LITMIR.BIZ

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a part of the city Luke had never visited before. He turned up half an hour early so that he could explore a little – and decided immediately that this was where he wanted to live.

      ‘You’ll be lucky,’ said Miles, opening another bottle of wine (he was finishing off the first as Luke stepped through the door). Ten years ago, when he and Renée, his wife, had moved here there had been nothing. They had bought this place because they needed space for their kids and this was the only part of central Paris they could afford. It was a neglected working-class area but in the last five years it had begun to change. Following the well-established trajectory of neighbourhood-enhancement the world over, artists had moved in, a few galleries had opened, then bars, clubs, restaurants, more expensive galleries, more bars, more clubs. Rents were going up. As befitted a man who had anticipated a trend Miles explained this dismissively, contemptuously, even though these developments – for which he was partly responsible – suited him nicely. He was fifty, the father of two children. He had lived in Afghanistan and claimed to have slept with his sister even though, as far as Luke recalled, he had no sister. He lived on red wine, cigarettes, coffee. He drank beer like water, to clean out his system. Food wasn’t important to him. Mainly he ate omelettes. Luke had met him in London but had not seen him for two years. If he looked only slightly worse now that was because he had long ago achieved the look of definitive decrepitude that would last him a lifetime. Luke had assumed that Renée would be around, but there was no sign of her or the kids. Come to that, there was no sign of dinner.

      ‘They’re off at something at the school,’ said Miles. ‘Some loony play or other. Would you like another drink, Luke?’ It was one of those houses, Luke realized, which relied on its own internally generated chaos to function happily.

      ‘Are we thinking of eating something?’ said Luke.

      ‘How about an omelette? Would you like an omelette?’

      ‘Perfect.’

      And what an omelette it was: an egg base with everything in the fridge thrown on top, in no particular order (the onions went in last, as an afterthought) with the flame turned permanently to maximum. Miles was a messy chef. In the process of cracking the eggs he smashed the cup he was banging them into. By the time they sat down to eat, the cooker, work surfaces and floor were awash with debris.

      ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking the kitchen,’ said Luke sagely. Very sagely, as it happened, for at the last moment Miles had emptied half a pot of it into the pan.

      ‘Quite. How’s the omelette?’

      ‘Great,’ said Luke. ‘Almost completely inedible.’

      ‘Marvellous. You know, I’m so happy you’re here. Would you like some more wine?’ Luke held out his glass. His vision was becoming somewhat slurred. Miles, meanwhile, contradicting his earlier claim, said that there would be no problem finding an apartment to rent in this neighbourhood.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘We’ll find a place tomorrow. I’ll put the word around. You can get a place easily. I’ve got two or three in mind already. People are going away the whole time on some loony expedition or other.’

      ‘Really? That’s great because I’ve got to move out of the dump I’m in at the moment in a couple of weeks.’

      ‘We’ll sort it out tomorrow.’

      ‘And you mentioned earlier about maybe being able to get a job at some warehouse.’

      ‘Oh yes we’ll do that tomorrow as well.’

      ‘Really?’ said Luke, conscious that his side of the conversation was coming to consist entirely of ‘reallys’.

      ‘Yes. Really,’ said Miles. In a moment of surging clarity Luke saw his future as fixed, settled.

      In the morning it looked blurred, as unsettled as his stomach. After the omelette and more wine they had gone out to a bar and drunk a few beers. Luke had walked home, not caring about anything. Now he felt awful, hung over, certain that Miles would have forgotten about both the job and the apartment. For the first time his circumstances offered a flattering reflection of how he felt. His mouth was parched, his head ached. It was a Tuesday morning and there was nothing to get up for except to wash the smell of smoke from his hair. When he had done that he dressed, checked his mail box – empty except for a menu from a new pizza pit – and went out for breakfast.

      It was drizzling or not drizzling, warm. Once he had drunk his coffee he could think of nothing else to do but go back to his apartment. On the way he bought an English newspaper, a third of the size and three times the price of the non-export version. From now on, Luke resolved (as he did most mornings), I will buy French papers.

      The phone was ringing when he stepped through the door of his apartment.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Good morning, Luke.’

      ‘Hi Miles.’

      ‘I’m not waking you am I?’

      ‘No. I’m kind of hung over though.’

      ‘Have you ever said yes to a single joy? Then, Luke, you have said yes to all woe. Besides, we hardly drank anything.’

      ‘I think it was the omelette.’

      ‘Ha! Now, Luke, I’m afraid nothing has come up yet on the apartment front but I do have the number of that loony who runs the mad warehouse. His name is Lazare Garnier. You should give him a call. He lived in America. He speaks English, or American. That’s to say, he swears in American. Have you got a pen?’

      By a fluke Lazare himself answered the phone when Luke called. He was furious because Didier had once again failed to turn up on a day when there was a massive backlog of urgent orders.

      ‘Ah bonjour. Miles Stephens m’a dit,’ Luke began, not very impressively. ‘Excusez-moi. Parlez-vous anglais?’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Ah, yes. My name is Luke Barnes and I’ve been told by Miles Stephens—’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Miles Stephens.’

      ‘Who the fuck is that?’

      ‘He—’

      ‘Oh that English guy. The guy who lived in Afghanistan?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘He said that it might – that at certain times you took on people to work, packing. I wondered if there were any—’

      ‘Where are you phoning from?’

      ‘Um, the First.’

      ‘What time can you get here?’

      ‘Today?’

      ‘No, next year. When the hell do you think I mean?’

      ‘In about an hour and a half.’

      ‘Make it just the half,’ said Lazare. ‘And you’ve got the job.’ With that he hung up.

      We were all working flat out that day. Lazare was in a temper (that is, he was in a good mood), bawling out orders, yelling at people for not having done things he hadn’t told them needed doing. When Luke knocked on the office door Lazare was shouting at a client on the phone. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and yelled at Luke to come in. Luke didn’t hear. He waited, knocked harder.

      ‘Oui.’ Luke opened the door. Stood there.

      ‘Monsieur Garnier?’

      ‘Vous attendez quoi là? Un visa? Entrez . . . Attendez. Non,’ he said into the phone, ‘Je parle avec une espèce de con qui vient d’entrer . . . Ne quittez pas.’ He cupped his hand over the phone again. ‘Asseyez-vous, asseyez-vous,’ he gestured to Luke and then turned his anger back to the phone. ‘Écoutezmoi. Si vous êtes con .

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