‘Bernard.’
She stroked Violette’s cheek with her chubby little finger.
‘Isn’t she pretty? What lovely soft skin! And those great big eyelashes, they’re like butterfly wings! You just don’t want them to grow up, do you?’
She bounced off down the road like a tennis ball, the net of darkness already closing in around the trees.
Simon was well practised in taking his gun apart and putting it back together with his eyes shut. But this time he had dropped a spring and could not find it anywhere, even with his glasses on.
‘Have you lost something, Monsieur Marechall?’
Bernard was standing in the hallway, his suit hanging over his arm in its plastic bag like a sheath of dead skin.
‘No, I’m looking for four-leafed clover. One of the springs fell out, a stupid little spring!’
Bernard crouched down next to him and held up the missing piece.
‘This one?’
‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘Just hanging around, waiting for Fiona to bring back my clothes.’
‘We’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘I thought so. We haven’t been here long.’
‘Long enough. Help me up.’
Once he had settled back into his chair, Simon continued putting together the pieces of his deadly jigsaw puzzle. One by one he got the action working, loaded another round of bullets and secured the safety catch. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, governed by a force stronger than his own will. He clasped them tightly together, interlocking his fingers until they turned white. Bernard sat down opposite him at the table.
‘I know what you really do for a living now.’
‘So?’
‘So nothing. It’s not exactly your average nine to five.’
‘The job needs doing, as long as there’s a demand for it.’
‘Even so, I’d have rather you just got rid of rats.’
‘Rats, people – they’re all the same. They breed just as quickly.’
Bernard was staring at the pistol on the table. It was hard to believe such an ordinary-looking object could do so much damage.
‘Why the woman? She hadn’t done anything to you.’
‘No witnesses. Never leave any witnesses.’
‘What about me?’
‘You? Well, you’re working for me, which makes you my accomplice.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing. I’d forget the whole thing ever happened if I could.’
‘That’s exactly what you have to do. Tomorrow’s another day, after all.’
‘Yes, and it’s when we’re leaving … Oh, I met a woman earlier who does a similar sort of job to you.’
‘What woman? What does she do?’
‘Hang on, let me think … Taxi-something … She stuffs things.’
‘Taxidermist?’
‘That’s the one! She stuffs dogs, cats, boa constrictors, all kinds of dead animals. She’s Belgian and she’s retired. She invited us to pop round for a drink this evening.’
Simon stood up, rubbing his back. He had to stop himself laughing. This young imbecile was really too much – first the teenage mother, now a Belgian taxidermist!
‘Where on earth do you find them?’
‘I didn’t go out looking for her! She was the one who started talking to me. I was writing a postcard to my mother in the bar by reception. I had Violette on my lap; she was cooing over her and started chatting to me. She’s here on holiday, staying in the last bungalow along the main path. Rose, her name is. She’s getting on but she’s got all her bits in the right places. She’s expecting us at seven, but I can call it off if you’d rather.’
Simon could not help but admire Bernard’s ability to adapt to the most bizarre situations. That great twerp had a born gift for resilience.
‘Well, why not?’
‘I was worried you’d be angry. Right, I’d better go and tell Fiona – I didn’t want to say anything before talking to you … Oh and by the way, she thinks Fiona and I are married and Violette’s our daughter. I couldn’t put her straight, it would have got too complicated.’
‘And I’m the granddad, am I?’
‘No! You’re my boss, I’m your driver.’
‘Well, that’s all right then. OK, off you go, back to your little family.’
Simon could not remember the last time he had been in such a good mood. He smiled as he weighed the gun in his hand, the steel gradually warming in his palm. It was nothing but a memento now, like the tools retired labourers hold on to as a reminder of times gone by. They had come a long way together, he and his gun, but neither seemed fit for much any more. He slid it under his pillow out of habit, but something told him he would not be using it again and he felt a huge weight lifting.
Rose had everything she could possibly need in her bungalow, with glasses for every type of drink and a crocheted coaster to go under each one. Olives, peanuts, cocktail sausages and homemade crisps were piled high in cut-glass dishes. The hostess twirled around the table in a flimsy lilac chiffon negligee like a moth dancing in the light of the scented anti-mosquito lamp. She had a kind word for everyone, especially Violette, whose cheek she stroked each time she went past. Simon and Fiona were on the pastis, Rose on beer, Bernard on mint cordial and Violette on her bottle, staring up at Venus in the night sky. Unlike her neighbours, Rose had personalised her bungalow, decorating it with fairy lights, frilly curtains and pots of brightly coloured geraniums.
‘It’s another place to call my own. I’ve been coming here for so long, the same weeks every year. Francis, the manager, gets everything ready for me before I arrive. It’s like having a second home, I suppose. I like to feel at home wherever I am. The world belongs to all of us, doesn’t it?’
‘Absolutely!’
‘Namur is a pretty little town but the winter goes on for ever! Do you know Namur, Monsieur Marechall?’
