Better Than Easy (25 page)

“He applied for French nationality,” I explain. “He's been waiting for years.”

“Why does he need a French passport to go
home?” Tom asks.

“Ironic, isn't it?” Jenny says. “No, it's more that he didn't want to leave till he got the passport. It means he can come and go as he wishes – he can go anywhere in Europe without all those visa hassles. Apparently it's a nightmare if you're from outside the EC.”

“So he's coming back then?” Tom says.

“I don't know,” Jenny says. “Not soon anyway.”

“And when's he going?” I ask. My voice sounds a bit panicky. I need to get a hold on that.

“In a couple of months I think,” Jenny says. “Just enough to organise everything.”

Tom shuffles across to Jenny's side and lays an arm across her shoulders. “Babe,” he says. “That's horrible.”

She shrugs him off. “Don't,” she says. “You'll just make me all maudlin.”

“But …”

“Look. I'm not over the moon about it. It's not … you know … very flattering. I feel a bit … sort of … put in my place. But I'm fine.”

“Yeah,” Tom says. “It makes you seem a bit superfluous.”

“Tom!” I say. “Don't …”

“Sorry, but … sorry,” he mumbles.

“Anyway, today we're here to celebrate, not talk about him, eh?
”

“Right,” I say.

“And anyway,” Jenny says. “Who needs sex when you have Champagne, and beaches, and wonderful friends?”

“Indeed!” Tom says.

“So happy New Year!” Jenny says, raising her glass. “To new jobs and new years and wonderful friends.”

I steel myself and raise my own. “To new jobs and new years and wonderful friends!” I repeat.

*

Back home, our own New Year's Eve celebration ends up a little lacklustre. Though we do spend a little more on the bottle of wine, and choose baked fish over pizza, the meal feels more like an end of week splurge than an end of year one.

Jenny and Sarah disappear to Ricardo's for the night. I'm a little surprised that she hasn't blown him out in advance of his departure and I assume that this somehow makes her a better, more balanced person than I am. I would have kicked his arse.

Tom has cooked and is earnestly trying to make conversation by giving me a blow-by-blow account of a documentary he saw on the French economy. The interest payments on the state debt alone amount to two thousand Euros a year for each working person, he tells me. And I watch his mouth move, and think that he's right, that it is shocking, and that I should care. And I imagine Jenny and Ricardo eating Pot Noodle with the harbour twinkling behind them and feel hopelessly jealous.

Just as we finish dessert – double helpings of molten chocolate pudding – some yelping in the street below announces midnight, and to my horror Tom gets up, walks to my side, crouches before me and wheedlingly attempts a kiss. “I thought it might help,” he explains.

“I think it might take more than that,” I say quietly.

“Not fix things necessarily,” Tom says. “I just thought it might help us work out how we feel.”

I don't want to kiss Tom. I don't really want Tom standing this close to me. But he's here, now, crouched before me, and whatever is happening, I can't inflict a metaphorical slap around the face – not at midnight on New Year's Eve. I don't hate him that much; or at least some part of me – the part that
controls kissing – doesn't. I sigh just enough to let him know that I'm not overjoyed at the prospect and lean forward and peck him on the lips.

“Happy New Year,” he says. There's a slight vibration to his voice, and when I look, sure enough, his eyes are shining on wine and emotion.

I shake my head almost unnoticeably and let out a tiny nasal sigh. “Happy New Year,” I say.

He leans forward for another kiss, and thinking,
“A mercy kiss,”
I close my eyes and lean forward and kiss him again. I think,
“Here's where I get up and say something breezy like, ‘let's get this tidied away shall we?'”
But I don't. For entirely selfish reasons, I don't do that. For the kiss feels good. It feels almost like a homecoming.

Tom links his arm around my back and I stiffen – he's trying too hard – but he realises and drops it and stands. He nods towards the bedroom and winks at me.

I shake my head but smile all the same.

“Oh go on,” he says.

“I'm not ready,” I answer.

“It's just a shag,” he says. “It's not a contract. You can still dump me tomorrow. If you want.”

