Текст книги "Ravages"

Автор книги: R.A. Padmos

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

shame of not being able to control himself with a girl far too beautiful for his inexperienced fumbling.

There were the more mature encounters. Mostly pleasurable, almost none of them memorable.

Daniël’s touch had burnt traces in his heart and memories in his brain. The boy’s unassuming

inquisitiveness, his generosity as well as the vocal expressions of his love for Steve and his body, had

changed a man who thought himself set in his habits. Danny had made him aware he had found

something he didn’t even know was missing.

Whatever it is lying there is not his body. There’s nothing familiar about it. It is broken,

damaged beyond recognition. A condemned house; uninhabitable. No longer safe. And yet his beloved

sits beside a bed in a room that looks somewhat familiar, although he has no recollection of how or

why he, or rather the body he ought to call his own, came to be lying on that bed, connected to so

many tubes and wires. Daniël sits there and, with heart-breaking tenderness, touches a small patch of

skin on the inside of the right forearm. As far as Steve can see it’s the only part of the body that isn’t

hideously bruised.

His beloved moves his body slightly forward and bows his head deeply, and then he places his

lips against that patch of intact skin, kisses it. His beloved talks to him, but he can’t understand the

words. He can’t even hear the sound of his voice.

Steve yearns to feel those lips, those fingers. He belongs in those arms. The mysteries of the

universe, of life itself, have been unravelled before his eyes, but what’s the point if he can’t hear the

voice of the one he loves? But it can only be if he accepts his body as it is.

So he makes the journey home.

Too much. Too much. Pain and pain and pain. Screaming in his ears. Clawing white heat of

light behind his eyes. Shredding his skin to pieces. Mauling the flesh off his bones. Gnawing at his

bones to get to the nutritious marrow. Devouring him and spitting him out to start once more.

Daniël’s voice, as clear and real as the pain, cuts through it all. “Steve.”

He flees, shocked to the core of his being. His instinct tells him to get away as far as possible.

He then stops abruptly. He has to think, has to be rational about it. He knows he has to go back to his

physical existence and he believes he’s ready for it. But his body definitely isn’t ready for him.

Perhaps an ever greater shock than the avalanche of pain has been Daniël’s voice. Not a

memory, a vision or a beautiful dream, but the real voice of the real man, saying one word: Steve’s

name. His lover sits with him and watches over him. This is the absolute truth.

He accepts the journey back will take longer than he reckoned with, but he knows now for

certain there is a home waiting for him.

Chapter 5

All is quiet. His senses are at rest. He’s aware of Daniël being with him, he doesn’t need proof

to know. Death also is still there. Not doing much. It’s like a presence, observing Steve from a

distance, almost as if it’s curious to see what happens next. Steve has no illusions: Death will do its

job if it gets the chance. He doesn’t take it personally.

The monster called Pain, that’s a different story. Steve fears it deeply, although he knows the

only way to get back to Daniël is to face the terror and either defeat it or make peace with it. Or most

likely, defeat it by making peace with it. He doesn’t want that. He’s like a little boy in this, wishing he

could make it go away by closing his eyes very tightly and counting to ten. He wishes Daniël would

chase it away, like he fended off Death for Steve, though he realises even love big enough to stop

Death in its tracks won’t make the monster disappear. He knows, however, exactly what his beloved

would say to Pain.

“If you have to hurt someone, because that’s your purpose in this world, do it to me. I don’t

fear you. My body is strong. My love is stronger than my body. I can take it.” And he would take

Steve in his arms, with a tenderness that would move the monster to tears, but it still wouldn’t stop the

pain. He might be able, to a certain point, to trade his life for Steve’s, but pain, by its very nature, has

to be carried alone.

Daniël will be with him, every step of the way, but he has to be the one smiling his acceptance

at pain, without ever forgetting this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It had to be a wise man who said

that you have to make peace with the enemy, not with your closest friend.

For now he hardly dares looking in its direction. Daniël is touching him, is touching the one

small part that doesn’t hurt, but he can’t feel it without feeling the pain of the rest of his body. So he

keeps himself from feeling anything. That hurts too, but it can’t be avoided for the moment.

It’s hardly a conscious decision when the part of his brain responsible for smell kicks into

action. The first impression is disappointing. It’s not really bad or even frightening in its

overwhelming complexity, it’s just something he knows he smelled before and he didn’t like it then

either. And it certainly isn’t Daniël. But he has patience, accepts the facts for what they are.

