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Chapter 11

As Andrew entered the skylit west court of the Kelvingrove Museum, he spied Evan standing in front of a life-size stuffed elephant, taking its picture with his phone. Before approaching the tall blond midfielder from behind, Andrew scanned the room for anyone who might be watching.

He saw no obvious observers, which meant he could walk out now and cancel this…whatever it was. A friendly chat? A therapy session? It felt more dire, like he’d sent a mayday call and Evan was sailing to the rescue.

Andrew quieted his steps as he drew near. “Meeting in an art gallery. How delightfully 007.”

Evan didn’t startle or even glance at him, just kept his focus on the elephant through his phone camera. “The art’s upstairs. This is the Life Gallery.”

“Ironically named, as everything here is dead.” Andrew scanned the menagerie of taxidermied animals, which weren’t grouped by habitat or even continent. A kangaroo squatted beside a sea turtle, which appeared to gaze up at the adjacent giraffe. The entire display was topped, inexplicably, by a World War II Spitfire aircraft hanging from the high curved ceiling. The Kelvingrove had always amused Andrew, but today he found its cheeky surreality unsettling, as it reinforced his sense of the earth becoming a foreign place.

“Perfect.” Evan showed Andrew the photo on his screen. “See? Sir Roger’s taking flight.”

In the shot, the Asian elephant was positioned before the Spitfire to make it look as though the creature had aeroplane wings. “Nice.”

“You know how he died?” Evan tucked his phone inside his long black coat and gestured to the elephant. “He was living at the Glasgow zoo when he went into musth—basically the male version of heat, though it’s more territorial than sexual. A bull elephant will go mad with testosterone and kill anything he sees, including his keepers.” He sighed. “So they shot poor Sir Roger whilst he was eating breakfast.”

“How awful.” Andrew frowned at the plaque in front of them, which bore a grainy, circa 1900 photo of the living Sir Roger. “Zoos are an abomination. It’s unnatural to keep wild animals in captivity.” Oddly, he found his nerves soothed by this bizarre small talk. He moved toward the moose at the center of the room. “This one’s my favorite. The way his mouth curves, it’s almost a Mona Lisa smile, don’t you think? Like he’s privy to the secret of happiness.”

Evan approached him while staying far outside his personal space. “I’m glad you reached out to me, Lord Andrew.”

“Call me Drew, remember?” He thought about shaking Evan’s hand, but his own were cold and trembling, so he kept them in his coat pockets. “Forgive my suspicion, but why are you so keen to help me? If you’re hoping to get on Colin’s right side, there’s no need. He’s long since forgiven you for abandoning the Warriors last year.”

“That’s not it.” Evan gazed up at the Spitfire’s front propeller. “It’s because that morning at Dunleven Castle, when you woke from the nightmare, I recognized the look in your eyes. I’ve seen that look in my own mirror.”

Andrew took a step closer to him. “What happened to you?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you what I can, which isn’t much.” He adjusted his tie, though it was already straight. “I know what it’s like to have pain you don’t feel entitled to.”

Andrew gave a small shudder, feeling as if Evan had surveyed his naked brain. But he was determined to see the meeting through. “This is your lunch hour, right? Shall we eat? My treat.”

“Thanks,” Evan said. “It’s nearly time for the organ recital.”

They headed out into the magnificent Centre Hall and made their way to the café in the corner. Andrew bought them coffees and sandwiches while Evan secured the last empty seats, not far from the reception desk.

As he reached their table, Andrew saw a woman in a long red dress enter the balcony above and sit before the enormous nineteenth-century pipe organ. The hall fell to a respectful hush.

A few moments later a majestic yet ominous prelude began, one Andrew recognized as a piece by Franz Liszt. He feigned interest in his food, stealing glances at Evan while they waited for the music to quiet enough for conversation.

John had mentioned that like Fergus, Evan was an architect. It was a lucrative profession, a fact reflected by Fergus’s well-tailored wardrobe. Yet Evan’s blue Oxford shirt and maroon tie were decidedly middle of the road—off-the-peg Marks and Spencer at best. His Nordic good looks and muscular physique, so obvious in a football kit, were tragically muted by the ordinary clothes.

At last the organ prelude entered a softer section.

“I expected you to be in disguise,” Evan said. “You’re not worried about paparazzi?”

Andrew had considered adopting an alternative persona, but had lacked the energy to adjust his hair and clothes. “If anyone asks, we’re discussing Colin’s supplement regimen. And if he should find out we spoke, I’ll tell him the truth.”

“Good. So what changed your mind about us meeting up? Why was I the one you phoned after you quit university?”

Andrew couldn’t be totally honest here. He’d turned to Evan because he was nobody. He wasn’t a mate or family member who’d get all emotional about Andrew’s struggles. He had no power to ruin Andrew’s life or even make him feel bad.

Evan didn’t matter. Which meant he might be the only one who could make things better, or at least not worse.

