A Gambler Born and Bred 19

As usual, I came to terms with the horrible truth after the event, and, at a snail’s pace, began to understand what we had done when it was all too late.
I tried to console Helen but she was silent and blank, white as a sheet, caught between life and death.

We went to see a Bill Viola exhibition at a Whitechapel gallery, in which a video showed birth taking place, but I kept on going outside for a cigarette. I didn’t even notice, or failed to acknowledge, that she’d been crying all the way through.

Helen asked me to move in with her that Christmas. We were, even after my appalling performance as an empathetic, understanding partner, still madly in love.

In an attempt to assert my place in Helen’s house, I began by rummaging through the various bags and holdalls that I’d stashed in the boot of the Rover during my homeless odyssey ‘in between places’.
Allocated with the two lowest tiers of her massive chest of drawers in the bedroom, I started to put clothes away but the smell was too much, so I replaced them into the bags and took them downstairs to put them next to the washing-machine.
All of the half-arsed stories that I’d scribbled in bars and cafes took pride of place in one of the drawers, along with my postcard collection and two pairs of clean socks.
At the bottom of one of the bags, I found a business card from a foreign exchange dealer at Lehman Brothers called Ian.
On the back of the card, Ian had written a few words, ‘For if you need the folding stuff…’
I delved into the far corners of my mind trying to recall an Ian. What did the message mean? The folding stuff? That was money, which I always needed, but why would a trader from Lehman Brothers want to offer me money, and what for?

It came to me in a flash as we ate sushi (good for the mind, apparently) at the Hilton on Holland Park Avenue.
At the end of the final party at Marbeuf, I was packing up the projectors when a tall man and his girlfriend had spoken to me, wide-eyed on ecstacy, about the party.
Ian had thanked me for what he described as the best party he’d been to and expressed an interest in organising more together.
‘If you ever, ever need help with the folding stuff,’ Ian had said, ‘give me a buzz.’

Kissing Helen goodbye, I was in the car and on the road to Paris just after midnight for a three o’clock ferry.
‘But it’s New Year’s Eve the day after next, Richard,’ she’d said. ‘I thought we were going to Jody’s party together.’
‘I’ll be back by then, I promise,’ I assured her, but she didn’t seem convinced.

The plan I’d hatched was a long-shot, but if I’d waited till January, notoriously dead in Paris, it wouldn’t even be a long-shot.
A few months ago, I’d been to a party in the restaurant on the fifth floor of the Pompidou Centre.
It had been organised by a posse of wealthy students from the American School and I’d tagged along with an American girl I knew from my barman days.
Starry eyed, I’d talked to the manager, who made it quite clear that he preferred the parties that were run by the English and Americans residing in Paris.
When I asked why he favoured Anglo-Saxons over the French, he told me that it was a matter of respect.
Sure; vomit, badly aimed urine and used condoms would always have to be mopped up from the toilets and other areas under Anglo-Saxon occupation, but there were never any breakages.
French vandalism wouldn’t be tolerated. The damage that the French left negated the profit made from renting the place.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ I’d said, trying to hold back an excited titter.
If he’d known about the copious amount of drugs consumed at my parties, and the mayhem we caused, he’d have run a mile.
Having said that, my lot never caused any damage to venues. They were too high.

By eight o’clock the next morning, I was munching down on a croque at a café in Chateau Rouge, slurping away the froth of a large café au lait, plotting my raid on the Pompidou.
Without calling, I parked up on Boulevard Sebastopol and went straight to the fifth floor to meet the manager.
As luck would have it, he was there (a big party for a clothes designer was taking place the following night, New Year’s Eve, and a catwalk was being installed).
After about ten minutes of relentless scrutiny as to my intentions, we shook hands and I walked out with the prize date of Valentine’s Day secured. All I needed to do was pay the rent in full, ‘le plus tot possible’, and the place was ours.

I drove to Richard’s flat like a man possessed with music blaring from the speakers. I had to use his phone.
From there, I called Eren and asked if he was free to play at the party. He couldn’t say offhand, which worried me for a second, but then he told me not to worry; he’d cancel anything else to come and play the Pompidou.
Could he find some quality DJs to come? Of course he could. He knew everyone on the London scene.

