Matthew didn’t believe in magic. He didn’t think it was possible to control a person’s thoughts. To get inside their mind.

‘But I can show you,’ Christian said.

‘Bullshit.’

‘Okay, take Lukas,’ Christian said.

‘Lukas?’

‘Yeah, you know – little Lukey boy from school.’

‘M-mm.’

‘I can get inside his mind.’

Matthew didn’t believe this.

He got off the bed and checked his phone.

‘I’ll get him to call you.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll get Lukas to give you a buzz – by this time tomorrow.’

‘So what if he does?’

Matthew hadn’t seen Lukas in months.

‘Well – you’ll try it. If I get him to call you – you’ll try it.’

‘Whatever. Can we do something else? I’m sick of being inside.’

‘It’s stopped raining.’

#

Lukas phoned at six a.m. the following morning. Matthew was in bed.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, Matt. It’s Lukas.’

‘Oh, hey,’ Matt said, trying to open his eyes.

‘How’re you going?’

‘Yeah, okay. What time is it?’ He squinted at the clock.

‘It’s six…oh one,’ Lukas said.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I just thought you might want to do something today?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah – like, catch a movie or something. Would you want to?’

‘Maybe. Hang on.’ Matthew rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow. Outside, it was raining. He could hear the rain on the roof, and see the pattern of the water on the window, though it was almost dark outside.

He hadn’t expected Lukas to call.

‘Did Christian tell you to call me?’

‘What?’

‘Did Christian tell you to call me?’

‘No – why would he?’

He wouldn’t. That was just the point. And if he had, Lukas wouldn’t have called, almost certainly wouldn’t have, because Lukas and Christian weren’t friends, had never been friends, and weren’t likely to start being friends now.

‘What do you want to see?’ Matthew asked.

‘I don’t know – maybe Resurrection, if you want to.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure. Why not?’

#

Matthew hadn’t expected to see Lukas again. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he had supposed, now that school was over, that they wouldn’t be seeing each other again.

Once, they had been friends. Best friends. Though that was a long time ago.

Now, well, they had barely spoken to each other in years, apart from this last term in art class, where they had worked together on a sculpture for final submission.

Most of the work, naturally, had been Luke’s. Matthew was no artist. And he wouldn’t have chosen the discus thrower piece, which he had understood, eventually, only because Lukas had explained it to him.

‘It’s about Greek art,’ Lukas had said.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s about degradation.’

The sculpture was nude but somehow beautiful, in a way that wasn’t immediately apparent. It was missing its genitals. They had designed it together, supposedly, though Matthew felt he had done little, or nothing. Lukas insisted it was half his, that the idea of the missing genitals had been Matthew’s. Matthew couldn’t remember. The whole thing had seemed like a dream, drawing the sketches for that statue, as though he had gone back into his childhood, when Lukas and he had been friends. His idea for leaving out the scrotum, and then the penis, had simply been because he was embarassed about these things, though in the end Luke had made it look somehow natural, as though the guy was supposed to look that way.

Matthew didn’t know if Lukas was gay, but he could remember a time, in grade school, when Lukas had leant over during a lesson, and kissed Matthew on the cheek. In those days they had had their arms around each other all the time, or so it now seemed to Matthew.

‘Look at the little faggots,’ one of the older boys had said, when they moved into the high school, and from that point things had quickly changed.

Lukas hadn’t seemed to understand, though it had been clear to Matthew from the first. They couldn’t be seen touching each other like that.

‘Get your hands off me!’ Matthew had said one lunch time, in front of a group of boys. ‘You fucking faggot.’

Lukas’ pale skin had flushed bright red. His eyes had started to water. Matthew had felt terrible. He had wanted to take it back, and had felt like putting an arm around Lukas, as he had done hundreds of times before, and comforting him.

‘Lukey-boy!’ Christian had said, hopping up. ‘Poor little Lukey-boy.’ He had put his arms out, as though he was going to hug Luke, but had held him by the shoulders and kneed him in the groin.

The boys had all laughed while Lukas had been on the ground clutching his groin. Most of them had known Lukey and Matty for years, had seen them together, touching each other, and been friends with them. They had thought nothing of it. The new boys, though, and Christian among them, had changed everything. They were in the senior school now. And the rules had changed.

