50 Reasons to Say Goodbye (3 page)

He pulls away. “Better?” he asks.

I nod. I have stopped trembling.

“Good,” he says leading me to the bedroom.

The sex is soft. Bodies rub together. We caress and fondle each other to a slow climax.

I am expecting to leave, expecting even to be thrown out, but we lie and talk and eventually fall asleep in each other's arms. I feel more relaxed than I ever remember being.

When I wake up in the morning Andrew is already up. I wonder for a moment if this can last, if I have read him wrong, but then he appears in the doorway, smiling broadly.

“Get up, get out,” he says laughing. “The job's done and I've got a life to live.”

I frown at him.

“Oh and say hi to Nick for me!” he says with a wink.

I walk away from the house feeling complex and irrevocably changed.

I feel bigger, older, clearer – calm, relaxed and sad all at once.

It's been a dull day. Everyone has gone away for the weekend, well except for Nick and myself that is. He's already in the pub when I call, so I join him there. The sun is setting; the rays are forcing themselves through the dirt-frosted windows. The Burleigh can actually look OK at night, when the coloured lights disguise the tobacco stained walls, when cute bottoms are hiding the split seats, but at five p.m. empty, the place looks dreadful.

Nick tells me about his trip to New York, tells me misty eyed of twenty bars, all ten times bigger than this place, all decorated in post-industrial, minimalist chic; all of them stuffed with beautiful gym bunnies with huge white teeth.

“Still something empty about the whole thing though,” he says.

“Empty?”

“Something sterile, like everyone's smiling, looking like they're having fun.”

“Sounds OK to me,” I say with a shrug.

“Yeah.” Nick shakes his head from side to side, thinking about it. “But somehow,” he continues, “it seems as though they're just
looking
like they're having fun, instead of actually
having
any fun. Does that make any sense at all?”

I nod. “I suppose so; still got to be better than this though.” I gesture around the room.

Only one other person is in the bar, sat at the far end of the lounge. He looks our age, twenty to twenty-five years old; he's tall, very thin, blond. He has the most horizontal eyebrows I have ever seen – they make him
look very serious. He's writing postcards.

Nick sees me looking at him and glances over his shoulder. He leans in conspiratorially. The music, a dreadful instrumental version of the Carpenters' greatest hits, is thankfully turned down low. “Do you like him?”

I shrug. “No, not really my type.”

Nick glances again. “Why not?”

“Don't know,” I reply. “Maybe it's the fact that I like them short and dark, and he's tall and blond.”

Nick nods.

“Maybe it's because he's filling in postcards.”

Nick frowns.

“So he's a tourist.”

“So?”

“A heartbreaker.”

Nick smiles and nods.

“Or maybe it's just because he looks about as skinny and serious and dorky as anyone I've ever seen.”

“OK, OK!” Nick waves at me to stop. He pulls a cigarette from his packet of Marlboro, offers me one.

“Only trying to help,” he says lighting up both of our cigarettes.

I glance over at the guy again. He's chewing his biro, looking into the middle distance. He smiles at me, flashing big white teeth.

Nick looks over his shoulder again; the guy looks back at his postcard.

“So actually it's
you
that likes him,” I tease.

Nick shrugs. “Well yes actually,” he replies. “But I've got, well you know, the B problem.”

I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out. “The B problem?” I ask.

“Boyfriend.”

I laugh. “It's not supposed to be a problem Nick. It's supposed to be The Solution.”

Nick glances at the man again; he looks up from his
postcard and nods a half
hello
to him.

Nick gets up. “Sorry, I can't help myself,” he says to me, crossing the bar.

I can hear their voices, Nick's, and an American accent, but not the words. I flick through a free magazine and when I glance over Nick beckons to me.

The man smiles broadly and shakes my hand. “Dirk,” he says. His accent is indeed American. His voice is broad and deep, rich and smooth.

“Nice voice,”
I think.

He shakes my hand. His hands are huge and slim – the image of his body – and his grasp is firm. Nick chats to him maniacally, as though he's running out of time.

