Paris Adrift

by EJ Swift

  Today the song is contemplative and soothing. There won’t be a flare. I am happy just to be here, looking after the site. If it is sentient, then it knows I am here and it recognizes me. I am the secret guardian, constant and true. I curl up by a juice delivery and fall asleep. In my sleep, I hear the eternal percussion of the puddle: drip, drip. Drip, drip. Drip, drip.

  LÉON BRINGS UP Rome again. It turns into a full-on argument, heated and horrible, shouting at one another across his studio. I’ve never seen him shout before. I’ve never seen him angry. He keeps repeating the same things. You’re not well. The nights are making you sick. You need a break. It’s unbearable. Afterwards, we apologise to one another, but the tension remains.

  Léon has a point, though I can’t let on. I do feel tired all the time, and fragile, as though I’ve left parts of myself behind where I’ve travelled, and now I’m stretched very thinly across a great expanse. I keep getting headaches. Dull, then bouts of sharpness. Occasionally the pain is enough to bring tears to my eyes. Sometimes it is an effort to meet the anomaly’s call. Sometimes I doubt myself, questioning whether I am a worthy incumbent, not sure I am strong enough, brave enough to keep up with its demands. Fear draws close, that it might desert me, and I will be made desolate. But then I wake again in a new world, and I can see it is worth everything. The tiredness, the headaches, the anxiety—all disappear.

  The next time I am in the keg room, an uncanny thing happens. The flare rolls up and I’m halfway under when my own face appears before me. A shaky rendition, pale and startled, but horrifyingly familiar. The sight is a dousing of cold in the warmth of the flare. My body contorts in panic.

  This can’t happen.

  I focus all of my energy into pulling back to the present. The anomaly doesn’t like it. I can feel the force of its resistance. There’s a terrible pressure at my joints, a cold that sears my body as it confronts my resolve. The anomaly wants the transportation. It needs it. Is it even possible to reverse the process?

  Then abruptly, the pressure eases and I lurch back. For several minutes I lie flat, my heart thumping in my chest, the sweat chilling my skin. I remember my first day at Millie’s. Eloise showing me the keg room. That ghostly apparition. That was me. There’s a throbbing in my nose, my temples.

  It’s the first time I have resisted the call to travel, and afterwards, the anomaly is silent for over a fortnight. I have the troubling sense that it is unhappy with me, even angry, over my defection. I try to appease it, waiting every night in hope of a flare, setting alarms to wake myself in the middle of the day, just in case. When a flare finally comes, the relief is crushing.

  I SEE LESS of Gabriela. I see less of Léon. Several times I catch him on the verge of speaking. I see the words form, hover on the brink of his lips, as he struggles with some inner turmoil. And then he discards them. I might have pushed him, once. But the truth is we all have secrets. Things we cannot reveal. I can imagine what he wants to say: that this closeness we have formed is compromised, that my absence, physical and mental, makes a mockery of us being together. We should stop. I can see it coming. I know it will hurt when it does; I sense that hurt loitering in the distance, I sense its citrus tang, the awful aftermath of rejection. But I cannot bring myself to make the repairs necessary to avoid it. There is another in my life and it takes all of my energy. The anomaly is a part of me now. It’s in my flesh.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I WAKE IN the early evening with the certainty that something is happening tonight, but I cannot remember what; I can only hear the anomaly. I roll over and sip from a glass of warm water. It comes to me: Angel’s last night. Angel is leaving Millie’s. He’s leaving Clichy for good, and in a couple of weeks he will fly out to volunteer with a charity in Nepal.

  I have spent the day at Léon’s, the first day in a long while. It’s been nice, a break. Beside me, Léon yawns and stretches.

  “Evening,” I say. I kiss him.

  Léon pulls on a pair of jeans and shuffles, bleary-eyed, towards the kitchen, where I hear him spoon three fat loads of coffee into the espresso maker and put it on heat. Water gushes as he fills the kettle. Making me tea. Léon doesn’t drink it himself, and it is never quite right. He leaves the tea bag in for too long, so a thin film develops over the surface. When he splashes in the milk this Pangaea breaks into smaller subcontinents, and when I drink it the scum coats the mug all the way down.

