‘Hi Max,’ I say. ‘Did Hunter hurt you?’
‘Huh?’
‘I heard he attacked you. I was listening.’
‘Yeah.’ Max nods, looking funnily relieved. ‘Yes, he did. But it’s all dealt with now.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Have you come to play Top Trumps?’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Cool. Do you want to play the two-player on Zombieland 4 first, though, because I have to finish this level before I can play Top Trumps. It’s imperative.’
‘Oh, good word,’ Max says.
‘OK, hang on a minute,’ I say, and I kill four zombies and get the powerpack.
‘You’re doing better, aren’t you, Daniel?’ Max says.
‘What with?’
‘You know, with . . . everything with me.’
‘Oh, yes. I was worried when you tried to kill yourself, but then I found out you were different, and now I know you’ll be OK, because we all know and now you can talk about it. I guess it was hard for you because you’re not very different at all in other ways, but I’m sort of different to most of the kids in my class, so I know how to deal with being different. You can ask me anything you like and I’ll help you anytime. It’s OK. Plus, you weren’t lying to me before.’
‘Huh?’
‘About being special. Sometimes I thought maybe you didn’t know about being different but I guess you do, because you are, so you weren’t lying when you said I was special. We’re both special.’
‘That’s right,’ he says, leaning against my bunk bed and grinning. He got even taller over Christmas.
‘Like superheroes!’
‘Yeah, totally.’
‘Like genetic mutants.’
‘Don’t get carried away,’ Max says, and he laughs even though it’s not funny.
Steve
I go with DI Travers over to Leah and Edward’s house to find Hunter. I shouldn’t have come but I had to. I’ve just resigned my post, but my job as Chief Crown Prosecutor was to make sure little bastards like Hunter are locked up, and I’ll fucking well make sure that happens tonight.
I called Paul Travers because he’s to the point, unemotional and respectful. He’ll keep the charges quiet. I’ll ask for the court records to be sealed as it’s rape of a minor, and Paul won’t be tempted to beat the shit out of Hunter like I am right now, in the passenger seat of the car. Gripping the car door handle, staring at the Fulsoms’ house, waiting for the moment when Hunter comes running out and I have to jump out the car and can legitimately tackle him to the ground and smash his face into the gravel.
This is a kid I watched grow up. This is a child we let sleep in the same bed as our child.
Karen was right. I can’t forgive her. Not because of the abortion, but because she didn’t listen to Max when he said something so important. If we don’t listen to him, if we take away his right to his own choices, his own body, then he stops being an autonomous being and becomes a thing. He stops making decisions for himself, he forgets how to stand up for himself, and things like this happen. People like Hunter will happen to him.
The house in front of me is quiet. I see the light of the living room dim in the hallway. Paul must be in there, telling them what he always tells the families. Paul’s good at this. I imagine for a minute Karen and I sat on our sofa, being told that Max had hurt someone like Hunter hurt him.
He’d just never do that. I know Max.
Suddenly, bright white light fills the car. I turn around. Two headlights swing into the drive, and the gravel crunches as Hunter’s car comes to a stop.
I go to open the door but the only urge inside me is to beat the living daylights out of him. I stay put and shrink down in my seat.
Hunter switches off his engine and looks quizzically at the police car. I’m in shadow. He’s parked to the right of me, closer to the house. I don’t think he can see me.
I watch Hunter stepping out of the car. He stubs a cigarette out on the interior of the car door and leaves it in there. He shuts the door with a thud.
He walks slowly towards the front door. The kid is tall, proud and cocky. He strolls slowly, predatorily, towards the house, then stops near the front door. He looks back over at the police car. His eyes are black in the dark. He’s wearing black trousers, a T-shirt and an open long-sleeved shirt. I won’t forget this for a long time.
The front door opens and he turns towards it.
‘Mum?’ he says. ‘Are you OK? What’s happened?’
He’s not even worried. He doesn’t even suspect we’re here for him, I think. I open the car door and slip quietly out.
‘Baby,’ Leah cries. She runs forward and throws her arms around him.
