Better Than Easy (30 page)

“Crap,” Tom says.

“I'm sorry,” Jenny says. “Really I am.”

“I suppose the weekends and holidays
will
be the busiest period,” Tom volunteers.

I nod vaguely. It's just dawning on me that Jenny had been going to contribute rent as well. Without that money, things will be
really
tight.

“Is it the money?” Jenny asks, as if aware of my thoughts. “Because I could still pay half-rent or something.”

“Crap, yeah, the rent!” Tom says. There is something strange about his voice again, something unconvincing. Plus Tom never says,
“Crap.”
I can't put my finger on what's going on. I wonder if maybe he's
glad
that Jenny won't be living with us full time. “We'll be OK without that, won't we?” he says, his intonation stuck halfway between statement and question.

I sigh sharply before saying, mainly to ease Jenny's manifest guilt, “I expect so. It's not a few hundred Euros that are going to make or break the bank.”

“And we'll come up on Friday afternoons and back down on Monday mornings,” Jenny says. “And of course if you two need a weekend in town, well, you can use the flat, and I'll cover for you up there.”

Tom nods. “Actually, that will be good,” he says. “It could get a bit much up there. You'll have to get a car though.”

Jenny smiles. “Yeah, I thought you could help me find an old banger,” she says. “You're kind of the car guy around here.”

“Hey,” I complain. “I'm good with cars as well.”

“Not as good as me though,” Tom says cheekily.

“I'm quite excited about that. I won't need a four-wheel drive or anything will I?” Jenny asks. “I mean, with the snow and stuff.”

“You might, actually,” Tom says.

I laugh.

“What?” he asks.

“You might know about cars Tom, but you know fuck all about the weather down here.” I turn to Jenny. “You'll be fine,” I say. “Obviously a four wheel drive is best, but really any old banger will do as long as you have snow-chains in the boot.”

“You see,” Jenny says beaming at us both. “The perfect combination.”

In a way, of course, the new arrangement – were it not for the financial aspect – would be the perfect combination as well. Tom and I get some time alone to run the gîte. We get visits and help during school holidays and weekends. And a place to stay in Nice for a night on the town once my flat is sold. But the financial implications are, in truth, pretty dire: four hundred Euros a month could well break us.

“I am sorry,” Jenny says, “about the money thing. My mum's still helping me out so it's hard, but you know, I'm sure I will be able to pay
some
rent.”

“It'll be fine,” Tom says, shooting me a glance. “If you're paying rent here, we can hardly ask for rent up there, can we? We don't really need it anyway,” he continues. “If you are gonna help us out then that's more than enough, isn't it Mark?”

What he says is honourable and generous and entirely untrue. “Yeah, of course,” I say, trying in my head to rehash the figures and feeling a little sick.

“And maybe next year everything will be different,” Tom says. “By next year we'll probably be
making
loadsadosh
and we can pay you to work for
us.”

“Yeah,” Jenny says, vaguely. At that moment, I realise that not only is she no longer renting the flat from us, but that she has in fact lost her enthusiasm for the project as well. “Maybe. We'll see what happens, Tom, yeah?” she adds.

Tom shrugs and smiles at me. “It'll be fine,” he says.

Because the gîte has been off-limits conversation wise, I had forgotten how scary his blind optimism can be. “We're not going to be making loads of dosh, Tom,” I point out. “It's gonna be
really
tough, I hope you realise that. Especially now.”

Jenny looks concerned and starts to open her mouth, but I raise a hand to silence her. “It's fine Jenny; don't worry. Everything you say is normal and fine. I'm just worried Tom here doesn't realise how hard it's going to be.”

“Of course I do,” Tom says. “I did the spreadsheets, remember?”

“The very
optimistic
spreadsheets,” I say.

“Only the first one,” he says. “Anyway, what's the worst that can happen?”

I laugh. “Um … we don't get enough customers, we run out of money, we can't buy food or heat the place, we starve, can't pay the loan, and they repossess. How does that sound?”

Tom rolls his eyes. “If it gets that bad, I can always get some temp work,” he says. “You know I earned two thousand pounds for Christmas. That would pay the loan off for nearly five months.”

