Zac breathed deeply. These women… Jasmine, Rae… they were unlike anyone he had ever met. For the first time in his life, he felt he wasn’t entirely alone. The feeling elated him, gave him strength.
Jasmine handed him a wig, lustrous dark curls that tumbled on his shoulders.
“You look like April Ashley,” she said. “Don’t you think, Rae? Remember those old photographs?”
Zac looked up questioningly.
“One of the first like us,” explained Jasmine. “She became a Vogue model.”
(I prefer the original version of the question – it has a sense of wonder.) How was that possible, thought Zac. Possible to be so convincing as a woman that you became the epitome of feminine glamour: a Vogue model? He caught his breath. There was something about this place, these people that made him feel the universe had suddenly expanded. Was it just being away from home? Would it last?
In the home, being with old people was like being with children. Their world was small and narrow and it was your job to keep them safe. And yet being with these elderly people was different. The world got bigger every minute he was with them.
He did not know how to interpret Marianne’s look when she saw him. It was she who knew him best, who had made all this possible after all, yet she looked shocked.
“Raymond,” she whispered.
“Yes?” said Rae, who was standing beside her chair.
Marianne looked up as if surprised.
“May I…” she began. “May I have some water before we go?”
“Of course.”
Zac stood awkwardly.
“Come here,” said Marianne. “Let me fix your brooch.”
He knelt down beside her and she unpinned the clasp of a diamante spider, re-pinning it on the shoulder of the black dress as if it was crawling over his shoulder.
“See,” she murmured. “It is better there.”
“You have a good eye, Marianne,” said Zac, looking in the mirror.
“Yes, so I have been told,” said Marianne impassively. “But nobody ever told me I had a good heart. You think about these things when you get old.”
Rae returned, handing her a glass of water.
“Is it wise?” she asked him, holding the glass but not drinking.
“What?”
“You and Jasmine must have been in Patrice’s many times over the years.”
Yes.”
“But is it wise for you and me to go together?”
Raymond was silent for a moment. “Do we have a choice?” he asked.
Marianne shook her head and handed the glass to Zac, untouched.
The light in the back room of Bar Patrice was dim and blue, neon blue, like the light of a casino strip. It shimmered from giant video screens on the walls as the pulsating beat of music, bass turned up high, boomed dully around the room. There was a woman on the screen, a woman in a long cream lace dress with a fish tail, lips stained vermilion red, her arms snaking into the air as she sang.
Marianne stared at the screen, mesmerised, as Zac pushed her chair through the door.
“Why is she up there? Where is she standing?” she demanded.
Even in the semi-dark, Zac caught a glance between Rae and Jasmine. He bent down to talk softly in her ear so that the others did not hear.
“That is a screen, Marianne. It is a music video playing.”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” said Marianne, flustered. She glanced round looking for Rae. “It is so different.” She held out her hand to him.
“Come in, come in!” said a man in a velvet dress, lurching drunkenly past them. “Close the door behind you. Keep the riff-raff out!”
“Or perhaps not,” murmured Marianne, looking at the stranger sharply.
“Maurice,” the man said grabbing Zac’s hand. “Maurice. And you are?”
“Zac.”
Zac watched the man disappear. He might be wearing a dress but he had made no real attempt to look like a proper woman. Dark shadow stubbled his chin and despite the livid pink lipstick slashed unevenly across his mouth, and the smudged mascara in the pouches under his eyes, there was something very masculine about him: the broad features and solid breadth of his shoulders; the way he moved and carried himself.
What a strange place this was, thought Zac, looking round at the bizarre trio of Marianne, Rae and Jasmine. It made him feel both excited and uneasy, but behind that there was a sense of being deeply alive. He was aware of every pulse of blood through his veins. He made his way across the room. There was a small bar at one end, a barman leaning across the counter watching the new arrivals. He held Zac’s gaze a second or two longer than necessary. He was tall, muscular. Very masculine and self-contained. Attractive. Zac looked back levelly, then felt unnerved when the barman looked away first. Perhaps he had misunderstood the look, Zac thought, feeling foolish. Perhaps the man thought he looked ridiculous. Even for this place. He looked around, drinking it all in.
He asked for drinks without looking directly at him again, feigning interest in the bottles behind the bar.
“Just visiting?” said the barman as he poured vodka into a glass.
Zac flushed, then nodded. His ear was becoming accustomed to the language again but he still hesitated to speak. He glanced up, letting his eyes dart over the man and away. The barman was older than him, perhaps pushing forty, Zac thought, lifting the glasses from the counter and going back to the table. The barman said nothing but nodded briefly to him, an acknowledgment that felt more than just a gesture.
Zac turned round and almost walked straight into Maurice in the velvet dress.
“Sorry,” Zac said instantly.
“Pray, hope – and don’t worry,” said Maurice intently.
Zac looked blankly at him.
“Pray?” said an arch voice behind Zac. Jasmine had come over to help him carry the glasses.
“Jasmine!” said Maurice, reaching to grasp her hand. “Pray, hope – and don’t worry,” he repeated.
