Sleight of Hand (37 page)

When we get to Smarties the atmosphere is much better. The seventies' interior gleams and twinkles with enticing colour, and a DJ is mixing some unctuous electro beats. A few women are mingling amongst the essentially male gay crowd.

“This is nice,” Ricardo says once I have ordered our drinks.

“I knew you'd like it,” I say.”

“Yes.”

“And it's gay too,” I point out. “It's just a different kind of gay.”

“OK,” Ricardo says, winking at me and grinning. “Well, then maybe I am just a different kind of gay.”

I laugh. “Well that's beyond discussion,” I say as we clink our glasses together.

“It's better, no?”

“Oh, much better babe.”

When we get back to Gatwick on Sunday afternoon it is three degrees and sleeting. “I think I prefer Nice,” Ricardo says as I slip the ticket into the slot.

“Me too,” I say. “Jesus! Sixty quid!”

“Let me,” Ricardo offers, already feeding his credit card into the machine.

“Thanks,” I say. “Fuck it's cold.”

“It is, babe.”

Not a word is spoken as I head down the M23 and then onto the A27. The price of the parking ticket has left me totting up the cost of our mini-break and thinking more generally about money.

Ricardo, of course, is no longer working, and I haven't taken on a single piece of translation work for three weeks now. I know that Ricardo has some rent coming in from his Nice flat, and that somewhere down the line, he will receive his share of the cash from the sale of his mother's place, but neither of those are going to cover our needs long-term. Living off your remaining capital has never been a good strategy for wealth or happiness because of course once it's gone, so have all your options.

I open my mouth to discuss it a couple of times, but I can't quite find a way to frame the question because it's one of those situations where everything depends upon everything else. How long will we need to stay? Will Ricardo and Jenny get on well enough to make this house-share tenable? Will he want to return to Colombia when it's over? Will Jenny even survive, or will we have Sarah with us?
The questions are endless – it's a puzzle of mind blowing complexity and for the moment it's simply too early to even begin to sort through it all.

As we come out of Eastbourne, I ask Ricardo what he is thinking about.

“Nothing,” he says quietly. “Everything.”

“Like?”

“The way the English drive. So polite. And Jenny and Sarah. The weather …”

“Right.”

“That I'm happy, here now.”

I look over at him and he smiles broadly, and I know exactly what he means. Love has this amazing ability to make everything right, no matter what else is going on.

On arrival, my heart sinks at the sight of Tom's Beetle. Amazingly,
stupidly
, I had altogether forgotten about Tom these past few days.

I park as far from the Beetle as I can and switch the engine off.

Ricardo reaches for the door-handle and then hesitates. “You OK Chupy?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I'm just, you know … not in a rush for this moment to end.”

“The end of the holiday.”

“Yes. Something like that. God it's windy.” The car is shifting from side to side as the sea wind buffets us.

“Yes. Come on. You have to take Florent to the station, remember?”

“Sure.”

I open the door and it is nearly ripped from the car by the force of the wind. “Wow!” I shout. “Be careful.”

We pull the bags from the hatchback and head across the car park towards the houses. “Just when you think it can't get any colder,” I say.

As we near the first of the beach houses, Tom appears coming the other way. I feel a prickling of stress tempered by a wave of relief that at least we won't now have to sit and chat together.

“It's Tom?” Ricardo asks.

“Yes.”

“Right,” he says. He sounds apprehensive, so I glance sideways at him and see that he looks as worried as I feel. But then I see him fix his doctor's smile. “Tom!” he says enthusiastically as we come face to face.

“Hi Tom,” I say, kissing him on the cheek.

“Hi, he replies, to me alone. He looks pale and flushed, the way he looks when he's really angry, but it could of course just be caused by the cold wind.

“Hi Tom,” Ricardo says again, holding out his hand, but Tom just glances at him and then looks back at me. “I didn't know you had gone away,” he says.

I hear Ricardo sigh as he slips his hand back into his pocket.

“You were in Nice then,” Tom continues.

“Yeah.”

“Nice?”