‘Yes. I’m from the north, so Belgium’s just across … We used to go over to buy beer and tobacco. But I haven’t been back in a long time.’
‘It’s pretty much the same. The north will never change. And what about you, Madame Fiona, where are you from?’
‘From a care home. Don’t s’pose it’s changed much there either. My mother was Italian, I think, or maybe it was my dad … You have to make these things up, when you don’t know the truth.’
‘Of course you do, my poor darling … Well, you have your own family now. All that matters is the here and now.’
‘That’s right. Excuse me for a moment, I need to go and change the baby.’
‘Be my guest!’
‘Will you give me a hand, Bernard?’
Simon and Rose watched the young couple and their baby disappearing into the shadows. The image was almost biblical.
‘How wonderful to be young!’
‘Indeed!’
‘Can I get you another?’
‘Just a drop.’
There was a bit of peanut stuck between Simon’s teeth. He tried to dislodge it with the tip of his tongue, but there was no shifting it. Soon he could concentrate on nothing else.
‘So you get rid of rodents, I hear?’
‘Not just rodents, all kinds of pests. But I’ve just sold my company to take retirement.’
‘You’ll never look back! To begin with you won’t know what to do with yourself, but really you won’t have a care in the world … unless you worry about how long you’ve got left.’
‘I don’t think about it.’
‘Oh, I do. I don’t have a problem with dying, it’s eternity I’m worried about. The first animal I preserved was a squirrel. Poor little thing! If you’d seen the state he was in … a truck had run him over. But now he’s fresh as the day he was born! You’ll think me ridiculous, but I feel like … like I’m giving the Creator a helping hand, fixing His mistakes. Plus I enjoy needlework.’
‘Nothing wrong with that. I’ve got nothing against eternity, but personally I think
I’d die of boredom.’
‘Ah, come on, you’d get used to it eventually!’
Rose looked like a Chinese lantern. Her chubby face bobbed from side to side and her wide smile revealed all her teeth, no doubt just as false as the pearls she wore around her neck. Was falseness really the enemy of truth? Rose reminded him of the Hanoi madam who was just as happy to pocket fake dollars as real ones. Their hands were lying on the table millimetres apart. She was not wearing a wedding ring, and neither was he.
‘It’s getting chilly, I think I’ll put a shawl on.’
Simon lit a cigarette. Without meaning to, he blew a smoke ring that settled around his head like a halo. Meanwhile, in her largest saucepan, the Great Bear was cooking up a fricassee of stars.
‘Didn’t you see the way she was touching her?’
‘She likes children.’
‘Of course she does, she’s a witch! She can do what she likes with her stuffed goats, but I don’t want her coming anywhere near Violette.’
‘Fiona! You’re going a bit far, she’s just a little old lady—’
‘I don’t like old people! They stink, that’s why they put on so much perfume. They’re all at death’s door, just like your precious Monsieur Marechall!’
The nappy spread with innocent shit fell into the bin with a dull thud. Violette was lying on her back, squirming and whimpering.
‘You don’t think you’re being a teensy bit paranoid?’
‘Of course I am! That’s the reason I’m still alive today. Your boss is a hit man, Rose is a monster, and you … you’re just a stupid idiot!’
She threw herself into Bernard’s arms, sobbing and pounding his back with her fists.
‘Let’s get out of here, you, me and Violette. I don’t want us to be tainted by them. We have a right to live our lives, damn it!’
Fiona was wearing a new face. The tears streaming down it gave it the appearance of an unfinished watercolour, an island emerging from the mist.
‘Make love to me.’
‘What here? Now?’
‘Yes.’
Not easy, no, it was not easy at all, but when Violette’s right hand managed to grab her left big toe, she was over the moon. She had finally caught the stupid thing and now she was going to stuff it in her mouth. That was it: she was a big girl now.
‘We need to get you to hospital, Anaïs. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. This is a matter of life or death.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are? Already dead, are you? Know all about it, huh? No? Well then, shut your trap.’
She did not actually say this to the doctor since her jaws refused to come unstuck, but by God she had thought it. A needle had just pricked her arm, spreading its welcome venom through her body. Fanny and the doctor were talking in hushed tones in the corner. From time to time, Fanny lifted her arms and let them drop again in a symbol of helplessness, like a fledgling bird afraid to fly the nest. Georges stood with his hands clasped behind his back, in conversation with the Negress lamp. Why couldn’t they all just go away and leave her alone? … Things were going just as well for Anaïs as for the rest of them, better even, since she did not intend to carry on any longer. She just had to wait for them to get fed up and piss off. She was used to waiting, she had been doing it all her life – hanging around for buses, love, success, a phone call … Strangely, the less time she had left, the less the waiting bothered her.
