Both the bassist and the drummer wore white shirts that first evening, I remember, ties loosened, top buttons undone, very cool; the pianist’s dark jacket was rucked up at the back, its collar arched awkwardly against his neck, a cigarette smouldering, half-forgotten, at the piano’s edge.
The proprietor, Madame Ricard, welcomed us with lavish kisses and led us to a table, where we sat listening, the club not yet half full, Val’s foot moving instinctively to the rhythm and his fingers flexing over imaginary keys. At the intermission, she introduced us to the band, who shook hands politely, looked at Val with cursory interest and excused themselves to stretch their legs outside, breathe in a little night air.
‘Nice guys,’ Val said with a slight edge as they left.
‘You’ll be fine,’ I said and squeezed his arm.
When the trio returned, Val was already on stage, re-angling the mike, adjusting his reed. ‘Blues in F,’ he said quietly, counting in the tempo, medium-fast. After a single chorus from the piano, he announced himself with a squawk and then a skittering run and they were away. Ten minutes later, when Val stepped back from the microphone, layered in sweat, the drummer gave a little triumphant roll on his snare, the pianist turned and held out his hand and the bass player loosened another button on his shirt and grinned.
‘Et maintenant,’ Val announced, testing his tender vocabulary to the full, ‘nous jouons une ballade par Ira Gershwin et Vernon Duke, “I Can’t Get Started.” Merci.’
And the crowd, accepting him, applauded.
What could go wrong?
At first, nothing it seemed. We both slept late most days at the hotel on the rue Maitre-Albert where we stayed; adjacent rooms that held a bed, a small wardrobe and little else, but with views across towards Notre Dame. After coffee and croissants — we were in Paris, after all — we would wander around the city, the streets of Saint-Germain-des-Pres at first, but then, gradually, we found our way around Montparnasse and up through Montmartre to Sacre Coeur. Sometimes we would take in a late-afternoon movie, and Val would have a nap at the hotel before a leisurely dinner and on to the club for that evening’s session, which would continue until the early hours.
Six nights a week and on the seventh, rest?
There were other clubs to visit, other musicians to hear. The Caveau de la Huchette was just across the street, the Club Saint-Germain-des-Pres and the Trois Mailletz both a short walk away. Others, like the Tabou and the Blue Note were a little further afield. I couldn’t keep up.
‘Go back to the hotel,’ Val said, reading the tiredness in my eyes. ‘Get a good night’s sleep, a proper rest.’ Then, with the beginnings of a smile, ‘You don’t have to play nursemaid all the time, you know.’
‘Is that what I’m doing?’
Coming into the club late one evening, I saw him in the company of an American drummer we’d met a few nights before and a couple of broad-shouldered French types, wearing those belted trench coats which made them look like cops or gangsters or maybe both. As soon as he spotted me, Val made a quick show of shaking hands and turning away, but not before I saw a small package pass from hand to hand and into the inside pocket of his suit.
‘Don’t look so disapproving,’ he said, when I walked over. ‘Just a few pills to keep me awake.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘Of course.’ He had a lovely, disarming smile.
‘No smack?’
‘No smack.’
I could have asked him to show me his arms, but I chose to believe him instead. It would have made little difference if I had; by then I think he was injecting himself in the leg.
The next day Val was up before eleven, dressed and ready, stirring me from sleep.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Just a shame to waste a beautiful day.’
The winter sun reflected from the stonework of the bridge as we walked across to the Isle St Louis arm in arm. Val had taken to affecting a beret, which he wore slanting extravagantly to one side. On the cobbles close to where we sat, drinking coffee, sparrows splashed in the shallow puddles left by last night’s rain.
‘Why did you do it?’ Val asked me.
‘Do it?’
‘This. All of this. Throwing up your job…’
‘It wasn’t a real job.’
‘It was work.’
‘It was temping in a lousy office for a lousy boss.’
‘And this is better?’
‘Of course this is better.’
‘I still don’t understand why?’
‘Why come here with you?’
Val nodded.
‘Because he asked me.’
‘Patrick.’
‘Yes, Patrick.’
‘You do everything he asks you?’
I shook my head. ‘No. No, I don’t.’
‘You will,’ he said. ‘You will.’ I couldn’t see his eyes; I didn’t want to see his eyes.
A foursome of tourists, Scandinavian I think, possibly German, came and sat noisily at a table nearby. When the waiter walked past, Val asked for a cognac, which he poured into what was left of his coffee and downed at a single gulp.
‘What I meant,’ he said, ‘would you have come if it had been anyone else but me?’
‘I know what you meant,’ I said. ‘And, no. No, I don’t think I would.’
‘Jimmy, perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ I acknowledged. ‘Perhaps Jimmy. Maybe.’
Seeing Val’s rueful smile, I reached across and took hold of his hand, but when, a few moments later, he gently squeezed my fingers, I took my hand away.
Patrick was waiting for us at the hotel when we returned.
‘Well,’ he said, rising from the lobby’s solitary chair. ‘The lovebirds at last.’
‘Bollocks,’ Val said, but with a grin.
Patrick kissed the side of my mouth and I could smell Scotch and tobacco and expensive aftershave; he put his arms round Val and gave him a quick hug.
‘Been out for lunch?’
‘Breakfast,’ Val said.
‘Fine. Then let’s have lunch.’
Over our protests he led us to a small restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where he ordered in a combination of enthusiastic gestures and sixth-form French.
‘I went along to the club earlier,’ Patrick said, once the waiter had set a basket of bread on the table and poured our wine. ‘Sounds as if it’s going well. Madame Ricard wants to hold you over for three weeks more. Assuming you’re agreeable?’
Val nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘Anna?’
‘I can’t stay that long,’ I said.
‘Why ever not?’ Patrick looked surprised, aggrieved.
‘I’ve got a life to live.’
‘You’ve got a bedsit in Kilburn and precious little else.’
Blood rushed to my cheeks. ‘All the more reason, then, for not wasting my time here.’
Patrick laughed. ‘You hear that, Val? Wasting her time.’
‘Let her be,’ Val said, forcefully.
Patrick laughed again. ‘Found yourself a champion,’ he said, looking at me.
Val’s knife struck the edge of his plate. ‘For fuck’s sake! When are you going to stop organising our lives?’
Patrick took his time in answering. ‘When I think you can do it for yourselves.’
In his first set that evening, Val was a little below par, nothing most of the audience seemed to notice or be bothered by, but there was less drive than usual to his playing and several of his solos seemed to peter out aimlessly before handing over to the piano. I could sense the tension building in Patrick as he sat beside me, and after the third number he steered me outside; there was a faint rain misting across the headlights of the cars along the Quai Saint-Michel, and from the bridge leading across to the ile de la Cite the river water looked black and unforgiving.
‘He’s using again,’ Patrick said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Anna, come on…’
‘I asked him.’
‘You asked him and he said no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Scout’s honour, cross my heart and hope to die. That kind of no?’