Better Than Easy E-Book

Nick Alexander

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

It's perhaps revealing that believe and naïve should rhyme so well... Mark is about to embark on the project of a lifetime, the purchase of a hilltop gite in a remote French village with partner Tom. But with shady dealings making the purchase unexpectedly complex, Mark finds himself with time on his hands - time to consider not only if this is the right project but whether Tom is the right man... A chance meeting with a seductive Latino promises nirvana yet threatens to destroy every other relationship Mark holds dear, and as he navigates a seemingly endless ocean of untruths, Mark is forced to question whether any worthwhile destination remains. Funny, perceptive and heartfelt, Better Than Easy is both a tense tale of betrayal, and an incisive dissection of the mix of courage and naivety required if we are to choose love and happiness - if we are to continue to believe against all odds that we will live happily ever after.

Leseprobe

Better Than Easy

Nick Alexander was born in Margate, and has lived and worked in the UK, the USA and France. When he isn’t writing, he is the editor of the gay literature site BIGfib.com. His latest novel, The Case of the Missing Boyfriend, was an eBook bestseller in early 2011, netting sixty thousand downloads and reaching number 1 on Amazon. Nick lives in the southern French Alps with two mogs, a couple of goldfish and a complete set of Pedro Almodovar films. Visit his website at www.nick-alexander.com

Also by Nick Alexander

THE FIFTY REASONS SERIES

Fifty Reasons to Say Goodbye Sottopassaggio Good Thing, Bad ThingBetter Than Easy Sleight of Hand

SHORT STORIES

13.55 Eastern Standard Time

FICTION

The Case of the Missing Boyfriend

Better than Easy

Nick Alexander

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by BIGfib Books.

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2011by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Nick Alexander, 2009

The moral right of Nick Alexander to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-85789-638-4 (eBook)

Corvus An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26-27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Combining

Dogs, Rhubarb and Pantaloons

Dreams On Hold

All About Tom

Mental Infidelity

All About Who?

Sixty-Forty Split

Uh Oh!

The Pot and The Kettle

A Perfect Day

Post Mortem

A Question Of Belief

Surprise Guest

Petites Mensonges

Badly Timed Abandonment

Sex Like Chocolate

Strategic Paranoia

Unavoidable Mistletoe

Deserving Better

Waam Baam…

The End Of The World

Two Days

This Friend Of Mine

Selfish Contrition

Best Friend

Knowing

Living In A Fairytale

Reasons For Champagne

Good Enough

Expert Advice

Lies, Damn Lies, And Politics

Keeping Everyone Happy

Two Bit Farce

Three Letters

Phasing Out

The Key

Bad Acting

What You’re Good At

Casting Error

If Things Were Different

It’s True Though, Isn’t It?

A Tiny Goodbye

Vaporising Hope

Better Than Easy

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Richard Labonte and to Rosemary, Allan and Giovanni for their help with the final manuscript. Thanks to Apple computer for making such wonderful reliable work tools, and to BIGfib for making this book a reality.

Do not pray for easy lives.

Pray to be stronger men!

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers.

Pray for power equal to your tasks.

Phillips Brooks

Combining

Sleep evades me. The wind is hurling itself, invisible battalions crashing against the shutters. I imagine that the subsonic thuds are the lines they show on weather maps, smashing to smithereens, cartoon style, on the walls of the building, hopelessly, pointlessly.

Tom sleeps through it all, dreaming it would seem – his mouth is working constantly, his tongue clicks occasionally against the roof of his mouth.

I can feel the warmth of his body or maybe something more than just warmth – his aura? – jumping across the gap where our thighs nearly meet. From the waist up our bodies curve away into separateness.

Another subsonic wave collides with the bedroom window. I can feel the air inside the room move too. There must be a gap somewhere.

I roll onto my side and study Tom’s features; he looks beautiful. He’s no slouch when awake, but asleep he looks younger – peaceful, neutral somehow.

I know he’s still asleep precisely because our bodies aren’t touching. When awake Tom always positions himself so that there is at least one point of contact – unless we’re at war. In winter he hugs me like a koala, hot and comforting against the cold extremities of the bed, while in summer it can be just a heel, or a shin; the simple contact of a finger, a toe, his dick… but whatever the season, there’s always a spot where our bodies meet. And then sleep takes him and he rolls away.

I sigh and smile at the contented look on his face and wonder if he is truly happy. He’s so hard to read when awake – he gives so little away. And then I roll onto my back and wonder what the day will bring.

I think of a song by Holcombe Waller – my current musical obsession. “Hey oh, hey oh, hey oh; who controls your emotions?”

For Tom will wake up soon and the nature of the day will begin to crystallise, like some complex mathematical result of putting his star sign or biorhythms, or whatever controls our emotions, together with mine. Or maybe the day already exists somewhere over the horizon, and we just have to sit and watch as the weather of the day – sunshine or storms, cold shoulders or popcorn – slides invisibly into place.

