Hurt

  There is a fold in time because suddenly another person is in the room – a man in a white coat, shining a light in his eyes. He is asking Mathéo to follow his finger. So Mathéo stares at it, then beyond, through the late afternoon sun that fills the window, to somewhere so far away that he seems to disappear . . .

  The doctor moves away. Dark spots dance before Mathéo’s eyes. The spots seem to elongate, turning into shadows, turning into trees. The flash of trees rushing past him. Trees, tall and threatening in the dark, stretching up into the night sky. He closes his eyes to get rid of the image, but it only makes it clearer, and now he can hear the crunch of twigs beneath his trainers, the panting, retching sound of his breath tearing at his lungs. He is running. Running away from the scene of the crime, running away to escape what he has done, running away to escape what he has become. And suddenly he remembers. Remembers it all. That night in Brighton. That night he transformed into something horrific, despicable, became a different person, and he has been trapped in this different body ever since . . . He holds his breath, willing the memories away, pushing himself back down into oblivion, back into a place where he no longer exists . . .

  He hears his name being called, over and over again, and finally he forces himself to open his eyes a crack, blink groggily at the blurred shape beside him. He recognizes his mother, sitting on the edge of his bed and patting his tube-free hand. She is talking to him about brain scans, although he can’t remember how the conversation started. His father and the doctor are somewhere nearby, bulky shadows by the window, their voices low and resonant, filling the room with unwanted sound. Perez also seems to have appeared and he learns from the conversations that swirl around him that he has a ten-centimetre gash on the side of his forehead and twelve stitches, that he has concussion but that his skull is intact and the EEGs show no sign of internal bleeding or bruising. He also gathers that, between falling unconscious into the pool and being dragged out by Aaron and Perez, he managed to inhale a lungful of water, stop breathing for over a minute, and had to be resuscitated by one of the lifeguards.

  They all keep talking: his mother, his father, Perez and the neurologist. Their words are like bullets, ricocheting off the walls. Sometimes they are aimed at him and he does his best to answer. But when he closes his eyes to try to escape, they just seem to grow louder. He wants nothing more than to go home. He hates hospitals – the last time he was in one was when he fractured his wrist after an awkward landing in the foam pit; he was discharged with a plaster cast only a few hours later. But this time, when he tries to get out of bed, everyone gets very agitated and he finds himself pushed firmly back down against the pillows, dizzy with pain.

  ‘We need to keep you in for a night or two, Mathéo,’ the doctor informs him firmly. ‘Just for observation. You’ve suffered concussion and inhaled quite a bit of water and stopped breathing.’

  Mathéo closes his eyes again to hide his distress; the conversations continue without him and gradually fade out into the corridor. Sometime later his parents come back in to say goodnight.

  The evening seems to go on for ever. His head feels ready to explode. He dozes fitfully – waking with a start when he feels himself falling again, only to find himself stuck in a hospital bed covered with a thin white sheet, soaked in sweat and shivering. Each time he closes his eyes he sees the edge of the platform rushing towards him, the world spinning at all angles. He feels trapped and crushed by an invisible weight that presses down over the whole of his body. He just wants to move, get comfortable, kick off the clammy sheet and run outside for some fresh air. But the room is heavy with the smell of medicine, the lights blaze down from a pale blue ceiling, and all Mathéo wants to do is scream. He asks for a drink but the nurse insists he can have nothing until morning. The empty saline drip is replaced with a fresh one but does nothing to quench his thirst. He tries to sit up, but dizziness forces him back; he is overcome by a feeling of utter uselessness when he realizes he can’t even get out of bed. Different nurses come in at regular intervals – to check his temperature, his pulse, his blood pressure. At first he is too hot and then he is too cold; he feels exhausted but sleep eludes him. At some point he must have said something because a nurse starts patting his hand, telling him he’ll be OK, that he can go home soon. He wonders what that means. Wonders if he cares. Life has dug itself out of him and he feels himself sinking, his desperation too big and empty for any one person to contain. Fear has run its course and depression has whittled him down to nothing.

