Paulyanna, page 40
The more he divulged about himself, the more hollow my viewpoint appeared. He spoke about himself modestly and listened attentively. His soft nature was very reassuring. He appeared capable, not the sort that panics and flaps around. Michael was a good-looking academic achiever who was confident and successful in business. So I clung to the notion that opposites attract. I wanted him to see that my personality was multifaceted and interesting. That I was also roguish and not only a camp, drunken slapper with a quick tongue and loose morals. To show him I was a free-spirited individual who viewed life differently. I was a happy person, not a pessimist, but a total fantasist. I did this by tossing stones up into the air and whacking them out to sea using a discarded piece of metal pipe I’d found. As I was still very much a delinquent boy, I hit more than I missed.
Then, with my new-found confidence, I paddled out to show off my lilo skills. “Watch me!” I shouted as I caught a big wave. The choppy sea was generous with the speed and sent me hurtling straight in the direction of the rocks. I was riding out of control on the top of a rough crest at the mercy of the elements. My expression flashed from joy to horror without actually shifting. As I soared with gaining momentum I mentally braced myself for a collision with crab city. I wasn’t very dignified as I panic-paddled from the left, then erratically backwards to avoid bashing my face as well as having my fingers nipped. After impact, a sudden moment of relief flushed through me but then deposited itself on solid ground as once again I got sucked into reverse on the retracting wave. In one of the moments I closed my eyes, I slipped off and my swimming aid shot away from me. Then I sprawled about a bit in a desperate attempt to save myself from drowning, yet again. Michael watched on calmly. I must have looked a right Muppet and I bet he wondered what the hell was going on. I must admit it wasn’t my finest moment. However, that shipwrecked survivor look must have suited me, as Michael stuck around.
I truthfully presented him with a version of my life, excluding Mondays. My important role as shipping and publicity co-ordinator. Told him every aspect of my entire media company career. Clumsily stumbled over a few names in doing so. Let him know that I lived in Covent Garden and, just in case he was unaware, went on to explain how centrally located it was. I talked about my dear educated friends, like Deirdre. I painted the prettiest picture I could to present to my prospective lover. When I spoke, I never lied or hyped anything up, I just delivered choice segments wrapped nicely with a ribbon and a bow.
Those initial moments of discovery can be quite calculating. We all splice together fragments of information to find the stereotype so we can ultimately judge and then confidently pigeon-hole one another. I knew there would come a time I would have to disclose more details, but I wasn’t ready to do so on this occasion.
Michael’s personality was more understated than mine. Not at all cocky, he came across as a perfect gentleman. He didn’t bother to impress me. I couldn’t quite comprehend what he did for a living. Some type of engineer. It didn’t sound very exciting but I did gather that a great deal of brain power was required, which I rather liked. I was fast becoming besotted with this soft-hearted Swiss guy. Handsome, intelligent, modest and, despite being four years my junior, wise beyond his years. Not that age mattered, he acted so grown up and certain. He was easily more mature than me.
Then came the pin to burst my bubble: Michael announced he was to fly home tomorrow. It seemed so unfair. My two-week holiday had just begun and his was over. We spent the entire day together sunbathing in the cove and playing in the sea. I was a lot braver than normal to return with my lilo to the boisterous currents so soon after my shock on the rocks. But Michael was so attentive, ensuring I didn’t slip off. He made such a good impression I fully deemed him capable of saving me. Later in the day we ate fruit salad under a canopy of vines in an idyllic tropical garden surrounded by a mass of vibrant colours and pungent blooms. We took a romantic stroll along the sands whilst I puffed away on a joint. Michael didn’t mind me smoking grass. It was perfectly legal where he came from. Amsterdam was not the only place you could pop to the shops for a big bag of skunk.
Afterwards he came back to my complex where we rested then got ready for our final evening together. We had such a short amount of time left that Michael freshened up at mine rather than waste any of it returning to his apartment. We popped into Bar Kitsch for a quick one, just to say hello to Ken who was working alone. Then to Monroe’s over the road. I think mild-mannered Michael was astounded at some of the bitchy attitudes and vulgar remarks from the pissed Brits, not totally understanding of how crude and insulting drunken banter can be. Whereas I myself thought it all very lame and quite tame.
