The Paris Apartment(65)
But I didn’t. Instead I imagined revealing myself to him. I pictured the look on his face. Saw him sliding it off me.
Je suis ta petite pute.
After I’d changed I took it over to the desk and told the shop assistant to ring it up. I liked how she tried to hide her surprise as I took out my credit card. Yeah: fuck you, bitch. I could buy everything in here if I wanted.
All the way back to the apartment I thought about the bag over my arm. It weighed nothing, but suddenly it was everything.
For the next few nights I watched him through the windows. They’d got later and later, these writing sessions: fueled by the pots of coffee he’d make on his stove and drink looking out of the windows onto the courtyard. It was something important, I could tell. I could see how fast he typed, hunched over the keyboard. Maybe he’d let me read it one day soon. I’d be the first person he shared it with. I watched him bend down and stroke the cat’s head and I imagined I was that cat. I imagined one day I would lie there on his sofa with my head in his lap and he would stroke my hair like he did that cat’s fur. And we’d listen to records and we’d talk about all the plans we’d make. I saw the image of us there together in his apartment so clearly it was like I was watching it. So clearly that it felt like a premonition.
Nick
Second floor
A hammering on the door of my apartment. I jump with shock.
“Who is it?”
“Laissez-moi entrer.” Let me in. More hammering. The door shudders on its hinges.
I go to open it. Antoine shoves his way past me into the room in a cloud of booze and stale sweat. I take a step back.
He pushed his way in here like this only two weeks ago: “Dominique’s cheating on me. I know she is. The little slut. She comes back smelling of a different scent. I called her yesterday in the stairwell and I heard her ringtone coming from somewhere in this building. Second time I rang she’d switched it off. She’d told me she was having a pedicure in Saint-Germain. It’s him, I know it. It’s that English connard you invited to live here . . .”
And me thinking: could it be true? Ben and Dominique? Yes, there had been flirtation at that drinks, on the roof terrace. I hadn’t read anything into it. Ben flirted with everyone. But could this be an explanation for why he had been avoiding my eye, avoiding my calls? Why he had been so busy?
Now Antoine snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Wakey wakey, petit frère!” He doesn’t say it affectionately. His eyes are bloodshot, breath rank with wine. I couldn’t believe the change when I came back after those years away. When I left, my brother was a happy newlywed. Now he’s an alcoholic mess whose wife has left him. That’s what working for our father does to you. “What are we going to do about her?” he demands. “The girl?”
“Just calm down—”
“Calm down?” He stabs the air in front of me with a finger. I take another step back. He may be a mess but I’ll always be the younger brother, ready to duck a punch. And he’s so like Papa when he’s angry. “You know this is all your fault, don’t you? All your mess? If you hadn’t invited that cunt to live here. Coming here and thinking he could just . . . just help himself. You know he used you, right? But you couldn’t see that, could you? You couldn’t see any of it.” He frowns, mock-thoughtful. “In fact, now I think about it, the way you looked at him—”
“Ferme ta gueule.” Shut your mouth. I take a step toward him. The anger is sudden, blinding. And when I’m next aware of what I’m doing I realize my hand is around his throat and his eyes are bulging. I loosen my fingers—but with an effort, as though some part of me resists the instruction.
Antoine puts up a hand, rubs at his neck. “Hit a nerve there, didn’t I, little bro?” His voice is hoarse, his eyes a little frightened, his tone not as flippant as he’d probably like it. “Papa wouldn’t like that, would he? No, he wouldn’t like that at all.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Ashamed. My hand aches. “Shit, I’m sorry. This isn’t helping anything, us fighting like this.”
“Oh look at you. So grown-up. Embarrassed about your little hissy fit because you like pretending that you’re sorted, don’t you? But you’re just as fucked-up as I am.” When he says the word “fucked”—a harsh foutu in French—a huge gob of spit lands on my cheek. I put my hand up, wipe it off. I want to go and wash my face, scrub at it with hot water and soap. I feel infected by him.
When Jess spoke about Antoine last night I saw him through a stranger’s eyes. I was ashamed of him. She’s right. He is a mess. But I hated her saying it. Because he’s also my brother. We can do our family members down as much as we like. But the second an outsider insults them our blood seethes. At the end of the day I don’t like him—but I love him. And I see my own failures in him. For Antoine it’s the booze, for me it’s the pills, the self-punishing exercise. I might be a little more in control of my addictions. I might be less of a mess—in public anyway. But is that really something to boast about?
Antoine’s grinning at me. “Bet you wish you’d never come back here, huh?” He takes another step closer. “Tell me, if it was all so great rubbing shoulders with the high-flyers in Silicon Valley, why did you come back? Ah, oui . . . because you’re no better than the rest of us. You try and pretend you are, that you don’t need him, his money. But then you came crawling back here, like we all do, wanting to suck a little more from the paternal teat—”