‘Who cares, I’ve got another one.’
The trouble was that in order to fetch it, Anaïs would have had to get up, go into the kitchen and bend down to open the cupboard under the sink, which was all too much for her now. Everything seemed out of reach. The world was shrinking a little further from her each day. She might not have a phone, but that dolt Bernard could still get in touch. He knew how to get hold of her; he just had to give her neighbour, Fanny, a ring … But no! He would leave his poor mother to die like a dog while he had a ball with that fancy friend of his! Well, they could all go to hell, the whole damn lot of them!
‘What do you think you’re looking at with those dead eyes, you stupid cow?’
The Negress went on stoically shining her sixty-watt light beneath the dusty raffia shade. She had seen all this many times before – around seven o’clock most evenings in fact.
‘One day I’ll drop dead and then you’ll all be sorry! “Ooh, where’s Anaïs? Where is she?” Well, Anaïs won’t be around any more. So long, suckers! No one left to give a shit about your stupid games and dirty tricks! I’ll be up there, on high, in the great big empty hole where the Good Lord’s supposed to be, and I’ll sit there on that old bastard’s throne and I’ll be the one in charge – God knows I couldn’t do a worse job than him! I’ll be the one laughing then, when I’m pulling all the strings, ha! No, actually, actually I’ll drop everything. I’ll make feathered hats for the angels and if they won’t wear them, I’ll send them to hell and roast them like chickens! Round and round I’ll turn that spit, round and round …’
She was rotating her right arm so enthusiastically that she fell off the sofa.
‘Shit, I’ve hurt myself!’
An unfamiliar crowd of microscopic creatures gathered around her body, like the Lilliputians surrounding Gulliver, a motley crew of nature’s embryonic creatures and freakish prototypes, too insignificant to be named. All seemed as taken aback as she was at the encounter.
‘It’s funny, you think you’re on your own, and then …’
Anaïs fell asleep, a beached whale snoring in a miniature world known only to alcoholics and saints.
The merguez were curling up on the barbecue, oozing a rust-coloured oil that made the coals flare up. Fiona was turning the sausages with a long-handled fork, leaning back and shielding her eyes from the smoke.
‘You know, that Monsieur Marechall of yours doesn’t only kill cockroaches.’
Bernard was absently bouncing Violette up and down on his knee. He had not touched the glass of rosé Fiona had just poured him. It had been difficult to give her a chronological account of the morning’s events. Everything was so mixed up, his dream, the aquarium, the man dying amid the piranhas, the Monopoly money … He could not make head or tail of any of it. In the space of forty-eight hours he had been catapulted into another universe in which only Violette and Fiona seemed real. He clung to them like a shipwrecked man to a life raft.
‘Cut some bread, will you? The guy’s a professional, a hit man, like in the movies. Except this isn’t a movie,’ added Fiona.
Bernard could not take his eyes off the sharp knife Fiona was using to slice the tomatoes into perfectly even rounds. He had never imagined life could be so fraught with danger. He held Violette tightly. Her vulnerability made him feel safe and he never wanted to let her go. She was his shield, his lucky charm.
Violette wriggled about in her nappy, her eyes, mouth, nose, ears and every pore of her skin wide open to each new sensation, which she recorded like a human computer. She was not thinking about anything, imagining anything or asking herself any questions and consequently did not waste time looking for answers. She was happy just to wave her arms and legs about like a beetle on its back. Staying alive was all that mattered. There was the sky, the sun and the sea, and that was enough. Her avid pupils took in all the essential details. She also knew how to shit and piss, which she duly demonstrated to stop the knee she was sitting on from jiggling.
‘Fiona? I think she needs changing.’
‘Again? Can you watch the merguez?’
Mother and child disappeared inside the caravan. Bernard turned over some of the sausages, which were already burnt to a cinder. The wind had picked up enough to make two or three multicoloured kites twirl gently in the sky. A black dog ran after them, barking. Between the sky and the water, the horizon stretched wide as a taut rubber band.
‘One of these days it’s going to snap.’
