50 Reasons to Say Goodbye (8 page)

He nods. “Thanks Mark!” he says. “You're our star player you know!”

I turn towards the door. I roll my eyes and internally I groan.

*

It's a risky strategy, and when my second visit fails I start to wonder if he has a boyfriend who he stays with, if he has gone away on vacation, if he has moved away, died …

I wonder if I will ever catch him in. I know I could have organised this differently, I know I could have called, but in some way I have chosen to leave it to fate.

I stand; I reach out, press the buzzer. It's my third visit to his apartment. “If this is
meant to happen
,” I think,
“then he'll be in.”
And if he's in then it's
a sign
. It's the kind of logic my grandmother used to use.

The intercom crackles, then nothing, a false alert. I sigh; I turn away.

“Yes?” asks a metallic voice behind me.

Beneath my breath I say, “Yes!” I turn back to the intercom. “Dirk Flaubert?”

“Sure. And you are?”

I can tell, even through the intercom, that his voice hasn't changed – that he still has that relaxed Californian drool. I grit my teeth, put on my best American accent. “FedEx,” I say. “Delivery for Mr Flaubert.”

I hear him say, “Oh!” He sounds surprised. He sounds excited.

“I'll be right there,” he says.

I stand to one side of the glass doors, peer to the back of the lobby, wait for the door to move.
“Surprise,
surprise!”
I think.

A light comes on; I wait. A door opens and I see him walking towards me. As he reaches for the door handle he pauses, looks at me through the glass, frowns.

“Hey!” he says aggressively. “Didn't you say FedEx?”

I nod. “Sure did.”

He smiles at me, frowns at the same time. He opens the palms of his hands towards me as if to say,
So? What's the score?

He has put on a lot of weight since I last saw him; he's grown a beard and gained a pair of glasses as well. He looks very ordinary; very middle America. I sigh; let the accent drop.

“Dirk?” I whine. “Don't you recognise me at all?”

A smile of recognition ripples across his face. His mouth opens into a smile of amazement. “Mark?” He opens the door, looks at me with lunatic eyes. “What the hell?”

I shrug. “I was in your neighbourhood.”

He opens the door wide, pulls me in. “That is so cool!” he says. “I mean, how did you find me, and how come you're in L.A., and what's with the suit? Jees! Come up, come up … God I'm sorry!”

The apartment is far better than the anonymous grey-faced building suggests. Maybe a thousand square feet, divided up with half height walls into living, dining, kitchen, and sleeping areas. The walls are white or deep Bordeaux red. A comfortable jumble of books and magazines covers every surface.

“Sorry about the, erh,” he says, removing Psychology Today from the sofa.

I smile. “I'm not likely to complain. You remember my place!”

He grins at me, visibly relaxing. “I do!” he says.

I hang my jacket over the chair back. He slumps on
the sofa. He's wearing baggy half-length shorts and an oversize sweatshirt. His added weight seems to make him even taller, his legs even huger. “So! You're here with your job then?”

I look him over with a critical eye, think,
“He's not so cute.”
I loosen my tie and roll my sleeves. I tell him about my job, about the clients, life in France, a couple of amusing boyfriend stories. He tells me he hasn't been seeing anyone, not for years.

“I feel like I've been crossing the desert,” he says. “Still, I have to get to the other side at some point, right?”

I smile. “Or at least to an oasis,” I say.

We talk for nearly two hours. We drink so much coffee my hands start to shake. We arrange to spend Saturday together.

“My turn to show
you
around,” says Dirk.

His car is a huge lolloping rust-coloured saloon. We shuffle along in a series of traffic jams towards Sunset Boulevard. In my head I see the cover of a Don Henley album: palm trees and sunsets and magic.

The reality – a grimy street with no architectural cohesion and a beggar at every set of lights reminds me more of a European industrial zone than a city of angels.

“The problem with L.A.,” explains Dirk, “is that there's nothing to actually
see
, well, except for smog and bag-ladies. The rest is just myth. America's finest, but myth all the same.”

