Page 41 of The Elements

“Running the farm?”

“Yes.”

“You’re kidding.” I didn’t expect this. I thought he would have got out.

“You didn’t know?” he asks.

“No.”

“I don’t mean about him running the farm, I mean about his father.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“Evan, Joseph Sweeney died eighteen months ago.”

I’m genuinely shocked to hear this. Mam usually keeps me abreast of any gossip from the island, but she’s never mentioned this, even though I spent half my childhood in the Sweeney house and considered Joe and Siobhán to be like an uncle and aunt to me.

I want to be somewhere else, somewhere alone, somewhere, anywhere, so I can think about this without having to talk.

“I should go,” I say, glancing at my watch. “If I look hungover in court tomorrow, it won’t play well for me. It’s closing statements.”

“You can stay a little longer,” he tells me, and I remain where I am. He’s in control here, I understand that. Fine, I think. If he wants to talk, then let’s talk.

“Look, what I said back then,” I say. “I was just a kid. I was being dramatic, that’s all.”

“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “Evan, I remember our conversation very clearly. And I remember the despair you felt.”

“Then you’re misremembering.”

“You felt alone. And deeply wounded.”

“No.”

“You were ashamed. And hurt.”

“No.”

“You felt you’d lost someone that you loved.”

“No.”

“You told me what you did.”

“I liked Cormac.”

“I know you did.”

“He was my friend. My best friend.”

“I know that too. You grew up together.”

“Yes.”

“And when he lost his brother, you became his brother.”

“But I wasn’t his brother, was I?”

“As I understood it, he thought of you in that way.”

“He could think what he liked,” I say. “But it doesn’t make it so.”

Ifechi thinks about this for a few moments.

He reaches for my hand, but I pull away.

I’m not holding hands with a priest in a pub.

The press pack is more interested in Robbie than in me, so I haven’t had to put up with as much harassment outside the court as him, but still, there are smartphones everywhere.

“I don’t know Cormac Sweeney well,” he tells me, looking me directly in the eye. “And, in my position, I should make no judgments. But, Evan, I do not like him. He is a cold person. A man who thinks only of himself. He is a bully.”

I feel my jaw clench in anger. I cannot bear to hear him speak these words. Not about Cormac.

“You try losing your brother when you’re seven years old,” I say, raising my voice, ready to fight my friend’s corner. “A brother you idolized and who was only a year older than you. Then see how you turn out.”

“I did lose a brother when I was seven years old,” he tells me.

“Well, you’re just perfect, then, aren’t you?” I say, drinking a sizeable amount of my beer. “A fucking saint.”

“His name was Amobi.”

I don’t ask any questions about his lost brother. I’m not interested.

Neither of us speaks for three, four, five minutes.

“You were a very vulnerable boy, I think,” says Ifechi eventually.

“We’re all fucking vulnerable.”

“A boy who wanted someone to care about him.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I recall the word you used when you described your feelings toward Cormac.”

I can’t meet his eye. Because I remember it too.

“You might. I don’t.”

“Love,” he tells me. “You said you were in love with him.”

“What do you know about love?” I ask bitterly.

“Many things.”

“Jesus, fine,” I say, throwing my hands up as I rear back in the seat. I didn’t realize, until this moment, that I was almost bent over the table, my forehead close to the woodwork. “But I was seventeen, Father. I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings for him. I was just a kid.”

“Do you remember what you told me when you came to confession?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Fine. Fuck. Yes.”

“You told me that you asked Cormac to call to your house late at night. You’d suggested to him that you would go into the fields together.”

“And he came of his own accord. No one forced him.”

“You said that you would bring alcohol. And the marijuana cigarettes. You planned on your both getting drunk and smoking until you became high.”

“Which is what we did.”

“But it’s not all you did, is it, Evan? We sat on either side of the grille, remember, and spoke for a long time. You told me what happened after that.”

“Nothing happened,” I insist, my foot tapping restlessly on the floor.

“If that was true, then why were you in such pain afterward? And why would you have left the island on your father’s boat and contemplated taking your own life?”

“We have very different memories of our conversation, Father,” I say, downing the last of my pint and staring at his whiskey, wishing I could just pick it up and finish that too. And then order five more.

“I don’t believe we do. You were in such distress on the day you came to see me,” he continues. “You told me how he treated you when you expressed your longing for him.”

“This is all bullshit,” I say, glancing back toward the bar. “Look, are we having another drink here or what?”

“You said that you woke the next day and wanted to kill yourself.”

“I’ll get my own so,” I say, standing up. “Do you want one more, or would you prefer to just fuck off?”

“All I want is for you to admit what you told me. It was a few years ago, yes, but you know that what I say is the truth.”

I remain standing. He doesn’t have to remind me of anything.

