Sottopassaggio (7 page)

I shake my head and glance nervously back at the bar and take another step backwards.

“Bareback?” I say. “No. I doubt it. I would hope not.”

“Oh,” the skinhead says, clearly disappointed. “Shame.”

I wrinkle my nose at him. “Shame?” I repeat.

He nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Cos I have it … The gift.”

He steps towards me again, and I try and move further backwards but bump into the table. I peer over his shoulder hoping that Tom will appear to save me.

“Oh,” I mumble. “Well, um, good.”

The skinhead touches my arm again and wiggles an eyebrow. “Good?” he says.

I nod. “Umm, yes. It's good that you're so positive about it … So to speak.”

He squeezes my arm and grins at me. I can smell his breath again.

“I don't though,” I say, grimacing.

He smiles. “Don't
have
it? Or don't
want
it?”

I cough and glance around, checking out my surroundings in case I need help, but everyone is engrossed in their conversations.

“Both,” I say.

At this second, Tom surfaces next to him. He's holding two pints of beer and smiling at me.

“Let me show you something,” the skinhead says reaching into his pocket.

Tom frowns at him, then at me. “Who's this?” he asks.

I shrug and stare at him trying to convey my displeasure without words.

“I am the
gifter
,” the man says, tugging at a photo in his tight denim pocket.

Tom puts the two pints down on the next table, preparing himself, I guess, to intervene if necessary.

“The gift is inevitable,” the man says. “It's only a matter of time; accepting the gift is seizing your destiny.”

I glance back at Tom and see he is stooping pulling his coat from a chair.

“Tom!” I say. “Wait!”

Tom straightens up and glares at me. He shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “I'll leave you two to it.”

The skinhead thrusts the trembling photo in front of my face. I lean back over the table in an attempt to
distance myself from him enough to focus on it.

“It's the final solution,” he says. “It's what was always meant to happen.”

“Jesus!” I exclaim.

I push sideways and knock over a chair, then force my way clumsily out through a sea of surprised faces.

I glance behind and see the skinhead turning to follow, so I duck out of sight and push out through a side door.

My heart is racing. I need to tell Tom about the photo.

I check both ways and then run to the front of the bar but Tom is nowhere to be seen.

I sift through Owen's record collection. He's taken his CDs to Australia long ago, but the vinyl remains, and with it the essence of much of my youth. I slide
Soul-to-Soul Volume One
on the turntable and lie back on the floor cushion, instantly transported back to Cambridge, to the big bouncy bed in the sunshine.

In one of those events that some call telepathy and others insist are the mere workings of chance, the phone rings, and when I answer it is Jenny, the only woman ever to have shared that big bouncy bed.

She is animated and friendly in a clipped advertising kind of way.

“Gosh, it was so good seeing you!” she gushes. “I suppose just being able to pick up fifteen years later is the sign of a good friendship,” she says. “I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer.”

I frown at the phone. It seems as if something strange happened during her visit; it seems as if we did different days.

I do my best to
ooze
lack of enthusiasm. “Not to worry, it was fine really,” I say. “As you say, it has been fifteen years.”

“I know!” Jenny enthuses. “There's so much to catch up on. That's why I wondered if I mightn't come down for a whole weekend, Nick's working and …”

“Oh really Jenny,” I interject. “There's no hurry, I mean we have loads of time ahead …”

“Exactly,” she laughs. “I mean, you're not busy and I'm not working at the moment; so the question
is, do I need to bring bedding or do you have some?”

“Bedding? No, look …”

I am trying to think of a lie, a previous engagement that means she simply
can't
come.

“Unless you have something planned for the weekend, do you?”

She has started to understand that I'm not keen, and the realisation that I'm about to hurt her feelings softens my resolve. Plus, I think about the coming weekend. The idea of spending it alone tips the balance.

“Not really,” I say. “I guess that'll be fine.”

“Great, well, I'll just bring me then; see you Friday evening, about 6pm I expect. You can take me out on the town.”

