The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (15 page)

Sex for starters, I thought. I smiled weakly. ‘The muscles in my legs are aching. You could massage them.’

The Boy frowned. It’s not what he meant. I’m usually not bad at translating from Man to English, but assume by his reaction what he really meant me to answer was No, love, you go do something else, I’ll suffer in silence.

I’m not the sort of girl to suffer in silence. I pouted and indicated the massage oil. He poured some into his hands, rubbing them together so it would warm. He then applied himself to my left thigh, slowly at first.

‘You can go harder,’ I said.

By the time he was massaging my right calf, my foot resting on his shoulder, he was stiffening. When he reached the toes of that foot he was hard. He shifted so he was coming out of his shorts, put my other leg on his shoulder, and scooted up the bed until he entered me.

‘You go on top,’ he said.

‘I haven’t the energy,’ I protested. Plus, I loved the way his cock felt inside me at this angle. He reached down and grabbed my breasts roughly, harder than he ever had, hard enough to leave marks. I love that. I ground myself into him and felt his shorts – still on him, pushed to one side – sodden with my juices. He came, then coaxed me to orgasm before taking me the same way again.

We drank the red I was saving for something nice, and ate crisps, spreading crumbs all over the floor. His hands danced under my white dressing gown. We fucked again, him leaning me up against the sofa, then over the boxes in the hallway.

No sense getting too much sleep the night before I leave.

mardi, le 11 janvier

‘What can I do to bring you back?’ the Boy murmured into my hair. Pedestrian traffic to the ticket hall parted around us.

‘Stay faithful,’ I said. There was no reply and we held each other quietly for a moment in the noisy airport; after all, what could either of us say? He believed nothing he did should ever be questioned. I believed he’d be in someone else’s arms within an hour of my departure. I knew from the website that Susie had come back from Thailand and was disappointed he hadn’t collected her from the airport. The only way for this farewell, this moment, to exist was by our unspoken mutual agreement not to challenge each other’s untruths.

We played the goodbyes just as they should be done, with long kisses and clinging at the point of separation, and yes, once past the whisky stands of the duty-free and the purgatorial waiting area I allowed myself to cry.

But not for that long. Sometime tomorrow me, my bikini and two suitcases will be in another country where it is sunny and warm.

mercredi, le 12 janvier

The drive from the airport is a long one. In the dark I have no sense of where I am now: only that it’s warm and the air is heavy, smelling of the sea.

Air travel is a sort of miracle, isn’t it? Just this morning I was freezing cold in London. Now, even stripped down to a T-shirt and trousers, I feel too hot. I can’t stop my head swivelling as we drive from the airport into town, trying to decipher the bright signs, the unfamiliar road markings, the voices on the driver’s radio.

I’m the last person to be dropped off. The van drives away from the dark bungalow. J had said the key would be under the mat, but when I check, it isn’t. Great.

‘Buenas noches,’ a low voice comes out of the trees.

‘Hello? Is anyone there?’ I can’t see anyone, but the bushes rustle ominously.

‘Good evening, are you cousin?’ A small man shaped like an inverted triangle steps into the garden and points at his chest. Tomás.’

‘Hello, Tomás,’ I say, setting the bags down and reaching out to shake his hand. He doesn’t offer it and my arm drops back down.

‘I have key,’ he says. ‘Your cousin thought maybe safer.’

‘That’s great.’

‘You speak Spanish?’ he asks, with a little hope in his voice.

‘I’m afraid not.’ He nods as if this is the expected answer. I feel a bit of a twat. ‘But I’d love to learn.’

Tomás beams. ‘Tomorrow maybe I come by?’ He opens his right hand and gives me the key.

jeudi, le 13 janvier

It’s late when J finally turns up. Or rather, it’s early: by my reckoning it was somewhere between half three and the dawn chorus. Not that there really is such a thing here – with insects singing all night you hardly notice when the birds wake up and join in.

I stumbled out of the bedroom. ‘Oh, wow, here you are,’ J said, as if I’d just come back unexpectedly from a trip out of town. He was a lot taller than the last time I’d seen him, and a lot more tanned. His eyes looked tired and a little crinkly. ‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’ He leans in for a rough hug. His shoulder is huge and freckled and smells of soap.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘You all right?’

‘Wicked,’ J said. ‘How’s the crib?’

