‘Where have you been?’ Hugo asks, an unusual mixture of wariness and concern in his voice.
‘Fell asleep on the beach.’
‘We’ve been worried sick.’ Isabel now. But she doesn’t sound angry – a note of sadness in her tone.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’ He looks over at Lola, but she immediately averts her gaze.
He can feel his heart. Can tell something is wrong. The earlier anger at his reckless behaviour has dissipated. Hugo and Isabel seem subdued as well as shocked, eyeing him with an air of what could almost pass as caution.
‘Sit down,’ Hugo says stiffly. ‘I’ll get you a drink. Coffee?’
‘No, it’s OK, I’m fine,’ Mathéo says, moving slowly towards the stairs. ‘I’ll – I’ll just go upstairs and have a shower before I cover the place in sand.’
‘Wait. Sit down, we need to talk.’ Hugo gets up, blocking his way. ‘I think’ – again, a glance at Isabel – ‘maybe you should call your parents—’
‘What are you on about?’ His pulse is accelerating at an alarming speed. ‘Has something happened to them?’
‘No, they’re fine.’ Isabel takes over now. ‘It’s you, Mattie. We think you need help. We think you should tell your parents—’
‘About what?’ The words fire out, harsh and ragged.
‘About what happened,’ Isabel says. ‘About—’ He sees her swallow. ‘About the rape.’
He can hear his breath shuddering in his throat and the ground begins to tilt, knocking him off balance, sending him stumbling back against the wall. Hugo is staring at him in a faintly horrified way, while Isabel’s expression holds a mixture of shock and pity. He looks over at Lola, still keeping her face hidden.
‘You – you t-told them?’
A screaming stab of silence, and then she turns, cheeks damp with tears. ‘I had to, Mattie! You nearly killed yourself this afternoon, and then you went missing for six whole hours! We searched everywhere and found your water bottle down on the beach. I thought you’d gone and drowned yourself or something!’
‘But you promised!’
‘They wouldn’t believe me!’ Her voice rises. ‘Hugo and Izzy wouldn’t help me search for you because they didn’t think you were in any danger! I tried explaining how unhappy you were, but they didn’t understand! You disappeared for half the day after throwing yourself off a cliff, Mattie! What did you expect me to think? What the hell did you expect me to do?’
He feels for the wall behind him to keep himself upright, his knees threatening to give way. ‘Lola, you could have just . . . Oh, Lola, dammit—’ His voice breaks. ‘You promised. You promised!’
‘Matt, listen, it’s OK, we’re not going to tell anyone.’ Hugo moves towards him, hand held out in a gesture of solidarity. ‘I’m just really sorry you had to go through that, mate. I – I can’t imagine what it must have been like—’
‘I don’t need your fucking pity!’
‘We’re not pitying you, we’re just concerned!’ Isabel is approaching now. They seem to be closing in on him, trapping him, encroaching on his space, and he only just resists the urge to lash out. ‘Something like that – sexual abuse – it’s a huge trauma,’ she continues. ‘You have to let people help you. You have to tell your family, the people you love—’
‘I told the only person I really love and she fucking betrayed me!’ The pain stabs like knives – the pain of those words stabs him like a million knives, cutting him all over. Far, far worse than hitting the water after diving off the cliff. Far, far worse than cracking his head on the ten-metre platform. Worse, even, than that night. He had wanted to die then, but the thought of never seeing Lola again had kept him fighting. Slumped against the wall, he presses his hands hard over his cheeks, jamming his fingertips into the sockets over his eyelids. He wants nothing more than to get away from them all, but is suddenly disorientated – has no way of finding the stairs, no way of finding the front door.
Hugo puts his hand on his shoulder. ‘Matt, I’m so sorry. I wish you’d told me. I can’t think of anything worse. I’d have gone with you to the police. I’d have tracked him down, beaten the hell out of him—’
He shoves Hugo back with all his strength. ‘Don’t touch me, OK? Just don’t fucking touch me!’
‘We’re just trying to help! We care about you, Matt!’
