Free All Sorts of Possible by Rupert Wallis Page A

All that matters is you. How
you
process it. So you can start to come to terms with it
all.’
    ‘I don’t know why any of it happened.’
    His aunt nodded as if she understood. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how terrible it must have been for you down there. But if you want to talk to me, about anything, then you can
because it’s not healthy keeping everything bottled up. It’ll rot you on the inside. That’s what bad experiences do. Hollow you out and fill you up with all the questions you can
never answer.’
    She reached forward and lifted up his dirty plate and stacked it on to hers. ‘We’re family, Daniel. We’re all we’ve got. So we need to stick together. If you want to tell
me anything, you can.’
    ‘I don’t think I’m ready to talk just yet,’ he said, picking a loose thread from the edge of the tablecloth.
    When Daniel clicked his bedroom door shut, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and placed his hand on his chest, trying to feel for the secret space that Lawson had shown
him. But there was only the thump of his heart and his serried ribs, like the rungs of a ladder leading to somewhere mysterious inside him.
    After finally falling asleep, he dreamt of a world where death was a long sleep from which everyone awoke, wide-eyed and smiling, with all the answers to how the world works and how to live
peacefully and well.
You have to die to know
, they said when Daniel asked them the secret to being happy, for they had all sworn not to tell a single person the truth.

The Man in the Mackintosh

27
    Bennett was all tanned after his holiday. It looked like his teeth and the whites of his eyes had been freshly painted. He was goose-stepping over puddles on the path, making
every cloud in them shimmer, as Daniel wheeled his bike beside him, talking everything through, right up to the day before with Mason.
    ‘So?’ asked Daniel when he had finished. ‘What do you think?’
    Bennett stopped to peer down at his reflection in a puddle, a cigarette between finger and thumb.
    ‘What do
you
think?’ asked Bennett, bending closer to the water as if expecting his reflection to answer for him. When it didn’t, he sighed and shook his head and
looked up at Daniel. ‘That you can’t tell anyone else about Mason, but then you know that already. Also, that you should be glad you’re not me. Because I’m the one
who’s supposed to tell you everything’s going to be OK. But I can’t do that. I can’t lie. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be acting like a best friend should. It wouldn’t
be me.’
    Bennett studied his reflection in the puddle again as if waiting to see if it had anything to add, then took a final drag and flicked his cigarette away, making the water hiss. Daniel stepped
back, as if the water was alive, and Bennett noticed, but said nothing as he walked on.
    ‘There’s something you can do to help,’ said Daniel.
    Bennett’s large brown eyes grew wider beneath his fringe of black hair. ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘Come with me now, to look for some answers.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Where do you think?’
    ‘You mean climb down into the sinkhole?’
    ‘No, I meant go and explore where I got out.’
    Bennett coughed a bluish cloud and spat a gob of phlegm that landed on the wall beside them. He watched it scrambling down the bright red bricks like some green bug. ‘Do you think
there’ll be any answers there?’
    Daniel shrugged. ‘It’s a place to start.’
    ‘You mean to help with the Mason situation? With finding someone to make the fit?’
    ‘With anything.’ Daniel wafted a toe over the gap between two paving stones as if wary of stepping on it and then put his foot down beyond it. ‘It’s OK. You don’t
have to come if you don’t want to.’
    Bennett stopped and just stared at him, and then he peered down at the black gap between the paving stones before planting both feet across it. ‘I can see why you need to go back to the
place you nearly died.’ Daniel