by EJ Swift
At eleven o’clock the back room opens and a stream of people flow inside. Men hunch over the balcony, staring at the first pioneers of the dance floor. Swivelling lights blink through the colour spectrum with the gathering ravers.
I fight my way around the dance floor, collecting empty bottles. I can feel my make-up sliding down my face, the sweat gathering in every crevice. From his position of sanctuary behind the bar, Angel waves at me. I roll my eyes.
At midnight I am dispatched on break with the other newbie Mike, a skinny black guy from Chicago.
“They said we should go to the pub down the road,” he says.
“Oh, yes, I was there earlier,” I say, feeling knowledgeable. We go to the other pub, which is also heaving, but where our sloganed T-shirts act as passports to discounted drinks.
“What brought you to Paris?” yells Mike over the music.
“I’m travelling,” I yell back. “Paris is the first stop. Then I’m going to Rome. My boyfriend’s out there.” The lies roll easily off my tongue. “How about you?”
“I’m having a pre-career break, you know?”
“What did you study?”
“Math.”
“Why did you come to Paris?”
Mike embarks on a convoluted story. There’s something about Europe, he says. It’s the age of it, the antiqueness. His great-grandfather was sent here after the Second World War and he wrote letters home; it was a tragedy, he wrote, that so much history had been lost in the bombing, the liberation, though of course now that’s history, the letters, and isn’t that cool? And now he’s seeing what his grandfather saw.
Mike gestures. I lean closer, straining to hear.
“Everything here is old,” he yells. Old, and so small: the streets, the parks. It’s cute. The food isn’t bad either, though he can’t deal with this steak haché bullshit. Fire was invented for a reason and besides, it’s fucking expensive.
“Do you know what we get paid?” I ask, realizing this is the one thing I have neglected to find out.
“Like shit,” says Mike. “And the French don’t tip, have you noticed that?”
Break over, we walk the hundred-metre stretch back to Millie’s. The cold air against my face is a blissful respite until we duck back into the bar, the sauna of seething bodies. I pummel my way from one end of the building to the other. Someone’s shoulder knocks my nose and a fresh wave of pain assaults me. It stays frantic until I get a second fifteen-minute break, at three-thirty in the morning.
In the girls’ vestiaire I find Dušanka lying on her back with her shoes and socks off and her ostrich legs extended against the metal lockers. In one hand is a cigarette, in the other a volume of poetry by Anna Akhmatova, bent at the spine. Her combat trousers fall in soft folds around her thighs. She inhales a maximum of smoke and tips ash onto the tiles beside her. I sit for a few minutes in silence, wishing I had thought to bring a book.
“All the translations are shit,” says Dušanka morosely.
“What?”
“The translations.” She waves the Akhmatova. “Only the original retains its elegance.”
The obvious response would be to ask why she is reading Russian poetry in French if it is so terrible, but I’m not sure we have reached this level of rapport.
“How long have you worked here?” I ask instead.
“Too long,” she spits. “But next year I finish my research masters. Then...”
She blows smoke upwards.
“What do you study?”
“Philosophy.”
“That’s cool.”
“They are morons. The professors.”
She lights one cigarette from another, and angles the box towards me.
“Have one.”
“Do you have a lighter?”
Dušanka raises one eyebrow as though it is inconceivable that anyone should not have a lighter on their person. Grudgingly, she produces a tab of matches.
I rarely smoke, have only ever done so in situations like this, where conformity—camouflage—demands it. The first draw goes straight to my head. My body feels preternaturally light, suspended in the plane between adrenaline and the pending crash that is bound to follow.
“This is not a real life,” Dušanka says. Smoke seeps upwards from between her teeth. The confines of the locker room lends an air of intimacy to the conversation, but it is clear that my role is to be a receptacle for Dušanka’s musings. I don’t mind. I’m happy to have a role.
“Every morning I wake up and I know this is not real,” Dušanka continues. “This is not what real people do. Real people see daylight, and they eat breakfast. Cereal, or some shit. This—this is a dream life.”
