He ignores me. He does not take his eyes from Erica. "Erica, please," he entreats.
She lowers her head and looks down at her shaking hands.
"No," she says desperately. "I can"t. I"m marrying Jean-Louis. I said I would tell you tonight. Please let me go." She shakes herself free of his arms and brushes past him, out into the night. I am glad to see her go.
I have never seen a man look so abject. Kramer stands with his head bowed in defeat, his jaw muscles bulging, his eyes fixed-as if he"s just witnessed some dreadful atrocity. I despise him like this, so impoverished and vulnerable, nothing like the Kramer I knew.
I lean forward. "Kramer," I say softly, confidingly. "You can tell me now. You did it, didn"t you? You came back that night while I was away." I spread the slip of transparent paper on the table. "You see I have the facts here." I keep my voice low. "But don"t worry, it"s between you and me. I just need to know the truth."
Kramer sits down unsteadily. He examines the receipt. Then he looks up at me as if I"m quite mad.
"Of course I came back," he whispers bitterly. "I drove back that night to tell Joan I was leaving her, that I wanted Erica." He shakes his head in grim irony. "Instead I saw everything. From the garden. I saw you sitting in your study. You had a kind of bandage round your head. It covered one eye." He points to my right eye. "You were typing with one hand. Your left hand. You only used one hand. All the time. I saw you take the gun from the drawer with your left hand." He paused. "I knew what you were going to do. I didn"t want to stop you." He stands up. "You are a sick man," he says, "with your sick worries. You can delude yourself perhaps, but n.o.body else." He looks at me as if he can taste vomit in his mouth. "I stood there and listened for the shot. I went along with the game. I share the guilt. But it was you who did it." He turns and walks out of the cafe.
KRAMER IS LYING. It is a lie. The sort of mad impossible fantastic lie a desperate man would dream up. I know he is lying because I know the truth. It"s locked in my brain. It is inviolate. I have my body"s authority for it.
Still, there is a problem now with this lie he"s set loose. Mendacity is a tenacious beast. If it"s not nipped in the bud it"s soon indistinguishable from the truth. I told him he didn"t need to worry. But now...
He is bound to return to this melancholy bar before long. I know the ba.n.a.l nostalgia of such disappointed men-haunting the sites of their defeats-and the powerful impulses of unrequited love. I will have to see Kramer again; sort things out once and for all.
I signal the waiter for my bill. As I close my book a sentence at the bottom of the page catches my eye: Many logicians and philosophers are deeply unhappy about bizarre situations.
A curse on them all, I say.
Gifts
We land in Nice. Pan Am. I go through customs without much trouble and stand around the arrivals hall wondering what to do next-if there"s a bus into town; whether I should get a taxi. I see a man-black hair, white face, blue suit-looking curiously at me. I decide to ignore him.
He comes over, though.
"Tupperware?" he asks unctuously. He p.r.o.nounces it tooperwere tooperwere.
"Sorry?" I say.
"Ah, English," he says with some satisfaction, as if he"s done something clever. "Mr. Simpson." He picks up my suitcase. It"s heavier than he expects. He has tinted spectacles and his black hair is getting thin at the front. He looks about forty.
"No," I say. I tell him my name.
He puts my suitcase down. He looks around the arrivals hall at the few remaining pa.s.sengers. I am the only one not being met.
"Merde," he swears softly. He shrugs his shoulders. "Do you want a ride into town?" he swears softly. He shrugs his shoulders. "Do you want a ride into town?"
We go outside to his car. It"s a big Citroen. The back is filled with plastic beakers, freezer boxes, salad crispers and such like. He puts my case in the boot. He shovels stacks of pamphlets off the front seat before he lets me into his car. He explains that he has been sent to meet his English opposite number from Tupperware UK. He says he a.s.sumed I was English from my clothes. In fact, he goes on to claim that he can guess any European"s nationality from the kind of clothes he or she is wearing. I ask him if he can distinguish Norwegians from Danes and for some reason he seems to find this very funny.
We drive off smartly, following the signs for Nice centre ville centre ville. I can"t think of anything to say, as my French isn"t good enough and somehow I don"t like the idea of talking to this man in English. He sits very close to the steering-wheel and whistles softly through his teeth, occasionally raising one hand in rebuke at any car that cuts in too abruptly on him. He asks me, in French, how old I am and I tell him I"m eighteen. He says I look older than that.
