Épernay
THE FOUR OTHER GUESTS WERE already in the dining room. Elena and Patrick stood talking to an older couple – an American woman with a foghorn voice, and a bald man. Céline passed around champagne to everyone but me, and I stood there, empty-handed, listening to their chatter. I learned that most of them had worked together at some point, and that the older couple were the Chambières’ neighbours in the country as well as important friends from Paris. The man, Jean-Marc, had been editor of La Globe, my father’s boss at one time, and was now a successful businessman who owned the paper. He had a rough, reddish face and sharp blue eyes beneath a bushy monobrow.
‘It’s good to see you again, Eddy,’ he said to my father who stood by the window, smoking. Then Jean-Marc turned to me. ‘You must be Alex.’
Jean-Marc shook my hand and told me how much he’d heard about me already. He saw I didn’t have a drink, so he reached over to the tray and passed me a glass of champagne while Foghorn’s eyes scanned me vacantly then drifted over my shoulder. She was the victim of another bad facelift, and her short blonde bob curled in around her face like parentheses. Everyone gripped their drinks, steeling themselves for the small talk. Jean-Marc waded in first. He was loud and enthusiastic, the way adults are when they know they have an evening ahead of eating and drinking themselves senseless.
‘You’ve moved back to Paris, I hear,’ he said to my father.
‘About six months ago. It’s good to be back,’ my father lied. ‘Congratulations on the acquisition of La Globe. It must be like coming home,’ he added.
‘Yes, indeed, it is. The building hasn’t changed at all since you were there. Except for the smoke! Back then you couldn’t see across the newsroom.’
‘I bet some of the old guard are still there with their microfiche and pagers,’ said my father, stubbing his cigarette. ‘Saving La Globe is a worthy cause, but it can’t have been popular with your backers, given the paper’s performance.’
‘It was a tough sell, but they’re used to me by now,’ Jean-Marc said, taking a sip and rolling back on his heels. ‘And I’ll show them that news can still make money!’
I stood staring at my father as he laughed at Jean-Marc’s boasts and bad jokes. I’d never seen him suck up so hard. I thought for a second he was about to drop to his knees and polish his shoes.
‘Yes, well, your business acumen has certainly paid dividends. The shareholders must be delighted. Your other businesses are booming,’ my father said.
‘Everyone wants security – economic, political and social. It’s a sign of the times, unfortunately, and my companies are proud to be able to fulfil that need. We’ve pitched well, and have other projects in the pipeline too.’
‘Speaking of pitches, I’d like your thoughts on a story. I think it might interest you,’ said my father.
‘Anything from you interests me, Eddy,’ said Jean-Marc.
We took our seats for dinner. Céline ushered me in between Patrick and my father, who was chatting with Elena on his left. Foghorn looked dissatisfied with her assigned position at the table and came over behind me, putting her hands on my shoulders as she leaned in, whispering for me to take her place opposite. I felt her rings against my collarbone, and her heavy perfume almost knocked me out.
We swapped places, my father looking anxious as I took the seat between Jean-Marc and Elena. Perhaps he was worried I’d sabotage his efforts with Jean-Marc, or maybe he was afraid of Jean-Marc’s wife Anne, but by then Anne had turned her attention to Patrick. I checked the data settings on my phone, thinking of Tomas’s party and my classmates in Paris, and I saw a Wi-Fi network nearby. Céline had been lying.
The table fell quiet as Paul spoke and Céline brought food to the table.
‘We were talking earlier about the increase in migrants on the street, since it’s been in the news lately,’ Paul said, addressing the table. ‘They’re kept outside the system, and have to beg and steal to survive.’ He took the plate of veal from Céline, served himself generously, and passed it on.
Migrants and other street people were always in the news back then, the papers full of stories about the scams they worked to separate tourists from their cash. Their camps were tolerated in the suburbs but when they moved inside the Péri, it was another story. The mayor said he wanted to purge them from the city, and I’d seen police in riot gear rounding them up into vans across our neighbourhood. My father said it was a waste of time, and they’d return to the same places a few days later. I’d looked, but hadn’t seen them since.
Jean-Marc took the plate from Paul and served me a portion before serving himself. ‘Some of them deliberately make their children sick to get on the system. They have no moral compass whatsoever,’ he said.
There was silence. Everyone was looking at him.
‘They’re coming in from all over. The borders are wide open, unpoliced,’ Jean-Marc added, scanning the table, his eyes widening to illustrate the breadth and emptiness of the borders. ‘It’s dangerous. Today we give them hospitality, tomorrow we will question it.’