“Ah, Maurice, it is always so lovely to see you,” said Jasmine in tones so beautifully modulated that the self-conscious affectation of it left Zac feeling uncomfortable. Maurice seemed oblivious to the insincerity, walking unsteadily behind them and falling into a chair beside Rae. He gathered himself and leant across the table, looking meaningfully round the company, as though about to impart something of great significance. Rae looked at him expectantly.
“Pray, hope - and don’t worry,” said Maurice again, with all the sincerity a bottle of Bourbon inspires.
A bubble of laughter escaped from Zac before he could stop it.
Maurice grinned at him with drunken amiability.
“Pray to whom?” asked Marianne.
“To God!” said Maurice
“Oh dear,” said Jasmine. “You still believe in God, Maurice?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, perhaps He exists,” says Jasmine. “But I doubt it. And I am not sure He is very interested in the likes of us.”
“He made us,” said Maurice.
“Well!” murmured Rae. “I think something went a little wrong somewhere.”
Jasmine snorted.
“How can you be religious?” said Rae with curiosity rather than disapproval. “The God brigade hate people like you and me!”
“There is no judgement in heaven,” declared Maurice.
“Did he say no judgement under heaven?” Marianne asked, turning to Rae.
“IN heaven,” said Rae.
“We are all imperfect beings in different ways,” said Maurice.
Nobody else seemed to be listening but personally, Zac found that poignant. Perhaps this strange, drunken man had something there. Was imperfection of the body - as he had always felt his own mismatch of brain and body to be - a more significant imperfection than an imperfection of character? Greed, say. Or selfishness. Or hatred. Surely not. He felt a surge of optimism. Looking up, he saw that the barman was watching him intently, but he glanced away quickly when Zac ca
ught his eye.
None of it will matter in the next life,” said Maurice. “Don’t you see? There is no gender in heaven either.”
“How dull,” said Jasmine cuttingly. She glanced at Marianne.
“Do you think there is a life after this one, Marianne?”
“I hope not,” muttered Marianne.
Zac looked on silently. It seemed a peculiar thing for Marianne to say at her age but he did not like to interrupt to ask what she meant.
Maurice leant across and rested his arm on Marianne’s chair.
“You must pray, hope…” he began, while Marianne stared a little vacantly at him.
“And don’t worry, yes, we get it,” interrupted Jasmine, rolling her eyes.
She turned to Rae.
“It’s like some awful verbal tic,” she said, as if Maurice wasn’t there. “Or Tourette’s.”
Maurice looked at her almost soberly.
“Who said that?” Rae asked Maurice.
“Said what?”
“Pray, hope… that stuff.”
“A holy man,” said Maurice vaguely.
“Who?”
“I can’t remember. Padre Pio maybe.”
Zac was still thinking about imperfections. His own had always felt so all-encompassing because his identity was at stake. He had always thought this… this thing, problem, imperfection, whatever it was he had, was an indication of his own moral failure. But perhaps it was simply a biological failure. And that was out of his hands.
“Zac!” said Jasmine.
“Sorry?”
He looked up to find them all looking at him.
“Do you believe in God?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah.” said Maurice, nodding sagely. He drained his glass. “But God believes in you.”
“Deep,” said Jasmine sarcastically. “That’s why he is so good to us, obviously. Takes away our struggle.”
“Jesus permits the spiritual combat as a purification, not as a punishment. The trial is not unto death but unto salvation,” said Maurice. “That’s Padre Pio as well,” he added, then frowned. “If the first bit is.”
Spiritual combat, thought Zac. That is certainly the way it feels. A movement at the corner of his eye made him look over. What was wrong with Marianne, he wondered. She was trembling.
“I want to go home,” said Marianne suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jasmine.
Marianne looked at Zac. “Take me home.”
“Of course,” said Zac.
“But we’ve only just got here,” muttered Jasmine.
Rae took her hand silently.
Marianne looked at him.
“You cannot see the joins,” she said, suddenly impassioned. “Can you?”
Rae stroked her hand, letting her eyes caress Marianne’s face.
“What joins, my darling? What joins can you not see?”
“The joins of time.” For a moment, Zac thought she might cry but she did not. “One minute we were here, young, in that time, that moment. And now we are here in this one. And I cannot see the join, the transition, the path between the two. Not really.”
“We have not been here together since…” said Rae.
“No,” said Marianne quickly. “Not since then.”
She glanced at Jasmine and then at Rae with a question in her eyes for Rae. Have you told her - the look asked. Rae shook his head and Zac could see some of the tension leave Marianne.
“You wouldn’t,” said Marianne.
What did she not want Rae to tell Jasmine? Zac wondered.
Rae put his fingers on Marianne’s lips in reply.
“I loved you then,” said Marianne softly.
“And now?”
Boom, boom, boom. The volume of the music shot up suddenly and Marianne glanced up again at the woman in the cream lace dress on the screen.
“Don’t ask me,” she sang, “what you know is true.”
“She belongs in here,” says Marianne. “Doesn’t she Rae? With her fishtail and her scarlet lips and her seedy glamour. Don’t ask me what you know is true. That is your answer.”
Rae smiled.
“And you can never, never, never tear us apart,” sang the woman.
