The Paris Apartment (18 page)

I move through the
cave
, deeper into the crowd of masked faces and writhing bodies. The party's getting wild; I'm pretty sure I spot a couple up
against a wall having sex or something close to it and a little way on a small group doing lines. I wonder if the room full
of wine has been locked. I reckon this many people could put quite a dent in those racks of bottles.

“
Veux-tu un baiser de vampire?
” a guy asks me. I see that he's dressed as Dracula in a plasticky cape and some fake fangs—it's almost as crap a costume
as my ghost outfit was.

“Erm . . . sorry, what?” I say, turning toward him.

“A Vampire's Kiss,” he says in English, with a grin. “I asked if you want one?” For a moment I wonder if he's suggesting we
make out. Then I look down and realize he's holding out a glass swimming with bright red liquid.

“What's in it?”

“Vodka, grenadine . . . maybe some Chambord.” He shrugs. “Mostly vodka.”

“OK. Sure.” I could do with some Dutch courage. He hands it over. I take a sip—Jesus, it's even more grim than it looks, the
metallic hit of the vodka beneath the sticky sweet of the syrup and raspberry liqueur. It tastes like something we might have
served at the Copacabana, and that's not a good thing. But it's worth it for the vodka, even if I'd really prefer to take
it neat. I take another long glug, braced this time for the sweetness.

“I've never met you before,” he says, sounding almost more French now he's speaking English. “What's your name?”

“Jess. You?”

“Victor.
Enchanté
.”

“Er . . . thanks.” I get straight to the point. “Hey, do you know Ben? Benjamin Daniels. From the third floor?”

He makes a face. “
Non, désolé
.” He looks genuinely sorry to have let me down. “I like your accent,” he adds. “It's cool. You're from London,
non
?”

“Yup,” I say. It's not exactly true, but then where am I from, really?

“And you're a friend of Mimi's?”

“Er—yes, I suppose you could say that.” As in: I've met her precisely twice and she's never seemed exactly delighted to see
me, but I'm not going to go into particulars.

He raises his eyebrows in surprise, and I wonder if I've made some sort of mistake.

“It's just . . . most people here are friends of Camille. No one really knows Mimi. She—how do you say it in English?—keeps
herself to herself. Kind of intense. A bit—” He makes a gesture that I take to mean: “cuckoo.”

“I don't know her
that
well,” I say, quickly.

“Some people don't get why Camille's friends with Mimi. But I say—you just have to look at Mimi's apartment to know why. Mimi's
got rich parents. You know what I'm saying?” He points up toward the apartment. “In this part of town? Seriously expensive.
That is some
sick crib
.” He attempts to do the last two words in a kind of American accent.

In other circumstances I could almost feel sorry for Mimi. That people would assume someone's only friends with you because
of your money: that's rough. I mean, it's never a problem I've had to deal with, but still.

“So what are you?” he asks.

“What?” A beat, and then I realize he means my costume.
“Oh—right.” Shit. I look down at my outfit: jeans and old bobbly sweater. “Well, I was a ghost but now I'm just an ex-barmaid who's sick of everyone's shit.”

“
Quoi?
” He frowns.

“It's—er, a British thing,” I tell him. “It might not translate.”

“Oh right.” He nods. “Cool.”

An idea hits me. If Camille and Mimi are down here then no one is up there, in the apartment. I could take a look around.

“Hey,” I say, “Victor—could you do me a favor?”

“Tell me.”

“I really need to pee. But I don't think there's an, er—
toilette
—down here?”

He looks suddenly uncomfortable: clearly French boys get as embarrassed about such matters as their British counterparts.

“Could you ask Camille if we can borrow the key to the place?” I smile my most winning smile, the one I'd use on the big tippers
at the bar. Little hair flip. “I'd be
so
grateful.”

He grins back. “
Bien sûr.
”

Bingo. Maybe Ben's not the only one with the charm.

I sip my drink while I wait: it's growing on me, now. Or maybe that's the vodka kicking in. Victor comes back a few minutes
later, holds up a key.

“Amazing,” I say, holding out my hand.

