50 Reasons to Say Goodbye (22 page)

I watch him dance – the same tight little movements, easy, no pretence, dancing for himself. He stares into my eyes, ecstatic.
“On ecstasy probably,”
I think.

We grin, we roll, we move closer. The crowd pushes us; we let it happen. From time to time when our arms brush, electric arcs leap across.

He moves away and I dance, follow his movements, follow the back of his blue sweatshirt through the crowd, down to the end, off to the right hand bar.

I push off to the left, take another route and end up accidentally-on-purpose by his side. He shouts his order over to the barman, then turns and performs an exaggerated double take at me.

He points behind him at the DJ. “She is sooo good,” he shouts.

I nod.

“Beer?” he asks.

I nod. “Beer!”

We move to an upstairs bar where we have to shout less. His name is Fabian, he's very thin and he has thinning hair. He's not really good looking, but when he smiles his face lights up, radiates joy, and he smiles all the time.

We talk, then we dance again. We roll and bounce against each other until Miss Honey quits the box at four a.m.

Fabian nods towards the door, I follow him.

“Where do you live?” he asks.

“Grasse,” I say.

“Jesus that's a long way!” He strokes the side of my face with his hand.

“I can take you,” I say nodding eagerly. “I can bring you back tomorrow.”

He grins at me. “I have a car,” he says. “I'll follow.”

As I drive, I glance in the mirror at the white Fiat following.

I wonder if I am in love, if it is possible. We haven't really spoken; we haven't really met. We have only danced; we have only kissed. So not love then.

“Then what is this fluttering at the top of my chest?”
I wonder.

At home I open the French windows. We lounge on the sofa, look out at the night; the first summer light is coming over the horizon. Birds are singing prematurely in the trees.

We drink tea and Fabian looks through my CD's. He says, “Oh,
I
have this,” and, “cool, Kid Loco,” and, “is this one any good? I don't think I know it.”

We lie on the sofa, his head on my chest, and I stroke his hair. I think we should be getting down to sex before we fall asleep, but this is so nice, so much closer to what I need. He tells me about his parents, his job, his dog.

My cat bounds in from her night-hunt and settles on his lap. I smile, I am happy. I watch him upside down as he talks, feel the vibrations of his soft Bordeaux accent in my stomach. He's beautiful, gentle and honest and open.

Eventually, around seven-thirty am he says, “I'm tired.” Sunlight creeps across the lawn.

“We should sleep,” I say.

“I like you,” he says in my arms as we doze off. “It's weird.”

“Why weird?” I ask.

“I feel safe,” he says, “as though nothing bad can happen to me.”

I smile. “It can't,” I say.

We wake up together, entangled and sweaty. We lie watching the afternoon sun force through the gaps in the shutters.

I kiss his neck. “Hello you,” I say.

He sighs, turns, and looks at me with big brown eyes. “Hi,” he says.

I hug him tightly. “Great evening!” I say.

There is a silence. His body tightens. “I'm HIV positive,” he says. “Sorry.”

I say nothing. I sigh. I hug him a bit tighter.

“You're not then?”

“No.” The words catch in my throat.

He pulls my arms tighter around him. “Oh well,” he says.

I sigh.

He shrugs. “Another story that won't work then.”

I sigh. “Who knows?”

I pause. I think back. I remember what friends have told me, the paranoia of infection, the anguish of feeling you're not allowed to get angry, not allowed to be demanding about anything, not with someone who might die.

“I've done it before, too complicated,” he says, “too much stress, too much paranoia.”

“I know. It wouldn't be easy,” I say.

He rolls away onto his back. “Nah,” he says. “Been there, done that, I don't even want to try.”

“We could see how it goes?” I say. I stare at him; my eyes sting.

He shrugs. “Nah,” he says, sitting up. “You can make me breakfast though; I'm starving.”

We eat; we talk. We lounge in the hammock until sunset, then I close the door to the little white Fiat.

He winds down the window; big brown eyes look up at me. “Thanks,” he says, “you're lovely.”

I smile at him, a lump in my throat. “So are you. I'll, um, see you in the club then?”

