Sleight of Hand E-Book

Nick Alexander

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Living with his soul mate Ricardo in an idyllic beach-house in Colombia, Mark looks like he has finally found true happiness. But all is not as it it seems. Despite the paradisiacal beaches and salsa music, Mark is torn between the quiet security of home and the excitement of his Colombian lifestyle. When an old friend's mother dies, Mark hopes that attending the funeral will enable him to decide where his future lies. But no sooner does Mark set foot in England than bonds of love and obligation from the past begin to envelop him with such force that he wonders not only if his relationship with Ricardo will survive, but if he will ever be able be break free again... Insightful, poignant, pierced by Nick Alexander's trademark wry humour and forensic eye for detail, Sleight of Hand weaves universal themes of honesty and happiness, desire and obligation, love and lust into a rich tapestry of modern life.

Leseprobe

Sleight of Hand

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 Thing Better Than EasySleight of Hand

SHORT STORIES

13.55 Eastern Standard Time

FICTION

The Case of the Missing Boyfriend

Sleight of Hand

Nick Alexander

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by BIGfib Books.

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

Copyright © Nick Alexander, 2011

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: 978-0-85789-640-7 (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

Paradise Lost

The Stranger

A Trip with Lolita

The Best Laid Plans

Pathetic or Rather Beautiful

Ricardo: Not Selfish

A Chink in Destiny

One At a Time

Jenny: Catch Me When I Fall

Top Of The World

Sugary Tea

What Other People See

Sliding

Ricardo: A Potentially Bad Move

Jenny: Quite Big

Under the Circumstances

In a Sombre Landscape

One Slap Too Many

Ricardo: Speechless

Will It Be Fine?

Just Statistics

Jenny: No Guilt

Lack Of Expectation

Headache Doesn’t Cover It

Shooting the Messenger

Quarterly Plans

Ricardo: Complications

Family Man

Jenny: Parental Instinct

Symbol Of Love

Florent Nightingay

Wednesday Child

Adulthood

Three To Six

Something Good

Jenny: Safe Haven

An Agreed Narrative

Fast-Moving-Moods

Snapshot

Ricardo: Ghosts In The Corner

Kiss Of Death

Sticking Around

Post Holiday Blues

Pancake Therapy

Whitehawk Argy Bargy

A Bill Clinton Moment

Jenny: Pushing and Pulling

The Case Of The Missing Daughter

Grumpy

Ricardo: Fading Options

Star Signs

Making Love

The End Of The Line

Cornered

Drama Day

Ricardo: Guardian Angel

The Day After

Jenny: When Doubts Vanish

Surprise Delivery

The Luckiest Guy Alive

Your Time Will Come

Getaway Plan

A Different Kind of Gay

An Ill Wind

Rewriting History

Feline Phantoms

Ricardo: One Grief To Replace Another

Christmas Miracles

Jenny: Secret Charades

Post Christmas Comedown

Levels of Intensity

A Good Lawyer

A Different Set of Rooms

The Big Picture

Dead Or Alive Or …

Nosolagnia

Jenny: Wanting and Waiting

Post Script: The Pink Letter

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Fay Weldon for encouraging me when it most counted. Thanks to Rosemary, Jerôme and Giovanni for their help with the final manuscript. Thanks to Apple computer for making such wonderful reliable work tools, and to BIGfib Books for making this book a reality.

For Stewart, Craig and anyone else who ever had to fight to stick around

Paradise Lost

It was the incident with the dog that did it. We were sitting having a drink at Max’s – a scruffy wooden bar at the edge of the national park. It had become a ritual of ours, a Friday night mojito, sometimes two – our attempt at marking the beginning of the weekend – at marking the passage of time. Neither Ricardo’s random callouts as a doctor, nor my occasional translation work, nor the weird, season-less weather of Colombia provided much clue as to where you might be in the week, the year, in life. Our stay here so far felt, somehow, out-of-time – as if contained within brackets.

Max’s was a perfect beach-bar and (in season) a sometimes-restaurant: a wooden shack built on stilts with the dense forest of the national park to the west, the occasionally raging Caribbean to the north, and a dusty/muddy car park everywhere else.

It was a twenty minute walk along the coast from our house and often, outside the tourist season, we, along with the effervescent, whistling Max, were the only people there. Occasionally there would be a couple of gamekeepers playing draughts in a corner, and of course for those few months of the year when Europeans and Americans take their brief holidays, the place would look more like Club Med than a lost corner of the Caribbean. But generally the only noise was the endless salsa drifting from Max’s thankfully weedy transistor radio, and, depending on the direction of the wind, the sound of the waves.

Before the corronchos arrived it had all felt pretty perfect. The late afternoon sun was warm, the mojitos were cool enough for condensation to be trickling down the outside of the glass, and Max’s radio had, rather superbly, run out of batteries. Not only had I finally finished and emailed my fifty-thousand word drudgery on EEC agricultural policy, but Ricardo’s so often absent colleague was, for once, on-call: a whole weekend to ourselves.

Ricardo drew a circle in the dew on the side of his glass, looked up and smiled at me. “You know, Chupa Chups, there are moments when this place really is pa …” he said, and then paused, distracted by the sound of a car.

Like all nick-names Chupa Chups came about by accident. I had asked him what the lollypop brand name meant, and Ricardo had translated it as, “Sucky Suck.” For weeks, I had been unable to see or hear those words without cracking up laughing, and the name had stuck. It still made me grin, even though I was mortified when from time to time, he accidentally used it in public.

We both turned to watch as a Porsche Cayenne appeared from the forest track. It stopped at the edge of the car park in a cloud of dust, and four young men in Miami-Vice suits got out – one of the guys actually had his jacket sleeves pushed up.

Ricardo sighed and looked back out to sea, and I copied him and did likewise, for there are men that you don’t watch in Colombia – men, often enough, with Porsche Cayennes.

