Better Than Easy (33 page)

“That doesn't excuse lying to me all the time,” I say.

“No,” Tom says. “But I was scared you'd drop out, and then I thought, what with all the rest, well, that that would be the end of us. And I really didn't want that.” The quiver in his voice makes my anger start to wane.

“And admit,” he continues. “I didn't
create
the Jenny problem. The actual problem, that she wants to go home, isn't
my
fault. I was just trying to fix it. And now I have.”

I sigh and nod. “OK,” I say. “But all these lies
…
Jesus! They just have to stop. It's
…
I don't know
…
it's just
…
it's just not possible, Tom.”

Tom nods. “I know,” he says. “I'm crap at it anyway.”

“You're the worst liar I ever met,” I say, a lie of my own – he's actually too good for comfort.

“Well, that's something at least,” Tom says.

“I'm sorry?” I say.

He laughs weakly. “Well, you wouldn't want to be dating a
good
liar, would you?”

I stare at him sourly.

“Mark, I love you. And I want to do this thing with you. That's not such a crime is it?”

I blink slowly and nod. “OK,” I say. “OK. Anything else you'd like to share at this point? Anything else you've decided not to tell me?”

Tom frowns. “About what?” he says again.

I shrug. “Who knows?” I say. “With you, really
…
who knows?”

Tom shakes his head. “No,” he says thoughtfully. “That's pretty much it.”

“Right,” I say, only at that instant, I can't help but suspect that there
is
more. And I can't help but wonder what that would be.

“Oh, there is one thing,” Tom says, coyly.

I wrinkle one side of my nose in a caricature of discontent. “Yeah?” I say.

“I'm starving,” he says. “And I don't think my cooking skills are up to seared scallops and mushy peas.”

I nod my head slowly and chew the inside of my mouth. “OK then,” I say, in a caving-in tone of voice, “I'll get it going.”

“You want help?” he asks.

I raise a hand to stop him getting up. “I really don't,” I say.

He forces a smile, nods, and then reaches for the TV remote. “OK then,” he says. “I'll just stick to what I do best, shall I?”

Cooking has always calmed me more than just about
any other activity – OK, except for sex. By the time I have served up the scallops, minted peas and potato (I even manage to pile it up like in the photo) I'm feeling calm, reassured even, to learn that not only was Ricardo telling me the truth, but that what, perfectly reasonably, struck him as shabby and dishonest, had a perfectly reasonable explanation. That Tom wants this project so much he is prepared to personally cover the loss of rent from the studio strikes me as deeply reassuring.

The food turns out perfectly and is delicious – true restaurant cooking and a good restaurant at that. Tom is appreciative and my mood towards him flip-flops back to one of warmth and excitement about the project. I can't help but think that there is something fundamentally unstable, something a little insane even, in my ability to see an entire situation one way – and be furious – and then, with a pepper-sprinkling of new data, to see the complete opposite. I wonder again if the various conflicts of my life aren't pushing me to the edge of actual madness.

But for tonight at least, all is well. We cuddle up on the sofa to watch the first of the films from the box set – Tom's birthday gift from Jenny. The film Tom chooses,
In Which We Serve,
is a military number set during the Second World War, hardly my favourite genre, but the film turns out to be particularly good. The incredibly young Noël Coward is amazing.

Afterwards, Tom clicks the TV off and we kiss and cuddle and undress each other. And then, slowly, gently, we start to make love. Tom spreads his legs in just such a way, and I reach for a condom and gel.

“We should get tested,” Tom says, “dispose with these.”

And as I roll on the condom, as I slowly, luxuriantly start to fuck him, I think,
“Yes, that would be good,”
and I think,
“Yes, if he could be trusted, that would be great.”

“Especially up there,” Tom murmurs.

I wonder if he means because there is nothing else to do up there, or because the lack of opportunity will leave no option
but
to be faithful. And then I realise that my erection is fading, so I force myself to remember the scene from the Paris darkroom and it returns, only I realise that in this particular re-run Lucky Strike has been replaced by Ricardo in his fireman's uniform.

