The Bone Clocks Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    A ROUND FOUR O ’ CLOCK I get to a strip of shingly beach by a wooden groyne thing sloping into the river. I take my Docs off. There’s a doozy of a blister on my big toe, like a trodden-on blackberry. Yum. I take my
Fear of Music
LP out of my duffel bag, roll my jeans right up, and wade in to my knees. The curving river’s cool as tap water and the sun’s got a punch to it, but not as hard as it was when I left the crazy old woman fishing. Then I frisbee the LP as hard and far as I can. It’s not specially aerodynamic, and flies upwards till the inner sleeve with the record in drops out, plops into the water. The black album cover falls like a wounded bird and floats for a while. Tears, more tears, seep from my aching eyes and I imagine wading over to where the record’s spiraling down now, down the slope of the riverbed, strolling through the trout and perch to the rusty bicycles and bones of drowned pirates and German airplanes and flung-away wedding rings and God knows what.
    But I wade back to shore and lie down on a bed of warm shingle, next to my Docs. Dad’ll be upstairs with his feet up on the sofa: “Reckon I’ll go and pay this Costello feller a call, Kath,” he’ll be saying. Mam’ll drown her cigarette in the cold coffee at the bottom of her mug. “No, Dave. That’s what Her Ladyship wants. Ignore her Big Statement long enough, and she’ll start appreciating just how much we do for her …”
    But, come tomorrow evening, Mam’ll start fretting ’bout school on Monday, ’cause once school asks where I am and why I’m not sitting the exams, she’ll be a whole load less snotty about my Big Statement. She’ll march round to Vinny’s house, all guns blazing. Mam’ll tear strips off of Vinny—good, ha!—but she still won’t know where I am. Decided. I camp out for two nights, and then see how I’m feeling. So long as I don’t buy any cigarettes, my £13.85 in coins is enough for two days’ worth of chip butties, apples, and Rich Tea biscuits. If I get to Rochester I could even take some money from the TSB and extend my little vacation.
    A massive freighter heading downstream blasts its horn. STAR OF RIGA is written in white letters on the orange hull. Wonder if Riga’s a place, or something else. Sharon and Jacko’d know. I do a huge yawn, lie back on the clacking pebbles, and watch the wash from the massive ship lap the shingle by the shore.
    Christ, I’m dead sleepy all of a sudden …
    “S YKES ? Y OU ALIVE ? Oy … Sykes.” The afternoon breaks in and it’s
Where am I?
and
Why am I barefoot?
and
What the hell is Ed Brubeck doing touching my arm?
I jerk it back, get up, and scuttle a couple of yards while the soles of my feet go
ow ow ow
on the hot pebbles and then I bang my head on the wooden groyne thing.
    Ed Brubeck hasn’t moved. “That hurt.”
    “I know it bloody hurt. It’s my bloody head.”
    “I only wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”
    I rub my head. “Do I
look
like I’m dead?”
    “Well, yeah, a second ago, you did, a bit.”
    “Well, I’m bloody not.” I see Brubeck’s bike lying on its side with its wheel still spinning. His fishing rod’s still strapped to its crossbar. “I was just … snoozing.”
    “Don’t tell me you
walked
here from town, Sykes?”
    “No, I came by space hopper but the fecker bounced off.”
    “Huh. Never had you down as the great-outdoors type.”
    “I never had
you
down as the Good Samaritan type.”
    “We live and learn.” A bird’s singing, a loopy-loony-tweety one, a mile up. Ed Brubeck pushes his black hair back from his eyes. His skin’s so tanned he could be Turkish or something. “So where are you going?”
    “As far away from that shit hole as my feet can carry me.”
    “Oh dear. What’s naughty Gravesend done to you now?”
    I lace up my Docs. My blister hurts. “Where are
you
going?”
    “My uncle lives thataway.” Ed Brubeck waves an arm inland. “He’s not