They don’t look remotely alike. Nicholas is heavyset, he’s cross-eyed and he’s five years younger than Vernon. But he has pale eyes, he’s Caucasian and, when the passport photo was taken, he had a beard so people only see the eyes and don’t notice the squint. It could easily be Vernon, if he’d been on a tapeworm diet in between times. The first time he handed it over at passport control, he was trembling, but the officer didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
*
At the airport, Vernon trails behind Mariana. He loves the way she moves, the way she holds herself erect, her every sense heightened. Her eyes are scanners, her sense of direction is uncanny, she doesn’t even have to slow her pace to check their flight on the monitors. She barely slept last night, by rights she should be complaining, trudging along, barely able to remember her own name. But she is gambolling from check-in desk to escalator, perfectly confident, happy to be here. She loves travelling, loves being on planes, discovering new cities, talking to strangers. She has been given her mobile phone back, and Vernon is stunned at her dexterity using apps – within minutes, Mariana can find the best restaurant in any neighbourhood in the world, a parking spot in Berlin or an apartment where they can spend the night. She even has an app that tells her the best seats on the plane. She can tell you where the international space station is at any given moment. Not that these things are always useful, but they distract Vernon who, seeing her reunited with her phone, finally understands how much she suffers when she has to give it up at the camp.
In the interminable queue for security, they find themselves behind a guy with a horseshoe moustache like José Bové. Vernon elbows Mariana, “Do you think a moustache would suit me?” and she screws up her nose. “I hate kissing guys who have moustaches.” “Have there been many?” “One, that was enough, it’s itchy.” Vernon is feeling a little delicate, he drank too much last night. He was bored. He only refilled his glass three or four times in the course of the evening, but he can’t hold his liquor anymore, either that or he is coming down with something. He woke up feeling lousy. As every morning, it took a few seconds before he remembered he was no longer with the others. His mind resists – wants to believe that it is a bad dream. That everything will go back to normal. A hotel room. Spacious. Dark red blackout drapes. He has no choice but to accept that this is real. He has left. On a whim, on an impulse that he’d like to believe was intuitive. He had imagined they would try to stop him, that they wouldn’t let him leave. It somehow didn’t feel real. He didn’t feel anything; he wasn’t expecting to do what he did. Pamela called him, asked him if he had lied. He had felt the group open up beneath his feet. It’s crazy just how fragile trust can be. These people with whom he has shared so much – it took just a single remark for him to sense that it was over. That his place was no longer with them.
He went back to his bunk. He said nothing to Mariana. He felt ashamed at what had happened. Ashamed of them. He listened to some Syl Johnson and tried to think. Then he laid a hand on Mariana’s shoulder, “I want to get out of here,” and it was only as he said the words that he realised that this was what he wanted. She turned towards him, pulling a funny face: “What’s happened?” and Vernon realised he was finding it difficult to articulate his thoughts. A friction, a confusion. There have been other moments of crisis in the two years he has lived with this random, ramshackle family. But he couldn’t explain the incident that had just occurred.
It wasn’t a matter of principle. It wasn’t a question of exhaustion. He lied to Mariana, pretended to be offhand, “I don’t know, must have been our trip to Paris. If I split, are you coming with me?” And she knelt up on the bed, laughing: “Wherever you go, I go . . . but where are you going?” Elsewhere. He was leaving. It was a moment of madness. He didn’t want to have to explain himself to others, or to wait until things settled down. He felt that the time had come to pack his bags and get some fresh air. Simple as. In that moment, at least, it seemed straightforward.
*
His belly aches. As he collects a grey plastic tray, he allows a group of vindictive Russians to go in front of him because he is having trouble taking off his jacket. Mariana sighs. She hates it when people queue-jump – it’s a matter of principle. He smiles at her.