  Ten minutes later, Léon brings me a mug of stewed, sugared tea. He always puts in at least two sugars. I usually take one, but I have never corrected him, because there are days when that hot sweetness is the impetus I need to get out of bed. Because it shows that for reasons I cannot comprehend, Léon still cares.

  “Merci, chéri,” I say.

  He murmurs, “De rien,” half conscious, half coherent, continues on his narcoleptic evening ritual which takes him next to the shower. I wonder why he is up so early and then I remember he has to train a new member of staff.

  I sip the tea and think of my first night at Millie’s, how surreal and huge it seemed then, how insignificant it seems in light of everything that has happened since.

  Léon comes back naked, kisses my lips and then my navel. His stubble is still wet. Beads of water cling to the hair on his chest and groin, and I wonder what he is thinking as his lips move down, fleetingly, to where my hips rise then brush—regretfully? I cannot read him; I have never been able to read him, if I am honest—upward again. He stands and starts to pull on his clothes. I sit up. He waves me back.

  “It’s cool,” he says. “You don’t have to go.”

  “Je sais, mon beau.”

  Léon goes to clean his teeth. I hear him spit in the sink, ritualistically, three times. On the way out he lounges in the door frame. His lips crack around the first early evening grin. “You know, your accent—it’s still fucking terrible,” he says.

  Then he’s gone.

  THE MOMENT I walk into Oz, I know this is going to be a messy night. I have had a humming in my head since I left Léon’s. In Clichy it intensifies; a flare is on the way. It feels like a big one. I am itching to go to the keg room right now and wait for it while the song immerses me, but that’s impossible. If I don’t show my face, Angel will never forgive me.

  I meet Angel at eight in Oz, when he takes his break. Most of the Millie’s night team and the staff from the pub down the road are already here, piled up at the bar, singing raucously. Léon’s shift at Oz does not start until midnight, but he is making free with Oz’s provisions in the meantime.

  “Hallie!” shouts Gabriela, spotting me. I go over to exchange bisous but Gabriela says crossly, “You’re late.”

  She turns back to Mike and when I move to join them, she twists in her chair to face away from me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I thought we were meeting at eight.”

  Léon’s hand slips around my waist, his lips meet mine, a glass cold with condensation presses against the palm of my hand.

  “Vodka tonic,” says Léon.

  “Thanks.”

  I sip.

  “I’ll be on the floor by midnight,” I say, only half joking.

  “They all will.”

  “Except you, because you never get drunk, no matter how much you drink.”

  “That’s my job. Did you hear about Simone?”

  “No, what happened?”

  “She was at a protest with those Moulin Vert people. The police got involved. She got a baton in the face.”

  “Fucking hell.” Guilt overwhelms me. “Is she okay?”

  “As okay as you can be with a broken jaw. Isobel and Bo are with her at the hospital. Bo said it was a nasty business. It’s going to be the bordel in there tonight, and you can’t count on him for any help.” He jerks his head. “Angel, get your arse over here.”

  Angel, responding to summons, comes over to us. He is still walking straight, but his face has slumped into the classic dissipation usually seen at the end of the night. The skin arou
nd his eyes appears bruised, his cheekbones prominent. He slings an arm around both our shoulders.

  “Hallie, Léon. You funny pair.”

  “What’s funny about us?” I say.

  “Ahhh...” He shakes his head, smiles hopelessly. “So, this is actually my last night! You’ll miss me, poussins, when you come for your coffee in the afternoon with your terrible hangover and the problems with the landlords.”

  “I might never have worked at Millie’s if you hadn’t persuaded Eloise to give me a try.”

  I feel a rush of fondness for Angel, but even more so I feel gratitude. Without Angel, I might never have found the anomaly.

  And Simone wouldn’t be in hospital right now, either. I get out my phone and text her and Bo.

  “You would have ended up here sooner or later, even if you did not meet me. Everybody comes to Clichy. And everybody leaves. Now I leave. I am the escaping man.”