The bass thuds dimly on the ceiling. I nod, privately unconvinced. The odour of my own sweat, the heat, the bruises from passing elbows—it all seems real enough to me.
“What happened to your face?” asks Dušanka.
The vestiaire door bangs open before I have a chance to respond.
“You—new girl—”
I jump. It’s Eloise, and she looks angry.
“What are you doing down here? Your break was up five minutes ago!”
I scramble to my feet, but the face disappears before I can respond. Dušanka gives me an ambiguous smile.
“The fifteen-minute break? You can count it by two straights or one roll-up. For the future, smoke faster.”
There is no time for a retort along the lines of why Dušanka has decided to enlighten me now, or why she herself hasn’t been hauled out for the same transgression. I race upstairs. No sooner have I reached the bar than someone yells at me to go and get ice. Back down I go. I find a roll of sacks but no scoop. I look everywhere around the ice machine. Nothing. Seconds are ticking away. Upstairs, the bar staff are waiting. I can imagine them talking, the derision in their voices.
That new girl’s useless—
Took half an hour just to get the ice!
My legs start to tingle. I feel the telltale pressure squeezing my chest, my ribcage winching tighter, smaller, with every breath. Blackness speckles my peripheral vision. I put out a hand to steady myself. I lasso my mind. No. Not here. Not now. I need this job. If I can’t find a way to make money, then England is back on the agenda. And I will not—I cannot go back.
Breathe. Start counting. One to ten. One to ten. I plunge my hands into the ice machine to bring down my body temperature and there’s the scoop, buried under a mound of cubes. Reprieve! I fling shovelfuls of ice into the plastic sack. As I sling the straining bag over my shoulder, Dušanka emerges from the vestiaire, yawning.
“My god, it is so boring tonight. These people have no joy.”
Upstairs, Kit calls all the staff to the bar and hands out shots. I drink what I am given. The first taste is of tart apple, then it explodes against the back of my throat.
Buoyed by alcohol, I fight my way into the back room. Ahead of me I see a black-clad girl shouldering expertly through the crowd. I follow, using the path she is forging to ease my own, and notice we are wearing the same boots—classic purple Doc Martins. I push forward, and see a flash of yellow at her heels. I stop. Glance down at my own left heel. Pikachu’s round face beams up at me. My brother George put the sticker there years ago, no doubt to annoy me, but I never had the heart to remove it. I look again for the girl, glimpse her ahead, but she’s moving too quickly, and a moment later I’ve lost her. So now I’m projecting. For the second time tonight I curse my delinquent brain.
When I return to the front bar Eloise is blending frozen margaritas, her head rotating in all directions as she scans the crowd. She spies me and her eyes narrow.
“Where’s the jet?”
“What?”
“The jet I asked you for, where the hell is it?”
I stare mutely. Is this some kind of test? Eloise glares.
“Get down and get it before I fire you!”
I daren’t ask for clarity. Trembling now, I head back to the stairs, hoping I’ll meet someone
who can tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be bringing back. I check the vestiaire but it’s empty. The clang of metal steps brings me out in time to see a familiar pair of Doc Martins heading round the corner towards the keg room.
“Hey—”
I run after the girl, who must be another of Millie’s staff. The keg room door is open. I go inside. The air feels strangely thick again and a lurch of vertigo blurs my vision momentarily. I look for the girl, but there’s no one in here. Where did she go? I remember the ghostly figure from earlier, remind myself I don’t believe in ghosts. Then I see, stood on a keg, a frosted-glass bottle of spirits. The label reads Get 31. Get. Jet. Either someone is helping me, or this is a practical joke, an initiation. Right now I don’t care which. I grab the bottle and sprint upstairs.
By five o’clock the place is finally beginning to empty. Mike and I stack up the empties. The bar staff begin a seemingly endless cycle of the dishwasher. The last song plays. The lights come up. The effect is immediate and awful. Now you can see the cracks in the foundation, mascara entrenched around dissipated eyes. Circling couples of a moment ago stare at one another like absolute strangers.