  He must have drifted off for a while because when he next opens his eyes, the light has changed. Through the window opposite his bed he can see that the sun has turned golden, beginning to dip in the sky. He takes a breath and feels something move against his face. Someone is stroking his cheek, holding his hand. With a startled gasp, he turns his head.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to wake you.’

  He follows the voice and meets Lola’s eyes, full of tenderness and concern, her hair hanging loose over her shoulders, touching and brushing his bare arm. She is sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning over him, her fingers warm on his face. ‘Hey, you!’

  The tears prick at his eyes. Seeing her is too intense, too direct an emotional hit, and one he fears might break him. He can hardly believe she is here, is scared it could be a dream, that he’ll close his eyes and wake up only to find her gone again.

  ‘Hey . . . It’s all right, Mattie, you’re going to be fine!’ Despite the reassuring smile, her bottom lip quivers and she rubs it with her finger. ‘Mattie, don’t – you’re going to get me started now!’ She scrunches up her eyes for a moment, takes a steadying breath and then opens them.

  ‘I asked for it, didn’t I?’ She lets out a dramatic sigh. ‘Falling in love with a crazy daredevil whose idea of fun is throwing himself off diving boards and spinning about in the air like some kind of superman on speed!’

  He chokes back a sob and manages a small laugh instead, pressing the back of his bandaged hand against his eyes. A moment passes. He swallows what feels like a fireball in his throat.

  ‘I’m sorry, about – about this afternoon . . .’

  Gently she pulls his hand back down. ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t need to apologize. And that’s the last thing you should be thinking about now.’

  ‘I’m sorry I just walked off like that—’ He takes a deep breath and reaches up to wipe his eyes.

  ‘You were late for training,’ she reminds him gently. ‘And guess what? I got to be a model for a top magazine!’

  He blinks at her.

  ‘Yeah,’ she continues blithely. ‘Dad took me along to a photoshoot this afternoon and the editor took one look at me and decided I was just perfect for the cover of Vogue!’

  ‘Oh.’

  A beat, the hint of a smile, then she starts to laugh. ‘Oh sweetheart, that’s some concussion you’ve given yourself!’

  He sniffs and finds himself smiling too. ‘Hey, but I’ve always said you’d end up being spotted!’

  ‘To be fair, it is for a cover. But sadly not Vogue. They needed someone who could ride, so you’re looking at next month’s cover of Horse and Hound.’

  ‘So—’ He closes his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘They – they had the horse but needed a hound?’

  ‘Bastard!’

  She mimes a punch to his nose. She has returned to her usual teasing, cheerful self, but suddenly the gap between them seems to widen again. He needs her back, needs something – a hand, a kiss, a hug – anything to keep him from drifting off the edge of the world.

  ‘Lola?’ He hears the note of anguish in his voice.

  ‘It’s all right, Mattie, I’m right here.’

  He is aware of her shifting on the bed to lie down beside him, resting her head gently against his chest, just below his chin.

  ‘They say you’ll most likely be discharged tomorrow but that you shouldn’t go back for the last week of school, so I was thinking . . .’ She look
s up at him, curling the tip of her tongue over her upper lip and rolling her eyes to the side in an expression of extreme mischief. Then, abruptly, her expression changes. ‘Hey—’

  A tear escapes down the side of his face; he takes a deep breath and holds it. He sucks in his right cheek, biting down hard, and stares at her, unable to utter a word.

  ‘Sweetheart, what is it? Are you in pain? Do you want me to call the nurse?’

  The air exits his lungs in a rush, and he presses his fingers and thumb against his eyelids in an attempt to keep himself from sobbing. ‘There’s something I need to tell you . . .’

  Her hand wipes the tears from his cheeks as they fall. ‘What is it you need to tell me?’ Her voice is low and urgent, almost a whisper. ‘Oh God, darling, try. Please try and tell me what’s happening to you. I love you, I want to know!’

