Deeply hungover, Toby recalls the scene of the crime.
I knew I wasn’t
in Paris because there was no ashtray on the toilet-roll fixture. The problem
did not hold my attention.
Not until I was
full-length in the tub, only my nose protruding above the surface of the water,
did I feel I could turn my thoughts to the events of the previous night. There
in the darkness, the water flotation-chamber temperature, my inner organs
acquired a little buoyancy and I drifted free of my rack of pain.
The evening swam
before me like a past life. A lost time. A time when I was still relatively
young and carefree, and danced at every disco in town. (What town?)
Discos? you ask.
Cheap shallow vapid narcissistic discos? You bet.
At least you
might have bet on it the night before when, through some obscure access of
energy, I had had boogie in my socks, and that’s no lie. The morning after, I
was incapable of giving odds. My eardrums were so puffy they seemed to be
touching at mid-skull.
A series of
interiors came back to me dominated by glass globes, whirling lights and music
so loud and pounding it was like being under water. Marcie had been busy for
dinner and I was touring the clubs.
Unshouted
conversation had been impossible but what with the crush on the floor,
squeezing through the crowd to the bar and transcending self in the old
heel-and-toe, I had made some promising acquaintances. As they progressed we
became a party on a pilgrimage to ever livelier arenas, ever glitterier
surroundings, ever greater abandon, until we had danced and drunk ourselves
boneless and repaired to a supper club where we pushed several tables together
up close to the floor show and made too much noise. I recall insisting on three
glasses of wine, one for my mouth and one for each ear.
But subtler
moments too wove themselves into the evening. At a table next to ours sat a
woman with an interesting bearing, a tilted-up chin and a playful curiosity
about her expression. She seemed to want to smile and, as women sometimes do,
picked me to smile at.
I smiled back and
arched an eyebrow to boot. We held on it for a second and then she turned to her
escort and I to the flirtations I had come in with.
For the next
while or so we exchanged surreptitious glances, each looking away when the
other looked over, you know how the thing goes, until we had developed a sense
of intimacy and, I felt anyway, the basis for something solid and lasting.
So much was this
my feeling that, when I caught her again as she was turning away I paused and
took a long look at the lady. It was a bold thing to do, perhaps bordering on
the impolite, but as I say, I felt something important was taking shape.
Her arms were
long and slender, and the way she leaned on her elbows and cradled her glass in
her fingers spoke to me of how those fingers would feel on the skin. She wore a
black dress that, in the current style, left one shoulder bare. And a shapely
shoulder it was, lean and white and hitched to a delicate collarbone.
But there was a
flaw in the picture. Perched on her covered shoulder, unnoticed either by her
or the man at her other side was an insect, a little green thing the size of a
thumbnail, common enough on summer evenings, especially in places like this
that open onto gardens and terraces.
I saw my chance
to break the ice. Leaning towards her, forefingertip braced against thumb pad,
I said, “Excuse me” and flicked the little beast away.
But I was
mistaken. It wasn’t, as I had supposed, a real little beast, but an imitation
little beast, the clip, in fact, that had fastened her dress at the shoulder.
In its absence, the bodice fell in folds at her waist, exposing her exciters to
public view. It was her turn to arch an eyebrow.
This changed
things. The music trailed off as the band got interested. The clamor at my own
table died. The room grew quiet. I had unveiled a lady whose grace would permit
no frantic clutching of cloth to bosom. She remained motionless, chin elevated,
conscious that all eyes were upon her.
I had now to
endure the sight of the man at her elbow rising, it seemed interminably, from
his chair, for he was grotesquely huge, and coming around the table to ask me,
I supposed, just what the heck I thought I was doing. He was in good shape.
Probably excelled in racquet sports or whatever these people do. Jogged or
something.
Naturally, I rose
to confer with him. I appreciated that we were the center of attention and was
ready to go into a diplomatic huddle and sort this thing out with as much tact
as could be managed.
But no. When he
came within whispering distance he took hold of my lapels and drew me up to his
considerable height. My feet left the floor. I hung hunched by my straining
jacket, staring between his fists into determined eyes.
Clearly, I
reflected, some species of prevocal dunderhead. No use making a point of it.
But then he chewed up a few phrases in Greek.
Aha! There it
was! I was in Athens! We had stopped over on our way to Crete so Marcie could
get together with her father-in-law, who happened to be in the neighborhood,
and hammer out the terms of her allowance! That was it!
Anyway, while I
was swinging from this man’s enormous clutches and bracing myself to land
backwards, the sound of violent coughing came to me, and then long groaning
inhalations.
I inclined my
head and strained to see past my lapels a man a few tables away throw himself
to his knees and, holding his throat in his hands, attempt desperately to expel
something lodged in it. He was heavyset and semielderly, with blond hair going
to white, and these factors emphasized the rapidly deepening red of his
complexion.
It was explained
to my attacker, and eventually to me, that the man on the floor had swallowed
the bauble from which I had meant to rescue my new friend. Or almost swallowed.
When his mind had been elsewhere, no doubt on the young woman bending anxiously
over him—and a distracting girl she was, there was time to notice—the clip had
plopped into his plate of potage
and he had taken it for a morsel of leek and slurped it up.
I landed lightly
on my feet, brushing in vain at my lapels, which were molded into handlegrips.
The big man’s interest in me relaxed and he turned and went to help the one who
was convulsed on the floor. The object of our affections covered her breasts
with her arms, not a strategy that greatly reduced the general interest in
them. We arched eyebrows at one another.
Her protector
moved the distracting young woman gently aside. He knelt by her now blue-faced
companion, took him by one shoulder and shook him as unceremoniously as if he
were a vending machine that had cheated him of change.
The old guy got
bluer. Saliva hung in strings from his helpless lips. His eyes protruded.
People crowded
around. The giant exchanged remarks with some of them. It seemed that the clip
was an emerald scarab worth something in the four-zero range.
On receipt of
this intelligence I ran and knelt at the old boy’s side and pounded his back
until his chest resounded. I poked him in the stomach to make him spit it out.
I suggested turning him upside down. The big one held his jaws open while I dug
around in his throat with my fingers.
Suddenly the old
guy put out his arms like a referee sending us to our corners. He breathed. He
sagged gratefully and breathed. He hung back his head and breathed. He began to
look less like a grape and more like a strawberry.
The crowd sighed
with relief. “He swallowed it,” someone said.
Of course, from
the humanitarian point of view, one had to approve. I wouldn’t have wished to
shorten the old citizen’s stay on the planet, though it seemed to me his
reservation was about up anyway. But considering the value of the jewel I could
have wished he’d coughed it up instead of down. In fact I did wish he’d coughed
it up instead of down. A glance at the gorilla told me he felt the same way.
Faces in the
crowd looked back at mine with quiet sympathy. The lady hugging herself watched
me sadly, even fondly, as women are said to regard condemned men.
The monster stood up. I, for what it was worth, stood up. He looked at me. I looked at him. I saw that, under the circumstances, there was only one thing to do. I ran away.
