He was busy drying his hair when Léa arrived.
‘Morning, Martial. How is the water?’
‘Morning, Léa. It’s nice, very nice!’
Léa put her things down on a deckchair and dived in to join Odette. Even though he saw her every morning, Martial still could not get over how attractive she was. Of course, it was plain to see she wasn’t twenty years old any more, but her skin was so smooth, not an ounce of cellulite, her chest and thighs so firm … And the way she walked, standing tall and almost gliding … You know, she looked even younger than Nadine. Or not younger exactly, but more … Classy, as Maxime said every time he undressed her with his eyes, leering over his dark glasses. Martial had been surprised to find himself looking at her in the same way, and was disappointed in himself. Léa was not a flirt, she was just friendly to everyone. She was unassuming, hardly ever talking about herself or what she had done in her life. Sometimes she went out early in the morning and didn’t come back until nightfall. ‘I went for a walk.’ Yet she was always on hand to help if someone needed her. She wasn’t aloof, and everyone thought highly of her.
Martial closed his eyes and lay back with his hands behind his head, listening to the two women’s voices and the little splashing noises.
‘I read about this little eleventh-century abbey church in my guidebook, about twenty miles from here. It sounds very interesting. I was thinking it might make a nice day trip. What do you say, Léa?’
‘That sounds like an excellent idea!’
‘I’ll bring it up at the meeting next Thursday. We could set off mid-morning and have something to eat while we’re there …’
Then he fell asleep with his mouth wide open, poised to swallow up the sky and all the birds in it.
On her way home, Léa bumped into the Nodes outside the clubhouse. Marlène was wearing a blue and white striped robe and a funny little pointy hat in the same fabric, which made her look rather like a beach hut.
‘Morning, Léa, heading off already?’
‘I have a doctor’s appointment.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘No, just a repeat prescription.’
Maxime muttered a vague greeting, avoiding Léa’s gaze. She took no notice.
‘Right, see you later then. Have a good day.’
That moron had been sniffing around outside her house the previous night, as she was getting ready for bed. She had just turned off the TV and was closing the curtains when she saw a figure through the hedge that ran along her deck. She thought it must be Monsieur Flesh doing his rounds and had gone out to ask him something. There, crouching behind the bush, Maxime was pretending to tie his shoelaces. She almost burst out laughing at the guilty expression on his face, like a little boy caught stealing from the biscuit tin.
‘Maxime? What are you doing here?’
‘Me? Oh, nothing, I just came out for a walk. It’s too hot, I can’t sleep.’
His eyes were bloodshot and he smelt of alcohol.
‘Would you like a nightcap?’
‘Well, if you’re offering …’
Again she was forced to stifle giggles as he puffed out his chest and sucked in his stomach, his dentures gleaming in the half-light. They sat out on the deck. Léa fetched two shot glasses and a bottle of ice-cold vodka. Maxime could not seem to believe his luck.
‘It is hot, though, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s hot, it’s summer.’
‘Right … You … You don’t wear a wedding ring?’
‘No. You have to be married to wear a wedding ring. Like you.’
‘Of course. So you’ve never been married?’
‘No.’
‘I see. Mind if I have another?’
‘Go ahead.’
As he toyed with the signet ring weighing down his little finger, Léa could sense him planning his next move, like a hunting dog sniffing out a trail.
‘It can’t be much fun for you, being on your own …’
‘It’s my choice. And I’m not on my own all the time, I have friends.’
‘Ah yes, friends, I understand. I bet you have a whale of a time, don’t you? All the good bits, without the domestics! You’re dead right. Freedom’s what it’s all about. Marriage kills love.’
‘Why did you get married then?’
‘Oh, it’s another story for me. It was such a long time ago … Anyway, there are ways of getting around it, if you know what I mean!’
His words were accompanied by such an exaggerated wink that this time she could not help but laugh out loud.
‘Listen, Maxime, I don’t want you to get the wrong end of the stick. I’m very glad to have you as a neighbour, but you’re not at all my type.’
