DieterM
07-06-2010, 06:11 AM
First, we take London; then, we take Paris...
I love London. Funny, by the way, how you associate seemingly trivial images with different countries, cities, landscapes. Vienna will always mean a certain freedom for me and is linked with Culture. Observe the capital C there. Paris means Love and Hardship. Greece is simply Paradise Lost. And London? Why, London is Fun. And shopping.
My first journey to London was short but exhilarating. When Franck and Carla had told me that they wanted to end their one-month-trip across Scandinavia with a dash to London, I immediately proposed to join them there. They agreed. Franck had booked a room in a Youth Hostel for the three of us. Of course, my curiosity didn’t go as far as writing down the Youth Hostel’s name or address. I should have, though.
Franck was supposed to come to Heathrow Airport to pick me up. I think he was a bit afraid I’d get lost without him. As well I would have, I admit.
But first, I needed to get beyond UK Immigration.
When I arrived at Heathrow, I saw two separate exits. One for EU- and Commonwealth-members; the other one for the rest of mankind. Everybody proceeded towards the first one and exited unhindered. As Austria hadn’t yet entered the EU, I queued at to the second one. Well, I queued – sort of. We were only two dangerous non-EU-non-Commonwealth parties. In front of me, a fat Arab man with a long, black beard and clad in a white djellabah. After two minutes of discussion, he went out.
It was my turn. The Immigration officer, poor sod, not only sounded like Margaret Thatcher. He even looked a bit like her. Without her ridiculous hairdo, that is. And he stared at me suspiciously. He leafed through my passport, fingered my ticket, then began a cross-sounding interrogatory. First question: ‘What is the purpose of your sojourn in the United Kingdom, sir?’
Sojourn! Pu-leez!
‘Vacation?’ His behaviour was making me nervous; I couldn’t help it but my affirmative answer came out like a question.
Again, Mr. Immigration ogled me, with open contempt now. ‘In which hotel have you planned to stay, sir?’
Uhm, tricky question. As I told you, I didn’t have the foggiest. ‘It’s a Youth Hostel the name of which I don’t know, sir,’ I replied humbly. The officer frowned. I started to explain in length how this was possible and that it was all my fault and that I was just a stupid young idiot.
The man didn’t seem to believe me. ‘Why is it, sir, that I can’t find a return ticket?’
‘Because with the friend of mine, you know, the one I’ve already mentioned, we’ll be going to Paris afterwards. We’re going to take a train to Dover, then the ferry to Calais…‘
‘I don’t see neither a train ticket nor a ferry ticket, either, sir!’ His manners, stiff at their best, were becoming rather menacing, now.
‘We’re going to buy them the day after tomorrow,’ I answered feebly.
‘How much money do you carry with you, sir?’
I handed him the pound-notes I had got in Vienna. He caressed the Queen’s face, then grew stern again. He didn’t seem to think this was enough money for a three day vacation in London. ‘Are you sure you’re not going to stay in the UK and try to take on an illegal job?’ he asked with an annoyed pout.
‘Absolutely sure, sir,’ I said, stiffling a snicker. I mean, come on, the unemployment rate was much higher than in Austria, thanks to his look-alike Maggie. Why would I come to London, of all places, to find a job? I didn’t say it, I wanted to proceed and never see his unhappy face again.
We continued in that style for some more time, until he seemed satisfied and convinced that I wasn’t a dangerous illegal immigrant trying to steal employment from the British. I was allowed to exit. At last.
With Franck, we had a good laugh about it in the train that brought us to the city.
***
When we left the tube, on our way to the Youth Hostel, Franck and I had to stop. One of the streets had been blocked off by the police. A striped, yellow-and-white Security ribbon was wafting in the wind. Bobbies were swarming all over the place. Most passers-by were simply ignoring them; others were gazing at the blocked street with phlegmatic looks. Franck and I seemed to be the only ones intrigued by the event. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘An IRA bombing?’
