by JJ Marsh
With no warning, Dhan leaned over and kissed me. I was taken aback, as I’d never got so much as a hint he was interested in men. My sexual preferences were no secret. If s/he’s willing, count me in. I responded with an eagerness that scared me. I’d always had a thing for Dhan, so hid it well. We were flatmates, that’s all. That night changed everything. It was getting light when all our passion was finally spent. We fell asleep in damp, tangled sheets. The last thing I remember before I passed out was Dhan telling me the story of how ‘Smoke on the Water’ was written in Montreux, as his hand stroked my chest hair.
When I woke up, my body was sending alarm signals from head, gut and bowels. Dhan’s side of the bed was empty and I could hear him in the shower. With a groan of pain, I hauled my pounding head out of bed, dressed and went into my own room. It wasn’t just the hangover, but that awful flat post-coke comedown. I swigged a bottle of sparkling water and had a long cool shower, wondering what the hell would happen next.
The phone rang as I was getting dressed.
“Hello?”
“Listen, mate, we need to check out. The cleaning staff have already knocked twice. We missed breakfast and should have been out of here an hour ago. You ready?” His tone was perfectly normal.
“Umm, yeah, almost.”
“Good. See you downstairs in five. Let’s get something to eat and then get a train home.”
“You don’t want to hang out here? Catch some more music?”
“I’m feeling a bit rough. I want to get home and sleep it off in my own bed.”
“Right. See you downstairs.”
He was waiting in the lobby and gave me a quick smile, but met my eyes for only a second. I checked out and we found a café on the way to the station. My stomach was roiling but we filled ourselves with carbs, while trying not to look at each other. It was painful. Eventually, I had to broach the subject.
“OK, so things can’t get weird between ...”
He cut me off. “Hey, what happens in Montreux stays in Montreux, right? It was a one-off. Won’t happen again.”
His words cut deep and a realisation crept over me. The ‘thing’ I had for Dhan was more than just fancying him. I loved the guy. Last night might well have ruined our relationship, all because I couldn’t resist the opportunity. Why was I so slow to understand my own feelings?
It was the worst time to have to face it, as physically, I felt like a bag of shit, but there was no other choice. “You’re right. A one-off when we were both off our heads. Let’s forget about it.” As if.
Dhan wiped up the residue on his plate with a hunk of bread. “Yeah, let’s. And, Clark? We never talk about it again. Not to each other or anyone else. No one can ever know, OK?” For the first time that morning, he looked into my eyes.
Why would I want to share the intimacy and tenderness of last night with anyone else? That was mine and mine alone.
“Know about what?” I forced a grin across my face. “Memory wiped and moving on. Are you going to finish those fries? Because I’m still hungry.”
A crooked smile lifted his cheeks and something flashed in his eyes. Something I’d not seen before. “Have them. The amount you eat, you should be twice your size. How come I swim every other day, eat vegetarian food and still put on weight? Whereas you do virtually no exercise, eat all kinds of crap and don’t carry an ounce of fat.”
“Fast metabolism, mate,” I said, helping myself to his leftovers. “By the time we get back to Geneva, I’ll be hungry again. In fact, I might drop in on Mika and Lovisa to say thanks for helping me organise this weekend. And also to assist them with anything going from Sunday lunch.”
He was watching me, his eyes soft. “It was a brilliant birthday present. Thank you. I had an unforgettable time.”
I met his gaze. “So did I.”
And that was a good place to leave it. “I need a piss. Will you ask the waitress for the bill?”
I kept my promise and told no one what happened that night. I’d have probably stayed silent till the grave if it wasn’t for Gael. That woman has an instinct for what goes unsaid. She watched us, spotted the change in dynamic and asked me upfront if her theory was correct. All I did was confirm the truth. It was OK. You could trust Gael to keep a secret.
Chapter 9: Gael, now
Christmas with my family in 2019 was the worst yet. I think if the weather had been better, and we could have got out more, the stifling tension would have lessened. Southwold is a beautiful part of the world, with a fantastic coastline that stretches for miles. Perfect for walking off Christmas pudding. Yet three days of relentless rain, sly point-scoring from my brother and sister, hours of dreary television interrupted by huge, heavy meals, and I was crawling the walls.
