Golden Boy: A Novel

by Abigail Tarttelin

  I nod. Carla got with Max last year.

  ‘He’s really nice,’ says Carla. ‘I like you two together. I think it’s a good thing.’

  ‘Why did you break up?’ I ask.

  ‘Ours was a temporary love.’ She sighs. ‘We met, we loved, we lost, and for about three hours we drove each other crazy.’ She grins at me. ‘I was on a brief break from Dean.’

  ‘Dean who works at the pizza place?’

  ‘Yeah. Like a really brief break. Like I left for three hours. He was so mad at Max, but they had a conversation and Max made him purr like a puddycat. He’s so the will-be politician.’

  ‘Who, Max? Nah.’

  ‘Like, totally,’ says Carla, pretending to be Emma. ‘Liiiiaaaiiike, tooooooootallyyyyy.’

  Emma looks over and gives me a weird, sad look. She shakes her head and whispers something to Laura.

  I shrug and look back at Max. ‘He’s just nice, that’s all.’

  I’m trying to compose lines in my head. It’s harder when you like someone to write stuff. It’s easier when you hate someone. Hate breeds good material.

  The guys are way over in the back field now, but I can still see blond hair mixing in between all the brunettes in my peripheral vision. There are very few proper blonds in our school.

  I turn towards the netball game decisively, trying not to become one of those girls who stare at boys. I sure as shit do not want to become Emma et al. I have a life.

  The ball bounces towards Carla and me, and we shrink away like it’s a bouncing bomb. I hate playing netball, especially in the cold. Your fingers ache. It’s hard to feel anything but pain when you catch the ball. Plus the girls who play it are super aggressive, like, steroid-aggressive. They whisper things to you under their breath and shove you whenever the umpire isn’t looking. Crazy, butch try-hards. I used to be good at netball at my old school, but ever since I came to secondary school I suck. Everyone’s bigger, faster, meaner, crazy-eyed. I don’t mind most of the time, but in sports class it’s really annoying. Last week I got tipped over by the centre player. My knees are still all scratched up. Still, that makes me look cool and punk.

  ‘Oi, Walker! Stand up straight and get running!’

  As if involuntarily, my head snaps ninety degrees to my right and I stare over my shoulder. Max has stopped a little behind the group. He’s bent over double, as if he has a stitch. Mr Harvey comes closer to him.

  ‘Get on with it, you bloody wimp!’

  He steps in next to Max and Max flinches away. Mr Harvey says something to him and he shakes his head, still bent double.

  I hear the words ‘fucking hernia, have you?’ and ‘little queer’ drift across the field. Mr Harvey is a dick. A complete and utter dick. I have no idea why he is still employed. Even if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a dick, there are all the paedo rumours. But maybe every PE teacher has those, because they all did at my last school too. Maybe it’s expected. Maybe it’s a prerequisite for the job.

  ‘Weeeak!’ Mr Harvey hisses at Max, and points directly off the field. Max is still clutching his stomach with one hand, the other pressed against his knee, keeping himself steady as he bends over. He shakes his head and moves slowly to the side of the field. Mr Harvey points again back at the school, telling Max to go inside.

  Then Max yells at him. I can’t hear what he says, but Carl and Marc come over with some more of the boys and they start shouting at Mr Harvey.

  I see Max getting more and more pissed off. His face is redder and his jaw is more . . . locked up kind of. Then, when he looks like he can’t take any more, he whirls around and spews on the ground behind him.

  ‘Oh, just great,’ I hear Mr Harvey say.

  Carl leans over Max, with one hand on his back, but Max wipes his mouth and stands up and Carl’s hand falls off him, and Max leans towards Mr Harvey and cracks, his face meaner than I’ve ever seen it (come to think of it, I’ve never seen it mean), and shouts something at him. It’s short and sharp, and I don’t catch all of it, but what I do hear everyone across the field and on the courts hears, because no one ever says it:

  ‘Cunt!’

  Literally everyone turns to look.

  Mr Harvey glares at all of the boys on the field. ‘Detention!’ I hear him say, amongst a tirade of insults. Marc puts his arm under Max’s shoulder, and Carl continues shouting at Mr Harvey as Max grips his stomach and they begin to walk him slowly in. Max is loved, it has to be said. The other boys crowd behind the threesome and block Mr Harvey off from Max’s path. They are laughing and flipping Mr Harvey off, but Max looks in agony.

