I want to stay in this embrace forever but I have to return to my job. Those who have noticed are staring. One old lady is smiling at us, her head held wistfully at an angle.
At work I stare straight through my computer screen, unable to maintain focus on the text before me. A colleague asks, “What’s his name?”
I feel drugged, sensual, sleepy and strokeable – like a cat on a red armchair. I smile knowingly – I am desired by Steve.
The fourth is as I get into the car, and it’s just a peck on the cheek.
A peck has no pretence; it says, I know you – I can just peck you on the cheek for no reason.
We drive along the coast to Agay where we sit at the base of the crumbling red cliffs. It is icy cold and he opens his coat and wraps it around me. His thick white jumper scratches my neck and his nose nuzzles into my hair.
We sit on a comfortable mattress of dried seaweed and stare at the sea and talk the rhythmic talk of lovers, words lapping as the waves roll in, phrases rolling around like tongues kissing, searching for the truest expression of self.
I know that today is the day; we both know. My overnight bag is in the old borrowed car; his saxophone is next to it.
“I’ll play for you later,” he says. “We’ll stop somewhere quiet.”
He smokes a cigarette and hands it to me; sharing that cigarette strikes me as intimate and wonderful.
Clouds fight their way towards us over the Alps. I push back against his chest, fold myself deeper into his being and a tiny tear squishes from the corner of my eye. It could just be the cold wind making my eyes water, but it isn’t – it’s the pain of letting myself hope.
We head along the coast road; waves are crashing against the rocks. The closed seaside towns seem desolate and beautiful.
At Fréjus we head up to the A8. As we thunder along the motorway it starts to drizzle. The car feels warm and safe and a silence falls upon us. To start with it is a comfortable silence.
We are both thinking about the joy of being able to do this – being able to simply go away for a weekend with someone and feel so comfortable.
But tension eases into the air. The rain gets harder, the light outside dimmer.
By Marseilles I am feeling walled in by a deafening vacuum. I don’t know what it means. I look at him for reassurance, he turns; he smiles. He is perfect.
My hand is resting on his leg. I have to lift it when he changes gear, rupture and reconciliation over and over.
I feel sick with some unknown sentiment – I analyse it for meaning, try to compare it with stress, pre-sex nerves, love, but none of them seem to fit.
I am overcome by an inexplicable sadness, not a weary maudlin sadness but something huge and profound. I don’t know where it comes from.
He fumbles behind us, pulls a cassette from his bag, and slips it into the player. He fiddles with the controls and it starts. It’s Cesaria Evoria.
He leans across and kisses me, then looks back at the road. I know that I am in love, real love, like I was with Hugo, all over again. Who would have thought it possible?
I wonder if this time it can last, and decide that it actually doesn’t matter.
I think of the Buddhist meditation on death I read this morning. For the first time I understand that it is possible to be ready. “Oh little bird, if now is the moment then that is fine, for I have lived and loved and I am ready.”
I stretch, I smile at him and I feel his leg tense beneath my hand.
His expression changes muscle by muscle – I see it happen; see it ripple across his face. His forehead tightens, his eyes widen, his mouth drops.
It happens so slowly. I am torn between his face, so twisted, so distorted, so beautiful, and whatever he is seeing.
I glance in front. I see the tunnel, I see the road works, I see the truck.
There is no safe place, the car is skidding now, sluing sideways, and I am emptying.
A vast chasm of death is opening before me and I feel angry and cheated and alone, but then, just before we pile into the truck, in those last few microseconds, amazingly, as though someone had added a few extra seconds to the frame just for this moment, he turns slowly away from the road, turns to look at me, and through the terror I see the love.
And strangely, it’s not the love that we feel for each other, but the love for every one of them, for every hug and every kiss, for family for friends, for lovers, for every shared moment of joy. It is huge and profound and enveloping.
It sucks and tugs and pulls us in.
Epilogue
I climb out of my brother’s car. “Will you be OK?” he asks me.
Brighton’s sea sparkles with sunlight behind his head. I nod. “Sure!”
I force a smile. As I turn to face the street I hear him drive away. In truth I am possessed by terror: terror of the outside world, terror of how people other than nurses will react to the scar, the sling, the limp.
