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'I need a piss,' said Nico. Though it resembled one, there was no WC in the dressing-room and no other way out except through the audience. Titz was thumping on the door. 'Can you pleeese be on stage now?' The audience were slow-handclapping. Nico hoisted herself on to the sink. We all looked the other way. Pisssssssssss ... You could hear it in the pure tiled acousrics. We started giggling. So did NICO. Titz banged on the door again. 'Tell that girl to shutthefuckup,' said Nico. 'How can I do it when she's making me nervous?'
Echo opened the door, blocking Titz's view. Her head peered round to witness a Rhinemaiden perched on the sink with ancient grey cotton drawers flapping down around her motorbike boots. Another illusion shattered. Titz led us on stage with a flashlight. Echo first, then Toby, then me. Nico was still hitching up her pants.
There was a figure, waving, at the bay window that overlooked the untended garden. Nico suddenly seemed overjoyed and rushed on ahead. Raincoat cast a glance up at the house.
'I see we 'ave Le Fils [pronounced Fills] with us, Le Vray Baujolly Newvo 'imself ... Le Kid.'
'Her kid?' I'd forgotten about the son.
'Yeh,' said Echo, 'her very own creation. Yer gonna love 'im.,
'What's he called?' I asked.
'Ari.'
'Yeh.' Raincoat glowered up at the window. 'An' we're jus' wiId about Ari.'
Ari, Le Kid, was about nineteen, the super-beautiful progeny of a union between the North and the Mediterranean, Nico and Alain Delon. Nico had a brief fling with Delon in her model days. Now Delon absolutely didn't want to know. Le Kid had turned up at the matinee idol's Paris apartment, only to be turned away by the maid. Even though Delon's mother took him in, Le Kid did not exist. Neither did he exist properly for Nico. While he was still in the womb she'd dropped acid along with the usual family favourites, and when he'd cried she found the most expedient solution was to lock him in a cupboard. It must have pained Ari to see pictures of that other Delon Jr, waterskling with Princess Pixie of Monaco. Famous folk usually buy off responsibility with money - Nico hadn't got it, Delon wouldn't give it. Le Kid opened the door.
'Maman. Maman.' They embraced. He looked over her shoulder at us. His nose twitched in that Frenchified manner, like there was a bad odeur. Who were we? More shit she'd picked up on her boots. He turned away from us.
'Maman ... suis-moi, j'ai un petit cadeau pour toi.'
We followed them down the hall, me walking backwards, clattering the harmonium against the walls.
'Ferme les yeux,' he said to her. I don't know why, but I did too. 'Bien ... ouvre!' He held out a shining new hypodermic, loaded and ready to go. Nico gasped with joy.
A truly loving son understands (and shares) his mother's needs.