“I'll come with you,” he says, with a grin. Crap. I wonder what he thinks is going to come out of this. But maybe it helps
me look less suspicious if we go together.

I follow Victor up out of the
cave
, up the dark staircase. We take the lift—his suggestion—and we end up pressed against each other as there's barely room for
one person. I can smell his breath—cigarettes and vodka, not a totally unappealing combination. And he's not bad-looking.
But too pretty for my liking; you could cut a lemon on his jawline. Besides, he's basically a child.

I have a sudden flashback to Nick and me a couple of hours ago on the roof terrace. That moment, after he'd taken the leaf out of my hair—when he didn't move away as quickly as he should have. That snatched piece of time, just before the lights went out, when I was convinced he was going to kiss me. What would have happened if it hadn't suddenly gone dark? If I hadn't gone sneaking into the rest of the apartment and found that photograph? Would we have gone back to his apartment, fallen into his bed together—

“You know, I've always wanted to be with an older woman,” Victor says, earnestly, jolting me back into the real world.

Steady on, mate, I think. And besides, I'm only twenty-eight.

The lift grinds to a halt on the fourth floor. Victor unlocks the door to the apartment. There are a load of bottles and crates
of beer stacked in the main room—must be extra party supplies.

“Hey,” I say. “Why don't you fix us a couple more drinks while I go and pee? This time big on the vodka please, less of the
red stuff.”

There's a corridor leading off the main room with several doors. The layout reminds me a little of the penthouse flat, only
everything here is more cramped and instead of original artworks on the walls there are peeling posters—
CINDY SHERMAN: CENTRE POMPIDOU
and a tour list for someone called
DINOS
. The first room I come to is an absolute tip: the floor scattered with clothes, lace lingerie in bright sorbet colors and
shoes—bras and thongs tangled around the sharp points of heels. A dressing table covered in makeup, about twenty mashed lipsticks
all missing their lids. The air's so heavily scented with perfume and cigarette smoke it gives me an instant headache. A huge
poster on one wall of Harry Styles in a tutu and, on the opposite, Dua Lipa in a tux. I think of Mimi and her scowl, her jagged,
grungy fringe. I'm pretty sure this isn't her vibe. I close the door.

The next room has to be Mimi's. Dark walls. Big black and white angry prints on the walls—one of a freaky, blank-eyed woman—lots of serious-looking arty tomes on the bookshelf. A record player with a load of vinyls in a special case next to it. The one on the turntable is by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs:
It's Blitz!

I creep across to the window. It turns out that Mimi's got a perfect diagonal view into the main living space of Ben's apartment,
across the courtyard. I can see his desk, the sofa. Interesting. I think of her dropping her wine glass earlier when I spoke
about Ben. She's hiding something, I know it.

I open the cupboard, search through drawers of clothes. Nothing to note. It's all so neat, almost anally so. But the problem
is I don't know what I'm looking for—and I suspect I don't have much time before Victor starts wondering why I'm taking so
long.

I get on my knees and grope around under the bed. My hand connects with what feels like material wrapped around something
harder, wood maybe, and I just know I've found something significant. I get a hold of the whole lot, pull it toward me. A
piece of gray material falls open to reveal a ragged pile of artists' canvases, slashed and torn into pieces. So much mess
and chaos compared to the rest of the room.

I look more closely at the material they were wrapped in. It's a gray T-shirt with Acne on the label, an exact match for the
ones in Ben's cupboard. I'm sure it's one of his. It even smells like his cologne. Why has Mimi been keeping her art stuff
in one of Ben's T-shirts? More importantly: why has she got one of Ben's T-shirts at all?

“Jessie?” Victor calls. “Are you OK, Jessie?”

Shit. It sounds like he's getting closer.

I start trying to fit some of the scraps of canvas back together as quickly as I can. It's like doing a really messy jigsaw puzzle. Finally I've pieced enough pieces of the first one together to see
the picture. I stand back. It's a really good likeness. She's even managed to get his smile, which others have called charming but I'd definitely tell him makes him look like a smarmy git. Here he is, right in front of me. Ben. Just as he is in life.