All at once, Maxime’s flashing neon smile went dead.
‘But … I don’t know what you’re implying … So what is your type?’
‘Someone more like your wife than you, if you see what I’m saying. Marlène is a wonderful woman.’
He opened and closed his mouth several times, but made no sound. The wrinkles on his forehead rippled like little waves.
‘It’s late, I’d better get going. Thanks for the drink.’
It was silly of her to have said it, but how else was she going to get him off her back? He wasn’t a bad person, just a little over-friendly. Sloping off down the road, he really looked like an old man.
When she got home, Léa showered, got dressed and filled a large bag with everything she would need for a day at the beach: a book, a piece of fruit, sun cream … Followed by an ashtray, a cup, a clothes brush, a trivet, and anything else she could lay her hands on. With the bag full to bursting, she stopped in her tracks.
‘What on earth am I doing?’
She looked closely at both sides of her hands, then at everything around her, the furniture … Nothing seemed palpable or tangible; she could be anybody, anywhere. She slumped onto a chair and rubbed her temples.
‘Oh God, it’s starting again …’
Maxime was lying on his deckchair dripping with sweat, but he refused to get in the water. He was sulking, and therefore not in the mood for anything. Marlène and Odette were slathering themselves with sun cream, gossiping and giggling like girls; Martial was snoring, blissfully unaware of the alarming shade of scarlet he was turning, and Léa had gone home. What a sorry bunch. They were probably better off without Léa anyway. The truth was he was still reeling from last night’s cold shoulder. A dyke, that was all they needed! … And if that wasn’t bad enough, she was eyeing up his wife, yes, drooling over Marlène! … Just you try it, go on! … That two-faced … She looked like butter wouldn’t melt. Going around smiling at everybody, passing herself off as a poor lonely widow … A lezzie, that’s what she was! A dirty bloody lezzie! … The only reason they’d bought this dump was because they’d been assured their neighbours would be of a certain calibre, no one too foreign, no dogs, no cats, no children or grandchildren for more than two weeks at a time … Well, if they were going to let lesbians in, it would be fairy boys next! … He had a mind to write to the management, he’d show them who they were dealing with! … ‘Not her type’ indeed … What did she know? You couldn’t go around judging people, just like that. All right, looking in the mirror that morning, he knew he’d seen better days, but that was only because he’d had a drink the night before … He’d take up sport again. That’s right, he would go back to playing golf. He had found a nine-hole course nearby, a bit dated but perfectly decent. The only trouble was Marlène couldn’t play any more because of her arthritis, and he couldn’t be bothered to go on his own.
‘Oh, hello, Maxime, I didn’t hear you arrive. I think I might have dozed off.’ Martial half smiled drowsily, his face now puce.
‘I wonder, Martial, do you play golf?’
As usual, Marlène stopped the car at the gate and began probing the depths of her bag in search of her beeper. Odette sat waiting next to her, watching a fly zigzagging across the windscreen.
�
��What on earth is he doing?’
Marlène looked up.
‘Who?’
‘Monsieur Flesh, over there.’
To the left of the entrance, behind a row of spindle trees, they could see him bobbing up and down with a spade in his hand, like a crazed jack-in-the-box. He was not digging but hitting something, over and over again.
‘Has he gone mad? … Oh my God, how awful!’
Monsieur Flesh had just stood up again. He held in his fist the tail of a cat whose head had been reduced to a shapeless, bloodied mass. For a few seconds the two women sat motionless before Odette leapt out of the car, followed by Marlène.
‘Are you out of your mind? What have you done to that poor creature?’
‘I’m doing my job.’
The caretaker cast an emotionless glance at the remains of the cat before flinging it up in the air, where it followed a smooth parabola before landing in the wheelbarrow with a dull thud.
‘Why did you have to kill it? You could have just chased it away.’
‘And then it would have come back, bringing another one with it, and then another … Believe me, I know what I’m doing. It’s for your own good.’
