’s different when someone’s saying it to your face. Not just jokes on TV.”

I was exotic to him, I realised. Me, common or garden Euan Henderson, was the most colourful thing that Matt had seen in his life. That was probably the saddest thing I’d ever heard of. “Drink up,” I said. “You can try a Scotch next. Surely you like whisky?” His wry look told me I was mistaken. “Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. I think you need to be taken in hand.”

“Are you offering to? Should I be worried?”

I had to grin at the anxious tone in his voice. I was grateful for him, distracting me from what was at home. “Absolutely. I’ll make a man out of you yet, my lad.” He pulled a face. I could see myself being Professor Higgins to his Eliza. Pity it looked like the only people who’d see the results would be me and some crazy people, but any ambition was better than nothing. I was learning to appreciate small mercies in this weird world we both lived in.

We sat in the pub for a couple of hours, talking about Australia, and what Matt wanted to do when we got back. I kept the talk off my own plans. The future was too dark for me to be interested in it, and I was surviving best by taking it day by day. Matt, I’d already noticed, had long adopted the same strategy. Maybe that was why he was still sane. Low expectations, low threshold for excitement. Small things pleased him because that was all he allowed himself. Once I had dreamed of big pleasures – but my life had become as narrow as his, through inertia.

Eventually the pub started to fill up, and the smoke bothered Matt, so I offered him supper. Fortunately the fridge was well-stocked (and I had to wonder if this new guy was responsible – at least he was gone, and Jeremy was set for the evening in front of his computer). Matt and I ended up on the sofa, eating pasta and watching the news and then a documentary about Belgian cooking. It was more than bittersweet, thinking how nice it was to have company, to be cosy like this, and wondering why I had been so stupid as to not push Jeremy more about doing things with me. Sensing the warmth of Matt’s body next to me made me homesick in my own home, made me realise that I had lost something forever today.

“Euan?”

The kid was giving me one of his worried looks – I’d got lost in my own miserable thoughts again. “I’m okay. But I should let you get some sleep. In the morning, we’ll head out to Heathrow and try our luck.”

I got up and he stood also. “I’m grateful for this, Euan. No one...I mean, I never knew anyone who would...like I said, I didn’t have friends,” he said shamefacedly.

“You do now,” I said with a smile. “You’re not hard to like, Matt.”

“I’m boring.”

“You’re quiet but you’re not boring. You just need to get out more. Like to Brisbane.”

That made him grin – he had a nice smile for a guy. Nice teeth. “Most people just go to the seaside for their holidays.”

“Brisbane’s on the sea. So’s Sydney. I hear it’s all sun, surf and sex out there. Should be great.”

There was that blush again. He moved a tiny bit closer, and looked me straight in the eye. “Euan...um...you were right.”

“About?”

“What you said the other day. I um...never kissed a boy before.”

God help us. I’d spent half the evening in the pub flirting with him on autopilot – why the fuck had I not seen this coming? I didn’t want to hurt him – even if he hadn’t been the only guy in the world I could actually talk to at the moment, I wouldn’t want to hurt someone so likeable, so harmless. But it would be so easy to hurt him.

Those pretty, naïve, inexperienced eyes were as innocent as Bambi’s. I’d looked like him once – when I was fourteen. I tried to think how I would feel if I was him, making this offer, then I cupped his chin carefully, leaned him, and kissed him, less than tongues, more than grandmother. He tasted...well, like pasta...and he kissed about as well I had at fourteen, but he was warm and eager and his lips were firm and pleasant under mine. “Now you have,” I said gently, stepping back. “And now you can again, when you want.”

“Your boyfriend,” he said, a little breathlessly. I winced – I was so not ready for another lover – but he misunderstood, his expressing crumpling. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Matt. But...you’re not really my type.” I reached over and stroked his cheek, careful not to make it more than I meant. “Was it like you thought it would be, kissing?”

“I didn’t have any idea what it would be like.” He ran his fingers over his lips, as if he expected them to feel different. “Is that how you always do it?”

“With friends, yeah.” I patted his cheek, then moved back again. “Now get some sleep. Good night, Matt.”

He gave me a slight smile. “Good night, Euan.”

The last thing I wanted to do was sleep in our bed, but under the circumstances, offering to share the sofa with Matt would be a really bad idea. Fortunately, Jeremy looked like he was planning an all-nighter, so I had the bed to myself once I changed the sheets. I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling and ignoring the faint scent of Jeremy’s new lover, and wondered if I had got myself into a bit of a mess. Should have thought about it more, but the thing with Jeremy had left me rattled and unsure...and yeah, Matt was sweet and warm, and on a day when my heart didn’t feel numb and cold, more of a temptation than he knew. Now I’d just agreed to go on holiday with him, sending mixed signals again. But he hadn’t reacted ridiculously, and accepted the brush off with grace. I’d just be careful, I thought. And it would be fine.

Seventy-two hours later, we were sitting on a beach in Queensland, watching the dawn come up, and listening to kookaburras, their weird ringing laugh filling the clear, cool air. Miles of golden sand stretched on either side of us, and ahead, a perfect ocean of gently rolling waves. “Tell me you want to be in Penicuik now, Matthew, old son.”

“Not at all, Euan.” He grinned. “I could die happy right here.”

“Wait until we’ve seen the rest of it before you top yourself.”

We were both still jet-lagged, and a bit amazed we’d pulled it off. We’d had to hang around at Heathrow for a few hours before we worked out how to find out which planes had spare capacity, and then we snuck onto a Singapore Airlines’ jet. First class all the way, of course, but it was the longest trip I’d ever done, and Matt had never travelled beyond the UK before, so just being on the plane was a real adventure for him. There were only six seats in First Class – we had four to choose from. Leather chairs, adjustable to any position, so much leg room I could get completely comfortable for the first time on a plane – I suspected the experience might have ruined me for flying economy again. We’d had to steal meals from Business class, but there were plenty to choose from, and we were pretty casual about helping ourselves to booze. I had no idea you could get Dom Perignon on a plane. Young Matt took to champagne like a fish to a bicycle, but after the first three, four glasses, he got the hang of it.

We spent quite a lot of the flight giggling drunk, which was also a first for him. He loved every minute of the flight, playing with the seat and staring down at the scenery when there was any to see, watching the movies, and trying out the extravagant free toiletries that they used in First Class – I’d had to remind him that most people never travelled this way. He glared at me with the haughty owlishness of the truly pissed and declared, “I am not most people.” Then he ruined it by bursting into giggles again. He was a really cute little drunk.

We got more sleep than we would have in Economy, and arrived relatively well-rested just after dawn on a gorgeous, already hot Brisbane morning. We got hold of a hire car without any problem, got maps at the airport shop, and headed up the coast. We had nothing at all with us except our wallets and the clothes we stood up in, so in the first town we stopped at, our shoplifting had to include new clothes, hats, sunscreen, swimming costumes and towels. Oh, and sunglasses.

Accommodation was trickier than the car because everything was more spread out and harder to check, but eventually we found a motel with an empty room. There was an awkward moment when we saw it only had one bed. “We can find another one,” I said.

“It’s all right, Euan,” he said, looking right at me. “I don’t want to waste any more time on this. I won’t read anything into it.”

“Good man,” I said, making light of it. It was so unfair. If we weren’t the only gay men we knew on this side of the net, I could have set him up in seconds with the love of his life.

But his virginity was weighing a lot more on my mind than his, and he was enjoying himself. It was all bright and new and hot and even when jetlag had us wandering the empty streets in the small hours, I knew this had been the right thing to do. Sitting on this sun-kissed beach, smelling the clean salt air, it was easy to forget what had led us to this spot, what had made it possible. I could, I thought, almost be happy. And then I realised it had been three days since Jeremy had come to my mind at all. I shouldn’t be so content without him, without the prospect of seeing him. I was shallow and thoughtless. Was this the penalty I had to pay, for not loving him enough? Or had he not loved me enough, like Matt said?

“Euan, don’t be sad,” Matt said, turning to me. “Look.”

I rubbed my eyes and stared up at the endless blue sky, where a huge bird was wheeling lazily. “It’s too big to be a buzzard....”

“It’s an osprey,” he whispered. “I lived in Scotland all my life and I never saw one. But there it is.”

I looked at him, at his wide-eyed, innocent wonder at this gift from nature, and I couldn’t help myself. “Matt,” I whispered, cupping his cheek. He turned to look at me, and I kissed him, my arm sliding around him, feeling his slight body, his warm, real body, tasting him, the salt air, the tea he’d drunk at three am. He hesitated, then gave himself to it, letting me guide him, following my lead unhurriedly. I kept my arm around him when we broke free. In the sharp, bright sunlight, his hair flamed like gold and copper behind him. I tugged his hair free of the elastic band, and combed my fingers through it. It was curly but soft and a colour that, in the clear air of this magical place, seemed unearthly.

“Why?” he asked, his green eyes still wide and astonished.

“Because you’re so bloody beautiful.”

“Your boyfriend....”

“Isn’t here. Would never be here.” Then I kissed him again, because he tasted so good and clean, and it just seemed right to do that now.

But he pushed me back carefully, hands flat against my chest. “Euan...what about Jeremy?”

“He’s sleeping with someone else.” There. I’d admitted it, said it out loud. That made it real. “I saw them together the night before we left.”

“Oh my God. That’s why...I’m sorry. I never knew.”

“I didn’t mean you to. But now there’s nothing to stop us....”

Thick lashes brushed his high cheekbones as he looked down. “He broke your heart three days ago, and you just want to move onto me? I don’t think so.”

He climbed to his feet, and walked down the shore to the water’s edge, his sandals in his hand, his straight back a rejection. He was right, of course. I was using him. But my body hummed with need, need of him, need for sex and touch and love and all that I had lost because of this strange situation we were in.

