The casts came off, and Matthew was able to walk again.

There were some scars on Matthew’s legs, where the screws had been, and where his legs had got trapped, but they weren’t that bad.

‘A lot better than I would have expected,’ his father said.

Most of them were below Matthew’s knees, where there was some hair to cover them. The only one above his knees was on the back of his left leg, behind the knee, and it wasn’t that bad, Matthew told himself. He looked okay, and he was lucky not to be like some people, who were deformed, or horribly burnt, or injured. He might not look like Lukas. He wasn’t beautiful, at least, he didn’t suppose so, but he was lucky.

Lukas came to visit again, and he was driving. A Jaguar. A new one, that Lukas had told him he had bought, though Matthew hadn’t seen it.

Matthew knew, almost instantly, that there was something wrong about this. He frowned, as he saw Lukas pull into the drive. Lukas didn’t have a license.

Matthew opened the door and went to meet him.

‘Did you get your license?’ he said.

Lukas halted mid-step. ‘Do you remember?’

‘What?’

‘That I didn’t have my license.’

‘I don’t know.’ Matthew tried to think for a moment. He had thought…but did?...he didn’t know.

He shrugged his shoulders.

Lukas said Matthew could take him out on the boat. They could do that, if Matthew wanted to. Did Matthew remember how to sail?

‘I don’t know.’ Matthew shrugged his shoulders again.

‘Think about it.’

Lukas was always trying to get Matthew to remember. And it was annoying. His parents didn’t do this. Ask him if he remembered things, and tell him to think about things, and bring him things to show to him, but Lukas was always doing it.

‘I suppose so,’ Matthew said.

He remembered tack, and trim, and reef, and mast, and tiller, and he could imagine sailing, imagine trimming a sail, and tacking, and he knew running and heeling and reaching and broaching. He knew what these things meant.

And then suddenly, he had a clear picture of himself, sailing, on a clear day, alone, in his sloop, on the lake, when he was sixteen or so, when he had just got the boat.

And he knew all at once that it was the day after his sixteenth birthday, when he had gone out, against his father’s instructions, and sailed on the lake on his own.

‘I’ve got a boat,’ Matthew said.

Lukas smiled. He nodded.

On the lake, it was cold. There was a bitter wind blowing, and the sky was overcast. The boat was heeled over, and they were running with the wind, and Lukas was smiling, wearing a white woolen pullover and a red jacket which matched his lips.

Matthew turned to him, and smiled, and then he looked out over the lake. The sun shone, momentarily. The water sparkled, suddenly blue, and blinding with needles of light. Matthew looked up at the sail, full from the wind, and they were racing.

He turned to Lukas again, and smiled, and then he remembered suddenly.

‘You gave me a key.’

‘What?’

‘One day on the boat, you gave me a key.’ He had to raise his voice. ‘You said I could do what I wanted with it, and I pretended to throw it in the water. Do you remember?’

Lukas frowned. ‘You threw it in the lake.’

‘No.’ Matthew smiled. ‘I put it in my pocket.’ He paused, and thought a minute. ‘And then another time I posted all these keys to myself when…’ Matthew stopped.

He frowned.

And then suddenly, his whole life came into view, like the lights of an enormous city, powering up from darkness, the lights in one tower flickering on, and then in another, and then another, until the light spread outwards, and everything was bright.

Matthew knew who he was, and where he was.

He looked at Lukas, and swallowed.

‘Are you alright?’

Lukas nodded, frowning.

‘I’ve got to move back to Lukas’,’ Matthew said to his father.

His father was in his study. He was distracted. He had a stapler in one hand, but he had his back turned, and was looking on the shelves. He turned to face Matthew, and frowned.

‘I remember everything. And I’m sorry, Dad, but Lukas is…’ Matthew was determined to say it. He knew that it wasn’t true, but he was determined to say it. ‘Lukas is my boyfriend. And I’m going to England next year.’

His father dropped the stapler.

‘I’m not going to the conservatorium. I’m going to live with Lukas.’

Mr Mason sat down. He looked at Matthew for a moment, and then he turned his head down.

‘You know he’s not…You know what he did to himself?’

‘I know, Dad.’

‘Do you remember what you said to me?’ Lukas asked him a few days later, when Matthew had arrived at Lukas’ place, when his parents had gone, and they had got all of Matthew’s stuff upstairs. They were sitting in Lukas’ sitting room. ‘You said that Dr Mueller had done something to me.’

Matthew frowned.

‘When did I say that?’

‘Just before the accident.’

But Matthew didn’t remember anything from just before the accident, and they had told him that these memories would probably never come back. That was the way with head trauma.

‘I was probably trying to blame him, for what I did to you.’

‘Do you remember the glasses?’

‘Glasses?’

‘The black ones, with the little pins in the side.’

Matthew felt his heart pump a little faster. Did Lukas know about the glasses?

‘What about them?’ he said.

‘You took them over to Christian’s. Were they Christian’s?’

‘They were his cousin’s,’ Matthew said, but he turned his head away as he said it.

‘Do you remember when I put them on, I…’

Matthew looked at him, and frowned. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Matthew started biting his lips.

‘You know, Matthew, you don’t have to…feel so bad. I mean…I do…forgive you, for what you did.’ There was a pause. ‘And if you want to…if you want. Not that you probably do, but if you want to, we could do something.’

Matthew felt a lump in his throat as big as a wad of bread. He swallowed. He had known this would happen, that he would have to do something with Lukas. And now Lukas had nothing, no cock, no balls, and he probably looked like a freak.

He was obviously worried about it, and Matthew would have to play along. He would have to say that it was fine. He would have to say that Lukas’ groin looked okay, and that it was okay, even if it was awful.

He tried to smile a little.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What do you want to do?’

Lukas shrugged his shoulders.