As their plane slowly begins to move, taxiing towards the runway, the airport buildings fading into the morning mist, he feels his precarious veneer splinter for a moment, and has to take a long deep breath, fixing on the trail of runway lights that smear and blur beneath the window. Drawing his bottom lip between his teeth, he bites down hard and keeps his head turned away, sensing Lola’s eyes still lingering on his face. She’s about to say something when, across the aisle, Hugo interrupts with, ‘Hey, come on, you two, we’re on holiday! School is out for good! We’ll never have to sit through one of Croaky’s assemblies again!’
‘Unless I have to re-sit my history A-level!’ Lola quickly switches on her smile and pulls a face. ‘I can’t believe our results are coming out in less than a month!’
‘OK, no exam talk for the duration of the holiday,’ Hugo declares triumphantly. ‘We’re not even going to think about results – OK?’
‘Definitely!’ Isabel chimes in.
As the air hostesses go through the safety demonstrations, Mathéo lets his breath out slowly, grateful to Lola for diverting Hugo’s attention, and soon the noise of the engines becomes too loud for conversation. It’s a relief to be moving and, even though they haven’t left the ground yet, Mathéo is thankful the journey has begun. As the announcements finish and the seatbelt lights go on, the roar inside the cabin intensifies. The plane begins to gather speed, preparing for takeoff. Beneath the window, the runway blurs and bumps and rattles. With every passing second he is putting more distance between himself and home, between himself and everyone back in London; with every passing minute, he is sloughing off more of his old skin, leaving the damaged Mathéo behind.
Montpellier is sizzling, blinding and packed. The others are all fizzing with excitement again; even Lola seems to have perked up. The hustle and bustle, the traffic, the shouts, the crowds of tourists posing for photos and blocking congested roads; the heat, the braying of horns all encompass him in a thick, chaotic web. Fortunately Ana, the housekeeper, is there to pick them up in an air-conditioned people-carrier, and they jolt their way through stop-start traffic and out onto the motorway, until finally, a good forty-five minutes later, they find themselves on one of the narrow roads that wind down to the coast.
Leaning his forehead against the cool inside of the window, Mathéo watches the exotic scenery flash past. Like most Basque drivers, Ana barely touches the brakes as she rounds the sharp, cliff-edge corners. On one side the forest blooms with colour – thousands of different shades of green, interspersed with red and purple flowers erupting from the branches like mini fireworks. On the other side, a river curls out under the sheer cliff-face of the gorge towards the sea. They can smell it now, glimpse it even, beyond the cedar trees and the red-roofed villas: a sparkling, frothy white line in the distance, separating the earth from the vast expanse of deep blue sky. Muggy London seems a million miles away – here the scenery is breathtakingly dramatic, the landscape lit up by a sun so strong, so sharp, so white, it over-powers everything.
The car crawls steeply up a narrow road towards the centre of a pretty village full of quaint cafés and postcard shops, before dropping back down again into the thick, lush countryside, hedgerows drooping with flowers. Ahead loom the silhouettes of low hills, dappled green and purple against the light. As the ground beneath the wheels grows rougher, the car swings off the road before meandering gently downhill along a farm track towards the sea. They reach the very edge of the cliff, the plateau jutting out over a concealed private beach, and turn sharply into a tunnel of trees. And as they emerge, the house comes into sight.
