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“Thought I heard the poofter’s style of music up here,” he said. “No, you don’t, Treadwell. We’re going to talk.”
“Let go my arm, you belligerent prick.”
“She speaks,” he said with the smile that I used to think was handsome.
I was considering kicking him in the shin when he shot backwards across the hallway. Gavin was pinned to the wall, Aleks’s forearm across his neck.
“You do not touch her!” Aleks roared, face twisted in rage.
Terrified that Aleks might get hurt, even though he was the taller and stronger of the two men, I put my hand on his arm. He loosened his hold for a moment, and Gavin broke free.
“You a bloody psycho, or what?” yelled Gavin. “Don’t go getting any ideas. She might look like that, but she’s a frigid little—” His head hit the wall with a crack. Aleks had punched him. Gavin held his nose and blood showed between his fingers as he backed off, muttering incoherently.
“Come near her again, and I will do much more,” Aleks said in a cold calm voice as Gavin disappeared round the corner.
I started to shake.
“Are you okay, Malphia?”
“Yes. Are you?”
He held up his hand. “Is not so simple as it looks in films.”
I led him back into the studio to study the injured hand in the light, aware of a silent and agog Justin at our side. Aleks bent and flexed his fingers as a range of different thoughts appeared in my mind. He’d protected me. I wanted to protect him. I loved him so much. He was my shiny knight—
“That,” said Justin, unusually quietly, “was the most fantastic thing I’ve ever seen. I thought I heard voices, and was just coming out to see what was what, and whack! The way he went back, the sound of his head on the wall!”
“Whose head? What wall?” Will had arrived.
“Gavin Tuesday’s!” Justin continued excitedly, back to full volume. “Zolotov hit him.” He flapped his hands in hyperactive delight.
“Oh?” Will obviously wanted to ask more, but Aleks’s presence deterred him. I watched my old friend try to read the interplay between us. It was time to put his quick mind to practical matters.
“D’you think we should get ice?” I asked, indicating the hand that was starting to swell, and resisting the urge to kiss it.
Will, as I’d hoped, was full of advice. “You hit him against a wall?” he asked.
Aleks nodded, but said nothing.
“See, it’s the impact that’s done it. If he’d just gone back, it wouldn’t be as bad.”
“You’re an expert in such things, are you, William?” enquired Justin.
“I’ve hit a few idiots, yeah. You remember, Malph?”
I did recall an incident from long ago and nodded.
“Ooh, ooh,” said Justin, clapping his hands. “This is a story from the streets, isn’t it? Or some sort of ghetto?”
“It took place in a school gym a couple of miles from here,” I said. “Will sat on a boy and punched him against the floor. Peter had to pull them apart.”
“Yeah, well he said—”
A small shake of my head quelled the rest of Will’s words. Aleks was listening very intently, eyes narrowed, and some things did not bear repeating.
Justin wasn’t about to let it go, however. “But this was the class of bad boys? You got to go every week, didn’t you? All that burgeoning, out-of-control testosterone in one room…” His face took on a dreamy quality as he spoke.
“Peter thought it was a good idea,” I explained. “I was naïve and… stupid.” I looked at Will, remembering how I’d inadvertently made fun of his reading difficulty. I’d gone to his school to apologise that day and ask him to come back to ballet.
