Sottopassaggio

by Nick Alexander

  Snorting with repressed laughter I back out of the room and across the corridor where I fall onto Owen’s bed.

  When I close my eyes the room spins, so I strain, forcing my eyes to focus on the globe lampshade.

  I think of Tom and Jimmy and Belinda and I grin to myself as I hum the song again.

  “I’m alive, and it’s amazing…”

  The song goes round and round in my head, round and round go the disco lights, round and round goes the globe above the bed, round and round goes the room.

  I jolt awake for a second. I just worked out why the room goes round and round… It’s the spinning of the Earth on its axis. Only sober people can’t sense it. You have to be drunk to feel the spinning of the Earth.

  I close my eyes again, happy with my profound discovery. It’s essential that I remember this tomorrow. It’s hugely, profoundly important for the entire world, an answer, in some way to the great universal question. It’s essential that I tell everyone this as soon as…

  Life Goes On

  It is just after midday when hunger forces me from my pit. My stomach is screaming for food and my head is pounding for aspirin.

  My tongue is coated in some kind of alien slime as if I have been abducted during the night and experimented upon. I steady myself in the doorway and squint at the daylight thrusting through the bathroom window.

  Downstairs, Jenny is sitting on the sofa reading an old newspaper. She is wearing men’s blue pyjamas and has her feet tucked beneath her. I pick up one of my shoes from the hallway floor and head straight for the kitchen.

  “You perform a strip tease or something last night?” she asks, peering over the top of the paper and nodding at the pair of jeans she has hung over the back of a chair.

  I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth in preparation for speech, but I manage only a sigh.

  Jenny folds the newspaper and stretches out on the sofa, propping herself up on her elbows to better observe me.

  “Bad night?” she asks.

  I turn on the kettle and slump onto one of the dining chairs.

  “Nah, great,” I say unconvincingly.

  She frowns at me. “Looks like it,” she says.

  “Hangover,” I mumble. “I need aspirin.”

  Jenny grins. “Don’t move,” she laughs. “I’ll get it.”

  I rub my forehead. “Got free drinks all night,” I say.

  Jenny stands and pulls the aspirin from the kitchen drawer, fills a glass of water and places them before me.

  “Free drinks?” she says, impressed. “In the club?”

  I force a regretful laugh. “Yeah,” I say, shaking my head and popping the aspirin. “God knows how much I drank.”

  I pull a face and stretch my legs. “My ankles hurt,” I groan.

  Jenny smiles. “Too much disco dancing no doubt; is this kettle for tea or coffee?”

  “Tea please. No, it’s because I ran home. It was raining.”

  “You ran?” Jenny glances at the window. “It rained?” she says incredulously.

  I laugh. “Yeah, it pissed down,” I say. “And yes, I ran.”

  She pours the boiling water into the cup and slides into the seat opposite. “Sounds like I missed a wild night,” she says.

  I look at her and see her breasts peeking from the top of her pyjamas and flash back to twenty years ago; an image of her sitting on top of me, those same breasts, which even then were huge, lolloping around, putting me off, making me lose my oh-so-necessary concentration.

  “So is there a reason why the drinks were free?” she asks.

  I laugh. “Yeah,” I say shaking my head. “What a night!”

  We drink tea, and more tea, then coffee and more coffee, and round after round of toast and marmalade and I tell her about the events of the night before.

  I tell her about the near-fight, and Belinda and Jimmy Somerville and we somehow digress onto Mark Almond, then Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and our college years.

  It’s the most relaxed conversation I have had with her so far, and it’s only when she sits up in her seat, pushes a hand through her hair and says, “I suppose I should think about getting myself together and getting home,” that I remember she has a home – that this isn’t her home.

  “You don’t sound keen,” I say.

  Jenny nods. “Well, as you know, all’s not well at the ranch.”

  I fiddle with a teaspoon, rocking it from side to side.

  “I know,” I say. “D’you want to tell me about it?”

