You Then, Me Now

by Nick Alexander

  In that instant, I was a tiny grain of life gifted with being able to observe the inexplicable vastness of the universe, and the only thing that mattered was the excruciating beauty of being there. Of being there to experience it all.

  I was fully present in that moment for the first time ever, and it felt beautiful and monumental, and really rather terrifying. I had a sense of belonging right where I was that felt new and exciting and moving. The moment was extraordinary.

  I gasped suddenly. I had been holding my breath at the shock of it all. And just as I did so, Leif surfaced right in front of me. He stood, the water trickling from his smooth skin in the moonlight. He smiled.

  ‘Oh . . . Leif . . .’ I breathed, unable to even begin to explain what I was feeling.

  ‘You’re crying,’ he said flatly.

  ‘It’s all so big,’ I told him incomprehensibly. ‘It’s all just so big.’

  He turned so that he was facing the same way as me, so he could see what I was seeing, and looked out with me at the vastness of the sea, at the panoramic infinity of the star-filled sky. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s why we’re here.’ And I wasn’t sure if he meant that it was why he had brought me here, or that it was the reason we were here, on this planet – to observe all this beauty. Perhaps he meant both.

  He reached for my hand, and that sensation of being anchored felt good. I’d been feeling scared that I might perhaps drift away, that I might just disintegrate with the emotion of it all and float away as space dust.

  ‘Can you hold me?’ I heard myself ask before I even knew I was going to do so. ‘Would that be OK?’

  Without a word, Leif turned to me and wrapped me in his cool, wet arms.

  ‘I’m here,’ I said tearfully, still looking out over his shoulder, still unable to string anything together that might approximate a meaningful sentence. ‘I’m right here, looking at all of this.’

  But incredibly Leif got it. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m here too. It’s amazing.’

  We swam for half an hour, diving into the viscous darkness and then surfacing into the rapidly cooling night air. I floated on my back and looked at the stars above me, and shrieked and laughed when, as predicted by Leif, a fish sucked at my big toe.

  When we were too cold to continue, we climbed out and dried ourselves off.

  We sat at the water’s edge in silence for a while, both staring at the immensity of the night and both thinking, I reckon, about the fact that something else was happening here. I felt reluctant to name it or even think about it with any kind of precision. Perhaps I feared that trying to label it might kill it off.

  ‘We should go,’ Leif eventually said, prompted by the fact that I had shivered. ‘It is cold.’

  ‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘But I don’t really want to. It’s so lovely here.’

  ‘But I think it is too cold now to sleep on the beach,’ Leif said. ‘If we had sleeping bags, but . . .’

  In unspoken agreement, we stood and shyly, back to back once again, changed into our dry clothes.

  As we walked across the beach, I felt an almost overwhelming desire to take his hand but resisted. We weren’t there quite yet. I wasn’t sure where we were, really, but we definitely weren’t quite there.

  Leif strapped his lamp onto his forehead and led the way back up the rock face and along the top of the cliffs to where we had left the bike. In silence, we climbed back on and started off along the bumpy road.

  The night was growing cooler rapidly and a breeze was rising, so I hugged Leif’s warm back and turned my head to look at the moon, which had now risen and was mirrored beautifully in the surface of the sea.

  I remember thinking it was the best birthday ever and that I would never forget my twenty-sixth. And I think that was the moment I let myself become aware of what was really going on.

  Did my feelings blossom that night because of the magical moment I had experienced on the beach or was it the other way around? Did the magic of the beach happen because of whatever was developing with Leif? I like to think it was both, that in some way everything that happened was the product of everything else, like some magical, mystical multiplication.

  I like to believe that for the first time in my life I had found myself (due to the most unlikely circumstances) in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right person. That’s how things felt in that moment, anyway – as if everything, as awful as it had all been, had happened for a reason. And the reason was to bring me to this exact spot at this exact moment with this specific person.

