Will loved driving around London. He loved the traffic, which allowed him to believe he was a man in a hurry and offered him rare opportunities for frustration and anger (other people did things to let off steam, but Will had to do things to build it up); he loved knowing his way around; he loved being swallowed up in the flow of the city’s life. You didn’t need a job or a family to drive around London; you only needed a car, and Will had a car. Sometimes he just drove for the hell of it, and sometimes he drove because he liked to hear music played at a volume that would not be possible in the flat without a furious knock on the door or the wall or the ceiling.

Today he had convinced himself that he had to drive to Waitrose, but if he was honest the real reason for the trip was that he wanted to sing along to ‘Nevermind’ at the top of his voice, and he couldn’t do that at home. He loved Nirvana, but at his age they were kind of a guilty pleasure. All that rage and pain and self-hatred! Will got a bit… fed up sometimes, but he couldn’t pretend it was anything stronger than that. So now he used loud angry rock music as a replacement for real feelings, rather than as an expression of them, and he didn’t even mind very much. What good were real feelings anyway?

The cassette had just turned itself over when he saw Marcus ambling down Upper Street. He hadn’t seen him since the day of the trainers, nor had he wanted to see him particularly, but he suddenly felt a little surge of affection for him. Marcus was so locked into himself, so oblivious to everyone and everything, that affection seemed to be the only possible response: the boy somehow seemed to be asking for absolutely nothing and absolutely everything all at the same time.

The affection that Will felt was not acute enough to make him want to stop the car, or even toot: he had discovered that it was much easier to sustain one’s fondness for Marcus if one just kept one’s foot down, literally and metaphorically. But it was funny, seeing him out in the street in broad daylight, wandering aimlessly… Something nagged at him. Why was it funny? Because Will had never really seen Marcus in broad daylight before. He had only previously seen him in the gloom of a winter afternoon. And why had he only seen him in the gloom of a winter afternoon? Because Marcus only came round after school. But it was just after two o’clock. Marcus should be in school now. Bollocks.

Will wrestled with his conscience, grappled it to the ground and sat on it until he couldn’t hear a squeak out of it. Why should he care if Marcus went to school or not? OK, wrong question. He knew very well why he should care whether Marcus went to school. Try a different question: how much did he care whether Marcus went to school or not? Answer: not a lot. That was better. He drove home.

At exactly 4.15, right in the middle of Countdown, the buzzer went. If Will hadn’t seen Marcus bunking off this afternoon, the precision of the timing would have escaped his notice, but now it just seemed transparently obvious: Marcus had clearly decided that arriving at the flat before 4.15 would arouse suspicion, so he’d timed it to the second. It didn’t matter, however; he wasn’t going to answer the door.

Marcus buzzed again; Will ignored him again. On the third buzz he turned Countdown off and put In Utero on, in the hope that Nirvana might block out the sound more effectively than Carol Vorderman. By the time he got to ‘Pennyroyal Tea’, the eighth or ninth track, he’d had enough of listening to Kurt Cobain and Marcus: Marcus could obviously hear the music through the door, and was providing his own accompaniment by buzzing in time. Will gave up.

‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

‘I came to ask you a favour.’ Nothing in Marcus’s face or voice suggested that he had been the least bit inconvenienced or bored during his thirty-odd minutes of buzzing.

They had a brief bout of leg-wrestling: Will was standing in Marcus’s way, but Marcus managed to force his way into the flat regardless.

‘Oh no, Countdown’s finished. Did that fat bloke get knocked out?’

‘What favour do you want to ask me?’

‘I want you to take me and a friend to football.’

‘Your mum can take you.’

‘She doesn’t like football.’

‘Neither do you.’

‘I do now. I like Manchester United.’

‘Why?’

‘I like O’Bane.’

‘Who the hell’s O’Bane?’

‘He scored five goals for them last Saturday.’

‘They drew nil—nil at Leeds.’

‘It was probably the Saturday before, then.’

‘Marcus, there isn’t a player called O’Bane.’

‘I might have got it wrong. Something that sounds like that. He’s got bleached hair and a beard and he looks like Jesus. Can I have a Coke?’

‘No. There’s nobody who plays for Man United with bleached hair and a beard who looks like Jesus.’

‘Tell me some of their names.’

‘Hughes? Cantona? Giggs? Sharpe? Robson?’

‘No. O’Bane.’

‘O’Kane?’

Marcus’s face lit up. ‘That must be it!’

‘Used to play for Nottingham Forest about twenty-five years ago. Didn’t look like Jesus. Didn’t bleach his hair. Never scored five goals. How was school today?’

‘OK.’

‘How was the afternoon?’

Marcus looked at him, trying to work out why he might have asked the question.

‘OK.’

‘What did you have?’

‘History, and then… ummm…’

Will had intended to store the skiving up, just as Marcus had stored the Ned thing up, but now he had him wriggling on the hook he couldn’t resist taking him off and making him swim round and round in the bucket.

‘It’s Wednesday today, isn’t it?’

‘Er… Yes.’

‘Don’t you have double walking up and down Upper Street on Wednesday afternoons?’

He could see Marcus beginning the slow descent towards panic.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I saw you this afternoon.’

‘What, in school?’

‘Well, I couldn’t have seen you in school, Marcus, could I? Because you weren’t there.’

‘This afternoon?’

‘Yes, this afternoon.’

‘Oh, right. I had to nip out and get something.’

‘You had to nip out? And they’re all right about nipping out, are they?’

‘Where did you see me?’

‘I drove past you on Upper Street. I have to say, it didn’t look as though you were nipping. It looked like you were skiving.’

‘It was Mrs Morrison’s fault.’

‘Her fault that you had to nip out? Or her fault that you had to skive?’

‘She told me to keep out of their way again.’

‘You’re losing me, Marcus. Who is Mrs Morrison?’

‘The head. You know they always say when I get in trouble that I should keep out of their way? She said that about the training shoe kids.’ His voice rose an octave, and he started to speak more quickly. ‘They followed me! How can I keep out of their way if they follow me?’

‘OK, OK, keep your hair on. Did you tell her that?’

‘Course I did. She just didn’t take any notice.’

‘Right. So you go home and tell your mum this. It’s no good telling me. And you’ve got to tell her that you bunked off as well.’

‘I’m not telling her that. She’s got enough problems without me.’

‘Marcus, you’re already a problem.’

‘Why can’t you go and see her? Mrs Morrison?’

‘You’re joking. Why should she take any notice of me?’

‘She would. She—’

‘Marcus, listen. I’m not your father, or your uncle, or your stepfather, or anybody at all. I’m nothing to do with you. No headmistress is going to take any notice of what I say, and nor should she, either. You’ve got to stop thinking I know the answer to anything, because I don’t.’

‘You know about things. You knew about the trainers.’

‘Yeah, and what a triumph they were. I mean, they were a source of endless happiness, weren’t they? You’d have been in school this afternoon if I hadn’t bought you the trainers.’