Terror of ever trying again to find happiness, of having to live when I thought it was all over and done with – of having to live with what-might-have-beens, of having to do all this again, when the end had turned out to be so easy, so relaxing, so beautiful.
I start to walk slowly up the hill towards the Laines.
It’s a sunny day – blue skies, a gentle wind – but I can feel no joy. I feel scared and desperate and shaky. Tears are pushing behind my eyes, I squint to stop them coming out.
I walk past a multicoloured terrace of guesthouses.
On a balcony a carpenter works bare-chested; he is tanned and absorbed in his work. I pause for a moment to rest my leg and watch him sand the handrail.
As I start to walk again he stops and looks down at me.
He pauses, a gentle smile spreads slowly across his lips. His eyes are warm, compassionate. He winks, then slowly turns back and continues his sanding.
I gulp. I step sideways and lean on the wall beside me.
It is nothing but a smile from a stranger; but a smile is a smile, and a smile is a sign. A door has creaked open, and emotion is rushing through the crack.
Tears roll down my cheeks.
And I realise that I might be OK after all.
Keep reading for a preview of
SOTTOPASSAGGIO
The next instalment in the
Fifty Reasons Series, by Nick Alexander
I don’t know how I ended up in Brighton; I’m in a permanent state of surprise about it. Of course I know the events that took place, I remember the accident – or rather I remember the last time Steve looked into my eyes – before the grinding screeching wiped it all out. I remember it so vividly and with such a terrible aching pain that I feel as though my heart will stop every time I run the image through my mind.
As for the accident itself, I’m no longer sure what I remember or have dreamt, what I have been told or read in the newspaper clippings Owen, my brother, collected.
The headline I remember is, French M-Way Pile-Up. 27 dead, Hundreds Injured, but only one death mattered to me, and only one of the injuries. I know that could sound callous, but my heart just doesn’t have space for anyone else’s pain.
I know how I got from there to here as well, how I got from that unrecognisably deformed Fiat near Fréjus, to this sofa in Brighton. I know the mechanisms of humanity that dialled numbers, rushed people to the scene, cut me from the wreckage and drove us all, sirens screaming, to hospitals around the area.
Intellectually at least, I understand the unravelling of obligation, shared history and love that made Owen, my brother, leave his wife behind in Australia and fly half way around the world to sit holding my hand before scooping me up and bringing me here.
But it all seems so unexpected, so far from how things were supposed to be, that I am at a total loss to see how things will pan out, to see how things can ever pan out again.
I had a life and a job and a new boyfriend. I was supposed to hear him play saxophone, supposed to spend a dirty weekend of sex and laughter before sitting at
work on a Monday morning pretty much like any other, and trying not to fall asleep at my computer screen. That’s all that was supposed to happen.
So I am surprised, and my surprise is confounded by just how familiar Brighton feels, just how like Eastbourne where I grew up, it is; by how normal it feels to be sitting in this bay window, in this seaside town and to be hearing the sash windows rattling behind me as a distant seagull screams. How obvious it seems, to be sitting here looking at Owen opposite reading The Guardian.
It’s all such a surprise, and so unsurprising, that I sit in numbed, stunned disbelief as I try to work out whether I am having trouble believing that I am here, or trouble believing that I was ever there. Did those twenty years since Owen and I last sat on opposite sofas in a seaside town really happen at all?
I open my mouth to ask him but think better of it. He’s worried enough about me as it is, and, logically at least, I know the answer.
As if he has captured my thoughts Owen looks up at me and frowns.
I wonder what he is going to say to me, wonder what he will ask, how I will reply, what reassuring answer I will find to his concerned questioning.
But Owen just smiles at me. “You want a cup of tea?” he says.
I exhale. “Yes,” I reply.
The reply came a little too quickly. I sounded breathless and I realise that I am also frowning, so I force a smile.
Owen raises an eyebrow at me, shakes his head and sighs. I think he’s decided that I’m taking the piss but he says nothing.
He stands and turns towards the kitchen.
HAVE YOU READ THEM ALL?
Fifty Reasons to Say Goodbye
By Nick Alexander
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.
“A witty, polished collection of vignettes … Order this snappy little number.” – Tim Teeman, The Times
Available for download at: Amazon iTunes
Sottopassaggio
By Nick Alexander
Following the loss of his partner, Mark, the hero from the bestselling Fifty Reasons to Say Goodbye, tries to pick up the pieces and build a new life for himself in gay friendly Brighton.
