Page 62 of Just for Me
He had not been popular on the playground.
This was different. He was on his feet along with everybody else, watching Luke drive his team on. As if he was prepared to leave it all out there, and he’d do anything it took.
One player after another taking the ball. The singing louder now, the Scots emptying their lungs. The Scottish line holding. Holding.
Luke didn’t carry the ball much. Hayden knew that. He didn’t expect it. Luke was that fella just behind the ball carrier, helping him on, securing possession for the next attempt.
Two, three, four more attempts, and then a break in the line. The tall fella, the one Luke had lifted earlier, who’d been on the lift in Rome with them and hadn’t said anything, just looked horrified, smashed his way through and drove on with Luke behind him.
Eight meters out. He was going to score. He was going to …
Players closing in fast from both sides.
He passed the ball to Luke.
A player driving hard at Luke, going for his upper body, and Luke plowing straight through him. Another one grabbing at his jersey, and Luke’s legs never stopped.
Three meters. Two. A player coming so fast, he looked like he was flying, diving from behind for Luke’s ankles, grabbing hold, hanging on.
It was like watching a totara fall in the forest, its roots holding as long as they could, and then the long, slow, inexorable crash to earth. Luke was falling. He was going to come up short. He was going to …
Luke strained. Stretched. Took another step even as he was being pulled down by the ankles.
I’m strong as oak, and I’m steady as hell.
The field nearly shook as he went down.
Over the line.
* * *
Men surrounded him.Henry, pulling him to his feet. Trevor, grabbing him around the waist and lifting him. Hands slapping him on the back even as Luke tossed the ball away and attempted to get back into position for the conversion.
“Settle down, lads,” he shouted. “Get back. Let’s move.”
“Mate,” Henry said, jogging beside him. “Take the moment.”
“What moment?” Luke said. “We’ve barely started.”
“Nah, mate,” Henry said. “We’re going to win it. Thanks to you.”
25
A MURMURATION OF SWALLOWS
It was wellafter eight in the evening on a late-July day, and the sun was slanting low over the varied, centuries-old rooftops of Montmartre to the west, the bulk of the Louvre to the south, the black iron tracery of the Eiffel Tower beyond. Hayden was leaning against a balustrade in the dome of the basilica of Sacré-Cœur, looking out through an arched window at a smaller dome below, fashioned by a master out of nearly white, fine-grained travertine limestone, with Paris spread out below him like a feast.
Luke didn’t tell him what he was looking at. Not like Hayden on that night with the Aurora Australis. Not needing to explain, to put this experience into a box. Content to let it soak in.
They’d gone to Assemblages for dinner, near Luke’s flat, had sat against a white-filmed wall of ancient brick while waiters came and went on wood floors nearly as old as the ones in Luke’s flat. Hayden had eaten duck and Luke had eaten everything but the menu, the lights had been low and the atmosphere relaxed and, yes, romantic. In fact, the only problem was …
Well, yeh. The only problem was that Hayden flew home tomorrow. All evening long, as he was chatting and laughing and Luke was giving him that barely-there smile, he’d thought,I can’t do this. I can’t.Which meant that when they’d finished at last and Luke had asked, “Want to walk up to Sacré-Cœur and get the view? It’ll take a while to get there, but it’s nice,” he’d answered, “Yes.” And couldn’t think of what else to say.
Hand in hand, then, on cobblestone pavements flanking impossibly narrow streets, past mortared stone buildings of gray and cream, past sidewalk cafes and motor scooters parked together like a school of fish. Luke getting stopped, then stopped again, by young people with startling hair, girls and boys both, and asked for photos. He told Hayden, after the third time, “I never wanted to be famous.”
“Odd, isn’t it,” Hayden said, “that you didn’t get there by being a rugby captain, or not exactly.”
“Yeh,” Luke said. “For my sex life. There’s a startling development.” And grinned.
