Holiday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years: two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder. Frédéric Beigbeder

have you seen my stuff?’

      ‘Um … all over the place.’

      ‘Well, which article is your favourite, then?’

      ‘Well … all of them.’

      It is clear that the girl has never read a word that Marc has written, but what does it matter? She’s cured his hiccups, so that’s something.

      ‘Mademoiselle, may I offer you a glass of lemonade?’

      ‘Oh, no,’ she’s annoyed now, ‘I’ll get you a drink. I’m in PR, I can claim it back on expenses.’

      Marc was right. He is unquestionably in the presence of a fine example of what ethnologists will later refer to as the ‘eighties woman’: contemporary, insufferable, wearing suede loafers. He can hardly believe such a thing exists, still less that he has managed to get close to such a specimen.

      Before brutalising her on the bar, he is keen to verify one last detail.

      ‘Why do you work in PR?’

      ‘Oh, it’s my first job. But so far it’s been really positive.’

      ‘Yes, but why choose PR?’

      ‘Mostly because I’m a people person. You get to meet people in PR.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Well … It’s a rapidly expanding sector of the communications industry. When other sectors are moribund, you have to know how to reorient your skills to a sector with potential for growth. There are whole areas of the economy that are basically dead.’

      Phew. Marc breathes a sigh of relief. His theorem remains well founded, even if this latest guinea-pig took some time getting there. He must factor this into his calculations: the third ‘why?’ evokes in PR personnel a latency of time before producing necropositive results.

      He slips his arm around the girl’s waist. She lets him. He strokes her back (she’s wearing a bra with three hooks, a good omen). He slowly brings his face closer to hers … when suddenly all the lights go out. She turns her head.

      ‘What’s going on?’ she asks, getting up and leading him onto the dance floor.

      A clamour swells from the guests crowded round the foot of the DJ booth. Joss Dumoulin’s face pierces the darkness, lit by a beam of orange light. He looks like a Halloween pumpkin (in a double-breasted dinner jacket).