‘I’ve just finished reading your book,The Great Gatsby. And I readThis Side of Paradisewhen it came out.’
He suddenly seemed sober. ‘What did you make of it? OfGatsby? Everyone prefersParadise. Everyone. My publishers struggle on with the poor thing, out of pity mainly.’
Zelda made a face as if she was about to be sick. ‘Thatdust jacket. Ernest is so seldom right about anything but he was right about that. It is a war against eyes.’
‘Not everything is a war, sweetheart.’
‘Of course it is, Scott.’
They looked like they were about to squabble, so I interjected: ‘Well, I thought it was exceptional. The book, I mean.’
Zelda nodded. She looked like a child, I realised. They both did. They looked like children dressing up in grown-up clothes. There was such a fragileinnocenceto them.
‘I try to tell him it is good,’ she said. ‘You can tell him and tell him and tell him but it is just raindrops against the roof.’
Scott seemed relieved I liked it, though. ‘Well, that makes you a better person than the guy at theHerald Tribune. Now, there’s your drink . . .’ He handed me the Bloody Mary.
‘They invented it here, you know,’ said Zelda.
I sipped the strange drink. ‘Did they really?’
And then Scott interrupted and said, ‘Tell us, what do you do?’
‘I play piano. At Ciro’s.’
‘As in the Paris Ciro’s?’ he asked. ‘Rue Daunou? How wonderful. You win already.’
Zelda took a long mouthful of some kind of gin cocktail. ‘What are you scared of?’
Scott smiled apologetically. ‘It’s her drunk question. Every time.’
‘Scared of?’
‘Everyone is scared of something. I’m scared of bedtime. And housekeeping. And all the things you have housemaids for. Scott is scared of reviews. And Hemingway. And loneliness.’
‘I am not scared of Hemingway.’
I tried to think. I wanted, for once, to give an honest answer. ‘I’m scared of time.’
Zelda smiled, leaning her head in a kind of glazed sympathy, or resignation. ‘You mean growing old?’
‘No, I mean—’
‘Scotty and I don’t plan to grow old, do we?’
‘The plan is,’ Scott added, with exaggerated seriousness, ‘to hop from one childhood to the next.’
I sighed, hoping this would make me appear thoughtful and serious and in possession of a great Golden Age intelligence. ‘The trouble is, if you live long enough, you end up running out of childhoods eventually.’
Zelda offered me a cigarette, which I accepted (I was smoking now – everyone was smoking now), and then placed one in Scott’s mouth, and another in her own. A kind of wild despair flared suddenly in her eyes as she struck the match. ‘Grow up or crack up,’ she said, after the first inhale. ‘The divine choices we have . . .’
‘If only we could find a way to stop time,’ said her husband. ‘That’s what we need to work on. You know, for when a moment of happiness floats along. We could swing our net and catch it like a butterfly, and have that moment for ever.’
Zelda was now looking across the crowded bar. ‘The trouble is they stick pins in butterflies. And then they are dead . . .’ She seemed to be looking for someone. ‘Sherwood’s gone. But, oh, look! It’s Gertrude and Alice.’
And within moments they had disappeared through the packed room with their cocktails and, though they made it perfectly clear I could join them, I stayed there with nothing but vodka and tomato juice for company, staying in the safe shadows of history.
London, now
