Our room is a level of plush the students in us still pause to draw breath at. Floor-to-ceiling views of Hyde Park, Art Deco décor—all blush pinks and mint greens—with furniture edged in rose gold and a bathroom clad in marble. The carpet is so soft and thick, it almost swallows my feet.
I notice a box of chocolates and a vase of dusky roses on a table near the window. “Max. Did you—”
“They threw them in when I told them it was your birthday,” he says, slipping his arms around my waist from behind and kissing the top of my collarbone.
I laugh. “But it’s your birthday.”
“Oh. My mistake,” he whispers, and in the next second my dress is a glittering black puddle on the floor, his dinner jacket and bow tie going with it, and we’re falling into bed together for the second time today.
—
Did you hear from Brooke?”
We’ve ordered mocktails to the room, which are pleasingly creative and pretty tasty. I’m relieved by the brief distraction they’ve provided, because something about this room—its opulence, maybe, or the freshly cleaned scent—reminds me of another room, long ago, in Sydney.
“Nope,” Max says. Though it’s pretty warm in here, we’re both wearing our complimentary toweling robes. We put them on as a joke at first, because I said I thought parading about in matching whitedressing gowns was all a bit Swiss Toni. But now I have to admit Max looks quite hot in his, though I shouldn’t be surprised, really—he looks hot in pretty much anything. “We don’t really speak much.”
I perch on the miniature couch next to the window, tucking my legs up beneath me. The room is dark now, the only light from a standard lamp in the corner. “I know, but... not even on your birthday?”
From the bed, Max shakes his head. “She doesn’t really go in for stuff like that. Doubt she even remembers when it is. But... maybe it’s better that way. I send her flowers on her birthday every year—some stupid overpriced bouquet she probably dumps straight in the bin so she doesn’t have to put them in a vase. But it’s cursory, just a gesture. She probably wouldn’t notice if I never sent them again.”
I consider briefly how crazy it is that Max could have had such a dysfunctional childhood and yet... here we are, tonight, seemingly with everything we could ever want.
I sip from my mocktail. It buzzes on my tongue, the sugar and sparkle of it spinning through my stomach.
“Was there ever...?” I begin, and then trail off, unsure how to continue.
He waits. I feel the warmth of his gaze as he watches me.
“Was there ever a moment when you were a kid, when you were tempted to go the other way? You know—blank everything out, or make yourself feel better somehow by—”
“Going off the rails?” Max says, lawyerly effective as ever in summarizing my meandering train of thought. I’ve heard him do this on the phone sometimes, smoothly cutting clients off when they start to ramble, which is good of him, considering his hourly rate.
I nod. “Yeah.”
From beyond the window, we hear the muted wail of an ambulance siren.
Max nods too. “I guess so. I did get in with the wrong crowd oneyear.” He laughs lightly. “I think about that quite often, actually. Brooke wasn’t around, we didn’t have any money, and I started to think that maybe... this was how my life was meant to be, you know? Just a bit... crap. And when I went back to school after Easter, I started being a bit mouthy, I think, and my PE teacher, Mr. Janson... he pulled me to one side one day, and asked me to join the athletics team.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised. I’d been expecting him to say he’d been given a good talking-to, threatened with expulsion, or something.
Max gets off the bed and crosses the room to the desk beneath the mirror where the Bluetooth speaker is, pairing it with his phone. Music fills the room and with it, my heart: it’s an old Tom Baxter album, one we’d listen to on repeat at uni.
“I can see now that it was actually a stroke of genius,” he says, walking over to the bed again and sitting down with his back against the headboard. “Because I was pretty good at running, and there were... girls there who I wanted to impress, and other boys who I wanted to beat, and... I swear he saw what was happening to me and came up with a way to step in. I started training after school instead of tagging buildings and smoking and drinking. So, it turns out Mr. Janson sort of saved me.”
“Good old Mr. Janson. Wonder what he’s doing now.”
“Still teaching,” Max says, with a smile. “I e-mailed him last year to say thank you. I’m going to take him for a pint when I’m next in Cambridge.”
“Do you know what happened to the crowd you were hanging out with?”
A solemn nod. “One’s dead, actually. And another lad’s inside.”
I feel a twist of anger in my stomach toward Brooke, for neglecting Max so badly.What a stroke of luck, I think, to have been saved by a single teacher’s brainwave that summer.
“You’re so lucky,” Max says, putting a hand behind his head. “Having parents like yours.”
I nod—I agree, of course I do, though it’s with a touch of regret. Because in a parallel life, my mum should be taking on Brooke’s role now—mothering Max, lavishing him with love, treating him like the son she never had. But that won’t happen—at least, not in the way it might have done, since Tash.
