The Exchange (22 page)

I suppressed a shudder. I’d encountered plenty of addicts in my time, on specific photographic projects in London, and though I knew Konrad and his crowd were very different from the dispossessed boys and girls I’d got to know around King’s Cross, the very thought of drugs and excess booze and where they could lead you frightened me. Again, I was aware that part of this was bound up with my own psyche and my fears of letting go. But I simply couldn’t see where a lifestyle like Konrad’s could lead, if not into deep trouble. Even drinking the amount I had since I arrived in Paris worried me.

I stirred my coffee and watched it swirl. I should have nothing to do with Konrad, I thought. He was bad news, if not in himself then in what he represented. I would continue to turn down invitations to go out with them again, I’d refuse. Lisette would understand, and I could still see her. And then I had my new buddy Camille as well. I was doing just fine.

***

Later, at the club, I realised that I’d completely forgotten that I’d agreed to go the party hosted by Lisette’s boyfriend, Aleksei, and meet his art dealer friend Kir. I really didn’t feel like it, but Lisette pleaded with me, and as soon as she was done with her numbers, we jumped in a taxi. She’d changed but not into her normal jeans and sweater – she was wearing a slinky gold lamé dress and she still had all her make-up on, which she retouched as we drove through a sublime, twinkling Paris.

The club was in the 7
^th
district, close to the Eiffel Tower. A queue had formed on a red carpet leading up to the door but as soon as we spilled out of the taxi, a doorman spotted Lisette and ushered us in and through the door. I felt underdressed in black jeans and a vest top and biker boots, but then I reasoned that even if I had remembered about the party, I had little of interest to wear. This was me, take me or leave me.

The interior of the club was kitsch, with deep banquettes in scarlet velvet and mirror balls dangling from the ceiling and mirrored walls. Handsome topless waiters with six-packs stood about the room, holding aloft trays with flutes of champagne. Lisette took two and handed one to me, then, spotting a stocky man waving to her from the end of the bar, led me over.

‘Rachel, Aleksei,’ she said, gesturing between us.

‘Enchanted,’ said the man in a thick Slavic accent, and I noticed that he had immediately slung his arm around Lisette’s waist and was holding her in a possessive manner.

‘So Rachel is the photographer I told you about,’ said Lisette.

‘Ah, of course,’ said Aleksei. ‘Then you must meet my friend Kir. He is very interested in talking to you. Come.’

He led us off to a table that was cordoned off from the rest. Ice buckets with bottles of champagne were dotted around it. We sat down and he hailed a waiter to refresh our glasses, then waved energetically at a man further along the bar.

‘Kir! Come!’ he shouted.

The man raised his glass and bowed slightly, then began to walk over, giving me the chance to study him. Like Aleksei, he was stocky, but where Aleksei was dark and swarthy, Kir was quite fair. There was something of the Daniel Craig about him – a sort of cruelty that made me uneasy. I could understand that Daniel Craig was objectively attractive, but the undertone of violence meant that I could never fancy him.

I sighed. It would probably have been good for me, to meet someone I liked. It would take my mind off Konrad, and god knows I was long overdue for a good shag. Why did I make it so hard for myself by making these snap judgements, both about other people and about my own desires?

I could sense Lisette’s eyes on me, and when I turned my head to meet her gaze, I could tell that she was urging me to give it more time. Not that she necessarily wanted us to go to bed together, but I think she was afraid that I would blow any professional leads I might get out of meeting Kir if I didn’t show more interest.

He was in front of the table, and this time he bowed fully. ‘Lovely to see you, Lisette,’ he said in flawless but accented English. ‘You are looking as ravishing as ever.’ Then he turned to me.

‘And you must be the famous …’

‘Rachel,’ I interrupted. ‘But I’m not famous.’

‘Not
yet
,’ he replied, flashing his smile at me. Two or three gold teeth glittered out at me. ‘But all that may change.’

‘Oh, Rachel’s incredibly talented,’ said Lisette. ‘You should see the pictures she’s done backstage at Club GaGa.’

‘When
can
I see them?’ said Kir, and suddenly his tone was businesslike. At once I relaxed. This didn’t have to be about sex, I told myself. This guy could genuinely help me. On the other hand, I didn’t feel comfortable inviting him around to the flat, or going to his place.