Haunted by the death of his lover and a fading sense of self, Mark struggles to put the past behind him, exploring Brighton’s high and low-life, falling in love with charming, but unavailable Tom, and hooking up with Jenny, a long lost girlfriend from a time when such a thing seemed possible. But Jenny has her own problems, and as all around are inexorably sucked into the violence of her life, destiny intervenes, weaving the past to the present, and the present to the future in ways no one could have imagined.
“Alexander has a beautifully turned ear for a witty phrase … I think we can all recognise the lives that live within these pages, and we share their triumphs and tragedies, hopes and lost dreams.” – Joe Galliano, Gay Times
Available for download at: Amazon iTunes
Good Thing Bad Thing
By Nick Alexander
On holiday with new boyfriend Tom, Mark – the hero from the best-selling novels, Fifty Reasons to Say Goodbye and Sottopassaggio – heads off to rural Italy for a spot of camping.
When the ruggedly seductive Dante invites them onto his farmland the lovers think they have struck lucky, but there is more to Dante than meets the eye – much more.
Thoroughly bewitched, Tom, all innocence, appears blind to Dante’s dark side … Racked with suspicion, it is Mark who notices as their holiday starts to spin slowly but very surely out of control – and it is Mark, alone, who can maybe save the day …
Good Thing, Bad Thing is a story of choices; an exploration of the relationship between understanding and forgiveness, and an investigation of the fact that life is rarely quite as bad – or as good – as it seems. Above all Good Thing, Bad Thing is another cracking adventure for gay everyman Mark.
“Spooky, and emotionally turbulent – yet profoundly comedic, this third novel in a captivating trilogy is a roller-coaster literary treasure all on its own. But do yourself a favour, and treat yourself to its two prequels as soon as you can …” – Richard Labonte, Book Marks
Available for download at: Amazon iTunes
Better Than Easy
By Nick Alexander
Better Than Easy – the fourth volume in the Fifty Reasons series – finds Mark about to embark on the project of a lifetime, the purchase of a hilltop gîte in a remote French village with partner Tom.
But with shady dealings making the purchase unexpectedly complex, Mark finds himself with time on his hands – time to consider not only if this is the right project but whether Tom is the right man.
A chance meeting with a seductive Latino promises nirvana yet threatens to destroy every other relationship Mark holds dear, and as he navigates a seemingly endless ocean of untruths, Mark is forced to question whether any worthwhile destination remains.
Better Than Easy combines a tense tale of betrayal and a warming exploration of the mix of courage and naivety required if we are to choose love and happiness – if we are to continue to believe against seemingly impossible odds.
“Better Than Easy is my favourite of Nick Alexander’s novels so far. It’s sweet, sexy, funny and tender, and I’m not ashamed to say I laughed and cried.” – Time Out
Available for download at: Amazon iTunes
Sleight of Hand
By Nick Alexander
Sleight Of Hand – the fifth volume in the Fifty Reasons series – finds Mark living in Colombia with Ricardo.
But there is more to Colombia than paradisiacal beaches and salsa music, and though Mark believes Ricardo to be his perfect soul mate he is torn between the security of home and the rich tapestry of his Colombian lifestyle.
When a friend’s mother dies, Mark hopes that attending the funeral will enable him to decide where his future lies but no sooner does Mark set foot in England than bonds of love and obligation from the past begin to envelop him with such force that he wonders not only if his relationship with Ricardo will survive, but if he will ever be able be break free again.
In Sleight of Hand, Nick Alexander weaves universal themes of honesty and happiness, desire and obligation into a rich narrative we can all identify with – a narrative that prompts laughter and tears, frequently on the same page.
“A tender, deeply moving portrait of what it means to be gay in the twenty-first century. Alexander has looked beyond stereotypical representations of sexuality, both gay and straight, to show us the infinite possibilities of what love, family and belonging truly mean. It re-imagines the boundaries of gay fiction and inspires us to re-evaluate our lives.” – Alex Hopkins, Out There magazine
Available for download at: Amazon iTunes
50 Reasons to Say Goodbye Page 18