The four men lingered by the car talking energetically or maybe arguing. With the distance and their accents, and over the salsa music drifting from the car, I couldn’t understand a word. Their over-loud voices sounded, though, like a challenge. The main thing they seemed to be saying, was, “Look at us. Look over here. Aren’t we something?” And that was when the dog appeared.

It was irritating, it’s true – a mangy, skinny half-breed sniffing around the edges of the terrace, pissing in a corner, pushing under tables and around chairs in its hunt for crumbs, and then around our feet, and finally out into the car park, and over towards the Porsche.

It snuffled its way around the rear of the car, and then fatally, and I mean, fatally, pissed on one of the tyres. One of the Porsche boys – the fat one with pocked skin, gave it an ineffectual kick and it yelped before starting somewhat lazily, to bark.

I became aware that my stress levels were rising. My skin was prickling and my throat felt suddenly dry, and I wondered briefly if I was being paranoid, or if I was channeling some future catastrophe, or if Ricardo, so calmly looking out to sea, was, as often, radiating his own specifically Colombian understanding of the situation.

One of the guys shouted over and asked, “¿Es éste tu perro?” –is it your dog? and Ricardo glanced over and simply shook his head in reply. To me, as an aside, he murmured, “No contestes.” – don’t reply. From the fact that he had chosen to speak in Spanish I knew I wasn’t imagining anything: the only reason Ricardo ever used Spanish with me, was to avoid drawing attention to my status as a non-Colombian. I held my breath, and we both turned and looked back out to sea.

Nothing happened for a minute or so and despite the tension provoked by not-looking, I managed to start to breath again.

And then I heard the boot open and one of the guys laughed, and another cheered, and as cover, I raised my glass for a sip and glanced over just in time to see the fat guy pull an AK47 from the boot of the car and raise it to his hip. I opened my mouth to warn Ricardo but he kicked me hard, so I turned back out to sea and remained, like he, stoic, merely imagining the dog’s dancing body as the rounds of gunfire let rip and hoping that there, that day, the dog would be the only one to die.

In the year since we had been living here, there had been other events of course: the disappearance of the Swedish girl last summer, the stabbing at a party we attended, the minicab murders … And even if Ricardo found reassurance variously in the fact that the Swedish girl had been found (with apparent amnesia) and the stab victim had survived (with a scar), and the minicab murders had all happened more than two-hundred kilometres away, for me these were all straws on a camel’s back, drops of water in a proverbial French vase.

But the tipping point, the moment I specifically thought, “No, I don’t want to live here. I want to go home,” was when they shot that dog. Because that’s when I realised that these guys in suits in Porsche Cayennes have machine guns stored next to the wheel-jack. And that’s when I saw that Ricardo sighed. As my own body jerked at each fired round, Ricardo sighed – he had become used to this. And I didn’t want to get used to it.

I had assumed that the guys would now come to the bar, but once no more amusement was to be found in filling the dog with bullets, the gun was put back in the trunk, and the four guys simply climbed back into their 4x4 and accelerated off in a cloud of dust and fading salsa rhythms.

With a whachagonnado shrug and a raised eyebrow Max descended leisurely to the car park, and scooped the corpse of the dog into a bin-bag. When he had done this, his hands still bloodied, he leant against the fence and rolled himself a cigarette.

I said automatically, “I want to go home,” and Ricardo, assuming that I meant to Federico’s beach-house, downed the last of his drink and, with a nod and a weak smile, stood up. I chose, for the time being, not to explain further.

Ricardo took the coastal path back to the house and I didn’t argue. The route through the forest was shorter but felt, if you were in a particular kind of mood, more menacing.

The path was pretty narrow, so I followed him – a little numb from the adrenalin aftershock – watching his buttocks move up and down, his shirt slowly sticking to his back, and then glancing left at the brochure-perfect beaches and right into the long shadows of the forest, and back again at the perfect beach. I thought about the contrasts of Colombia, so beautiful, so friendly. And yet …

Ricardo only turned once to speak to me during the walk. “I’m sorry about that,” he said, as if it had somehow been his fault. But I knew what he meant. It was his country. He had brought me here. I knew how he took such things personally.

As we walked, I wondered if this feeling – that I had had it with Colombia – was a new permanent state of being or simply a momentary reaction to danger, and I decided that I needed a trip back to Europe to find out. I hadn’t been back since we moved here over a year ago. It was time.

But if I told him how I felt, would it damage our relationship? That would be the last thing I would want.

Faithful, good natured, straightforward Ricardo – the man I thought I would never meet.

A part of him, the Colombian part, will always remain alien to me. It’s hard to explain what the essence of that difference is … Perhaps a coldness that enables him to sigh as someone machine-guns a dog to smithereens is what best sums it up. Maybe a lightness of being that means that these things don’t get to him the way they do to me – an optimism that is entirely unaffected by murder, rape or natural disaster. I know that all sounds contradictory, and really that’s the whole point. The fact that I can’t decide whether to describe it as solid and unshakable, or courageously optimistic, or cold and unfeeling, says it all: alien. Simply.

But other than this undefinable otherness, we are the most perfect fit I have ever found.

Back at the house, Ricardo said, “You just relax Chupy and watch the sunset and I’ll make dinner,” and I knew that the business of the machine gun and the dog – the most violent thing I had ever witnessed – was now over for him. For Ricardo it required no further discussion.

I checked my email to make sure my translation had reached its destination (it had), and was just about to shut down the computer for the evening when a rare email from Jenny popped up. Her mother had died, she said. She felt incredibly sad and alone, she said.

And my first thought, my very first shameful thought, was that here was the perfect excuse for a trip home. And then, I thought, “And you reckon Ricardo is the cold one?”

