Sottopassaggio

by Nick Alexander

  “Oh, I get it, he must have BT Call-minder. Oh Mark! Didn’t you even know?”

  “Call-winder?” I say. I bite my lip wondering if I’m overacting.

  “Yeah, huh! I suppose you have been in France. Yes, English phones have a built in answer-phone,” Jenny explains. “You have to dial 1571 to access it.”

  I smile at the conceit of “English phones.” My French phone has had voicemail for fifteen years.

  Jenny calms down and explains the intricacies of BT Call-minder to me; how to tell if there are messages, how to consult them, delete them. I’m such a good actor I actually write the instructions down on a piece of paper. I’m feeling so pleased with myself that I forget why I didn’t want to answer the phone, and so, am taken by surprise when she asks me what I have planned for the weekend.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  I mouth another, “fuck.”

  “Good,” Jenny exclaims. “Well, get your party shoes on ‘cos Jenny’s coming to town.”

  “Oh good!” I say.

  Critical Mass

  As we take our seats I glance nervously at Tom and Jenny’s faces. I’m having trouble imagining that the evening is going to be a party at all; Jenny looks glassy and hermetic, Tom has a pale flushed air about him, and anticipation of the two together makes me feel stressed and twitchy myself.

  “So where’s Antonio?” Jenny asks.

  Tom shrugs and starts to remove his leather jacket. “He’s changed his mind. Tired or something,” he says.

  Jenny wrinkles her nose. “Or something,” she says. “Sounds ominous, did you two …”

  Tom gives her an icicle glare, freezing her mid sentence.

  She glances towards the bar. “I’ll get some drinks then shall I?” she asks, forcing a smile.

  “Antonio’s not that comfortable around my gay friends,” Tom says with a shrug.

  “Really?” I say with a grimace. “It’s a shame, I wanted to talk about Hugo, to fill in some of the gaps so to speak.”

  Tom nods. “That’s probably half the problem actually. He hasn’t wanted to discuss that business at all. Not once.”

  I nod. “I was pretty angry at first. But then it just started to strike me as funny.”

  Tom smiles weakly. “Yeah?” he says.

  “I suppose that sounds weird,” I say.

  Tom shrugs. “Hugo sounds weird,” he says.

  I laugh. “That’s the funniest thing. He wasn’t weird at all. He seemed perfectly normal, quite lovable really.”

  Tom nods. “I think it dented Antonio’s ego a bit. I think he liked being the only guy ever to have netted him.”

  Jenny arrives with my pint and returns to the bar for the others.

  I nod. “I guess you could feel that way. If you were into the whole hetero thing.”

  Tom blinks slowly and works his mouth. “I’m jealous actually,” he says.

  I shrug. “Well don’t be. You’re worth ten Hugos.”

  He blushes slightly. “Yeah, but it’s like, he was so important because he was straight.”

  “Supposedly,” I point out.

  “Yeah, supposedly, and Antonio was so flattered because this straight guy chose him. I guess my being with him means nothing really, me just being a big poof and all.”

  I nod my head sideways to suggest uneasy agreement. “I think you’re overstating it, but I know what you mean. It is a bit homophobic.”

  “You said there’s a lot of it in Italy?” Tom asks.

  I nod. “I don’t know whether it’s because they’re Catholic, or because the language barrier has cut them off from the whole gay lib movement, but so many French and Italian men have issues with their sexuality.”

  Tom frowns. “That surprises me,” he says.

  I shrug. “You deal with it, but it gets to be a bore. Every relationship seems to have this time bomb just waiting to self destruct.”

  Tom raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  “It’s complicated,” I say. “But there always seems to be a moment when the parents turn up, or the little sister finds out, or some colleagues from work see you out together. There always seems to be some moment when it all goes haywire.”

  Tom smiles and laughs sardonically. “Or the wife and kids turn up.”

  I nod. “Exactly,” I say.

  “Still,” Tom forces a smile. “Look on the bright side. Antonio says I look like Hugo at least.”

  I nod. “Yeah. I thought that too actually. You really do.”

  He wrinkles his nose.