Whilst the bouncers evict the stragglers, we wax the woodwork and sweep the floor. Mike sees me picking up chunks of broken glass.
“Just kick it under the booths,” he mutters.
Finally, the doors close. There is a yell I don’t understand until it is followed by an avalanche of breaking glass. My ears ring. The non-glass bins overflow with black sacks. One of the boys climbs into the bin and jumps on them.
At quarter past seven Kit pronounces us done. About twenty people are sitting in the back room, half of whom I haven’t seen until now. By the time staff drinks arrive, I am barely conscious. I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours. Angel is chatting to one of the bartenders in French, and I can’t understand a word. Très bien.
Angel introduces us.
“Ah oui, ’Allie,” says the bartender, Simone. Her hair sits in tight braids against her scalp, the extensions falling to her waist. “We met earlier.”
“Yeah...” I smile brightly, hoping to mask my lack of memory. I’ve met so many people tonight. My cocktail arrives. It tastes just like a chocolate milkshake.
I stagger out into the morning sunlight, red-eyed and blinking. It feels as if I’ve been entombed for days. Cars sweep past, a horn blares. I almost fall into the road. I squint to left and right, trying to remember which route will take me back to the hostel in Barbès. Angel grabs my arm.
“This way, this way.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Oz, mon poussin. To see the wizard.”
Oz proves to be the only bar that stays open later than Millie’s: smaller, darker, the little remaining clientele comprising bartenders from other parts of Clichy. Our entrance is met with whoops of delight. A young woman in jeans with long dark curls shouts Angel’s name.
“Gabriela, ma poule! You handed in?”
She pumps her arms in a victory gesture.
“It is done!”
They exchange high fives. Angel draws me over.
“Gabriela, meet Hallie, our new Anglaise.”
“Welcome!”
She jumps up and kisses me on both cheeks. Her eyes are the colour of rich coffee, large and expressive in a smooth olive face. For a moment I just stare at her.
“Oh, but you’re beautiful,” I say, which wasn’t what I meant to say at all. Then I remember I must stink of sweat and I have a lump in the centre of my face, and cringe. Then someone hands me a drink and I no longer care.
“She’s a bit peculiar,” says Angel. “But aren’t we all, chérie? Santé! To Millie!”
“À Millie!”
The clink of glasses fills the room. Everyone drinks vociferously. I lean against the bar—or at least, the bar keeps me vertical. From the other side of the taps, an amused voice issues over my head.
“I see you made it out alive. Félicitations.”
I lower my drink before I choke on it. I recognize the bartender’s voice. I recognize it because I heard it earlier this afternoon—yesterday, technically—whilst perusing job adverts on a terrace in the seventeenth arrondissement. There I was, minding my own business, enjoying my espresso, when the same voice said, “You know, your French will never improve if you’re thinking about teaching English.” I recall the voice’s owner: a guy in his mid-twenties, mixed race, athletically built and unfairly handsome.
Léon.
I reply without turning around.
“You know, I’m not sure your name did me any favours.”
“Harsh, Hallie, very harsh.”
“Eloise didn’t seem impressed.”
“Ah, Eloise.”
“Right.”
“Yet here you are, a valiant survivor of the first shift. Drink?”
My fingers itch. It’s tempting, so very tempting, to accept. But earlier this evening, Angel opened a door on my face. I deem it best to stay outwards facing.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Suit yourself, chérie.”
I sense him grin. I paid witness to that smile earlier, and now I find I can conjure it without effort. It’s a smile that could charm armies out of warfare. A smile that says this is a man who sails through life, for whom the complex highway of obstacles and emotional crises and impossible decisions will always be easy, because who could resist responding to that smile? Just looking at him makes you want to be a part of that warmth, to luxuriate in it: knowing everything will be all right if you stick by his side.
And for this reason, I force myself to move away from the bar and rejoin Angel and Gabriela.