I remember that night very well. I remember how infatuated I had become with Cormac and how I’d come to realize that I’d felt that way about him for as long as I could recall, even before I knew what infatuation was.

I remember him showing up in his favorite David Bowie T-shirt.

I remember him and me getting through two six-packs of beers while smoking a bunch of joints, talking nonsense, and giggling as we got high.

I remember the surprise on his face when I leaned into him.

I remember how he allowed me to kiss him, the alcohol and the weed softening his reserve, for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, before he pushed me away.

I remember pressing my hand against his crotch.

I remember the expression on his face when he pulled away, disgust mixed with confusion, and said he wasn’t interested in anything like that with me, that we were just friends.

I remember trying to kiss him again. I remember him telling me to stop.

I remember him shouting, For fuck’s sake, Evan, get your fuckin’ hands off me .

I remember keeping going. I remember him saying, Fuckin’ Jesus, fuckin’ listen to me, will you?

I remember him using both hands to push me away.

I remember him slapping me when I refused to stop.

Slapping me. Not even punching me, slapping me.

The humiliation of that. I remember turning my face away to avoid the revulsion on his face.

I remember how the soil gave way beneath me as I lay back, and wishing it could suck me down into its warm embrace.

I remember worms. I remember weeds. I remember the smell of the earth and the glimmer of the stars above me.

I remember his fury when he stood over me.

I remember him saying how he didn’t care that I was into guys, but what the fuck, did I think he was a fag too?

I remember the names he called me. I remember how I tried to talk to him over the days ahead, saying I was sorry, that I hadn’t meant any of it, that I’d been drunk, high.

I remember him saying that he thought we were friends, but it had all been a lie.

I remember him telling everyone we knew how I’d tried to kiss him.

I remember the laughter, the mocking, the humiliation, the name-calling.

I remember the shit on our WhatsApp groups, on Instagram, on Snapchat.

I remember how, from that point on, he turned away whenever he saw me.

And I remember confiding all of this in Ifechi and telling him that I didn’t want to live anymore, because I’d betrayed my best friend and he’d betrayed me in return, and I couldn’t decide which betrayal was worse.

I remember every moment. I remember wanting to die.

“We are not in a confessional now,” Ifechi tells me. “We are in a pub in England, far from the island of your birth, where no one can hear us. I wonder whether you want to unburden yourself to me again.”

“In what way?” I ask, looking up, wishing he could help me but knowing that he can’t. The memory has ruined me.

“By telling me the truth. You suffered terribly in those last months on the island, through no fault of your own. And, when you left, you were damaged. No boy of that age should feel so badly about himself. You are who you are. You were born the way you were born. You did something that felt natural to you. And you were humiliated over it. Cormac Sweeney, this so-called friend of yours, was no friend at all.”

I can’t reply. I know he’s right, but I will not bring myself to criticize Cormac. I can’t.

“So,” he says at last. “Tell me the truth about what happened between you, this—”

“Ah, for fuck’s sake.”

“Robert Wolverton, and the young lady who has brought these terrible charges against you.”

“I’ve been telling the truth since this whole nightmare began.”

“I’m not sure that you have.”

“But you’re not on the jury, are you?” I ask, standing up. I look at him, wishing that he could save me, but no one can.

“Evan,” he says.

“Fuck off.”

“Let me help you.”

“You can’t.”

“If you let me—”

“No.”

And now my head is in my hands. I am crying. I am crying like I haven’t cried in a long time. I reach out. I take his hand, as he tried to do with me earlier when I pulled away. I clasp it tightly. I wrap it in both my hands.

My sobs are so powerful, they threaten to overwhelm me.

“Breathe,” Ifechi says.

“He said I was a bad friend,” I say. “But I wasn’t. He was the bad friend.”

“He was.”

“He should have helped me.”

“Yes, he should have.”

“He should have told me there was nothing wrong with me.”

“Yes, he should have.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“He—”

I don’t even hear. I want beer. I want whiskey. I want drugs. I want sex. I want a sharp knife. I want fifty sleeping tablets. I want anything that might take away the pain.

“Evan.”

“What?”

“Evan.”

“What? What? Tell me!”

“Evan.”

I look at him. He looks at me.

I pull him toward me, my eyes on his lips, he’s a good-looking man, but he pushes me away too, because they all do, and then the room grows dark and spins.

I am on the island. I am in the woods with Cormac.

I am on the boat. I am on the farm with Harry.

I am in London. I am in Rafe’s apartment.

I am in Sir’s palace. I am on the football pitch.

I am in Robbie’s bedroom with him and Lauren. I am in a courtroom.

I am on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, and Ifechi is leaning over me, slapping my face, saying, Evan, Evan, wake up, Evan.

Talk to me.