Hurt

by Tabitha Suzuma

  ‘Lola, let me in. Please, I just want to talk to you. I have to talk to you. It’s really important – you have no idea!’

  After leaving the house, he decided to wander over to see if Jerry’s van was still missing from the driveway – thankfully it was – but there was no telling when he’d be back. Mathéo has been hammering on the door for the last five minutes, has already heard Lola’s voice from inside, firmly informing him that she is not in the mood to talk and that he should get lost. He sags forward against the solid wood, hanging onto the knocker for support, pressing his face against the crack between the door and its frame, aware from the proximity of her reply that Lola is just behind it, most likely sitting on the stairs.

  ‘Lola, everything’s falling apart. If – if you never want to see me again after this, then that’s fine. Well, not fine. God, no, not fine, but – but I’ll understand. I promise I’ll leave you alone. But I want to check you’re not hurt and . . . and I want to tell you, Lola! I have to tell you. I owe it to you now, and – and if I don’t tell someone soon, I think I’m going to go truly insane! I need – I have to – I think I need help. Lola, please!’ His voice cracks: he has run out of words, run out of time. She has already decided to leave him. He will have to spend the rest of his life without her, trying to find a reason to stay alive. He closes his eyes and presses his forehead against the archway, utterly spent, the soft fabric of his T-shirt sticking to his back. Suddenly the door opens and he half stumbles, half falls into the hall.

  ‘Jesus!’ She steadies him with her arm.

  Blood-red blotches puncture the air around him. He feels the cool touch of Lola’s hand against his, tries to keep hold of it. Briefly it is as if there is another person there, hovering just behind her, and a frightened, prickling sensation begins to spread all over his skin. He tries to straighten up, tries to still his galloping heart, but the fear is so real he can almost taste it.

  He kicks the door shut against the harsh light of the encroaching afternoon and slumps against the wall of the narrow hallway.

  ‘What is it you wanted to tell me?’ Lola asks, keeping an unnatural distance between them. Her arms are folded round her waist, as if hugging herself against a cold wind that only she can feel. She looks frail and wan, her eyes enormous in her pinched face, violet shadows under pink-rimmed eyes, the sleeves of her blue cardigan pulled down over her hands.

  ‘Did I hurt you, Lola? I – I mean, physically?’

  She doesn’t reply. Instead she turns her head a little and he sees the deep, heavy sadness in her eyes.

  ‘I thought you had something you wanted to tell me,’ she says after a pause, stepping back and hugging herself more tightly now.

  There is this terrible void between them and he doesn’t dare reach out to try and bridge it for fear of her reaction. They are like two beings on opposite banks of a torrent, gazing across at each other while the waters rage between them.

  ‘I – I do,’ he falters. ‘But first I really need to check your arm; check I haven’t hurt you.’

  She seems to shrink back further again, as if fearing his touch. ‘As you can see, I’m fine,’ she says coldly. ‘Nothing broken or anything.’

  ‘But – but your arm. Your shoulder. It hit the wall. Does it — I mean, did it really hurt?’

  She hesitates for a moment, then sucks in her lower lip in an attempt, he can tell, to hold back tears.

  His voice bursts out of him with a will of its own. ‘Oh dammit, Lola, please just – just let me see!’

  Instinctively, he reaches out a hand and she moves back immediately. ‘It’s just bruised,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Can – can I have a look?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You – you’ve got to believe me,’ he says, cupping his hands over his mouth, his voice softly desperate. ‘I never meant to hurt you. It’s the last thing in the world I’d want to do.’

  ‘Look, just tell me why you threw me against the wall and then go,’ Lola says, tears pearling on her lashes. ‘I just really need some time alone right now.’

  ‘OK,’ he says desperately. ‘OK. That’s why I’ve come. I – I—’ He fills his lungs, empties them slowly, wipes the back of his hand across his clammy face, runs his hands through his hair. His knees suddenly feel dangerously weak. ‘Can – can we sit down somewhere?’

  Silently she turns, leading the way into the small front room. Rocky is stretched out on the sofa, so Mathéo sits down on the carpet, leaning his back against the armrest and drawing up his knees. Lola curls up on the armchair beside the window.

