Hurt (12 page)

‘Don’t be so boring, Izzy!’

‘Ow ow ow!’ she screeches. ‘Multiple paper cuts!’

‘Serves you right.’

Their banter is loud and jarring, highlighting the strained silence between Lola and himself.

‘Matt, Lola – are you guys in?’ Hugo shouts, swatting Isabel’s bare legs with the rolled-up magazine.

‘What are we playing?’ Lola asks cautiously.

‘
I Have Never . . .
’

‘Excellent!’ Lola exclaims. She glances back at Mathéo and shoots him an encouraging grin. ‘You in?’

He switches on the smile and gives what he hopes is a suitably enthusiastic nod. ‘Sure!’ Shuffling closer to the group on his knees, he leans forward in an attempt to emphasize his willingness to participate.

Everyone settles down, falling quiet as they start thinking up statements, the first can of beer placed in the centre of their scraggly circle. After a moment of careful consideration, Hugo starts. ‘I have never’ – pause for dramatic effect – ‘had a threesome.’ He looks around hopefully.

Nobody reacts. Then, suddenly, with a dramatic sigh, Lola raises an arm and reaches for the can.

‘No way!’

‘I always knew!’

‘Very funny!’

She falls back, laughing, leaving the can unopened.

Isabel goes next. ‘I have never . . . done it in a field.’ She glances at Mathéo to watch his reaction.

He glares at Lola. ‘I can’t believe you told her!’

‘What? When?’ Hugo looks outraged.

Mathéo reaches for the can and takes a good slug before passing it to Lola. The girls laugh. ‘Last Easter,’ they chant in unison.

‘You never told me that!’ Hugo protests.

‘You might be my best mate, but there are certain things that I keep to myself,’ Mathéo teases.

‘How come Izzy knew?’

‘Because they’re
girls
! They talk about everything!’ Mathéo laughs, genuinely, for the first time in days. It feels good. As the game continues, he feels himself begin to relax, the alcohol and superficial banter gradually quietening his raging thoughts.
This is normality
, he reminds himself.
This is the kind of stuff I should be thinking about. Who snogged who and when, who was the first to have sex, who has done the most outlandish or crazy things
. . .

Lola has a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘I have never fancied my teacher.’

‘Bitch!’ Isabel laughs, kicking out at her with her bare foot.

‘No way! At Greystone?’ Mathéo asks.

Hugo rolls his eyes. ‘Remember that gap-year student – Ronnie something?’

‘He was really hot,’ Lola comments dreamily.

Mathéo gives her a playful shove. ‘What – you too?’

‘Hell, yeah!’ She laughs at his outrage.

‘I’ve got one, I’ve got one!’ Isabel shouts, alight with revenge. ‘I have never’ – she gives Lola an evil smile – ‘been arrested.’

‘I wasn’t arrested!’ Lola shrieks, laughing.

‘OK, OK,’ Isabel retracts. ‘I’ve never committed a crime then.’

‘Nicking a plastic bracelet from Claire’s Accessories when I was thirteen is hardly a crime!’ Lola protests.

‘Uh, yes it is. Thief!’ Hugo shoves the beer can towards her and Lola obediently takes a swig.

‘Anyone else?’ she laughs, waving the can around enthusiastically. ‘Anyone else a hardened criminal like me?’

She is looking straight at Mathéo, as if she knows. As if she knows about yesterday morning, and his trashed room, the scrapes on his elbows and knees, the scratches on his arms and back; as if she doesn’t believe his story about the bruise on his forehead, his cut lip, his scabbed knuckles.
Criminal
. As if she knows what he’s done, what he’s become.

He isn’t aware of raising his arm and knocking the can out of her hand; only of the thud as his arm makes contact with her wrist, the can arcing over her head, showering her hair with beer, scattering the sunlight.

‘What the hell . . .?’

He hears their shouts of protest, voices raised in shock and alarm, calling him back, demanding an explanation, but he has grabbed his bag and got to his feet in one swift movement, and is already through the park gates, sprinting out onto the street.

