Chapter Text
Marseille, France. July 1994.
Jean is 6, Kevin is 10
Jean plays alone in the back garden, as he has done for hours. His mother, having pushed him outside early in the morning, has locked the terrace doors for good measure.
It's well past lunch and the hunger has set in, but he knows better than to knock and ask. Through an open window on the first floor, his sister has been crying from her crib for almost an hour. The sound is gnawing and twists in his stomach into knots; wanting very badly to go inside and see if she’s okay, but he knows he can’t. Instead, he has no choice but to occupy himself with a half-deflated football and the warmth of the sun.
The day is much like the previous, much like he imagines the next will be. He pushes at the football with his toe and thinks about what it would be like to play with someone else. A similar thought used to make his chest feel tight, but now it’s more hollow. Empty.
He’s pulled out of this by a loud yell, and his head whips around. He can’t see anyone, just the blackberry bushes and the lawn, grass half dead from the sun. He frowns, confused. Sometimes birds will nest in the bushes for ease of access to the berries, but he hadn’t heard the flap of their wings. He looks to the sky, trying to spot the bird flying away, when he hears another noise.
“Ouch,” the voice whines quietly – a hitch of breathing and a small whimper following after. Someone is behind the blackberry bushes, he thinks, and is confused as to why. Their house isn't close to any of their neighbours, and the footpath runs parallel to the road at the front. No one should be out walking here behind the bushes, which are wild, untamed and have been allowed to grow tall enough to obscure a person.
Jean stands, and blackberry bushes continue to rustle whilst the little whimpers continue. It’s only when the front of the bush shakes that he realises whoever they are must be inside of it.
“Hello?” he asks, and the sounds stop very suddenly as Jean takes a few steps closer. “Is everything alright?" A silence follows, but he continues to try. “Do you need help? ”
"Please, can you help me?” he hears, and Jean is suddenly aware that the voice is coming from a boy, and also not speaking French. He thinks it might be English; he’s had very little exposure to the language, so he can’t be sure. He thinks of the men his father’s age who come to the house and sit in the salon. They drink and smoke and laugh loudly until very late at night. When they leave, Jean will hear his parents mutter insults about them that he doesn’t understand. Those men speak English.
“Are you here with your father?” he asks in French, because it’s the only reason he can think of for an English-speaking boy to be in his back garden.
“Please help me,” the boy replies, his voice small and broken. Frustrated, Jean approaches the blackberry bushes and walks along their edge until he reaches the point where he knows there is a small opening. He discovered it a few weeks before when a rabbit hopped across the lawn and through it, disappearing into the sharp branches.
When he carefully puts his head inside, he’s met with the sight of a boy lying in dried dirt and tangled in the sharp, thorny branches. They wrap around him, over and under in messy knots that trap him tightly. Jean can’t imagine how he managed to climb into the bush like this – it doesn’t seem possible – and even more confusing is that he’s facing Jean. Had he crawled backwards?
He is older than Jean by a few years at least, with black hair and a tear-stained face. He realises two things: firstly, the skin of his back and arms is covered in jagged scratches where the thorns dig into his flesh. Secondly, the boy is naked.
The shock of it sends Jean flying backwards, catching his cheek on a thorny overhang as he does. He lands hard on the lawn, the dried grass doing nothing to soften the fall, and tears immediately well in his eyes. He scrubs a hand across them as his mind races. If one of the English-speaking men had brought a boy with him, he certainly wouldn’t be naked in the bush. He can’t understand why anyone would want to be inside the bush at any rate, sharp and nasty as it is, but without any clothes?
“Please don’t leave. I need you to help me,” the boy pleads again, louder, and Jean is no closer to understanding him but can tell that he is crying. His head turns to the terrace doors. He contemplates knocking on them and calling for his mother to come, but he can’t explain how this naked boy got in the bushes in the first place, not in a way that would satisfy her. He thinks better of it, hoping she doesn’t hear.
Cautiously, he approaches the hole again, and when he sticks his head inside, the boy’s wide green eyes land on him. His face is puffy and red, and Jean watches as his lip trembles.
“How did you get in here?” he asks.
“Is that French? Are you speaking French?” the boy replies, and Jean can only shrug his shoulders helplessly. The boy heaves a hitched sigh in response, more tears threatening to leak out of his eyes. “Can you get your mother? Your—" he pauses for a moment, "your mama?” He adds a lilt to the word that confuses Jean until he understands what he’s trying to imitate. It’s close enough that he recognises it, although he could never use the word himself. When his parents’ friends come to the house, his mother refers to herself as Jean’s maman, mostly when holding a glass of wine and pinching his cheek until it hurts. He knows better than to use it himself, sticking to mère.