  I was still clamped to Leif’s back, still smiling at the moon, when he pulled sharply off the road.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked, but he didn’t reply. I was momentarily scared as he wobbled down a gravelly track, but then we pulled up outside a big white house. The wooden plaque on the letterbox read, ‘Lena’s Rooms’.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Just wait,’ Leif said. ‘I have an idea. Stay with the bike. I won’t be a minute.’

  He was gone not one minute but ten, and when he finally reappeared he was grinning and dangling a key from one hand. ‘The final birthday surprise,’ he said. ‘Come.’

  I followed him across Lena’s scrappy garden. The path wove around a few cacti and a tamarind tree to a small white-stucco building on the cliff edge. It was about the size of a large shed.

  Leif unlocked the door and switched on the harsh centre light. ‘Ta-da!’ he said.

  ‘God, Leif,’ I said. ‘Have you rented this for us?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Did you plan this all?’

  ‘No,’ Leif replied. ‘I just saw the sign and we are lucky. She had only this one free.’

  I stepped into the room and looked around. It was sparsely but cleanly furnished. It had two widely spaced single beds with white sheets. On the chest of drawers were two folded blue blankets.

  I crossed to the window and threw back the shutters. Outside, the sea shimmered in the moonlight. ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Look at that for a sea view. Was it expensive?’

  ‘Not even,’ Leif said. ‘We are in September now, so . . .’

  I leaned on the windowsill and saw there was a small wooden balcony accessible from the side of the building, and then I lifted my gaze to look again at the mesmerising moon.

  ‘This is a good idea?’ Leif asked, joining me at the open window and leaning, like me, on the sill. ‘You don’t mind?’

  I snorted and turned to face him. ‘Mind?’ I said. ‘Are you crazy?’ I had been feeling sick about returning to the hotel all evening.

  ‘Just a bit,’ Leif answered. ‘Just enough crazy, I think. No?’

  We returned to the front door and rounded the building to the balcony, where we sat at the little table and chairs. Leif produced a bar of chocolate, which we ate slowly, rationing ourselves to make it last. ‘If I had planned this, I would have champagne,’ Leif told me.

  ‘We don’t need champagne,’ I told him. ‘This is perfect.’

  The wind returned as the evening progressed and quite early, about ten thirty I think, we were forced back indoors by the cold. I was yawning crazily anyway. It had been an emotional day.

  Shyly, separately, we showered in the en-suite to get rid of the sand. And by the time I came out, Leif was already tucked up in bed.

  My traumatic experiences with Conor had left me a bit scared of men, I think, so I was actually grateful that Leif wasn’t going to try to seduce me.

  I climbed into my bed and said, ‘Goodnight, Leif. And thank you so much. It’s been perfect.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Leif replied through a yawn. ‘Goodnight. And happy birthday again.’

  He clicked off the bedside light and I lay looking at the room in the strange moonlight.

  The night seemed silent at first, but as my ears adjusted I could hear both Leif’s breathing and the sound of the waves landing on the beach below – they made surprisingly similar sounds. The wind, too,
began to whistle sporadically through the shutters.

  The day had been sumptuous and for ten minutes I lay in the crisp white sheets, feeling optimistic and sated by everything that had happened. But the wind continued to rise and an animal in the distance shrieked horribly – it sounded as if it was being killed – and unexpectedly the night began to change quality, feeling less welcoming and more lonely. The day might be beautiful, the wind seemed to be saying, but at night you’re all alone.

  I opened my mouth three or four times before I finally managed to speak. ‘Are you asleep?’ I whispered.

  ‘No,’ Leif said. ‘I’m a bit cold. I think I will close the window. And get a blanket.’

  I listened to him climb out of bed. I heard the slap of his big feet on the tiled floor as he closed the window and crossed the room to the dresser.

  ‘I’m a bit cold too,’ I said.

  ‘Yes? You want I get your blanket?’

  ‘I . . .’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’

  I heard his footsteps approach. His face appeared in front of me as he crouched down by the bedside. Like me, he was wearing his T-shirt and underwear. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes . . . I . . .’ I said.

