Sleight of Hand (23 page)

Because what to say if it was Cristina, babe? I had no plan, you see. Her getting Carlos involved was a threat, and a clever, efficient one at that.

And if Carlos phoned again – it would be to arrange to meet me. He would have some innocent pretext, like catching up for old times' sake or a business proposition, but it would mean that he had worked out exactly what was going on.

But it never
was
them, Chupy. From that point on, it was always you.

And that made me worry even more. Because the fact that Cristina never did call meant that Carlos
hadn't
given her my new number.

And that too, meant that he
knew
. And if he knew it was only a question of time before he decided to do something about it.

It was a mess babe. It was a big scary mess and I couldn't think of a way to sort it out.

The effect of the view on every one of us is profound and unmissable. The house feels zen, calm, healing even.

As the four of us sit at the table and the beach darkens beneath the advancing rainclouds and the first raindrops slip down the pane, we all slip into an unusually gentle mood of benevolent chatter. Even Sarah sits calmly as we eat dinner, staring at the beach and occasionally pointing out a man with a dog or a seagull perched on the garden fence.

It's as if with such a magnificent view, the need for any of us to impress is removed. And so we sit, chatting quietly in almost hushed tones.

Tom and I manage to laugh at each other's jokes – a first since our break up. In fact, Tom has both Jenny and me laughing out loud with his stories about the renovation work in his new apartment. Most of these stem from communication problems he's having with the Lithuanian builders his uncle sent.

Jenny tells me at some length what happened to Rodney, a stockbroker she had been dating last summer. That initially promising relationship ended, she reveals, when he turned up with a gift of handcuffs, whip, and gimp mask.

“Sounds quite fun to me,” Tom says predictably.

“Well, to be honest,” Jenny laughs, “I wouldn't have minded that much if it had been for
him
. But he thought he was going to whip
me
. I mean, as if …”

Once dinner has been cleared away Jenny produces a stack of board games she has found in
the sideboard and the three of us set up a game of Risk. I also simultaneously play Snakes and Ladders with Sarah, which explains why Jenny, in unusually aggressive mood, manages to stomp all over me so quickly. At least, that's my alibi. The fact that Sarah thrashes me at Snakes and Ladders is perhaps harder to justify.

As the remains of the day slip into the sea, I go around the lounge switching the various small lamps on. I put the Isley Brothers on the turntable and turn to see Sarah “driving” a pebble across the sofa and Jenny and Tom laughing in front of the now black sea-scape. It looks warm and safe and gorgeous. It looks like something from a furniture catalogue – perfect people in a perfect interior having a lovely time. I feel a pang of unease that we will soon have to leave this place and return to Surrey.

After a three hour battle of nerves, Jenny wins the game and heads off to the kitchen to “rustle something up.”

“Now that's what I call a modern woman,” Tom says.

“I'm sorry?”

“Well, she can conquer the world,
and
make tea.”

I laugh, ruffle Sarah's hair and carry the empty Risk box to the table.

I become aware that Tom is sitting staring at me whilst I put the plastic pieces back in the box. He doesn't help, he just sits and stares. I decide that he is probably trying to think up some stunning put down.

But as I reach across the table for a final stray soldier, he half stands, leans forward, and steals a peck on my cheek. I jump so hard that I almost knock the Risk box back onto the floor.

“What the fuck?” I ask, straightening up, pulling a face and rubbing my cheek.

Tom grins at me smugly and shrugs. “I felt like it,” he says.

“Well don't,” I say, popping the lid on the box and crossing the room to the sideboard. “Don't
feel like it
.”

“Oooh,” Tom says, childishly.

I close the sideboard and glare at him. “Right,” I say. “I'm going out for a quick walk. I need a breath of fresh air.”

“I'll come with you,” Tom says.

“I'd rather you didn't,” I reply, hastily grabbing my coat and, even before I have put it on, opening the front door.