Except for one terrible, terrifying difference. I lift a hand to my mouth. His eyes have been removed.

“Jessie?” Victor calls again, “
où es-tu,
Jessie?”

I fit the next image together, and the next. Jesus. They're all of him. There's even one of him lying down and—Christ alive,
that's way more of my brother than I ever needed to see. In every single one the eyes have been destroyed, punched or torn
out with something.

I had a feeling Mimi was lying about knowing him the first time I met her. I suspected she was hiding something as soon as
her wine glass hit the floor in Sophie Meunier's apartment. But I never expected anything like this. If these are anything
to go by—if that nude painting is any clue—she knows Ben very well indeed. And feels strongly enough about him to have done
some pretty serious damage to these paintings: those tears in the fabric could only have been made with something really sharp,
or with a lot of force—or both.

I stand up but as I do a strange thing happens. It's like the whole room tilts with the movement. Whoa. I go to steady myself
against the nightstand. I try to blink away the dizziness. I take a step backward and it happens again. As I stand, trying
to get my balance, it feels like the ground is rolling around under my feet and everything around me is made of jelly, the
walls collapsing inward.

I stagger out of the bedroom, into the corridor. I have to keep a hand out on both sides to stop myself from keeling over.
And then Victor appears, at the end of the passage.

“Jessie—there you are
.
What were you doing?” He's walking toward me down the dark corridor. He smiles and his teeth are
very white—just like a real vampire. My only way out is past him; he's blocking my escape. Even with my brain turned to syrup I know what this is. You don't work in twenty different divey bars and not know what this is. The drink some guy's offered to buy you, the freebie that is anything but. I never, ever fall for that shit. What the hell was I thinking? How could I have been so stupid? It's always the pretty ones, the seemingly harmless ones, the so-called nice guys.

“What the fuck was in that drink, Victor?” I ask.

And then everything goes black.

Morning. I'm sitting on the balcony watching the light seep into the sky. The joint I stole from Camille hasn't helped me
relax: it's just making me feel sick and even more jittery. I feel . . . I feel like I'm trapped inside my own skin. Like
I want to claw my way out.

I hurry out of the apartment and run down the twisting stairway to the
cave
, not wanting to meet anyone on the way. It's full of the detritus from the party last night: broken glass and spilled drinks
and dropped accessories from people's costumes—wigs and devil's forks and witches' hats. I normally like it better down here,
in the dark and the quiet: another place to hide away. But right now I can't be here either because his Vespa is there, leaning
against the wall.

I don't—can't—look at it as I pull my bicycle from the rack beside it.

He always went out on that Vespa. I wanted to know about his life, I wanted to follow him into the city, see where he went,
what he did, who he met with, but it was impossible because he used that bike to go everywhere. So one day I went down into
the
cave
and I stabbed a small hole into the front wheel with the very sharp blade of my canvas-cutting knife. That was better.
He wouldn't be able to use it for a few days. I only did it because I loved him.

That afternoon I saw him leave on foot. My plan had worked. I went after him, followed him into the Metro and got onto the
next carriage. He got off in this really shitty part of town. What the hell was he doing there? He went and sat down in this
greasy-looking kebab place. I sat in a shisha bar across the road and ordered a Turkish coffee and tried to look like I fitted
in among all the old guys puffing away on their rose-scented tobacco. Ben was making me do things I never normally would,
I realized. He was making me brave.

Ten minutes or so later a girl came and joined Ben. She was tall and thin, a hood up over her head, which she only took down
once she was sitting opposite him. I felt my stomach turn over when I saw her face. Even from across the street I could see
that she was beautiful: dark chocolate hair with a sharp fringe that looked so much better than my home-cut one, a model's
cheekbones. And young: probably only my age. Yes, her clothes were bad: a fake-looking leather jacket with that hoodie underneath
and cheap jeans, but they somehow made her seem even more beautiful by contrast. As I watched them together I could actually
feel my heart hurting, a hot coal burning behind my rib cage.

