Lukas was watching television. The Cartoon Network. Dora the Explorer. Matthew didn’t care.

Ginny watched Dora.

All he wanted to do was sit there.

It was almost over anyway.

Afterwards, Lukas watched Scooby Doo, the Power Puff Girls, though halfway through Ben Ten he fell asleep, or Matthew did.

Matthew didn’t know what had happened.

One moment Lukas was in the sitting room, the next he was outside. Matthew supposed he had fallen asleep somehow, inside Lukas, and he woke with a start.

Lukas jumped.

And wondered what the fuck had just happened.

He stopped. He was in the garden flying a remote control plane, and he let it crash into the house. It hit the stone wall below the roofline and fell into the shrubbery.

Lukas went to retrieve it. He had to climb through the shrubbery and he was wearing shorts. Short shorts, and a singlet. A black one. The shorts were white. He had flip-flops on his feet, and a baseball cap on. A red one, in the reflection of a window.

He pulled the Messerschmitt out of the dirt and dusted it off. One of the propellers was broken. The wing was cracked.

Lukas was pretty pissed off and was telling himself he should have gone down to the lakeside to fly it properly so that he didn’t crash it into the house. He had thought he might have crashed it into a tree, but didn’t think he was stupid enough to have crashed it into the house.

‘Dummy,’ he said.

He walked up onto the terrace, put it onto the wrought iron table and sat down in one of the chairs.

McCady stepped out onto terrace through one of the French doors.

‘There you are, Crumpet,’ she said. ‘I’ve been calling you.’

Lukas didn’t want to speak to her. He scratched his side, under his singlet and looked up at her.

‘I’ve got your tea ready.’

Lukas nodded.

‘Do you want me to bring it out here?’

Lukas bit his lips and looked down at his feet. He was pissed off about the plane, not that she would understand.

‘Okay,’ he said, nodding.

She would probably bring her own out here anyway. It wasn’t like there was any way of escaping her.

Lukas had the plane in his hands and was frowning at it a few minutes later when she reappeared with the tray.

‘Have you broken it?’

Lukas nodded.

‘Well, petal, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed, I’m sure.’

Lukas supposed it could be, if he could be bothered taking it to someone. It wasn’t like it mattered, anyway. He had a hundred of the fucking things.

‘Shall I be mother?’

She always was. It was years since he had done it, but she still asked, as though his pouring the tea out for them was one of her fondest memories and she wanted him to take it up again.

He laid the plane aside and picked up a sandwich.

If only Matthew would ring, come over again. That had been so good yesterday, going up to the beach with him. Like they were friends again. Though Lukas was afraid of spoiling it. Of saying something, or doing something stupid that would make Matthew not want to see him again.

If Matthew knew he was gay, if Matthew learned that, then there was no way Matthew would want to be hanging around with him. There was no way Matthew would want to be gay with him. He had seen him naked. He wasn’t interested. That had been obvious. He had simply frowned at Lukas’ groin when Lukas had said that about his pubes. Why had he said that? Shown Matthew his fucking cock and balls?

Lukas bit into the sandwich, and chewed, dejected.

He was so fucking small. And Matthew – man, his cock was so fucking big. And Lukas had seen it! The head of his cock in his jeans!

He smiled, chewing, and pressed the side of his hand down into his groin.

‘Well, then, that’s better. Something’s cheering you up,’ she said.

Lukas coughed, choking a little on the sandwich.

He swallowed, took a sip of tea, and looked over at Matthew’s statue.

Man, he looked better than that. Better than that, even.

On the beach yesterday, his chest. He was so fucking big.

‘Have you got any scones?’ Lukas said.

McCady shook her head.

‘I haven’t made any today,’ she said. ‘But I can do some for you if you like.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lukas said.

‘No. I’ll make some this afternoon,’ she said, hopping up. ‘I’ll go and take the butter out.’

Lukas was transfixed by the statue. He stood, after she had walked through the door, and watched her disappearing into the depths of the house, as though he was afraid she’d see what he was going to do.

He walked over to the statue and ran his hand down its back, feeling the space between its shoulder blades and letting his hand travel down its spine until it was cupped over its arse, his fingers trailing the space between the arse cheeks, trailing down between them, down the crack, and feeling underneath. The perineum.

Matthew knew all at once what this was and he recoiled.

This was…

Lukas was remembering…

Matthew writhed in the bed and ripped the glasses off his head, scratching the sides of his head, and knowing, as he did this, that he had jerked Lukas’ hand away from the statue.

Lukas had been thinking how he hated the statue, how it was imperfect, for him, ruined, for him, because it had no cock and balls.

But it wasn’t that which had affected Matthew. It was the memory of what the statue was, the memory of how it had been made.

The statue wasn’t just any man.

It was a statue of him.