Disinfectants. Soap, but not one of the nicer ones. Blood. Some traces of human waste. A handful of

people coming and going; the females somewhat sweeter than the males, but all with the same

undertone, like they have something very essential in common.

It’s there. It’s really there. Daniël’s scent. He smells of not enough fresh air, of coffee and

takeaway meals, of needing to change his clothes. He smells of Daniël. He smells of home. The scent

fills Steve with sweet memories. It gives him the courage to look at the monster called Pain, even if

it’s only for a few seconds out of the corner of his eyes. It’s enough to make him tremble with fear. So

he forces himself to look exactly one second longer than he dares. But then he’s forced to look away.

He rewards himself by concentrating fully on Daniël’s scent. With a bit of trial and error, he

even succeeds in blocking out all other impressions for a few precious seconds. It’s almost as if he’s

close enough to his beloved to be actually capable of touching him. In a way, he is. In fact, he is not.

He ignores Death and the monster, he even ignores his own craving to feel Daniël’s touch on

that small part of his arm, to hear his voice, and he concentrates on the memories brought on by the

scent of his lover. Them doing their laps at the start of training and them being on the pitch during that

away match against Liverpool, he on the right, Danny at the centre, both of them concentrating on

their job as defenders, waiting for the signal...

No, too early for that. Much too early. He sees the monster stir, getting ready to pounce. Even

Death looks more interested.

This is better. Last summer, June to be more precise, and it had been raining for days. The boy

was going mad, desperate for air and exercise. Steve, going mad from Dan’s restlessness, had pushed

him out of his apartment for a long walk, with the instruction to stay away until he had run off all

excess energy. Obviously having sex a dozen times during the last 24 hours hadn’t done the job.

Daniël returned wet to the skin and with a glow to his face that would have made Steve fall for

him then and there, hadn’t he been up to his ears in love with the man already.

Steve had taken him in his arms, not caring about getting wet himself, and he had pushed his

nose against his lover’s neck and inhaled deeply. “I can still smell myself on you.”

He smiles at the memory of summer and rain and Daniël’s scent being indefinable and yet the

one thing he will be able to recognise blindly from millions of other scents for the rest of eternity. He

knows it like a mother knows her child. He knows it by head and by heart. It will never stop being a

part of him. Elements are ever changing, depending on a wide range of food, activities, the brands

Daniël’s using for his personal hygiene, his health. The ground note however is solid. Despite

everything that seems to happen around them, this is what anchors him to his physical existence.

He holds on to it. Sometimes, it seems to be gone. At such moments the beast stirs, licking its

fiery tongue so close to Steve’s skin he feels how the burn finds its way to the marrow of his bones. It

is then that Death shows a renewed interest.

Daniël always returns before the monster delivers Steve into Death’s arms. But it still exhausts

him, makes him want to retreat more fully. He doesn’t. Because of Daniël. And because of something

he can’t put into words, but is there all the same.

So he’s more than grateful when he discovers that at a certain moment, Daniël’s scent is still

there with him, even if his beloved seems to be gone for a short time. The scent is stable and very

close by. A shirt worn by Danny, carefully placed on the pillow, close to his face? Such a clever boy.

It makes Steve look at the monster called Pain long enough to realise he’s ready for the next

step: he’s going to find Daniël’s voice. He knows now what to expect and it all happens in such

overwhelming abundance that he has to try several times before he’s even able to accept any sound at

all.

If the scents and smells were too much to take in all at once in the beginning, the noise is so

much worse. There’s beeping and rattling and voices, voices, voices. There are things he doesn’t even

know the name of producing sounds he has no idea how to describe.

It takes an enormous effort from Steve before he’s able to sift through the sounds. There are

routine sounds, mechanical things that are just there all the time, stable and perhaps irritating, but not

indicating imminent danger. He recognises footsteps. Sometimes of individuals, fast and slow.

Sometimes of whole groups. There are voices. He has no idea what they’re talking about, or even what

language they are using, but at least he knows they are human voices. It’s never fully quiet. How do

they think his damaged body is supposed to heal with such a racket?

He needs to hear Daniël’s voice, so why can’t they all shut up? It’s difficult enough as it is:

making sure his beloved’s scent isn’t drowned out by disinfectants and coffee and a dozen other

smells he has no use for. The vile mixture of sounds only makes it so much, much worse.