I got up and walked down the silky white sand. The water was champagne cold against my feet. “I’m sorry. But I wasn’t lying. You’re beautiful.”

“I’m just all there is,” he said sadly.

“No....”

“Euan. Don’t spoil it,” he said, his accent softening the words and the blow. “I could really get used to kissing,” he added wistfully.

“Matt...I really....”

“Don’t say it. Don’t talk about it. I can’t....” He turned to me, and those wide eyes were stark now. “I think this is what I was afraid of, with people. Being hurt. I didn’t want to be hurt, and I lost the rest of it. But I still don’t want to be hurt.”

I ran my hand down his arm, an apology. “I won’t hurt you. I won’t mention it again.”

“Thank you.” He looked up. “Still there. He’s a beauty.”

So are you, I thought. With his hair unbound, and his creamy skin with just a hint of sunburn, he looked like perfection to me.

It was only hunger, I thought. I missed Jeremy. It was killing me not knowing when his affair had started. His new lover looked like me – did somewhere, in the back of his mind, lurk a memory that he couldn’t explain? A face, a voice, that came to him in the small hours, that puzzled him? Or had I just been completely erased?

I didn’t know what to feel or to think any more. I didn’t know how to act around Matt either. He was right – he was all there was, and I was lonely. But it was more than that. I just didn’t know how much more, and he didn’t need me to break his heart.

We swam until the sun and jetlag drove us inside again for an early siesta. I very carefully kept to my side of the bed, as did he. We swam again in the afternoon, into the sunset, and walked along the beach in the moonlight like lovers. It felt like a honeymoon. The irony didn’t escape me.

We kept driving north, stopping as the fancy took us. We wanted to see rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, and we had all the time in the world to do it. Accommodation was always the hardest thing to organise, and we had to take what we could when we could, but we managed, and it became just part of the adventure. A couple of nights we slept in the car, but it was a big car and comfortable, and swimming and walking and climbing exhausted us enough that we never minded. We were up at dawn every day, woken by the bright light and the parrots, and I never dreamed the world could be such a beautiful place. I’d had no idea, sitting in London, that all this lay waiting for me.

It was like Matt had found his natural home, which, considering he was a pale-skinned son of the mist, was something of a surprise. To see him was to see a man in paradise, and he seemed to blossom with every passing minute. It was like the world was our secret garden, the only two people in it, and we could touch and taste and feel everything as we wished.

For six weeks, we lived through golden hot days of sun and sand and endless, weird beauty, of rugged landscapes and empty vistas, like a long beautiful dream, guided only by our whims and a map. It was an idyll of pure indulgence. It felt like it could go on forever.

But of course it couldn’t, and it came to an abrupt stop when Matt got sick. More precisely – he got badly sunburned, catching a cruise boat out on the reef, neither of us realising just what a terribly dangerous thing the sun could be when amplified by the sea. By the time we came back into shore, he was in terrible pain, and starting to get delirious with it. I had to half carry him back to the motel – I had no idea what to do except stick him under the cold shower, which made him cry in agony as the water hit his burning skin.

When he literally could stand no longer, shivering and shaking to the point of collapse. I got him out and helped him to the bed. “Help me,” he begged weakly, lying on his front. “Please, Euan.” He was crying again, frightened and so weak that it terrified me.

“Hold on, kid. Just...hold on,” I told him. Then I ran along to the motel reception and used their computer to look up the treatment for severe sunburn – pain relief, lidocaine sprays, oatmeal baths, I feverishly scribbled it all down. But then I had another problem – this was a pretty small town, and the local chemists had shut an hour before the boat had returned.

Panicked by what I’d read about how severe the burn was, I didn’t even hesitate – a brick through the chemist’s front window, and then I was in, grabbing everything I could get my hands on before running back to the hotel. Matt was almost unconscious with the pain now, and blisters were forming. He cried as I sprayed the lidocaine on him, but then settled a little. I gave him ibuprofen and got him to drink lots of water. I held his hand and hoped the pain would go down.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered after a bit. His eyes were still hazy, not really focussing properly.

“Not your fault,” I said, stroking his hair back from his face. “You didn’t know.” We’d been careful up to now, read the advice about the hours to swim and what to do out in the sun. We’d used sunscreen and t-shirts same as always on the boat, but we’d discovered much too late Matt could burn through a wet shirt out on the water, and that the sunscreen wasn’t strong enough for his skin. He was burned everywhere – even on the back of his knees. Being darker skinned, I’d got off with a lesser burn – but he was fried.

He shifted uncomfortably. “God, it hurts. Never had pain like this in my life. I’m scared, Euan. What if it gets infected?”

I smiled reassuringly, even though that was something I was afraid of too. Just breaking into a chemist’s shop wouldn’t be enough if that happened, and I’d already discovered how impossible it was to get treatment from a hospital. I didn’t even know where the nearest hospital was. “We’ll just be careful it doesn’t. You’ll be fine,” I said. His eyes closed. I hoped he would sleep. It should hurt less in the morning.

He was only a little better then, but the blisters were worse. It took a week before he could move around easily. I bathed him in oatmeal, smeared him with moisturiser, fed him painkillers, and waited on him hand and foot because every time he had to get up, it was excruciating. When he began to peel, it was a new misery of itching, and all I could do was slather on the lotion and hope it would get better soon. “I think I’ve had enough of the sun,” he said glumly, sitting on the balcony of the hotel room while I covered him with gunk again.

“We’ll go south,” I said. “To Sydney.”

“No more boats,” he said.

“No. Not unless you’re wearing a wetsuit.”

I’d never looked after anyone like this before. Jeremy never got ill enough to need it, and would make a lousy patient, I was sure. Matt hated being helpless – he said it was like when he’d had pneumonia at fifteen – but he bore it all pretty patiently, trying not to be a bother. Me...I was enjoying it, strange as that might seem, and not because I liked seeing him so helpless and in pain. Having my hands on him, being so close to him, was feeding my soul in a way that I didn’t know I’d missed. I doubted anyone had spent so much time touching him as I had, and it had changed things. Changed him. He lost the modesty for a start – clothes were an agony, and I couldn’t bathe him with them on anyway. Seeing him naked so much was trying my control.

It had changed both of us, I thought. Brought home just how dangerous our situation was, and how unlikely it was that we would be able to do this for many years. Matt could have died from that sunburn, and if not from that, from something equally trivial if we couldn’t find the right treatment. I didn’t know what I would do if I was forced to go back to that silent, lonely existence – or to live without him. He wasn’t just my only alternative. He was what I wanted, and I wanted him with a passion that had become a stranger to me. I had lost so much, but I felt richer than I’d ever been. Ironically, I felt more afraid than I’d ever been that I might lose what I had gained.

I kept my thoughts to myself, knowing I made him uncomfortable for reasons that made complete sense. Matt was too important to me to want to treat him as consolation – he deserved so much more. But for all that, I was beginning to fetishize red hair, and I was glad we were no longer sharing a bed.

Even with this mishap, neither of us saw any reason to leave Australia any time soon. After two weeks, he was ready to face travelling again, so we were going to start the drive south in the morning. That and the coming cooler weather, should make it easier on our weakling British bodies.

I was touching him again. He wanted his hair cut because it was hot, and though I would miss that length of fiery colour, he had a point – fresh air was too much to wear this far north. We were on the balcony again, me doing my best with comb and scissors – I’d never cut anyone’s hair in my life, but I started by hacking off the ponytail, and did what I could to even it up all the way around. He’d wanted to shave it all off, but I thought, with his hair so curly and attractive, it would be a shame. As I watched it twine around my fingers, I was glad I’d talked him out of it. He looked even more fragile and young with his hair short – almost fey. I’d never been one for pretty boys before, but my tastes were changing.

I snuck a lock of Matt’s hair into my pocket – he couldn’t see what I was doing, since he was invisible to the mirror – and then dusted him off. “Have a shower, I’ll clean up. Then I better slap some more moisturiser on you.” He was still peeling, but the pain and the blisters had gone completely, and finally he’d been able to get some decent sleep.

He ran his hair through his short and unruly curls. “How do I look?”

Gorgeous. “You’ll do,” I said.

“Thanks, Euan.” His smile did things to my insides that I’d have been embarrassed to admit out loud, but I had weeks of practice in hiding it. He went in the bathroom, and I cleaned up the remnants of his hair. What would happen to it, I wondered? Thrown in the bin, detached from him, would the maids see it and wonder what red-haired ghost had left it behind? Or would it still be invisible, like him? Curious, I held one of the longer lengths from the ponytail up to the mirror, and was surprised to find I could see it – not my hand holding it, just the hairs dangling from my fingers.

I showed him when he came out. “That makes no sense,” he said, frowning.

“Neither does machinery registering us. This...thing...doesn’t obey the normal rules. If we could work out what rules it does obey, maybe we could use them as a way of getting home.”

“I guess,” he said. I stared at the long, lovely strands, and tried to divine their meaning. In my pocket, I had the lock I’d stolen curled safely in my wallet. Maybe I was hoping it had some magical power. Mostly, it was just a memento. I wanted to remember this time, even with the sunburn and the hassle. I was truly alive for the first time in my life, and it felt wonderful.

“You don’t need to put that on me if you don’t want to,” he said, lying down on the bed.

We’d pinched a litre of moisturiser, and I’d used almost all of it on him so far. It seemed to have helped, though I couldn’t help thinking about skin cancer. I could only hope if Matt lived long enough to develop it, we might have found our way home by then. “The advice is to do it until you stop peeling, and you’re still shedding like a lizard.”

He shrugged, and got comfortable as I sat down beside him. He was naked, of course, and so was I – which was funny, because I’d been a little on the body-shy side with Jeremy, but there was none of that now with Matt.