‘Perhaps – perhaps you could come to the club one night, and then look at them there?’

‘That would be fine. Are you free tomorrow?’

‘Sure.’

People had flooded into the club now, and around us all the tables were occupied. Some people had already strayed onto the dance floor, and with the music getting louder it became impossible to talk properly. Lisette and I finished our champagne and then we headed off to the loos together to check in.

‘So, what do you think?’ she said as we came out of our separate cubicles and stood in front of the mirror. With a deft hand she began to reapply her lipstick and refresh her eye make-up. I watched her, thinking how much prettier she looked
au naturel
. I wondered what she saw in Aleksei. He didn’t seem her type at all. Surely it wasn’t all about his money? Or did she just enjoy glitzy nights out at other people’s expense? Then I had a flashback of her flashing a wicked smile and talking about ‘a pure fucking thing … and a looking thing’, and a tremor of fear and excitement ran through me.

I forced a smile to hide my agitation. ‘He seems all right,’ I said.

‘Just all right?’ She pulled a face at me in the mirror.

‘So you were setting me up on a date after all?’

‘Oh Rachel, you don’t have to take it all so seriously. No, I was not setting you up on a date. I genuinely want to help your career. But perhaps I was kind of hoping …’

‘Kind of hoping I would give my career an extra boost by sleeping with your boyfriend’s best mate, is that it? Killing two birds with one stone …’

She blew a raspberry at me. ‘Oh be like that then,’ she said. ‘Why do you always have to be so uptight? Why don’t you ever let go every once in a while?’

I turned and walked out. Her words had hit the mark and I felt myself close to tears for the second time that day. I went to sit down at our table, where Aleksei and Kir were deep in conversation in Russian. After a few minutes I saw Lisette come out of the loo. She started walking towards us, not looking at me, but then halfway across the room she stopped and starting moving with the others on the dance floor. As soon as she did so, other dancers started to move back a little to give her more space and so that they could watch her. She was bumping and grinding to Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Dance Again feat. Pitbull’ in her tight gold dress, hands on her hips, a cheeky half-smile on her face, not meeting anyone’s gaze but clearly aware of the many eyes on her.

Aleksei and Kir were now looking over at her too, and Aleksei’s tone had grown gloating, as if he was boasting to the other man about what Lisette was like in bed. From her dancing, I knew she must be great in the sack. Her body was sinuous as a cat’s, flowing, with spectacular proportions. Aleksei’s eyes positively glowed with the knowledge of what awaited him later. Every man in the room must have wanted Lisette at that moment.

I looked at Kir. He too was watching Lisette intently, but he must have felt my eyes on him for he turned to look at me.

‘Not dancing?’ he mouthed, gesturing with his head towards Lisette, then holding his own hand out to me.

I hesitated. Yes, I did want to dance, but beside Lisette I would feel clumsy and stupid.

I shook my head and reached towards an ice bucket. Pre-empting me, Kir grabbed the neck of a bottle of champagne and refreshed my glass, then his own.

‘Cheers,’ he said, and we clinked glasses. ‘To new friendships.’

I drank the champagne, and a couple more after that, and the evening began to blur pleasantly. For all my disdain for and fear of excess, I was growing worryingly fond of the softening effects of alcohol.

I didn’t get up the courage to dance, but I felt less self-conscious and I chatted with the others for a while, and with some of their friends who had joined us around the table, and I persuaded myself that I was having fun.

It was past four when we left, Lisette with the Russians and a group of hangers-on and me on my own in a taxi, pre-paid by Kir on his insistence. They’d invited me back with them all to Aleksei’s apartment, but I’d known to draw the line there. I was curious, and I knew that it might even be fun, but I had already come out of my comfort zone, and anything more was too much. And so home to bed.

***

The next morning, consumed by curiosity, I texted Lisette. She didn’t reply. Meeting Camille for lunch, I told her about the evening and we had our own vicarious fun imagining how it might have panned out. Then we sighed simultaneously and looked at each other.

‘We really ought to let ourselves go more,’ said Camille. ‘Lisette is right. It’s just dumb.’

‘I have a feeling,’ I confessed for the first time – and only really acknowledging it to myself for the first time too – ‘that I will only develop as an artist if I do start to let myself go. For all I said about not being able to do both, about burning out, I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to hit a brick wall soon. There’s only so far you can go, as an observer, surely? I’m starting to get frightened that my work will lack depth unless I open myself up more. Look at Henry Miller, for example. And Anaïs Nin too. They lived and then they wrote. They wrote what they lived.’