“Of course …”
I realise,
“He is! Darren will be here soon.”

I watch them talk. I feel unusually calm, reflective. I am thinking about myself, here, now, and the effect of his presence on me. I am surprised at the instant attraction I feel, despite all I have said about him not being
my type
.

It seems to be entirely because of his voice, because I like the slow deliberate way he constructs his phrases, because I like the vibrations the sound waves seem to make in my chest.

He's answering Nick but looking at me, questioningly. He's a student, he explains, on exchange to Cambridge. He's studying philosophy. “Only for a year,” he says.

I interrupt the chat by asking him the million-dollar question. “Why?”

“I'm sorry?” he asks.

“Why philosophy?”

There is a pause. Nick wrinkles up his nose as if it's the most stupid question he has ever heard. Dirk looks at me, a half smile on his lips. His eyes shine.

“Why?” he laughs. “Well,” he pauses, weighing up
each word. “I suppose the reason is to gain some insight, however … lightweight, into the big
Why
. The why are we here? The why does it all seem so pointless?” His voice hesitates almost inaudibly as he says, “pointless.”

I look at him intently. I wonder about that sadness.

“Well good. A worthy cause if ever there was one,” interjects Nick. “Any insights so far?”

I sigh and look at him. Dirk pulls his eyes away from mine. He doesn't just look away – I can feel him pull them away, breaking contact, reluctantly.

His voice is upbeat, less serious. “Sure, I guess only corny stuff, but, well I suppose the more I think about life, the more it seems that it's just about, well, erm …”

“Sex?” asks Nick. “Well you don't need a degree in philosophy to know that!” he laughs.

“Love,” says Dirk. “Actually I think it's love. In its many forms.”

“Oh,” says Nick.

“Strange concept I know, Nick.” I open my eyes wide; wriggle my brow at him. “But one could actually link those two concepts: sex and love.”

The door to the bar pushes open and Darren appears.

“Talking of which,” laughs Nick, pushing himself out of his seat.

“I'm parked on double yellows, can we go?” says Darren, nodding a
hi
to me.

Nick mocks an American accent. “Now you boys have fun,” he says.

We nod. We wave. “We will,” we say in unison.

Dirk continues. “Of course sex always
is
an expression of love, whether the involved parties realise it or not.”

“You obviously haven't had some of the sex that I've had,” I say, trying to sound knowledgeable.

“That is certainly true, but it still has some truth in it. You see the thing is …”

We spend the evening together. We eat bar-food in order to carry on talking. I am bowled over by him – bowled over by his voice, his calm; strangely bowled over by the effect it all has on me. And more than anything, I am bowled over by his beliefs about love, and sex, and life – by how important he thinks it all is. Every comment I've heard before on the subject belittles it with cynicism and irony. Dirk is different.

Thus begins our relationship. We spend three or four evenings a week together. We talk until the early hours, sometimes in a pub, sometimes in his student accommodation – complete with stuffy don furniture and various religious icons – sometimes amidst the mess of my shared house.

I discover that his father is a homophobic Methodist minister in Los Angeles. I learn that this doesn't make life easy for his gay son.

The day his birthday present arrives by post – a polyester club tie – I see him weep. “How could my folks know me so little,” he says winding it around his fingers.

A little later, I manage to make him cry with laughter instead.

Sometimes we cook together, sometimes we walk together, sometimes we smoke together, but never a kiss – never even the suggestion of a kiss; never even a circumstance where a kiss could be possible. And it drives me insane. For I love him, am comfortable around him, trust him; I find our time together endlessly enthralling.

Over burnt pasta-bake – since meeting him I have apparently developed some love-induced form of
Alzheimer's disease – the battle committee discusses strategy. Jenny thinks I should just pounce.

“It's obvious he's gagging for it,” she says. “Christ I haven't seen you for
weeks
, you're virtually living together!”

Claire thinks I should get him drunk. “If he's just got some sort of religious hang-up then the best antidote is alcohol,” she says.

