On this street, too – I knew because I’d been reading up on the area in the week since Rochelle and I had set up our ‘life-swap’ – has stood the legendary café Le Chat Noir, in its second incarnation. This was a place that became so wildly popular for its bohemian and rowdy poetry readings, music-hall sketches and satire that it spawned cabaret all over Europe. At the end of the street, I turned and hazarded a short detour to Place Pigalle itself, the epicentre of the area’s strip clubs, sex shops and erotic cabarets, dubbed Pig Alley by the US soldiers who came here during the Second World War. Just up the road, on the boulevard de Clichy, was the legendary Moulin Rouge itself, as well as the Museum of Eroticism.
I stood still for a moment and let it all wash over me: the sights, sounds, smells. It was as seedy as I imagined but exciting too, holding a strange allure, a promise of adventure. Some parts of Paris, in spite of their beauty, or perhaps because of it, can seem pickled in aspic, museum pieces. Pigalle was very definitely alive. I resolved to take a stroll up here later, take a few shots as the natural light died and the neon hoardings fizzled into life. For now, it was time to find Rochelle’s apartment, kick off my shoes and take a nap.
***
I dozed briefly; though I had been up at the crack of dawn for one of the cheapest pre-rush-hour Eurostars, and though I was awake until the small hours packing and checking and fretting, I was just too excited to be in Paris to be able to catch up on my lost sleep.
I stood up, went to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face, then padded around the flat, getting a feel for my new home – and for its usual inhabitant. It wasn’t really a flat, in fact – it was a studio, with a big old-fashioned wrought-iron bed plumped right in the centre, away from any wall. It reminded me of a bed on stage, for some reason. On each side of it were shop mannequins, both naked but draped at their neck and wrists with accessories that must have belonged to Rochelle – colourful scarves, furry stoles, berets and other hats, acrylic bangles and endlessly long strings of necklaces in jewel-bright hues. Around the bed, on the floor, were teetering stacks of glossy mags and books. Closer inspection of the latter revealed everything from correspondence between Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller to art books on the likes of Gustav Klimt, Hans Bellmer and the female Surrealists. I was interested to note among them several photography books: Lee Miller, Francesca Woodman, Bill Brandt.
Looking around the mess of Rochelle’s room I was a little taken aback, and I found myself wondering, for the first time, if I’d done a really stupid thing. I knew next to nothing about Rochelle and her life, and now here I was surrounded by all her junk, by her bohemian squalor, and I asked myself if I was going to be able to do this.
As I pondered, I kept circling this magpie’s nest of a room. It wasn’t dirty, but otherwise it was about as far from my own flat as it could possibly be. Two wardrobes on either side of the room bulged with shimmering, spangled fabrics, while cacti and other pot plants covered just about every free surface. Peeking into the tiny bathroom, I was unsurprised to find it almost bursting with cosmetic products. I didn’t have the heart to inspect the tiny kitchenette.
Suddenly I was reminded of a similar room – the apartment of Jane Fonda’s character, Bree Daniels, in Klute. The latter had always been one of my favourite films – for the incredible performances, of course, but also for the theme of voyeurism. For a photographer like me, there’s a kind of guilty pleasure in seeing films or reading novels about people being watched, followed. It makes us feel better, I guess, about our own dubious proclivities.
Bree’s room, too, looks like a stage set, in many ways. It’s also a retreat – but a retreat that ultimately becomes a prison. I looked around, thoughts racing. In the movie, Bree is a prostitute. Rochelle wasn’t a prostitute, but she did work in the sex industry. Did she sleep with some of the men for whom she danced? And if so, did she bring them here? Was this her she-wolf’s lair? Or was it a place to which she escaped, in which she could be herself again? It had all the trappings of a retreat, but the centre-stage bed made me wonder.
I’ll have a tidy-up, I told myself. I’m here for six months, and I can’t live like this. I’ll put the books on any shelf space I can find, or else in a corner. I’ll drag the bed over to the wall, and I’ll clear some space on the table in front of the largest window, from which I can spy on goings-on in the street below while I’m working. Hell, I might even take some pictures of it. After all, I needed a reason to be in Paris, a reason to call this city and this apartment, for a while at least, home.