“You told me to tell Colin how I felt. I followed your advice, but it’s not helped, not really.” Andrew softened his accusatory tone; he hadn’t come here to blame Evan. “I thought filling in that victim statement would fix me, and then I thought seeing Jeremy sent to prison would fix me. But that was a week ago, and I just keep feeling worse. Then yesterday I found myself quitting uni.” He remembered the vertiginous What have I done?! sensation as he’d left GU’s registry office. “I didn’t know where else to turn.”

Evan nodded. “If it helps, remember that Colin needed a whole team of healers—including you—to grow strong again.” His rippling Orkney accent with its heavily rolled R s was stronger in person than on the phone. “Now it’s you who needs help, and Colin can’t be your entire team. Don’t put that on him.”

“Are you in my team?”

“If you want me to be, yes.” Evan’s gaze was cool, but in a soothing way, like an ice pack on a sore knee.

The organ crescendoed, silencing all chatter. Evan kept eating, but Andrew just poked at his kale crisps, nudging them to form a moat around his untouched sandwich.

He’d yet to tell Colin about quitting uni, knowing he’d be angry Andrew had tossed away his higher education, something people like himself struggled so hard to earn a place in. Worse, Colin might feel guilty for not stopping this downward spiral. This past week he’d asked again and again how Andrew was feeling. Andrew hadn’t the heart to tell him that most of the time he felt nothing at all.

When the organ paused, he said, “The second movement’s much quieter, so we’ve a few minutes to talk.”

“You know this piece?” Evan asked.

“Yes, it’s Liszt’s Prelude and…something.”

“Interesting tale about Franz Liszt.” Evan picked up his coffee. “When he was in his twenties he fell in love with one of his piano students, but her father broke them up. Liszt got deathly ill—from heartbreak, they say—to the point where a newspaper printed his premature obituary. Of course then he recovered.” He tilted his head. “I don’t know if the paper ever posted a retraction.”

“You’re just chockablock with morbid factoids, aren’t you?”

Evan shrugged. “I remember things. So you were saying, about university?”

“Right.” Andrew tried to work out how to explain without sounding pathetic. “My field no longer interests me. And since tuition is free in Scotland, I refuse to waste taxpayers’ money by pottering about campus with no purpose. To do so would offend what remains of my Tory principles.”

Evan seemed to fend off a smirk. Andrew had to admit his saving-government-expenditures rationalization sounded weak.

“You’re only in your second year.” Evan put his napkin to his mouth in that distinctly middle-class half-wipe/half-dab, a gesture neither strictly proper nor entirely crude. “What about a change in course of study, maybe a combined degree?”

“They offered to let me do that. I looked at the course list, but nothing seemed…”

“Interesting?”

“Possible.” Andrew sat back, appalled at his own confession of inadequacy. “This isn’t like me. I’ve never been short of confidence. But last week when I looked at each syllabus and saw what was required…it felt like I was being asked to climb the sky.”

Evan rotated the cardboard sleeve of his coffee cup, looking pensive. “Go on.”

“I thought, ‘I can’t do this,’ and then I thought, ‘I don’t care.’” He gave a hoarse laugh. “How spoiled of me, right? To be granted so many opportunities, only to walk away.”

“Sounds like you did it out of instinct. Sometimes when things aren’t right on the inside, we make big changes on the outside.”

“Maybe,” Andrew said, by which he meant Yes! Yes! How did you know? “You’ve felt like this, then?”

“Aye.” Evan glanced back at a group of loud tourists laughing by the reception desk. “Sometimes I still do. But it’s rare now, maybe one day out of twenty.”

That sounded heavenly. “How did you get better?”

“I took time off, focused on my own health and happiness. Football helped. It’s always been something of a refuge for me.” He looked down at his half-eaten sandwich, his golden eyelashes flickering. “I stopped drinking for a while.”

“Seems sensible.”

“And I got therapy,” Evan said.

Andrew braced his feet against the floor. “That’s not an option.” He didn’t bother adding for someone in my position ; Colin had already regaled him with a dozen examples of celebrities in therapy.

Instead of arguing, Evan gave a conciliatory nod. “I felt the same way. But I wasn’t given a choice. Counseling was mandatory. So I figured the fastest way to end that torture was to jump in with both feet, be completely honest about how…disarranged I was. The plan was to make a quick recovery so I could get back to my life.”

A warning bell went off in Andrew’s mind. Architecture wasn’t usually a profession requiring trauma counseling. “How did that go?”

“It worked.” Evan spread his hands like a magician after a trick. “I actually got better. Not all at once, of course. I’m still a work in progress. There’s the occasional nightmare, and I have certain…limits.” His gaze darted to the museum’s back exit, then the front one. “But nothing like the state I was in six months ago.”

Interesting. Evan had always seemed so cool and in control at Warriors matches. Then again, Andrew probably seemed fine to most people, even as he was crumbling inside.

The organ’s volume swelled again. Andrew moved his chair closer to Evan’s and raised his voice above the music. “How did they fix you? With drugs?”

