Paris, twenty-four years earlier
10 January
I raised my head to look up at the publisher’s third-floor offices on Boulevard Haussmann, and fumbled nervously with the twenty thousand French francs crammed into my trouser pocket.
I felt a pang of disappointment in myself for being the man to have sold all that Pierre Chareau had written, sketched and then shipped to the H?tel Près de la C?te for reasons unknown. But I’d done what was necessary to carry me forward.
It had taken four trains and two buses to reach Paris. My backpack contained very few personal belongings, to make room for the rarest items I’d rescued from the garbage. The rest I’d sent by post six weeks earlier to Madame Bernard, a publisher of art and historical work, to offer it for sale.
I had considered handing the collection to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, where it could be displayed alongside other notable works of famous French visionaries. But the next part of my journey would be expensive, and I was still more charity than charitable.
On my arrival, it took Madame Bernard several days to verify the authenticity of the most recent deliveries. But once deemed genuine, I was offered a fee and a percentage of future book sales, with a guarantee of anonymity.
I congratulated myself on requesting that the royalties be forwarded to an address in England. I doubted whether Darren Glasper’s family would ever know why they were receiving intermittent cheques from a Parisian publisher. But if it helped perpetuate the myth their deceased son had made a success of his all-too-brief travels, then it was worth every centime.
Darren and I had shared the desire to cast aside our past lives and start afresh on our own terms. So I knew he’d understand that, with him having no further need of his passport, I could make use of both it and his identity. If heaven existed, he’d be looking down on me with pride and egging me on.
With no permanent address or bank account, I, however, preferred to be paid in cash, and with the financial means to move forwards, my next stop was a travel agent to book a one-way flight.
New York, USA
4 February
While everyone else slept soundly around us in designated bunkbeds, the girl and I silently made love in hers.
I’d placed the palm of my hand against the breezeblock wall to stop the bed’s metal frame from rocking against it. The other was held over her mouth to mask from the slumbering masses her groans while she climaxed. It wasn’t long before I joined her, then allowed my limp body to flop to her side.
Her name had already escaped me, but it didn’t matter as she’d made plans to leave for Chicago in the morning. I pulled on my underwear and went to give her a polite peck on the cheek, but she had already fallen into a drunken sleep.
The day after bidding adieu to Paris, my alter ego Darren Glasper had landed in New York.
The ignorant often look upon America as a modern country lacking history or culture. What I saw was a continent littered with small pockets of culture in every person, in every building and on every street. Just because no one creed, religion or class stood prouder than any other didn’t mean a whole nation was lacking in essence.
And what better country in which to begin again than one at whose gateway stood a landmark with broken chains at her feet and a torch to light my way forward?
In the Lower Manhattan Youth Hostel, I lived the life of a teenager trapped in a thirty-three-year-old man’s body. My days lacked routine; spontaneity was the only call I answered to. I aspired to throw myself at every new sensation I chanced upon, and that included the opposite sex. As teenagers, my friends had experimented with any girls who’d indulge them. But Catherine was the only one I’d ever been intimate with. And by marrying the first girl I’d fallen for, there was so much I’d missed out on.
The hostel’s arteries constantly pumped with fresh young blood. I enjoyed the company of women, and brief dalliances and one-night stands meant there was no risk of them urging me to take things further or trying to get to know me. I needed to connect with people physically, but rarely for long and never emotionally. For just enough time to remind myself I could still connect, even if it was only expressed through empty, near-anonymous sexual acts with like-minded partners.
And it happened anywhere, from restaurant toilets to alleyways, dormitories full of sleeping people to an underpass in Central Park. I had no filter for shame and few boundaries. I had many wasted years to catch up on, and sex without emotion brought immediate gratification. New York was the city that never slept, and I had every intention of following suit.
I reached my bunkbed on the other side of the dorm, zipped myself up in my sleeping bag and thought back to my first kiss.
I’d never told Catherine it wasn’t with her.
21 February
I’d already walked the length of the Brooklyn Bridge once that day. On my return, I paused and leaned against the sidewalk railings to stare across the vast expanse of the East River.
I thought back to when I was eleven, and Dougie and I spent an afternoon on a long bike ride into town, eventually reaching Abington Park. Feeling mischievous, we stuffed decaying elm tree leaves, and a stack of discarded Mercury & Herald newspapers dumped by a lazy paperboy, into an overflow pipe leading from an adjacent stream. Finally, when our masterpiece of modern engineering was complete, we waited patiently for a watery wrath to sweep over the town once the stream burst its banks. It was, however, an overly ambitious plan, and after an hour, Northampton was still as dry as a bone.
Bored, I’d leaned back on my elbows on the grass and closed my eyes. Suddenly, something soft gently pressed itself against my lips. It remained there momentarily as I puzzled over whether I was awake or midway between sleep and consciousness. I opened my eyes to find Dougie’s lips upon mine.
He withdrew them as quickly as they’d been planted. He stared at me with eyes so wide they appeared to have developed a life of their own, beyond his control. We remained motionless, one taking in the action and the other waiting for the reaction.
‘Sorry,’ he finally blurted out, before picking up his bike and cycling away as fast as his gangly legs could pedal.