were swirling around in her part-empty stomach, mixing up a nausea she would have to swallow down.
‘I learned what they did. I saw it one night. The men and the boys. It was a members’ club. A group of rich men who got together to do things… with boys.’
Her belly went into spasm. What was he saying? She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t heard it right. Boys? Men? A club?
‘I… I don’t understand.’ The words fell from her mouth as her hands reached to console her stomach.
Guy was crying now. Audibly crying. She reached for the rail, brought herself down onto a bench. She couldn’t think. His words were rolling around in her mind. What did they mean? What exactly was he telling her?
‘Emma, this all started before I met you. The job at the campsite was what I loved, playing football and teaching the children but the money wasn’t enough. My mother, she started me at this terrible hotel, she introduced me to David. I had to begin to make money for myself and for Luc. This was easy. I didn’t acknowledge it. All I had to do was pretend it wasn’t happening. I tell myself it is just a job. I zone out, I concentrate on serving drinks, that is all. And when I get the money in my hand I forget about everything else. I forget about how I got it, what they were doing. I was earning my way out of Fréjus,’ he carried on.
‘What are you saying? You saw them doing things to boys?’ Her voice was shaking. She couldn’t believe what he’d said. She needed him to spell it out because she was folding inwards.
‘Yes… the men in the club… with the boys,’ he responded.
‘Men having sex with boys? Is that what you mean, Guy? Men having sex with underage boys?’ She let out a painful sound that had her putting her knuckles to her mouth to absorb it.
She turned her face towards him then, saw the tears falling out of his eyes. She knew then it was true. She could see it written in his expression.
‘You knew it was going on and you still went to work there! You let it go on,’ she said, forcing the words out.
‘It wasn’t like that. It was a job, that is all. Just a job,’ he repeated.
‘A job! It’s disgusting! Those men were paedophiles! How could you?! I…’ She couldn’t say any more. Visions of what he’d seen, what he’d turned a blind eye to were forming in her mind. She was seeing a shabby room, photographic equipment, a group of rich men, drooling over young boys forced to pose for their pleasure. Her stomach contracted and she lunged her head over the rails, vomiting into the water.
‘I know it was wrong. I knew it then, but I needed the money, Emma. If I’d carried on just working at the campsite it would have taken me years to get away. I saved up thousands in just a few months. It was going to be our start together.’
He was rubbing her back as she hurled and she recoiled from his touch, forced herself away across the boat.
‘So what happened then? Did you join in? Didn’t they want you? Were you too old for them?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I did not.’
‘I can’t listen to this… I just can’t,’ she said, steadying herself against the rails. Her mind was whirring with what this meant. The whole situation was bizarre and frightening and repellent and she didn’t know what to do.
‘Please, there is something else,’ Guy began.
‘Something else? I don’t want to know… I can’t know any more… I can’t take any more,’ she cried. She was terrified of hearing her worst fear. That these men had touched him, taken pleasure from him. Was that what he was telling her? Had they offered him more money to join their club, be one of those poor boys?
‘You brought me to a party here! David was here then! Why? Why would you bring me somewhere like that?’ she shrieked.
‘Because I wanted him to know that I had a life. I had you. I was not like them. I could not and would not do any more than I was doing for him. It was enough that I saw and knew what they did. But he didn’t like that.’
‘How can I believe you?! All this time and you never said a word. Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing? We