‘I don’t want your fucking help! You weren’t supposed to know. Nobody was supposed to know!’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Matt—’
‘You’re damn right it wasn’t!’
‘Then why all the secrecy! You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of—’
‘I fucking know that!’ But Hugo has got it right. He does feel ashamed: ashamed and dirty and weak and pitiful. Damaged goods, raped, abused, messed up in the head. He knows now that nothing will be the same between them ever again; that Hugo, his oldest and closest friend, will always remember him as my schoolfriend who was raped. But worse, far worse, is the horrifying knowledge that the secret is out. If even Lola was unable to keep it to herself then he stands no chance with these two. Word will spread, gossip will run rife – his other friends will know, his diving buddies will know and, worst of all, his parents will know. And there will be questions. What he thought until now was a fairly watertight story about a stranger – perhaps a crazy fan – luring him into the woods will begin to fall apart under intense scrutiny. Even if he refuses to go to the police, people will ask questions, people will want answers, and people will start speculating . . . Others will have seen the guy. If they start asking questions at the Brighton Aquatic Centre, putting together the pieces of the puzzle, joining the dots, then . . . they will find him. Him, the rapist. And he cannot let that happen.
‘Matt – Jesus, you’re hyperventilating! Calm down!’ Hugo’s hand is on his shoulder, but Mathéo grabs him by the collar and shoves him away with all his strength. As Hugo stumbles back, crashing into a lamp, Mathéo makes a dash for the stairs. Into the bedroom. Into the bathroom. Throwing off his wet, sandy clothes and turning the shower on full power. The freezing water scorches his sunburned skin, the bruises from the dive, the lacerations on his leg. The strength of the jet powers down over him like thousands of needles. But as the sand, salt and sweat are swept from his skin, disappearing down the plughole, he feels more exposed and dirty than ever, and, kneeling on the tiled floor, presses his face into his hands, choking on hot tears and icy water.
15
After dipping in and out of sleep all night, Mathéo finally gives up just before dawn and, extracting himself carefully from beside Lola’s warm, sleeping body, dresses in the heavy silence of the room. He pulls a hoodie on over his T-shirt and jeans, slips his feet into his sandals and creeps down the marble staircase, letting himself quietly out of the still sleeping house.
The nightlights set in the ground surrounding the lawn are still on, but as he leaves the garden behind him, he sees that dawn is just close to breaking, the night sky turning purple, glorious in the first rays. A tiny sliver of sun has just begun to creep over the horizon, turning the sea violet, the first sparks of silver catching on water. The air is misty, cool and slightly damp. Zipping up his hoodie, he begins his descent, the beach path spinning out before him like a snake’s tongue unfurling. At the bottom, the smooth sand that greets him, like the air around him, is tinged with blue, the tidal pools shimmering, stretching all the way to the wide, foaming line of the sea.
Mist veils the cluster of large rocks that sheltered him the day before; they stand as still as statues, their dents and edges catching the dawn sun. He reaches them and climbs atop the highest, settling himself into one of its smooth curves so that he can look right out across the sea, and with his eyes follow the coastline into the misty distance. Behind him the house stands firm and solid, its whitewashed walls ghostly against the looming black silhouette of the mountain behind it. He takes in deep lungfuls of cold, salty air and watches the golden rays spread out across the water, the pu
rple early-morning light pouring across the bay. Tilting his head back, he stares up as the wide swath of bottomless sky falters from purple, to Prussian blue, to violet – a pink smear cutting a path above the horizon like the mark on a child’s finger painting. Haloes of light converge and cover the paling mist, turning it a sanctifying white as it falls like dust over the rocky headlands, the trees and bushes dark cut-outs against the rising sun. Below, the sea spreads out before him, whispering and wrinkled, sunlight dancing on the moving water. There is something utterly heartbreaking about this violently beautiful, continuously changing scene. The sea rhythmically inhales and exhales in the distance, and as the chill blue mist wraps itself around him, Mathéo wishes he could just disappear into it, become part of this breathtaking view and cease to hurt, cease to feel, cease to be.
