by Dan Rhodes
She walked on, past her own exhibit. She had been working on it almost non-stop since she had given the baby back, and she was relieved to feel she had done something that held its own alongside her fellow students’ work. There was Olivier, crying his heart out, his enormous bruised face in charcoal on a sheet of incredibly expensive white paper, three metres square. She had captured him. She thought back to her original idea, to simply draw some pictures of things she saw and felt like drawing, and was glad that she had changed it. It had been unpretentious, but she could see now that it had also been unambitious, even timid, and she was glad she had pushed herself to do something different. The Russian was right, and so was Justine, and everybody else who had found out about it: the stone idea had been really stupid. But if it hadn’t been for that she would never have made this work that she could be really proud of, and there were an awful lot of good things in her life that wouldn’t have happened had it not been for her hopeless plan. She even felt a flash of gratitude to Sébastien for having daunted her with his lofty intention to subvert the zeitgeist. She still didn’t know what that meant, but she hadn’t spent a great deal of time trying to work it out.
She had drawn several versions of the piece, starting small and getting bigger and bigger before attempting the really big one. The last time she had gone round to babysit Olivier, she had presented Aimée with the final trial version, one metre square, the one when she had known she had finally captured him. She saw them every couple of weeks, usually when Aimée was out with her new boyfriend, trying her best to have something resembling a conventional date, free of nappy changes and screaming fits. She still caught herself calling the boy Herbert from time to time. The two of them were getting along very well. He recognised her, and gave her a big smile whenever he saw her. He was walking now, and his wound had healed, leaving a narrow scar that looked as though it would be there forever.
She didn’t want to spend too much time hanging around her own piece, so she moved on. Someone had drawn three circles in felt-tip pen, and coloured them in quite badly. It seemed so sloppy alongside everyone else’s work. She couldn’t see any point to it, and tried to work out what was going on, to see if she could detect a redeeming quality in there somewhere. She couldn’t find one. She rubbed the bump on her head; maybe she had concussion, and wasn’t seeing it properly.
Justine had returned the stone to her, and that morning she had punished herself by taking it to the park, throwing it as high as she could and letting it land on her head. It had hurt, she had seen stars, and now she had a bump, but she was glad to have done it. Concussed or not, she still couldn’t find any worth to the circles, then she looked at the name of the student, and it all made sense. Someone came and stood by her side.
‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’
Aurélie turned to see who she was talking to, and it took a while before she recognised her. It was Sculpture Girl. She had never seen her smiling before.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, actually I would. I was just being polite because he’s your boyfriend.’
‘Not any more!’ Even though weeks had passed since she had left him, she was still elated.
‘Well, in that case I don’t mind telling you I think it’s boring, lazy shit.’
Sculpture Girl laughed.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen him today,’ said Aurélie.
‘No, you wouldn’t have. He’s dropped out.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘He was called in by the assessment panel yesterday, and they told him he was going to have to repeat the year. They said the work he had submitted didn’t display any evidence of technical ability, thought or effort.’
‘I can see where they’re coming from.’
‘I had him blubbing to me on the phone. Of course he’s convinced that they just can’t see his genius. He says his concepts are so far beyond their understanding that he feels pity for them. He refused to repeat the year, so he’s out of here. He says he’s going to go to London, where he tells me they understand the value of artistic genius. I think by that he means that there are a load of millionaires there who’ll buy any old shit. I think his work’s too pathetic even for London millionaires, though.’
‘You could be right. It’s fucking dreadful, isn’t it?’
Nobody had been given their marks yet, but those who hadn’t been called in could be confident that they had passed. Aurélie wasn’t worried. That morning, as she had wandered through the corridors, she had met Professor Papavoine for the first time in a long while, and he had whispered to her that he had been very impressed with her piece, but he had thought it judicious to keep a low profile during the assessment, and to go along with the consensus. He couldn’t resist telling her, in strict confidence, that his fellow assessors had been very positive, and that she had nothing to worry about. He had asked after Herbert, and she told him that he was now called Olivier, and that she and he were great friends and she would be babysitting him on the coming Sunday. He had invited the two of them round to their place for lunch. ‘Liliane’s been begging to see you again. Oh, and bring Léandre too, if he’s around. He’s off duty from tonight, isn’t he?’ It had been impossible to escape the news. With Life winding up, the media had gone into overdrive, with news programmes offering representations of the contents of the bottles in colour-coded computer graphics.
Aurélie had accepted the invitation, and told him she was looking forward to it, and he had scuttled away.
The members of the assessment panel weren’t the only ones to appreciate her work. ‘I love your giant crying baby,’ said Sculpture Girl. ‘I’ve always liked what you do, but this is the best I’ve seen yet. You’ve really nailed it.’
‘Thanks. I’ve not got to yours yet, but . . . I’m sure I’ll like it too.’
She was relieved to find she did. She thought it was beautiful.