‘Let’s ask a Bobby,’ Franck answered. He approached the nearest police officer, who was standing next to the ribbon and seemed bored.
‘Excuse me, sir, but why has this street been blocked?’ Franck asked politely.
The Bobby hardly looked at him. His reply was very British and to-the-point: ‘There’s an incident going on.’
You can’t get any more evasive while being quite precise, I guess.
***
I’ve never been able to make up my mind. Are Londoners blasé, tolerant, polite, or simply uninterested? Or was I still too much of a provincial dude? There are no punks in the streets of Vienna. There are maybe two black persons in all the country. Perhaps one hidden Hindu or two. What you see in Vienna are average, white-skinned Middle Europeans. London was a real discovery for me, a melting pot of colours, smells, origins, looks. I saw a really fat young girl wearing an extremely short mini-skirt, boots up to her plump knees, no tights but snow-white, meaty thighs. She was nonchalantly walking down the street. In Austria, she would have triggered off snickers at the best, half-murmured remarks, even lewd cheers in the worst case. In London, people simply didn’t notice here.
Was it positive? Or negative? I still haven’t made up my mind but I liked this attitude a lot.
I liked the London flair a lot, too. London felt very much like… well, London. Red double-decker busses, one- or two-storey Georgian houses with their yellowish stock-brick walls and rectangular slash windows, the metallic fences and steep stairs leading down to the basement, the typical old-fashioned cabs, the red telephone boxes. Men walking on the pavements in decent, dark suits, bowler hats and an umbrella under their arm. Fortunately, the only two things missing were the fog and the rain.
Carla was very happy to see me, as was Franck. While he followed his cultural agenda – British Museum, Tate Gallery, National Gallery –, Carla and I were roaming the streets, the flea-markets, the shops. Camden Market. Picadilly. Kensington Market. Covent Garden. Oxford Street. Tottenham Court Road. Trafalgar Square, of course. As Carla was the one with the street-map, I don’t remember any other names. And each time Franck was with us, he’d be leading our party. He knew by heart where he wanted to go, which shop, which bar, which café. He had his rituals, I told you. Why, he even knew just the place where to buy socks! That was fine with me. Unfortunately, leave me alone in London now, and I’d be completely lost. You’ve got to find your way by yourself in order to remember it later.
At the end of the day, we left our numerous shopping bags at the Youth Hostel and proceeded to Soho. We ended up in a noisy gay pub, with Carla staring incredulously and for at least an hour at the heavenly, young Indian bartender. Again and again, I heard her mumble: ‘My, how beautiful he is! What a beauty!’ Franck and I kept giggling at each new outburst of our dear, thunderstruck Carla.
At 10:30, roughly, the lights were switched off briefly and the patron shouted, ‘Last order!’ We hastily drank a last pint of Guinness before being shoved out at 11 p.m. sharp. 11 p.m.! This was the hour when we started to prepare ourselves for an evening out, in Vienna! We wandered around a bit, rather erratically, munching a ham-and-lettuce-sandwich we had bought in a sandwicheria. Then, we aimed our steps towards the famous railway arches under Charing Cross Station. We had planned to end the night in ‘Heaven’, London’s well known gay club.
The place was packed already. Unbelievable for us, who often had to wait until one o’clock in the morning, in Vienna, to see so many people assembled. What made us laugh out loud, though, was a muscular gogo-dancer. He was propped up on some sort of column, swaying his hips forwards and backwards. He was stark naked but for a Union Jack flag he was holding in front of his privates. Carla and I were standing right underneath him, a bit to the back. From our angle, we had a splendid view of his balls and **** swinging violently to and fro, slapping against his sweaty buttocks before making the Union Jack bulge with a heavy impact.
***
Three photos. Of course, I don’t have them anymore, materially speaking. Either they’re stacked away somewhere in Mister P.’s flat, or they have landed in his dust-bin. All I’ve got, today, are my memories. And these lines that will extend their existence.
