I’m perfectly comfortable watching foreign movies because I find that reading subtitles comes naturally. I can breeze through French, Italian, and Spanish TV series without hesitation but must remind myself that I don’t really understand anything at all.

Charlie is French and comes without subtitles, but he speaks English better than most Englishmen. This morning, he is speaking French on his phone, and I suspect that he is  talking to Matis in Lille, and I try to concentrate on what is being said, but the conversation is too fast and animated. I hope that it is Matis because Charlie sounds pissed off with him.

I’m reading Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s easier to read than people make out. 

“Is everything okay?” I ask Charlie when he finishes the call. 

“Everything is not okay.”

“What’s the matter?”

“That was my brother, Thomas, and he wants to come and stay with us. I do not want him to come, but he insists.”

Charlie rarely mentions his Parisian family and if he does, he speaks of them as though they were part of another story, one that doesn’t concern me. I haven’t heard him speak about Thomas before and I’m intrigued. 

“I didn’t know that you had a brother. Is he older or younger than you?”

“He is two years older than me, but we look very different. He is tall and blonde, but I am shorter and darker.” Charlie brushed a hand through his thick black hair in case I hadn’t noticed. “My grandmother believes he is not my father’s son because he is not like the rest of us. There are no blondes in our family.”

“Your grandmother told you that?”

“She confided in me once.” Charlie slumped on the sofa beside me. “I do not want Thomas to come here.”

“What is he like?”

“Thomas is not artistic like me, in fact the opposite. He is shallow. He likes to have plenty of money and will exploit anybody to make sure he gets it. He is a bad person.”

“What does he do?”

“He has worked in a bar in La Villette since leaving school and has manipulated the owners into letting him manage it. Trust me, he is not a good person.”

“I think it is nice that he wants to come and see his little brother.”

“Putain!” He is jealous and wants to make my life difficult.”

“There is the small problem of where he will stay,” I said,  “because there are only three bedrooms, and it will become very overcrowded.”

“He will be here for two weeks, and he must sleep on this sofa.”

“I suppose he could sleep on the floor in your bedroom.”

“That will not do! I do not want to sleep in the same room as my brother.”

Charlie sat brooding and uttered what I presumed were French profanities.  

“I suppose we could ask Levi if he wouldn’t mind giving up his room for a couple of weeks and stay with his girlfriend.”

“That would not do either. Why should my friend have to give up his bed for my imbecile brother?”

A few months ago, Charlie hated Levi and made the same type of comments about him that he was making about his brother now. Once Charlie had found out that Levi was straight and didn’t fancy him, he had done his best to be nice, almost as if he wanted to be fancied after all.

“There is another solution,”! I said, “Thomas could share my double bed if he didn’t mind sharing with a stranger.”

Charlie was incredulous. “That is a shocking idea,” he cried, “I have never heard anything so ridiculous. You do not know my brother and yet you are offering to share your bed with him.”

“I’m trying to come up with a compromise because the sofa will be a very uncomfortable place to sleep for two weeks.”

Charlie stretched out and appeared to be fixated on the toes of his feet. 

“I have an idea,” he said. “I think it might be better if I give Thomas my bed, and I shall share with you for those two weeks. I’ve slept in your bed once before. Is that satisfactory?”

I didn’t really know what to say, and concentrated on my book again.

“By the way,” he said, “that is a very bad book that you are reading.”