In Paris With You Read online

  dunno,

  over there maybe

  Imagine them making their way

  through the Saturday crowds

  on this February afternoon,

  the passers-by wrapped up warm;

  everything is cloaked in the darkest grey,

  but the wet pavements shimmer

  with silver glimmers like anchovies,

  and here and there,

  reflected in people’s eyes, are flickers

  of orange and red from traffic lights.

  Imagine the way they sway

  into each other,

  the tension ‘watch out, there’s a motorbike’

  when he touches her shoulder

  to help her onto the kerb;

  ‘I like your scarf’ –

  that old classic, always works,

  a stroke of the cashmere, vicarious caress,

  and so they come to a stop at the edge of a bridge,

  as they must, standing close, leaning over the water

  and into each other,

  the whitish powder of the stone staining their sleeves,

  ostensibly so they can admire the Seine –

  a thick sludge of cabbage stew

  revealed by the lights of the riverboats –

  So this is all very nice, but

  Eugene,

  (this is getting on my nerves now)

  (he’s not a little kid, you know!)

  Eugene,

  when are you going to invite her back to yours?

  I know, I’m working on it, give me a chance

  hey Tatiana, would you like to come home with me

  for some tea

  or …

  no, too late for tea, that would just be weird

  Thirty streets, ten bridges, four public parks,

  eighteen thousand innuendos, ninety-nine jokes,

  twenty-one almost-slips, caught by a vigilant hand

  and

  still they’re just talking: no decision, no kiss.

  How many miles do you plan to walk before you say it?

  hey, would you like

  to come to mine for dinner tonight?

  that’s it, go ahead

  ‘Do you have any plans for dinner?’

  ‘No, what about you?’

  ‘No.’ ‘We could maybe go to’ – my flat? –

  ‘that pizzeria over there;

  I’ve been there before, it’s not bad at all.’

  ‘Okay!’

  Oh my God, I don’t believe this.

  Eugene! I know I know but but what?

  All it takes is two words!

  I know but it wasn’t quite the right moment

  maybe

  after dinner

  I’ll ask her

  then

  At the rate they’re going, dinner will never end.

  And they’ve ordered wine!

  A whole bottle? Well, why not!

  These two are driving me round the bend.

  What do you bet that they stay there half the night,

  ordering starters, main course, tiramisu … the lot?

  This is what happens when we let our shyness

  get the better of us.

  This is what happens, too,

  when everything seems so obvious

  that it becomes almost superfluous

  to jump through all the hoops;

  it’s as if we’ve done it so many times before,

  from the first unzipped zip to the quiet kissing after;

  in fact, it’s funny how well we seem to know each other,

  so why bother

  rushing to bed

  when we could just stay here

  and chat instead?

  We’ve already slept together a thousand times

  in our heads.

  well yeah that’s kind of true but still

  I would quite like to take her back to my flat

  in reality, you know?

  ah, there you are, Eugene! woken up, have you now?

  Is the alcohol doing its job at last?

  go on, then, give it a try

  ‘Would you like’ to come back to my place

  ‘… a limoncello to digest?’

  ‘Sure, with pleasure.’

  Seriously, how much pleasure are you going to take

  if the love you make is unmade by the lake

  of alcohol you’ve both consumed

  and the two of you are too drunk to stay awake?

  And two limoncellos, two! The yellow leaves them mellow

  and now,

  as the evening finally approaches its end,

  I hear two tambourines pounding faster,

  shaking and vibrating inside their chests.

  Tatiana and Eugene, even tipsier than before,

  even more drawn

  to each other, cheeks swollen and warm,

  eyes sparkling, exchanged smiles

  a little shyer than before,

  a little tongue-tied.

  The moment had arrived.

  ‘Tatiana,’ Eugene finally said.

  It was the first time he had pronounced her name

  (and there’s no greater turn-on than hearing your

  name in the mouth of the one you desire)

  ‘I was wondering …

  I was wondering if you’d like to come back to my flat

  for a drink?’ he enquired.

  Well, obviously she would,

  of course she’ll say yes,

  won’t she?

  She hesitates, pushes back

  a strand of hair behind her ear –

  girls do that;

  you know what girls are like!

  They like to draw out the suspense.

  Come on, Tatiana. Put your hand on his.

  Say yes. You will, won’t you?

  How I would if I were in your place!

  Don’t be a tease – look at his face! – she speaks!

  ‘Listen, Eugene,’ go ahead, I’m all ears

  ‘there’s still something we haven’t talked about’

  you can tell me later

  ‘there’s a subject we’ve avoided.’