I pumped out a good handful from the bottle of moisturiser and slathered the white lotion across his pale skin. Not much peeling now, just across the shoulders. My hands slid easily through the cream across his slim back, around his narrow waist. If I could just....

I want you. I want you so badly. If you knew how hard I am, you’d die of embarrassment. “So beautiful,” I whispered to myself.

He went still under my hands. “You mean, I am your type after all?”

“More than my type. I....” I swallowed. “Matt...I want to make love to you.” I took my hands off his back, and clenched them.

He twisted around to look at me, those green eyes of his questioning, wary. “Would you say that if we were still in the real world?”

“Yes. I swear to God I would.”

“You’d never have looked at me twice.”

“Not before. I would now. You’ve done this to me. You’ve made me live.”

“I don’t really know what to do,” he said quietly.

“Just let me...touch you. Please. I need...I just want to put my hands on you. Roll over, Matt. I swear I won’t hurt you.”

Slowly he rolled over, his expression guarded. “I won’t hurt you,” I whispered.

“It’s only because I’m here, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not. We’ve been together for two months, every moment of every day, and I’ve got to know you. Okay, if this...whatever it is...hadn’t happened, then I wouldn’t have met you...but I have and....” I laid my palm on his stomach, just above those brilliant curls. “You’ve changed me for the better. This whole thing has. I don’t want to go back because I’m happy now.”

“Me too,” he said. He put his hand around my wrist, and looked up. “Yes. But I’m scared.”

“You don’t need to be,” I said, and bent down to kiss him. His hand slipped around the back of my neck, holding me. I stroked my hand through his hair. “Oh God, Matt,” I whispered. “Oh God.”

“You sound more worried than me,” he said, his voice shaking.

“I’m terrified. I want you, I don’t want to hurt you...I need you.” I tasted him again, his soft lips seeking mine. He pulled me closer, nudged me to urge me to lie on top of him. My cock rubbed against his and I shuddered. So long....

He spread his legs and I settled between them like I was coming home. Part of me wanted to just take him, take my pleasure as hard and fast as I could. But the civilised side of me said ‘wait’. This was Matt’s first time. My first time had sucked. I wanted this to be good for him. His breath against my cheek tantalised me as I tangled my fingers with his hand above my head. “Hey,” I said, staring into those gorgeous green eyes.

“Hey,” he said, smiling back. “This feels good.”

“It’s supposed to.” I licked his earlobe and he giggled. “Ticklish...hmmm.”

“I’m not,” he said indignantly.

“Oh really?” I licked him again and he squirmed. “You’re so cute.”

“You mean I’m girly?”

I rubbed against him a little, and his eyes went really wide. “No, and you know you’re not. Never liked femmy boys. You’re just...cute. Lovely.”

“Stop, you’re making me sick. You make me sound like a kitten or something.”

“My wee ginger tom cat.” He poked me hard in the side. “Ouch.”

“You’re daft,” he said, but kissed me anyway. His hands on my back...just to be held. To be connected. To be real. “Euan, are you sad?” He cupped my cheek and looked into my eyes.

“No.” I made the effort to smile, because I wanted him to know he made me happy. “So, my little tom cat, what would you like me to do with you?”

“Ummm....”

“No ideas?” He shook his head. “Well...how about this.” I slid down his body, licking his throat, sucking a little at the hollow of his throat, smelling the woody shower gel, tasting the shower-washed skin, the taste of Matt. He went very still under me – nervous, curious, I wasn’t sure. Probably both. My first time, the guy had flipped me over, spent about a nanosecond preparing me, and shoved what felt like a baseball bat up my arse. I was not going to do that with my cute Scottish virgin.

He sucked in a breath as I kissed his pale nipple, and his hand clenched a little on my back, short fingernails gripping my skin. He’d been a skinny little runt when we first hit this country, but he’d put on some weight, some definition, with all the walking and climbing he insisted on doing. I licked the smooth skin of his chest, feeling the muscles underneath it, the pulse of his heart against my tongue. The grasp of his fingers got a little tighter. Not ticklish, my bottom, I thought, smiling against his warm skin.

“Euan,” he breathed, his voice a vibration against my lips. I loved to hear him say my name in that soft accent, wished my Scottish grandparents hadn’t moved south so I could have grown up with that sound in my ears.

I wanted to give him something special, this first time – blow his mind, make it the best experience he had ever had. I slid down further, and raised his knees with my hands – he froze. “Are you going to...?”

“What, Matt?” He didn’t say anything, but I could guess. “Do you want me to?”

“Isn’t it what you...I mean...we...uh...gay people...do?” His voice was ever so slightly quavery. I imagined him in the shower, too embarrassed to masturbate anywhere else in case his mum found the traces, tentatively touching his arse, wondering if he would ever be able to let someone fuck him. I wondered if he had ever used his finger on himself – I doubted it somehow.

“Not necessarily.” I lifted my head, looked at him. He was staring back, uncertain, his face flushed slightly. “But I will if you want me to.”

“Um...Euan...I want...I want to make love with you but I....”

“No idea, right?” He shook his head quickly. I smiled to reassure him. “Leave it to me, Matt. I promise – this won’t hurt a bit.” Then I bent down and put my mouth on him – his gasp was shockingly loud in the room, against the hum of the air-conditioning. He hooked a leg across me, pinning me, but I didn’t mind – I liked it. He wanted me there, wanted me to keep going, and to hurry up. I had no intention of hurrying this. I was good at giving head, and I wanted him to enjoy every second.

He tasted clean and warm and manly, his tight little balls a pleasant weight in my hand. I licked him from root to crown, then sucked, using all my mouth to stimulate that virgin territory while my other hand stroked and teased his nipple possessively. He lay rigid, his breathing fast, not touching me with his hands, but his legs were an ever tighter encouragement. I figured he would come just about the time I passed out from lack of oxygen, but I concentrated on my mission. God, he was sweet – he quivered as I worked him, and every few moments, gave out these cut-off little moans that went straight to my cock like the world’s purest aphrodisiac. I was almost drilling a hole in the bed here, I was that damn hard, and I worked my mouth up and down as if I was fucking him, rolling his hard little nuts carefully in my hand, tugging them gently, tormenting them. I felt his orgasm building and knew almost to the second when he would come. I kept a firm hold on his chest as I drank him down, sucked him until he had given me his all, and his body let go its tension with a great sigh.

I kissed his limp cock and sat up, feeling smug. He had his eyes squeezed closed. “You can look now,” I teased.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Oh my God.”

I grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I crawled up beside him and put my arm across him as I kissed him. “Was that good?”

He opened his eyes wide and looked at me. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Only a bit.” I lay my head on his shoulder. I was still hard, but I was so pleased with myself, I hardly even noticed.

“What...um...does it taste like?”

“Er...putting it into words makes it sound worse than it is. Some people don’t like it much. I don’t mind at all.”

“Oh.” His hand was creeping across, down my body, a careful caress that was driving me quietly mad. “Euan – I’d like to...touch you. But I’ve never done it before.”

I rolled over onto my back. “Haven’t you touched yourself, Matt? Jerked off?” He went bright red, his eyes sliding away. “Oh for God’s sake, Matt, every normal bloke does.”

“I know, it’s just...talking about it. The boys at school were always so crude. They made it seem like something nasty.”

“Only nasty if you let it be, Matt. When I’m blowing you, all I’m thinking is, ‘God he’s just beautiful’.” The blush intensified. “No, I mean it. Nothing dirty or nasty about putting my mouth on such a gorgeous guy.”

“Stop,” he murmured. He put his hand on my stomach. “Um....”

“Hand cream helps,” I said – not that I was in a hurry or anything.

“Oh. I never tried that.” I suppressed a sigh – the guy had missed out on at least ten years of pleasurable wanking. Better late than never, I supposed.

He got a good dollop of moisturiser on his hand, and then without any warning, put it on my cock – I yelped. “Shit, that’s cold!”

“God, I’m sorry!”

He pulled his hand away – I firmly took his wrist and put his hand back on my erection. I looked into his eyes, forcing him to concentrate on me and not his embarrassment. “It’s okay – just...take it slow. We’ve got all night.”

He was such an innocent, I almost felt like a pervert, but his hand on my cock wasn’t that innocent – even if he didn’t like talking about it, he knew what needed doing, and his hand felt good, damn good, slick and smooth and just firm enough. I groaned encouragement, and he smiled. Then he surprised me by bending down and kissing my nipple. “Oh yes – that’s good, Matt. Do it again.”

Teeth this time and I squirmed in pleasure – always had sensitive tits, and Matt had a very sweet mouth. I imagined those lips, his teeth, on my cock and I groaned again – damn, I was hard, and he was working me pretty well for a beginner. “Yeah – just how you like it, Matt. What feels good for you....”

I yelped as he did a little twist thing on the upstroke that sent shivers through my body. He started to kiss and tease my other nipple – I put one hand on his flame-coloured hair and the other, I used to twist and tug the nipple on the other side. Did it get better than this? I didn’t think so. The only thing that would be better would be if I could make it last longer, but it wasn’t to be – no sex for nearly six months, already wound up from playing with him, and a beautiful guy pulling on my dick, meant it only seemed like a few seconds until I was spilling over his hand. “Oh God,” I breathed, trying to catch my breath. I scritched his hair a little. “That was good, Matt. Perfect.”

“Um....”

I looked down at what was bothering him – messy hands. Of course he’d never wanked in bed before. “Washcloth in the bathroom. Bring it in for me when you’re done.”

He smiled, gave me a kiss and hurried off. I was too limp to move, but I was happy. Never let it be said that a hand job couldn’t be good sex.

