Page 42 of The Elements

The evening after my twenty-second birthday, I was in Robbie’s apartment, where we found ourselves discussing the subject I felt we’d been working toward for a long time: our fathers.

When he went to the kitchen to get some more beers, I studied the framed photographs scattered around his shelves, as I had done in Rafe’s apartment on the night we met, and in Sir’s residence before our first encounter.

In a family picture taken perhaps a dozen years earlier, Rafe looked young and handsome, while Lady Wolverton was exactly as I had always imagined her to be.

Blond, trim, efficient-looking. There were two older sisters, who resembled their mother.

And there, at the center of the picture, was Robbie himself, around eight years old, missing a front tooth, and smiling widely, a football at his feet.

I stared at it before being distracted by another picture sitting alongside it.

Rafe, standing next to Sir, on the day that he was knighted, the two of them laughing uproariously over some private joke, displaying their great white teeth and their glorious, unassailable privilege.

“I always knew he was important,” Robbie told me, appearing by my side and taking the photograph from me, then studying it himself for a moment before returning it to its place.

“He’d been busy for as long as I could remember.

Rarely at home. Split most of his time between the House of Commons and his Chambers, although we usually traveled to the constituency house at weekends, which he hated.

The day he entered the House of Lords, he sold it and never went back. ”

I pointed at another photograph, where Rafe was standing between two familiar figures, one looking a little grim, the other grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“I grew up knowing Tony as Tony and Gordon as Gordon,” said Robbie. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why everyone made such a fuss when either of them came to dinner. Robin Cook was my godfather, you know.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.”

“They never came together?” I asked. “Tony and Gordon, I mean?”

“Christ, no. Dad was very good at playing them off against each other. He kept on the good side of both all the way through, while pretty much everyone else had to choose a side. But by the end, he knew the gravy train was over, so he stepped down. He didn’t want to lose his seat, which he would have done in that election.

Not losing has always been very important to my father.

You know, he only texts me when we win a game, right? Never when we lose.”

“And your sisters?” I asked.

“Ellie’s an investment banker, and Honor’s training to be a vet.

Much more popular with the olds than me.

He knows I earn good money, more than he ever earned at my age, and I think he likes the fact that I’m a footballer.

Makes him seem unconventional, like those stupid socks he wears.

But he hates that I play in the Championship.

Still calls it the Second Division, just to belittle me.

He keeps telling me I should move to one of the big clubs, Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool, like it’s up to me, but that’s never going to happen. ”

“It might,” I said. “You’re a good player.”

“I’m all right. And your dad,” he said, moving over to one of the enormous, overstuffed armchairs, opening a couple more bottles and handing one to me. “He wanted to play, didn’t he?”

“He never stood a chance. He can kick a ball around, but that’s about it.” I didn’t want to talk about my father; I wanted to talk about his. “Were your parents happy?”

“They’ve stayed together all these years, so I guess there must be something there. When I was a kid, yeah, they seemed pretty loved up. But I think it’s more of an arrangement now than anything else. I’m pretty sure Dad’s had affairs.”

“How many?” I asked.

“God knows. A man like him, with all that power. Good-looking. Wealthy. They were probably throwing themselves at him.”

“Women, you mean?”

“Yeah, of course.” He paused. “What else would I mean?”

“And your mum never thought of leaving him?”

He sighed and ran a hand across his eyes. “Something happened when I was around ten that nearly broke them up. I still don’t know exactly what it was. All I know is Mum came home early from a trip, so I assume she caught him with someone in the house.”

“But she still didn’t leave?”

“No, I guess he made it up to her somehow. Although they never shared a bedroom after that. Their relationship became much more… professional, I suppose. They lived together, brought the three of us up, we went on holidays as a family. But it didn’t seem like they were married anymore. Not in any real sense.”

I thought about it. I imagined the scene that Lady Wolverton might have faced that evening and wondered who the boy was.

Whether he was being auditioned too. Maybe that was when Rafe decided to buy the Woolwich Ferry flat.

So he could have a place to conduct his tryouts without fear of disturbance. A thought occurred to me.

“Do they own many homes?” I asked.

“My parents? No, just the house on Connaught Square. And a cottage in Cornwall, but I don’t think they go there very often anymore.”

“Nowhere else? He doesn’t have a flat or anything?”

Robbie frowned. “No,” he said. “Why?”

“No reason.”

“What about you?” asked Robbie.

“What about me?”

“Your parents. Different, I suppose.”

I always recognized a thin undercurrent of superiority in Robbie’s tone. As if his parents would, naturally, be complicated people with complex lives, while mine would be simple, unadventurous rural folk.

“Well, they’ve never exactly been sweethearts,” I admitted.

“Or, if they ever were, it was before my time. Dad works the farm all day, and Mam’s spent most of her life regretting moving to the island.

I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so I don’t know why she stays, to be honest. She could leave if she wanted.

I thought she would when I moved away. But no. She’s institutionalized.”

“Are you close to them?”

“I’m not close to anyone.”

He looked directly at me as if he wanted to ask me something but wasn’t sure how I’d take it.

One of his legs was slung over the side of the armchair, his feet bare.

My eyes dwelled on them. Like me, like everyone on the team, he never wore shoes or socks when we didn’t have to.

Anything to let our hardworking feet breathe.

“Can I ask you something?” he said eventually.

“Sure,” I said.

