Better Than Easy Read online

  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 I 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 o
nes.”

  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.”

  He smiles broadly. He has one of the widest smiles I have ever seen. “I’m Colombian,” he says. “Well, French-Colombian.”

  “Like Ingrid Betancourt, that hostage woman?” I ask, attempting to demonstrate at least one grain of knowledge about Colombia.

  “Huh!” Ricardo grunts. “Don’t get me started on her! The bitch. Let them kill her!”

  I bite my lip. “Oh,” I say, frowning. It’s not the humanistic approach one expects from a professional lifesaver. “She’s still a hostage though … I mean, surely whether you like her or not, you have to feel sorry for her?”

  “There are thousands of hostages, and yet they still talk about her – only her. There are thousands of better people to worry about – good people, not corrupt politicians …” he sighs, visibly interrupting his rant. “Sorry, it just drives me insane, the whole world talking about one woman, the whole world ignore the rest of Colombia’s problems. But anyway, yes. Not quite French. The accent never goes away huh?”

  I frown. “It’s not quite the accent, more the intonation. I wouldn’t criticise anyone’s accent!” I laugh. “Not with mine! I’ve been here years, and I still open my mouth to say, “Un demi s’il vous plait,” and everyone knows I’m English.

  Ricardo laughs. “That will be because it’s Une demie, because it’s a beer – feminine. You English never get the masculine and feminine right.”

  I nod and laugh. “You’re right,” I say. “I don’t think we have the necessary circuits to remember whether beer is a boy or a girl. At least, I don’t.”

  “Nor does Jane Birkin,” he says. “Her whole life in France and she still says, un chanson. You know, she’s a singer. She could remember that this one word is feminine – the word for song, right?” He touches my elbow and turns to face down the hill again. “They come!” he says.

  “They’re coming!” I correct, unable to resist pointing out that every language has its challenges.

  Five cars slither and screech around the bend right before our eyes. The last one splatters us with mud. I blink and rub my eyes.

  It strikes me that the policeman, or whoever is supposed to decide these things, is letting us stand too close – much too close. Still blinking through my watery vision, I take a step back. Ricardo stays where he is and shoots me a smile and a nod, which somehow manages to communicate, “You’re fine, don’t worry; but I understand why you are moving away.”

  Only five cars go by and with the exception of the fifth one – the mud-hurling Karmann Ghia – they don’t strike me as very impressive. The first two were Simcas – the same car my aunty had! The third was a Hillman Imp and the fourth a Ford Escort. Do such cars count as vintage? Am I that old now that the most banal cars of my childhood are now classics?

  The other spectators seem impressed though, and they clap and cheer as the cars go by. When it becomes apparent that the pause is going to be prolonged, Ricardo steps back and frowns at me. “You OK?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I’ve got some dirt or something in my eye,” I say. Tears are streaming now and the pain in my left eye is quite shocking.

  Ricardo grabs my elbows and turns me towards the sun. He tips my head back and peers into my eye. Despite the pain and the tears, I’m hyper-aware of his face mere inches from mine, of his lips within striking distance, his stubbly chin a lick away. He even somehow places a thigh behind me and presses it against my arse as he steadies me. It’s weird that the presence feels so sexual. “Je le vois,” he says. – “I see it.”

  He pulls a clean tissue from his pocket, twists the end, and expertly swipes the grit from my eye. “Voila!” he says, proudly showing me the black speck on the tissue.

  I rub the tears away and sniff. My nose is running too for some reason. “Gosh, thanks!” I say. “It doesn’t look like much, but that really hurt!”

  The radio in the van bursts into life and Ricardo runs a reassuring hand casually down my back, stopping just as it touches the top of my arse and then excuses himself and turns and starts to jog up the hill. Behind me I hear the policeman’s and then the steward’s radios chirrup simultaneously and I guess that there’s a reason there are no more cars.

  When I hear Ricardo’s truck start, I step forward to ask the policeman – now removing the red tape – what’s going on. “Is that it?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Accident,” he tells me. “Just after Guillaumes. The road’s blocked.”

  The red van slides past and Ricardo hangs a hairy arm from the window and tells me the same thing, “Accident – I have to go check. Maybe see you later.”

  He gives a little wave and then accelerates down the hill in a plume of overpowering diesel fumes.

