Murder Most Fab (28 page)

I
stopped for a moment to take in the perfect view. The blue sky dominated a
passive sea, and anaemic sand lay prostrate under both.

There
was movement, and my eye was drawn to the fleshy tanned torsos of some youthful
footballers. Aware of temptation, I tried to kook elsewhere, to the trees that
fringed the beach or the boats sailing across the horizon, but I was helpless
to control my gaze. Like a street dog following a promising scent, I made my
way to the beach and settled myself a few yards from the game so that I could
watch easily.

There
were six players, all clearly Nicaraguans, but one in particular attracted me.
He was older than the others, about twenty-three, with wavy black hair. He
seemed aware of my attention, glancing in my direction whenever the game
allowed him to do so. I lay back on my towel and applied some sun lotion, flirting
surreptitiously, and looking enigmatically out to sea whenever I was sure he
had me in his sights.

As the
game finished, I wandered to the sea and kicked the waves playfully. Suddenly
my favourite ran past me and dived, dolphin-like, into the water. A few seconds
later I followed him. Alongside each other, we took a deep breath and dived.
Under water we held eye-contact for as long as we could, until laughter
overtook us and we surfaced, smiling. We began a conversation, while
doggy-paddling in the deeper water some yards out to sea.

His
name was Juan, he informed me. He was twenty-four — I’d been almost right — and
lived with his family in the resort. ‘I have a car,’ he said importantly, as if
this qualified him in some way. His English was limited but understandable.

‘Your
friend? I have seen. Where your friend?’

‘He
sleeping,’ I told him, and rolled my eyes.

‘Your
father?’ he said, and laughed unkindly. Under the cover of water he stroked my
shoulder, then swam towards the shore and joined his friends, who were still
kicking the football about in the sunshine .

I felt
a shimmer of excitement. Juan was a gorgeous creature. He’d driven my thoughts
of Tim from my head, and that made a refreshing change. I returned to my towel
and lay down, closed my eyes and relaxed for the first time in ages. Time away
from Bernard was so much more enjoyable than time spent in his company.

My
contemplations were disturbed by a shout of
‘Hola,
JD!’

Juan’s
tousled locks were silhouetted against the sun and it took me a moment to
focus. He was kneeling next to me and gave me a nudge in the ribs with his
knee.

‘I can
drive you and your friend to the volcano in my car. You like? Tomorrow
morning?’

Trips
to Mount Massaya were popular with tourists. The hotel was offering a group
trip in its minibus, promising to show us bubbling mud pools and impressive
jets from geysers and blow-holes, but a private trip with a personal guide
would be much nicer, especially if that guide was Juan.

‘Yes,
please. How kind.’ I arranged to meet him at ten a.m. the next day at the hotel
reception.

Dawn heralded another
beautiful day. Part of me had hoped that Bernard would take to his bed again
after breakfast so that I could go to the volcano alone with Juan, but Bernard
had seemed pleased and excited by the prospect of the trip and bounced out of
bed to get ready. As he came out of the shower I pushed him back on to the bed
and did my best to wear him out before the day began, but to no avail.

‘That’s
set me up nicely, Johnny,’ he said happily, with a romantic sigh. ‘Thank you,
darling.’

Over
breakfast he stroked his cheek with a white orchid from the table display and
ordered a luxurious picnic for us to take with us to the volcano. ‘I do hope
we’ll be safe!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve seen enough eruptions of hot lava for one
day …’

Over
his shoulder I could see Juan, lovely in a tatty grey singlet and off-white
shorts, waiting in the sunshine by his car. ‘Our driver awaits!’ I told
Bernard, who turned to look. Juan waved.

Bernard
seemed a little minty. ‘That vehicle doesn’t look the type that has
air-conditioning,’ he said, ‘And I doubt he’s fully insured.’