I waited for him to kiss her, to touch her face, her hand, to stroke her hair—anything—waited for the worse pain I knew would come when I saw him do it. But nothing happened. They just sat there talking. I realized it seemed quite formal. Like they didn't actually know each other that well. There was definitely nothing between them to suggest they might be lovers. Finally he passed her something. I tried to see. It looked like a phone or a camera, maybe. Then she got up and left, and he did too. They went in different directions. I still couldn't work out
why he'd been talking to her, or what he might have given her, but I was so relieved I could have cried. He hadn't been unfaithful to me. I knew I shouldn't have doubted him.

Later, back in my room, I thought of that night in the park, how we'd shared that cigarette. The two of us in the dark by
the lake. The taste of his mouth when I'd kissed him. I thought about it when I lay in bed at night, fingers exploring. And
I whispered those words I heard in the darkness by the lake.
Je suis ta petite pute.
I'm your little whore.

This was it, I knew it. This was why I'd waited so long. I was different from Camille. I couldn't just screw around with random
guys. It had to be something real.
Un grand amour.
I had thought I'd been in love before. The art teacher, Henri, at my school—Les Soeurs Servantes du Sacré Coeur. I'd known
we had a connection from the beginning. He'd smiled at me in that first lesson, told me how talented I was. But later, when
I sent him the paintings I had made of him, he took me aside and told me they weren't appropriate—even though I'd worked so
hard on them, on getting the proportions right, the tone: just like he'd taught us. And when I sent them to his wife instead,
but cut up into little pieces, they made some kind of formal complaint. And then—well, I don't want to go into all that. I
heard they left for another school abroad.

I didn't know where this part of me had been hiding. The part that could fall in love. Actually: I did. I'd been keeping it
locked away. Deep down inside me. Terrified that sort of weakness would make me vulnerable again. But I was ready now. And
Ben was different. Ben would be loyal to me.

 

Down in the
cave
, I tear my eyes away from his Vespa. I feel like there's a metal band around my ribs stopping me from taking in
enough air. And in my ears still this horrible rushing sound, the white noise, the storm. I just need to make it stop.

I yank my bike free and haul it up the stairs. I can feel the pressure building inside me as I wheel it across the courtyard,
as I push it along the cobbled street . . . all the way down to the main road where the morning rush-hour traffic is roaring
past. I jump onto the saddle, look quickly in each direction through the tears blurring my eyes, push straight out into the
street.

There's a screech of brakes. The blare of a horn. Suddenly I'm lying on my side on the tarmac, the wheels spinning. My whole
body feels bruised and torn. My heart's pounding.

That was so close.

“You stupid little bitch,” the van driver screams, hanging out of his open window and gesturing at me with his cigarette.
“What the fuck were you doing? What the hell were you thinking, pulling out into the road without looking?”

I yell back, my language even worse than his. I call him
un fils de pute
, son of a whore,
un sac a merde
, a bag of shit . . . I tell him he can go fuck himself. I tell him he can't drive for shit.

Suddenly the front door of the apartment building clangs open and the concierge is running out. I've never seen that woman
move so fast. She always seems so old and hunched. But maybe she moves more quickly when you're not looking. Because she's
always there when you least expect to see her. Appearing around corners and out of shadows, lurking in the background. I don't
know why we even have a concierge. Most places don't have them any longer. We should have just installed a modern intercom
system. It would be much better than having her around, snooping on everyone. I don't like the way she watches. Especially
how she watches me.

Without saying anything she puts out her hands, helps me to stand up. She's much stronger than I ever would have guessed.
Then she looks at me closely; intensely. I feel like she's trying to tell me something. I look away. It makes me think she knows something. Like maybe she knows everything.

I throw off her hand. “
Ça va
,” I say.
I'm OK.
“I can get up on my own.”

My knees are still stinging like a kid's who has taken a tumble in the playground. And my bike chain has come off. But that's
the worst of it.

It could have ended so differently. If I hadn't been such a coward. Because the truth is, I
was
looking. That was the point.

I knew exactly what I was doing.

It was so close. Just not close enough.