Despite my best efforts not to, I smile again. Tom nods his head towards the bedroom again, beckoning anew. “Oh go on,” he says. “You can fuck me from behind and pretend it's someone else.”

I grimace. “Tom!” I protest.

He shrugs. “I need a shag,” he says. “I'm willing to negotiate about how, when and what you get in return.

“Tom!” I say again.

“Come on, you're killing me,” he says. “I really need a shag. I'll pay you. I'll do cleaning duties for a week.”

He's trying to be cute and succeeding - my dick is stiffening. “Why not?” I think. “It would hardly be the first time my dick took me somewhere against my
will.” And then, “A mercy shag – just to see.”

It feels fine in fact. Tom and I have always had two kinds of sex: the gentle eye-to-eye lovemaking, and the rough and ready release kind, as emotional as a game of squash. This is clearly the second kind.

There's something in his eyes that keeps putting me off. It might be love actually. On second thoughts, that's definitely what it is. So I turn him around and take him, as suggested, from behind. Where usually I'm guided towards any movement that produces an “Ah yes,” and away from anything that generates, “Ow! Ah!” today it's the other way around. In fact I slam into him so hard he yelps like a dog. I'm not sure if I'm having sex or exorcising my anger. On second thoughts, I
am
sure – it's the latter. This is clearly sex as punishment. The irony of course is that it's clearly what Tom wants and, I realise, rarely gets.

Encouraged, I slip into role-play. “God you like that don't you, you cheating little slut,” I pant, gripping his thighs so my fingers ache and slamming into him so hard it hurts my balls, and thinking how paradoxical it is that I mean every word I'm saying, and that Tom is loving it all the more for that.

“God!” Tom says. “Ohouh … oh I love … huh… it. Uh, uh, ohh, God ye, ye, yes. That's – Ahh, ahh … amazing!”

Over the next few days, Ricardo phones me only once, but I genuinely miss the call. When he doesn't leave a message and he doesn't try again I feel both relieved and jilted. I would have at least expected him to tell me in person about his decision to leave.

For her part, Jenny mopes surprisingly little over his announced departure – every time I bump into her she is smiling and happy. It seems that after so much inactivity, going out to work is doing her good.

But the modified structure of Jenny's day changes mine too, as now, when she showers at six a.m., the water rushing down the pipe just outside my window invariably wakes me. If that doesn't get me then her newfound penchant for clompy high-heels certainly does. And then, once awake, my torment about the future takes hold and sleep is lost for good. For though the New Year's Eve mercy shag does lead to a slightly more relaxed atmosphere between Tom and I, it doesn't lead to a repeat performance and in my own mind, nothing has changed – nothing is resolved. Tom doesn't seem unduly troubled by this though, at least not enough to lose any sleep over it, so I get two hours alone in the silent flat before he gets up; time to sit and wonder if anything were possible what I would want, and where and with whom.

My only option seems to be to let things slide and to wait for some major tremor to realign my life into a comprehensible pattern. I watch and wait.

*

A tremor comes surely enough, on the third Monday of the New Year. But it's not of a nature to clarify
anything – it simply adds a stressful time-line to the decision process. I'm eating a croissant and sipping thick black coffee when the phone call comes. Tom answers it initially but quickly gives in and hands it over to me. “Sorry,” he says. “But it's too complicated for my French.”

When I finally hang up, Tom, who has been watching me and biting his nails, says, “Bad news?”

I honestly don't know how to reply. I feel a bit light headed. Not with joy or fear, but just at the added pressure.

“What did he say?” he asks. “Has it fallen through?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say spacily. “No … he said it's all OK.”

Tom goggle-eyes me. “Wow!” he says. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Whatsisname is gonna be declared missing at the end of the month, and then we can sign mid February. He wanted to fix the date, but I said we'd get back to him.”

Tom grins at me. It's a sweet, genuine smile I'm unable to match. “That's brilliant,” he says.

“Yes,” I say again. “I suppose it is.”

Tom twists his mouth. “You do still want to don't you?” he asks.

