Like This, for Ever

can take the piss if you want to, but I know what I know
look and the two of them walked on. Joesbury had his hand on his son’s shoulder. He found it difficult these days not to be close enough to touch. And when he was close enough, next to impossible not to maintain some sort of physical contact, as though the reassurance of his eyes that his son was still there, still safe, just wasn’t enough.
    They stopped in front of some monkeys. On a branch above their heads, a mother sat grooming her baby, running her hands over its fur, searching for lice, smoothing, scratching, petting. She bent and nibbled the baby’s ear, then ran one hand along the length of its tail. She, too, didn’t seem able to keep from touching her child. The young monkey, on the other hand, looked bored. It was watching the other monkeys, half wanting to run off and join them, half needing to stay close to its parent for just a bit longer.
    ‘I’d really like to see something cuddly,’ said Joesbury. ‘Isn’t there somewhere you can stroke goats and rabbits?’
    There was a heavy sigh at his side. ‘Dad, I’m not traumatized. And will you please tell Mum I don’t want to see that counsellor any more? She smells of disinfectant.’
    ‘I’ll certainly pass on your thoughts.’
    The baby monkey crawled away. The mother watched it go, not taking her eyes off it for a second. It had reached the end of thebranch when two larger monkeys, like over-exuberant teenagers, came racing towards it. The baby scuttled back to its mother, climbing up her body as though it were an extension of the branch, clinging tight to her fur. She nipped his ear in an
I told you so
way.
    ‘Bats!’ said Huck. ‘I want to see the bats!’
    Joesbury sighed. The kid was winding him up. ‘There is no friggin’ way I’m going anywhere near bats.’
    ‘I’ll tell Mum you swore.’
    He looked down. ‘I’ll tell her you fancy Kaycia Lowrie.’
    Stalemate.
    ‘Come on then, let’s go and find the tigers. But if it’s feeding time, you’re on your own. Which reminds me, where do you want to eat tonight? TGI’s? Giraffe?’
    ‘We’re going to Trev’s,’ said Huck, as they set off along the path once more.
    ‘Oh, are we?’
    ‘I booked a table.’
    The kid just got better. ‘And when did you do that, seeing as how you haven’t been out of my sight since I picked you up?’
    ‘I did it when you were in the toilet. You spend a long time in there, you know.’
    Directly ahead of them, two teenage girls turned and stared at Joesbury.
    ‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ he told his son. ‘Am I allowed to know what time?’
    ‘Seven-thirty. Lacey couldn’t make it any earlier.’
    Now that was just mean. When had his son turned mean? ‘I know you’re winding me up,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got Lacey’s number.’
    The look on Huck’s face said there was no end to the pain he was expected to endure. ‘Dad! For someone who claims he works in IT, you know zilch about technology,’ he complained. ‘My new phone is linked to yours by your computer. All the information on yours is on mine.’
    Joesbury stopped walking and narrowly avoided being run into by a double buggy. ‘You’ve got all my contact details on your phone?’
    ‘Yeah. Who’s Nobby McT—’
    ‘Give me that phone!’
    Huck darted ahead, turned and did his nah-nah-nah-nah-nah dance in the middle of the path. He pulled his phone from his pocket and waved it around his head.
    ‘Oy, get back here! Now!’ Joesbury set off running. ‘OK, I’m serious. Huck!’ Great, his nine-year-old son could out-run him.
    ‘Someone stop that kid, he nicked my phone!’
    Lacey watched Barney lock the cabin and slip the key into his pocket. ‘It’s a nice boat,’ she said. ‘A lot bigger than I expected. Thank you for showing it to me.’
    A nice boat on which two young boys had died. Tyler King and Ryan Jackson had been taped to the fold-out table in the main cabin below and left alone and terrified for days, while a badly damaged child battled with his demons. Did that bother her? Should it?
    ‘Dad’s going to sell it this spring,’ said Barney. ‘I don’t think he’ll be able to come here again.’
    ‘Yes, he told me.’
    Sensing Barney wasn’t ready to leave just yet, Lacey sat down in the cockpit facing the Creek. Barney mirrored her, keeping his back to the water. The tide was high and the boat rocked gently, soothingly, against its moorings. When it was out, the whole of the Theatre