The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (19 page)

By ‘we’, I mean me, of course. The Boy was jumping up and down in the surf, more interested in jellyfish than eggs. Fair enough, I guess. It ties in with his sci-fi obsession.

He shrieked suddenly, and I jumped; I thought maybe he’d been attacked by a flotilla of jellyfish (what to do in such an event? Is it true what they say, that weeing on it works?) or had his toe crunched by a crab, which had happened to me the week before and he showed absolutely no sympathy for, just laughed and laughed, ‘You should have seen the look on your face!’ I sincerely hoped it was the crab.

‘You have to come see this,’ he said, waving his big freckled arms at me.

Whatever it was, it was difficult to see in the water, and I wasn’t about to go beyond knee-deep. I saw the Boy bend and scoop something out of the water, and bring it ashore.

It was an alien. At least, that’s my professional opinion. Having read comics since a young age I feel fairly well qualified to identify them on sight. It was floppy and mango-sized, with a frilly edge, leaking copious amounts of evil-looking purple fluid.

‘I think it’s a sea slug,’ he said.

‘I think you’re mad to pick it up.’ But worse: he leaned closer and sniffed it. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think it’s dying.’

‘We should put it back in the water,’ I said. We walked round the corner, to a cove, where the current was weaker. I found a medium-sized rock and dug it into shallow, warmer water; he laid the giant purple slug behind it. There was still purple ink dripping off the Boy’s hands. He suggested I tough it. I’m not usually squeamish, but I believe in the power of species evolution, and if purple inky things from the sea raise a strong repulsion somewhere back in my reptilian brain, I’m willing to bet there’s a good reason why.

We waited ages, until it didn’t seem to be moving any more. The sun was going away, anyway, and we had a long cycle home. ‘You don’t think we could eat it?’ the Boy said as we left. ‘Everything else here is edible.’

‘A purple slug? Yeah, just throw that under the grill,’ I said as we pedalled away.

samedi, le 19 mars

‘Theory,’ J says suddenly. We’re watching a horror flick on the sofa. Or rather, J and I are watching; the Boy is hiding behind my shoulder and trying not to whimper too loudly. ‘All the nipples of the world can be put into three categories.’

‘Are we talking just women’s, or all nipples in general?’ I ask as the nubile topless lovely on screen meets a most undignified end thanks to an axe.

‘Women’s only,’ J says. ‘We have your basic standy-uppies, big roundy ones’ – at this the Boy pokes me in the back, and I poke him back harder; I mean, J and I are close and everything, but there is a line – ‘and puffies.’

The lifeless body of yet another C-list starlet hits the tiles. ‘Puffies?’ I say. The film slows and shows her jiggling flesh as it settles in a pool of fake blood.

‘Definitely,’ J says. ‘Practically a textbook pair.’

dimanche, le 20 mars

Now Slug Beach is the Boy’s favourite place here. Pity; I was sort of hoping that my swimsuit might inspire him to spend more time in bed. I, at least, have been going without sex while we’ve been apart. But we’ve barely finished fucking before he wants to be back on the shore. So far today he’s found:

• A horseshoe crab. Is there anything on this Earth that looks less like it comes from it? We turned it over on the sand – for all their armour, they’re not especially fast, or threatening – and he poked its belly. At least I think that was its belly.

• One of those fish that puff up and are spiky. It was in a fisherman’s bucket, and he was about to throw it back, but not before the Boy had a good look. It had puffed itself up after being caught and the man told me it would deflate once back in the water. It looked at me with flat black eyes and I shrugged. When he threw it in, it bobbed on the surface for a moment like a child’s beach toy, then deflated and swam away.

• More shells than we can carry. Also found some shark’s teeth. The Boy suggested I make them into necklaces for his brothers. I laughed. What does he think this is, Castaway?

• Birds. Now that we’ve started counting, we have seen seventeen varieties of bird that we don’t recognise and one we do: curlews.

lundi, le 21 mars

The Boy’s mobile must really be dead now, because I haven’t seen him using it and he’s been asking for access to the computer. I sigh, warn him about the intermittent service, and leave him to it. I return a few minutes later to get a bit of newspaper from the room.

