The thoughts that surround you

by Dan

Marie-Claire never understood what the moustachioed Englishman had been doing in the back streets of Naples selling effigies of the Virgin Mary but didn’t ask. He’d pretended to be poor like her and dressed in an approximation of her rags to be like her perhaps, sweet but pathetic.

She encouraged him initially, after all Peter had had some useful friends. He was a reasonable stepping stone but her eyes were on the prize from the start and life as a Prima-Donna socialite would not involve this chubby faced minstrel.

However, upon rejection, his behaviour became startling.

“He turns up everywhere!” She said to Sylvie, her flatmate, as they strolled the Boulevard St Michel, “he’s like a stalker, I mean, when we went to St Moritz with Aristotle Onassis I’m certain he was the waiter who served my napoleon brandy!

And what about the time he showed up on the beach in Juan-Les-Pins at the precise moment where my carefully designed topless swimsuit “magically” came undone?”

“Darlink! Just tell ze police, zey will give him an, owyousay,… teastraining order!” said Sylvie who was keen to change the subject onto her ongoing affair with Sacha Distel, “Now, speaking of brandy lets go to a café and you can show me how to drink wizout wetting your lips!”

In the café Marie-Claire felt the world at her feet! The sun shone and life was good, a handsome millionaire waved at her from his table which she acknowledged with the softest flutter of her Belmain scarf. An amusing accordion player strolled the café tables playing a jolly waltzing melody.

“Dududu, Dududu,- du du!”.

“Now what about zat racehorse darlink Aga Kahn sent you for Christmas! How is he doing?” asked Sylvie

“Who? The Aga Kahn or the racehorse?” laughed Marie-Claire “I don’t know, I keep him just for fun, for a laugh,…hahaha.”. She winked at the millionaire.

The accordion player arrived at her table, she gave him 10 Francs as it was a nice day, the best he’d get in his miserable life. But to her surprise he stopped playing and returned her money.

Then he spoke, “Look into my face Marie Claire.” she obeyed instinctively, “And remember who you are! then go and forget me forever, but I know you’ll still bear the scars! Yes you will!”

She looked away and by the time she looked up again he’d disappeared. The moment unsettled her though and she was unable to concentrate on her flirting.

She never saw Peter (it was him of course) in the flesh again, but a month or two later she heard that strange accordion tune emanating from a radio set. Then she saw him singing it on the television and then everywhere she went all she heard was him, on every radio show for the rest of her life singing those grossly unfair, untrue lies about her. presenting her as some kind of social climber.

How she came to hate that tune, it entered her dreams, it drove her mad! She was abandoned by her jetset friends, even Sylvie, who eventually received her own racehorse from the Aga Kahn.

She died penniless and alone in a Naples backstreet in 2016.

Peter, pop’s greatest one-hit-wonder, lived long enough to witness her demise and note with satisfaction how well he’d been able to see inside her head.

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