Читать книгу Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years: two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder - Frédéric Beigbeder, Frank Wynne - Страница 9

I sense that I shall only feel truly sad after having dined.

Paul Morand Tendres Stocks

On his way back to his table, Marc runs into Clio, Joss Dumoulin’s girlfriend, who is having trouble negotiating the stairs. Her legs are ten yards long with a pair of wedge-heel flip-flops at one end. Her almost perfect body is violently shoehorned into a latex dress.

‘Mademoiselle, may I offer you a glass of lemonade?’ Marc asks, offering his elbow so that she can support her weight.

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, now, little girl,’ Marc changes tack, ‘you’re very late, you deserve to be punished!’

‘Oh, yes please!’ the girl replies, with a flutter of her gargantuan fake eyelashes. ‘I’m a naughty girl!’

She clutches his arm as she talks.

‘As punishment, you shall sit at my table.’

‘But … I have to see Joss …’

‘The sentence is irreversible!’ bawls Marc.

And thus he takes Clio by her pretty bare wrist and leads her to his table.

He has barely seated himself before his plate of dead sheep when he must endure a heated interrogation from his neighbours.

‘So,’ asks Loulou Zibeline, mockingly, ‘are you working on your second novel?’

‘Yes,’ Marc answers, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. “French literature” is about as significant nowadays as Noh theatre. Why bother writing when a novel has a shorter shelf-life than a TV ad for pasta? Besides, look around you – there are as many photographers as there are stars. Well, in France, literature is the same: there are as many writers as there are readers.’

‘So, why bother?’

‘Yeah. Why bother … As a writer, I’m stillborn, spoiled by happiness. My only readers live in a couple of blocks around Mabillon metro station. I don’t give a fuck: all I ask is that one day, after my death, in some foreign land, I be rediscovered. I think it would be cool to bring pleasure in one’s absence, posthumously. And maybe one day, in a hundred years, a woman like you will be interested in me. “A minor, neglected fin-de-siècle author.” Patrick Mauriès will have written my biography In 2032. I will be reprinted. My public will be elderly aesthetes who are resolutely paedophile. Then, only then, will this mad circus not have been in vain …’

‘Nnnyes …’ Loulou is dubious. ‘That’s just vanity … I’m sure there must be more to it than that. The quest for beauty, for instance. There must be some things you find beautiful, no?’

Marc gives the matter some thought.

‘It’s true,’ he says after a pause, ‘the two most beautiful things in the world are the violins in Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” and a woman in a bikini wearing a blindfold.’

Clio is sitting in Marc’s lap. She may well be thin, but she is quite heavy.

‘Aren’t you bored of dating a star?’ Marc asks her. ‘Wouldn’t you rather sleep with your chair?’

‘What?’

She stares at him, her face blank.

‘Well, since you’re sitting on me, if you were to go out with your chair, that would be me … [He makes a sweeping gesture.] Just a joke … Forget it.’

‘This guy is weird,’ says Irène to Clio.

Marc’s sense of humour does not meet with universal approval. If this keeps up, he will begin to suffer self-doubt, which is inadvisable when attempting to seduce. Suddenly, he has an idea. He slips his hand into the pocket of his jacket and finds the tab of Euphoria Joss gave him on page 27. He discreetly opens it and tips the powder into Clio’s glass of Oxygen vodka just as she grabs the glass and drains it, all the while chattering to Irène. It’s like a movie. Marc rubs his hands. Now all he need do is wait for the drug to take effect. Long live drugged dating! No need to impress, to spend a fortune, to have candlelit dinners: one capsule and so to bed.

The air is redolent with costly perfumes, fermented grain drinks and societal sweat. HRH the Princess Giuseppe de Montanero has managed to gatecrash the party thanks to some transves-tite friends who spent some time distracting the doorman. Everywhere are unattainable women wearing inestimable jewellery. Some of whom are men, for all that. (In the toilets, Marc even saw a bulge beneath the dress of an elegantly dressed lady powdering her nose – inside and out.)