‘The crib is fine,’ I smile. ‘Did you have a nice night?’

‘Yeah, good, actually. A mate of mine just bought a DVD player so I went round and we watched scary movies.’ In person his voice sounds a lot less affected, a lot less street; but I also notice it’s diverged significantly from mine; it sounds quasi-Jamaican, sing-songy.

‘If you go to bed now you’ll have bad dreams,’ I taunt.

‘Good thing I’m not going to bed, then,’ J said. ‘How about some coffee?’

vendredi, le 14 janvier

‘Rule number one,’ J says, flopping on the bed while I grind my teeth into stumps, ‘is that nothing around here works. I have a mobile, so when the landline’s down – and it usually is – you’re welcome to it if you need.’

‘Ta,’ I said. Actually, I made it online for a brief time before the connection inexplicably failed. I’d forgotten how long and slow the Web can be on a dial-up. But it wasn’t the country’s dodgy infrastructure that was getting my goat. It was the Boy, who according to his recently updated weblog had gone straight from seeing me off at the airport to Susie’s bed. And he was upset.

Not because I left; because Susie had evidently gone off him sometime between leaving for a year out and seeing an entire island washed away. She was refusing to have sex with him. If I hadn’t cried I would have laughed, or something like that.

J leaned over and switched off the monitor. ‘That shit’s a waste of time,’ he said. ‘You want to go to the beach? Drive somewhere? You need to go shopping?’ I asked him what we had to eat and he shrugged. ‘I’m no cook. Come on, let’s go get you something.’

We walked round the corner to a grocer. I blinked against the strong tropical light, eyes watering. J took off his sleek sunglasses and put them on my face. I noticed he had tan lines at the sides of his ears from the glasses. But they helped.

‘Rule number two,’ J said. ‘Let’s get this done and dusted first – no alcohol in the house. I don’t go out to the bars, so if you want to go, ask Tomás to take you. Some of them are not nice places for women on their own.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘And if you have prescription drugs, put them out of sight,’ he continues. ‘It’s a daily struggle for me to stay clean, so I need to know you’re on my side.’

‘Of course I am.’

The grocer was an old man, fat, and spoke to us in English.‘That’s nice,’ I murmured to J. ‘But shouldn’t we be at least trying to speak Spanish to him?’

J laughed. ‘He doesn’t speak any more Spanish than you or me. Almost half the people here don’t. He’s Greek. Rule three: most people here are tourists. Even the locals.’ I selected a few strangely large citrus fruit, a can of beans, bread and a weird, star-shaped fruit. J carried our bags home.

samedi, le 15 janvier

J left me a bicycle and a note with instructions to find my way around. I smile: I didn’t learn to ride a pushbike until I was a teenager, and it was J who taught me.

All the houses are small bungalows with improbably lush gardens. There are a lot of shops, I notice, and a lot of pay phones. An oddly high concentration of dentists (at least, I think they’re dentists’ offices).

I need a hat. After half an hour the back of my neck is prickling hotly. I’ve never burned easily; on the other hand, a Yorkshire summer consists of about a net hour of direct light every year. And while an occasional trip to the sunbed was de rigueur for a call girl, I hardly went often enough to build up a base tan. Happily, this is the tourist section, and as far as straw hats go I am spoiled for choice.

dimanche, le 16 janvier

We leave the doors open when someone’s home, because it’s hot. Tomás lets himself in. The screen door shuts loudly behind him, a hollow aluminium clatter. I jump up from the computer, where I’ve been agonising over the Boy’s weblog again – should I post an arch, suggestive comment, or otherwise let him know I know?

‘Oh, hi!’ I say. ‘I thought you were corning around days ago.’ Tomás shrugs. Punctuality clearly isn’t a priority. ‘You going to teach me Spanish today?’

He laughs. ‘You think you can learn in one day?’

‘Probably not,’ I smile. He helps himself to a fizzy drink from the kitchen – it’s frighteningly green and, I guess from the label, supposed to taste of lemon. Today,’ Tomás says, flicking on the television and sitting on J’s sofa, ‘only watch Spanish television.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Anything in particular?’

‘I came over to watch the sports. You mind sports?’

‘I don’t mind,’ I say. Lesson one consists of catching up with the football. Which is pronounced fut´bol. This may take longer than I hoped.

mardi, le 18 janvier

Phone message in the morning from the Boy on the landline. I do the maths: he rang about 4 a.m. UK time. Sigh. Try not to take it personally. I ring back.