He nods; he smiles. His eyes shine, and with a little wave he drives away.

I pull up on the crunchy gravel, flip down the side-stand and pull off my crash helmet. I walk to the small group standing at the side of the road. Everyone is wearing wet weather gear, shiny and colourful. I look around – I think we all look pretty sexy.

Jean-Paul, our secretary introduces two new members to me. The first is a pneumatic blonde from Marseilles, her name is Laurence and she has a broad smile, an amazing cat-woman waist and a bust that fills her motorcycle leathers. She's with her girlfriend – ninety kilos, frizzy straw hair, dark roots, and eyebrows painted in too high.

I say, “Bonjour.” I look at the couple standing side by side.
“Why?”
I wonder.

Jean-Paul introduces me to another member, André.

André is the male equivalent of Laurence, except with no apparent partner in tow, one metre eighty, broad sporty shoulders, bright generous smile, shaved head, goatee beard. He shakes my hand, looks me up and down. He's wearing leather jeans and a grey nylon motorcycle jacket, my sight lingers on the drops of rain clinging to his thigh.

We stand, we chat and drink dreadful coffee from
Quick
.

Jean-Paul winks at me as he tells me that André works as a sports masseur. We stamp our feet and watch our breath rise into the cold January air until it is time to leave.

Riding through the winding greenery of the Var, I'm having trouble with the bends. I'm spending too much time looking at André's back, at his rear, at his shiny thighs; I have to force myself to look at the road.

When we stop at traffic lights I pull up beside him.

He shouts, “Beautiful road!”

I nod and give him a thumbs-up.

He shouts, “No rain!”

In the restaurant in St Tropez he sits next to me.

We laugh about the dreadful pizza. André removes his jacket – his t-shirt is white and tight and his arms are covered in swirls of dark hair. We talk about our likes: biking, camping, music, dancing. We agree on all our dislikes too: Caviar, snobby restaurants, fundamentalist non-smoking non-drinking Christians.

I am seduced by our similarities.

I know that all relationships start with the search for similarity, I also know that they all end with the affirmation of difference.

I wonder vaguely if that's what we're doing, starting a relationship.

We ride back along the coast, round the red rocky cliffs, alongside the impossibly blue Mediterranean. As the sun fades we start to chill; my nose is cold, my fingers iced. I invite everyone back to my place for a drink. Half come and half have other things to do, other people to see. André comes.

I light a log fire in the lounge and serve mulled wine to everyone except André who wants vodka. We sit, hands cupped in front of the fire – the red flickering makes everyone look beautiful, even Laurence's girlfriend.

The girls head off, they have a two hour drive to get home.

Fabrice downs a second mulled wine, drags himself wearily to his feet and follows them out.

André fills his glass with vodka; I look on approvingly. Apparently he's not intending leaving so soon.

Jean-Paul nudges his boyfriend and winks at me. They get up and say goodbye; I follow them out. “He's cute,” says Jean-Paul. “And single.”

I look nervously behind me. “Thanks,” I say. “I worked that out for myself.” He winks at me again. They climb onto his Suzuki, bump off down the track and I close the gate.

When I get back André is downing the last of his drink, crouching in front of the fire, poking at the logs. “That was
such
a good day,” he says. The flames flicker across his face. He sounds slightly drunk and I glance at the bottle of vodka – half of it has gone.

We sit down on the sofa and André reaches forward, sloshes another four centimetres of vodka into his glass. “I really enjoyed today,” he says. The slur in his voice is distinctive. He swigs at the glass and puts a hand on my leg as he speaks.

“Yeah it was great,” I say, “but you should slow down a bit with the vodka.”

He shrugs at me; he looks annoyed. “Merci Mama,” he says. He downs the remains of his glass in single shot and laughs, pretends to throw the glass over his shoulder, Russian style.

I smile tightly. “Seriously though. You're not going to be able to drive otherwise.”

He frowns at me; stares blearily into my eyes. “If I wanted my mother here, I would have brought her,” he says.

