Sleight of Hand (46 page)

They rented a basement flat in Brighton with a lovely little garden at the rear.

During the days, Mark and I repainted it from top to bottom. Sarah had started school by then, and Ricardo had gone back to Colombia purportedly to get the rest of their stuff back.

I was surprised, actually, when he returned. Probably because he had let me down I always expected the worst of poor Ricardo. But return he did, not only with all their stuff but with Mark's cat as well.

Mark wept and wept until we were all at it. Even the cat looked a bit watery eyed, but that was probably just from the journey.

When I got back from their housewarming, my own house felt suddenly empty with only Sarah and me, so I took a deep breath and I phoned Florent, determined that, this time, no matter what his motivations, I was going to get a shag.

It was a surprisingly hard call to make because it felt like a vote of confidence. It felt like a vote in the future.

Hola, Ricardo mi amor.

I'm not sure if you will get this letter but Juan seems to think you have redirected your post so I suppose it's worth a try. I tried to phone but the numbers don't work again. What is it with you and phones?

Anyway, I left Carlos. I thought you should know that
.

He broke my nose, but I knew there would be a price to pay. I'm glad it's just my nose to be honest – I never liked it that much anyway. I'm having it remodelled and re-set at the same time. I chose a new one from a catalogue. I will have a Juliette Binoche nose soon. She's a French actress you know
.

So I came up to visit again but the house was all closed up. I thought you had just gone out, but your cat (Palmira?) came out from under the decking and I could see by the state she was in that you had been gone a long time. How could you be so mean to a cat baby? She was starving the poor thing
.

Anyway, Palmira kept standing on my feet so in the end I put her in my bag and took her back to Santa Marta with me. She didn't complain at all. I don't think she was enjoying living wild so much. Or perhaps she remembered me
.

I stopped at Santa Marta for two nights until I could get another flight back to Bogotá and then I went to my sister' Sofia's place. Her dog had just died which was lucky. Not lucky for Sofia of course, but lucky for Palmira because Tajo hated cats and he would have driven her crazy
.

I phoned your nephew Juan to see if he knew where you were and he told me the strangest story babe: he said that the guy who the beach house belongs to – your cousin Federico I think he said – got it into his head that you are a maricon and kicked you out
.

I told Juan that I know for a fact that you're as heterosexual as the next guy, and he said that he knew it too. But we both agreed that it was probably better to let Federico carry on thinking that you're a faggot than for him to realise that you have been boning his cousin's wife. Well, second cousin's wife. Soon-to-be ex wife
.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind chiquito. I hope we did good
.

If you want me to fix it then let me know, because I can, you know, vouch for you! But knowing Carlos' temper, it's probably safer this way
.

Anyway, such an incredible story huh? How could he think such a thing? And you of all people!

Anyway, here's a photo of Palmira. I hope it is her and I haven't just taken a random cat from the beach. She's still a bit skinny but I'm giving her good food and cream and she's looking better day by day. If you want her back then you'll have to come and see me. I'm at my sister's place. The address is above
.

But then I guess you don't want her back otherwise you wouldn't have left her
.

And I guess you don't want to see me either otherwise you would have been in touch
.

Oh well. Goodbye beautiful. I hope you are happy wherever you are
.

Lots of love
.

Cristina and Palmira. Your spurned girls
.

PS. I just wanted to say thanks. You're a bit of an asshole, but you made me realise that Carlos is even
worse. I know I can do better now. So yes, thanks for that
.

I pull my collar up against the wind, whistling across Brighton beach. “Are you sure you're warm enough?” I ask her.

“Yeah, sure,” Sarah says. “This is warm.”

“Warm?”

“You should try Edinburgh,” she says.

“Will you stay there? I mean once you've finished your course?”

Sarah shrugs. “I don't know really …” she says. “Can we head back up – these pebbles are a nightmare in heels.”

“Sure,” I say, taking her arm and turning back towards the promenade.

“As for Edinburgh, I don't know. I kind of like it,” she says. “But, well, you know … change is good too. I'd like to spend some time overseas like you did.”

“And Josh?”

“Oh he's total,” Sarah says. “I mean good. He's, you know, good with whatever.”

“I'm a gay man sweetie,” I say. “We're hip. We say total.”

“Sure,” Sarah laughs. She sounds like she doesn't believe me and she's right.

Though I'm aware of the way everything is
total
these days I actually think it sounds naff.
Naff
. Now there's a word you don't hear anymore. “I suppose as a musician, he can work anywhere too,” I say.

“Well that's the theory,” Sarah says. “Most of the time he works nowhere.”

“But you love him.”

“But I love him,” Sarah laughs.

“And you?” I ask.

“Me?”

“Yeah. Surely
you
can't work anywhere?”

“Oh, well, law is different all over,” she says. “And loads of countries use the Napoleonic code, which is, you know, different. So if I could spend some time in France it would total my CV.”

“Sure,” I say. “Well France is great.”

“Yeah, I know you love it. I think that you banging on about it is probably the reason it appeals.”

“I do not bang on about France.”

“You so do.”

“Well, I still think there might be other reasons. It could be because you were born there. And
conceived
there.”

Sarah pulls a face. No one wants to imagine being conceived. No one want's to picture their parents having sex.

“I'm so proud of you, you know,” I tell her.

She wrinkles her nose at me. “Thanks,” she says. “But I haven't passed my finals yet.”

“But you will.”

“Eventually,” she says.

“First time around.”

“I'm nervous this time actually.”

“You
always
say that, but you
always
do just fine.”

“I guess. Is that the place?” she asks, nodding in the direction of
Piscari
– the latest incarnation of a seafood restaurant I have been coming to for years.

“It is,” I say. “Do you remember it? It used to be called Alfresco.”