A few drops of rain lash against the window revealing at least one aspect of what’s in store. I move myself an inch to the right so that our legs are touching. It feels so good, that soft human warmth, magical – mystical almost. Tom replies with an “Umh,” sound and then with stunningly crisp diction, does his sleep-talking thing – answering, I reckon, a dream telephone.

“Hello? Yes?” he says. “One moment. I’ll put you through.”

As I start to smirk he raises his knees and breaks wind – a vibrating two-second whoopee-cushion number.

“Jesus!” I snigger. “Tom!”

Tom clears his throat. “Uh?” he says, maybe to me, maybe to his dream caller.

I study his face and see the smoothness slip away, see the brow wrinkle, see him change from angel (OK… farting angel) to human being as something slips into and possesses his body. Ego maybe? His face takes on a recognisable configuration: bleary, slightly irritated. “You woke me,” he says.

“You farted,” I reply.

“I was asleep,” he says, groaning and rolling away. As he turns he pushes a foot out backwards to find my leg – all is not lost.

I yawn and stretch luxuriantly, then curl towards his back and think that no matter what the day brings – rain and storms or sunshine and laughter – fifteen hours from now we will be back in this bed, cuddled together in animal comfort, for the simple reason that we have decided that, from now on, this is how it is going to be.

*

We duck, laughing, into Monoprix. It’s raining hard now, and still too windy for umbrellas – water is trickling down my back.

Tom runs his fingers up through his normally spiky hair. “Wow!” he says. “You never warned me about the joys of the Mediterranean climate.”

I shrug and shiver. “It’s November – at least when it rains it rains… And it never lasts more than a couple of days.” I pick up a shopping basket.

“So,” Tom says pushing through the turnstile. “Where’s the frozen stuff?”

“You’re gonna be disappointed,” I say, pointing the way. Monoprix is like a New York supermarket, sandwiched into the available, ancient space, aisles not big enough for a full-width trolley. The frozen food section is about three square meters.

I follow him – intrigued and determined not to say anything, just to see what he buys. I’m thinking about this strange mutant entity that is coupledom: not Tom, nor I, but a pick and mix of both. It’s surprising and intriguing to watch the boundaries fade, the compromises form, as this third entity that is us appears.

In French law, legal associations or companies are called a Personne Morale – those thus joined together create a new legal “person,” with the same legal and moral requirements as an individual, and it strikes me that coupledom is similar. There is Mark and there is Tom, and there is a third person called us. A third person that likes this but not that, that hangs out with him but not her … And right now we’re in the process of deciding every aspect of who this new being will be.

We’ve been together a while now, of course. But when we lived apart, though there were moments when we formed an us, ultimately we still had very individual identities, habits: the books I read, the TV Tom watches, the friends Tom sees, the shopping that goes into each refrigerator – in my case, vegetables, cheese, butter, in Tom’s, frozen pizzas and oven chips. Now we’re living together we’re slowly whittling away at the individualities to get to a common core. It’s not less… for every friend I stop seeing because Tom doesn’t seem to like them much, I usually gain one from his side, and for every meal I stop cooking, something else replaces it. But it is different. And that process of negotiating common ground isn’t dull, and it’s not entirely without pain.

Tom drops two frozen pizzas into the basket, and says, as an afterthought, “Two of these? I love these spinach ones.”

I used to make pizza – with flour and yeast and mozzarella cheese. Frozen pizza somehow feels naughty, hedonistic even. “Sure!” I say, grinning and following Tom on through the store.

He grabs a bag of washed salad leaves and despite myself I intervene. “Can we just get a lettuce?” I ask. I’m sure someone, somewhere in the world truly doesn’t have the time or energy to rinse a lettuce leaf, but that person isn’t me.

Tom hesitates then drops the bag. “Sure,” he says, then, looking perplexed, as if this is maybe a challenge, a trick question he thinks he might get wrong, he adds, “You choose.”

As we leave the store with our hybrid shopping – Tom’s pizzas, my lettuce, Tom’s Molten Centre Chocolate Pudding (!), my eggs and flour, Tom says, “So… A film?”

I frown. “A film?”

Tom smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Shall we go see what’s on in English?” He nods in the direction of the cinema, not two hundred yards away across Place Garibaldi.

I smile and nod. “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“Not much else to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon,” Tom says, pulling his collar up and heading off.

Not much indeed – it’s a great idea, and strangely, one that would never cross my mind, for no reason I can think of except that it isn’t something I do on a Saturday afternoon.

“Will the frozen stuff be OK?” I ask, trotting to catch up.

“We’ll just eat it when we get back,” he says.

So, it’s a pizza and cinema kind of a Saturday then. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life. I push my lip out and nod approvingly. It feels just fine.