He was back quickly and began to wipe me down. The slight smile on his lips looked smug and happy, and inside, I felt a curling warmth of pleasure, knowing I’d given that to him. I lay passively, letting him clean me up, because I liked watching him move, and there was something really sweet about the way he was so careful of me, touching my cock respectfully, still a little tentatively even after all that. I took the cloth from him and tossed it over to the bathroom door, then took his hand, and tugged him down on top of me. He was still smiling. “Now that didn’t hurt, did it?”

“No. I liked it a lot.”

“Anything like you imagined it?”

He shook his head, then lay his face against my shoulder. “Nothing like it. I read...well, a bit...but it’s not the same as experiencing it, is it? It’s like the difference between getting a postcard of the beach, and lying on it yourself.” He felt for my other hand, and then held it tight, like he was afraid I might walk out on him. “This is what it’s like to be really alive, isn’t it? I didn’t get it before. I do now.”

Too late, I thought sadly, but then rejected the thought. We’d get out of this, I swore I would. But while we were here, in this place, I was going to make the most of it, and help Matt enjoy it too. I would learn to live along with him, and remember the lesson when we got back to the real world.

I just might not be in that much of a hurry to go, that was all.

We didn’t head south until the day after we’d planned. He sat in the car and watched me, his eyes devilish and smiling, his hand proprietarily on my lap. “So, am I still technically a virgin?” he asked, just as I was trying to get past a semi-trailer who really didn’t want me to pass him and who’d been playing silly buggers with me for the last ten kilometres.

I completed my overtaking and looked at him reprovingly. “You had to ask then? Yes, Matthew McDonald, technically you are, though I think it’s a pretty flimsy fig leaf. Why do you care?”

“Oh...just wondering when you were planning to whisk the leaf away.”

“Shit!” I swerved to avoid the car in front braking suddenly, and cursed the driver as an idiot. “Matt! This conversation is going to get us killed.”

“Sorry. I’ll be good.”

I grinned. “You already are.” Good, and a very fast learner. But most of all, he was mine – all mine, and nothing I had done with Jeremy had prepared me for this feeling of pure joy, this feeling of being complete and at home and entirely, perfectly at peace. It wasn’t even the sex – we hadn’t exactly been swinging from the chandeliers, but after months without even a cuddle, a blowjob or three felt fantastic. It was just...he was there, and I could touch him and it felt right.

Matt wasn’t asking for more. He just seemed as happy to be with me as I was with him, and any reservations he’d had were scattered to the winds. It still felt like a honeymoon – but now that was perfect too.

We drove five thousand miles in two months, sticking to the east coast, stopping where we fancied – sometimes on the sea, sometimes inland. As we explored we talked, and in the evenings we made love. Together we experienced things in a way I had barely dreamed about. Even when I’d planned to go to Morocco, I’d never thought life would be this rich, this beautiful – or that having someone at my side would make it so much better. To see Matt light up as he spotted yet another implausibly lovely parrot, identified another by its melody, or to stand on the edge of the Great Australian Bight, holding his hand, and looking out on a landscape as old as time, was to feel his pleasure as my own. I saw things, tasted things, smelled things with a vividness that I’d never experienced, because he was there to share them with me. I was besotted. I was fully alive for the first time in my nearly thirty years of life.

I taught him to drive over those two months, a sometimes hairy experience, but eventually he became pretty confident, at least when we were outside the larger towns and cities. He asked if I could teach him to ride a motorbike, or take him for a ride on one – but the experience up north with the sunburn had made me more cautious, more conscious of how easy it would be to die in this medical-care-free world, and I put him off. Perhaps it wasn’t rational – we did plenty of others things that were risky, and just being in the car was bad enough considering the roads and drivers – but I couldn’t make myself do it. If he’d wanted it passionately, I might have overcome my fears, but he had so many other things he wanted to do, and this was just one of them. I was relieved he didn’t take offence at my refusal. I didn’t want anything to spoil this time. I knew we would never have a chance to repeat this, not while it was all new and magical for us both.

Finally we got to Adelaide. By now it was definitely colder and his thoughts, as mine, started to turn towards home. We’d been away a long time, after all. “I’d like to see my parents,” he said. “Just to see how they’re getting on.”

“I guess I’d like to know if my Dad’s okay,” I admitted. “And Jeremy too. Maybe we could go back there for the British summer, come back here for the Australian spring?”

“Sure. Maybe go to New Zealand too?”

“What about earthquakes?” I said.

“I know, but they’ve got glaciers too,” he said, a dreamy look in his eyes. “Please?”

As if I would turn him down. “Whatever you want, Matthew. So, let’s get a flight to Singapore, spend a couple of days there, and jump a jet to London.”

We ditched the car the very next day, flew to Sydney for a couple of nights and then got onto a flight to Singapore. I let Matt choose the hotel once we arrived – he had impeccable taste, I had to give him that – and the suite we ended up in was bigger than my flat.

“I don’t think I want to leave after all,” I said, slipping my arm around his waist as we stood on the balcony and stared out over the unbelievably busy harbour ahead of us. We had seen so much of the ocean these last few months, and this was yet another, different vision. I decided then and there I would like to make a collection of oceans and seas – visit them all, one by one. A man needed a hobby, after all.

“We can come back. We should get some sleep though,” he said, a slightly sly look in his eyes.

“Subtle, Matt,” I said with a grin. “Well, come on, my little sex fiend.”

By now it was so easy with him, his virginity barely a memory, and if oceans were to be my hobby, Matt had already declared sex with me to be his. I, of course, minded this a great deal, and strenuously tried to avoid all sexual encounters at all possible moments. Like hell I did.

He took my hand and drew me over to the bed. “Euan, can we, um...?”

Still shy about the actual words, if not the act. “Yes, dear, we can fuck. Who gets top?”

“You?”

“You sure? It’s a long flight on that tender little bottom of yours.” He gave me a dirty look. “All right, but you were warned.”

I was never not careful with him, but tonight, I was especially cautious, because it was a long flight, and I didn’t fancy being stuck in Singapore trying to deal with the aftermath of sex gone wrong. He didn’t mind though – he liked it tender and slow. He said it was because he wanted to remember it all, and when it was wild, he got so caught up in the feelings, he forgot exactly what was being done. I’d told him that it didn’t matter, because we could do it again whenever we wanted, but he said he still wanted the memories. After all he’d been through, and the colourless life he’d had, I could hardly blame him.

He was so beautiful tonight, skin flushed with passion, that fiery hair spilling out on the pure white pillow case, his eyes burning into mine as I took him. I called his name as I came, and he whispered mine as I brought him off. He pulled me down, still sticky and sweaty, and kissed me. “Oh, God, I love you,” he murmured, hugging me close.

He’d never said it before, though I knew he felt that way. No man not in love looked at another the way he did me. I’d never said it either, afraid to jinx this time together. Time to stop being a coward. “I love you too,” I said, making him look at me.

He exhaled, then smiled a little uncertainly. “I thought...you might think I was being clingy. Soppy.”

“You are, but that makes me soppy too.” I kissed his forehead, then got up – I needed to wash. I looked down on him, all mussed and lickable. “You make me so happy, Matt.”

“I don’t do much,” he protested.

I bent and stroked my fingers along his cheek. “You don’t realise what you do. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Matthew McDonald, and I won’t ever let you forget it.”

“Just don’t forget me,” he said, his expression suddenly serious, sending a shiver through me.

I squeezed his shoulder. “How the hell could I forget you? You’re burned on my brain, Matt. Tattooed on my heart. I’d get a real tattoo but, you know....” I put my hand on my chest. “In here, you’re here. Up here,” I added, poking my temple, “forever. I swear.”

“Good enough for me,” he said, giving me that brilliant smile again.

He never had any trouble sleeping. I lay facing him, stroking his arm and listening to his breathing. “So beautiful,” I whispered, running my fingers through his hair, remembering how the Australian sun made it gleam – but then I froze, horrified. There was a digital clock on the bedside table – and through his hair...no, through him, I could just faintly see the red numerals.

“No!” I squinted again, shifted around – the numbers were very dim. Maybe it was just reflection in the dark room. Red light had a way of doing that.

I closed my eyes firmly and held him close to me, making him grumble a little in his sleep. No. This wasn’t happening. Not now. Why would he be slipping through another net? We were bonded, anchored, tied by everything that could tie two people together. He wasn’t disappearing. He wasn’t.

I couldn’t sleep. I held Matt close, and tried to pretend that nothing strange was going on. When, in broad sunshine the next morning, I could detect nothing odd about him – or me – I decided I had been deceived by a trick of the light. Intensely relieved, I hid my worries from Matt, and I didn’t think he suspected there was anything wrong. We had planned to spend two days in Singapore. We used it to do the usual tourist things, and Matt was just the same as ever – quiet, enthusiastic, appreciative. I realised that my imagination had just got the better of me.

Late on the third evening, we flew out to London, travelling first class again. This time, we made our own entertainment, inducting ourselves into the mile-high club in full view of the other passengers. You had to give it to those First Class seats – there was plenty of room for anything we could dream up, and we gave them a damn good work out.

“This is dead kinky,” he said, grinning at me as I knelt between his legs, taking a little break.

“Admit it, you’re an exhibitionist at heart.”

“Only with you. You’re a bad influence.”

I smirked, proud of that fact – then I went still as something caught my eye. I actually felt my heart stutter as I looked harder, trying to will the awfulness away. Please, God, no....

“Euan? What’s wrong”

“I can see through you.”

“I’m not exactly complicated....” He swallowed as he realised what I meant. “No. Euan, tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not,” I whispered. “Oh God, Matt.” I laid my head on his lap. “What does it mean?”

He said nothing, but when I looked up, there was only pure terror in his eyes. “One of us is going away. Euan, I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone again.”

“I won’t let it happen! I’ll hold on, Matt. I’ll hold onto you, whatever happens.”

“You hold onto me,” he repeated, his hands on my shoulders, clenching tight. “Oh God, please don’t do this.” But already he was more transparent, the expensive leather of these oh-so-comfortable seats clearly visible through his chest. Why was this happening?