My insufferable brother, who grew more pompous every year, had been banned from mentioning the current political situation for fear he and my sister would actually come to blows. Orla and I were of the same mind regarding the depressing mess, it’s just she was ten times more passionate on the subject. Not surprising, I suppose, as she had to live with the consequences. But Brian held the diametrically opposite view and took every opportunity to justify his reasoning. Worse still, his vacuous wife with no opinions of her own agreed with everything he said.
Fed up to the back teeth with their offspring’s squabbling, my parents warned us all that one more mention of politics and we would be asked to leave. That suited me fine. As an Irish journalist working in Brussels, I too had become weary of the debate.
We weren’t due at the chalet in the Alps until Monday, but on Boxing Day morning, I called Lovisa to see if I could spend the weekend with her in Geneva. Anything to get away from my family. She agreed immediately as she had spent Christmas alone.
“Can you come tomorrow?” she asked. “We could go to Harry’s Bar and get plastered on cocktails. Just like the good old days.”
Only Lovisa still uses expressions like ‘plastered’. A sixty-year old in a forty-something’s body. Simply hearing her voice cheered me up. “Definitely. If I can’t get a flight, I’ll take the train. I have to get out of here or there is a serious risk of my committing fratricide.”
When I got out of the plane at Geneva airport, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and my spirits lifted like bubbles. Three days of hanging out with an old mate in our university city would repair all the damage wrought by my blood(y) relatives. Lovisa’s apartment was a decent size and in a nice part of town. Knowing the price of rents in Geneva, I was surprised she could afford it on her NGO salary. I asked no questions, just grateful that she had a spare room.
She seemed delighted to see me and laughed at my horror stories of a family Christmas. Her skin was golden and her figure trim. I told her she looked great.
“Thank you. I only got back from Ghana on the twentieth. The tan hasn’t faded yet.”
“What were you doing in Ghana? The teenage mother stuff again?” I asked.
“Not this time. A team of us were training nurses and midwives. It was a lot more optimistic than my usual gigs. You know, Ghana is such a beautiful place. I was thinking, maybe the next time we celebrate New Year’s together, we should go somewhere other than Europe.”
“We don’t always go to Europe,” I protested. “We’ve been to New York.”
“Once,” said Lovisa. “In twenty years, we’ve only ever visited one other continent.”
I calculated. “I guess you’re right. Maybe it’s because I’ve travelled so much and visited so many places, that meeting up with you lot in a European city feels like my second home.”
“Talking of second homes, let’s get down to Harry’s Bar. There are a couple of mojitos with our names on them.”
On Saturday, we took a train to Lausanne and wandered along the lake in a biting wind. We sent Simone a message to see if she wanted to join us but there was no reply. Lovisa seemed withdrawn and far less chatty than she had been the night before. I put it down to a hangover and didn’t worry too much as I was enjoying
the sight of Lac Leman. That view never got tired. When the cold started to hurt, we took refuge in a lakeside café and ordered cafés crèmes.
“I still cannot believe it will be twenty years,” said Lovisa, her gaze on the mountains across the water.
Of all of us, Lovisa was the one who wanted to talk about it the most.
“I know. Weird how it turned out that the first time I got to organise was the twentieth anniversary.” I paused, thinking back to 2009 in Mallorca, one of the happiest reunions we’d had. “Twenty years. Sometimes it’s like a bad dream.”
She looked at me, her eyes the colour of the bottle of Bombay Sapphire. “I’ve been seeing a counsellor again. First time in fifteen years I felt the need.”
“Because of the anniversary?” I asked.
She shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “The question is, which anniversary? I know, I know. You’re talking about Dhan’s death. Me too. I’m also talking about the death of my relationship, the death of Simone’s unborn child, the death of all our innocences. 2000 was the most horrible year of my life. I honestly believe that if we hadn’t had each other and I hadn’t found a counsellor, I wouldn’t have made it this far.”