The first photo shows Carla. She was the one who had brought a camera. But at one moment, I simply snatched it from her hands in order to capture her genius for eternity. The photo has been taken at the Camden flea market. There are blurred silhouettes all around her of customers, booths, vendors. You can see her examining some trinket or other, looking at the camera, smirking mischievously, her long, brown, straight hair framing her round face, her blue eyes twinkling.
The second photo shows Franck and me. We are sitting in striped deck chairs in one of the parks. Franck is wearing black trousers, a black shirt and – he must have felt a bit rebellious that morning – a blue jeans jacket. His eyes are hidden behind round John-Lennon-sunglasses. You can guess a bright and sun-shiny day. He’s looking somewhat questioningly at Carla, our photographer. To his left, there’s me. I’m clad in jeans and a striped black and white turtleneck pullover I’ve bought the previous day in one of the shops. In Kensington, I think. My arms are crossed behind my head while I’m gazing airily, dreamily, into the vague distance. Around us, a dozen other deck chairs, empty. The photo respires a great calm and tranquillity of mind. Carla was an excellent photographer.
The third photo shows our breakfast table outside a gay café. I don’t remember if it was in Soho. The café, in any case, was situated in a small backstreet leading to a picturesque square. This time, due to Franck’s protests, the photo focuses on me alone. I’m wearing another striped black and white thingy on my shoulders. I’m munching my Camembert on toasted bread with marmalade and don’t look very keen on being portrayed. My hair has a reddish tinge, I’m unshaved and eyeing the piece of toasted bread on my fork with what could pass as suspicion. My mouth is distorted with chewing. Yet you can fathom a weak smile around my eyes.
***
Of course, I had my little affair in London, too. I was single and still very much in my turbulent sex-might-be-the-answer period. I won’t bore you to death with the details. You know the song by now, I surmise. Young guy, handsome face, sombre stance, white-toothed smile, my heart going Boom!, ‘Might he be my Prince Charming?’-****, bla-bla-bla.
As always, I fell in love head over heels. As always, I fell out of love just as quickly. A one-night-stand, easily overcome with the light of a new day’s dawn.
I met him on the second evening. In the noisy bar in Soho where we had spent our first evening. Franck and Carla had gone back to the Youth Hostel. Carla was to return to Vienna at 8 p.m. Franck wanted to accompany her to the airport. I told you, Carla and orientation were two very separate, nearly opposite items. Franck knew that, too. He had already travelled with her. He didn’t want her to finish her short train-trip somewhere in Kent.
So I had been told to wait in the gay bar. I was reading a novel I had bought that afternoon, I was enjoying the House-music and my pint of Guinness and the nice-looking men around me. Nobody has ever commented on this fact: there are plenty of really fabulous chaps in London. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. A cute guy took place at my table. It was the only chair left. We started to talk, we started to flirt, we started to kiss. It took us roughly ten minutes to go through these three stages.
He was Italian, his name was Raffaele, he was nineteen, he had been playing in the Italian National Volleyball Team, he was spending his two-month-holidays in London in order to learn proper English. He had already progressed a lot. Fortunately because my Italian comprises more insults than everyday-idioms. You can’t converse appropriately with ‘Va fa’n culo!’ and ‘Che cazzo!’ alone. Not that I wanted to converse, to be honest. But you can’t go too far with snogging, either, even in a gay bar.
When Franck joined us, exchanges in English had decreased to an all-time minimum, body language had progressed in the same proportions. All my friend could do was shake his head, tsk-tsk-tsk at me and look the other way when we went too far. The three of us ended up in a gay club off Covent Garden, Raffaele and I blocking one of the girls’ toilet for more than an hour to sate the lusty demands of our bodies. I think the boy wanted to shag but none of us had brought a rubber. So it was a somewhat more puerile love-making we engaged in instead.
