that our bank has pulled off...”
Tristan did not want to know. “Please, George, not now. It’s the weekend.”
“Okay, okay, let’s talk about something else. How was your evening yesterday? I heard that you and Marcus were out together.”
“Yes, I’m just back from brunching with him. Yesterday we had a few drinks in the Sky Lounge. In this weather you could probably go swimming there.”
“We were down at our favourite club,” said George, adding, in a high-pitched voice, “It was simply divine, old chap.” By this time Tristan had arrived at his floor and was opening the door of his apartment as George told him about the previous evening. Tristan switched on the light in his apartment. Oh my God! The smell of Sam’s perfume had still not dissipated. Tristan felt rather disgusted with perfume manufacturers who were incapable of making a product that would dissolve into air in half a day. Yes, their product should cover the woman’s skin for the whole day, but Tristan found it intolerable that the fragrance, however exquisite, should linger in the air for hours afterwards. Equally, he could not bear the thought that the taste of a woman’s scent could remain on a man’s tongue for such a long time. Perfume fragrances should evaporate, he thought to himself with some irritation, otherwise they’re no better than sweat.
He opened the door that led out to the terrace and enjoyed the fresh breeze of the early evening, breathing it in deeply. The rain had washed away London’s city dust and had now stopped. Tristan stood by the window for a few minutes and enjoyed the taste of a new night on his tongue.
“All right then, so much for our amazing evening,” said George by way of conclusion. “All four of us plan to meet up again tonight. The others are bringing a few girlfriends with them. Do you fancy joining us?”
“Some other time, George. I’ve already got a date for tonight. I’m going to the opera. But you could ask Marcus,” replied Tristan.
“Marcus? Has he finally got over his ex?”
“They’re still married, but you’d better ask him that yourself.”
“I’m not bothered! Those who marry too soon have only got themselves to blame,” was George’s rejoinder. “She’ll make him pay dearly for the divorce. I’ll ask the lads if we can take good old Marcus with us – I’ve got his number.”
“See you on Monday then,” said Tristan.
“Yes, see you on Monday,” replied George, and Tristan hung up.
For a few seconds more he contemplated the darkening face of his phone and tried to remember what George had told him previously. He found it amusing to witness him expressing his coarse humour in actual behaviour towards the opposite sex. But George’s account the next day bored him.
Every evening George, as befitted an Englishman, resorted to massive amounts of alcohol – whether it was bottles of champagne or glasses of sparkling ale – to help him relax after the stress of the job – and he was extremely good at his job. He was one of the best bankers that Tristan knew, bursting with energy, and was possessed of the right touch of caution when things got serious. When they went out it was always George that set the pace of the orders, and when the others began to ease off a bit he ordered more drinks, even when his companions were building up a backlog. He simply loved it when the alcohol befuddled his brain, that moment when it was only functioning at half its capacity. At the same time, one of his skills was crafting witty remarks, which could hit their target with greater precision the more inebriated he became. Frequently he was able to target his companions one after the other with ironic remarks, so that eventually they were all like butterflies pinned to the corkboard in front of him. Yet this didn’t stop the victims from sharing in the general hilarity right up to the final humiliating put-down.
Of course, George thought too highly of Tristan to include him in this sport. He secretly envied him for his good looks and knew very well that he would be so offended by any barbed comment that he would drop him like a foul smelling fish.
The high point of every such evening came when together they visited one of the many overpriced clubs where the only girls present were those who were pursuing their own agenda. Here it was George who took centre stage for the evening. No one could deny that this coarse-mannered banker did not exactly convey the impression that he was stinking rich. As the undisputed alpha male of the group, he had no hesitation in following up his act, which sparkled with brutal comedy, by making advances to any girls he fancied. They would let themselves be pampered but – later in the night – would pay for the VIP status accorded them with some of the most humiliating treatment a man can inflict on a woman. Tristan didn’t know what exactly George did with the two or three women that he would arbitrarily pick out and take home with him. All he knew was that as long as they were being spoilt and plied with champagne by George and thought they were the queens of the night up on the stage, they were really happy, laughing hysterically all the time. It was as if all the wishes and fantasies encouraged by the media had been fulfilled in one go.
But if Tristan chanced to see them in the street the next day, he almost felt sorry for them as they had such a hangdog appearance and couldn’t even look him in the eye. When questioned about it in the office, George had tried to put him in his place with one of his thoroughly malicious cracks. Tristan had refused to dignify it with a laugh. He didn’t find it funny and was not going to feign amusement. He never did get a proper answer – something that at times made Tristan uneasy, although he usually let it pass as George was such an entertaining companion.
Anyway, he felt that he had to actually be there with George on those evenings. The stories he told about what happened when Tristan was not present sounded meretricious and utterly uninteresting to anyone who, like him, lived for the moment.
At that point Tristan began to shiver. The wind across London had strengthened. So he turned around, shut the door behind him and found the room cleared of all memories of the previous night. He sighed with contentment, slipped off his jacket, which he locked away in his walk-in wardrobe, and began to undress. A bath would be just what he needed at that moment. Accordingly, he bent over the black metal monster that could fill his apartment with sound, and put on the only possible music for this evening.
Tristan turned up the volume for Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Almost immediately his whole body began to tremble. It was as if he was encountering a kindred spirit. Never before had he felt anything like this, but at this instant the feeling was very real. It ran through him like the eerie sensation of a long-awaited release, enveloped him and nearly caused him to stumble. He closed his eyes and smiled. A thousand violins burst into life, their strings screeching in wild career, yet forming only the vanguard of a fearsome chariot harnessed to snorting and frenzied steeds, whose every breath was like a thousand trumpets. Tristan lost himself in the growing turbulence of the moment, as the sound of the music swept him up to dizzy heights, untrammelled by the laws of gravity.
Then, when he thought himself at the zenith of his ride to the sun, and was about to turn towards it, all the other stars around him faded, and he saw only the deep blue of the cosmos spread out around him and his sun. It was at this moment of supreme ecstasy, when it seemed that the whole world was burdensome and mediocre and that nothing existed but himself and this moment of fraternal unity, that he opened his eyes. The trumpets and trombones blared and fell into dust about him, the drums made the air vibrate, and he was again struck with awe as his eyelids slowly lifted, revealing his dilated pupils. In that instant he was overcome by the most profound and terrible disappointment that could befall a man like him, who had no equal on earth. For amidst all this stirring music he saw only himself. Naked and beautiful he stood on the cold marble floor of his room, with nothing but the mirror image of his own body in front of him. He felt that he had been struck by the force of the dying sounds, which had smashed the wings that had just borne him aloft to meet his likeness and which now brought him to earth, angry and despairing, back to unutterable mediocrity. Back to the grasping tentacles of hideous creatures on the ground, lying deep in the morass of their own inadequacy and trying to drag him down. The music died away – and the stillness that filled the empty room was more than he could bear.
Tristan