‘I was there. Not climbing, obviously. Rock climbing and seizures don’t go that well. But I was there. I was with some of our friends. There was a lot of blood. I didn’t see anything for months when I closed my eyes except blood. And now he was dead I thought, well . . . fuck it.’
She takes a few breaths. To talk about memories is to live them a little.
‘I was always worrying I could die at any minute. And I wanted to be like him, healthy, but then –bam– he turned out to be mortal too. And it was too much. I had to get out of there. I had to get out, so I went travelling. I knew I couldn’t live as a prisoner to my condition any more. Do you understand?’
Of course I did. ‘So what happened after that? How did things turn around?’
‘I travelled around South America for six months. Brazil,Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia. Chile. I loved Chile. It was amazing. But then, eventually, my money ran out, and so I went back to France and I couldn’t go back to Grenoble – just the memories, you know – so I went to Paris. I went around all the nice restaurants and hotels and I got a job at the Plaza Athénée. One of the snooty grand hotels. There was something calming about that work. You would be speaking to people all the time, all day, checking in, checking out, but there was never anything deep and meaningful to it, you know? There were never any questions about life stuff, so it suited me perfectly.’
This is it. I sense it. Anxiety tightens my chest as she continues.
‘And anyway, they had these photos, this exhibition in the lobby, of Golden Age Paris, all from the twenties. And lots were of jazz clubs, and of the boulevards, and Montmartre, and they had one of what’s her name . . . the jazz singer, the dancer, with the cheetah . . .’
‘Josephine Baker?’
As I say the name I remember watching her through a mist of cigarette smoke dancing the Charleston at the Century Club in Paris.
She nods quickly, makes a rolling motion with her hands, as if she is nearing her conclusion. I try to steel myself.
‘Yes. Josephine Baker. Anyway, the one I was facing, the one I looked at, day in, day out, was the largest one: of the pianist at a restaurant. The restaurant was called Ciro’s. It had the name Ciro’s in the photograph. And the photo was black and white but very good quality for the time, and the man looked so lost in the music he was playing, as he looked forward over the piano, ignoring all the people in the restaurant who were looking at him, and I became fascinated by this moment, this frozen moment . . . Because it seemed like there was something timeless about it. Something beyond time. And also, the man was handsome. He had nice hands. And a seriously brooding face. And he had this pristine white shirt on, but with his sleeves rolled up, devil may care, and there wasthis scar on his arm. This curved scar. And I thought it was okay to have a crush on this man because he was dead. Only he wasn’t dead, was he? Because he was you.’
I hesitate. Suddenly I have no idea what to do. I remember her staring at the scar on my arm in the pub and now I know why. It all makes sense.
It is ridiculous, given that I have brought her here to tell her the truth, but I am now scared of doing so. My instinct is to lie. I am, after all, quite a good liar. Smooth and natural. I should just laugh and look disappointed, and say it is a bit of a shame, because I thought for a minute that she had really recognised me, and that now I know she is joking. Photographs could lie. Especially photographs from the 1920s.
But I don’t do that. I suppose part of it is because I really don’t want her to be embarrassed. Another part of me, I think, wants her to know the truth. Needs her to.
‘So,’ she says, into my silence.
She then makes a kind of gesture that is hard to capture. She sticks her chin out a little and does a slight nod and closes her eyes and pulls her hair back behind an ear. It is a gesture of mild defiance. I don’t know what she is defying. Life? Reality? Epilepsy? It is over in two seconds but I think this is the moment in which I have to admit to myself that I am in love for the first time in four centuries.
It may seem strange, falling in love with someone because of a gesture, but sometimes you can read an entire person in a single moment. The way you can study a grain of sand and understand the universe. Love at first sight might or might not be a thing, but love in a single moment is.
‘So,’ I say, tentatively, testing how much she believes versus what she thinks she believes. ‘You not only like science fiction, you think I couldbescience fiction. You think I could be a time traveller or something.’
She shrugs. ‘Or something. I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, any truth that people aren’t ready to believe sounds like science fiction. The earth going around the sun. Electromagnetism. Evolution. X-rays. Aeroplanes. DNA. Stem cells. Climate change. Water on Mars. It is all science fiction until we see it happen.’
I have that urge to get out of here, out of the restaurant. It is almost as strong as the urge to want to talk to her for all eternity. But not quite.
I clench my eyes closed, as if pressing forge-hot iron against my skin.
‘You can tell me. You can tell me the truth.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I know it was you in that picture.’
‘It was staged. The picture was staged. It wasn’t from the twenties.’
‘You’re lying. Don’t lie to me.’
I stand up. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘No, you don’t. Please. Please. I like you. You can’t run away from everything.’
‘You’re wrong. You can. You can run and run and run. You can run your entire life. You can run and change and keep running.’
People stop chewing to look at me. I am making a scene. Again, here in Southwark. I sit back down in my chair.