I clutched him tight all the way to London, lying squished in the same seat as him, as if just by sheer contact, I could keep him anchored. “Hold on,” I begged. “Just hold on.” I could feel him as solid as ever, but to my eyes, he got more and more faint with every passing hour.

At Heathrow, I got on the tube and headed toward Hackney, feeling relaxed, suntanned and not really looking forward to work. Spain had been great. Dad’s new wife was lovely. I’d definitely go back in the autumn, and take Jeremy with me, like Val suggested. I knew he’d like her. He should have gone this time, but neither of us were sure if Dad’s newfound tolerance would really be up to the reality of seeing his gay son and his lover together.

Jeremy was in the kitchen. “Oh, you’re back early,” he exclaimed. “I was going to come and meet you this afternoon.”

I dropped my pack and kissed him. “Dad and Val had a wedding to go to, so I thought I’d change flights. How’s things?”

“Same. You’re brown. Dead sexy,” he said, giving me a significant look.

“Waste not, want not,” I said, grabbing him around the waist. I had the strangest feeling like my voice had an echo or something – like there were too many people in the kitchen. After-effect of the flight, I guessed. I ignored it – I had two weeks of sex to catch up with.

When we had got the most urgent business out of the way, I could catch up with what he was up to. His damn project was finally done, and he announced that we could spend the rest of the weekend together without any interruptions. “Hmmm, like the haircut. Sort of nouveau sauvage,” he said, running his hand through it. “Where did you get it done?”

“Sydney.”

“What?”

“What? Seville, I meant. Val cut it.” I frowned. I had two images in my mind, and only one of them was Val holding the scissors. The other one made no sense at all. “So – want to jump on the bike and head out to Essex?”

“Euan, you don’t have a bike any more.” He laid his hand on my forehead. “You’re not hot. Are you feeling all right?”

I felt kind of...floaty. Like I wasn’t in the world properly. “Actually...I feel a bit dizzy. More...disorientated.”

“Jetlag?”

“From Spain?”

“Stranger things have happened,” he conceded. “You remember it’s Pride weekend?”

“Already? Doesn’t seem like a year since the last one.” And it didn’t. It surely was only a couple of months since I watched the parade – but I remembered being it being blistering hot, so I had to be wrong about that. I rubbed my face, trying to wake up better. This was a very weird sensation – maybe I had an inner ear infection.

“Well if you want to go, we better get a move on. We’ve missed the parade, but the party in Soho should be in full swing.”

“Let me have a shower first, I’m sticky.” He kissed me and went off to clean himself quickly, so he could leave the bathroom to me.

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror – I looked like a stranger with the short hair and the tan. Funny how different lighting made things seem so new and odd. I rubbed the mirror – there was some kind of film on it, making my reflection look a bit fuzzy on the right side. I made a note to check what Jeremy had been cleaning it with.

“You right for cash?” he yelled up the stairs. “Or do you only have euros?”

“I’ll check.” I grabbed my old trousers, trying to remember how many pounds I had left. “I’ve got....” I froze, staring at the thing that had fallen out of my wallet.

“Euan? I missed that.”

I cleared my throat. “Um...about thirty.” My vision began to blur, double, and at my ear, I was sure I could hear someone whispering my name. I whipped around.

“Euan....” The hair in my hand was suddenly tugged. “Remember me.”

“Matt,” I breathed, and my vision cleared. I remembered. Sydney, not Seville. Gay Mardi Gras, not London Pride. “Matt, I remember, but I can’t see you. Touch me. Let me know where you are.”

There was a transitory contact on my shoulders, like the ghost of someone grabbing them. “Harder!” The second attempt was no better. At least I knew he was there. “Can you write for me? Here.” There was a notepad and pen by the phone in the bedroom. “Matt?”

‘love you....’ The words disappeared as quickly as the letters showed on the paper. Reality was fighting back, just as I was having to fight the nagging sensation that I’d been in Spain for two weeks, not Australia for five months.

My memories were sitting side by side, false and true, and the false ones were struggling to swamp me. “Matt, stay with me. Whatever happens, stay with me.”

‘Yes.’ Ghost words on the paper, even fainter this time.

I heard Jeremy on the stairs – I hurriedly shoved the lock of hair back in my wallet, and put a smile on my face, pretending I couldn’t remember finding him in bed with a stranger all those months ago. Was that a real memory or a false one? “Euan? What’s taking so long?” He came in and gave me a puzzled look.

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Stick with me, Matt. I’ll find an answer.

A Pride party in central London was not the best place to try and work through this problem, and I had no appetite for the drinking and messing around while I was trying to figure out how to bring Matt back into this world. Jeremy didn’t mind that my thoughts were elsewhere – he found some people he knew and wandered off.

“Hey, Euan! You’re back from Spain. Nice haircut.”

A large hand descended on my shoulder. I grinned at my friend. “Thanks.” He was sporting a new tattoo. “Fallen in love again?”

“Over there.” He pointed out a tall guy in leather. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”

The party went into the small hours, and we had to catch a night bus home. “Best Pride ever,” I said to Jeremy as we stumbled through the front door. We should do that kind of thing more often. It was fun in small doses.

It was Monday morning, when I went to get my Oyster card out of my wallet, before I remembered that this wasn’t reality. Not my reality. “Oh God, Matt, I’m sorry.” I felt ghostly fingers against my cheek – at least he hadn’t given up on me, though watching me with Jeremy had to have been horrible. I had to find a way to remind me to remember.

“Hi, Euan,” Janice said, startling me – when had she got into the habit of talking to me when I came into the office? “Someone’s birthday?” she asked, pointing to the string around my right middle finger.

Looking at it, Matt’s face was as clear to me as hers, and I held onto that memory like a drowning man does a rope. “Yes, a friend’s. Matthew McDonald.”

“Oh.” Her puddle-deep deep interest in my affairs dried up almost immediately. “Have a nice time in Spain?” She was already thumbing through the files on her desk, asking only out of habit.

“Yes, thanks. You should really try to get out there. Beats London any day.”

“Anything would.” She lifted her head and looked right at me, and I tried to recall how long it had been since she’d done that. “Did you go to Pride?”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” She blushed.

“Good for you. Meet anyone?”

She only grinned and waved me off. Something had definitely changed – but was it me or was it her?

My desk was buried under files – strangely, dealing with it came back to me as easily as if Matt and Australia had never happened, and I had to wonder if at some level, in this reality, I had been at the desk the entire time. I dealt with it all and the telephone calls impatiently and efficiently – it was odd that being a little curt with some of our regular abusers of technology seemed to get more respect from them than my usual method – because I wanted time to work on Matt’s problem. Several times, I lost focus, and it was only the string on my finger that made me remember that I had a problem to solve at all. Reality was fighting hard to fill in the imperfections, and that was the only clue I had to solving this. I figured the only way was going to rip a hole in the net and keep it open, until there was an opening big enough for Matt to fall back through. I didn’t really know how to start, so I did something I would never have done before – I asked my colleagues.

“How would I find someone who’s dropped off the radar?” I asked in the kitchen – I made sure I went for tea when most of the office did, instead of avoiding them as I used to. “I’ve got a friend I’ve completely lost track of.”

“Internet,” Geoff Hyde said promptly. “Everyone’s on the internet.”

“Got a photo?” someone else asked. “Take an ad out in the paper.”

“Hire a detective?”

People were surprisingly willing to help, and no one seemed to find my question unusual. There were some good ideas, and I wrote them down as soon as I got back to my desk, putting the list with Matt’s hair so I’d remember it. “Okay, Matt, love, did you use your real name or a username online?”

My keyboard clacked, and a word appeared briefly on my screen. “Got it,” I said, smiling into the space where I thought he would be.

Machines didn’t care about reality, so they remembered us when everyone else had forgotten, and internet records were just data files on big machines – in seconds, I had a list of results for the name Matt had given me, and a couple under his real name too. Two of the science fiction forums were still active – I signed up, and posted a query asking if anyone knew where ‘Cylon45’ had got to, and if they remembered him. Then I looked up every Scottish forum, chat site and blog I could find, and posted a similar question about Matt himself. I wasn’t really expecting an answer – I just wanted to tear away the fog reality had created. Make people think. Put Matt back in their minds, where he belonged.

For some of the suggestions, I needed a photo. “Matt, is there a photo of you?”

Keyboard again. ‘Bus pass in my pack’. Perfect.

I spent two hours of the company’s time sending out feelers, and the rest of the afternoon, just thinking about him. Remembering him, how he smelled, how he felt, what he looked like. Branding him into my mind so reality couldn’t steal him again. I replaced the string with a band aid across my knuckles, wishing I could write his name on it. Not yet. I had other things to do first.

I picked up groceries on the way home. Chip and pin was still broken, and the girl didn’t check my signature. “Excuse me,” I said, as she handed me my receipt. “Do you realise I just signed that ‘Adolph Hitler’? You’re supposed to check my signature properly.”

She gave me a sullen look. “Better sign it again.” I insisted the manager came over and checked with her and verified my ID, and I complained at length about the shoddy security measures. I was sure they hated my guts for making a fuss. They’d remember me. I’d make sure of it. I wouldn’t be forgotten again.

I found Matt’s pack in the loft, and his Lothian Buses pass – seeing his photo made me get a little teary. He looked so young, so gormless – like he needed a hug. I wanted to give him that hug. “Oh, Matthew,” I said, blinking up into space, through wet lashes. “You were a cute kid. A real kitten.” I fancied him rolling his eyes – he was always so sensitive to any idea that he was in any way feminine. He wasn’t though. He was just young and gorgeous. I missed him. Somehow I had to make sure I wasn’t the only one who did.