The Stranger

So here I am, staring at the booking screen. “Tu ne l’as pas encore réservé ?” Ricardo asks me. – Haven’t you reserved that yet? He leans in and nuzzles my neck.

We converse in either French or English, apparently randomly. In French because France was where we met, and in English because Ricardo needs the practice. Despite the fact that I need the practice most of all, we never speak Spanish together. Ricardo’s reaction to the slightest mis-pronunciation on my part is a shouted correction. It’s something that’s just too irritating for our relationship to repeatedly survive, so we avoid it by speaking any other language.

“I can’t decide how long to go for,” I tell him, peering at the booking screen. “Plus I can’t work out whether to do just England or whether to go back to Nice as well.” Part of the reason I can’t decide how long to stay is that I’m not sure how Jenny will react to my presence. Being her oldest friend and the man who stole her boyfriend complicates things somewhat.

“I suppose leaving the booking open costs too much,” Ricardo says. “Have you looked?”

“A fortune,” I say. “Nearly two-thousand extra.”

“Book for two weeks then,” he says. “Or three. And then if you get bored buy a flight, with … you know … the one you use before.”

“Easyjet?”

“Yeah, if you get bored in London you can still book a return to Nice.”

“I suppose,” I say.

“You could check my flat for me, check they haven’t wreck the place. If you need to put it on my card …”

“No,” I say. “Thanks, but it’s fine.”

Ricardo straightens and rubs the base of his back, and then saying, “Well, only you can decide,” he heads back through to the bedroom.

I flick back and forth between two itineraries and chew the inside of my mouth and wonder if it’s OK to bring up Jenny’s potential reaction with Ricardo. For obvious reasons, she isn’t a subject we tend to discuss.

The phone chirrups so I swipe it from the cradle. “Aló?” I say.

Ricardo’s nephew Juan is on the line. He sounds unusually grave.

“Ricardo, c’est Juan,” I shout.

“Je le rappelle,” he answers. – I’ll call him back.

“I think you’d better take this one,” I tell him.

Ricardo reappears in the doorway. He has the five ironed shirts that Maria left over one arm. He frowns at me and reaches out for the phone with his free hand.

“Juan?” he says. “Sí … Sí …” And then he takes two steps backwards, glances behind to check his position and sinks onto the edge of the bed. “Sí,” he says again, more definitively.

I look at his rounded shoulders and his glazed expression and at the darkening sea behind the window, and I shiver and wonder who has died.

When he hangs up, Ricardo says, “You should book that flight.”

I nod. “What’s happened?”

“Maman est morte,” he says. Then he snorts and smiles and says again, “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte,” – it’s the opening line from Camus L’Etranger.

“Oh babe,” I say. I think how strange it is that both Jenny and Ricardo’s mothers should die on the same day, and then discount the thought as too banal to be vocalised. “Oh God, I’m sorry.”

Ricardo shrugs, which is unexpected.

“How?” I ask. “How did she …” It seems to me to be something one might ask at such a moment, but then as I say it, it seems cold and unnecessary.

“In her sleep,” he says. “Lena found her.”

“The maid?”

“Yeah. You know who Lena is,” Ricardo says.

And it’s true. I’m not really sure why I asked, except perhaps, to buy time. “Are you OK?” I ask – another stupid question.

Ricardo shrugs again. He looks strange: kind of blotchy and pale at the same time. “I think so,” he says quietly. “I’m not sure. It was hardly unexpected.” And then he stands and vanishes from view.

I listen to the sound of him slowly hanging the shirts in the closet and then stand and follow him to the bedroom. He caresses the sleeve of the final shirt and then slumps back onto the bed. “I have no parents now,” he says. “That’s strange, huh?”

“I suppose it is,” I say, tears welling up on his behalf. I take a seat beside him and slip an arm around his shoulders. I think he will either shrug it off or start to cry too, but ever-unpredictable, he turns and kisses me.

A little surprised, I remain impassive as his tongue darts in and out of my mouth, and then I think, “It’s his mother … whatever he needs,” and kiss him tenderly back.

But tender isn’t what Ricardo has in mind. He grabs my t-shirt and lifts it over my head. “Take your jeans off,” he says. “I want to fuck you,” and so I do. And he does.

Under the circumstances, which are bizarre to say the least, I don’t particularly enjoy it … He’s rough and direct. He pushes in before I’m ready and without enough lube – it hurts. It’s like being shagged by a stranger, apparently more to do with a need for release, a yearning for closeness than anything else, but I shut up and fake it: I shut up and take it.

The death-fuck is quickly over, and as I dry my chest with a hand towel, I expect Ricardo to say something about his mother.

He reaches for his box and starts to roll one of his occasional joints and with a nod towards the door says, “You should go and finish booking that flight.”

“Surely, I should stay … I mean … don’t you need me to stay, babe?”

“Pourquoi ?” he asks, sealing the joint, and then, picking the flakes of grass from his chest and putting them back in the box he adds, in English, “I have to go Bogotá tomorrow. There’s no point you stay here.”

“But don’t you … I mean, shouldn’t I come with you?”

“What for?” he asks, lighting the joint, and taking a deep hit. I’m not sure if he’s on the verge of tears or if it’s the smoke that is making his eyes glisten.

“Well to help with … stuff.” With my pitiful Spanish, I’m not sure what I could help with, but all the same.

Ricardo shakes his head. “No need,” he says. “And you can’t come to the … l’enterrement …”

“The funeral,” I tell him.

“Sure. You can’t come to that. You know this.”

“I know you don’t want … I mean … I know you didn’t want her to know. But surely now?” I can feel my anger rising.

“It’s a family thing,” Ricardo says. “A latin thing. Trust me.”

“I’m not family?”

“You know what I mean,” he says, offering me the joint. “It’s for cousin and nephew and …”

“Husbands and wives,” I say.

“Well yes.”

“But not boyfriends.”

Ricardo shrugs.