  ‘I’m scared.’ The words come out of their own accord, bypassing the filter in his brain. He presses his hand down against his eyes to avoid seeing her expression.

  There is a long silence. She lets the pause sit and then grow. He knows she is struggling to make sense of the word, of his erratic behaviour. She is trying to understand. ‘Of diving?’

  ‘No!’

  He senses her shock through the air-conditioned, sterile air between them. Her shock, and then a new emotion – a fear of her own. ‘Of what, Mattie?’

  ‘Of – of—’ He fills his lungs, then empties them slowly in an attempt to force himself into a state of calm. ‘Of remembering . . .’

  ‘Remembering what?’

  ‘Something bad.’ He closes his eyes. ‘It was a nightmare – I was sure it was a nightmare. Or maybe I just really wanted to believe it was a nightmare. But then, when I was counting myself in to the dive, I began to remember: it all started coming back—’

  ‘The nightmare?’ Worry and confusion sounds in Lola’s voice. ‘Or the thing you thought was a nightmare? What happened, sweetheart?’

  An image flashes through his brain. A man, just slightly out of focus. The crack of his own fist meeting bone. And blood, lots of blood . . .

  ‘Mattie?’

  He forces himself to open his eyes, forces himself to look at her. ‘I’m scared of losing you . . .’ His voice rises. He holds his breath. Articulating the words seems to somehow magnify their power so that they take on a whole new meaning of their own. It’s almost as if he has foretold the future, cursed them both with a prophecy that cannot ever be unsaid, cannot ever be undone.

  ‘Why?’ A breath. She pauses as if to gather her thoughts. Strokes his hair rhythmically, gazing out of the darkened window at the distant lights of the city.

  Mathéo takes a deep breath, trying to steady his heart. The morphine is acting like some kind of truth serum, of that he feels sure. The pain in his head and the shock of the fall has skewed his thought processes, knocked down his defences, and he no longer feels in control, either of his emotions or of the words coming out of his mouth. A different type of fear begins to grip him – the one that he might fall apart completely, right here, right now, and tell Lola everything. Everything his brain spewed out from the darkest recesses of his mind as he stood atop that damn diving board. Ruin their relationship with just one sentence, shatter her image of him in the space of a second, destroy every memory, every kiss, every secret, every shared moment of intimacy, every good thing that has happened between them from the moment they first met.

  Her voice, oddly disembodied in the gathering gloom, propels him out from the vortex of his mind. ‘Did you – did you cheat on me, Mattie?’ It is barely phrased as a question, much less an accusation; it is simply the agonized gasp of someone searching for some kind of explanation.

  He feels himself go completely cold; cold and then numb, as if his body has suddenly been sucked dry of all substance, of all feeling, of all emotion. For one insane moment he thinks he is going to tell her: absolve himself of all this guilt, clear his conscience and free himself from the weight of this hellish, secret albatross. But then he imagines life without Lola: the guilt still present but not just his life in tatters, hers as well. He imagines never seeing her again: that vibrant, expressive face, that mischievous smile. The way she bites the tip of her tongue when she is teasing, the way she rubs her finger against her lip when she is worried. He imagines never again seeing the spark of mischief in those gold-flecked eyes, never again feeling the caress of her hair against his cheek. He imagines gradually forgetting the feeling of being held, of being stroked, of being kissed by Lola – and he cannot do it. Cannot utter the one word that would wipe out her love for him for ever. So he shakes his head and closes his eyes.

  9

  He is discharged the following afternoon and spends the next couple of days knocking around the house, bored, while his parents are at work and his brother at school. Consuela fusses around him like a pestering fly and he attempts to drown out her whine with day-time TV and naps on the living-room sofa. Lola is busy with the musical and so their interactions are restricted to late-night Skype calls and sporadic texts throughout the day. Every morning, however, with a look of confusion, Consuela hands him an origami crane from the letter box, the paper bird bearing only his name, its wings tightly folded around Lola’s message. Sometimes it’s a little anecdote from school, other times it’s a comment about her day. Just a few lines in that neat, slanted handwriting of hers, but always ending with something romantic, or an expression of her affection – anything from something as simple as I miss you to a declaration of something stronger.

