Murphy Meets Maria

They meet at a party. She's wearing a black dress and a diamond tiara. He's wearing nothing at all. He looks at her and he can't think of a better sight to be illuminated by a crystal chandelier. He's captivated by the dazzling vision before him, until he remembers that the chandelier is clothing his body in light when it should be clothing his clothes. He wonders if this is a dream. He says to her, "This could be a terrible nightmare, but your presence has made it the most beautiful dream of all."

"I can see that," she says.

She suggests going outside where darkness would clothe him.

"I'm Murphy," he says. It's five hours later now, after he's located his clothes, put them on, taken them off again and put on someone else's clothes. They're standing on a terrace after breakfast, with a beautiful deep blue day about to bloom above.

"I'm Maria," she says.

"It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too, assuming that's what we're doing now."

"If the meeting process takes five hours, we could be getting to know each other for years."

"I like the sound of that."

"So do I, although you saw everything about me when you saw me for the first time."

"It's hardly the same thing as getting to know someone."

"It is for me. What you see is what you get. And you got it."

"Yeah."

"And you saw everything straightaway."

"I know."

"I like keeping things as simple as possible."

"I like you, in a funny sort of way."

"I like you too, but there's nothing funny about it. It's deadly serious."

"I can see that too."

It's serious enough for him to confront his girlfriend, Lara, and tell her it's over. It's midday and all of the guests from the party are out and about, some nursing headaches in the shade, some swimming in the pool, some sunbathing. On a path through the trees, he confronts her, despite the obvious dangers. Confronting Lara is like sky diving without a parachute. You might land on something soft, but you're taking a risk.

"It's over," he says.

"What's over?"

"It. Us. Everything."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't love you anymore."

"What's love got to do with it? Or with us. Or with everything."

"Nothing. It's just another way of saying it's over."

"Wasn't it Tina Turner who sang that song?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"What's love got to do, got to do with it. I like that song."

"It's not bad."

"I loved that film about her. A woman like that deserves to have a voice like that."

"She can sing alright."

"When you hear her sing you realise that so many so-called singers can't really sing at all."

"I know what you mean. She makes them seem so fake as well."

"Yeah. Y' know, it's funny the way we agree on something like that. You can build a bond around little things like that." She smiles, then she knees him in the groin and walks away.

He decides not to tell Maria about Lara. He goes back to Maria and she asks if he's okay. "I'm fine," he says with effort.

"Will we go for a walk?"

"Just let me sit down for a few minutes."

Three days later they're sitting in a restaurant. They tell each other heavily edited versions of their life stories. He tells her about the time he dressed as Santa on Christmas to deliver presents to kids. He doesn't tell her about the time he undressed as Santa to deliver something else to a mother of one of those kids while the father was downstairs, laughing at a man with a fork stuck in his foot. This is a glaring absence in his Santa story but she doesn't notice the empty space because she's been busy constructing her own absences.

They go to Paris. There he meets Maria's sister, Kirsten, and Kirsten's boyfriend, Darren. Darren is standing on the precipice of fame. He's just signed a deal with a major record label. He can't wait to take his clothes off and dive in. He's the lead singer of a band called 'Future Fog Maker'. They used to be called 'Screaming Lord God', but the record company suggested a name change.

While they're in Paris, Maria and Murphy stay with Murphy's friend, Edel, who's a fashion designer. It doesn't take them long to get up to speed with her life of non-stop champagne and parties and fashion shows. Her husband is a playwright, and a prince is in love with her. A racing driver used to be in love with her, but now a prince from a European royal family is in love with her and her husband is a playwright. The prince wants to be known by the nickname given to him by his sister when she was three: Pkofflunnel (he added the silent P himself).

They go to parties every evening. Murphy loves the music of countless French voices, the aesthetic beauty of glamorous French faces, lit up by chandeliers and expressive eyes. They drink champagne and become lost amongst the voices that rise and dive and spin around each other like birds dancing in the air.

Edel never stops talking. She starts sentences in English or French and slips into French or English or German and throws in a few words she made up herself. Her husband, Ben, hardly says a word. He saves his words, keeping them in an internal study. He comes across new ones every so often. He'll pick them up and examine them carefully. He'll put the new word in the filing cabinet in the study and see if he can use it in a play or as a witty remark at a dinner party. "Rhubarb," he says, and everyone laughs.

When Edel is alone with Murphy she says, "What am I going to do? I don't know what to do."

"About what?"

"What does it matter what it is if I don't know what I'm going to do?"

"Fine."

"It's Pkofflunnel."

"The prince?"

"Yes. He's fallen in love with me. I don't know how to say no."

"How about 'No, I'm married'."

"This is Paris, not Tipperary."

"It wouldn't work in Tipperary either. Do you want to say 'no'?"

"I don't know, but I know I need to say 'no', but I don't know how to say 'no'. That's the problem."

"I see what you mean. What if Pkofflunnel were to fall for someone else? You know what these princes are like."

"No, I've never met one before. What are they like?"

"I don't really know what they're like either, but the point is, I know what men are like, being one myself. I know what I'm like. There I was just a few months ago, happily in love with what's-her-name, and then along comes Maria and I think, 'What's-her-name who?' He loves you because you're someone he can't have. But he'd be much more likely to love someone he can have."

"Yes, of course. I don't need to say no at all. All I need to say is, 'Who's that woman bending over to look at the carpet?'"

"The question is, what woman? Do you know a woman who'd bend over to look at the carpet?"

"I'm a fashion designer. I know hundreds of women like that. When I tell them he's a prince they'll bend over backwards to look at something on the carpet."

"You only need one. And forwards would be better. Or actually, now that I think about it... Just let me think about it for a while."

Edel thinks as well (pacing from one end of the room to the other, hitting her forehead, kicking imaginary cats) and then a name provides the electricity to light the bulb above her head. Michelle.

The vision of Michelle at the door of the ballroom provides the electricity to light up an entrance hall in Pkofflunnel's head and do something to his ballrooms. She looks at him and smiles, and Edel smiles when she looks at them.

Introduce the prince to Michelle and wash your hands of the whole near-affair.

From Paris they go to Edel's chalet in Switzerland for some skiing and more champagne and words like 'bucket' and rounds of applause. Leave Michelle and Pkofflunnel behind.

But then the prince arrives in Switzerland. They're in a bar near the chalet one evening when Pkofflunnel appears in the doorway and he pauses to let people gasp.

Edel is disappointed to see that the plan has failed and he's continuing his pursuit of her, but she's even more disappointed when she realises that he isn't really pursuing her at all -- it's Maria he's in love with.

Murphy is neither disappointed nor pleased. He's angry. He intervenes in the seduction process initiated by Pkofflunnel on Maria (it's much more romantic than this in real life). But Pkofflunnel doesn't give up. He's there in the bar every evening, always practising his process on Maria, who's showing signs that it's working.

Murphy challenges the prince to a duel because he's drunk and he happens to be in reaching distance of two antique pistols. Pkofflunnel is drunk as well and he accepts the challenge. They leave the bar. They climb higher up the mountain, into the darkness, where even the numbness of drunkenness is unable to keep out the cold, and they shoot each other despite aiming for the snow.