He slams into the relative coolness of the house and sags back against the front door, his school shirt sticking to his skin in damp patches. Wiping his sleeve across his forehead, he attempts to catch his breath, scarlet blotches puncturing the air around him. As his racing heart begins to calm and the world swims back into focus, he gradually becomes aware of an unfamiliar hum of activity in the house around him. He kicks off his shoes in the hall and wanders into the living area. The dining table is dressed in a crisp white tablecloth and covered with plates of food: quails’ eggs, caviar on oatmeal bread, eggs mimosa, oysters, wild salmon, sea bass, potted shrimps, sage-and-anchovy canapés, corn-on-the-cob, rice pudding, baked pears, meringues with strawberries and cream . . . Two restaurant waiters from Home Gourmet are still unpacking dishes and setting them out while his mother – dressed in a black cocktail dress with a large bow on the side – is in the process of turning the breakfast table into a bar. His father, in black suit and bow tie, is busy doing something with the lighting out on the lawn. The conservatory doors have been flung open, filling the whole of the ground floor with evening sunlight, the smell of freshly cut grass, and birdsong.

His mother turns to face him, eyes rendered enormous by kohl, bright red lips parting to greet him with a smile. ‘Quickly, darling. You need to shower and get changed.’

He stands there, trailing his school bag, suddenly acutely aware of his damp, untucked shirt, his loose tie, his rumpled hair. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re having an impromptu party!’ His mother gazes at him as if he’s an idiot. ‘Didn’t you get my voicemail? It’s to celebrate your win.’

He stares at her and the bustle of preparations with a mounting sense of horror. ‘What? Why? Who’s coming?’

‘Oh, just some of our friends. A few of Papa’s colleagues, a few of mine. The Winchesters from down the road. Most of the neighbours,
naturellement
. Archie and his parents—’

‘So basically all
your
friends. Why do I even need to be here? I have to work out.’

She appears startled for a moment, and stops polishing the candelabra. Then her look changes to one of anger. ‘How dare you take that tone with me! What’s got into you?’

‘I’m just not in the mood for one of your parties!’

‘This is for you, Mathéo! Talk about selfish, ungrateful—’

‘OK, I’m sorry,’ he says quickly, sensing that her anger is at boiling point. ‘I – I didn’t realize.’

‘Of course we’ve invited your friends too,’ his mother continues defensively, the colour high in her face. ‘The other boys on the squad, Coach Perez, even Jerry and Lola—’

She’s got to be joking
. ‘Jerry and Lola? They’re coming too? Does Lola even know about this?’

‘I don’t know, Mathéo, I only spoke to her father half an hour ago. Anyway, please, pull yourself together and go and get changed, the guests will be arriving any moment.’

Upstairs, Loïc’s bedroom door is open. He is dressed in his summer suit – the cream one that he is made to wear for weddings and the like. It accentuates the pallor of his face. Consuela, looking uncomfortable in an ill-fitting cocktail dress, kneels in front of him, straightening his collar. Loïc shoots Mathéo an anguished look over the nanny’s head. ‘She’s put sticky stuff on my hair to make it stand up!’

Mathéo drops his bag on his bedroom floor and leans against the doorjamb. ‘It’s all good. You look cool, Loïc,’ he says, trying to dredge up a note of enthusiasm.

Consuela turns abruptly, looking flushed and strained, her make-up overdone, hair already falling loose from its chignon. ‘Mathéo, quickly! You change? You have suit?’

He crosses over to the bathroom, if only to assuage her nerves. ‘Yes and yes. I’ll be down in a minute.’

He has always hated his parents’ parties but usually receives enough advance warning to be able to make other arrangements or come up with an excuse to get away. After putting in the mandatory half-hour presence, shaking a few hands and answering a dozen or so questions about school, his plans for university and whether he has a girlfriend, he is normally able to slip away relatively unnoticed with the excuse of homework. But tonight clearly does not hold that option – he will be the centre of attention, with not only his coach but also his diving buddies present, and will somehow have to negotiate the congratulations and the flattery and the praise as if he is somehow worthy of it all. As if it somehow all matters; as if he gives a damn about the Nationals or the Olympics or his whole diving career at a time when his very life appears to be coming apart at the seams. Toppling, falling, splintering at his feet like the trunk of a fallen tree, its branches stirring, trembling, as if they know, in their restlessness, that something terrible has happened.

