Sottopassaggio (33 page)

I interrupt him with a reassuring smile. “I haven't seen him for months,” I say.

Jenny pushes past me. “Bagsy the toilet,” she says.

“Go for it!” I laugh.

“God you have a cat,” Tom says, handing me his bag and sweeping Paloma into his arms.

I close the door and laugh. “A very
demanding
cat,” I say.

Tom lifts Paloma into the air and rubs her nose against his. She purrs appreciatively.

“I love cats. I used to have one,” he says. “We called her Riley. Because she lived the life of Riley.”

“Yeah?” I say. “Paloma does OK too,” I say, stroking the cat's head. “Don't you Paloma.”

“She's sweet,” Tom says. “Aren't you Paloma?”

I nod. “They're a tie though,” I say. “It's lucky my friend was able to look after her.”

Tom nods and puts the cat gently down. “I know,” he says. “My mum ended up with mine. Though it didn't stop
her
doing anything. She used to drive all over with that poor mog.” He shakes his head sadly at the memory.

I pull a doubting expression. “If you carried that one to the corner-shop she'd have a heart attack,” I say.

Jenny reappears from the bathroom. “Anyone want tea?” she says, “Or are we breaking open the Martini?”

I pull a bottle from the carrier bag and head through to the kitchen. “Martini for me,” I say.

“Yeah,” Tom says. “Me too. A good strong one.”

I stand in the kitchen and pause, listening. From the lounge I can hear Jenny and Tom talking quietly. It seems as if I have been here before, doing exactly this, as if Jenny and Tom have already been next door waiting for Martinis.

Maybe it's just because it feels natural, normal that they should be here. Maybe it's just the déjà-vu thing, my brain sorting away memories faster than it is
processing the present, or maybe déjà-vu is really our momentary perception that what the scientists say is true, that time
isn't
linear.

I pull ice-cubes from the tray and think about our chance meeting with Tom, retracing the events in my mind. Didn't Jenny freeze just
before
Tom appeared? “Wait,” she had said. “Look.” But there had been nothing to look at; nothing to wait
for
.

Why would she do that unless she saw something? And if Jenny saw Tom before I did, then were we in the same moment at all?

Just for a second a strange image fills my mind, an image of the planet as seen from afar. I see ripples of shifting time rolling across the surface and a vast web of connections and events, a network of secret tubes running, like wormholes back and forth through space and time, linking our lives and the lives of our parents and the lives of future generations, of our every act and every other.

It's as if there are secret passages forcing destiny in ways we don't understand and for a split second my life seems to be not an isolated thing, but a logical manifestation of every event that ever occurred, a mathematical
result
of the complex ricochets of the entire shifting sands of human history.

I shiver, and then as quickly as it came, the feeling passes. I frown and pick up the drinks.

When I enter the lounge, Tom is crouched in the middle of the floor. The saxophone case lies open before him.

He looks up at me frowning. “You have a sax,” he says.

I bite my lip and put the drinks down on the coffee table. I take a breath and stare at the gleaming instrument.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It was Steve's.”

Tom nods and lifts the sax from the case. “I remember now,” he says. “You mentioned it.”

I nod and shrug.

“It's beautiful,” Tom says reverently. “It's a
Selmer
.”

I squint at him and nod gently. “Is that
good
then?” I ask.

Tom snorts. “It's the
best
!” he says. “I bet it sounds lovely.”

I shrug again. “I don't know,” I say. My voice is foggy so I cough to clear my throat. “I never heard it,” I explain.

Tom moves the mouthpiece towards his lips, then pauses and glances back at me.

“Do you mind?” he asks. “Only, I've been really missing mine. Antonio was always complaining about my practicing, so in the end I stopped bringing it.”

My eyes are tearing and my chest feels so tight, I can barely breath.

Tom bites his lip and lowers the saxophone, but I shake my head.

“No,” I say. “Please…”

Tom raises an eyebrow and lifts the instrument again. “You sure?” he says. “It's just, well… It's a
Selmer
.”