The next morning, Franck and I took the train to Dover, where we boarded a ferry. Goodbye London, farewell, Raffaele!
***
Franck and I were hungover after our busy last night in London. But when you’re young, you don’t mind. We suffered the trip on the ferry rather well. The foam was slapping against the prow and the round portholes. A loud wind was howling across the Channel. But we were so tired we didn’t even sense the sloshing movement of the boat. We were sipping a watery, much too expensive coffee, trying not to fall asleep.
When the security messages were broadcasted throughout the ship, we started to giggle like little schoolboys. To hear them delivered in English, French and German was not funny as such. But to note strictly identical contents being issued in such different tones sure was. In English, it sounded like excuses and was full of would-you-minds and sorry-to-bother-yous and if-you-could-be-so-kinds. In French, the overall impression was that of a dirty joke being shared, the undertone slippery, with secrete winks and discrete come-ons. In German, it was all pitbull barks and strict no-nonsense orders and go-theres and do-thats and don’t-you-dares.
We spent a nice first day in Paris doing some more shopping. Agnès b., next to Les Halles, was one of our stops. Franck wanted to replenish his stock of plain black and grey shirts, T-shirts, pullovers. His claim was: he was wearing black and grey items exclusively because he didn’t want to ponder each morning which trousers could be worn with which shirt. Of course, a little bit of coquetry and a zest of unacknowledged artistic attitude were concealed behind that argument, too.
At agnès b., there was only one huge changing room. All the guys had to share one. We were standing in front of the mirror, Franck in new trousers, I with a new dark T-shirt, turning and contemplating our reflections. I looked extremely thin in that agnès b. T-shirt. Nonetheless, Franck found it tactful to compliment me, saying: ‘Now that looks nice on you. You have to buy it!’
I answered doubtfully: ‘I don’t know. I look as if recently recovered from a very long, very severe disease.’
We spend part of the afternoon sitting outside the café ‘Coste’ in rue Berger, a stone’s throw from Les Halles. A very fashionable, mostly gay crowd was spread all over the café’s terrace; the air smelled of various expensive perfumes. Everybody excelled in showy conversation, names-dropping, jaded attitudes, air-kissing when someone new arrived. The toilets of the ‘Coste’ were rocking; you actually pissed against a roughly hewn stone upon which a sort of waterfall was running. Very postmodern, very sophisticated, very brain-wanked.
In the evening, we decided to go to yet another gay club. I’ve forgotten its name. New surprise: whereas in London, the queue in front of the club had been long at 11:30, here we were the first ones at half past midnight. The first ones without counting the bartenders and servers. We never knew if we had chosen a popular club or not. When the first customers started to crowd the place, we were so tired that we left for our hotel.
The next day, we strolled around the sun-lit city, had a stop in the Tuileries, went to ‘Galignani’, the First English Bookshop on the Continent’. In the evening, we tried our luck at ‘L’Arc’. This was a club situated off the Etoile, the big place with the Arc de Triomphe, right at the upper end of the Champs-Elysées. It was a very posh club for the kids of the Rich ‘n’ Famous. We should have been warned by all the Porsches, Lamborghinis and Jaguars parked in front of the club.
The bouncer was a middle-aged woman who looked a lot like the French actress Annie Girardot. All she saw was Franck’s Paul-Smith-jacket. She didn’t even gaze at me, who was clad in jeans, a T-shirt and jeans jacket; she nodded us in.
The club was so upper-class that it was nearly ridiculous. The walls were covered with red silk. Soft carpets coated the floors. Carpets! In a club! The boys sported white shirts, expensive suits, ties; the girls, priceless Prêt-à-porter Chanel- and Mugler-cocktail dresses. Everybody was drinking champagne, everybody was smoking ultra-slim cigarettes, everybody was young and beautiful and arrogant. It was the first time in my life that I saw youngsters in suits blow their whistles to the rhythm of French House-music. It was really all quite unreal.
