In the morning, Justin didn’t know what had happened. He was lying on the bed in the spare room, the room he had been allocated, in his T-shirt and his socks. He had his knees drawn up and his wrists locked between his knees. Behind him, under the crack of his arse he could feel something full and swollen.

Justin sat on the edge of the bed and cradled his balls gently. He didn’t understand what had happened, but his balls were swollen, though not sore. He owed Scott nine hits after the game of dice – that, anyway, was how he remembered things.

He had a dim consciousness, of hearing Scott’s voice, while he slept, counting, 178, 178, 178, as though each were the next number; and at the same time he felt his body jolt as Scott hit from behind, 178, 178, 178, though he felt nothing but the jolt, the softness of Scott’s fist hitting his sack, and couldn’t move.

He looked for his jeans. They were nowhere.

‘I found your jeans in my room,’ Scott said, coming through the door. ‘Your jocks too,’ he said, pulling them out of his pocket. ‘Here.’ He tossed the jocks at Justin and they hit him in the face. ‘Are you ready for your hits?’

Justin pulled the jocks off his face. ‘What?’

‘I owe you 178.’

‘What? What happened Scott? What is this place?’

‘It’s a hospital,’ Scott said.

Justin was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was in a hospital room. ‘What happened?’ he said.

‘You’ve got tonsilitis. You’re getting your tonsils out.’

‘How come I’m wearing a T-shirt?’

‘It’s a hospital gown.’ Justin looked down at the gown. It was black. It was so short and tight it didn’t even reach to his hips. It was stretched across his shoulders, and was meant, quite obviously, for a three year old.

‘Can’t they give me anything bigger?’

‘There, you’re holding it.’

Justin looked down. His ‘jocks’ was a hospital gown, and the jeans Scott had thrown him, a bathrobe. He stood up to get changed, and stumbled. ‘How long have I been here for?’ he said.

‘Three weeks. You almost died.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Sure I’m serious.’

‘Did they take my tonsils out?’

‘No, they said it wouldn’t make any difference. They don’t do that anymore.’

‘Where’s Carol?’

Scott shrugged.

‘Does she know I’m here?’

‘I don’t know,’ Scott said. ‘I tried to ring her – my Mum tried to – and we even went round to your place. There was no one home.’

‘Here, can you untie this?’ Justin said. He’d been pulling at the gown, and had just realized that it was tied at the back. ‘Why would they give you something like this?’ Justin said, pulling it off him.

‘It’s the children’s ward – the little kids ward. They didn’t have any beds upstairs.’

Still, Justin thought, they could have done better than that – and then, well, Scott had just got him one – a bigger one.

‘I don’t spose you’re ready for your hits.’

‘How many is it?’ Justin said.

‘One hundred and seventy-eight.’

‘What? How?’

‘Well, we were playing Galaga – at my place, when you got sick.’

‘Galaga? Why have I got socks on?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you do this up?’ He put his back to Scott and waited for him to do up the cords. Scott opened the back of the gown wide, like a cupboard.

‘That’s a bad scar,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’

Scott ran the flat of his palm over Justin’s back. ‘Mmm, it’s healing up okay, though, but it’s not gonna go away – not completely.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘You fell out of the window, don’t you remember? At my place? You landed on the rail – on your nuts!’

Justin looked down at his swollen sack. Was that what had happened to it? There was a cut in it – a fresh scar that had been sutured. Would they still be swollen if he’d been here for three weeks? He felt his balls. They seemed okay.

‘You reckon you could take the hits?’

‘Don’t, Scott.’

‘What?’

‘Keep going with this. I’ve got stitches.’

Scott smiled. ‘Just give in, Justin.’

Justin hesitated. He breathed in and held it. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Forget it. I cave.’

‘I win?’

‘Yeah, you win. Are you happy?’

‘Shit, yeah,’ Scott said, a big grin breaking out on his face. ‘You don’t know what I went through to get that.’

‘What?’

‘That admission.’

‘What admission?’

‘Guilt.’

‘Guilt?’

‘Sure, what else could it be. You know you could beat me if you wanted to, but you’re feeling guilty about it, so you give in.’

‘I’m not guilty about anything. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Yeah, right. You’re a Jew.’

‘What? What’s that got to do with it – and I’m not a Jew anyway. I had a Jewish grandmother.

‘Same thing.’

‘It’s not the same thing – and why would it matter, anyway? You’ve really got to stop this Nazi bullshit Scott. It’s nonsense.’

‘Like you’d know. You don’t know fucking anything.’

That was it, Justin thought. At that moment, everything suddenly became clear. He didn’t care what happened to Scott. If Scott was gonna treat him like shit for such a stupid reason, and when he was in hospital, who cared? ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Justin said. ‘I’m not gonna cave. I’m not gonna give you the satisfaction.’

‘Too late,’ Scott said.

‘What’s happened to you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You never used to be like this.’

‘You’re sick, Justin. You’re not seeing things clearly. You’ve got a fever.’

***

The following day was the forth of July – the Monday after the Friday that Scott had copped his eighteen hits in the forest by the fields. Justin stared at the calendar in the kitchen. He stared at his watch. He had woken today in his bed as though he had never been in a hospital, as though none of what he remembered had happened. It seemed like a dream though he couldn’t see how it could be. There were weeks of time missing, weeks in which he and Scott had listened to teachers and taken tests, played rugby and gone to training, made bets with each other and punched each other in the nuts.