  The room hangs heavy with silence. As much to escape Lola’s expectant gaze as to gather his thoughts, Mathéo finds himself pressing his hands against his face, pushing his fingertips over his eyelids, the vision inside his head filling with exploding, blood-red stars. You have to tell her, he reminds himself. You will probably lose her anyway, but if you want even the slimmest chance of getting her back, you have absolutely no option but to tell her. And it has to be now. Right now. This very minute. Because Jerry could come back at any moment. And because if you sit here in silence a second longer, she will imagine you tricked her into letting you in and will demand that you leave. And she’s already angry. Angry and upset and confused and . . . Do it now! Speak, for fuck sake!

  ‘Mattie, if you’re not—’

  ‘I am, I am!’ His voice is almost a shout, and he sees her start. ‘I’m just . . . Shit, I should have worked out how I was going to say it before coming here—’

  ‘To make the story more convincing, you mean?’

  ‘No! So that I knew what words to use to describe this – this fucking dreadful—’ A pain grips his throat, forcing him to stop, and he claws at his face in despair. You’ve got to calm down. You’ve got to tell her. With every passing second she is slipping away from you. Like the girl in the bath. She is starting to disbelieve you and you haven’t even begun. Any moment now and you’ll lose her for ever!

  ‘Mattie, I can’t deal with all this right now. Just go, please.’

  He forces his hands away from his face. His fingers are wet. ‘Lola, please – you’ve got to let me talk—’

  ‘Talk, then!’

  ‘I’m trying! Just promise me you won’t hate me!’

  She stands up and steps tentatively towards him. ‘You cheated on me.’

  ‘Yes . . . No!’ Cheating – suddenly he can’t quite fathom the meaning of the word. ‘Oh God . . .’

  ‘Jesus.’ She winces as if from a blow. Turns her head away and closes her eyes. ‘Get out.’

  ‘I didn’t cheat!’ He jumps to his feet, grabs her by the shoulders and hears her gasp. ‘I didn’t cheat, I didn’t, I didn’t! At least I didn’t want to!’ He presses a fist to his mouth to strangle a sob.

  ‘Let go of me, Mattie! Let go of me right now!’ She is shouting.

  ‘No! You’ve got to hear this – you’ve got to know, you’ve got to understand!’

  ‘Let go of me!’

  ‘Just listen!’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it!’ She grabs his arms, tries to push him away.

  ‘You have to!’

  ‘No! Get off me, Mattie, or I’ll scream, I swear!’

  ‘I was attacked!’

  ‘What?’

  He shakes her by the shoulders. ‘I was attacked, OK? I was forced – I was forced – I was forced . . . Oh shit!’

  She stops struggling, stares, quiet suddenly, and very, very still. ‘Forced to what?’

  He commands his gaze to meet hers, gasping, heart pounding, trickles of sweat running down the side of his face. ‘To – to . . . Oh fucking hell, Lola . . . to – to have sex . . .’

  She pulls back angrily. ‘Oh, you were forced to cheat, were you?’ Her voice is mocking now, heavy with sarcasm. ‘Some girl just threw herself at you?’

  ‘It wasn’t a girl. It – it was a guy. He was bigger. A hell of a lot heavier. I fought as hard as I could, but he had . . . Lola, I’m sorry. He beat the
crap out of me, he threatened to kill me: he had a knife and so I believed him. I got scared, so scared. I couldn’t fight any more, so – so I let him!’ He feels the tears puncture through his eyes. A harsh sob escapes him.

  There is a terrible silence. He lets go of Lola’s shoulders and she almost falls backwards, stunned. ‘You were . . .’ She struggles to finish the sentence. ‘You were raped?’

  He nods, holding his breath, silent tears spilling down over his cheeks, hot and heavy, dropping from the edge of his jaw and onto the collar of his T-shirt.

  ‘When?’ Lola gasps.

  ‘At – at the Nationals in Brighton. The n-night after the win. I was walking back to the hotel and – and this guy said he needed help. So I followed him!’

  He sees her face change: first shock, then horror, then a mixture of fear and despair. ‘Mattie! Oh no – oh God . . .’

