by Robyn Sisman
Molly stood up slowly, balancing on the unfamiliar heels.
“Uh-oh, boys, hold on to your lunchboxes.” Alicia popped out from behind the racks where she’d been rummaging for accessories. She’d given her hair a purple streak and found a wide, ferociously studded belt to sling round her hips. “Molly, you look sensational.”
“Do I?” Molly slid her arms down the silky lining of her jacket and teetered toward the mirror.
Zabi was readying herself now, filming her lips with dark crimson, puffing a cloud of perfume into the air and letting it rain down on her upturned face and arms, finally wriggling into a tight uniform-style jacket with brass buttons.
The girl in the mirror stared at Molly with smoky eyes. Her legs were long and slender, her breasts like two creamy pillows. Her hair and skin sparkled with gold dust. Molly leaned close. Who was this sultry siren, this golden goddess, this confident, curvy, glamorous, glittery stranger?
The answer bubbled up from a secret place deep inside her. Me !
4
It was too &ar to walk to the club, Zabi decreed, especially in their perilous heels, and the Métro had stopped long ago. In the end Didier gave them a lift in his rattletrap veg van, with Molly and Zabi squashed into the front seat and Alicia nobly volunteering to perch in the back on a case of organic mushrooms. Didier boasted that he had twelve a different varieties to sell. (Twelve! Molly couldn’t have named more than five.) Their musky smell made her head spin. So did the wine she had drunk, the blur of lights and buildings, columns and statues, fountains and trees, and the lurching excitement of speeding through a foreign city in the middle of the night, to an unknown destination, with people she hardly knew, wearing someone else’s clothes. And no knickers! What could she be thinking of?
But there was no time to think. A light turned green. After a nanosecond Didier jabbed the car horn, and suddenly they were on a bridge, crossing an inky blackness that flickered with tiny sparks of reflected light.
“It’s the Seine!” Molly squeaked.
“Ouais,” Didier agreed carelessly.
Molly gazed through the grimy window as Paris spread itself out around her like a magic carpet. She could see another bridge farther along, its graceful curve decorated with twin rows of lampposts like candles on a very grand birthday cake. If this was the Seine, in a few moments she would actually be on the Left Bank. Her heart swelled. That was where Hemingway had written in cafés because he was too poor to heat his lodgings, where Ulysses was first daringly published, where Gertrude Stein had lived and Oscar Wilde died. Its picturesque streets teemed with student cafés, romantic attics and underground jazz clubs—or so she had always imagined. Truthfully, as they reached the far side of the river and turned onto a busy highway, all she could see was the hulk of a railway station and an eruption of tower blocks.
What was happening now? The van veered off the highway and plunged down a dark sliproad, heading straight for the river. Molly clutched her seat as they rumbled and bounced over cobbles. There was nothing down here but boats and groups of shadowy figures hanging around in what struck Molly as a sinister manner. A chilling thought occurred to her. What if there was no club? What if Zabi and Alicia were members of an international vice ring, and everything that had happened tonight was an elaborate ploy to kidnap her, sail her down the Seine to—well, wherever the Seine came out, and sell her body to some oily sheikh of unspeakable depravity? She’d read a book like that once. She sneaked a look at Zabi, who was humming to herself as she polished her nails on the sleeve of her jacket. That could be a bluff.
The van wheezed to a halt and the engine died. Molly could hear a thumping noise. Was that her heart? “Always tell someone where you’ve gone, and make sure you’ve got your bus fare home.” Her mother’s familiar words tolled ominously in her head. Stealthily she felt for the door handle and began to ease her feet out of her shoes, prepared to run for her life.
A metallic rasp made her jump. Didier had put on the handbrake. He turned to her, his face in shadow. Zabi looked up from her polishing and leaned toward him as if she was about to whisper an instruction.
Molly shrank away from them, the van door flew open under her weight, and she toppled out sideways. Zabi screamed. By a miracle of balance and a rather unattractive ape-like stagger Molly avoided crashing to her knees. Meanwhile she could hear Zabi and Didier demanding anxiously what had happened. Was she hurt? That imbecile car! It belonged in a cemetery. Molly straightened slowly. Fresh air gusted into her lungs—and into her brain.
