‘Leave your underpants on!’ she shouted after him, watching
his long brown back and white buttocks as he strode down to the sea. ‘You’re not at Sexface now you know!’ He fell forward into the surf and she stood, swaying woozily, feeling solitary and absurd. Wasn’t this exactly one of the experiences she craved? Why couldn’t she be more spontaneous and reckless? If she was too scared to swim without a costume how could she ever be expected to tell a man that she wanted to kiss him? Before the thought was finished she had reached down, grabbed the hem of her dress and in a single movement peeled it over her head. She removed her underwear, kicking it off her foot high into the air, letting it lie where it fell, and ran, laughing and swearing to herself, towards the water’s edge.
Standing on tip-toe as far out as he dared to go, Dexter wiped the water from his eyes, looked out to sea and wondered what would happen next. Qualms; he felt the onset of qualms. A Situation loomed, and hadn’t he resolved to try and avoid Situations for a while, to be less reckless and spontaneous? This was Emma Morley after all, and Em was precious, his best friend probably. And what about Ingrid, privately known as Scary Ingrid? He heard a garbled shout of exhilaration from the beach and turned just too late to see Emma stumble naked into the water as if pushed from behind. Honesty and frankness, those would be his watchwords. She splashed towards him with a messy crawl, and he decided to be frank and honest for a change and see where that got him.
Emma arrived, gasping. Suddenly aware of the sea’s translucency, she was struggling to find a way to tread water with one arm folded across her chest. ‘So this is it then!’
‘What?’
‘Skinny-dipping!’
‘It is. What d’you think?’
‘S’alright I suppose. Very larky. What am I meant to do now, just goof around or splash you or what?’ She cupped her hand, threw water lightly at his face. ‘Am I doing it right?’ Before he
could splash her back the current caught her and pulled her towards Dexter, who stood with his feet braced against the seabed. He caught her, their legs interlacing like clasped fingers, bodies touching then held apart again, like dancers.
‘That’s a very soulful face,’ she said, to break the silence. ‘Hey, you’re not having a wee in the water, are you?’
‘No—’
‘So?’
‘So anyway what I meant to say was sorry. For what I said—’
‘When?’
‘Back in the restaurant, for being a bit glib or whatever.’
‘S’alright. I’m used to it.’
‘And also to say I thought the same thing too. At the time. What I mean is I liked you too, “romantically”, I mean. I mean I didn’t write poems or anything, but I thought about you, think about you, you and me. I mean I fancy you.’
‘Really? Oh. Really? Right. Oh. Right.’
It’s going to happen after all
, she thought,
right here and now, standing naked in the Aegean Sea
.
‘My problem is—’ and he sighed and smiled with one side of his mouth. ‘Well I suppose I fancy pretty much
everybody!
’
‘I see,’ was all she could say.
‘—anyone really, just walking down the street, it’s like you said, everyone’s my type. It’s a nightmare!’
‘Poor you,’ she said flatly.
‘What I mean is that I don’t think I was – am – ready for, you know, Boyfriend Girlfriend. I think we’d want different things. From a relationship.’
‘Because … you’re a gay man?’
‘I’m being serious here, Em?’
‘Are you? I can never tell.’
‘Are you angry with me?’
‘No! I don’t care! I told you, it was a long, long time ago—’
‘However!’ Under the water, his hands found her waist and held on. ‘However, if you wanted a bit of fun—’
‘Fun?’
‘Break the Rules—’
‘Play Scrabble?’
‘You know what I mean. A fling. Just while we’re away, no strings, no obligations, not a word to Ingrid. Our little secret. Because I’d be up for it. That’s all.’
She made a noise in her throat somewhere between laughter and a growl.
Up for it
. He was grinning expectantly like a salesman offering great deals on finance.
Our little secret
, to add to all the others presumably. A phrase entered her mind: a mouth is just a mouth. There was only one thing she could do, and oblivious to her own nakedness she bounced up out of the water and with all her weight pushed his head under the water and held it there. She began a slow count. One, two, three—
You arrogant, self-satisfied little—
Four, five, six—
And you stupid, stupid woman, stupid for caring, stupid for thinking that he cared—
Seven, eight, nine—
He’s flailing now, better let him up I suppose, and make a joke, make a joke of it—
Ten, and she took her hands from the top of his head and let him bounce up. He was laughing, shaking the water from his hair and eyes and she laughed too, a rigid ha ha ha.