After a while he reaches into the glove compartment and takes out some photographs. He pa.s.ses them over to me.
"You like?" he says in English.
They are pictures of him on a beach standing by some rocks. He is absolutely naked. He looks in good shape for a forty-year-old man. In one picture I see he"s squatting down and some trick of the sun and shadow makes his c.o.c.k seem enormously long.
"Very nice," I say, handing them back, "but non merci." non merci."
He drops me in the middle of the Promenade des Anglais. We shake hands and he drives off. I stand for a while looking down on the small strip of pebble beach. It"s January and the beach is empty. The sky is packed with grey clouds and the sea looks an unpleasant blue-green. For some reason I was expecting sunshine and parasols. I let my eyes follow the gentle curve of the Baie des Anges. I start at the airport and travel along the sweep of the coast. The palm trees, the neat little Los Angeleno-style hotels with their clipped poplars and fancy wrought-ironwork, along past the first of the apartment blocks, blind and drab with their shutters firmly down, past the Negresco with its pink sugary domes, past the Palais de la Mediterranee, along over the old Port, completing the slow arc at the promontory of Cap St.-Jean, surmounted by its impossible villa. I see the ferry from Corsica steaming gamely into harbour. I stand looking for a while until I begin to feel a bit cold.
It"s Sunday so I can"t enrol for my courses at the university until the next day. I carry my case across the Promenade des Anglais, go up one street and book into the first hotel I see. It"s called the Hotel Astoria. I go down some steps into a dim foyer. An old man gives me a room.
I sit in my room reading for most of the evening. At about half past nine I go out for a coffee. Coming back to the hotel I notice several young girls standing in front of brightly lit shop windows in the Rue de France. Despite the time of year they are wearing boots and hot pants. They all carry umbrellas (unopened) and swing bunches of keys. I walk past them two or three times but they don"t pay much attention. I observe that some of them are astoundingly pretty. Every now and then a car stops, there is a brief conversation, and one of the girls gets in and is driven away.
Later that night as I am sitting on my bed reading, there is a knock on my door. It turns out to be the fat daughter of the hotel manager. He has told her I am English and she asks if I will help her do a translation that she"s been set for homework.
I enrol at the university. This takes place at a building called the Centre Universitaire Mediterraneen or c.u.m as it"s generally known (the French p.r.o.nounce it "c.u.me"). The building is on the Promenade des Anglais and looks like a small, exclusive art gallery. Inside there is a huge lecture room with a dull mythological mural on three walls. This morning I am the first to arrive and there is a hushed marmoreal stillness in the place. In a small office I enrol and pay my fees. I decide to postpone my first cla.s.s until the next day as I have to find somewhere to live. A secretary gives me a list of addresses where I can rent a room. I look for the cheapest. Mme. D"Amico, it says at the bottom of the list, 4 Rue Dante. I like the address.
As I leave the Centre I see some of my fellow students for the first time. They all seem to be foreign-in the sense that not many are French. I notice a tall American girl surrounded by chattering Nigerians. There are some Arabs. Some very blond girls whom I take to be Scandinavian. Soon the capacious marble-floored entrance hall begins to fill up as more and more people arrive for their cla.s.ses. I hear the pop-pop of a motor bike in the small courtyard at the front. Two young guys with long hair come in talking English. Everyone seems happy and friendly. I leave.
Rue Dante is not far from the Centre. Number four is a tall old apartment block with bleached shutters and crumbling stonework. On the ground floor is a cafe. CAVE D DANTE it says in plastic letters. I ask the concierge for Mme. D"Amico and am directed up three flights of stairs to the top floor. I ring the bell, mentally running through the phrases I have prepared. it says in plastic letters. I ask the concierge for Mme. D"Amico and am directed up three flights of stairs to the top floor. I ring the bell, mentally running through the phrases I have prepared. "Mme, D"Amico? Je suis etudiant anglais. Je cherche une chambre. On m"a donne votre nom au Centre Universitaire Mediterraneen." "Mme, D"Amico? Je suis etudiant anglais. Je cherche une chambre. On m"a donne votre nom au Centre Universitaire Mediterraneen." I ring the bell again and hear vague stirrings from the flat. I sense I am being stared at through the peep-hole set in the solid wooden door. After a lengthy time of appraisal, it opens. I ring the bell again and hear vague stirrings from the flat. I sense I am being stared at through the peep-hole set in the solid wooden door. After a lengthy time of appraisal, it opens.