It was a bumpy journey,
conducted mostly in silence. Juan asked me what I did in London, and I said I
worked in television. Bernard’s mood had taken a downward swing, and he sat in
the back seat inhaling noisily and going ‘Ugh!’ every time we trundled over a
rock.

As the
car swung about, Juan and I knocked kegs, creating a static both real and
atmospheric. Each time the hairs on our outer thighs tangled momentarily, then
stretched out longingly, like young lovers across a balcony.

After
an hour’s driving we turned off what, for all its shortcomings, was a main
road on to a far inferior track towards Mount Massaya. The air became misty
with heat, gravel and ash, while plumes of grey steam blossomed from nowhere.
We were climbing the mountainside and Juan was gaining speed, despite the
engine’s protests, diving round hairpin bends in a cloud of dust and laughing
with delight, presumably at our against-the-odds survival. I spread my palms on
the ceiling of the car to stop me banging my head and kept my eyes closed.
After some particularly violent bumps they opened involuntarily and I snatched
a glimpse of treacherous precipices and spindly trees clinging to life at
unfeasible angles.

Eventually
we stopped at a deserted viewing-point and climbed out of the car, relieved to
have arrived in one piece.

‘Magnificent!’
I said, gazing out at the view. Pale green and grey olive trees shimmered down
the hillside, and scattered between them I saw the distant colours and heard
the sounds of primitive villages going about their business. ‘Isn’t it amazing,
Bernard?’

‘I’m
hungry,’ said Bernard, turning to the picnic basket. He spread out our lunch on
a fairly flat piece of rock, but Juan stayed in the car until I asked him to
join us.

‘Must
he?’ asked Bernard.

‘We
can’t leave the poor boy sitting in the car all afternoon,’ I said. ‘There are
limits.’

As soon
as I invited him Juan leapt out happily and joined us. We ate sardines, chicken
and coconut and drank beer. Nearby, ponds of thick mud simmered lazily.

‘You
look good in this setting, Bernard,’ I said. ‘Like something out of
Jurassic
Park.’

‘Go
fuck yourself,’ said Bernard, but he was amused.

‘I
think I’ll call you Jurassic from now on,’ I continued playfully.

‘Try it
and see what happens,’ said Bernard. ‘It seems a shame to throw away your TV
career when things are going so well.’

Before
long he was yawning and saying he really shouldn’t have drunk all that beer. ‘I
very rarely drink, you know,’ he lied to Juan, who didn’t know what he was
saying.

After
what seemed an eternity, he fell into a noisy slumber. I signalled to Juan to
follow me. We tiptoed a few yards down a mountain path and sat under some olive
trees. Our kegs brushed together and we giggled nervously. I lay back and
remembered my mother’s trick of licking her lips and opening her mouth just a
little. It worked and Juan rolled on top of me. I’m not sure how long our
lovely encounter had been going on, but we were well into the heavy-petting
stage and our shorts had just been discarded when we were violently disturbed.

‘You
bastards!’ screamed Bernard, from twenty feet above us. ‘You pair of absolute
fucking, cunting bastards!’

He
picked up several hand-sized rocks and threw them at us, missing by inches as
we fumbled to get dressed. Juan ran down the hill and I ran up towards our
attacker.

‘Stop
this, Bernard! We were only messing around! It’s the altitude, it makes us
light-headed!’ Bernard was struggling to pick up a rather ambitiously sized
boulder. ‘You’ll kill one of us with that. Put it down!’

‘Well,
I hope I do!’ he said, trying to fling the rock at me but succeeding in
dropping it an inch from his feet. ‘Fuck!’ he declared.

By now
I was in front of him and I held his shoulders to prevent him gathering any
more missiles. ‘Calm down! It was nothing! Don’t be so hysterical!’

But my
touch seemed to recharge his anger. Suddenly he broke away from me and ran
(rather nimbly for someone of his years) in the other direction, past the car
and over a ridge, all the while flailing his arms like a mad Italian TV chef,
half sobbing, half screaming.