“Juan knows I’m here,” I say. “He must have spoken to me at least twenty times. Federico does too.”

“But they don’t know who you are,” Ricardo says.

“Well, who do you think they think I am?” I say. “The cleaner? The gardener?”

Ricardo shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s up to them. That’s the point. You have to leave people the space to understand what they want to understand. It’s the latin way.”

“The Catholic way,” I say. “The closeted way.”

“If you want,” Ricardo says. “Look. We’ve already …” He turns to look out of the window and sighs.

I blow out a column of smoke. If I go any further this will now turn into an argument – an argument we have indeed had repeatedly. And I think that this really isn’t the right moment.

Ricardo takes the joint from me and says, “And you don’t really want to win this anyway. You want to go see Jenny.”

I shrug.

“You need to decide, Chupy, if you want to win this argument or be happy,” he says.

I take a few seconds to think about this and then decide that he’s undeniably right. “Sure,” I say. “Whatever. If that’s what you need. Really. It’s fine.”

He winks at me and then pushes me gently towards the end of the bed. “Go book the flight,” he says. “And book one for me for tomorrow as well. Use my card. We can take the same.”

“As far as Bogotá?”

“Yes, to Bogotá”

“Return?”

“One way. I don’t know how long.”

“Sure,” I say standing. “Are you sure you’re OK?”

Ricardo shrugs again. “I told you. I don’t know,” he says, flatly. “But I have to go to Bogotá tomorrow – this I know. So do the booking for me.”

“Right,” I say. “Sure. Oh, and the cat?” I ask. “What do we do about her? Where is she anyway?”

“Under here,” he says, pointing down at the bed. “I’ll call Maria. She can spring-clean and feed Paloma.”

“Autumn-clean.”

“OK, Autumn-clean …” Ricardo repeats, then, with an almost quizzical expression, he says again, “So I have no parents now.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He shrugs. “I suppose it is better than visiting them in an old person home.”

A Trip with Lolita

At first sight, I decide that my neighbour for the flight to Madrid is a transexual. She’s taller than me (even without her platform soles) and has Pete Burns cheekbones, Angelina Jolie lips, and “surprised” eyebrows. She looks like the subject of a documentary on cosmetic surgery catastrophes.

I squash my legs against the bulkhead as she slides into the middle seat beside me and think about just how much longer the flight is going to seem with so little legroom. I wish that the four-foot-not-many-inches guy now sitting down on her right was my neighbour instead.

She glances at him, then smiles at me but says nothing. As she rolls towards me in an effort at extracting the seatbelt from beneath her buttocks I get a retch-inducing whiff of perfume.

I turn to look out at the Bogotá rain and think about Ricardo heading off to his mother’s house. He seemed fine of course. He was positive and effervescent during the drive to Santa Marta, and then warm and smiley for the flight to Bogotá. When the fifteen-seater went through a white-knuckle patch of turbulence, he even quipped, “He died on the way to his mother’s funeral.” But I remember only too well from when Tom’s father died, how quickly “fine” can turn to “breakdown.” But if he doesn’t want me there – and he clearly doesn’t – then there isn’t much I can do.

Lolita Jackson, as I nickname my six-foot beauty, doesn’t speak to me until the Iberian trolley dollies arrive with our first meal. Given the choice of chicken or fish, I half expect her to reply, “Neither – I’m a tranny actually,” but she plumps for “pollo,” and hearing her voice, I think, “God, she’s a woman.” I can’t help but wonder if “tranny” was the look she was aiming for when she embarked on the surgery path all those years ago.

On hearing me request my vegetarian meal, she breaks her silence and asks me in near-perfect English where I’m from.

“England,” I say. “Near London.”

“So you’re on holiday?” she asks.

“No, I’m kind of living here,” I say. “Well, living there.”

“So you like Colombia?”

“Of course,” I say, reaching past her for my tray which has now arrived. “Everyone loves Colombia.” If there’s one thing I have learnt it’s that the only opinion you should ever express about their homeland is one of pure positivity.

“A miserable country of third-world under-achievers,” she says.

“Really? I like it,” I say, unflummoxed by the remark. It’s very fashionable in Colombia to slag the place off. I know it’s all bravado. “So you’re not Colombian?”

“Sure I am, but I live in Valencia these days. It shows, doesn’t it?”

“Sure,” I say. I restrain myself from adding, “You have that euro-tranny look down to a tee.”

“I prefer Spain,” she says.

“Well, Spain is great too.”

“So you like Colombia,” she asks again, incredulously.

“I do,” I say. “It’s amazingly beautiful. Don’t you think so?”

“I suppose. And the people?”

“Oh, they’re incredibly friendly,” I answer. “The happiest people I ever met.” And it’s all true. Colombia is stunningly beautiful. It’s like a dramatised version of France, only with rain-forests and a few Caribbean beaches thrown in for good measure. And the people are the most welcoming, smiling, contented people I have ever come across.

“Yes in Europe people love you or hate you, or they just don’t care.”

“Right,” I say.

“In Colombia we love you or we kill you. Sometimes both at the same time.”

I laugh. “Yes, well, there is that.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?”

I shrug. “Nowhere is perfect,” I say.

“It’s got much better since Uribe got in,” she says.

“Yes, everyone says so.”

“Though it’s probably time for him to go now. But you didn’t used to be able to go out at night,” she says. “It’s not scary anymore.”

“No, well, I’m sure … I mean, if you were used to it before. It must feel very different.”

“You never came before?” she asks. “In the eighties and the nineties when they had the … what do you call it when you can’t go out at night?”

“Curfew?”

“Yeah, the curfew.”

“No,” I say. “No, thank God. Even now, it’s about as scary as I can cope with.”

She twitches her nose, and then peels the aluminium foil from her dish with her vast fluorescent fingernails. “It’s pathetic,” she says.

“Airline food?” I ask.