“Wojciech. I’ve seen him coming and going from yours a few times. What’s that all about?”

I took a sip of my beer.

“We’re fucking,” I told him.

He seemed pleased that I hadn’t bothered to obfuscate.

“How long has that been going on?”

“A while.”

“And are you, like, in love with him or something?”

I burst out laughing. “Christ, no,” I said. “He’s just a hookup, that’s all.”

“Does he feel the same way?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

He raised his voice and asked Siri to change the music to something less high-energy than we’d been listening to.

“So is that how it’s always been for you?” he asked.

“Being gay?” I asked. “Yeah.”

“You’ve never been with a girl?”

“Nope.”

“Fuck.” He shook his head. “Not even, like, to try it out? To see if you might enjoy it?”

“Zero interest,” I said. “I’m a gold-star gay, me.”

“You know,” he said, pointing a finger at me, “I had you figured out long ago.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The day I met you. When you came to the club and were all, Hi, I want to be a professional footballer, where’s my contract, where do I sign, when’s my first match? I could see the way you were looking at me. I knew it then.”

I smiled but didn’t say anything. Yes, I’d been attracted to him, but that wasn’t why I’d been staring at him so intently, nor was it why I had worked so hard to establish our friendship.

“You were so obvious,” said Robbie.

“Does it bother you?” I asked, and he took a long draft from his beer.

“Couldn’t give a fuck,” he said. “Why would I?”

“I don’t know. This whole football world.”

“No one cares about shit like that, not anymore. Shag whoever you want. The only people who’ll give you stick if it comes out will be the fans in the stand. The opposition stand, I mean.”

“Nothing could matter less to me,” I said, which was the truth.

They shouted abuse during every match anyway.

Because I’m blond, good-looking, and look about twelve years old, they called me a faggot whenever I came anywhere near them.

Water off a duck’s back. I barely noticed their presence.

I was on the pitch strictly to earn enough money to live the future I wanted, when I would neither have to run up and down a field nor work on one.

“And what about you?” I asked tentatively. “Have you ever done anything with a guy?”

He paused for a few moments and smiled. “Are you hitting on me, Evan?”

“Maybe.”

“Nah, not my thing.”

“So, never, then?”

“Like you with girls. Zero interest.”

“OK.”

“Do you have a crush on me?”

“Yes.”

“You’d like to fuck me?”

“Sure.”

He seemed pleased by this. I hated his ego. And yet I was drawn to it.

“Are you going to tell people? About being gay, I mean.”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know. To be brave, or whatever. Footballer comes out, all that crap. David Beckham tweeting his support to make sure he’s part of the story. You’d be BBC Sports Personality of the Year before you knew it.”

“I don’t want to be a poster boy.”

“Why did you come to this club anyway?” he asked. “Of all the clubs in England, why this one?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

“I came because I wanted to meet you.”

His smile faded a little then. It was one thing for him to enjoy the fact that I had a crush on him.

It was another thing entirely to think that I might be some type of stalker.

He seemed confused, even unsettled, by this revelation.

But it was the truth. I had come there for one reason and one reason only.

To have some hold over Rafe—and Sir—if I ever needed it.

We remained silent for a few minutes, then he put his bottle down and stood up, walking over to sit next to me on the sofa.

He looked me directly in the eye, then reached out and placed both hands on my shoulders.

I closed my eyes. I wanted him to start something; if it was going to happen, then it had to begin with him.

He moved in close enough to kiss me, but still, I did nothing, waiting for him.

Instead, he stood up and walked toward the windows, opening the curtains so I could see across to my own building, the lights on in some of the apartments. We were exposed to them, and they to us.

“I feel like I could ask you to do anything right now,” he said, looking back at me. “And you’d do it. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Probably, yes.”

I could see the outline of an erection in his sweatpants.

It was nothing new. He often had one in the dressing room after training or a match and, rather than hiding it, he flaunted it.

He came over and stood before me for twenty, maybe thirty seconds, waiting for me to do something.

He glanced back toward the windows. The smell of the earth was in my nostrils. A slow grin spread across his face.

“OK,” he said, lifting his phone from the coffee table and opening the home screen. “Pick a number. Any number between one and thirty-eight.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Twenty-two,” I said.

He scrolled down and sucked his breath in. “Oh, good call,” he said. “Holly. Total slag.”

“You list your girls by number?” I asked.

“It’s simpler that way. Keeps them in a neat list in my contacts. I put their names, pictures, and details in after that. The best thing about Holly is—”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“Bro, all I gotta do is text her and she’ll come over.”

I stood up, relieved and disappointed at the same time. Collecting my jacket, I turned toward the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Home,” I said. “Where else?”

“Stay. Try something you’ve never tried before.”

“Me, you, and number twenty-two.”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

“I’m not into girls.”

“And I’m not into guys. So what? We’d both enjoy it.” He hesitated. “And, you know, we could—”

“We could what?”

“These little slags love to be filmed.”

“Or I could stay,” I said. “And you could put the phone down. And call no one.”

“It’s just… nah,” he said, shaking his head. “Me, you, and number twenty-two. That’s what I want. Just you and me? Nah. Doesn’t work.”

“Pity,” I said, walking away.

It was the last time I would see Robbie before the night out after the QPR match, which led us to a bar, to a nightclub, to Lauren Mackintosh, back to this apartment, upstairs to his bedroom, and, ultimately, to a courtroom.