I see one bloke stop and pee in one of the flowerbeds while his friends look on, cackling. I slam the shutters closed, hoping that’ll help block out some of the noise.
I sit here for a moment, the sounds beyond the windows muffled but still audible. Something has just occurred to me. There’s a chance someone going to that party might know Ben; he’s been living here for a few months, after all. Maybe I can learn more about this family. And frankly anything is better than sitting here, feeling surrounded and spied upon, not knowing what they might be planning for me.
I don’t have a costume, but surely I can make use of something here. I stride into the bedroom and while the cat watches me curiously, sitting tucked into its haunches on top of Ben’s chest of drawers, I tug the sheet off the bed. I find a knife in the drawer, stab some eye-holes into it and then chuck the thing over my head. I march into the bathroom to have a look, trying not to trip over the edges of the sheet. It’s not going to win any prizes, but now I’ve got an outfit and a disguise in one, and frankly it’s a hell of a lot better than a sodding sexy cat, the basic bitch of Halloween costumes.
I open the door to the apartment, listen. It sounds as though they’re heading into the basement. I creep down the spiral staircase, following the music and the stream of guests down the stairwell into the cave, the thump of the bass getting louder and louder until I can feel it vibrating in my skull.
Nick
Second floor
I’m on my third cigarette of the evening. I only took up smoking when I came back here; the taste disgusts me but I need the steadying hit of the nicotine. All those years of clean living and now look at me: sucking on a Marlboro like a drowning man taking his last breaths. I look down from my window as I smoke, watch the kids streaming into the courtyard. I almost kissed her this evening, up on the terrace. That moment, stretching out between the two of us. Until it seemed like the only thing that made sense.
Christ. If the lights hadn’t gone off and shocked me out of my trance, I would have done. And where would I be now?
His sister. His sister.
What was I thinking?
I wander into the bathroom. Stub out the cigarette in the sink where it fizzles wetly. Look in the mirror.
Who do you think you are? my reflection asks me, silently. More importantly, who does she think you are?
The good guy. Eager to help. Concerned about his mate.
That’s what she sees, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve let her believe.
You know, I read somewhere that sixty percent of us can’t go more than ten minutes without lying. Little slippages: to make ourselves sound better, more attractive, to others. White lies to avoid causing offense. So it’s not like I’ve done anything out of the ordinary. It’s only human. But, really, the important thing to stress is I haven’t actually lied to her. Not outright. I just haven’t told her the whole truth.
It’s not my fault she assumed I was British. Makes sense. I’ve honed my accent and my fluency pretty well over the years; made a big effort to do so when I was at Cambridge and didn’t want to be known as “that French guy”。 Flattening my vowels. Hardening my consonants. Perfecting a kind of London drawl. It’s always been a point of pride for me, a little thrill when Brits have mistaken me for one of them—just like she did.
The second thing she assumed was that the people in this building are nothing more than neighbors to one another. That was all her, honestly. I just didn’t stand in the way of her believing it. To tell the truth, I liked her believing in him: Nick Miller. A normal guy, nothing to do with this place beyond the rent he paid on it.
Look. Can anyone say they’ve really never wished their family were less embarrassing, or different in some way? That they’ve never wondered what it might be like to be free of all those familial hang-ups? That baggage. And this family has rather more baggage than most.
I’ve heard from Papa this evening, incidentally. Everything OK, son? Remember I’m trusting you to take care of things there. The “son” was affectionate for him. He must really want me to do his bidding. But then my father excels at getting others to do his bidding. The second part is classic Papa, of course. Ne merdes pas. Do not mess this up.
I think of that dinner, during the heat wave. All of us summoned up to the roof terrace. The light purplish, the lanterns glowing among the fig trees, the warm scent of their leaves. The streetlamps coming on below us. The air thick as soup, like you had to swallow it rather than inhale.
Papa at one end of the table, my stepmother beside him in eau-de-nil silk and diamonds, cool as the night was hot, profile turned toward the skyline as though she were somewhere else entirely—or wished she were. I remember the first time Papa introduced us to Sophie. I must have been about nine. How glamorous she seemed, how mysterious.