He’s prepared for the monster. He thinks he is. Of course, he’s mistaken and pays the full

price. And still he refuses to let go of that filmy thread connecting him physically to Daniël. He knows

beauty and peace await him as soon as he decides to let go, and he wants to let go so desperately all he

can do is hang on and let the monster do its job.

When he thinks the hellish noise is finally going to drive him truly insane and the pain makes

him want to take refuge in Death’s embrace, a sound so small he shouldn’t be able to hear it, finds

him. The monster called Pain retreats. Death lets its welcoming arms drop by its sides. He doesn’t

recognise the sounds as words, doesn’t even recognise the language, although he realises Daniël must

be talking to someone. For now, it doesn’t matter: as long as the boy talks. He wants to drown in the

beautiful familiar sound of his voice, in the small laughter and reassuring whispers. Together with

Danny’s scent, it lulls him into a state of near perfect bliss.

If only he would be able to see him, feel him...

He can’t stay in this dream-like state, however appealing it may be. He has to concentrate.

Daniël is talking. His beloved uses words. Words have meaning. Understanding the meaning of those

words is essential. Steve has no idea why, he just knows. So he concentrates instead of letting the

gorgeous sound rock him into oblivion.

Funny though, he hears Daniël talk, but no answer from the person he’s talking to. No duet of

voices, no back-and-forth, no question and answer. An interesting riddle Steve doesn’t have time to

solve because another person enters the room. That person, a man according to the timbre of his voice,

says a few words to Daniël. Daniël answers and the change of tone is so clear and abrupt, Steve can’t

help but wonder what it could mean. Danny doesn’t sound angry or upset, or any less beautiful, just

different.

For a moment, he just listens to the two men talking. He hears concern, a hint of anger, but not

directed at Daniël, who sounds like he trusts the other man, like he knows him very well, but not like

he knows and trusts Steve. They are friends, not family, and definitely not lovers. And if Daniël and

the man who isn’t Daniël are friends, then that man could be friends with him as well, Steve realises.

Matthew? Captain?

Daniël is not alone in this. Matthew Kirkby is standing right beside him, showing friendship

and support. That’s good.

Another person enters the room. Another voice. This time he gets it almost right away: Gael

Dominguez. A sign perhaps his consciousness is seriously starting to work again? Still no meaning to

the words, but that’s a matter of time, he expects.

Again: friendship and concern. And he’s not sure how or why, but both Matthew and Gael

sound distinguishably different when they specifically talk to each other. It’s subtle enough to make

him realise he wouldn’t hear it if he could have concentrated on the content of their conversation, but

since the sound is the only thing he seems to be capable of processing, he’s sensitive to exactly these

easy-to-miss distinctions.

Every now and then, Daniël’s voice gets this special warmth that goes straight to Steve’s heart.

Like a soft blanket, his lover wraps around him and gives him at least the illusion he’s somewhat

protected from the monster. The realisation that Daniël talks to him, offering him words that are made

of love, no matter their meaning, makes Steve strong enough to look at Pain longer than ever before.

He’s still crippled with fear, but he looks and he doesn’t look away until after what feels like an

impossibly long time.

When Matthew and Gael are gone, Daniël is still with him; sometimes talking, sometimes

silent, but nearly always there, with his scent of coffee and different kinds of food and that hard to

define something. With his gentle fingers against the few centimetres unmarred skin, even if Steve

can’t feel it, he knows. And he leaves the shirt with his scent on the pillow when he isn’t beside the

bed.

The words come so gradually, Steve even misses the beginning. He just hears Danny singing:

very, very softly, and almost shyly.

"‘t Is in de kamer zo stil, zo stil…

Zijn de kinderen al naar bed,

of lopen ze nog buiten?

Zijn de kinderen al naar bed,

of lopen ze nog buiten?"

(It’s quiet in the room, so quiet

Have the children gone to bed,

or are they still outside?

Have the children gone to bed,

or are they still outside?)

He wishes he could see this: his beloved blushing and carefully touching the man he loves and

singing a lullaby for him, perhaps to remind him he’s safe and unconditionally loved.

Daniël no longer sings.

“Alsjeblieft Steve, wordt wakker. Laat me je mooie bruine ogen zien.”