The previous night, they had hung out at some blonde girl’s place until three in the morning. She looked like an American in one of those ’80s soap operas: retroussé nose, diaphanous skin, soft voice – not quite a grown-up. After Vernon’s set, she had invited everyone back to her place for an after-party. She was saying, “I’d like to leave France, there’s no future for young people here, but I can’t leave on account of my children.” She worked on a checkout desk, she said her back ached from humping crates of bottled water. And the customers are increasingly aggressive and she was sick and tired of getting it in the neck. She had produced a bottle of incredibly good rum that scalded the throat and warmed the body. Her apartment was almost barren. What there was, was brand new. She had just split up with her partner, who wasn’t the father of her kids. Seeing them in a photo in the hallway, Vernon realised that the girl couldn’t possibly be under thirty, which was what he had assumed – her kids were obviously at secondary school. She had spent the whole night coming on to him. There was something intoxicating about her that he found attractive. He allowed himself to be seduced. Mariana was chatting to some boys in the kitchen. She’s not the jealous type. As she puts it, “I’m the best, but I’m not the only one,” and Vernon assumes that this means she has no intention of being faithful. He had had a skinful and was staggering by the time they started walking back to the hotel through Montpellier, which was deserted at that hour. He could hear the heels of her boots hammering the pavement.
*
This morning, he had woken up alone. Mariana had gone out for a walk. It’s something she always does. She likes to be alone in the morning. As does Vernon. They agree on so many things without even having to discuss them. It was 10.30 a.m. and he was hungry – he hadn’t eaten the night before. He rushed to check what time breakfast was served, his head was all over the place, simply finding the card with the times printed on it seemed complicated – 10.00 a.m. weekdays; he thought I’ll call down, ask them to bring it up, maybe there’s still time, but it took him a long time to find the number for reception, and the phone wasn’t plugged in, he never did find the socket. Fuck it. Too late. He threw open the curtains, the room overlooked the hotel courtyard, nothing spectacular. He took a shower. When he went to put on his socks, he felt a wave of nausea as he realised that they smelled of a dying animal and hoped that the stink would not trouble his travel companion. He has little in the way of spare clothes. At the camp, he did his laundry whenever necessary. Being on tour, things are more complicated. If this can be called being on tour.
*
They left. Mariana only realised that the departure was permanent when they boarded the bus to take them back to Paris. The heating was on full-blast, the driver was saying that the thermostat was broken and there was nothing he could do about it. Mariana took matters in hand. She cancelled the Dutch couple who were supposed to be renting her apartment for a week and they went back to her place. Vernon settled himself in front of the television, with his iPad on his lap and sat there for three days without saying a word, engrossed in the articles he was reading and the garbage he was watching. In the meantime, Mariana worked frantically and managed to get a series of bookings for D.J. sets that were fairly close together so that he didn’t have to worry about not having his own place. According to her, getting the bookings was easy, everyone has heard of Vernon Subutex. There was something almost worrying about Mariana’s frenzied hustling, until Vernon realised that she knew exactly what she was doing. She knows a lot more people than he had expected.
*
He is constantly telling himself that it was a good idea to leave the camp and head off on an adventure. He tells himself that it’s not good to get stuck in a rut. That comfort is the enemy of inspira
tion. He remembers Olga coming back from the vet and stopping, dumbfounded, when she saw him with his bag packed, ready to leave. “But . . . you’re coming back for the next convergence?” and Vernon had shrugged: “You can take my place. Everyone knows I’m replaceable. Good luck.”
This was how it ended. He did not take the time to say goodbye to everyone. Jésus dropped them off at the bus station. He cried. Not Vernon. He didn’t want to cry. He had to get away. He is still wondering why. Something was broken. Or maybe he has finally lost the plot. Because ever since he left, there hasn’t been a day when he has felt fine. Mariana went with him, though she did not understand. When she said, “Why didn’t you just tell them you were going away for a few days?”, he said, “I needed to get out of my comfort zone,” and, hearing his own words, he wondered what was happening to him.