Mme. D"Amico is very small-well under five feet. She has a pale, thin, wrinkled face and grey hair. She is dressed in black. On her feet she is wearing carpet slippers which seem preposterously large, more suitable for a thirteen-stone man. I learn later that this is because sometimes her feet swell up like balloons. Her eyes are brown and, though a little rheumy, are bright with candid suspicion. However, she seems to understand my French and asks me to come in.
Her flat is unnervingly dark. This is because use of the electric lights is forbidden during hours of daylight. We stand in a long, gloomy hallway off which several doors lead. I sense shapes-a wardrobe, a hat-stand, a chest, even what I take to be a gas cooker, but I a.s.sume my eyes are not yet accustomed to the murk. Mme. D"Amico shows me into the first room on the left. She opens shutters. I see a bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe. The floor is made of loose red hexagonal tiles that click beneath my feet as I walk across to look out of the window. I peer down into the apartment building"s central courtyard. Far below, the concierge"s Alsatian is scratching itself. From my window I can see into at least five other apartments. I decide to stay here.
Turning round I observe the room"s smaller details. The table is covered with a red and brown checked oilcloth on which sits a tin ashtray with SUZE SUZE printed on it. On one wall Mme. D"Amico has affixed two posters. One is of Mont Blanc. The other is an SNCF poster of Biarritz. The sun has faded all the bright colours to grey and blue. Biarritz looks as cold and unwelcoming as the Alps. printed on it. On one wall Mme. D"Amico has affixed two posters. One is of Mont Blanc. The other is an SNCF poster of Biarritz. The sun has faded all the bright colours to grey and blue. Biarritz looks as cold and unwelcoming as the Alps.
I am not the only lodger at Mme. D"Amico"s. There is a muscle-bound taciturn engineer called Hugues. His room is separated from mine by the W.C. He is married and goes home every weekend to his wife and family in Gren.o.ble. Two days after I arrive, the phone rings while I am alone in the flat. It is Hugues" wife and she sounds nervous and excited. I somehow manage to inform her that Hugues is out. After some moments of incomprehension I eventually gather that it is imperative for Hugues to phone her when he comes in. I say I will give him the message. I sweat blood over that message. I get my grammar book and dictionary out and go through at least a dozen drafts. Finally I prop it by the phone. It was worth the effort. Hugues is very grateful and from that day more forthcoming, and Mme. D"Amico makes a point of congratulating me on my French. She seems more impressed by my error-free and correctly accented prose than by anything else about me. So much so that she asks me if I want to watch TV with her tonight. I sense that this is something of a breakthrough: Hugues doesn"t watch her TV. But then, maybe he has better things to do.
Almost without any exertion on my part, my days take on a pattern. I go to the Centre in the morning and afternoon for my courses. At lunch and in the evening I eat at the enormous university cafeteria up by the Law faculty. I return home, have a cup of coffee in the Cave Dante, then pa.s.s the rest of the evening watching TV with Mme. D"Amico and a neighbour-a fat jolly woman to whom I have never been introduced but whose name, I know, is Mme. Franchot.
Mme. D"Amico and Mme. Franchot sit in armchairs. I bring a wooden chair in from the hall and sit behind them, looking at the screen between their heads. While the TV is on, all other source of illumination is switched off and we sit and watch in a spectral grey light. Mme. D"Amico reads out loud every piece of writing that appears on the screen-the t.i.tles of programmes, the entire list of credits, the names and endors.e.m.e.nts of products being advertised. At first I find this intensely irritating and the persistent commentary almost insupportable. But she speaks fairly softly and after a while I get used to her voice.
We watch TV in Mme. D"Amico"s bedroom. She has no sitting room as such. I think that used to be the function of my room. Hugues sleeps in what was the kitchen. He has a sink unit at the foot of his bed. Mme. D"Amico cooks in the hall (I was right: it was a cooker) and washes up in the tiny bathroom. This contains only a basin and a bidet and there are knives and forks laid out alongside toothbrushes and flannels on a gla.s.s shelf. There is no bath, which proved something of a problem to me at the outset, as I"m quite a clean person. So every two or three days I go to the munic.i.p.al swimming baths at the Place Magnan. Formal, cheerless, cold, with pale-green tiles everywhere, but it stops me from smelling.
