Golden Boy (9 page)

Max thinks. I can’t see his eyes properly, behind his hair. He’s looking down at his knees. He rubs an eye with his sleeve again. ‘Probably not.’

‘OK. Alright, let me get a Levonelle pack.’

I stand up and he looks at me, lost.

‘The emergency contraceptive. I’ll just be a minute.’

I put my hand reassuringly on his shoulder and sweep out the door.

T
his is the most embarrassing, horrible day of my life, and if I can just get through it, stay blank, breathe in and out, keep smiling, keep nodding, it’ll be over, and tomorrow will be better, and the next day will be better than that and soon it’ll be like it never happened.

I’m never going to hang around with Hunter again and in less than two years he’ll have gone to uni and I won’t see him at all. Maybe our parents will stop being friends and drift apart. Maybe we’ll move away. You never know what will happen in the future. Things often work out even when you really, really think they won’t, like that time when I was little and I was convinced, utterly convinced, that Mum wasn’t going to come home, and I didn’t know why at the time but I knew she wasn’t, whether she was dead, or had left us, I don’t know, but she did come home, she did. Dad was angry at her, and I shouted at him not to be because I thought she would leave again, but she didn’t, she stayed and everything I thought would happen didn’t happen. Sometimes things just aren’t what you think they are, and even when things seem really bad, it can work out. Everything can work out and go back to normal. If I can just get the pill, then I’ll buy some more Ibuprofen on the way home at the chemists, or in Sainsburys, because then I can go through self-service and I won’t have to talk to anyone to explain why a Walker kid is out of school during school time, then I can get home, say to Mum I’m ill and go to sleep.

Then maybe tomorrow I’ll call in sick. No, I don’t want to miss school tomorrow! I’ve been looking forward to tomorrow for ages. Fuck Hunter, I’m not going to let him ruin my day. OK, so tomorrow will be good and then I’ll forget about it, minute by minute it’ll trickle out of my brain until it means nothing, and it just hasn’t happened.

So. First I get the pill, then Sainsburys. What if the pill is too late? No, it works up to twenty-four hours after, that’s what they said in class. It’s been . . . fourteen hours. That’s OK. Besides, Dr Verma seems to think I’m not fertile. I think she thinks that anyway. She’s a bit brusque and clinical. She’s like, let’s get to it, matter of fact. I guess that’s good in a doctor but it makes me feel more shitty. I thought I’d be able to talk about everything, but I can’t bring myself to tell her about Hunter.

I just have to get through today. Then things will go back to normal. Until next year, when maybe all the other guys will have facial hair, and then in two years, when everyone will be having sex but me, and then in ten years, when everyone will be getting married and having kids but me, and over the years, the kissing will dry up because I won’t have sex with people, because I won’t go out with people, because if I have sex with someone, they’ll see, and then they won’t want to go out with me anyway. Because I’m a freak. Because I’m freakish.

‘
R
ight. I have to ask you a few questions before I can give you the pill.’

The door swings shut and I take my seat opposite Max.

‘’K,’ he mumbles.

‘Oh!’ I turn to face him and speak softly. ‘Don’t cry, it’s OK.’

Max puts both hands, gripping sweater sleeves, over his face. His skin is red and tears fall onto his lap. He sobs something into his palms.

‘Pardon?’

‘I hate it.’

I hesitate, not knowing what to do. I end up reaching out and squeezing his arm. ‘Do you mean being intersex? Do you get upset about your condition a lot?’ I ask.

He shakes his head and his light hair swings back and forth. ‘It never comes up.’

‘At home?’

‘Well, we never talk about it but . . . it’s never been an issue. It’s just a thing. I don’t know. It’s one of those things you just have to accept.’

‘Haven’t your doctors ever talked to you about operations or medication?’

‘I don’t know. Like I said, they usually talk to Mum and Dad. I did have some hormone injections and pills and stuff a few years ago.’

‘OK. Well, if it makes you this upset, maybe . . . we should talk to your parents about it? Do you want me to call them?’

‘NO!’

‘OK, OK, sorry.’

‘You won’t, will you?’

‘I’ll only call them if you ask me.’

‘OK. Well, no.’

‘Sorry,’ I say reassuringly, patting his arm. I open the Levonelle packet and take out a piece of paper. ‘If you can just read this for me. It lists the possible side effects of the pill, and I just need you to sign here to say you understand. Did the unprotected sex occur in the last seventy-two hours?’

Max nods and reads the paper, holding his hands in his lap, occasionally lifting one up to wipe a stray line of moisture away from a cheek.

‘Can I just have the pill now?’ he mumbles. He’s so wretched, it’s upsetting even for an old-timer like me.

He’s oddly despondent, actually. I study him carefully. Something just doesn’t quite fit in this scene: an uncaring mood, a lack of eye contact, a blankness. As I watch him avoid my eyes, shuffling in his chair uncomfortably and worriedly chewing a nail, I remember seeing him before.