  She sits back in her chair, clears her throat.

  oh please God no

  Eugene’s fears rise up inside him. don’t tell me she wants

  to talk about what

  I said to her that time, is she going to bring that up now,

  and bring me down to size, just when everything’s going

  perfectly, when it’s absolutely imperative that I kiss her

  along the insides of her thighs?

  Eugene: ‘Oh, really? What do you …’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ said Tatiana to Eugene.

  ‘We need to talk about Lensky.’

  ‘Lensky?’

  Lensky? What the fuck!

  Eugene starts to hyperventilate.

  This is not how things were supposed to go,

  not at all. And they were going so great!

  If anything, he thinks he’d have preferred

  to talk about what happened between the two of them;

  he’d rather get down on his knees, however absurd,

  and apologise for the past, declare his love, and then …

  Lensky! no, please

  I’ve got nothing to say I can’t remember

  ‘We never talked about it, Eugene,

  we never knew what really went on,

  Olga and I. It’s hard … I mean,

  we still don’t know –

  you’re the only one who does.

  You have to tell me what happened, Eugene.

  I need the truth.

  What happened that night when Lensky fell from the roof?’

  So that’s it, he’s screwed.

  He’s going to have to explain it all.

  Eugene must return to the past

  so the present can move on. That’s how life is sometimes.

  Memories, surging from the
depths of a distant before,

  can turn your now to later.

  So back we go.

  Say goodbye to Place Saint-Sulpice – and not another word.

  It’s time to return to 2006,

  and our leafy Parisian suburb.

  4

  Fifteen years old!

  Sangria, sobs, Shakira on the stereo.

  Tatiana bobs for fruit – apple cubes like boozy

  sponges – in a tub of blood-red liquid.

  Fifteen, what an awful number!

  She didn’t want a party.

  It was Olga who insisted. ‘Come on, sis, don’t get annoyed,

  but it’s true – you hardly ever have any fun!

  You’re only fifteen once in your life,

  so let your hair down, enjoy it!’

  Enjoy it!

  If she were still speaking to Eugene, Tatiana could moan:

  ‘My sister’s been nagging me again to enjoy my youth.’

  They’d exchange a knowing look. Oh! –

  How it hurts her heart just to think about the truth:

  she no longer speaks

  to Eugene,

  after what he told her the other day

  (no time to go into the details now)

  (we’ll get to that later);

  because of all the dreams that he confiscated;

  he locked away

  her first fourteen years

  and threw away the key.

  he slammed the door on my heart

  he laughed at the thought of all her hopes gored

  she hates him now (if hate means adore)

  he’s all she thinks about during this party

  of course.

  And so Tatiana is present

  and yet absent

  for her own big birthday bash

  in the garden decorated by Olga

  with glass tealight holders,

  with Chinese lanterns that send the bats

  into a frenzy of swoops and squeaks,

  with a big banner that reads

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TATIANA

  with helium balloons in the shape of spermatozoa

  straining towards the dark sky.

  The party is like something from a Hollywood movie,

  a sweet sixteen in California,

  not a failed fifteen in grey Paris.

  Twenty-five guests! Olga’s insane. Twenty-five!

  Tatiana is not even sure she knows them all; there are

  cousins, school friends, neighbours’ kids and freeloaders;

  it would come as no surprise

  if she were to discover

  that some of them have been rented by the hour.

  ‘Ah, Tania, Tania,’ sing-songs Olga. ‘Still lost in a trance …

  doesn’t this music make you want to dance?’

  She grabs her sister by the hand

  and drags her towards the floor,

  but no chance;

  Tatiana shakes her head, blurts out ‘Stop!’,

  Olga blows her top:

  ‘Jesus, you can’t even stop sulking in the middle of a party,

  what the hell is wrong with you?

  You’re driving me nuts!

  All you ever do is read your stupid books

  and stand on your balcony

  sighing like Juliet all the bloody time!

  Girl, get a grip! Your life’s not that bad.

  Look around at all the friends you have!

  Everyone loves you …’

  Yeah, everyone except …

  Everyone but not …

  (etc.)

  So thinks Tatiana, grumpy and glum,

  the only non-dancer among

  the bouncing bodies

  of her friends from school.

  But let’s leave Tatiana to her misery.

  There’s nothing very original about her huff;

  you can imagine it for yourself well enough.

  And besides when she’s in this mood, she’s kind of meh;

  I prefer her when she’s frolicking in fantasies.

  So let’s move on to the character who interests us today:

  Lensky.

  What is he like, Lensky? A good-looking lad,

  full of life and love, mostly happy,

  rarely sad.

