Hunter looks over at me, noticing I’m looking, and Max notices Hunter noticing me. I watch him follow Hunter’s gaze over to me, and I hold my hand up in a casual wave.
‘Hi,’ says Max, faltering, eyes on me.
Hunter looks away from me and smirks at Max. ‘I’ll catch you later.’
He starts to walk away, but then leans back, trying to catch Max’s eye. ‘Max, yes? OK?’ He touches his arm. ‘Max?’
‘Yeah.’ Max smiles weakly and shrugs. ‘’Kay.’
‘Bye,’ says Hunter, in exactly the same sweet tone Max said ‘bye’ to me on the field.
As Hunter walks away I walk up to Max. I know I look really steady, but I’m hiding nervousness. I’m really good at hiding nervousness.
‘You don’t look alike, but you can tell you’re cousins,’ I say, when I reach him.
Max frowns. ‘We’re not,’ he says. ‘Our parents are just friends.’
‘Oh, I thought—’
‘We’re not,’ he says again. He watches Hunter leave. I wonder if I can just walk around Max and run off. But then Max turns back to me. He beams sweetly.
‘How are you?’
Max
On the Friday before Daniel’s tenth birthday, I’m in a bad mood.
I’ve been getting these moods, on and off. Just occasionally dipping down into hate and depression, thinking of Hunter and being intersex and everything. I remember Hunter above me, using the ‘he-she’ word (horrible horrible horrible), and I feel like it matters more now. I feel like for years my family has been pretending I’m normal. And I’m really not.
Usually I can deal with it, put it to the back of my mind, smile at everybody. But with these moods I’ve been having, I don’t feel like playing football or being around people. Being around people just means I have to make a huge effort to look happy when I feel really unhappy. I’m exhausted, but I’m sleeping heavily. I don’t really feel like doing much of anything. So on Friday at lunch, I go to the library to do my homework, hoping to get it all out the way so I can just sleep when I get home.
Sylvie Clark is in there, to my surprise. I rarely ever see her at lunchtime. It’s not like I’ve not looked, if you know what I mean. I’ve looked.
I put my books down gently on a table near hers and slump into my chair, picking up my History textbook. I’m taking English Literature, English Language, Maths, Information Technology, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. These are all compulsory at our school. You also have to take one language, so I’m doing Latin. Then you get three electives, so I chose Ancient History, Politics and Psychology. I wanted to do Art too, because I like sketching, but I’m not that great at it, so my careers advisor told me not to do it. He said if I got a B or a C in it, it would bring down my application to universities. At the time, this scared me into not doing it, but now I think he was talking a bunch of crap. It’s only GCSEs. You have to do A Levels and then a degree before anybody takes anything you do seriously. But teachers live in school so they think it’s the be-all and end-all. News flash for them: there are bigger things going on in life.
‘Hey,’ someone murmurs over my shoulder.
I look around. Sylvie Clark has moved closer to me. ‘So, what are you doing?’ she drawls in her husky voice.
I shrug and blush. ‘Nothing,’ I say, massaging my head.
‘You alright?’ she asks.
‘Just a headache,’ I say, and smile automatically.
‘I saw you in the paper,’ she says. ‘So your dad’s going to be our MP?’
‘Oh.’ I shrug and turn back to my book. ‘I guess. He’s running anyway. There’s only one other candidate, and he’s a Tory.’
‘I bet your dad will win. You’re gonna be famous,’ she says, in a funny way.
‘Not really.’
‘Well, don’t go being naughty like the last MP’s kid did. Weren’t they all over the paper for wearing some kind of fascist outfit to a fancy dress party?’
I close my eyes for a moment and think about what it would be like if Hunter went to the paper and it was all over the front page that I was intersex and I’d done it with him and everybody read it and no one could look at me without imagining Hunter inside me.
‘Guess I shouldn’t do that then.’
There’s a minute of silence, and then the chair next to me is pulled out and she sits on it and brings her stuff over.
‘You’re not OK, are you?’
I frown and shrug. ‘Why didn’t you come to my birthday?’ I ask.