A second before he orgasms, Tom says, “I love you, you know?” and then with those words in my ears and Ricardo's face in my mind's eye, I too come. And despite the fact that the crime was purely imaginary, I feel even more conflicted, even more
sinful
than I did after Paris.

The Tuesday of the meeting I'm up before nine, eating a hearty breakfast and checking the weather reports for snow on the roads to Chateauneuf D'Entraunes. Tom is a slow starter today, so I leave him to snooze as I shower and dress in my thermals. Then over three cups of coffee I re-read the list of questions we have prepared. At the point where I realise that Tom will have to get up
now
if he is to come at all, I also instinctively realise that he
isn't
going to come. Sure enough, when I bounce on the bed and challenge him he says, “Sorry, I feel a bit woozy this morning. Does it really matter if I don't?”

“Woozy?”
I say. In a way,
of course
it matters; it matters a great deal. This is the last chance to meet Chantal, to ask questions about anything before the gîte becomes
ours
. In a way, too, I would have thought that sheer excitement about our impending new venture should cure
any
ill. I point all of this out as gently as I can, but as I'm feeling quite loving towards Tom this morning, I avoid making an issue out of it.

He wakes up a little more and points out that he needs to call the bank and the estate agent this morning, and adds rather cutely that he would rather see the place on Thursday, “
…
just you and me, once it's ours,” so I relent and head off leaving him to sleep.

As I head out the door, he shouts, “If there's snow up there then take the car. It's parked on
…
”

“It's fine,” I shout back. “Eight degrees, but no snow. I checked.”

“OK, be careful though,” he says.

Out in the street, at the second I start to remove the
chains, locks and alarms that have kept my seven-fifty
mine
all these years, my phone starts to ring, and thinking that it's Tom, that he's changed his mind, and that I'm now going to be late, I fish it from my pocket. But the name on the screen is,
Ricardo
.

I sigh and hit the answer-call icon. “Hi Ricardo. I'm just leaving,” I say. “On the bike
…
I can't really talk.”

“Did you talk to Jenny?” he asks, and I realise that I owe him an apology.

“No. But Tom told me,” I tell him. “You were right. So, I'm sorry.”

“Does he know I told you?” Ricardo asks.

“No,” I tell him. “He didn't ask.”

“Perfect,” Ricardo says. “Not to make waves in a fish pond.”

I'm not quite sure what that particular proverb was supposed to mean – it too has been lost in translation, and I don't really have time to care.

“Can we meet?” Ricardo says. “Because tomorrow I go.”

“I'm on my way up to the gîte,” I tell him. “I'm really sorry.”

“You have to go
now?”
Ricardo says. “This second?”

“Right now,” I reply. “I'm late.”

“You still buy the gîte?” he asks in an amazed, irritated tone.

“I still buy the gîte,” I confirm.

“OK, forget it,” he says, sharply.

And then the phone is dead.

I sigh and stare at it for an instant. I'll fix it later, I think. I'll send him an email or something once he's far away on another continent.
Another continent!
A pang of some unrecognised emotion sweeps through my body. I sigh again and freeze the thought by swinging a leg over the bike and starting the engine.

Because I'm not working, and because I'm riding up into the mountains – almost exclusively my
Sunday pastime for the last few years – I'm initially surprised at the density of traffic. But then a brief bumper-to-bumper queue of sad looking people trying to get into the hypermarket reminds me that it is in fact a weekday, not a Sunday. An advertising hoarding tells me that the temperature here on the coast is a reasonable nineteen degrees, (in all the gear I'm actually overheating a little) but I know it will soon get colder, I look forward to that crisp mountain air.