The fourth room in the flat is a dining room, though it"s never used for this purpose, as this is where Mme. D"Amico works. She works for her son, who is something-a shipper, I think-in the wine trade. Her job is to attach string to a label ill.u.s.trating the region the wine comes from and then to tie the completed label round the neck of a wine bottle. The room is piled high with crates of wine, which she sometimes calls on me to shift. Most days when I come back I see her sitting there, patiently tying labels round the necks of the wine bottles. It must be an incredibly boring job. I"ve no idea how much her son pays her but I suspect it"s very little. But Mme. D"Amico is methodical and busy. She works like h.e.l.l. People are always coming to take away the completed crates. I like to think she"s really stinging her son.
There are lots of girls I"d like to f.u.c.k who do courses with me at the Centre. Lots. I sit there in the cla.s.s with them and think about it, unable to concentrate on my studies. I"ve spoken to a few people but I can"t as yet call any of them friends. I know a Spanish girl and an English girl but they both live outside Nice with their parents. The English girl is called Victoria and is chased all day by a Tunisian called Rida. Victoria"s father was a group captain in the R.A.F. and has retired to live in Gra.s.se. "Out to Gra.s.se," Victoria calls it. Somehow I don"t think the group captain would like Rida. Victoria is a small, bland blonde. Not very attractive at all, but Rida is determined. You"ve got to admire his persistence. He doesn"t try anything on, is just courteous and helpful, tries to make Victoria laugh. He never leaves her side all day. I"m sure if he perseveres, his luck will turn. Victoria seems untroubled by his constant presence, but I can"t see anything in Rida that would make him attractive to a girl. He is of average height, wears bright-coloured, cheap-looking clothes. His hair has a semi-negroid kink in it which he tries to hide by ruthlessly brushing it flat against his head. But his hair is too long for this style to be effective and it sticks out at the sides and the back like a helmet or an ill-fitting navy cap.
There are genuine pleasures to be derived from having a room of one"s own. Sometimes at night I fling back the covers and m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e dreamily about the girls at the Centre. There is a Swedish girl called Danni whom I like very much. She has big b.r.e.a.s.t.s and long white-blond hair. Is very laughing and friendly. The only trouble is that one of her legs is considerably thinner than the other. I believe she had polio when young. I think about going to bed with her and wonder if this defect would put me off.
My relationship with Mme. D"Amico is very formal and correct. We converse in polite phrases that would not disgrace a Victorian drawing room. She asks me, one day, to fill out a white fiche fiche for the police-something, she a.s.sures me hastily, every resident must do. She notices my age on the card and raises her eyebrows in mild surprise. She says she hadn"t supposed me to be so young. Then one morning, apropos of nothing, she explains why she reads everything that appears on TV. It seems that Mme. Franchot is illiterate. If Mme. D"Amico didn"t relate them to her, she would never even know the names of the old films we watch nightly on Monte Carlo TV. I find I am surprisingly touched by this confidence. for the police-something, she a.s.sures me hastily, every resident must do. She notices my age on the card and raises her eyebrows in mild surprise. She says she hadn"t supposed me to be so young. Then one morning, apropos of nothing, she explains why she reads everything that appears on TV. It seems that Mme. Franchot is illiterate. If Mme. D"Amico didn"t relate them to her, she would never even know the names of the old films we watch nightly on Monte Carlo TV. I find I am surprisingly touched by this confidence.
One evening I go to a cafe with Rida after our courses and meet up with some of his Tunisian friends. They are all enrolled at one educational inst.i.tution or another for the sake of the carte d"etudiant carte d"etudiant. They tell me it"s very valuable, that they would not be allowed to stay in France if they didn"t possess one. Rida, it has to be said, is one of the few who actually tries to learn something. He shares a room with a man called Ali, who is very tall and dapper. Ali wears a blazer with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons which has a pseudo-English crest on the breast pocket. Ali says he bought it off a tourist. The English style is tres chic tres chic this year. We drink some beer. Rida tells me how he and Ali recently met a Swiss girl who was. .h.i.tch-hiking around Europe. They took her back to their room and kept her there. They locked her in during the day. Rida lowers his voice. " this year. We drink some beer. Rida tells me how he and Ali recently met a Swiss girl who was. .h.i.tch-hiking around Europe. They took her back to their room and kept her there. They locked her in during the day. Rida lowers his voice. "On l"a baisse," he tells me conspiratorially. he tells me conspiratorially. "Baisser. Tu comprends?" "Baisser. Tu comprends?" He says he"s sure she was on drugs, as she didn"t seem to mind, didn"t object at all. She escaped one afternoon and stole all their stuff. He says he"s sure she was on drugs, as she didn"t seem to mind, didn"t object at all. She escaped one afternoon and stole all their stuff.
