Truth Dare Kill by Gordon Ferris

Come on, eat up. I’m taking you to feed the ducks. Got any old bread? Better not take any of this stuff, or they’ll sink!”
    She didn’t finish her porridge. I dunked the two bowls in water so they wouldn’t set like concrete. Then she dragged me out. The weather was kinder; broken clouds and a South westerly. We chased a bus and leapt on as it slowly eased away from the stop. We landed breathless on the platform, faces aflame and laughing. I saw nothing but kind eyes from the passengers. We must have looked like lovers.
    We got off at Hyde Park Corner and ambled into the park. The rolling slopes were winter drab, and the green seemed to have leeched into the Serpentine.
    Bare-armed trees stood around the flat water as though they’d been stuck in the ground upside down. There were ducks marshalling by the landing stages and hoovering up the soggy bread thrown at them by squealing kids. Val joined in and I stood and watched her and felt something turn over inside. She was so fragile.
    She came back to me, smiling. “What? What you looking at, then?”
    “You, you daft thing. Like a big kid.”
    “That’s me. Come on. Let’s run.” And she was off. I could have caught her in ten steps but I let her run till she was shrieking and breathless. There were dozens of folk around, but all in our distance. I caught up with her and collapsed on a bench beside her. Her cheeks were glowing. I would have kissed her then. I should have. We watched the water shimmer and the ducks take off in a panic of wings.
    “What happened to your dad?” she asked suddenly. She knew my mother was still in Scotland.
    I realised I’d never talked about it. I could talk about it now. I remembered the day like it happened last week. I was sixteen.
    “My mum always waited by the window every evening. Darning socks or polishing the brass. But she’d keep looking at the clock. To make sure he came home. One night he didn’t. You know what happens when a pit collapses? And when they finally get the bodies out?” I didn’t expect or wait for an answer. “They lay all the men out in rows on open carts at the pithead. Then the women walk along and pick out their men.”
    I felt her tense beside me. “They were all wearing shawls and sobbing and holding on to each other. I walked with my mum. She was clinging to me as if I could stop her from drowning.”
    I paused and watched the wind whip up ripples on the water.
    “She used to kneel at his feet and take his boots off every night when he came in from the pit. He never asked her to do it; it was just something she did. To thank him for putting food on the table, a roof over our heads. He’d stick his feet in the grate. I can still see the steam rising and smell his socks.”
    Val said nothing, just looked at me with the same anguish she’d shown at midnight in the park.
    “This time, she knelt by the cart and held on to his boots. As though she could stop him. As though she could haul him back from his journey. She kept them for me.”
    I didn’t tell Val that I still carried the guilt of not being down there with him, like the other sons. Maybe I could have done something. I was young and strong and quick. Instead, I was poncing around in a school blazer, talking about university when there was real life and real death going on all round me.
    Val got me up and walking again. Right round the lake. We were quieter now, closer. It was the best day I could remember. I would have stopped time. No, that’s not true. I felt this was the start of something and that the best would come if I had the patience. To crown it all, we got off the bus near my flat and the newspaper seller was calling out, “Read all about it, read all about it.
    Ripper caught! The Soho Ripper caught!” I bought a copy. They were going fast. I greedily scanned the text.
    “Look at this, Val. They’ve caught the bugger.”
    “Oh, that would be fine, Danny!”
    She wouldn’t come in, not even for a cup of tea. I said I wanted to see her again, go on a date,