Sure enough, as I leave town and the altitude increases, the temperature drops significantly, not gradually but in steps, dropping five degrees half way around a bend, and then another five for no apparent reason in the middle of a bridge. My ears pop and the road starts to wind more sharply as it hugs the contours of the Alpine foothills. I drop the bike into the first bend, and then into the second, and my nose tingles at something in the air – the smell of snow perhaps – and then the bike rolls, seemingly of its own accord into the next bend and I'm away: I'm in the flow. I have no idea why, but there is no activity on Earth – and I mean not
even
sex – that absorbs me so entirely, that silences internal dialogue so completely. The destination is forgotten, it's just, as a corny advert used to say,
man and machine in perfect harmony,
now braking, now tilting, rolling, and now straightening up and accelerating up and out and into the straight with an adrenaline rush.

In what feels like a couple of minutes, I'm slowing down to cross Guillaumes – a ghost town today. In fact, Guillaumes looks like some nuclear plant may have leaked nearby causing the whole town to be evacuated, though of course French nuclear plants
never
leak, and when they do there is
never
any danger, never any need for evacuation
…
I think,
“Humm, so this is the nearest town, huh?”
and then as I reach the other side and power away up the next hill, I shrug and think,
“Who cares? I just get to ride the bike even
further.”

At the junction to the narrow road that climbs to Chateauneuf D'Entraunes, I remember the loose gravel and slow to walking pace. It's just as well that I do because, as I take the blind bend, I come upon a parked car blocking two thirds of the narrow tarmac. I slowly squeeze through the gap, and wondering who would be stupid enough to park here, I pause and steal a glance at the driver. Shamefully, I'm assuming it will be a woman, an
old
woman. I physically jolt in surprise when I see Ricardo's face looking back at me.

I slam on the brakes and the bike slews to a halt on the gravel. Ricardo winds down the window.

“What are you doing here?” I say, then,
“That's
not your car.”

Ricardo smiles weakly at me and shrugs. “I hire it,” he says. “I sold mine already.”

“How did you get here before me?”

“I was half way,” he says. “I take some thing to the storage place on the 202. So I was halfway already.”

I nod and frown. “OK
… why
are you here?” I ask him. I realise that the smoke drifting from his window is dope scented. Though I knew he smoked, I have never actually seen him with a joint before.

He shrugs. “If the mountain won't go to Mohammed,” he says obtusely.

I nod. “Right,” I say, glancing up the hill and then at my watch. “Actually, look, I'm sorry. I'm late as it is.”

Ricardo nods and waves his joint around as he says, “I can wait.”

I sigh and shake my head. “I'm sorry Ricardo,” I say. “I'm not
…
it's just, I really don't know how long I will be.”

Ricardo shrugs. “So I come with you,” he says, matter of factly.

I'm sure Ricardo shouldn't be coming to the gîte
with me, but the truth is that other than the fact that the gîte has nothing whatsoever to do with him – a reply so rude I can't say it to his smiley, stoned face – I can't think of a single reason. “I'll meet you at the top,” I say with a sigh, already pulling away.

The gîte looks alive,
perky
even if such a thing can be said of a building. At any rate, with the shutters open revealing sparkling windows; with swept flagstones and with bistro tables and chairs dotted around the courtyard, it certainly looks different from when I last visited.

Chantal is still in the process of sweeping the yard. She looks up, waves and smiles as I pull into view. By the time I have parked the bike she has propped the broom against a wall and crossed the forecourt to greet me.

“En moto!” she says. “Trés courageux!”

I laugh and pull off my crash helmet. “Cold,” I tell her, gesticulating at the snow capped mountains to the north, “But beautiful!”

As the Clio pulls into view, Chantal frowns. “Tom?” she asks, nodding towards the car.

I shake my head. “A friend,” I tell her. “He's come to see our new house.”

Of course there is, I now realise, a very
good
reason that Ricardo shouldn't come to this meeting with me: he's the
wrong
person. It's a casting error. Tom should be here instead. Ricardo's presence is weird, unnerving even.

Chantal gives us a tour of the house and then the outbuildings, showing us what furniture she is leaving (thankfully most of it) explaining little idiosyncrasies of the place – how to lift the door to the attic as you close it, just so, where to put rat traps in the springtime, the best place to sit if you want to shoot at the dormice that scale the walls in summer!