He reaches across instantly and turns off the monitor. I look at him. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Umm, umm,’ he says. There really is no explanation, is there? He was either snooping around in my things or writing an email to another girl. Twat. When will men realise that if you play it cool, you can get away with a lot more?

mardi, le 22 mars

Note to self: don’t go through a man’s wallet. Ever.

I couldn’t help it. Especially after the computer thing. The Boy was outside, talking to J, and his wallet was splayed open on the table. Just a quick peek, I thought. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I found a condom inside.

And extra-large? Is he kidding? I’ve seen the literal length and breadth of men’s cocks in my time and there are few that can’t be contained in the average-sized Durex. There’s a good case for smaller condoms for smaller men, but extra-large? You’re being had.

He came back in, without J, and I threw it at him. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘Condoms in your wallet?’

‘What? This? It means nothing. That’s f-f-f-f-or …’ I could see him straining to think of something plausible. ‘You know, in case we’re trapped somewhere and need to carry water.’

‘Really? I would have thought the spermicide might adversely affect the taste,’ I said bitterly.

‘Oh, why can’t you stop this?’

‘Stop this? You have a fucking condom in your fucking wallet. You are fucking writing secret fucking emails to God knows who. You’re the one who needs to fucking stop.’

‘Enough with the language,’ he said, and turned away smugly. Ooh, I hate that. My use of expletives is a greater error than finding condoms in his personal effects? Fine, then, I won’t talk.

Ten minutes of silence truly unnerves him. He decides to try a softer approach. ‘Please, I forgot it was in there. It’s probably been in my wallet for years. Please believe me.’

If there’s anything you should never believe, it’s someone who begs to be believed. ‘The date on it would indicate otherwise.’ I’m a past master at keeping tabs on condom expiry dates. This one came out of a packet purchased last year.

‘If I was cheating on you – which I would never do – you must know that I’m not the sort of person who uses condoms, anyway.’

Oh, I know that all right, and it chills me to the bone. The privileged classes incubating chlamydia between themselves like it was some sort of private club. If I wasn’t already in the habit of being screened for diseases at regular intervals – considering my past, you can never be too careful – that would have sent me straight to the clinic. ‘That. Is not. A comforting. Thought,’ I said between clenched teeth.

‘Please, just look at me.’

‘I can’t look at you,’ I said. ‘You don’t use condoms? Could you imagine if I told you the same thing? That makes you lower than a streetwalker in my opinion. And that’s a considerable insult to streetwalkers.’

‘I’m not the one who took money for sex,’ he said with real bite in his voice.

‘Really? Then perhaps you should have done, because the number of girls you’ve been running around with, it might have been a very lucrative sideline.’ He started to open his mouth. ‘Don’t deny it – I’ve read your email.’

He says nothing. There, I’ve said it. I haven’t admitted to the diary, but I’ve said it. He isn’t certain whether that means I read his email yesterday, or in general. He says nothing.

I straighten my shoulders and wipe the tears from my cheeks. ‘I don’t care where you go, but get out of my sight for the next few hours.’

‘You’re chucking me out? I’m in a strange country!’

‘I care? Get out,’ I said. ‘Don’t come back before supper.’

mercredi, le 23 mars

In fact, the Boy didn’t come back until well after supper. I was in bed, reading; he slipped into bed next to me. We said nothing for the longest time. I thought if we did I might cry.

‘Please, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what would happen if I lost you.’ I notice he didn’t apologise for any wrongdoing in particular, but it’s enough. It’s more than he would usually offer. Eventually we kissed and made it up, very gently so as not to wake J.

In the morning I was still sad and distant. The Boy was much more subdued than usual. Tomás invited us over for lunch, and we went, the Boy occasionally reaching over to stroke my fingers while me and Tomás chattered in half Spanish, half English.

Suddenly the Boy grasped my hand. ‘Is that his cat?’ he whispered loudly.

‘It is.’

‘That has to be the fattest tabby I’ve ever seen.’

Tomás noticed we were talking about the animal and brought her over. ‘Look, she has a trick,’ I said. Tomás brought out a piece of meat left from lunch and put it on the chair where he was sitting. The cat waddled over and sat, looking up at the chair. I tapped the wood.

The cat looked at me, looked at the meat, then looked at me again. I tapped the chair and she emitted a mew. Finally I took the piece of meat and put it on the ground, and she ate it.

‘So what’s the trick?’ the Boy asked.