  I try to catch Gabriela’s eye, but when I do her gaze is hostile. Of course, everybody is upset that Angel is leaving and there is a lot of talk about who will get the coveted day job, or whether they will, as rumoured, bring in somebody new. That would upset people. The hierarchy at Millie’s is unofficial but strictly observed; you do your time on the floor, you do your time on the nights. Maybe Gabriela is just unhappy that a good friend is leaving. Or maybe she’s upset about Simone. Maybe she blames me.

  Clearly my presence is exacerbating whatever mood she is in, and I decide it is best to let her alone. I take another sip of vodka and feel a surge in my head, making me stumble. The anomaly is wide awake.

  At ten o’clock, Léon and I support Angel back across the road and Victor and Gabriela get coffees for everyone. Millie’s is a chromium wonderland, decked out in frosting and silver tinsel. I have barely downed my espresso when Eloise nabs me. She has cat’s eyes, green with slits for pupils. Two silver antennae poke out of hair which is slicked flat against her head and spray-painted white. She looks terrifying.

  “Get one of these on—” She thrusts a T-shirt at me. “It’s Moët night.”

  “I thought it was sci-fi night.”

  “It’s that too.” She hands me a pair of green antennae.

  In the vestiaire I find Dušanka examining her own T-shirt with the attention owed to a historical relic. Being this near to the keg room almost undoes me. I want to get in there. I do my best to ignore it. I can sense the anomaly is in a playful mood, but I have travelled before when I am drunk and it is never pleasant.

  “Have you tried to put this on?”

  “I’ve only just got here,” I say. Sometimes, only sometimes, stating the obvious works with Dušanka.

  “Well, try.” She waves an impatient hand. I throw my Millie’s tank top in the locker, and pull the Moët tee over my head. It sticks.

  “There.” Dušanka is triumphant. “See this shit they give us? It would be too small for a five-year-old.”

  “Have you got any scissors?”

  We cut a wider circle around the necks and finally manage to get the tees on. They are obscenely tight. I am wearing a black bra, which doesn’t help. I examine myself in the mirror over the sink. Moët & Chandon is emblazoned in silver letters across my breasts.

  “We prostitute ourselves,” says Dušanka. “For capitalist shitheads, we do this.”

  I find a pair of cat-eye contact lenses and silver body paint. I spray my hair blue. I stick on the antennae. My armour is complete.

  “Did you hear about Simone?” I ask.

  “Yes. Those connards.”

  “Bo said it was bad.”

  “They overreacted. That movement is frightening them.”

  “Frightening who?”

  “Everyone.” Dušanka shakes her head. “This is not why I came to France.”

  Upstairs, Moët reps are wandering around in skintight catsuits with bottles holstered at their hips. I am on the back bar, so I go to set up. Normally this is an opportunity for calm before the eleven-thirty storm. Tonight, however, Moët are installing a luminescent revolving spaceship in the middle of the dance floor. I can feel Léon’s vodka swirling uneasily in my stomach alongside the sweet and sour prawns I wolfed down earlier.

  At eleven, Victor and Angel join me on the back bar. The doors open and the hordes flood in. Within half an hour the dance floor is full. Victor and I scurry back and forth, ducking around one another, opening fridge doors, kicking the dishwasher shut, passing bottles, sour mix, crossing arms over the taps. We barely speak, and when we do, we have to yell. The music is thumping. At least, I assume it’s thumping, it must be; but the anomaly’s song obliterates everything.

  Angel serves the occasional pint, his hands moving slowly and sleepily. After half an hour he gives up and gets up on the bar. People climb up to join him, grinding against one another. I take hold of a butterfly-tattooed ankle to anchor one of the girls and reach around to serve a pint. Foam dribbles down its sides. I can feel the girl struggling to move; the music beat in the quiver of her heel.

  Three beer lines run dry at once.

  “I’ll go,” I say, but Eloise has spotted our predicament from afar.

  “What do you need changing?” she shouts, and Victor indicates the taps capped with upended pint glasses. “I’ll send Mike down,” she calls.

  I bite down a jolt of pure rage. I am going to be thwarted at every turn tonight.

  Gabriela appears at the balustrade. She hoists herself up and swings her legs over, jumping down over the bottle bin. Without even looking at me, she orders, “Take your break!” and turns straight to the nearest customer.