‘Bernard!’
‘Ah, Monsieur Marechall, are you feeling better?’
He looked like a scorched tree rooted in the sand, against a clear blue sky of the type usually found only in travel brochures.
‘We’re going.’
Bernard finished swallowing his mouthful of merguez sandwich.
‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat before—’
‘We’re going.’
‘OK, Monsieur Marechall, I just have to grab my jacket.’
Fiona was looking daggers at Simon. Violette was asleep on her chest, her mouth hanging open.
‘It’s not nice, what you’re doing. Not nice at all.’
‘No one asked your opinion.’
‘Well, I’m giving it anyway! You’ll be dead soon but you’re too shit scared to go on your own. Why can’t you just leave Bernard be?’
Simon did not answer. He was gazing at the sea. There was no land in sight, not even the tiniest island. Bernard came running out, putting his jacket on as he went. He looked like a kind of cormorant, clumsily gearing up for its first flight.
The interior of the car smelt of sand, salt, curdled milk and baby wee.
‘You stink of piss.’
‘I know, it was Violette. Shall I wind down the window? Oh, and where are we going?’
‘I’ll tell you.’
The traffic was moving easily as they drove along roads with curious names: Gingembre, Estragon, Genièvre, Cannelle, Place du Volcan, Passage du Thym and Passage de l’Origan, Rue des Anciens-Combattants-de-l’Afrique, Rue de la Marne, Rue du Chemin-des-Dames and finally, after Carrefour du Souvenir-Français, Rue du Rêve.
‘Stop here.’
Outside number 12, a nondescript-looking man was loading suitcases into the boot of a dark-blue Audi. A tall, horsey blonde woman stood perched on her high heels, craning her neck anxiously about her.
‘Now, Bernard, you’re going to get out and ask them the way to Rue Jean-Mermoz.’
‘Rue Jean-Mermoz, OK. Then what?’
‘Then you leave me to do the rest. That’s it.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Go on, then. Take the map – make it look as though you’re lost.’
The closer Bernard got to the couple, the more it felt as if he was walking the wrong way up an escalator. The short distance between them seemed to go on for ever.
‘Excuse me, I’m lost. I’m looking for Rue Jean-Mermoz.’
The man was sweating. There were dark patches under the arms of his short-sleeved shirt and his balding head shone like a polished banister knob.
‘Don’t know it. Haven’t got time.’
‘But it’s somewhere near here, if you look on the map …’
The man examined the map with eyes like round marbles. The tall, horsey woman trotted over.
‘I know where it is. Go back the way you came, then take—’
She didn’t manage to finish her sentence. The barrel, fitted with a silencer, made a little plop! sound and she fell to the ground like a tree trunk sawn off at the base. Simon aimed his gun at the domed forehead of the short moustachioed man.
‘On your knees. Open your mouth.’
J.-P. Bornay obeyed – or rather, his body did, and a tiny bit of his brain. As for the rest, the lights were out and there was nobody home. Everything had happened so quickly, he was beyond fear. Simon took a handful of Monopoly money out of his pocket and stuffed the notes between Bornay’s teeth.
‘Eat them! I said eat them!’
He began chewing slowly, wild-eyed. The map slipped from Bernard’s hands and came to rest against the railings of a large house.
‘You’re a fool, Bornay.’
Plop! A dark hole opened up in the brow of the kneeling man and his eyes glazed over with the vague stare of a newborn baby. As he fell forwards, Simon kicked him back.
‘It’s done. Let’s get out of here.’
Bernard would have liked nothing better than to get out of there, but his feet seemed to have sunk into the tarmac.
‘Are you coming or what?’
‘Monsieur Marechall … I’ve shat myself …’
‘Fiona will sort it out.’
Simon got behind the wheel, since Bernard was not in a fit state. He drove cautiously, obeying stop signs and red lights.
‘I feel like a glass of Suze. Do you?’
‘No.’
‘Wait for me out here then.’
