In the meantime, in various permutations, they went shopping for Christmas presents for each other. Sahra and Alex went looking for presents for Luke and Nicole; Nicole and Sahra went looking for gifts for Alex and Luke. Luke didn’t go with anyone because he hated shopping.
‘We’ve tried to do it a couple of times,’ Nicole said to Sahra as they drifted round Magasin. ‘But then, after about ten minutes, before we’ve even tried anything on, he starts moaning about how expensive everything is. We always end up just going for coffee or to a film. The only thing he likes doing is looking at records.’
‘We go all the time,’ said Sahra. ‘I try on expensive cocktail dresses and Alex tries on expensive suits. Sometimes we even buy things. Not expensive things. Oh, let’s go into lingerie.’
‘Actually, that’s one of the things Luke does like to buy. Or at least to look at.’
‘Alex too.’
‘We’ll probably bump into them.’
The first displays were of night-gowns. Then girdles, substantial brassières and large comfortable undergarments. As they walked further into lingerie, the items became progressively skimpier, more revealing, so that the shop seemed to be undressing itself. Then, gradually, lingerie gave way to shimmery evening wear.
‘What now?’ said Nicole.
‘I’d like a coffee.’
‘You’re as bad as Luke! Actually I’d love a coffee too.’
They went to a café on rue Saint Honoré. The waiter brought their coffees and a handful of sugar cubes. The wrapping of each cube was illustrated with the flag of a different country. Nicole held them up one by one and Sahra tried to guess which country was represented. First was a tricolour: a white stripe bordered by two greens.
‘Nigeria,’ said Sahra.
‘Good,’ said Nicole. She held up another tricolour: red white and green, with a tiny emblem in the middle of the white.
‘Mexico.’
‘Very good,’ said Nicole, picking up a red flag with a yellow star in the centre.
‘Vietnam.’
‘You’ll never get this one.’ It was an absurdly crowded flag: four horizontal bands — blue, white, green, yellow — a red stripe running down the middle and a yellow star in the top left-hand corner.
‘Central African Republic,’ said Sahra without hesitation.
‘How did you know that?’
‘Alex and I were at a place with the same sugar last week. The same ones came up.’
‘Cheat! What a coincidence though.’
‘Not really. They’re only the flags of coffee-producing countries.’ Nicole threw the Central African Republic at Sahra. ‘Alex wanted to get Luke to come to a place where they have the same sugar and bet on how many countries he could name,’ said Sahra. ‘He knew Luke wouldn’t be able to resist it and he’d make a fortune out of him.’
‘He would have, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t think I’m in the mood for serious shopping today,’ said Sahra.
‘Me neither.’
‘Shall we go to a film instead?’
‘What would you like to see?’
‘I don’t know, we’ll have to look in the paper.’
‘It’s a shame Luke’s not here. He spends so much time checking the times of films in Pariscope that he knows them off by heart.’
‘And Alex.’
‘They’re funny aren’t they, these English men?’
‘Nothing they say is serious.’
‘And everything is.’
‘Yes.’
‘Still, at least they dress nicely.’
‘Too bad they look like working at that warehouse for the rest of their days.’
‘They love it there.’
‘I know. But it’s strange not to have any ambition, don’t you think?’
‘Luke is so lazy. He claims he came to Paris intending to write a book. I think he wrote about half a page. If that. And he has this idea of doing some stupid film about the 29 bus but he never will, I’m sure. He has learned some French but basically as long as he can play football, sleep with me, get stoned, go for drinks at the Petit Centre with Alex and go dancing at the weekend with the three of us he’s perfectly happy.’
‘Alex is the same.’
‘At least he can speak French. And he’s not obsessed by those things.’
‘Only because he’s got Luke to do his obsessing for him.’
‘Actually, do you know what I think Luke is really obsessed by?’
‘You?’
‘No. Happiness. For most people it’s incidental, almost a side-effect. But all of Luke’s energy — and that’s why he’s so unambitious in other ways — is focused on living out his ideal of happiness.’
‘Then I was right,’ laughed Sahra. ‘You’re the embodiment of that ideal.’
MC Solaar came on the radio or jukebox or whatever it was. The two women knew the song well and sang the first line together: ‘Le vent souffle en Arizona. .’ Then they drank their coffees, tapping the table, listening.
‘Il erre dans les plaines, fier, solitaire
Son cheval est son partenaire
Parfois, il rencontre des Indiens. .’
‘Alex est son partenaire,’ laughed Nicole.
‘They’re like that aren’t they?’
‘Et nous sommes les Indiens.’
‘Actually, that’s been a big breakthrough for Alex. We’re partners. Which is a very new thing for him. A few weeks ago he came across something in Saint-Exupéry about how love means not looking at the other person but looking in the same direction. He’s taken to that like a religious conversion. I sometimes think we’re more like friends than. .’
Sahra paused because Nicole appeared distracted. She was thinking about Luke and, for the first time, was troubled by the way he looked at her, the way he was so obsessed by her beauty, by having the proof of his happiness before his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nicole. ‘I was thinking about something you said. Go on.’
‘No, it was nothing. Nothing important.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you ever think about the future?’
‘Funny question. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I never do.’
‘I don’t either. I think that’s one of the things about taking E. It becomes impossible to think about the future. The present becomes all-consuming. Or at least the past extends back only as far as the weekend before.’
‘And the future as far as the weekend to come.’
‘Yes. It’s actually a stupid drug, don’t you think? You never have any thoughts at all when you’re on it, let alone interesting ones.’
‘That’s probably why the boys like it so much.’
‘No thought, only sensation.’
‘It is bad for your head though, don’t you think? It takes so long to get over it, and even when it’s over it’s not over. Two days later you mean to say one word and another comes out. You want to say chair and you say table.’
‘You do that anyway Nicole!’
‘That was only in English. Now I’m doing it in French too.’
‘Maybe we should think about the future,’ said Sahra. ‘Shall we try it now?’