He points out the church where Bing Crosby got married, Judy Garland's school, the Charlie Chaplin studios. I nod, try to sound excited, but the overriding experience is of sitting in a traffic jam. Dirk takes me up past immaculate lawns to see the Hollywood sign. It too, is better when set to music beneath a pink sunset; today it just looks like a shabby set of letters plonked on a hill.

“When they legalised Marijuana some jokers
changed it to Hollyweed,” Dirk tells me.

We lean on the railings side by side. We look at the buildings rising above the smog.

“You get great sunsets here though,” he says, “what with the pollution and all.”

A tiny breeze blows his blond mop into his eyes. Our arms touch slightly.

I say, “Don't you ever regret Europe, or anywhere else for that matter? Places with clean air, calm …”

Dirk stares out over the city. “I regret loads of stuff,” he says. “But mainly people, not so much places.”

His deep voice still makes my chest vibrate. His easy open manner still strikes me as infinitely loveable.

“I know what you mean,” I say. But the moment that I say it, it has happened again. It is suddenly as if we have been apart for twenty-four hours instead of four years and I am in love with him as I was every other time I ever saw him. My heart swells and feels as though it could burst with the joy of being with him, being here, being alive. The view of Los Angeles is suddenly majestic and beautiful and my eyes are watering.

Dirk looks at me, concern in his eyes. “Hey Mark, I didn't mean … I mean, I wouldn't want you to think …” he says.

And so with the love comes the pain. The pain of wondering if he has ever loved me. Wondering if it's possible that someone I have always known so clearly that I love, can really feel nothing for me at all. Wondering if there will ever be anyone else in the entire world that I will feel so easily, happily comfortable around.

I'm here for this and this alone.
“The moment must not pass,”
I think. “Dirk, can I ask you something?” I say.

He nods, he laughs. “Sure.”

“Something personal, something difficult?”

“Sure,” he repeats.

“Thanks, it's important to me, no matter the answer.”

“So?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

“Well, just out of interest, say,
historical
interest … Did you
ever
love me?” I ask him. I am pleased with my voice. It sounds almost relaxed, disinterested, easy-come, easy-go.

Dirk blows through his lips. He nods, staring into the distance. “I guess I did,” he says. “In a way.”

I frown; I stare straight ahead. “What way?” I ask.

He shrugs again.

“Try,” I say. “It's important for me to know.”

He sucks air through his teeth. It sounds as though he's thinking about a technical problem.

“I suppose in a kind of sacred way, a religious way,” he says.

I frown and stop breathing. I wait.

“As a fellow human being,” he says. “As someone I … liked, someone I … cared about.”

He nods to himself, lost in memories and apparently happy with his explanation. I breathe out, nod very slightly. My eyes are tearing and my nose is starting to run.

“And as a friend,” he says. “I would have liked us to be closer, to spend more time together …”

I nod. I swallow. “Me too,” I say. My stomach feels knotted.

“So why …” I search for words. “Why weren't we? Closer I mean?”

Dirk swallows and glances behind him. He changes his posture against the railings; his shoulder no longer touches mine. “You were in love with me!” he says. “It was different for you. I tried to be clear, maybe I wasn't. It's not always easy.”

I closed my eyes. “Clear about what?” I say.

“Well, that I've never, you know, seen you in that way.”

I nod.

Dirk continues, “I never had, you know, the desire to … well, to sleep with you I suppose.”

I nod again.

“I mean I could just
never
…”

I interrupt him. “OK, OK! I think I got it,” I say. My voice sounds croaky and dry.

Dirk laughs. “Sorry,” he says.

“And did you sleep with anyone else … during your year? I mean, I know that's not my business, it's just to try to understand.”

Dirk shrugs again, he nods. “Sure, no problem, well, yeah, I did, a few …”

“A few?” I repeat.

“Sure, maybe ten, twenty guys, during the whole year.”