Chapter 4: Rochelle
I stepped off the Eurostar into the most beautiful station I’d ever seen – Paris stations can be beautiful, but always in an old-fashioned way. St Pancras is so different, with lots of metal and glass as well as the older Victorian parts. It reminded me of a modern cathedral.
A friend in Paris told me that the champagne bar in the station is good, but it was early still, and anyway I’d promised myself I’d be a good girl for once. This was a fresh start for me, a chance to make a break from the Rochelle who ran herself ragged around Pigalle, always getting tangled up in new adventures in spite of her best intentions.
And in any case, Rachel’s friend Kyle was meeting me off the train. I didn’t really want that – I wasn’t a child, after all. But Rachel insisted. She kept telling me how easy it was to get lost and taken advantage of.
I saw someone waving at me and headed over. No doubt Rachel had shown Kyle my picture on Facebook, and in fact I thought I recognised him too – he was probably on her Friends list as well. I waved back, tentatively, and he strode over.
‘Rochelle?’ he hazarded, and when I nodded he reached out and we shook hands. ‘Welcome to London,’ he added, and as he spoke I noticed his eyes flicker up and down me – not in a wolfish manner, but perhaps with a flicker of amusement in their brown depths. Judging by his own conservative appearance – brown cord blazer over a navy V-neck, jeans – he probably didn’t know anybody quite like me.
Not that I’d made any special effort for this journey – as with just about everyone, it’s important for me to be comfortable when I’m travelling. But I do have my own unique style – a bit Gwen Stefani in the ‘It’s My Life’ video, a bit early Courtney Love … A mash-up of vintage pieces and costume jewellery with silk baby-doll dresses, fake fur, underwear as outerwear. Flapper-girl hair, cherry-red lips, spider lashes. I don’t do dressing-down. I stand out from the crowd. Maybe that’s why I’m so good at getting myself into trouble.
‘Thanks.’ I looked at Kyle expectantly, wondering exactly who he was to Rachel, that he would do her bidding like this – escorting a stranger across London.
He smiled. ‘Let me take your bags,’ he said. ‘You seem to have brought plenty of things.’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t travel light,’ I said, and I wondered why I had brought so much stuff with me. It’s not as if I was planning to party the way I did in Paris – quite the opposite. Although I wanted to explore London, part of me wanted a rest from the kind of lifestyle I had been leading in Pigalle. For anyone else, a couple of pairs of jeans and some sweaters would have sufficed. But I’d have felt lost without my disguises. For that, it occurred to me for the first time, is what they were. Even when I wasn’t dancing, I was playing a part.
Kyle led me out of the station, seemingly choosing the routes where there were the least people. Outside, he had us join the back of a queue for taxis.
‘This is on me,’ he said, and when I started to protest, he held up one hand. ‘There’s no finer introduction to London,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’s not very far.’
The line disappeared quickly and we climbed into a black cab.
***
Rachel lived in Bayswater; that much I already knew. Until this point, though, I’d never been to that part of London.
Her flat was on the top floor of a creamy white building with views over the treetops of Hyde Park. In direct contrast to mine, it turned out to be rather spartan
, the only ‘decoration’ being some of Rachel’s own photos in dark-wood frames. Otherwise, there were a few pieces of utilitarian furniture and a kitchen with the basics but nothing more. Above her desk, a few shelves held some photography manuals and a few art books. I browsed the spines: Richard Billingham, Nana Goldin, Tierney Gearon. I took a few down and wasn’t surprised by what I found inside, given what I knew of Rachel’s own work: rather grim social realism, with occasional flashes of transcendence. Outsiders, the neglected, the marginal. A kind of subversive beauty found in squalor or deprivation or disarray.
Rachel and I were very different, that was clear. But it wasn’t a bad thing. I wanted a change of scene, and I had very definitely got myself one of those. This elegant tree-lined street leading up to the vast green space of Hyde Park couldn’t be more different from rue Chaptal in the Pigalle, while the flat – though not at all to my taste – brought welcome relief from all my baggage. Because that’s what much of it was, at my place – props, in both senses of the word. Artefacts to create an illusion of life, and things to shore me up. But shore me up against what?
