Chapter 42
The Threads of Time Were Frayed But Holding
Wilbur was almost crying as his eyes stayed on the road. He was holding it back with effort, as if to let out a single tear would be to end the world.
Dougie was six years older than Wilbur. He was twenty-five. But to the Ghost and maybe to the living Wilbur he looked like a child. He looked like someone to look after, because no one really had. He looked like the little boy who had handed him a train. The threads of time were frayed but holding.
Nothing ever just happened, realised the Ghost. Even the most reckless action was a consequence of what had gone before, just as every loud mistake in the world was the product of some quiet and secret pain.
‘Oh, Dougie,’ sighed the Ghost, while his living self was trying to grab the wheel again and being elbowed hard away.
It was a tragedy of life that you had to die before you could truly see the whole of someone.
The Ghost leaned forward in the back seat. ‘I love you, Dougie. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you didn’t calm whatever demons were in your head. I’m sorry you didn’t get the help you needed …’
The road was getting steeper. And this seemed to be the reason Dougie’s car was struggling to stay ahead. The police car was now in the other lane, beginning to overtake.
Wilbur saw this and panicked.
The Ghost held whatever it was that felt so much like breath. Wilbur’s leg was now reaching over Dougie’s for the brake pedal. And that was when Dougie looked fully at him with mad desperation.
A lot could be felt in the smallest fraction of a second.
Wilbur loved his brother. He loved him more than he was infuriated by him, though the infuriation was so intertwined with the love, and was so often spun directly from it, that it was hard to know where one ended and the other began.
Just as it was impossible for the Ghost to know how much of the love he was feeling in that second towards him had been felt then, and how much was overlaying it through the tragedy of time.
While Wilbur’s foot was battling Dougie for control of the brake, Wilbur noticed a rabbit hopping out across the road from Endcliffe Park.
‘Just don’t say it!’ implored the Ghost, pointlessly, through the barrier of time.
But, of course, it happened.
‘Dougie! Look! Watch out!’