Sylvie looks puzzled. ‘Huh?’
‘You weren’t doing anything,’ I whine. ‘You lied. It was obvious.’
She purses her lips. ‘Oh.’
‘Did you think I couldn’t tell?’
‘I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.’
‘Why did you lie?’
‘I . . . I’m not good around . . . people.’
I think for a minute. ‘But you never smile at me in the corridor when I smile at you either. You ignore me.’
‘Oh!’ She laughs.
‘I don’t think it’s that funny,’ I mutter, confused.
‘No, like, the main reason I don’t say hi is because I have really bad eyesight.’
‘Huh?’
‘I need glasses, but I don’t want to get them, because it’s an acknowledgement of my vulnerability. Basically, I don’t want to believe that I can’t see stuff. So I keep my head low all the time in case someone waves and I don’t know who it is.’
‘That’s a stupid reason! You should get some glasses!’
‘I know, I’ve got an appointment. I hope I don’t look weird in them.’
I put my classbook down and think about whether to say what I want to say. I look sideways at her. ‘You couldn’t look weird,’ I say, despite myself.
Sylvie pauses. ‘Re. the not saying hi thing . . . I’m also kind of awkward, in general. Like, shy.’
‘You didn’t seem shy or awkward when I met you in the churchyard, or after the exam,’ I point out.
‘Mm.’ She shrugs. ‘Didn’t you notice I left when Marc and Carl came over?’
‘I guess.’ I think, remembering. ‘Listen, if you’re so awkward that you don’t know normal social etiquette then . . . I think I should just give you some pointers.’
She frowns. ‘Ohhhkaaay. I’m listening.’
‘The rules are, if you know someone you say hi to them, and if you want to hang out with me alone and not with other people, you just tell me.’ I smile, kind of shyly, a bit worried the teasing won’t go down well. I can’t tell with Sylvie Clark. I murmur the last bit under my breath. ‘You kook.’
She laughs. ‘I didn’t know those were the rules, but now you’ve told me, I promise I’ll say hi, OK?’
‘OK,’ I murmur, grinning.
The librarian hisses at Sylvie to be quiet.
‘Sorry,’ I say to the librarian. She frowns.
‘Shh,’ she hisses, this time just at me.
‘Don’t worry,’ Sylvie says, as the bell goes for fifth period. ‘She hates everyone. Even your angelic charm won’t work on her.’
I watch her pack up her bag and I gather my books in my arms.
Sylvie stands up, her shirt falling out of the front of her skirt. Her knees are scuffed, and the cuffs of her shirt are chewed.
I take a deep breath.
‘Sylvie, do you like ten-year-olds?’
‘Huh?’
‘It’s my brother’s birthday party tomorrow. He gave me an invite for one friend,’ I say, fishing it out of my pocket.
‘Erm.’ She bites her lip.
‘Don’t say you’re busy,’ I mutter, in a kind of too-miserable I-know-you’re-going-to-say-no way, and she laughs at me. ‘Sorry,’ I say, embarrassed. I smile, as if to say ‘I’m an idiot’. ‘You don’t have to come.’
‘Sure, OK,’ she says. ‘I’ll come.’
We head out the library.
‘Cool!’ I say, gratefully, letting out a sigh.
‘You have to come as a ghost.’
‘Hm. Did you wait to tell me that until after I consented, so I’d be more likely to agree to come?’ Sylvie says to me as we walk down the stairs from the library to our form rooms.
I nod at her as we part. ‘Yeah,’ I laugh. ‘Yeah, I did.’
Daniel
My brother brought his girlfriend to my birthday party today. At least, I think she is his girlfriend. That’s what Mum says.
I don’t get what the difference is between a girlfriend and a friend who is a girl. Max has said things about them being attractive, but is that the only difference? People have girlfriends and boyfriends at school, but they hang out just like normal friends do. Sometimes they hold hands. Sometimes I want to hold hands with Mouse at school, I guess, but she is just my friend. Her real name is Mel, but she is small with big ears, so I call her Mouse. She thinks it’s funny, though. She doesn’t get annoyed with me like stupid, old duckface, Miss Jameson.