Bernard did not feel like anything. He was as numb as a slab of frozen fish. His soiled underpants were stuck to his buttocks but he felt neither shame nor discomfort. He could have stayed like this for hours, days, years, thinking of nothing at all, oblivious to everyday life marching by on the other side of the windscreen, left, right, left, right …
Simon downed his Suze at the counter of Bar de l’Espoir. The bar’s name made him think: What was the use of hope, anyway? It served no more purpose than what he had just done, but that was simply the way it was and you had to live with it. Every time he ran out of arguments, as happened often, his father would hurl this maxim at him. It was straightforward, no-nonsense, to the point; a kind of magic formula.
The sand castle Fiona had built for Violette was quite special, with four turrets, a curved doorway and a winding road leading up to it. But the waves had already started to gnaw away at its foundations. Just her luck: clever Mummy, she’ll put it back together again. The sea is mean. It draws you in, withdraws and then, as soon as you turn your back to it, comes and snatches back everything it just gave you. So much for Mother Nature. Fiona’s mother, on the other hand, had been more straight with her; all she had ever given her was a childhood in care and her first name. It wasn’t so bad, her name. Everyone had called her ‘Fion’ when she was a kid. When she turned eighteen, she had tried to find her mother but it was complicated; there was a ton of paperwork to fill in. She gave up. She thought about going on one of those TV shows that reunites long-lost relatives, but what would have been the point? What would they have had to say to each other? And so she’d got pregnant with Violette by the first guy who had happened along. All that mattered now was the two of them together, four arms, four legs, two heads. As long as they had each other, they had twice the chances of getting by. Battered by the waves with their lace of foam, one of the turrets collapsed.
The only sun on Violette was a single ray which scorched the end of her nose, in spite of the hat Fiona had made her out of the newspaper. If Violette had been able to read the article hanging over her left eye, she would have learnt that the man known as ‘The Butcher of the Ardèche’ had just been arrested. Though come to think of it, she probably would not have cared a jot. The only things she was interested in were her wiggly toes. When she could finally reach them, she would be a big girl.
‘Anaïs, can you hear me? Georges, I think we should get her to hospital.’
The word ‘hospital’ was banned under Anaïs’s roof, a taboo subject never to be mentioned. No sound came out of her mouth but she began rolling her eyes wildly while wringing Fanny’s wrist. She was no longer averse to the idea of kicking the bucket, but it had to be in her own home. It was ashes to ashes, dust to dust – and there was no shortage of that here. The feather duster would just have to wait.
‘At least go and get the doctor! Don’t just stand there!’
Georges had made love to Anaïs once, a long, long time ago. Back then, Anaïs was what was known as ‘a fine specimen of a woman’. This was in the days between the dirty ginger dyke running off and the dogs coming along. Fanny had gone to stay with her sister in Montélimar for a couple of days, he couldn’t remember what for – a new baby, was it? Or a funeral? Anaïs had read his fortune with tarot cards … No, actually it was some Chinese thing, I Ching. She used these wooden sticks and read baffling stuff out of a fat yellow book, like ‘to retire is favourable’. In those days, retirement was the last thing on his mind: he only had eyes for those two big breasts resting on the open book, which he wanted to grab with both hands and bury his face between. The future mattered to him only when placing bets. He had opened another bottle of wine and they had rolled about on the sofa, which squeaked even then. It was over quickly, but it was good. They parted on friendly terms and it never happened again.
‘What the hell are you waiting for, Georges? Can’t you see she’s gone blue?!’
Georges left the house. He passed Jean Ferrat outside the bakery.
By the time Fiona had taken care of his clothes, Bernard had stepped back into his old skin, but not his old life. Nothing would ever be the same again. While Monsieur Marechall slept in the caravan, Bernard went for a walk on the beach with Violette nestling against his shoulder. He walked a certain distance before turning round and going back, over and over again. It was not the same sky above him now, nor the same sea. Everything had changed, but no one else had noticed. It all had the whiff of an illusion, an artful fake. Nothing was certain any more. The rocks could be made of cardboard, the pine trees out of balsa wood; Violette might be nothing but an inflatable toy, the sun a spotlight and himself just another walk-on actor. Life had lost its substance. All it had taken was a little plop! for everything to vanish, without explanation.