  They’re nearing the courts now. I will Max to lift his head, but he doesn’t. He knows I’m here, and I deduce he’s avoiding me because he doesn’t want me to see him like this. Now, he doesn’t look angry. Now, his face is absolutely drained of colour. He looks exhausted.

  ‘D’you need to throw up?’ Marc asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max says quietly, in a kind of weak, confused voice.

  I look over at Emma, and she raises her eyebrows at me and pouts her lips. I shake my head at her.

  I have no idea what you mean, Crazy, I say to her silently.

  I watch through the strands of my hair as Max and his friends walk slowly down towards the school.

  Max

  ‘Are you OK?’

  I can barely look up. I think if I do, I’ll be sick. I hesitantly raise my eyes anyway. It’s Sylvie. Behind her, Emma approaches. I look away quickly.

  I’m sat outside the school office, where you wait when you’re going to go home when you’re ill. The receptionist is trying to get hold of Mum.

  ‘Don’t talk to him, Sylvie,’ Emma calls from down the corridor.

  Sylvie ignores her.

  ‘Hey, Max, you alright, kid?’ Sylvie whispers, sitting next to me, putting her arm around me. I smell her perfume and lean into her. I can’t help it. ‘I saw you go off the field.’

  ‘It was just a stitch,’ I mumble, not looking up, hoping Emma will just walk by. I can hear her getting nearer and nearer with her little crowd of followers. I can hear them whispering.

  Shit. She’s going to say something to Sylvie about the test. I know it. A lump rises in my throat.

  ‘Then why are you sat outside the office?’ Sylvie is asking me. She bumps my knee with hers in a soft, teasing way. ‘Idiot. Just tell me what’s up.’

  ‘Hey, Max,’ we hear. Sylvie and I both look up at Emma, who stands above us, hands on hips. Laura and Fay are behind her. ‘Is your tummy hurting? Sympathy pains?’

  Why can’t you mind your own fucking business? I yell in my head, scowling.

  Instead I say, dripping with sarcasm, ‘Oh hi, Emma. Thanks for the little rumour I heard today.’

  Best to meet it head on now that I know it’s coming, and try and deny it upfront.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘What rumour?’ says Sylvie.

  ‘Nothing, it’s OK,’ I say, and I slip my arm under hers about her waist.

  I’m not looking at her but I can feel Sylvie studying my face. ‘I have to go to IT,’ she says.

  Emma seems to be waiting for her.

  ‘OK.’ I grind my teeth, then I whisper into her ear, ‘Just don’t believe anything she says, OK?’

  ‘Huh?’ she frowns.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I murmur. ‘Please don’t believe her.’

  Sylvie frowns, but she nods, and gets up to follow Emma to IT.

  ‘Come on, Sylves, you can sit next to me,’ says Emma.

  Sylvie looks kind of exasperated with Emma but I worry anyway.

  I call after them, as a cramp makes me almost double over: ‘She’s not your friend, Sylvie.’

  Sylvie

  ‘What does he mean?’ I turn to Emma as soon as we’re in the IT room. We sit down at a row of computers and we all log on.

  ‘I saw him buying a pregnancy test on Saturday,’ she says immediately, as if the info has been pressing against her lips, trying to
escape. ‘I told him that if he just up and left you after he’d like, got you in trouble, then I wouldn’t let him get away with it.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Only I, like, totally knew he was cheating on you. He’s a slut. He said it wasn’t for you. That’s why I asked you on the field whether you had done it or not. And then when you were like “no”, then I knew he was. He’s a total arrogant cock, Sylvie, and he doesn’t deserve you.’

  Frozen, my mouth open, I watch her face for a moment, not knowing what to say. ‘Well . . .’ I say, finally, the air escaping over my teeth. ‘I never said we didn’t do it.’ I look down at my keyboard. My eyes are misting up.

  Don’t believe her, I say to myself, remembering what Max said.

  ‘Sylvie,’ she says, pityingly. ‘He bought a pregnancy test.’

  ‘Emma, this is really, really important, OK? This isn’t the kind of thing you lie about.’

