Paris Trance (14 page)

‘Oh yes, I hate sulking. Life is too long for that.’

‘Do you mean too short?’

‘No, too long.’

‘You’re right,’ said Luke, hugging her. ‘But we should get a move on. We’re meant to meet Alex and Sahra in ten minutes.’

The four of them arrived at the party at the perfect time: just late enough to make them wish they had arrived earlier. Sahra had been invited by the husband whose wife was using her birthday as a chance to exhibit her paintings: large, skin-coloured nudes of her husband. In the flesh, the husband was clothed in a white shirt, patterned waistcoat and dark trousers. He helped Sahra off with her coat. She was wearing black jeans and a white, sleeveless blouse. It was the first time Alex had seen her arms. The wife, the artist, was wearing a shimmery top and an ankle-length greenish skirt with a long slit up one leg. It was an outfit that declared a mature understanding of parties, of the need to lend the evening a slight erotic frisson which, at around midnight, would give way to a franker, tipsy flirtatiousness. It was the perfect outfit for a hostess. Alex and Luke handed over shopping bags full of wine and beer. In return the husband poured glasses of champagne.
It was amazing champagne. Luke helped himself to a beer. The bell went again and the husband left them to toast his wife who made the four of them feel as welcome as if they had all been invited. She introduced Sahra and Alex to a painter who was also a writer and then went off to accept gifts from the latest arrivals. They moved into the main room, stood near a piano, listening to the painter who was also a writer talk about painting and writing. There were about forty people in the room and except for the walls which were lined with paintings of the naked husband, it did not appear crowded. The bell to the apartment was ringing frequently. Everyone was drinking champagne except Luke who preferred canned drinks, beer essentially. In the kitchen a table was loaded with food, red serviettes and plates. Having finished his first glass of champagne, Alex, as hungry as he was thirsty, loaded tabbouleh and other salads on to a plate. Aware of a desire to hang, puppy-like, around Sahra, he made a special effort to do the opposite, introducing himself to strangers, levering these introductions into conversations that gradually took him away from her. Every time he looked back she was talking to someone else. Nicole came and stood by him, complimented him on his suit, asked how it was going.

‘The party?’

‘No. Sahra.’

‘Who knows. What do you think?’

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you missed an important chance when we arrived.’

‘Really? What chance?’

‘You could have helped her off with her coat.’

‘That kind of thing always seems a bit too attentive, too gallant.’

‘No. You don’t understand. Helping a woman with her coat is a perfect, formal way of establishing some kind of physical intimacy.’

‘Jesus, that’s right! I’ve never thought of that before. I’ll help her on with it at the end.’

‘That might be even better. Helping her on with her coat is a little more formal. Helping her take off her coat might be a bit too – a bit too like undressing her.’

‘Shit, I wish I
had
helped her off with it!’ laughed Alex. ‘Now I can’t wait for the party to end so that I can help her on with her coat.’ When in pursuit of a woman, Alex thought, your friend’s girlfriend will always be your best co-conspirator. Nicole took a sip of wine and immediately began coughing, spluttering.

‘It went down the wrong throat,’ she said, her eyes suddenly wet with tears.

In another corner of the room a grinning German passed Luke a joint.

‘Does it have tobacco in it?’ he asked. The guy thought it did. Luke said he would pass. He also declined the offer of champagne when a bottle was angled towards him. He saw Nicole leave Alex’s side and make her way to him across the room. A few moments later he saw Sahra touch Alex on the shoulder.

‘Are you ignoring me?’ she said.

‘Hi. No. How are you? I was . . .’

‘Looking at that woman’s stomach.’

‘Yes, I was. There’s no denying it.’ When Nicole had moved away he’d found himself doing exactly that: contemplating the bare stomach of a woman standing a few feet away from him.

‘Do you like that? The ring through her navel?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I have one like that.’

‘Do you?’

‘But not in the same place.’ Embarrassingly, Alex was sure he was blushing. He felt hot. ‘You’re supposed to ask where,’ said Sahra. Alex took a gulp of champagne but there was nothing left in his glass.

‘Where?’ he said, sure that the next word he was going to hear would be ‘nipple’ or ‘clitoris’.

Sahra shook her head: ‘Joking. And you’re blushing.’