“The way you people look down your noses at everyone.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You would think that nothing bad ever happens in Europe,” she says.

“Oh,” I say, realising that I have broken the golden rule of untainted adulation. “I didn’t actually say that.”

“There are murders and gangs and drugs in Europe, you know. Where do you think all the cocaine goes? Who do you think they grow it for?”

“No, you’re right,” I say, frowning. “You’re totally right.”

She forks a lump of non-specific vegetable matter from her dish and makes a “Humph,” sound, and then pops her headphones into her ears. And that’s the end of our conversation.

As I eat my meal, I think about the differing nature of violence in England, France and Colombia, because of course, as Lolita says, shit does happen back home. If the media are to be believed, then it happens more and more.

But it is somehow different shit. It’s drunken shit, and racist shit, and sometimes homophobic shit. But it’s shit that I understand, and for the most part, shit that I know how to avoid. I can sense when a bar brawl is about to happen and leave. When faced with a group of a certain kind of men after a certain hour in a certain part of town I can cross the road. It’s the way Colombian violence springs from a glassy lake that unnerves me. It’s the way it vanishes back into it leaving barely a ripple. It’s the way it bursts from smiling happy people who, often without even dropping that smile, pull a knife or a gun. There’s no aggro, no negotiation, no tension. It’s often not even about obtaining anything. It’s just about stopping some dog, or someone, doing something that is found to be irritating. It cracks like thunder, and then vanishes leaving the bystanders to roll a cigarette and sweep up the storm damage. In the end what makes it so unnerving is that lack of understanding … it’s that I don’t get the context.

There is a specific Colombian attitude to life as well. It’s as if, living amidst so much mayhem, they have learned to enjoy every moment. And they have looked death in the eye and accepted its inevitability as well. So, no matter what you discuss, you will hear how Colombian thinking has been forged between a rock and a hard place. On money: better spend it today. You might be dead tomorrow. On suicide: Well, if you don’t like the film, I can’t see why you should have to stay to the end. On paedophilia: What’s the point of all that? A trial and a judge, and years of prison. Such a waste of money. Far better to deal with it the Colombian way. Click. Done. Over. On cigarettes: I’d rather die of cancer at fifty than sit in my own piss till a hundred.

And when you hear these viewpoints often enough, your own relationship with death starts to shift too. Life starts to seem like it is an episode of Desperate Housewives, where the obvious answer to a whole clutch of problems is murder. It’s catching yourself thinking the Colombian way, that’s the most unnerving of all.

The Best Laid Plans

Sixteen hours after takeoff, I walk out into the arrivals hall at Heathrow. I’m feeling stoned and confused. I’m not sure if the issue is one of time or space. Maybe it’s the weather (raining in Bogotá, raining in Madrid, sunny in London). Maybe it’s the joint I shared with Ricardo yesterday … Was that really just yesterday? But it’s probably all of the above. I left Bogotá in the early evening, snoozed in a plane for ten hours and found myself having lunch in Madrid. I then dozed for another three hours and woke up here in London. Nothing in our genetic makeup was ever programmed to deal with this. Our bodies will probably take another million years to catch up.

I head straight for the train station. I’m travelling with hand-luggage only, quite proud of the fact that my days of lugging suitcases around and flying home with unworn clothes are now over.

The train journey to Camberley takes another hour and a half – an hour and a half I spend trying to coax my iPhone to connect to a network, any network. But despite Comcel’s assurances that my Colombian sim card would work here, it clearly doesn’t. And now of course I can’t call Comcel to get it fixed, or Jenny to see if she’s home, or even check my email to see if she knows I’m coming.

Between these increasingly hopeless checks to see that my phone still doesn’t work, I look around the carriage and play spot the difference. When you return home from a long period overseas, something new is always revealed about your countrymen. Today I’m noticing how varied everyone’s clothes are. There are guys in sober suits, and a lad in a pink hoodie, and a woman with bumblebee stockings. The guy opposite me is a goth, with pink hair and zips on his clothes and an assortment of scrap metal protruding from his head. Who would have thought that goths still existed? In Colombia, as in most of the world, the majority of men still haven’t strayed from white shirt and pleated trousers.

I’m noticing how at home I feel too. Even though these people have nothing more to do with me than the average Colombian, I understand who they are. I have no worries about how they might behave.

And whereas when I lived in France, I always used to notice how often the Brits smile at each other – how often they laugh – today I’m noticing how subdued everyone seems. I wonder what the French must think when they arrive in Bogotá. The effusive carnival of Colombian society must be quite a shock for them.

The sun is setting by the time the taxi pulls up in the anonymous close containing Jenny’s mother’s house. Stupidly I don’t ask the driver to wait, so by the time I realise that no one is in, he is disappearing from view.

“Shit,” I say tiredly. The best laid plans of mice and men. Or in my case, I would have to admit, the worst laid plans. No working phone, no-one in, no taxi, nowhere to stay.

“You twat,” I mutter, heading for the neighbour’s house.

On the doorstep, are two red-cheeked gnomes. They are something I never really believe that people actually own. I stand, staring at them in a tired daze until I hear someone unlatch the lock.

“There’s no-one there,” the woman, who looks uncannily like June Whitfield, says as she opens the door.

“Hello. Yes, I know,” I say. “Do you have any idea where she is, or when she might be back?”

The woman thins her lips and stares me in the eye. I realise that this thin-lipped pulling in of the mouth is where the thousands of tiny wrinkles around it have come from.

“I’m sorry,” she says, looking not-very-sorry-at-all. “I can’t help you.”

A wave of fever sweeps over me. I feel so overcome with exhaustion I might just faint, or cry. “When did you last see her?” I try.

“You’ll have to ask her daughter if you want to know more,” she says.

I frown. “Sarah?”

The woman tuts warming very slightly from “glacial” to merely “icy.”