The cafe is small, every shiny surface lined with grease. It gets hot as the evening progresses. There is one very hard-faced blond woman who works the cash register behind the bar; otherwise we are all men.
I drink too much beer. I watch the Tunisians sodomise the pinball machine, banging and humping their pelvises against the flat end. The four legs squeal their outrage angrily on the tiled floor. At the end of the evening I lend Rida and Ali twenty francs each.
Another phone call when I"m alone in the flat. It"s from a doctor. He says to tell Mme. D"Amico that it is all right for her to visit her husband on Sat.u.r.day. I am a little surprised. I never imagined Mme. D"Amico had a husband-because she always wears black, I suppose. I pa.s.s on the message and she explains that her husband lives in a sanatorium. He has a disease. She starts trembling and twitching all over in graphic ill.u.s.tration.
"Oh," I say. "Parkinson"s disease."
"Oui," she acknowledges. "C"est ca. Parkingsums." "C"est ca. Parkingsums."
This unsought-for partic.i.p.ation in Mme. D"Amico"s life removes another barrier. From this day on she uses my first name-always prefixed, however, by "Monsieur." "Monsieur Edward," she calls me. I begin to feel more at home.
I see that it was a misplaced act of generosity on my part to lend Rida and Ali that money as I am now beginning to run short myself. There is a postal strike in Britain which is lasting far longer than I expected. It is quite impossible to get any money out. Foolishly I expected the strike to be short-lived. I calculate that if I radically trim my budget I can last for another three weeks, or perhaps a little longer. a.s.suming, that is, that Rida and Ali pay me back.
When there is nothing worth watching on television I sit at the window of my room-with the lights off-and watch the life going on in the apartments round the courtyard. I can see Lucien, the patron patron of the Cave Dante, sitting at a table reading a newspaper. Lucien and his wife share their apartment with Lucien"s brother and his wife. They all work in the cafe. Lucien is a gentle bald man with a high voice. His wife has a moustache and old-fashioned black-framed almond-shaped spectacles. Lucien"s brother is a big hairy fellow called Jean-Louis who cooks in the cafe"s small kitchen. His wife is a strapping blonde who reminds me vaguely of Simone Signoret. One night she didn"t draw the curtains in her bedroom properly and I had quite a good view of her undressing. of the Cave Dante, sitting at a table reading a newspaper. Lucien and his wife share their apartment with Lucien"s brother and his wife. They all work in the cafe. Lucien is a gentle bald man with a high voice. His wife has a moustache and old-fashioned black-framed almond-shaped spectacles. Lucien"s brother is a big hairy fellow called Jean-Louis who cooks in the cafe"s small kitchen. His wife is a strapping blonde who reminds me vaguely of Simone Signoret. One night she didn"t draw the curtains in her bedroom properly and I had quite a good view of her undressing.
I am now running so low on money that I limit myself to one cup of coffee a day. I eat apples all morning and afternoon until it is time for my solitary meal in the university restaurant up by the fac du droit fac du droit. I wait until the end because then they give away free second helpings of rice and pasta if they have any left over. Often I am the only person in the shining well-lit hall. I sit eating bowl after bowl of rice and pasta while the floors are swabbed around me and I am gradually hemmed in by chairs being set on the tables. After that I wander around the centre of town for a while. At half nine I make my way back to the flat. The wh.o.r.es all come out at half nine precisely. It"s quite amazing. Suddenly they"re everywhere. Rue Dante, it so happens, is right in the middle of the red light district. Sometimes on my way back the girls solicit me. I laugh in a carefree manner, shrug my shoulders and tell them I"m an impoverished student. I have this fantasy that one night one of the girls will offer to do it free but so far I"ve had no success.