  In the house next door, he’s getting ready:

  peacock-blue T-shirt from H&M,

  black jeans, grey Bensimon shoes … I really like him

  at this moment,

  as he pauses in front of the mirror

  to check out his reflection

  and adjusts his hair like he’s making a correction

  to an essay or something. He’s seventeen,

  but he’s the youngest boy in the world.

  Compared to Eugene,

  he’s like a puppy.

  Look in his eyes – so passionate and tender,

  so carefree and happy – those big dark eyes

  set under

  his eyebrows, raised in permanent surprise,

  and around them, freckles like satellites;

  his fine skin, draped over that light, slender jaw

  (his bones look like they’re made of bamboo);

  a boy-scout smile, always prepared,

  if anyone is in need.

  That’s Lensky. He cared.

  That’s how I remember him:

  a big little boy, kind and funny and sweet

  and a little bit lost,

  always chewing over a poem,

  testing it in his mouth with his eternal menthol gum.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come?’

  he shouts from the bottom of the stairs

  to Eugene.

  ‘I already told you.’

  ‘Tatiana would be glad

  to see you, don’t you think?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Okay, as you like. See you later …’

  and as he leaves, he whistles a tune

  by John Denver: ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.

  Eugene, right then, bristles as his friend whistles;

  he’s extremely irritated.

  For the past few days, since what happened with Tatiana,

  he’s been – how can I put this?

  I’m not saying that what he feels is guilt, exactly,

  or even that he’s upset,

  but he’s certainly on edge,

  less tolerant towards those who are madly in love.

  Before, he used to smile at Lensky’s enthusiasms,

  but today,

  honestly, he feels like punching the prat, with his lyricism

  and his stupid teenage romantic love,

  which is doomed to fail,

  obviously; how can he not see, the cretin,

  that a few months from now, Olga will dump him?

  Either that or Lensky will get tired

  of her – that’s always how love ends, you see.

  Hell, what does he expect?

  To write her sonnets for the rest of his life?

  Bloody Lensky,

  he’s like Prince Charming on ecstasy!

  Memories flood back through Eugene’s brain:

  even when they first met, aged thirteen,

  on a video game forum, even then,

  Lensky was the sucker

  fantasising over Lara Croft, insisting

  no, I don’t want to shag her;

  what I want is to marry Lara

  and live in the Croft family manor with her.

  FFS, virgin, go play the Sims,

  or Carmen Sandiego

  or some shit like that,

  go build your little town on SimCity, that’s what innocent

  idiots do,

  wankers like you

  who only want to show their dick

  to one girl in the whole wide world! You make me sick …

  And yet, at the time, Eugene had not said that.

  He’d been struck, at thirteen,

 
by the lines of poetry that Lensky

  used as his email signature,

  by the strange genius of this green gamer.

  They’d met in real life, and become friends.

  Lensky had lots of friends,

  but Eugene was number one – the enigmatic,

  brilliant best friend, destined to be famous;

  Lensky was flattered that this guy even liked

  him. He admired Eugene like an older brother.

  Eugene, a little smug in his superiority,

  had, over time, perhaps forgotten

  that Lensky was, in fact,

  the only real friend he’d ever had.

  So there you go. The person annoying Eugene no end

  today is his only friend.

  He feels a sort of nihilistic urge, a desire to smash

  something to pieces,

  preferably something pretty: a delicate toy,

  a little pink seashell,

  one of those things whose presence in the world

  increases its beauty, its worth,

  the kind of thing you’d have to be crazy to want

  to destroy,

  something that would crunch beneath his soles

  when he crushed it into the earth.

  That is how it all begins:

  This urgent lust for crushing beautiful things.

  From that point on, you know it won’t end well.

  Eugene is not his normal self.

  He’s in the kind of mood where he thinks fuck

  I’m bored what the hell is their problem all those twats it

  makes me want to screw everything up just to see the look

  on their faces – those kinds of thoughts.

  It’s nearly midnight.

  He puts on his trousers and leaves the house.

  The garden gate sings on its hinges. Tatiana hears.

  She knows who it is, sight unseen: the gate only makes

  that music when pushed by Eugene. It’s his theme.

  Is he there to apologise, to ask her to dance?

  He approaches, steers

  his way towards her

  and he’s near

  when Olga pours her

  another glass of vodka.

  He swaggers across the lawn, and she thinks

  she’s going to sink

  into the ground

  when there’s a scream: ‘Eugene!’

  It’s Olga, whom he kisses on the cheek

  – no kiss for Tatiana, who stands there looking meek –

  ‘I thought you’d said you weren’t going to come?’

  ‘Well, here I am.’

  He carefully avoids looking at Tatiana:

  not easy, given that he’s facing her.

  His gaze flies all around her, circular saw,