As gulls begin to circle the cliff-top, stirring the silence with their sharp, plaintive cries, Mathéo becomes aware of another sound – a scrabbling from below. He stiffens, expecting an animal of some kind, but hears panting, and then suddenly Lola’s head and shoulders come into view as she pulls herself up using the tricky footholds.
He reaches out and helps her up. ‘How did you know I was here?’
Standing there, her face flushed with exertion, she wipes her hands on the sides of her jeans and then turns to point back to the house in the distance. ‘I saw you from the window.’
‘Oh.’
She lowers herself down beside him, resting her arms on her drawn-up knees, her face turned towards the expanding sun. The smattering of freckles across her cheekbones has spread, the skin on her nose and forehead a sun-kissed pink. The dawn rays wash across her face, leaving the rest of her in shadow, and as the breeze picks up, she shivers, her golden brown unkempt hair streaming out behind her.
‘Do you want my hoodie?’
‘But then you’ll be cold.’
‘I’m fine,’ he lies, pulling it off and wrapping it round her shoulders. ‘Better?’
‘Thanks.’
There is a silence as thick as the blue mist rolling off the surface of the sea. The gulls continue their crying overhead like a lament and, side by side, they sit together wordlessly for what seems like an eternity. Glancing across at her huddled figure, Mathéo aches to put an arm round her shoulders, move closer so they are pressed up together – but doesn’t dare. The ache inside him is so great, it seems to fill the vast expanse of space around him, rising all the way up to the sky, stretching right out to the horizon.
‘Did you come here to be alone?’ Lola asks him quietly, her voice faint in the rising breeze.
‘Yes . . . I mean, no.’
‘I’ll go.’ She starts to get up. ‘I just wanted to check you were all right.’
‘Lola, don’t.’ He reaches out to stop her, his hand making contact with the warm skin of her arm, and as she sinks back down, forces himself to let go of her.
‘Are you?’ she asks, resting her chin on her arms, her gaze still turned away. ‘All right, I mean?’
A pause. He doesn’t know how to answer – determined to tell her the truth but, as usual, unable to find a way to do so. After a moment she looks at him, tilting her head to rest on her arms.
‘No.’ He gives her a small smile to make up for the tremor in his voice, but she doesn’t return it. He gleans a sadness from her expression, pain and concern in her gaze, her green eyes huge, flecked with gold. The gentle touch of her hand makes him start and he has no choice but to pull away, and quickly. He looks back out across the sea to escape the hurt in her face.
‘Are you still angry I told them? Even after our talk last night?’
He takes a long breath, filling his lungs to capacity, and lets it out slowly in an attempt to keep his composure. He shakes his head.
‘No?’ Lola asks, her tone disbelieving.
‘No.’ The word is whispered, so he is not sure she has heard, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the horizon, on that curved gold line where the morning sun first reaches the sea. Something heavy and full begins to rise in his chest, and he inhales deeply again, trying to force it back, blinking rapidly.
‘Why won’t you let me hold your hand then?’
Because if you do, I’ll fall apart.
He swallows hard, pressing his knuckles against the sharp edges of rock beneath him. ‘It’s just that – Lola, there’s something I want you to remember—’ He breaks off, taking another breath to steady his voice.
Despite being unable to look at her, he can feel her gaze focus sharply on his face. ‘What?’
‘It’s really important for you to remember that whatever – whatever happens, I always loved you.’ He turns to look at her now, ‘I always loved you, Lola. More – more than I ever thought was possible to love anyone in this world.’
‘Mattie . . .’ She reaches out to touch him, and then, remembering, retracts her hand. ‘I love you too, but why are you saying this now?’
‘Because you’ve got to believe me.’ He turns to face her, his breathing accelerating. ‘It’s just really important that you believe me, Lola, OK?’
‘OK . . .’ There is a wary note in her voice. ‘But I still don’t understand. What do you mean by you always loved me. Don’t you love me any more?’
‘I do. Of course I do.’
‘Then why do I need to remember?’ She gives him a tentative, hopeful smile but the wariness hasn’t left her eyes. ‘You’ll always be here to remind me!’