If I"ve saved up my cup of coffee for the evening, my day ends at the Cave Dante. I sit up at the zinc bar. Lucien knows my order by now and he sets about making up a grande creme grande creme as soon as I come in the door. On the top of the bar are baskets for brioches, croissants and pizza. Sometimes there are a few left over from breakfast and lunch. One night I have a handful of spare centimes and I ask Lucien how much the remaining bit of pizza costs. To my embarra.s.sment I still don"t have enough to buy it. I mutter something about not being hungry and I"ve changed my mind. Lucien looks at me for a moment and tells me to help myself. Now every night I go in and finish off what"s left. Each time I feel a flood of maudlin sentiment for the man, but he seems uneasy when I try to express my grat.i.tude. as soon as I come in the door. On the top of the bar are baskets for brioches, croissants and pizza. Sometimes there are a few left over from breakfast and lunch. One night I have a handful of spare centimes and I ask Lucien how much the remaining bit of pizza costs. To my embarra.s.sment I still don"t have enough to buy it. I mutter something about not being hungry and I"ve changed my mind. Lucien looks at me for a moment and tells me to help myself. Now every night I go in and finish off what"s left. Each time I feel a flood of maudlin sentiment for the man, but he seems uneasy when I try to express my grat.i.tude.
One of the problems about being poor is that I can"t afford to send my clothes to the "Pressings" "Pressings" any more. And Mme. D"Amico won"t allow washing in the flat. Dirty shirts mount up on the back of my single chair like so many soiled antimaca.s.sars. In a corner of the wardrobe I keep dirty socks and underpants. I occasionally spray the damp heap with my aerosol deodorant as if I were some fastidious pest controller. When all my shirts are dirty I evolve a complicated rota for wearing them. The idea is that I wear them each for one day, trying to allow a week between subsequent wears in the faint hope that the delay will somehow have rendered them cleaner. At least it will take longer for them to get any more. And Mme. D"Amico won"t allow washing in the flat. Dirty shirts mount up on the back of my single chair like so many soiled antimaca.s.sars. In a corner of the wardrobe I keep dirty socks and underpants. I occasionally spray the damp heap with my aerosol deodorant as if I were some fastidious pest controller. When all my shirts are dirty I evolve a complicated rota for wearing them. The idea is that I wear them each for one day, trying to allow a week between subsequent wears in the faint hope that the delay will somehow have rendered them cleaner. At least it will take longer for them to get really really dirty. At the weekend I surrept.i.tiously wash a pair of socks and underpants and sneak them out of the house. I go down to an isolated part of the beach and spread them on the pebbles, where a watery February sun does a reasonable job of drying them out. dirty. At the weekend I surrept.i.tiously wash a pair of socks and underpants and sneak them out of the house. I go down to an isolated part of the beach and spread them on the pebbles, where a watery February sun does a reasonable job of drying them out.
One Sat.u.r.day afternoon I am sitting on the shingle beach employed in just such a way. I wonder sadly if this will be my last weekend in Nice. The postal strike wears on, I have forty-two francs and a plane ticket to London. Small breakers nudge and rearrange the pebbles at the water"s edge. This afternoon the sea is filled with weed and faeces from an untreated sewage outlet a little way up the coast. Freak tides have swept the effluence into the Baie des Anges. The sun shines, but it is a cool and uncongenial day.
The thought of leaving Nice fills me with an intolerable frustration. Nice has a job to do for me, a function to fulfil and it hasn"t even begun to discharge its responsibility.
I hear steps crunching on the stones, coming towards me. I look round. It is Rida with a girl I don"t recognise. Frantically I stuff my washing into its plastic bag.
"Salut," Rida says. Rida says.
"ca va?" I reply nonchalantly. I reply nonchalantly.
"What are you doing here?" Rida asks.
"Oh...nothing particular."
We exchange a few words. I look carefully at the girl. She is wearing jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt. She has reddish blond medium-length hair and a flat freckly face. It is not unattractive though. Her eyebrows are plucked away to thin lines and her nose is small and sharp. She seems confident and relaxed. To my surprise Rida tells me she"s English.
"English?" I say.
"Hi," she says. "My name"s Jackie."
Rida has literally just picked her up on the Promenade. I don"t know how he singles them out. I think he feels he has another Swiss girl here. He saw me sitting on the beach and told Jackie he knew an English guy he would like her to meet.