“Sure,” she says. “We always end up here.” “I don't
mind,”
she adds when I pull a face.

“But change is good,” I say.

“Yeah,” she laughs. “But so is familiarity.”

As we climb the steps I can't resist stealing glances at her.

She's taller than me now and carries herself with rigidly elegant poise. When you have known someone since birth it's a constant surprise to see they have become an adult. It's an incredible privilege too, perhaps one of life's greatest honours.

She's healthy and pretty and clever. I kind of worry that she doesn't have enough fun sometimes. I hope that she goes to crazy parties. I hope she gets plenty of sex. I hope that she smokes the occasional joint when I'm not looking.

But I'm sure she does. I'm sure this serious demeanour is simply one facet of her personality – the one she shows to adopted family.

I open the door to the restaurant and Josh, alone in a window seat, smiles at her and I can see the love in his eyes.

And that, so far, strikes me as Sarah's most spectacular success. A fully formed, totally functional relationship at twenty-one. Who would have thought such a thing possible?

“Here she is,” he says, leaning across the table to peck her on the lips. “My birthday girl.”

He shakes my hand and I grin broadly.

Josh and Sarah will marry soon, I'm sure of it. And Josh is the perfect son-in-law.

He is big and broad and solid and sporty. He's a brilliant and creative guitarist. He's at ease with himself and everyone he meets – always relaxed, always smiling. And he's big enough, on a dark night, in the wrong part of town, to scare most of your average vermin away. If your daughter was off travelling with anyone, you would want it to be with Josh.

“It's freezing out there,” Josh says.

“Sarah's been trying to convince me that I'm a soft southerner,” I say.

“Yeah!”
Sarah protests. “It was way colder than this in Edinburgh.”

Josh shrugs. “Just differing degrees of freezing if you ask me,” he says.

“Wimp,” Sarah tells him.

He grins at me and shrugs.

I hang my coat over the back of the chair and sit. “So where are the others?” I ask.

Sarah nods behind me so I turn and see Ricardo and Jenny bustling through the door.

“Shit, are we late?” Jenny asks looking around for a clock. “Parking was a nightmare.”

“Not at all,” I say. “We just arrived.”

“Just you then?” she asks.

“Just us,” I say. “Sorry.”

I look at Ricardo and he almost invisibly raises an eyebrow. He's telling me something about having had to manage Jenny's flustered mood all morning. I blink slowly back at him to say,
“Message received. Well done.”

“So how are we sitting? Boy-girl or …” Jenny asks.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “I want this one next to me. I've hardly seen you this week, have I?”

Ricardo pulls a face. “Latin-flu jabs all week,” he says.

“There's a new one every year,” I comment. “And it's always going to kill us all. And it never does.”

Ricardo pushes behind Sarah and kisses her on the head as he passes, then sits between us and squeezes my leg beneath the table. The squeeze tells me to shut up. Ricardo thinks that Latin-flu is a big
deal and he doesn't like anyone undermining the vaccination program.

He catches my eye and looks down at his pocket where I see a glimpse of wrapping paper protruding, the real reason he and Jenny are late.

Jenny pulls off her coat and then looks around the table taking us in one by one. And then she claps her hands and she, Josh and Sarah all start to talk at once.

I sit and watch them chattering.

Jenny says, “Did you know, we actually forgot your birthday one year?”

“Yes,”
Sarah says with a sigh. “It was when I was five. You tell me every year.”

And then Jenny starts talking about the jewellery class she's been taking, and then Josh and Sarah about an upcoming trip to Paris, a town about which Jenny has many and varied strongly-held views it would seem.

Ricardo and I sit and listen and soak up our extended family like the elixir it is.

I watch Ricardo grinning as he turns to listen to one person and then another and a little wave of love rises in me. He has gone completely grey now but I think he looks even better for it.

I look at Sarah catching hunky Josh's eye at every available opportunity, and at Jenny glowing with her own brand of tough, unexpected resilience.

And my vision clouds over with tears because, though this is Sarah's birthday meal, it feels like my own because I honestly never expected this much joy to be mine. I think about Sarah surviving the punches of an alcoholic father, falling in the sea, her mother's illness … and there she is, glowing like a jewel. I never believed that such good outcomes could come from such mediocre beginnings.

“So is he coming or not Mum?” Sarah is asking as I tune back into the conversation.

“No I told you darling. Twice. They're in Gran Canaria.”

“Not Tom. Flo.”

“Well of
course
he is,” Jenny says.

“Then he's late,” Sarah says.

“Florent is
always
late darling. And he always arrives in the end. He'll be here.”

“God, he
is
always late,” Sarah says. “He was even late when Mum organised …”

In the midst of the hubbub Jenny looks at me across the table. She stares right into my eyes and I see that they are watering like my own.

“You OK?” she mouths silently.

And I blink slowly to say ‘yes' and a tear trickles down my cheek.

Jenny winks and says, very quietly, “Difficulty at the beginning?”

I frown, struggling to remember. “Leads to
success?”
I croak.

“Supreme success,” Jenny says. “Difficulty at the beginning leads to
supreme
success.”

At that moment, Ricardo slides his arm around my waist. And in that instant, around this table, there's more joy and more love, and more unexpected happiness than I think I can bear.

It feels so good it hurts.

Mark is looking for love in all the wrong places. He always ignores the warning signs preferring to dream, time and again, that he has finally met the perfect lover until, one day …

Through fifty adventures, Nick Alexander, takes us on a tour of modern gay society: bars, night-clubs, blind dates, Internet dating … It's all here.

Funny and moving by turn,
Fifty Reasons to Say Goodbye
is ultimately a series of candidly vivid snapshots and a poignant exploration of that long winding road: the universal search for love.