  ‘I’ll get you a blanket,’ Leif said.

  ‘Oh, just get in, will you?’ I told him, sounding unintentionally irritable. ‘If that’s OK?’ I added, trying to soften the invitation. My irritation, I knew, was entirely caused by my own inability to say, to admit to myself even, what I wanted.

  Leif smiled quizzically. ‘You want that I get in with you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes! If you don’t mind?’

  Leif’s teeth flashed at me in the moonlight. His face was split in two by his grin. ‘Thank God,’ he said, pulling back the covers and sliding in beside me. ‘I thought you were never asking.’

  We lay side by side in silence, as rigid as two planks, for at least ten minutes. The only points of contact were Leif’s shoulder and my own, a reassuring sensation of bodily warmth gently making its way through two layers of clothing.

  ‘So what now?’ Leif asked eventually.

  ‘Can we just sleep like this?’ I asked, even though every cell in my body seemed to be begging that I maximise the areas of skin contact between us. ‘Would that be OK?’

  ‘Of course,’ Leif said matter-of-factly. But his feelings about this were belied by the deep sigh he emitted as he rolled onto his side away from me.

  I followed suit by rolling towards him – I’ve never been able to sleep on my back – but in the single bed it was all but impossible to avoid touching Leif’s back.

  As neither of the other two options – asking him to return to his own bed or turning the other way and sleeping facing away from each other – seemed desirable, I caved in to the inevitable and shuffled towards him, laying one arm over his hips and spooning against him. ‘Is this OK?’ I asked.

  Leif reached for my arm and pulled it tighter. ‘This is very OK,’ he said.

  I did not sleep well that night. Desire made my breath quicken, my heart race and my body tingle, and none of these were conducive to sleep. On top of this, my mind was racing about what was going to happen next – about what was going to happen in bed, in my life, and with Conor. But I must at some point have managed to drift off, because when I woke in the morning I discovered, to my dismay, that Leif had found his way back to his own bed.

  I crept as quietly as I could to the en-suite where I went to the loo and brushed my teeth. As I returned, I saw that Leif’s eyes were open. He was looking at me, albeit sleepily.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, and he smiled at me gently.

  ‘Better than all right,’ he said, looking positively radiant.

  ‘But you’re back in your bed,’ I commented. ‘Couldn’t you sleep? I didn’t snore, did I?’

  Leif rolled onto his back and propped himself up on pillows so he could look at me properly. ‘It’s hard for a guy,’ he said. ‘To sleep, when . . .’

  I laughed. ‘When what?’ I asked, even though I knew exactly what he was referring to.

  ‘When you want to . . . to kiss someone that much,’ he said sweetly.

  I stared at him, peering deep into his blue eyes. I bit my bottom lip.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Leif said. ‘I shouldn’t have said this.’

  ‘No,’ I told him. ‘No, it’s fine. I . . . I feel the same really. I didn’t sleep much either.’

  ‘It’s true?’ Leif asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please come here,’ he said. He patted the bed beside him.

  I nodded nervously. I had butterflies in my stomach. Something about Leif’s approach made me feel unexpectedly embarrassed. It made me feel, for some reason, as if I was preparing for my first-ever kiss with a boy, as if I didn’t know how to do this.

  The few boys I had slept with, or even kissed, had come at me like freight trains, so all I ever had to do was acquiesce, to simply not resist. With Leif, it seemed I had to actively decide this was what I wanted and, though that felt empowering and really rather lovely, and though it made me only want him more, it didn’t seem to make getting there any easier.

  I moved towards him and perched on the edge of his bed with my back to him. He reached out to stroke my shoulders.

  ‘You’re not ready,’ he said. ‘It’s too soon after . . . But that’s OK.’

  I shrugged. ‘I think I am,’ I said, swallowing with difficulty as I tried to pluck up the courage. ‘I just don’t know how to get there.’

  Leif applied gentle pressure to my side and so I turned and lay back beside him.

  ‘We don’t have to do anything you don’t . . .’ he started.

