In the kitchen, I open the treats cupboard, which is high up so Daniel can’t get in, although obviously he just stands on a chair. There are Twixes and KitKats and raisin-and-biscuit Clubs, which I love, but I don’t feel like eating. My stomach feels sick and bruised. I pad through in my socks to the small living room.
The couch is soft and inviting, a hand-me-down from Dad’s parents. I slump in it and my feet hug each other on the floor. Across from me, family photos on the marble mantelpiece above the fireplace smile and, for some reason, make me feel guilty.
The clock above the photos says it’s two forty-five. I switch on the TV. High Stakes Poker is on. Daniel Negreanu and a behooded Phil Laak are hunched over their cards. Both have queen/ten.
‘Brilliant. Negreanu.’
I turn around. ‘Hi, Dad.’
‘I saw the light on, pal. What are you doing awake?’ Dad says, sleepily.
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
‘Anything wrong?’
I shrug and shake my head, staring at the TV.
He clears his throat and sits down at the other end of the sofa, reaching across with one hand and ruffling my hair. ‘Turn it up,’ he says, smiling. ‘Guilty pleasure.’
This is how I end up sat with my dad on the night Hunter came into my room. Dad doesn’t know what is wrong, or even if there is anything wrong, but he stays awake, and when poker finishes, he puts on an action movie from the nineties that I used to love when I was little, and we watch John Cusack and Nicholas Cage on motorbikes chase John Malkovich on a fire engine until Mum and Daniel get up and we go through to eat breakfast.
Then Monday morning, on the bus, the rattling around making my groin hurt and my tummy ache, off the bus, onto the school grounds, a quick walk towards the ground gates and freedom and safety, then—
‘Max Walker!’
I was so close to the gate. The head teacher’s voice called my name behind me.
I stood still and looked at my feet. I screwed up my face, once, and let out a few long, staggered breaths.
‘Max Walker!’
I was so close to the gate.
‘Is the infamous Max running out on us?’ This is rhetorical. With her next question she squints at me severely. ‘You’re not leaving school grounds, are you?’
‘No.’
‘You’re just taking a walk around the car park before getting yourself to registration on time, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Registration is at eight forty-five, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. So you’re going there now, aren’t you?’
I turned and walked past her, my head down. Empathy is not in Mrs Green’s arsenal. So you don’t want to show her your worry. She’ll only sneer at you. Don’t give her the pleasure. I walked numbly across the tarmac and into the school building.
First period is after assembly, 9.25 – 10.15 a.m. So my second chance to leave is at 10.15 after English Literature, although now Mrs Green’ll be on the lookout. Most of the teachers here are petty, stupid, small people who feel it’s a victory in their sad, little lives to stop you from living yours.
In class I don’t listen as Carl tells me about the Germany–Belarus match. I also don’t listen, along with Carl, as we get a lecture on Wuthering Heights. Instead, I stare at the paper in front of me. I look out the window to where the trees on the field stretch away to the horizon in flames of orange, ochre, yellow, green, gold and red. I smell the mix of autumn air and dust the English lab emits. I pick my nails. I shift in my seat. I press the nib of my biro hard against the page and it makes a dull clunk and slides up inside the pen shaft.
I think about the splitting sound last night and worry. I think about future pleasure. I think about scarring. I think about how every one of us is different, how every intersex person is different from the other, about what the doctors said, about different problems. I think about contraception, and condoms and pills. I think about Hunter coming inside me.
Why didn’t you fight more? says my brain.
It really hurt, I say.
Yeah. Why didn’t you fight more?
I don’t know. This is going to sound crazy but . . . I felt like it was his right.
You’re right, that does sound crazy.
I know. I can’t explain it. I mean, it’s Hunter. I’ve always done everything he wanted. But it was more that I was shocked, because of what he said. So few people know. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before. But also . . . I don’t know. All the way through, I just felt like apologising.
Apologising?
