Page 18 of Vine

MAX

Looking back, I’d never fit in. Especially at school, where everyone expected me to be another Nico. Naughty, clever, a jack-the-lad, always in trouble yet charming his way out of it. I coped; it was a nice school, and I wasn’t the only oddbod on the block. There was probably some bullying, but I don’t remember everything because kids have a great capacity for blocking stuff out and starting new days afresh.

I did remember a few rough periods, though. For a couple of years, I barely strung three sentences together, and my mum took me to see a fancy specialist who got very excited and labelled itselective mutismbrought on by social anxiety on a background ofsocial pragmatic communication disorder. Which was quite a mouthful for a kid struggling to speak. My mum declared he was the one with the communication disorder, coming out with bollocks like that. Anyhow, he reassured her I’d grow out of it. And then when it happened again and I hardly spoke for six months, another one said I was being an awkward, manipulative teenager and would grow out of it. NowI’m twenty-five, as tall as a redwood and as wide as a house, and I’m still waiting to grow out of it.

Home was generally okay. All families have misfits, but, like plain brown wooden furniture, they’ve always been there, so everyone takes it in their stride. Family life assimilates them, moulds itself around them, and no one really notices or cares until something bad happens. So being a bit of a weirdo was fine, truly, until the day my mum died. In the following dark months, everyone fussed around my sister Zoë, everyone fretted about my Dad, Nico fell headlong in love, and I drifted along like nothing had changed, lugging my sadness around on my shoulders, like another sack of raw shellfish.

Nico is married to the woman he fell in love with, a very lovely lady called Éti. My only and favourite sister-in-law. When she’s not lending a helping hand at the oyster shed or winding my brother around her little finger, she is also an amazing soccer player. Not just at a local level, or even nationally, but one of the best the world has ever seen. Better than Neymar, which she points out regularly. Recently, however, at the grand old age of thirty-four, she’s hung up her boots. Now, she does punditry for one of the big television networks, heaps of charitable stuff, occasional shifts waitressing in the oyster shack (to the disbelief of unsuspecting tourists), and makes her own clothes.

Considering she’s more famous than God, Éti isn’t weird at all. Lively, yes. Weird, no. And because she’s trans and kept that important secret to herself for years and years (quite miserably a lot of the time) I’ve entrusted her with a few secrets of my own. Today, I found her alone at her beachside home, sewing a zip onto a dress while chatting on Zoom with an obsequious senior exec from Nike.

The other thing I liked about Éti was that family always came first. Though she wasn’t much older than me, she was the closestthing I had left to a mother figure, and I loved and trusted her like one.

The computer screen went blank. “Excellent timing, Max! Hold this up against you so I can get an idea as to whether I need to drop the hem a few centimetres or not.”

She darted out of her chair. Before I could object, I found myself draped in a sleeveless yellow dress. From thin air she produced a couple of pins and deftly tacked the garment onto my shoulders.

“I’m 24 centimetres taller than you,” I pointed out, pulling my shoulders up and back to show her.

“I just want to get an idea. And I suggest you don’t move, not unless you want this to turn into an acupuncture session.”

“I don’t need acupuncture.”

Pleased with her handiwork, she stepped away to admire me, rewarding my patience with one of the famous chipped smiles that turned not only my brother but half of the western hemisphere into adoring mush. I wasn’t totally immune to them either.

“It’s not my colour,” I pointed out.

“No,” she agreed solemnly. “I’m not entirely certain it’s quite your style, either.”

With a mouth full of pins, she knelt at my feet and fiddled with the hem. “You have something you need to get off your chest, Max. I can tell. You’re doing that thing with your fingers.”

Thatthing with my fingers.Tapping the hard pads, in strict order, against my thumbs, again and again, like I was repeatedly counting them off. I balled my fists, digging my nails into my palms instead.

“It doesn’t bother me, my love. Carry on if it makes you feel better.”

I started again.

She glanced up. “Spit it out then.”

“One of the television people tripped and fell in the middle of the night, and I looked after him instead of calling for help or taking him to the hospital,” I blurted, all in one rush of breath. Then I stared straight out of the window at the churning grey sea, because the sea always settled the churning in my head. I bloodylovedthe sea. “And now I don’t know if he is properly hurt, but if he is, it will be my fault, and I don’t know what to do. He banged his head.”

And he was sad and delicate and beautiful.

Her quick fingers paused on the hem. “Was he knocked out?”

“Yes. I think so. But he was all right by the morning. I removed his wet clothes, and he slept in my bed, and I gave him hot chocolate and Doliprane and soup.”

Such a lot of words. My head swam with them, and I focused on the horizon, taking deep breaths. Like anyone who wanted to extract information from me, Éti had learned not to get all up in my face. She stayed on her knees.

“Okay, my love, let’s rewind a bit. To the… ah… the part about him being in your bed. Unconscious. And you taking his clothes off.”

I understood why she was worried, though it annoyed me. Once, I’d borrowed a kitten belonging to our neighbour and hid it in my bedroom for three days, and everyone panicked, thinking it had been stolen or run over. I was still a small child and desperate for a pet of my own. What a saga that turned out to be. And the little tiger scratched me. Honestly, even then, it was a lot of fuss over nothing; I’d always planned to give the cat back. Did they really think I would progress to stealing a grown man?

Since acquiring Noir, I’ve realised dogs are much more fun than cats. More fun than any pet, actually, although thecouleuvresnake, Kaa, was mine, too. I mean, as much as a snake ever belonged to anyone.

In fits and starts, I told her everything. Well, I missed out how, in the light of my torch, silver points of rain glittered on the man’s pale cheek, as if he was an angel fallen from the sky. And how when I scooped him up and tucked him into my bed, I wanted to climb in next to him and warm him against my big body properly, like lovers. Strangers didn’t do that to each other without gaining permission first.

I also omitted the cuts on his arms, because people liked to keep that sort of thing private unless they trusted you enough to share.

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