  When the policeman starts to pull the tape back across the road, the steward intervenes. “You might as well let him go,” he tells him, pointing at me. “There won’t be anyone through for a while.”

  The policeman freezes, I’m sure considering which of the two options will give him the most pleasure: never seeing me again, or using his power to keep me here. I wonder myself whether I actually want him to let me go, or if I’d rather wait, even till midnight, stuck here with the fabulous fireman.

  The policeman sighs, looks at the bike, then back down the road, and then tosses the words, “Go then, and be quick,” over his shoulder at me.

  I hesitate for a second - the van is now out of sight.

  “Can I go south?” I ask. “I might be able to fit through the blockage with the bike…”

  The cop shakes his head and points north. “That way, and be quick. Now or never.”

  “OK, OK,” I say, already running for the bike. “Thanks.”

  I slither back down the hill, and with a final glance south, I head on up into the Alps. As I ride, I wonder how long it will be before I can loop back towards Nice. And I wonder what the sexy fireman is doing right now, if he’ll be at all disappointed to see that I have gone.

  I come across a road to Valberg which is high and is going to be cold, but at least it’s in the right direction, so I turn the bars, shift down a gear and head upwards, bracing myself for the cold to come. To avoid thinking about the cold, which is already piercing, I think about the gorgeous Ricardo and wonder what his girlfriend looks like. I wonder if Ricardo was at the wreckage of my own car crash not a hundred kilometres away and briefly fantasise that maybe he saved my life, but then I’m forced to discount the idea as unlikely. And then I have a thought which shocks me so much that I manage to think about the thought and the fact of it shocking me at the same time: that if I ever got the chance to sleep with someone as stunningly seductive as Ricardo that I wouldn’t be able to resist; that, Tom or no Tom, I don’t think I would even try to resist. And I realise that despite the fact that I’m in love with Tom (or does this mean that I’m not?) there are men out there that are so beautiful, so masculine, who give off such a smooth, confident, friendly, sexy vibe, that given the choice I would dump Tom in a second. The thought strikes me as so dark, so dank, so disappointing, so shameful that I don’t even know where to put it. So I push it away, and decide to think about the cold instead. And boy is it cold.

  All About Who?

  It’s five p.m. by the time I get back, and I’m so cold that the only way I can think of to get some heat back into my bones is to have a hot bath. Tom is watching TV – another French game show – but simultaneously working on his laptop, which placates me. He says he’s, “Mucking around with the website for the gîte,” and doesn’t comment that I’m late and so I don’t mention the rally. As I lower myself into the hot bath, though, I wonder why this is, and d
ecide that if not mentioning the rally seems like omission, mentioning the rally but not mentioning Ricardo would seem like a lie.

  But once I’m warm and dressed, I return to the lounge and sit next to Tom so that our thighs touch. It would be the first thing I ever purposely failed to tell him and so I decide against it. “I met a really nice pompier today,” I say. “There was a rally and I was stuck and I spent a while chatting to him. Straight but dead sexy.”

  Tom murmurs an, “Uhuh,” but continues looking at the TV.

  I stare at him and wait for a reaction, and then when none comes, I laugh at the anti-climax. Honesty is the easy option after all.

  “What are you laughing at?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Nothing,” I say. “Just being silly… How’s the web site going?”

  Tom shrugs and glances at the screen. “I need new photos,” he says. “Did you take any?”

  “Shit,” I mutter. “I forgot. I took the camera as well.”

  “Oh Mark!” Tom whines.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was kind of distracted – what with the snow and the fact that the place was all closed up, and the rally. To be honest, it looked a bit cold and desolate. I’m not sure it would be that good for sales anyway.”

  “You still could have taken a couple,” Tom says, glancing at the TV, then at the laptop, and then finally at me.

  “Well, if I had remembered, I would have,” I say. “You could have come and taken some yourself,” I point out.

  “I can’t do everything,” Tom counters. “I can’t do that and this.” He flourishes a hand before the screen.

  I sigh and realise that we’re at one of those crossroads – pointless conflict or not pointless conflict – I choose the high road. “Yeah, well, never mind, eh?” I say, running a hand across his back. “We can go up together another day and take some photos. Maybe even stay a night if she opens the place up.”