Joss Dumoulin waves to his girlfriend. He could get up, come over, kiss her, pay her a compliment, offer her a drink. But Joss doesn’t get up, doesn’t come over, doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t pay her a compliment, and Clio finishes her drink alone. Welcome to the twentieth century.

*

Meanwhile, the Hardissons are force-feeding their child foie gras; forlorn PR people stare at the TV screens (can there be anything more depressing than a solitary Director of Communications?); Ali de Hirschenberger, distinguished producer of porn films, affectionately slaps Nelly, his wife, a sybarite who is wearing a leash; millionaire playboy Robert de Dax is standing on a chair acting the fool (long-time lover of a number of depressive actresses, he will die a month from now in a bumper-car accident).

Tonight raucously brings together CEOs in punk outfits and tramps in dinner jackets. Love stories spring up between holidaying nomads and the sedentary jet set. The fist-fights are filled with tenderness. The same people are introduced to the same people ad infinitum but nobody complains. We are in the presence of a Europarty.

‘What’s for dessert?’ asks Clio. ‘I hope it’s not Space Cake with laxatives again. That I don’t need.’

Her voice has changed. Usually, a drug diluted in a glass takes an hour to reach the brain. Unless the drug is very strong.

‘People are so superficial,’ she whines, ‘I have so many things to tell you. I’m still thirsty. Is it late or is it me? Why didn’t Joss come over and say hi?’

Clio is fast becoming very talkative and very depressed. Her eyes well up with tears. This was not exactly the desired effect.

‘YOU MEN,’ she shrieks, ‘you’re all so égoïste! Boorish, ugly bastards!’

‘She’s got a point,’ says Loulou Zibeline, of whom – it would appear – nobody sought an opinion.

And Clio starts to sob on Marc’s shoulder and the coward takes advantage of the situation to caress her neck, run his fingers through her soft hair and murmur sweet nothings in her ear.

‘Easy now, It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m one of the good guys …’

Result! She kisses him on the lips. The sound system is playing ‘Amor, Amor’ and Marc hums along with Clio as if he were rocking a baby. A tiny baby dribbling mascara onto his jacket. A little baby who is getting heavier by the minute and sniffling back mucus. A little baby whose breath smells like an ashtray.

‘Amor, amor,’ hums the gigantic little baby. ‘Marc, could you do me a favour and go and get Joss … please …’

Marc’s result was short-lived. But he takes it philosophically. Clio smiles at him, smearing mascara over her cheeks. Chemical seduction has its limitations, and Marc is not entirely unhappy to palm the baby off on someone else.

Joss Dumoulin darts between the tables, the impulsive catalyst of this eclectic soirée. Marc waves him over. When he gets there, Clio throws her arms around him, blubbering.

‘MY LOOVE!’ she cries.

‘Um …’ says Marc, ‘I think your girlfriend is a bit tired.’

‘Wait a minute, what the hell’s going on here?’ says Joss. ‘Don’t tell me … you didn’t slip her that tab of Euphoria, did you?’

‘Me? Of course not, why do you say that?’

‘You stupid bitch! You promised me you were off the stuff!’ yells the DJ. ‘Last time, she nearly didn’t come back!’

Joss puts his girlfriend over his shoulder and takes her somewhere to throw up. Marc tries to look innocent but he’s sweating like a pig. He’s sorry now he didn’t have time to conduct the Triple Why test on her. At his table, everyone acts as if nothing has happened. Loulou breaks the shamefaced silence.

‘If truth be told, Marc, I thought your first book was very well written.’

‘Oh, fuck!’ whimpers Marc. When somebody tells you that your book is well written what they mean is that it’s boring. If they say it’s funny, that means it’s not well written. And if they say it’s ‘really great’, that means they haven’t read it.

‘Well, what do you want me to say?’

‘Tell me I’m the man.’

Marc loves ‘fishing for compliments’, as they say in English. At least when he masterminds the flattery, he knows that nothing is expected in return.

‘Go on,’ he insists, ‘repeat after me: “Marc, you da man!”’

‘Marc, you da man.’