‘Oh,
Jesus,’ I muttered, and walked wearily after him. ‘What a fiasco.’

When I
reached the top of the ridge I stopped in my tracks. Bernard was standing on
the edge of a grey mudpool, looking down into the swirling, steaming, bubbling
mass.

‘Bernard,’
I said, serious all at once, ‘what do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’ve
been a fool,’ he began. ‘You don’t love me, you’ve made that very clear. You
told me so before I made you a star, but I wasn’t listening. Now I’ve seen with
my own eyes your contempt for me. It’s too much, JD. There’s only so much grief
a man can take. My life, in many ways, is already over. I just have to catch up
with that reality.’

I stood
and stared, not sure if I was expected to speak. I sensed, with the benefit of
experience, that Bernard was enjoying being the focus of this dramatic scene.
Far be it from me to interrupt. His tone had been strangely portentous, Churchillian;
even.

‘I’ve
enjoyed flashes of happiness in my life. I have loved — and felt, at times,
that I was loved, but not any more. Who would want me now? I can’t go on. I
can’t pick up the pieces and fight off loneliness any longer.’ His chest heaved
and tears flowed.

If I
was going to plead with him not to jump, now was the moment. I didn’t really
want to witness such a grisly suicide. Apart from anything else, explaining his
disappearance to the Nicaraguan authorities was bound to be a nightmare. And
what of our considerable hotel bill? Familiar as I was with these histrionics,
I knew I could talk him down. But curiosity got the better of me. I would say
nothing and call Bernard’s bluff.

He was
still talking. ‘It’s far better this way. If I continued with this life, the
image of you cavorting with our driver will be for ever branded on my mind.
You, who mean everything to me, fucking about with a Nicaraguan slut under my
nose! Who’d have thought it? How many others have there been, eh? The
receptionist? The security guard? The waiter? You bastard!’

I was
lost for words. Let the silky fool jump, I thought. At least I won’t have to
touch his withered old penis again. It was into the fiery mouth of Massaya that
the Sandinistas allegedly threw their enemies and, according to the guidebook,
sufferers of unrequited love weren’t strangers to this dismally beautiful
place. Jump, I thought. Go on, jump. I said nothing, just looked at him and
gave a contemptuous half-smile.

There
was silence. Was his speech over now? Would Bernard take an anti-climactic step
away from the edge or jump to sizzling oblivion?

‘Goodbye,
and fuck off, world!’ Bernard shouted. He bent his knees and raised his arms
like a small boy on a diving-board. Suddenly, from a rock covered with singed
grass a few yards behind him, Juan emerged. He moved forward stealthily and
grabbed Bernard from behind in a bear-hug, lifting him off the ground and
pulling him to safety.

‘No,
Juan!’ I said, and rushed forward. This drama, of course, unleashed more cries
from Jurassic, but now they were those of a damsel being abducted.

‘Help!
Help! Put me down, you brute! No, anything but that, you beast!’

I
reached the wrestling couple and prised Juan’s suntanned arms away from
Bernard’s torso. ‘You don’t understand, Juan! Leave him, please, leave him
alone!’

‘Consider
yourself well and truly replaced as the front man of
Shout!,
Johnny, my
boy! You just kissed your career good night!’ screamed Bernard, a look of
triumph on his face.

This
cruel announcement pushed me over the edge, I’m afraid. My fists clenched and
my leg darted out angrily, almost before I’d had a chance to know what I was
doing. I caught Bernard sharply in the pit of his stomach. He fell backwards
and tumbled head first into the mudpool. He resurfaced momentarily, looking
suitably gruesome and shocked, but disappeared again surprisingly quickly. A
grey, clay-covered hand reached up and out, then down again. Then, after a dull,
slopping sound, there was silence.

Juan
moved as if to rescue him but I held him tight.

‘No,’ I
said quietly. ‘It’s too late. Leave him. He’s gone.’

Bernard
should have worn a St Christopher like me, was my first thought.