‘Is Dad OK?’ he asks.
‘Hunter,’ she cries, her voice hoarse. ‘Why did you do it? Why would you do that?’
Hunter’s hands go to her waist. He sees Paul coming out his front door. His mouth opens. He knows what’s coming. Paul is walking towards him. Edward leans against the doorframe, bent over like an old man, his arms folded. He can barely look at Hunter.
‘Hunter Fulsom,’ Paul says softly but firmly. ‘You’re under arrest for rape of a minor.’
Hunter looks over at Edward.
‘Dad?’ he says. His voice is deep – deeper than Max’s. As I get closer, I see dark stubble all over his chin. He’s broader, taller, even more so than when I last saw him in September. Hunter grew up. He became different to Max. We should have noticed.
Paul gets his handcuffs out and holds one out for Hunter. ‘It’s best to come quietly, Hunter. It’ll work out better for you that way.’
‘Fuck that,’ Hunter mutters.
‘Hunter, you’re going,’ Leah says. ‘You’re going.’
‘No.’ Hunter moves away from Paul and Leah grabs for him. ‘Mum, get off me! I’m not going! I didn’t do anything!’
‘Are you drunk?’ Edward asks angrily from the porch.
‘No, I’m not drunk,’ Hunter says, shrugging his mother off him.
Leah reels back. Tears pour down her face. ‘Why, why, why,’ she murmurs repeatedly.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ says Hunter. ‘Mum, stop crying!’
As Paul comes towards him, Hunter backs away.
‘You are under arrest for the rape of Max Walker,’ repeats Paul.
‘No, ’cause, he wanted it!’ Hunter says clumsily. ‘He wanted to have sex with me. He said it would be fun.’
Paul leans in towards him. ‘Come on, now, your mum and dad are here. You don’t want to say anything that will hurt them more, Hunter. Let’s go down to the station.’
‘Fuck you,’ Hunter whines.
The kid’s drunk.
‘What have you been drinking?’ Leah says. She walks up to him, holds his cheeks and looks him in the eyes. Leah’s a nurse. ‘Sweetheart, what are you on?’
Hunter bats her hands away. ‘Nothing.’
‘What’s been going on with you this year, Hunter?’ she cries angrily.
‘Nothing, Mum!’ Hunter yells.
‘I feel like I’ve lost you!’ Leah puts a trembling hand over her mouth and sobs. ‘What happened?’
‘It was Max! I . . .’ Hunter anxiously runs a hand through his hair. ‘Max and I, we . . . He wanted to.’
‘Hunter,’ Leah cautions.
Paul takes a step towards Hunter and Hunter backs away and turns towards his car.
But I’m stood behind him.
As soon as he sees me he stops, frozen. I hold out a hand, thinking I’m just going to stop him, thinking of blocking him from moving, but I reach forward and grab him by the T-shirt and hike it up around his throat.
‘Don’t you dare say my son’s name!’ I say, almost growling.
‘Steve!’ Paul darts forward and puts his arms between my body and Hunter’s, just as Hunter grabs at my shoulder and tries to push me off. Leah rushes up behind him and puts her arms around her son’s shoulders.
‘Stop struggling,’ I hear her tell h
im. ‘Just stop.’
‘Let go, Steve,’ Paul mutters in my ear. ‘Let go.’
I could break his neck right now if I wanted to. I could just reach out and snap it. But at the same time I realise I don’t want to touch his skin. I’m suddenly afraid if I touch him, I’ll break down completely.
Instead I pull his T-shirt so his face is close to mine and I whisper hoarsely, shaking through my whole body at the nearness to him, ‘Do you know what you put Max through?’
Hunter holds my gaze. He swallows. He lifts his hands up over his head, off me, and Leah lets go of him. She turns, looking for Edward, but he is still unmoving in the doorway.
Paul is holding my arms. I release Hunter’s T-shirt.
Paul takes a few seconds, looks at me, then steps away and walks around us. He stands behind Hunter.
