Page 29 of Closer

“Ah, La Colle-sur-Loup.”

“Yes, but where is La Colle-sur-Loup?”

“Oui. Here.”

Jesus. I need Google Translate just to have a conversation with this woman. I glance at the phone she brought in. It’s handheld, but it’s a landline, not a mobile. Christ. What century did I step into? “Do you have the Internet?”

“Non, Monsieur Durand forbade it. Said it was the devil’s work.”

“Shit.”

The doorbell rings and Margaux’s face lights up. She steps away and runs for the door, but she turns and points to my tie. “Tie stays. Don’t hate the tie.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She nods and leaves. Sweat prickles down my spine. I tug at my collar and swallow hard. What the fuck am I still doing here? I should slip out the back while I have the chance. I glance at the dog, who looks like he knows exactly what I’m thinking and guilts me with those weird heterochromatic puppy eyes. “I told you not to look at me like that.”

I head across the room, drink the cold coffee and put on my new shoes—that Margaux also picked out. I console myself with the fact that there’s no price tag attached, so I can’t tell how much they cost. I pack the pipe again and light it up, and then I leave the room and walk the hall with its imposing portraits. I don’t have a big family like this. I don’t have any family at all save for my bandmates. My mum was kind of a shit parent. She was more interested in drinking and whoring herself out to our local biker club than she was in the child that came from her loins. Once I turned eighteen, I was out of there. I moved to the city and let the government pay for half my school tuition to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

The rest, I worked my arse off for. And now? Now I’d give anything to walk away clean. I don’t want to give up my music, it’s all I have, but I don’t want to resort to a life of porn either because I can’t stand the sight of my lead vocalist.

I push into the room at the end of the hall. It’s huge and empty save for the piano and the ratty looking stool beneath it. I enter and stare up at the ceiling. It’s a ballroom, with parquetry floors, gilt ceilings and paintings on the walls and roof. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of beauty in my short career. I cross the vast room and sit at the stool. I press my fingers to the ivory, play a dissonant, teeth-achingly uncomfortable chord, the kind that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

The kind that makes my dick hard.

I tinkle my fingers over the keys, and then I play. I haven’t done this, created something from nothing like this, in far too long. Sure, I wrote that song for Ali on her wedding day, but it was fuelled by love. This music is created from misery. It’s gut-wrenching, poetic, and fucking torturous all at once. I play so hard my fingers ache, and I stop only to loosen my tie. My hair is wet with sweat and falls in my face, but I ignore it and just play. When I’m done, I feel someone else in the room. I turn and glance at Margaux, and a man in a sharp suit claps, slowly.Arsehole.

“Very nice, Mr Quinn.” His accent is thick, his pomade too, but his smile is thin and watery. See-through.

“It’s Levi.”

He nods. “Levi. I am Monsieur Rousseau. I’ve drawn up your paperwork, however, Mademoiselle Arnaud here tells me you’re having second thoughts.”

I glance from Margaux to Rousseau, and finally to that stupid mutt—who are all apparently unfazed that I’m having a moment and bleeding all over the keys. “No second thoughts. I’ll take it.”

“You will?” he says, surprised.

“Yeah.”

Margaux shrieks and runs towards me, pulling me up by my hands and drawing me into her ample bust. I’m surprised by her strength. “Monsieur, monsieur. You and dog will be very happy here, you will see.”

I don’t know about that. This woman is off her rocker, but at least I made an old lady happy. Which, I can honestly say, is a first for me. Rousseau thrusts the paperwork up under my nose. I glance it over; it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than what I expected. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Wrong, monsieur?” He looks down his nose at me.

“The price? What the hell is wrong with it?”

His brow furrows. “There’s some structural damage.”

“Where?”

“The west wing of the house.” Rousseau glances at Margaux, and then back at me. “You have not seen it yet?”

“Show me.”

I let him lead me out through the hall and down a flight of stairs at the opposite end from where I slept. There are cracks in the stone staircase and more damage to the murals painted on the walls, but when he opens the door on a musty, crumbling old room, I brush past so I can be the first to step inside.

“Do be careful, please monsieur.”

I edge my way around the furniture and wonder what’s so structurally unsound about it. Sure, the floor feels as if it’s sinking in parts, and there are fissures in the wall, but the ceiling just like the ballroom upstairs is hand painted with another masterpiece.Venus.Obviously not painted by Botticelli, but still beautiful. She’s red-haired and small, with curves in all the right places, curves you could grab hold of as you fuck, just like Ali. And just like her, I love everything about this room. New melodies flirt with my mind and beg to be written as I stare at her.

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