Better Than Easy Page 9

  “No, I …”

  Jenny clumps back into the room carrying a tray with assorted bottles of alcohol and dishes of nuts and olives. Ricardo, Sarah and the pink puppy follow behind. I glance down at Jenny’s feet and notice that they are suddenly, unusually, squashed into shiny black high heels.

  So what’ll it be?” Jenny asks putting the tray down.

  “Whisky!” I say.

  “Me too!” Ricardo says flashing the whites of his eyes at me. “I need a drink after that.”

  “Hard day?” Tom asks.

  “Shocking,” Ricardo says, with meaning.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts, so analytical of everything everyone says, that I don’t say much myself for the first hour. Sarah sits on my lap and I use her as a cover for my strange mood.

  Jenny serves prawn cocktails, declaring, “And yes I know it’s a cliché – that’s why I’m serving it.”

  She follows this with an excellent nut roast and trimmings. In my silence I manage to avoid putting my foot in it or lying any further, but when Tom says, “Just think! This time next year we might all be living up at the gîte!” I realise that there are multiple deceptions taking place.

  Jenny half chokes on her food and then has to swill it down with some wine, more, I guess, for thinking time than anything else.

  “The gîte?” asks Ricardo.

  “Yeah,” I explain. “Tom and I are buying a gîte up in the hills.”

  “I know,” Ricardo replies. “You …” Here, he realises his error and swivels to face Jenny. “You told me. But I didn’t know you were going to live there as well.”

  Jenny swallows and frowns. “I didn’t … I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think I mentioned it.”

  “Oh,” Ricardo says. He turns to Tom. “Maybe it was Tom.”

  Tom frowns, then thankfully shrugs. “Maybe,” he says.

  “Anyway, the only reason I didn’t mention it,” Jenny continues, “is because, well, it’s not certain yet. And even if it does happen it won’t be for ages.”

  “We’re having problems with the sale,” I tell Ricardo.

  He nods, sighs and swallows. “Yes, these things often are complicate,” he says.

  “Complicated!” Jenny says.

  “Complicated,” Ricardo repeats.

  “To be honest, I don’t think it’s going to happen at all,” Tom says. “I think it’s just a question of when we find that out.”

  I turn my stare on Tom. He hasn’t said that before. “Don’t say that, Tom!” I protest.

  “He’s right,” Ricardo says ominously. “You should be careful what you believe. Things that …” He frowns then breaks into French. “Si on dit assez souvent qu’une chose ne se fera pas, eh bien, ça ne se fait pas.”

  “If you say something won’t happen enough then it won’t,” I translate.

  “Sounds like something Dante would say,” Tom says. Another phrase which shocks me. The guilt over Dante has now finally faded enough for him to become the subject of dinner conversation it would seem.

  “Dante?” Ricardo asks.

  “You don’t want to know,” Jenny says. “Believe me.”

  I nod. “You really don’t.”

  “It is this bad?” Ricardo says.

  “Anyway,” Jenny says with a cough. “I agree with Rick. We all know deep down what’s going to happen. It’s just a question of tuning in.”

  Ricardo shakes his head. “No, I don’t say that at all. I say that what we think changes what happen.”

  “Huh, now you sound like Mark,” Tom says.

  Ricardo slips into one of his winning smiles and winks at me. “I think I prefer,” he says.

  The rest of the dinner party goes without hiccups. Tom talks about dogs and rhubarb and the gîte. I think he’s trying to make amends for having expressed his doubts so clearly. Ricardo tells us about the constant rain in Bogotá, and makes us laugh by telling us about a hypochondriac woman who comes to his surgery every day. I wonder if telling us is breaching professional protocol and then I wonder if the surgery exists at all.

  I sit and watch and enjoy his prettiness as one might take succour from a great work of art – it’s a pleasure to look at him – but something about his double life, doctor/fireman, Rick/Ricardo, Jenny’s boyfriend/what? I can’t work out exactly why that shocks me, but it does.

  At one point, Jenny and I find ourselves alone in the kitchen staring into a pan of custard. “Well?” she asks me quietly. “What do you think?”