I nod gently and slide to the floor beside him.

Jenny who is seated behind me lays a hand on my shoulder.

“Go ahead Tom,” I say. “It's all yours.”

I can see the sun, orange, no,
red
through my eyelids.

I push my toes down through the layer of scorched sand into the damp, humid layers below. Against my chest, Sarah is wriggling and cooing gorgeously, and behind me the jazz band is playing old Fleetwood Mac songs.

I raise myself on one elbow, and glance back up the beach.

The sight of Steve wearing his baggy brown suit and his orange seventies shirt makes me smile. He winks at me and jazzes up his rift a little for my benefit.

I turn back and see Sarah standing, pulling herself up onto my chest. She lies on my stomach and rubs her nose against mine. It tickles. She makes me sneeze.

I open my eyes with a splutter and focus cross-eyed on Paloma's furry chin. She has crawled onto my stomach and is head-butting me; she wants food.

I gently push her to one side and rub the cat-hairs from my face. I stare at the ceiling and listen to the sounds of Sunday.

Outside I can hear rain gently tapping against the windowsill. Upstairs in Jenny's apartment, I can hear Sarah screaming madly, and beyond that I can just make out Jenny's gentle yet exasperated voice as she tries to calm her.

I can hear the gurgling of the central heating, and from the office I can hear Tom playing the same dreadful jazz rift he has been trying to learn for the last month. Over and over he plays the same soaring screaming sequence; over and over he stumbles at exactly the same point. I lie and listen and wait…
There
! It's still wrong. It still hurts my ears. It stops.

I wait for him to start over, and roll my eyes and
smile as I imagine his red face. I stretch languorously in the bed and then snuggle against Paloma.

I lie and wait for the magical moment when the heat of Tom's body against my back, when the feeling of his arms enveloping me, will announce the beginning of Sunday proper.

I smile and listen to the screaming baby and Tom's endless saxophone rift and Paloma's purring and the rain outside.

Then I push my toes down into the sand. It feels cool and dark and refreshing. Against my chest, Sarah is wriggling and cooing gorgeously, and behind me Steve and Tom are playing old Fleetwood Mac songs together.

And the sun is
red
and hot against my eyelids.

There are so many good-looking men at Nice airport; I stand and watch as they stream through the stuttering automatic doors – a bizarre male beauty parade.

There are young guys in trendy two-tone sweatshirts, and smooth businessmen in luxurious suits. Dreamily I imagine dating them, imagine being the person waiting for the guy with the bleached highlights, or the high-flying executive with the shiny briefcase – and wonder, how would that be?

And now, here he is, the one I'm waiting for. He's hiking his bag over his shoulder and looking around, scanning the room. He hasn't seen me yet – and for a moment I am able to see him dispassionately – just a man in the crowd.

Not the best looking of the bunch, I decide, not the best dressed, nor the most athletic. But there's something about him all the same – an optimistic bounce in his step that makes him look less bored than most of the others, maybe more alive.

And now he sees me, and when our eyes meet we break into matching grins, and that, I realise, is the thing that makes him the special one. The fact that simple eye contact makes us grin so broadly, stupidly even.

He pushes through and drops his bag at my feet. “Jeeze that's heavy,” he says.

I laugh. “It's a big old bag. What did you do? Bring a friend?”

Tom smiles and hugs me. As he does so I feel him shrug. “It needs to be big,” he says. “A month is a long time.”

I heave on the steering wheel and pull out onto the
Promenade Des Anglais.

“Are you sure you want to head straight off?” I say. “I mean there's no reason at all why we can't go home first, have a cuppa with Jenny, even spend the night there.”

Tom shakes his head. “Nah, I like this idea,” he says. “Take a bus to get the train to get the plane, and then, hop! We're away. The only thing missing is the Arab man.”

I frown at him. “I'm sorry?”

He starts to sing Oleta Adams', Get Here.

“Oh right, yeah,” I laugh. “Sometimes your musical references scare me.”

“And I'll see Jenny and Sarah when we get back,” Tom continues. He raps the dashboard. “So, just drive baby.”