The next morning, we took our flight back home to Vienna.
I love London. Funny, by the way, how you associate seemingly trivial images with different countries, cities, landscapes. Vienna will always mean a certain freedom for me and is linked with Culture. Observe the capital C there. Paris means Love and Hardship. Greece is simply Paradise Lost. And London? Why, London is Fun. And shopping.
My first journey to London was short but exhilarating. When Franck and Carla had told me that they wanted to end their one-month-trip across Scandinavia with a dash to London, I immediately proposed to join them there. They agreed. Franck had booked a room in a Youth Hostel for the three of us. Of course, my curiosity didn’t go as far as writing down the Youth Hostel’s name or address. I should have, though.
Franck was supposed to come to Heathrow Airport to pick me up. I think he was a bit afraid I’d get lost without him. As well I would have, I admit.
But first, I needed to get beyond UK Immigration.
When I arrived at Heathrow, I saw two separate exits. One for EU- and Commonwealth-members; the other one for the rest of mankind. Everybody proceeded towards the first one and exited unhindered. As Austria hadn’t yet entered the EU, I queued at to the second one. Well, I queued – sort of. We were only two dangerous non-EU-non-Commonwealth parties. In front of me, a fat Arab man with a long, black beard and clad in a white djellabah. After two minutes of discussion, he went out.
It was my turn. The Immigration officer, poor sod, not only sounded like Margaret Thatcher. He even looked a bit like her. Without her ridiculous hairdo, that is. And he stared at me suspiciously. He leafed through my passport, fingered my ticket, then began a cross-sounding interrogatory. First question: ‘What is the purpose of your sojourn in the United Kingdom, sir?’
Sojourn! Pu-leez!
‘Vacation?’ His behaviour was making me nervous; I couldn’t help it but my affirmative answer came out like a question.
Again, Mr. Immigration ogled me, with open contempt now. ‘In which hotel have you planned to stay, sir?’
Uhm, tricky question. As I told you, I didn’t have the foggiest. ‘It’s a Youth Hostel the name of which I don’t know, sir,’ I replied humbly. The officer frowned. I started to explain in length how this was possible and that it was all my fault and that I was just a stupid young idiot.
The man didn’t seem to believe me. ‘Why is it, sir, that I can’t find a return ticket?’
‘Because with the friend of mine, you know, the one I’ve already mentioned, we’ll be going to Paris afterwards. We’re going to take a train to Dover, then the ferry to Calais…‘
‘I don’t see neither a train ticket nor a ferry ticket, either, sir!’ His manners, stiff at their best, were becoming rather menacing, now.
‘We’re going to buy them the day after tomorrow,’ I answered feebly.
‘How much money do you carry with you, sir?’
I handed him the pound-notes I had got in Vienna. He caressed the Queen’s face, then grew stern again. He didn’t seem to think this was enough money for a three day vacation in London. ‘Are you sure you’re not going to stay in the UK and try to take on an illegal job?’ he asked with an annoyed pout.
‘Absolutely sure, sir,’ I said, stiffling a snicker. I mean, come on, the unemployment rate was much higher than in Austria, thanks to his look-alike Maggie. Why would I come to London, of all places, to find a job? I didn’t say it, I wanted to proceed and never see his unhappy face again.
We continued in that style for some more time, until he seemed satisfied and convinced that I wasn’t a dangerous illegal immigrant trying to steal employment from the British. I was allowed to exit. At last.
With Franck, we had a good laugh about it in the train that brought us to the city.
***
When we left the tube, on our way to the Youth Hostel, Franck and I had to stop. One of the streets had been blocked off by the police. A striped, yellow-and-white Security ribbon was wafting in the wind. Bobbies were swarming all over the place. Most passers-by were simply ignoring them; others were gazing at the blocked street with phlegmatic looks. Franck and I seemed to be the only ones intrigued by the event. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘An IRA bombing?’
