The Wall and Goat - 1. Chapter 1 - Maxie

My grandmother was very fond of a particular saying, it was something she said when people got upset or frustrated, but it was something she once said to me that sort of changed my life. Or maybe what it really did was making me change myself. The way I saw myself.

Love and hate are two horns on the same goat.

Before, at the time she said it to me; I never really understood what it meant. Afterwards, it sort of became my mantra.

*

We all know how it goes, but my life began to change one overcast snowy day in January. We had prayed for a snow day, for the school to be closed and get a day spent in pyjamas and snuggling into our duvets. No such luck, we had about two inches, not nearly enough to stop us from going in. About a half hour into first lesson though, we had a rare occurrence that took the edge off our monotony: a new student. Unsurprisingly Mr Wardle, deputy head of our school, chose me to be hiked out of class to show Mr New Boy around. I didn’t mind so much, physics bores me to tears.

I should probably explain who I am before we get too deep into this. Mmm where to start? I’m Maxie Tau. I’m seventeen and I’m a student leader and your normal top-of-the-class slightly arty-popular geek. I am so not one of the cool kids, but people know me as a stand-up kinda guy. I like to help out with fundraisers and do art projects and help out younger kids and stuff. I’m part Turkish but I’ve never been there; I have the cocoa coloured skin and dark hair that goes quite well with my shiny-black fashion sense. I don’t really love the school uniform, cream trousers (really easy to ruin), shirt, tie and navy blue blazer with house colour edging (I’m in yellow, my favourite), and the only arguments I tend to get into at school are about eyeliner (allowed but frowned upon) and hair styles (long and wavy in front with short back and sides).

“Maxie, this is Jesse Newall. He’s new today and he’s going to be joining your tutor group and English and art classes. I’d like you to show him around and let him shadow you today OK?”

“Sure thing Sir.”

“Jesse, just stick with Maxie, he’ll take care of you.” Mr Wardle turns to look at me, “Run him down to IT at some point to get set up?” With that parting question that was not really a question he turned smartly and left us alone.

I looked Jesse Newall up and over and registered two things instantly. Firstly that he was really really beautiful, like completely pretty. And secondly that he was an obviously a self-involved preppy little bastard. He was blond, with a wavy public school boy haircut, ice blue eyes under straight brows, kind of pink and gold colouring, with a strong jaw, athlete’s body. He wore loafers, straight cut dark burgundy cords, his plaid shirt tucked into them, brown belt. He had a grey woollen pea coat over one arm and a leather satchel. He looked at me like I was dirt under his shoe and I felt short, which at six-one was another rare occurrence.

“Jesse right?” I looped my rucksack over one shoulder, and he scowled at the unravelling canvas like something unpleasant he had stepped in, “You got your timetable? I’ll show you your classrooms; it’s really easy to get lost around here.”

He handed over the piece of paper which was folded so crisply you could probably use it to slice through lettuce. I made sure not to touch him. His hands were perfect, almost manicured, whereas my own brown skin was ink stained, if only a little this early in the day.

Jesse was silent as we started down the main corridor that broke up the school into the two halves usually referred to by students as Work and Play. Work was the north end of the school with reception and the offices. All the usual subjects were there, English, maths, the sciences, humanities and computing. Play held all the fun stuff, the PE department, art, dance and drama, music, and all the different technologies. In between the two wings of the school were the canteen and playing fields. Since Jesse didn’t want to talk I filled the silence between us with my usual spiel, the one I’d rolled out for open evening back in October.

I got him registered with IT for a thumbprint scan so he could pay cashless at the canteen, and got him a log on and email for the school computers. He chatted amiably with Si, our head IT tech and brought from his satchel a sleek little netbook of the latest design, poetry anthem thin and silver. I hung in the doorway picking at my nails, letting their conversation wash over me. I watched Jesse.