There was a small souvenir shop selling postcards next to the campsite reception. Having promised to send one to his mother, Bernard paid it a visit. The postcard he chose depicted a sunset so dazzling he almost needed sunglasses to look at it. He sat at a table in the adjoining bar and ordered a mint cordial. Violette was still asleep, glued to him like a leech. He could not think what to write, so he began with the address, chewing the cap of his pen while he waited for inspiration. ‘Dear Mother … [Was she really that dear to him?] I’m down at Cap d’Agde which is … an up-and-down sort of place. [‘Up-and-down sort of place’ didn’t really mean anything, and yet it summed it up perfectly. You could go from heaven to hell here and not even notice.] The weather is good. It’s nice to see the sea, which is bigger than Lake Geneva.’
Bernard put down his pen and drank half his glass of mint cordial. The ice cubes had melted to the size of cufflinks. The sight of the green syrup took him back to the aquarium and made him gag. The little girl started to wriggle, dribbling into the neck of his T-shirt. Instinctively he jiggled her up and down, which made his writing wobbly. ‘The sea isn’t green here, same as the Red Sea isn’t red. Monsieur Marechall told me that, because he’s been there. It just shows you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’ Bernard drained the last drops of his drink. The ice had completely melted. He had nothing else to say so he rounded off with: ‘I’m fine and hope you are too. Lots of love, your son Bernard.’
A rush of sadness surged from his chest to his eyes. He would have liked to send his mother a message in a bottle, saying: ‘Come and get me, Mummy, it’s too grown-up here!’ But it would never arrive. He stuck on a stamp and slipped the postcard into the back pocket of his jeans.
‘What a lovely baby! Is it a little boy or a little girl?’
‘A little girl.’
Sitting at the next table was a podgy woman, with a mass of curly hair like a panful of macaroni. She looked like a cartoon fairy godmother.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Violette.’
‘Violette! It’s good luck to be named after a flower, you know. My name’s Rose.’
And she really was rosy, everything from her skin to her clothes, but not her eyes, which were periwinkle blue. She looked well over fifty and was drinking a strawberry milks
hake.
‘Are you here on holiday?’ she asked.
‘Yes and no, a bit of both.’
‘I’ve been coming for years, same weeks, same bungalow. I’m a creature of habit. I’m from Namur, in Belgium. And you?’
‘Lyon.’
‘Thank heavens for that! I’m not keen on Parisians, they’re so snooty! Are you having a nice time?’
‘It’s OK.’
‘You must be here with your wife?’
‘Um … yes, but my boss as well. My wife’s at the dry cleaner’s and my boss is having a lie-down.’
‘I see … You must think me awfully nosy, but what do you do for a living?’
‘Driver.’
‘How wonderful! You must travel a lot. I’m a taxidermist. Well, I’m retired now, I just do it for fun.’
‘Taxi— So a bit like me, then?’
‘Oh, no! I’m a taxidermist, I preserve dead animals.’
‘Ah, you stuff things?’
‘That’s it. I used to work for museums, now I have private clients, mostly old ladies who can’t bear to be parted from dead pets – dogs, cats, parrots, all sorts. Last time it was a boa constrictor!’
‘A boa, really … My boss works in a similar field, although he doesn’t do preserving. He’s a pest controller; he gets rid of cockroaches, bugs, mice, rats …’
‘I’ve done rats too! How fascinating, I’d like to meet him!’
‘We’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘Oh, what a shame! Well, how about this evening? Come for a drink at my bungalow. It’s the last one, over there, under the big pine tree.’
‘I’ll have to ask him …’
‘Yes, of course. I’m sure he’ll agree to it. I’ll expect you around seven.’
Rose was barely taller standing than she was sitting down. She called over the waiter.
‘Gégé, put these two drinks on my tab, would you? So I’ll see you this evening, Monsieur …?’
How's the Pain? Page 7