“Tom,” I say, back at the flat. “Do you have to?” After our special Saturday, I’m feeling quite in love with Tom. I would have liked the feeling to last a little longer.

“Have to what, babe?” he asks.

We’ve been in for seconds. The shopping is still defrosting in the carrier bags beside him on the big red sofa. “Do you have to skin up?” I ask trying to keep the petulant tone from my voice.

Tom shrugs and clicks the remote, switching on the TV. “Have you come over all evangelical on me?” he asks, licking the edge of the paper and expertly sealing the joint.

I force a smile and move to the arm of the sofa. I ruffle his hair. “It’s not that. It’s just that once you start smoking, well, that’s it. Nothing else happens,” I say.

Tom lights the end of the joint and shrugs. “We’ve been out,” he says. “We’ve seen a film, we’ve bought dinner, what else do you want to do?” He clicks the remote, swapping from one Saturday game show to another; only this one is a little louder.

I was thinking of a snooze and a shag actually. I’ve nothing against dope, though it doesn’t seem to do it for me – if anything it makes me paranoid and depressed. But if you can’t join in, if you’re sitting on the outside, it just makes other people so boring. I’m not evangelical at all – it’s just, well, give me an evening with someone doing coke or speed any day. And Tom, once he starts smoking, really won’t do anything else. The joint equals Game Over. No cooking, no cleaning, no going out – that I can cope with. But it also means permanent trash TV dominating the living room, no visible awareness of my existence, no meaningful discussion, and above all, no sex. Despite the myth, dope does not make Tom horny. I try to think how to reply, but the moment has passed. Tom is already lost in the TV, blowing smoke rings into the air, and settling back into the couch, struggling half-heartedly to kick off his trainers.

“You smoke a lot these days,” I say.

Tom replies without pulling his eyes from the TV. “I always did,” he says. “It’s just you weren’t there to see it. It’s what I do. It’s how I relax.” He proffers the joint over his shoulder at me.

“Nah,” I say. “I think I’ll go out for a walk along the seafront. The weather’s changed. The rain’s stopped. I’ll check at Jenny’s on the way out – see if she’s up for it.”

“Why?” he asks. “We just got in.”

I shrug. “Dunno really,” I say. “It’s just what I do.”

*

Sunday morning and who could ask for more? I writhe and stretch, basking in the warmth of the bed, the sound of the rain hammering down anew mixes with Tom’s saxophone practice wafting from the office. Strips of dim light pushing through the shutters pattern the ceiling.

The sax inevitably makes me think of Steve – it always happens and it always makes me feel a little guilty, as if thinking about Steve is being unfaithful to Tom in some way. I sigh and stretch again and tell myself that it’s OK to think about him. It was of course, Steve’s Selmer that Tom is playing.

I wonder how good his playing was. He was a professional; it’s what he did for a living, so he must have been good. I listen for a while. For once Tom is playing a complete tune – a Sade song I recognise – dodgy taste but tuneful. I wonder, in a vague, parallel universe kind of way, what would have happened if Steve hadn’t died. Would he have been next door instead? I smile and wonder if he farted in his sleep. Would we have even got to this stage or was it just another of those illusory love affairs? Silly to be wasting thinking time over it if that’s the case. Silly to be wasting time thinking about a dead man anyway.

“He’s dead!” I think, jerking myself out of the reverie. “Get over it!”

Tom’s playing pauses for a second as he coughs with gusto, then picks up where he left off. “Your Love Is King” – yep, that’s the song. A bit dated, but as Tom pointed out, he’s been half-heartedly trying to learn it since it first came out.

I think about other relationships I’ve had and how some of them were better in some ways, some of them worse in others, but then I decide it’s ultimately pointless – like browsing Ikea catalogues or reading beauty magazines; it can only make you feel dissatisfied with what you’ve got – a solid relationship with farting, burping, underpant-discarding, pot-smoking Tom. Far better to focus on the positives of here and now.

I throw back the quilt, suddenly optimistic and ready for the day. I stand and pull on my jogging trousers and head through to the office. Tom pauses his playing as I open the door, lowers the sax and grins at me. He looks hopelessly cute in a dishevelled kind of way. “Did I wake you?” he asks.

I bat a hand at the thick smog hanging in the air and grin to show I don’t really mean it. “Nah,” I say. “It’s lovely. Can’t think of a nicer way to wake up.”

Tom grins again and raises the instrument to his lips again, then pauses and says, “Oh, there are croissants and coffee in the kitchen.”

I blink at him slowly and nod. “Thanks,” I say.

As I pour the coffee I think about the fact that this gorgeous feeling – Sunday morning with someone playing the sax in another room – was a sort of recurring dream of my perfect relationship. It all started years ago when a busker woke me up in exactly that way one Sunday morning by playing beneath my window. He had been cute, and I remember having thought, “Imagine waking up to that every Sunday.” And I wonder at the power of life to order coincidences, meetings, chance; to replace actors with fresh personnel when required – seemingly whatever it takes to make sure the future manifests exactly as imagined.