For being disgusting, having messed-up junk, moving in the wrong way and not knowing what to do.
What is wrong with you?
I don’t KNOW.
‘Max?’
‘Mm?’ I look up. Carl is above me.
‘Bell’s gone.’
‘Oh.’
Ten-fifteen is not my lucky break. The corridors drag us forward. I try to think of something to say to Carl, some excuse for why I want to go off alone, but my brain is mush. Too tired, in a daze, I end up in Biology. I figure, what’s one more lesson?
I sit drumming my shoe against the desk leg. I sit blankly, staring at the board, the words unreadable, the shapes of the letters unrecognisable.
At first break there are two teachers standing by the gates. I run out of time finding another exit. And then Geography happens. And then Chemistry.
It is lunch by the time I get out. I climb over this tall wooden gate out on the school field, which leads to an alleyway. I take my bag. I’m guessing I won’t be feeling like going back after the doctors.
My school is in Hemingway, which is a town next to Oxford that’s referred to as a suburb of Oxford a lot. The centre is one large crossroad and a market square, but it is a pretty busy place with lots of its own suburbs. When you’re in the centre, though, it feels quite small. It’s basically a chocolate-box type of town that American tourists freak out over. It’s very Harry Potter. There are some old buildings and there is an Oxford college that has its campus here. The building is huge and beautiful and five hundred years old. The place is full of ducks. We’re often late to school because you have to drive really slowly behind them sometimes when they’re with their ducklings on the road. Or sometimes there’ll be like this one stupid duck, like a mallard or sometimes a Canada goose, that will just waddle very slowly down the centre of the main road, and there will be a traffic jam for literally a mile until someone gets out of the car, lifts the duck up and puts it on the pavement. The buildings in the centre of town are around the square and along one road called The Promenade. The doctor’s surgery is set back from the shops, and slightly tucked behind the church.
It’s definitely autumn now. Summer wasn’t that hot, but it seemed to stay warm for a long time. Today there’s a breeze that spikes your skin with cold. The leaves are turning beautiful colours and the first have already fallen. I prefer summer to the other seasons, for the heat. You can be out all day playing football and not even have to worry about bringing a T-shirt. But autumn is loveable. It’s summer’s dying cousin. It’s somehow vulnerable, for the world to die so publicly. You feel tender about autumn.
I wrote that in an essay for my teacher, Ms Marquesa. I wasn’t there when she fed back on the essays but Carl said she (and I’m quoting him verbatim) ‘basically creamed’.
I’m trying to hurry along The Promenade, partly because of the cold and partly because I don’t want anyone to see me, the Walker kid, Stephen Walker’s kid, out of school. Everybody knows Dad. Most people know Mum. I get stopped in the street all the time by people I don’t know, talking about how great they are, how much they do for the community, how much more safe the area has been since Dad has been in charge, what it does for property prices. But if I’m stopped today I’ll crack. I’ll cry. I’ll faint. I’m so tired and out of it, and the pain in between my legs is really uncomfortable.
Finally I walk up the public
footpath, past the church, and onto tarmac. This is where I stop, under a tree, at the corner of the surgery car park.
The surgery is an ugly dirty-salmon-pink-red and the bricks are too squared off and flawless. The windows are plastic, and the whole place is fronted by a waiting room with one wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. I stay under the tree, shaded from the harsh light out in the car park. There are a lot of people in the waiting room. There are lots of eyes. The counter where you go up and tell the receptionist why you want to see the doctor is at the far end. It’s set up so people don’t hear what you’re saying, but the door to the waiting room is often open and in any case there’s a window behind the reception into the waiting room through which they dole out medication and call people for appointments, so you can hear what the patients at the desk are saying.
It’s so much nicer outside. If I stand here, very still, then nothing is happening. My eyes drift over the building and I weigh up my options.
What are you going to say in there?
Shh. Don’t talk about it.
You’re just going to walk in there and blurt it out?
Shh.