‘But many are allowed to come here and work, and if they fall ill, they’re entitled to healthcare. It’s terrible to see them on the streets with their children,’ Elena said, coaxing a few buttery carrots onto her plate.
I kept an eye on my father, wondering how long he would put up with the discussion. I knew he hated this kind of talk, but he kept his mouth shut and played the helpful guest, keeping everyone’s glasses filled.
Anne slammed down her fork. ‘Work? They work the streets in gangs, stealing thousands of euros. They set up filthy camps in the city and fill the hospitals to the brim.’
‘Yes, they have no conscience. And the people who wear burqas on the streets. It’s aggressive. We must resist all forms of hostility – at our borders, in our suburbs, for our safety, and the security of the nation,’ Jean-Marc said, moistening his lips.
‘And as someone with an interest in the security of our nation, how should we manage that?’ asked my father. The question sounded unfriendly and was a surprising change of tack given his performance earlier, but he was smiling.
‘Oh, it’s already happening. They’re putting in more security for communities in the problem areas. A system of controlled access to the estates, and better law enforcement. All of this on a much more ambitious scale than we have now.’ Jean-Marc glanced around the table. He loosened his collar, stretching his neck. ‘It’s not just about policing or private security, of course. There are also our charities, the ones Elena runs in the suburbs for young people. They do excellent work stopping tension escalating in the first place.’
‘We all need to take responsibility for the disruption in the suburbs,’ Elena said quietly, while Jean-Marc drew breath.
My father laughed. ‘Take responsibility? Sounds like you’re just shifting blame.’
I focused on eating as they carried on like this. The religious topic had stirred Jean-Marc, and he turned to me after a while, asking about school. Did the canteen serve halal food? The girls, did they wear headscarves? My father cast nervous looks in our direction and so I hammed it up, replying that the canteen was completely halal, that we were taught in Arabic, and that my girlfriend wore a burqa.
‘But they’ve banned that,’ Jean-Marc said.
I shrugged. ‘Not everyone complies.’
He moved closer, lowering his voice. ‘So here’s something I’ve always wondered. How do you know what she looks like?’
‘She sends me photos when she’s at home.’
I started scrolling through my photos.
‘Really?’ he said, looking at my phone with interest.
His focus was shattered by a ringing crash on the other side of the table. Anne had knocked over the champagne bucket and ice cubes skidded across the floor, followed by the bottle, rolling and foaming at the mouth. She shrieked and apologised for her clumsiness as my father leaped up to help. I looked at Jean-Marc, expecting him to follow suit, but his face was beet-red. A rush of irritation surged from him that was almost physical, like the sudden blast from a furnace.
I took the opportunity to excuse myself and went outside.
*
Outside I got a faint Wi-Fi network signal by the pool, so I took a seat at the table there. The drizzle had stopped, and the sky was clear. Sunken lights illuminated the murky depths of the pool, and tiny bats flew over from the barns, skimming and rippling the surface of the water.
I could hear the party through the still night air – the waterfall of cutlery, plates and drunken laughter, opening verses of La Marseillaise. My father was part of the generation I’d grown up hearing about constantly, and even studied at school. Les soixante-huitards who, in their radical youth, tore up paving stones and flung them at the authorities. He’d told me stories about those times and later, when he, Patrick and Paul had been journalists together at La Globe, speaking truth to power, fighting the good fight. It was hard to believe all that now as I watched them belly up to an antique table, whining about immigration and border security through flutes of champagne, fixated now by their jobs, pensions and taxes.
‘So here you are,’ said Patrick, his silhouette at the door, hands cupped around a lighter. ‘Not smoking, I hope,’ he said, walking over and offering me a cigarette.
I shook my head as he sat down.
‘Don’t start. It’s a slippery slope,’ he said, and then laughed. ‘Don’t listen to Jean-Marc either. He wants everyone signed up to the far right.’
We chatted for a while. He asked me how I was finding life back in Paris and then we spoke about school. He mentioned that his son, Nathan, had started there that term.
Patrick surveyed the barren courtyard. The outdoor lights emphasised the shadows on his face, and his crooked nose and sunken cheekbones gave him the look of a Cold War spy. The ruggedness of his face had always fascinated me when I was younger. He’d been injured by shrapnel years ago when he was a war reporter, and a slight paralysis meant he could wear different expressions at the same time, which I thought must be useful in his line of work.