‘I take it that’s a no then,’ he said eventually, pinching the sea-water from his nose.
‘I think so. I think our moment passed some time ago.’
‘Oh. Really. Are you sure? Because I think we’d feel much better if we got it out of the way.’
‘Got it out of the way?’
‘I just think we’d feel closer. As friends.’
‘You’re worried that
not
sleeping together could spoil our friendship?’
‘I’m not expressing myself very well—’
‘Dexter, I understand you perfectly, that’s the problem—’
‘If you’re scared of Ingrid—’
‘I’m not scared of her, I’m just not going to
do it
so that we can say that we’ve
done it
. And I’m not going to
do it
if the first thing you say afterwards is “please don’t tell anyone” or “let’s forget it ever happened”. If you have to keep something secret it’s because you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place!’
But he was peering past her, eyes narrowed, towards the beach, and she turned towards the shore just in time to see a small, slim figure hurtling at great speed along the sand, carrying something over his head in triumph like a captured flag: a shirt, a pair of trousers.
‘OIIIIIIIIIII!’ shouted Dexter, barrelling towards the shore now, yelling through mouthfuls of water, then taking startling high-kneed strides up the beach, pounding after the thief who had stolen all his clothes.
By the time he made it back to Emma, breathless and fuming, she was sitting on the beach fully dressed and sober once again.
‘Any sign of them?’
‘Nope! Gone!’ he said tragically. ‘Just completely fucked off and gone’ and it took a light breeze to remind him that he was naked, and he angrily cupped one hand between his legs.
‘Did he take your wallet?’ she asked, her face fixed in an earnest rictus.
‘No, just some cash, I don’t know, ten, fifteen quids’ worth, little bastard.’
‘Well I suppose that’s just one of the perils of skinny-dipping,’ she mumbled, the corners of her mouth twitching.
‘It’s the trousers that wind me up. They were Helmut Lang! The underpants were Prada. Thirty bloody quid a go, those underpants. What’s up with you?’ But Emma couldn’t speak for laughter, ‘It’s not funny Em! I’ve been robbed!’
‘I know, I’m sorry—’
‘They were Helmut Lang, Em!’
‘I know! It’s just you … so angry, and … no clothes …’ She
crouched over, her fists and forehead pressed into the sand before keeling over sideways.
‘Pack it in, Em. It’s not funny. Emma? Emma! That’s enough!’
When she could stand again they spent a while walking up the beach in silence, Dexter suddenly very cold and coy, Emma walking discreetly ahead, looking at the sand and trying to contain herself. ‘What kind of little bastard steals someone’s underpants?’ muttered Dexter. ‘Know how I’m going to find the little sod? I’m going to look for the only well-dressed bastard on the whole bloody island!’ and Emma collapsed onto the sand once more, head between her knees.
When the search proved fruitless, they beachcombed for emergency clothing. Emma found a heavy-duty sack in blue plastic. Dexter held it daintily round his waist like a mini-skirt while Emma suggested that they cut slits and make it into a pinafore dress, then collapsed once more.
The route home took them along the harbour front. ‘It’s a lot busier than I expected,’ said Emma. Dexter adjusted his face into an expression of larky self-deprecation and marched on past the pavement taverna, eyes fixed forward, ignoring the wolf-whistles. They headed into the town, and coming up a narrow alley they suddenly found themselves facing the couple from the beach, red-faced with booze and sun, clinging to each other drunkenly as they tottered down the steps towards the harbour. They stared, bemused, at Dexter’s blue sacking mini-skirt.
‘Someone stole my clothes,’ he explained curtly.
The couple nodded sympathetically and squeezed past them, the girl pausing to turn and shout after them—
‘Nice sack.’
‘It’s Helmut Lang,’ said Emma and Dexter narrowed his eyes at her treachery.
