Bart swiped at a bowl of potato salad; it hurtled to the floor and smashed, off-white gloop splattering the parquet. Everyone turned to look, their cheeks bulging with food, his food that he’d paid for, well piss on them, piss on the lot of them.
He made his way to the back garden, passing Jonathan on the way and saying, ‘She’s in the dining room with her frog prince’ in a tone so acidic that Jonathan’s eyes shuddered. He stepped outside into the blessed cool darkness. It was a long, thin garden with various trees (the names of which he had no interest in finding out) lining a strip down the middle. He walked, his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets, the thudding, brassy sound of the band gradually fading. He was jealous, that was the thing. But how petty and misguided. The alternative – Bettina and Étienne hating each other – would be much worse. A small wood surrounded the garden in a horseshoe – the remains of a much larger forest, long since cut down and replaced with grand houses and ornate gardens. Bettina had fallen in love with this house on the strength of this poxy smear of woodland; it reminded her of the woods between their houses and the beach back in Brighton. He would’ve preferred somewhere in Chelsea or Knightsbridge. But what Bettina wanted, Bettina got.
He was surprised to find the bench at the end of the garden peopled; the transvestite singer and the lead trumpeter were sitting together, smoking; the woman with her wide legs spread, like a man, and the trumpeter like a woman, primly, one long, skinny leg crossed over the other. He was pale as driftwood, with a narrow pale head and a pencil moustache.
‘What are you doing out here?’ he asked, standing over them.
The woman lifted her cigarette. ‘We’re on break.’
‘I’m not paying you to sit out here and smoke.’
They cast languid side glances at each other, and then, sighing, they stood up, she smoothing down her gold tux, he arching his back to get the crackles out of his joints.
‘No, wait.’ Bart took his hands out of his pockets and lifted them in apology. ‘You’ve every right to a break, you’ve both performed terrifically. I’ve argued with my wife and I’m in a rancid mood. Please, sit back down. I’m sorry.’
They sat back down.
‘Your wife, that the birthday girl?’ said the woman, taking off her top hat and scratching her scalp – her hair was tethered tightly to her head in tiny plaits.
Bart nodded. ‘The one and only. Mind if I sit with you?’
A shrug. ‘It’s your bench.’
He sat and took out his cigarettes. The man lit a match for him, his hands steady and strong-looking (Bart’s own hands were buzzing like engines), the nails immaculate but the fingers nicotine-stained. He leaned back, looking up into a sky disappointingly starless.
‘Nice place you got here,’ said the man. His voice was musical, light and possibly a little educated (it was hard to tell with Americans). And fruity. The man was of course a fruit – Bart would bet his life on it.
‘Thank you. It brings me much happiness and I am deeply fulfilled. That was sarcasm. Do you Yanks understand sarcasm?’
Blank-eyed, the man shook his head. ‘Our culture is dumb and inferior to yours, mister. All we know is apple pie.’ He grinned with all his teeth showing. He had high cheekbones and a nose that looked like it’d been broken a couple of times. Accompanying the thin moustache was a tuft of hair growing just under his bottom lip. ‘Do you have apple pie over here?’
‘We do. We eat it with fresh cream, it’s delicious.’ He drew out that last word – deelishhusss. ‘Do you like our food? English food, I mean?’
‘Not particularly,’ said the man. ‘French cuisine’s my favourite.’
‘May I ask what you were doing in France?’
He turned to face Bart, his eyes gleaming. ‘She’ – he stabbed a thumb in the direction of the woman – ‘brought us to France. And I’ll tell you why.’
‘George,’ said the woman, a warning in her tone. ‘I know you ain’t gonna say what I think you’re gonna say.’
George smiled naughtily. ‘She came to Paris—’
‘You’re gonna get yourself fired, fool—’
‘She came to Paris with the sole intention of eating Josephine Baker’s pussy.’
The whites of her eyes popped. ‘George!’ She clouted him around the head. He shrank away from her, leaning into Bart and laughing. ‘That is ten shades of inappropriate!’ she said. ‘I am sorry, sir. He’s got a problem with his mouth.’ She hit him again. ‘That ain’t no way to speak to your employer, fool.’ Back to Bart. ‘I’m real sorry.’ George was still cowering from her, his body shaking with wicked giggles – Bart could smell the pomade in his hair.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, flapping a hand. ‘I mean, who wouldn’t want to eat Josephine Baker’s pussy? One gets the added bonus of a free banana for dessert.’
She laughed, her neck vibrating, and he joined in, pleased with himself. Because she’d been expecting him to behave in a certain way. And look at him. Just look at him.
‘Did you achieve your objective?’
‘No. We friends.’ She gave George a withering look. ‘That ain’t the reason I went to France. I only said that as a joke. A J-O-K-E. Paris is a good place to be right now.’
‘Better than Harlem?’ asked Bart.
‘They both got their charms.’ She opened her coat and rummaged in her inside pocket, bringing out a paper napkin. Inside were three medallions of herb-dotted pork piled on top of each other.
‘Oh, come now,’ said Bart. ‘You don’t need to be eating out of a napkin out here. Go inside and sit at a table.’
‘Naw, I’m good, thanks,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t like too many people watching me eat.’ She started to nibble on the meat, daintily. ‘So why’d you argue with your wife?’
Bart sighed. ‘Because she’s a child.’
She nodded. ‘Been there. Usually with men though. Men be the most childish children of all. This is nice. I don’t like English food. But this is tasty.’
‘Well, it’s French actually,’ said Bart.
George lit a fresh cigarette and breathed out the smoke with a tilted chin and just-parted lips – he knew he was being watched.
‘So,’ said Bart to George. ‘Do you have a man friend at the moment?’
The woman’s brow arched and the pork paused just short of her lips.
‘I have lots of friends who are men,’ said George, coolly.
Bart crossed one leg over the other and leaned back. Rakishly. He felt very rakish all of a sudden. ‘Let’s not bounce this ball back and forth. Do you have a fella?’
‘I do not,’ said George.
‘Good,’ said Bart.
The woman stood up abruptly, her knees cracking. ‘I think I’ll go back inside, leave you both to it.’ She bowed, doffing her top hat to Bart. ‘Evening.’ Her eyes zipped to George’s, wordlessly communicating something to him – a warning perhaps, or an encouragement; she had a good poker face, it was hard to tell – and then she was walking pigeon-toed back to the house, eating as she went.
‘So,’ said Bart.
‘So,’ said George.
They laughed with awkwardness, a lovely fizzing awkwardness.
‘You play the trumpet.’
‘I do.’
‘What else?’
‘I write poetry. You?’
‘I’m an actor, darling.’
George grinned. ‘Of course you’re an actor. Ever been in a moving picture?’