Although he was open about his sexuality, he didn’t live a gay life as I knew it. With two small bars, one of which was for lesbians, and a tiny night club that only opened at weekends, there wasn’t much of a scene in his corner of Switzerland. For that he travelled to and spent the odd weekend in Zurich where he went halves renting a city crash pad with a friend that flew for Swissair. As Michael usually hung out with his straight friends, he hadn’t honed any of the unsavoury gay traits, which I believed to be universally mandatory. He wasn’t in any way an egotistical narcissist full of spite with a tongue like barbed-wire. He displayed only nurturing qualities. His understanding eyes showed compassion and his unsuspicious mind was open to me. I was falling deeper for him with every tick-tock of the clock. My spirits were soaring so high as I sat across from him in the Italian restaurant that everything I ate tasted really delicious. I truly believed him when he admitted that what we had was more special to him than a simple holiday romance.
As I waved goodbye the next day, a desperate urge not to let him go hit me. Extreme emptiness, as if my entrails had suddenly been ejected past that large lump growing in my throat. I watched the coach drag my innards along like a string of tin cans. As soon as it had rounded the corner, full-on loneliness hit me like a fist to the stomach. I stood abandoned. I wasn’t totally convinced he would come back on the following Friday. As much as I wanted to believe him, and in fact did when he told me, things seemed too good to be true. Regardless, I tempted fate by revealing to Ken that Michael really, really liked me and was coming back. I did myself no favours by purposely setting myself up for a fall. I even goaded Alan when he scoffed at my claims. My arrogant deliverance of, “How could he not return to a delectable dish such as moi?” was countered with a rhetorical question of his own: “Because you’re a whore?”
I knew if Michael didn’t return humiliation wouldn’t register as I’d be too heartbroken to care. With nothing to lose, I proactively challenged destiny by refusing to be held to ransom by pessimism and niggling doubts. I succumbed to my enthusiasm and allowed myself to dream.
My mobile phone beeped, the message read: ‘Can’t sleep didn’t know that a nice young Paul is able to produce such a thunderstorm in Mikey’s head going to try to call you betw 12 & 2pm. See you soon M.’
I couldn’t wait that long and texted him back. It was four in the morning. After a forty-five minute conversation with Michael, I went off to bed knowing that the initial impression I had given him was a very good one.
I spent the next day relaxing in the swimming pool at Hotel Cenit, a German-owned bar situated on top of a hill directly behind Monroe’s. Friendly gay staff catered to a mixed crowd of mainly German and Dutch tourists who were guests of the adjoining hotel. I was totally comfortable up there, although outnumbered; it was as if the breeders were out of place there, not the puffs. The music played and expressive dancing dictated the atmosphere, which was happy and gay. They also did toasted cheese sandwiches.
Gazing out from such a high vantage point I could see over the whitewashed walls and well beyond the terracotta-tiled roof-tops below. Like the cats that slinked about them, I caught a fresh breeze and took in the breath-taking oceanic vistas. It’s true I was feeling more emotionally susceptive that day and wasn’t always open to perceive such beauty. I think I was experiencing some type of euphoric turmoil. As if viewing life through a child’s kaleidoscope, fragments of my rose-tinted existence would merge to create such pleasing patterns, only to disperse then reform into equally acceptable arrangements. This powerful flood of sensations was positive and happy, perhaps something related to, but not necessarily, love.
Ken, who often took a dip in the pool before starting his bar shift, met me at the Cenit. He was pleased that Michael and I had hit it off but I got the impression he was not fully convinced Michael was going to return. I was. So I deflected the advances of another guy I liked the look of, for fear of jinxing it.
Michael informed me he would be back on Saturday morning. He couldn’t find a direct flight, being too short notice, so he was to fly to Barcelona on the Friday evening, wait until the small hours of Saturday then board a fifty-minute flight to Ibiza. It was hard to believe I was worth all that hassle and expense. He was making this extreme gesture for me, a dodgy whore.
