50 Reasons to Say Goodbye (21 page)

The dance starts, and it's beautiful.

Ten minutes in, I see Hugo spring onto the stage. Even disguised as a tree I know it's him.

It brings me to tears, different tears.

And I know I'll get over Jean-Luc long before I get over Hugo.

It is New Year's Eve and I am so completely depressed I have stopped moving. The episode with Jean-Luc has left me feeling dreadful
…
The dance yesterday was wonderful, but I ended up going for drinks with Hugo afterwards which did nothing to help. He danced like a dream, and of course he was lovely to me, but the only kind of relationship I want with Hugo is the kind we had.

I never was very good at ex-boyfriends, or New Year's Eves for that matter. This one is looking to be the worst on record.
“Oh how I should have stayed in England, how ridiculous to have come back to spend it with Jean-Luc,”
I think.

I drag myself from my bed and make a cup of thick black coffee. The whisky bottle on the kitchen counter reminds me why I am feeling so shocking.

One by one I call all my friends, but as I'm too embarrassed to explain my desperation, they casually tell me that it's a bit late. Everyone has restaurants booked, parties to go to, train, plane or bus tickets to get away.

I build a fire, set up the computer in front of it. The cat watches me.

“We're going to do some shopping on the Internet,” I tell her.

I connect to a chat site, sort the list of people to show only those living on the Côte D'Azur. The cat half-heartedly raises a paw, taps at the pointer moving across the screen.

My screen flashes almost immediately; I click on the icon.

His nickname is
Flash
. In the photo he's sitting astride a Yamaha R1 motorbike.
“Another biker!”
I think.
“How many gay bikers can there be out there?”

He opens with, “Hi Biker, what's the story?”

We discuss bikes; we discuss work – he's an architect.

We discuss New Year – he too is depressed; his boyfriend split up with him a week ago and he hasn't the heart to party tonight.

He sends me another picture, this time without crash helmet, standing next to his bike, an unmistakable bulge in the front of his jeans. He types, “What are you into?”

I yawn. “Sleep,” I reply. “I'm going back to bed.” I realise I just can't be bothered.

He types, “Not yet! Why not come to Avignon? We can get depressed together.”

I thank him; I refuse. Avignon is three hours away and it is five degrees and drizzling outside. My car won't start; I know – I tried it this morning. I disconnect.

Owen phones from Australia, wishes me a happy New Year. I can hear people laughing in the background. He forgets and asks me if I'm spending it with Hugo, then corrects himself to Jean-Luc.

I tell him that that too is over. I realise from his voice that he's not even surprised, that my love life doesn't even register on his sympathy scale anymore. He says, “Well don't spend it on your own, that's the worst thing you can do, and don't forget, we love you.”

I hate the
we
, it sounds diluted. I suppose it should be more – being loved by both of them – but it strikes me as less. Jealousy I suppose. By the time I hang up I am morbidly miserable. As I stare into the fire a tear dribbles from my eye.

I walk around the cold damp garden and I wonder if I should go to Avignon. The rain has stopped but the temperature is dropping and the roads are wet.

“They'll probably be icing over soon,”
I think.

When I come back in, even the log fire is having trouble displaying any enthusiasm. I sit on a stool in front of it, blow on it, and fan it with a magazine, but the remaining flames flicker and die. The wood must be wet. It all wells up in me. Hugo and Jean-Luc and poor,
poor Mark.

I cry for New Year's Eves past, present and future. I imagine myself seventy years old, still alone with the cat. I realise my cat will die before then and I cry some more – pathetic self-pitying sobs.

I phone up my closest friends in Nice and try to sound perky, try to force my way into their
soirées
, but at five in the afternoon there is really no way; it just can't be done.

I think of friends in England who would never find it impossible to see me, to let me join them, and I phone them instead. They're too far away to be able to help and ask me in concerned tones if I am, “going to be all right?”

As I wonder what they mean, I realise. I think,
“Maybe I won't.”

Maybe one day it will all just be too much for me. Maybe, if I stay here staring at the wet garden with my cat while the whole world is celebrating a new millennium – maybe that day will be today.

