Eighty Days Blue by Vina Jackson

Author:Vina Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: azizex666
ISBN: 9781409127772
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2012-09-18T19:11:23+00:00

8

Infidelities

In theory, Dominik had been granted the fellowship so that he could research a possible project, a paper at least but maybe even a book on American expatriate writers and musicians in Paris in the immediate post-World War II years. It was a subject he found interesting and that offered extensive opportunities for genuine scholarship, as it had been pretty much neglected by other academics. However, the more he investigated the theme, the more he was losing interest in it.

He suspected he might find more research material about the subject in sources in the French capital than New York, and on a few occasions when his mood moved from indifferent to foul, during Summer’s frequent absences in the course of her tour, he even contemplated flying out of Manhattan for a week to investigate this further in France.

A thought occurred to him, though, and he fished out the paperwork he had been given after the fellowship had been agreed and checked on the specific terms underlying it. He remembered from the ad in Book Forum that it was initially on offer not just for academics and researchers but also to novelists in need of financial assistance to complete an ongoing project. His fellowship had actually been one of a dozen, but he’d only come across the other recipients at the cocktail party that had greeted the beginning of their residence in New York. Two of them – a thin blond guy from Portland, Oregon, and a squat, short-haired, heavily accented Finnish woman – had actually been fiction writers.

Maybe he could turn all these ideas and facts into a novel. Not only would it be a great challenge, but also something money couldn’t buy. He could invent a handful of new characters and have them mingling with all the real-life protagonists who had been in Paris during the golden years of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Existentialism: Miles Davis and the jazz crowd, Juliette Gréco, Boris Vian and Jean-Paul Sartre. Blend fiction and reality, and inject a dash of racy romance.

It could work, he reckoned. He had longed to write a novel for some time now, and had often fantasised about getting published.

This cheered him up no end. He’d been hoping Summer would call him that particular morning. She’d been in Maine, where she had played the previous evening, and often rang him early the following day after she had re-charged her batteries, to let him know how the gig had gone. He had stood by the phone like a teenage fool and she had never called. This was the second time this week this had happened. Following the concert in New Hampshire, she hadn’t been in touch for a couple of days. Half of Dominik felt sad and neglected, while the other half dreamed of the punishments he might inflict on her, elements of humiliation they could both get off on. Somehow, though, it felt as if his imagination was drying up.

After returning to the loft from Summer’s triumphant début at Webster Hall,

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