Better Than Easy (2 page)

“Have to
what
, babe?” he asks.

We've been in for seconds. The shopping is still defrosting in the carrier bags beside him on the big red sofa. “Do you have to skin up?” I ask trying to keep the petulant tone from my voice.

Tom shrugs and clicks the remote, switching on the TV. “Have you come over all evangelical on me?” he asks, licking the edge of the paper and expertly sealing the joint.

I force a smile and move to the arm of the sofa. I ruffle his hair. “It's not that. It's just that once you start smoking, well, that's it. Nothing else happens,” I say.

Tom lights the end of the joint and shrugs. “We've been out,” he says. “We've
seen a film, we've bought dinner, what else do you want to do?” He clicks the remote, swapping from one Saturday game show to another; only this one is a little louder.

I was thinking of a snooze and a shag actually. I've nothing against dope, though it doesn't seem to do it for
me
– if anything it makes me paranoid and depressed. But if you can't join in, if you're sitting on the outside, it just makes other people so
boring
. I'm not evangelical at all – it's just, well, give me an evening with someone doing coke or speed any day. And Tom, once he starts smoking, really
won't
do anything else. The joint equals
Game Over
. No cooking, no cleaning, no going out – that I can cope with. But it also means permanent trash TV dominating the living room, no visible awareness of my existence, no meaningful discussion, and above all, no sex. Despite the myth, dope does
not
make Tom horny. I try to think how to reply, but the moment has passed. Tom is already lost in the TV, blowing smoke rings into the air, and settling back into the couch, struggling half-heartedly to kick off his trainers.

“You smoke a lot these days,” I say.

Tom replies without pulling his eyes from the TV. “I always did,” he says. “It's just you weren't there to see it. It's what I do. It's how I relax.” He proffers the joint over his shoulder at me.

“Nah,” I say. “I think I'll go out for a walk along the seafront. The weather's changed. The rain's stopped. I'll check at Jenny's on the way out – see if she's up for it.”

“Why?” he asks. “We just got in.”

I shrug. “Dunno really,” I say. “It's just what I do.”

*

Sunday morning and who could ask for more? I
writhe and stretch, basking in the warmth of the bed, the sound of the rain hammering down anew mixes with Tom's saxophone practice wafting from the office. Strips of dim light pushing through the shutters pattern the ceiling.

The sax inevitably makes me think of Steve – it always happens and it always makes me feel a little guilty, as if thinking about Steve is being unfaithful to Tom in some way. I sigh and stretch again and tell myself that it's OK to think about him. It was of course, Steve's
Selmer
that Tom is playing.

I wonder how good his playing was. He was a professional; it's what he did for a living, so he must have been good. I listen for a while. For once Tom is playing a complete tune – a Sade song I recognise – dodgy taste but tuneful. I wonder, in a vague, parallel universe kind of way, what would have happened if Steve hadn't died. Would he have been next door instead? I smile and wonder if
he
farted in his sleep. Would we have even got to this stage or was it just another of those illusory love affairs? Silly to be wasting thinking time over it if that's the case. Silly to be wasting time thinking about a dead man anyway.

“He's dead!”
I think, jerking myself out of the reverie.
“Get over it!”

Tom's playing pauses for a second as he coughs with gusto, then picks up where he left off. “Your Love Is King”
–
yep, that's the song. A bit dated, but as Tom pointed out, he's been half-heartedly trying to learn it since it first came out.

I think about other relationships I've had and how some of them were better in some ways, some of them worse in others, but then I decide it's ultimately pointless – like browsing Ikea catalogues or reading beauty magazines; it can only make you feel dissatisfied with what you've got – a solid relationship with farting, burping, underpant-discarding, pot-smoking Tom. Far better to focus on the positives of here and now.

I throw back the quilt, suddenly optimistic and ready for the day. I stand and pull on my jogging trousers and head through to the office. Tom pauses his playing as I open the door, lowers the sax and grins at me. He looks hopelessly cute in a dishevelled kind of way. “Did I wake you?” he asks.