Of course no one wanted to kidnap her. Didier didn’t even get out of his van; he’d be setting up his stall in a few hours’ time, he said, and had decided to get some sleep. Zabi had whispered nothing more sinister than “Merci” as she kissed him good night. The shadowy figures were clubbers, checking their finances or stopping for a snog. The thumping Molly had heard was not her heart but Alicia demanding release from her fungal fug. And this was no seedy dockside, but a wide and beautiful esplanade dotted with trees that followed the graceful sweep of the Seine. On one side a high wall protected its serenity from the rushing highway; on the other, boats strung with fairy-lights rocked gently on waves of black glass.
The club was on a boat—one of many that had been turned into restaurants and clubs now, each with its own character. Tottering past on treacherous heels, arm in arm with Zabi and Alicia, Molly heard jazz drifting into disco, rock overlaid with rap, until they reached an old lighthouse boat painted sizzling red, with a squat glazed tower flashing like a beacon.
Unquestionably this was the coolest club of all. At the gangplank a small but fervent crowd jostled for entry, waving bank-notes at the physios—whose name, Molly discovered, had nothing to do with their build or the physical harm they could inflict but was short for physionomistes; in other words, they were experts at reading character in the face. What would they see in hers? she wondered. Suddenly she wanted passionately to get into this place, where music pounded and colored lights streaked across the portholes. She wanted to be part of this excitement, to drown in it, to let go of everything that made her feel small and cramped and disregarded.
Zabi smuggled her way to the front of the line and tilted her chin at the bouncer, a surly Goliath straining at his black suit. Her stance was at once coquettish and imperious as she addressed him in rapid, bantering French. She gestured to her companions, summoning them forward to display themselves. Molly, forgetting she was supposed to be cool, beamed her sunniest smile. “Je suis australienne,” Alicia announced, as if that would clinch it.
And perhaps it did. For after long seconds of jowly scrutiny the bouncer stepped aside and jerked his head. They were in. Molly set one fragile heel on the gangplank, feeling the music judder through the boards. A cool updraft from the river tickled her thighs, unfamiliarly exposed, and she tugged at her skirt to hold it decently in place. Then she was on the boat, conscious of its subtle sway as she followed Zabi and Alicia through a hatch to the top of a narrow companionway. A sea of sound roared up to meet them, crashing in Molly’s ears like surf. The air was steamy, infused with alcohol, perfume and sweat.
They stopped to wait for a couple coming up the narrow stairway, a dark young man holding the hand of a fragile girl in black, drawing her up behind him like Orpheus leading Eurydice out of Hades. At the top of the steps, quite unselfconsciously, he turned and pulled his partner into a passionate embrace. Inches from Molly’s eyes their lips met and melted together. There was no giggling, no pawing, no slobbering—just a kiss so intense that the soles of Molly’s feet tingled. Zabi, she saw, was watching respectfully, without impatience, even though they blocked the way. Was love, then, so important?
The couple drew apart. Unhurried and rapt, they brushed past Molly and moved toward the open air, hip to sinuous hip. She couldn’t help turning her head to watch them go.
“C’mon, let’s groove!” Alicia’s heels clanged on the metal steps as she called over her shoulder. Zabi had already disappeared
into the teeming pit below. Jerked back to reality, Molly gripped the handrail and plunged after them.
Her first impression was that there was no room to move, not one inch. Bodies pressed close in the half-darkness. A synthesized beat slammed into her chest. The floor bounced under the weight of dancing feet. A man thrust his grinning face close to hers and shouted something she couldn’t understand. Molly smiled vaguely and pressed on, holding her bag protectively close to her stomach. There had been a warning in her guidebook about pickpockets.
For a panicky moment she thought she had lost her friends. How would she ever get back to her hotel? Could she even remember its name? Then a hand grabbed her arm and drew her out of the crowd to the edge of a gleaming bar.
“We must order a bottle,” Zabi shouted in her ear. “If they think we have money to spend they’ll find us a table.”
“I’ll pay,” Molly offered recklessly, rummaging for her credit card.
