Gilles: ‘The lucky bastard! He’s never had to worry about being on his own before … I would ask him to come and live with me at the house. Since Fanchon left, there’s plenty of room. I only have the kid every other weekend. And actually it would suit me to have someone help me with the rent … But will he want that? Hey, did you know about Sylvie?’
Laure: ‘No, she never mentioned anyone. I knew their relationship wasn’t great any more, but there was never any question of a lover. In fact she disapproved of that kind of thing. I often used to tell her to have an affair, to give her confidence, nothing serious, but it didn’t seem to appeal to her. You think you know people, then it turns out …’
Gilles: ‘Fanchon and me, we told each other everything. But at the end of the day, the result was the same, except Fanchon isn’t dead.’
Laure: ‘Well, you know what I think about marriage. Here’s to being single! One boyfriend after another and no more than one night under the same roof.’
Gilles: ‘Yeah, right. You just can’t hold on to any of them, that’s all. You’d like nothing better than evenings in, drying nappies and cuddling up on the sofa. I don’t know anyone keener to settle down than you.’
Laure: ‘Me?’
Gilles: ‘Yes, you. But to avoid being disappointed, to preserve your ideal of married life, you only let yourself fall for passing Californians.’
Laure: ‘You’re talking crap, Gilles. Anyway, Helmut isn’t Californian.’
Gilles: ‘He is just passing through though.’
It was funny to hear them discussing him and chatting on the other side of the wall. Fabien felt as if he didn’t exist any more, as if Sylvie’s disappearance had caused him to disappear as well. Perhaps death was contagious. Or he was morphing into Peter Brady, from H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, Sylvie’s favourite hero. When they met she had told him that when she was little she had never missed an episode of that serial. That should have put him on his guard. It was hard to compete with someone like that. She had some strange ideas, like her great regret that she had never managed to become an anaesthetist. He wondered if in fact she had succeeded, at least with him. It was odd, he had expected to see some mark on his face, a scar from Sylvie’s death, but there was nothing, not one new wrinkle, not the slightest redness in the middle of his forehead and yet, God knows, the light from the fluorescent strip over the basin was unforgiving. All that remained of Sylvie was things: pots of cream, lipsticks, mascara, a toothbrush, tweezers, nail files, brushes … What was he going to do with all that detritus? Nothing. He was going to do nothing with it. He wasn’t going to give them to the poor, or burn them; he wasn’t going to touch any of it. He could just disappear, close the door and go and take up residence somewhere else. They weren’t quite right, those two who were cleaning and sweeping in the kitchen: it wasn’t that he was incapable of living on his own, it was just that he could only contemplate solitude if someone else was with him.
He remembered Gilles and Fanchon’s apartment as a cosy, comfortable jumble of furniture lovingly selected from junk shops, souvenirs of exotic trips, rugs, atmospheric lamps, etc. Now all that remained were pale rectangular patches on the yellowing walls, a scant few pieces of furniture – a round table, three chairs, a telly and a sagging sofa on which Gilles sat cross-legged, a dressing gown round his shoulders. He was smoking weed and a thick cloud of smoke floated above his head. He looked as though he had been abandoned in the middle of an ice field with various toys – a giraffe, a big red lorry, wooden blocks, little dismembered figures, and some other more or less identifiable items.
‘The bailiffs or a burglary?’
‘Fanchon. Take a seat.’
Fabien sat down amidst the ruins of a devastated multicoloured Lego town.
‘It’s the lack of curtains that makes it look empty. Curtains are important in a room. But I kept the fridge, the cooker and the TV. How do you feel?’
‘I feel nothing. As if I’m on automatic pilot. I suppose that’s normal at the beginning. I hardly noticed this week go by; I just slept.’
‘You were right to come here. It’s not good to stay there all by yourself. Make yourself at home. Léo is a cool kid, you’ll see. I told him you were going to come and live with us. He was really pleased. He gets bored at his mum’s. Try some, it’s Colombian. It’s been years since I smoked anything this good. It’s better than Valium.’