Without taking his eyes from me, Hunter puts his hands behind his back. He looks back over his shoulder at his parents. Leah is crying loudly, walking back into the house. Edward stands on the porch, keeping his distance. Typical Edward, always keeping out of situations, with that snooty air, when he should be in the thick of it, protecting his family. No wonder his son has such a warped sense of right and wrong, of loyalty, of morality.
Hunter turns to me, away from his parents, and leans in close.
‘Mr Walker, I really . . .’ he whispers, his lips trembling, his pupils dilated. Hunter grunts, feeling the cool, stiff handcuffs lock in place. ‘I really care about him. And . . . the baby,’ he adds quietly. He thinks this will help, that he can explain, like there is an explanation, like there is an excuse. He opens his mouth again. ‘Please, I—’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No you don’t.’
Paul holds Hunter’s cuffs with one hand and opens the back door of the police car with the other.
I shake my head. ‘You don’t care at all.’
Hunter continues to look at me. A sliver of understanding, of guilt, dawns on his face. His eyes fill with tears. Paul places a hand on Hunter’s scruffy hair.
I watch him coldly, analytically. We thought they were kids, but they weren’t. Where was I when they grew up?
I’m giving up work, I tell myself. I’m going to be at home. I don’t want to turn around in five years’ time and not know who my children are.
Leah and Edward watch Hunter like he’s a stranger. I feel a flash of empathy for him. He’s alone now.
But then it’s over. Empathy is like that. It’s a two-way street. Someone dehumanises you by violating your child and every human thought you had for them is broken, undermined, then gone.
I shake my head at him in disgust. ‘Get in the car.’
Daniel
Max sits down on the floor and takes a controller and I start him up on two-player.
‘Um, so,’ Max says, getting ready to shoot. ‘Did Dad tell you about . . . my being different?’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Mum?’
‘No.’
‘Daniel, stop making me ask questions. How do you know about it then?’
‘Oh, I heard Mum and Dad talking, so I went and found some copies of your medical records in Mum’s bedroom and I looked all the scientific words up. It’s so stupid how they do everything in Latin. We’re English. The Romans should get over themselves.’
‘Um . . . Yeah.’
‘Yes. Not yeah,’ I tut. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about your variation, Max. The statistics about how common intersexuality is are very skewed and they think that the rate of intersexuality now could be as high as four per cent. Some cultures register eight sexes. One in one hundred live births are checked for some sort of ambiguous genitalia. Also, there are over a hundred videos online of hermaphrodite pornography, although, to be honest, I think they are faking because they don’t look like you. You may be different like me, Max, but the good news is that we’re living in a world of different people. Sylvie’s weird too.’
‘There are over a hundred videos online of hermaphrodite pornography?’ Max says in a loud voice.
‘Max?’
He looks at me like he’s just noticed me there. ‘Yeah?’
‘I thought it was inappropriate of you to try and hurt yourself before asking me what I thought about it. If you want to know what I think, I think it would have been absolutely the worst thing in the world if you had died.’
‘I’m sorry, Danny,’ Max says, and looks down like he knows it was bad to do that.
‘You didn’t try to talk to me about it. I could have helped.’
There is a pause and the zombies approach us because both of us are a bit distracted.
‘What about Mum and Dad dying?’ Max says thoughtfully. ‘Wouldn’t that have been the worst thing in the world?’
‘Well, they’re older and I guess it’s preferable that they die before us.’
Max puts his hand to his mouth but it is obvious he is smiling, although yet again it is a serious topic. He is just weird sometimes.
‘Thanks,’ he says.
‘You’re welcome. We’re siblings. I don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl or neither. We’re best friends.’
‘I’m your best friend?’
‘Aren’t you? Or is Sylvie?’
‘I didn’t mean . . . Yes. Yeah, I’m your best friend, Daniel. We’re best pals.’
‘OK. Good.’ I kill two zombies. ‘So what’s Sylvie? Is she your girlfriend now?’
Max smiles. ‘Yeah, she’s my girlfriend.’
‘Cool.’
‘I’d better get back to her in a bit. I was just coming in to say goodnight.’