“Very. Did you meet the lovely Florent?”

“Yeah,” he says.

Ricardo nudges me and shrugs. “I see you indoors,” he says, as he continues on across the pebbles.

“Yeah, sorry babe,” I say. “I'll be in in a sec.”

“I have to go too,” Tom says, smiling falsely.

I sigh and watch him walk away, and then I start to follow Ricardo. I have taken only two steps
though when Tom calls my name so I pause again and look back to see him facing me, walking backwards across the beach. “If you, you know, fancy another fuck,” he shouts.

I wince and glance back at Ricardo who is hunched up hurrying towards the house. He doesn't react, so I assume that he hasn't heard.

“Tom,”
I plead.

“Just give me a call,” he says, then at the top of his voice, “dial a fuck. That's me.” And then he spins and strides on to his car.

I look around just in time to see Ricardo turn towards the house. Just before he vanishes behind the neighbour's shed, he glances back at me, and I try to work out if anything in his blank expression indicates that he has heard Tom's words. The noise of the blustering wind would seem to make it unlikely.

Nervously heading indoors, I find Ricardo standing in the doorway to the kitchen and Jenny and Sarah at the table in the lounge.

“You want tea?” Ricardo asks.

“Yeah, I'm gasping,” I say, analysing his voice for signs of tension. He seems a little aloof, but that could be simply from bumping into Tom.

When I enter the lounge, I see that Jenny too looks red-faced and wired. “Hi babe, everything OK?” I ask.

“Sure,” she says unconvincingly. “How was Nice?”

“Brilliant,” I say. “It rained all Friday night, but Saturday was amazing, you know, one of those blue sky, blue sea days you get after the rain.”

“I remember,” Jenny says.

“Where's Florent?”

“Upstairs having a quick snooze. He was up really early with Sarah, so …”

“And how are you, quiet little girl?” I ask Sarah.

She looks up from her puzzle. Even she looks tense this evening. “OK,” she says – an uncharacteristically terse response.

I head upstairs to the toilet, and as I come out of the bathroom, Florent appears clutching an iPod – not from our room as I expected but from Jenny's. “Oh, I didn't hear you arrive,” he says. “I had this on. You have a good time?”

“Great thanks. Brilliant. And you?”

“Yeah, it was great. Well, except for that … has he left? That Tom bloke?”

“Yes. Just now. Why, what happened?”

Florent glances at his iPod. “Actually, could you take me straight to the station? There's only one train an hour, at five to, so …”

“Sure. I'll just tell Ricardo.”

Once we're in the private space of the car, I ask Florent again what happened with Tom.

“I don't know,” he says. “He came around for lunch and everything was cool. And then I went for a snooze with Sarah. There was a funny vibe so I sort of left them to talk … And then I woke up about an hour ago, and they were shrieking at each other. Do they do that a lot?”

“No,” I say. “No they don't. Never really. Did you hear what they were saying?”

“No,” Florent says. “I hate arguments. My parents used to shout a lot. I just put my iPod on I'm afraid.”

“Weird,” I say, pulling a face. “I wonder what it was about.”

“Dunno,” he says. “But it was a biggy. But other than that it's been great. Jenny's been fine. She's pretty robust really isn't she.”

“Yeah, when she's not on chemo, she's fine.”

“I really like her actually,” he says. “We had a riot.”

“And Sarah's a good kid.”

“Yeah, she's brilliant. She thought I was staying tonight and wanted to know if I was sharing with you and Ricardo or her and Jenny.”

“She's very intrigued by who sleeps where,” I say, struggling to push that first, rather appealing image from my mind.

When I get back to Pevensey Bay for the second time, I find Jenny and Ricardo cooking a prawn curry. Though perhaps a bit stilted, the atmosphere seems essentially calm.

“So what was Florent doing in
your
bed missy?” I ask Jenny.

“Ha!” she says, looking up from the pan. “Wouldn't
you
like to know?”

“Did you have a wild weekend of dirty sex?”

“Of course,” Jenny says. “We went hang-gliding too. And kite surfing.”