“Ma poule, I read the synopsis of episode nine. There are such twists...”
“I’m not listening!” Gabriela puts her hands over her ears.
“Truly, you will not believe what happens with Samira—”
“Arrêt!”
The mention of Samira has a revitalizing effect upon me.
“Are you guys talking about Transfusion?”
A science-fiction show where the main character can jump into the head of her blood relations, revealing their secrets and (inevitably scandalous) desires, Transfusion has claimed hours of my life. It’s also the kind of show you don’t admit to watching if you want to retain credibility among your peers. But I was never very good at that.
Gabriela’s eyes light up.
“You know it?”
“Yeah, I bloody love that series. We haven’t got the new one in the UK yet, though. I’m dying to see it.”
Gabriela leans over and squeezes my hand excitedly. Her fingers are warm and dry.
“Series three is the best yet. Ignore Angel, he does not even watch it. He likes to threaten me with spoilers.”
“The conceits are dated and poorly executed,” says Angel. “The actors have been pulled from the garbage cans of Los Angeles. What more is there to say?” Gabriela and I glare at him, but before either of us can defend our addiction, he throws up his hands in mock surrender. “That is, it is the most amazing television since Breaking Bad.”
“I have the new episodes. We can watch them together,” Gabriela tells me, smiling. I smile back idiotically, aware that other people want to talk to Gabriela, Gabriela being the kind of person that people gravitate towards, the way I have gravitated towards her, and that I have no idea how to extricate myself from the situation, or even if it is a situation. Across the room, Léon lounges behind the bar, charming everything with legs. I angle myself away from his line of sight. It’s a relief when Dušanka appears, intent upon finding someone to lecture about the vagaries of Nietzsche. I listen, confused but surprisingly content, until the bar announces last orders and the remaining drinkers disperse one by one.
My feet take me back to the hostel in Barbès. The number of refugee tents under the métro arches has already doubled since I arrived. A man wearing a hooded jacket and jeans stands outside, his face drawn and wary, smoking. Ou
r eyes meet briefly. I look away, shaken by the insignificance of my exodus in the face of his. I am wearing my T-shirt inside out. My tips and a bottle opener clank in the pockets of my jeans. I pass a bakery. The smell of warm bread drifts outside, and my stomach contracts with hunger. But I cannot face the prospect of having to appear human in the harsh light of morning.
The crack dealer sitting outside the hostel laughs visibly as I shuffle past. I’m too tired to give him the finger. I slink upstairs past reception, collapse onto the bunk in my clothes, and sleep.
Chapter Four
I LURCH AWAKE. For a few, merciful seconds I have no idea where I am or how I got here. It doesn’t last. As if on cue, every muscle in my body shrieks in chorus. I move my head and become aware of a raw, throbbing lump. My stomach is a seething pit threatening to advance back up my throat.
There is a loud rattle which I realize is the blind going up. What arsehole has let the blind up? And then: a strange sensation, cold and fluid, as if I am being immersed in oil.
I feel something enter the room.
I say ‘something’ because I know—I just know—it isn’t someone. Behind my eyelids, I feel the thing drawing slowly closer.
I half open my eyes and stare at the window, straight on. Nothing. But that sense of presence remains. Experimentally, I press one side of my face into the pillow and let my exposed eye drift across the room.
A bird is perched on the windowsill. Not a pigeon or a songbird, but an older, more predatory outline: some species of falcon. Too small for a peregrine. A merlin, perhaps. It stands side on, a quizzical expression in its round black eye.
As I stare, little hooks of pain digging inch by inch into my skull, the falcon’s beak dips. Just as if it is nodding to me. Or preparing to gut its prey.
I groan.
“Please, go away. This is no time for hallucinations.”
“I’m—sorry,” says the falcon. “Do you imagine—I have a choice in the matter? Do you honestly think—I don’t have better things—to be doing than addressing you, latest—in the line—of befuddled expatriates? Look—at the state of her!”