I’d never really asked myself the question, but as I did I realised just how lonely I had been in Paris, despite all the people crowding in on me, crushing me.
***
Kyle sat with me for a while, as if he had picked up on my unease at being alone. That was the thing about me – externally, I was strong and outgoing, brash even. To many, I was loud and even obnoxious.
But of course it was a classic attention-seeking thing. Inside I was weak, and I needed other people to build me up into something coherent and ongoing. Leaving Paris was yet another attempt to get away from myself, but now that I’d fled, what was I going to do? What new me was to emerge? Or would the old one linger on, like a skin that I couldn’t quite shed?
Kyle seemed very nice, and from his conversation I suspected that he and Rachel had been together and that he was still smarting from the break-up. He was a musician, it seemed – a violinist in an orchestra – and while often he was away touring, at that time his schedule was relaxed. He said he’d take me round all the sights, and when I didn’t enthuse, he looked a bit hurt.
‘OK,’ I said, as brightly as I could manage. ‘But I need a few days to settle in. I – I need to think a few things through.’
Kyle frowned at me. ‘Are you OK?’ he said. ‘Are you homesick?’
I waved a hand airily. ‘It’s not that …’ I tailed off. ‘I mean – well, no, it’s not homesickness. It’s just … well, it’s just that I don’t really know what I’m doing here.’
‘But Rachel said it was you who suggested …’
‘I did. But I don’t really know why.’
Kyle smiled. ‘Impulsiveness,’ he said. ‘I like that.’ He studied his fine, long fingers. ‘It’s something I don’t have enough of.’
‘Oh?’ I cocked my head to one side.
‘In the orchestra my nickname is “Mr Unspontaneity”.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I have to weigh everything up from every angle before I can make a decision or commit to something. It’s like – it’s like a disease.’
I looked at him, intrigued. ‘I couldn’t be more different,’ I said, wondering what it was like to be so configured. ‘I guess at least you don’t get yourself into trouble that way.’
Now it was Kyle’s turn to look intrigued. ‘Trouble? What kind of trouble?’
‘Oh … you know.’ I shook my head, try to laugh it off. ‘Just stuff.’
He stared at me. ‘What do you do, in Paris?’ he said.
I hesitated. ‘Didn’t Rachel tell you?’
He shook his head.
‘I’m an exotic dancer,’ I said.
He stared harder. ‘A … An exotic … You mean a stripper?’ he managed at last.
I shrugged. ‘There’s a lot more to it than that.’
‘But you – you take your clothes off for men.’
I nodded. ‘Mainly for men, yes.’
For a moment he sat there, looking intently at the tips of his brown brogues. I looked away too, out of the window towards the treetops of Hyde Park, fluttering in the breeze.
When I looked back, he’s was staring at me again. ‘I’ve never met a … an exotic dancer’, he said.
‘Then you’ve not lived,’ I countered quickly.
A half-smile flitted around his lips. ‘Clearly,’ he said, and his eyes held mine. He’s was good-looking, I thought, and yet not at all my type. As I stared back, my mind turned to Konrad and I wondered what he was doing. It was earlyish, still – he was probably in bed after another night at Queen with his model pack of pretty boys, some of them gay, some of them straight, and some of them swinging both ways. That was unless he had a job, of course. But he seemed to have taken a bit of a step back from modelling over the previous few months. He loved the lifestyle but not the discipline, and for the moment he had amassed enough money not to have to worry about going for jobs. He wasn’t the kind of guy to worry about the future.
Kyle was still looking at me, and in his eyes I saw the first fire of obsession. I knew it so well – I know the effect I have on guys. And for Kyle I must have been like a creature from another planet – unattainable, and thereby exquisitely fascinating. He’d torture himself about me, he’d wank with images of me in his head, all the while knowing that we were about as far apart as it’s possible to be.
As if he had access to my thoughts, he stood up. He was still looking at me, but suddenly his eyes were far away.
‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘But just give me a call when you’re ready for me to show you around.’
I nodded and smiled, and I saw him out, wondering if he’d ever be back, in spite of his offer. He was interested in me, but he knew it was an unhealthy interest. He was terrified of me too. He’d never met anyone like me before and he was afraid.
I headed for the bathroom, where I stood in front of the mirror, eyes appraising, trying to imagine what it must be like to see me for the first time, to try to get to know me.
You’re trouble, I said under my breath. And then again, with relish: Trrrrouble.
Chapter 5: Rachel
I was crouched on the bathroom sink when the intercom beeped and I nearly fell off backwards. Only the thought of my expensive camera lying in pieces on the bathroom floor kept me from plummeting to the floor.
I climbed up here when I realised that the bathroom window of Rochelle’s apartment has one of those classic Rear Window vistas into a courtyard surrounded by people’s windows. Since then, I’ve been mesmerised by the glimpses of life in this Parisian apartment block that I can get from this vantage point. In the last half-hour alone, I’ve witnessed – and photographed – a gay guy shaving in a wash of sunlight while his much younger lover talks earnestly at his reflection in the mirror, and in another window an elderly lady feeding her dog expensive-looking chocolates as she talked on the phone in an agitated, distracted manner.
I didn’t photograph – but I did watch – as a pretty young girl with shiny golden hair came into her apartment with a boy of around the same age. They were in their late teens, I’d say; probably, from their attire, students. At first their body language was stilted, self-conscious – it was clear that the boy hadn’t been to the girl’s apartment before and that they were finding it hard to relax in each other’s company. It was clear, even from a distance, that they had the massive hots for each other. Normally I might have taken a few snaps, but for once I was too caught up in their ‘dance of love’ to think to do so.
It was like watching some pre-ordained ritual, some choreographed display. The couple knew all the moves but couldn’t skip any – they were in thrall to convention and to the idea of what they expected of each other. It would have been so much easier to just grab each other, as they so obviously wanted to do, but that would have taken some of the fun out of it. For a while, it was all about the anticipation, about the deferral.
They shared a pot of tea, the sunlight filt
ering in and over her patchwork bedspread. She was in an armchair beside the bed, he was on the bed itself – but on the very edge. He seemed to be trying to lighten the atmosphere with jokes; through the open windows I could hear the tinkle of her slightly over-eager laughter. Her honeyed tresses, pulled up at the nape to reveal a slender brown neck and delicately freckled shoulder, glinted in the sunshine. Her teeth flashed when she laughed, mouth open.
The boy watched her closely, awaiting his moment, anxious not to blow it. I found myself becoming wet, and where I was kneeling, one leg either side of the sink on the wooden surround, I slipped my hand into my knickers and rubbed at myself, softly to begin with and then more vigorously as my excitement mounted. I put my camera on the windowsill and clutched the wall for safety, not wanting to get down and lose myself in my pleasure, causing me to miss theirs. For their pleasure and mine was inextricably bound together. I hadn’t felt this horny in ages.
As if my act had unleashed something in them – as if it had changed something in the very air itself – the girl, suddenly decisive, brave, wanton, stood up and stepped towards the boy. For a moment he looked almost frightened. And then, as the girl placed one hand on his cheek, he smiled and relaxed into her seduction.
Pulling her skirt up around her hips and pushing the boy back onto the bed, she placed herself astride him. Astride the sink, I let my eyelids flutter closed for a moment, imagining it was me atop this handsome boy with his closely cropped blond hair. I didn’t miss Kyle, and I hadn’t thought I was missing sex. But it had been two months, and in all that time I hadn’t even wanked. This was long overdue.
Opening my eyes again, I stared as the girl circled her hips over his. The boy’s head was thrown back – he was enraptured, bewitched. Women’s power over men, I thought, is unbounded. Get them to this point and they will do anything – anything. It was almost frightening to have this power. I thought again of Rochelle, like a spider catching men in the web I imagined her to weave nightly out of her sex magic.
The Exchange (Mischief Books) Page 2