The Last Kings of Sark (18 page)

‘Who?
Me?
'

‘No, me. Me. Although you…' The way he shrugs his mouth says ‘you too'. But he looks back down at himself, and stretches out his sweater. ‘I mean, look at this. There's no use.'

‘Was thinking that. It's hot today.'

‘No, I mean, what if I get run over? Who's going to save me? Who's going to save
them?
' He's dropped his volume; he points with his eyes at the boot-polish men. ‘No one. But you see a man in a suit lying by the side of the road? You pick him up. It's the suit; you need the suit.'

‘You're twenty-three. You can't wear a suit on a Sunday. We're eating biscuits.'

‘Should always wear a suit.'

‘You'll look like a Christian.'

‘It's safer.'

‘I won't be your friend.'

‘It's safer.'

They've nearly finished their beers now, the cans are light. Rookie rings his like a bell, the dregs skitter at the bottom. But clutching empties makes them feel closer to the other bench, so they stand to go.

‘Can I have your last cigarette?' he asks. ‘I know it's rude. We can share.'

Jude puts it in his mouth. ‘Hands,' he says, and they cup the flame.

It's downhill from here. They're not sure exactly where they're going, just downhill. Rue Chappe, Rue Berthe, the park on Rue Burq. It's Sunday, and on Sunday they walk slowly.

They are nearly at Abbesses when the money falls from the sky.

It's not exactly like that. It's something moving fast in the corner of their eyes and then a bangsmack, and a bounce on the pavement. It's a wallet that lands in front of them.

They look up before they look down, by instinct, just to make sure no more is on its way, but then pick it up. It's beige, (‘pleather,' Jude says) with a zip. They open it and fill it with fingers. One note, five euros, a few coins, a small key. It's not to steal, just curiosity.

But they find no name. They walk backwards to the kerb, so they can see to the top of the building. Finally, from the fourth floor, a tiny face looks down at them. A child's face, a small girl, smiling, leaning out of the window over a flower basket.

‘Did you throw this?' Rookie shouts up to her.

‘She's
French,
' Jude says, ‘obviously. Say it in French.'

‘She's laughing. Why's she laughing?' The small girl is laughing. She's picking petals off the flowers now, and throwing them out of the window like the slowest confetti. She can't be more than six. ‘What if she throws the TV?'

‘Too heavy.'

‘Where's her mum?'

‘Bon
jour
!' Rookie shouts up to the child. ‘I'm –
leaving
– the wallet on the –
roof
– of the –
car, OK?
Tell your –
mummy
– it's on the –
roof
– of this –
car.
'

The child laughs again and throws another hand-squashed rose.

‘OK?'

She throws one last flower. The petals pull apart in the air, but before they land the wallet has been left, and Rookie and Jude walk away.

They are in Place des Abbesses now, just by the carousel. It looks nice from a distance, but up close it's horrible – spray-painted clowns and clunky lightbulbs. He is happier though, something about his walk says it. He uses one hand to leapfrog a bollard.

‘You seem perkier,' she says. ‘Are you proud you didn't filch that fiver?'

‘Filch?'

‘You're proud, aren't you?'

‘Who says filch? No one says filch. Anyway, that's not it.' He leapfrogs another bollard, one leg higher than the other. ‘I know I'm not dead now.'

‘Why? Don't do another one. Seriously. You're going to crack your head, I can see it.'

He does one last leapfrog and stops, ever so slightly out of breath. ‘I know we're not dead now. We've got to be alive. It's the wallet.'

‘Merde.'
Jude's looking in her bag. ‘No fags.'

‘Everything up till then was
normal,
you see. Me phoning, you sleeping, us walking. The bench. All this. We always do this. I could be dead and I'd still see all this, I think. I hope. But money's never fallen from the sky before. That's how I know it's not all in my head.'

‘Can you think of a tabac near here?'

‘The point is, we're alive, Jude.' He looks as if he is going to kiss the bollard he just jumped over.

They go home up Caulaincourt, a gentle spiral staircase, curved walls and light green leaves. Each waits for the other to suggest a final beer, on a terrasse, to say goodbye to the sun and Sunday.