We sit around for a bit. I talk in English to Jackie. We swap backgrounds. She comes from Cheshire and has been living in Nice for the last four months. Latterly she has worked as au pair au pair to a black American family. The father is a professional basketball player, one of several who play in the French leagues now that they"re too old or too unfit to make the grade in the U.S. to a black American family. The father is a professional basketball player, one of several who play in the French leagues now that they"re too old or too unfit to make the grade in the U.S.
With all this English being spoken, Rida is beginning to feel left out of it, and is impatiently throwing pebbles into the sea. However, he knows that the only way for him to get this girl is through me and so he suggests we all go to a disco. I like the sound of this because I sense by now that Jackie is not totally indifferent to me herself. She suggests we go to the Psyche, a rather exclusive disco on the Promenade des Anglais. I try to disguise my disappointment. The Psyche costs eighteen francs to get in. Then I remember that Rida still owes me twenty francs. I remind him of this fact. I"ll go, I say, as long as he pays me in. Reluctantly he agrees.
We meet at nine outside the Psyche. Jackie is wearing white jeans and a scoop-necked sequinned T-shirt. She has pink shiny lipstick and her hair looks clean and freshly brushed. Rida is wearing black flared trousers and a black lacy see-through shirt unb.u.t.toned down the front. Round his neck he has hung a heavy gold medallion. I"m glad he"s changed. As we go in he touches me on the elbow.
"She"s mine, okay?" he says, smiling.
"Ah-ha," I counter. "I think we should rather leave that up to Jackie, don"t you?"
It is my bad luck that Jackie likes to dance what the French call le Swing le Swing but which the English know as the jive. I find this dance quite impossible to master. Rida, on the other hand, is something of an expert. I sit in a dark rounded alcove with a whisky and c.o.ke (a free drink comes with the entry fee) and nervously bide my time. but which the English know as the jive. I find this dance quite impossible to master. Rida, on the other hand, is something of an expert. I sit in a dark rounded alcove with a whisky and c.o.ke (a free drink comes with the entry fee) and nervously bide my time.
Rida and Jackie come and sit down. I see small beads of sweat on Jackie"s face. Rida"s lace shirt is pasted to his back. We talk. A slow record comes on and I ask Jackie to dance. We sway easily to the music. Her body is hot against mine. Her clean hair is dark and damp at her temples. As if it is the most natural thing in the world I rest my lips on the base of her neck. It is damp, too, from her recent exertions in le Swing le Swing. Her hand moves half an inch on my back. I kiss her cheek, then her mouth. She won"t use her tongue. She puts her arms round my neck. I break off for a few seconds and glance over at Rida. He is looking at us. He lights a cigarette and scrutinises its glowing end.
To my astonishment, when we sit down Jackie immediately asks Rida if he"d like to dance again, as another Swing Swing record has come on. She dances with him for a while, Rida spinning her expertly round. I sip my whisky and c.o.ke-which is fizzless by now-and wonder what Jackie is up to. She"s a curious girl. When they come off the dance floor Rida announces he has to go. We express our disappointment. As he shakes my hand he gives me a wink. No hard feelings, I think he wants to say. record has come on. She dances with him for a while, Rida spinning her expertly round. I sip my whisky and c.o.ke-which is fizzless by now-and wonder what Jackie is up to. She"s a curious girl. When they come off the dance floor Rida announces he has to go. We express our disappointment. As he shakes my hand he gives me a wink. No hard feelings, I think he wants to say.
We go, some time later, to another club called le Go-Go. Jackie pays for me to get in. Inside we meet one of Jackie"s basketballers. He is very black-almost Nubian in appearance-and unbelievably tall and thin. He is clearly something of a sporting celebrity in Nice, as we get a continuous supply of free drinks while sitting at his table. I drink a lot more whisky and c.o.ke. Presently we are joined by three more black basketball players. I become very subdued. The blacks are friendly and extrovert. They wear a lot of very expensive-looking jewellery. Jackie dances with them all, flirts harmlessly, sits on their knees and shrieks with laughter at their jokes. All the French in the club seem to adore them. People keep coming over to our table to ask for autographs. I feel small and anaemic beside them. My personality seems lamentably pretentious and unformed. I think of my poverty, my dirty clothes, my shabby room, and I ache with an alien"s self-pity, sense a refugee"s angst in my bones.