“Look, who are you looking for?” she asks.

“Jenny,” I say. “Jenny Holmes.”

“Right,” she says. “Sorry, I thought you were looking for Marge.”

“Well, no. She’s dead isn’t she?” I ask, wincing at the realisation that I should probably have used, “passed away,” or some such euphemism.

“Yes. I didn’t know if you knew, you see.”

I nod and force a smile. “Sure. I understand. No, I’m here for the funeral.”

“I see.”

“So can you help me? Do you know where Jenny and Sarah are?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. They left the day … well, the day it happened.”

“Do you have a number for her? Because I only have the house number and her email address, and she doesn’t seem to be answering email. Well, she wasn’t answering when I left.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, crossing her arms now. “I can’t help you.”

“Do you know when they will be back?”

“Well on Friday I would imagine,” she says.

“Friday?”

“For the funeral.”

“Right,” I say. “And do you know where that is?”

The woman sucks her bottom lip and then says, “Look love, I’m sorry. I don’t know you from Adam. I have to go. My tea’s getting cold.”

I watch the door close and think, “So much for the friendly Brits.”

The neighbour on the other side isn’t in, and the man in the house beyond that, who is fixing the wing mirror on his Freelander, tells me that he’s sorry, but that he “Didn’t have much to do with her.”

But as I turn despondently away, he adds, “I think the funeral’s at Saint Paul’s if that’s any help.”

I pause and look back. “Saint Paul’s?”

He laughs. “Yeah, just the local one.” He nods beyond me towards the main road. “It’s just over there. I think that’s where the missus said they’re having it.”

Saint Paul’s is less than a hundred yards from the entrance to the close, but it’s locked and bolted (I for some reason assumed that churches, like petrol stations were open 24/7) so I add the phone number to my non-functioning iBrick and start to walk back towards the town centre wondering what to do next.

I take a bus back to the station, and for want of a better idea, take another train to Waterloo. If the funeral isn’t until the day after tomorrow then I might as well head for London. Two nights in Camberley on my own isn’t what the doctor ordered.

Unsure if I need breakfast, lunch or dinner, I eat a reliably bland cheddar sandwich from the trolley and then at Waterloo I take the tube to South Kensington.

I once stayed in an Easyhotel at South Ken’ and I remember it being cheap and I remember the street being stuffed with other low-cost hotels. But more than anything, in my exhausted, despondent state, I’m feeling the need for some kind of familiarity, no matter how corporate, no matter how orange.

I check into a windowless, not-quite-as-cheap-as-I-remember room which is stunningly tiny. Indeed, the single-piece moulded bathroom is so small that when I bend over in the shower to pick up the soap I have dropped, I actually hit my head on the edge of the toilet bowl.

I briefly wonder if I shouldn’t have checked some of the other places in the street first – but I don’t wonder for long. Within seconds I sink into a groggy, jet-lag, or perhaps concussion-induced slumber.

Pathetic or Rather Beautiful

The eggs are grey and taste like an eraser. The hash browns are greasy and lukewarm. In fact, eating breakfast at McDonald’s ignores just about every aspect of aesthetics, taste or ethics I can think of. But they do have free wifi, and with free wifi I can use Skype to call Ricardo. Waking up alone for the first time in fifteen months has left me desperate to hear his voice.

The second I switch my phone on though, the unadjusted clock informs me that it is now one a.m. in Bogotá – the call will have to wait.

I check my email, hopeful that Jenny will have replied but find an email from Ricardo instead.

Hello Chupa Chups.

So it is done. Maman est morte. And buried. And Ricardo is drunk.

I hope you have not arrive too late for the mother of Jenny. I can’t really believe what you say that they keep the body for a week. I probably shouldn’t ask, but doesn’t it smell? In Colombia we prefer not to hung around. Death is a well-oiled machine here, but then you know that.

Everything here is fine. It was lovely to see all family, but I drink too much, first at the wake with mother, then after at the goodbye dinner. Yes, too much drinking. But I miss you Chupa Chups. I realise that you are my family now. And the bed is empty without you.

Love Ricardo.

Slightly watery eyed, I reply, telling him that I miss him too, that my phone isn’t working and that I’ll send him a new number as soon as I have organised a UK sim card. And then I Skype Jenny’s home number but of course, she’s still not there. Hearing the ghostly voice of her mother on the answer-phone is unsettling.

I phone Saint Paul’s church too, and the vicar confirms that the funeral is tomorrow at 2pm. And then I look down at my breakfast and think, “Twenty four hours in London. What do I want to do?”

I raise another mouthful of “egg” towards my mouth and then let it drop back onto the tray. One thing I don’t want to do, it seems, is eat grey, rubbery, McDonald’s egg.

I spend a nice enough day in London. The good weather holds and the place feels familiar and pleasant as I head for Oxford Street to buy a sim card for my phone, as I browse the books in Prowler Soho, as I head out to the Tate Modern to spend a few hours wandering, wondering, “But is it art?”

But ultimately the main thing I notice about London is that Ricardo isn’t here. Everything I see that impresses me, I want to show to Ricardo. Everything that shocks or amuses me, I want to discuss with Ricardo. Amazingly, after little more than a year together, I’m realising that, without him, I feel like half a person.

In the evening, I head, for familiarity’s sake, back to Soho. There’s a great atmosphere in Compton’s – the place is buzzing with the after-work crowd. I even get chatted up by a cute beary red-head who tells me that he’s, “in media.”

But even Compton’s feels flat without Ricardo: the only reason I ever used to hang around in gay bars was because they held the possibility of finding love. And now I don’t need the product I once hoped they would provide, they seem about as much use to me as a plumbing supplies store. Further, without that all-consuming hunt for love to occupy me, I’m at a loss to know how to spend even a single evening in London.