(Please, Steve, wake up. Show me your beautiful brown eyes.)

A soft sigh.

“Wat zal er van ons worden?”

(What will become of us?)

Silence.

“Vergeef me. Ik kan het niet helpen dat ik ongeduldig ben.”

(Forgive me. I can’t help being impatient.)

More silence.

“Ik laat je niet in de steek. Ik hou van je.”

(I won’t abandon you. I love you.)

Steve looks at Death, looks at the monster called Pain and acknowledges them with a smile. He

allows the last remains of the perfect peace and wisdom he knows to be there, to slip through his

fingers. It’s time to open his eyes.

Chapter 6

Steve thinks that by simply envisioning opening his eyes he will be able to look at Daniël’s

radiant smile, hear him say something sweet and tender with that lovely accent, feel him touch his

face with careful fingers, feel his lips, dry and boyish, on his own.

That’s not how it happens. There’s still a long distance to go between a heartfelt wish and

taking that one step. A step that he somehow knows – although he’s still a long way off from the how

and why – is both a last and a first. Waking up and looking at Daniël is his most important goal for the

moment: he even imagines it being more important than making sure Death simply leaves and Pain no

longer terrorises him. But it will not be the end of his journey, no matter that he has absolutely no

vision of what awaits him after that first welcome back smile.

He pushes the question of why he is in this situation, why the need to fight for his life, why

he’s trying so very hard, and quite literally, to get back to his senses, to the far background of his

mind. There are monsters even more terrifying than the one he’s already facing.

For the moment, he’s enjoying the re-found ability to understand human speech. Most of the

time, he’s at a loss as to why people are saying what they’re saying or who those people are, but he

remembers having heard most of the words before, and it will have to suffice until he’s able to ask

questions. Able to truly remember.

“He’s stable at the moment ...”

“His blood pressure is still much too low ...”

“He needs more fluids ...”

“The infection should have been contained by now...”

“He’s had a relatively quiet night ...”

“His temperature has gone up again ...”

“We’ll need to do a brain scan to know more...”

“More morphine? Too much of a risk, I’m afraid...”

“What keeps him here? Honestly? I guess about half of it is our work. The other half? Depends

on whether you’re a religious person or a romantic...”

He accepts the voices of strangers as being non-threatening. Daniël would never let him come

to harm. In fact, his lover often talks to those strangers and those strangers talk to him. He guesses

they are the ones trying to help him, help his damaged body. He still prefers it when those strangers

are not there with him and Daniël: just the two of them, with Dan talking quietly to him, sometimes

reading out loud.

Weather reports from the morning paper. “They’re promising rain again. Just like yesterday

and the day before that. What’s new?”

The results from the latest match. “At least we walked away with a point against Fulham after

that disaster against the Gunners last Saturday. Dag made the equaliser in the 86th minute. Not the

prettiest he ever scored, but it counted. Perfect assist from Gael, by the way.”

A poem by E. E. Cummings.

“here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart)

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart.)”

And the menu of a take away pizza restaurant. “Thinking about asking Kurt if he can drop by at

the pizzeria, there’s a good one two blocks from here, for a quattro stagioni before he visits us. Could

do with a bit of decent junk food.”

Sometimes he is so full of joy to be able to hear Daniël talk for minutes on end, to hear his

voice among all the noise without the monster attacking him, without Death even looking at his

direction, that he forgets to listen to the actual words. He allows himself to flow on the waves of

Daniël’s sounds and scents.

*

Daniël is talking, but not to him, and Steve doesn’t hear anyone answer. Silly how long it takes

him to work out the obvious: the boy’s talking into a phone; Daniël’s line to his family and friends in

Holland. To his friends in England, who can’t be with him all the time.

Sometimes, Daniël speaks in his own tongue. To him. To someone else. Not the same thing. In

a single word, the tone of his voice changes. He listens to the words, separates them from each other,

even though he knows he lacks the knowledge to understand them. A few expressions, some to do with

love, some with anger he does understand, but apart from those all too rare exceptions, the words

mean Daniël’s talking and are, as such, worth his full attention. But most of the time he talks in

English, as if he’s beyond any doubt Steve is able to hear him.

“You should have seen the rain yesterday. I ran outside to feel it and ran back again because I

missed you more than the rain.”

“I miss you so much.”

