Love in Revolution (2 page)

‘Zikindi . . .’ someone said, in disgust.

The boy tilted his head gracefully, as if in acknowledgement. He probably was Zikindi. He had the right colouring for it: light brown face and hair, a kind of lustrous tinge to his skin, and pale eyes. He surveyed us, like a king looking at his courtiers, and then spoke to the Bull, as directly as if they were the only people there. ‘If you’re afraid to play against him – he’s a peasant, after all . . .’

The Bull narrowed his eyes; if he’d had horns, he would have lowered them. Then he turned away, and called into the shadow of the fountain, to the other boy, the one he’d been talking to before.

‘Hey! Oi, kid!’ he called. ‘You sure you want a game? I don’t want to send you home a cripple . . .’

‘Yes.’ The voice was odd: hoarse, a little too loud, and sort of blurred, as if the tongue and mouth didn’t fit together properly. It made me want to clean out my ears.

But then he stepped out into the sunlight, from behind the fountain, and the voice didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

He was like an angel.

He was blond and slim, a little dusty and grimy but blazing gold and white in the sun. He was wearing peasant’s clothes but they looked like a party costume, as if just the fact that they touched his skin transformed them into something rich, something special.

‘Shut your mouth, Esteya, you look like you’re trying to catch flies,’ Martin said.

‘Shut up.’

The Bull glanced over his shoulder at the crowd, but what he saw seemed to reassure him. No one wanted to see the Bull beaten, especially not by this too-pretty-to-be-true peasant boy whom no one had seen before. He was
too
beautiful; I could see the resentment on the faces around me. They wanted to see his face smashed in – or a little bruise, here and there, at least. No one wanted him to win. Certainly not.

Except me. And maybe the Zikindi boy, who was watching too, with a crease between his eyebrows.

I looked back at the peasant boy and prayed, the way you pray for a miracle.

‘Er . . . you are?’ the Bull said. ‘You’re sure? All right, well, I’ll be a bit nice to you. You play with the local kids, do you?’

‘No.’ The boy was staring at the Bull as if he was the only person in the world. ‘Never played.’

‘You’ve
never played
?’

‘Well . . .’ The boy swallowed, struggling for words. ‘With my brothers when I was small. And now . . . Not with other people. I play with myself.’

A fractional pause. Then Martin caught my eye and smirked; and in spite of myself I started to giggle. A couple of people looked at us, and then the laughter spread. Even the priest smiled, dutifully, as if to make sure we knew he’d got the joke.

‘I mean –’

‘It’s all right, sonny, it’s perfectly normal for a boy of your age . . .’ the Bull said, and winked, inviting another wave of laughter. ‘So you should have strong wrists, at least.’

‘I mean . . .’ He looked round, his eyes wide, seeming to register the crowd of us for the first time. I felt his gaze slide over my face like a question and wished that Martin hadn’t made me laugh.

‘All right then. Got a ball, sonny? Or didn’t you think of that?’

‘Yes, I have a ball.’ He held it out, like a child showing someone his favourite thing.

‘Two, I hope,’ the Bull said, and winked again. Then he plucked the ball out of the boy’s hand and took up a stance in the painted square, waiting for everyone to shuffle out of the way.

I tried to push forward to see properly, but Martin pulled me back. ‘You know he’s injured
spectators
?’

‘But –’

‘Can you imagine what Mama would say if you went home with your nose all over your face? You’d be an old maid all your life, and they’d blame me . . .’ Martin dragged at my elbow until I took a reluctant step backwards. Then he glanced round, briefly. ‘Where are they, anyway? Oh – wait, there’s Mama. I’d know that hat anywhere. Honestly, she could take someone’s eye out with that . . .’

But I didn’t bother to answer, because the court was clear now, and the Bull was rolling his shoulders and swinging from side to side, loosening the muscles. Everyone watched him, mesmerised. In the silence I looked sideways and saw that Martin was frowning, his lips moving as if he was trying to memorise the sequence of movements. I knew next time we played he’d insist on an elaborate warm-up.