You’re going to end up saying nothing. You’ll go in to tell her and you’ll chicken out and leave the surgery with eye drops.
Would you shut up? I’m thinking.
Max . . .
Shh.
Max . . . We need to go inside.
Sylvie
I only notice him because he’s there for so long, just standing under a tree, completely still, frozen like ice. I noticed him when the clock was chiming quarter past one. I didn’t think anything of it, then at twenty to two, I see him still there.
It’s pretty cold, but he’s just standing broodingly under this tree and staring at the surgery. I know him. I know this guy enough to know that Max Walker just isn’t the brooding type. He’s the football-playing-wonder-boy type. He’s one of the most popular of the popular crowd. He’s the son of the wondrous Walkers, the barristers who were in the newspapers because they prosecuted that media billionaire. Max Walker is the boring, bland, blond, golden boy type. He’s the sort of person who will always be referred to as ‘Max Walker’ and never as ‘Max’. I don’t usually go for schoolboys, but if I did, it wouldn’t be Max Walker. There are a few guys in school who are older-looking and dark-haired, a bit taller and more muscular. But I know Max Walker has his share of skinny bambilegged admirers. They trail around after him during lunch. Whenever I see him in the corridor someone is saying hi to him. He always says hi back, but you can’t read too much into that.
I watch him not moving. He’s a few feet away, but I almost don’t talk to him. I almost get caught up in all that nervousness about talking to the popular kid, but then I tell myself off, I tell myself to stop being so scared, stop judging people before I know them, stop being scared of taking a chance, and just freaking say
‘Hi.’
He looks up.
‘Oh, hello.’
I don’t read anything into it.
I look down at him, intrigued despite myself. The graveyard is to the side of and sort of above the surgery, on a little hill. So I’m sat on the grass, next to the wall, but I’m above Max, looking at him through the branches of the little tree.
‘It’s Max Walker, right?’ I say, because for some reason it’s good etiquette to pretend you don’t really know someone’s name, even when you’ve been at school with them for four years.
‘Yeah. Hello, Sylvie.’
‘Hey!’ I say, surprised that Golden Boy Walker has even registered me. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘You sat behind me in statistics last year.’
‘Ohhhh, yeahhhh,’ I say, remembering how badly I messed up that exam. I got drunk with Toby the night before and have to retake it this year. This thing, it sucks: if you’re smart you get put ahead in Maths, so you take GCSE Statistics in Year Ten and GCSE Maths in Year Eleven. Believe me, they do not expect smart people to be drunk during the exam and fail in the way that I did. Super fail.
‘How did you do in the GCSE?’ I ask.
‘Um, good.’ He nods and swallows, tossing his blond hair out of his eyes like Justin-freaking-Bieber.
‘Wait, I remember. You got an A star, didn’t you?’ I say with a grin. ‘That’s so sickening. I flunked it.’
He smiles pleasantly, but kind of blankly, like he doesn’t know what to say but wants to be polite.
‘So, how are you?’ he asks, as if he hasn’t been listening to anything I’ve said before.
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Great. What are you doing here?’
He looks over to the surgery. Then it is obvious to both of us what he’s doing. Nobody is so nervous they stand for half an hour outside the surgery for a doctor’s appointment they’ve been blasé enough about to schedule. Emergency appointment. Which means one thing for a guy in our year: STD check-up. He looks really uncomfortable and shifts his legs in an embarrassed way. I clock a look at his crotch to figure out if he’s itching himself or not. Wow, I hope for his sake it’s not crabs.
‘Did you do someone without a condom?’ I say, teasing to communicate this: that I’m cool to talk to, that I’m feeling sorry for him, that I understand, that I’m trying to make him feel less weird.
Instead of feeling better because of what I’ve said, he blushes red, his mouth turns down and he shrugs.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
He looks up and forces a smile that clearly takes a lot of effort. ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just don’t feel well.’ He shrugs. ‘So, why are you bunking off?’
‘I’m bleeding and hormonal and I hate the world today.’
