On the following evening we discussed in depth this strange business about the names, about everyone being called George.
‘There is a way through it, you know,’ admitted George, after we had been skirting around the issue for about thirty minutes.
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, take me, for instance. Would you like to try giving me a new name? See what happens,’ he chuckled, indicating that he already knew what might happen.
My mind fell blank and my eyes looked into space, staring at the wall behind his head.
We had just finished supper and were still sitting at the dining room table. Between us we had consumed a full bottle of wine white which had helped wash down the chicken cacciatore.
Inspired by the Italian meal, it was obvious what came out first.
‘Georgio!’
Immediately, one sensed a change in the room, a sharp decrease in temperature, a general instability in all the solid things - the furniture, the books, the pictures on the wall, the carpet even - and a distinct inability to focus one’s eyes firmly on any one object. It felt safer to shut my eyes in order to quell a growing feeling of nausea in my stomach.
‘Bueno sera,’ he said.
When my eyes opened, the change in him was stunning. His hair was black, his eyes were dark brown and his face was tanned. Underneath all of these transformations it was very much the same body, the same skeleton, the same bone structure.
‘Repetilo!’ he urged me, ‘Repetilo.’
It took me a few seconds to work out what he meant.
Once again my eyes shut tight and my lips uttered another name.
‘Georgie!’
‘There you are,’ he said, ‘Now you know.’
The Italian accent had disappeared; in its place was a strong Scottish brogue.
Opening my eyes, the Italian form had turned into something else. Now his hair was red, his face sported a moustache and beard, also red, and his upper body looked incredibly muscular.
‘Try just one more for tonight,’ he advised. ‘Let’s not be greedy.’
My mind summoned up Georges, Jorge and Jerzy, but it was too tempting to avoid an entirely new name.
‘Henri!’
This time, the temperature in the room increased significantly. My face was burning. But my eyes once again remained tightly shut until the sound of his voice.
‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?’ he whispered to me; then he repeated the same phrase, singing it out loud.
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