downstairs are happy not to be at one of the tables upstairs.
A NIGHT IN SHIT
Inaugural Dinner – VIP List
Gustav von Aschenbach
Suzanne Bartsch
Patrick Bateman
The Baer Brothers
Henri Balldur
Gilberte Bérégovoy
Helmut Berger
Lova Berandin
Leigh Bowery
Manolo de Brantos
Carla Bruni-Tedeschi
The Castel Family
Pierre Celeyron
Chamaco
Louise Ciccone
Clio
The Albans of Clérmont-Tonnerre
Matthieu Cocteau
Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Francesca Dellera
Jacques Derrida
Antoine Doinel
Boris Elstine
Fab
The Favier sisters
His Excellency Geoffrey Firmin, consul
Paolo Gardénal
Agathe Godard
Jean-Michel Gravier
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
The Hardissons
Faustine Hibiscus
Ali de Hirschenberger
Audrey Horne
Herbert W. Idle, IV
Jade Jagger
Joss + friends
Solange Justerini
Foc Kan
Irène de Kazatchok
Christian and Françoise Lacroix
Marc Lambron
Marjorie Lawrence
Serge Lentz + the tigress
Arielle Levy +2
Roxanne Lowit
Homero Machry
Benjamin Malaussène
Marc Marronnier
Elsa Maxwell
Baron von Meinerhof
Virginie Mouzat
Thierry Mugler
Roger Nelson
Constance Neuhoff
Masoko Ohya
Paquita Paquin
Roger Peyrefitte
Ondine Quinsac
Guillaume Rappeneau
The Rohan-Chabots and family
Gunther Sachs
Eric Schmitt
William K. Tarsis, III
Princess Goria von Thurn und Taxis
Lise Toubon
Baron and Baroness Truffaldine
Inès and Luigi d’Urso
José-Luis de Villalonga
Denis Westhoff
Ari and Emma Wiz
Oscar de Wurtemberg
Alain Zanini
Zarak
Loulou Zibeline
(Marc notes with some relief that no government ministers have been invited.)
He declaims the list aloud to emphasise the musicality of proper names.
‘Listen to this,’ he declares to no one in particular, ‘it is the music of the diaspora of existence.’
‘Hey, Marc,’ interrupts Loulou Zibeline, ‘did you know that Angelo Rinaldi mentions these public toilets?’
‘Oh?’
‘Of course. It’s in Confessions from the Hills, if memory serves …’
‘Wow, so the Shit served as a confessional? That’s a new one! Let’s drink to that!’ (Marc often says this when he doesn’t know what else to say.)
Loulou Zibeline, forty, journalist with Italian Vogue, specialises in Biarritz-school thalassotherapy and tantric orgasms (two not necessarily incompatible interests). Her long nose props up a pair of red-rimmed glasses. She has the disaffected air of a woman nobody tries to seduce any more.
‘Madame,’ Marc goes on, ‘I’m sorry to have to say this, but you’re sitting next to a sex maniac.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s a dying art,’ she replies, staring at him intently. ‘But I find what you say a little worrying. All men are sex maniacs. It’s when they begin to talk about it that one has to be careful.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, I never said I was a good fuck! One can be obsessed with something in theory and still be poor in practice.’
Marc always boasts that he is the worst lay in Paris: it makes women want to make sure for themselves and usually makes them non-judgemental.
‘Tell me, since you seem to know a lot about it,’ he interjects, ‘could you give me a short list of the best pick-up lines? You know the idea – “Do you live with your parents?”, “Your eyes are like limpid pools”, that kind of thing. It might come in handy tonight, because I’m a bit out of practice.’
‘My dear, the pick-up line is immaterial, whether or not you pick a woman up depends entirely on your face, full stop. But there are