He looks at her face, her beautiful, trusting face, and feels the blood thrum in his cheeks, pulsing painfully through his veins. He is unable to reply.
‘Mattie . . .’ A slight crease forms between her brows. ‘What’s going on? Are you – are you breaking up with me?’
‘No! At least . . .’ He inhales raggedly. ‘I – I don’t want to. I really don’t!’
The tentative smile is gone from her face, her expression changing. Her voice fades to barely more than a whisper. ‘Then why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye?’
He turns his face back to the horizon, a sharp pain pressing against the back of his eyes. ‘We can never be sure what might happen in the future.’
‘But I thought we had it all planned. Drama college in London, and going back to work at that bookshop so I can travel to watch you compete.’ He can feel her stare on his face, as if trying to read his thoughts, understand where all this is coming from.
‘Things change,’ he says doggedly. ‘Things happen—’
He feels her tense. ‘Mattie, what are you trying to tell me? What’s going on?’
He shakes his head, looking away, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. ‘Nothing . . . It’s just – it’s just that, Lola . . . I have this feeling, I have this terrible feeling that—’ He breaks off breathlessly.
‘What?’ she presses, her voice sharp with concern. ‘This feeling that what?’
‘That things are going to change between us.’
Silence. Deathly silence. Even the gulls seem to have gone quiet.
‘Yesterday, that dive . . .’ There is a shocked, brittle sound to her voice. ‘You so nearly could have died . . . Mattie, look at me!’
He shakes his head, holding his breath, leaning away as she reaches up to try and touch his cheek.
‘Mattie, you’re scaring me. What’s happening? Are you thinking of doing something? Are you thinking of hurting yourself?’ The sharpness of her tone increases, rising in panic.
He empties his lungs in a rush, the air stuttering in his chest, tears cutting into the rims of his eyes. ‘No . . . I don’t know. I just can’t live like this!’
Her fingers trace a path over the back of his hand. ‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’
He shakes his head, pulling and working on the skin on the inside of his cheek. ‘Lola, I love you so much.’
‘I love you too—’
‘But it won’t be enough, it won’t ever be enough! You have no idea what I’ve done to you, what I’ve done to us—’ A muff
led sob breaks through the last word, and he lowers his face into his hands, tears warming the tips of his fingers.
‘Mattie—’ She touches his arm and he pulls away violently, getting to his feet and climbing down off the boulder, skidding and grazing his hands and scraping the skin off the side of his arm in his haste. He starts to run, but the pain in his leg slows him and he strides out across the beach, following the cuts of white light on the pale sand towards the distant line of the sea.
Jumping up onto the small wooden jetty, heading resolutely towards the water, he soon becomes aware of the sound of gasping breath, the slap of sandals against the wooden slats behind him. ‘Mattie, listen – you know I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do. Do you want to go home? Do you want to speak to the police?’
‘No!’ Lengthening his stride, he turns just enough to see her following him, hair blowing across her face, cheeks flushed with exertion. ‘You know what I want? To leave! To leave London for ever and never go back!’
Lola slows to a brisk walk as the gap between them closes. He can make out the rise and fall of her chest, the small puffs of exertion as she works to keep up. ‘But why?’
Hugo’s rowing boat is bobbing on the waves and rocking from side to side, in turn straining against the rope, then knocking up against the side of the jetty, the metal loop clattering against the slats.
‘So that we can go away together. Just the two of us.’ He is suddenly gripped by the idea. ‘I know what! I’ll take a year off from diving, you can defer your entrance to Central and we’ll go backpacking round the world!’
Her face relaxes at the sight of his expression and she moves forward tentatively, holding out a hand. ‘Come back here. What are you talking about – running off together?’ She smiles at him as if convinced he is joking.
‘I mean it. What’s stopping us? Loads of people take gap years.’ He backs away towards Hugo’s boat.
‘You’re crazy, Mattie!’ Lola laughs at him, her eyes sparkling in the dawn sun. ‘But I tell you what – after the Olympics and when we’ve finished with university, we should totally do something like that!’