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By prior arrangement they meet in the bar – Richard is perched high on a bar stool and is already halfway down his G&T when Jeremy steps out of the cab – ever-punctual – at twelve-thirty, and by the time a slightly harassed-looking James walks in twenty minutes later to the inevitable gentle ribbing about his lateness, Jeremy’s nearly at the end of the first of many glasses of rosé.
‘Sorry!’ James says, pushing his hair out of his eyes. ‘Took a bit longer to do the last few Italy voiceovers than I was expecting. Looks like you’ve made a decent start, though…?’
Jeremy looks at him fondly and hands him a glass of white wine from the other bottle in the ice bucket on the bar. ‘I got a Chablis if that’s…?’
James smiles and takes a drink before nodding approvingly and raising his glass. ‘Happy birthday, Jez,’ he says, warmly. Jeremy looks slightly misty-eyed as he clinks his glass gently against James’s, then against Richard’s. Richard reaches out and is about to put his hand on Jeremy’s arm when the Maitre d’ approaches.
‘Your table is ready, gentlemen, if you’d like to follow me?’ A waiter appears seemingly from nowhere to transport the wine from the bar to the table, and there’s mild-mannered joshing as they walk to the table because Richard makes what James calls ‘an old person oof noise’ as he clambers off the bar stool.
‘I’m not as old as birthday boy!’ protests Richard.
‘Of course you’re not!’ Jeremy retorts, elbowing Richard gently in the ribs. ‘You’re still thirty-eight!’
Richard rolls his eyes, and all three of them are chuckling as they walk into the small and rather opulent private dining room, all white starched linens and polished silver cutlery. It’s the sort of place where the discreet staff pull the chair out for diners to sit down, and two gins in, Richard finds this mildly hilarious. James calls him a pikey for it.
Suitably arranged around the table, Richard and James put on reading glasses to tackle the menu. Jeremy pats his trouser pockets, looks inside his jacket, and then murmurs a ‘thank you’ as James wordlessly removes his own glasses and passes them to Jeremy. ‘You’re going to have to get one of those chains for them, to wear around your neck.’ James laughs.
‘I could’ Jeremy says, ‘But I’d probably get it caught on an electric fence or a sheep and throttle myself to death.’
‘On a sheep?!’ James guffaws.
‘I was going to get laser eye surgery,’ Richard interjects. ‘But I was scared they might miss and…’
‘What, and laser your brain instead’? Jeremy snorts, before James, whose laugh is now worryingly close to becoming the hacking wheeze that causes passers-by to ask if he’s quite alright, adds ‘or his teeth!’
‘I have not had my…!’
‘Gentlemen, are you ready to order’ asks the Maitre d’, calmly. Jeremy, James and Richard look like naughty schoolboys but manage to hold it together for long enough to order food – and more wine - before collapsing into giggles.
For the next hour or so they eat and drink companionably. They talk about the demise of DriveTribe, Jeremy’s adventures into beer production, James’s Italy trip, and just how much of a hard-on Richard got for Victoria Coren Mitchell when they were filming Brain Reaction. Eventually, and inevitably, talk turned to Jeremy’s Sunday Times Magazine article.
‘It was a difficult read.’ Richard said, matter-of-factly. ‘Mindy had tears in her eyes – said it reminded her of her dad getting old.’
James nodded. ‘It was an incredible piece, though, Jez. It must’ve been hard to write?’
Jeremy sits back. ‘The hardest part was trying to think about all the things I’ve done and summing it up in three lines so the sub-editor didn’t slather it in red pen and tell me off for bragging.’
‘So out of all of it, Jez, what is the best thing you’ve ever done?’ Richard asks, leaning forward and observing Jeremy’s face. ‘North Pole?’
‘I’d like to point out that I was there as well – and driving some of the time’ James notes, as Jeremy shakes his head.
‘Not the North Pole’ he says.
‘Bolivia, then?’ Richard asks, ‘Vietnam? Botswana? Britcar Race! Driving the Veyron?’ He takes a breath and then looks serious for a moment ‘Or the birth of your kids?’
‘The birth of his first lamb.’ James smiles.
‘None of that.’ Jeremy’s eyes are bright with moisture now and he looks from James to Richard tenderly before quietly saying ‘Two thousand and four. That night in Monte Carlo. The first time we… That’s the best thing I’ve ever done.’ His voice cracks. ‘And every night we’ve spent together since.’
Richard blushes. James swallows hard and slides a hand over Jeremy’s, feeling the warm, dry skin beneath his own. ‘Oh Jeremy.’
**
The throbbing of the 5.9-litre V12 engine, couple with the thrill of the speed and incredible noise of the engine as he powered through France meant that Jeremy had been near-priapic all day in the DB9. He was elated to have won the race, of course, but disappointed that he had to wait so long for the arrival of James and Richard. The undercurrent of…something he couldn’t quite bear to name had been running between them for months now, and he found himself feeling envious of James and Richard having the whole day to spend together, sitting close by on trains, jeans-clad thighs pressed against each other… He swallows his thoughts and, to distract himself, orders another glass of Champagne from a harassed-looking waiter.
He hears them before he sees them – a cacophony of cameramen and sound crew, followed by James’s frustrated cry of ‘Oh, Cock!’
‘You two look very stressed and tired’, he says, for the cameras, but what he really wants to say waits until later, when the crew have packed up and gone and the three of them are alone around the small café table. Richard and James have recovered from their luggage-encumbered dash from the station, and enough wine has been consumed to relax them. After the heat of the evening, the night is becoming chilly – James has put his hastily-discarded jacket back on but is shivering slightly - and the staff at the Café de Paris are making it clear it’s closing time, shuffling chairs and wiping tables.
Jeremy looks between the two younger men. James’s eyes look bluer than ever under the twinkling lights of the Place du Casino. He’s stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and his pianist’s fingers grip his nearly-empty glass in a way that makes Jeremy think of them gripping something else entirely. Richard’s floral shirt is open at the neck, and Jeremy can’t help thinking about undoing more buttons and licking the taut flesh beneath. The heady combination of race-winning adrenaline, sparkling wine and lust spurs Jeremy on.
‘I think we all know we want this,’ he says, quietly. ‘We should go to bed.’
They did. And they did.
**
Richard finishes the last mouthful of his wine and leans over, looking conspiratorially between the two older men who are, for want of a better word, holding hands at the table.
‘Shall we order dessert or…?’
James pushes his hair back off his face, licks his lips and in a low voice says, ‘I think a different kind of afters might be more appropriate on this occasion? We could go to mine?’
Suddenly, Jeremy doesn’t feel quite so old.
He asks the Maitre d’ to call a cab.