CHAPTER ONE
LUCAS
Don’t look outside the boat. That’s all I can think right now.
Don’t look outside the boat. It’s a shame, since I must have the best view in the house.
To the left of me, the Oxford crew are poised in menacing silence.
Behind them, a small flotilla of boats containing the umpire, TV crew and various VIPs.
On the banks of the Thames, a crowd of people ten or twelve deep.
At least, I assume there is. I can’t look, but I can hear them, chanting out rival slogans as they sip on their plastic pint glasses and shuffle impatiently in the crisp March air.
It still feels crazy to me that a student rowing race can attract this much attention.
But I mustn’t start thinking like that. If I don’t look, none of it’s real.
Don’t look outside the boat. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.
There’s only one problem with not looking outside the boat.
I’m the Cambridge cox, which means I sit in front of our eight rowers, shouting orders and steering with my rudder.
Directly opposite me is George, our all-American boat club president, setting the pace in what’s known as the stroke seat.
I once read that if you look someone in the eye for four minutes straight, you risk falling in love with them.
George and I have conclusively disproved that theory.
It’s mad to think how many hours the two of us have spent sitting opposite each other in the boat like this over the past year.
I know every inch of George’s face; the sweep of his neat blond side parting that melts mothers’ hearts, the masculine brow and perfectly proportioned cheekbones that remain tanned year-round, the stoic expression behind his grey-blue eyes.
He looks like a model – mainly because he is one.
In his underpants no less, plastered on billboards around the world.
You’d think that would make him arrogant beyond belief, but it’s much worse: George is a people pleaser, desperate to be liked by everyone he meets.
‘Starting positions,’ booms the umpire over his megaphone.
Shit. George and the rest of the team slide forward on their seats and grip their oars. The crowd falls quiet. This is it. I look down the length of the boat to check that it’s straight. The current is pulling us dangerously off course. I raise my hand.
‘Waiting on Cambridge,’ the umpire announces.
George glances up and checks our position.
‘We’re good,’ he whispers.
What’s his problem? Steering is my job. I look back down the line. ‘No we’re not.’
Every single person lining the course or watching on TV is waiting for me to get on with it. But we need to start perfectly straight or we’ll risk crashing into Oxford.
‘We’re good,’ George says again.
‘Wait,’ I insist.
I look down the boat one more time, but now I’m doubting myself. Are we straight or not? Why doesn’t George trust me?
‘When you’re ready, Cambridge,’ the umpire says pointedly.
‘Trust me, we’re good,’ says George, giving the umpire a big goofy thumbs up.
I stare at him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Just letting him know we’re all good.’
‘But we’re not! What’s wrong with you?’
George glances fretfully back at the umpire. I don’t believe it. He doesn’t want to annoy him.
‘He’s not going to give us extra points for starting on time, George. He’s not going to pat you on the back.’
‘Lucas—’
‘Let me get the boat straight.’
‘It is straight.’
‘No it’s not.’
‘Yes it is!’ George flashes me a kilowatt smile. ‘You got this.’
I’m going to explode if he doesn’t shut up.
Now is not the time for a pep talk. Before I know what I’m doing, I lower my hand.
Just like that, the umpire sounds his starting klaxon.
The rowers pull on their oars, the crowd cheers like mad, and commands come tumbling out of my mouth.
What I’m saying, I have no idea. I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience.
‘Back off, Cambridge!’ the umpire screams.
I snap out of it and glance to my left. The boat is off-course. It’s heading straight towards Oxford. I yank hard on my rudder.
‘Fucking hell, George. I told you!’
George pulls on his oar and says nothing.
Once the race gets going, the rowers are like pistons in a machine, sliding backwards and forwards with mechanical precision, not an ounce of energy to spare, let alone brain power.
It’s me who has to do the thinking. I glance over at Oxford.
They’re already half a boat length ahead.
How is this happening? How is this the race we’ve prepared all year for?
I have to act fast. The course is four miles long, but the advantage switches hands depending on who’s closest to the fastest river current at any given point.
I’ve memorised the course’s fluctuations.
If we aren’t ahead by the halfway point at Hammersmith, we never will be. And Oxford’s lead is increasing.
‘We need to do a push,’ I say to George. ‘Ready?’
A push means cranking up the stroke rate so high that the rowers might not have anything left for the rest of the race. As George slides forwards on his seat, I can see the beads of sweat on his forehead, the capillaries bursting in the whites of his eyes.
‘It’s too early,’ he splutters.
I stare back at him, rage pulsing through my veins. What’s he worried about now? Upsetting our coach by deviating from the race plan? I’m not an idiot. Doing a push this early is a hell of a risk. But it’s now or never.
‘It’s not too early,’ I scream. ‘Now push! Push! Push!’
I hear a ripple of excitement pass through the crowd as the boat speeds past Thames Rowing Club. A lot of the real fans gather here, on the first half of the course, not at the finish line, by which point the race has almost always been won or lost.
As I shout at the rowers to crank up the stroke rate, I feel the boat begin to glide through the water.
We’re edging closer to Oxford. Is this the moment the tables turn?
