Before the Fire by Sarah Butler Page A

not—’ Stick’s mum protested, but Alan had already filled the yoghurt pot and now half threw it towards her. Water splashed against her face and she
spluttered and swore, wiping her hands across her eyes.
    ‘Now,’ Stick’s nan announced, as though everything was going to plan. ‘Come through.’ She led the way into the sitting room. ‘Sit, sit.’
    Alan sat in the armchair by the electric fire, put his hands on his knees and leaned forwards. ‘Now, let me tell you about today. Today is about looking ahead, into tomorrow and everything
that will come. Kieran, we wanted you here because of Iain, because of what’s happened.’
    Mac was dead and no one had a fucking clue who’d done it. Ricky said he’d been asking around but no one knew a thing.
    ‘This is a powerful time of the year. Things seem insurmountable. The world feels broken and terrifying and wrong. But we are powerful. We reach inside of ourselves and we find we are
powerful.’
    Stick thought about J sitting up in the empty window frame, pointing at the rotting handbags –
they look like dead animals
– and him bollocking on about driving to Spain. He
couldn’t even hold it together to get past Birmingham.
    ‘Do you really believe this shit?’ he said, looking at his nan. Her cheeks flushed red and he felt immediately bad, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. ‘Sun water and
shakers and bits of rock?’
    ‘Chakras,’ said Alan. He shook his head at Stick’s nan. ‘He’s angry, of course he’s angry,’ he said and then turned to Stick. ‘Of course
you’re angry, son.’
    ‘I’m not your son.’
    ‘Look, I’m not sure this is really a very good idea. Kieran’s still in shock. I shouldn’t have—’ Stick’s mum sat forwards on the sofa, but Alan held up
his hand and carried on.
    ‘Your friend Iain has simply passed over. He’s still close, just on the other side.’
    Stick imagined Mac floating around on the other side of the window, farting and pulling faces and moving his mouth like he was trying to say something but knew Stick couldn’t hear through
the glass.
    ‘I know you think you’re helping, Alan—’ Stick’s mum tried again.
    ‘It’s a continuum, that’s what most people don’t realise.’ Alan pushed his palms against each other. ‘He’s been lifted from his body, but his
spirit—’ He moved his hands up and apart, fingers spread. ‘His spirit is free. That is a wonderful thing – to be released from time, from anxiety.’
    ‘Wonderful,’ Stick said, his voice quiet, his eyes fixed on Alan’s.
    He could sense his mum watching him. ‘Maybe we should go. Love, do you want to go?’
    ‘It is really, actually, fucking wonderful that my best mate got stabbed and bled to death on his own in the dark, five minutes from his flat. And now he’s in a morgue and I’m
stuck in Manchester. That is pretty much the most wonderful thing I have ever heard.’
    Alan just shook his head. ‘No, a tragedy. A terrible, terrible tragedy. But I want you to know that he’s here.’
    Stick stood up. He could feel himself shaking. ‘He’s not fucking here. If he was here then I wouldn’t be here.’ He waved his arm to take in the room. ‘I’d be
in Spain, sat in a bar drinking beer, not here listening to your shit.’
    ‘Kieran, come on. We’ll go.’
    Stick shook off his mum’s hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If Alan knows so much about everything, maybe he can tell me who killed Mac.’
    ‘Kieran, come on. We’ll get pizza. Watch a film, take your mind off it.’
    Stick stared at Alan. ‘If Mac’s still here then he can say who killed him, right? So who did it?’
    ‘I’m afraid that kind of work’s a touch beyond my capabilities, young man,’ Alan said, like Stick had been joking. ‘I’ve a friend though,
who—’
    ‘Enough.’ Stick’s nan stood up, hands on her hips. ‘Enough.’ She pointed at the ugly brass clock sat on top of the electric fire. ‘It’s time,’ she
said.