Better Than Easy (7 page)

After what seems like a few minutes but, my rumbling stomach tells me, is more like an hour, I start to walk home. I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to say, but it seems I need to ask Tom if this is fantasy browsing, or something else. And I need to work out whether Tom is still the stable adult with whom I thought I was building a relationship; or whether he has revealed himself to be –
God knows …
an adolescent sex junky, always trolling the net for something new, something better? A short term affair, only in it for the adventure of opening a gîte? I'm feeling angry too of course, but mainly it's his attempt at pinning the blame for the “huff” on me
that runkles the most. That really seems unfair.

By the time I get up on Wednesday, Tom has long gone. Wednesday is his morning at the swimming pool, but today he has headed out more efficiently than usual. I can't blame him – nothing was resolved yesterday. I don't think either of us had the energy to face round two, or three, or whichever round it would have been, so we both respected the tacit desire to make it to bed without a fist fight by saying not one word that wasn't essential to each other.

This morning, when I open up the laptop, mug of coffee in hand, Tom's Recon page is still onscreen, and I think for a moment that he's rubbing my nose in it – until, that is, I read the text in the middle of the screen:
Your recon profile has been deleted. We're sorry to see you go.
That's clear enough for me and close enough to an apology and as I shower, I start to feel that if the Recon thing isn't of any consequence – as Tom is clearly trying to demonstrate – then the bad vibes are probably at least
partly
my fault. Maybe I overreacted a bit – it has been known!

It's a sunny day – icy cold in the shade, but with a clear blue sky – and as I wander through the old town towards the
Nice Etoile
shopping centre I rack my brain for something I can buy for Tom's coming birthday. It's hard to think about shopping for gifts; though my anger has faded, I'm still not feeling particularly loving. But it has to be done; failure to get a birthday gift, would, as the advert says, turn a drama into a crisis, or a crisis into a drama, or whichever is supposed to be worse.

Workmen are out pulling down the barriers around the road works for the new tramway and the town is starting to look human again. On top of this it must be one of the rare weekends in the Nice
tourist calendar when there are no carnivals, no bank holidays over the border, and no conferences: the streets are deserted, and it feels unusual and almost luxurious to be able to wander so easily though the streets.

After an hour or so of browsing, I find a very cool parka affair for Tom. I think that it's the perfect thing for him to wear as he walks his dog along the ridges around the gîte, and the symbolism of saying,
“Yes, we're still going to do this,”
and
“Yes, you can have your dog,”
strikes me as perfect.

I head back with the huge carrier bag, through the Cours Saleya flower-stands and on to where they are hosing down the closing vegetable market. The sun is so wonderfully warm that I hesitate in front of a big pavement café, the most gay-friendly of them all – La Civette
–
hoping for a table to come free, but it's lunchtime and everyone is eating leisurely, so I give up and decide to have my coffee at home. Just as I turn to leave, I notice a flashy Italian looking guy in sunglasses waving my way. I check right, left and behind, but, no; he's definitely waving at me.

As I reach his table he takes off his shades. I swallow hard. “Hello!” I say with a grin. “I didn't recognise you, what with the suit and the sunglasses.”

He grins at me. “Can't wear the uniform all the time,” he says. “Shame huh? It would be so much easier. Please, have a seat.”

I look around the terrace and then shrug. “You sure you don't mind?” I say. “It is very full today.”

Ricardo grins and gives me an open handed gesture. “Please,” he says. “I have to go soon anyway.”

I grab a spare chair from a nearby table and join him, stuffing the bag under my seat.

He's finishing off an omelette and salad. “Sorry,” he says, wiping bread around the plate. “I hope you don't mind.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. I cast around for a
waiter, but they are all studiously avoiding eye contact in the way that only French waiters know how. As I scan from left to right, I steal a glance at Ricardo – the sequel.

His suit is dark brown with a turquoise pin stripe – it hangs beautifully, settling in silky folds. He's wearing a deep pink shirt also with turquoise stripes – open necked – and shiny pointy city-shoes. The overall effect is elegant and fashionable and maybe just a bit over the top. He looks like he should be hosting a chat show or something.