That afternoon, Christian had befriended Matthew.

And Matthew had turned his back on Lukas. He had shunned him.

#

They agreed to meet on the station at St John’s Wood, and when Matthew arrived he saw Lukas standing alone on the platform, looking up the line, blond-haired and frail in the drizzle. He looked like he was about to jump. He was wearing a red jacket, and had his hands thrust into its pockets.

‘Hey,’ Matthew said, coming up to him. He touched Lukas’ arm.

‘Oh hey!’ Lukas said, turning, surprised as though he hadn’t expected to see Matthew. Fine droplets of water lay in his hair, on his eyebrows and cheeks, as though he was impervious to water. Like a duck. He was flushed with the cold. Pale and red at the same time. His green eyes were clear and smooth and solid somehow, as though they were stones.

Matthew swallowed. ‘You looked like you were about to jump,’ he said.

‘I was thinking about it. Just what it would be like,’ Lukas said, ‘not really doing it. I’m not going to kill myself.’

‘Well that’s something.’

Lukas smiled, uncertainly, as he always did, his mouth prepared to contort with dissapointment, as though he was expecting it. He looked worried.

‘I didn’t think you were going to come.’

‘I’m early,’ Matthew said, and looked at his watch. ‘We both are.’

Lukas lifted his shoulders and tried to smile again. ‘I didn’t want to miss the train. I thought I’d go anyway, if you didn’t make it.’

There was a moment of silence, and Matthew felt uncomfortable. He was aware, once again, of how pretty Lukas was. He was like a girl, Matthew thought, as he had thought many times before. Soft blond hair. Red lips. Flushed cheeks. Yet he was obviously a boy – a man now, Matthew supposed, though he looked no more than fifteen. Matthew wondered if he had had a party for his eighteenth, but supposed not.

Lukas breathed a puff of mist into the air.

‘What have you been up to?’

‘Not much,’ Lukas said, glancing into Matthew’s eyes, and flickering over them, as though he was searching for something.

‘Why are we standing in the rain?’ Matthew said. It wasn’t really raining, but it was something to say.

They went and sat down. There was no one else on the platform. The drizzle turned into rain, became heavy. It echoed on the tin roof.

‘I got into the Royal College.’

‘In London?’

Lukas nodded.

Matthew was surprised. ‘I really didn’t think you’d do that,’ he said.

‘I told you.’

Still though, it was a surprising thing. The Royal College of Art. How had he done that? ‘I didn’t think you were that good.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Sorry – I just…I don’t suppose I know much about it.’

‘How about you?’

‘Conservatorium,’ he said. Matthew played the piano.

‘That’s okay.’

‘Yeah? I don’t suppose there’s any point to it, though. Dad’s idea.’

‘Don’t you want to go?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t really care. I don’t want to do anything.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘M-mm?’

‘It seems pointless doesn’t it – everything.’

Matthew winced, and looked away, turning his head around as though he had something to look at. When he looked back at Luke, he saw that the boy was shivering.

‘Are you cold?’

‘Freezing!’

Matthew frowned, and studied his face. Lukas could have been in a snowstorm, in the Antarctic, for how cold he looked.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be Danish?’

‘I’m not an explorer,’ Lukas said.

Matthew smiled. And then there was silence. ‘Have you seen anyone from school?’ he said, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Lukas wouldn’t have seen anyone from school, hadn’t had any friends in years.

Lukas shook his head, his teeth chattering. ‘No. That’s why I rang you. I felt like doing something,’ he said, saying it as though they spoke on the phone all the time, and went places together, when they never did.

‘It was pretty early!’

‘What?’

‘It was pretty early to be ringing a person. Six a.m.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize.’

‘Sorry. I mean – whatever.’

‘How come you did?’

‘What?’

‘Ring me at six a.m.’

‘I don’t know. I just thought…I had an idea I could ring you, now that school was over, that maybe you’d want to be friends again. But I had to ring at six.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I just thought that if I rang at six, you’d say okay.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Matthew eventually said. ‘I think like that sometimes.’ But he was thinking about Christian, and how Christian had said he’d make this happen. That had to be bullshit.

‘So do you want to?’

‘What?’

‘Be friends again.’