Back in Paris for 'a quiet, sane fortnight', Sasha Jensen has just been rescued by a friend from drinking herself to death in a Bloomsbury bed-sitter.
Despite a transformation act, new clothes and blonde cendré hair dye, Sasha still feels 'not quite as good as new'. Streets, shops and bars vividly evoke her Paris past: feckless husband Enno, her dead baby, sundry humiliations in abject jobs...
One night, a gigolo mistakes Sasha for a rich woman - she still has her fur coat - and their subsequent liaison somehow distills the essence of all that has gone before.
Despite a transformation act, new clothes and blonde cendré hair dye, Sasha still feels 'not quite as good as new'. Streets, shops and bars vividly evoke her Paris past: feckless husband Enno, her dead baby, sundry humiliations in abject jobs...
One night, a gigolo mistakes Sasha for a rich woman - she still has her fur coat - and their subsequent liaison somehow distills the essence of all that has gone before.