But I think when you get older, it gets different, like Mum and Dad, so I suppose you would kiss and hug and stuff. And have sex and babies. I don’t know why everyone is so obsessed with sex. It sounds gross.
Max didn’t do anything girlfriendish with this Sylvie, though. He didn’t even kiss her. They just watched me open presents and then they played on the Xbox with us for a bit, and then they helped Mum and Dad with getting dinner ready. Then Sylvie went home when my friends did. Max walked her home, and when he got back I asked if he kissed her.
And he grinned and went red, but he said no, he didn’t.
I said, ‘Why not?’
And Mum said, ‘Daniel!’
And Max said, ‘Maybe next time’, but quietly, like he thought me and Mum couldn’t hear. I don’t think Mum heard, but I did.
Max
We roll over wet ground on a cold October day. Her lips taste of orange lip balm and fruit tea. Her tongue is hot. I bury my face in her honey hair, I bite her neck, she laughs out loud, we chase each other, we fall to the ground. Sylvie Clark is breathing life into me, and I haven’t thought about September for over a day and the white autumn light bleaches her face out and sets her blue eyes electric, and I bend over her and tickle her skin with my hair and kiss her softly and smile.
Dreaming is as good as the real thing, without the risk.
Nothing happened at Daniel’s birthday party, or when I walked her home. She looked so pretty; too pretty to just kiss and walk away and pretend like it was just a kiss. Her hair was gold in every pool of lamplight. The sun had already gone down. The breeze was still a little warm, but when I hugged her, her brown cheek was cool and soft against mine. I feel shy around Sylvie like I’ve never done with other girls. Maybe it’s to do with the Hunter thing. Sometimes I wonder what she’d think of me if she knew. Anyway. She just looked too pretty.
She was quite quiet during the party. We were just hanging out, not talking much. She talked to Daniel, she was sweet with him. She brought him a card with some money in. I kept looking over at her, then when she looked over I would look away. I thought back to all the girls I’ve kissed and realised that I’m not exactly forward. They have always come a certain distance, and then I leant in to meet them. With Sylvie, she was just sitting back, being nice and friendly, but a little shy, and that made me more shy. I didn’t want her to . . . I don’t know, whatever. Reject me. Or kiss me. Kiss me, and then everything fast forward, and me have to stop doing whatever we were doing, because of what is in my pants.
I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I just remember thinking it was enough, to just hang out with her, and occasionally brush my arm against hers, when we were setting the table or playing on the Xbox.
November goes by in a rush of schoolwork and winning matches. Sylvie continues to ignore me most days in the corridors, but now I know it’s because she’s awkward. And sometimes – sometimes – she smiles at me. And it makes me feel alive in every cell in my body.
I’m doing well in all my subjects, which bodes well for the GCSE mocks, which we’re always reminded are getting closer and closer. We’ll learn if I got the scholarship for St Catherine’s in January, after my mock results come through. They base the scholarship on both the entrance exam and your GCSE mocks.
I spend November working really hard, revising in the evenings and getting all my coursework done, most of it ahead of time, all of it by the deadline, in any case. Sometimes I wonder why. I think a lot about being in the same school as Hunter, having to see him every day. I try not to think about it but I do, when I’m in bed at night.
Daniel doesn’t have any more incidents at school and we talk pretty much every night about the things that have been bothering him. Sometimes the things that bother him are funny (for example: ‘Andrew took the best colour paint in art’), some are alarming (e.g. ‘wanted to push Mouse into a pond today after she spent entire day trip out of school talking to Rasheed instead of me’), but most, oddly, I can relate to. It’s good to talk to him and it takes my mind off my own crap.
Dad’s campaign was announced and is heating up. But by December, I guess it seems almost routine. It just feels like another of their big cases, with lawyers and assistants round at our house, always until late at night, ordering Chinese takeaway and making endless cups of coffee.
There’s Lawrence, Dad’s right-hand guy, and there are assistants and volunteers and a new intern, Debbie, who is nineteen and at university, and seems to always be around now. She’s nice and quite hot, but I can’t think about anyone but Sylvie.