Since then, he has been going with the flow. Mariana has proved to be a brilliant manager. With a talent he had never suspected, she keeps their lives organised. When they have a couple of free days somewhere, she rents an apartment and they wander the streets of unfamiliar cities, gorging on pizza and T.V. box sets. They don’t fuck very often. He doesn’t care about sex. His head is filled with so many disparate memories that the present reality feels like Catch-Up T.V. All things pass, he thinks, and in the end it’s not very important.
In the train stations and the airports, he travels with his ghosts. He can throw away photographs, dispose of things, cast off old clothes – still his former lives are entwined with the present, and he can hear his roots shriek, refusing to be sacrificed. They throb, connected, ripped from the fields of consciousness. His past is becoming an encumbrance. If he assesses the situation point by point, his life is fine. He’s getting good fees for the sets he plays. The promoters offer a warm welcome. He is getting to see the world. Mariana takes care of him and he loves his life with her. But he is bleeding dead stories, cradling beloved bodies against his belly, he is inconsolable. He suddenly feels incomplete.
In retrospect, he realises that his decision was taken before Charles’ death and Véro’s betrayal. He thinks about this inevitability – it had to be done – without knowing whence it came. The absence is so heartrending that it is a black hole in the centre of his consciousness, an abyss in which everything is engulfed. He finds it difficult to believe that from now on he will live life without that flame. But he had to do it. Just before tedium set in. When he wants to turn the knife in the wound, he listens to Miossec – “I’m leaving you long before I must, I’m leaving before I betray your trust” – and yet his body does not bleed out. Besides, since he left, there are a lot of songs he can no longer listen to without feeling he is being split in two. He is filled with regrets, but he will not go back.
*
Last night, at the pretty blonde’s place, some roadie was saying, “I can’t get onto the tour bus anymore.” For months he hasn’t put in the hours. He can’t do it anymore. He has too many questions. As he sipped his rum, the guy said, “I’ve got a daughter. I want to see her. I can’t bring myself to pack a bag and leave. I can’t spend my whole day in the truck anymore. At ten o’clock in the morning, the sliding doors close and I feel like I’m in a prison. I used to get a kick out of stealing things from service stations. Now I don’t even want to stop at one to take a piss. Unloading the gear from the truck, setting up for the soundcheck, collapsing backstage. I can’t bear to look at an Ibis hotel. This was the life I dreamed of, a life I loved, I treasured. Then one day I couldn’t do it anymore. I want to be at home with my daughter.” And Vernon felt like putting his arms around him. He spends all day playing the guy who’s laid-back, cool, sorted. But he finds the intensity of his emotions is unsettling. And for some reason that he cannot understand, he feels incapable of getting in touch with the people from the camp and asking, “Where are you?” He read somewhere that people release a specific oxytocin when they’re with members of their group. He knows this is true: he is in withdrawal.
*
He finds the harsh light of the airport aggressive. The queue is moving slowly. Behind him, hands reach out to pick up plastic trays. Certain people are not accustomed to moving in such situations. Others slip through the crowds, whipping off their shoes and belts with one hand, clutching their boarding pass between their teeth. The questions are absurd – do you have any shampoo or toothpaste? – and the answers come in deadly earnest – no, of course not, no – in an almost indignant tone, “Do I look like the sort of passenger who has a bottle of aftershave?”, while the neophytes and those women who somehow believe that this time their bag won’t be scanned start feverishly rummaging through their bags for the bottle of body lotion they will have to throw away when they could buy the same product a few metres away, just past security, before they get on the plane. The absurdity of the situation is so flagrant that no-one is shocked. This is a manège. The word that pops into Vernon’s head is “performative”, it is one he has heard several times at the camp and pinpoints the speaker as belonging to a particular social class. Performative. Here, taking off his heavy black leather belt, then leaning against the conveyor belt to take off his old red boots, he feels as though he is being stripped of his armour – as though he is being subjected to a special ritual. Performative. He is forced to move forward in his stockinged feet with the rest of the passengers, all of whom are subjected to the same humiliation. The security officer points to a bag and asks its owner to follow him and witness its complete evisceration. On the little screens, the suitcases look like exposed bodies, filled with strange black and orange organs. Security is secondary in all this. Everyone knows that it cannot be guaranteed. What matters is discipline. That people learn to obey any rule without complaint.