Marlène was biting her fist, unable to tear her eyes away from the dead creature.
‘But really, with a spade …’
‘When you do a dirty job, you have the right to do it the dirty way. Have a good day, ladies.’
Monsieur Flesh grasped the handles of his wheelbarrow and pushed it away, without a hint of remorse. Odette brushed a fly away from her face.
‘What a brute! I always thought he looked the violent sort.’
‘And with a spade as well …’
‘I’ll bet he’d do exactly the same to a human being.’
‘Now, I think you’re going a bit far, Odette. I’ll admit Monsieur Flesh doesn’t exactly seem like the sensitive type, but he’s just trying to do his job. We can’t blame him for that. Are you an animal lover, Odette?’
‘Not especially – I wouldn’t club one to death though … What about you?’
‘I gave it a try. We got a dog after we were burgled the first time, some kind of sheepdog. We had to let it go; it was biting everybody, even us.’
‘Oh, this fly!’
‘What fly?’
‘It’s been buzzing around me since this morning and it’s really starting to get on my nerves! It was there at breakfast, at the pool, in the car and now …’
‘The same fly?’
‘I can tell it is. No question … Right, I suppose we should be off if we’re to get those sardines for the barbecue.’
Their faces lobster-red, hair plastered to their foreheads, the four women were cooling off in the clubhouse lounge, sitting around the computer looking at the photos of the eleventh-century abbey church taken that morning. Every so often, one of them would catch sight of herself leaning romantically against a pillar or gazing up at the ogival arches, would bring her hand to her mouth and cry, ‘Oh, how ghastly! I’m so unphotogenic.’
Causing the others to reassure her in unison, ‘Don’t be silly, you look lovely. It’s the flash, it wipes everything out.’
The solemnity of the setting had led them all – even Léa – to adopt the same expression reminiscent of a constipated Virgin Mary. Only Nadine wore a wide grin, like a slice of watermelon. It should be said she had twice claimed a need to use the facilities, sneaking out for a quick puff in the chapel courtyard. Even now, her retina was still throbbing from having stared too long at the psychedelic light show of the stained-glass windows, and the other women’s voices sounded distant and distorted, as though coming through a tube.
This job was really beginning to grow on her. Of course, it was all a complete con, but at least everyone was getting something out of it … She got on well with the three women; the two men made only brief appearances, like actors playing bit parts. It was rather like going to visit her aunties for the day. Odette was a born organiser and loved to be in charge. In fact, she arranged almost everything and no one seemed to mind, they were all in agreement. It didn’t really matter to them where they went, whether it was an exhibition, a craft market or an abbey church; they just enjoyed spending a few carefree hours in each other’s company. What’s more, Nadine was being paid for her troubles, which meant she had finally been able to get her toilet flush fixed. As she had got to know them better, she had realised that, leaving aside bank balances and a few years on the clock, there really wasn’t that much difference between her life and theirs. Especially Léa, who was single, just like her. Wasn’t Nadine’s little house, like Les Conviviales, a kind of bunker where she too lived tucked away in her own little world? She had to laugh, really. Having spent years living in a commune, carrying the cards of all sorts of wacky organisations, fighting for countless lost causes, she had wound up so disillusioned that she had said to herself if she could not change the world, she would at least make sure the world did not change her. Had she managed it? It was doubtful, to say the least. In any case, it seemed to her now that these wealthy old people were also misfits of a kind, a species left to ensure its own survival, rebels almost.
Odette switched off the computer with a sigh of satisfaction.
‘I’ll print off the best ones tomorrow for our album. What a pity Martial didn’t come. I wonder how Maxime managed to drag him along to play golf. Martial hates sport … Damn, missed it!’
She had just slammed her hand down on the clubhouse folder. Frowning, brow furrowed, with her nose in the air, for a few seconds her gaze followed the winding path of a fly only she could see. Ever since ‘the cat day’, Odette had been tormented by this fly, the very same one. She had told everyone about it but still no one else had actually seen it – except Martial, but he was only pretending.