There was no answer to that. Against my will, my mind went back to those wretchedly miserable months. The police investigation, that nightmarish meeting with Dhan’s family, the inquest, Mika and Lovisa splitting up, Simone aborting Dhan’s baby, Mika’s attempt on his own life and the tears, all those tears. I drank my coffee and shook my head, as if that could release me from the chain to the past.
“Is it the same counsellor?” I asked. It was a banal question but I could think of nothing else to say. The real question I didn’t dare ask.
Lovisa shook her head. “No, this is a new one. Her angle is progress rather than forgiveness. It’s a long time since I forgave all of us for the part we played. Mika, Simone, Clark, me and even Dhan. Everyone except you.”
I snapped my head up to face her. “Except me? Why do I get off scot-free?”
She reached across the table and pushed a lock of hair off my forehead. “Because, Gael, you weren’t there.”
Maybe it was the maternal gesture or the beatific tone, but a surge of anger boiled up in me and I had to get away from her or release something vicious. I approached the counter to ask the waitress where to find the bathroom. Once locked into a shiny tiled cubicle, I sat on the seat and breathed.
Always the same. It wasn’t Gael’s fault. Gael wasn’t there. Gael has no reason to feel guilty. It’s worse for us. We were present at the moment of our friend’s death. She wasn’t there. I breathed and breathed until my jaw began to relax. Finally, I unlocked the cubicle and washed my face and hands. Only then did I return to the café.
Lovisa was wearing her other favourite expression: worried. “Gael, I’m sorry, did I upset you? That wasn’t my intention.”
I drank my coffee, cooler now. “No, you didn’t. Just ... maybe some of this stuff should stay between you and your counsellor. You know what I mean?”
We paid for our coffees and walked back to the train station without a word.
That evening, I suggested watching a film. We ordered pizza, got into our pyjamas and sat side by side on the sofa laughing at a chick lit comedy. After it was over, Lovisa emptied the dregs of the wine bottle into our glasses and switched off the TV set. We chatted idly about underrated female comedians and picked at pizza crusts. Simone messaged to say she was skiing with her sister and would go directly to the chalet. She sent us both love and a picture of herself on the slopes.
As always, her beauty dazzled. She still looked in her late twenties despite the fact all of us had turned forty in the past couple of years. When we first met, her head-turning loveliness caused me pain. Like Mika’s wealth, Simone’s looks seemed to give her an unfair advantage in the world, and I used to resent that. Not anymore. Since Dhan’s death, I’d given up envy.
“That girl could wear a sack and make it look desirable,” said Lovisa. “She doesn’t seem to age at all. I got a picture somewhere from that time we were in Kefalonia. When was that? 2003?” She hopped up and opened a cupboard.
“No, Clark took us to Berlin in 2003, remember? Kefalonia must have been 2005. Simone organised that one. I think of all our reunions, and I know we’re not allowed to have favourites, but I liked the islands best.” My eyes were drooping and I was ready for bed.
“Here it is! Kefalonia was 2005. We’re getting forgetful in our old age.” Lovisa flopped onto the sofa beside me with a photograph album. Actual photographs stuck behind clear film, each labelled and captioned in Lovisa’s neat handwriting. The woman was an anachronism and I loved her for it.
We huddled together and pored over the pictures, reminiscing and reminding each other of details one of us had forgotten. There was Simone, standing on a beach in Old Skala with a hand to her eyes, shielding her face from the sun. We compared it to the picture we had recently received. Lovisa was right. Simone had hardly aged at all.
It must have been the wine, warmth and tiredness, but in so many of the group pictures, I saw five friends and one shadow. A space where there should have been a man. There were some shots of the last evening, too. I was missing in most, because I was taking them. One group shot with automatic release showed the six of us at the dinner table in that small room. I could almost taste the burnt soup, smell the beer cheese and feel the warmth of the fire, friendship and that bloody uncomfortable dress. Something was wrong in that picture, but I couldn't put my finger on it. That nagging doubt surfaced again. Like there was something obvious that had been there all these years. I was just too close to see it.