I started to panic. The poor misguided guy was under the illusion of me being one thing and I was certainly not one thing. I was a whole number of things and not all of them were good. I decided I would have to come clean sooner rather than later as it wasn’t fair to string such a lovely man along. I would reveal all my cards then let him make a proper informed decision. I didn’t expect it to go my way once he possessed all the facts, but it was a gamble I had to take. I was not going to play him, he deserved better.
‘My dear Paul, I can’t hardly wait to meet you! I’m very excited I hug (?) you M.’
Michael sought no sanctuary behind ambiguous platitudes of non-commitment and showed a lot of courage to trust me with his huge heart. I found it typical of men to play it cool and be less forthcoming with terms of endearment. A bid perhaps to protect their emotions. It was refreshing to receive his unrestrained message of devotion. As I have no record of my responding text, I can only imagine I wrote back something of a similar theme.
I spent a lot of my holiday texting and phoning. Not only to Michael but also to all my friends. The telephone company’s exorbitant roaming rates were even more extortionate than I’d considered. I kept a copy of my bill: £496.62p for a total of three hours and six minutes of chat and forty-four text messages. I’m not sure how pricing worked but I think I first had to connect to the Spanish phone system at a local call rate, which then charged an international fee to redirect my call to England. Then Mercury stung me with an additional overseas fee to connect me to the receiver, who may also have been charged. The cost of my bragging was a hefty one.
I knew as I enthused with gushy sentiment and proclaimed my intense adoration to who was, in reality, a mysterious stranger, it all sounded typical me. I ignored all their warnings and advice on how to act and behave. They cited Eric as an example. How could I not fully trust all the romantic uttering I had heard? I’d been right there and seen only sincerity and affection as I gazed deeply into his eyes. What friends considered the wrong way was for me the only way. I couldn’t curtail my eagerness and if I came across childlike, it’s because I was. Richard often called me Paulyanna; said I was naive like the girl from that old movie called Pollyanna. I took it as a compliment as I thought she was rather lovely and he was correct, in parts.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘pollyannaish’ as an excessively cheerful or optimistic person. It was true I’d always clung onto optimism. My solitary lifebuoy in a raging sea of pessimism, it had supported me through unchartered waters, sometimes tentatively in blind hope, but at other times forcefully enough to sweep aside the strongest wave of doubt. Without such buoyancy I couldn’t have coasted through life or simply gone with the flow as I had so often done. Hopes and dreams had fuelled my entire journey. To me the opposite of optimism wasn’t pessimism. It was reality.
‘Hi my dear, in 24 hours I can touch you Unbelievable I’m very happy, I kiss you my lovely Lovell M.’
Not the most eloquent poem, but enough to knock the sleep from my eyes and leave me in raptures all morning. In our last conversation Michael mentioned he had been to his former lover’s home to retrieve his spare toothbrush and had also told him about me. So once Michael returned I planned to take him to a nice quiet restaurant and bare my soul; see then if he still wanted to be with me. It would be an understatement to say I was nervous when every instinct I possessed cried out to me to preserve this happiness. My psyche knew if anything was to grow, the moral thing had to be done first.
My day was spent lounging by the Cenit pool, Michael’s packing and trudging around with luggage. That evening I was invited to Anfora by the guy whose advances I had deflected earlier. I wasn’t leading him on. I had harped on about Michael so much he knew exactly where he stood, terrible English or not. Besides, it was sort of normal to make instant acquaintances on holiday whether down on the beach or up at the bar. You chat, hang out, have a laugh, swap numbers and issue invitations, then make some promises you know will never amount to anything. We agreed to meet at Bar Kitsch and I got a few suspicious looks from Alan. I told him I couldn’t help being so popular.
Michael had set off at about six that evening and arrived safely in Barcelona. He had hours to wait for his connecting flight, which wasn’t until seven the following morning. He met up in some hotel bar with a friend of a friend, someone involved in diamond mining, and together with a Swiss diplomat polished off a ten-year-old bottle of malt whiskey. As I staggered home pissed across a barren landscape, I lost sight of my German drinking partner who had dipped into the bushes. The area I stumbled through was notorious for late-night gay cruising. It was six in the morning. My mobile phone rang. Michael, who was still at Barcelona airport, wanted to clarify the meaning of the word “cancelled”.