But the boy – not that he was a boy, actually, he must have been seventeen or eighteen – wasn’t doing exercises, or even standing ready. He ought to have been in the middle of the court, shuffling a little, pretending not to be overawed; but he wasn’t. He was standing by the pello wall, looking at it as if it was a work of art, touching it lightly with his fingertips.

‘He’s completely barmy,’ Martin muttered. ‘He’s going to get pulverised. They’ll be taking him home in a sack . . .’

‘Hey,’ the Bull called. ‘You ready or what?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ The boy looked round, as though he’d been interrupted in the middle of a conversation. It wasn’t exactly rude, but all the same it made the Bull flush and heft the ball dangerously.

‘Good.’

The Bull served.

He hadn’t waited for the boy to get into the middle of the court; and he served a nasty, low little shot that was too fast to see, at least before it hit the wall. It leapt off the stone, straight into the boy’s face. He jerked his head aside, just in time, and there was a hiss of excitement from the crowd. But the ball flew over his shoulder and dipped, too quick for him to get a hand to it. He spun to watch it helplessly, as it landed just inside the baseline of the court. There were cheers and applause, and laughter.

Someone – I think it was Teddy – said, ‘Five love.’

The Bull stood where he was, his hands on his hips, waiting for someone to retrieve the ball and bring it back to him. There was a scuffle as the younger Ibarra girl shoved past everyone else and ran to pick it up, then ran back to the Bull with it. The other Ibarra girl glared at her.

‘Ready?’ This time the Bull waited, ostentatiously, until the boy was standing still and balanced, his eyes steady.

This time the Bull’s serve was just as fast, but it skidded up the wall and looped high over the boy’s head. He followed its trajectory, but he didn’t move. Someone whistled mockingly.

It dropped a little way beyond where the first one had, right at the back of the court. A little puff of brown dust rose and sank again.

‘Second serv–’

‘Ten love,’ the Ibarra girl corrected, and gave Teddy a vicious look.

‘But . . .’ Teddy frowned, and then caught the Bull’s eye. ‘Oh. Um. Yes. Ten love.’

‘It was out,’ the boy said. ‘Wasn’t it?’

No one answered. The Bull held out his hand for the ball, and the Ibarra girl brought it back to him. He rolled his shoulders.

‘You didn’t even move, kid,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you another serve if you want, but you didn’t even
try
. . . Know you’re beaten already, don’t you?’

‘But I knew it was going out –’

Before the boy had finished speaking the Bull smacked the ball against the wall, a straight whistling blur of a serve that hit the wall then the ground, so hard it jumped back into the air, dropping and bouncing again until it fell dead at the boy’s feet. He looked down, confused; it had happened so fast he’d missed it.

‘It’s ten love now,’ the Bull said. ‘What are we playing, anyway? First to twenty-five?’

‘First to fifty,’ the boy said, his eyes widening. ‘It’s always first to fifty. Isn’t it?’

‘Hardly worth the effort.’ The Bull grinned, his nostrils flaring, and waited for the boy to stoop and pass the ball back to him. ‘Good lad. Ready?’

‘Wait a sec–’

This time the serve went out wide, beyond the boy’s reach; but somehow, too quickly for my eyes to follow, he’d thrown himself sideways and picked it out of the air as easily as taking something off a shelf. I blinked. The Bull started to say, ‘Fifteen lo–’ and then stopped, staring at the ball in the boy’s hand.

‘First to fifty,’ the boy repeated. ‘A pello game is always first to fifty. That’s what my papa says.’

The Bull looked at him in silence for what seemed like a long time. Then, finally, he said, ‘Twenty love.’

‘But . . .’

‘If you catch the ball, you have to throw it again within three seconds. That’s the rule. Since you’re such an expert. You’ve still got a hold of it, so you’ve lost ten points. Twenty love.’

No one was clapping now. The boy looked down at the ball in his hand. His fingers were white, the nails gleaming like bone against the deep red leather. He was frowning, like a little kid trying to do a sum that was too difficult for him. For a horrible moment I thought he was going to cry.