A woman with long Spanish hair sang a couple of songs, accompanied by two men who played guitars. The guitarists were grey-haired, neatly dressed in sports jackets and ties. Luke loved this tradition – and anything he loved automatically became part of some ‘tradition’ or other – of the soberly dressed guitarist in polished shoes revealing a slight gap of pale flesh between turn-up and sock. In the instrumental break the guitarists sparred with each other before the singer returned for the last verse of the song. It wasn’t exactly flamenco but it appealed to the spirit of flamenco. Sahra translated for Alex who listened intently. The first song was about separation, parting and blood. The second was about betrayal, faithlessness and blood. The third was a mixture of the preceding two. There were no songs about reconciliations, meetings and returns. When the last song had finished the two guitarists shook hands and the singer kissed them both and everyone applauded. Later a woman in a white blouse read out some poetry that turned out to have been by Verlaine. More joints were smoked. Luke was stoned. The music on the stereo was jazz.

‘Too jazzy,’ said Sahra. ‘I hate jazzy jazz. The more like jazz it is the less I like it.’

‘I like it,’ said Alex.

‘Der-
iv
-ative! der-
iv
-ative!’ sang Sahra, syncopating the word, holding out her glass to a woman pouring champagne. People danced a little to the jazzy jazz and then the music changed and they started dancing to rock ’n’ roll.

Taking the opportunity to start airing preferences of his own Alex said he hated rock ’n’ roll – but this particular preference was lost on Sahra: Jean-Paul had arrived, had walked straight over to her. They kissed, began talking, leaving Alex with only his drink for company. He found Luke who was grumbling about the music: he wanted to dance but the music, he claimed, was ‘undanceable’.

‘I’ve actually got a tape with me. Maybe I can seize control of the stereo,’ he said.

‘That might not be such a good idea, Luke.’

‘You’re probably right. But it’s a party with no clear musical policy,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get another drink.’

‘Jean-Paul’s arrived.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘That guy who was with Sahra at the Petit Centre.’

‘The guy she was with at the Petit Centre?’

‘That’s exactly what I just said,’ said Alex. ‘They’re over there. Look.’

They were laughing together. Sahra had her hand on his shoulder.

‘What am I going to do?’

‘You may as well leave now to avoid further humiliation,’ said Luke. Sahra looked over their way, Jean-Paul too. They came over. Sahra re-introduced them. Jean-Paul was formal, friendly in a not so friendly way. He wasn’t sure exactly when they had met.

‘Au Petit Centre,’ said Alex.

‘Ah, le Petit Centre,’ said Jean-Paul, lighting a cigarette.

‘Yes, the Petit Centre,’ said Luke. Sahra left the three of them together. Luke did most of the talking. After a few minutes Jean-Paul excused himself. Luke and Alex watched him cross the room, heading towards Sahra.

‘I’d like to fight him,’ said Alex.

‘Sure, champ.’

‘Smash his face in.’

‘Break his nose.’

‘Bust up his kidneys.’

‘Make him piss blood.’

‘Kick fuck out of him.’

‘Fuck him up bad.’

‘Hurt him.’

‘Hurt him and fuck up his face. That’s it, champ,’ said Luke. ‘Forget it, champ. Look at him. He’s finished.’

‘You think?’

‘Sure. It’s over between them. Probably nothing even started. And now even that nothing is over with. He’s out of the loop. He is out of the fuckin’ loop, man. OK?’

‘Sure.’

‘Now I’m going to get a drink.’

‘OK.’

‘Hey champ. You’re OK yeah?’

‘I’m OK.’

‘You sure you’re OK, champ?’

‘I’m OK.’ Alex stayed where he was. Jean-Paul was talking to a guy Alex didn’t know and Sahra was dancing with someone else he didn’t know. After three indifferent songs, ‘Get Back’ by the Beatles came on and Sahra stopped dancing and went over to Nicole. Alex saw Luke on his own and the four friends segregated themselves by sex. The two pairs could see each other talking. More exactly, the men leaned against the wall, wearing their manly suits, saying nothing, watching the women talk. Nicole had her hand on Sahra’s arm. Luke and Alex could not hear what they were saying but they saw them giggling.

‘Man, what are those bitches talking about?’ said Luke. Seeing the men watching them Sahra whispered to Nicole who then glanced at Luke, held up her hand, thumb and forefinger a couple of inches apart, before they both doubled up laughing. Luke mimed a sardonic belly laugh.

‘Right, we’ll show them,’ he said to Alex. ‘We’re going to have a conversation about the vampire film I saw on TV a few nights ago.’