I connect back to the chat and
Flash
is still there; he sends me a message immediately: “Changed your mind I hope?”

“If I don't I may just kill myself.”
It's a terrifying thought. I type, “Yes.”

“Really?” he replies.

“Yes,” I type. “I'm coming. Send me directions.”

The roads are deserted.

I am wearing thermal underwear, jogging trousers and sweatshirt, jeans, and motorcycle leathers. I look like a pumped up Darth Vader.

I feel ecstatic and optimistic; I have seized my own destiny, and whatever happens in Avignon, it can't be worse than the alternative. Flash has agreed that there will be no obligations and he has promised me a great restaurant this evening.

Ten minutes into the journey the daylight fades away,
my visor starts to steam up, my fingers go numb.

As I move onto the
autoroute,
it starts to drizzle. My gloves soak up the rain, the wind and rushing air turn my fingers to senseless blocks, but still I am happy. Proof that the answer to depression, as my little self-help book says, is indeed, “Do Something.
Anything!”

Half an hour from Avignon, I push through ten minutes of torrential rain. I should pull off under a bridge, see if it stops, but I daren't interrupt the momentum.

As the rain works its way down into my boots, my feet start to freeze as well. It soaks through my scarf, and starts to dribble down my back. It forms a puddle between my legs and soaks up into my arse.

By the time I reach the exit I feel desolate, numb and frankly ridiculous. I stand in a brightly lit callbox and phone him, my teeth chattering. He answers, says he's on his way.

I jump up and down in the callbox to warm up – my boots squelch.

I watch the rain drift past the sodium street lamps, watch it ease off.

People in warm glowing cars sweep past, peer at me through misty windows.

After twenty minutes, I phone him again, but of course there is no answer. After forty minutes, I start to flick through the yellow pages, miserably eyeing up hotel options. I feel like crying again, a night alone in a cheap hotel could actually be worse than dinner with the cat.

Then suddenly there is the roar of a perforated silencer and he pulls up. He's wearing one piece racing leathers. He lifts his visor, bangs his petrol tank.

“Sorry, they were all closed. You OK?” He holds out a hand.

I shrug. I wring out a glove to show how wet I am. “Flash I presume,” I say shaking his hand.

“Jean-Luc actually,” he laughs. “Let's go get you changed.”

I sigh.
“Not Jean-Luc,”
I think.
“Anything but Jean-Luc.”

We head into Avignon. We shout at each other at sets of traffic lights.

He shouts, “You looked thinner in the photo!”

I shout, “Clothes, lots! Still frozen though.”

We drive around the walls of Avignon, sweep past the famous half bridge reflecting beautifully in the wet tarmac; we ride through one of the gates into the walled city, over cobblestones, and we have arrived.

We park the bikes in his garage and he kisses me on the cheek, says, “Bienvenue.”

I see a set of handcuffs hanging with the tools. He follows my gaze and winks at me as a puddle forms around my feet. He pushes me though into the lounge. “Better get those clothes off,” he says with a grin.

We never do make it to that restaurant.

The sex is rough and dirty.

Jean-Luc hardly removes his leathers the whole weekend – they turn him on, and I don't mind myself. He looks a bit overweight without them.

We have nothing really in common, so we don't really talk. It's all pointless and base. But at the stroke of midnight I'm not only alive, but I come for the third time, which, it has to be said, is better than watching the cat watch the fire go out.

It starts with an email – a photo of a taut muscular body with a grin, crescent shaped blue eyes with a twinkle. The accompanying words are rounded, intelligent friendly. “I saw your ad, and though I hate motorbikes, I've got nothing against bikers, and it is, at least, a method of transport. Why not use it to come and meet me for coffee?”

I send back an email: chatty, warm, but stuffed with questions.

Twenty-four hours later the replies arrive. His name is Thomas, he's thirty-eight, an ex ice-skater. I try not to think of sequined leotards.

He works in Cannes in public relations. He likes cinema, reading, theatre, walking. He hates nightclubs, motorbikes and Celine Dion.

