Free Ibrahim & Reenie by David Llewellyn

scheme of things. His friends were his family.
    In the shop, the man who lived at number 16 and who always smelled like sherry was buying a two-litre flagon of strong cider, two packs of Lambert & Butler, and a scratch card. The Sikh lad who worked there made a show of waving his hand in front of his nose after the man from number 16 had left.
    â€˜He stinks, man. Always in here, always buying that cheap cider shit. What can I get you?’
    Casper paid for the dog food and left. As he neared the house he could hear Andy’s music again. Had it been that loud when he went out, or had they turned it up? Thank God most of their neighbours were in work, or unlikely to complain about the noise. If he hadn’t had to feed Sputnik, he would have kept walking. The park was quiet and clean and smelled of honest things, like dead leaves and wet grass, and he liked to watch the crows peck at worms. He went there, sometimes, when the house was too much, when there was no money, when he had nowhere else to go.

8
    On the map Ibrahim’s route, represented by a crooked blue line from Cardiff to London, resembled the outline of a mountain; the journey from Cardiff to Chepstow its rambling foothills, with Gloucester as the summit. No matter what the topography of the journey after Gloucester, he could only imagine it feeling as if he were walking downhill, as if the force of gravity pulled south instead of down. To stop at Chepstow would feel like a defeat, as if this imaginary mountain had beaten him.
    Ibrahim thought of Reenie and the stranger in the van. Gary Evans. His name was Gary Evans. He had even made a point of writing that name down, along with the first half of the van’s registration number – as much as he could remember – after they had driven away. They would be across the bridge by now. Reenie would be somewhere on the far side of Bristol, and maybe she was ploughing on alone with her trolley, or perhaps had set up camp again beside some near-deserted stretch of road.
    How much easier his journey could have been if he’d joined them, if he’d climbed into the van with her, allowed himself to be driven over the bridge. It would still have meant walking a hundred miles or more, but when he traced his fingertip along that other route he saw a less eccentric course carve its way across England.
    But he had never considered taking up the offer of a lift, not even for a second, and even when he had walked for seven hours and was only then nearing the English border, not once did he consider hitchhiking. He hadn’t been in a car, a bus, or a train in four years. In those first few wheelchair-bound months after the crash, and when there were still people willing to drive him, he was driven from place to place, but each journey was an ordeal, his hands becoming clammy, his mouth dry. He felt his stomach lurch with every turn in the road. By the time they reached their destination he was exhausted by panic alone, and from the moment he could walk again he refused to travel anywhere except by foot.
    Walking felt safe, his every step a choice, a decision made by him alone. Walking happens at a pace free from chaos; the chance disruptions that can tear a life apart reduced to a minimum. He took care when crossing roads, always waiting until the lights had changed, and even then checking in both directions as he crossed. Just in case. Excursions beyond his front door became few and far between. On the rare occasions when he left his flat – to buy groceries or to sign for his benefits – he knew exactly which routes involved the least number of crossings, and he knew the times of day when he would encounter the fewest pedestrians.
    When planning his walk to London, he weighed the anxieties of walking on busy roads against the two or three hours of sheer, suffocating panic he would experience on a coach or train. He knew there would be no moment, if he chose the latter, when that panic would