  ‘I’m not lying!’ she hisses. ‘I would never do that to you.’

  ‘Look me in the eye,’ I say. ‘Do you swear on your mum’s life that you saw Max buying a pregnancy test?’

  ‘Sylves, I swear on my mum’s life.’ She holds three fingers up and puts her hand on her heart, like a frigging Brownie. ‘I sold that kid a pregnancy test. I handed it to him in a plastic bag and he gave me money for it.’

  We hold each other’s look as water fills my eyes.

  ‘I swear to you,’ she whispers. ‘Oh, Sylves!’ Emma suddenly, dramatically exclaims, and hugs me.

  ‘Get off!’ I splutter.

  Fay leans in. ‘Don’t presume anything, Sylvie. He could have been buying it for a friend.’

  ‘Does everybody know?’ I hiss, looking at Emma.

  ‘I was asking people because I didn’t know what to do with this crucial information,’ stresses Emma. ‘And like, yeah, right!’ She turns to Fay. ‘That’s so ridic. Who would ask Max Walker to do that, unless he’d potentially knocked them up?’

  I think, biting the tip of my nail off. I almost gag on the black nail varnish. ‘When did you see him buy the test?’

  ‘Saturday morning,’ Emma says immediately.

  ‘Fuck.’ My mouth falls wide open and I say instantly, without thinking, ‘He was with me Friday night.’

  ‘Maybe he got a text from someone he’d been with in the last few weeks.’ Emma puts her arm around my shoulder. ‘I can’t believe he did that to you.’

  I turn away and log into Facebook aimlessly, trying to hold back tears.

  It’s just a mistake. He’s going to explain later, I try to reassure myself. He said.

  ‘I wonder who he did have sex with,’ Emma says, more to the room than me.

  ‘He might not have . . .’ Fay is saying.

  ‘Of course he did!’ Emma says. ‘He must have had unprotected sex too!’

  ‘The condom could have broke . . .’ Fay says doubtfully.

  ‘This is Max Walker,’ Emma says sarcastically. She shakes her head ominously, and says, deeply, forebodingly, seriously, like some sort of soothsayer, ‘He’s going the way of Todd Z. Meaning: boy-slag.’

  I try to wipe my eyes discreetly but the all-seeing eye of Emma notices everything.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sylvie. We’ll tell everyone what he did and then no one will touch him with a barge pole.’

  ‘Um,’ says Fay.

  ‘Don’t,’ I interrupt her.

  ‘Huh?’ Emma whispers.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Why not? He deserves it, Sylvie! He can’t just sleep with everyone and lead you on and get away with it!’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone, OK?’ I repeat.

  ‘I have to warn other women!’ Emma basically yells.

  ‘Emma.’ I turn to her, wiping the last of the tears from my eyes. The black kohl eyeliner comes away all over my hands. ‘If you tell everyone that Max had sex with someone other than me, or even that Max had sex with me, then I will tell everyone you had anal sex with Todd on the school field.’

  Emma gasps and Fay shrieks. ‘What?’ Emma bellows.

  ‘And that afterwards,’ I add, ‘you shat yourself.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ murmurs Fay, putting her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Do you understand me?’ I say. ‘I swear to God, Emma, I will.’

  Emma gives me an eye-over. She sees it: I am totally serious.

  ‘You are so weird,’ she tells me, but she nods, probably because right now I look like I could murder her.

  Fay and Laura gape at me as I stand up, pull out the plug to Emma’s computer and then storm out the room, like a kid with a mission. But Max is no longer outside reception. I look around helplessly.

  ‘People like that deserve all they get,’ I hear Emma mutter from the open door to the IT room.

  Max

  The receptionist couldn’t get hold of Mum or Dad. Mum was in court, and Dad wasn’t answering his personal mobile, so I end up staying in the sick room, occasionally throwing up into the adjacent toilet until the buses came at four in the afternoon. By the end of the day it seems everyone at school thinks I knocked someone up, apart from Marc and Carl. As I walk towards the common room to get my bag, guys keep holding their hands up to high-five me and girls keep looking at me like I’m dirty.

  Even Maria comes up and says, ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I mutter, trying to get my stupid dud key to go in my locker.

  ‘Do you . . . need help?’ she asks.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Like, with advice? On what to do?’