Everyone started drifting away, and Aurélie and Sculpture Girl, who she had discovered had a real name, Sandrine Gall, found themselves drifting away together, to share a bottle of wine in a bar. Music was playing and a television flickered silently in the corner. Apparently President Bruni-Sarkozy was about to hold yet another press conference.
They ignored it, and carried on talking, about college, and Le Machine, and anything else that came along. A song came on.
‘Hey, I love this,’ said Sandrine. ‘It’s this new English band called Air-bear.’
‘I like it too,’ said Aurélie. The song was called ‘Such Ghastly Weather’, and she had first heard it at Aimée’s. Justine had sent it to her, along with a note telling her that she had left the drummer, Rodney, and moved on to the bass player, Jean-Pascal, aka Clifford. Aimée considered this a promotion of sorts, and hoped it was a sign that her sister was finally getting her act together. Aurélie had been hearing the song being played all over the place. It was a hit. Apparently nobody had yet discovered that they weren’t quite as English as they appeared.
‘It’s funny – for such an unsophisticated nation, the English produce some pretty good music.’
Aurélie wasn’t going to be the one to blow their cover. They carried on talking. Aurélie liked Sandrine Gall. She was nice, and funny. She could tell they were going to be friends.
The television flickered away behind them, and neither paid it the slightest attention.
XXXXIII
The President’s media secretary hushed the assembled members of the world’s press. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘pipe down.’ At this all the women started to make a racket in protest. He shook his head in dismay. ‘Ladies too.’ When at last he had quiet, he began. ‘You all know the routine. In a moment’s time President Bruni-Sarkozy himself will emerge from the wings. He will sit in this very chair, whence he shall deliver a short statement, and then you will have the chance to ask one or two relevant – that’s relevant – questions.’ There was a groan. ‘The President has asked me
to forewarn you that he will not – I repeat not – be announcing that he is going to invade Spain, and he will not be drawn on the subject.’
There was an even bigger groan, and everybody looked at Julio Gonzales from El Pais. ‘We’ll get you one day, Gonzales,’ hissed the economics editor of Le Monde.
The media secretary gave a signal, and the lights went down. A laser shone on to a mirrorball, and the room filled with swirling light. They all wondered what the President would use as his walk-on music. At his last press conference, when he had been announcing a series of drastic fiscal measures, he had chosen the twelve-inch remix of ‘Buffalo Stance’ by Neneh Cherry. Everybody agreed that it was a great song, though given the circumstances it was somewhat overlong and inappropriate in tone: for seven minutes he had stalked the edge of the stage, waving at the press, pulling shapes and high-fiving and fist-bumping the competition winners and specially invited fans in the front row. Most of all they just hoped it wasn’t going to be Tina Turner singing ‘Simply The Best’; he had played that one to death, and they were all sick of it. Today, though, he had chosen a classical theme, and as the opening bars of Wagner’s ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ drifted through the room, the assembled reporters turned to one another and nodded their approval. The President walked on stage, waving and punching the air, and after little more than a minute of shape-pulling, high-fiving and fist-bumping, he took his place at the table and the music faded out. It appeared someone had had a word with him.
The President began. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press,’ he said, ‘thank you all for coming. I am going to start with a very special announcement – today I shall be joined on the podium by my third wife.’ The women sat stony-faced at this news, but the men fidgeted in anticipation. ‘Will you please welcome to the stage, the model turned actress Carla Bruni-Sarkozy!’
The mirrorball came on again, and her walk-on music started. They had chosen Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Je t’aime . . . moi non plus’. They faded it in halfway through the song, just as Jane Birkin’s gasps were really getting going. Madame Bruni-Sarkozy emerged from the wings, resplendent in a really tight red dress with a slit up the side that gave a superb view of a magnificent leg. The women sat stock still, and the men rocked back and forth in their seats. The First Lady walked over to her husband and whispered something in his ear. The music faded out.
‘I do apologise,’ said President Bruni-Sarkozy. ‘I have a correction for you – my third wife is of course a model turned singer. I always get that wrong. But what about that Woody Allen film, my petal? Do you remember? I thought you were rather good.’
She dismissed this compliment with a coquettish bat of her hand.
‘To business, gentlemen.’ At this, the women raised a hubbub. ‘And, of course, ladies. Now, I have not brought you here today without reason. No, I am here to tell you that yesterday Madame Bruni-Sarkozy dressed up as a man.’
There was a gasp from the assembled members of the press.
‘You would do well to gasp. And I ought to point out that I have never . . .’ He furiously banged the table with his fist. ‘. . . NEVER . . . felt a homosexual urge in my life, but I have to say that she looked rather fetching in her three-piece suit and false moustache. I wore a Breton fisherman’s outfit – you should have seen me in my beard and cap – and together we stood unrecognised and unmolested among the audience at Life, this art show you will all have heard so much about.’
There was a murmur through the room.
‘You would do well to murmur,’ he said. ‘We were made aware of this show through the wonderful review by a certain Jean-Didier Delacroix. And I have to say that it quite opened my eyes. You see, ladies and gentlemen, while we were there we witnessed the star of the show, Le Machine, make a sausage.’