Jeremy came back an hour later – he wasn’t working from home just now. “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked, looking at my hand.

“Sort of. Who’s Mark?”

He looked surprised, but there was something less than open in his eyes. “Mark? Why do you ask?”

“I got a call from a bloke,” I lied. “Said he was Mark.”

“Oh...Mark Bowman.” He laughed. “Just someone at work. Did he leave a message?”

“He said he’d call back.” Jeremy would discover I was lying, but then he was lying too. I looked at his face, the one I remembered loving so much, and part of me missed him, would miss him. But forgetting his infidelity would mean forgetting Matt. I couldn’t have both, and I’d made my choice. “Do you mind if I’m away this weekend? I’ve got something I need to do in Scotland. A friend of mine’s gone missing – Matthew McDonald.”

“Who the hell is Matthew McDonald? And who do you know in Scotland?”

“A friend, I told you. Like Mark Bowman.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You can do what you like, Euan, you know that. I guess I’m not invited.”

“It’s not something you’d be interested in.”

“Fine. What’s for supper?”

He didn’t question why I made more than the usual amount of food, and I knew he’d never notice that the leftovers were gone later. I just hoped Matt liked my cooking – we hadn’t done much, staying in hotels and motels in Australia. Jeremy made a call up in his office after supper – checking on my story with his lover, I guessed. He gave me a couple of funny looks that evening, but I knew he’d not call me on it. The irony was that he’d been so much more attentive to me in the last couple of days – guilt? Did it matter, when I knew I loved Matt now, whatever happened with Jeremy? I wondered if Jeremy told himself that he still loved me. Part of me still loved him very much, but not enough of me.

Jeremy sat in the armchair. I knew Matt was beside me on the couch, and I imagined he had his arm around me, his head resting on my shoulder, the way it usually did when we ended up sitting together. After the news, Jeremy wanted to watch a documentary about Iraq. “No, I want to see this thing about Australian wildlife,” I insisted.

“When did you get interested in wildlife?” he asked.

“I always was,” I lied. Matt would like it, I knew.

In the morning, I found the spare duvet folded up neatly on the couch. “I hope you slept well, love,” I said quietly. At least he had a home of sorts – no more hotels. I put the spare key out for him. “Don’t wander off,” I told him. “I need you near me. I need you safe.”

He followed me to the office, though it would have made for a very dull day for him. I kept pushing. I got more response from the forum enquiries than I’d hoped, though no one had any current information, or had any active memories of Matt. It didn’t matter, because just posting had started a discussion about how easy it was for people to drop out of sight on the internet. I posted a couple of times, keeping the conversation going, talking about Matt, weaving him back into a community where he had once felt at home.

But it wasn’t enough on its own. I had other plans. I booked an ad with the Peebleshire News, showing Matt’s photo and asking if anyone had information about him. I wrote to his former employer, posing as a new one, and asking for a reference. I wrote to his parent’s church, and to his former school. I contacted everyone Matt had ever mentioned to me, and any organisation he could have remotely been connected with. And then on Friday evening, I caught the sleeper train to Edinburgh. I paid for two berths. “Sleep well, Matt,” I said as I lay down.

“Euan....” Something brushed my cheek. I blew a kiss into the air, and prayed that I was on the right track, metaphorically as well as literally.

It was a misty, showery morning as I caught the bus from Princes Street to Penicuik. It was my first trip to Scotland, and not the circumstances I would have wanted – I had to hope there would be more chances to come up here with Matt at my side. Penicuik turned out to be a pleasant small town with a quite self-contained feel, for all that it was a mere thirty minutes’ bus ride from Edinburgh. Matt’s parents lived in a small brick bungalow, not far from the town centre. I felt him beside me as I rang the door bell.

His mother answered the door. She looked a lot older than the fifty or so I thought she had to be – more like a pensioner. “Good morning, Mrs McDonald. My name’s Euan Henderson – I’ve come from London to see you.”

“What about?” Her husband came up behind her. He was definitely older than fifty – but I knew he was retired. “Dirk? This gentleman’s come from London. He says he’s Euan Henderson.”

“It’s about your son, Matt.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t have a son, young man.”

“Look.” I thrust Matt’s bus pass at her. “Matthew Iain McDonald. Parents Dirk and Eileen McDonald. Born in 1981, July 28.”

“You’ve got the wrong address....”

“Educated at Cornbank St James’ and Penicuik High School. He broke his leg when he was ten, and you bought him a chess set to keep him occupied. He got pneumonia when he was fifteen, and had to be taken by ambulance to Edinburgh....”

Mr McDonald lifted his hand. “You’ve got the wrong address, sir,” he said heavily.

I pulled out my wallet. “Have I? Do you recognise this hair colour, Mrs McDonald?”

She fingered the fine red strands, a distant look in her eyes. “Perhaps you better come in.”

“Eileen, you can’t.”

“Dirk, there’s something....”

I knew what she was feeling – dual memories, pushing against each other, warring, struggling for domination. I pushed again. “He had a rabbit called Ferris. A cat called Hamish. Mr McDonald, you buried them at the end of your vegetable patch, and carved a marker stone for them. Matt helped you, and put his initials on the back.”

Mrs McDonald clutched at her chest. “How could he know that, Dirk? Not that wee marker.”

“We don’t have a son.” He was glaring at me with raw suspicion – I couldn’t blame him.

“You do,” I insisted. “Try to remember. Your boy, Matt. You taught him woodwork in your shed. You’ve got a lathe set up, and you made two bedside tables for your twentieth anniversary as a gift for your wife.”

Mr McDonald’s expression changed to one of shock. “How can you know that? Eileen, he’s a devil.”

“I’m not a devil. I’m a friend of Matt’s and I’m trying to find him. Please, help me find him.”

After a long, hard look, he nodded curtly at me, and I followed them into the tidy bungalow. It felt to me like the soul of this house was missing – almost like a model of a home, not the real thing. The two of them seemed strangely spiritless too. It might have just been my imagination

Mrs McDonald asked me to sit, and if I’d like tea. Mr McDonald kept watch on me in the tiny sitting room. The décor – outdated floral wallpaper, far too many cheap, tiny knickknacks and ornaments of the kind my Gran had liked, and heavy furniture – added to the impression of people acting much older than their biological age. No wonder Matt had grown up quiet and shy – it was either that or go the complete rebel route, and he loved his parents too much to hurt them.

Matt’s father settled back in his chair. “Do you work, Mr Henderson?”

“Yes, sir.” I named the company – it meant nothing to him, which didn’t surprise me. “Don’t you want to know how I know about your son? Or your home?”

“I think you’re wasting our time and your own, young man, but if Eileen doesn’t mind you being here, I’ll hear you out.”

We sat in unfriendly silence, waiting for his wife. She came in with a tray, and set it down, her movements nervous, jerky. I’d unsettled her, but it was what I wanted – to shake her up. Finally we were sitting with dainty china cups in our hands. “I know it sounds very peculiar,” I said without waiting for an invitation to speak. “But you have a son, and I know him very well.”

“How can that be possible?” she asked, her accent so like Matt’s it made me misty-eyed. “I’d know if I had a son.”

I heard a whisper at my ear, a touch on my hand, then the curtain ruffled at a window over a dark wooden chest underneath it. “If I’m right, Mrs McDonald, there’s something in that chest which will prove the truth – maybe photos? School records?”

She frowned at her husband, who gave me a dark look. “If you’re up to no good, Mr Henderson, I’ll have the police around here in two ticks. We’ve got a constable two doors down.”

“I’m not up to anything, sir. Just have a look. Maybe a photo album? One from before two years ago?”

Mrs McDonald shrugged helplessly, then rose to fetch it. She brought three albums, and put them on the coffee table in front of me. “Look through those, for all the good it’ll do you.”

It took me less than a minute to find what I was looking for. I turned it around to them. “Who’s this?”

You could see their brains frying. Reality was trying to tell them their son didn’t exist, and yet, right there in a private family photo album, was a picture of an apparent stranger in school uniform. “That’s Matthew,” I said. “Your son.” I pulled out the lock of hair again from my wallet, and laid it next to the image of that same hair. “Your son,” I repeated.

“I don’t understand,” Mr McDonald murmured, touching the photo. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“You have, but something – I don’t know what or why – is trying to stop you remembering.”

An hour later I was back at the bus stop, feeling intensely frustrated and not a little worried. I had found so much evidence of Matt’s existence, gaining some useful information, and for a few minutes, I’d managed to convince his parents, even getting them to remember things about Matt that I hadn’t told them. But then reality fought back, and they got confused, wondering why I was in the house, and asking me to leave. I persuaded them to take my name and contact details, but then I left, because I didn’t want to frighten them. The ad in the local paper was coming out on the Tuesday. I had to hope it would trigger their memories again. But Matt was still trapped on the wrong side of the net. I didn’t even know if anything I was doing was helping.

I bought a bunch of flowers and took it to Waverley Station. I found the platform where the train to Inverness was due to leave, and laid the flowers reverently at the head of it. “You’re remembered, Stuart Cameron, and missed.” I knew Matt was at my shoulder as I spoke. “When I get him back, I’ll find your family, and tell them what happened to you.” I should find the family of Mad Jeannie too, if she had one. For every one of the missing, there were other victims, unaware of their loss.

I bought a Celtic-patterned silver bangle from one of the gift shops at the centre, as a more permanent and elegant reminder of the truth, then got on a train before lunch back to London. I arrived back a whole day earlier than I’d told Jeremy I would. His lover nearly broke a toe, leaping out of our bed. “This would be Mark from work, I take it,” I said, standing at the door.

While his lover was scrabbling to pull his jeans on, Jeremy had the bed clothes pulled up under his chin, as if he was afraid I was going to attack him. “Euan, I’m sorry....”

