Badaude

Singing at the Crillon

I’m sitting in the Jardin d’Hiver in the Hotel de Crillon, reading George Orwell’s Down and out in Paris and London, waiting for Lauren to arrive.

“Nearly everyone hates hotels,” says Orwell.

I look around at the Crillon. It is beautiful. Everything is polished. Each surface is reflective, dazzling. There is marble and glass, there are mirrors and, behind vitrines all around the shining walls, there are sparkling goods for sale: pearls, diamonds, platinum. In one vitrine, the original bill of sale for the hotel is displayed, sandwiched between two pieces of glass.

Lauren arrives.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says. “It was the taxi driver. As soon as I said I was going to the Crillon, he started going all Socialist on me. He was like, ‘Oh, la crise! Et comment vous songez que nous allons la surmonter – les ouvriers?’ et tout ca*. Like I’m going to the Crillon so it’s my fault."

“You should have told him you weren’t paying. La Crise. Is that what they call the Credit Crunch in France? They don’t call it the Credit Crunch?”

“Well, they don’t call it the Credit Crunch, because they don’t really have credit.”

That’s true. But I remember the graffiti I saw on the metro this afternoon, on one of those low-tech paper posters inserted into grooves in the ceiling of each carriage so that they hang vertically above the heads of commuters.

On the back of one, someone had scrawled,

100% CRISE!
NOVEAU!
LE PATRON ALLEGE PLUS SAIN
TOUTE DOIT DISPARAITRE!
PROMOTION!*

There are already soldes in the real shops too: 20%, 30%. In Paris, mid-season, this is very unusual.

Back at Le Crillon, after dinner, Lauren is about to leave when I remember.

“Wait. I have to show you something.”

We ascend in the lift to my room.  Set into the lift walls, there are more jewels behind glass vitrines.

“Would you wear them?” asks Lauren, critically. Not this afternoon when I arrived, perhaps, but the more they are repeatedly shown to me, the more I find myself imagining the possibility of liking them.

We get to my suite, which is on the top floor of the hotel. I go to the window to draw back the curtains. At first they resist. We grope behind them to find the operating string.

“Be careful. After all, it wouldn’t do to break the Crillon.”

We look out of the window. Below us is the courtyard of the Jardin d’Hiver.  We can see the roof of the front of the hotel on the other side of the cour hiding the Place Vendome. Beyond that, as far as we can see, stretches a sea of the toits de Paris, their reflective zinc frosted by the cold night air. Between the waves of roofs emerge the spires of churches, tower blocks, the Assemblée Nationale lit up in blue to celebrate France’s presidency of the EU. Floating up from the misty exhalation of Paris we can see the top of Les Invalides, flashing fire and La Tour Montparnasse and the Eiffel Tower itself. Everywhere French flags fly from the rooftops. Behind us, the air conditioning hisses as it turns itself up a notch. It is almost unbelievably beautiful.

Lauren feels impelled to sing the French national anthem. “Aux armes, citoyens! It makes me feel patriotic to sing it, even though I’m not French.”

“It would make anyone feel patriotic. It’s a good anthem. Who was it who said that everyone has two countries, France and his own?”

“I think it was Jefferson… Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur - isn't that terrible? 'Impure blood'! How can they sing that?”

“It’s still better than the English anthem. That’s a dirge:
God saaave our graaaaciousss queeeeen.
Loooooooooong live our noooooooooble queeeeeeeeeeeen…”

“We have that in the States too, but with different words:
…Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride…
I like Rule Britannia.”

Together, we sing:
“Rule, Britannia
Britannia rules the waves
Britons never never never shall be slaves!”

“How about, Jerusalem?” I ask.

“I don’t know that.”

“It’s William Blake. It’s really erotic and radical:
Bring me my spear of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire.
(They sing it at Conservative party conferences, you know).
Bring me my (what? I’ve forgotten). Oh, clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

We stand in the window and lean out over Paris, singing the two revolutionary anthems, from the lap of the Hotel de Crillon.

-Aux armes, citoyens !
-Formez vos bataillons !
-I shall not cease from mental fight,
-Marchons, marchons !
-Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,-Qu'un sang impur.
-Til we have built Jerusalem
-Abreuve nos siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillons !
-In England’s green and pleasant laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!”

vitrine - display/shop window

Oh, la crise! Et comment vous songez que nous allons la surmonter – les ouvriers?’ et tout ca - Oh, the Credit Crunch! And how do you think it's going to work out for us workers? and so on.