  “That’s not a bad thing though,” I say. “Believe me.”

  Jenny sits heavily, plonking the pints on the table. She looks even bigger than during her previous visit. I almost mention it but, watching her drink a third of a pint in one sip, I change my mind, deciding it’s really not my business.

  “That guy has no idea how to pull a pint,” she complains.

  I lift mine up. “Looks fine to me,” I say, sipping it. “Tastes fine too.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t see him do it. It took him forever.” She shakes her head and turns to Tom. “So how have you been?” she asks.

  Tom nods half-heartedly. “Good,” he says. “Antonio came over, which was a nice surprise.”

  Jenny nods. “Yeah, so I gathered,” she says. “He lives in Italy right?”

  Tom nods. “Yeah, in Genoa, near the French border. It’s quite near Mark’s place actually, well, a couple of hours away.”

  “Must be hard,” she says. “Living that far apart.”

  Tom shrugs. “He comes over every couple of months, and usually, I go over too, so …”

  I know I can’t ask Tom about it again, so in my mind I will Jenny to do it for me, beg her to ask him how often, when he goes, why he hasn’t been recently, but she just nods and looks around the pub distractedly.

  “Not as busy as the other one, the airport-lounge-place is it,” Jenny says.

  “Charles Street?” I prompt.

  Jenny nods.

  “More of a chatting pub this one,” Tom says.

  Jenny laughs. “An ugly pub, more like.”

  “Hey,” I say. “That’s not fair.”

  She shrugs. “OK, an old pub then.”

  Tom frowns. We both look around.

  “What about them?” I ask, nodding at a group of cute thirty-somethings in the corner.

  Jenny sighs. “OK. But apart from them, well, it’s a bit geriatric isn’t it? I hope we’re going somewhere else later.”

  “Why are you so rude?” Tom asks her.

  I purse my lips and breath in, watching Jenny’s face for a reaction. She seems unfazed.

  “I just preferred the other place, that’s all,” she says.

  Tom drops his jaw in amused outrage. “You hated Charles Street,” he says.

  “You didn’t want to meet there,” I point out. “You said no.”

  Jenny shrugs. “Whatever. I just don’t see why you limit yourselves to gay places. It’s so tired,” she says.

  “You sound like Antonio,” Tom mutters.

  “Hey, there’s a whole world out there boys,” Jenny says.

  Tom sips his pint and then places it with precision on the table. Without looking up he says, “So why don’t you stay in Surrey?”

  I bite my lip and stifle a smile.

  “What?” Jenny whistles.

  Tom raises his head and looks her straight in the eye. He raises an eyebrow. “If you don’t like it here, then why don’t you fuck off back to Surrey?”

  I wince. I feel like I’m sitting in the dentist’s chair; and the dentist has just struck a nerve. A red rash rises from Jenny’s blouse, moving up and enveloping her face.

  Tom continues, “I mean, you hate the pubs, you don’t like the gay scene, you don’t like Brighton, the people are ugly. It’s just so …” he pauses and stands, stroking his beard. “Boring,” he says finally. “It’s just so fucking boring.”

  He turns and crosses the bar, disappearing into the toil
ets.

  Jenny stares at the table, then at me.

  I run my tongue around my teeth.

  “Well?” she asks.

  I shrug. I attempt a smile that says, “Hey girl. Nothing to do with me.”

  “What’s that all about?” she asks. “He’s your friend.”

  “That?” I repeat.

  “Yeah. I mean it’s not about me is it. I assume he’s fallen out with Antonio.”

  I shrug and turn to the window, weighing up, comparing, and choosing. Jenny or Tom, aggression or complicity, confrontation or truth.

  I turn back to face her.

  “I don’t think he put it well,” I say.

  “Put what well?”

  “Well, you’re actually quite …” I search for the word. “You are quite negative,” I say.

  She grimaces at me.

  “It is hard work,” I say in apologetic tone. “I’m sorry, but it’s true.” I nod. “It is boring.”

  She pulls her bag towards her and grips it like the grab rail on a roller coaster.

  “Maybe I should just fuck off then,” she says. “If I’m boring you.”