Dogs, Rhubarb and Pantaloons

For a moment, above the noise of the vacuum cleaner, Tom isn’t aware of my presence, and I’m able to observe him. He’s wearing just his boxer shorts and a t-shirt, plus thick woolly socks, and he has a rolled cigarette – or more probably a joint – hanging from his mouth. He’s frowning with concentration as he tries to get the supposedly marvellous, but in reality useless, Dyson to suck up the dust in the corners.

I close the front door loudly and he looks up and grins, then, in reaction to the rising smoke, closes one eye and winks madly. The ensemble is so funny I can’t help but laugh.

Tom smiles back and kicks the OFF button on the cleaner. “I take it the smile means that it went well,” he says as the machine whirs to a halt.

I nod and pull my jacket off. “Piss easy,” I say. “France may be a bureaucratic nightmare, but there’s nothing so easy as signing on for unemployment benefit.”

Tom nods and pouts thoughtfully. “I guess they’ve had a lot of practice at getting that one right,” he says.

I pull a folded sheet of paper from my back pocket. “I didn’t actually need to go there at all you know. You can do it by Internet now, or even over the phone.”

Tom raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t that making it a bit too easy? I take it you have to go to some kind of Jobcentre so they can at least pretend to try to find you a job?”

I shake my head. “Apparently they may call me in – in three months’ time.”

“Cool,” Tom says. “And what about the dole cheque? How do you get that?”

“Paid direct into my account,” I tell him. “Seventy percent of my salary.”

Tom gasps. “Seventy percent? Jesus! I wish I could get that.”

“For eighteen months…” I add.

“Eighteen months! I don’t suppose anyone really looks for a job for eighteen months then do they?”

I wink at him. “Not me anyway,” I say.

“So you’re on holiday,” Tom says. “Officially.” He proffers the joint.

I wrinkle my nose. “It makes me feel a bit guilty, but then I just think how much tax I have paid over the years…”

“Oh go on!” he says, still waving the joint. “You’re free. It’s the end of one thing, the beginning of another. Have a smoke!”

I shrug and take the joint. “I guess so,” I say. “I wasn’t planning doing anything else today.”

“There’s nothing else to do is there? Not until we get the keys to the gîte.”

“Actually, I think there’s plenty to do,” I tell him. “We need to get some kind of marketing plan sorted, a website and stuff…”

Tom nods. “Yeah, I already started actually. Only, I need some decent photos of the place. Hers are all crap.”

“And budgets,” I say. “I want to work out how we’re gonna make a living at it. But I need some figures from Chantal – profit margins and stuff. I think we need to go up there, have lunch, maybe even stay a weekend – pump her for as much information as we can. Because once it’s ours I get the feeling she’ll be out of there and never want to look back.”

“I can’t wait to get started on the place though,” Tom says. “I was wondering – do you think we can grow rhubarb up there?”

I frown at Tom and snort in amusement.

“What?” he asks.

I half-shrug. “I just don’t think growing rhubarb is gonna be very high on the urgent list of things to do,” I say.

Tom scowls like a child. “So what’s going to be on the Fuehrer’s list of things to do?”

I unplug the lead from the Dyson, hand it to him and then stroke his back. “Hey,” I say. “You can grow rhubarb, of course you can. I just mean, what with all the redecorating and marketing we need to be doing… Well, that’s the stuff I’m worried about. We need to make sure the place makes money.”

Tom scratches his chin and slumps on the sofa. “Yeah, we so need to redecorate,” he says. “I was thinking it would be nice to do something quirky,” he says. “Like themed rooms, you know bright colours and stuff.”

I nod. “Yeah, I thought so too, pick up some bits of funky second-hand furniture…”

“I love rhubarb though,” Tom says, instinctively reaching for his smoking box and taking out the ingredients for his next joint. “I’ve got this craving for rhubarb crumble. Maybe I’m pregnant.”

I slip beside him on the sofa and contain a sigh. His brain works differently to mine, drifting laterally from one subject to another. Mine is much more linear, logical. If I’m talking about decorating I’m not going to drift onto rhubarb. “And a dog,” Tom says. “Can we have a dog?”

“A dog?!” I exclaim. “Where did that come from?”

Tom shrugs. “It’s just a sort of recurring dream,” he says. “A daydream more I suppose. I always imagined one day I’d have a husband and a vegetable plot and rhubarb growing and a big country dog.”

I nod at Paloma on the chair opposite; she’s cutely cleaning her forehead by licking her paw. “I’m not sure what madam will have to say about it,” I say, thinking about Tom’s use of the word husband. It’s not a word he uses generally – I like it.

“It’s a country dog,” Tom says. “It will live outside in a kennel. And I can take it for walks on those footpaths along the ridges.

