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which would soon be empty. ‘D’you want another drink?’
    ‘Ah, I see. We’re doing it English-style: ordering another drink before we’ve finished the first. Yes. Please.’
    As Luke collected his change a guy came in and slapped Alex on the shoulder: an American, in his fifties, drunk. He was with a Spanish woman who was also drunk and a friend who was French. Alex introduced Luke and then began speaking French. Luke sipped his beer, understanding odd words but unable to join in. Then the American – Steve? – started talking at him in English, telling about the private view they’d just come from: paintings of people looking at paintings in a gallery, seen from the paintings’ point of view. Over their shoulders, over the shoulders of the people in the paintings, you could sometimes see some other paintings.
    ‘Not that you could get anywhere near the paintings,’ said the American. ‘It was far too crowded. Are you an artist?’
    ‘No,’ Luke smiled. People always assumed he was an artist. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he felt so little need actually to create anything.
    ‘You look like an artist.’
    ‘Thank you. How’s that?’
    ‘The hair, the clothes . . . What about me? What do I look like?’
    ‘He looks,’ said another man who had just pushed into the corner, ‘like an overweight homosexual trying to pick up boys half his age.’
    ‘That is not fair. Do you think I’m overweight?’ Before Luke could reply he said, ‘Have you met Michael?’ Luke smiled and shook hands. ‘Doesn’t he look like an artist, Michael?’
    ‘He look very nice. Look at that shirt.’
    ‘You like this shirt? It’s my favourite shirt,’ said Luke.
    ‘His shirt is a work of art.’
    ‘It matches his eyes.’
    ‘ He is a work of art.’ There was such a hubbub in the bar now it was necessary to yell things like this to get heard. Michael bought Luke a drink and began talking to someone else before Luke even had a chance to thank him. Alex had given up his stool for the Spanish woman who was actually Peruvian and who spoke neither French, Spanish nor English.
    ‘As far as I can make out she speaks no language whatsoever,’ Alex said, turning to Luke. ‘How’s your French?’
    ‘Terrible.’
    ‘You have to learn.’
    ‘I know. If only it didn’t require any effort.’ Someone else Alex knew, an English woman, Amanda, had just been to a film. Luke asked her about it and she began summarising the plot. It was as if something were at stake. She had to recount what happened, in exactly the right sequence, omitting nothing, incorporating each twist of the unfollowably complex plot. Once, realizing she had made an error in chronology, she even retraced a couple of minutes of exposition and started over from the point where the mistake had been made. After that hiccup she really got into her stride. There was no stopping her. Luke nodded. Alex was communicating, somehow, with the Peruvian woman and was apparently paying no attention to this scene-by-scene reconstruction of the film. Luke wondered if he could endure any more of it when Amanda’s attention was defected, briefly, by the guy she had been to the cinema with. Alex turned towards Luke again.
    ‘Quite a summary,’ he said.
    ‘I hate it when people do that. What makes them want to summarise plots like that?’
    Alex shook his head. ‘I like submarine films.’
    ‘ Above Us the Waves , Das Boot ?’
    ‘Exactly.
    ‘ The Hunt for Red October ?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Essentially, you’re a Second World War man?’
    ‘Through and through.’ They slapped hands: allies.
    ‘The Wolf Pack,’ said Luke.
    ‘The convoy.’
    ‘Torpedoes: tubes one and two.’
    ‘Depth charges.’
    ‘Periscope depth.’
    ‘The sea ablaze with oil. Survivors leaping into the blazing sea.’
    ‘Crash Dive!’
    ‘Two hundred fathoms down. Depth charges exploding all around.’
    ‘No one making a sound.’
    ‘Sonar.’
    ‘Or is it Asdic?’
    ‘I’m not sure.