I got a jambon beurre from the café on Richelieu Drouot that I used to go to in my penniless days and then went back to Richard’s flat. His flatmate told me that Eren had called so I called him back.
He’d already booked Lawrence Nelson, Simon Hanson, Charlie Hall and Pascal Bongo Massive. For visuals, he’d secured the talents of Project Love, also at a snip.
I thanked him and went for a quick beer to steady my nerves for the call to Ian at Lehman Brothers in London.
Once back, I picked up the phone and dialled the number on the mangled business card.
‘Mark Paris!’ shouted the voice on the other end of the line.
‘Er, hi,’ I said. ‘Is Ian Nicholson there, please?’
‘Speaking.’
I could hear a blanket of urgent bartering in the background.
‘Hi, it’s Richard. We met in Paris at one of my parties last July.’
‘Oh, hello, stranger,’ he said. ‘I was wondering when you’d call. Are you calling for the folding stuff?’
I cleared my throat when he said that. ‘Yeah, I’ve just booked the fifth floor of the Pompidou Centre for Valentine’s Day and wondered if...’
‘How much do you need?’
‘Fifty thousand francs should cover the rent for the venue, flights for the DJs, flyers and artwork, and a bit for me to run around with.’
‘What’s your address?’ he asked.
Since I didn’t have one, I gave him Richard’s.
‘Any buzzer?’
‘Yeah, it’s flat eight.’
‘OK, I’ll have an American Express courier deliver it in cash tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. Ring me when you get it, OK? Gotta go.’
He hung up without waiting for a reply.

I took Richard out to the Blue Elephant when he got in from work and he let me stay the night.
The next morning, I buzzed up an American Express courier who gave me a package and asked me to sign for it.
Inside was a little brick of crisp fifties.
I howled with laughter when he left, then got dressed and drove to the Pompidou Centre to give the manager fourteen thousand francs, leaving with a receipt.
He told me that I’d have to go to the prefecture de police in Chatelet to apply for authorisation and winked, saying it was a necessary formality and advising me to describe the party as a ‘soiree dansante populaire’, which I later found out was the equivalent of a student’s ball.

Outside the prefecture, I stashed my little ball of hash in the glove-compartment of the Rover and waltzed up to the entrance, an unassuming door on Quai de Gevres.
When I stated my reason for being there, I was patted down and asked to go to the fourth floor, where I should wait for a Madame Pierrot.
She was an elderly lady who spoke at a hundred miles an hour in a croaky voice.
When I was asked to sit down across the desk from her, a little dog greeted me by pissing on my shoe.
‘Pas de probleme,’ I said, shaking it off.
‘Il fait ca aux gens qu’il aime,’ said Madame Pierrot.
‘Ah bon,’ I said, grimacing. What did he do to those he disliked, I wondered. Shit on their lap?
Madame Pierrot was very kind.
She filled in the application form for me and asked me to sign at the bottom of the page.
‘Addresse?’ she asked.
I gave her Richard’s. He wouldn’t mind.
I was told that I’d need to get public liability insurance at least three weeks before the party and that authorisation would arrive at the address I’d given a few days before the party.
On leaving, I thanked Madame Pierrot and her dog barked at me.
‘Ah, il vous aime,’ she said with a smile.
Somehow, I knew that I’d be seeing Madame Pierrot and her little dog, Inspecteur, for years to come.

With all the exhilaration of the day’s surreal happenings, I’d forgotten to call Ian so I went to a phone-box.
‘Mark Paris!’ he shouted down the line (which he later explained was code for dealing the Deutschmark against the French franc).
‘Ian,’ I said. ‘I got it but I forgot to call you. Sorry about that.’
‘That’s OK. Did you manage to get to the Pompidou?’
‘Yeah,’ I told him. ‘I’ve given them the rent money and been to the prefecture for authorisation. I didn’t tell you before but Eren’s booked the DJs, so it’s all stations go.’
He sounded more than happy with my progress and hung up.

After a quick shower, I rolled a few joints for the road and hopped back in the Rover to drive up to Calais for the ferry.

At ten minutes to midnight, I arrived back at Helen’s house in Chelsea.
I asked if she wanted to go to Jody’s party but all she wanted to do was drink champagne, smoke joints and make love.
More than ever, I knew that she was the love of my life and that losing her would tear my heart into meaningless little shreds that could never be put back together again.

‘This is just the start, Hel,’ I said. ‘I promise you, I’m going to make you the proudest girl in the world.’