‘Loulou, I think I love you. What was it you recommended as a chat-up line again? Oh, yeah, “Would you be so kind as to move your enormous arse as it appears to be blocking the aisle?”’

‘Clever, clever …’

While this is going on, Fab is discussing tonight’s playlist with Irène.

‘Comprehension, truth, drumandbassism. His mix is pretty wack, but Joss got the sense of realitude.’

At precisely that moment, the music suspends its flight and an orchestra of twenty bonzes descends from heaven on a suspended footbridge. Ondine Quinsac is playing percussion to tumultuous applause. ‘Good evening, we are Fuck Yo Mama. We trust your shit evening will be utterly ruined by our presence and that you all snuff it as soon as possible.’ Then a landslide of electric decibels rains down on the diners. In the background, a trio of choristers sway their sulky hips.

Loulou Zibeline has to shout to be heard over the music. Marc thinks she talks too much. The more she talks, the less he wants to listen. It’s an amusing paradox: chatterboxes wind up as social misfits. Marc thinks: ‘The nicest things I’ve said in my life have been when I kept my mouth shut.’

‘D’YOU KNOW THIS BAND?’ she asks him.

‘What?’

‘I ASKED IF YOU KNOW THIS BAND!’

‘Stop yelling in my ear, you overripe slut!’

‘WHAT? WHADDYOU SAY?’

‘I said a bunch of people have slaved their balls off to give us this rack of lamb. First they had to rear the beast, then take it to an abattoir, kill it with a bolt-gun to the brain. Then someone had to cut it up, a butcher had to come to the wholesaler and choose the meat. Lastly, the caterer picked it out after haggling over the price. How many people had to work so I could nibble on the cutlet I’ve got in my hand? Fifty? A hundred? Who are all these people? What are their names? Can someone give me their names? Tell me where they live? Do they holiday in Les Alpilles or on the Côte d’Argent? I want to send each and every one of them a thank-you note.’*

‘WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR A THING!’ screams Loulou.

Marc hasn’t got very far. The woman on his left despises him and the one on his right is a Klingon. To top it all, he nearly killed the ringmaster’s fiancée. It would probably be best for him to head home while there’s still time. By the way, Clio is feeling better: she is sleeping soundly on a banquette near the DJ booth. The ruckus doesn’t seem to be bothering her unduly.

The food fight breaks out immediately. The vacherin flows, the coulis flies, the vol-au-vents glide. Cream is spilled on the canapés, canapés are spilled on the sofas. Is that smell of vomit parmesan, or vice versa? Does the chicken smell of egg or the egg smell of chicken?

‘I’m not standing for this shit!’ mumbles Marc as he sits down.

A few virgin sodomites modestly begin the first stripteases. Roger Peyrefitte has the Hardissons’ baby sniffing glue in front of Gonzague Saint Bris who is flagellating himself with a studded belt which provokes a coughing fit. Fuck Yo Mama are massacring ‘All You Need Is Love’, smashing plates on the microphones. Sauce-boats and dry biscuits mingle in the firmament. Marc even thinks he spots a Haribo crocodile flashing its teeth.

‘THIS CHEESE IS PRETTY GOOD!’ screams Loulou into his auricular pavilion.

‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘now all I need is a rope with a knot like the cheese: running.’

‘WHAT?? DID YOU SAY SOMETHING??’

Let us not delude ourselves: Marc Marronnier will soon be inebriated. Already the night is upending its hierarchies. Important things seem suddenly trivial and the most insignificant details seem critical. TV programmes, for instance. Suddenly he clings to them. TV programmes, at least, he can depend on. He does not know the meaning of life, he doesn’t know what love is or death is or whether or not God exists, but he can be certain that Wednesday night is ‘Sacrée Soirée’ on TF1. TV programmes never betray you.* This is why Marc despises each ‘new season’, when TV channels systematically rearrange their schedules. Terrifying days of metaphysical doubt!

‘FAB!’

Lise Toubon pounces on Fab as Dracula might on a van from the National (uncontaminated) Blood Transfusion Service.

‘How’s things?’ she asks him.

‘Hypnogogic, in an ionisation phase.’