I sigh. “Look, can you make that Saturday?”

Jenny pauses. “OK. Saturday it is,” she says.

I'm walking towards Safeway, resigned to buying extra food for my weekend guest, when I see Tom heading towards me. He is partially obscured by the crowds of Saturday shoppers.

As he nears I see he's carrying a big box under his arm and whistling.

I choose an expression, relaxed, surprised, happy, and fix it. I add a touch of optimistic bounce to my step and head towards my destiny. Only seconds before the encounter however, Tom ducks left into a coffee bar.

I freeze on the pavement and shake my head.

“Did what I think just happened actually happen?” I wonder. “Did he see me? Did he ignore me? Did he just hide from me?”

A woman bashes my ankle with her pushchair and, ignoring my shriek she thrusts on through the crowds.

“For fucks sake,” I exclaim. I turn into Safeway.

I choose the empty checkout. Of course there's a reason the seasoned shoppers aren't fighting to be served by Kelly; she isn't the fastest of checkout swipers.

Kelly has some kind of disability; her trembling stuttering swiping is painfully slow, so I smile at her charitably. She glares back.

I look at my watch wondering if Tom is still next-door, wondering if I should confront him, wondering if Kelly will ever speed up. But Kelly doesn't do
speedy, and Kelly doesn't do “smile”.

When she finally hands me my ticket, I stride outside, walk three yards and duck determinedly into
Red Roaster
.

I spot Tom immediately, and he spots me too, shifting in his seat, leaning over his book and actually shading his forehead by leaning on his hand. It's such a theatrical gesture it almost makes me laugh.

I walk over, dump my shopping bags, and pull out the chair opposite.

Tom lifts his hand just enough to peer out at me.

“Hello,” I say. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

Tom closes his novel and sits heavily back in his chair. He folds his arms and looks at me coldly.

“You
are
sitting there,” he says.

“Body language doesn't come much clearer than that,” I say, folding my arms to mimic him.

He pulls at his beard and then reaches for a hooded grey sweatshirt on the back of his chair. He's clearly making to leave.

“What's wrong?” I ask, “I think you're being very strange.”

“Strange?” he says. “
Me
?”

He grunts. Tom actually grunts at me. I know we're not friends, but surely simple social decency prohibits
grunting
at people?

“What?” I ask.

He laughs sourly. “There's really no point,” he says.

I frown at him. “Oh for god's sake,” I say. “What's wrong?”

Tom stands and lifts his book from the table.

“Look,” he says. “Let's just say I didn't really enjoy the other night very much.”

“
You
didn't enjoy it!” I struggle to contain a shriek. “Hey, at least
I
didn't run off and leave
you
with the psycho Nazi bare-backer!”

People around us are looking.

“Yeah, well,” Tom shakes his head. He glances around, then pauses, frowns and slowly breaks into a wry grin.

“But, I thought …” he says. He grips the edge of the table and leans towards me. “Didn't you know him
at all
?” he asks.

I shake my head.

Tom bites his lip. “Oh,” he grimaces. “I, um, thought he was a friend of yours,” he says.

I shake my head and point to the seat. “Will you please sit back down?”

Tom sinks back into the chair and looks at me, giving me a strange sideways glance.

“Oh, come on! Do I look like the kind of guy … Hey, you know what?” I nod at him. “
You
missed
The Photo
.”

“The photo?” he smiles questioningly.

“Yeah!” I say wiggling my eyebrows. “Just after you left, the scary-guy showed me a photo.”

Tom bites his bottom lip and smiles, his eyes twinkling. “A photo of what?”

“It was a photo of a prisoner of war, or, more like someone in a concentration camp, in a stripy uniform. He actually said something about the
Final Solution
.”

Tom wrinkles his face in disgust. “Jesus! That's so fucked up!”

“I know,” I nod. “And you left me there! Alone!”

“Still, he's not wrong though,” Tom says.

I frown. “
What
?” I whistle.