‘Let’s ask a Bobby,’ Franck answered. He approached the nearest police officer, who was standing next to the ribbon and seemed bored.
‘Excuse me, sir, but why has this street been blocked?’ Franck asked politely.
The Bobby hardly looked at him. His reply was very British and to-the-point: ‘There’s an incident going on.’
You can’t get any more evasive while being quite precise, I guess.
***
I’ve never been able to make up my mind. Are Londoners blasé, tolerant, polite, or simply uninterested? Or was I still too much of a provincial dude? There are no punks in the streets of Vienna. There are maybe two black persons in all the country. Perhaps one hidden Hindu or two. What you see in Vienna are average, white-skinned Middle Europeans. London was a real discovery for me, a melting pot of colours, smells, origins, looks. I saw a really fat young girl wearing an extremely short mini-skirt, boots up to her plump knees, no tights but snow-white, meaty thighs. She was nonchalantly walking down the street. In Austria, she would have triggered off snickers at the best, half-murmured remarks, even lewd cheers in the worst case. In London, people simply didn’t notice here.
Was it positive? Or negative? I still haven’t made up my mind but I liked this attitude a lot.
I liked the London flair a lot, too. London felt very much like… well, London. Red double-decker busses, one- or two-storey Georgian houses with their yellowish stock-brick walls and rectangular slash windows, the metallic fences and steep stairs leading down to the basement, the typical old-fashioned cabs, the red telephone boxes. Men walking on the pavements in decent, dark suits, bowler hats and an umbrella under their arm. Fortunately, the only two things missing were the fog and the rain.
Carla was very happy to see me, as was Franck. While he followed his cultural agenda – British Museum, Tate Gallery, National Gallery –, Carla and I were roaming the streets, the flea-markets, the shops. Camden Market. Picadilly. Kensington Market. Covent Garden. Oxford Street. Tottenham Court Road. Trafalgar Square, of course. As Carla was the one with the street-map, I don’t remember any other names. And each time Franck was with us, he’d be leading our party. He knew by heart where he wanted to go, which shop, which bar, which café. He had his rituals, I told you. Why, he even knew just the place where to buy socks! That was fine with me. Unfortunately, leave me alone in London now, and I’d be completely lost. You’ve got to find your way by yourself in order to remember it later.
At the end of the day, we left our numerous shopping bags at the Youth Hostel and proceeded to Soho. We ended up in a noisy gay pub, with Carla staring incredulously and for at least an hour at the heavenly, young Indian bartender. Again and again, I heard her mumble: ‘My, how beautiful he is! What a beauty!’ Franck and I kept giggling at each new outburst of our dear, thunderstruck Carla.
At 10:30, roughly, the lights were switched off briefly and the patron shouted, ‘Last order!’ We hastily drank a last pint of Guinness before being shoved out at 11 p.m. sharp. 11 p.m.! This was the hour when we started to prepare ourselves for an evening out, in Vienna! We wandered around a bit, rather erratically, munching a ham-and-lettuce-sandwich we had bought in a sandwicheria. Then, we aimed our steps towards the famous railway arches under Charing Cross Station. We had planned to end the night in ‘Heaven’, London’s well known gay club.
The place was packed already. Unbelievable for us, who often had to wait until one o’clock in the morning, in Vienna, to see so many people assembled. What made us laugh out loud, though, was a muscular gogo-dancer. He was propped up on some sort of column, swaying his hips forwards and backwards. He was stark naked but for a Union Jack flag he was holding in front of his privates. Carla and I were standing right underneath him, a bit to the back. From our angle, we had a splendid view of his balls and **** swinging violently to and fro, slapping against his sweaty buttocks before making the Union Jack bulge with a heavy impact.
***
Three photos. Of course, I don’t have them anymore, materially speaking. Either they’re stacked away somewhere in Mister P.’s flat, or they have landed in his dust-bin. All I’ve got, today, are my memories. And these lines that will extend their existence.