  Aaron, Zach and Eli have all been in touch, wishing him better. Perez has been calling him on his mobile two, sometimes three times a day, but Mathéo has just been letting it go to voicemail. He returns to the hospital for some tests and is almost relieved when he is told that normal service can resume. Normal service, except for diving – much to his father’s annoyance. The neurologist is clear, even gives him a copy of the medical report: training in the gym is fine, but he will need a good fortnight away from the pool – to keep the wound dry as much as anything else.

  Mathéo texts Perez the news with some satisfaction. He pretends to be fed up when telling his parents, but deep down feels nothing but relief. He doesn’t want to think about the new dive, or anything to do with diving. Maybe now that he is being allowed time off he will be able to put some distance between himself and the horror of what happened in Brighton. Now that he’s remembered, he desperately needs to forget about it again, blot it for ever out of his mind, take it with him to his grave. No one can ever, ever know, or his life – his life will be over. He just needs to wipe his mind completely clean, wash the blood from his hands and return to something of his former self.

  After seeing the specialist, he has to wait an agonizing six hours before he can speak to Lola. It’s the very last day of school and the final night of the show: he has specific orders not to call or text, in case the unimaginable happens and she forgets to turn off her phone. But after being parted for two days, and effervescent with the news that he will no longer be under Consuela’s surveillance or immersed in his usual intensive training schedule, he feels unexpectedly heady with freedom.

  ‘Meet me tonight outside the school hall?’ Lola sounds rushed but excited. ‘Promise?’

  He laughs. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Two weeks off training? That’s going to be so cool. We can— Hey, that means you can come with us to the South of France!’

  He gives a sardonic laugh. ‘Yeah, right. Just because I can’t use the pool doesn’t mean Perez is going to give me any time off training.’

  But he can’t help but feel a real pang of jealousy now that Lola has agreed to go, at his insistence, without him. Hugo’s parents’ villa is a place of glorious, hedonistic freedom, in the middle of nowhere, right by the beach. Until training got serious and even holidays stopped, he spent time there every summer. After hanging up, he flops back against his bed, picturing the glorious cliff-edged house, the enormous stretch of sandy beac
h, and the three of them, alone save for the housekeeper, free to do whatever they pleased.

  ‘Consuela, can I give you a hand with dinner?’ The kitchen is cool and smells of disinfectant. It is already gone six, and he wonders for a moment if she has maybe forgotten, busy testing Loïc on his times tables.

  ‘No dinner tonight.’ She looks up from Loïc’s textbook. ‘Mrs Walsh, she call.’

  Helping himself to a can of iced tea from the fridge and taking the biscuit tin from the cupboard, Mathéo trails over to the breakfast bar and sits down with his snacks. ‘She called to tell you we weren’t having dinner?’

  ‘Yes,’ Consuela replies with no attempt at further explanation. ‘Loïc, now we try the seven, yes?’

  Head threatening to fall off his supporting hand, Loïc puffs out his left cheek in boredom. ‘The seven what?’

  ‘The seven!’

  ‘Mattie, I don’t know what she’s talking about.’ He looks over plaintively and his eyes alight on the biscuit tin. ‘Can I have one?’

  Mathéo flashes his brother a warning look. ‘Your seven times tables. Don’t be rude, Loïc.’

  ‘But can I have one?’

  ‘All right. Ready?’ He tosses a Jaffa Cake over to his brother and, with a whoop, Loïc jumps up from his chair and just makes the catch, cramming the biscuit into his mouth. ‘Another one, another one. Come on, make it harder!’ He claps his hands together and, hands on bent knees, takes up a goalkeeper’s stance.

  ‘No. Mathéo, please! Loïc, we must study and Mrs Walsh say no eat before dinner.’

  Loïc ignores her entirely, rubbing his hands together, hopping from foot to foot.