  I shrug. “Couldn’t you just…”

  She grabs my hand across the table. Her eyes are glistening. “Mark? Do you want me to go?” she asks.

  “I…” I see Tom standing behind her and pause.

  “You do, don’t you! You actually want me to go!”

  “Look,” Tom says, sitting down.

  “Mark here thinks I should fuck off too,” Jenny tells him.

  “I didn’t say…”

  Tom shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did. It’s not just you…”

  “No just me?” Jenny cries.

  Tom pauses and rubs the corner of his eye. “I’ve had a really bad week,” he says. “Antonio’s been… Well, he’s been awful.” His voice trembles a little as he says this.

  I frown.

  “He’s been criticising everything,” Tom continues. “Brighton, my clothes, my friends, my furniture. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

  Jenny gives me a told-you-so look.

  Tom sees it. He looks at her sadly. “But you’re really hard work!” he continues. “You’re really critical, and it just never stops.” He reaches for her hand on the table. She resists for a moment then gives in.

  “It’s all hard enough, you know?” he says. “Life is hard enough, without us all being bitchy to each other.”

  Like a slowly cooling thermometer, the colour sinks from Jenny’s face until only tiny red blotches remain on her cheeks. She looks as if she’s been slapped, which I suppose, verbally, she has been. She smiles at me weakly.

  “It’s true,” she says. “I suppose. A bit.” She makes a little noise half way between a laugh and a snort. “I’ve had a hard week too,” she adds.

  Tom takes a deep breath. “So can we just all try, for tonight, to be cool? To be nice? To enjoy ourselves?”

  Jenny nods. “I suppose…” She pulls her bag towards her again. “Maybe I should just go though,” she says, looking up at me inquiringly.

  Tom shakes his head. “You know what I’d like,” he says.

  Jenny looks back at him and shrugs.

  Tom grins weakly. “I’d like us all to get absolutely slaughtered,” he says.

  I smile. It’s not what I was expecting.

  “Can you? In your condition?” Tom adds, nodding at her stomach.

  My eyes widen. I grind my teeth. “Surely he doesn’t think…”

  Jenny stares at him, silent, motionless, and reddening anew.

  Under the table, I kick Tom sharply, but Jenny notices and without moving her head in the slightest, swivels her eyes to look at me.

  Tom looks from Jenny to me and then back again.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean…” he says. “I mean, I thought, after last week, when you were sick, that maybe, you couldn’t, you know, get drunk,” Tom splutters. “That’s all.”

  Jenny runs her fingers through her hair and smiles sourly. She rubs her stomach and nods slowly.

  “You thought I was pregnant,” she says.

  “No… Maybe. I mean I didn’t really think at all,” Tom says.

  Jenny nods. “I see,” she says, sitting back in her chair.

  She sighs deeply.

  “Jesus,” I mumble.

  There’s a pause. No one speaks. I wonder what will happen. Wonder what can happen after that.

  Jenny finally breaks the silence. “Well I am,” she says. “So now you know.”

  I look from one to the other, my mouth ajar. “But…” I say.

  Jenny stares at her hands, slowly turning her glass.

  “But I don’t see,” I stammer. “I mean, why didn’t you say?”

  Jenny shrugs. “I think…”

  She pauses a moment before continuing, “Well, I know actually, I just didn’t… I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  I swallow and look back at Tom. He opens his mouth to speak repeatedly, but says nothing.

  “Can we, I mean, should we congratulate you?” I ask.

  Jenny shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. Her face is taut and pink. She looks like an over-ripe fruit about to burst. “It’s complicated. That’s the thing I can’t work out… And until I’ve worked that out, can we just talk about something else?”

  Tom and I nod.

  “Otherwise, I might just fall apart,” she says. Her eyes are watering and her voice is wobbling. “And believe me, we don’t want that.” Here she forces a thin-lipped smile.

  Tom and I stare at each other, then at the table.

  “OK,” Tom says. “Sorry.”

  I nod slowly, and then clap my hands with false enthusiasm. “OK… What shall we talk about?” I ask.