The room erupted in laughter, and he banged a fist hard on the table, to remind everybody who was President. Immediately there was quiet. His eyes were blazing with fury. ‘Not that kind of sausage!’ he barked. He took a moment to compose himself before carrying on. ‘We witnessed him frying an actual sausage, and here is the amazing part: he cooked it using gas that had been collected from his own faeces.’
There was another gasp from the members of press.
‘You would do well to gasp. Do you see what this means? Instead of letting the methane from our faeces drift into the air, we, the Republic of France, are going to capture it and harness the power of human waste. The Russians think they’ve got everybody’s backs to the wall with their gas pipelines and so on, but they’re in for a big surprise. I have had a long meeting with my Energy Minister, with whom, incidentally, I am not having an affair, and she tells me that there are a number of ways in which this can be achieved. Pilot schemes begin tomorrow. Soon we shall be a totally self-sufficient excreta-powered nation, world leaders in the field, and we’ll be able to tell the Russians to get lost.’
There was a big cheer throughout the room, and cries of Vive la France!
Everybody looked at Yevgeni Romanov from Izvestia, who stared straight ahead, his face frozen. ‘What do you make of that then, Romanov?’ hissed the economics editor of Le Monde. ‘Not so smug about your pipelines now, eh, Romanov? Eh?’
The President waited for the hubbub to die down before continuing. ‘We’ll even be able to export our gas to more prudish nations, such as Switzerland. Did you know that the Swiss are so modest they don’t even have a word for faeces? They have a hundred and seventy three words for urine, but not one for the brown stuff. We’ll make millions of euros, or whatever currency we happen to be using in the future – probably not the euro, let’s face it. And for once the farmers will have something to be happy about. When we’ve taken off all the gas we’ll be using the leftovers for fertiliser. There will be so much, they’ll be more or less able to help themselves, and they’ll be growing runner beans the size of hockey sticks. It’s what they did in the olden days, and according to some parchments I’ve been looking over, it worked perfectly well. So there will be no need whatsoever for them to block the roads with their tractors.’
The president sat back, and his media secretary returned to the spotlight. ‘Any questions for the President?’ Plenty of hands went up, and the media secretary pointed at the most eager-looking journalist.
—This is exciting news, Monsieur le Président. Whatever next? Piss-powered combine harvesters?
‘I shall consult my scientists about the viability of such a scheme.’
—So this was all inspired by your trip to Life? Can we expect somebody to be receiving high recognition?
‘Well, I can’t give too much away, but I expect a certain someone will soon be made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.’
—But where will he pin the medal? He doesn’t wear any clothes.
‘No, not him,’ snapped the President. ‘I am talking, of course, about Jean-Didier Delacroix. His writing is really first-rate – without him we would never have gone along, would we, my butterfly?’
Madame Bruni-Sarkozy smouldered her agreement.
The President’s media secretary raised his hands, palms forward. ‘That is all we have time for today, unless, Monsieur le Président, you have any more announcements?’
The President looked into the air for a moment. ‘Ah, yes, there was one more thing. We’ve merged our army with Britain’s.’
A roar erupted through the room.
‘It’s just a small detail, and nothing to worry about. Any questions on the subject can be addressed to my Minister of Defence, with whom et cetera, et cetera . . . Now, I have to be going. If you will excuse me, I have a country to run and an Englishman to sue. I shall leave you in the capable hands of my stunning third wife, to whom I shall make love, and probably impregnate, later on.’
He stood, and with a wave and a bow he was gone. His media secretary took over. ‘She is President Bruni-Sarkozy’s third wife, but she is our beautiful First Lady. You are welcome to ask her anything you like, but please keep it decent for once. No
questions about Eric Clapton’s private parts this time.’ Again, there was a collective groan. ‘Now, who will start us off?’ The women crept out of the room to file their stories about the President’s methane plan and demand a press conference from the Minister of Defence, while the men bobbed up and down in anticipation, their hands raised. The media secretary pointed to the lucky winner.
—Madame Bruni-Sarkozy, please tell us – are you French or Italian?
‘I’m afraid I am unable to answer that question at the present moment. However, I can tell you that my new album, Burning Desire, will be out in two to three weeks, and will be available from Fnac, Amazon, iTunes and all other music retailers.’
—Would you be so kind as to give us a preview, Madame Bruni-Sarkozy?
She blushed. ‘I wish I could, but sadly I didn’t bring my guitar with me.’
The media secretary stepped in. ‘By extraordinary coincidence I happen to have brought my guitar with me – I was bashing out some Rod Stewart numbers backstage. You would be very welcome to borrow it, Madame Bruni-Sarkozy.’
‘I couldn’t possibly.’ She looked surprised and bashful, but encouraged by whoops from the audience, she acceded. ‘Very well.’ She took the guitar, and perched on the edge of the table as demurely as she was able with so much leg showing. ‘This is a song about somebody who means so very much to me, and I hope it will finally put an end to the rumours of my infidelity. It’s called “Mon petit Président”.’
