Masquerade

Seventeen

I get out of the shower and feel slightly fresher but my head is still throbbing. I slip on my bikini bottoms and go into the kitchen. I know exactly what will cure my hangover. The hair of the dog. Jaron is bent over something at the kitchen table. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m repairing your watch. It was running late.’

‘You can repair watches?’

‘Sure. I’m very handy with anything that is full of tiny springs or precision machined to close tolerances. When I was young I spent hours completely dismantling watches and locks and putting them back together.’

‘Great.’

I open the cupboard and reach for the vodka bottle. A large hand covered in golden hairs curls around my wrist. I jump. I didn’t hear him come up.

‘Don’t,’ he says softly.

‘What?’

‘You drink too much, Billie.’

‘What?’ I repeat in disbelief.

‘You heard me.’

‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’

‘How old are you now?’

‘Fucking none of your business.’

‘Let’s say you’re twenty-two or three. You’ll be an alcoholic by the time you are thirty-three.’

‘Fuck you,’ I say angrily, but some part of my brain is recoiling in fear as I lash out. I yank my hand out of his grip and deliberately take the bottle and pour myself a huge measure. I gulp it all down very quickly while he watches me expressionlessly.

I put the glass down with a ‘take that and put it where the sun don’t shine’ thump, but in fact, I have drunk it too fast and I feel downright queasy.

He stares at me. ‘What’s the matter?’

I turn around and run to the bathroom where I am violently sick in the toilet.

When I put my head up Jaron is holding a wet towel. I don’t look at him. I take the towel from him silently and wipe my face. He goes out and I brush my teeth before I follow him.

‘I’ve made coffee,’ he says, holding out a mug.

‘I’m sorry I was so rude,’ I say.

‘It doesn’t change anything. You drink too much.’

I put my head down. I know he is right. It feels like fun, but I’ve seen enough alcoholics on the council estate to know where I am heading.

‘You don’t need it, Billie.’

‘Sometimes I do.’

‘Sometimes we all do. But you even drink in the morning. It’s not cool, Billie.’

I take a sip of coffee and make a face. I hate coffee.

‘Can I have some orange juice please?’

He pours me a glass and hands it to me with two painkiller tablets. I take the pills and drink the whole thing down. I realize how awfully dehydrated I must have been.

‘How about we agree that you’ll drink when you need to and when you’re out having fun, but no more vodka bottles in your bedside cabinet.’

I glower at him and every fiber in my body rejects being told what to do. That is my MO. No one, and absolutely no one in the past has told me what to do. I do what I want. Period. I don’t buy the ‘do it for your own good bullshit’ from anybody. And to be honest, if it had been anyone else other than him I would already have decimated them to an insecure blob of jelly by now. And yet I can’t with him. Some secret part of me is craving for him to take control, to care enough to make me do it.

I nod. ‘OK.’

He grins. ‘You made that too easy. I was prepared for a huge fight.’

‘You don’t know when to stop, do you?’

He raises both hands as if to ward me off in mock alarm.

And it is impossible not to laugh. He takes me into his arms. His face is so tender it makes me feel quite strange. Our relationship seems to have suddenly become really serious. For some reason that makes me fearful. ‘I want something back from you in return.’

He stiffens imperceptibly. ‘What?’

‘Let me drive your car?’

I feel it then, that great big wave of relief that washes over him. I wonder what he thought I was going to ask of him.

‘I’m making breakfast,’ I say.

‘You are?’ His eyebrows are in his hairline. A bit irritating, that.

‘Mmmm…’

‘I’d better keep it simple then. Just eggs.’

I go to the shelf, take an egg out of the carton and throw it directly at him.

He moves so fast even I am startled. He catches it neatly between his loosely cupped hands, looks at me, and smiles wryly. ‘I really wanted cooked eggs.’

I smile. I am determined to know more of the man. I know nothing about him. I walk to the cupboard I saw him take a pan from yesterday. I take out a pan, put it on the stove and look around me.

‘Top cupboard to your right,’ he says.

I open it and take out the plastic bottle of oil. I pour the oil into the pan, wait for a minute and then smack the egg on the edge of the pan and pour it in. Great! It has kept its shape. I crack another egg and it too keeps its shape. Jaron puts two slices of bread into the toaster. He brings jam out of the fridge and puts it on the kitchen table with a bowl beside it. I really want to turn the eggs over but I dare not. I turn to look at him and he says, ’Sunny side up is fine with me.’