  He sags back against the wall, but feels little relief. Now that he has uttered the words, now that his horrific secret is out, he realizes he can never retrieve it, never erase the confession. Just as, try as he might, he has never been able to erase fully the events of that night from the deepest recesses of his mind. They were always present, lurking like shadows, but he’d never been able to unveil them, or perhaps had just been too afraid – until the diving accident had forced him to crash back in time and face the truth of that night . . . that night he’d been such a coward he’d let the unthinkable occur, then come home, got drunk and trashed his room in fury – fury at himself for allowing it to happen.

  Lola keeps standing there, frozen, staring, and he realizes that she will never again see him in the same light. From now on, for the rest of his life, he will always be that guy who was raped, for ever defined as a victim.

  ‘Oh Mattie, no . . .’

  The sight of the tears in her eyes hits him like a fist in the stomach. He sees her pity. Senses her pain for him. It makes him feel so dirty, so ashamed, that he wants to scrape off his own skin. He wants to run, but is trapped. Taking a step back, he hits the bottom stair tread with his heel, his legs buckle abruptly beneath him and he slides down against the banister, muffling a sob with his clenched fist.

  ‘Mattie . . .’ She approaches gently, tears tracking down her cheeks. She kneels down in front of him, tries to take his hand.

  He pulls away. ‘Don’t!’

  She reaches for his cheek.

  He turns away. ‘Please don’t!’ He is crying hard now, both hands cupped over his mouth as if to prevent himself from ever speaking again.

  ‘Mattie – oh God – just tell me – tell me what to do.’

  He cannot answer her, sobbing silently.

  ‘Let me touch you. Can I touch you? I just want to hold you—’

  He tries to fend her off with a raised elbow.

  ‘Please!’ Tears spill down her cheeks. She puts her hand over his, gently squeezing his fingers. ‘Let me hold you. You’ll get through this, I promise! I’ll do anything. You just have to tell me . . .’

  Exhaustion begins to press down on him. He allows Lola to push away his arm, slide over beside him, circle his neck with her arms and hug him tight. He can feel himself crumbling, breaking into minute pieces, and only the strength of her embrace seems capable of keeping him from falling apart for ever.

  11

  As soon as he manages to bring himself under control, he tries to leave with the excuse that his parents are expecting him home for lunch and that he doesn’t want Jerry to come back and see him in this state. The truth is, Lola’s shock is beginning to fade just enough for her to start asking questions. She wants him to go to the police; she wants to know whether he got a look at the man’s face, whether he could describe him, or pick him out in a line-up. She starts asking whether he thinks the man could have been a fellow competitor, or a spectator, or a crazy fan, or a stalker.

  He has already said too much.

  ‘I can’t talk about it right now. I need to go,’ he informs her, rubbing his face viciously with his sleeve, heading resolutely for the front door. The relief he expected to feel when he told her has failed to materialize. He should never have done it. But what choice did he have?

  She holds him back in the hall. ‘But Mattie, you’ve waited too long already. We’ve got to go to the police—’

  ‘You’re not listening to me!’ He shakes her off. ‘I said I’m not going to the police – not now, not ever! Too much time has passed, and there is no way I’m going through the interviews and statements and – and medical exams and—’ He gasps for breath. ‘Can you imagine what it would be like to have to describe every second, every detail to a courtroom of strangers? Describe what happened? How he – he . . .’ He shuts his eyes tight for a moment.

  ‘OK, Mattie. OK, sweetheart. But maybe they could interview you in private and film it for the court case. I’ve heard they do that for minors—’

  ‘By the time it got to court I wouldn’t even be a minor any more! And the psycho could try to turn it on me! Say I agreed to it, or something. Or that I was making it all up because I was angry at him for – for – anything . . . I don’t know!’

  ‘But no one would believe you’d willingly have sex with some random stranger in a wood!’

  ‘But what if he wasn’t a stranger! I – I mean, what if he claimed he wasn’t a stranger?’ He feels a sharp pain in his chest, as though he’s been stabbed. He is losing it, needs to keep his thoughts in order. ‘I mean, of course he was a stranger! But – but—’

  ‘Shh, shh.’ Lola strokes his face. ‘Sweetheart, why on earth would he pretend he knew you? What difference would it make?’

  ‘He could make out I did it willingly! And – and do you have any idea what would happen if word got out? The media would have a field day! I’d become better known for – for that than for my diving. I could never go back to it. The press would ask questions at every interview. My fans, my supporters – the whole diving world would know!’

