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before I opened the car door. It nearly knocked her off her feet.
    I looked down at the ground; she just looked right at me. That was the thing with Claire – she doesn’t act like normal people. She never seems to have any of the hang-ups.
    ‘You the ones moving in here?’ she asked, pointing at our house.
    I nodded. I was already embarrassed. I was always embarrassed.
    ‘Are you our new neighbour?’ That was my mum. ‘I’m Chloe and this is William. Will.’
    ‘I’m Claire,’ Claire said, looking at my mother curiously.
    A woman appeared around the corner. ‘Claire!’ she said, her tone exasperated. ‘Here you are. I’ve told you before, do not walk away from me like that.’
    ‘I didn’t walk away,’ Claire said seriously. ‘You were just walking too slowly.’ Even then she wasn’t someone you wanted to get in an argument with.
    Funny, I remember that like it happened yesterday too. I have a very good memory. Unnerving, Dad calls it. I remember whole conversations word for word, remember what someone was wearing down to the colour of their tie, remember something that happened years before. Other things I don’t remember at all. There are entire weeks I can’t remember. Sometimes I find myself in places and I can’t remember how I got there, or even how long I’ve been there. Guess that’s just one more thing that makes me a freak.
    Later, when Mum and Dad were unpacking, Claire appeared over the fence at the bottom of our garden and encouraged me to climb over. And that, as they say, was that.
    The light thing started later on, after my Mum died. Claire knew how cut up I was, and she knew that I couldn’t – wouldn’t – show it. So she used to squeeze my hand secretly sometimes in school. And she said that if I was sad at night, then I could always come over. She’d flash her light every night when her parents had put her to bed and I could come over. If I wanted to. And if her light wasn’t flashing and I wanted to come over anyway, I should coo like a pigeon under her window and if she was awake she’d let me in.
    I didn’t think I’d go – I told myself I didn’t need to, didn’t need anything any more. But that very night I saw her light flashing and my heart leapt and I knew I had to go. It was like I was a ship that was about to crash against something, crash really hard, and her bedroom was a lighthouse and if I could just find myself there things might be OK after all.
    And she always got it. She never asked stupid questions, never told me everything would be OK, never looked awkward like everyone at school. She just listened and told me what she thought. She said that she thought losing your mother was one of the worst things that could happen, that the fact Mum killed herself made it worse because she didn’t have to die, she chose to. And that was the only time I nearly cried, the whole time, when she said that, because she was right, and that was what hurt the most. My mother left me. She didn’t love me enough to stay.
    Claire’s light goes off. Has she gone to bed? It’s still early. Maybe not that early. I don’t know what’s early or late these days. Dad lets me stay up as late as I want so long as I don’t make any noise. I watch out of my window.
    There’s someone there. In our garden. Down at the bottom. My heart starts to thud. It’s her. It’s Claire. I press up against the window, open it wide, lean down.
    ‘Claire! Claire.’ I realise how much I’ve longed to see the flashing light, how much I’ve missed it. I want Claire to bring me in, bring me home. I want to tell her about my nightmares, tell her about seeing Mr Best, about Yan. There’s no one else I can talk to about that stuff.
    I can see her – she’s walking towards my window. Something’s different about her. Her hair’s longer. More straggly. Her eyes seem more . . . well, they’re bigger. She looks older, her cheeks more hollow. Her clothes . . .
    I feel like I’ve been punched.