Dressed in his black suit trousers, silver-buckled belt, and a white open-collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Mathéo treads slowly down the stairs. The oppressive air, sticky with the heat of bodies and food and perfume, the gentle roar of voices, music and general merriment all rise up to greet him. He sets his face into what he hopes is an expression of relaxed cordiality. A slight smile, not too forced; a friendly, open demeanour; a countenance of quiet confidence. All at painful odds with the nerves and confusion that he feels inside.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs, and the party seems to open out and swallow him whole. The ground floor is heaving with people, spilling out onto the garden patio: the men in brightly coloured shirts, the women scantily clad in the warm June evening. His father has cranked up the surround-sound and the place is almost deafening. Returning warm, sweaty handshakes, raising his voice to answer greetings, thumped on the back and clapped on the shoulders, Mathéo takes in deep lungfuls of hot, sultry air and gratefully accepts a tall flute of champagne as he tries to negotiate his way towards the relative cool of the garden. The alcohol fizzes in his empty stomach, his nostrils sting with the stench of his father’s Cuban cigars, and he feels the sweat begin to congeal beneath his collar as he strives to hear what people are saying, straining his voice to answer their myriad questions, to thank them for their effusive compliments.

‘Hey, it’s my golden boy!’ Perez catches him unawares, coming up from behind and grasping Mathéo firmly by the shoulders, giving him a playful shake.

Startled, Mathéo almost elbows his coach in the face before being swung round and given a fierce hug and several slaps on the back. People have already started to gather round. Flush-faced and with false laughter, Mathéo vainly attempts to dodge his coach’s large, sweaty hand as it ruffles his hair, claps him on the back of the neck.

‘You’re looking at next year’s Olympic gold medallist,’ he announces to the gathering crowd. ‘Flawless performance in Brighton, not a single dropped dive – won by a massive forty points! Twenty-five perfect tens overall, including a perfect Twister, a perfect armstand back double-somersault tuck, and finally, a perfect Big Front!’ The other guests are nodding and smiling and congratulating Mathéo politely, but it is clear that Perez is already tipsy, his crimson face sweaty, brandy sweet on his breath. ‘A set like that this time next year and he will send the Chinese and the Americans home in tears!’

Smiling over gritted teeth, Mathéo shakes his head in embarrassment and attempts to extract himself from Perez’s grasp. He tries to make his way over to Zach and Aaron, standing in a corner, looking bored. But before he can reach them, Perez catches up with him. ‘Now, you can celebrate tonight, but as from tomorrow it’s back to the food plan—’

‘I know.’

‘And as soon as school breaks up . . . When is that again?’

‘In two weeks.’

‘Well, in that case, in two weeks, in two weeks the real training starts. The Olympic training. I forget – have I shown you your schedule?’

‘Several times,’ Mathéo replies with a tight smile.

‘No holidays, no partying, no late nights, no bad foods . . .’ Perez slashes the air with his forearm, as if striking items off on a list. ‘And – most important . . . You know most important, Mathéo?’

Wearily, Mathéo shakes his head.

‘No girlfriend!’ Perez booms to the room. ‘No girlfriend and no sex!’

Around them, heads turn and people titter, and feeling the blood rush to his cheeks, Mathéo turns from his drunken coach and pushes his way through the crowd. He manages to lose Perez, only to run into the new neighbours, holding out more sweaty hands.

The evening seems to him an elaborate theatre, the sole purpose of which is for his parents to show off their son’s achievement, their house, their wealth, their perfect little family. The guests are like actors, playing their part as revellers and admirers, even though most of them barely know him or have the slightest interest in diving. His father, surrounded by a posse of his golfing friends and associates, is jovial and solicitous, brandishing his cigar and knocking back the wine, laughing at his own jokes and growing more loquacious with each glass, entertaining his guests with a detailed account of his recent business trip to Cairo. On the other side of the room, his mother stands poised, hand on hip, making little smoky swirls in the air with her cigarette, tall and elegant amongst a group of work colleagues and luncheon friends in front of the bay window, their glasses of red wine luminous in the reflected evening light.

‘Consuela? Consuela, more wine!’ his mother calls over to where the nanny stands beside Loïc, who is grasping her hand tightly and extracting a string of
oohs
and
aahs
and head-ruffles from the stream of overdressed adults who seem to be queuing up to admire him as he stands there, innocent and blond and adorable. Although used to being paraded this way at endless parties and weddings and other functions, Loïc looks none too happy, but his serious expression and doleful eyes only succeed in increasing the fuss made of him by his parents’ guests. He appears panicked for a moment as Consuela disappears from behind him, and Mathéo presses his way through the throng and holds out a hand, which Loïc immediately grabs with both of his, following his older brother through the party’s undergrowth and out into the deep, dappled shade of the terrace. Mathéo finds him a place to sit down on the lawn, hidden away by the rhododendron bushes, snatching him some juice and vol-au-vents along the way.