“Forget it. You, piss off,” I said, pointing at the guy. “I need to talk to Jeremy.”

He grabbed his shirt and bolted. I waited for him to leave and listened for the front door slamming, then I sat on the end of the bed. “Euan...I'm sorry,” Jeremy said. His eyes were miserable, and I believed him. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. He was never cruel like that.

“How long has it been going on?”

“Six months. I didn’t...it means nothing, I swear. Can’t you give me a second chance?”

“It’s too late. I knew you were having it away.” His eyes widened in surprise. “And I’ve met someone else now.” I showed him my hand and the bangle. “I love Matt McDonald, and when I find him, I’m moving out.”

“Just like that? We’re over? And you’ve been screwing someone behind my back too?”

He let the covers go, his lips starting to thin in anger, and I didn’t want a fight – there was just no damn point. “Jer, we’ve been over for months. We’ve just been going through the motions.”

“That’s not true!”

He could be right, I realised. There were at least three realities here, colliding, and I had no real idea which one Jeremy remembered – the one where I had existed and we’d become so distant, the one where I’d never existed at all, and the one where we’d had the same relationship we’d had before, with good sex and fun times together. But in all three of them, he’d been shagging someone else. “Do you love that guy?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It was just fun. You and I were getting so stale. We could fix it, Euan. It’s not like we fight or anything. I love you, you know I love you.”

“Yeah, I do, but it’s just too late, Jeremy. I'm sorry. Look, I don’t care if you want to fuck him – just not here, okay? Go to his place. I’m going to start sleeping downstairs.”

“No, I’ll camp in the office.” He reached out his hand to me and I took it, feeling sad, but knowing it had been inevitable from the moment I’d seen him screwing Mark the first time. “I guess you hate me now.”

“No. I’ve had time to get used to it...and like you said, we were getting stale.” I took a deep breath, and admitted, “I could have done more too.”

He smiled painfully. “I really messed this up.”

“No...this isn’t all your fault, Jeremy. I can’t explain why.” I bent in and kissed his forehead. “I still love you, and I want you to be happy. But I need to be with Matt.”

He frowned. “Matt? Who the hell is Matt?” I sighed. Reality was working its damn magic again.

He moved into his office. We agreed there was no rush to sell the flat, or change things much at all – it wasn’t like we disliked each other, and we’d got used to living together as flatmates. We actually saw each other more than we had before I’d disappeared, and though he gave more than a few unsubtle hints that he’d like us to go back the way we had been, I made it just as clear that wasn’t going to happen. He was never one for scenes or pointless fights – he was too smart for that, and I was determined to keep his friendship, so I just refused to let his little gambits get to me. I’d had months to adjust to the death of our relationship – he just needed time. Meanwhile, he had his work, I had my mission. Until I got Matt back, I couldn’t think about anything else.

I kept pushing for information as much as I could by internet. By Wednesday morning, when the ad had gone out, I had emails – people who thought they remembered Matt, two who’d been to school with him, a puzzled note from the employer saying they had records of his working for them, but no one who could provide a reference, the school saying they could only confirm that Matt had been a student. But it still wasn’t enough.

I stirred the pot as much as I could, kept conversations going, kept asking questions, put his photo out at the slightest excuse. A week later, when I got a letter from Matt’s mum asking me for more information, as there was something strange with their personal records, I was sure I had cracked it – but nothing happened.

I sat in the kitchen, reading his mother’s letter, willing him to appear. “What am I missing, Matt? I don’t know what else to try.”

Nothing. I wasn’t even sure he was in the room with me. Maybe he’d slipped further away and I hadn’t known it.

Jeremy came into the kitchen a few minutes later, and saw me all red-eyed and sad. “Euan, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” He came over and laid a kind hand on my shoulder, and with that single, affectionate gesture, the dam of frustration and loneliness just broke inside me. I turned my face to his stomach and bawled my eyes out like a little kid. “Hey, what’s going on?” he said gently, stroking my back. “Is it Matt? Did you have a fight or something?”

I raised my head and blinked at him through the tears. “Y-you...remember him? What I said about him?”

“Sure. It’s not every day your boyfriend falls in love with someone else,” he said with only the slightest bitter edge to his voice. He sat down and took my hand. “What’s wrong, Euan?”

I sniffled, and rubbed my nose with my free hand. “Jer, I need to tell you something, and you’re not to laugh. This is deadly serious.”

He held my hand while I told him the whole strange tale, about me being invisible, finding him and Mark in bed the first time. “So I’ve been in Australia, not Spain, Jeremy. I’ve been gone months and months. That’s why it wasn’t your fault you started sleeping with him. I wasn’t in your memory at all.”

Because Jeremy’s a smart man, and kind with it, he didn’t tell me I was an idiot, or point out what a ridiculous story it was, because he knew I knew what it sounded like, and he knew I believed it. “Look,” I said, thrusting the letter from Matt’s mum towards him. “Matt’s her only son, and she’d forgotten him completely. I’ve got so much hard proof he existed, and she couldn’t remember him for more than about fifteen minutes. You couldn’t remember me telling you I was in love with him.”

“But now I can,” he said slowly, reading the letter. “So what’s changed?”

“I have no idea. If something has, why can’t I see him? I need to get him back on this side of the net. You have no idea how...empty it is without other people over there. Knowing everyone you love has forgotten you. And if anything happens to him, he gets sick or injured...no one will help him. He could die, Jeremy.” I hid my eyes behind my hand, not wanting him to see my crying over my new lover, but unable to help myself.

He made a small moue of sympathy, and squeezed my hand again. “Tell me what you’ve tried. There has to be some logical solution to this.”

I could have kissed him. I did kiss him, out of gratitude and affection and raw relief at being believed. “Now, now, Matt might be watching,” he said wistfully – and with a spark of hope in his eyes that I wanted, so very wanted to be able to satisfy. I did love him. I always would. But there was Matt now.

“Jeremy, I’m sorry....” I pulled away and put a little distance between us. “He’s here, you’re right.”

He shrugged. “I know, Euan. Now, tell me.”

I told him all the things I’d tried, and what I’d hoped to achieve. He listened, and then thought for a bit. He had played a lot of computer games so maybe this wasn’t as weird to him as it had seemed to me. “This net analogy is good so far as it goes, but there must be more to it. It can’t just be lonely or unloved people – you and Matt had people who cared about you, and you were hardly a shut-in.”

“But....”

He held up a hand to signal he was thinking. I waited, anxious but also hopeful, just because I had someone on my side. Ridiculous to be optimistic when he knew less about it than I did, but I was so tired of trying to work this mess out on my own.

Finally he frowned, then looked at me. “You know, the thing that strikes me about the people you’ve told me this has happened to, is that they’re all so self-effacing, the opposite of attention-seeking. That Jean you told me about – I bet she went out of her way to avoid getting noticed, to avoid whatever abuse she was suffering. Matt doesn’t like to be a bother, and look at you – you don’t like to rock the boat, you don’t like to cause a fuss....”

“I changed,” I said somewhat defensively.

“Yeah – and you came back.”

“Matt changed! You should have seen him – he came alive! We both....” I hit the table with my clenched fist. “Why didn’t what worked for me, work for him? We went through the same experiences, both changed, both fell in love. I fell in love and I lost him because of it.”

“Maybe affection’s not enough,” he said. “Maybe there’s some minimum level of attention someone has to have as well. Maybe it’s like a glue. It doesn’t affect everyone, so I guess it comes down to certain individuals. Hmmm.”

I didn’t know if any of that made sense, but then it was probably as plausible as Matt’s friend’s idea. “So what do I do?”

“I think you’re on the right track, but if Matt’s right and the longer you’re on the other side, the harder it is to come back, then the more you have to do to bring him back.”

“Jeremy, I’ve done everything!” Damn it, I felt like crying again, I was so fucking frustrated. “What the hell else can I do?”

“Calm down, Euan,” he said, reaching over to pat me on the shoulder. “Let’s have supper, and we can talk about it some more.”

I was too upset to cook, but Jeremy took charge – it wasn’t that he couldn’t cook, he just didn’t see why he should when he could buy meals from the supermarkets. It was just lamb chops and new potatoes, tasty enough, but I had no appetite. I was failing Matt, and he was alone over there, with no one to talk to or touch.

I insisted on a third portion being served, and Jeremy had to be reminded why – reality wasn’t giving up easily. I saw the food disappearing – when I asked Jeremy if he could see it too, he seemed confused, but acknowledged that the food had gone. “This is very strange,” he said, staring at the empty plate.

“Tell me about it,” I said gloomily. “If you’re right, I still don’t know what else I can do. I’m getting people to pay attention to Matt – his parents, his employer, even you – so why isn’t it working?”

He poured me another glass of wine – and one for Matt too, though Matt hadn’t really ever got the taste for it – then put his chin on his hand to look at me. “Did you ever hear about activation energy?”

“No – is that some New Age thing?”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, science. Every chemical reaction has an energy threshold to be overcome before it can occur. So...like setting a fire. You have to get the wood hot enough before it can combust. If the wood’s wet, it’s harder to reach the threshold. Maybe the problem is that because Matt’s been gone so long, the threshold is just incredibly high, and you can’t overcome it on your own. You must be close – like you said, people are starting to remember him. But what worked for you isn’t enough for him – you need something more to push him over the energy threshold.”

I clenched the stem of my wine glass. “So what do I do?”

“Let me help.”

I blinked at him. “But...I’m leaving you for him.”

He ran his finger down my cheek affectionately. “Yeah, I know, and it hurts, trust me. But if he doesn’t come back, are you going to come back to me?” I couldn't give him the answer he wanted, and he knew I couldn’t. “So there’s the reason. Besides, this is definitely the strangest thing I’ve ever come across, and I’d like to solve the mystery,” he added with a smile that was painful to see.