It was last summer, and I had recently read about his mother winning a landmark case in the paper. The article said that Karen Walker, if I recall her name correctly, was a barrister. The newspaper focused on Karen’s career, rather than the case, and there was a picture of her family, including Max, at a black tie affair.

Later that day I had been at the cinema, and I recognised Max. He was holding hands with Olivia Wasikowski, another patient of mine who had come into the clinic to have an implant fitted a few weeks before. As I noticed them both, Max put his hands on Olivia’s cheeks, leaned in and kissed her.

Looking at him now, remembering this, a thought rolls into my cerebral cortex like it belongs there, like a broken shoulder snapped back into place, and I feel so incredibly stupid I close my eyes and shake my head at myself.

I clear my throat. ‘Max. I’m sorry to ask this so forwardly. Are you attracted to boys?’

Max’s mouth opens. Then his hand reaches up to it and suppresses any words that were forming. He shakes his head.

‘What I’m asking is, did you consent to sexual intercourse?’

Max’s hair shakes again from side to side.

‘That’s why you’re asking for the emergency contraceptive pill?’

His hair gives a tiny nod. He looks up nervously.

‘Are you in any pain?’

A tear falls down his cheek and he wipes it away and sniffs.

‘OK. Do you want to get up on the bed and let me have a look at you?’

Max sighs, as if he has seen this coming. A thought flickers through my mind: he must be used to having doctors looking at his genitals. An intersex diagnosis is not only something that must be studied for prognosis; to many doctors it’s interesting. We see so few cases. My own curiosity is piqued, but I don’t let on. Max’s eyes slip to the side and dilate, becoming distant. He nods.

As a doctor, I’ve discovered the answers are always between the lines, somewhere in the landscape of the body. Physical evidence speaks louder than words. Evidence is all over Max’s face. His bottom lip presses nervously against his top one. I nod, resolved.

‘I’ll just give you a minute to get undressed for me. Pop this sheet over yourself and sit up on the bed with your head back here, OK?’

I pat the bed and hand him the sheet. He nods again, almost wearily, and I step outside.

I
t’s my brother’s birthday tomorrow so I want to make him a card, but the teacher, Miss Jameson, is saying that we have to pack up now, because it’s story time.

Why should we have to pack up now? That is my question. It’s completely ridiculous having to stick to a schedule like we’re babies that need napping and feeding and our bottoms cleaned. It’s stupid. I’m going to take these scissors and sit in the corner of the class, and I can listen to the stupid story while I do the card for Max. I’m doing one of those stupid cards where you fold a piece of A4 white paper into four and then you cut a boy shape in it so that you get four boys and they’re all holding hands. Then I’m going to colour them in and I’ll make them me, Mum, Dad and Max, although actually the Mum one will still look like a boy. Oh well, I’ll just draw her in pink trousers and then I can stick some hair on from another bit of paper later. Anyway, this card is actually going to be awesome though, because here’s the special bit: they’re all going to be robots, and I’m giving them all a gun I’ve specially designed for them.

Hmm. Miss Jameson is waddling over to me, like a duck. Mum told me off for calling Miss Jameson a duck. We’re not to say Miss Jameson is a duck. Anymore.

‘Daniel, it’s story time now.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Everybody’s waiting. You don’t want to ruin their story time, do you?’

‘No. I’m not making my card
in front of them
.’

‘Yes, but we can’t do story time without everyone sitting in a circle, can we?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, we can’t.’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘No, we can’t.’

‘Look, Miss Jameson, if anyone is ruining story time, it’s you, because you can do it and you won’t.’

‘Well.’ Miss Jameson puts her hands on her hips. ‘I’m not going to because you’re being a naughty boy. Now, you put down that card or I’ll throw it in the bin!’

I frown and mutter very quietly, ‘Duck.’

‘Daniel Walker, put that card down! Do you want to keep it? I’ll throw it away if you don’t put it down now!’

She takes my hand and I shake it off.

‘I’M JUST MAKING A CARD,’ I say, really loudly so she’ll understand and leave me alone. ‘GET YOUR STUPID HANDS OFF ME.’

‘Don’t you dare yell at me, Daniel! Stop being a naughty boy! Look, everyone.’ Miss Jameson turns to the class. ‘Daniel is being naughty and so we can’t have story time until he acts like a good boy and sits down with us all.’

All the other boys and girls look at me sympathetically. It’s so unfair. It’s Miss Jameson’s fault that her stupid rules mean that for some stupid reason I can’t make a card for my brother AND listen to a story at the same time.

I sit there in silence and I hold onto my card and I don’t look at her until Miss Jameson says, ‘Right!’ She leans down and grabs my wrist really hard and I push her off with my right hand and she starts screaming just like me, but louder and hootier, as if she is both an owl and the victim of a shooting.