In a miraculously short time the three were seated at a tiny round table wedged among others between the bar and the dance floor. A waiter in jeans and black T-shirt brought over a tray bearing three glasses and—eek!—a bottle of champagne, whose label he deferentially displayed to Molly. She nodded numbly, trying to erase the mental picture of her bank balance whirling into reverse, while the waiter unwrapped the cork, eased it from the bottle with a polite pop and poured her the tiniest drink she had ever seen. She looked up at him in puzzlement. How come he was just standing there holding on to the bottle when poor old Zabi and Alicia hadn’t even a drop? Were the French mad?
An infinitesimal movement of the waiter’s eyebrow redirected her gaze to her glass and, with a thrill of embarrassment that raised hot prickles all over her skin, Molly realized she was supposed to taste the stuff and pronounce judgement. Hastily she grabbed her glass, took a gulp of bubbles, and just managed a jerky nod before erupting into a choking fit. Alicia thumped her on the back.
“I’m fine,” Molly croaked, wiping her eyes and pretending to be absorbed in the dancers.
She could see the top half of the DJ now, spinning his decks, presumably on some kind of stage at the far end of the boat. He was wearing a floral shirt and headphones, head jerking forward and back like an idiot pheasant on the run. But the music was great, and the crowd was cool. No one had their T-shirt off or was vomiting on the floor. The women were racehorse thin, groomed to perfection, wearing minimalist black dresses and a don’t-mess-with-me expression. The men were dark and streamlined with soulful eyes, mobile eyebrows and imperious noses. It struck Molly that the French really were a different race, not just another nationality. By comparison the English were pale, mousy and . . . porridgy somehow. Nor did Englishmen have that air of refined carelessness Molly found rather attractive. Insouciance, that was it. (From the French souci, meaning care, Molly explained to herself. There you go, the English didn’t even have a word for it.) Whoops! A man had caught her looking at him. He scanned her from top to toe with a sweep of dark lashes, then granted her a swift, smouldering smile. Bloody hell.
Molly turned back to the table and cooled her blushes with some more champagne. Perhaps he thought she looked tarty. She began to have second thoughts about her borrowed outfit. Even though it was stifling in here she didn’t dare take off her jacket. What if someone noticed what she was wearing? (Or not wearing.)
“Okay, girls.” Alicia leant close, eyes alight. “Targets for tonight: who do we want to drag home and eat for breakfast?”
“I haven’t really come for that,” said Molly, crossing her legs.
“You big kidder. Come on, let’s show them what we’ve got.”
“Yes, let’s dance,” agreed Zabi.
Within moments Molly was stripped of her jacket and pulled onto the dance floor. Suddenly she was in a swirl of black dresses and white shirts, flailing arms and floating hair, half blinded by lights that scythed across glistening flesh and bounced off teeth bared in ecstatic surrender.
“Bring it on!” yelled Alicia, pumping her fists in the air.
Molly wished Alicia wasn’t quite so . . . well, Australian. She wished Zabi wouldn’t keep twirling her skirt like that. She wished she herself wasn’t so tall, so blonde, so . . . fleshy. Viewed from above her cleavage looked wantonly exposed. And her skirt barely covered the tops of her legs. Basically, she was wearing a lampshade.
Who did these French blokes think they were, staring like that? She’d soon fix them. But her famous withering-scorn glare didn’t seem to work here. Instead of jerking their heads away, like English boys, they just went on staring—not exactly rudely or lecherously but with a frank, almost professional appraisal that was new to Molly. Take the good-looking one over there, for example, dancing with his girlfriend. Every time Molly looked at him, and she couldn’t have done so more than five or six times—well, glanced, really—he flickered his eyebrows appreciatively, as if giving her marks out of ten. The nerve of it! He wasn’t that good looking. Molly tossed her hair, turned her back on him, and put an extra wiggle into her dancing just to show she didn’t require the approval of any man.
Nevertheless a glow of confidence spread through her. The fabulous creature she had seen in Zabi’s bedroom mirror—that was her. Molly had often observed how easily men could be bamboozled into finding a girl attractive simply because she wore revealing clothing, and strongly disapproved of this cheap trick. But it worked! And it was liberating to wear so few clothes, to feel her body writhe in their slithery embrace as she abandoned herself to the music. Everything was pulsing to the same rampaging drum-and-bass rhythm—the bottles on the bar, Alicia’s earrings, the hem of Molly’s Cinderella skirt flashing gold against her thighs. This was how life should be: color, music, energy, sensation, freedom.