I laugh. “Of course you did. Well good. Exercise is important. All kinds. We, um, saw Tom on our way in.”

“That's nice for you,” Jenny says.

“It wasn't,” Ricardo replies.

“Everything OK?” I ask her.

“Sure,” Jenny says. “Fine. So Ricky tells me you had a fab time in Nice.”

“Yeah. We did.”

“T-shirt weather, or so he
claims.”

“On Saturday – at lunchtime – yeah. It was gorgeous.”

“Well, I'm dead jealous,” Jenny says, standing back from the cooker and wiping her hands on her apron. “It's been pissing down here. Right, that just needs to simmer for a bit,” she adds, handing the stirring spoon to Ricardo.

Once Jenny has left, I ask Ricardo – who seems to be avoiding eye-contact – if he's OK.

“Sure,” he says without looking up. “Why wouldn't I be?”

I frown. He does seem a little brittle, but then so does the entire household. “Florent says Jenny and Tom had a huge argument,” I say quietly. “Did she say anything?”

Ricardo shrugs. “No.”

“I wonder what it was about.”

Again he shrugs. “I'm not so interested in Tom,” he says.

“Sure.”

“I think he likes to cause trouble sometime.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yes, I suppose he does.”

The next morning, I offer to take Sarah for a romp along the beach. It's an icy-cold yet sunny day and waves – driven by the strong winds – are crashing magnificently against the breakwater.

Ricardo predictably announces that he will come too, but Jenny says, “Actually Ricardo, would
you
mind taking Sarah instead?”

Ricardo, still chewing his toast, grins and says, “Yes. I say. I go too.”

“No I mean, would
you
take her and leave Mark here. I need to have a private talk with him. Would that be OK?”

So many people I know would be instantly offended by that, but Ricardo just shrugs and nods. “Of course. You want to come walk with Tonton Ricardo?” he says to Sarah. She looks spectacularly doubtful about the prospect.

Once they are wrapped and ready, Jenny slides the window closed behind them and tells me, “I'll just make another pot of coffee and we can get down to it.”

I sit and watch Ricardo and Sarah head off across the beach and wonder what exactly it is that we are going to, “get down to.”

When she returns, Jenny places the French press on the table and sits opposite me with a heavy sigh. “So,” she says.

“So,” I repeat.

“So how are you?”

I frown at her.
“How am I?”

“Yes.”

“I'm … um, fine. But what do you want to talk about? You're making me nervous.”

Jenny laughs. “There's no need to be nervous. Well. Probably not. Hopefully not.”

“Hopefully
not.
Now
I'm feeling all reassured,” I say.

She sighs and wipes a hand across her mouth. “I've got a few things I need to talk to you about. It's just than none of them are particularly easy. I wish I had a joint to smoke first.”

“Didn't Tom leave you any?”

“No,” she says. “No, he was going to, but he went off in a bit of a huff, so …”

“Yes, I kind of noticed that,” I say.

“You did?”

“Yeah. The atmosphere was pretty tense here when we got home.”

Jenny nods and starts to press the plunger down on the coffee pot. “I wasn't sure where to start first, but I suppose we'll have to start with Tom then,” she says.

“Tom?”

“Yes. You slept together,” she says.

“I'm sorry?”

“You had sex. With Tom.”

I widen my eyes and stop breathing for a few seconds.

“He told me,” she says.

“Jesus!” I mutter. “The tosser.”

“It's none of my business Mark,” she says.

“No, it isn't. I can't believe that he told you.”

“Well, it
shouldn't
be any of my business, except …”

I grimace at her. “Except
what?”

“Except that, well, were you safe?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Did you have, you know, safe sex?”

I frown at her.

“Jesus Mark,” she says. “It's not that complicated a question.”

I shrug and shake my head in disbelief. “No, it isn't Jen. I just can't work out what business it is of yours.”

“But did you?”

“Of course we did. Of course we had safe sex.”

“You're sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. Jesus Jenny, what is this?”

She exhales deeply. “Thank God for that,” she says.