After two pints and a lonely veggie buffet down the road, I head for an Internet café. In the end, the only thing I can think of that I really want this evening is a full-sized keyboard so that I can send Ricardo a proper email telling him how much I miss him. I can’t decide whether this is pathetic or rather beautiful.

Ricardo: Not Selfish

Oh my beloved Chupa Chups. What would you say if you knew? I think you would leave me in an instant. I think that our time together and our time to come would be in the trash can before I could finish the first sentence.

Because the truth, pumpkin, is that I thought about cheating on you the moment that you booked that flight. Actually, thought, is probably overstating it, I didn’t think about it, and I honestly didn’t begin to scheme how I might make it happen, but my horizons definitely broadened to include the possibility at that moment.

If I had thought about it – which, again, I promise, I didn’t – I don’t suppose I would have bet on a suitable opportunity presenting itself anyway, but when she smiled at me at the graveside, when she squeezed under my umbrella for protection from the Bogotá rain, I became aware of what might now happen.

Her name was Cristina, and she was the kind of dark, curvaceous beauty I have always gone for. She smelt of shampoo and Angel, a chocolatey aroma that instantly whisked me back to my first flat in La Candelaria, to a long lost summer of youth with the hysterical Esperanza – poor Esperanza, she killed herself, you know. Ironically, Esperanza had no hope, you see.

So it was like being offered time-travel, and I thought, Now how would that be? Because though I had occasionally cheated on my girlfriends with guys, I had never done it the other way around. I had never cheated on you Chupy – where would I have found the time? But with you now so far away, it was hardly going to hurt you, now was it?

After the funeral we sat side by side at the meal, she the only single woman, and I the only single guy, and then Cristina asked me where I was staying, and I said that I was going back to my mother’s place, and she leant into my ear and asked, Are you sure you want to be alone this evening?

I said that I wasn’t – I wasn’t sure at all. That’s all I did, that’s all it took. Would you hate me for such a small thing? Probably.

In the end we went back to hers instead, which I realised was a relief because, despite my bravado, I hadn’t been looking forward to a night alone at my mother’s flat.

When I saw all the guy-stuff in her apartment, when I realised that she didn’t usually live alone, it all felt safer. I thought it would be all the more containable, because after all, we were both cheats now. Her husband was away on business and she was lonely and sad from the funeral and she needed a good screw. It suited her fine.

She was soft and warm and she wanted to baby the little boy who had lost his mama, and what can I say? That suited me fine too. I know that you would rather I had denied myself the pleasure; I know you would rather I had chosen to remain sad and alone, and she horny as hell on the other side of town, but that’s not the way I’m made, babe and I think deep down you always knew that.

I wasn’t feeling devastated, I can’t hold that up as an excuse, but I wasn’t feeling on top of the world either. You were on the other side of the Atlantic, and I couldn’t even phone you. I was missing you, and being held, being reassured that I was sexy, being reminded that I was still a good lay, seeing that I still had what it takes to send rivulets of sweat running down her sleek, smooth back – it was life affirming. Isn’t everyone’s reaction to death a desire for sex?

Whatever … As you would say, it was just what the doctor had ordered. Of course you wouldn’t say that at all, you would call me selfish. At best.

But I have always known what you need better than you know it yourself. I had seen from your time with Tom how toxic honesty can be and I had seen from the beginning that you needed a perfect monogamous relationship. Or failing that, the illusion of one.

And I had decided from the moment we got together that if I couldn’t give you the first, I would give you the second, because I love you Chupy. I really do.

And one way or another I decided to make sure that we would both get exactly what we wanted out of our life together. And if at times our needs weren’t compatible, if from time to time, a little sleight-of-hand was required, then so be it.

I determined, by whatever means, to make sure that we were both happier than we had ever been before. Which despite what you would think, never struck me as selfish at all.

A Chink in Destiny

I get to Saint Paul’s fifteen minutes before the service. It’s a warm September day, and the stress of facing Jenny and perhaps Tom, plus the black roll-neck jumper I am wearing – it’s all combining to make me sweat. I spot them even before I have passed through the gate to the grounds, standing with their backs to me, both smoking, which is a surprise, because the last time I looked they had both quit.

I walk slowly along the path hoping that they will turn around, and then, when they don’t, I pause a few feet from their backs. I swallow hard. I lick my lips and cough. “Hello,” I say, simply.

They both turn to face me, Tom quickly, Jenny more slowly. Tom’s eyes widen, and Jenny’s expression remains entirely blank as if I am a foreign language film that she doesn’t quite understand.

Her hair has grown much longer since we last met, and they both look thinner than I remember, but that’s perhaps the effect of all the black. Or maybe the cigarettes. Tom, who always did look good in a suit, looks stunning. But angry.

“What the f …” he says. “Sorry, but what are you doing here?” Then to Jenny, he adds softly, “You didn’t tell me he was coming. How could you not tell me?”

Jenny drags on her cigarette and then whilst blankly staring me in the eye, she says, flatly, “I didn’t know.”

I step forward to shake Tom’s hand but he moves away making it impossible.

“OK,” I say. “Fair enough. Look, I’m sorry Tom, but do you think I could have a quick word with Jenny?”

I reach out and touch her arm. She doesn’t flinch. “Would that be OK?” I ask her.

Jenny glances at Tom and shrugs one shoulder, then starts to move towards the side of the church.

“Tell him,” Tom says as we move away. “Just tell him to go, Jenny.”

Once we are out of earshot, I say, “Look, Jenny, I wanted to come today, maybe I was wrong. If you, you know, you do want me to go …”

Jenny nods slowly.

“I would understand,” I say.

She continues to nod and sighs deeply. “Well, good,” she says.

“You wrote and told me,” I say. “You sent me that email and I thought that might mean that you wanted me here … but it doesn’t matter.”

“You should have warned me,” she says. “I haven’t had time to think.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I wrote, email … and I phoned your … I phoned the house. And I went there too. But you weren’t there.”

