Geoff Dyer - Paris Trance

‘It sounds frightfully complicated,’ said Celia. When they began meeting for their afternoon matinées they consulted Pariscope to decide which film took their fancy.

‘What are you in the mood for darling?’ said Celia.

‘What about Sous Les Jupes Pas Des Culottes ? Or Les Suceuses ?’ said Trevor.

‘Oh I don’t like those highbrow art films. Isn’t there something lighter?’ said Celia.

‘What about Pénétrez-Moi Par Le Petit Trou ?’ said Trevor.

‘That sounds interesting, let’s try that,’ said Celia, her eyes brightening.

It went on in this vein right up until Trevor’s final, heart-broken goodbye: ‘Fuck off then you prick-teasing slag!’

In response to this fond farewell Nicole walked towards the house until her face filled the screen in tight close-up. Luke got up and advanced towards the TV, assuming the role of Fred, the almost-cuckolded hubby.

‘Whatever your dream was, it wasn’t a very happy one was it? You’ve been a long way away. Thank you for coming back to me,’ he said, reaching through the screen and taking her in his arms.

At breakfast the next morning the postman delivered a birthday postcard from Daniel.

‘How sweet of him to remember your birthday,’ said Sahra, going inside to make more coffee.

‘Let’s hope that’s not the only thing he remembered,’ said Luke. ‘Oh, could you bring some scissors when you come back Sahra?’ He handed Alex the postcard: a Bonnard showing his wife Marthe, standing in the bath, blazing with naked light. Alex passed the card to Nicole who gave it back to Luke. When Sahra came back he began cutting into it with the scissors.

‘You’re spoiling it!’

‘Only the top corner,’ said Alex, watching attentively as Luke cut into one of the two stamps. It was not stuck in the middle, only around the edges. Luke eased the scissors under the stamp and slit it down the centre. Underneath were two squares of grey blotting paper.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ said Sahra, reaching out her hand.

‘I rather think it is,’ said Luke.

‘ What are they?’ said Nicole.

‘Well, whatever they are,’ said Luke, fiddling with the scissors again, ‘there are two more under the other stamp.’

‘Good old Daniel,’ said Alex.

That afternoon Nicole and Sahra made the most important discovery of all: the lake. One side of it was popular with tourists — at the weekend it was jam-packed — but they had found a track to the far side that was inaccessible by car and therefore almost deserted. The edge of the lake was dark, muddy. Your toes sank in as you entered the cold water and spooky-looking reeds waved around your ankles and shins as you got deeper. The women loved spending whole afternoons there, swimming, sun-bathing. Luke and Alex preferred to play tennis and come along later, sneaking up quietly, like schoolboys, hoping to discover their girlfriends naked. If they came for the entire afternoon they brought a football and played head tennis on the shore. Sometimes they stayed at the lake until late in the evening and then cycled home in the twilight, slowly, in a group, until Luke or Alex suddenly staged an impromptu speed trial as far as ‘that gate’, ‘that tree’, even the house itself. In the course of their time in the country Luke and Alex had worked themselves up into a frenzy of competitiveness. As well as killing themselves on the tennis court and, on windless days, monopolising the Ping-Pong table, they took any opportunity to throw down a challenge: running races (sprints and middle distance), stone-throwing (who could throw furthest, who could hit a Coke tin balanced on a stick pushed into the silt at the lake’s edge), skimming pebbles. The world had become an arena in which to test themselves against each other.

‘If we had boxing gloves we’d build a ring and I’d knock his fucking teeth out,’ said Luke as the four of them sat by the lake’s edge.

‘Luke!’ said Nicole.

‘How would you do that when you’d be in a coma with a broken jaw and brain damage?’ said Alex.

‘It must be an English thing,’ said Sahra, shaking her head.

‘Actually, I tell you what I wish was here,’ said Luke. ‘A place where you could jump from cliffs into deep water from incredibly high up.’

‘I love doing that,’ said Sahra.

‘Me too,’ said Alex. ‘Though I’d dive rather than jump.’

Back at the house Luke and Alex leaned a ladder against one of the walls and took it in turns to see who could climb highest using only their arms. This was a potentially dangerous game — for Luke. Alex was able to get to the top and down again but Luke could only get two thirds of the way up. By that stage he was too high to drop safely to the ground but his arms were so numb that it was only by wrapping his legs around the ladder and waiting for the fire in his shoulders to diminish that he found the strength to descend.

‘Luke, you’re so stupid,’ said Nicole when he was back on terra firma. ‘If you fall from there you’ll be back in plaster again.’

‘That’s exactly what kept me hanging on,’ laughed Luke, shaking the blood back into his hands. Undeterred, he continued practising, adding a few rungs every couple of days. While ostensibly taking a dim view of their boyfriends’ antics on the ladder, the women actually enjoyed this particular event.

‘It’s so horny isn’t it, watching men hanging by their arms like that?’ said Sahra.

‘It is isn’t it!’ said Nicole. ‘I was just thinking that.’

‘I always used to get turned on watching trapeze artists at the circus when I was young.’

‘Me too !’ giggled Nicole. ‘Don’t tell them that though. They’d probably rig up some kind of trapeze.’

Not to be outdone, the women organized a swimming race — the only event in which Luke and Alex did not compete against each other. A hopeless swimmer, Luke was reduced to refereeing. Alex, being strong, could swim well but could not keep up with the women who pulled ahead of him and then, having left him in their wake, achieved their own kind of victory, undermining Luke’s motto of ‘Victory at all costs’ (‘an inappropriate motto for a compulsive loser,’ according to Alex) by finishing neck and neck.

Although he did not enjoy swimming Luke did like going out with Nicole on the blue lilo she had bought in town. They lay across it, using it to keep them afloat, kicking with their legs for propulsion. When they had gone a good distance from the shore they clambered aboard and sat on it together, their combined weight pushing it a foot beneath the surface. Using it like this was well outside the lilo’s performance envelope, but each time they went out they strayed a little further from the shore, passing through sudden bands of cold and warmer water until Luke judged, one day, that they were in the dead centre of the lake. As he lay on the lilo with Nicole in his arms, her tanned body pressed against him, the sun drying them, Luke wondered what would happen if the lilo exploded, burst, sank. Would he be able to make it back to the shore? It was a freshwater lake. There was no salt to keep him afloat. The water was dark. Reflected in it he could see the single cloud that skirted the sun. Nicole’s wet hair was streaked across his arm. He glanced across at her. She was wearing her yellow swimming costume. Her eyes were open, smiling oddly, watching him.

‘You’re thinking about drowning aren’t you?’

‘I was actually, yes. Or at least wondering if I would drown.’

‘If what?’

‘If the lilo burst.’

‘We can see if you like.’

‘What do you mean?’

Without replying Nicole reached down and pulled the stopper. Air whooshed and bubbled out of the lilo. It began deflating immediately.