I sigh; I just don't know.

We are interrupted by the telephone, it's Dirk.

I close the kitchen door on the giggling girls.

Back in the kitchen I tell my team of advisors. “He wants me to go to Brighton for the weekend.”

They goggle-eye me.

“A dirty weekend in Brighton! The little devil!” says Claire.

“You said yes I take it?” asks Jenny.

I shrug. “Nah, I told him I can't go; told him I've agreed to take you to Sainsbury's.”

Jenny's mouth drops. “You shouldn't have. I mean, who cares about Sainsbury's?”

I grin and shake my head. “Durhhh … As if!”

“So you accepted?”

“I did.”

The girls cheer. Claire whacks me on the back.

*

The drive to Brighton takes forever. Dirk becomes hysterical every time I go over fifty miles an hour.

“I just don't feel safe in these tiny European cars,” he says.

I try to point out that a Vauxhall Astra is not exactly tiny, but he doesn't seem convinced.

He has a definite penchant for history – he's
mapped three castles between Cambridge and Brighton. The first one I visit with him; it reminds me of school trips. The monotone voice of the guide bores me; my feet ache within the first few seconds. The second two I sit out in the sun and smoke; it's a beautiful day.

As we leave Hastings and head for Brighton, Dirk declares that it was “Awesome.”

“I can't even begin to imagine how old that must be!” he says.

I say, “Ooh, I'd guess that it was built somewhere around ten-sixty-seven.”

Dirk laughs. “Yeah, like really!” he says. His voice implies that he thinks this is a joke and I don't correct him. I marvel at the fact that even this I find cute.

The bed and breakfast is perfect: flowery bedspreads, flock wallpaper, swirly carpets and a woman in a pinny who looks like a wartime aunt from
Wish You Were Here
.

Once in the room, we drop our bags and I move towards him. I am not thinking, I am not calculating, I am quite simply
expecting
a kiss.

Dirk jokingly punches me in the stomach. He asks, “Which bed do you want?”

I smile. “Oh I don't know …” I mock.

“You want the double then,” he says.

I point to it. “I was thinking that I could have this one.”

I point again to the same bed. “And you could have this one.”

Dirk laughs. “You're so funny!” he exclaims, disappearing into the bathroom.

I rub my forehead. I am confused.
“Great way of saying no though,”
I think.

We eat vegetarian whole-food in
Food for Friends
– I love it, Dirk hates it.

We argue about vegetarianism, politics, and religion. We disagree about everything as usual, but with Dirk I actually see this as a plus, something about the good humour, the intelligence of the discussion, the ease with which we always, eventually, agree to disagree.

We move on to a bar; I drink pints of bitter, Dirk drinks Bud. I tell him he's drinking bottled cat's piss, but he doesn't seem to care.

We go to a nightclub. A busy crowd makes the dance floor vibrate. Dirk dances frantically; his dancing has nothing to do with me – half the time he has his eyes closed, the other half he's facing the other way.

I retire to the bar and he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. I drink more beer, and when I am full of beer – when the sheer volume becomes unbearable – I switch to vodka.

Drunkenly, I talk to a lesbian from Sydney. She tells me that it's the most beautiful city in the world. She says that the gay community there is “mind-blowing.” I figure I should go and visit some day.

My eyesight blurs as Dirk, laughing, appears before me. “So the deal is, I'll do the dancing, you do the drinking!” he says.

I shrug. He peers into my eyes. “Is something the matter?”

I nod at him. “I want a kiss,” I whine.

He laughs.

“Don't laugh,” I say, “I want a kiss … I'm sick of waiting for a kiss.”

He steps back; the smile drops.

I'm having trouble pronouncing my words. I can hear myself slurring. “I love you,” I say.

Dirk's eyes widen. “Well, uh …”

“What are we
doing
here anyway?” I ask.

Dirk shrugs. “Having fun?”

And finally it starts to dawn on me. “You don't even
want
to sleep with me do you? You don't even
fancy
me, do you?” I have said this too loudly; people are looking at us.