I stand and force a little smile at him. “I think I'll make some coffee,” I say nodding my head.

“Anyway,” he says. “Who the fuck says I'm leaving anyway? Maybe I want to stay, maybe
…
” His voice peters out.

I look at him. I can see him wobbling out of control, like a spinning top at the end of the spin. I lift the bottle from the coffee table. “Sure,” I say, “I'll just, erm, make that coffee all the same.”

He grabs the base of the bottle, pulls it from my grip and plonks it back down on the coffee table. He grabs my hand, pulls me towards him.

I shake him loose, glare at him. “OK André,
enough,” I say.

His top lip curls. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks.

“You need coffee, and then you need to go home,” I say.

André shrugs theatrically. “Why?”

I stare him in the eye. “Because I'm telling you to,” I say.

He jumps unsteadily to his feet. “Waste of fucking time,” he says. He picks up his keys from the mantelpiece.

I shake my head. I touch his arm. “André, have some coffee, you've had too much
…
”

“Oh fuck off,” he says, pushing me away, hard – I stumble backwards. “I know when I'm not welcome. Christ, it's worse than at home.” He stumbles, trips on the coffee table; swipes his crash helmet from the floor.

“André?” I plead.

When he turns, his eyes are blazing and his face is puce. “I don't want your fucking coffee!” he says. “Got it?”

I nod. “Got it,” I say.

He turns, opens the front door, and sweeps dramatically out slamming it behind him.

I raise a hand to my forehead, run it up through my hair and take a deep breath. “Not my problem,” I say to myself, shaking my head.

I hear him start the engine. I hear a crash. I hear him say, “Merde!”

I open the front door in time to see him remounted and riding away. The gate lies on the ground, dented, unhinged, dead. A piece of plastic from his headlight lies beside it.

I snort in amazement and sit down on the doorstep. I smoke a cigarette and then cross the garden and lift the iron gate back onto its metal hinges – it no longer closes completely.

Back in the house I find André's gloves on the coffee table, but the bottle of vodka has gone.

The Klub is packed for the “World famous” Jeff Mills but the music in my car on the way here was more danceable than Jeff's thumping rattle so I concentrate on the local fauna instead, vaguely hoping to catch sight of Fabien. On the stairs I bump into Yves, and we pretend we never fell out and shout at each other for a while.

A cute thirty year old with a shaved-head, biker-thing going is heading down the stairs in a skinny red t-shirt, only he's not looking where he's going, he's looking at yours truly, his head swivelling like a radar tracking-device as he moves.

When he reaches the last step, just before he spins into the dancers, he breaks into a grin. I have a double heartbeat.

“Did you see?” shouts Yves.

I nod wide-eyed.

“He was looking at you, not me,
right?”

I nod again.

“Go!” laughs Yves, pushing me down the stairs.

It's almost impossible to move and by the time I catch up with Red T-shirt he has given up on me ever following and is heading back. As we sail past each other caught in different tides, he is momentarily squashed against my chest. “So packed!” he says, grinning up at me. The crowd carries him on.

The Klub is organised in a loop, so I carry on in the hope of squashing into him next time around, this time determined to seize the day.

I fight my way across the dance floor and up the stairs but when I get to the balcony, I see him dancing on the floor below with a heavy-set body-builder.

Yves, who is flailing around behind them, sees me and points, shrugging, mouthing, “What are you doing?”

I take a deep breath and head back around the loop, through the excitable Italians, around the gaggle of girly-boys and across the sea of bare chested tattoos on the stairs, and there is Red T-Shirt, heading up towards me.

I calculate the currents, position myself correctly and wait. As he pushes in front of me he stops. “Hi! What's
your
name?” he asks.

“Mark,” I say. The pressure to move on is building. People are pushing.

“Hum, you're not French,” he laughs.

“And you?”

“Jean-Philippe,” he replies.

“Very
French,” I say. “That your boyfriend you were dancing with?”

“Nah, just a friend,” he says.

“Good,” I say, “I'm glad.”

He squeezes my arm, slides his hand down over my arse and lets the stream carry him onwards.