“Four months,” I say. “And that was before tax.”

“OK, four,” he concedes. “But I don't think I'll have to pay tax on … anyway, whatever.”

I stare at him as a short film plays in my mind. In it I'm alone at the top of the mountain, surrounded by snow – a sort of Chantal left behind, only with Paloma instead of a baby. “I hope you're joking,” I say. “Because I am
so
not going to be left up there on
my own whilst you swan off to Brighton. Anyway, you won't have a flat there anymore.”

“No,” Tom says. “Of course.”

Jenny glances at Tom, then catches my eye and raises an eyebrow in what I take to be shared concern.

Tom sees it and tuts. “God!” he says. “I only meant if things get desperate … rather than starve.”

“I'd
rather
starve,” I say, pointedly.

“Talking of which,” Jenny says, ruffling Sarah's hair, and forcibly changing the subject,
“I'm
starving. Shall we?”

After lunch, Tom heads off exploring with Sarah, leaving Jenny and me sunbathing. To avoid talking about Tom and the gîte, or Jenny's missing rent, or indeed Ricardo's imminent departure, all of which make me feel panicky, I trawl the
Sunday Times
for fresh conversation matter. “That Colombian woman is still being held hostage,” I say, flashing the newspaper at her. “They've just released these pictures of her. She looks rough, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jenny says. “Well, you'd look rough after six years prisoner in the middle of nowhere.” She pulls a little grimace. “I didn't mean … I meant, in the middle of the forest … In the middle of the
rain
forest,” she says.

I laugh. “No,” I say. “Quite. Did you read about this one? The life insurance scam?”

Jenny nods. “Is that the woman who was claiming for her husband, only they found him alive and well and living down the road?”

I nod and point the newspaper briefly at her. “Yeah,” I say. “Anne Darwin. The husband says he can't remember who he is. They're trying to decide if he's truly amnesiac or not.”

Jenny shakes her head. “Outrageous! Of course he isn't. She got a half a million pound life insurance payout.
And
they were up to their eyes in debt.”

“Maybe that's what Ch …” I say, pausing as something catches the corner of my eye. I turn as, at the edge of my vision, two bushes part. Ricardo appears between them. “What the fuck's he doing here?” I say.

Jenny frowns and turns. “Oh good,” she says.

“You said he wasn't coming,” I say.

“Yeah, he phoned, when I nipped back, didn't I say?”

“No,” I answer. “Well, yes. But you didn't say he was
coming.”

Jenny knits her brow. “What's wrong?” she says. “Is that a problem for some reason?”

I run a hand across my forehead and at the sound of gravel beneath Ricardo's boots, I look up. “Sorry,” I say to Jenny. “I just have a headache coming, that's all.” I turn to Ricardo and smile. “Hello!” I say. “This is a nice surprise.”

Jenny glances at me and frowns, then stands to greet Ricardo, simultaneously reaching down for her handbag, which she lobs at me. “There's some Paracetamol in there,” she says.

Ricardo, is of course, Ricardo.
Toujours, égale à lui même
, as the French say: smiling, funny, relaxed, sexy. Quite how he manages to sit between his girlfriend (the one he's leaving in a few days) and her best friend (his secret lover) and still have those serene gestures, still flash that cracker of a grin at everyone; quite how he can even now be funny and seductive, really is beyond me. And not for the first time, I can't work out if I want him or if I want to be
like
him; for if I could only learn ten percent of Ricardo's ease, my own life would, it strikes me, be
ninety
percent easier. His presence should, by rights,
add
to the stress of the day, but as ever he knows how to make people laugh, he knows how to make people smile, and thus despite almost insurmountable odds, it is Ricardo who makes a success of the trip.

The only inkling of tension comes when Jenny,
recovering from a fit of laughter at Ricardo's sick impression of Ingrid Betancourt chained to a tree, grabs his head and tries to kiss him. He catches my eye, and, I think, in deference to my feelings, turns away, making it a peck on the cheek rather than a snog. He then scoops a shrieking Sarah onto his shoulders and jogs off along the beach.