Then Jackie says to me, "Shall we go?" and suddenly I feel restored. We walk through quiet empty streets, the only sound the rush of water in gutters as they are automatically swilled clean. We pa.s.s a cafe with three tarts inside waiting for their pimp. They chatter away exuberantly.
Jackie shivers and I obligingly put my arm round her. She rests her head on my shoulder and in this fashion we awkwardly make our way to her flat. "Shh," Jackie cautions as we open the front door, "be careful you don"t wake them up." I feel a rising pressure in my throat, and I wonder if the bed has squeaky springs.
We sit in the small kitchen on hard modern chairs. My b.u.t.tocks feel numb and strangely cold. The fluorescent light, I"m sure, can"t be flattering if its unkind effects on Jackie"s pale face are anything to go by. Slowly I sense a leaden despair settle on me as we sit in this cheerless, efficient module in this expensive apartment block. Immeuble de tres grand standing Immeuble de tres grand standing, the agent"s advertis.e.m.e.nt says outside. We have kissed from time to time and I have felt both her small pointed b.r.e.a.s.t.s through her T-shirt. Her lips are thin and provide no soft cushion for my own. We talk now in a listless desultory fashion.
Jackie tells me she"s leaving Nice next week to return to England. She wants to be a stewardess, she says, but only on domestic flights. Intercontinental ones, it seems, play h.e.l.l with your complexion and menstrual cycle. Half-heartedly I offer the opinion that it might be amusing if, say, one day I should find myself flying on the very plane in which she was serving. Jackie"s face becomes surprisingly animated at this notion. It seems an appropriate time to exchange addresses, which we do. I notice she spells her name "Jacqui."
This talk of parting brings with it a small cargo of emotion.
We kiss again and I slip my hand inside her T-shirt.
"No," she says gently but with redoubtable firmness.
"Please, Jackie," I say. "You"re going soon." I suddenly feel very tired. "Well, at least let me see them then," I say with petulant audacity. Jackie pauses for a moment, her head c.o.c.ked to one side as if she can hear someone calling her name in the distance.
"Okay then," she says. "If that"s what you want. If that"s all."
She stands up, pulls off her T-shirt and slips down the straps of her bra so that the cups fall free. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s cast no shadow in the unreal glare of the strip light. The nipples are very small; her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are pale and conical and seem almost to point upward. She exposes them for five seconds or so, not looking at me, looking down at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as if she"s seeing them for the first time. Then she resnuggles them in her bra and puts her T-shirt back on. She makes no comment at all. It"s as if she"s been showing me her appendix scar.
"Look," she says unconcernedly at the door, "I"ll give you a ring before I leave. Perhaps we could get together."
"Yes," I say. "Do. That would be nice."
Outside it is light. I check my watch. It"s half past five. It"s cold and the sky is packed with grey clouds. I walk slowly back to Mme. D"Amico"s through a sharp-focussed, scathing dawn light. Some of the cafes are open already. Drowsy patrons patrons sweep the pavements. I feel grimy and hung over. I plod up the stairs to Mme. D"Amico"s. My room, it seems to me, has a distinct fusty, purulent odour; the atmosphere has a stale recycled quality, all the more acute after the uncompromising air of the morning. I strip off my clothes. I add my unnaturally soft shirt to the pile on the back of the chair. I knot my socks and ball my underpants-as if to trap their smells within their folds-and flip them into the corner of the wardrobe. I lie naked between the sheets. Itches start up all over my body. I finger myself experimentally but I"m too tired and too sad to be bothered. sweep the pavements. I feel grimy and hung over. I plod up the stairs to Mme. D"Amico"s. My room, it seems to me, has a distinct fusty, purulent odour; the atmosphere has a stale recycled quality, all the more acute after the uncompromising air of the morning. I strip off my clothes. I add my unnaturally soft shirt to the pile on the back of the chair. I knot my socks and ball my underpants-as if to trap their smells within their folds-and flip them into the corner of the wardrobe. I lie naked between the sheets. Itches start up all over my body. I finger myself experimentally but I"m too tired and too sad to be bothered.
I wake up to a tremulous knocking on my door. I feel dreadful. I squint at my watch. It"s seven o"clock. I can"t have been asleep for more than an hour.
"Monsieur Edward? C"est moi, Madame D"Amico."
I say come in, but no sound issues from my mouth. I cough and run my tongue over my teeth, swallowing energetically.
"Entrez, Madame," I whisper. I whisper.