He was gorgeous, but I mentioned that already, and talking with Si, in the office crowded with computer guts with the snow outside he looked amazing. He was leaning in over Si, close to him, his gestures friendly, almost flirty, a permanent smile. I tapped my flayed nails against the door and Jesse pinned me with a look that made me shiver, cold and hard like an ugly moth in the collection of an insect collector.

I’d never had anyone hate me just on sight before. It was a new experience.

He was sullen and silent again as we walked back along to the form room. I loved our tutor group. Not only were we in Play but ours was the food room and our tutor was the main food tech teacher. Which meant good smells, samples and leftover baked goods. Snow had begun to come down again, and big fat white flakes fell from the sky as I lent my arms up against the railing, looking out at the white playground.

“So you’re taking Advanced English huh?”

Jesse nodded, obviously not keen on talking to me. I handed him back his timetable, now slightly rumpled by its association with me. He sort of scowled when he took it.

“I didn’t peg you for art though, you’re into computers.”

“I can do more than one thing.”

“Sure,” he was a bit harsh, like I’d just out-and-out called him stupid, “Sports?”

“Yeah. All of them. You?”

“I hate to run.” It wasn’t a lie. Only the threat of a zombie apocalypse would make me do cardio. I mucked about with my friends and we walked and ran all over the place but I wouldn’t go jogging for fun.

The bell went for first break and as I turned to ask him if he wanted to go to the canteen, he had vanished. I shrugged and headed off down towards art to get my coursework folder.

*

I didn’t think much of my run in with Jesse, assuming I would see him in classes and such but that we wouldn’t hang out. But for the whole twenty minutes of break the snow came down in flakes the size of two pence pieces until it was nearly half a foot thick and the headmaster finally made the decision to close the school. Half a day off was better than nothing.

I signed out, wrapped myself up in my old docker jacket and layers of wool and headed home. Most kids caught the bus into school, but some of us were lucky to live in town. My house was just under a mile from the school along lanes that didn’t get gritted and I was the only one who lived out that way. After the first hundred yards or so I was the only one walking, my boots crunching in the brand new snow. I was maybe a road away from my house when I heard someone walking a little way behind me.

I turned to see Jesse and frowned. Why on earth was he walking this way? He noticed me watching him and his brows drew down, he looked pissed. I kept walking. Head down in the snow. His footstep dogged mine all the way to my front door, and then passed it. I stood at my gate, wrought iron in a low brick wall lined with flower beds covered in snow and stared at the house next door. It had been for sale for ages and now I put two and two together with the moving van out front. Jesse walked up the front path and stared at me.

Great.

I let myself in, toed off my snowy boots and went up to my room. I dumped my bag and my art folder and dropped down on my bed. And two seconds later there was a thump from the other side of the wall. It sounded like a bag hitting the wall and sliding down.

I stared at the wall. Surely not. Surely this sort of thing only ever happened in fiction. I reached out and knocked softly on the wall.

A pause.

Tap. Tap.

I tapped back, just once. And then there was a muffled shout.

“Holy fucking shit!”

My sentiments exactly.

Jesse Newall, possibly the tallest, most beautiful person I had ever met and the only person I had ever met who hated me on site, lived on the other side of my bedroom wall. We shared a line of bricks and plaster board and lived in rooms just six inches apart.

This could not end well.

*

Snow lasted the weekend, which was awesome. About two hours after I got home my two best friends showed up with scarves, snowballs and Coffee Club vouchers. Toman and Mina were twins, and apart from their gender they were exactly the same. Both were pale with sandy wavy brown hair worn in a genderless sort of bob cut, hazel coloured eyes and ready smiles for me at my front gate.

I’d changed into jeans, army boots and a couple of layered black jumpers under my docker jacket and wound a long red scarf round my neck and went out to meet them.

“Hey Maxie!” Toman had a surprisingly deep voice to go with his bird boned frame, “Come on dude. Snow day!”

Mina punched her brother on the arm and then chucked a snowball at me as I came down the front path. I took the blow to the shoulder, my black coat now pock-marked with snow.