The first photo shows Carla. She was the one who had brought a camera. But at one moment, I simply snatched it from her hands in order to capture her genius for eternity. The photo has been taken at the Camden flea market. There are blurred silhouettes all around her of customers, booths, vendors. You can see her examining some trinket or other, looking at the camera, smirking mischievously, her long, brown, straight hair framing her round face, her blue eyes twinkling.
The second photo shows Franck and me. We are sitting in striped deck chairs in one of the parks. Franck is wearing black trousers, a black shirt and – he must have felt a bit rebellious that morning – a blue jeans jacket. His eyes are hidden behind round John-Lennon-sunglasses. You can guess a bright and sun-shiny day. He’s looking somewhat questioningly at Carla, our photographer. To his left, there’s me. I’m clad in jeans and a striped black and white turtleneck pullover I’ve bought the previous day in one of the shops. In Kensington, I think. My arms are crossed behind my head while I’m gazing airily, dreamily, into the vague distance. Around us, a dozen other deck chairs, empty. The photo respires a great calm and tranquillity of mind. Carla was an excellent photographer.
The third photo shows our breakfast table outside a gay café. I don’t remember if it was in Soho. The café, in any case, was situated in a small backstreet leading to a picturesque square. This time, due to Franck’s protests, the photo focuses on me alone. I’m wearing another striped black and white thingy on my shoulders. I’m munching my Camembert on toasted bread with marmalade and don’t look very keen on being portrayed. My hair has a reddish tinge, I’m unshaved and eyeing the piece of toasted bread on my fork with what could pass as suspicion. My mouth is distorted with chewing. Yet you can fathom a weak smile around my eyes.
***
Of course, I had my little affair in London, too. I was single and still very much in my turbulent sex-might-be-the-answer period. I won’t bore you to death with the details. You know the song by now, I surmise. Young guy, handsome face, sombre stance, white-toothed smile, my heart going Boom!, ‘Might he be my Prince Charming?’-****, bla-bla-bla.
As always, I fell in love head over heels. As always, I fell out of love just as quickly. A one-night-stand, easily overcome with the light of a new day’s dawn.
I met him on the second evening. In the noisy bar in Soho where we had spent our first evening. Franck and Carla had gone back to the Youth Hostel. Carla was to return to Vienna at 8 p.m. Franck wanted to accompany her to the airport. I told you, Carla and orientation were two very separate, nearly opposite items. Franck knew that, too. He had already travelled with her. He didn’t want her to finish her short train-trip somewhere in Kent.
So I had been told to wait in the gay bar. I was reading a novel I had bought that afternoon, I was enjoying the House-music and my pint of Guinness and the nice-looking men around me. Nobody has ever commented on this fact: there are plenty of really fabulous chaps in London. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. A cute guy took place at my table. It was the only chair left. We started to talk, we started to flirt, we started to kiss. It took us roughly ten minutes to go through these three stages.
He was Italian, his name was Raffaele, he was nineteen, he had been playing in the Italian National Volleyball Team, he was spending his two-month-holidays in London in order to learn proper English. He had already progressed a lot. Fortunately because my Italian comprises more insults than everyday-idioms. You can’t converse appropriately with ‘Va fa’n culo!’ and ‘Che cazzo!’ alone. Not that I wanted to converse, to be honest. But you can’t go too far with snogging, either, even in a gay bar.
When Franck joined us, exchanges in English had decreased to an all-time minimum, body language had progressed in the same proportions. All my friend could do was shake his head, tsk-tsk-tsk at me and look the other way when we went too far. The three of us ended up in a gay club off Covent Garden, Raffaele and I blocking one of the girls’ toilet for more than an hour to sate the lusty demands of our bodies. I think the boy wanted to shag but none of us had brought a rubber. So it was a somewhat more puerile love-making we engaged in instead.
The next morning, Franck and I took the train to Dover, where we boarded a ferry. Goodbye London, farewell, Raffaele!