He sounds almost perfect. Hating Celine Dion almost makes up for not liking motorbikes, in my book, at least.

I hastily type my reply and propose a meeting this evening, in Cannes, at
Hype
.

I move the cursor over the send button, but something makes me hesitate. I push the mouse gently away from me, delicately, as one might a bomb. I frown at the screen, and move to the kitchen to make myself a coffee.

When I return, I sip my coffee and re-read his email, re-read my reply. This time, I notice the signature at the bottom of his message. The man has his own web site – I click on the link.

The welcome page is fluorescent pink. It is covered with animated icons: dogs wag tails, letters post themselves, smilies smile, a jack-in the box springs out. After a few seconds the music starts, a simplified, one finger version of Gloria Gaynor's,
I Will Survive
.

I cringe and click on
Photos
. I see Thomas hugging all his friends and I see Thomas wearing a Mexican sombrero. I click on,
What I like best
.

I read,
Little House on the Prairie, Julia Roberts
,
Boney M
. I read
Barbie
. I giggle.

Barbie
is a link so I click on it – there are more photos of Barbie than there are of Thomas.

I have a collection of over a hundred Barbie dolls and twenty-four Kens
, the text reads.
When people ask me why I like Barbie I have trouble explaining, but here goes: for me Barbie and Ken represent an ideal. Barbie is beautiful, successful, loved. Her couple is an ideal too. Barbie and Ken are very much in love. They are thin and beautiful and well dressed. They have been together for years. I would like to feel as perfect as Barbie as I walk down the street with my very own Ken!

I grind my teeth and drink a second cup of coffee before replying.

“Sorry Thomas,” I type.

“I looked at your web site and I guess I don't think I could ever be anyone's Ken. I hate Barbie because “she”, sorry that would be “it”, is in fact a garish plastic child's toy made in China.

Sorry, all the best.

Mark.”

It seems mean, but it strikes me that this guy really needs to get a life.
“Maybe no one has ever told him,”
I think.

Half an hour later I have his reply. It lasts a couple of pages but ends with,
“You are a narrow-minded, judgmental, rude, ignorant idiot. Well I hope you've had fun, I can imagine you laughing at me, imagine you telling your friends all about it. I am so glad to have been of service. If our paths should ever cross please don't bother to say hello.”

I laugh, I think,
“OK, suits me fine.”

I make a resolution: No more Internet. Never again!

With a couple of exceptions, I stick to it.

The music throbs, rolls, crashes over us. Miss Honey, the guest DJ behind glass, frenetically slides new vinyl over the third turntable, pushes her lips out, grooves with the pleasure of the mix. She nods her head, rocks the disc lining up the beat, releases it into the atmosphere. She closes her eyes, rolls her head from side to side and breaks into a grin as the saxophone adds itself to the ambient funk. She's too tall, too black, too lippy – too woman to be woman.

The crowd is heaving, thumping – the dance floor rocks and rolls beneath the feet. Some are aerobic, angular; some Latino and sexy; others are flailing, screaming as the music climaxes, crashes to the ground. A black guy to my left is grooving, rolling, spinning.

For some it's a serious affair, lips jut out, eyebrows frown.

I close my eyes, rock backwards and forwards and lose myself in it all.

Miss Honey pulls a slider down to zero, leaves us frustrated, the dance floor a wasteland of rhythm without bass. The music builds, the rhythm transforms, becomes faster. A voice rises, climbs above the treble, “take it, take it, take it,” it screams. The cymbals become harsher, louder, the voice mounts. The small guy opposite me gyrates his hips in small tight circles, bites his lip, eyes open, eyebrows lifted in expectation.

Tiny hints of the baseline sneak through to the speakers, the music builds to its climax, “Take it a-l-l t-h-e w-a-y,” laughs the voice.

Miss Honey whacks in the bass and we are drowned by the hugeness of it. The black guy spins three-sixty degrees; the small guy opposite breaks into a huge relieved grin. My spine tingles. I close my eyes, grin, swoop and fall on the melody.

Someone behind me falls against my back, barges me forward and I open my eyes just as I bash into the small guy. He catches me, grins at me and winks.