  I climb back up the way she came down, onto the bar and up onto the balustrade, where I wedge myself against the wall. I take out my tobacco and roll a cigarette.

  “There’s a new guy on the floor,” I shout to Gabriela. “He’s good.”

  Gabriela ignores me. I watch her dashing up and down the bar. Her alien antennae tip forward over her face, furrowed in concentration.

  I go outside to smoke my cigarette and head over to Oz for my break. I cannot bear to be so close to the anomaly and so far; it’s beginning to make me feel ill. Léon serves me drinks and a bowl of chips, fat and salted, but when I get back I feel even worse. I have to work with Gabriela for forty-five minutes while Victor takes his break. She is deliberately getting in my way, opening fridge doors in my face, hijacking the bottles on my speed rack. When we collide for the third time, I snap.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

  She responds equally heatedly in Spanish.

  It’s so hot. My vision is starting to go funny; I have to pause and splash cold water on my face. Gabriela yells something.

  “All right!” I yell back.

  Victor comes back. Gabriela goes without a word. Victor yells, “I love this song!”

  I can’t hear it. I have no idea what is playing, I can only feel the bass thudding at my chest, my throat, the plates of my skull.

  Victor joins Angel up on the bar and they chuck their shirts into the crowd. Then I see her.

  Millie, in a silken bodice and full skirt ripped to rags, lace gloves to her elbows, antennae in her gelled red hair, dancing in the middle of the crowd.

  “Millie?” I shout. “Millie!”

  I don’t think. I vault the bar. I wade into the dance floor and find it has been invaded by androids and avatars. The swivelling lights glint on their aluminium skin. Beneath their feet, the floor is bubbling.

  The dance floor is the centre of a volcano.

  I go under the lava line. Down here, words are silent and lips wrap around mute exclamations. Down here, it is possible to drown. I am on the sea bed. Millie is always three people away. Hands thrown up in the air appear as gliding fish; willowing, luminescent.

  There’s a shrieking in my head. A howling. The vortex, and now the world really is dissolving, through time and time and time again.

  Did I mistake the anomaly’s mood for playful? I was wrong. It’s maleficent.

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sp; MY HEAD CLEARS. I am on the far side of the dance floor, squeezed in on all sides. Angel and Victor are dancing on the bar; there’s no one behind it. There is no sign of Millie. The anomaly’s song has gone silent.

  Blood is pouring from my nose.

  I cup my hand over my face. I can feel the liquid trickling through my fingers and down my neck. I can taste mercury. I make it to the bathroom, tip my head back, apply tissue paper. It soaks through. I apply more. Fuck. I have never had a nosebleed in my life. It throbs painfully. I feel giddy and sick.

  Women are applying mascara and lipstick. Women are snorting coke off the toilet seat. Nobody notices me.

  When the bleeding stops I clean up and wash my face in the sink. There is blood on my T-shirt but it could be mistaken for Jägermeister in bad light. Heart pounding, I fight my way back to the bar.

  That was a warning, I think. For the second time tonight I wonder if things are getting out of control.

  The morning creeps onward. I have a terrible headache. Every now and then, squiggly lines run across my vision. Four o’clock, five o’clock, six. I start the cleaning operation, close down one set of taps. The DJ announces his last track. Victor and Angel chant:

  “Ha-llie! Ha-llie! Ha-llie!”

  They haul me up on the bar between them. They are both hanging onto me, their skin feverish and dripping with sweat. Angel is wearing nothing but his underpants and his shoes. Victor is holding onto an upended mop and the two boys lean into it as they belt the lyrics to ‘Easy Like Sunday Morning.’ I am singing too. I can feel movement in my lips and throat; I know tuneless words are leaving my mouth.

  I look at the boys, who have somehow found the energy to transcend this godawful closing song into a cabaret. Their features scrunch in mock ecstasy. The lights come up. The floor team are doing the rounds, gathering up armfuls of glasses and bottles. Dirty glasses pile up on either side of our three pairs of trainers straddling the back bar. Angel wobbles. His hand squeezes my shoulder. We are sweating and filthy and drunk to a woman.