He doesn’t ask about the flight, or how I’m settling in. Probably just as well; apart from ‘long’ and ‘fine’, I haven’t much to say. He natters on about friends or something – it all seems so far away now.

‘When is a good time to ring you?’ he asks.

‘Mid-afternoon, I suppose,’ I say. ‘If that’s not too late for you.’ I don’t mention the timing of his last call.

‘Good, I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ he said.

‘If the phones are up,’ I say.

‘If the phones are up. I really do miss you and love you, you know.’ I put the phone down. Why the renewed enthusiasm? I wonder. Susie must be serious about the embargo on fucking. I have to admit, the thought makes me smile, even though I know he won’t like going without sex for long. And knowing what a reserve of girls he has standing by, he won’t have to.

mercredi, le 19 janvier

Tomás invited me round for a meal just after sunset. He’s in the kitchen chopping and slicing with the speed and scant attention of a pro. ‘Are you a chef?’ I ask. He shakes his head. He preps and waits tables in his brother’s restaurant on the beach.

He goes through the names of the vegetables – zanahorias (carrots), cebollas (onions), hongos (mushrooms). I ask him for a piece of paper, so I can write them down, but he says no. ‘You want to speak Spanish,’ he says ‘you learn by doing.’

I nod. He offers a beer, which given the lack of alcohol at J’s seems like a flood after a drought. I have just one, thinking it might not be a great idea to go home smelling of beer.

Tomás produces a lot of food – far more than two people could eat, surely – and though I have no idea what most of it is, I eat loads and it’s all tasty. So he’s cooking as well as teaching me a bit of Spanish – wonder what’s in it for him? A girl could certainly get used to this sort of treatment.

‘Is it okay?’ he asks. I nod, and ask him how to say something is tasty.

‘Este está sabroso,’ he says slowly. I repeat it. Is this a date? I wonder. He’s not my type. On the other hand, the language barrier means only essential conversation is exchanged – a relief after the non-stop wittering of the Boy. And his gentle openness is very different from the clients I used to see, who usually kept their guard up as long as you possibly can with your clothes off. He’s not at all like I imagined Latino men, not conceited or chauvinistic that I can see, and that is awfully sexy.

jeudi, le 20 janvier

Corner shops abound here. They are called bodegas and sell everything from cans of tomatoes to phone cards, just like at home. Even the Greek grocer offers aspirin and cut-price coach tickets on the side. But my favourite by far is the corner shop you can’t go inside. It’s shaped like a giant T, made to be driven or walked up to. You tell the man inside the shaft of the T what you need, he tells you how much it costs, and the transaction is conducted through a tiny window. Like when the garages at home lock up the walk-in bit after 10 p.m., except without the danger that implies.

The man smiles at me through the tiny window.

‘Where are you from,’ he asks as he goes to fetch my drink.

‘England,’ I say. ‘England? I have a cousin who lives in London,’ he says. ‘Is that where you are from?’

It’s close enough and not worth a mini-geography lesson. ‘Yes,’ I say.

‘You come here three days in a row for a chocolate milk,’

‘Me gusta leche chocolatada,’ I say slowly. Okay, I probably sounded like a complete tit there. But I reckon it’s use it or lose it.

He smiles indulgently, but continues to talk to me in English. ‘You have a boyfriend?’ he asks.

‘Yes, in England,’ I say, losing the energy to try the Spanish for that.

‘He left you here on your own?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘He’s a confident man,’ he says, handing the drink through. I am straddling the pushbike so almost drop it, but manage not to.

‘Yo la tengo,’ I say, smiling. I’ve got it. He smiles, too, and I ride away. Two. Whole Sentences!

vendredi, le 21 janvier

Apart from J, Tomás and the man trapped selling chocolate milk from a giant T, no one takes notice of or speaks to me. In this way it’s a lot like London. On the other hand, I do go around in a hat and giant sunglasses, whizzing past on the rusty bicycle, so there aren’t many opportunities for chatting. But you get to see a lot this way, and figure out the local tribes.

Type 1: Resentful local.
Speaks Spanish about you in front of you, on the (usually correct) assumption that you don’t understand. Often to be found working in restaurant kitchens, probably spitting (or worse) in your soup as we speak.