Golden Boy (14 page)

‘OK. So, the sickness was just a twenty-four-hour bug?’

‘Probably. He seems fine now. Are you going to go watch his match on Saturday?’

‘What time is it?’ Steve says, picking up his slim black diary.

‘Nine-thirty.’

He snaps the black book shut. ‘I can make it.’

‘Don’t invite press,’ I say quietly. ‘It’s not a photo opportunity.’

‘I know. I wouldn’t. They just show up.’ Steve shrugs and runs his hand through his hair. ‘Is he doing something with his friends for his birthday this weekend?’

‘He’s going to the cinema. Saturday night. With Marc, Carl and some girls.’

‘Girls?’

I smile. ‘He’s growing up.’

Steve grins back. ‘Maybe it’s time to have a talk with him.’

‘About what? He’s just going to the cinema.’

‘Karen,’ Steve says, as if I’m supposed to know.

‘What?’

‘He’s different.’

I tut. ‘He’s fine.’

‘Mm.’ Steve looks doubtful and I frown at him. ‘Anything else?’

‘Else?’ I ask.

‘Anything else . . . about me running? Anything you need me to do?’

I chew my lip, remember I’m wearing lipstick and run my tongue around my teeth. ‘I wonder about Daniel . . .’

‘Daniel?’

I look at him incredulously. Sometimes it seems like he doesn’t see anything. ‘His behaviour, Steve.’

‘Don’t say it like that. I’m not oblivious, Karen. I know I’m at work later than you, but I’m still aware of what’s going on in my own house.’

‘Don’t snap at me. I’m just asking what you think.’

‘About Daniel? It’s a phase. He’ll grow out of it.’

‘Max was never like that.’

‘Max was different. They’re different people,’ Steve says, reproachfully.

‘I’m not saying . . .’ I sigh, exasperated. ‘You have to admit he’s difficult. And Max is so easy.’

‘Well, Daniel’s got all sorts of hormones going through him. Max never had that.’

‘Urgh!’ I snap in frustration. ‘Max isn’t how he is because he’s . . . you know.’

‘I know, I know. I just mean . . .’ Steve stops. ‘Well, he is in a way. Isn’t he?’

‘Steve. That’s so unfair.’

‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Just . . . it is what it is.’

‘He’s a good boy. He’s always been good.’

‘Well, he works for it. He wants to be perfect for you.’

I hear the tone in his voice. ‘For me? What does
that
mean?’

‘Karen, you have high standards.
We
have high standards. It’s not a bad thing. Max . . . he doesn’t want us to think of him as intersex.’

‘Don’t say that word, it’s horrible. That’s not it, anyway. He’s just a good kid. Don’t take that away from him because of his illness.’

Steve sighs. ‘It’s not an illness.’

‘
I
have high standards?’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I have high standards?’

Do I?

He doesn’t have to be perfect for me. I just want him to be perfect for him, because it will be easier for him. Is that having high standards? Are they unreachable standards? Suddenly I’m very tired. Steve has a way of doing this, of discussing me into confusion.

‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ I state, without knowing whether I mean for this evening, for Max, or for me.

Steve laughs, suddenly. It lightens the air. He smiles at me and I melt a little, then feel angry at myself for giving up so easily.

‘What do you mean? What did you want?’ He stands and walks over to me. He touches my waist. ‘Come upstairs,’ he murmurs.

I nod as he nuzzles my neck. ‘OK. In a minute.’

I watch him stride through the door, loosening his tie. I look back to the posters, strewn on the kitchen table. I look at the car bumper stickers, packs of them. Then I realise: these are not mocks. There are too many, and I knew before. I knew he would run. I should have talked to him earlier, but I let it slide. I let it happen. I went along with Steve’s plan, as usual. I suppose I can’t blame him if I didn’t have an alternative one.

B
oth Mum and Dad are on the sidelines when I score the winning goal on Saturday morning. Marc and Carl run towards me and hug me and we high-five. When the whistle goes two minutes later, we do it again.

I think for a moment after the game, when we get our oranges and are standing on the pitch talking about it, and my parents are waving across at me through the crowd, that my life is perfect. That I’m so lucky.

Then a light flashes across the pitch, and everything sort of breaks.

The photographer is standing close to Mum and Dad, taking pictures of them. It’s the regular one from the newspaper that covers the matches. He’s always here, but he normally just takes a picture of the winning team at the end. He says something to Dad and Dad leans in to him and shakes his hand. My eyes slide to the side and see Mum, and I notice the people she’s talking to: Auntie Cheryl and Leah. I nervously scan the spectators for Hunter’s face, but I don’t see him.

I turn away for a minute when Matt, our coach, starts talking to me about next week’s game and I nod and try to listen. But I am feeling suddenly more self-conscious. Everything broke when the light flashed, and I’m wondering if people can see it. Did part of me split open and show itself on my face? Can everyone tell about me? Can everyone tell what happened? It’s such a fine, thin line between everyone knowing and everyone not. One little sentence, one word, a word like the word Hunter used, and it would be out. I could say it now, a Freudian slip, and everyone would know.

