Hurt (21 page)

He can’t believe it, can’t believe it has come to this. That night, that night in Brighton, that
one
act is destroying his entire life, besmirching the one pure, untarnished thing he has to hold on to: his love for Lola. Beautiful Lola, with her sense of mischief, humour and fun, with her talent, kindness, affection and sensitivity. Lola and her love for him – so strong and bright it is like the sun on a cloudless day. It carries him, sustains him, feeds him and energizes him – through his parents’ absences and his academic pressures, through his gruelling training and competition fears. Through every new dive and every expectation, through fears of accidents and failures, through to anxieties about the Olympics, his future. All those small yet weighty worries, like gravel chips that scrape and wear away at him each and every day. Lola gives him the strength to stand up to them, pick himself up after every fall. She gives him the strength to keep wearing all those different masks: the mask of the popular, cute, beer-drinking jock around school, the mask of the dutiful, charming, academic son at home; the mask of the prodigal, awe-inspiring, championship diver he is expected to epitomize, not just in daily training but at every competition, in every interview – on television, the web and even in the papers. So many roles to fill, so many duties, so much fucking, goddamn, constant expectation.

With A-level results out in just over a month’s time, with competitions ongoing throughout the summer, with a deferred university place hanging in the balance, and with the Olympics now only thirteen months away, he is not only under the scrutiny of his peers, his closest friends, his diving team and his family, but of an entire nation! The pressure in his life has never been so great, the stakes have never been so high, and his emotions have never been so stretched, so deep, so volatile and so precarious. He
cannot
let that one stupid night in Brighton get to him; it was a terrible mistake that he should never have let happen. But he did, so now he
must
purge it from his mind! Purge it from his soul as if it has never been, forget about its very existence and just get back to the overachiever he always was – still
is!
But none of that, none of it is possible without Lola at his side. Lola – his rock, his jewel, his pearl, the other half of him, the figure of strength and compassion and love that she epitomizes. Lola, the one person he has never had to wear a mask for, the one person who knows him in all his imperfections, with all his fears – and loves him all the same. He cannot lose her, because without Lola life is simply devoid of all meaning, all worth, and he is whittled down to nothing. Less than nothing: an actor, an imposter, a shell. Dead inside.

Only when he hears the sound of footsteps does he become aware of his own physical presence, curled up on the living-room floor at the foot of the sofa, knees pulled up to his chest, shivering in T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, clutching a cushion for warmth and comfort. He thought he had been quiet, crying silently with his face pressed into the sofa cushion, but when he lifts his head he is startled to see Loïc standing there solemnly at the far end of the room, at the foot of the marble staircase. With his fine, white-blond hair and pale complexion, he resembles a small ghost in the vast room, illuminated only by the moonlight falling through the large bay windows. If not a ghost then a statue, standing there unmoving, fitting in perfectly with the sparse but expensive furniture that surrounds him.

Shocked and humiliated, Mathéo is lost for words – he has no way of disguising his tears and can think of no other reason for his brother’s unexpected appearance. Loïc has a phobia about ghosts and never normally ventures downstairs on his own at night, and certainly not without switching on the lights. Mathéo realizes he has no idea how long Loïc has been standing there, witnessing his big brother’s meltdown: he cannot remember ever crying in front of Loïc before . . . Shame makes him want to snap, tell Loïc to go away and leave him alone, but he has been sobbing so hard he does not trust himself to speak. He is still gasping in that juddering, uncontrollable way that only ever accompanies a massive crying jag, and the tears are wet on his cheeks. He presses a clenched fist to his mouth and attempts to hold his breath, but the air only bursts from his lungs with a choking sound. For some reason, Loïc’s silent, stricken presence seems to upset him still further. He tries again to get a handle on his breathing, rubs his face hard with the heels of his hands, clamps a hand over his mouth and frantically tries to gather enough breath to tell Loïc to go back to bed. But every time he attempts to speak, the words are punctuated by sobbing gasps.

Loïc’s eyes have not left Mathéo’s face. He appears subdued, his usually plaintive gaze replaced by one of deep sorrow, but with no discernible trace of shock or fear. He takes four measured steps towards Mathéo, his bare feet silent against the marble, and then slowly kneels down a couple of metres away, as if approaching a wild animal. Gingerly he holds out a hand. It takes Mathéo a moment to realize that his little brother is holding out a crumpled tissue and, still unable to speak, Mathéo has no choice but to nod his thanks, reaching out to accept it. He rubs it against his cheeks, the breath still catching in his throat, then empties his lungs slowly and lowers his eyes to the gap on the floor between them.