“I cannot see the joins,” repeated Marianne, resting her head on his.
“Perhaps there are none,” whispered Rae.
“Are we expected to play gooseberry all night?” demanded Jasmine acerbically.
Rae kissed Marianne’s fingertips and laid her hand back carefully on the arm of her chair.
“Take me home, Zac,” said Marianne.
As they left the room, Zac was aware of the barman, lifting a hand, looking directly at him. His stomach tightened. He had a sense of something yet to come.
Zac almost did not recognise Maurice in a tired business suit, his tie loose around his neck and his brow beaded with sweat. He looked badly hung over. He was sitting on a stool at the front bar in Patrice’s with a cold espresso and a cigarette that he barely touched, but which curled smoke up through nicotine-stained fingers. He coughed and took a sip of coffee.
Marianne was having lunch with Rae and Jasmine, and Zac had only come in here on impulse, glad of an hour or two to himself. It was the only place he knew, he told himself. But there was another draw. The dark eyes of the barman flashed into his mind. Almost black they were, Zac thought. Watchful and deep.
“Maurice?” he said tentatively.
Maurice looked up in surprise.
“Bonjour,” he said blankly, before recognition suddenly flooded his face.
“My God! Yes!” His voice dropped and he looked round, but the bar was almost empty. “Beaded dress… Zac, was it?” He indicated the seat opposite him.
“I am surprised you remember my name!”
“Quite a night.” Maurice smiled weakly. “Suffering,” he said, wiping his clammy brow.
Maurice turned to the bar.
“Alain!”
The barman emerged from the back of the bar. Zac felt surge a flutter of nerves.
“Two coffees. This is Zac. Zac, this is Alain who owns the bar. My best friend, aren’t you Alain?”
Zac wasn’t sure if Maurice was being sarcastic about the amount he spent at the bar, or if Alain really was his best friend.
The barman smiled, nodded at Zac, his eyes appraising.
“We met last night,” said Alain.
So he remembered.
“You always notice the good-looking ones, Alain!” said Maurice.
Alain merely smiled.
A man of few words, Zac thought, watching his retreating figure.
Maurice rubbed his eyes with tiredness, then blinked at Zac.
“I didn’t recognise you when you first came in today,” he said.
“Me neither. You, I mean.”
Maurice looked less physically substantial as an ordinary man, Zac thought. It was strange the way the woman’s dress and the heels, the facial stubble and the lipstick, had somehow combined to emphasise the masculine side of him rather than the feminine. It had made him look larger than life, as if his masculinity was bursting out of a thin feminine shell. But today he looked like any other insipid, overweight, middle-aged man in a slightly crumpled shirt.
“You look… different, too,” said Zac hesitantly.
Maurice lifted his cup and glanced up at him with bloodshot eyes. His hand trembled slightly.
“The dress wouldn’t go down well at work,” he grinned.
“What do you do?” asked Zac, unable to take his eyes of the cup as it shook in Maurice’s hand.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I work as a sales rep as it happens. But it doesn’t matter, if you know what I mean.”
Zac nodded.
“You?”
“I am a carer in a home for the elderly.”
“My God! Good for you.”
“Do you have a partner?�
� asked Zac, then flushed. The question sounded more intimate than he had meant it to.
“She left me.”
‘She’, thought Zac with a flicker of interest.
“She couldn’t stand my funny little ways anymore.”
Zac thought of Abbie and felt his spirits plunge immediately.
“I see,” he said.
“Oh not the frocks,” said Maurice, waving his hand dismissively. “I just left the top off the toothpaste once too often. That kind of thing.”
Zac stared at him, then laughed suddenly, instinctively.
Maurice smiled and held out his hand.
“Shake! We will be friends, Zac. How long are you here?”
“Two weeks.”
Maurice’s hand felt clammy.
“A good length of time for a friendship. Complete but not stale.”
He smiled. There was something sad about his smile, Zac thought. It held too much resignation.
“Those people,” continued Maurice curiously, “the ones you were with last night. Are they your family?”
“No. Long story. I am a carer for Marianne. She and Raymond came here many years ago and I have brought her…” He stopped short. “For her last visit,” he was going to say. He supposed it was, but he left it unsaid.
“She has connections here?”
“Emotional connections, yes. A flat, a past…but she has not been here for many, many years.”
“She…” began Maurice, then hesitated, saying a phrase in French that Zac did not understand. “She is looking for part of herself that she left here?” he said.
“I suppose you could put it like that.”
“And you,” said Maurice, “you are looking for part of yourself, too?”
“Maybe.”
Maurice looked over his shoulder.
“Alain!” he shouted. “Have you forgotten the coffees?” Alain did not appear.
“You like men or women?”
Zac swallowed.
“I…”
“I understand,” said Maurice encouragingly.
I understand. So simple but the phrase unlocked something in Zac. He had never talked about himself in his life and heard that response. Not even with Conchetta. Nor with Marianne, come to that. But he suspected he could tell this new best friend, this stranger, anything. Because in two weeks, Maurice would be his past. He would never see him again and that idea of a temporary soul mate was very liberating.
The Chrysalis Page 15
