Geoff Dyer - Paris Trance

‘Is it cheap?’ said Sara.

‘Oh yes,’ said Alex. ‘If we’re being absolutely frank, I don’t do expensive.’

‘I appreciate your telling me.’

‘I’ve always thought it a shame that miserliness is not considered a more attractive quality in a man.’

‘It is pretty low on the list.’

‘You mean there is something lower? That’s reassuring.’

‘Well, there’s a whole bunch of things. All clustered at the bottom together.’

‘What are the others?’

‘I wouldn’t know where to start. What about you Nicole?’ said Sara. ‘What are some of the thousands of unattractive qualities in a man?’

‘Men with hubbies.’

‘ Hubbies ?’

‘Have I got the word wrong?’

‘Possibly. It depends.’

‘You know, like something he does all the time. Like making aeroplanes or collecting stamps, or—’

‘Ah ho bbies!’

‘Don’t you think it depends on the hubby, though?’ said Luke. ‘Alex, for example, has lots of hubbies and some of them are quite harmless, even potentially endearing.’

‘Have you, Alex?’

‘Oh don’t get him started on his hubbies. We’ll be here all night. What else though? What are the other unattractive qualities in a man?’

‘Men who bite their finger-nails.’

‘He’s a compulsive nail-biter,’ said Luke.

‘Pot bellies.’

‘He’s got one of those too.’

‘Hairy backs.’

‘It’s like you’re describing him,’ said Luke.

‘Stained underpants,’ said Sara.

‘Now you’re getting really personal.’

‘Men who look in their handkerchiefs after they’ve blown their nose,’ said Nicole.

‘Oh come on. It might not be nice but it’s not gender specific.’

‘Also, how many men do you know who have handkerchiefs these days? This is the age of the tissue.’

‘Men who can’t dance.’

‘Men who put their socks on before their trousers.’

‘Men who smoke.’ Luke shot Alex a what did I tell you? glance.

‘And women who smoke,’ he said.

‘Smoking generally.’

‘Men dancing badly and smoking in their socks and stained underpants.’

‘Yes.’

‘Men who can’t cook.’

‘I’m a brilliant cook,’ said Luke.

‘Men who boast.’

‘ English men,’ said Nicole and Sara together.

‘What about attractive qualities? What do women like in a man? I think that’s the kind of angle Alex and I are more interested in.’

‘Defnitely,’ said Alex.

‘Seriously?’ said Sara.

‘Of course.’

‘Broad shoulders,’ said Nicole, putting her arm around Luke’s thin shoulders.

‘Strength.’

‘Kindness.’

‘Yes, kindness is a lovely quality,’ said Sara. ‘Often over-looked.’

‘Men who dance well.’

‘Tanned ankles.’

‘Men who don’t have holes in their socks.’

‘Speaking of socks,’ said Sara, ‘there are men with a foot in both camps, so to speak. Damaged men. There are women who like damaged men. That is, women go through a phase of liking damaged men. They think they can mend them, like socks. Then, hopefully, they come to their senses and realize that a damaged man is actually just a boy.’

‘Damaged,’ Luke said to Nicole, ‘is not the same as ruined.’

‘Apart from that, it’s very simple and not at all mysterious,’ said Sara. ‘Women like in men exactly the things men like in women. Attractive faces, nice bodies, intelligent, generous, sexy, funny.’

‘The most important thing,’ said Nicole, ‘is that women like men who like women.’

‘ I like women,’ said Alex.

‘One out of six is not bad going,’ said Luke.

‘That still leaves the question of where we’re going to eat,’ said Sara.

‘Actually, we could eat here.’

‘Shall we eat here?’

‘Let’s eat here.’

‘Here is good.’

‘Let’s eat here then.’

When they had ordered, Sara told them about her work as an interpreter: French, Italian, Spanish, English; consecutive, simultaneous. . The latter — translating into one language at exactly the same time the words you were hearing in another — seemed an unimaginable skill. Especially to Luke whose French, according to Alex, was ‘lamentable, pitiful’. This was unfair and inaccurate, though not as inaccurate as Luke’s own verdict (‘fuent’). Nicole was nearer the mark with ‘coming along’. Alex was keen to gloat because, in the language hierarchy, he was second bottom with two (including English). Nicole had four; Sara had five, six if you included the smattering of Arabic she remembered from her childhood in Libya. She had spent her childhood there (because of her father’s work) and her teens in Chicago. Singapore (where she had seen several cobras) also figured in the picture. There was a lot of information to take in, much of it confusing. Her name, for example, was not Sara but Sahra .

‘How long have you been in Paris?’ asked Luke, seeking clarification.

‘Three years.’

‘Do you think you’ll stay?’

‘I feel at home here.’

‘Me too,’ said Nicole.

‘But I have a great urge to go back to my roots,’ said Sahra. ‘To Libya.’

‘Ah Libya,’ said Luke.

‘El Alamein,’ said Alex.

‘Tobruk.’

‘The Desert Fox.’

‘ The Rat Patrol .’ By mutual consent Luke and Alex abandoned this bewildering — to Sahra and Nicole — riff before it had properly got going.

‘Roots are overrated,’ said Luke, backtracking. ‘I couldn’t care less where my roots are. I’ve got no interest in them. So what if my grandfather was illegitimate? So what if he was born in Senegal?’

‘Was he?’

‘Actually he was born in Hertfordshire. But he could have been born on Mars for all I care.’

‘It’s different if you move around a lot when you are growing up,’ said Sahra. ‘You grew up in England, right?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You see, we were always moving. My father would come home and say that he had been posted somewhere new. He’d get out the globe and we’d all sit down and look to see where we were going—’

‘Sounds fantastic.’

‘So I was always leaving my friends behind and starting at a new school in the middle of the term in some place I’d not even heard of. I’d have to stand at the front of the class while the teacher said, “This is Sahra, she is blah blah. .”And all the kids would be looking at me and I’d have to start making friends over and over, and no one could get my name right. Not unlike now, come to think of it. .’

‘Except we’re all new here,’ said Nicole.

‘We’re all new kids in this class, honey,’ said Luke.

‘This is the first time I’ve lived out of England and I feel totally settled here,’ said Alex. ‘So settled, in fact, that I wouldn’t mind trying somewhere else, to see if I could feel even more settled there.’

‘The paradox of nomadism,’ said Sahra. ‘You keep moving because you’re searching for a place to stay. Once you realise you can live in other countries you can never quite settle anywhere again. You can never feel quite content.’

‘Contentment,’ said Luke. ‘A word which should never be spoken, only spat.’

‘“Every day spent in the country you were born is a day wasted,”’ said Nicole. ‘That’s another of his favourites at the moment.’

‘Speaks the man who has lived in Paris, right next door to London, who has spent his time entirely with English-speaking people, for all of three weeks: a man called intrepid. Intrepid with a small i! God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t taken him under my wing,’ said Alex.