“Did you see that?” Jenny says. “Honest to God, I feel like I'm being phased out. Gradually.”

“You are,”
I think.
“We all are.”
I lie, “No, what happened?”

“Nothing,” Jenny says. “It doesn't matter. At the point we're at, it
really
doesn't matter.”

But as soon as he returns – with a now beaming Sarah on his shoulders – she softens, apparently unable, like myself, to ever resist him for long. Even when she's in the process of being phased out.

He provides smiles and jokes and kiddie entertainment, and, after disappearing for a few minutes to the restaurant at the top of the hill, even supplies us with plastic cups of coffee and a key for the padlocked pedalos. This latter treat is designed to seduce Sarah, but although she almost accepts, actually taking both our hands at one point to leap aboard, a simple, unfortunate, “Don't let her fall in! She can't swim yet,” from Jenny puts an end to the possibility. Sarah's grin slips to a frown, and within three seconds she has wrenched her hands free and is running, wailing, back to her mother's side.

So it is that Ricardo and I end up pedalling out onto the lake together in our very dirty yellow pedalo. The water is glassy smooth, yet as we reach the centre a chilling breeze hits us, so we head back to the edges.

Only the cries of the cormorants and the steady chugging of the paddles disturbs the silence. It's relaxing and heavenly, and we pedal without speaking for at least ten minutes, using simple pointing gestures to negotiate where to head for next. At one
point as we follow the mini coastline I realise that a hillock is hiding us entirely from the beach and I lean in and give Ricardo a peck on the cheek. He looks surprised so I say, “I missed you!”

He laughs. “You were
hiding
from me.”

I nod. “That too,” I admit.

He shrugs and shakes his head. “But here is too dangerous.” He nods over at Jenny as she, then Sarah and Tom slip back into view. We pedal on for a while before he says, “Jenny told me. About the gîte. You will buy it then.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I can't quite believe it myself. We're signing the day after you leave.”

“Yes,” Ricardo says. “The fourteenth.”

“You still think I shouldn't do it,” I say.

“Jenny thinks it is OK,” he says. “So maybe. I think it is brave.”

“Crazy more like.”

“Yes,” Ricardo says. “Maybe crazy too.”

“It's weird,” I say. “I honestly think it's a mistake. But it's as if I'm on a train, and it's going that way, and I can't seem to stop it. I think we weigh everything too heavily as we get older. When I was younger I just used to say, ‘yes,' to everything, and things seemed easier. More fun maybe. So I think,
why not?”

Ricardo says nothing, so I continue, “At some point, you just have to decide to build something, you know? It's like buying a house and …” I realise I'm rambling. I realise that I sound like I'm trying to convince myself.

“I suppose,” I finally conclude, “that at some point you have to grow up and decide that
here
is where you will live, and
this
is the person, and just get on and make the most of it. Does that make any sense at all?”

“Yes,” Ricardo says. “I understand that. But when you buy a house, even then you must ch … I don't know. Never mind.”

“No go on,” I say. “When you buy a house?”

Ricardo smiles at me and grins. “No, really,” he says. “It's not for me to say.”

I stare at the opposite bank for a moment before completing the phrase for him, “You have to choose one that isn't going to fall down. Is that what you were going to say?”

Ricardo pulls an embarrassed expression and shrugs.

“You're right,” I say. “But the whole situation has led to a point where something has to give. I can't explain it, but some big decision has to be made. Tom gave up his job, I gave up mine. We cut ourselves free for this, we organised a bridging loan to buy the place, we signed the compromise, and now, well, we have to do something new or go back to where we were. It just has
…
I don't know,
momentum.”

“You could do something different,” Ricardo says.

“Like?”

“You could change your mind and go travelling. You could go to Africa. You could go to Australia. You could come to Colombia.”

I laugh. “Yeah,” I say. “Right. We'll tell them when we get back to shore. You can make the announcement. No, seriously, I've done the whole travelling thing. The next stage isn't about moving. It's about putting down roots.” Ricardo has stopped pedalling, so I add, “Hey, lazy boy, what is this?”