“I see you have new neighbours.”

I closed the gate behind me and gave the twins a swift bear hug each. I’m not sure if it came across well when I described myself earlier, but I’m not a small guy. I’m tall, my Mum comes from lanky Norwegian stock originally, and thanks to my grandfather’s stocky Turkish ancestry, I have big shoulders and a much wider built frame than my best friend. I am roughly the same size as the head of PE, who used to play semi-professional rugby, which makes me kind of obvious among the student body.

“Yeah, guess who.”

“Huh?” Toman looked stumped, but Mina was a bit quicker on the uptake.

“That guy you were showing around today? The pretty one?”

“Yeah. Jesse Newall.” I shrugged and buttoned up the neck of my coat, “Turns out he gets to share my tutor group, my Advanced-English class, art class and my fucking street. Of all the fucking luck.”

“Er…” Toman frowned. The Kash twins, among several others, knew what I liked in a partner, “Back up there. Hot new boy moves in next door to you and you’re angry about that?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Come on,” I turned from the house towards the direction of the snow bound town, “Let’s go, I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”

Half an hour later we were tucked into a corner table at our favourite student café-bar. Toast was frequented by arty types from the local college and visiting students from the university nearby. Our favourite place to sit and gossip was owned by a veritable bear of a man, swarthy, dark and happy to see everyone. Sitting at our feet was the café’s resident dog. Nuka was a malamute-husky cross, big like his owner with classic black and grey marking and blue eyes. He and his ‘dad’ Paul liked us loads, all the pocket money we spent there see.

Toman had handed over his collection of Coffee Club vouchers to get us three hot chocolates with whipped everything, and I paid for two muffins and a bacon salad sandwich. The pay-off for having a muscle structure like mine and a similarly strong allergy to sports was watching what you ate.

“He looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in,” I was explaining about my reaction to Jesse, “Who’s a pretty fluffle then?” This was to Nuka as the big husky sat with his pink tongue lolling while I scratched his ears, “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone hate me on sight before.”

“That’s weird.” Mina sipped her hot chocolate, “I mean you’re plenty popular. Maybe he was having a bad day?”

“That’s no excuse,” her twin, crumbs in his scarf, put down what was left of the muffin, “No one decent is ever that rude. It’s shame dude.”

“You wanna know the worst part?”

“What?” Toman frowned, “Unless he tried to beat you up?”

“We share a wall.”

“Huh?” Mina lent over and stroked Nuka’s bristly fur, “A wall?”

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

“His bedroom is right next to mine. We share a wall.”

“Wow. It’s like an American movie.”

“Well I’m glad my life is so fascinating for you. Let’s go throw snowballs in the park.”

*

That night I lay in bed and stared at the wall. I’d never given the wall much thought. Our previous neighbours had been a nice youngish couple, ex-students and the room had been some sort of workshop. I used to hear music through the wall, and sometimes the sounds of painting. Now I stared at the grey painted plaster board. I’d redecorated for my birthday, two grey walls and two in pale yellow. My grandmother hadn’t approved.

He was right there, I’d heard him fall into his bed. I wondered if our rooms looked anything alike from the bird’s eye view. I knew the shape would be opposite, a reflection along the spine of the semi-detached house, which was why his bed had to be alongside mine; the rest of the room was oddly shaped. I laid my arm up the wall, my knuckles resting against the paintwork. I was tempted to knock, to get a response. I so wanted to speak to Jesse again, why on earth did he hate me?

I could picture his face, I’d never seen someone so beautiful. Not even the Andreas models in Official Homme were that drop dead gorgeous. Pale ice blue eyes in my imagination made me hard beneath the sheets. Pink lips formed the shape of my name and I exhaled shakily. He’d said twelve words to me. Why did I care so much? I shifted uneasily and tapped on the wall.

There was a thump, the angry kind, and I rolled over to face my room. Whatever this was, I couldn’t see it going well.