Karen

The photos are much better than the story . They all bring back such memories, and on the reverse of each one, Karen has added a little message. I can barely read some of them now – the ink has faded, and my eyesight is rubbish, and I have lost my reading glasses. I can see they all have exclamation marks at the end though.

One day I did a life drawing of her – it turned out quite well. She took it home with her and put a photo of it in the little book. I don’t think people sunbathed topless in Canada much at the time, but she soon lost her inhibitions, although she temporarily regained them when her family came to visit.

It was funny in Nice – the etiquette of when you could and couldn’t take your top off. On the beach it was odd if you had it on. You could do it on your balcony, or in your garden. Anywhere else was obscene.

Even the prostitutes who stood each day on the Avenue de la Californie were strangely coy. They all wore fur coats, with nothing underneath except possibly a necklace, and every now and again they would open their coats, briefly, before shutting them once more. It wasn’t like they needed to keep warm – it made us laugh whenever we drove past.

Karen didn’t understand the rules very well at first. She would spend hours lying on the balcony getting brown. That was why she made such a good model. It’s always hard to get someone to stay still long enough. The balcony was at the front, overlooking the busy main road. A stone balustrade surrounded it so you could do more or less what you wanted on there and nothing much could be seen by passers by.

I can’t remember what it was now that made her leap up in the middle of her modeling session. It must have been something spectacular – a hot air balloon drifting by maybe? Something she had to get across the road double quick to take a photograph of anyway. She always had her camera right next to her just in case. She was very fast. One minute she was there stretched out in front of me, the next she was leaping down the steps, two at a time and running for the gate.

We all watched from our vantage point. The traffic literally screeched to a halt for her. I don’t think she realised her faux pas until she was actually on the other side of the road. All the cars were giving her appreciative hoots. She stood for a minute, like a rabbit in the headlights, and then she understood there was no way out. She looked up at us but we were all laughing too much to do anything. So she squared her shoulders, held her head up high, and marched back across the road, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Karen was one of the kindest people I've ever known. She was always laughing, always looking on the bright side, but she also had a great talent for quiet sympathy. I never saw her angry with Charly about his drug habit – not once. Not even when he fell backwards off our balcony one afternoon and nearly broke his neck.

He hadn’t looked off his head – he never did. We were all together, eating olives and drinking pastis. Charly was sitting on the edge of the balustrade with Marco, and the next minute he just wasn’t there anymore. Marco went pale and ran down the stairs.

We just sat there, not quite understanding what had happened. Soon after, they came back. It was remarkable – Charly just looked a little dazed, nothing too bad – it was quite a height he’d fallen from. Karen didn’t say anything. Her smile wasn’t so bright, but there was no anger in her eyes – only gentle understanding.

I was on the receiving end of that look too, towards the end of our time together, and if I squint, I can see the warmth repeated in the words she wrote on the back of one of the photos.

In that one, we are in the sitting room of the little cottage that belonged to Charly’s parents. We used to go there for weekends. It was in the Arriere Pays – the mountains. I can’t remember how far it was but it took ages to get there because the roads were so winding; twisting up and up, and the higher we got, the tighter the turns became

Marco used to drive and it was terrifying. He’d been doing that journey all his life and he never braked. He was the worst driver I’ve ever known. Once we were on the Grande Corniche between Nice and Monaco – another winding road with nothing to one side of it. He was going really fast and suddenly he turned right round and said cheerfully “this is where Princess Grace died”

The cottage was in the middle of nowhere – the nearest neighbours were across a wooded valley and halfway up the next mountain. It was only really used for camping out in, so the furnishings weren’t anything special. In the photo, the room is a tip. It’s taken at a slight angle too – I am guessing Karen was as out of it as we look, squashed together on the battered brown leather sofa.

There’s a table in front of us. You can see beer cans, empty glasses, Rizlas, crumbs, an overflowing ashtray, a pair of sunglasses, a lighter and a pack of Marlboros. There’s a narrow little shelf above the sofa, and a shotgun is balanced on it.

Reiner is at one end – he is wearing his hat and his dark glasses. He doesn’t look very alert. I am perched on the other end. I am half smiling and staring at the other side of the room. I look really off my face on something. Mike is in the middle. I think he is there because he was the biggest and so we just kind of slotted ourselves around him. He isn’t looking at anything. His eyes are closed and he is drinking from a big wine bottle.

On the back of the photo Karen has written that I mustn’t forget the wonderful, fantastic times we had, despite the bad ones. She was the only one who saw both.

Mike moved in later than the others. I think I brought him home one night and he just never left. He was at my polytechnic in London, doing European Studies, although I hadn’t known him there.