“You’re going to make me cry again. I feel such a shit, Jer. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either, Euan. If I’d seen you bonking someone else in our bed, I’d have gone spare – I’d have kicked you out, probably.”

“That’s not why...I just...knew we couldn’t go back to how we were and then I fell in love,” I said, feeling this was a rather weedy explanation. “I couldn’t just pick up where you and I left off. Too much had happened to me.”

“Yes.” He looked at me steadily, sadly. “You’ve changed. Changed in a good way. It makes it harder, but you’re right. You can’t go back, and I...can’t get you back.”

“Jer,” I whispered.

He just shook his head. “Look – it’s done, and you’re obviously falling apart over this, so we need to fix it. ”

Silently I cursed fate, or reality, or the gods who were behind this, or whatever had brought this about. “You don’t have to help me. Matt wouldn’t agree. It’s just cruel to you.”

“Euan, I think by now he’d be prepared to murder the Queen if he could get back on the same side of reality as you. Besides – this isn’t just about you and Matt and me. Think of all the other people caught up in this. If we can find an answer, then maybe you and Matt can contact their families and tell them about it. Think of the misery this is causing.”

“Yes. It’s more than us, and I want to fix it.

He nodded. “Okay, so do you want to hear my idea?”

A week later, I was in one of London’s biggest gay venues, my stomach knotting so hard I felt like throwing up. I rubbed my hands nervously against my trousers. “Bloody hell, Matthew, you are going to owe me so much when this is over,” I muttered. And we would both owe Jeremy.

I forced myself to concentrate. I really didn’t care much for clubs – the smoke and noise drove me crazy, and I liked quieter venues where I could talk and get a decent pint – although I’d come here a couple of times with Jeremy. He wasn’t much of a club goer either, but he was friendly with a couple of the barmen, and he planned to use that for this insane plan. Left to myself, I’d never have come up with it – putting Matt’s photo in a local newspaper and my name as a contact was as much public exposure as I could bear. Jeremy was right about me, and changed or not, I didn’t like making a fool of myself in public. It took something this desperate to get me to go along with Jeremy’s idea.

The place was heaving – the weekly retro music night was always insanely popular – and I quickly lost sight of Jeremy who’d gone off to arrange it all. My part in this would come later. I had to assume Matt was managing to keep up with me – the last contact I’d had with him had been in the bathroom at the flat, after I showered. He’d traced a heart in the mist on the mirror. I’d needed that little gesture.

I stood in line for ages to buy a pint of lager I didn’t want, so I had something to hold in my hands and stop them shaking, and so I didn’t stand out. The litter-strewn dance floor was packed, and the music was pretty good – I wondered if Matt was enjoying it at all. He had to know what we were planning – what a way for him to spend his birthday. But then it couldn’t be worse than the last two he’d spent – alone, with no hope and no one to share the misery. “You won’t be alone again,” I said, toasting the thin air. I got a funny look from the blokes near me. I smiled at them. “Thinking aloud about the boyfriend,” I said.

“He should be ashamed of himself, leaving a good looking thing like you on your own,” one of them said.

“I haven’t,” Jeremy said, smoothly insinuating himself at my side, his arm around my waist. The two of them grinned and turned back to their own conversation. “Sorry,” he said to me, removing his arm. “I was just....”

“Rescuing the damsel in distress? Jesus, Jer,” I said shaking my head at him affectionately. “Are we all set?”

“Yep. You nervous?”

I held out a hand and showed him how it was trembling. “You have to ask?”

“All in a good cause.”

“The best. When are they going to do it?” There was an enormous video screen above the dance floor, flashing an apparently random series of images to match the music – Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand were currently giving it their all to an appreciative crowd. It was overwhelmingly loud and hot and smoky.

“Any minute now – I need you to come with me.”

I was going to look like a total and utter fool, I knew I would. Had never, ever been any good at public speaking. Good cause, I kept telling myself. The best reason in the world.

The Summer/Streisand duet ended, and when the music didn’t immediately resume, loud complaints and catcalls rose up from the dancers. When the familiar strains of ‘Happy Birthday’ were heard over the speakers, there were as many boos as cheers. My heart sank. They were going to loathe me for this.

“Ladies, ladies, be nice,” the DJ chided. “We have a very special message to issue, all in a good cause. Today is the twenty-fifth birthday of a lovely young man called Matthew McDonald.” Right on cue, Matt’s image – not his bus pass, but the dorky one from his final year of high school – flashed up on the video screen. “Matthew’s gone missing, and his friend, Euan, needs your help in finding him. Euan?”

I struggled up to the stage, cringing at the renewed catcalls and mocking noises – God, did they think I didn’t know how cheesy this was? – and accepted the mike from the DJ. “Hi, guys.”

“Hi, Euan,” they bellowed back. I flushed hot in embarrassment. “Nice arse,” someone called out. The crowd rocked with laughter. I just wanted to die.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, getting more laughter. “Look – sorry to bother you all – but...my friend, Matt. I love him, and...a couple of weeks ago, he disappeared. I’ve looked everywhere, searched all over the country...I need your help. Just look at his photo, will you? If you know him, if you’ve seen him. Please, tell me. I love him, and I...want to be with him on his birthday.”

Everyone went silent, heads craned up at the screen. “His name is Matthew Iain McDonald. Please...just have him in your thoughts.” I glanced at Jeremy, who gave me a thumbs up. “Um...thank you.” I thrust the microphone back at the DJ and climbed quickly down the stairs to the sounds of cheering – not all of it ironic. The DJ made a stupid joke about young love and launched into an ABBA song.

“Perfect!” Jeremy shouted over the music, clapping my shoulder.

“It didn’t work!” I said. I couldn’t see Matt, couldn’t even feel him. “Jeremy, it didn’t work!” I rubbed the Celtic bangle, as if I could make Matt reappear like a genie. “Please...Matt, come back.”

“Hey...Euan, is it?” I turned and saw one of the guys from the brief encounter before. I nodded. “I’m James. Sorry to hear about your boyfriend – are you sure he just didn’t leave you?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “He left everything behind,” I lied. “It was like he became invisible.”

“Look – I work for a missing persons charity.” He opened his wallet and pulled out a card. “We deal with a lot of families who’ve lost someone like you have. Why don’t you drop down next week and I can give you some advice, how to look, how to cope, that kind of thing. If I hear anything about Matthew, I’ll let you know. I can put the word out, get people thinking about him.”

“Would you?” I could have hugged the guy. “Thanks. It means a lot.”

“No problem. He must mean a lot to you if you were prepared to make a tit of yourself like that.”

Jeremy grinned and I raised a smile. “He does. Thanks...er, James,” I said. “I’ll come by.”

He acknowledged that, then merged back into the crowd. “See?” Jeremy said. “It might take some time, but more and more people will be aware of him – and he remembered what you said. The speech, I mean. That’s a good sign.”

“Maybe. I just...don’t think it worked. Nothing’s changed,” I said, frustrated. I stared up at the screen where Matt’s seventeen-year-old face had been displayed. “We’re out of ideas.”

“No, we’re not.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Let’s go home. If it doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else.”

I rode the night bus home with Jeremy in a fog of despondency. What next? A full page ad in The Guardian? An interview on the BBC? I might be getting myself a lot of attention (which I loathed) but it didn’t seem to be having a rebound effect on Matt. “Cheer up, Euan,” Jeremy said kindly as we got to the flat. “Do you want tea or coffee before you go to bed? Or a Scotch?”

“Coffee,” I said, sitting at the kitchen table as he put the kettle on. I felt...tired and hopeless, but also wound up and jittery. I doubted I’d get to sleep anytime soon.

“And does Matt want one?”

“Yes, thank you, Jeremy,” someone else said beside me.

I jumped so hard the table nearly fell over – Jeremy was grinning at some joke. And next to me.... “Matt!” I leapt up and grabbed him. “You’re here! Jeremy, can you see him?”

“I can see him. Happy birthday, Matt.”

Matt, right on cue, blushed beet red. “Thank you.”

Jeremy smiled and turned back to the coffee making. I only had eyes for Matt. “I don’t believe it,” I said, touching him all over. He looked tired, his hair was wild and unbrushed, but he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. “God, you’re here, you’re really here.”

Oblivious to anyone or anything but ourselves, we kissed and hugged, making up for lost time, until finally I heard Jeremy clearing his throat. “I think maybe I should leave you two alone so you can talk,” he said, switching the kettle off, his expression determinedly friendly. “Good night.”

“Wait – Jeremy,” I said, taking his hand, and making him turn around. “Thank you.” I saw the longing in his eyes, and knew how much it had cost him to do this for me. “I owe you. I owe you everything.”

Jeremy shrugged, trying to be casual, and almost succeeding. “No, I think we’re even now. But you,” he said, pointing at Matt, “better make him happy.”

“I’ll try my hardest. Thank you, Jeremy,” Matt said, still blushing.

“You’re welcome, I guess. So...I’ll be seeing you both in the morning?”

I looked at Matt, who smiled back. “Yeah, you can count on it. We’re sticking around this time, I promise you that.”

We wouldn’t slip away again, I swore, but I wanted more than that. As soon as Matt and I were settled and he’d got his life in order, I was going to contact James at the missing persons charity. Tell him about Matt’s friend Stuart, and mad Jeannie, and all the others Matt knew about – tell him about this secret tragedy, and enlist his help to get these people back into the real world, get the families to realise what had happened and drag them back through the net. It wouldn’t be easy, but I figured if anyone could do it, Matt and I could, and since Jeremy had helped me pull off one miracle, the rest of it should be possible. We would bring as many of the missing home as we could. And somehow I would try to make it up to Jeremy.

I would fight back this time. No more drifting or hiding. I would weave the net between me and mine so tight that reality would never get a chance to get its hooks on me – or those I loved – again.

The End