  But I had rolled to my side and pressed a finger to his lips, effectively silencing him. ‘Just kiss me now,’ I instructed. ‘Before I change my mind.’ And I could sense, through my fingertips, that he was struggling not to grin.

  We kissed chastely to start with and then, as slowly we dared to let our fingertips explore each other’s bodies, more passionately. Leif was grinning at me like the proverbial Cheshire cat and I found myself smiling stupidly back at him.

  Leif’s skin, I discovered, was cooler than my own and it felt unexpectedly soft, as though it had been powdered with talc. The whole thing was as gentle and respectful as things with Conor had been arrogant and brutal. Leif seemed like a custom-built antidote designed to restore my faith in men.

  When my ever-increasing desire for more finally submerged my fears, I rolled to my back and attempted to pull Leif on top of me. Unexpectedly, he resisted.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked, fearing he was going to drop a sudden bombshell on me – that he was married or ill, or that he simply didn’t feel for me in that way.

  ‘I don’t have . . . you know . . .’ he said. ‘I don’t have any johnnies.’

  I burst out laughing. I hadn’t heard anyone refer to a condom as a johnny since Abby had shown me one at school when I was thirteen.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’ Leif asked, sounding offended and visibly peeling away from me.

  ‘It’s not . . .’ I stumbled, still sniggering. ‘It’s just that word. Johnny. I’m sorry.’

  ‘This is not the word?’

  ‘It’s just old-fashioned,’ I told him. ‘People call them condoms nowadays. The Americans say rubbers, I think.’

  ‘Right,’ Leif said, sounding only partially mollified. ‘Well, I haven’t got any anyway, so . . .’

  I thought about this for a moment. I thought about the fact that I’d had sex with Conor already and would have to deal with the aftermath on my return anyway. I contrasted Leif’s sweet concern against Conor’s perverse narcissism and asked myself if I was really going to refuse Leif when I hadn’t refused Conor. I took an instant to catalogue the level of desire my body was experiencing. Because even though our bodies had been pressed together, the overriding sensation was that it
simply wasn’t enough.

  I reached down to touch Leif below the waterline and what I found there made me shudder with desire. ‘It’s OK,’ I told him, pulling him towards me again. ‘Please . . . just . . .’

  Again, his face seemed to crack open with that toothy smile of his. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. But he was already pushing at the gate.

  We made love twice that morning, and it was everything I had ever imagined sex would be, and everything it had never been to date.

  Leif was the sweetest, most attentive, generous lover I had experienced by a long, long stretch and I remember thinking, once it was over for the second time, when we were lying side by side, that this was why they called it making love. Because though I had perhaps accepted I was falling in love with Leif, by the time it was over, I was so deep in that I knew I would never get out alive.

  We were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  ‘Shit,’ Leif said, grabbing his watch from the bedside table to check the time. ‘It’s gone eleven.’

  ‘What happens at eleven?’ I asked, stretching like a cat in the sunshine as Leif hopped comically into his shorts.

  ‘We have to quit the room at eleven,’ Leif said. ‘That’s what happens.’

  THIRTEEN

  BECKY

  The next morning, Mum and I chugged the full length of the island on our little C90 to Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement that had been destroyed by a volcano in 1627 BC. It had been Damon’s suggestion to go there and because both Mum and I were feeling a little beached-out (I wasn’t sure my pale skin could take much more sun, even with the factor fifty I had been slapping on prodigiously) and because we were both feeling guilty about the Acropolis, we decided that a bit of history was probably overdue.

  It cost twenty-four euros for us both to get in and, even at ten thirty in the morning, the heat was unbearable. I really do think that if it hadn’t been for the Acropolis factor, both of us would have happily carried on to a beach. But as it was, neither of us was prepared to admit this so we handed over our cash and made our way inside.

  In the end, we were glad we’d been brave. Because walking through streets, visiting bedrooms and kitchens and bathrooms that had last been inhabited in the seventeenth century BC turned out to feel strangely moving.