The weed filled his mouth with a powerful peppery taste. Coils of smoke twirled in a ray of sunlight.
‘How did it go?’
‘What?’
‘The funeral.’
‘All right. Good weather. Laure and your father-in-law squabbled a bit; they both wanted to take charge of things. You know what they’re like.’
‘No one said anything? I mean about me not being there …’
‘Whisperings here and there. Nothing too bad. Given the circumstances, most people understood. Anyway, they couldn’t say anything in front of your father.’
‘How was he?’
‘Monolithic. He told me to look after you and that he was sorry.’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘I don’t know … Anyway, in the meantime you can sleep in Léo’s room. I’ve put his bed in my room. It will be fine like that for the weekend, and as you can see, there’s plenty of space for him to play in here. Guess what? Yesterday she came to take the TV away! Can you believe it? She earns twenty thousand francs a month and she wanted to take the telly from me! I was gutted. I haven’t even got enough to pay the rent. She’s crazy.’
‘She’s hurting.’
‘She’s hurting? What about me? I’m hurting and I’ve got no money!’
‘Shall we roll another one?’
An open space filled with toys and smoke. Fabien decided he liked the new décor. After half an hour neither of them were giving a thought to their pitiful status as abandoned males. They were on all fours on the carpet building a dream Lego city and arguing over the bricks.
‘No! You can’t have the chimney. I need all the chimneys! It’s for a reception area for Santa Clauses. Don’t you get it?’
‘OK, but pass me that red staircase; everything in the temple has to be red.’
Why did no one ever point out the delights of unemployment? Whilst everyone else was dashing about, coming and going, bent under the weight of their responsibilities and worries, two middle-aged mates, one widowed, the other divorced, were happily playing Lego at four o’clock on a weekday afternoon.
‘Gilles, can you hear animal scrabblings in the kitchen?’
‘That’s Casimir. The stupid bitch took the hamster cage without noticing that he wasn’t inside. I’ve bunged him in the oven in the meantime. Otherwise he eats everything.’
Something approaching life began to flow in Fabien’s veins.
For more than three weeks, Fabien had woken up each morning in a universe populated by little blue rabbits, musical boxes that churned out old-fashioned airs, soft toys in various stages of disintegration, Fisher Price toddler toys and felt-pen scribbles on the walls, which he did not let himself try, Champollion-like, to decipher. Fanchon was so taken up with her work that she left the child with them two, three and then four days a week. Which meant that the apartment pretty soon became one giant child’s bedroom. Gilles and Fabien were living in Léo’s playground. Their chief occupation consisted of leaning on the windowsill watching the world go by. Comfy dressing gowns and cigarettes for the grown-ups, an egg-spattered Babygro and whatever came to hand to suck for the boy. They counted the fire engines, the ambulances, the police cars. They whistled at girls, spat on passers-by. They lived the high life, all boys together.
‘Fabien, what shall we have for supper?’
‘Dunno … Rollmops? Nuggets? Something like that.’
‘OK. I’ll run down to the shops before they close. Can you bath him?’
Life rolled on, imperturbable, as if it was actually going somewhere. It dissolved in Léo’s bath where
the yellow ducks and green fish floated.
Had he known it was possible to live like this, he would have married Gilles as soon as the kid was born. Fanchon sulked every time she came. She hadn’t anticipated a rival like Fabien. His widowed state still prevented her from attacking him directly, but she always found something to gripe about. It was never clean and tidy enough, Léo ate all the wrong things at all the wrong times, he used swear words. Gilles retorted that Léo was much happier here than he was with her, for one thing. And for another, she was perfectly happy to use them, rather than paying for a babysitter. This was inevitably followed by tortuous arguments about money which always ended in yelling and the slamming of the door.
But apart from these little storms which quickly became like a ritual that had to be gone through rather than genuine rows, everything was set fair like the weather. You could hear people in the street already talking about holidays, the sea, the beach. The most organised among them were planning who would look after their cat or their plants for the month. It was possible to stay longer by the window.