I nod and smile at the image. I get it. These things are linked for Tom. Just as Sunday mornings are somehow linked to croissants and saxophone for me, gîtes, dogs and rhubarb are part of his dream. I shrug. “I guess,” I say. “A dog and rhubarb. Why not? We could call the dog Rhubarb and kill two birds with one stone.”

Tom runs his lighter along the edge of the lump of dope. “Wasn’t that a cartoon dog? Rhubarb and Custard or something.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t think Rhubarb was a dog…” I shrug. I think for a moment. “No, I can’t remember. Where do you get this stuff from anyway?” I ask pointing at the dope. “I mean, I hope you didn’t bring it back from Brighton?”

Tom tuts. “Don’t be crazy! I wouldn’t go through customs with it. No, Jenny gets it off that bloke she’s seeing.”

“Jenny?” I repeat. “And what do you mean that bloke she’s seeing? I don’t know anything about a bloke!”

Tom sprinkles the dope and glances up at me. “You didn’t know? About Rick?”

“Rick?” I say. “This guy has a name?” It’s a dumb comment – of course he has a name. But I’m shocked, and a little outraged that Tom is on first name terms with a guy Jenny is seeing. Jenny is my closest friend after all, and I didn’t even know that Rick existed.

Tom shrugs. “She hasn’t been seeing him long,” he says. “A couple of weeks tops.”

“What’s he like?” I ask wondering if he’s one of the guys I’ve crossed on the stairs. “And he’s what? A drug dealer?”

Tom shakes his head and runs his tongue along the edge of the paper. “I haven’t seen him,” he says. “He sounds nice though. And no, he’s not a dealer at all. He’s a doctor I think.”

“Jenny is dating a drug dealing doctor,” I say. “And I didn’t know.”

Tom shrugs. “The disadvantage of being at work. And he’s not a dealer. Don’t say that. You’ll upset her. And him! He just had some – for you know, personal use, and she asked him for it and then gave it to me. Said it makes her too lazy.”

I shake my head. “I just can’t believe that I didn’t know this,” I say. “How can I not know this? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tom shrugs. “It didn’t come up I suppose. Hey, you know the redecorating thing,” he adds, his voice suddenly velvety.

I give him a puzzled smirk. “Yeah?” I say. I’m guessing he’s going to tell me he doesn’t like decorating.

“Well, I had an idea what we could do with the cellar,” he says, wiggling an eyebrow.

I roll my eyes. “I was wondering when that would come,” I say.

Tom winks at me. “So you thought of it too,” he says, lighting and then passing me the joint.

I take a hit. My head spins instantly. “Wow, this one’s strong,” I say. “This one’s gonna make me really lazy. Yeah, I knew you’d want a dungeon down there.”

Tom wiggles his head sideways. “There’s no reason why we can’t is there?”

I roll my eyes. “Again Tom, nice idea, but not that high on the list of priorities.”

“Oh go on!” he laughs. “We could make it a gay hotel. Charge extra for the dungeon key… like those places in Amsterdam,” he says, “with whips and chains in every room.”

I laugh and shake my head. “You dirty birdie,” I say.

“Nice idea though,” Tom says.

I nod and grin. The dope is working and it all suddenly seems not only a very funny idea but also a very good idea. Except… “You crazy guy,” I say. “We’re not going to be in Amsterdam though, are we?”

Tom frowns.

“They have hotels like that in Amsterdam because it’s a city of clubs and bars and cruising zones,” I say. “Loads of guys want to go there anyway. Up in the Alps I think you’re much more likely to get hearty Christian heterosexual hill-walking types in those green convertible short/long trouser things.”

Tom sighs. “I guess,” he says sadly.

“What are they called anyway?” I ask, dragging on the joint again and then passing it to Tom. “Those zippy short/trouser things?”

Tom shrugs and looks mock-despondent. “Pantaloons?” he says.

“Pantaloons?” I repeat, and we both collapse into laughter.

“Anyway, they usually have good muscled walking legs,” I say when I manage to stop sniggering. “Pantaloons indeed.”

Tom flashes the whites of his eyes at me. “I love a chunky calf,” he says. “A chunky calf protruding from the bottom of a pantaloon.”

I nod. “I know you do,” I say. “Only they’re so not called pantaloons.”

Tom reaches out and rubs my own, not-so chunky calf. “Fancy a siesta?” he says.

I open my mouth to say, “Yes,” but the phone starts to ring. With a little difficulty I stand and cross the room. “Allo?” I say. I frown at the officious voice on the other end, then I cover the mouthpiece and roll my eyes at Tom. “It’s about the gîte,” I tell him. “Just hold that thought, OK?”

Dreams On Hold

The phone call takes forever. The information I am given is irritating and confusing and particularly hard to decipher through my dope smoke screen. By the time I hang up, Tom has given up and wandered off, so I sit and frown and sigh repeatedly until he returns, two carrier bags of food hanging from his wrists.

