‘I’ve got just the treatment you need. You must pop into my parlour.’ Grace was running his fingers through the biker’s curls. ‘Hot oil and a few sessions of deep penetration. You won’t know yourself, doll.’ The biker looked bemused. His girlfriend looked furious. I wondered that Grace’s boldness didn’t get him into more trouble. Perhaps it did. Grace was always oblique about his sexual exploits.
When Grace saw me standing at the bar, he let go of the biker’s hair and came over.
‘She’s on the turn,’ he grinned. ‘Almost ready for a consultation.’ He ordered some drinks from the bitch barmaid and we went to a table in the corner.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Qué pasa, querido?’ I told him what the Scotsman had said.
‘For Christ’s sake, doll,’ Grace could see my agitation. ‘You can’t be jealous of the past. God, imagine! We’d be forever fretting about Michelangelo and what’s his name, Wystan and Chester, Noddy and Big Ears — every fag couple that ever lived. Get a grip, darling.’ Grace was right of course. I had to discard all that anxious baggage.
‘I think I’ll leave you to it,’ I said. ‘I’m going to walk home. Get some air in my hair, as they say.’ Grace leaned over and kissed me.
‘Take care, doll,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry. I’ll call you tomorrow. Wish me luck.’ He made his way back over to the jukebox.
It was a balmy night. The air was soft and the deserted streets seemed to be suffused with blue light. The gardens of the renovated bungalows and villas seemed to be spilling out into the street and in the silence I had a sense of things sprouting up out of the earth, tendrils grasping, worms sifting.
Suddenly there was a commotion behind me and I turned to see the most beautiful sight. Three boys on skateboards were cruising down the footpath. They were poised motionless on the roaring boards like deities, with their shirts tied around their waists. Their tight young bodies gleamed in the blue light and their bleached white hair whipped like electricity. I stepped back against a hedge to let them pass. They coasted to the bottom of the street and then they were gone and it was quiet again. I felt my heart beating and it was as though something extraordinary had happened. It was as though, in some way, I had been blessed.