Fabien was astonished at how fast he was getting over his loss. When he forced himself to think about Sylvie, like an invalid testing the progress of their convalescence, he felt as if he were looking back at someone else’s memories. Perhaps that was what was meant by ‘turning the page’. The blank whiteness of the new page gave him vertigo. So he began to darken the page by writing: ‘Martine Arnoult, 45 Rue Charlot, Paris 3rd.’
Through the window of the Celtic café, Fabien watched the two women load bags and tennis racquets into the boot of the big grey BMW. The older woman took the wheel, with Martine Arnoult in the passenger seat. The car started up and disappeared round the corner. That made three Fridays in a row that Fabien had witnessed the same scene. They wouldn’t be back until Monday afternoon.
The Celtic café was almost exactly opposite number 45 Rue Charlot and therefore an ideal observation point. Fabien spent hours there nursing a beer or a coffee, pretending to write or to read the paper under the perplexed eye of the owner, who couldn’t decide whether to treat him like a regular or a dodgy customer, or both at the same time. Fabien knew he should make an effort to reassure him, to exchange a few words, perhaps to spin a yarn to explain his constant presence, like, ‘I’m writing a dissertation on 45 Rue Charlot,’ but he had never been able to bring himself to. He didn’t know how to make small talk or crack a little joke that would hit the right note. Each time he had tried, it had fallen flat. In his mouth the simplest words became complicated and provoked the exact opposite effect of what he was aiming for. So he stuck to ‘Good morning/good evening/please/thank you,’ accompanied by a smile too ingratiating to seem sincere.
‘Excuse me, Monsieur, how much do I owe you?’
‘Two beers? That’ll be twenty-eight francs.’
As he was waiting for his change, Loulou, stuck like a limpet to the bar, gave him a conspiratorial wink, to which Fabien replied with his all-purpose little smile. What was the meaning of that wink? He had no idea. Perhaps it was because Loulou also spent hours at the Celtic, although with a much more obvious motivation than Fabien. The other morning he had watched as Loulou ordered his first white wine of the day. The patron had filled the glass to the brim. Loulou, his hands flat on the bar, had waited until no one was watching to quickly grab hold of the glass. But his hand had been shaking so much that half of the contents had spilt onto the bar and most of the rest down his jacket. He had nodded to the patron for a replacement. And so on until he could empty his glass without spilling a drop. Then, satisfied and as proud of himself as if he had accomplished some sporting feat, he had looked at his hands which were finally free of the diabolical shakes, and he had smiled. The day could begin. Everyone needed a reason to live. The alcoholic’s was very simple: it was the next drink. Life reduced to the minimum, the almost perfect sketch.
For Fabien it was Martine Arnoult. His intentions towards her were somewhat vague. They could be described simplistically as ‘That man stole my wife; I’m going to steal his.’ His brain, in the absence of his still-convalescent heart, could not conceive of starting a new existence without the presence of a woman. Circumstances had offered him Martine on a plate; it was the obvious course of action. Even though he hadn’t expected love at first sight, he was still disappointed when he got a look at her. Despite being much younger than Sylvie, the other man’s wife looked singularly uninteresting. She was a pale little blonde of about thirty, with staring blue eyes, practically no lips, and dressed in navy and beige. She looked like an over-exposed photo, with so little presence that one wondered if she was capable of casting a shadow. Although her shadow was in fact Madeleine, the other woman who had accompanied her to the morgue in Dijon and drove the grey BMW. He had discovered her name one day as he waited behind them in a queue at the newsagent’s (‘Madeleine, I’ve forgotten my wallet …’). Madeleine appeared to be made of sterner stuff. She was a muscular fifty-year-old with the sharp eye of a bodyguard under a fringe of brown hair sprinkled with grey. They were never apart, except for once when Fabien had been able to follow Martine to the Monoprix. She had bought mushrooms in brine and toilet paper, which he found surprising purchases as he couldn’t imagine Martine cooking an omelette, still less defecating. But aside from that deviation, Madeleine did not let Martine out of her sight. They went to the cinema together, to the theatre together, to restaurants, to the Luxembourg gardens, always together. They were like the Ripolin brothers. Fabien was very careful; he was wary of Madeleine who seemed to be endowed with an animal instinct. Once he had caught her eye. He seemed to hear her say, frowning, ‘I’ve seen him somewhere before.’
