Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years: two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder

And thus he takes Clio by her pretty bare wrist and leads her to his table.

He has barely seated himself before his plate of dead sheep when he must endure a heated interrogation from his neighbours.

‘So,’ asks Loulou Zibeline, mockingly, ‘are you working on your second novel?’

‘Yes,’ Marc answers, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. “French literature” is about as significant nowadays as Noh theatre. Why bother writing when a novel has a shorter shelf-life than a TV ad for pasta? Besides, look around you – there are as many photographers as there are stars. Well, in France, literature is the same: there are as many writers as there are readers.’

‘So, why bother?’

‘Yeah. Why bother … As a writer, I’m stillborn, spoiled by happiness. My only readers live in a couple of blocks around Mabillon metro station. I don’t give a fuck: all I ask is that one day, after my death, in some foreign land, I be rediscovered. I think it would be cool to bring pleasure in one’s absence, posthumously. And maybe one day, in a hundred years, a woman like you will be interested in me. “A minor, neglected fin-de-siècle author.” Patrick Mauriès will have written my biography In 2032. I will be reprinted. My public will be elderly aesthetes who are resolutely paedophile. Then, only then, will this mad circus not have been in vain …’

‘Nnnyes …’ Loulou is dubious. ‘That’s just vanity … I’m sure there must be more to it than that. The quest for beauty, for instance. There must be some things you find beautiful, no?’

Marc gives the matter some thought.

‘It’s true,’ he says after a pause, ‘the two most beautiful things in the world are the violins in Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” and a woman in a bikini wearing a blindfold.’

Clio is sitting in Marc’s lap. She may well be thin, but she is quite heavy.

‘Aren’t you bored of dating a star?’ Marc asks her. ‘Wouldn’t you rather sleep with your chair?’

‘What?’

She stares at him, her face blank.

‘Well, since you’re sitting on me, if you were to go out with your chair, that would be me … [He makes a sweeping gesture.] Just a joke … Forget it.’

‘This guy is weird,’ says Irène to Clio.

Marc’s sense of humour does not meet with universal approval. If this keeps up, he will begin to suffer self-doubt, which is inadvisable when attempting to seduce. Suddenly, he has an idea. He slips his hand into the pocket of his jacket and finds the tab of Euphoria Joss gave him on page 27. He discreetly opens it and tips the powder into Clio’s glass of Oxygen vodka just as she grabs the glass and drains it, all the while chattering to Irène. It’s like a movie. Marc rubs his hands. Now all he need do is wait for the drug to take effect. Long live drugged dating! No need to impress, to spend a fortune, to have candlelit dinners: one capsule and so to bed.

The air is redolent with costly perfumes, fermented grain drinks and societal sweat. HRH the Princess Giuseppe de Montanero has managed to gatecrash the party thanks to some transves-tite friends who spent some time distracting the doorman. Everywhere are unattainable women wearing inestimable jewellery. Some of whom are men, for all that. (In the toilets, Marc even saw a bulge beneath the dress of an elegantly dressed lady powdering her nose – inside and out.)

Joss Dumoulin waves to his girlfriend. He could get up, come over, kiss her, pay her a compliment, offer her a drink. But Joss doesn’t get up, doesn’t come over, doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t pay her a compliment, and Clio finishes her drink alone. Welcome to the twentieth century.

*

Meanwhile, the Hardissons are force-feeding their child foie gras; forlorn PR people stare at the TV screens (can there be anything more depressing than a solitary Director of Communications?); Ali de Hirschenberger, distinguished producer of porn films, affectionately slaps Nelly, his wife, a sybarite who is wearing a leash; millionaire playboy Robert de Dax is standing on a chair acting the fool (long-time lover of a number of depressive actresses, he will die a month from now in a bumper-car accident).

Tonight raucously brings together CEOs in punk outfits and tramps in dinner jackets. Love stories spring up between holidaying nomads and the sedentary jet set. The fist-fights are filled with tenderness. The same people are introduced to the same people ad infinitum but nobody complains. We are in the presence of a Europarty.

‘What’s for dessert?’ asks Clio. ‘I hope it’s not Space Cake with laxatives again. That I don’t need.’

Her voice has changed. Usually, a drug diluted in a glass takes an hour to reach the brain. Unless the drug is very strong.

‘People are so superficial,’ she whines, ‘I have so many things to tell you. I’m still thirsty. Is it late or is it me? Why didn’t Joss come over and say hi?’

Clio is fast becoming very talkative and very depressed. Her eyes well up with tears. This was not exactly the desired effect.

‘YOU MEN,’ she shrieks, ‘you’re all so égoïste! Boorish, ugly bastards!’

‘She’s got a point,’ says Loulou Zibeline, of whom – it would appear – nobody sought an opinion.

And Clio starts to sob on Marc’s shoulder and the coward takes advantage of the situation to caress her neck, run his fingers through her soft hair and murmur sweet nothings in her ear.

‘Easy now, It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m one of the good guys …’

Result! She kisses him on the lips. The sound system is playing ‘Amor, Amor’ and Marc hums along with Clio as if he were rocking a baby. A tiny baby dribbling mascara onto his jacket. A little baby who is getting heavier by the minute and sniffling back mucus. A little baby whose breath smells like an ashtray.

‘Amor, amor,’ hums the gigantic little baby. ‘Marc, could you do me a favour and go and get Joss … please …’

Marc’s result was short-lived. But he takes it philosophically. Clio smiles at him, smearing mascara over her cheeks. Chemical seduction has its limitations, and Marc is not entirely unhappy to palm the baby off on someone else.

Joss Dumoulin darts between the tables, the impulsive catalyst of this eclectic soirée. Marc waves him over. When he gets there, Clio throws her arms around him, blubbering.

‘MY LOOVE!’ she cries.

‘Um …’ says Marc, ‘I think your girlfriend is a bit tired.’

‘Wait a minute, what the hell’s going on here?’ says Joss. ‘Don’t tell me … you didn’t slip her that tab of Euphoria, did you?’

‘Me? Of course not, why do you say that?’

‘You stupid bitch! You promised me you were off the stuff!’ yells the DJ. ‘Last time, she nearly didn’t come back!’

Joss puts his girlfriend over his shoulder and takes her somewhere to throw up. Marc tries to look innocent but he’s sweating like a pig. He’s sorry now he didn’t have time to conduct the Triple Why test on her. At his table, everyone acts as if nothing has happened. Loulou breaks the shamefaced silence.

‘If truth be told, Marc, I thought your first book was very well written.’

‘Oh, fuck!’ whimpers Marc. When somebody tells you that your book is well written what they mean is that it’s boring. If they say it’s funny, that means it’s not well written. And if they say it’s ‘really great’, that means they haven’t read it.

‘Well, what do you want me to say?’

‘Tell me I’m the man.’

Marc loves ‘fishing for compliments’, as they say in English. At least when he masterminds the flattery, he knows that nothing is expected in return.

‘Go on,’ he insists, ‘repeat after me: “Marc, you da man!”’

‘Marc, you da man.’

‘Loulou, I think I love you. What was it you recommended as a chat-up line again? Oh, yeah, “Would you be so kind as to move your enormous arse as it appears to be blocking the aisle?”’

‘Clever, clever …’

While this is going on, Fab is discussing tonight’s playlist with Irène.

‘Comprehension, truth, drumandbassism. His mix is pretty wack, but Joss got the sense of realitude.’