“I mean about it being the
final solution
. If these
people don't stop bare-backing soon there won't be anyone left
to
shag. Hitler must be grinning in his grave.”

I nod sadly. “I can't even believe it still goes on,” I say.

Tom shakes his head. “More and more,” he says. “It's apocalypse now.”

It takes an hour for the chill to lift, for me to fully convince Tom of my sanity; an hour during which I am increasingly aware of my frozen food defrosting beneath the table.

But Tom is cuter than ever, and as the frost thaws, as he starts to talk ever more animatedly, to tug on his little beard ever more excitedly, I start to get a vague feeling of tension in my stomach, a strange butterfly feeling I remember from way back.

When we finally push out of Red Roaster into the grey afternoon, he seemingly confirms what I have been thinking.

“I'll be in Charles Street later if you fancy a beer,” he says.

“I'll be with a friend, but sure, that'd be great,” I grin.

“No skinheads though,” he laughs.

“No skinheads,” I agree.

I start to walk home but pause. Tom is running back towards me.

“Now here's a good sign!” I think. “He's going to ask for my phone number.”

“I forgot my box,” Tom says, slapping his head with the palm of his hand. “It's
only
a brand new
DVD recorder!”

He laughs and jogs back into
Red Roaster
. Feeling a little disappointed, I start to walk, but then it strikes me – forgetting a two-hundred-pound DVD recorder is probably an even
better
sign.

Jenny sticks her bottom lip out and wrinkles her nose.

“It's not what I was expecting,” she says.

I look at the huge glass-and-chrome bridge, which occupies a quarter of the bar, yet goes nowhere.

“Nor me,” I say moving towards the bar. “It looks like the set for a French TV show.”

“Or an airport,” says Jenny.

“Fun though,” I say. “Good atmosphere.”

Charles Street is so crowded it actually looks like the security zone at Gatwick. The crowd is an eclectic mix: young and old, gay and straight. Music is booming from a sumptuous sound system and the hubbub of chatter is even louder than the music.

As we push our way through, I scan left and right hoping to spot Tom.

“You see him?” asks Jenny.

I shrug and pull a ten-pound note from my wallet, thrusting it over the bar.

She nods. “Maybe he stood you up,” she says. “On your first date!”

I exhale. She's been here less than an hour, but already she's bugging me.

“It's not a first date,” I say. “It's not a date
at all
.”

I order drinks from the dancing blond barman. He looks too young to be in a bar, but that happens a lot nowadays. It says more about my own ageing than the state of the world's bar staff.

I hand Jenny her Smirnoff Ice and pocket the change. “So what about your man?” I ask. “Doesn't he mind you going away for the weekend?”

Jenny swigs at the bottle and shakes her hair, which shimmers, reflecting a violet spotlight above her.

“He's very sweet,” she says, her voice incongruously icy. “He's working all weekend … Overtime,” she adds with a shrug. “Anyway, how do you know this Tom character?” she asks.

“I don't really,” I tell her. “I only met him the other night, via some friends.”

“Hmm,” she says. “Then maybe he really
won't
turn up.”

“I doubt it,” Tom laughs, winking at me. “You can't trust his type.”

Tom has appeared at Jenny's left elbow. I grin and he nods sideways at her.

“Better than the last friend you introduced me to anyway,” he says with a wink.

But after half an hour I'm not sure Tom prefers Jenny at all. To say that they aren't getting on would be an understatement.

“So where do
you
live?” Tom asks.

“Surrey. I drove down this afternoon.” Jenny looks around. “God knows why though.”

“Oh.” Tom looks offended.

“I quite like it here,” I say.

Tom apparently feels under attack. “So you live in
Surrey
!” he says. “How
anyone
can live in Surrey I'll never know. It's so smug and superficial isn't it?”

I grimace.

Jenny glares at him, and then shifts to a sweet smile. “Yes, so unlike Brighton, which is
so
working class and authentic, don't you think?”