When we turned the final page, folded brown papers dropped into my lap like autumn leaves. One fell to the floor. I picked it up, unfolded it and recognised a grease-spotted place mat from 1999. This one was Clark’s and it bore a quotation from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, inspirational messages from each of us and twenty-year-old stains of fish soup and red wine. Even in the awful aftermath of the accident, she had kept our mementoes safe. I opened one after another, reading Lovisa’s neat script, my own drunken scrawl and the distinctive handwriting of Simone, Clark, Mika and, oh sweet Lord, Dhan.
In a second, I was there, then, full of bullish optimism for every one of us, scrawling confident words of love and hope and because I couldn’t help myself, an in-joke. My nose prickled, and tears I thought long dried made a triumphant comeback. I cried for them, those six young idiots who thought the new millennium was all theirs.
Lovisa closed the album and we sat in silence, staring at the flames in the fake fire. Neither of us seemed to have the energy to move.
“Gael? I want to apologise for earlier. I’ve been thinking about it and I realise that saying I didn’t need to forgive you because you weren’t there takes away your grief, in a way. That’s unfair and minimises your feelings while claiming both grief and guilt for myself. I’m sorry for my selfish thinking.”
I blew my nose on a pizza napkin. “It’s fine. It really is.” It really was. I was over it and could do without second-hand therapy speak.
“Thank you for saying that. I’m embarrassed about how badly I expressed myself. You see, my intention was meant to be the opposite of patronising. What I wanted to say this morning was a kind of confession.”
I couldn’t take any more revelations about the past. I hauled myself upright, feeling the effects of the wine. “I need to sleep on this.” I bent to kiss her on both cheeks. “Goodnight, sleep tight, and thank you for keeping our memories safe. See you in the morning.”
Her smile was kind as I left her, staring into artificial flames.
As for me, I lay awake in the spare room, eyes puffy and throat sore. My emotional brain murmured reassuring mantras and advised sleep. My journalist brain added these latest pieces of evidence to the file labelled ‘Was It Really An Accident?’ A file I would likely never close.
“Because, Gael, you weren’t there.”
Chapter 10: Mika, 2011
To my mind, we had become far too smug and Eurocentric. I’m the first one to say it’s important to be proud of your home country, your home continent and admire all it has achieved. Nevertheless, that should not be to the detriment of other countries, continents, places with something different to offer. A cultural openness allows us to learn from other ways of doing things and prevents us from becoming set in our ways, moving from patriotism to nationalism. We are not always right.
Listen to me, proselytising. I used to talk like that a lot, in speeches rather than conversation, especially when Lovisa and I were a couple. We fell into that self-satisfied trap of thinking we were always right. Because we agreed on politics, religion, and lifestyle – mens sana in corpore sano – the two of us thought we knew best. We judged our friends. If I’m honest, we judged everyone. Since then, I’ve changed. Lovisa, not so much. I still see judgement in her eyes and those moments make me think it’s probably best we split up. Together, we’d have become insufferable.
Just to shake things up a bit, I suggested New York. More than suggested, if I’m honest. I presented the opportunity much like I had presented the chance to jump on a frozen lake. An experience we could all benefit from. Look how that turned out.
No, this was not the same thing at all. New York City on New Year’s Eve had everything to offer. I fixed us an apartment in Harlem, I booked tickets to a show, I researched restaurants and festive events we could attend to make the most out of a few days in the city that never sleeps. To my astonishment, everyone went for it.
Lovisa was the most enthusiastic. She had already mentioned several times we should go further afield for our celebrations. However, her rationale was mainly for the sun, and we wouldn’t be getting much of that in New York. I managed to get her on side by mentioning iconic locations we knew from the movies: Grand Central Station, the Empire State building, Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, the New York Public Library, Times Square and Fifth Avenue. In the kind of way that I can understand, Clark was the least enthusiastic. The man was a totally committed Europhile and had no interest in returning to the United States. But even he, having never been to the city, agreed it would be fun to go somewhere completely new and play tourists.