  Jenny sits back in her seat with a sigh and stares at her mug, running her finger around the edge. The she looks up and stares me straight in the eye.

  “Well, you know Nick doesn’t want the baby,” she says.

  I nod. “You said. You conceived in a traffic jam, right?”

  Jenny laughs mockingly. “Yeah.”

  I laugh. “I wondered if I dreamt that bit. How did you actually manage that?”

  Jenny smiles sheepishly. “Oh, it’s not that hard really. We were on holiday, in the camper van.” She shrugs. “We were stuck for like five hours in this huge traffic jam. We ended up making tea and snacks and then,” she shrugs.

  “As I say, I never thought that I’d get pregnant. It was so not the right time of the month.”

  I smile and frown at the same time. “Poor babe; so did you think about, you know…?”

  “Aborting?” Jenny nods. “Sure. Wouldn’t be the first time either.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah… Look, lets not go into that eh?” she says. “That’s ancient history now.”

  I nod. “OK. And this time?”

  Jenny shrugs. “Well, this time, I’m 39,” she says.

  I shrug. “So?”

  “So it’s getting late in the day…”

  I nod. “Oh right, yeah. And by the sounds of it Nick won’t come round any day soon.”

  She nods. “So if I want kids one day,” She blows between her lips. “The options aren’t good.”

  I reach across the table for her hand. “What are the options?” I ask.

  She laughs sourly. “I can stay, and have the baby, and see if he changes his mind, and probably end up a single mother.”

  I nod thoughtfully.

  “I can abort, and leave him, but who says I’ll meet someone else anyway?”

  I tut. “Of course you’d meet some…”

  “In time though?” she interrupts. “In time for me to get pregnant again?” Her voice quivers. “I was single for three years before Nick,” she continues. “And the menopause could hit like that.” She clicks her fingers. “Plus, well, I do love him…”

  I stroke her hand. “It’s a hard call,” I say. “Do you think he might come round?”

  Jenny shakes her head. “Yeah, of course,” she says. “Pigs might fly.”

  “But does he see how hard this is for you?”

  Jenny looks me in the eye again. “You need to understand that Nick is an egotistical arsehole,” she says.

  “An egotistical arsehole whom you love?” I say.

  Jenny nods then pulls her hand away.

  “Anyway,” she says. “I’d better get going. The arsehole is taking me to dinner tonight.”

  “How can you though? I mean, how do you manage to just carry on with something that big between you?”

  Jenny laughs sourly and strokes her belly. “Something this big?”

  I smile. “You know what I mean.”

  She shrugs. “Life goes on,” she says, standing. “Life goes on.”

  Chasing Rabbits

  I leave the house with Jenny, wish her good luck and wave her goodbye as I wander down towards the seafront.

  I wonder about her dilemma, wonder what she will do, wonder how the man who loves her could force such a hard choice upon her.

  It’s a warm sunny, summer afternoon; the air is still and clear, seemingly washed by the night’s rain.

  The beach is crowded; the first time I’ve seen it so busy
, and people are nestling in the red pebbles, or playing at the water’s edge, or swimming, making little ripples in the glassy sea.

  I realise that I haven’t been swimming since last summer and wonder just how cold the sea in Brighton would be. I spent my whole childhood swimming at Eastbourne, but after fifteen years in the Med I find it hard to imagine.

  The atmosphere on the beach is calm. Everyone seems to have their eyes closed, to be simply smiling at the sun. Even the children are playing quietly at the water’s edge, piling pebbles here, fishing with nets there.

  The breeze is so light and so warm – body temperature – as to be barely perceptible. I stare at the horizon and wonder why some days are slow and calm, others enlivening and yet others filled with treacherous storms and unexpected downpours. It’s all to do with weather maps and isobars, but beyond that does even science know why? Can even science tell us where it all originates?

  I glance to my left. A group of friends are chatting quietly, occasionally breaking into relaxed Sunday laughter. A young woman with hippy rainbow weaves in her hair smiles at me.