A couple more steady breaths, and then he whispers, ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Loïc’s voice is barely more than a whisper, but calm, more mature than usual. ‘Do you want me to go away now?’

Fixing a point between them on the ground, Mathéo breathes slowly through his mouth, concentrating on staying as calm as possible. ‘N-no. Of course not.’

‘I don’t think anyone else heard,’ Loïc says, as if reading his brother’s mind. ‘I woke up to go to the loo and your door was open and I saw you weren’t in bed. So I came to find you.’

‘Why—’ Gasp. ‘Why did you come down?’ Mathéo asks thickly, in an attempt to make conversation.

‘Because I was worried you might of ran away.’

Mathéo’s eyes flick upwards, startled, to meet his brother’s steady gaze. ‘What – what makes you think I’d do that?’

‘ ’Cos you been sad for a long time now. And sometimes, in books, when teenagers get sad, they run away.’

The whispered words hang there in the silence, slowly forming themselves into a question – a question of such magnitude that Mathéo can actually sense its presence in the air between them. He wipes his cheeks. ‘But who – who told you I was sad?’

‘No one. I just could see by your face. After the big competition you won on TV, when you came home, you were sad. And then you got more sad. And then you had nightmares.’

Mathéo is staring at Loïc now, his pulse beginning to race. ‘What? What nightmares? How – how do you know?’

‘Don’t you remember? You talked and shouted, and sometimes you cried a bit too. I came into your room and said your name louder and louder till you waked up. Then you told me to go to bed and fell back asleep.’

‘Shit . . .’ He breathes deeply, rattled by this revelation. ‘How often?’

‘Twelve times,’ Loïc replies without missing a beat. ‘I was thinking tonight was thirteen, but this time wasn’t a nightmare ’cos you were awake.’

Mathéo finds himself staring at his brother in shock. ‘Did – did anyone else hear?’

‘No, just me, ’cos I have very good hearing. I always wake up straight away if there’s a noise, even when other people can’t hear it. I didn’t go get Mummy or Daddy in case they asked you lots of questions and you didn’t want to answer.’

Hugging the cushion tighter to his chest, Mathéo tries to imagine Loïc coming into his room to wake him from a nightmare, and fails. But his brother is not one for making things up. ‘You – you said I was talking – what kinds of things was I saying?’ Fear grips him suddenly; fear of what he might have said.

‘It depended. Sometimes you shouted, or sometimes you sounded very sad. I can’t remember everything, but lots of times you said,
Why me?
and
You’ve always been kind to me
, and
Please don’t – you’re a good person
. And one time—’ He hesitates, biting his lip and looking down as if afraid of getting into trouble. ‘Um – you said the f-word. But it wasn’t your fault because you didn’t know you was saying it because you was sleeping!’ He shakes his head earnestly, as if to reinforce this fact. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Mattie.’

Unsteadied again by Loïc’s touching concern that he should not blame himself for swearing, Mathéo quickly changes the subject: ‘Did I ever say what – what was happening in the dream?’

‘No. But you always sounded like you were angry and scared. Lots of times you shouted,
I swear on my life I won’t tell
.’

Mathéo feels his heart rate accelerate. ‘Did I ever—’ He swallows. ‘Did I ever say a name? Anyone’s name?’

Loïc shakes his head, and Mathéo momentarily closes his eyes and breathes deeply in relief.

‘Loïc?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you promise me something? Can you promise you’ll never tell anyone about this – about those things I said?’

‘I promise.’ Loïc levels his unblinking gaze, and for the first time in the conversation, Mathéo recognizes real fear in his brother’s eyes. ‘Did someone hurt you, Mattie? Is that why you have nightmares all the time and you’re always sad?’

