Hurt (2 page)

‘Maybe he really
is
asleep,’ Isabel says again, clearly keen to turn the conversation back to her end-of-year party. ‘So I was thinking we should have the barbecue by the pool—’

‘He moved!’ Hugo declares triumphantly.

Silence. Hugo is imagining things. Then Isabel’s voice: ‘Lola, what are you doing?’

Mathéo braces himself and is suddenly aware of an intense itch – a blade of grass, up one of his nostrils. His eyes fly open and he rolls over to sneeze violently into the grass. ‘You! That’s not even funny!’ He kicks out at her but she dodges his bare feet with ease.

‘I respectfully disagree! Missed. Missed again. Your flies are undone, Walsh.’

Mathéo jack-knifes up. ‘Liar!’ His attempt to grab Lola fails spectacularly as she bounds lithely to her feet and runs over to the muddy edge of the water. Grabbing a long, sturdy stick, he follows her, the grass prickly against his soles, determined to get his revenge. Lola backs away, giggling, as he advances menacingly, stick held out like a sabre. Hugo joins them at the lip of the pool as, ducking his fencing moves, Lola splashes into the turbid water, luring them in.

‘Push her over! Push her over!’ Hugo urges him, his voice rising with glee as he scrambles in the grass for a weapon of his own.

‘Isabel, get over here, I’m outnumbered!’ Lola implores as they both start prodding her with sticks.

Isabel jogs over reluctantly, collar flapping open, sunglasses crowning her head. ‘Guys, I thought we were going to finish planning the—’

But she doesn’t get a chance to continue as Hugo runs up behind her and gives her a good shove, which almost sends her tumbling in.

‘Bastard!’ Isabel spins round, splashing water all over his school uniform.

Soon, the four of them are wrestling at the water’s edge. Mathéo grabs Lola round the waist and lifts her up, swinging her towards the murky depths. Her screams turn heads and draw amused looks and envious stares from pupils close by, but as one of the most revered cliques at school they are used to it, even play up to it slightly: the higher their pitch, the more they feel they are enjoying themselves. The four of them have been friends for nearly two years now. It started out with just Mathéo and Hugo, best friends since starting secondary school. Then, two years ago, Hugo started dating Isabel; six weeks after that Mathéo hooked up with Lola.

Hugo has always been the embodiment of the archetypal private school alpha male, a young Prince Harry: closely cropped ginger hair, rosy skin, a compact, muscular build. Captain of the rugby team, vice-captain of the cricket team, keen rower – obsequiously British to a fault. At times he can be a bit of a narcissist, delighted by the sound of his own voice and the humour of his own jokes, but still manages to exude the smooth charm and make the kind of flirtatious overtures that girls find hard to resist. Isabel has an elongated feline grace about her, abundant dark hair, playful eyes and a classical refinement to her porcelain features.

Mathéo, like Hugo, has always taken for granted that he should be part of the elite clique. Taken for granted the other guys’ looks of envy whenever he slung his arm casually over Lola’s shoulders as they walked the school corridors or high-fived Hugo after some spectacular sporting win. At times he even feels smug for constantly having beautiful Lola by his side, thrives on Hugo’s pranks and dirty jokes, basks in the cacophonous, cosy comfort of all four of them giggling and laughing at others, satisfied in their insular, privileged existence.

‘Lola, come here, I want to show you something!’ Mathéo reaches out to Lola from where he stands, ankle deep in green weed, trousers sopping from the knee down.

She flashes him a look. ‘You really think I’m that gullible?’

He stares intently at something down in the brown water. ‘Oh, cute, a baby frog . . .’

She inches towards him to get a closer look – and suddenly he has her by the arm and is yanking her through wet leaves and muck. She squeals and clings to him, about to topple over, their feet slowly sinking into the soft mud. Hugo splashes over and tries to grab Lola’s legs while Isabel watches in hysterics from the safety of the shore. Suddenly finding herself horizontally suspended in mid-air, Hugo gripping her ankles and Mathéo hooking his hands beneath her arms, Lola begins to panic, and on the third swing screams in anticipation of the inevitable launch into the water. But Isabel has come to her rescue, dragging Hugo backwards, and suddenly everyone is flailing about in the mud and the wet, yells and shrieks piercing the somnolence of the afternoon.

