Better Than Easy (17 page)

I take a step back and shake my head. “I think I should go,” I say. “I mean, this really isn't such a good
…
”

“No,” Ricardo says. “You burn my dinner and then leave me? I don't think so.”

I laugh. “Well, is any of it even
…
I mean, are even the potatoes OK?” I say.

Ricardo shrugs pathetically. “Sorry,” he says, opening a cupboard and peering inside. “Pot Noodle?” he says. “I have lots of Pot Noodle. And we have Champagne.”

I laugh and shake my head. “Crazy guy,” I say.

“It's OK?”

I laugh. “OK, Ricardo. Pot Noodle. But no funny business.”

He nods. “OK,” he says. “No funny business if you don't want. Just Pot Noodle and then Champagne, and then we sleep. Chicken and Mushroom or
…
Chinese Chow Mein, or
…
Tikka Masala
…
”

He pulls a face. “I think they all have meat or bird in them.”

I shake my head. “No, it's fine,” I say. “They don't have anything real in them at all. I'll go for the Tikka Masala.”

“OK,” Ricardo says, reaching for the kettle. “You open the Champagne.”

I sigh and stretch and lick my lips. My mouth is dry, I have a vague headache, and a slight backache too. And there seems to be too much light in the bedroom. I wonder if I forgot to close the shutters. Tom's heavy arm around me exacerbates my backache, so I reach above the covers and move it to my hip. Something about it, the weight, the girth, the velvety hair, makes me open one eye, and I see that this is not my bedroom, this is not my bed, this is not Tom's arm, and I deduce, then remember, that the hot body pressed to my back, the erect dick squashed against my buttocks, is not Tom's either.

I groan and start to roll away, but the arm moves back around me and pulls me in tightly. “Later,” Ricardo murmurs. “There's time for all that later. Sleep.”

I remain frozen for a few seconds and then as if hypnotised by his command, sleep washes over me anew, and I relax into the warmth of his grasp.

The next time I awaken, I find myself alone on the sofa bed. The sky beyond the windows is bright blue and sunlight is streaming into the room catching particles of dust in its beams. Something about the hard edges of the shadows this seaside-light produces reminds me of my brother's place in Brighton. I can hear Ricardo's voice from the kitchen and I listen for a while to be sure that he's on the phone – that there are no other voices. I quietly pull on my jeans.

He is standing naked, facing the other way, staring at the horizon, one hand holding the phone, the other, absent-mindedly stroking a buttock. The coffee machine is spluttering beside him, and there's a smell of toast.

I watch him in silence. I stare at his buttocks,
appreciating the proportions of his legs, the shape of his back, the neck, the bicep showing on the arm that holds the phone. And then the toaster pops up and he spins and sees me.

“Jenny,” he mouths, pointing at the phone with his free hand. I point to myself and wiggle a finger at him, but he either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore me. “Yes, he's here,” he says. “I give you.”

I roll my eyes, stifle a groan, and accept the handset. “Hello?” I say.

“Merry Christmas,” Jenny says.
“Merry Christmas!”
Sarah repeats, shrieking in the distance.

“Merry Christmas to you too,” I say.

“Shit, you sound rough,” Jenny says, brightly. Her voice hurts my head.

“Yeah,” I say. “Too much to drink.”

“Ricky said,” she tells me. “Still you two must be getting on OK if you're still there. That's nice to hear.”

“Yes,” I say. “I fell asleep and
…
”

“His place is cute,” Jenny says. “Don't you think?”

I clear my throat. “Yes,” I say. “Real cute.”

Ricardo winks at me and I roll my eyes and shake my head to indicate that we weren't talking about him.

“Small but perfectly formed,” Jenny says. “Like my Ricky.”

I swallow and glance at
her
Ricky. He's scratching his balls, unselfconsciously grinning. I nearly say,
“He's not so small,”
but I catch myself. “Yes,” I say. “Exactly.”

“You're useless today,” Jenny says, “put Ricky back on, will you? Oh, by the way, Tom never did phone me back.”

“No,” I say. “He phoned me on my mobile.”