“I miss you more than the colour of the sky or the feel of the grass when I sit down to listen to

the gaffer.”

“I miss you more than waiting for the toss so the match can finally start.”

“I miss you more than listening to really loud music.”

“I miss you more than driving a very fast classic car on an empty road.”

“I miss you more than my dad and mum and Naomi.”

“Come back to me...”

*

He remembers lying in Daniël’s arms one Sunday morning, still in bed after the private

celebration for the much-needed win against Blackburn, awake but not ready yet to start the new day,

asking him to talk to him in Dutch. It didn’t matter about what, just the sound of his lover’s voice

made him feel truly at home. He once asked if his lover didn’t feel any homesickness, talking his own

language in a strange country. Daniël hadn’t understood the question.

He appreciates it when Dan has visitors, people who tell him about the world outside, or who

simply listen to his silence. They visit Daniël in pairs and they visit him alone. They speak English

with French, Spanish, Danish and half a dozen other accents. Some stutter and fall silent, others cry,

most curse, but none of them stay away.

“The bastards ...”

“They should lock them up and throw away the key...”

“They should leave scum like that to us; one at a time against a bunch of us to make it fair ...”

“Absolutely fucking nothing can be used as an excuse for this ...”

“Bloody animals...”

“Animals would never behave like those kinds of beasts...”

“Who needs the devil when there are people like that walking around...”

“Rest your eye full of mercy on this man and his beloved and do not forsake them in their hour

of need...”

“Bloody hell...”

“Poor sod ...”

“I think I don’t even want to understand this...”

What are they talking about? They are his mates, they shouldn’t say such things, even if they

mean well. Aren’t they aware of the horrors they are setting free? And now it’s too late to shut his

hearing down on time. Too late to keep the monster from attacking him. A monster with changing

faces but all with similar distorted expressions of hate. The stench of leather and beer. The biting of

metal into his vulnerable flesh. The monster mocks him, tells him it knows about Daniël. Tells him

Daniël is disgusted by him. Tells him everyone is disgusted by him. The monster, who had been silent

until now, speaks with the voices of those Steve wishes never to meet again. He needs to warn his

beloved, needs to protect him, but he has forgotten how to use his voice, and his body is too broken to

fight.

When he thinks he can take no more, a calm voice cuts through it all. “You know we will not

leave you alone in this, boy. Both of you are part of this team, never doubt that.”

Steve guesses Arnaud Degaré has visited Daniël before, even prior to his ability to recognise

voices again. Time passes between his words, indicating a series of visits. He sounds concerned,

fatherly, when he talks to Daniël. He sits longer with him than most others, like he has a special status.

He is the gaffer; that should count for something.

“I know that, coach, but...” Daniël’s voice falters.

Steve knows Degaré will put a gentle hand on Danny’s shoulder and he’s grateful for that. Still,

it’s his duty and privilege to comfort Daniël, to cheer him up. He looks at Death, who’s standing far

enough away to give him the illusion, if only for a short moment, that the war has been won. Then he

looks at the monster and remembers there’s still a long way to go before he can take Daniël in his

arms and tell him they will face together whatever they’ll meet on their journey through life.

And Death is no longer as far away as it looked a short moment before.

*

“...I was so scared. I wanted my heart to stop beating when your heart stopped. Forgive me for

being selfish, but the thought of having to go on for fifty or sixty or even more years without you is

unbearable.”

Steve imagines Daniël’s lips on his arm.

“Alsjeblieft... Please …”

No, this is definitely not his imagination. He feels the dry lips so gently against the inside of

his right forearm that it’s easy to believe it’s just a beautiful dream. But it’s as real and true as

Daniël’s voice, as his scent, as his existence.

Steve opens his eyes. He looks into his beloved’s eyes. And his beloved looks into his eyes. It

is then that he knows with absolute certainty that he has made the right decision. He doesn’t need any

prophetic gifts to predict that what awaits him for a long time to come will be unimaginably hard. Yet

he’s prepared to go through every stage of hell, knowing he has been the source of the joy he sees on

Daniël’s face.

There is no need for him to close his eyes to know Death has retreated. Pain will be with him,

in all possible variations, during most steps of the way, and while he refuses to befriend it, he will try

to accept it for what it is. It’s no longer a monster to him.

He feels pain because he’s alive.

Because Daniël doesn’t have to mourn him.

Because he made it home.