Wham! Molly nearly overbalanced as Alicia did a bum-clash with her. Alicia had worked herself into superkinetic overdrive now, whipping her hips, stamping her heels. Molly could almost believe that Alicia’s arrival in Europe owed nothing to conventional air travel but to sheer seismic force of character, propelling her straight through the earth’s burning core to erupt in Paris. Her face shone with perspiration and unaffected enjoyment. With a rush of affection Molly grinned back. Oh, help, another bum-clash coming.
Zabi was right about the DJ: he was brilliant. Every time Molly thought she would have to sit down or die, he ratcheted up the music another notch until the whole place was at fever-pitch. At some point a vision in white appeared: Zabi’s guru jiggled sweatily beside them for a few minutes before leading Zabi off to another table. (He was probably too old to dance, poor thing.) A couple of laddish types, who had been clowning their way around the dance floor, now made a move on Molly and Alicia. One wore a cowboy hat, the other a daft shirt with flashing lights. “We are crazy boys,” they shouted, leaping up and down. “I lurve yooo.” Molly giggled so much she had to bop back to the table to refresh herself with another slug of champagne; when she returned they had gone.
She danced on with Alicia, maybe for ten minutes, maybe for forty. Her head was a bubble of sensation. She felt sinuous and all-powerful, a golden tube of liquid energy. When the music finally eased into a more relaxed tempo and everyone had cheered the DJ, she floated back to her chair on a cloud of euphoria.
She’d hardly sat down when a folded piece of paper landed on the table in front of her nose. She opened it and read in French, “You are a beautiful woman. Telephone me. Claude,” followed by a string of numbers. She swiveled round and caught the eye of the man who’d tried to flirt with her on the dance-floor, now on his way out of the club with his arm around his girlfriend! The sneaky devil. Wordlessly Molly passed the note to Alicia.
“Gee, Molly, this kind of thing never happens to me.” But there wasn’t a hint of jealousy in her voice. Instead she stood up and said, “Mind if I go after that guy in the cowboy hat? He looked a bit of a spunk to me.”
“Fine, fine.” Molly waved her away. “I’m too hot to move anyway.” And thirsty, too—if there was any
thing left. Reaching for the champagne bucket she discovered that the bottle was practically full again. How odd. But how lovely. I get no kick from champagne, she hummed happily, refilling her glass to the brim, then congratulating herself on knocking back the lot without mishap. What a marvelous and desirable being she was. She screwed up the note and tossed it heedlessly over her shoulder. No two-timers for her, thanks.
The truth was, she was feeling rather dizzy. She decided to go up on deck and cool off. On the way two men asked her to dance. “Non, merci!” How easy it was to be flighty in French. She swayed up the companionway singing, “I feel pretty, tra-la-la, oh so pretty . . .”
The fresh air acted like a calming hand laid across her forehead. It took a few swaying moments to adjust to the change in environment. Then she wandered to the offshore side of the boat and leaned on the rail, looking out across the water to the lights of the Right Bank. Paris! How delicious it was to stand here in the middle of this mysterious, magical city with stars glowing out of a vast dusky sky and the air on her skin, warm as an August night in London.
The sour green tang of the river conjured up a sudden memory: her tenth birthday party, delayed for some reason until the summer holidays, held at a favorite place on her local river. There was a rope that hung from a fat, tilting willow. You could launch yourself from the muddy bank and swing out over the brown water, as far and high as you dared. Molly could remember the swoop in her stomach and the exquisite terror of letting go and dropping down, down, into the cold depths, with the ooze of mud between her toes. Other children had swimming and trampolining parties at the leisure center, followed by plastic pizza and Coke, or a disco in the village hall where you learnt the moves for “YMCA” and “The Barbie Song.” Molly had not been at all sure that a dirty old river, games on the bank, veggie burgers and marshmallows cooked by her mom over a campfire would be cool enough for her schoolfriends. Yet the party had been a wild success. It was the last time she could remember feeling such pure, uncomplicated happiness.