‘Stop thinking he’ll play fair.’

That voice again, clear as a bell.

The Zikindi boy dropped down from his perch on the windowsill, landing lightly, like an animal. He must have sensed the collective hostility as the crowd turned to look at him, but he didn’t show it. He called across the pello court, ‘No one plays fair. Not ever. Get used to it.’

The other boy (the young man, the angel) stared at him, his eyes narrowed, and then turned away. He went on frowning, but now his expression had something different in it, something hard. He threw the ball sideways in a little arc and caught it with his left hand; then he held it out to the Bull.

The Zikindi boy smiled a quiet, private smile. He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered over to us, not seeming to notice the way people drew away from him, or the Ibarra girl wrinkling her nose. The Bull glowered at him, then spat silently on the ground and took the ball. Then he swung his arm around, grunting, as if he was preparing for the biggest effort yet.

And the serve was
fast
. I didn’t even see it. I heard Martin say, ‘Wow,’ as it whistled and smacked against the stone, but then there was another duller smack, like an echo, and a thin skein of mortar dust dropping from the wall, and suddenly the Bull was diving for the ball and –

And it hit the ground, just short of the line. In.

There was a gasp from all of us, scattered, bewildered applause, and then silence.

Teddy said, carefully, as if he was trying out the words, ‘Um. Love twenty.’

The Bull looked at the ball coming to rest on the line, then back at the wall, squinting suspiciously. You could still see a faint haze of dust where the ball had hit, at the corner of a block of stone where the angle had thrown it off straight. Then he snorted and turned away. ‘Go on then. Your serve.’

The boy’s serve was soft – a friendly, pulling-its-punches arc that bounced gently off the flat part of a stone. But somehow it swerved in the air and dropped just a little too low, so that the Bull had to readjust his stance at the last moment. He grunted and whacked it back, off balance, but the force in it was still enough to make the boy dance backwards and hiss through his teeth as he returned it.

The square was dead silent, except for the impact of the ball and the players’ breathing, echoing off the walls. I glanced down and saw that Martin was gripping my arm, just below the shoulder. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. Suddenly his fingers spasmed, tightening, and I looked back at the court, just too late.

Teddy said, ‘Ten twenty.’

The boy was staring at the wall again, his head tilted. The Bull was at the side of the court, breathing heavily. There was a dark island of sweat in the small of his back. He kicked the ball up into the air with his toe, reached out to catch it, and flung a hand out for it, skidded and missed. It thumped down and rolled away.

Martin breathed, ‘Sacred heart, the Bull’s going to
lose
.’ It was a like a prayer.

Behind me, the crowd rumbled quietly. Someone said, ‘The kid’s fluking every shot,’ and someone else said, ‘You can’t fluke
every
shot.’

The boy’s next serve was too fast to see.

There was no applause now; hardly any sound at all. No one knew what to do, except watch. Teddy cleared his throat and said, ‘Fifteen twenty.’

The Bull won the next point, smashing the ball against the wall and down. It hit the ground in a splash of dust, and even though the kid got a hand to it he couldn’t get it back; but when the crowd tried to cheer, the Bull scowled and the sound petered out thinly in the sunlight. ‘Twenty fifteen,’ Teddy muttered.

But the Bull lost the next point. ‘Fifteen twenty.’

‘Twenty-five twenty.’

‘Thirty twenty.’

‘Thirty-five twenty.’

The next point was a long rally, full of shots that threw flakes of paint into the air from the sidelines, both players dancing back and forth, their faces set. It felt as though they were the only people breathing – in the square, in the town, in the country. I could feel the fierce weight of the people behind me, all willing the Bull on; but I was digging my nails into the palms of my hands, praying for the angel-boy. It was as if he knew in advance where each ball would go, as if the ball and the lines and the wall itself were on his side. Everything looked like a fluke, but they were right: you couldn’t fluke
every
shot.