I breathe a sigh of relief and turn down the fire. When the toast is ready he puts it on a plate and taking a metal spatula from a drawer comes over to me. I take the metal spatula and carefully slide his eggs onto his plate. I am inordinately pleased with myself when the eggs go onto the plate unbroken. My first ever lot of cooked eggs and they turn out so great. Yay!

I look at him with a victorious grin and he is staring at me.

‘What?’

‘Thank you,’ he says softly, and I just know he is not talking about the eggs, but I am suddenly too shy to ask what. We sit at the table and I watch him shake salt and pepper on the eggs.

‘How long have you had this place?’ I ask filling my bowl with jam.

‘Five years. It’s a queen’s ninety-nine year lease,’ he says, buttering his toast.

‘Do you have brothers or sisters?’

‘No, I’m an only child,’ he says casually, but suddenly I feel the care and caution that come into his face.

‘Are your parents still around?’

‘Yes.’ His voice becomes even more distant.

‘Where do they live?’

‘In Australia.’

I feel a movement in the corner of my eye, turn to the window and see that a stork has landed in the garden. It is very beautiful. For a moment it stands very still and then it drops its head and gracefully pecks under its wing.

‘There is a stork in the garden,’ I say quietly.

‘Yeah, they drop occasionally.’

I could have turned around then, but I don’t. I am not so foolish as to turn around and expose myself to his devastating weapons. To allow him to wrap his sensual spell over me. ‘Why did you go to Monte Carlo?’

I wait for him to answer and he doesn’t so I turn to face him.

‘Why all the questions, Billie?’

‘No real reason. It just occurred to me that I know nothing about you.’

‘In time you’ll know everything there is to know.’

Suddenly I feel very naked and exposed sitting in my bikini bottoms. Jaron’s T-shirt is draped over a kitchen chair. I take it and slip it over my head. Now we are both hiding from each other.

Because of high winds the water is cloudy so we do not go snorkeling. Instead we have a sandcastle building contest. Jaron’s is bigger but mine is definitely better. Afterward he buries me in the sand. He takes photos of me and when it is his turn I give him large conical breasts and that looks really funny. We laugh a lot. He breaks out of the sand and chases me into the water.

We swim in the nude, our bodies slipping eel-like against each other in the silky water. We start kissing in the water and end up on the beach where the waves still touch our feet and Jaron’s tongue is everywhere all at once. We make long, languorous love on the hot sand, the sun beating down on us, and the ticklish waves sometimes reaching up to our hips.

‘Sticking my cock inside you is like sticking it in a wall socket,’ he murmurs in my arms, sleepy with the exertions of pleasure.

I bury my face in the hair that smells of sun and sea and me. The reality of love has surpassed anything I could have imagined. I remember when Lana told me she was in love, and I had arrogantly claimed I never wanted to be under another person’s control or power. And now my words have come back to haunt me. My life seemed so empty before he came. I can’t even imagine life without him.

At nearly two in the afternoon we go to the mainland for lunch. Jaron wears sunglasses, which make him look like a really cool movie star. He takes me to a shack, painted bright green with purple doors and yellow window shutters. The sign is in faded blue. It’s funky. And I like it a lot. Plenty of beers are cooling in a huge metal drum full of ice. A man called Ernie whom I met at last night’s party owns the place.

He makes an especially super-strong rum punch and puts it in front of me. ‘On the house,’ he says with a broad grin.

Jaron shrugs.

‘Oh dear, looks like my reputation has preceded me,’ I say, taking a sip. It is delicious, but I remember what I have promised Jaron, and I don’t drink it as fast as I normally would.

We order barbecued chicken and sweetcorn local style. Jaron has chutney and one tiny drop of their scarily hot Scorpion Pepper Sauce, which he cautiously spreads on his chicken. It’s H-O-T-T-T hot stuff. Two drops, I am told, would make the food inedible! Even the label carries a warning to use it with discretion and not recommended for children.

I heap my plate with fried plantain (yummy) and local avocados. Just when I think I am nearly done, Ernie comes out with hot dogs and burgers. We go into the tiny town where Jaron takes me to an old bell tower church. We climb to the top and can see for miles around.

Afterward we go into a little convenience store in the town. It is a rustic, sleepy place where there are no schedules to keep and everything runs on slow time. Jaron buys some pasta for our dinner. We go back to Ernie’s to drink one of his cocktails and watch the fading light dancing over the sea and the sand. Ah, the sand. So soft, so white, so pristine.