Brushing the tousled hair back from his face and rolling up the clammy sleeves of his drenched shirt, Mathéo climbs the bank. He sits down in the shade of a large tree, its long branches heavy with thick green leaves, creating shadows across his body, dancing to the trilling of birds’ joyous disharmonies. Leaning back on his hands and stretching out his mud-streaked legs, he looks back at the others tussling at the pond’s rim, splashing and screaming and laughing, their voices echoing in the trees. But mostly he watches Lola, her long brown hair glinting in the sun.

It’s hard to believe that it was nearly two years ago that he met her. Here, in this park, after the first day of the new school year. Hugo and Isabel were locked in a friendly argument about the merits of
Dexter
versus
Homeland
– a conversation that as usual he had no part in, his intensive training rarely giving him a chance to watch TV. As he leaned comfortably back on his hands, blinking rapidly while his eyes slowly grew accustomed to the sun hanging low in the sky and casting a golden glow across the grass, he allowed his gaze to travel casually across the few remaining clusters of pupils, past the game of Frisbee and beyond, to the grassy slope. And there she was, sitting slightly apart from the other pupils, close to the foot of the hill. Her head was turned away, legs pulled up, arms resting on her knees, torso limp as she gazed at an indefinable point on the horizon.

Mathéo was used to a lot more than his fair share of female attention. He had been out with a couple of girls before – even one from the year above – but quickly lost interest when they began to make demands on his time, preferring instead to spend his rare free moments with Hugo. But for some inexplicable reason, this girl-in-the-distance captivated him. There was something different about her. She appeared lost in thought, elsewhere, only switching on the automatic smile and slapping on a superficial gloss when forced to engage with the other girls sitting nearby. The difference was so slight as to be barely noticeable, but once he had detected these hairline cracks between her and the rest of the group, he could not turn his eyes away. He found himself studying her as if she were a figure in a painting. She was tall and slender, pretty – no, beautiful – in a long-legged, coltish kind of way. A loose-fitting white shirt hung over the regulation grey school skirt, cuffs undone, flapping around her wrists. Unlike the others in her group her face was devoid of make-up and tanned from the long summer. Her hair was the colour of conkers and hung loose to her waist, long and dishevelled, cloaking her legs as she sat. At rest, her face wore a wistful, slightly dreamy expression, and her wide green eyes gazed far off into the distance, as if indulging in the fantasy of another possible life. There was a look on her face that captivated Mathéo in a way he couldn’t quite define.

Knowing she could not see him, he watched for as long as he dared and found himself unable to take his eyes off her. Why exactly, he could not tell. In some indefinable way he felt drawn to her, as if he already knew her, as if they had been close friends, soulmates even, somewhere in a previous existence. Her mere presence seemed to calm his thoughts, saving him from the vicissitudes of his mind. She appeared before him as familiar, a kindred spirit. Perhaps it was something in her face, her eyes. She seemed to know . . . what, exactly, he was not sure. She seemed to understand. Or rather, he had detected in her the capacity to understand.

With a little smile, he raised his hand.

She returned the gesture, her face igniting for a moment, and then she was gone, striding back to join her friends. The feeling hit. Mathéo stared after her, drawing his lower lip in between his teeth and biting down in confusion. Disappointment yawned open like a cavern in his chest. Was it a gesture of farewell or a friendly acknowledgement of his existence, an invitation even to go over and say hello? But she was back chatting with her friends, denying him the possibility of any further communication.

Her group was packing up, about to set off home. The sun had started to dip in the sky, the early evening colours, soft and roseate, falling like dust over the water. He had missed his chance – if indeed there had even been one in that brief, ephemeral moment. Frustration welled up, pressing at the back of his throat. He watched her wipe her feet clean on the grass before putting on her shoes, stuff the remainder of a sandwich in her mouth and gesticulate wildly while talking to her friends. Chatting animatedly, she followed the others across the expanse of greenery, through the trees and out of the gates without so much as a backward glance.