  I stare at her blankly.

  ‘Like, with abortions and stuff?’

  ‘Oh my god.’ I turn back to my locker. ‘It’s a rumour, Maria. There is no truth in it.’

  ‘But everyone is saying Emma saw you buy a test.’

  I slam the locker open. Finally. ‘Yeah, fine, that part’s true, but I was buying it for a friend, so can you please tell everyone that?’

  Maria backs away from me. ‘Sure I will. But you don’t have to shout at me, Max. I was just trying to help.’

  I rustle through my locker and keep my mouth shut. When I’ve found my books I pull them out and feel bad. I turn to say sorry but she’s already gone.

  ‘Fuck,’ I hiss to myself. I close my eyes and lean my head against the cool metal of my locker. ‘Fuck.’

  I slide my books into my bag with a sigh, sling it around my shoulders and wander off to the bus stop.

  The petrol smell on the bus seems soaked into the seats. I sit up at the front, feeling vomity, and run home when it drops me off. I hate how everybody looks at me. I hate that everybody looks at me at all. I used to like it, people looking at me like I was amazing, awesome, captain of the footie team. Now I realise popularity sucks for one very good reason: you can’t turn it off.

  I go straight up to my room, feeling shit about Sylvie, Emma, Maria, Mr Harvey and pretty much everyone I’ve pissed off.

  Mum is in my room when I get up there, sat on my bed with a book that, upon closer scrutiny, appears to be entitled: Parenting Practices: Gender and Sexuality.

  ‘Oh, hi Max,’ she says, like it’s a surprise to see me in my own bedroom.

  ‘Oh, hi Mum,’ I say, a bit sarcastically. We haven’t really talked since we went to see Archie. She’s been kind of . . . angry with me, I guess. Like, furious. She won’t even look at me. It’s like all she sees is me being knocked up, over and over. I know she thinks about it. She can’t stop quietly swearing whenever I’m in the room with her.

  Tonight, she smiles at me uncertainly and holds out the book as an explanation. ‘I thought you might want to discuss some things.’

  I dump my bag on the floor and my jaw gets tight. ‘Like gender and sexuality?’

  ‘Yes, sweetie.’

  I stare at her like she’s fucking insane. ‘Why the fuck would I do that?’

  ‘Max, don’t be aggressive. I’m just suggesting we discuss whether . . .’ She gets quieter. ‘You might have been sexed wrong as a baby.’

 
‘Oh my GOD! What is this? Shit all over Max day?’ I hold back a shout of frustration, conscious from the sounds of imploding zombies and various beeps that Daniel is nearby.

  ‘Honey, I just thought you might want to think about if you do want to be, you know, not a boy—’

  ‘Like I have a choice what I am?’

  ‘Many intersex children reject their assigned gender later in life—’

  ‘JEE-sus, just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean that I’m going to suddenly become a completely different person.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t aware you were dating boys. I thought there might be other things you were afraid to tell us.’

  ‘I don’t like boys! I’m not dating them! GOD! Haven’t you been here my whole life? Do I have to spell it out for you? D’you think my whole existence is a lie? That I’m, like, covering up a secret obsession with dolls and hairstyles and Justin Bieber by working my arse off getting onto the first eleven and playing video games and watching Hanna with Saoirse Ronan like ten times?’

  ‘How do I know when you don’t tell me anything, Max?’ she says tearfully. ‘I feel like I don’t know you anymore.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell! I have told you everything!’ I whine.

  ‘I’m just saying you don’t have to accept a male gender identity if you don’t want to.’ She gestures to my stomach and I put a hand protectively across it without thinking. ‘If this has got you feeling differently. Has it, Max?’

  ‘No, Mum, it hasn’t. And I’m not faking about liking football and girls!’ I come towards her, angrily. ‘Now get out of my room!’ I practically shove her out the door. ‘And don’t come in again without knocking!’

  I hear her grumble in the hallway and the creak of Dad’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

  ‘Max, did you just slam that door?’

  ‘Don’t,’ Mum warns.

  ‘I’ve got people downstairs.’

  ‘It’s pregnancy hormones.’

  ‘Not everything is pregnancy hormones . . . wait, what are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing! I just thought—’