  I smile back and notice that one of the couples in the group is male; a man with a ponytail is resting his head on his friend’s chest. I watch his head rise and fall as his partner speaks and I’m suddenly overcome with jealousy at their intimacy. It suddenly seems obvious again that this is what I want, that this is what I need. Not dirty sex with Benoit or John and Jean, but someone to cherish me and stroke my hair on a summer’s afternoon.

  Another different voice pipes up immediately.

  It says, “Hey? What about that though? Wouldn’t that be cool? Wouldn’t that be sexy?” I think of their playroom and start to feel aroused.

  I smile at the voices and quietly start to reflect upon and catalogue the different conflicting Mark’s within.

  Mark who wants to have fun in JJ’s world, Mark who wants to marry someone like Tom and live in a cottage somewhere. Mark who could stay in Brighton forever drifting along the seafront as the moon waxes and wanes, as the storms come and go, as one season follows the other. Mark who wants to jump on a plane back to Nice, to see his flat and his cat and walk past the gardens where he last had lunch with Steve, Mark who wants to jump in an orange VW camper van and drive and drive, Mark who likes leather and motorbikes and being an unshaven biker, Mark who feels so grown-up and elegant and adult buttoned up in a suit. Mark who wants to run, Mark who wants to swim, Mark who wants to sit and eat Jaffa-Cakes until they need a crane to get me out of the arm-chair.

  The older I get, the more of me there seem to be and the more they seem to jostle for position. Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to make a life that’s big enough for all of them.

  Or maybe as the Bulgarian proverb says, does the man who chases two rabbits end up hungry? Does one have to decide, exclude and specialize or run the risk of ending up with nothing at all?

  Beyond the edge of the pier the surface of the sea has a different texture. It is rippled and pocked and I stare at the sparkling strip reaching out towards the horizon. I notice that it is growing, spreading, stretching downwards towards the beach, slowly encroaching on, gradually digesting the smooth glassy zone around the land. It’s moving fast, and it’s quite amazing to see how definite the edge is, how it moves towards us replacing the calm with its disorder.

  I glance left and right to see if anyone else has noticed but people are still calmly smiling towards the sea, still stroking hair, still piling pebbles.

  The line sweeps on towards us, the strip of smooth cling-film-covered, rubbery sea now mere yards wide, now mere feet, now…

  Gone. A gust of breeze hits the beach as the last inch of smoothness vanishes blowing hair, forcing through buttons, swirling crisp packets.

  It’s as if some celestial pause button has been released and everyone on the beach moves and fidgets. People pull on T-shirts, wrap towels around themselves, the kids kick the pebbles over and run giggling along the water’s edge and I stand, look around me and head back towards the town.

  I wander in a daze, still reflective, still a little hung-over, until I find myself staring at a shop window, staring at a rack of running shoes.

  I have never been a runner, never had any desire to be a runner, but here I am at forty thinking, “What a gorgeous pair of trainers.”

  I shrug and push in through the door. I was once a smoker. I once didn’t like classical music. I once didn’t eat mushrooms. What’s a new pair of running shoes in that slow breakdown of specialisation, that growing appreciation of everything that marks middle age?

  As the salesman approaches I realise that I’m doing this the wrong way around; that getting an opinion about my knee should come before buying running shoes, but the salesman is enthusiastic and cute and I end up leaving the store with a bright Sports World bag under my arm.

  I have spent more than I have ever spent on any pair of shoes, but what can I say? They were so sumptuously springy I was bouncing around the shop; I bounced all the way to the cash till.

  As I close the shop door and mentally plot my route home, I hear someone call my name. I look over and see John and Jean sitting on a wall. Jean is rolling a cigarette, John is grinning at me. I wander over and we kiss hello.

  They look healthy and brown and I remember that they have just got back from their holidays.

  “So how was Grand Canary?” I ask. “Sunny apparently.”

  John nods. “Great actually, yes.” He frowns. “How did you know where we were though?”