It is every bit as glorious as Mathéo remembers. Isabel has been to stay before, but Lola is seeing the house for the very first time. He has prepared her for it but knows she will still be bowled over, just as he was that first time he came to stay when he was twelve – even though by then he’d already been taken by his parents to several luxury holiday resorts. But this place is different from any other holiday villa. A curved driveway of white stone leads up to the front of the house, flanked by enormous stretches of grass where, in the past, he and Hugo played games of football, badminton and table-tennis. The freshly mown lawn is bordered by brightly coloured plants and bushes trimmed into geometric shapes. To the far right is the swimming pool, steps carved into the concrete of the shallow end; it stretches all the way to the very front of the garden, where it overhangs the beach. From the deep end you can look down onto the sand below, and when the tide is high, the end of the pool appears to merge with the sea. There is a hot tub on one side, a row of white sun loungers and parasols down the other, and a covered wooden terrace at the bottom, which houses the barbecue and bar. The house itself is vast: a mixture of white concrete, cream sandstone and pearl marble. It is just two storeys high, but stretches out in all directions. The upper floor consists of four large ensuite bedrooms, as well as a separate bathroom and laundry room. The ground floor is a palatial open-plan area: the main hall separating the living room and games room on one side, the kitchen and dining room on the other. Each room has French windows opening out onto the marble terrace that surrounds the whole house, and upstairs, supported by thick columns, the bedrooms are all connected by an outdoor gallery, just the right height for a breathtaking jump down onto the grass, and wide enough for sitting out on sun loungers or even for kicking a football around.
Lola almost trips as she heaves her rucksack from the boot, busy squinting up in amazement at the house, framed by the hills behind it, resplendent in the sun.
‘Oh, no way!’ she exclaims, as much to herself as to anyone else, her wide-eyed gaze soaking up the lawns, the pool, and finally the sea just beyond. ‘Mattie told me it was amazing, but this is – this is just—’ She comes to a halt, uncharacteristically lost for words.
‘Not bad, huh?’ Hugo smiles, lowering the sunglasses from the crown of his head. ‘My parents are planning to retire here, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. Dad doesn’t trust anyone else to run the company.’
‘You have to try out the pool, Lola,’ Isabel pitches in with excitement. ‘It’s always at the perfect temperature, and it’s huge, and the hot tub is amazing, especially at night.’
‘Why don’t you give her a tour?’ Hugo suggests with a grin of pride. ‘Matt and I will take the bags in.’
Isabel is already galloping over the grass. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the secret path down to the beach!’
Lola relinquishes her rucksack, moves to follow, then looks back at Mathéo, appearing to hesitate for a moment. In her white cotton top and cargo shorts, she appears fragile and coltish, her long bare legs and slender arms alabaster white, unruly chestnut hair pulled back into a dishevelled knot. Mathéo finds himself engulfed in a tidal wave of guilt. She should be as excited and carefree as the others, relishing the beginning of the holidays and celebrating the end of school, the beginning of a new chapter. Instead, she looks anxious and vulnerable, her pinched face white from too many sleepless nights, weighted down by his own dark, dirty secret.
‘Go on!’ he urges. ‘I’m dying of thirst so I’ll see you inside.’
For a moment he fears she will refuse, but then Isabel calls her and she turns, loping across the grass, flip-flops slapping against the soles of her feet, to join her friend.
Mathéo takes the remaining rucksacks from the boot, thanks Ana and follows Hugo across the terrace, through the porch and into the echoing, air-conditioned cool of the hall.
‘Which room do you want us in?’
‘Ana will take the bags up,’ Hugo replies. ‘Come and have a drink – you look knackered.’
‘But I can do it—’
‘Don’t bother with that now. Come on!’
In the kitchen, Hugo hands Mathéo a cold beer from the fridge and they amble out onto a shaded part of the terrace and sit down on the sun loungers over-looking the pool.
‘So – everything OK?’ Hugo has an air of preoccupation, his eyes narrowed on his beer can,
taking longer than necessary to open it.
‘Yeah. Why?’
Hugo lowers his shades back down over his eyes and takes a deep swig. ‘You and Lola seem kinda – I dunno.’ He turns to look at Mathéo cautiously.
‘We’re fine.’ Mathéo’s voice comes out more hesitant than he would have liked. He wipes his damp forehead with the back of his hand and squints out over the glassy surface of the pool. ‘Why? Has – has she said something?’
‘Not exactly . . .’
He feels his heart skip a beat. ‘What do you mean?’
Hugo shrugs with exaggerated nonchalance. ‘Nothing much. Just that Izzy mentioned Lola was upset about something. And you’ve been pretty quiet so far.’
Heart pumping now, Mathéo turns away, clears his throat. ‘Did – did Lola say what she was upset about?’
‘No. We figured you’d maybe had an argument or something.’
‘Why would we have had an argument?’
