Sottopassaggio (12 page)

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 toilets.

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.

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.

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.

My eyes ache from trying to focus on the screen, and with a last glance at Tom to check that he's sleeping I give in and close them again.

I think of Tom and Hugo and then Steve, and in some strange way they morph into one, not only with each other, but also with the music, with me, with the world.

Green Day sing on.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
is the song.

When I awaken, the colourless first light is half-heartedly drifting over the rooftops and leaking through Owen's windows. The TV is off, and Tom
has gone.

It's the first time I have been to
The Meeting Place
on a Sunday, and a queue of maybe twenty people has formed in front of the kiosk, so I join the line and shuffle slowly towards the achingly-slow orders counter. I spend the time peering three people in front at a cute goatee-clone and one behind at a too-young-for-me, but pretty-enough guy with a flat top.

When I am next in line to be served, a voice to my left makes me jump.

“Still not managed to order then?” he says, very loudly.

I turn and see Benoit's smiling face. He winks at me.

“Hello, I…” I pause, slowly realising that he's using me to jump the queue.

I glance nervously behind. The guy with the flat top gives me a hard stare.

“You manage to get seats yet?” I ask, getting into the scenario.

Benoit shakes his head. “No, not yet. It's packed. I'll go back and try again shall I?”

He hands me a ten-pound note and says, “I'm wanting a full breakfast, you remember?”