***
Franck and I were hungover after our busy last night in London. But when you’re young, you don’t mind. We suffered the trip on the ferry rather well. The foam was slapping against the prow and the round portholes. A loud wind was howling across the Channel. But we were so tired we didn’t even sense the sloshing movement of the boat. We were sipping a watery, much too expensive coffee, trying not to fall asleep.
When the security messages were broadcasted throughout the ship, we started to giggle like little schoolboys. To hear them delivered in English, French and German was not funny as such. But to note strictly identical contents being issued in such different tones sure was. In English, it sounded like excuses and was full of would-you-minds and sorry-to-bother-yous and if-you-could-be-so-kinds. In French, the overall impression was that of a dirty joke being shared, the undertone slippery, with secrete winks and discrete come-ons. In German, it was all pitbull barks and strict no-nonsense orders and go-theres and do-thats and don’t-you-dares.
We spent a nice first day in Paris doing some more shopping. Agnès b., next to Les Halles, was one of our stops. Franck wanted to replenish his stock of plain black and grey shirts, T-shirts, pullovers. His claim was: he was wearing black and grey items exclusively because he didn’t want to ponder each morning which trousers could be worn with which shirt. Of course, a little bit of coquetry and a zest of unacknowledged artistic attitude were concealed behind that argument, too.
At agnès b., there was only one huge changing room. All the guys had to share one. We were standing in front of the mirror, Franck in new trousers, I with a new dark T-shirt, turning and contemplating our reflections. I looked extremely thin in that agnès b. T-shirt. Nonetheless, Franck found it tactful to compliment me, saying: ‘Now that looks nice on you. You have to buy it!’
I answered doubtfully: ‘I don’t know. I look as if recently recovered from a very long, very severe disease.’
We spend part of the afternoon sitting outside the café ‘Coste’ in rue Berger, a stone’s throw from Les Halles. A very fashionable, mostly gay crowd was spread all over the café’s terrace; the air smelled of various expensive perfumes. Everybody excelled in showy conversation, names-dropping, jaded attitudes, air-kissing when someone new arrived. The toilets of the ‘Coste’ were rocking; you actually pissed against a roughly hewn stone upon which a sort of waterfall was running. Very postmodern, very sophisticated, very brain-wanked.
In the evening, we decided to go to yet another gay club. I’ve forgotten its name. New surprise: whereas in London, the queue in front of the club had been long at 11:30, here we were the first ones at half past midnight. The first ones without counting the bartenders and servers. We never knew if we had chosen a popular club or not. When the first customers started to crowd the place, we were so tired that we left for our hotel.
The next day, we strolled around the sun-lit city, had a stop in the Tuileries, went to ‘Galignani’, the First English Bookshop on the Continent’. In the evening, we tried our luck at ‘L’Arc’. This was a club situated off the Etoile, the big place with the Arc de Triomphe, right at the upper end of the Champs-Elysées. It was a very posh club for the kids of the Rich ‘n’ Famous. We should have been warned by all the Porsches, Lamborghinis and Jaguars parked in front of the club.
The bouncer was a middle-aged woman who looked a lot like the French actress Annie Girardot. All she saw was Franck’s Paul-Smith-jacket. She didn’t even gaze at me, who was clad in jeans, a T-shirt and jeans jacket; she nodded us in.
The club was so upper-class that it was nearly ridiculous. The walls were covered with red silk. Soft carpets coated the floors. Carpets! In a club! The boys sported white shirts, expensive suits, ties; the girls, priceless Prêt-à-porter Chanel- and Mugler-cocktail dresses. Everybody was drinking champagne, everybody was smoking ultra-slim cigarettes, everybody was young and beautiful and arrogant. It was the first time in my life that I saw youngsters in suits blow their whistles to the rhythm of French House-music. It was really all quite unreal.
The next morning, we took our flight back home to Vienna.