I bat a hand at the thick smog hanging in the air and grin to show I don't really mean it. “Nah,” I say. “It's lovely. Can't think of a nicer way to wake up.”

Tom grins again and raises the instrument to his lips again, then pauses and says, “Oh, there are croissants and coffee in the kitchen.”

I blink at him slowly and nod. “Thanks,” I say.

As I pour the coffee I think about the fact that this gorgeous feeling – Sunday morning with someone playing the sax in another room – was a sort of recurring dream of my perfect relationship. It all started years ago when a busker woke me up in exactly that way one Sunday morning by playing beneath my window. He had been cute, and I remember having thought,
“Imagine waking up to that every Sunday.”
And I wonder at the power of life to order coincidences, meetings, chance; to replace actors with fresh personnel when required – seemingly whatever it takes to make sure the future manifests exactly as imagined.

For a moment, above the noise of the vacuum cleaner, Tom isn't aware of my presence, and I'm able to observe him. He's wearing just his boxer shorts and a t-shirt, plus thick woolly socks, and he has a rolled cigarette – or more probably a joint – hanging from his mouth. He's frowning with concentration as he tries to get the supposedly marvellous, but in reality useless, Dyson to suck up the dust in the corners.

I close the front door loudly and he looks up and grins, then, in reaction to the rising smoke, closes one eye and winks madly. The ensemble is so funny I can't help but laugh.

Tom smiles back and kicks the OFF button on the cleaner. “I take it the smile means that it went well,” he says as the machine whirs to a halt.

I nod and pull my jacket off. “Piss easy,” I say. “France may be a bureaucratic nightmare, but there's nothing so easy as signing on for unemployment benefit.”

Tom nods and pouts thoughtfully. “I guess they've had a lot of practice at getting
that
one right,” he says.

I pull a folded sheet of paper from my back pocket. “I didn't actually need to go there at all you know. You can do it by Internet now, or even over the phone.”

Tom raises an eyebrow. “Isn't that making it a bit too easy? I take it you have to go to some kind of Jobcentre so they can at least
pretend
to try to find you a job?”

I shake my head. “Apparently they
may
call me in – in
three months' time.”

“Cool,” Tom says. “And what about the dole cheque? How do you get that?”

“Paid direct into my account,” I tell him. “Seventy percent of my salary.”

Tom gasps. “Seventy percent? Jesus! I wish
I
could get that.”

“For eighteen months…” I add.

“Eighteen months! I don't suppose anyone really looks for a job for eighteen months then do they?”

I wink at him. “Not me anyway,” I say.

“So you're on holiday,” Tom says. “Officially.” He proffers the joint.

I wrinkle my nose. “It makes me feel a bit guilty, but then I just think how much tax I have paid over the years…”

“Oh go on!” he says, still waving the joint. “You're free. It's the end of one thing, the beginning of another. Have a smoke!”

I shrug and take the joint. “I guess so,” I say. “I wasn't planning doing anything else today.”

“There's nothing else
to
do is there? Not until we get the keys to the gîte.”

“Actually, I think there's plenty to do,” I tell him. “We need to get some kind of marketing plan sorted, a website and stuff…”

Tom nods. “Yeah, I already started actually. Only, I need some decent photos of the place. Hers are all crap.”

“And budgets,” I say. “I want to work out how we're gonna make a living at it. But I need some figures from Chantal – profit margins and stuff. I think we need to go up there, have lunch, maybe even stay a weekend – pump her for as much information as we can. Because once it's ours I get the feeling she'll be out of there and never want to look back.”

“I can't wait to get started on the place though,” Tom says. “I was wondering – do you think we can
grow rhubarb up there?”

I frown at Tom and snort in amusement.

“What?” he asks.

I half-shrug. “I just don't think growing rhubarb is gonna be very high on the urgent list of things to do,” I say.

Tom scowls like a child. “So what's going to be on the
Fuehrer's
list of things to do?”

I unplug the lead from the Dyson, hand it to him and then stroke his back. “Hey,” I say. “You can grow rhubarb, of course you can. I just mean, what with all the redecorating and marketing we need to be doing… Well, that's the stuff
I'm
worried about. We need to make sure the place makes money.”

