ONE DAY(34)

‘I know, I’m sorry—’

‘They were Helmut Lang, Em!’

‘I know! It’s just you . . . so angry, and . . . no clothes . . .’ She crouched over, her fists and forehead pressed into the sand before keeling over sideways.

‘Pack it in, Em. It’s not funny. Emma? Emma! That’s enough!’

When she could stand again they spent a while walking up the beach in silence, Dexter suddenly very cold and coy, Emma walking discreetly ahead, looking at the sand and trying to contain herself. ‘What kind of little bastard steals someone’s underpants?’ muttered Dexter. ‘Know how I’m going to find the little sod? I’m going to look for the only well-dressed bastard on the whole bloody island!’ and Emma collapsed onto the sand once more, head between her knees.

When the search proved fruitless, they beachcombed for emergency clothing. Emma found a heavy-duty sack in blue plastic. Dexter held it daintily round his waist like a mini-skirt while Emma suggested that they cut slits and make it into a pinafore dress, then collapsed once more.

The route home took them along the harbour front. ‘It’s a lot busier than I expected,’ said Emma. Dexter adjusted his face into an expression of larky self-deprecation and marched on past the pavement taverna, eyes fixed forward, ignoring the wolf-whistles. They headed into the town, and coming up a narrow alley they suddenly found themselves facing the couple from the beach, red-faced with booze and sun, clinging to each other drunkenly as they tottered down the steps towards the harbour. They stared, bemused, at Dexter’s blue sacking mini-skirt.

‘Someone stole my clothes,’ he explained curtly.

The couple nodded sympathetically and squeezed past them, the girl pausing to turn and shout after them—

‘Nice sack.’

‘It’s Helmut Lang,’ said Emma and Dexter narrowed his eyes at her treachery.

The sulk lasted all the long way home and by the time they were back in the room, the fact of the shared bed had somehow lost its significance. Emma went into the bathroom to change into an old grey t-shirt. When she came out, the blue plastic coal-sack lay on the floor at the foot of the bed. ‘You should hang this up,’ she said, nudging the sack with her toe. ‘It’ll get creased.’

‘Ha,’ he said, lying on the bed, in new underwear.

‘So is that them?’

‘What?’

‘The famous thirty-quid underpants. What are they, lined with ermine?’

‘Let’s just go to sleep, shall we? So – which side?’

‘This one.’

They lay on their backs in parallel, Emma relishing the sensation of the cold white sheets against tender skin.

‘Nice day,’ she said.

‘Til that last bit,’ he mumbled.

She turned to look at him, his face in profile, staring petulantly at the ceiling. She nudged his foot with hers. ‘S’only trousers and a pair of pants. I’ll buy you some nice new ones. Three-pack of cotton briefs.’ Dexter sniffed and she took his hand beneath the sheet, squeezed it hard until he turned his head to look at her. ‘Seriously, Dex,’ she smiled. ‘I’m really pleased to be here. I’m having a really nice time.’

‘Yeah. Me too,’ he mumbled.

‘Eight more days,’ she said.

‘Eight more days.’

‘Think you can hack it?’

‘Who knows?’ He smiled affectionately and, for good or ill, everything was just as it had been before. ‘So how many Rules did we break tonight?’

She thought for a moment. ‘One, Two and Four.’

‘Well at least we didn’t play Scrabble.’

‘There’s always tomorrow.’ She reached above her head, turned the light off, then lay on her side with her back to him. Everything was just how it had been before, and she was unsure how she felt about this. For a moment she worried that she might not be able to sleep for dwelling on the day, but to her relief she soon found herself overcome with weariness, sleep creeping through her veins like anaesthetic.

Dexter lay for a while looking at the ceiling in the blue light, feeling that he had not been at his best tonight. Being with Emma demanded a certain level of behaviour, and he was not always up to the mark. Glancing over at Emma, her hair falling away from the nape of her neck, the newly tanned skin dark against the white sheets, he contemplated touching her shoulder to apologise.

‘Night, Dex,’ she murmured while she could still speak.

‘Night, Em,’ he replied, but she was already gone.

Eight days to go, he thought, eight whole days. Almost anything could happen in eight days.





Part Two


1993–1995

Late Twenties

‘We spent as much money as we could and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same cond ition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.’



Charles Dickens, Great Expectations





CHAPTER SIX


Chemical


THURSDAY 15 JULY 1993,

Part One – Dexter’s Story