  I nod. “He’s gorgeous,” I say. “Really sexy and fun. And cute too.”

  She nods. “You don’t think there’s something … odd about him?”

  I shrug. “Not really,” I say. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. He’s too smooth. He’s too … he’s just too.” She shrugs.

  “Too good to be true?”

  She nods. “Yeah.”

  I shrug again. “Maybe it’s like he says. Maybe you just have to believe for it to be so.”

  “I guess,” she says, looking at the custard. “This looks done. There’s a Coldplay song that says something like that, you know, that saying things makes you believe in them. I suppose it’s not quite the same … but I do think that sometimes … you know if you can just stop being cynical and throw yourself at something … Anyway …” She nods thoughtfully as the custard starts to bubble. “Shall we?”

  As I follow her back through to the dining room, I notice that her arse has developed a distinct catwalky wiggle.

  I watch her lean and put the custard down on the trivet. “So …” I say. “What’s with the heels hon?”

  Jenny blushes and flicks her hair. “They’re new,” she says. “I’m just breaking them in, that’s all. A few minutes every day.”

  I glance at Tom, who raises an eyebrow and shrugs, and we both snigger and look back at Jenny. It’s a terrible thing, but though I could usually catalogue exactly what every man at a party looks like, I rarely even notice what the women around me are wearing. But I notice now, and Jenny is dressed up to the proverbial nines. On top of the new clumpy heels – which though absurdly noisy in her tiny tiled apartment, it has to be said, do give a certain je ne sais quoi to her posture – she’s wearing a black skirt and cardigan. And the top is unbuttoned to show enough cleavage to make me think she has been shopping for accessories of the lift-and-separate variety.

  “Leave me alone,” she mutters with a frown. She shoots a glance at Ricardo, who I realise of course, must remain blissfully unaware that Jenny generally wears jogging bottoms, slippers and a vast Arran jumper.

  The meal goes perfectly until about one a.m. when something happens between Jenny and Ricardo. I’m chatting to Tom and they are in the kitchen, so I miss it entirely. Simply, all of a sudden they are back and the atmosphere has turned distinctly un-festive. Within half an hour, claiming an early start the next day, Ricardo stands to leave.

  Jenny, who has been knocking back glass after glass of wine, frigidly accepts a peck. She and Tom are deep in discussion in hushed voices, not easy to do at a small dining table, and impossible to do without being rude, so I show Ricardo to the door myself.

  He uses the opportunity to slip a business card into my hand. “Appelle-moi,” he murmurs. “Trop de petits mensonges. Il faut qu’on parle.” – “Call me. Too many little lies. We have to talk.”

  He kisses me on both cheeks, winks again and leaves. I can’t help but notice that he shook Tom’s hand. I can’t help but notice that I’m getting a damned erection again. I stand and look at the card for a moment, then return to the lounge. With Ricardo’s departure, the cloud has already lifted.

  “What was that all about?” I ask.

  They both look at me blankly. “All what?” Tom says.

  I frown at them. “What do you mean, all what?”

  Jenny tuts. “It’s just a lover’s tiff,” she says, symbolically pulling off the torture-shoes and casting them into a corner with a sigh of relief. “Anyway, let’
s talk about something else, can we? It is Christmas – Christmas dinner at any rate.”

  But it doesn’t really matter to me what we talk about. With the card sitting in my pocket, I’m unable to concentrate on anything they are saying anyway. Instead I sit and wonder what exactly Ricardo and I have to talk about.

  Badly Timed Abandonment

  Something wakes me from my dream – from my very sexy dream. I try to grasp it, to keep hold of it, but as another drip lands on my cheek, the same thing which woke me in the first place I now realise, the dream slips from my grasp once and for all. I slide a hand to my cheek. Another drip. I force my eyes open, and roll across the cold, damp bed and sit and peer up at the ceiling. A beige stain is spreading from the ceiling fan. Drips are gathering in three, four, five different places and falling directly on the bed.

  “Oh, no!” I groan, forcing my still-sleepy legs to stand and carry me to the bathroom. I grab the first clothes I find – my jogging trousers and the t-shirt Tom was wearing yesterday, pull them hastily on and jog barefoot to the door of the flat. With a final glance down to check that my morning glory has faded to invisibility, I head up to Jenny’s.

