The Ritual

long.’ He smiled with tight trembling lips. ‘Being disappointed is
normal to me. But why is it only now it doesn’t seem so bad? Any of it. Jesus, I wish I could be back there. In my shitty old flat with a cup of tea.’
    Dom laughed again, then Luke did too, until Dom stopped and there was a sudden intake of breath from him. ‘Christ. I love my kids. I won’t see . . .’ And then he was weeping
soundlessly, his shoulders moving against Luke.
    A lump grew inside Luke’s throat. He shook his head. Still could not believe for a moment that he was here, sitting like this; there was no more Phil, no more Hutch. He sat mute, and
stared out as the light dimmed like his sight was slowly going out. The cold moistened against his face and stiffened his joints.
    The true gravity of his friends’ loss had been restrained by some inner function inside him. But his thoughts would keep darting back to the sheer wordless enormity of their demise; the
inexpressible force of it could shut him down.
    Then this cold horror and grief would turn towards that image of three little blonde girls on the screensaver of Phil’s phone, and the suspension of his feelings could no longer be
maintained.
    How would the news be imparted to them? Who could explain such a thing? How was it even done? Hutch had a wife. Luke swallowed. His lips trembled and his eyes burned wide. He tried to swallow it
all away, but could not. His legs were shaking, his hands too.
    His thoughts flitted to the absence of himself back in England. And his imaginings found his mum and dad, his sister, an aunt. They would hold the weight of grief and memory after his loss. That
too would dim in time. But not for a while. Jesus, they’d have to fly out to Sweden and talk to polite officials, wait for search parties to come back in with empty hands and disappointed
faces. He could see his mum’s face long with worry, his dad’s arm around her dipped shoulders. Maybe they would make the news, the four English guys lost up by the arctic circle. A
mention in a broadsheet. Maybe. Jesus. Dom had a family. Kids. Hutch had a wife. A wife, goddamnit. Phil had kids.
    It was too great a weight for his thoughts to bear. Suddenly he could not breathe as all of those faces from Hutch’s wedding, all stricken with shock and bafflement and grief, poured into
his mind at the same time, vanished, then came back in again. ‘Jesus. Dom. Oh Jesus. Dom,’ he said, but softly.
    Dom turned his head, sniffed. ‘All right?’
    But Luke could not calm down. It was like inhaling that massive bong back at uni. He’d never been as frightened until that point; terrified of losing control and not being able to find his
old self again, as his memory rewound quickly and seemed to erase itself, as he vomited and suffocated and gasped over a toilet. And now he was swamped by that same icy panic and fear all over
again and was consumed with a terror that he would never feel any different again. Heart hammering up inside his throat, sweat popped from his scalp and poured into his woollen hat.
    It was natural, he told himself. Go with it again. Let it burn out. Find its own end.
    ‘You OK?’ Dom asked.
    Luke took three deep lungfuls of air and squeezed his eyes shut until the panic slowly subsided; he opened them when the rhythm of his heart softened. Then fished for his tobacco, papers and
lighter in the top pocket of Hutch’s commandeered jacket. He nodded. ‘Considering.’
    ‘I know,’ Dom said. ‘I know.’
    Luke struggled to keep his hands still as he tried to roll the paper around the shreds of tobacco. He failed. Tried again. Failed. Tried again. His hands had never been so filthy. Black as pitch
under the end of his nails. Would he ever get those fingers clean again?
    ‘Can I have one of those?’ Dom asked, his voice thick with phlegm.
    ‘You sure?’ he said without thinking.
    ‘In our present circumstances, there are greater risks to be faced than smoking. But can you roll it? I’ve forgotten how.’
    ‘Yeah. No problem.’
    He passed a messy cigarette and his lighter over his shoulder to Dom. Their last little comfort from the other world. When their fingers touched briefly, the tiny contact made Luke quiver with
shame when he recalled punching Dom’s face. Striking his actual, living, expression-filled face. He remembered the surprise, the shock, the fear, the hurt. Like a child’s face. When
we’re frightened and hurt are we ever anything