“We’ve been in a hotel,” she says. “The house has death in it.”

I nod. “I see,” I say. “Look I’m so sorry Jenny.”

She nods. “About?”

“Your mum.”

She nods again. “Right.”

“About everything,” I say. “Of course I am.”

She nods. “Everything,” she says, and I mentally add it all up and realise the enormity of everything I have been hoping she might cope with today. Her mother is dead and here’s her ex-best-friend Mark who cheated on her other best friend Tom before running off to Colombia with the first boyfriend she had had in years.

“I’m sorry. This was stupid,” I say.

Tom appears at the corner of the church. “Jenny, the service is about to begin,” he says.

Jenny nods at him, then says to me, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say … It’s … It’s all so hard anyway,” she says. “Without you and Tom and … It wrecked so much. But you know that. I’m not sure if now is the time. I don’t want to be … But I’m not sure if there will ever be a time.”

I nod. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll just go. Really, it’s fine. This was a stupid idea.” I feel a sudden need to vomit, and have to swallow actual bile rising in my throat.

Jenny nods. “I’m sorry,” she says, touching my arm very lightly, and then starting towards Tom.

I remain immobile and nod slowly as I think, “Wow, what now?”

After two steps though, Jenny hesitates and looks back. “Did you come for this?” she asks me quietly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Did you come all the way for this? For the funeral. Or were you already here?”

I shrug. “No, I … I really just came to see you.”

She nods robotically. “I see,” she says.

“Anyway, bye,” I say, nodding towards Tom. “You should go.”

“Come to the house,” she says.

“The house?”

“Yes. Tom can’t stay long anyway. So come to the house afterwards. Have something to eat. Say hello to Sarah. Then go.”

A chink in destiny. Sometimes that’s all you need. I blink back tears. “Are you sure?”

She pulls a face. “Honestly? No. But come anyway.”

As they vanish into the church, I head for a sunny bench on the far side of the grounds. In memory of Fred Rawlins who was loved by one and all.

I’m feeling a bit shaky, and am grateful to Fred for his sunny bench. I check my phone, newly resuscitated by an O2 sim card. There’s a text from Ricardo in response to mine. “OK NEW NUMBER TELL ME WHEN TO CALL,” it says.

I answer, “Now?” and it rings almost immediately.

“Chupa Chups!” he shouts, hurting my ear.

“Hello. God it’s good to hear your voice.”

“And yours. Where are you?”

“In Camberley. Outside the church.”

“The church?”

“Jenny and Tom and the others are inside. They’re having the service for Jenny’s mum. Right now.”

“I can call back later.”

“No, it’s fine. It was a bit difficult, with Jenny and Tom. So I stayed outside.”

“Difficult?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why? What do you mean, why?”

“OK. Sorry. Stupid … Are you OK?”

“Yes. I miss you.”

“But you’re not sad you go to England?”

“No. I don’t know yet really. I only saw Jenny for a few seconds. We’ll see how it goes afterwards.”

“And London? Did you have fun?”

“I told you, I missed you so much, I couldn’t enjoy it much.”

“But you must. I miss you too, but you have to enjoy your trip.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yes. I’m good.”

“You still in Bogotá?”

“Yes. Tomorrow I’ll go back.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“But you must be feeling sad?”

“It feels strange. That she’s gone.”

“I’m sure.”

“But we knew, didn’t we? She was old. And ill. It’s kind of relief too.”

“Right.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t think this, or say it … How is Jenny?”

“She didn’t look brilliant. She’s lost loads of weight.”

“Well, that’s maybe a good thing.”

“She’s looking a bit skinny actually. And tired. She’s smoking again.”

“Well, you can look after her a bit now.”

“I’m not sure she wants me to.”

“No, of course. Well, be extra nice to Sarah.”

“Of course.”

“It will help.”

“Help?”

“It’s psychology, Chupy. If you’re nice to her kid, it will make things easier. It’s the way women work.”

“Sure. Well, I was going to kick her and spit on her, but now you mention it, I think I’ll buy her an ice cream instead.”

“It’s probably better. Is it ice-cream weather over there?”

“Yes. It’s lovely actually. I’m sitting on a bench in the church garden in the sun.”

“It’s raining here.”

“It’s always raining there. Do you miss me a bit?”

“I miss you so much pumpkin, you have no idea. The worse is sleeping alone. The bed so cold. But I know you’ll be back soon.”

“Two weeks seems like too long now.”

“Yes. But it’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

“This call must be costing a fortune.”

“Yes. It’s a mobile, so a fortune. Where are you staying tonight?”

“I don’t know yet. I have my stuff with me, so probably at a hotel nearby.”

A sparrow lands on the furthest arm of the bench and looks at me quizzically. I wish I could show Ricardo.

“If you have a normal phone, text me the number and I can call you,” Ricardo says.

“OK. And if I have wifi I can Skype you. Are you at your mum’s place?”

“No Chupy. I’m staying with friends. I didn’t want to stay in the flat on my own.”

“Oh good. I’m glad you’re not on your own.”

“Just text me the number and I’ll call you.”

“OK. Love you.”

“You too, mi amor. You too. Good luck with Jenny and Tom.”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

“Ciao.”

“Ciao.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

“I’m hanging now.”

“OK. It’s hanging up though.”

“Sorry?”

“You have to say, hanging up. Hanging is something different.”

“OK. Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Are you still there Chupy?”

“Yes.”

“OK, here goes. I’m really hanging up now.”

“Bye.”

I sigh and smile at the phone and slip it back in my pocket.

“He’s gone now,” I say to the sparrow. “Now, what do you want?”

Being spoken to apparently is not what the sparrow wants. It hops and flutters away.

And then, feeling a hundred times happier than before the call, I head off in search of a cup of coffee and a sandwich.