Étienne waved a dismissive hand. ‘I have been with many men. One night only, you see? I like you though, rich boy. That is some more truth. You make me laugh. Do you like girls?’
‘I think so. You?’
‘Non. I am flaccid with girls. But breasts – I am fond of breasts. The female form is beautiful. And the vulva, c’est fascinant. Some are pretty, some are ugly, but all are fascinating.’
‘And what of cocks?’
‘Also fascinating. And arousing.’
‘I have a friend, a girl, who is very beautiful. Lovely red hair with a wave in it, like something from a Renoir, you know? Nice breasts, not too large or small. She’s a dear, dear friend too, and always up for a laugh, I’m exceedingly fond of her.’
‘Is she fond of you?’
‘Yes. I think I might marry her, if she’ll have me, and if our parents approve.’
‘Have you kissed her?’
Bart laughed. ‘God no. What a terrifying prospect. She’d slap me, I’m sure of it. No – she’d kick me. She’s a kicker.’
Étienne gave him a pitying look full of conceited wisdom. It was irritating. ‘Bart, do as I say: kiss her. Then you will know. Parfois, I have seen men or boys who are, how do I say – ugly? No, that’s not kind. But certainly they were not attractive for me. And so I have kissed these imperfect specimens, to try it, and sometimes it has been magic and we have made love with much success. Also the opposite – I’ve kissed beautiful men and felt nothing. It is important, the kiss. It tells us many things.’
‘I don’t like hearing about you making love to other men.’
Étienne shrugged.
‘Listen – you don’t know what the time is, do you? I’m going to be in a world of trouble. I was supposed to be back at the lodging yesterday evening.’
Étienne tutted. ‘Naughty boy. What will you say?’
‘I shall say that I was accosted by a sailor boy with a beautiful big cock.’
Étienne laughed. All eyelashes and dimples and fangs and loose shoulders with the sun from the window hazing his skin. ‘You flatter me. C’est très grand, oui, but also it is horrible. I have been told this. “What a hideous cock!” These words.’
‘Whomever told you such a thing is clearly a jealous cad.’
‘What will you say, truly?’
Bart picked a strand of tobacco from his tongue and wiped it on the rim of his coffee cup. ‘I might say I was attacked. Mugged. That I lay unconscious in a Parisian alleyway all night, getting pissed on by sailors and whores.’
‘I think you would enjoy that.’
Bart aimed his smoke in Étienne’s face.
‘No sign of any attack,’ said Étienne, waving the smoke away.
‘You could hit me. Bloody my lip.’
‘I am a pacifist.’
‘You weren’t last night.’
‘I have never struck a person, Bart. Only to defend my life.’
‘But I’ll be expelled. Honestly.’ He pushed out his chair and stood up, looking around the room. ‘Have you got a knife?’
‘What will you do with a knife, silly boy?’
‘Nothing too extreme. A knife, any sort of knife.’
Étienne gestured towards the kitchen knife on the table in front of him, the one they’d used to slice the sausage. ‘Only this.’
‘How do you shave?’
‘I don’t. My beard is slow to grow. My father was the same.’
‘Then how do you sharpen your pencils?’
‘With the sausage knife.’
Bart looked incredulously at the knife on the table. ‘Really? You walk the streets of Paris dressed as a sailor and you mean to tell me you don’t carry any sort of weapon?’
Étienne laced his hands under his chin and smiled sweetly. ‘My charm is my weapon.’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Bart picked up the knife, wiped its blade with the bottom of his shirt and went to the small cracked mirror by the bidet. ‘If this gets infected I’ll give you hell.’ He twisted his head to the side, parted his hair, took a breath, then pressed the knife-point to his scalp at a point over his ear. ‘Christ!’ He dropped the knife and clutched his head. ‘Jesus fucking Christ!’
‘You silly boy!’ said Étienne, laughing.
Bart looked in the mirror, turning his head to the side. The cut was an inch long and shallow. Blood – not enough to fill a thimble – trickled down his face. ‘It’s not enough.’
‘It is enough,’ said Étienne. He came over and examined the cut. ‘It’s getting on your collar.’
‘That’s the idea. It needs to look messy. Lots of blood, more blood, if I’m to carry this off.’
‘“Carry this awf,”’ mimicked Étienne. ‘Écoute, don’t mutilate yourself any further.’
‘It’s not convincing.’
Étienne sighed. ‘The things we do.’ He picked up the knife from the floor, and before Bart could stop him, sliced the blade across his palm, wincing with little flashes of teeth. He opened his hand: a fat red line, the blood already swelling and threatening to wobble out. He clenched his fist and held it over Bart’s ear and the blood dripped out, joining Bart’s own blood and spattering his starched white shirt. ‘I would never do this for anyone else,’ he said.
So full of shit. They barely knew each other. I would never do this for anyone else. Laughable.
Still, Bart grabbed him and kissed him fiercely, surprised to feel a pressure building up in his sinuses, as if he might cry.
‘Bring me the salt, please,’ said Bart. Since meeting Étienne he’d starting tacking a ‘please’ on to the end of his demands. It wasn’t like he had to – the servants were paid in money, not manners. But, well, why not? It was only a word. And a very easy word – just the one syllable.
Dottie handed him the salt-shaker and he sprinkled some over his poached eggs – the first solid food he’d braved since his illness. He was wearing a dressing gown and his mother wanted to say something about it, he could tell. He forked some eggwhite into his mouth and smiled at his mother. She was done up like some sort of Egyptian peacock, all feathers and silk cloth in an explosion of clashing colours. She’d recently hosted a ball for struggling artists and clearly their grubby bohemian ideas were rubbing off on her.
‘Nice?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Listen, Mother,’ he said, his fork held aloft, ‘you don’t happen to know if the trousers I was wearing when I got sick were brought back with me?’
‘They were not,’ she said, stirring sugar into her tea. ‘You came back in your nightclothes.’
He looked down at the quivering milk-sheened yolks.
‘Why do you ask?’
He shook his head, mouth drawn down at the sides. ‘No reason.’
Smiling, she rolled her eyes. ‘I have your key. It was put in an envelope for you. All right?’
‘Key? Oh. Oh. That’s not what – thank you.’
‘It’s none of my business,’ she said. ‘You’re a young man.’ She sipped her tea, grimacing, and added more sugar. ‘Though I hope you’re not so reckless as to have anything in your possessions that might get you into trouble.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I am not a benefactor to your school.’
‘I know.’
She chewed on a piece of toast. ‘Dottie? Be a dear and tell Arthur to get the car ready, would you?’ She turned her attention back to Bart. ‘I’m meeting Augustus John for coffee. He wants to sell me his paintings.’
‘Is that why you’re…?’ He gestured at her outfit.