It's not that I want to be mean, it really isn't. It's just that the kiss took me by surprise. And it's just that, despite myself, I rather liked it. I'm worried that the unexpected stirring in my loins will be visible if I stay. I'm not sure I trust myself to go for a walk along the beach with him either. Oh lord.

“Don't be too long,” Jenny calls from the kitchen. “This'll be ready in fifteen minutes.”

Outside, the pebbles are glistening from the recent rain.

The air is icy and damp. I shiver and button my coat and crunch off across the beach, my mood already shifting from surprise to a mixture of flattery, embarrassment and anger. In the end, it's the anger that ends up being the dominant emotion. Tom and I have to spend time together for Jenny's sake. And today is the first time we have managed to do so in a civil manner. And now he has messed it all up – now he has made it all complicated again. And that, frankly, is something I could do without.

“Mark!”

I hear Tom's voice behind me, and think,
“Shit! What now?”

“Mark!”

I pretend not to hear and walk quickly across the beach, but then I hear the crunch of his feet on the pebbles just behind me. He grabs my sleeve. “Mark,” he says panting.

I turn to face him and shake my head. “What's
wrong
with you?” I ask.

And then he grabs my other sleeve and launches his mouth at mine.

For a few seconds I resist, essentially by keeping my lips tightly pressed shut.

But the truth of the matter is that it just feels so good, it's been so long since anyone kissed me, and even longer since anyone kissed me with this passion, and so, despite myself, despite the screaming of my brain, I melt into him and open my mouth to his.

He links his arms behind me, effectively locking me in, but the shabby truth is that I don't try to escape. His mouth is warm and sweet, welcoming and full of memories of all the other times we kissed, times when I was totally enamoured with everything about him.

He moves one hand to the front of my jeans, and then pulls his head back to look me in the eye. “I still have the same effect on you then,” he says, grinning.

There's no point even trying to contradict the statement that my dick is so eloquently making.

“I want to fuck,” Tom says, before launching himself at my mouth again.

A shiver runs down my spine, and I think,
“Oh, God, so do I.”

“But someone's coming,” I say, pulling away and nodding up the beach.

“Here! Over here,” Tom says, pulling and then bustling me up the beach towards some beach-huts.

“Tom this is madness,” I say. “We both have boyf …” and then he pushes me into the gap between two huts and starts to kiss me again, simultaneously unbuttoning my fly.

“Tom stop,” I say. Even
I
realise that I sound unconvincing.

He sinks to his knees and slips my dick between his lips. It feels warm and soft and irresistible. It feels indescribably wonderful, in fact.

“Oh, Tom …” I groan.

“I want to fuck you,” he says, pulling away and looking up at me.

“We can't,” I say.

“Exes don't count,” he says. “Everyone knows that.”

I shake my head and gasp in exasperation. I'm not sure if I'm exasperated because I
can't
have sex with Tom, or because I'm
going to
. The roulette wheel is still spinning.

Tom stands and turns me around. “No,” I say. “We …” And then he nuzzles my neck and then starts to lick it. The one advantage exes have of course, is that, whether they are trying to piss you off or seduce you, they know exactly which buttons to push. “Oh, God …” I groan, melting against him.

And then I feel the head of Tom's dick against my arse, and a tiny voice struggles to be heard. As his spits in his hand and lubricates himself it takes every last ounce of willpower for me to let that tiny voice be heard above the others. Forcing my mouth to speak the words, “Tom, no. Not without a condom,” is one of the hardest things I have ever
done, and yet the statement makes me feel like a complete slut, for in fact, it is an admission of intention. It is proof that – condom permitting – I have accepted the inevitability of what comes next.

“Have you got one?” he asks, licking behind my ear.

“No, of course I haven't,” I say.

“Well, it's fine. It's still fine,” he says.

“No,” I protest, turning around. “No it isn't
fine
, Tom.”

He kisses me again, and then tries to forcibly turn me around again.

“No,” I say. “Stop.”

“But I'm negative,” he says. “You know I am.”

