Page 26 of The Elements

Before I dress, however, I examine my body in the bedroom’s full-length mirror.

My left arm is a little stiff this morning, which it occasionally is when I feel stressed.

I broke it a few years ago—or rather, I had it broken for me—and it’s never been quite the same since.

But I’m still toned, since I use the building’s gym and private pool most days, although the definition of my abdominals has diminished a little.

Neither Robbie nor I are allowed anywhere near the club right now, so I can’t eat in the players’ canteen, where the food is carefully prepared and nutritionally balanced, so my diet has slipped.

A private trainer shows up three times a week, supplied by the club, and this is something we’re not allowed to tell anyone.

Robbie’s worth more than ten million pounds, and I’m valued at just over half that amount, so it needs to protect its assets.

When this is over, if it goes our way, we’ll be expected back on the pitch as soon as possible.

If it ends badly, they’ll never speak of us again.

We’ll be erased from their records as if we never existed and, I imagine, the insurance will kick in.

By nine fifteen, I’m dressed, and I return to the window, waiting for Robbie to leave.

I’m only there a few minutes when a taxi pulls up and he emerges from the front entrance.

Only when it drives away do I open the app and order one for myself.

I could have traveled with him, of course, but Catherine, our barrister, said it would look better if we arrived separately.

When the driver pulls up, I’m standing by the small area of overgrown grass which houses the development’s performative commitment to the environment, a wild sanctuary that allows insects and birds to land or nest without disturbance.

It has a rough beauty to it, but it contains a secret in its depths, and I become so lost in thought that the driver has to sound his horn to snap me out of it.

I turn away, open the back door, and step inside.

I’ve entered my destination already, so there should be no need for conversation.

I keep my head low, pretending to scroll through my phone, and it’s only when we’re halfway there that I notice how he keeps glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

“I know who you are,” he says.

I don’t reply.

“It starts today, doesn’t it?”

I nod.

“I’m a fan,” he tells me, his face breaking into a wide smile. “That goal you scored against—”

“Thanks,” I say. I have no interest in reliving the highlights of my brief career.

“So how long will it go on?” he asks.

“A couple of weeks, I’m told.”

“If you like,” he says, “I could pick you up every morning. And then, when you’re done for the day, I could be waiting outside. Might make life easier for you.”

He’s not wrong. It would be more convenient to use the same taxi and driver throughout this whole ordeal. After a day or two, he’ll grow tired of interrogating me.

“All right,” I say.

“What time should I come back for you today?”

“Four.”

“And pickup tomorrow at nine thirty?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bill you when it’s all over.”

“Fine.”

“So don’t go to jail.”

My teeth grind against each other.

“And do I call you Evan or Mr. Keogh?”

“Evan’s fine,” I tell him.

“Then I’m Max,” he says, reaching into a pocket between the two front seats and extracting a pack of business cards before passing one back. “All my details are on there. But you don’t need to worry. I’ll be where I’m supposed to be.”

“Thanks,” I say.

As he turns a corner, the courthouse appears in sight, and I see the media scrum outside.

I realize now that I should have left before Robbie.

Then I could have been inside when he pulled up, and they would have turned their attention toward him.

He’s the bigger star, after all. Now they’ll focus on me.

We pull up, and I reach for the door handle.

“Give ’em hell, lad,” says Max, turning around and grinning. His teeth are yellow and his lips badly chapped.

Hair springs from beneath the collar of his shirt, his eyebrows, his ears, his nose.

He’s an unkempt forest of a man. “Remember, any girl who takes on two lads like that is nothing more than a cheap little whore, and the jury will see that. You think I’ve never been there?

Some girl saying no when you know they mean yes? More times than I can count.”

I imagine how it would feel to pull his head toward me and smash it into the gap between the seats, to keep pounding it against the cheap interior until I’ve ended him.

But I do nothing. Instead, I simply nod, open the door and step outside, the flash of the cameras and the shouting of the reporters overwhelming me, like I’m arriving for a film premiere and not a rape trial.

I wonder, as Max drives away, does he notice me crush his business card within my fist and toss it away, flicking it with my index finger so it lands in the dark soil of the bushes outside the building.

He can come back at four if he wants, but I won’t be waiting for him.

A policeman approaches. I think he’s going to guide me into the courthouse, but no, he reprimands me for littering, making me pick up the card while the photographers snap away and the journalists roar my name.

It’s dirty now, covered with moist earth, and muddies the fingers of my left hand, but I don’t want to wipe them against my suit, so I wait until I enter the building, where the people standing in the lobby turn to look at me, then discard it in the nearest bin and run my hand under a sanitizing tap, a holdover from the days of the pandemic, when we could all stay inside, alone, and avoid the world entirely.