‘So you started fighting?’
‘Yeah. I didn’t like bullies, so it started there. If I saw another kid getting picked on I’d go after the bully. They got bigger and harder, and I got angrier.’
‘How long did it go on for?’
‘A while.’
Longer than he cared to admit.
‘And what did your parents do?’
‘Nothing.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘One single teacher noticed and took me under his wing. He got me into a mandatory after-school sports programme with swimming, cycling and running.’
‘And the fighting stopped?’
‘Yeah. All the kids had gone home by the time I got out, so the same opportunities to fight were gone. Besides, I’d always been too busy and too knackered to fight after that.’
‘And your parents?’
‘It was like it never happened.’
‘You’re in contact with them?’
There was an odd note in her voice.
‘They called when I got back from Gaza.’
‘To tell you they were proud of you?’ she guessed.
‘No,’ he answered flatly. ‘They called to say they were glad I was safe and to remind me I should write a medical paper on the medical practices out there.’
‘Do you...that is...what do you think they’d make of Imogen?’
‘Honestly? I don’t know.’
They would probably tell him that he’d made a grave mistake, and that he’d never be able to focus on his career the same way with some kid in the background. But he couldn’t tell Evie that. He couldn’t hurt her that way.
It shocked Max to realise that he might have felt a similar way himself once, before Imogen had burst into his life and enriched it in a way he would never have considered possible.
* * *
She shook her head but her silence spoke volumes, her eyes trained on the coffee mug, around which her hands were cupped tightly.
‘Just don’t be so quick to believe nothing has ever got to me,’ he continued, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. ‘I’m not as infallible as you seem to think.’
Or indeed as he had thought himself. Shocked by his own revelations, Max changed the conversation to something less charged. Something that he knew Evie would jump to discuss.
‘Tell me more about Sally.’
Her questioning glance made him smile.
‘I’m interested. Please, humour me.’
‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘Like I said, she struggled with issues of feeling unwanted. Like...you, I guess. She somehow managed to get herself into university but she wasn’t ready for the demands of the course and she really started to spiral. She started going out clubbing and drinking, every night to excess.’
‘Like most students.’
‘Not exactly. Then she started on recreational drugs. But when she was with the campus counsellor about to be thrown off her course she had enough guts to tell her what was going on. That’s when she came to me.’