An hour after the race I find Paul sitting in an alley behind the racetrack. I’ve been looking everywhere for him. He’s shivering uncontrollably, distraught and disorientated. His lucky jersey torn all down the back. It looks like he’s fallen because his shoulder blades are bleeding, then I realise it’s from sliding down the rough wall.
I’ve been asking janitors and competitors for him. I’ve been annoyed, then worried for him. When I find him relief washes over me. Then anger. Not at him. At the situation. I say his name but he doesn’t react. I walk up to him, but he doesn’t seem to recognize me. Even when I stand right in front of him. Even when our noses touch.
I can tell he’s had too much of the powders Mr Morton has prescribed. I’ve never been against them, realise they’re useful, crucial in fact. But some of the pills Mr Morton procures for the boy are clearly too strong. They make him very active, then very down. It’s awful to see, but it means Paul can enter twice as many races in a week than before.
‘Silas?’ he says, momentarily coming to.
‘Shh,’ I say, putting both my hands on his cheeks. ‘Don’t speak. I’ll fix you Paul.’
‘Did I win?’ he asks.
‘Don’t worry about that. Worry about yourself,’ I say.
‘Did I?’
‘Bronze. A very good bronze,’ I say, one hand now supporting his neck, the other still on his clammy cheek. ‘You qualified. Now rest.’
He’s in terrible shape. A boy champion, passed out in a seedy alley, all hopped up.
I don’t know what comes over me but I kiss him. He doesn’t even react. He tastes of salt. Butter and toast on his breath. Immediately after I regret it. I berate myself for letting my emotions get the better of me. What if we had been spotted? What if Paul will remember?
He seems oblivious to the world as I lead him out of the alley. I walk home on light feet. Paul lumbers by my side quite unaware. A dull, copper-coloured medal dangling from his neck. I can tell it was hard to come by tonight. It was the last position to qualify, and Paul did so by less than half a wheel.
I decide against a taxi. He needs to walk off whatever Mr Morton crams into the pills I’ve been told to supply Paul with. Luckily it’s not far to my place. The air will do us both good.
I take his hand. Tell him it’s fine, that men do that all the time in Greece. He tells me the pain in his left lung and leg is too much for him. His eyes water like he’s been chopping onions, just from walking.
After many breaks, and him drinking pint after pint of water from a flask I refill in every pub we pass, we’re on my street. I take him upstairs to my big rooms, newly appointed with saffron velvet and the latest Atelier d’Or wallpaper. White and yellow digitalis on an oxblood background. Cost me a fortune, but worth every sou.
Paul stands in the middle of the hall while I busy myself getting the bath ready. In the past he’s told me he needs one cold then one hot. I oblige. He gets in the first, the ice cold one, and I stand to the side and look. He doesn’t seem to mind, or notice me.
He’s explained that the pain from the shock of the cold water takes his mind from his body. Makes his muscles seize up, in a good way. Then down the drain the cold water goes and I bring a huge vat of water just about to boil. Paul, wet and cold to the touch, stands up and cups his privates with one hand. I leave him and fetch the next big pan. He still doesn’t seem to know quite where he is. The hot water goes in, and it steams up the room, I turn on the cold tap, blend the water with my hand, my face at his hip.
‘Sit down,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll make it right just for you.’
Now the swirl of the hand, the hand that can brush his thighs, the hand that can brush his chest. It’s just mixing, a tool for the best bath. It’s a hand that puts in bath salts, and pats Paul’s back. Squeezes his neck and shoulders. I’m just helping him recuperate.
‘Take it easy. You won a place on the next tier, the next qualifier. It’s as good as gold,’ I say. I look down on Paul. His eyes are now closed. ‘That’s it my boy.’ Paul’s now breathing slowly, slowly. ‘You can come here whenever you want,’ I say. I’m pretty sure I’m talking to deaf ears.
When it looks like Paul is sleeping I kneel by the bath. Slowly add more hot water. I watch my hand move from the neck, down Paul’s chest. His heart slow now. I’m fascinated. My hand is a five-legged crab crawling over freckled sand. It stops by his navel.
I stop myself. I take my hand out of the water and sit on the floor by the bath and listen to his breathing. It’s warm and steamy in the bathroom, and some condensation must have gotten into my eyes. I feel myself crying a little. Surely just a cold.
After the bath he looks better. We sit dressed in thick bathrobes. I’m drinking copiously. He’s both high and coming down at the same time. We talk absolute rubbish, giggle like girls and decide to cut Mr Morton out of our lives. We don’t talk about the crab crawling around on his thighs. I’ve decided it was just a dream.
The last bus thunders by, and I make a bed for Paul on the sofa. I say goodnight to him. I can’t sleep, so I check on him every now and then through the night. His breathing isn’t all that regular which worries me a little. Wouldn’t want him swallowing his tongue, or choking on his own vomit. I turn him over a couple of times. Tuck him in. Finally I must have fallen asleep.
When Paul wakes up in the afternoon he tells me his whole body aches.
‘It’s not the exercise,’ he says. ‘I’m used to that. I don’t mind the drugs so much. They make me faster. But after a race I feel horrible.’
‘You don’t look too good,’ I say. It’s both true and a bit of a lie. ‘You must stay here. I’ll keep an eye on you.’
‘I’m fine, I can go home, wouldn’t want to be any trouble.’
‘No trouble. Can’t afford to have you in hospital.’
‘Thanks,’ he says.
‘It’s just business. I don’t care either way,’ I say, then go and make him a cup of tea. Throughout the day I provide Paul with freshly ironed, emblazoned handkerchiefs to spit blood into. My mother would have been proud.
As the evening becomes night outside we listen to the radio in silence. He falls asleep in the middle of a symphony. I sit by the window, his slow breaths behind me. I drink another two inches of whisky, then pull his covers over him and go to bed. I toss and turn but can’t go to sleep. It’s because he’s right there. It’s because of what would happen to me if anyone realised. This makes me so angry that I don’t know what to do. I leap out of bed, snatch my robe and stride out to the sleeping shape on the sofa. While the anger and the bile about the whole situation is still up I shake him. I prod him and push him till he wakes up. I say sternly to his face, ‘Paul. This has been a holiday that will never be repeated. I will be sleeping late in the morning but you can show yourself out before six. This is not a private hospital, you realise.’ I hate myself for it, but that’s how it’s got to be. He just nods once and goes back to sleep.
I can’t sleep. I hear him leave in the morning.
***
The next time I see Mr Morton he tells me he wants Paul to race more. For less. He tells me again I need to make the boy more profitable, mentions he knows a doctor who’s come up with some miraculous new mixtures. I nod and say yes, but I’m not listening. I think about the strongbox in his office. Mr Morton doesn’t know that I know the combination, as I was there when it was installed. I know also that it’s not been emptied between last week and now and that it’s been a bank holiday, which always means more drinkers. Mr Morton talks about injections and slowly upping the dosage. I nod. I say yes. I can’t possibly continue this. It has to stop. For Paul’s sake. Still I nod and agree to all sorts of things.
When I finally get away from the Carousel I sit in a pub where I’m unlikely to bump into anyone I know. I think about things, I think about the future. I try to make a plan and think about the odds of me succeeding. It doesn’t look too good. My lapse in judgement is unforgivable. The flaw in my defences, taking him home and letting him stay like that, has really shaken me up. I might need some violence to level me. I drink and drink. Then I go looking for Rupert.