“Non, non maman.”
“You don’t have a mother?”
“Non maman,” he says again, unable to tell if the boy understands. He seems to because he looks deflated and rests his cheek pitifully in the dirt.
“I don’t know where I am. I think France? But I’m not sure. I’ve only ever been to Paris with my—" the boy stops, and his lip trembles again. “I’ve only ever been with my mother. I want my mother. I—” and Jean watches as he begins to weep.
He doesn’t meet other children often, and especially not like this. When he does, they tend to be smaller, brought to the house alongside other guests, and he’s told to keep watch whilst the adults talk. They cry a lot, loudly and sometimes shrieking. This boy is different. He’s trying to contain his sobs despite Jean looking directly at him, because he doesn’t want him to see. That is how Jean cries, too.
He wonders if their mothers are the same, if this boy’s mother hits and shouts. Jean can’t seem to make his mother happy; he’s always in the way somehow, under her feet and taking up space. He’d tried to learn to be small and quiet, but it seemed to make no difference. Wherever he was was not where she wanted him to be, and she would use her quick tongue and quicker slaps to let him know.
Jean reaches a hand forward, slowly and gingerly. Despite his efforts, he still gets scratched by some of the thorny branches, but he continues anyway until the tips of his fingers can touch the other boy’s hand. When he does, their eyes meet again. He’s struck by the colour – he doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone with green eyes before. They shine even in the shaded canopy of leaves.
The two of them stay like that, he doesn’t know how long for, and don’t say anything else, yet still for a moment Jean feels a little more understood. After a while, the boy gives him a watery smile.
“I’m going back, I think.”
Jean doesn’t understand and tilts his head to the side.
“It was nice meeting you.”
He’s still confused when the face in front of him starts to waver. He looks blurry around the edges – like a badly timed photo – and as the blurriness grows, he can’t help but snatch his hand back. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. He watches as the boy gets fuzzier and less real, edges wisping away like smoke, until very suddenly he’s gone altogether. The only proof that he was ever there is some misshapen and bent branches, the small compaction of the dirt where he’d been lying and a few spots of damp where the tears had rolled off his cheeks.
Jean stays like that, head in the blackberry bush, staring at the space where the strange boy used to be and wondering if he’d imagined it. He’s only dragged back to reality by the sound of the terrace door opening and his mother’s harsh voice calling his name.
Marseille, France. August 1994.
Jean is 6, Kevin is 13
Ever since seeing the boy in the blackberry bushes, Jean has been more interested in spending time in the back garden. Most of the day, he stays on that side of the garden, waiting for the sound of the bushes to rustle and the boy to reappear.
When his mother had found him the first time, she’d berated him loudly and cuffed his ear so hard that a ringing noise echoed around his skull. The explanation that there was a naked boy trapped in the bush who was now inexplicably gone did not make things better, and he ended the evening in bed with fresh bruises and no dinner. As he sniffled quietly, he wondered if he really did make the boy up, but what a strange thing to imagine. And he’d seen the imprint in the dirt.
After two weeks of stalking the bushes and only finding one terrified rabbit, he stops. His eyes still drift over when he hears a noise – the wind rustling the leaves or a bird perched on one of the branches eating a berry – but he doesn't run over to inspect any more. After almost a month passes, he gives up hope and let's the hollow feeling come back. That is why, when on a ripping hot day in August, Jean hears a sound behind the blackberry brush, he doesn’t even look up. Instead, it is the sound of a voice that interrupts him.
“Psst. Hey kid,” it calls, and he almost twists his neck with how fast he turns it.
From his spot on the terrace steps, he can see a face peaking out from behind the bushes, hand waving.
“It’s me, remember? From the bushes?”
Jean nearly tumbles over with how fast he tries to stand. Even from this distance, the face registers in his memory, and he starts to run, desperate to check and make sure it's true, but the boy holds a hand up.
“Wait, wait. The towel, can you pass me the towel?” The familiar voice is exhilarating; the fact that he can’t understand a word of what he’s saying doesn’t deter him.
Since that day in July, Jean had been trying extremely hard to pick up English. He’d strained his ear at the door outside of the salon when the men had come to drink with his father, but they spoke too fast for Jean to comprehend. He’d hoped his mother might switch the television on. When she was in the mood, she sometimes watched English television, but it wasn’t very often. In the past month, she’d turned it on a handful of times, and only to watch French shows. He hasn’t been able to pick up anything.
He looks at the boy excitedly and watches as he sighs.
“French, right. I don’t know how to say it. The towel, towel please?”