As long as he stayed within the perimeter of Rue Charlot, he could pass for a resident of the neighbourhood, but when he followed them further afield, he took care to keep his distance. To make things easier he bought himself a reversible jacket and a wig, which allowed him to change his look quickly. He hadn’t been able to find out much about Martine, except that she smoked Winston Ultra Lights, was always willing to go where Madeleine wanted her to, had no taste in either clothes or food; in short, that she floated in life like a foetus in formaldehyde. But it was precisely that troubling vacuity that drove Fabien to fixate on her even more. No one could be that insipid; she must have a secret, a hidden source of interest. And why was Madeleine fussing round her like a mother hen with a chick?
Fabien was aware that he needed to get on with his investigations, first because he was growing weary of these fruitless tailing expeditions and secondly because he was worried that the owner of the Celtic would one day report him to the authorities.
There was a fire engine parked outside Gilles’s apartment and a little group of people were talking and pointing at his window. Loud recriminations, which Fabien recognised as being from Gilles and Fanchon, could be heard.
‘Yes, OK, stop going on about it; no one was hurt!’
‘Are you being deliberately stupid? His big wooden lorry! It could have hit someone on the head!’
Fanchon was beside herself. Steaming with rage, she was pacing the sitting room waving her arms as if she were drowning. Gilles shook his head, looking at the ceiling as he lay stretched out on the sofa. His dressing gown had flapped open, revealing his flaccid penis. Léo was sitting quietly in a corner, sucking the pages of a book.
‘Looks like I’ve arrived at a bad moment. What’s happened? There are firemen outside.’
‘Léo threw all his toys out of the window while this idiot was snoring, completely out of it.’
‘I wasn’t completely out of it! I was asleep because I was exhausted, because I spent the night looking for work.’
‘Until six in the morning? You’re taking the piss!’
‘No, in show business you work all night!’
‘Show business, my arse!’
‘Ask Fabien!’
‘Hey, you two, calm down. It’s true Gilles had a meeting—’
‘You stay out
of this! You make me sick, both of you!’
‘Well, if you looked after your son a bit more, this wouldn’t have happened. You’re always going off here, there and everywhere.’
‘Because I’m working, damn you!’
‘Not this weekend you’re not. Madame is going to Deauville with … what’s this one called?’
‘Bastard.’
‘I’m sure that suits him very well!’
‘That’s it, I’m out of here! I’ll come back and get Léo on Sunday evening, about eight.’
Fanchon grabbed her bag, a big soft bag filled with heaven knows what that she always had with her. She hugged her son close, showered him with kisses then left the apartment without a word or a glance. Gilles, Léo and Fabien counted: fourth, third, second … then dashed to the window. At that moment Fanchon emerged from the building. Léo shouted, waving his hand, ‘Maman! Look, Maman!’ Fanchon was unsure whether to blow him a kiss – Gilles and Fabien might think it was for them too. She hastily kissed the tips of her fingers with a strained smile. Then she disappeared into the little red car driven by a large man of the same colour. Gilles pretended to wipe his forehead.
‘You saw me, I was fine when I got back this morning … Then, it’s true, I had a bit of a slump this afternoon. A sleepless night – I’m not twenty years old any more … And this little tyke took advantage of that to … Never throw things out of the window, Léo, understand? Shouting, spitting, maybe, but never throwing things!’
‘Papa! Papa! Big Nits, Big Nits!’
As one man they leant out of the window to see ‘Big Tits’, the chemist, close up her shop. She smiled when she spotted them and waddled off along the boulevard like a big hen. The three stared at her rump until she was out of sight.
‘We’ll eat early tonight – it’s the Seven Mercenaries on telly.’
‘I won’t be in this evening.’
‘Why not – a date?’
The Front Seat Passenger Page 3