100% CRISE!
NOVEAU!
LE PATRON ALLEGE PLUS SAIN
TOUTE DOIT DISPARAITRE!
PROMOTION!

I guess this means
100% CREDIT CRUNCH
NEW!
THE BOSS IS LIGHTENING UP FOR BETTER HEALTH?
EVERYTHING MUST GO!
SPECIAL OFFER!

Music to watch girls by...

I’m sitting in a café with artist, Matthew Rose of Lalande Digital Art Press. It’s Sunday morning. We’re at the corner of two streets – just watching people. He’s an artist. He returned by train this morning from his latest show in Berlin. 

“How did it go?”

He says, “Yeah, it was great. I sold two of the bottles. 900€ each. I exhibited them at wine shop across the road from me in the 14th at, like, 200€ and I thought, in the gallery, they might go for 500. So I didn’t say anything and my dealer said, I think we should put these up at 900 and so I said, OK, but I didn’t really think they would sell. And I sold two.”

We sit down. The waitress is beautiful. Tall and slim. She wears a long and elaborate sautoir* over her work apron. She takes our order, hardly seeming to notice us. Matthew scowls at her.

“She’s not my favourite,” he says. “She’s new. And they just put all the prices up. In Berlin, coffee was, like, half the price it is here. How much is a coffee in England?”

“Well, it’s probably more expensive than Berlin, but less than here.”

“He studies the menu. Look at the price of the omlettes. In Berlin, I got an omlette and a really big bucket of iced coffee for, like, 7€. And I bought this sweater. At the Salvation Army. Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“There was a girl in Berlin who was telling me about her bags and her dress and the way it buttons and has this kind of sleeve here and how much these things mean to girls. I mean, clothes. Do you notice those things?” Matthew asks, "I'm actually interested in female semiotics."

“Yes. I’m very interested in clothes. You can usually tell a lot about people from the way they dress.”

“The girls in Berlin."he continues, "There were two looks. Some of them were like, very clean-cut. Very simple.”

“Well, there’s simple and there’s simple.”

“Like what?”

“Well, you see that girl over there. She’s wearing just a tee-shirt and a cardigan and a skirt. But the tee-shirt’s a slightly different colour from the cardigan so it doesn’t look like it matches too much. And it’s only fastened by the top button which is kind of  counter-intuitive. I mean, why would you fasten a cardigan like that? It looks simple-simple, but it’s actually simple-complicated. She’s really thought about it. That’s why it looks good.  She probably wants you to think it’s simple-simple – that she just threw it on.”

“That’s complicated… In Berlin there were these simple girls. Just a t-shirt and plain clothes; very natural fabrics.”

“Very tall?”

“Yes – No, not all so tall.”

“When I was in Berlin," I say,"all the girls were very tall. Did they all look like they all worked in a bio* restaurant?”

“Yes. No – not so grunge.  And then there were the other girls. Very trashy. Like bright lipstick; plastic stuff.”

“Like the prostitutes?”

“Did you see the prostitutes in Berlin too?"

“Yes – when you walk along the Oranienburger Straße and they’re all there and its like they’re demarcated every twenty feet and it’s like none of them can go into each other’s territory. And they look fantastic. With the corsets and the really high plastic platform boots. They’re tall.”

“Yeah. Tall. Very. And they’re all state-registered. That’s why they look like that. I was talking to one and she said they all used to dress like normal, but now they don’t have to. And it’s become, like, a look.”

“Did you ask her anything else?”

“Yeah. She said, €80 for a hand-job, or a blow-job and and an ‘erotic massage’ and she said she was proud to pay taxes and the fee also goes to pay the hotel."

"Bargain."

Matthew looks up.

"Hey, Have you noticed how the girls in Paris now all wear these very, very low cut tops? Like everything hanging out? That’s new.”

“Not really…”

“Well, I’m a guy. Of course I notice that. What about them over there.” (a couple sit down at the next table) “I’m sure I’ve seen him before. I mean what’s going on with her clothes? Hey," he adds, "do you think she’s his daughter?”

