I always wondered what he was doing in Nice, studying at the Centre. At first I thought he might be a draftee avoiding the war in Vietnam but I now suspect — based on some hints he has dropped — that he has been sent off to France as an obscure punishment of some sort. His family doesn’t want him at home: he has done something wrong and these months in Nice are his penance.
But hardly an onerous one, that’s for sure: he has no interest in his classes — those he can be bothered to take — or in the language and culture of France. He simply has to endure this exile and he will be allowed to go back home, where, I imagine, he will resume his soft life of casual privilege and unreflecting ease once more. He talks a good deal about his eventual return to the States, where he plans to impose his own particular punishment, or extract his own special reward. He says he will force his father to buy him an Aston Martin. His father will have no say in the matter, he remarks with untypical vehemence and determination. He will have his Aston Martin, and it is the bright promise of this glossy English car that really seems to sustain him through these dog days on the Mediterranean littoral.
Soon I find I am a regular visitor at the Résidence Les Anges, where I go most afternoons after my classes are over. Preston and I sit in the club, or by the pool if it is sunny, and drink. We consume substantial amounts (it all goes on his tab) and consequently I am usually fairly drunk by sunset. Our conversation ranges far and wide, but at some point in every discussion Preston reiterates his desire to meet French girls. If I do indeed know some French girls, he says, why don’t I ask them to the club? I reply that I am working on it, and coolly change the subject.
Over the days, steadily I learn more about my American friend. He is an only child. His father (who has not responded to his requests for money) is a millionaire — real estate. His mother divorced him recently to marry another, richer millionaire. Between his two sets of millionaire parents Preston has a choice of eight homes to visit in and around the USA: in Miami, New York, Palm Springs and a ranch in Montana. Preston dropped out of college after two semesters and does not work.
“Why should I?” he argues reasonably. “They’ve got more than enough money for me too. Why should I bust my ass working trying to earn more?”
“But isn’t it … What do you do all day?”
“All kinds of shit … But mostly I like to play tennis a lot. And I like to fuck, of course.”
“So why did you come to Nice?”
He grins. “I was a bad boy.” He slaps his wrist and laughs. “Naughty, naughty Preston.”
He won’t tell me what he did.
It is Spring in Nice. Each day we start to enjoy a little more sunshine, and whenever it appears, within ten minutes there is a particular girl, lying on the plage publique in front of the Centre, sunbathing. Often I stand and watch her spread out there, still, supine, on the cool pebbles — the only sunbather along the entire bay. It turns out she is well known, that this is a phenomenon that occurs every year. By early summer her tan is solidly established and she is very brown indeed. By August she is virtually black, with that kind of dense, matte tan, the life burned out of the skin, her pores brimming with melanin. Her ambition each year, they say, is to be the brownest girl on the Côte d’Azur …
I watch her lying there, immobile beneath the iridescent rain of ultraviolet. It is definitely not warm — even in my jacket and scarf I shiver slightly in the fresh breeze. How can she be bothered? I wonder, but at the same time I have to admit there is something admirable in such single-mindedness, such ludicrous dedication.
Eventually I take my first girl to the Club to meet Preston. Her name is Ingrid, she is in my class, a Norwegian, but with dark auburn hair. I don’t know her well but she seems a friendly, uncomplicated soul. She speaks perfect English and German.
“Are you French?” Preston asks, almost immediately.
Ingrid is very amused by this. “I’m Norwegian,” she explains. “Is it important?”
I apologize to Preston when Ingrid goes off to change into her swimming costume, but he waves it away, not to worry, he says, she’s cute. Ingrid returns and we sit in the sun and order the first of our many drinks. Ingrid, after some prompting, smokes one of Preston’s Merit cigarettes. The small flaw that emerges to mar our pleasant afternoon is that the more Ingrid drinks, the more her conversation becomes increasingly dominated by references to a French boy she is seeing called Jean-Jacques. Preston hides his disappointment; he is the acme of good manners.
Later we play poker using cheese biscuits as chips. Ingrid sits opposite me in her multicolored swimsuit. She is plumper than I had imagined, and I decide that if I had to sum her up in one word it would be “homely.” Except for one detaiclass="underline" she has very hairy armpits. On one occasion she sits back in her chair, studying her cards for a full minute, her free hand idly scratching a bite on the back of her neck. Both Preston’s and my eyes are drawn to the thick divot of auburn hair that is revealed by this gesture: we stare at it, fascinated, as Ingrid deliberates whether to call or raise.
After she has gone Preston confesses that he found her unshavenness quite erotic. I am not so sure.
That night we sit in the Club long into the night, as usual the place’s sole customers, with Serge unsmilingly replenishing our drinks as Preston calls for them. Ingrid’s presence, the unwitting erotic charge that she has detonated in our normally tranquil, bibulous afternoons, seems to have unsettled and troubled Preston somewhat, and without any serious prompting on my part he tells me why he has come to Nice. He informs me that the man his mother remarried was a widower, an older man, with four children already in their twenties. When Preston dropped out of college he went to stay with his mother and new stepfather.
He exhales, he eats several olives, his face goes serious and solemn for a moment.
“This man, Michael, had three daughters — and a son, who was already married — and, man, you should have seen those girls.” He grins, a stupid, gormless grin. “I was eighteen years old and I got three beautiful girls sleeping down the corridor from me. What am I supposed to do?”
The answer, unvoiced, seemed to slip into the Club like a draft of air. I felt my spine tauten.
“You mean—?”
“Yeah, sure.”
I didn’t want to speak, so I think through this. I imagine a big silent house, night, long dark corridors, closed doors. Three bored blond tanned stepsisters. Suddenly there’s a tall young man in the house, a virtual stranger, who plays tennis to Davis Cup standard.
“What went wrong?” I manage.
“Oldest one, Janie, got pregnant, didn’t she? Last year.”
“Abortion?”
“Are you kidding? She just married her fiancé real fast.”
“You mean she was engaged when—”
“He doesn’t know a thing. But she told my mother.”
“The, the child was—”
“Haven’t seen him yet.” He turns and calls for Serge. “No one knows for sure, no one suspects …” He grins again. “Let’s hope the kid doesn’t start smoking Merits.” He reflects on his life a moment, and turns his big mild face to me. “That’s why I’m here. Keeping my head down. Not exactly flavor-of-the-month back home.”