“Maybe I'm not,” I say. “How would
you
know?”

“Oh of course you are,” he says. “You're Mother Teresa.”

Thirty yards away, a guy is crossing the beach. His beagle appears at the corner of the beach-hut.

This momentary intrusion of reality enables me to break free and take control. “Stop this now,” I say, pushing him away and then pulling my jeans back up.

“But …” Tom says, then, at the dog, “Shoo! Go away.” He picks up some pebbles and throws them and the dog yelps.

“What have you found, boy?” the dog owner calls, now climbing the beach towards us. “Is someone there?”

“I can't do this Tom,” I say, slipping out from in front of him and running to the road on the other side of the huts.

Tom runs after me, simultaneously buttoning his jeans. “Mark!” he says. “Jesus.”

“I can't do this,” I say. “It's crazy.”

“What's crazy,” Tom says, almost jogging to keep up, “is how seriously you fucking take everything. Jesus, it's just sex. It's just a bit of fun. I'm not going to ask you to leave saint Ricardo or anything.”

“I have a partner Tom. So do you. That might not mean anything to you …”

“It didn't mean much to you when
we
were together,” he says.

“Don't let's dig all that …”

“Well it
didn't
. Don't be such a hypocrite.”

“You weren't faithful either,” I say, stopping and turning to face him.

“But I'm not the one getting all prissy,” he says.

“I'm sorry, I can't.”

“Why? Why now?”

“It's just … different.”

“Why?” Tom says.

“I …” I say, lowering my head and staring at my feet. The reasons: that I love Ricardo more than I loved Tom, that my future is with Ricardo, and that even if it isn't, it certainly isn't with Tom – are too cruel to be spoken.

Without me saying a word, Tom, somehow gets the gist. “Oh,
right,”
he says. “Thanks.”

“Tom … I'm sorry,” I say. “I just can't.”

“Yeah, right,” he says. “Well, if you'd had a condom, you would have. So you can get off your high horse.”

I shake my head. “I'd like to Tom, I mean, I'm still attracted to you, but …”

“Yeah, whatever,” he says. “Cheers for the grapple eh?” And then he slaps me on the shoulder and heads off across the beach.

“Tom!”
I shout.

But he doesn't answer, and because I don't know quite what I would say if he did, I passively watch him leave.

I walk down to the breakwater and stare for a moment at the reflection of the cloud-blurred moon on the sea, and then turn to the right and continue to head west. To my left the sea is calm and glassy, and shimmering with moonlight. To my right the straggling houses of Pevensey Bay look dark and abandoned.

*

Two hours later, I get back to the house to find Jenny sitting at the table smoking. “Is that a joint?” I ask, sniffing the air.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sarah's in bed. Tom left me a couple. What happened between you two?”

“Happened? What do you mean?”

“Well, one minute everyone's all lovey dovey and the next you're both stomping off across the beach, and now Tom has gone home.”

“He went home?”

“Yep. He didn't even stay for tea. Yours is in the kitchen by the way. You can just heat it up.”

I hang up my coat and join her at the table. “I'll have a toke on that first if I might.”

“Sure,” she says, handing it to me. “So?”

I shrug and take a drag. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” she says.

“Nothing.”

“Well whatever your nothing was, it was the kiss of death to my little dinner party.”

I frown at her, wondering if she knows after all.

“What?” she asks, grinning.

““Sorry,” I say, “about dinner.”

“Well, it's only macaroni cheese, but all the same … So nothing happened
at all?”

“I don't really want to go into it,” I tell her.

Jenny chuckles, and then slips into an outrageous, dope-fuelled fit of laughter.

“What?” I ask.

“Well, you two,” she says, tears in her eyes. “You're like twins.”

“Eh?”

“Well that's what Tom said too,” she says, still grinning. “I don't want to go into it,” she repeats, putting on a pompous voice.

“Sorry,” I say. “But …”

Jenny waves one hand in the air. “Whatever,” she says. “Keep your little secrets.”

“I will.”