“They didn’t fix me,” Evan said, “and no, I didn’t need more than the occasional sedative to help me sleep. Mostly my therapist let me talk through what happened, gave me a safe place to air my thoughts.” Evan paused, peering up at one of the arched openings to the upper-floor galleries. “The hardest thing to admit wasn’t the fear. It was the anger. I worried that if I said how I truly felt, it would cost me everything.”

Andrew’s neck muscles tightened, sending a dull throb to his temples. The worst of what was inside him—the dark, grimy, sticky-as-tar feelings—he couldn’t imagine sharing with a stranger.

To collect himself, he took a sip of cappuccino, which was far foamier than any human should have to endure. “Perhaps if you shared your story, I might be convinced to try this therapy thing.” He attempted a coy wink, but it felt more like a twitch.

“I can’t provide details,” Evan said. “But like you, I was taken against my will. Like you, I thought I might die. And like you, I wasn’t physically hurt, but someone else was. Someone I—” He looked away, scraping his thumbnail over the dimple in his chin. “Someone I never got the chance to make it up to.”

Andrew wondered whether that someone had been killed. He felt bad for prying, especially since it had been more a cowardly diversion than genuine bonding. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Then let me help you.” Evan leaned in. “I want to be able to do someone a bit of good.”

“You have done. Talking to you has worked a treat.” He glanced away. Too much. He’ll never buy that.

“I’m glad, but you also need to?—”

“I don’t need a doctor. Nothing happened to me.”

“Drew, you were held at knifepoint by your own bodyguard. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t die. I wasn’t even hurt, not a scratch.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It’s all that matters!”

“Not in here.” Evan pointed to his temple, his voice rising above the frenetic organ tones. “In that moment, you didn’t know if you’d live or die. You probably played a film in your head of what might happen in the car. And now, whenever something reminds you of that evening, the film plays again—except this time it’s a double feature, not just what might have happened to you, but what did happen to Colin.” Evan sat back in his seat. “And that, mate, is a titanic amount of shit to cope with.”

Andrew stared hard at the table, wanting to cover his ears like a stubborn child.

The organ blasted a series of long, loud chords that seemed to shake the marrow from his bones. Then silence fell at last. Andrew joined Evan and the rest of the hall in applauding the organist as she stood and bowed, then exited the balcony. The ensuing murmur of café conversation formed a shield around their table.

Andrew shifted his chair to sit across from Evan again. “I hear what you’re saying, and yes, it’s hard. But I’ll get over it.”

“Maybe.” Evan leaned in, his ice-blue gaze holding Andrew fast. “For some people it’s as simple as letting that one terrible moment fade with time. But for you, there’s also the moments before it, like your disownment, and the moments after, like watching your sister’s family disintegrate. For you it’s not simple at?—”

A sharp crack came from Andrew’s right, making him jump. Evan leaped from his chair, one arm sweeping up to protect his face and the other poised to strike. He froze like that, eyes darting, their dilated pupils nearly obscuring the irises.

“Sorry!” The reception-desk attendant walked around her table to pick up a large ring binder from where it had tumbled onto the marble floor.

Evan dropped his arms and slid back into his seat. “Well.” He gave Andrew a tight smile. “Told you I’m a work in progress.”

Andrew’s innards went cold as the puzzle pieces began to assemble themselves: Evan’s secretiveness, his keen observations, his instinctive fighting stance. “You’re no architect, are you?”

“Of course I am.” Evan retrieved his fallen napkin, fluffed it, then returned it to his lap. “I got my degree at Glasgow School of Art, same year as Fergus.”

“Which firm do you work for?”

“None, currently.” He sipped his coffee. “I’m a civil servant.”

Andrew knew what that was code for. “So you’re a…government architect.”

Evan’s eyes were steady but still bright with adrenaline. “Whatever conclusions you’re drawing about me, it’s got nothing to do with you and your situation. I’m here as a friend.”

Andrew looked away, gripping the edge of the table. What had he done? How could he be so stupid as to open up to this man? Did people like Evan even have friends?

“You can trust me,” Evan said. “You know why? Because you’re the first person on the outside who’s heard my story. You’re the first person I’ve let in. Why would I take that risk, if not to help you?”

“I don’t know.” Andrew’s heart was pounding like that of a hounded hare. He’d heard tales of government agents collecting information on prominent Brits to keep them in line. “I need to go.”

“Drew—”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. This meeting never happened.” He stood quickly, resisting the weird urge to thank Evan for harvesting his secrets. “Goodbye.”

Andrew stalked toward the exit, catching his arm in the sleeve of his coat as he hurried to put it on. He felt more exposed now than ever. He’d sought out this man for understanding, and for tips on how to get back to normal. Evan had given him both in spades, but was any of it real?

As he tugged his scarf tight, then tighter still, it took all his self-control not to sprint out of the building, away from Evan’s knowing eyes. Whatever was wrong with Andrew, he’d sort it himself. He’d find a way.

And until then, he’d simply pretend.