The sulk lasted all the long way home and by the time they were back in the room, the fact of the shared bed had somehow lost its significance. Emma went into the bathroom to change into an old grey t-shirt. When she came out, the blue plastic
coal-sack lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. ‘You should hang this up,’ she said, nudging the sack with her toe. ‘It’ll get creased.’
‘Ha,’ he said, lying on the bed, in new underwear.
‘So is that them?’
‘What?’
‘The famous thirty-quid underpants. What are they, lined with ermine?’
‘Let’s just go to sleep, shall we? So – which side?’
‘This one.’
They lay on their backs in parallel, Emma relishing the sensation of the cold white sheets against tender skin. ‘Nice day,’ she said.
‘Til that last bit,’ he mumbled.
She turned to look at him, his face in profile, staring petulantly at the ceiling. She nudged his foot with hers. ‘S’only trousers and a pair of pants. I’ll buy you some nice new ones. Three-pack of cotton briefs.’ Dexter sniffed and she took his hand beneath the sheet, squeezed it hard until he turned his head to look at her. ‘Seriously, Dex,’ she smiled. ‘I’m really pleased to be here. I’m having a really nice time.’
‘Yeah. Me too,’ he mumbled.
‘Eight more days,’ she said.
‘Eight more days.’
‘Think you can hack it?’
‘Who knows?’ He smiled affectionately and, for good or ill, everything was just as it had been before. ‘So how many Rules did we break tonight?’
She thought for a moment. ‘One, Two and Four.’
‘Well at least we didn’t play Scrabble.’
‘There’s always tomorrow.’ She reached above her head, turned the light off, then lay on her side with her back to him. Everything was just how it had been before, and she was unsure how she felt about this. For a moment she worried that she might not be able to sleep for dwelling on the day, but to her relief she
soon found herself overcome with weariness, sleep creeping through her veins like anaesthetic.
Dexter lay for a while looking at the ceiling in the blue light, feeling that he had not been at his best tonight. Being with Emma demanded a certain level of behaviour, and he was not always up to the mark. Glancing over at Emma, her hair falling away from the nape of her neck, the newly tanned skin dark against the white sheets, he contemplated touching her shoulder to apologise.
‘Night, Dex,’ she murmured while she could still speak.
‘Night, Em,’ he replied, but she was already gone.
Eight days to go, he thought, eight whole days. Almost anything could happen in eight days.
‘We spent as much money as we could and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.’
Charles Dickens,
Great Expectations
Brixton, Earls Court and Oxfordshire
These days the nights and mornings have a tendency to bleed into one another. Old-fashioned notions of a.m. and p.m. have become obsolete and Dexter is seeing a lot more dawns than he once used to.
On the 15th of July 1993 the sun rises at 05.01 a.m. Dexter watches it from the back of a decrepit mini-cab as he returns home from a stranger’s flat in Brixton. Not a stranger exactly, but a brand new friend, one of many he is making these days, this time a graphic designer called Gibbs or Gibbsy, or was it maybe Biggsy, and his friend, this mad girl called Tara, a tiny birdlike thing with woozy, heavy eyelids and a wide scarlet mouth who doesn’t talk much, preferring to communicate through the medium of massage.
It’s Tara he meets first, just after two a.m. in the night-club underneath the railway arches. All night he has noticed her on the dance floor, a broad grin on her pretty pixie face as she appears suddenly behind strangers and starts to rub their shoulders or the small of their backs. Finally it’s Dexter’s turn, and he nods and smiles and waits for the slow dawn of recognition. Sure enough the girl frowns, brings her fingers close to the tip of his nose and says what they all say now, which is:
‘You’re famous!’
‘Who are you then?’ he shouts over the music, taking both
her small bony hands in his, holding them out to the side as if this were some great reunion.
‘I’m Tara!’
‘Tara! Tara! Hello, Tara!’
‘You’re famous? Why are you famous? Tell me!’
‘I’m on TV. I’m on a TV programme called
largin’ it
. I interview pop stars.’
‘I knew it! You
are
famous!’ she shouts, delighted, and she cranes up on tip-toe and kisses his cheek, and she does this so nicely that he’s moved to shout over the music, ‘You’re lovely, Tara!’