“What kind of a country is this?” he asks, pushing his way in. “I mean the French think they’re so civilised – some guy on telly said it was the most civilised country in the world the other day – anyway, I think that’s what he said.” “Le pays le plus civilisé du monde,” he mocks pompously. “But they’ve never even heard of rhubarb crumble. Can you imagine that? You see, we do need to plant rhubarb. Urgently! Anyway, I found lemon meringue pie – I suppose that’ll have to do…” He looks at me and pauses as he notices my expression. “What was that about then?” he asks, nodding sideways towards the phone and pulling a frozen lemon meringue pie in a box from the Picard bag.

“That,” I say rolling my eyes, “was bad news.”

“About the gîte?”

I nod sadly. “About the gîte.”

“She’s not pulling out?” he asks, suddenly serious, frozen in the doorway, the pie still half in, half out of the bag. “She can’t now, can she?”

“Not quite,” I say. “But you know Chantal’s missing husband.”

Tom shrugs. “I never saw him.”

I shake my head. “None of us did – it seems he’s really missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yeah, like missing-person missing,” I explain. “He walked out on her eighteen months ago and never came back.”

“What, like, popped out for a packet of cigarettes?” Tom asks. “Or a lemon meringue pie?”

I shrug. “Something like that. Only trouble is, because they were married, the place automatically belongs to both of them. So he needs to be present to sign the sale.”

Tom’s mouth drops. “And what? Chantal didn’t know this when she signed the papers?”

I shake my head and interrupt. “She says not. I mean, that wasn’t her – it was the lawyer, but no, he said she inherited the gîte, so she just thought it was hers.”

“So what, until this bloke turns up we can’t buy the place?”

I shrug. “Unless they declare him dead,” I say. “I think missing presumed dead is the term.”

Tom nods and then looks at the pie box again, frowning as he reads the French defrosting instructions. “Shit,” he says. “It takes ages. You have to leave it to defrost. So how long is that gonna take?”

I shrug. “I dunno, doesn’t it say on the box?”

Tom shakes his head and turns, a bemused expression on his face. “Not the pie! For him to be declared dead!”

I frown, and then slip into a smirk.

“What?” Tom says.

I shrug. “I forgot to ask,” I say, biting my tongue and crossing my eyes in a caricature of stupidity.

Tom grins at me in disbelief. “You are joking, right? I mean, it’s the only really important bit of information in there.”

I shrug. “I’m stoned,” I say, starting to snigger. “Sorry.”

Tom turns his palms skywards and looks at the ceiling and shakes his head, then turns to the kitchen. “I can’t wait that long,” he says, as he disappears. “There’s only one thing for it.”

“Yeah?” I shout, standing to follow him.

“We’ll have to eat it frozen,” he replies.

All About Tom

My beloved Kawasaki purrs and rolls beautifully from one bend to the next. The air is crisp and clear, the sky a deep shade of blue after the rain. Despite thick, gleaming bike leathers and somewhat less sexy Damart underwear, the cold is starting to reach my thighs and I’m still only a third of the way up. I wonder just how cold it is going to be up there.

Despite the ride, the air, the sky, the sun, I’m feeling blurry and irritable. As I pass through tiny abandoned villages I wonder how much of my mood is due to the dope hangover, and how much is caused by circumstance – the holdup on the sale and Tom’s refusal to come with me (his own reaction to the hangover being a day in bed.)

As I leave the 202 and head up towards Guillaumes, little patches of snow start to appear at the roadside and my visor starts to mist up as the temperature plummets. The cold really starts to penetrate my leathers now, but it’s a good feeling – bracing and somehow real, invigorating. I pass a group of cars parked for no apparent reason in the middle of nowhere, then a police car and another, and I vaguely wonder what that’s all about.

In Guillaumes there seem to be far more people milling about than usual, but I don’t really pay any attention – I put it down to some kind of village fête and continue on up towards Chatauneuf d’Entraunes, the hilltop village where the gîte is located. The snowfall here has been heavy, and though the road has been cleared, I start to wonder if it’s actually possible to get to the top on a motorbike. Cars may slip and slide in the snow, but two hundred kilos of motorbike (two-eighty if you include the rider) on two motorbike tyres – well, if I meet snow on the road then there’s really no way. I wonder about the state of my front tyre and suddenly can’t remember when I last checked the tread. It can’t be far from illegal.

The scenery is incredible and eventually it manages to pierce my dope bubble. The pines, deepest green, are heavily laden with brilliant white, icing-sugar snow. It looks more and more like a Swiss postcard the higher I ride.

As I take the final turn towards Chateauneuf d’Entraunes the snow starts to encroach upon the road – there has clearly been far less traffic on this stretch. I pass another policeman sitting in his car on the bend and almost stop to ask what’s up, but really I am just too lazy to pull the brake lever.