They wait too long, and so they come to the fork in the road where they must separate. They hover, finish their conversation, half start a new one, hover, hover, hold hands for a moment, then say goodnight.

They sleep alone, thickly and deeply, and wake up early the next day. The mirror is kinder this morning. Their colour has come back: light spring tans, bright eyes, cheeks that look kissed. She has time for lipstick and he lifts weights. They are not dead, and somehow they will not die, either of them, for a long time.

Yes, they feel well, and they are early, and so they cycle to the places they have to go, sun in their eyes. Because they don't take the métro, they don't read the paper. And besides, the story they might have seen is only small.

There's been a death in Montmartre. A little girl has fallen from a window. There's a mention of a wallet, a phone number to call; but the story is so small, that nobody notices.

*   *   *

Six days later, it is Sunday again. They walk their walk, Rookie and Jude – coffee, bench, pilgrimage – and just before Abbesses, they see bouquets on the pavement.

‘Magic place,' he says. ‘Wallets and flowers.'

He pulls out a lily, still a bud, ‘so it lasts', and he gives it to her.

Terrasse

Summer has come in a day, in April.

‘Hell-o!' a voice calls, a voice Pip recognizes, a voice whose owner he is here to see. ‘Hi!
Here!
'

But he can't find ‘here'. He can't find her.

‘Hii-ii,' again, louder, broken into two notes, one high then low. ‘Here! Are you blind? Left! No, not left, then –
my
left, your right. Here. Right here.'

She's put her arms out in a Y to the sky, to make herself as big as she can. She waves her Y but keeps her feet still. Finally he sees her and walks towards her.

‘Hello,' Pip says, and raises a hand. She's standing in shade, but when he gets there he keeps his sunglasses on.

‘Hi. Oh
hi.
Hello,' she says. ‘Look at you.' She does. ‘It's been mountains –
moons.
Doesn't it make you want to say hello a hundred times?' She's holding his T-shirt along the sides, by the seams. She's looking all over his face, at his jeans, at his feet.
‘Hi.'

‘Hello,' Pip says again. The sun has been making him frown, but it falls apart and he smiles at her. He thinks that maybe they should hug, but his hands are shaking so he keeps them in his pockets.

‘Don't look away, saddo,' Sofi says. Her eyes feel like there is a pressure behind them, a tightness. ‘Let me look at you.'

He looks at her in snatches, but it's harder for him. He thought he'd stopped being shy, but it comes back in one flash. It feels like mercury rushing through his forearms, his cheeks. He looks at the floor.

‘Don't you want to look at me?' she asks. Her fingers fall from the looseness of his T-shirt and catch in the belt loops of his jeans.

How can he say no? That he is scared her cheeks are slightly changed, that she is not exactly as he remembered … That the fact – he is aware how ridiculous this is – she is not wearing exactly the same clothes as he had seen her in last, or at least the same colours, in some way makes his heart feel loose.

‘Actually don't look at me,' she decides. ‘I'm revolting. Last night was mental.'

‘You changed your hair,' he says. His voice is loose too.

‘You're supposed to say something nice to a girl when you see her. We taught you that.'

‘Just it's darker,' he says. ‘Your hair.'

‘Winter. It goes bleachy in the sun but we've just had winter.' She runs her fingers through it, shakes her head slightly to give it more volume. Her fringe is now long enough again to tuck behind her ears. ‘It was fucking freezing here. We didn't have the heaters on. Customers started leaving. I wore a fur coat when I worked. We could see our breath. Come in, come in. Follow me. This is where I work. Do you want a beer? For free?' No pause for breath. He wonders if she's breathing. ‘It's so great to see you. Isn't it
great?
Was it cold where you were? Where were you?'

‘I've been in Paris,' Pip said. ‘I said. I've been trying to see you. I called.'

‘I don't look at my English phone.'

Sofi goes behind the bar and cleans the spout which heats the milk for coffees. It makes a hissing sound. She gets out Beni's paintbrush and dusts away spilt coffee powder.