  Behind Jenny the group of thirty-somethings bursts into a peal of camp laughter. Jenny leans forwards and speaks very quietly.

  “Could we please talk about going to another pub?” she says.

  Boulevard of Broken Dreams

  The Princess Victoria is buzzing, as Tom predicted, with the required mixture of gay and straight clientele.

  The strained atmosphere gradually dissolves, fizzling and fading with each pint of beer. There are moments when I even glimpse the old Jenny I used to know, and remember what used to be so funny about her. Her life was always a little tragic; her boyfriends always treated her badly or, in my case, turned out to be gay. But Jenny always managed to exaggerate the narrative to the point where it passed from tragic to funny, even for her. That was her specific thing, turning the awful into the awfully funny. That was not only how she survived, but also how she kept her friends entertained.

  “Anyone for another before last orders?” Tom asks.

  I notice for the first time that his voice is slurring, and when I answer, even though I only say, “Sure,” I hear that my voice too is lacking a little precision.

  Jenny downs the dregs of her own Smirnoff Ice and bangs the empty bottle on the table.

  “Me too,” she says.

  Tom stands, but pauses. “Are you sure you should be drinking this much… I mean, seeing as you’re pregnant?” he asks.

  Jenny sits heavily back in her chair and shrugs. She starts to smile.

  “I’m not even sure I should be pregnant this much,” she sniggers, rubbing her belly. “Seeing as I’m drinking.”

  Tom looks at me and opens his hands in a what now? gesture.

  “Get the lady what she wants,” I say.

  Back at Owen’s place, Tom and I help Jenny up the stairs to my room where she sprawls across the bed.

  “Best not undress her,” Tom laughs. “She’ll think she’s been raped.”

  “In her dreams…” I giggle.

  Tom gives me an inquiring glance.

  “Oh, it’s a long story. We went out together years ago. It didn’t work out for obvious reasons.”

  Tom grins at me. “Right,” he says.

&n
bsp; I throw the edge of the quilt over her.

  “This your room then?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around.

  “For now, yeah. But I’ll sleep in Owen’s room while Jenny’s here.”

  Tom nods, perusing the room.

  “None of this is my stuff though,” I add.

  “Oh,” he says, losing interest and standing.

  Jenny, who I thought was sleeping, lifts her head and looks at me.

  “Turn the light out and bugger off,” she says.

  Downstairs in Owen’s lounge I drunkenly put the kettle on for tea, first overfilling it, and then over-emptying it. Finally I get it right and plug it in.

  Tom sits on the floor leaning against the sofa. He picks up the remote control and fiddles with it.

  I glance at him sitting on Owen’s floor. It feels nice. It seems right that he should be there.

  “You wanna go to a club?” he asks.

  I lean in the archway between the kitchen and the lounge. Everything is a little blurred, but by concentrating I can force my eyes into focus.

  “Nah,” I say. “Sorry, but I’m up to my tits in beer.”

  Tom giggles. “Me too.” He points the remote at me and pretends to zap me. “Can I put the TV on?”

  “Sure,” I say. “MTV is on button 9 if you want some music.”

  Tom nods. “MTV. Cool,” he says, clicking on the TV, which shimmers and shudders into life with a metallic twang. “I don’t have MTV.”

  I turn and concentrate on pouring the boiling water over the teabags.

  “It’s good when you’re pissed,” I say. “Not too demanding.”

  Tom stretches out on his side to watch.

  I glance at the TV. Gwen Stefani has her arms and legs sticking out of a tiny house. She’s singing, What-you waiting for.

  I fish out the teabags, burning my fingers in the process, and then add milk. Concentrating to avoid spillages I carry the two cups to the wooden coffee table.

  I sit on the sofa above Tom. “Tea’s there,” I say, but he doesn’t answer.

  I lean over and peer at his face. His eyes are closed and I’m momentarily shocked at just how much he looks like Hugo.

  I sigh and roll back onto the sofa and watch MTV, and drunkenly I think about Hugo and Tom, and then Tom and Hugo.

  The music on MTV changes and I realise that I have closed my eyes. I force them open and see the start of a Green Day video.