  Two suitcases are propping the door open and Jenny is kneeling just beyond the threshold buttoning Sarah’s coat. “Mark!” she squeals as she sees me.

  “Hello,” Jenny says, glancing over her shoulder. “You’re just in time to see us off.”

  “There’s a leak,” I say, surprisingly breathless after the flight of stairs. “A big leak. And it’s coming from your flat.”

  “Leak?” Sarah asks.

  “It’s water darling. Drips, dripping,” Jenny explains, turning to face me.

  “Drips, dripping,” Sarah repeats seriously.

  Vaguely irritated by Jenny’s lack of urgency, I push past her into the flat. “It must be the … bathroom,” I say, as I enter it. “Nope. The kitchen then.”

  Jenny meets me in the kitchen. “There’s nothing dripping here,” she says.

  “Well it’s pouring in our bedroom, and that’s there,” I say pointing at the floor.

  “I don’t think it’s from here, Mark; anyway, we’re just off to the airport.”

  I turn on her. “It is from here. It has to be. And no, you can’t go. I’ve got Niagara Falls in the bedroom.”

  “Really?” Jenny says vaguely whilst checking her watch. “Is it bad?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Very.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asks.

  “What am I going to do?” I say.

  Jenny grabs my arm and leans her head slightly to one side so she can look into my eyes. “Mark,” she says earnestly. “I love you dearly. I’m most concerned about your drips dripping. But we’re going. The flight’s at twelve, my mum is already driving to the airport to pick us up. We have to leave.”

  “But you can’t,” I protest. As I say it, I realise that I’m feeling anxious about her leaving, especially because Tom is also leaving this evening. I wonder for a second if he hasn’t already left – he’s certainly not around – but I remember the flight was definitely an evening one.

  “I can give you five minutes,” Jenny says. “Tell me what you need. But from there you’ll have to deal with it. I’m sorry.”

  I shake my head and gasp in frustration.

  “Mark!” Jenny says.

  “OK,” I say wearily. “Your keys.”

  “They’re in the door. You can hang onto them. I’ve got a spare in my purse.”

  “And the stopcock; we have to shut the water off.”

  “I think it’s that big tap there,” Jenny says pointing at the corner of the room next to the entrance. “But I never touched it, so …”

  I crouch down and turn the tap off. “Yeah, that should be it,” I say. “And I need the phone number of …”

  “The owner, of course.” She rifles through a pile of bills next to the phone and gives me the rent demand. “There,” she says.

  I nod. “OK,” I say. “I suppose that’s it. I wish you wouldn’t …”

  “I’m sorry. Bad timing. But we really …”

  I nod. “Just go,” I say, shaking my head.

  “I’ll call you,” she says. “As soon as we get in.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Whatever.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says again, turning and reaching for Sarah’s hand.

  “Shit!” I say. “The bed.” I push past them and run back down, taking the stairs two at a time.

  When I reach the bedroom, Tom is standing in the doorway. “What’s all this then?” he asks, also surprisingly calm.

  “A water leak,” I say, pushing him gently to one side and squeezing past. “Where were you?”

  “From Jenny’s?” he asks, then, “Swimming. At the pool.”

  “You could have done that here,” I say.

  “You need to shut her water off before she leaves,” Tom says. “She’s flying out today.”

  “It’s done,” I say.

  Tom raises an eyebrow and looks at the ceiling. “It doesn’t look like it,” he says doubtfully.

  “Well, no,” I agree. “I expect it will take a few minutes.”

  As I grasp the corner of the mattress, Tom says, “You should have moved the mattress out of the way really.”

  “What do you think I’m doing Tom?” I say, my irritation shifting from the leak to him.

  “Before, I mean,” he says.

  I strain to lift the corner of the mattress but it’s too heavy. It’s solid at the best of times, but waterlogged it’s impossible.

  “Why didn’t you move it?”

  “I wasn’t here,” Tom says.

  “Well help me then!” I exclaim. “Stop just standing there criticising!”

  “Jees!” Tom says, removing his backpack and crossing the room. “I think that’s called shutting the door after the horse has bolted.”