“Oh good. That's OK then. Byeeee!”

I wince at her piercing goodbye and hand the phone back to Ricardo who chuckles and holds the phone a foot from his ear. “Yes,” he says as I fill
a glass with water. “Two bottles
…
Champagne. Yes!
And
whisky
…
”

He turns back to face the window, and stealing a last glance at his buttocks, I head back to the lounge. “Yes, Pot Noodle
…
” I hear him say.
“Si
, Pot Noodle. Because I burn it
…
OK, I
burned
it.”

When Ricardo returns, he's wearing a towelling dressing gown, stolen apparently, from the
Majestic
hotel. He puts the pot of coffee on the table and starts to pour two cups. “How do you feel?” he asks.

“Erm – how about guilty?” I say.

This makes him smirk. “Your head, I mean,” he laughs.

“Guilty,” I deadpan. “And hung-over.”

He shrugs and hands me a cup. “No guilt. Nothing happen,” he says, now serious as if it's important to convince me of this fact.

I wobble my head from side to side. “Not quite
nothing,”
I say. But of course in a way he's right. Bill Clinton claimed that a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky wasn't sex. My own definition usually widens to include any two people in the same room having an orgasm. But Ricardo and I didn't go that far. Does that make it OK? I wonder. “I didn't think you would tell Jenny,” I say.

Ricardo looks shocked. “I did not,” he says, categorically.

“I mean, about me staying,” I say.

He slips into a relieved smile. “Oh, yes, but it's normal. I said you stayed. You
stayed.”

“But you won't tell her
…
the rest,” I say.

He pushes his lips out and shakes his head violently. “No,” he says. “Why would I?”

“Do you love her?” I ask.

Ricardo frowns. “Why? Why do you ask me this?”

I sigh through my nose and try to retrace the thought. I was thinking about Tom I suppose, wondering if this new situation implies something about my love for him, or lack of it. Before I can
answer, Ricardo continues, “You must not think me a bad guy you know – I like Jenny a lot. But the truth is, it seems that we're not such a big story.”

“Oh,” I say.

“But I like her a lot,” he repeats. “Really. She makes me laugh so much. I always like the one who make me laugh, and Jenny is very funny girl.”

“But you don't think it will last?”

Ricardo shrugs. “Everything is not up to me
…
” He coughs. “Anyway, I want to go back to Colombia, so
…
”

I pull a startled expression. “Really? I
…
But you said you wanted French nationality.”

He nods. “Yes, I must wait for the papers. But then I go home for one or maybe two years.”

I nod. “I see,” I say. “Jenny doesn't know that though?”

He shakes his head. “It's complicate,” he says. “I don't know when I get the papers. I have been waiting for five years. So maybe next week, or maybe in five more years.”

“But you definitely want to go back?”

He nods.

“You don't like it here?”

Ricardo laughs. “Sure! Otherwise I would not stay so long. But the French are not so funny, you know? I like France, but we Colombians, we have more fun. People laugh. And drink. They party. Like the English maybe. When I was in London, it reminded me of home.”

I nod. “I understand that. I miss home too sometimes.”

“And my mother,” he says, seriously. “She is very old now. And not so good health. So
…
”

I nod.

“She will die soon. I don't want her to be on her own.”

I nod again, more solemnly.

“It's like you say,” he says. “Life is messy.”

I nod. “It is,” I say. A wave of sadness washes over me. I swallow with difficulty. I'm not entirely sure who I'm feeling sorry for. The thought that just drifted into my mind – that Ricardo might not love Jenny, but that I
do
love her – triggered it. Even if my own kiss and cuddle with her boyfriend never comes to light, her relationship is ultimately doomed, and that saddens me. She deserves better.

I think of Tom saying, “We're all
doomed,”
in his funny, mocking way, and it seems clear in that moment that we
are
all doomed. He and I are also
doomed
. It's not that my night with Ricardo has really changed anything, but that it seems in this instant transparently obvious that the writing has been on the wall for us – in ten foot high letters – forever. And it is this thought: that nothing good can come of any of this, not for Jenny waiting for Ricardo to leave; not for his aging mother waiting for death, not for Tom, or myself – it just seems to me that we all somehow
deserve better.
That thought, combined with the tiredness and the hangover just knocks the stuffing right out of me. A tear even starts to form in the corner of my eye. I stand clumsily. “I need to go home,” I say croakily.