‘I dunno!’
‘Well, we didn’t. We’re fine.’ He swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. ‘Everything’s fine, OK?’
‘OK.’ Hugo raises his eyebrows briefly in response to Mathéo’s defensive tone but lets it pass. ‘So – does that mean you’re feeling better?’
‘Better than what?’ Careful to keep his voice light, Mathéo settles back against the sun lounger and puts on his sunglasses in an attempt to avoid Hugo’s questioning stare.
‘Well, you know – what we talked about before.’ Hugo looks uncomfortable but presses on. ‘You have been acting kinda bummed out—’
‘Nah.’ Mathéo turns his face away to squint into the sun. ‘Just tired. You know. Straight back into training after exams . . .’
Hugo looks sceptical, but any further questioning on his part is abruptly cut short by laughter from the girls as they come running across the grass, legs streaked with wet sand.
‘No, no!’ Lola is shrieking over her shoulder at Isabel. ‘Don’t you dare – my watch isn’t waterproof!’
Hugo’s face cracks into a smile. ‘Let’s get it off her, then!’ He puts down his beer, leaps up with an evil grin, and sprints over towards them, his earlier concern quickly forgotten.
They spend the rest of the afternoon in the pool, messing around with a ball and Frisbee and a couple of lilos. As the sunlight turns from blinding white to pale gold, Ana brings dinner out to them on the terrace, where in swim shorts and bikinis, still damp from the water, they gather around the table to devour seafood paella. Hugo digs out more beers, Isabel breaks open the wine and Mathéo does his best to join in with the noisy chatter.
Later that evening, after the sun has almost set and the other three have gone inside to play Cheat, Mathéo returns to the garden. A blue-grey dusk is stealing over the lawns, darkening the water in the pool. The candles on the table flicker wildly, casting jagged reflections on the wall behind before guttering out in the sudden breeze. The light slips away from the hills behind the house like sand through a timer. The sun is almost gone now – only its reflection remains, its glorious colours fading on the underside of the clouds. Walking over the grass to the pool’s steps, Mathéo slides beneath the water, ripples slithering across its surface. Its cool, comforting familiarity is silky against his skin. He swims a full length before surfacing and wiping his eyes with his fingers. Then, resting his folded arms on the concrete lip of the deep end, he gazes out across the sea at the hazy coastline of the bay and tries to lose himself in the changing colours of the distance. The beauty of it all, the contrast with human existence, fills him with a sadness so strong, he feels himself sinking beneath the weight of it. He can run as fast and as far as he wants, but nothing, he realizes, will ever be able to return him to the person he was before the night of the attack and, as a result, nothing will ever seem quite as beautiful and unspoiled again. You cannot undo the past; you can only learn to live with it, find some way of making peace with it, and move on. And he wonders how that can ever be possible, how anyone can ever truly accept being brutalized in the way he was. Is it really possible to learn to forgive? And in doing so, are you offering up an absolution? He closes his eyes and rests his forehead on his arms, the water lapping gently against his mouth, and wonders how he can go on existing, so used and so dirty and so damaged, while surrounded by so much beauty.
He lifts his head at the sound of footsteps and sees Lola clipping across the paving stones set in the lawn. She is wearing a sleeveless cotton dress over her bikini, her long hair still damp and her shoulders pink from the sun. Sitting down at the pool edge beside him, she turns to follow his gaze out over the rising tide and towards the twinkling lights of the distant coastline.
‘I was thinking of heading off to bed soon,’ she says quietly. ‘Are you going to come?’
He nods, sucking in his left cheek.
‘Hugo has given us a double room,’ she says, her voice low, still not turning to look at him. ‘Shall I ask if I can sleep somewhere else?’
‘Of course not!’ Mathéo feels his heart accelerate and the blood rush to his cheeks, stung by the mere suggestion. ‘Just because of what happened doesn’t mean – doesn’t mean I want you to – to—’
‘It’s OK, that’s what I thought, but I just wanted to double check.’ She turns to him now, wiping the wet hair back from his forehead. ‘Sweetheart, you’re shivering. Shall I get you a towel?’