The front living room is redone even nicer than before, and seems to have been redecorated by this black ops decorating team in a matter of hours. It’s so Dad can bring people home to talk to them and convince them to give him money and support. People keep talking to me about it outside school, but no one in school cares much.
I’m still getting in bad moods, though. Sometimes I just don’t want to get out of bed. I feel exhausted. I don’t think it is all because of the Hunter thing. Maybe it’s just winter, just a lack of sun and heat.
Nothing has happened since I saw Hunter at school. Hunter’s parents, Leah and Edward, have only come over once in the past month, and I went to Carl’s in case Hunter picked them up, but Daniel said he didn’t. Sometimes Leah, Edward and Hunter come see us on Christmas day, but they’re going to Leah’s parents in Yorkshire for Christmas this year, and we’re going to spend it at home with my granddad on my Mum’s side, Auntie Cheryl and Charlie, Dad’s sister Julie, Julie’s boyfriend and Julie’s new baby, which is due in a week and a half, on December the seventh. Dad’s parents are going to Australia for Christmas, and Mum’s mum died when Mum was my age.
We’re all pretty excited about Auntie Julie having a baby. It’ll be cool to have a cousin. We don’t have any real ones. Plus it’ll be really cute. I love babies. You can see them learning, listening, watching you, figuring you out behind their eyes. I’ve never been around a really tiny, just-born baby much before either.
They didn’t find out the sex. I think it’s because Auntie Julie knows about me. When she came round the other weekend, she said that she doesn’t care if it’s a boy or a girl. I didn’t meet her eyes. I don’t know if she was looking at me. I kind of hope it’s a girl. We don’t have one in the family yet. I think Julie secretly wants a girl. She just doesn’t want to jinx it. I can understand that. But I think a little girl would be perfect. We’ll know soon, I guess.
Karen
Friday morning. It’s my fault the house is full of hassle today. Everyone is wound up. I suggested it: a family photo, one of the cheesy ones with a white background, everybody laughing. Steve said he could do it as part of the campaign, cover the cost, get a few different shots taken.
‘I want to use them as Christmas cards, so we have to do them now,’ I had said.
Whenever I receive similar ones in the mail from friends and colleagues this time of year, I usually go along with the boys as they describe them as ‘cheesy’ (Max), ‘silly
’ (Daniel) and ‘a bit nineties perhaps’ (Steve), but secretly I think they’re so cute. With this picture, I want to capture something, a moment in the life of our family when everything is perfect; some example of happiness we could all aspire to achieve every day, in case we forget how to do it or what we are aiming for. Maybe that’s ridiculous. All I told Steve was that we needed it, so we took the boys out of school for the morning.
At any rate, Steve agreed.
‘It’ll look good blown up on the big wall in the entrance hall,’ he said. ‘United front. Family values. Maybe one on the stairs.’
‘Mm,’ I hummed. ‘Well, that’s not exactly . . .’
He swept away to get it booked.
Daniel seems to have turned over a new leaf. Max has been talking to him a lot recently about his frustrations at school. I think Max has been a bit ill. He’s tired a lot and wants to stay at home after school rather than go out and play football, so it’s good that he has Daniel as a little project. He’s a good example and I can’t help feeling overly proud of him, in a smug, motherly way. I don’t know what I’d do without him.
The newly-sweet Daniel helps me with the washing up after breakfast and stays in the kitchen to talk. He is telling me about a project he is doing for History, about the Ancient Egyptians, when Max wanders in, in his jeans and an old flannel shirt. He slumps down next to me at the kitchen table and starts going through all the ironed clothes.
‘Mum, where’s my blue jumper?’
I look up from ironing my jeans. ‘Oh, do you have to wear that, Max?’
‘Huh?’
‘That shirt’s so old and those jeans are ripped. No, sorry,’ I say firmly. ‘You have to change.’
‘OK,’ he says dubiously, looking down at his clothes.
I pull a freshly ironed pair of khaki trousers from the pile, still warm. ‘Put these on, and this shirt.’
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