I lean over and peer in the side mirror.

“Isn't it hard driving this thing,” he asks. “I mean, here, in France?”

I shrug. “It's not the easiest thing,” I say. “I'd rather have a left-hand drive … But you get used to it.” I click on the indicators and swap lanes then settle back into my seat.

“The worst thing is parking it,” I say. “Especially in Nice. It's been a bitch trying to find any spaces big enough.”

Tom pulls some chewing gum from the pocket of his denim jacket and offers me a stick. “She's keeping it then?” he asks.

I glance at him briefly and frown. “Oh, Jenny? I really don't know,” I say. “She intended to … I mean, that's why she brought it here, but I think now she's driven all across France with it … well she's had enough really.”

“Good for us.” Tom strokes the door. “I love these old things.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Good for us.” I smile at Tom and then glance back at the road. “Only don't ever say that to her, will you?”

“Say what?”

“Don't call her beloved van an old thing,” I laugh. “It may look like a 1960's hippy bus, but it's almost new.”

Tom chats to me a while as I drive east into Nice, then out north towards the Autoroute. He tells me about his new job in foreign exchange.

“It's weird really,” he says. “My uncle only reappeared on the family scene last month … I don't remember ever having met him before – I mean, I did when I was tiny – and now, suddenly I'll be working for him. Anyway, he's almost doubling my salary,” he tells me excitedly.

But I can hear that he's tired, and I'm not surprised at all when I glance across a few minutes later and see his head lolling forwards.

At the Italian border I have to lean across him to grab a ticket from the tollbooth – one of the disadvantages of having a right-hand drive car – and he briefly awakens, giggles and pecks me on the cheek before falling back to sleep.

The Brazilian-built VW drives like a roller coaster, inexorably gathering speed on the downhill runs, and then chugging its way reluctantly through the climbs. It may be nearly new, but it drives like a sixties' original.

The sky is unusually grey for the beginning of
June and I worry about the dark tint along the northern skyline, wondering if we're going to get early summer storms. It's amazing how like England just about anywhere can look when you replace azure blue with blanket grey. At least with the van we don't have to sleep in a tent.

As I drive, Tom shifts and stirs as he tries to get comfortable. I'm feeling really happy – all my favourite things are rolled into one: travelling, driving, camping, Italy, Tom … A wave of love – for Tom, for life – sweeps over me, and my vision mists. It's all just too perfect.

I stop that thought in its tracks. “Yes, things can work out,” I tell myself, “even if only for a while.”

Tom drags me from my reverie. “I need a piss,” he says.

I turn and see him notice the look in my eyes. I see him register right where I am right now. He smiles broadly and winks at me.

“No problem,” I say. “I need petrol anyway. This thing drinks more than …” I shrug searching for a comparison.

“Liza?” Tom laughs.

“Liza?”

“Yeah, Liza with a Zee,” Tom says.

“Yeah, she'll do,” I laugh, “though I hear she's on the wagon now, so that's maybe a bit unfair.”

The service station is as Italian as a service station can be, the long standing-only bar filled with a boisterous rabble of Italian lorry drivers jostling for service. Everyone is knocking back microscopic doses of caffeine served by the waist-coated barman.

“Madness,” Tom laughs.

I nod. “I'm so glad everything's not the same though,” I say. “I love all this.”

Tom nods as he looks around. “Yeah,” he says. “Give it ten years and this'll be a Little Chef.”

“Or a McDonald's,” I say, bleakly.

*

The campsite at Bonassola is a disappointment, but we're both too tired to care. We accept the proffered square of muddy turf set amongst random caravans that look, for the most part, as though they will probably never move again. The guy at the check-in desk is ugly too – a spotty adolescent with a thick top lip and a spluttering lisp.

I put a pan of water on to boil and peer out at the desolation.

“Not a good start to the holiday,” I say.

Tom rubs my shoulder as he squeezes past. “A night in a camper van, snuggled up with you,” he says. “Sounds okay to me.”