We used to go to a bar in the old part of town. It was called The Hole in the Wall and it was run by a lovely Englishman and his French wife. It was where we drank mostly, and some nights Mike would play a set with another English boy called Tony. He wasn’t a student – I have no idea what else he did. Sometimes I did the backing vocals with another girl. It was fun.

Afterwards, we’d stumble across to some big square with sculptures and fountains and floodlighting, and splash around there before heading home.

I knew he was a bastard. I often saw the girl before me – the one he’d just dumped. She was Icelandic, and she would come into the bar every night they played there, and sit alone in a corner, staring at him with her great big sad blue eyes.

The thing was, he was so funny. He made me laugh almost all the time. We both had partners. Mine was in Geneva and his was still in London, but being away for a year, our other relationships were kind of on hold – it was an unspoken agreement.I thought it would be ok. I really did. Just a temporary thing, just fun. It was fun until the end.

We’d go for long walks all the way down the Promenade des Anglais. There were always people roller-skating along there, and even though I didn’t have skates on, I felt like I was gliding fast too – he made everything feel a little bit more exciting like that.

We’d lie on the beach for hours together, listening to Golden Brown and Dark Side of the Moon on our walkmans. He showed me how, if you got the volume just right, you could mix the music with the sound of the waves. It was wonderful. He was also very good in bed – I suppose it must have been all the practice he’d had. He showed me stuff there too, that I hadn’t tried before. I was really, really happy.

It got harder to think of it as just a temporary thing – and I always knew that wasn’t good. I always knew that one day, I’d be like that other girl, but I was so happy that it was easy to ignore those little worries. I tried to shut them out and hoped everything would be ok in the end.

It wasn’t so easy to ignore the noises from the next room though. I honestly had no idea what it was before I went in. It was Laurie and Marco’s room and they were away somewhere. I went over and opened the door. I couldn’t understand it at first. I’m sure people had cheated on me before, but I’d never actually seen a boyfriend fucking someone else. It was horrible. I was so shocked. It was Charly’s little sister.

I can’t remember now if they saw me. I didn’t say anything – didn’t make a melodrama out of it. I wouldn’t have known what to say. I went back to my room. I felt terrible, just full of rage. I’m not usually violent but I really wanted to break something. I’m not sure why. I think I went into the kitchen and smashed some empty bottles. It didn’t help. I was still shaking with anger and maybe also humiliation – no one had made me feel like that before. I felt like I needed to do something else.

It never occurred to me to go and throw something at them. Instead, I found a razor blade and I remember looking at my arms. I definitely didn’t want to kill myself, but somehow I started cutting myself, over and over and over. I’d never done it before, and certainly never since.

It was so strange. It didn’t hurt – not at first – it was oddly soothing, watching the red stripes appear. I knew where the big veins were – I wasn’t stupid – I avoided them. I didn’t cut too deep, but I went on and on and on, until both arms were covered in blood. Then I felt calmer – it was as if my anger had seeped out with the blood. I was only sad then. I went to bed feeling numb.

The next morning we’d planned to go off together, Karen, Charly, Neslihan and some others, for the day, to another beach. Maybe it was Villefranche, or Juan-les-Pins, or Antibes. I can’t remember. Mike and Gisele weren’t there when we got up.

I wore something light with long sleeves. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to be the centre of attention; I hadn’t done it for that. I just wanted to forget about it and pretend everything was normal.

It was so beautiful there. A tiny sandy cove surrounded by green hills. You could see big villas half hidden in amongst the trees. The August crowds hadn’t arrived yet. We had it all to ourselves. The sky was as blue as the sea and in my memory all you could hear was the waves gently lapping against the sand.

No one noticed except Karen. I kept my arms to my sides as I walked slowly into the sea, deliberately dragging behind the others so no one could get too close. I had forgotten how much the salt water would hurt though. It stung so badly, it brought tears to my eyes, and then I was crying properly, and I kept swimming further and further out so no one would see.

Karen was an athlete and she was faster than me. It wasn’t long before she caught up. We didn’t say much – she didn’t bombard me with questions. She just gave me that gentle sympathetic look that I’d seen her give Charly, and then, for the rest of the day she kind of guarded me, kept the others away. She must have explained it to them but they respected my space and I was so grateful. All I wanted to do was lie on the sand with my eyes shut.

It was sad when we got home, and for several weeks afterwards. I felt awful about Gisele. It hadn’t been her fault at all. Mike had told her we’d split up. I never blamed her, but when her family found out they didn’t speak to her for ages. I asked Karen to explain but it didn’t do any good.

Soon afterwards, we started to leave, one by one, handing on our stolen bicycles to the next tenants with our best wishes. And Karen was right. I never did forget the fantastic, wonderful times, despite the sad parts, and I will never forget that quiet, gentle look on her face either.