‘It’s OK, we can play another time.’
We nuke a temple in the game and thousands of zombies run out and we throw hand grenades at them.
‘So, like,’ says Max. ‘Did you read up on the types of . . . like, gender variation?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I find it really confusing about what I am. I couldn’t find exactly the right thing on Wikipedia before the doctor told me. They said it was really rare. Now they’ve told me that they didn’t want me to know earlier because I assigned myself a male gender role, or whatever, but apparently I’m 46,XX/46,XY. They still don’t know what it means for me exactly, like, how I’m gonna grow and stuff, because everyone is different. Even with the same chromosomes, your hormones can be different and how you present.’
‘Oh right,’ I say, and shrug.
‘D’you know what that means?’
‘Of course I know what that means. Your code says you’re not a boy or a girl because you’re sort of both.’
‘Which one do you think it is? Both or neither?’
‘Why?’
‘Um.’
‘Do you give a shit?’ I ask him, nuking another zombie base.
He shrugs. ‘Not really, I guess.’ He shoots the zombies that run out of the base.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me off for saying “shit” when I’m only ten?’ I ask.
‘No. I’m going to kill you,’ he says, and he goes into the onscreen control panel and puts himself on another team that also kills zombies, but is my enemy.
‘Daniel?’ he says as he annoys me by shooting my character’s second-in-command. ‘I’ve changed my mind about something. I’m not saying you should do anything that would make them, well, not who they are, if you know what I mean . . .’ Max takes out half my team, then chases my attack Puma over a rocky waterfall. ‘But I’d totally let you modify my kids.’
I grin widely. ‘Yes! With robotic extensions?’
‘Yeah. I bet you’d do a badass job.’
‘Thanks, Max. That really means a lot.’
‘No worries.’
‘And Max?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m sorry about the baby.’
‘Thanks,’ he says, glancing at me. He sits in silence for a minute, his thumbs going crazy on the controller, then he swears. ‘Shit! Sorry, I killed you. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘It’s OK, Max. I’ll let y
ou have that one. You only killed my sphinxfighter. I’ve got to a higher level with the dwarflord anyway.’
FIVE MONTHS AND ONE WEEK LATER
Max
Come on, hurry up!’ I yell.
‘Why? We have like eight hours till the sun goes down!’ Danny shouts back.
‘We have to make a stop first at the garage and it closes at four! Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready.’ Danny appears from his bedroom. ‘Sylvie’s downstairs. I heard her bike.’
‘Is she?’ I ask, looking out the window. Down on the drive, Sylvie, in a short purple dress and long grey socks, looks up at me. She lifts up her Ray-Bans, squints, and waves. I wave back and she blows me a kiss.
Daniel comes up behind me and tugs on my T-shirt. ‘Come on.’
He turns and bounds down the stairs and I follow, lifting the latch for him on the front door.
‘Hi, Sylvie!’ Daniel calls. He speaks to me over his shoulder. ‘On your bike, then!’
This is a literal instruction, not an idiom in his case. I have my provisional driver’s licence but I’m not seventeen yet so I have to drive around car parks or fields with Dad.
‘Max!’ Dad calls from the porch as I pick my bike up off the gravel.
I turn. ‘Hey. I thought you were volunteering today.’
Dad used to work weekends a lot, and every weekday without fail. But since everything happened, he has stopped work, and just volunteers now, giving talks in community centres. It’s been nice to have him around more.
Dad smiles. ‘I decided to book today off. Do some things around the house. Are you going for a bike ride?’
‘Yeah,’ I nod.
I’m glad Dad didn’t run for MP. He told me he’s happy not to, because he gets to spend more time with us. Since Mum left, he’s started to cook again too, and he seems to really enjoy it. We had a barbecue the other day, just the three of us. We see Dad a lot more than before. We talk about being intersex now sometimes; just about how I’m feeling and how the therapy is going. I go every fortnight. Dad’s wearing a jumper and jeans today. He’s been wearing fewer suits. So has Mum. They both look more relaxed than they used to.
Golden Boy: A Novel Page 36