*
Vernon sits on the floor to pull on his boots, there are no free seats around. The waiting areas are full. A number of flights have been delayed, passengers who should have taken off hours ago cram in as best they can. A sudden burst of sunlight illuminates that space. Outside the windows, a huge jet is turning around, looking for its gate. Mariana takes some chocolate out of her bag, complaining that this terminal has no smoking area.
They have a busy schedule over the coming weeks. They are flying to Liverpool, where Vernon will do a set on the roof of a derelict superstore. He has advance playlists for a dozen sessions. He made so many of them at the camp. Removed from his context, he is not a sensation. Nor does he empty the dance floor. The kids, unaware of his micro-legend, wonder what this unknown old fart is doing, and pop tabs of Ecstasy while they wait for some real techno.
On the plane, in spite of the best efforts of SeatGuru, Vernon is uncomfortable. His legs are too long, his knees dig into the seat in front. There is a crying baby. Vernon recognises the guy with the handsome moustache sitting a few seats away. He is doing the sudoku at the back of the in-flight magazine. His hands are hirsute. Mariana is experimenting with recent Snapchat filters; she shows him a photo of herself with cat’s ears.
Vernon thinks about Pamela. He has imaginary conversations with her that last whole days. Sometimes Mariana catches him in the act, she comes out of the shower and finds him talking to himself. He explains what happened to Pamela, without ever actually getting in touch with her. How could someone so clever, so shrewd have imagined that he would con his friends so he could get his hands on the old man’s legacy? A part of him still believes that this is just a parenthesis. That everything will go back to normal. That they will manage to find a way to erase this incident and go back to the life they had before.
The day it happened, a storm had broken at three in the morning, he had sat watching apocalyptic lightning bolts cleaving the sky – never suspecting that they might herald something. Unable to get back to sleep, he had listened to the Velvets’ first album – and later he thought that maybe this, too, was the harbinger of the looming catastrophe. When Lou Reed is cast as the messenger of fate, you can be sure that the news is not good.
The energy was muted. P
amela was not coping well. She can’t bear to be betrayed, and she had felt betrayed when Véro left. Pamela cannot bear to be abandoned. And she had felt abandoned when Vernon had not made a big deal of it. Day after day, he tries to make sense of it. Each of them has reacted in their own way. Instinctively. Intelligence is a useful tool for justifying a decision made, after the fact. We use it to makes our lies plausible.
We pretend, to see things clearly, to be coherent. But the truth is that we act without thinking. That’s all.
“ARE YOU SURE YOU WOULDN’T BE BETTER OFF WEARING trainers?”
Emilie is buckling the straps of her high-heels. Her hand hovers in mid-air and she stares at Sylvie in surprise. It’s patently obvious that the shoes suit her. It takes a few seconds for her to understand the comment. She puffs out her cheeks and says:
“If I need to run, I’ll take them off.”
She stands up, looks around for her watch, then changes her mind.
“O.K., go call the lift, I’ll be there in a minute. You’ve got me completely freaked out now. I’ll change into a pair of Nikes.”
“I haven’t worn heels since the thirteenth. Excluding holidays, when I wear flip-flops, I’ve never worn flats this much in my whole life. I’m terrified my back won’t be able to adjust, it’s not used to flat shoes . . . but I open my wardrobe, look at my heels, remember the Bataclan, and put on trainers. Those bastards. I never thought that I’d be so quick to give up the one thing that’s essential to my look.”
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