Tomás and I smiled. ‘That’s her trick,’ I said. ‘She looks at you until you give her food.’ The cat rolled over, happy to be the centre of attention, and her fat belly fell to one side.

‘Cripes,’ the Boy said. ‘That’s no cat, that’s a land seal.’ He laughed and I suddenly felt much better.

jeudi, le 24 mars

We’re walking on the beach at night, me with shoes in one hand, hanging on to his arm for support. We’re both a bit tipsy. We’ve just had a huge seafood meal at Tomás’s brother’s restaurant and are feeling a bit jolly.

‘How about a roll in the hay – roll in the sand,’ he says suggestively.

‘Have you ever had sand in the crack of your arse?’

‘Not yet.’

‘How about here instead,’ I say and drag him under the pier. We do it standing up. At least, he’s standing; my legs are wrapped round his hips and my back is rubbing against what might be, I think, a barnacle. Or broken glass. Whatever. I don’t care.

He comes loudly. We rearrange our clothes and walk on. ‘Laaaaaaaand seeeeeal,’ he sings, going deep, his big chest booming with the sound. It disappears into the road of waves. He turns back toward the pier and tries a falsetto. ‘Laaaaaaaaand seeeeeeeal!’

‘Are you for real?’ I say, but it’s sing-songy, and we laugh.

‘Come have a feeeeeeel …’ He pirouettes in the foam at the edge of the water. ‘Of my beautiful land seeeeeeal!’

I fall over laughing. He instantly pounces and starts kissing my neck. I can’t stop laughing; I’m spluttering now, it’s actually hard to breathe. ‘You’re making me squeal,’ I gasp

He raises himself on his arms. The curls of his hair move slightly in the wind. ‘I haven’t heard you laugh so hard in such a long time,’ he says.

‘Marry me, and we’ll have a litter of props,’ I say and pull him back down.

‘If I didn’t know you were lying to please me, I’d say yes,’ he says.

vendredi, le 25 mars

I wonder why women have the reputation of being the more demanding of the two sexes. From my standpoint, men are the fussiest little fusspots on the face of the earth.

Yes, we ladies go in for hair-based rituals, obsessive shoe collection, and bag hoarding. But when it comes to the meatier subjects, men are just big girl’s blouses.

Example: pain. Ask a woman for a list of the most physically painful experiences and you’ll get an answer like childbirth and pubic waxing, in that order. Men, on the other hand, find shaving cuts an ordeal. Shaving cuts. A wee blade getting a touch too close to the skin.

Male egos require constant stroking. Every task is an achievement, every success epic. That is why women cook, but men are chefs: we make cheese on toast, they produce pain de fromage.

The Boy claims the domestic high ground because I once burned a powdered custard (which he has not done, according to his blow-by-blow of my cardinal error in the hated weblog, ‘since the age of twelve’). Hold me back, Heston Blumenthal. I being capable of faultless hollandaise, the intricacies of mixing pink powder and hot milk don’t seem worth my while. And I bristle at the feeling I have during this visit, that by shacking up with me for three weeks he’s auditioning me as a cohabitee. Frankly, I could give a monkey’s for playing housewife.

And then today he turned an all-white wash of mine shocking pink in J’s washer. So much for being a paragon of the home arts. Obviously, he being a man and therefore having a man-sized ego, we will never bring it up again.

samedi, le 26 mars

I’m torn. I’m ready for the Boy to leave, but worried as well. There’s so much we haven’t had the time to do while he was here. We stay up far later than usual, having sex and talking – not about anything serious, nothing heavy. We’re both aware that the luxury of having the other around all the time is about to end.

And the sex is changing. When he came here it was quick, fast and urgent; we’d both been looking forward to it. Now it’s taking longer, we’re going more slowly, it’s less about instant satisfaction and more about building up … I don’t know what, really. Nice memories to take home. Something like that. He holds me for ages afterwards. Is this because he wants to have something to remember me by, because he doesn’t expect to see me again?

‘When are you coming home?’ he says as I put the light out.

‘I don’t know,’ I say. I don’t miss England, to be honest. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I even sometimes miss him but I don’t miss home. ‘Soon.’

dimanche, le 27 mars

His luggage has expanded; he’s taking back a dead horseshoe crab in a shoebox. ‘Do you really think they’ll let you take that into the country?’ I ask.