I glance to my side. Oxford have hit back with a push of their own.
They’ve re-established their lead without a struggle. If anything, it’s bigger than before.
I can already feel our rowers tiring. I can see it on George’s face. I bring the crew back down to their regular stroke rate and glance at the Oxford boat. There’s clear water between us. My gamble failed. Worse, our spirit has been broken.
Nothing is more demotivating than a bad push.
I try to rally the team, knowing there are still nearly ten minutes left of this torture. But I can see the Hammersmith Bridge approaching, the point at which we conclusively lose our advantage.
The race is over, and everyone knows it.
I close my eyes and feel the water hit me.
The shower is too hot, painfully hot, but that suits my mood.
I’ve been warned many times how bad it feels to lose the Boat Race, but it’s done nothing to prepare me for the sheer sense of waste.
All that training, all that anticipation, for nothing.
At the end of the race, the rowers were physically spent to the point of collapse.
I felt equally depleted, but I knew it was my job to get the team away from the cameras and back into the boathouse.
I couldn’t bear to look George in the eye as we rowed over to the shore.
Neither of us said a word. Arriving at the boathouse, we received a pitying round of applause from our friends and family, which only made the humiliation worse.
Compared to that, this shower is heaven, and I feel like everything will be all right if I can just stay underneath it forever.
‘Guys,’ says George, ‘gather round.’
I open my eyes and scowl. George is standing in the middle of the changing room, a towel around his waist. We move towards him in various states of undress.
When I first started rowing, I was self-conscious about all the casual nudity.
But now I know these guys so well that I barely notice who’s fully dressed and who’s butt naked.
‘Before we do the press conference,’ says George, ‘we need a team talk.’
Everyone trades glances. Waiting for us upstairs is an annoyingly large number of journalists. Evidently, George wants to get our story straight before anyone goes off message.
‘Firstly,’ he says, ‘A for effort.’
The rest of the team ignore him. We’re all still too raw for a positive take.
‘Listen, we gave everything, and you can’t ask for more. At the end of the day, there can only be one winner. It’s as simple as that.’
The crew nod vaguely. Wait, don’t start agreeing with him. I might be the one who shouts orders, but George is the president, and people tend to follow his lead. I can feel the anger brewing inside me. Are we really not going to talk about what went wrong out there?
‘So don’t be too hard on yourselves,’ says George. ‘In fact, give yourselves a pat on the back. Next year, we can come back stronger—’
‘Let’s hope not,’ I snap.
Sometimes I just can’t help myself. Everyone turns in my direction.
‘What’s that?’ says George, his genial expression buckling.
‘Let’s hope we’re not all back next year. Not if you’re planning to fuck up the start again.’
George blinks as if he literally can’t comprehend that someone’s criticising him.
‘You told me we were straight when we weren’t,’ I insist.
‘Come on, Lucas,’ says Johannes, ‘what’s done is done.’
Johannes is a six foot seven Swiss guy who does his country proud by remaining steadfastly neutral whenever there’s a conflict.
‘I gave my opinion,’ George says calmly. ‘That’s all.’
‘I’m the cox. It’s my call.’
‘You were freaking out! I was trying to help.’
‘No you weren’t. You were desperate to start because the umpire was getting impatient, and nothing is worse to you than the idea of pissing someone off.’
George is momentarily winded.
‘He’s right,’ says a glacially posh voice.
I look over at Tristan Barnes, who has turned from his usual pasty white to a bright shade of red. Tristan is a politician’s son with a thick neck and beady eyes who inspires no love in any of the crew, but he’s the only one who shares my dislike of our president.
‘You don’t question the cox, George. Not at the start of a race.’
George can’t handle being attacked from two sides.
‘Look, Tristan, you’re entitled to your opinion—’
Without warning, Tristan flings a shoe across the room and lets out a grunt of rage. We’re all familiar with Tristan’s mood swings, but George looks concerned to see that his strategy isn’t working. I need to go in for the kill.
‘Maybe your judgement was off,’ I say. ‘You got in pretty late last night.’
George is wrong-footed but recovers quickly. ‘There were a lot of people at that dinner. I have responsibilities as president.’
‘Do they include that girl you left with?’
The rest of the crew breathe in sharply. Now the gloves are really off. But George remains calm.
‘She asked me to walk her home.’
‘And shag her when you got there?’
‘She’d had a long day.’
‘Oh, so now your shags are a charitable service?’
George glances down at the contents of his towel then smiles at me breezily. ‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’
The rest of the crew ooh in delight. George has them in the palm of his hand.
I look him in the eye without flinching. ‘I’d rather kill myself.’
I’m not sure that’s strictly true. The first time I ever saw George, I had the same thoughts most people do when they meet him. I’m only human. But then we started working together, and believe me, those thoughts are in the past.
‘Seriously,’ says George, ‘what?s the big deal? If you were getting some, I’d be congratulating you.’
That’s a low blow and he knows it. My love life is a barren desert. As I glare back at him, I feel a surge of humiliation. Only now we’re not in the middle of a race. Now there are no cameras. I look at George, take a deep breath, and charge straight at him.