Jean listens to the odd way he tries to affect an accent again, the same way he had the first time with mama. It sounds funny to his ears. He follows the boy’s pointed finger to the sun bed on the terrace and the towel his mother had left there the previous day. She’d wanted to tan in the sun – had done the past three days – and left it here, but hadn’t come back to claim it. Instead, when Jean cracked open the door to her bedroom this morning, the curtains were still drawn, and she’d barked at him to leave her alone whilst she nursed a headache.
Jean looks at the towel now, confused. Was the boy wet? They were near the coast, but the ocean was a long walk, long enough that the blazing heat would have dried him by the time he reached the house. He’s confused until he is struck by the memory of the first time, of course. He hadn’t had any clothes then.
When Jean looks at him, he’s still pointing to the towel, so he grabs it and runs over, balling it up in his hands so that it doesn’t drag on the floor. When he’s a few feet away he stops, suddenly nervous, because something is different. He can't explain why but some is off: changed from the last time. The boy reaches out his hand, nodding, so Jean cautiously passes the towel and watches as he disappears behind the bush. When he comes out a few moments later, he has the navy-white-striped towel wrapped around him like a dress, the same way his mother does when she gets out of the shower, and it makes him giggle despite feeling anxious. He catches himself fast, but the boy still notices and looks down at himself. He’s tall for his age, but the towel still hangs long, close to his knees. When he looks back up, he lets out a little laugh too.
“I do look pretty stupid.”
Jean gets a closer look at him now. Same green eyes, same black hair (maybe shorter now); it’s definitely the same boy from before, but he is different, too. He’s much taller, and there’s something on his face, a black mark under his eye that Jean has to step closer to see. He does so without thinking, and squinting in the sunlight he realises it’s two lines drawn in dark ink. The boy seems to realise because his free hand, the one not holding the towel tightly closed, comes up to tap it.
“It’s the number two. I know this one: deux,” he explains.
To Jean’s ears, it comes out closer to doo, but he’s able to understand, like the roman numerals on the clock in the dining room.
“Why do you have a ‘two’ on your face?”
It’s a pointless endeavour because the boy just looks at him and shrugs and shakes his head.
“I didn’t think I’d come back, so I didn’t learn any French. It is probably a lot easier than Japanese,” he sighs, “but I guess even if we can’t understand each other, I can at least learn your name.”
The boy sits down in the grass, shuffling to get comfortable in the towel before patting the ground across from him and nodding. Jean does as asked, sinking down to the ground and hugging his knees. He watches as the boy points to himself.
“Kevin,” he says, and slowly repeats it two more times. When he’s done, he points at Jean expectantly. He mirrors the action, pointing at himself and doing his best to guess that Kevin is the boy’s name and not a random word. It also seems he would like one in return.
“Jean.”
“John?” Kevin asks, but manages to mangle the pronunciation entirely. Jean wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.
“Jean. J—ean,” and he drags out the first letter so he can hear the sound better.
“Jean?” he tries again, and it’s a little better, but not great. He takes pity on him and nods anyway.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jean.” Kevin sticks out his hand, and Jean takes it. When they shake, he feels the strength behind the grip. “It would be nice if we could speak properly. I want to know where in France we are. Also, what year it is.”
Kevin leans back on one hand, looking up at the sky.
“Maybe the south of France, with how warm it is? I’m not sure about the year, though. All of the houses in Europe look so old, and I can’t see any cars from here.”
Jean just watches as he speaks. He’s pale, maybe paler than he’d been. He remembers the way the thorns had scratched at the skin of his arms and back, angry and red, but the marks of it are gone now. Instead, a purplish bruise has spread across the skin of his forearm, yellowed at the edges. Jean knows that means it’s a few days old. He wonders if Kevin got it the same way he had the scratches: appearing naked in a place he didn’t belong.
When he notices Jean staring, he looks down at the bruise.
“It’s from Exy practice. One of the backliners checked me. It’s okay though, it’ll fade. And it’s worth it to play.”
Jean can see his expression, half-smiling, half something else that he can’t decipher.
“I wonder if they have Exy here yet? Depending on the year, I think the national team got set up in 1991? That would be Paris, though.” Kevin gets faster as he carries on speaking. “Have you seen it on TV? They play with racquets— long sticks like this.”
Jean watches as he stretches his hands wide, miming the length of something.
“Maybe it’s too early for that. But Exy’s going to be big. You’ll see it soon at the Olympics and—”
Suddenly, he stops talking, a strong shiver wracking his body
“I’m going again, I think. I’m sorry. It was nice meeting you, Jean. Maybe I’ll come back.”