Pip sits down on a barstool and puts his sunglasses on the table. Swizzles on the seat slightly; touches limes in the fruit bowl meant for cocktail making.

‘You have your French number on your voicemail. I called that.'

‘I lose my phone a lot.'

‘I thought you might not want to see me,' he says.

What she finds sad is that he does not say this in a way meant to guilt-trip. He says it frankly. What she finds sad is, he is right.

At the table by the kitchen, Arthur, with his shaven head and triangle tattoo, is wrapping knives and forks in red napkins. Slowly, with care, like each one is a present.

‘Do you want a beer?' Sofi asks Pip.

‘No.'

‘A burger?'

‘I ate.'

‘The Classique's not bad.'

‘I already ate.'

‘Oh, be
friendly.
Don't be boring. Let me get you something. I feel this …
need
to provide you with goods.' She picks up a tequila bottle by the neck and swings it like a pendulum. ‘So what is this, then? Tell me
everything.
'

Everything was so big it meant nothing.

She goes on: ‘Gap year?' Pip's nodding but she can't really see him. ‘Gap yah? Yeah? You escaped?' He's still nodding. She has her back to him, polishing the coffee machine she cleaned just before he arrived. She turns back to him, pulling a bit of paper out of her pocket. ‘I couldn't read all the note you left. Your handwriting's even smaller, dude. Do you have to buy special pens?'

‘No. Normal pens.' His fingertips start a light drum on the zinc bar. ‘I'm doing a Baccalauréat conversion, staying with my aunt and uncle. It reopens my…' He raises a soft, ash-blond eyebrow. ‘Eddy agreed to let me come because it opened up my “options”.'

‘For uni? To go to uni? I
knew
you'd go to university.' Sofi touches his hand on the bar. Stops it from tattooing a beat. ‘That's so great,' she says. ‘I'm glad for you. I really am. Student life, man. Baked beans and Febreze.'

Pip's head moves again. Neither of them know if he is nodding or shaking his head, the movement is so slight and means both.

‘I should have been a student,' she says. ‘I love baked beans. Still. Look at us. We got old. I want to buy you a drink.'

‘I don't mind paying.'

‘It's free anyway.' She leans into the bar to see if her cigarette packet is in her front pocket. ‘We've got a terrasse here, have you seen?' A short ripple of excitement passes through her. It's duller than the ones she used to feel, but still. ‘Very French, a terrasse. You'd never get that in England.'

‘There's one on Sark.'

‘That's not England. And it doesn't matter. I like it. I like metal chairs. We should get drunk. Get drunk and reminisk.'

‘Reminisce.'

‘So? Let's still get drunk.'

‘I can't. I have to get back some time.'

‘You just got here.'

‘I got here yesterday. I left the note. I have to be back…'

‘Ahhh,' Sofi says. She touches her nose with her index. ‘Girlfriend.'

‘No—'

‘Don't tell me there isn't a girl.'

‘
A
girl, yes. But not like that.'

‘What about a cocktail?'

‘It
was
like that. But not now. And it's – it's really complicated.' He looks up at her but she is running her eyes along the rows of spirits. ‘No, not whisky. Honestly. Just a Coke please. Unless you have orange juice?'

‘She French?'

‘This is France.'

‘Hardly anyone I know here is French. No one I knew in Ealing was English.'

‘Yeah, she's French.' He uses his thumb to clean one of his other nails. ‘And older. A little bit older.'

‘Don't tell me – forty-five.'

‘Twenty-one.' The tips of his lips give way to a small smile.

‘You and your older women, eh? What's her name?'

‘Clémence.'

‘Actually don't say. I'm imagining it now.' Sofi screws up her eyes and does her taut downwards smile. ‘The
act.
'

‘You can be so dumb.'

Sofi opens her eyes again. ‘Was she at least beautiful?'

‘She's not
dead.
' Pip laughs unexpectedly, then turns it into a cough.

‘Fine.
Is
she beautiful? I bet she is. You look bon too. Proper man. Seriously, you can see it in the neck. I swear before – when I first met you – if I put my hands around, my fingers would touch.'

‘You never did that, did you? Try to strangle me?'