Hunter. I scan the crowd behind Matt, looking, searching for a dark-eyed face. But somehow I know he’s not here. I’d be able to feel him. When Matt moves away, I circle the pitch again anyway, with a wary look, turning back towards Mum and Dad. A light temporarily blinds me. When it fades from the pools of my eyes, becoming pink, then disappearing, the face of the photographer is standing in front of me.

‘Good-looking lad,’ he says.

I blink. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You’ll look good on the front of the paper. Great picture!’ He smiles and holds the camera aloft. ‘Be front page news next week. I hear your dad is announcing his candidacy for MP for Oxford West, Hemingway and Abingdon on Monday.’

I listen, I frown, I swallow.
I didn’t know that
, I think.

And then I nod. ‘Yeah,’ I say, with my best smile. ‘That’ll be great.’

‘Perfect,’ he says, taking another picture. ‘Perfect.’

I
t’s really, really late on Saturday night. I hear my brother come in from his birthday cinema treat, but I don’t hear Carl or Marc, so I wait a bit, and then I hear him go to the bathroom and then the loo flushes and I hear the bathroom door open again.

‘Max?’

The landing is quiet. I didn’t hear Max open his door, so I guess that he is listening to see if he really heard me and I whisper again.

‘Maaaax.’

My door opens.

‘Hey, buddy,’ says Max.

‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing up so late?’

‘I cannot sleep,’ I tell him. ‘You smell like beer.’

‘Are you accusing me of drinking?’ he says in a funny voice, kneeling down at my bed. I have a bunk bed, but I’m sleeping on the bottom one tonight.

‘Stop doing that silly voice,’ I say.

‘OK,’ he says, and he sighs.

‘Where are Marc and Carl?’

‘Um, they both went home with girls. Or stayed out with girls. I don’t know. So it begins, I guess.’ He shrugs and looks a bit annoyed.

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why did they stay out or go home with girls and not with you?’

‘Well, when people get older they like to pair up into men and women, um, or men and men, and women and women, and then at some point they choose one person to pair up with for a really long time, and they become a mummy and daddy.’

‘But mummy and daddy are silly names that babies use.’

‘Alright then, a mother and father.’

‘Or mum and dad.’

‘Yeah.’ Max groans a bit and buries his head in my cover. ‘Or mum and dad.’

‘But a man and a man can’t be a mummy and daddy.’

‘They can both be parents.’

‘Can they?’

‘Yeah,’ Max says, like he is distracted and tired. ‘It’s normal. It’s just less . . . often that you see it, I guess.’

‘But that means it’s not normal.’

‘Well, it’s not always great to be normal.’

‘Are Marc and Carl normal?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are we normal?’

‘No.’

‘Oh,’ I say, and I’m a bit sad. ‘Is it because I’m weird?’

‘Who said that to you?’

‘Kelly at school.’

‘You’re not weird. Anyway, no,’ Max says. ‘It’s because we’re superheroes!’ And he tickles me and I can’t help laughing, even though he is being silly and smells of beer, which is horrible.

When we’ve settled down again, I say, ‘Are you annoyed with Marc and Carl?’

Max thinks and then smiles and shakes his head. ‘No, I’m not annoyed with them. It’s good that they’re having fun. Carl has always really liked Maria, and Marc and Olivia get on well, so . . .’

‘So what’s the problem?’

Max clears his throat and looks down, then looks up and shakes his head again. ‘Nothing’s the problem. I had a good night. A girl I hoped would come didn’t come, that’s all, but I wouldn’t have been able to invite her home anyway.’

‘Why not?’

‘Um . . .’

‘Max?’

‘Sorry.’ He groans again and folds his arms and puts his head on them on my bed. ‘Girls want to do things that . . . I can’t do or . . . they wouldn’t want to do with me if they knew . . . stuff. I don’t know. It’s only this year everyone has started to pair up. It’s weird. I guess I always knew it would happen.’

Max seems to be talking to himself and not explaining things properly.

‘What things do girls want to do?’ I say impatiently.

‘Oh!’ He laughs, looking up at my face like he is surprised to see me. ‘I’m so smashed. Drunk, I mean. Um, like play certain computer games.’

‘Like that
Dance Factor
thing that goes with that TV show?’

‘Yeah, exactly, like
Dance Factor 2012
.’

‘I understand. That show is awful.’ I pat him consolingly.

‘Thanks, Daniel,’ Max says. ‘So . . . would you like a ghost story?’

‘Yes! Can I come in your bed?’

‘No, because you’ll get scared and then you won’t want to walk in the dark to your own room, will you?’

‘That wouldn’t happen!’

‘It happened last time. And then you screamed, and Mum told me off for keeping you up past ten.’

‘What time is it now?’

‘Midnight.’

I think. ‘Fair enough, let’s do the ghost story in my bed.’

‘OK. Give me the torch.’

I give Max my green torch and he climbs under my duvet next to me.

‘You’re letting all the cold air in!’

‘Shh! I’ll tuck you in. There, is that better?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’ He switches the torch on underneath his chin. ‘It all began one dark, stormy night, shortly before Halloween, when a zombie mutant crawled from his grave with blood-sucking wounds . . .’

‘Cool!’ I shout.

‘Shh!’ Max laughs.

My brother tells the BEST ghost stories.