  ‘OK. Shh. OK . . .’ Lola runs her fingers softly up and down the side of his face. ‘But sweetheart, you’re going to tell your parents, right?’

  ‘No!’ He shouts in desperation. ‘They’d force me to go to the police!’

  ‘But Mattie, you need some support – you need some kind of help. What happened to you was traumatic! You can’t just keep it a secret and carry on as if nothing’s happened!’

  ‘I can.’ With great effort, he forces himself into a semblance of calm. ‘I have been for weeks already. It was tough at first, but now I’m fine. As long as I’ve got you in my life and you understand why – why some things are difficult right now . . .’

  ‘But Mattie—’

  ‘No! Listen, if – if you still love me, if you want to help me, just promise you won’t tell anyone, Lola!’

  Her bottom lip quivers. ‘Of course I still love you.’

  Tears of relief crowd in his eyes. ‘Then you promise?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You won’t tell anyone, ever?’ he insists. ‘Not even your dad, or Izzy?’

  ‘I promise. Not anyone. But Mattie—’She reaches for his face again, but he dodges her, terrified of what he might say, what he might do.

  ‘I’ve really, really got to go.’ He presses his fingertips to his eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath and opens the front door. ‘I’ll speak to you later, OK? I’m – I’m sorry, Lola!’

  She shakes her head and swallows, eyes brimming. He squeezes her hand and ducks quickly through the door before the sight of her stricken face can unhinge him further, braving the remorseless sunlight of the early afternoon.

  Back home, in the safety of his bedroom, he locks his door, closes the curtains, and gets into bed fully dressed, pulling the duvet tightly around him. Despite the warm breeze drifting in through the net curtains, he is shivering hard. So now Lola knows. How long before she realizes she doesn’t want to have sex with a rape victim, let alone be in a relationship with one? How long before she actually starts picturing the attack for h
erself? How long before her pity turns to disgust . . .? He burrows his face into the pillow, silent tears soaking the fabric. He tries to console himself with the thought that now at least she understands why he pushed her like that; now at least she realizes it had nothing to do with her; now at least she has an explanation for his erratic behaviour over the last few weeks – but it is of little comfort. Lola won’t leave it at that. Gradually she will ask more questions, require more details, request answers he can never provide. Images, sounds and smells flash through his mind, swirling, snaking, churning like snatched visions from the seat of a roller coaster. He feels wildly sick and tries to force himself to breathe slowly, to think calmly, to bring the spinning memories to a stop and purge them from his mind. No one else will ever know, he reminds himself. He can trust Lola. He will never have to go through that confession again.

  He spends the next forty-eight hours holed up in bed, dozing fitfully, plagued by nightmares that leave him gasping and shivering, bathed in cold sweat. He turns off his mobile and informs Consuela that his head hurts whenever she calls him for meals or tells him Lola or Hugo are on the line. He even ignores Loïc’s worried voice, calling through the door to ask him if he is all right. Mercifully, his parents have a busy start to the week . . . But then, on Monday evening he is roused by a short, sharp rap on the door, which he recognizes instantly as his mother’s.

  ‘I’m in bed,’ he calls out quickly. ‘I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.’

  ‘Open this door right now, Mathéo, or I’ll call your father.’

  ‘Wait! No, Mum, don’t—’ He throws back the duvet, pulls on a T-shirt and pads across the room. The moment he turns the lock, the door swings open. Mathéo retreats to the safety of his bed, hunching up against the headboard, knees clasped against his chest. His mother closes the door behind her with a sharp metallic click, snaps on the light, hesitates for a moment, then comes to perch on the bottom corner of the bed. She smells of expensive perfume and red wine. Her hair is done up in an elaborate chignon and he can tell by her kohl eyes and dark red lipstick that she has just come back from an evening function. Wearing a sleeveless black dress embroidered with sequins, a burgundy chiffon scarf and three-inch heels, she looks awkward and out of place in his bedroom. He cannot remember the last time she has been in here, and he senses her taking in the clothes on the carpet and the collection of empty coffee cups on his bedside table with a disapproving crease of her brows. Her wandering gaze finally settles on him, and he is suddenly painfully aware of his crumpled T-shirt and unwashed appearance. He presses his back against the wall, wishing it would swallow him up, and avoids his mother’s eyes by picking at a loose thread on the knee of his pyjama bottoms.