I feel a pang of jealousy at his ability to dress like that and pull it off. You need exotic looks to get away with something like that, I decide. He smiles at me broadly. It's that incredible face-cracking grin again, a smile so deep that I can feel it in the back of my head.

I bare my teeth and make a mock-scratching gesture. “Lettuce,” I say with a wink, unable to quite believe how different he looks out of uniform.

Ricardo pulls a funny face and scratches the green from his front tooth. “Thanks,” he says. “You look different too,” he adds, as if he can hear my thoughts.

I feel myself blushing, I'm not quite sure why. “That sun's hot!” I say, vaguely, looking away, pretending to look for a waiter again. Then I add, brazenly, surprising myself, “Yeah, well, I can't wear bike gear all the time either. Shame huh?”

Ricardo shrugs one shoulder and smirks at me. “You look fine,” he says, half closing his eyes.

I restrain a frown, and then turn and wave to a waiter as a welcome distraction. “Oh!” I say.
“S'il vous plaît?”
But the waiter ignores me with studied expertise. “They're incredible here,” I say, turning back to Ricardo. But he's standing, pulling a banknote from his wallet and pushing it under the ashtray.

“I'm sorry,” he says, shrugging. “I really
do
have to go.” He glances at his watch. “I have a
…
” he cocks
his head,
“rendezvous?”

I nod. “A meeting.”

He winks at me and nods and smiles again. “Yes, a meeting. At two.”

“Oh, I
…
” I say, looking up at him and taking his outstretched hand.

He shakes my hand solidly and then keeps hold as he says, “Maybe another time. I'm usually here on Wednesdays. As long as it's sunny.”

I nod and say, “Sure,” and I start to wonder about the overly long handshake. I notice my heart speeding up again. “I'll keep watch
…
I mean, a look out
…
an eye open for you,” I say in a confused manner.

Ricardo smiles and releases me, then says with another wink, “I'll keep a look out for you too.” And with this he spins and walks away.

I shake my head and finger the ashtray and Ricardo's banknote. I move round to take his seat – it's facing the sun. It's still warm from his arse. I swallow hard and blow a little air between my lips and think,
“What the hell was that?”

“Autres choses?” the waiter asks, apparently unaware of the change of occupant at Ricardo's table.

“Oui, un café,” I tell him, “s'il vous plait.” And he grabs the plate, dumps the knife, fork and napkin on it and sweeps away leaving me to sit and think about Ricardo's body language.

The problem, I realise, is that I don't know what his gestures, the long handshake, the eye contact, the face-cracking smile, might mean to a straight guy, to a straight
Colombian
guy – I'm trying to interpret them through my own built-in dictionary, but it doesn't work, because my own vocabulary of male-to-male contact is all about sex and attraction. But straight men presumably do actually meet people they like sometimes, and occasionally they must decide to make an effort to befriend them, and so maybe Ricardo's winks and smiles are just innocent signals
within a language – a foreign language – of heterosexual male bonding?

I realise, I think for the first time in my life, just how vague my grasp of that language, those rites, actually is.

“Maybe I can learn with Ricardo,” I think. “Maybe he can be my new, straight friend. I could catch him here, next Wednesday, and we could talk about motorbikes
…
Maybe we can go on bike rides together. He said his girlfriend isn't keen.”

But my dick is stirring at the image in my mind – of Ricardo on the back of my bike – and it forces me to take in the truth of the situation.
“Who am I kidding?”
I think. The answer clearly is –
not even myself.

And with the realisation that my heart is pounding and that, beneath the table, my dick is distinctly heavier than normal; that I'm blushing and fantasising about a guy I don't know at all, a fireman from
God-knows where
, I start to feel guilty, and so I think of Tom and his gift beneath the chair, and realise that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black; that his cyber-crimes, put into perspective by my own thought-crimes, really aren't so bad after all.

By the time I get home the Parka strikes me as an insignificant gift. It's probably something to do with my guilt.