Marlène stood up, fanning herself with a medical journal.
‘When are they going to sort the air con out in here? That fan really isn’t up to the job. I think I might go for a swim.’
A wall of heat hit her the moment she stepped out of the door. The pool looked white-hot, as though filled with boiling mercury. Blinded by the glare, she screwed up her eyes and shielded them with her hand.
‘Ah, here come our returning champions!’
Maxime’s car was making its way down the road, but it was not him driving. The coupé passed right in front of Marlène, stopping outside her house. Martial was behind the wheel, wearing a strange look on his face. Next to him in the passenger seat, Maxime seemed to be trying to climb inside the glove compartment. The four women dashed towards them.
‘What’s the matter with him? What happened?’
Martial looked like an elderly little boy waiting to be told off, with his baseball cap, Bermuda shorts flapping about his skinny legs and the massive two-tone golf shoes Maxime had lent him.
‘He seized up.’
‘Seized up?’
‘Yes, took one swing and then … crack.’
Maxime was still peering into the glove box, both hands clinging to the dashboard.
‘Get me out of here, damn it!’
Taking every possible care, they eventually managed to prise him from the car like a winkle from its shell, and carried him, bent at right angles, to his bed. He looked like a colossal foetus. With tears in her eyes, Marlène stroked his head, saying, ‘My poor darling’, over and over.
And he replied, ‘Blasted bloody stupid fucking game!’
In contrast to him, the others stood perfectly upright around the bed.
‘Has he seen a doctor?’
‘Yes. He gave him a sedative. I’ve got a prescription here too for some shots …’
On hearing this word, Maxime tried to pull himself up, which only served to worsen his pain. He hung there speechless, eyes bulging and mouth wide open.
‘We’ll leave you be. If you need anything at all, Marlène …’
‘Thank you, thanks very much.’
They crept outside without making a sound, ex
cept for Martial, whose studded soles clattered on the paving stones. Odette shrugged.
‘You’d have been better off coming with us, but there you go … Nothing wrong with you, is there?’
‘No. I’m just a bit knotted up. I don’t think I like golf.’
‘Are those the only shoes you’ve got?’
Martial had looked down at the grey socks and orthopaedic sandals that were permanently attached to his feet.
‘No, I’ve got the ones I wear in town …’
‘OK. What size are you?’
‘Forty-one.’
‘I’m a forty-three. Mine will be all right on you, better too big than too small.’
It was nice driving with the top down. The breeze went to your head, like champagne. Unfortunately, Maxime was going rather too fast, sitting back in his seat, hands in peccary-leather fingerless gloves gripping the wheel, a black and gold leaf-patterned cap perched above his Ray-Bans.
‘Churches, pah, honestly! Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. After St Peter’s, in Rome … Have you been, Martial?’
‘No. It must be quite something!’
‘It’s big, bloody huge! There’s marble and gold all over the place! You name it, they’ve got it! Now that’s what I call a church! As for this St Whatsisname’s Abbey … who gives a damn?’
The golf course was like a mini Switzerland, a land where nature had finally been tamed by man. The trees had been given a short back and sides; the plastic lining of neat little ponds had been cleverly camouflaged by rows of bamboo and the grass had been perfectly trimmed to three different lengths, from the rough to the green via the fairway. Maxime had explained all this to him while pointing out the various stages of the course with the end of his iron, like a general preparing for battle. A Swiss general, that is, setting out to occupy nothing but his own time.
‘And what about those sandy bits over there?’
‘They’re the bunkers. If your ball lands in there you’ll have a hell of a time getting it out again. Best to steer well clear. The red flags in the distance mark where the holes are. Some of them take three strokes, others four or five, depending on the difficulty of the course. Ah! Did you hear that bell? That means the players ahead of us have moved on to the second hole. We can get started. This little plastic mushroom thing is called a tee. I’m going to place it right here and put my ball on top of it. Watch closely …’
Moon in a Dead Eye Page 4