I sigh deeply. “I don't know Tom,” I say. “I'm sorry but I really don't know anymore.” And it's true that I don't know. I couldn't categorically say that I
don't
want to do it anymore. But I realise that I truly
have
been hoping that the project will fall through. I'm feeling a sense of near-panic here. It feels like the walls are closing in around me.

“I see,” Tom says. “And can we? Pull out, I mean.”

I shrug. “We'd lose the deposit,” I say.

“All twenty grand?”

“All twenty grand.”

“Shit,” Tom says. “Well we can't then, can we?”

“No,” I say. “I guess not.”

“I got an answer you know,” Tom says. “To one of the messages I posted on that hill-walking site.”

“Yeah,” I say. “The one from Egypt?”

“Egypt?” Tom says.

And I remember that I'm not supposed to know. And I realise that I don't give a damn. “Yeah,” I say. “I traced the IP address. It was posted from Egypt.”

Tom frowns.

“I checked your email,” I say. “I read it.”

“You checked my mail?” Tom repeats incredulously.

I nod.

“OK,” he says, evenly, then, “Why?”

“Doh!” I say.

Tom feigns confusion, so I explain. “I didn't trust you,” I say. I wonder if I should have said
don't
.

“Right,” Tom says. “I don't suppose I have the right to feel outraged about that.”

I shake my head. “I don't think you do, no,” I say.

“How did you get the password?” Tom says.

I roll my eyes. “Well, it was gonna be
woofter
or
Brighton
, wasn't it?” I say. “You always use the same two. Anyway, what's woofter? Like
woolly-woofter
for
poofter?”

“No,” Tom says quietly, clearly still taking this in. “Woofter – our dog. When I was a kid. Those are so going to be changed. So, what's this about Egypt anyway?”

“The message was posted by someone in Egypt,” I say.

“The one saying the place was sold and …”

“Yeah,” I say.

“I thought that was probably posted by Chantal,” Tom says.

I nod. “Yeah, me too. Couldn't work out why she didn't say, ‘I've sold the place,' though.”

“No,” Tom agrees. “I suppose she might have told someone else.”

“Someone in Egypt,” I say.

“Yeah,” Tom says. “Anyway, does this mean he's really dead now?”

I shake my head. “No, just officially gone. It means she can sell the house.”

Tom nods. “If we want it,” he says.

“If we want it,” I repeat.

“I can't believe you checked my mail,” Tom says.

“I can't believe you cruised the net to find a dick to suck,” I say.

“It was the other … Anyway. Quite,” Tom says. “I really didn't think it would be this important though; I honestly didn't think it would jeopardise anything.”

I let out a gasp. “You
so
did,” I say.

Tom scratches his chin. “I guess,” he says. “I
hoped
it wouldn't then … I still can't really understand why it should.”

I shrug. “It's mainly the dishonesty,” I tell him, feeling a sharp pang at my own hypocrisy. “Plus, why risk a lifelong relationship for a blow-job? I don't really get it. Why fuck everything up for so little?”

“I didn't think it would,” Tom says. “Fuck everything up.”

I snort sourly. “Yeah, because I wasn't supposed to know.”

“Yeah,” Tom says vaguely. “Plus, you know me and lifelong relationships. Scares the willies out of me.”

“I forgot,” I say. “You're a non-believer.”

Tom chews his lip. “No, I do believe,” he says. “But I think maybe
I'm
not capable.”

“Yet you expect me to want to buy a gîte with you,” I point out.

“Well, I'm not saying I'll run off in six months' time or anything,” Tom says. “I
am
capable of committing to a project for a few years.”

I cough. “That's good of you,” I say.

“Sorry. That sounded…”

“Honest,” I say. “For once.”

“I think monogamy scares me,” Tom says, apparently emboldened. “A whole lifetime of…”

“Of what?”

“Never mind. It'll sound worse.”

“What?” I insist. “A whole lifetime of sex with me?”

Tom tuts. “No! But it always gets boring
after a while
… everyone knows that. I just want to enjoy all the options.”