How all of that could now simply be undone, he didn’t understand. And he wasn’t, of course, prepared to believe it. His watch was wrong, the calendar was wrong, he had forgotten coming home from the hospital, though he couldn’t, now that he thought about remember having been there on any day but one, which seemed like yesterday. And what had happened at Scott’s place?

‘Hi.’

‘Oh, hey, Mum,’ Justin said, looking up from his cereal. He was so pleased to see her that he got up and hugged her.

‘Wow, I get “Mum” and a kiss,’ Carol said.

Justin kissed her on the cheek. ‘You meant hug.’

‘And a hug – and a kiss.’

He kissed her on the other cheek where she was pointing.

Carol staggered to the fridge and opened the door, swaying slightly. ‘Is there any oranges?’ she said. She was wearing an old nightie, one of the ones she liked the best. In the sunshine beyond the kitchen window, the pale outline of her breasts and the space between her legs was visible, backlit.

Justin put his head down and continued on his cereal.

‘Hey, love?’ Oranges? Carol said from the sink without turning around.

‘I don’t know,’ Justin said. ‘I just got up.’

‘What were you doing all weekend?’

‘Me?’ It felt like a stupid thing to have to say but, ‘I was in the hospital,’ Justin said.

‘The hospital? Oh, so it’s a hospital now, your room, is it?’

‘My room?’

‘Are you taking something? Did you get something from Tracy?’

‘What? No!’

Carol was always accusing him of this – accusing him of stealing her Capanol or taxing her pot, hiding her needles (which he had done).

‘If you want some, you can ask me, you know? I’ll help you out.’

‘Fuck Mum! I’m a kid.’

‘Well, you’re a pretty big kid these days. When I was your age— ’

‘I don’t care! I’m not gonna be a fucking smack head!’

Carol rocked slightly and put one hand back on the sink. ‘Is that what you think?’

‘Sorry,’ Justin said. Carol claimed to have a back injury, had always claimed this, though when he was very little, it had just simply been medicine – the smack – there being no mention of a back problem.

Carol turned and faced the sink. She ran the washing up water and started piling the few plates on the side of it, the glasses and cutlery, sliding them in amongst the suds. Beyond her, striated light sparkled through the Yew tree, birds called, bell-birds and whip-birds. There was a sound, distantly of a lawnmower, and behind that, the contstant rumble of the motorway and the main road, a mile or so distant, a truck braking down a hill.

This was real, Justin suddenly felt. This was real life. He could see and touch it. He could feel the rumbled fabric of the cotton tablecloth under his fingers, taste the sweetness of the sugar on the cornflakes, feel the crunchiness of the corn, and be able to see how it might have been made from corn of the cob. He could feel the hardness of the wooden chair, the slide of his flannelette pyjamas, the bite of cold in the air from the kitchen window as Carol opened it, just to let some air in, as she was always saying.

This was his house. This was his mum. This was his normal life. He was a kid, a school kid, and today he would have to go to school. He was very lucky to have won his scholarship and be able to go to Grammar, a place he liked.

‘Have I been sick, Mum?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Carol said, staring out the window and washing the plates quickly, noisily, clattering them.

He took another mouthful of the cereal and chewed it, chomping slowly, and then swallowed.

‘Do you know what date it is?’

Carol looked at the calender beside her on the wall. ‘It’s the fourth of July,’ she said.

‘I think it’s broken,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’ Carol said, shaking out a pot and putting it on the drainer. ‘Why don’t you turn the telly on then?’

‘Mum?’

‘What? Why do you keep “Mumming” me?’

‘Have I been sick, really, have I been in a hospital?’

‘What’s up with you, Jus?’ Carol said. She sat down at the kitchen table wiping her hands on a tea towel. She reached forward and put her hand on his forehead.

‘Maybe you do have a fever.’

‘I think I had tonsilitis.’

‘Yeah? – Look, I’m sorry hon, if you were sick. You should have let me in.’ Carol got up and hung the tea-towel over the oven rail. She turned on the radio. ‘They probably won’t say the date,’ she said. ‘They’ll say the time. Don’t you have to get ready for school?’

‘I don’t know – yes…What day is it?’

‘What’s wrong with you, Jus?’

‘I feel like – all these things happened to me. I went to Scott’s place and I went to a hospital. I fell out of a window.’

‘You wouldn’t even talk to him.’

‘What?’

‘When he rang on Saturday, you wouldn’t even talk to him. You said you were writing. You’ve been locked in your room all weekend.’ Carol paused. ‘Johnson almost went crazy. I don’t know where he is. He spent about three hours scratching on your door, and then, when I looked through the keyhole, you were in bed – and you were naked…and, Justin, you were punching yourself. You told me to piss off. You know, Jus, you shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing – people who don’t like themselves do that sort of thing – and, well, there’s nothing not to like about you, is there? You’re getting quite big.’

Justin felt the cereal scraping in his throat. He tried to swallow, but coughed, coughing a few flakes of corn onto the tablecloth. He wiped his mouth and felt his head getting hot, suddenly flushing with blood. Carol had been looking at him naked! She had seen him…what?

Carol moved around behind the chair. She put her hands on Justin’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. Sliding her hands onto his biceps, she turned her head and began kissing his temples, the side of his face. Nuzzling her mouth into the side of his head, she put her tongue in Justin’s ear. Bit his lope gently.