I keep the bike in one of the narrow tracks left by car tyres and slow to walking pace. The bike slithers a little from time to time, but nothing so bad that it doesn’t seem like fun.

The gîte, when I finally arrive, looks stunning – far more beautiful than my memories. The roof is blanketed with ten inches of snow, rising and falling as it hugs the contours of the roof tiles. Everything – the deep grey stone walls, the plastic table and chairs, even the wheelbarrow – looks different and beautiful topped with this fresh glittering whiteness. But the blue, weather-beaten shutters are closed; there is no trail to the front door. The place has been closed for a while.

I park the bike and slip and slide my way – my bike boots don’t seem to have much tread left either – round the back of the building and up into the tiny village square, but here too, apart from a couple of single sets of footprints, the place shows no sign of life. I’m not going to be able to speak to Chantal today.

As I head back through the snow-dampened silence, it strikes me for the first time how difficult it is going to be to fill this place in winter; to get paying guests up here at all, in fact to get anyone, even friends, to visit. And I realise that if the seller has closed the place up awaiting the sale, it’s probable that there aren’t any paying guests in winter anyway – and further, that if she isn’t here to take bookings then we are no longer buying a going concern but a clean slate with an empty diary. It’s going to be harder than I ever imagined to make ends meet.

I clean the snow from a chair and sit in the sun for a while enjoying the view, which is undeniably stunning and definitely the thing to concentrate on in any marketing we do. I imagine life here, with Tom walking his big dog along the ridge, or tending his rhubarb. I imagine us play fighting over who has to get up to do breakfast for the early-starting hill-walkers. After half an hour my stomach starts to rumble – I had hoped to have lunch here – so I start the bike and crawl back down the hill. The heavy bike on the snow feels much scarier heading back down – lethal in fact – but I make it to the main road without a mishap. The nail of realisation about just how tough winter can be up here is driven in a little further. The bike will be unusable a lot of the time; even in a car it could be hard to get in and out. We’re going to be pretty isolated, pretty cold and money will be tight too. But in the end, as long as I imagine Tom in the picture doing it all with me, as long as I imagine us shovelling snow together or building huge log fires, then it seems fine, brilliant in fact. And I realise that my own dreams really don’t have much to do with the gîte at all. Of course its fun, it’s an adventure, it’s a change, but the more I analyse things, it’s really all just about Tom. And I wonder if that isn’t a good definition of being in love.

Mental Infidelity

As I round the final bend of the track and the main road comes into view, I jolt with the surprise of seeing someone – a policeman – in the middle of the junction. He has blocked the end of the road with red tape stretched between his wing mirror and a signpost. Beside me a French pompier is sitting in his red fire-truck-come-ambulance thing; a small group of people are standing at the roadside.

My first thought, because that is what is on my mind, is that it has something to do with Chantal’s missing husband, and then I discount this and presume there’s been an accident. A few feet before the policeman, I slither to a halt.

“La route est fermée,” he says raising his hand. – “The road is closed.”

“Fermée?” I repeat.

“Yes,” he tells me. “For the rally.”

I shake my head. “Rally? But I have to get out,” I say, adding a Monsieur at the end hoping this will help.

“Not until six,” he replies. “If you’re lucky.”

I know there’s no point arguing with French policemen about anything, ever, but the pompier in his truck and one of the rally organisers are looking our way, so hoping to gain their support I carry on meekly. “But I have to go to work; I didn’t know there was a rally. What can I do?”

“Where are you trying to get to?” the policeman asks.

“Nice,” I reply. “I work in Nice.”

“Well you won’t be able to get there until after six,” he says.

“Where can I get to?” I ask.

“From here?” he says. “Today?” He pauses dramatically, then shakes his head and says, “Nulle part.” – “Nowhere.” There is no trace of humour in his voice.

I shake my head and a Jesus! slips out despite myself. “Look, the rally hasn’t started yet has it?” I plead, glancing at a steward in an attempt at including him. “Can’t I just slip out before it starts?”

The policeman sighs unhappily. “Are you sure you want to argue with me?” he asks, one eyebrow raised. He glances at my front tyre, which means of course that he has won.

I shake my head. “Non, Monsieur,” I say.

With difficulty I turn the bike around. It would be easier if the policeman moved back a foot, but he stands there like a rock, so I have to do the manoeuvre – which on the sloping, snowy hill is hard enough – whilst also trying not to run over his foot. I park it next to the pompier’s van a few yards back up the hill.

“Il ne vous laisse pas passer?” he says from his window. – “He’s not letting you through?”

I shake my head. “Not till six he says.”

“If you’re lucky,” he laughs. “The last one I went to, we were there till midnight – a car crashed in the tunnel.”

“Minuit!” I exclaim, then in English I mutter, “Brilliant… Fucking brilliant.”

Thinking, “What the fuck am I going to do till midnight?” I remove my crash helmet.