Camille was silent for a moment. ‘You may have a point,’ she said finally. ‘But what to do about it?’

‘I’m meeting them again tonight,’ I said. ‘They’re coming to the club. Ostensibly it’s so Kir can look at some of the work I’ve done there. If he likes it, he said he will help me with some introductions that might help me get an exhibition.’

‘Wow, sounds promising.’

‘Sure. But what if it is something else? I mean, I’ve Googled him and I know he’s who he says he is, so I’m sure he will help me, if he gets my work. But what if there is more to it? What if they talk about going elsewhere with them?’

‘Why don’t you talk to Lisette about it? I’m sure she’ll tell you what they got up to last night.’

‘Well, that’s just it. She’s ignoring my texts.’

‘Or more likely, she’s still asleep. If it was 4 a.m. when you left …’

‘That’s true. But what if there’s – I don’t know – something dodgy?’

‘You’re talking yourself out of it again.’ She reached a hand across the table. ‘Look, Rachel, I know where you’re at. We’re sisters in that respect. So I’m the last person to talk you into going off with them on some mad adventure of whatever kind. If you don’t want to party, then so be it. But it seems to me you
do
want to do it, but that you keep talking yourself out of it. It strikes me you’ve got to stop listening to that internal voice you’ve got going on.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I should either do it, or shut up about it. But hey – why don’t you come along? I was a bit pissed last night, but Kir is an interesting guy. Who knows, he might make an interesting contact for you too?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not making excuses,’ she laughed, ‘but I’ve promised myself I’ll stay in and work on my novel tonight. I’ve been so busy on stuff for this book you and I are doing that I’ve made absolutely no headway.’

She stood up. ‘Speaking of which, I’d best get off to the library. But listen, you have fun tonight. If the little voice starts up again, just pretend you’re someone else and you can’t hear it.’ She smiled. ‘I used to be afraid of flying, and one useful technique I learnt is to act “as if”.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, for instance, act as if you’re Hillary Clinton who barely notices she’s in the air, she gets on and off planes so often. It sounds stupidly simple, but it really works. Fool your mind into thinking you’re someone else, someone who’s not scared.’

Then, with a smile and a wave, she was gone.

***

Back at the apartment, it came to me who I should be. It was staring me in the face.

I walked over to one of the wardrobes where Rochelle stored the many clothes she hadn’t been able to take with her. I flipped through them, trying to envisage myself wearing any of the frilly, frothy outfits. It was hard – and yet …

I held one against me, a ruffle skater-style dress in indigo. Over my utilitarian clothes it looked almost ridiculous, but if I blotted them out of my field of vision, and if I tried to let go of all my preconceptions about who I was and what I
should
look like, there was something about it that spoke to me. I wasn’t sure what it spoke to me about, only that it spoke to me of possibilities, of different ways of being, of lives not lived.

I slipped off my own clothes and poured myself into the dress. It fitted amazingly well given how frail Rochelle looked in certain pictures. Instantly I felt sleek, powerful. I put my hands on my hips, circled them, pouting at myself in the mirror. Then I went into Rochelle’s bathroom and dug around in some of her little wicker baskets for odds of make-up. There were some worn-down stubs of lipstick and some tiny pots with remnants of rouge and eye-shadows. I stood in front of the mirror and applied them rather haphazardly – I was certainly no make-up artist, but I was also too excited to do it painstakingly.

I walked back into the main space and appraised myself in the mirror, as if I was another person. Then I set my camera up on a tripod and began posing. The longer it went on, the more brazen I became, leering at the camera, thrusting my cleavage towards it, flashing it my arse with an upwards flick of the flared skirt of my dress.

I thought about Cindy Sherman, shooting alone in her studio, doing her own hair and make-up, styling herself as one of her many carefully observed characters – B-movie, foreign film and film noir style actresses, among others. Although Sherman disputed that she was a feminist, she did concede that much of her work spoke about the stereotyping of women. Hence her ‘fashion shoots’ in which the model looks anything but glamorous – by turns angry, exhausted, dejected, scarred, dirty and even mad, or sometimes just plain daft.