The interrogation behind his little brother’s gaze unnerves Mathéo. The question is so simple, so straightforward. And that it should come from his eight-year-old brother, from Loïc – the kid brother he leaves to the nanny while he concentrates on pursuing his busy, action-packed life – just knocks the breath from his lungs. All those days, all those evenings, when he’d get back from school or training, take the stairs two at a time to change and call Lola, or rush through his homework before hitting the gym. All those evenings he’d contrived to ignore Loïc – his own brother, for ever stuck downstairs with the nanny. His own brother, who was always so desperate to hold him up with questions about his day, or his diving, who’d even pretend to be stuck on his homework in a frantic bid for a few minutes of his big brother’s time. All those delaying tactics just to get a tiny bit of attention. Attention he craved but got from no one other than a string of nannies with poor English, while his parents were either working or socializing, playing golf or tennis or keeping fit at the country club. Parents who pretty much ignored their younger son every meal time to discuss Mathéo’s training, Mathéo’s competitions, Mathéo’s new dives, Mathéo’s grades, Mathéo’s accomplishments, Mathéo’s future. And even so, despite barely exchanging more than a few words a day with his big brother, Loïc had been the only one to pick up on the fact that there was something wrong, that something had happened, that something had changed, and that Mathéo was ‘sad’. Unbeknownst to anyone, even to Mathéo himself, Loïc had been regularly coming into his big brother’s room at night to wake him from his nightmares – without any thanks, and without mentioning it to their parents in case Mathéo didn’t want them to know . . .

‘Loïc?’

‘Yes.’

‘Someone . . . someone did hurt me.’ Pause. ‘But – but it’s OK now. I’m OK now.’ He attempts a reassuring smile, but the breath catches in his throat. ‘Thank you for – thank you for not telling anyone. Thank you for coming down to check on me. Thank – thank you for waking me up from the nightmares.’ He takes an unsteady breath. ‘I know I’m always busy with stuff, but – but I love you a lot, you know.’

Loïc looks up with a shy smile. ‘I love you too.’

With a grin, Mathéo chucks the cushion at him and holds out his arm. ‘I forget: are you too old for hugs?’

Loïc’s face lights up. ‘I’m only eight, silly!’

‘Get over here, then!’

His smile broadening, Loïc shuffles over on his knees and giggles as Mathéo pulls him onto his lap. For the first time in years, Mathéo feels the fragile body of his kid brother pressed up against his own. Loïc is small for his age, as light as a bird, and feels almost insubstantial, but his hug is fierce. He smells of soap and kiddie shampoo. And for a while they just sit there, Loïc warm and floppy with sleep, until eventually his arms loosen around Mathéo’s neck and his head grows heavy. Careful not to wake him, Mathéo stands up, shifts him gently against his shoulder and carries him upstairs. At the door of Loïc’s bedroom, he hesitates. Loïc’s king-size bed seems ridiculously large for such a small child. Crossing over to his own room, Mathéo lowers his brother carefully down onto the mattress, tucking the duvet in around him. Then he pads round the bed to climb in beside him. If he has a nightmare tonight, at least Loïc won’t have to get up again. It even seems conceivable that having his little brother sleep beside him might keep the nightmares at bay . . .

The following day he wakes late. Loïc is gone from his bed, no doubt summoned to breakfast, so Mathéo spends most of the morning holed up in his room, doing his best to contact Lola. He tries calling her mobile, texting her, emailing her – but nothing. Whether at home or not, she is never without her mobile, so she must know he is trying to reach her. He leaves a couple of voicemails, imploring her to call him back. It’s not like Lola to go cold like that, refuse to talk, cut off all contact – but this is uncharted territory for them both. What terrifies him to the core is the thought that he may have wounded her feelings beyond repair, that the gulf between them may be non-negotiable, unbridgeable, may end their relationship for ever . . . But he can’t allow himself to go on thinking this way or he’ll go insane. He worries she may have spoken to someone about what happened, to Isabel or Hugo or, God forbid, Jerry, and that news of his actions may well have spread, misinterpreted no doubt as deliberate violence. But above all, he worries desperately he might have seriously injured her. Even though it was a reflex action, he’d still pushed her so hard that she’d slammed into that wall.

He thinks back to last night: it had started off so great. One minute they were messing around, laughing, having fun; the next they were in her bedroom, kissing hard. His whole body craved hers – they hadn’t slept together in so long – but then, all of a sudden, the sensation of being touched became horrific, repulsive. He closed his eyes and she’d morphed into someone else – someone who wanted to hurt him, who enjoyed his pain. Someone he had once trusted, transformed suddenly into a monster . . . But Lola had no idea about it all: as far as she was concerned, one moment her boyfriend was initiating sex, the next he was pushing her away – and brutally at that: throwing her against the goddamn wall! Surely she can’t believe he’d meant to push her away like that! Surely she doesn’t believe he did it on purpose! Yet how can he know?