Tom scratches his chin and slumps on the sofa. “Yeah, we
so
need to redecorate,” he says. “I was thinking it would be nice to do something quirky,” he says. “Like themed rooms, you know bright colours and stuff.”

I nod. “Yeah, I thought so too, pick up some bits of funky second-hand furniture…”

“I love rhubarb though,” Tom says, instinctively reaching for his smoking box and taking out the ingredients for his next joint. “I've got this craving for rhubarb crumble. Maybe I'm pregnant.”

I slip beside him on the sofa and contain a sigh. His brain works differently to mine, drifting laterally from one subject to another. Mine is much more linear, logical. If I'm talking about decorating I'm not going to drift onto rhubarb. “And a dog,” Tom says. “Can we have a dog?”

“A
dog?!”
I exclaim. “Where did
that
come from?”

Tom shrugs. “It's just a sort of recurring dream,” he says. “A daydream more I suppose. I always imagined one day I'd have a husband and a vegetable plot and rhubarb growing and a big country dog.”

I nod at Paloma on the chair opposite; she's cutely cleaning her forehead by licking her paw. “I'm not sure what madam will have to say about it,” I say,
thinking about Tom's use of the word husband. It's not a word he uses generally – I like it.

“It's a
country
dog,” Tom says. “It will live outside in a kennel. And I can take it for walks on those footpaths along the ridges.

I nod and smile at the image. I get it. These things
are
linked for Tom. Just as Sunday mornings are somehow linked to croissants and saxophone for me, gîtes, dogs and rhubarb are part of
his
dream. I shrug. “I guess,” I say. “A dog and rhubarb. Why not? We could call the dog Rhubarb and kill two birds with one stone.”

Tom runs his lighter along the edge of the lump of dope. “Wasn't that a cartoon dog? Rhubarb and Custard or something.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I don't think Rhubarb was a
dog
…” I shrug. I think for a moment. “No, I can't remember. Where do you get this stuff from anyway?” I ask pointing at the dope. “I mean, I hope you didn't bring it back from Brighton?”

Tom tuts. “Don't be crazy! I wouldn't go through customs with it. No, Jenny gets it off that bloke she's seeing.”

“Jenny?” I repeat. “And what do you mean that
bloke she's seeing?
I don't know anything about a bloke!”

Tom sprinkles the dope and glances up at me. “You didn't know? About Rick?”

“Rick?” I say. “This guy has a
name?”
It's a dumb comment – of
course
he has a name. But I'm shocked, and a little outraged that Tom is on first name terms with a guy Jenny is seeing. Jenny is
my
closest friend after all, and I didn't even know that Rick existed.

Tom shrugs. “She hasn't been seeing him long,” he says. “A couple of weeks tops.”

“What's he like?” I ask wondering if he's one of the guys I've crossed on the stairs. “And he's what? A drug dealer?”

Tom shakes his head and runs his tongue along
the edge of the paper. “I haven't seen him,” he says. “He sounds nice though. And no, he's not a dealer at all. He's a doctor I think.”

“Jenny is dating a drug dealing doctor,” I say. “And I didn't know.”

Tom shrugs. “The disadvantage of being at work. And he's
not
a dealer. Don't say that. You'll upset her.
And
him! He just had some – for you know, personal use, and she asked him for it and then gave it to me. Said it makes her too lazy.”

I shake my head. “I just can't believe that I didn't know this,” I say. “How can I not know this? Why didn't
you
tell me?”

Tom shrugs. “It didn't come up I suppose. Hey, you know the redecorating thing,” he adds, his voice suddenly velvety.

I give him a puzzled smirk. “
Yeah?”
I say. I'm guessing he's going to tell me he doesn't like decorating.

“Well, I had an idea what we could do with the cellar,” he says, wiggling an eyebrow.

I roll my eyes. “I was wondering when that would come,” I say.

Tom winks at me. “So you thought of it too,” he says, lighting and then passing me the joint.