He laughs. ‘I know that feeling.’
‘I bet you don’t, actually,’ I say. ‘You don’t know pain until you’ve wanted to commit suicide because your back hurts so bad. Period pain is the worst.’
He continues to smile but it fades a little and he searches for something to say. ‘Well, I hope you feel better. You should write more while you’re bunking off. I really liked that poem you read in assembly last year about your ex-boyfriend.’
‘That’s so weird you remember that!’ I exclaim, much too happily, and then I can’t think of anything more to say.
‘Yeah.’ He nods.
There is an awkward silence.
‘Pity you got cut off by the headmistress before you could finish.’
‘Well, you know, censorship,’ I say. I brandish my notebook and pen. ‘I’m actually writing now.’
‘Good. Cool.’
There’s a pause and I say, ‘Well, I’d better get going.’
‘Other bunking-off spots to occupy?’ he asks, in a sort of sugary way. I feel like he’s teasing me.
‘No, I’m going to go get something to eat. Do you want to, like . . . come?’
He hesitates. ‘I can’t.’
‘What about after you’re done?’
‘Um . . .’ He looks down again and chews his lip absentmindedly. After a too-long pause, he says, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t.’
‘Suit yourself,’ I say, kind of relieved. I’m not great with company. I wish I was. But I’m not. Hey, somebody’s got to be the loner.
I scoot my legs over the wall and jump down beside him. He’s standing next to my bike, and he steps back as I get on it. He does it to give me some space to get on, but then he does a little second take at what I’m wearing: leather hotpants, long black socks, white Converse, a see-through top with a black bra, and a long black velvet coat. I’m aware I don’t dress like a sixteen-year-old. It’s one reason my boyfriends all tend to be older. Plus I find it never helps to wear school clothes when you’re bunking off, or shitty clothes when you’re feeling like shit. Rookie mistakes, both.
‘Good manners, haven’t you?’ I say, as he helps me put my backpack on. His fingers brush the fabric of my top and he gives a kind of embarrassed laugh, like I’ve caught him staring, which I have.
I push down my right foot and circle my bik
e once around the surgery car park.
‘Hey, I saw your cousin driving through town yesterday night. Around midnight?’
‘Oh,’ he says, the smile dropping instantly from his face.
‘What’s his name?’
He seems to consider for a second, before answering, ‘Hunter’.
‘He’s kind of a dick, isn’t he?’ I say casually. ‘I’ve seen him around at parties. He gets way too stoned and he’s pretty rude.’
Max Walker’s face is very still. He shrugs.
‘Don’t you think he’s a dick?’
He shrugs again and looks away towards the door of the surgery. ‘I have to go in now,’ he says quietly.
‘’Kay. See you around.’ I hold up one hand in a salute, heading for the car park exit. I look back. He’s looking over at me, getting smaller as I bike away.
‘Bye,’ he says, and lifts up his hand to wave, wagging it back and forth like little kids do. ‘Bye,’ he repeats.
I bike away, thinking maybe Max Walker isn’t so bad after all. In my wing mirror he watches me ride, his head rolls down and he stares at his feet. His shoulders rise and fall and I realise he is sighing. He raises his head, bites his lip, regards the surgery in front of him solemnly, and he steps out onto the tarmac.
Archie
Medicine, my field of science, is always evolving and in flux. Some studies are bound to fail; methods of care we use today may be extinct in a few decades; people we treat still die. Approaches being used in busy centres like London and Manchester may not reach country hospitals for several years after their approval.
Most things here in Hemingway – including traffic, pedestrians, the passing of time and changes to medical care – are slow.
I moved here from Delhi almost twenty years ago to train as a general practitioner in London. During my studies, I spent six months in paediatrics at St Thomas’ Hospital, and came into contact with birth defects, deformities and sometimes illnesses that were fatal in the early years of a person’s life. The trick is to treat the sick like you treat the well. More than anything, they need to feel normal.
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