Lukas had been running his hand down the crack of its arse and remembering what? How he had had a handful of slippery, wet, and cold plaster of Paris. How he had dripped it all over Matthew’s body. How they had cast the statue from Matthew’s body, in Lukas’ basement, taking three days, while Matthew stood naked, having dripping wet plaster of Paris smoothed all over his body, over his chest, over his thighs, between his legs, around his cock and balls, up the crack of his arse.

Matthew sat up.

How the fuck had he forgotten that?

He had spent three days holding that same fucking pose. Naked. While Lukas cast sections of him. His fucking cock and balls hanging out. Lukas’ hand in his arse crack. And underneath him, between his legs.

Matthew felt giddy.

No wonder he hadn’t wanted the fucking cock and balls done.

It had been bad enough.

He had been stupid enough to think no one would recognise it when it was him.

It was obviously fucking him. It was his face. His body. The only thing that had saved him was that his cock wasn’t there.

What would his parents have said then? His father had said it was obscene.

Though was that because…?

You know, he said to himself, I think I must be really fucking stupid, sometimes.

How would the thing have been made from fibreglass if it hadn’t been cast?

He knew that.

He knew how it’d been made.

What the hell had he done? Forgotten it deliberately?

He had a shower, and afterwards, when he had straightened up a bit, he went downstairs and spoke to his mother.

Ginny was in the sitting room, watching television, sucking her thumb.

‘Mum’s angry with you,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘She says you’re unrecognisable to her.’

Matthew smiled, listening to the way she trawled through unrecognisable.

‘Do I look any different to you?’ he said.

She shook her head, wide eyed, surveying him, her thumb in her mouth.

In the kitchen, his mother was slicing vegetables.

‘Can I talk to you?’ he said, standing on the other side of the bench.

She shrugged her shoulders and kept her head down, slicing a carrot.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he said.

She finished chopping the carrot and turned around, swiped it into the pot with the knife, turned back again. She picked up an onion, not looking at him, sliced around it and peeled the skin off.

‘I didn’t mean to get angry. It was a joke, Mum. Those things. Between Christian and me. A guy thing. I wasn’t wearing them.’

‘I didn’t think you were wearing them,’ she said, emphasising the wearing.

‘Well, they’re not some kid’s jocks. Okay. I shouldn’t have said that…about…It was something I read in the paper. They were just a joke. Between Christian and me.’

She nodded, keeping her head down.

‘I would have thought Christian would know better,’ she eventually said.

‘Oh, Mum, he’s not like you think he is. I’ve told you that before.’ In his parents’ eyes, Christian, the urbane sophisticate, could do no wrong.

His mother stopped, and looked up at him. Obviously, she had been crying.

‘And what about the drugs, Matthew? What the hell are you taking?’

‘Nothing, Mum.’

‘Don’t give me nothing. I can see it in your eyes. You think I don’t know my own son?’

He said nothing.

She went back to the onion.

He stumbled. ‘They’re antidepressants,’ he said, after the silence had stretched interminably.

She stopped slicing the onion. Freezed, and looked up at him.

‘Antidepressants?’ she said, whispering it, as though she was afraid Ginny would hear them. ‘Not one of those SRI things. You know I had problems with those.’

‘It’s not, Mum. It’s something else.’

‘And who gave you them?’

‘Dr Pearson.’

‘Well, what’s the problem, Matthew?’ her voice rising out of a whisper. ‘Why is this the first we’re hearing of it?’

‘It’s personal, Mum.’

‘Are you suicidal?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You know it’s the biggest killer of people your age.’

‘It’s not, Mum.’

‘It is, Matthew. It’s the biggest killer of people aged fifteen to thirty-five. It was in the paper yesterday.’

How could that be right? How could more people be killing themselves than dying in other ways?

What was wrong with the world if that was true?

‘Anyway, Mum. I’m sorry. Really. For what I said.’

She nodded, and went back to the onion.

‘Can you not tell Dad about it?’

‘What? That you’ve been prescribed some drug which is making you violent, aggressive, unreasonable. You really blew up today, Matthew. I’ve never seen anything like that from you.’

‘I’ll get off them, Mum. Over a week or two. You can’t just stop taking that sort of thing.’

She nodded.

And there was silence.

She finished the onion and swiped it into the pot.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Come and give me a hug.’

He walked around the bench and hugged her.

‘I’m really trying, Matthew. I haven’t had a drink in three days, you know.’ She released him, ‘And you go and throw that in my face.’

‘I didn’t mean it, Mum. I didn’t know you were trying.’

‘Well, I am, Matthew. And you don’t want to end up like me, so don’t start. Go back and see Dr Pearson tomorrow and get off these things. Get something else, if you need it. But get off this stuff, whatever the hell it is. You know what happened to me with that Zoloft.’

She had been sectioned. He was hardly likely to forget it. But then, you weren’t supposed to drink with the things.