‘What about werewolf films? The way the escalation of terror is always indicated not by atrocity but lexicographically, by consulting a dictionary. An old, heavy dictionary. A dictionary of the arcane. “Lycanthropy: here we are . . .”’

‘That’s a
werewolf
conversation. I’m talking about a vampire conversation. Talking about trying to make sense of that convention whereby the traveller is on his way to Castle Dracula.’

‘Wind, wolves, rain, lightning. The coachman lashing the horses,’ said Alex, getting in the groove.

‘And after lashing the horses the coachman sets down the traveller at an inn—’

‘A lonely inn.’

‘Called something like The-Creaky-Sign-Blowing-In-The-Storm-Arms and everyone in the pub turns hostile when he tells them where he’s going. A lightning flash fills the window at this point, obviously. But why, instead of explaining to him that he’d be better off going somewhere else, why do they suddenly turn all sullen and virtually show him the door? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It’s because they realize the whole cycle is about to start all over again,’ said Alex. He saw Nicole put her glass neatly on a table and walk down the corridor. There was no sign of Jean-Paul but another man came over and began talking to Sahra.

‘But if they just let him stay a couple of nights till the storm died down and he then got the coach back to England, to his fiancée, everything would be fine. From time to time he could send them a postcard, thanking them for their hospitality. I would prefer that to the whole dismal bit about Dracula. Basically by the time he gets to Castle Dracula it’s all pretty well downhill. What I like is the cosiness that the prospect of horror builds up.’

‘You wouldn’t get that cosiness without the horror.’

‘Just the prospect of horror would do. I’d happily sit through two hours of jovial scenes in a Transylvanian pub. Culminating with him stepping outside into the storm-washed landscape, nursing a killer hangover, squinting at the terrible damage outside: uprooted trees, broken branches, omens of an obscure catastrophe narrowly averted. And there, in the background, in plain view, framed by the blue sky: the castle. What do you think?’

‘I think I’m dying for a piss,’ said Alex.

He went into the bathroom just as Nicole came out. She smiled at him, a little hurriedly. As he locked himself into the bathroom, Alex understood why: the smell of shit was heavy in the air. Probably her shit smelled just as bad as a man’s but in this context – an expensive bathroom with gleaming mirrors and towels of hotel whiteness – it mixed with the strawberry scents of oils and lotions in a way that, as Alex pissed into the white bowl in which no trace of excrement could be seen, seemed specifically feminine, not unpleasant, almost exotic.

The other three had all gone out on to the balcony. Alex joined them. An apartment opposite was filled with the blue lurch of television. It had started raining. Luke and Nicole put their arms around each other, alerting Alex to the way that he was not at liberty to put his arm around Sahra. The music changed: a track Nicole liked. She led Luke back into the party to dance, leaving Sahra and Alex alone. We are on our own on the balcony, Alex said to himself. He thought about trying to kiss Sahra but was aware of the rancid dryness the champagne had left in his mouth. She had been drinking champagne too, but she had also been chewing gum which – if advertisements were anything to go by – had rendered her mouth fresh and kissable. On the one hand the thought of her gum-fresh mouth made him
want
to kiss her, on the other it made him still more conscious of the parched sourness, the
un
kissability of his own mouth. He took a gulp of beer. Sahra was leaning with her forearms on the balcony rail, a glass held loosely between her fingers, staring through the rain. Alex was on the brink of kissing her – on the brink, rather, of plucking up the courage to do so – when the painter who was also a writer joined them on the balcony. He was carrying a bottle of champagne and filled Sahra’s empty glass with overflowing fizz that subsided almost to nothing. He was drunk but Sahra was adamant,

‘If you’re a painter you should just paint.’

‘Nonsense,’ said the painter who was also a writer.

‘There have been no painters who were good writers.’

Alex tried to think of one who was, but the painter who was also a writer beat him to it. ‘What about Van Gogh?’ he said. ‘His letters are superb, some of the greatest letters ever written.’

‘Yes,’ said Sahra. ‘But have you seen the paintings?’

That was the moment that Alex knew, without question, that he was in love with her. He suspected that the artist who was also a writer had fallen in love with her too: he rocked back on his feet, held out his hands – bottle in one, glass in the other – and called out to the street: ‘This woman: she is too much for me. Ha! Too much for the world.’ With that he headed back inside, chuckling, shaking his head and saying, ‘Too much’.