“Could be. I was wondering that myself. Well, she’s wearing nu-pieds*. And that sort of cowboy saddlebag and the hessian dress. There’s a whole rural thing going on. Like a ‘child of nature’.”

“Well the girls in Berlin looked a bit like that, but different. The girls here look like they’re just walking along, maybe going to the market. Then they’re going to sit in this cafe and drink a 5€ coke. Then they’re going to go home and write all about it on Facebook. And that’s what they’re going to do all day. But in Berlin, the girls look like they’re all on their way to work. Like they’re going to do something.”

“You could move to Berlin.”

“Well, it's true I’m not a Francophile, even though I lived here for 15 years... Did I tell you, yesterday morning in Berlin I sold two new prints?  A couple from Belgium came in and wanted them. €90 each. And they took them then and there and that was that."

“Good. That's 10€ more than then hand-job.”

“Look – the guy who’s fucking his daughter – I’m sure I know him from somewhere...
The thing you’re writing. Is there any sex in it?”

“Of course.”

"Good.”

(to see the illustration, click; to see it bigger, click again.)

*sautoir - long chain necklace

*bio - biologique - organic

*nu-pieds - 'nude feet' - sandals

Matthew's exhibition is up until 5 September at the Galerie Rossella Junck  http://www.rossellajunck.com.

You can buy the prints from Rossella Junck or via Matthew's UK online print gallery, http://www.keepcalmgallery.com/artists/matthew-rose

Preserving my reputation

"I like having hangovers."

"No you can't mean it!"

"But I do. First you feel so bad that your brain stops working. You can't think about anything for a while. So you don't worry about any of the things you'd normally worry about. You reach a kind of Zen state. Then when you stop feeling bad you are happy to have survived. It's like a brain reboot."

These were some words I spoke somewhat rashly a couple of evenings ago.
I thought I was being clever. I also thought I meant it.
Yesterday I woke up on day two of really the worst hangover of my life.
I think I might have changed my opinion.

I should have seen it coming, when I fake-tanned my legs.

You see, four days ago, I bought a very fine dress in the soldes d'été at Isabel Marant. The dress is made from grey sweatshirt material which makes my pale legs look the colour of the belly of an uncooked fish. It is a fine dress. It just needs bronzed Mediterranean legs, like the legs of the dark heroines in Eric Rohmer movies. So I stop in at Le Bon Marché, buy some fake tan and dye my legs, failing to recall how the pain of a hangover is so frequently accompanied by the cooked-biscuit smell of chemical bronzer.

It had something to do with hope. And something to do with pride.

You see, I fake-tanned my legs to wear with the dress to meet a friend I hadn't seen for some time. He's a college friend. I see him maybe every five years. I want to impress him. With my dress, with my legs. I know I probably won't see him for another five years but I'm instantly at home with him - just as I was when I shared a house with him all those years ago. And we're having dinner at home in my apartment.

For some reason, I drink more at home than I do when I'm out. In a bar or a restaurant, I have my limit sussed. There's something in my subconscious which doesn't allow me to drink to excess. I am particularly proud of this skill. It has, after all, taken me years to develop. But at home, wedged between the wall and a collapsible table, my subconscious has an entirely different intent. It is occasionally impossible to fool it into ignoring the fact that my bed is really not very far away and I have no need to stay sober enough to stay upright on the metro.

My friend is here with his wife, whom I have met once, briefly, and their two children, the older of whom I last saw in a pram. He is a Labour candidate in a no-hope borough in the rural South West of England. I google him as I cook duck legs on a bed of carrots before he arrives. His face beams shinily from his party's website.

Is it true that everyone looks ten pounds heavier in photos?

About 10.30pm his wife takes the children back to their hotel. She is tired, she say's. She doesn't mind going to bed early. She doesn't return. We sit. And talk. And drink. Until when? I don't know.

...

The next morning. I wake up to find him sitting at my table drinking coffee out of a wineglass.

He looks at home. His upper torso is bare, white and plump. He used to be thin. I stare at it, fascinated. Each half is an unnaturally symmetrical mirror-image of itself, and it is unnaturally wide. It is so pale and wide and shining. It's all I can see. It spreads out before me, horrifyingly large, like the vast white wall of a n electro-hydraulic dam. It is making me dizzy.

