Charlie is reading an old book about an old French actress called Arletty. It was face down on the floor while he painted something that looked like mashed-up graffiti. He noticed me looking at it. “The book is called Je Suis Comme Je Suis – which means I Am As I Am,” he said. 

“I’ve never heard of her,” I replied, flicking through its yellowing pages. Lots of tired text and black and white photographs. Charlie stopped painting and looked at me. “A madame after my own heart. Mon cœur est français, mais mon cul est international.” 

I asked him to translate because he speaks too fast for me to understand. “It is quite simple,” he smirked. “It means that my heart is French, but my arse is international.”

He was provoking me, a crude attempt to make me jealous, that had succeeded.

I googled the name Arletty and discovered that she was accused of treason and imprisoned in 1945 for her wartime liaison with a German Luftwaffe officer, during the occupation of France. 

Charlie’s face became sad. “Did you know that by the nineteen sixties she was almost blind?” He sat up on his knees and began fiddling inside his underwear. This was something he tended to do a lot. “She was blind in one eye but put the wrong eye drops in her good eye and destroyed that one too.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was a recluse, blind, and living alone in a dark Parisian apartment, which is how I will end up.” He peered at me with mournful eyes and waited for me to respond. It was a ploy that he used when he wanted attention.

“I’m sure that you’ll manage to find somebody who will be dumb enough to take you in.”

His face brightened. “That is correct. I will always be okay.” He jumped up and studied his unfinished canvas on the floor. “By the time I am old, I will be a famous artist, and there will be a long line of people wanting to take me in.” He waved his hand in front of my nose. “Would you like to smell my fingers?”