He felt cheated somehow. As if the wave had been a tease, or a signal to alert him to the fact that she had caught him staring; a warning that he wouldn’t get away with it again. He pressed his fists against his eyes and inhaled deeply, a disappointed, sinking feeling in his chest. It was time to train, time to leave the emptying park, time to go . . . Slinging the strap of his bag across his chest, he said his goodbyes to Hugo and Isabel and slowly got to his feet, his muscles protesting. Passing the pond, he stopped for an instant to soak in the last of the golden rays, the grass drenched in low evening sun, watching the shimmering interplay of light and dark and the gentle arrival of dusk – the conclusion of another day. Spread out before him, the water’s surface was wrinkled and whispering, reflecting thin clouds that stretched across the indigo sky. The geese had reclaimed their territory and glided seamlessly across, serene and proud, melting into the glaucous evening. They brought him peace, and for a few moments he stood there, transfixed by the beauty of the scene . . . Then he shook the fog from his head.
Get a grip
, he thought. There was only so long he could stand here.

But as he turned, his gaze sweeping over the patch only moments ago alive with the sound of girlish chatter, a sparkle of silver amongst the long blades of grass caught the fading sunlight, reflecting it so brightly it burned his eyes. He blinked, the flash of white light repeating itself on the back of his eyelids. Crossing over, he picked up a watch, its black face no larger than the pad of his little finger. The strap was more of a bracelet – fine, interwoven loops of white gold. He felt its cool weight in his hand: solid, real, the needle ticking soundlessly round and round, making it feel somehow alive.

‘Thief!’ The word was called out casually, teasingly, but caused him to inhale sharply in surprise. The girl was striding down the slope towards him, her long hair tossed by the rising wind. The world quivered around him, and for a moment he was too startled to respond, but then he came to his senses and stepped back, nonchalantly slipping the watch into his pocket.

‘Finders keepers!’ He raised his eyebrows at her with a teasing grin.

She stopped just a few metres away. She was taller than he’d realized, almost the same height as him, and a smattering of freckles covered her cheekbones. Grass stains streaked the hem of her school shirt, one of the buttons was missing and the shape of her slim arms was visible through the sleeves. Dried mud marked her long, pale legs, blood crusting a small scrape just above her knee. A curled leaf was caught in her windswept hair, small pearls adorned her ears, and hanging from a delicate chain, a silver teardrop lay against the smooth skin of her collarbone. For a moment her green eyes widened with incredulity at his response. Then she latched on to his smile and gave a wry shake of the head.

‘Very funny – give it back.’

He took in a quick lungful of air. If he messed this up, the moment would burst. Hands in pockets, he hunched his shoulders, scuffing his heels against the ground and narrowing his eyes in mock-suspicion.

‘First I’m afraid I’m going to need some proof that this – uh – seemingly valuable item does in fact belong to you.’ He cocked a grin and stepped back tauntingly. But he was aware of a warmth rising in his cheeks: it was clear that he was flirting now, and so this was the point at which she might just demand the watch back and stride off. How fine that line was between connection and interruption – one false move, one misspoken word, and you found yourself on the wrong side of things.

But she only let out a little sigh of mock irritation. ‘My name is Lola Baumann,’ she informed him, dragging out the words with exaggerated tolerance. ‘It’s engraved on the back.’

‘Oh, really . . .?’ He removed the watch carefully from his pocket and pretended to inspect it. ‘I’m Mathéo, by the way.’ He kept his eyes narrowed on the watch.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Here – London. But it’s French – my mum’s French.’ He felt himself flush and tried to mask it by cocking his head and pretending to narrow his eyes at her. ‘So I’m guessing you’re a Greystonian like the rest of us?’

‘Unfortunately. We moved here from Sussex last month for my dad’s job.’

‘So are you in the Lower Sixth too?’

‘Yeah. Not doing any science-y subjects like you, though.’

He felt himself start. ‘How do you know which subjects I’m doing?’

She smiled. ‘You’re the Olympic diving guy. Everyone knows everything about you.’

He flushed at that. ‘Well, what subjects are you doing, then?’

‘Art, English and Music.’

‘Ah, that explains why I haven’t seen you around school.’ He turned away, tossing and catching the watch with exaggerated nonchalance.

‘Hey, careful!’ She lunged forward, but he was too quick.

‘Hold on, hold on.’ He moved backwards, holding out his hand to keep her at bay. ‘An engraving, you say? Pity I’m not wearing my contacts—’