Ricardo stands and opens his arms, a look of deep-rooted concern on his face. “Come here,” he says. “You must not
…
this is Christmas.”

But I shake my head, force a smile and push him gently away. Christmas is over. “No,” I say. “I just need to go home. I'm over-tired.
Really.”

When I leave Ricardo's, I don't go home – I head for the beach. It's stunning outside and the late morning sun is as hot as an English summer's day. The beach is almost crowded, mainly, it would seem, with over-dressed Italian holidaymakers picnicking and snoozing off their Christmas Eve hangovers. I sit at the water's edge and throw pebbles into the sea, which, after the rains, is an artificial looking opaque azure.

I let thoughts swing and sway through my mind in the hope that I can come out the other side with some logical conclusion, but everything remains a crazy swirling mess of guilt and excitement, of missed opportunity and lucky escape.

I have imaginary conversations in my head with first Tom and then Jenny, but they all lead to argument, to hand-wringing, heart-breaking loss for everyone concerned, and I come to agree with Ricardo that the best option is indeed to lie by omission – to say, quite simply, nothing. I wonder if, had I actually had sex with Ricardo, it would still be the easiest route, or would the greater guilt have pushed me to a different path? Would the path of least resistance have been to admit to everything? And then I think sadly that in a way, whatever we do, good deeds or bad, truth-telling or lie making, all we're ever really doing is pursuing a path of least resistance. It's just a question of how conscience defines that path.

I lie back and feel the warmth of the sun on my face and despite the uncomfortable pebbles I fall asleep for a while, possibly ten minutes, maybe forty, I'm not sure. I awaken when I hear myself snore, and blink up and down the beach, wondering if anyone
heard. And then I notice that I have an erection, and wonder if anyone
saw
, and then I roll onto my stomach (the pebbles are even
more
uncomfortable) and try to remember again what or more importantly, who, I have been dreaming about.

Back at the house, I see that I have missed a call – number withheld. Overseas numbers often show up as withheld so maybe it was Tom, or Jenny. I'm not sure who I would like it to have been most. Ricardo maybe.

After a cup of tea and some toast, I steel myself and phone Tom in Brighton on the work number he gave me. He answers immediately with a perky, “Happy Christmas.”

“Hiya, did you just call? Because I nipped out
…
” I start, but Tom interrupts me.

“No, it was too early when I
…
when I left for work.”

Something in his voice – something about how any interrogation might lead towards my own predicament – warns me off asking him the obvious question of
where
he slept last night.

“Did you have fun with Ricky boy?” he asks.

“Yeah, it was nice,” I say, convincingly it seems to me. This confirms my decision to say nothing. “I actually stopped over,” I say, realising that Jenny already knows this. “I got too drunk to walk home really.”

I half expect, maybe even hope, that Tom will ask me about the sleeping arrangements. I have a desire, despite everything, to tell Tom about it, so that we could laugh about my near miss with Jenny's fireman boyfriend instead of it becoming a lie between us, but he either doesn't know the size of Ricardo's flat, or doesn't care, or most likely, trusts me so implicitly, that the idea of anything happening doesn't cross his mind. It's hard to
not
tell him, and I realise that it's simply because Tom is the person
I tell things to
. And that this
not telling
, is probably the biggest sin of all.
“Well, I'm glad about that,” he says. “It makes me feel a bit less guilty. About not being there, I mean.”

“I would rather have been with you,” I say. I'm not sure if it's a lie. “But it was OK. He's a really nice guy. How's work going?”

“Huh,” Tom mutters. “Money for old rope. There's nothing happening at all. I'm just sitting here waiting for non-existent foreign exchange ops. I'm just surfing the net really. Hey, I almost forgot,” he says excitedly. “You have a gift waiting.”