“So! English!” he says enthusiastically, shooting me broad grin. I reply with a frown. It’s not the usual reaction of a Frenchman.

As if he has picked up on my surprise, he says, “I’m learning.” He flashes another smile at me and beckons. “Climb aboard,” he says. “You’ll freeze out there.”

The kid in me squeals and I break into a smile. I get to sit in the cabin of a red-fire truck!

I cross to the passenger side, pull the heavy door open and climb up, thinking about the number of times I have drooled over the fit guys in the front of these trucks, never quite sure if I want to be one of them or just sleep with them.

I turn to see what this pompier looks like. He fits the mould exactly. He’s fit and muscular, big brown eyes, bristle sprouting on his chin, jet-black hair, tanned, thick swirls of fur down his arms. “Ricardo,” he says, holding out a hand.

French pompiers! The ultimate fantasy: they spend half the day doing daring deeds to save people’s lives, the other half working out. Their red-striped navy-blue outfits are about as sexy as a uniform can get, their boots have something S&M-ish about them… I swallow and shake his hand. “Mark,” I say.

His palm is warm, the handshake, confidant and friendly. “You are very cold!” he says, starting the engine and turning on the heater. “Your hands like ice.”

“It’s OK,” I say. “You get used to it.”

“So, you’re English,” he says again. “I’m having lessons. For a very long time.”

A friend once told me that voice is fifty percent of seduction, and this voice is proof: deep – a good octave below mine, smooth and velvety. His tempo is slow and rolling, open and inviting, the accent intriguing. He grins cheekily at me and then I notice that he’s ever so slightly cross-eyed, and that really does it. I groan inside. Weird, I know, but I have always had a thing for people with cross-eyes – it just spells fragility, sex, and physical attraction. God knows why! I notice that my heart is beating faster than usual. I swallow again.

He crosses his legs and turns as far towards me as the cramped cabin will allow. His boots are very shiny. “Alors?” he prompts. – “So?”

I realise that I haven’t spoken for a while and that my heart is actually pounding and my dick is stirring. Lucky I have such thick motorcycle gear on otherwise he’d see by now. I cross my own legs away from him and swallow hard and open my mouth, but I can’t really think of anything to say. “Yes,” I murmur. I clear my throat. “English,” I say, a little too loudly.

“Nice boots,” Ricardo says. “And I like your… Alpine Star – what do you call this? Combinaison?”

“Erm, bike leathers,” I say. “Or one-piece. You need it in this weather.”

Ricardo nods. “I used to have a bike too,” he says. “I had all the same thing… these boots and an Alpine Star coat like yours.”

I nod.

“But I never use it, my girlfriend didn’t like… so I sell it.”

I nod, registering the word girlfriend and trying not to let any disappointment show.

“So what are you doing up here?” he asks.

“Oh, I went to visit a gîte,” I say.

“A gîte?” he says.

“It’s like a small hotel, or a big bed and breakfast. I’m buying it with my… partner.” I point up the hill. “Up there.” I kick myself for saying partner – but I’m enjoying the heterosexual chumminess; I don’t want any barriers going up, and ironically, considering their status as the ultimate gay fantasy, French fireman are renowned for being macho, and homophobic.

Ricardo nods. “Yes, but up there?” he asks doubtfully. “It’s very isolated.”

I nod. “Yeah,” I say nodding and goggling my eyes to show just how much that isolation is starting to play on my mind. “And you?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”

Ricardo laughs and switches to French. “Getting bored mostly,” he tells me.

“Why are you here? In case of accidents?” I ask.

He nods. “Just in case. It’s a legal requirement. But nothing ever happens, so I listen to the radio, I chat to people, I practice my English …” He adds an amiable wink at the end. “I like your leathers,” he says again. “They’re very nice. I miss my bike.”

I frown at him. Some deep down instinct tells me that he’s hitting on me. And then, all available evidence tells me that he really isn’t. “Do straight men have leather fetishes?” I wonder.

He sighs and looks out of the windscreen. His radio crackles indecipherably.

“They’re starting,” he says, reaching for the door handle. “Shall we go watch?”

I shrug. “Why not?”

As we walk down the hill, I lose my footing in the snow and Ricardo grabs my elbow and steadies me. I smile at him in thanks and he winks, making me blush. At the roadside we join the policeman and the steward and three other people who have appeared on the opposite side of the road, I’m not sure where from.

“I like these races better,” Ricardo says, peering down the hill towards Guillaumes. “The vintage ones.”

I nod. “Oh, it’s old cars? Classic cars?” I say. “Cool!” The air is cold. I can see my breath rising, but the sun is warm and heats the front of my bike gear like a solar panel. “Are you French?” I ask.

Ricardo tips his head sideways. “Why?” he asks.

I shrug. “The name, I guess… Sounds kind of Italian. And something about your accent.”