Fab does not despise the powerful. He recently accepted a commission to spray-paint his tag on the Palais-Royal. But he is embarrassed that people might find out. So even in a techno-stable universe, he would rather that Madame Tubon didn’t hang around indefinitely. This is probably why he uses a hackneyed trick to make her feel uncomfortable: he kisses her only on one cheek, letting her offer the other to the void. The ruse works perfectly and Lise soon drifts away from the table with a nervous grin.

‘I didn’t know you knew her,’ says Marc.

‘Everybody knows Lise!’ declares Irène, who certainly does not know her. ‘Don’t you think she looks scary without make-up?’

Irène is now seriously getting on his nerves. He loathes this tendency among arrivistes to constantly name-drop, pretending to be on first-name terms with every celebrity. ‘Yesterday, Pierre and I were round at Yves’ house and – can you believe this? – his fax wasn’t working.’ ‘The other day, I met Caroline at Inès’ place and we were gossiping about Arielle …’ Implication: there’s no need to mention surnames since we are all intimate friends of the personalities in question. It’s the acme of social-climbing white trash. This gives Marc an idea. Taking advantage of a lull in the performance, he launches into a conversation.

‘Why don’t we all play Name Forgetting?’

Everyone at the table looks at him with eyes like roulette balls at a Monte Carlo casino (the loto is too cheap).

‘It’s really simple,’ Marc goes on. ‘Each of us in turn has to mention a celebrity while pretending to forget his or her name. You’ll see, it’s much funnier than Name Dropping. Let’s start a trend. Right, I’ll start. A couple of nights ago, I was hanging out in the Flore and I saw that girl, you know, the one who was in la Boum … you know who I mean, the one who played the lead, I forget her name …’

‘Sophie Marceau?’ offers Irène.

‘Bravo! But you can’t mention the name at all. Otherwise we’re just back to Name Dropping, and you’re the foremost authority on that. Right, it’s your turn …’

‘Well …’ she thinks, ‘I’m thinking of that gay fashion designer, vous savez, with the short blond hair … he designed for Madonna, voyez-vous? Jean-Paul …’

‘No names, please!’

‘Um … a designer who made a perfume that comes in a tin can … Okay?’

‘I think everyone knows who you’re talking about. Right, now that we all know the rules, let’s play Name Forgetting!’

‘Yo,’ says Fab, ‘forgot the name … I had dinner the other night with these two intergalactic aliens with Russky names … you know, the science fiction twins …’

‘Me,’ Loulou announces, ‘I love dancing in that nightclub, you know, the one owned by that fat red-haired singer who sells nightclubs all over the world … what’s her name again … ?’

‘Shit … it’s on the tip of my tongue,’ says Marc. ‘And that bald guy, what’s his name, the one who has a comb-over who does the eight o’clock news: oh, you know the guy … the one who was insulted live on air by that kleptomaniac actress …’

‘And that plagiarist with the glasses who got fired from the European Bank … and that that guy asset-stripper with the lantern jaw who shelled out money so his football team would win …’

‘Not to mention the guy, you know, the fat man with the goitre … I know you know who I mean, the one who’s always dressed to the nines … You know who I mean – the Turkish guy – I think he’s, like, Prime Minister or something …’

‘Oh, yeah … the one who’s shacked up with thingummy, you know … the little old guy from the Landes who’s always blinking …’

‘Exactly!’

Marc can be proud of himself: to take a table like this from bored stiff to entertainingly flaccid is no mean feat. There’s a good chance that ‘Name Forgetting’ will be doing the rounds all over Paris this winter. Just like WFW (Who’s Fucking Who) launched last winter by Marc Lambron, a brilliant dinner-party writer from Lyon.

The cheerful mood and chronic apathy of these lounge lizards slowly puts to rest Marc Marronnier’s mistrust. Now, his desires are unfocused, his fear of death less acute; in the tinkle of girlish laughter, he might almost mistake this evening for a pleasant dinner party.

* Author’s note: This tirade was written before the advent of mad cow disease.

* Author’s note: Actually, they do.