I woke up four hours later. Michael’s warm body had slipped into bed beside me. I had left my door unlocked. Michael said the state I was in meant I was incapable of giving him any more advice than to go find a lady. Funny how I still managed to find my way through that scary scrubland all alone. I never did see that guy again.
There was no hangover – I don’t imagine there was time. We had scrambled eggs for breakfast at the Spanish café next door and then walked along the beach. We ate an ice cream outside a gay café on the front. Like two lovers, we got lost in conversation and drifted out on a pedal-boat. We took some photographs, then revisited the romantic flower garden to eat fruit salad. We frolicked in the cove and I clung onto his neck instead of my lilo. There were so many kisses, at times five in a row.
Next came the moment of truth. All day I had avoided it and now I had steered us to a fairly quaint restaurant in Ibiza Old Town. We had managed to get a table outside; it was so romantic. Clammy-palmed I sat and nervously fidgeted until I plucked up the courage to shatter what remained of the most perfect day of my life. When my earnest confession was met with laughter, I was stunned. Michael appeared to be mocking me. What was I thinking to imagine anything better and how even more foolish I felt when he turned to me and said, “What? You’ve got a short memory. You told me all on the first night that we meet.”
From that moment on I had great difficulty keeping both feet on the ground. It was like a fairy-tale come true. My victorious knight had returned from another perilous quest to proclaim his undying love to me. My dignity, which I expected to be trampled underfoot as he galloped off, had been gently scooped up, dusted down and lovingly presented back to me.
CHAPTER 42 Salutations
So began a whirlwind romance that was to uproot me from all I knew and, in some respects, all that I had accomplished. Three days we spent consumed in each other’s smiles, hugs and kisses. So evident was our passion that every beach hawker and portrait photographer homed in on us to sell their wares. We bought a lot of tat including a Pikachu Pokémon watch, which turned out not to be water resistant, but nothing mattered because to us everything was beautiful. Michael then returned to Switzerland and left me behind once again, only this time with a promise to meet back in London upon my return.
So intense was my desire to remain at his side that I physically ached. A gut-wrenching, hollow feeling like severe hunger replaced the warm contented gush of just moments before his departure. An illogical fear that I may never see him again and a sadness I didn’t recognise washed over me. It made me contemplate whether I should give everything up just to be with him.
‘I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you my darling.’
That message arrived two minutes after his taxi departed from Playa D’en Bossa. There was no ambivalence there. This plain-speaking text came exactly at the right time. As I dawdled along the shore back to Figueretas, a spate of sporadic blubbering and laughter at my foolishness continuously erupted from me. Michael had evoked so many dormant emotions in me that I struggled to control them. I reckon with tears of joy alone, I filled buckets. I speculated in my diary entry that evening that the way things stood I would probably be living in Switzerland by the same time next year.
My fear of flying reached new heights on my journey back to London. Once again as the plane left the ground, echoes of “too good to be true” reverberated between my ears. I gripped tightly to the armrests of my seat and implored the Lord to guide our flight to a safe landing.
I immediately visited Richard, whose fluctuating health was still poor. I sat with him all day and filled him in the way that girlfriends do on some of the more intimate details regarding Michael and our fledgling relationship. I quashed any notion that Michael was a holiday fling and rather callously went on and on about love and my new rich man. Ignorant and immature, I spared no thought to any regret Richard may have felt. I bragged that Michael had promised to visit at the weekend and had telephoned me daily since we met. I even showed him some of the text messages.
I expected my next phone call around tea-time. When it never came, I was easy. I knew there must have been some kind of hold up. I fully trusted that if Michael said something, he meant it. That trust lasted for a further eight hours until around midnight. Then I decided to try to call him. His mobile rang awhile – a long while. I’m the sort of person that pictures the receiver of the call turning a key in their front door or frantically trying to locate their phone. I’m also annoying so I let it ring and ring and ring. I never imagine I’m being ignored. A groggy-sounding Michael eventually answered. My initial guilt for waking him soon turned to dread as fragments of his involvement in a fatal car crash were pieced together. I could hear bleeping sounds in the background. Michael was lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a drip.