This is when I realise I am fantastically hung-over.

I get up temporarily to make breakfast, but find that the action of sawing bread makes me nauseous.

Then it occurs to me to wonder why he is still here. I ask,

"Did you sleep on the sofa"

"Some of the time."

I put a hand up to my ear.

"I lost an earring."

"That was probably when you fell off the bed. You see, after you took all your clothes off and I'd tied your wrists onto your ankles, would insist on still moving. And then you rolled to one side and just fell off the bed. Plop."

I take a serious reality check.

"You are... joking, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"OK. So why did you stay?"

"Well, when you get drunk when you're younger you still have the energy to do something outrageous. But when you're older, you just go to sleep. I just went to sleep. At the table. Then I moved onto the sofa at, maybe, 4am, I think. It was getting light. Do you want some coffee?"

I can't drink anything out of a wineglass. Or maybe, I just can't drink anything.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I really just have to go back to bed."

...

My friend returns in the afternoon with his family. I remember that last night I had volunteered to take his children to see a movie.

How much did you drink? asks the eight year old.

"I don't know."

It's better that he doesn't. And, in any case, I'm not sure.

But he persists:

"One glass? Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine?"

He continues without any apparent idea of stopping. I can see the glasses lined up, the wine inside them queasily swaying. I have to stop their relentless multiplication.

"Oh - um, definitely not more than six."

I have no idea whether this is true. But I don't want to give too bad an impression.

"You should only drink one glass of wine every day," say the five-year-old, sternly. "That's what my daddy says."

I take the children to see Prince Caspian. I find two hours plus of mythological beings beating the crap out of one another oddly refreshing. I eat most of the children's salted popcorn. I go home and immediately go back to sleep.

The next morning, I find I can get out of bed. I feel like I have a hangover. I no longer feel that something indefinable has happened to me which has shifted reality by a crucial 5 centimetres. It feels like day one of a hangover I might have had fifteen years ago in the days when a hangover lasted a maximum of twelve hours.

I look through the apartment for my earring and don't find it. I find a prescription bottle of Propecia, left by my friend. I Google it. It is a treatment for hairloss. I put it in the bathroom beside my bottle of fake tan.

I go out with a friend for coffee, which I find I can now drink. I notice I am trembling slightly as one poison replaces another in my system. I tell her about the evening before the evening before.

She sympathises.

"It's ok. You only see this guy, what, every five years?"

But I can see the rings of damage spreading like circles of water from a dropped stone.

"You don't understand. These are my friends from college. There are loads more of them back in the UK. And they all know each other. Like family. And they all see each other like, every five years too. But if he tells one of them then, within around six months, they'll all know. And I only see most of them once every five years. I'll have the reputation of being a drunken slapper until I can personally disprove it to every one of my college friends. Which, mathematically speaking, could take," (I realise with horror as I calculate), "the next fifty years."

Will I still be around in fifty years, making my rounds of penance? I'm not young any more. Not young enough to drink like that. And maybe too old to live down the consequences.

"But didn't you say you drank a lot at college?"

I remember afternoons in the pub, matching the boys pint for pint. And worse nights when, for example, dressed in a scarlet turban, I attended a cocktail party and, after many glasses of something made from peach schnapps, ended up howling loudly in a bathroom several staircases away.

"But that's not me. I'm not like that any more. I haven't been for years. I didn't mean to get drunk. I hardly ever get drunk."

"OK, it may be better to look at it this way. You're reputation has not been damaged. It has just been... preserved."

As if in alcohol.

Click on the illustration to open it in a bigger window, then click again to resize it.

...part two, and...

So what happened at the wedding. Well after getting over a lost voice, two weeks later I'm ready to tell you.

So, two weeks ago...

(Double-click on the illustration to open it in a large window: hovver your mouse over the bottom right corner and click to see it bigger)

This was when I began to seriously lose my voice.

Finally the wedding next week...

TAGS: MARX, HIGHGATE  CEMETARY, CATHOLIC, EUROSTAR, WAXING, PHILOSOPHY, EHTICS, ALASDAIR MACINTYRE, ARMPIT HAIR, CHANGING, CASHMERE, GOTHIC, NIGELLA LAWSON, HENRY VIII, REFORMATION, INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.