  “So what, we just leave it here?” I say. “Is that your idea?”

  Tom shrugs. “I thought it was yours,” he mutters.

  “And lift!” I instruct.

  With difficulty we manoeuvre the soggy mattress against the wall, but in truth, the mattress is already soaked, the dripping is slowing, and it is all pretty pointless. Plus as soon as we move it we simply have to find other receptacles to catch the drips.

  Tom immediately busies himself with packing, leaving me to catch the drips, mop the floor, phone Jenny’s landlord, the building company, and half of the emergency plumbers in the phone-book. When my anger – mainly from having to move around him – finally gets the better of me and I make a snide comment, he retorts, “What do you want me to do? You have everything under control anyway, Mister Efficiency.”

  This annoys me so much that my mood shifts from dreading his departure, to being unable even to look him in the eye.

  Just after three p.m. the dripping stops completely. Tom points this out as he leaves – a little early it strikes me – for the airport. “It’s stopped,” he says, then adding, as if this is maybe something he predicted, or something he caused to happen, “You see.” He pecks me on the cheek, and says, “I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks!” I say, still trying to decode what the, “You see,” implies.

  I sink into the sofa – which I realise is likely to be my bed as well – and watch as he pulls the front door closed behind him. I let out a sigh and glance at the clock again and wonder when the plumber will turn up. I’m feeling angry and upset, a bit over-dramatic about the whole thing I guess, and actually, I now realise, a bit tearful. I’m feeling abandoned. Abandoned for Christmas on a wet day in a wet flat, in a big wet world.

  After a few minutes of self-indulgent misery I make myself snap out of my doldrums to mop the floor in the bedroom. I then head upstairs to Jenny’s to try again to find the leak. I check out beneath the sinks; I follow pipes along walls into cupboards, but other than a vague damp patch beside the bath I can find no clues. I’m just standing, hands on hips, noting the strange vac
ant air the flat has taken on now that Jenny has gone, when her phone rings. Thinking it might be the plumber or Jenny herself I pick up. But it’s Ricardo’s voice that greets me, and though I’m intrigued by the whole Ricardo story, truth is, right now, here today, my life seems complicated enough.

  “Jenny’s not here, Ricardo,” I tell him. “She’s already left.”

  “I know,” he says. “She phoned from the airport. I think, thought, you might need help with the water.”

  I wrinkle my nose. Quite what a water-leak in Jenny’s place, leaking into my place has to do with Ricardo escapes me. Unless he and Jenny truly are an item these days, as it now dawns on me that they must be. It’s the first time the idea has crossed my mind. “It’s fine, thanks,” I tell him. “I’m waiting for the plumber, that’s all.”

  “I thought I could …” he starts, but hearing a noise from the stairwell, I interrupt him.

  “Sorry, but I think he’s here,” I say. “It’s the plumber. I have to go.”

  The plumber, who I find lumbering up the stairs with his heavy toolbox and heavier body – he’s massive in breadth and height – is a grumpy brute of a man. He’s wearing stained overalls and has body-hair sprouting from his collar, his cuffs and his nostrils. Initially I greet him jovially, but realising that he is a plumber of the glum school – all grimaces and air sucked through clenched teeth – I quickly give up and sink into a chair with an old newspaper. He prowls and growls, on all fours for the most part, around the flat. Thoughts of dog training make me want to giggle.

  He may be grumpy, and he’s certainly no looker, but he has a sixth sense when it comes to water leaks, and that, after all, is all anyone can really hope of a plumber. Muttering, “They really should have put in an inspection hatch,” he smashes the tiles from the side of Jenny’s bath with a sledgehammer. It makes me pretty nervous, but sure enough, crouched beside me in the rubble, he points out the sheered pipe.

  He saws and files and solders for another hour, and then stands up and declares his work finished. I enter the bathroom and take in the desolation of rubble and smashed tiles.

  Before I can comment, he says, “I don’t do tiling, so you’ll have to get someone else in for that, but at least your ceiling won’t come down,” and hands me a bill. It’s an amazingly reasonable bill, so I let it go and write the check.