  I smile. “Benoit told me,” I say.

  Jean looks up from his cigarette and smirks. “Ah yes,” he says. “Benoit told us he saw you. He says you’re not so… coincé after all.”

  “Oh,” I say blushing. “Did he?”

  “Yes,” John says. “He said you’re an excellent shag. Gave you an 8 actually.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Did he now?”

  The boys nod. “You should drop by,” John says.

  “Yes,” agrees Jean. “Come try the rest of our equipment,” he laughs. “I’d like to see you with that king-size up your arse.”

  I blink at him and grimace. “That thing wouldn’t fit up anyone’s arse,” I say.

  Jean laughs. “You’d be surprised,” he says, lifting his arm.

  He makes a fist and winks at me. “This would fit,” he says.

  I grimace.

  “Come round, we’ll show you. You could get to like it,” he laughs.

  John nods at me sincerely. “It’s like a drug,” he says. “You’d love it; it’s amazing.”

  “I…” I shake my head. “I gotta be going,” I say, turning into the crowd.

  As I walk away I think about the heroin thing again. Maybe SM really is like a drug; maybe John is right, maybe it would turn out to be the most incredible, orgasmic, addictive experience I ever had. Maybe I could get to like it.

  But would I want to? That’s the question.

  I would never try heroin because I know it’s abusive – because I know it would destroy me.

  Maybe there are things in life you simply have to decide you’re not going to try. No matter how good they might feel.

  Ghosts

  I awaken earlier than usual, much earlier. As I lie in bed looking at the first light filtering through the curtains I can feel that there is a reason I’m awake so early – that this is a different kind of day.

  I lie in bed, listening to the gulls screaming, to the clanking of a milk float, almost sniffing the air to see what is different.

  And I realise that it’s going to be Hot. The capacity of the day for hotness is palpable. There’s a strange quiet stillness, a feeling of early calm to be enjoyed before the heat of the day makes it all unbearable. It’s a familiar feeling; back in Nice, every day from June to September starts that way.

  I shower quickly, swig down hot coffee and orange juice, and head outside. I consider jogging but my calves and ankles are taut and sore. Today will be walking only, I decide.
r />   At the end of the street I see the postman with his pushbike. He looks like some relic from a fifties movie. I glance at my watch; it’s just before eight.

  As I walk towards the town a plan forms. I’ll get into the shops, buy some sports socks and some shorts, have coffee and be back home before the day begins, before the shoppers and tourists swarm into the city centre.

  The air is warm and still, the sea is smoothly undulating, people are out doing early morning stuff: delivering packages, climbing into cars, jogging, walking dogs…

  A couple of exceptionally well organised tramps are cooking sausages and eggs on a camping stove beneath the walkway, and simultaneously packing their sleeping bags into a shopping trolley. The chef looks up at me from his frying pan and says, “Good Morning.”

  I smile at him, but feeling I am violating their privacy I hurry on.

  The town centre is quiet; few people walk the streets. Young men in big shirts and shiny ties head to their day’s labour behind the tills of Next, Burtons, Nationwide; girls with tied blonde hair wear little black dresses and disappear into French Connection.

  I head up past the clock tower and as I cross the broad pavement towards Churchill Square, I wonder if Sports World will be open yet.

  I glance around for a clock, but something else catches my eye, someone I know. I slow to a stop. I watch him step from the bus, watch as he crosses in front of me.

  My heart starts to race. Steve!

  It’s can’t be Steve of course. Wrong town. “Steve is in Nice not Brighton,” I think. “Steve is dead.”

  But he has Steve’s walk, Steve’s hair. He’s even dressed in the same casual sporty clothes that Steve wears. “Wore,” I correct myself.

  He disappears into Dixons, and I stand, insanely routed to the red pavement, watching people criss-crossing the space before me.

  Realising that I am holding my breath, I consciously force myself to inhale. Then I start to follow him, drawn, zombie-like towards the store.