Free Rocks, The by Peter Nichols

else’s Picassos. Why the fuck can’t I get a woman like that, and have such a life? But he knew. You were either born into it, a Llobet or a Grimaldi, or were positioned through the immense crimes, laundered in the oblivion of time, of a previous generation. Or you made it really big in the movies—you became Sam Spiegel or Alexander Korda—and you met someone like Montserrat Llobet at a party on a yacht at Cannes. And the world was yours.
    Or you were someone who wrote French B movies that went straight to video and you got April Gressens from Tarzana.
    Luc emptied his glass. “Great dinner, Bronwyn.”
    “Thanks, sweetie.”
    He got up and went outside. “Je T’Aime . . . Moi Non Plus” was coming out of the patio speakers. He’d heard it from inside the kitchen, but the crest of the time warp didn’t hit him until he set foot on the patio. Then he remembered everything, or the feeling of everything, of the summer of 1969. The way the world felt then and what he thought would happen to his life.
    He walked to the music room. Inside, Charlie was flipping through stacks of records; on a barstool sat his rather ripe-looking
petite amie
, a girl Luc had seen around, holding a glass of Coke. They looked like a shot from
Vanity Fair
’s party page.
    “Oh, hiya!” said Charlie, breaking into a huge grin as he saw Luc. “I saw you out there at dinner. I was going to come out and say hi, but Lulu gave me the job of DJ and I gotta stay on it.”
    Luc was staring at him oddly, his eyes ranging up and down between Charlie’s neck and hips. “Nice shirt,” he said after a moment.
    “Oh, yeah. Actually, your mum gave it to me. It’s Moroccan, apparently. I think it’s quite old.”
    Luc continued looking at the shirt, smiling. “Nice of her. Yeah, it’s from Marrakech. It’s about twenty-five years old—I remember when she got it.”
    He looked at Charlie in the shirt. What a sweet kid Charlie is, Luc thought. He seems genuinely pleased to see me. Evidently, he knows nothing, about the shirt’s provenance, or anything else. Looks just like his mother.
    “Cool! Um, Luc, this is Bianca. Bianca, Luc.”
    “Hi,” said Bianca.
    “Hi.”
    They shook hands.
    “How’re the films going?” asked Charlie.
    “Good. Just wrapped a movie.”
    “Fantastic. What’s it called? Who’s in it?”
    “Probably no one you’ve heard of, or will ever hear of. It’s called
Perdu
. Lost. It’ll be out in about eight or ten months. I think.”
    “Oh, I bet it’s great. I loved
L’Autre
! I’ve told you that. It was really great.”
    “Thank you, Charlie. I’d forgotten that you’d seen it.”
    “You down for long?”
    “About a week. You?”
    “The summer, as usual. Hang on—” “Je T’Aime . . . Moi Non Plus” was ending, and Charlie started looking through the albums in his hand.
    “I’ll leave you to it, Charlie. It’s nice to see you.”
    “Thanks. It’s really good to see you, Luc. Take care.”
    “You too.” And to Bianca, Luc said, “Nice to meet you.”
    Luc walked to the bar. Charlie had put on “A Taste of Honey” by the Tijuana Brass, blasting away the plangent intravenous melancholy of Serge Gainsbourg. Dominick was frugging vigorously around April, who was laughing as she wove her own sinuous, smoldering thrusts toward him.
    His mother, in flowing white shirt and trousers, was dancing affectionately with Cassian, her arms stretched out and resting on his shoulders, while he talked to her about something that clearly meant a lot to both of them, perhaps the Footsie 100.
    Luc turned away and went through the gate and crossed the road to the rocks. Here, the music was not so insistent, or pungent with memory, and he heard the sound of the waves slapping and sucking at the rocks somewhere below his feet, and he remembered jumping into the water, long ago, right here, unwillingly, at exactly this time of the night—
    A tiny red glow indicated someone sitting nearby on the ledge over