I nod. I receive this news like a slap around the face with a wet towel. I had never even imagined this. It had never even crossed my mind. I wonder who they were, wonder where he met them, wonder what they had that was so much better than me, or seeing as there's maybe twenty of them, what I have that is so
terrible
… It sounds like I am the only person he met in Cambridge that he
couldn't
bring himself to sleep with. The information reels and rolls around in my head.

He drapes a huge arm across my shoulder. “I wouldn't wanna be accused of not being clear again!” he says.

I look around, searching for a reason to escape. On my left I see two Japanese tourists. One of them is holding a camera, patently hoping that someone will offer to take the photo; I wriggle from beneath Dirk's arm. “You want your photo taken?”

The girl smiles at me broadly, nods twice. She wraps
her arm around her girlfriend.

I position the word HOLLYWOOD above their heads. My eyes are watery, my vision blurred. I can see Dirk through the viewfinder to the left of the girls – he's grinning at me.
“He has no idea!”
I think.

I press the shutter release. The girls grin and bow in thanks, then one of them points at my camera. “And you … You friend?” she asks.

Her friend nods enthusiastically. “Yes, now you!” she agrees.

I shake my head. “Nah, It's OK.”

“Yes,” she insists. Her friend nods again.

I sigh and hand her the camera. I move next to Dirk; he puts an arm around my shoulder again. “Are you OK?” he asks, hugging me tightly to his side.

I grin at the camera, a big cheesy grin. “Great,” I say.

“Never again,”
I think.
“I must never put myself through this again.”

As I walk towards La Civette, I scan the tables, looking for empty space. The town is balmy and filled with Italian tourists – it must be a bank holiday over the border.

There are two free tables; one is next to a woman in her fifties – straight, black-bob haircut, elegantly dressed, reading a book. She looks at me as I approach. The second table is next to … I double take. I almost run to make sure I get the table. He's beautiful, he's huge – he's the proverbial Adonis. I choose the chair that half faces him.

He glances at me, then returns to a texting operation on his mobile phone. I watch him text, I watch him smoke. I look at his huge hands, the light blond hair on his arms, the shine on his shaved head, the dimples on either side of his mouth. I watch him watch me watching him and think of a Dr Feelgood song:
Looking back
. It rolls around in my head.

I roll a cigarette and order beer; the sun beats down. The woman with the book keeps glancing over at me so I try to avoid her gaze. I search for my lighter, search
desperately
for my lighter.

I don't have a lighter; it never fails. He leans over, offers me his matches. His eyes are grey, piercing in the middle of his olive, tanned face. His teeth glint a smile at me, he strokes his chin. I smile; I thank him.

He moves his chair slightly as he sits back. A calculated, natural accident, which points him a full thirty degrees further towards me.

My beer arrives; he raises his in a vague toasting gesture. We smile.

We watch the hordes; we see a juggler, followed by a street acrobat. A jazz band appears and busks in front of us. Their smiling and joking around makes me feel like I'm on holiday. The sax player is cute. I look at him for a moment, he grins at me.

But he's nothing on the Italian. We both watch the band and we watch each other watching.

I'm supposed to go to the shops before they shut but I can't leave, not before the end of the film, not before I see what, if anything, is going to happen. I order food here instead; the man does too. He laughs as he orders, making the waiter laugh too.

Our orders arrive together. We've both chosen “Norwegian” salads: salmon, prawns, lettuce … We grin; we raise eyebrows.

The waiter brings beer but I still have one, so I tell him I didn't order it. He points to the Italian who is grinning at me. “He sent it,” the waiter tells me.

We eat at our separate tables. It seems rude after such a gallant gesture but I can't find the courage to invite him to move.

He goes to the toilet and I see the real enormity of him – my height but a body builder, ninety kilos at least, and no fat, absurdly huge. His arms must be the width of my legs. He has the best bubble-butt I have ever seen. The flaps on his rear pockets jut out horizontally.

I finish my salad and as he returns he leans on the chair opposite me. “Je peux?” he asks. His accent in French is thick, pure Italian.

The gesture is so up-front yet so polite, I laugh. “Sure.” I nod.

As he sits I see a bulge in the front of his military trousers.