Chapter 7

“Mr Gavan? Can you hear me? Mr Gavan? Steve?” The voice, clearly belonging to a female,

sounds professional, but doesn’t lack human warmth. The kind of voice he usually hears when he has

an injury bad enough to need treatment in a hospital.

“Please stay with us a little longer, Mr Gavan. You’re in a safe place. No one will hurt you. I

know that you can’t talk, but that’s because of the tube that helps you to breathe...”

Shut the fuck up. Just keep your trap shut. You’re not Daniël, so there can’t be a reason in the

world why you should even say one word to me.

“Mr Gavan, the doctor will be with you very soon. I promise you, everything will be explained.

This must be an overwhelming experience, but you are in good hands.”

Who cares? He doesn’t. He isn’t sick, didn’t tear a muscle during a nasty foul, he’s pretty sure

there wasn’t even a match, so what’s the talk about a doctor? He just needs Daniël. And he needs his

voice back so he can tell her to go away. He didn’t come all this way to be pestered by someone he

doesn’t even know. If Daniël’s out for a few minutes to get a cup of coffee or something, he’s happy

to listen to the gaffer, or the captain, or Gael or Gabrysz or any other of the boys...see, he’s not that

unreasonable.

“Hey gorgeous, I see you’re awake.” The kiss on his cheek feels new and familiar and

absolutely wonderful. There are so many brilliant things. Like being able to smile as a reaction to

what Daniël tells him. Or even move his head a bit. It’s almost like talking again, even though it’s not.

But it makes Danny so happy when Steve gives any kind of reaction, so he keeps on trying to get the

message across.

Now that Daniël is finally back from his break, they can have a few moments on their own.

Now shoo, whoever she is, so can he enjoy his lover’s presence in peace. He smells so wonderfully of

having been outside. He’ll have stories to tell, about how the winds felt against his face and how the

rain finally did stop and there was something that almost looked like sunshine. He’ll tell him about

who visited them when Steve was asleep.

He remembers having seen Matthew for a few seconds. At least, he’s pretty sure he has. His

captain’s face all wrinkled up like he was trying to find the solution to a problem he couldn’t share

with anyone. A familiar voice, laced with a heavy Spanish accent, greeted everyone present at that

moment and the gloomy face became boyish and happy.

The gaffer was there, telling him about Match of the Day. Steve likes it when someone talks to

him about nice and normal things, like what’s on the telly, or who’s most likely to win the PlayStation

competition. Degaré talks to him like he’s really there, like he’s part of the conversation and not just a

motionless silent body.

He misses most of the visits of the others, but Daniël always keeps him up to date about who

was there, what they said and how long they stayed.

It’s an art in itself to keep track of his waking moments, sparse as they might be. The pain,

though still a steady companion, is no longer all-encompassing, and somehow that makes him feel all

the more how tired he is. He tries to integrate Daniël’s scent and sounds and how he looks, how his

fingers feel on his arm, but so much is still missing and so most of the time he’s happy with whatever

he can get. Too much is not quite what it’s supposed to be, is lost in this elusive dream he finds

himself in, to complain about the all too rare gift when he can watch his lover’s face. When he can

enjoy his smile and hear him whisper sweet nothings; when gentle fingers softly touch the inside of

his arm, right where it feels so good, he has nothing left to wish for.

“You’re getting a little more alert each day, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes and perhaps

very soon, you’ll tell me...” Daniël stops talking for a few moments. “I know you will talk to me

again. To all of us again. We just have to be patient.”

He pauses again, like he notices something. “Are you tired?”

Steve discovers he can move his head just enough to indicate that yes, he is tired.

“You want me to stop talking?”

He indicates that no, he doesn’t want Daniël to stop talking.

“I’ll tell you about how I made my first goal as a pro. Totally by accident, too. You like that?”

Steve nods, letting himself wrap snugly in the warm safety of Daniël’s voice.

“Well, you have to know there was this midfielder, Spakenburg, a bit older guy, very

experienced, but he had that weird habit of ...”

*

Suddenly, Daniël smells differently, like he has just taken a shower with an unfamiliar brand

of shampoo. Steve blinks in unconcerned surprise.

“Good afternoon, sleepyhead. The doctor will be here in a minute. Shall we wait for him

together? It’s only one, this time. There’s almost always a bunch of them. You don’t like that, lots of