Jean is as mesmerised the second time as he was the first when Kevin starts to become blurry. It was a longer visit than the last time, but it still couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, and Jean doesn’t want him to leave. He watches as the haloed edges of the other boy go misty and ghost-like. He starts to reach out, wanting to know how it would feel under his fingertips, but Kevin jumps up and stumbles away when he does.
“No, don’t—” he starts, but trips and starts to fall. Jean shoots up to try and help him, but by the time he does, Kevin is gone, and the towel falls to the ground with a light thud. He feels a sadness wash over him. He had stopped wishing for friends before this, but suddenly one was dropped out of the sky into his back garden anyway. He’s spent weeks dreaming about the boy from the bushes coming back, and now that he has, he’s already gone? It doesn’t seem fair when Jean would like very much to have a friend. He rubs at the hot sting of his eyes with his palms and looks again at the towel. When he retrieves it, it’s still warm, and he holds it to his chest for a while.
Eventually, he turns to walk back to the terrace and put the towel on his mother’s sunbed before she realises it’s gone, but an idea occurs to him. He folds the it neatly into a square and makes his way over to the blackberry bushes, finding the same gap he’d entered through before and shoves the towel in ahead of him. He pushes it deep enough into the twists of branches that he can still reach, but it is heavily obscured, and he pulls himself back out. When he inspects it from the outside, he can't see it at all.
He has no way of telling Kevin the towel is there, but maybe he’ll know still.
*
Jean holds out hope for even longer this time, but Kevin doesn’t come again that summer. As the heat of it fades and the birds feed on the last few remaining blackberries, the chillier air makes him stop wishing altogether. October is wet like it is every year, and Jean spends very little time in the garden, instead he sits at the table near the terrace doors. He peers out every so often, but no one appears. He decides it is probably for the best that Kevin doesn’t come; he would only end up naked and shivering in the rain.
By his birthday, which passes without much fanfare from his parents, the November air is much colder, the skies much greyer, and Jean’s time indoors much more fraught. His father starts watching sports on the television in the salon, loud and with a lot of enthusiasm. The first time Jean peers at the screen to see if it’s anything he recognises. The colours are bright and the movements quick, and they are distracting enough but not very interesting.
He’s content to let the shapes dance in front of his eyes when he hears a familiar word from the commentator, Exy.
He remembers the word from when Kevin had said it, and suddenly he’s much more interested. What he gathers from the fast-paced commentary (much of which he can barely understand) is that the sport itself is called Exy, and it is played with frightening brutality. It’s quickly very obvious – after Jean watches a single – that this is how Kevin got the bruise on his arm.
He’s shocked by how often the players collide with each other and how common the injuries are (despite the helmets and padding). Many times, opposing players clash sticks like giant swords, or even throw them aside and use their fists instead. He can’t quite marry the two in his head: Kevin, who had been kind and fun, and Exy, which is violent and frightening.
It seems to pique his father’s interest, and also his temper, endlessly. Jean finds himself on the receiving end of many more tirades and blows that winter. It is an unwelcome change from being blatantly ignored, but he suffers through it to watch the matches and feel even a little bit closer to the other boy. He prefers to shoulder it anyway, if only to shelter Elodie. At two years old, she’s talking a lot and walking around the house more often, which means more chances of catching their parents' ire. He does his best to distract them – taking the blame for not moving her sooner when she was in the way and not stopping her before she breaks something.
When Christmas comes, Jean expects nothing, the same as the previous year. His parents celebrate every year by drinking copious amounts of wine and hiring a private chef to cook a lavish meal, but never with presents. On Christmas Eve, his mother haphazardly decorates an old plastic tree, but nothing wrapped usually goes underneath it.
His father leaves an envelope on the mantle above the fireplace, Chloè scrawled across the front alongside a satin jewellery box. The envelopes always contain neatly stacked banknotes. Traditionally, his mother will open them first and count the amount dramatically, lavishing a kiss on his father’s cheek at the end before moving on to the box. Sometimes it’s earrings, sometimes a necklace or bracelet, but always diamonds.
When Jean comes downstairs that Christmas morning, he expects this routine, which is why he’s so surprised to find a long, wrapped box under the tree, nearly as tall as himself. He is even more surprised that it is addressed to him.
When he sits and opens it under his parents’ watchful eyes, he does so very slowly – neatly unfolding the paper and trying not to tear it. What he finds inside makes his stomach drop: a cardboard box adorned in colourful logos and bright fonts is a child’s Exy racquet.
“You’ll be starting in the new year. There’s a youth team in town.”
He stares up at his father, and for the first time that he can remember, the man runs a hand through Jean’s hair.
“I expect you to try very hard. Show those other children how strong the Moreaus are.”