Tom is still out, so I check my email and as I sit and stare at the screen, a loving feeling comes over me, and I want, urgently, desperately, to forget it all, to find a gesture magnificent enough to wipe out the recent grumpiness: the arguments about why Tom is living here, his internet chatting, my own unclear thoughts about Ricardo and fidelity.

I want everything back to normal, and I want it that way in time for Tom's birthday. “That's what you have to do,” I tell myself. “When things get rough and irritable, when the desire to stray comes on, there are only two choices: walk away and give up, or fight to put the flame back in. And I'm
damned if I'm walking away this time.”

A flashing advert for weekend breaks on the screen gives me an idea. If Tom needs more fun than he has been getting, then what could be better for his coming birthday than a weekend away? What could be better than for us to forget our stupid arguments and rekindle that loving feeling? Wonderful, wonderful Internet: it takes me less than twenty minutes to find two cheap flights and a dodgy hotel, and by the time Tom walks in the door, the surprise is all fixed.

It's the day of the trip, and Tom is proving more difficult to wake up than expected. I smile at his sleeping form and shake my head and place the breakfast tray on the blue metal cabinet beside the bed.

I slither onto the bed beside him and nuzzle his warm neck. “Tom,” I say quietly. “I've got a birthday surprise for you, but it involves getting
up!
You
really
have to get up.” As I say this Tom pulls a pillow over his head and groans, so I shout, “NOW!” and pummel the bed either side of him until he bounces.

It's not until Tom – still in a daze – has stepped out of the shower into the clothes I have waiting, picked up his ready-packed rucksack, and is being pushed towards the front door, that intrigue starts to penetrate his morning-head. “Where are we going?” he asks. “And why the hell are we going there at seven thirty?”

I wink at him, run a hand down his back, and give him a gentle push forward. “If we don't get a move on,” I say, checking my watch, “you'll never find out.”

He pauses to look at a package discreetly left by Jenny on the sideboard. “What's that? A gift?” he asks.

“It's from Jenny,” I say, “DVDs – English Classic Cinema. You can open it when we get back.” It's brutal and a little dismissive of the gift, but there really isn't time for anything else.

On the airport shuttle, Tom grins at me for the first time of the day. “I know where we're going,” he declares, then repeats himself in a child's sing-song voice,
“I know where we're going.”

The bus lurches out of the depot, and I grin back. “Don't get overexcited,” I say. “It's
not
San Francisco.”

Tom shakes his head slowly and beams at me. “I know it isn't,” he says confidently.

At Nice airport we check the screens for the departure gate; I will have to give Tom his boarding pass at security, but I'm holding out as long as I can. He scans the screen alongside me, still with a cocky grin that says he has me sussed.

“So, I would say,” he says, matter-of-factly, “that it's zone A; somewhere around
…
gate
…
twelve
…
Right?”

I scan the screen for our flight and then shake my head at him. “Nope,” I say. “Wrong!”

And then I scan the list to see where Tom thinks we're going – KLM2163 – 8:55 am – Zone A, Gate 12 – Amsterdam.

I swallow hard. “Shit Tom, no,” I say. “I told you not to get too excited.” I pull his printed boarding pass from my bag.

“No?” he says, starting to unfold the sheet.

I study his reactions. Poor Tom, bless him – the shadow that crosses his face, the twitch downwards of the mouth, the swallowing of the forty percent of his excitement that has turned out to be unnecessary, lasts mere milliseconds. He covers it all up with every ounce of willpower he can muster. But I see it all the same, and I kick myself for not thinking of bloody Amsterdam myself.

Then, mind over body, he slides back into the broadest of grins and hikes his bag onto his shoulder. “Paris!” he exclaims. “Paris is great! Brilliant!”

*

After an uneventful orange-themed low-cost flight, and two rubber-themed high-cost sandwiches, a
couple of efficient French trains and a five minute walk, we find ourselves outside the grotty Hotel des Trois Fréres, freed of our bags – left in the lobby.