Paul emerged from the house leading Jean-Marc, Anne and Elena towards the outbuildings.
‘Come and see Paul’s cars,’ Anne hollered. She had taken off her shoes and was leaning on Paul for support.
Patrick waved at her.
‘Save me a cigarette,’ she called, picking her way over the gravel.
‘You’re still in Baghdad?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I head back on Monday, but it’s coming to an end soon. Once the troops withdraw, that’ll be it for me. Time for a quiet office and my feet under the desk.’ He smiled. ‘But the good thing is I’ll see more of Nathan. I’m looking forward to that.’
‘Is it still dangerous there?’
‘Not for me. I sit in a concrete bunker in the Green Zone and wait for bad news. But for others, yes. Everywhere is more dangerous for journalists now.’
‘Even Paris?’
He nodded, an uneasy look on his face. ‘There’s a new world taking shape and the city is the new conflict zone. You can feel it closing in.’ He put his hands together as if wringing the air. ‘A stranglehold of wealth and corruption.’
I pointed to the dilapidated barns, to the sound of old horns and spluttering engines. ‘No new world in there though.’
‘Not yet,’ he said, smiling now.
‘At least you’re doing something, not just collecting vintage cars,’ I said and Patrick laughed.
‘Paul and Céline haven’t always been like this. I think your father’s in shock at the change in them.’
‘He’s too busy sucking up to Jean-Marc. He wants a job or something.’
‘It’s not a job he wants – your father could have had Jean-Marc’s job, or any of ours, for that matter. But that would have been too easy. Look at him now, here, coming back to all this,’ Patrick said darkly.
A worried expression crossed his face and he paused as if considering whether to carry on. Like most adults, he spoke in riddles, especially when he was drunk.
‘The two of you seem to be getting on better,’ he said after a while.
I shrugged. ‘I just wish he’d get off my back.’
He smiled. ‘That’s his job, Alex, he’s your father. He wants the best for you.’
I didn’t reply and we chatted about other things for a while as Patrick smoked. Then he emptied the rainwater from the ashtray, stubbed out his cigarette, and walked back to the house.
*
Patrick had left his cigarettes and lighter on the table. I didn’t smoke, but I thought it was something I should practice, so I lit one and resumed my search for the Wi-Fi network. It had disappeared by the pool, so I headed off down the side of the house towards a softly lit window. Underneath, there was a signal, so I got a chair and peered into a small room. A rack of clothes took up one side, and a desk with a lamp and a computer stood against the other wall. An Orange Livebox winked up at me from beneath a mass of cables under the desk.
There was no password so I got straight into the network. I downloaded my emails then checked out the party snaps Tomas had uploaded to Facebook. There were a lot of selfies with his arm around Lisa, a girl in my class.
I heard voices nearby and looked around, throwing the cigarette into a bush. The courtyard was empty, so I glanced back through the window just as the door opened, and my father and Céline burst into the room. He pressed her against the desk while she undid his belt, the two of them so close to me that I could almost feel the heat coming off them. He unzipped her skirt and eased her knickers down her legs, reaching to pick them off the floor, nuzzling his face into her crotch. Then he lifted her onto the desk, his hands gripping her hips as he started a slow grind against her, his belt hanging from the trousers that puckered around his thighs.
My phone beeped with an incoming message, and they both froze. I ducked away from the window and jumped off the chair, treading carefully across the gravel. Behind me, hushed voices, a door closing, and then silence. I went over to the barn, my heart pounding in my head.
I switched on the lamp, clamped my headphones over my ears and lay on the bed. The room was draughty, so I pulled over the covers, watching the ceiling and the shadows that wouldn’t settle, like the spidery darkness between Céline’s thighs.
*
It took a while to get those images out of my head, but I must have fallen asleep eventually because I woke to the sound of crunching gravel. Then talking – the same rhythm of questions and the rapid-fire French, both of them making no effort to whisper this time. After a few minutes, the sounds receded.
I woke again when my father came in after dawn. Light splintered the shutters and birds squawked outside as he crept into the room. He fumbled and groped around, then lost his footing and fell on the bed, sending the lamp crashing to the floor.
‘Alex, are you awake?’ he whispered.
‘I am now,’ I said, rolling away from the alcohol fumes.
He kicked off his shoes and lay back heavily. ‘Don’t shay anything ’bout what you shaw.
‘And don’t shmoke,’ he added before his slurs turned to snores.
I lay awake, staring up at the darkness and a hundred years of fly shit.