‘Wait!’ He circles her wrist with his hand to retrain her. ‘It’s – it’s so . . . Don’t you think it’s beautiful?’
‘God, yeah!’ she exclaims. ‘I was telling Hugo if my dad had a place like this, I’d never leave.’
‘I mean the sea. And the sky. And the light. It’s – it’s just all so beautiful and—’ He hears the tremor in his voice. ‘And I feel like I never really appreciated it before.’
Lola looks down at him, her expression serious now. ‘You’ve needed a holiday for ages, sweetheart.’ She strokes his wet cheek.
‘I dunno . . .’ He sucks in his lower lip and bites down hard. ‘Me – being here, after what happened. It all feels wrong somehow.’
In the main guest room at the front of the house, he stands gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, clad in just his pyjama bottoms, waistband pinching and nipping at the beginnings of sunburn, face flushed from the hot shower. Pulling open the heavy glass door, he walks onto the balcony and gazes out at the last remnants of sunset stretching across the sea. He hears Lola emerge from the bathroom and pad out to join him. She rests her hand on the bare skin at the small of his back: it feels like a small gesture of solidarity. It is only a tiny movement, like a petal falling to the ground, but it moves something within him.
For a while they just stand there, quiet in their own space. Then Lola breaks the silence, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Do you want to talk about it now?’
‘No.’ The word holds no anger, but nonetheless it’s a kneejerk reaction, uttered almost before she has finished her question.
There is a pause before she exhales. ‘OK.’ Running her finger down the inside of his arm, she slides her hand down until it meets his, and holds it gently. ‘But then, Mattie, you need to tell me. Tell me what I should do . . .’
He fixes a spot on the horizon where the sea meets the sky. Takes a shaky breath. ‘Pretend it never happened.’
‘Is that really what you want?’ He hears the catch in her voice.
‘More than anything.’
‘OK . . . OK, then all I can do is promise to try. But only as long as you know that I’ll always be here – if ever you change your mind and do want to talk, or if ever you want to tell your parents or anyone else, or decide to go to the police. I’ll always be here by your side, Mattie. Do you understand that? Do you believe me?’
He bites his tongue and nods. Keeping his eyes fixed resolutely on the horizon, he squeezes her hand, and watches the lights blur and refract in the distance.
After a while Lola goes back into the room, chilly from the cool air comi
ng in off the sea, and turns off the light, rolls down the duvet and slides under the thin cotton sheet. Hair spread out across the pillow, she seems to be waiting, curled up on her side, waiting and watching him, her eyes wide and bright in the moonlight.
‘Mattie?’ she says softly after a while. ‘Aren’t you tired?’
‘Yeah. I’ll come in a sec.’
He feels her pause, feels her mind working. ‘You mustn’t think we have to . . . I mean, I’m not expecting anything. We don’t need to – you know – do anything. Not until you’re ready, or – or ever again if you don’t want to—’
He turns to look at her, his breath accelerating. ‘What?’
‘After what happened, I totally understand if you never want—’
He comes in swiftly from the balcony, shutting the doors firmly behind him, and takes a shaky breath, leaning back against the glass. ‘You – you don’t want to have sex with me any more? I haven’t caught anything, you know. The first thing I did when I remembered was get checked out.’
Her expression changes and she props herself up on her elbow. ‘Of course I want to have sex with you! I just thought, after the last couple of, uh – tries, that maybe you’d prefer to wait a while.’
He turns back to look at the gathering darkness, his heart hammering, the blood pulsing in his cheeks.
‘Mattie?’
He doesn’t reply.
‘All I’m saying is that it’s entirely up to you.’
‘It’s not like I can’t – I can’t do it any more, you know!’ His voice comes out loud and shaky with humiliation and fear. The truth is, he doesn’t know. Maybe he can’t. Both attempts after that night – the night he was raped – had ended in disaster. Maybe his body will reject all forms of sex from now on for its own protection. Maybe he will never be free of the memories; sex will for ever be inextricably linked with pain and helplessness and anger and terror, and he will have to spend the rest of his life alone, locked into his painful secret.