The doctor was the first to leave the scene, carrying his little bag filled with needles, rubber tubes, pills and bottles. Then it was the turn of Georges, whose lumbering uselessness was beginning to get on his wife’s nerves. He did not wait to be told twice. Death, like birth, was not a sight he was madly keen to see. He was happy enough to stick where he was, somewhere between the two. Fanny, on the other hand, settled into the armchair next to the sofa where Anaïs lay, determined to watch over her, offering her puny body as a shield against all harm. It was a laudable stance, but within quarter of an hour she was snoring, her chin resting on her bony chest. Anaïs coughed and shifted until she was sure her neighbour’s nasal symphony was in full swing, before sitting herself up. It was a struggle, but she made it. Her head was spinning, but what did it matter? She had got her sea legs years ago. The pains running from shoulder to hip did not bother her any more. She had adopted them and tamed them, like mangy stray cats. Having reached the edge of the sofa, she attempted to stand, only to discover this was a risky enterprise. Crawling on all fours, she moved towards the kitchen. It was a tricky business, but more stable than relying on her hind legs. Besides, this was how everyone took their first steps and learnt to be independent. She just had to throw herself back in time, to the days of discovering the world from the ground up. Right arm … Left knee … Left arm … Right knee.
Once again, the parallel world of miniature creatures shyly gathered to spur her on. She knew she could trust the little monsters, because they were cute. They bent over backwards to help her push open the kitchen door. The floor was icy cold, each tile a territory to be conquered. With the effort of crossing it, she blew powerful gusts from her nose and mouth which scattered the flocks of grey fluff and whipped up crumbs, like an elephant stomping through the undergrowth. Anaïs came to a halt in front of the cupboard under the sink, where normal people keep their cleaning products and alcoholics keep their bottles. The last bottle of Negrita was definitely in there somewhere, but where …?
It was pitch black inside the cupboard. Anaïs groped about blindly, picking out various plastic and glass containers by touch. But danger was lurking in the absurd habit she had picked up from her mother – a house-proud woman of strict morals – of pouring the last drops of detergents, bleach and the like into empty bottles to save space. Since at Anaïs’s house the only empties were Negrita bottles, and on top of that she could not see a thing, the whole operation was very likely to end in disaster. But she was so thirsty! All around her the little creatures held their breath.
‘Now let’s see if God exists!’
She grabbed the first bottle at random and took a long swig.
Simon pushed away the flabby thigh resting on top of his and freed himself from the tangle of sheets. He felt sick. The heady smell of Rose’s perfume was overpowering. Unless it was something else, a deeper disgust at an entire existence, which rose in his throat, mingled with the aftertaste of pastis. Walking on tiptoe, he gathered his belongings and left the bungalow. The cool night air did him good but not enough to stop him emptying his stomach, clutching the rough trunk of a pine tree with both hands. He got dressed, shivering from head to foot. He had not been able to do it. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she had whispered in his ear, ‘at our age …’ Apart from a window at reception and a few street lamps along the main path, there were no lights on. It was like a graveyard. The regular ebb and flow of the waves made the dreary walk seem to go on for ever. When he finally reached his caravan, the car that should have been parked next to it was gone.
‘The little bastard!’
Bernard’s bed had not been slept in. Simon ran back out to Fiona’s caravan. Deserted. He was seized with a strange panic, as though he had died and no one had thought to tell him. Even solitude, his only companion for as many years as he could remember, seemed to have let go of his hand. The darkness was becoming denser around him, invading his nose, mouth and ears like the soot of his childhood. He staggered back to his caravan, turned on all the lights and searched under his pillow. The gun was there, warmed by the cushions but utterly useless. He sat on the edge of the bed, the weapon dangling between his thighs like a flaccid penis, staring past the half-open door into a picture of crushing emptiness. He had been scared many times before, but never like this. This was a childlike, uncontrollable fear that was slowly shutting him down like an anaesthetic. ‘Be still my beating heart.’ He felt neither hate nor anger, he just could not understand.
‘Why have you done this to me, kid? Why?’
A chemical precipitation, caused by
a complex mixture of conflicting emotions, made a warm, salty liquid spring from the corner of his eyes, a liquid he had not tasted for what seemed like centuries. The teardrop trickled through the network of lines on his cheek to the corner of his mouth, and from his lips to his chin. It felt as good and sweet as an endless ejaculation. For once, his heart was doing more than pumping blood around his body. He raised himself up painlessly, walked towards the beach, crossed the strip of grey sand and immersed himself up to the waist in the black waters. And there, swinging his arm like a farmer sowing seeds, he tossed the gun as far as he could throw it. The weapon went to join the pile of junk that carpets the sea bed, just another thing among all the others, just as Simon was only one among many humans.
‘Don’t you think we might be doing something really, really stupid?’
‘What are you talking about? Surely you don’t actually think your Monsieur Marechall’s going to shop us to the police?’
‘No, not that …’
‘Well, what then? Where do you think you were going with him? Straight into a brick wall, that’s where, or else going inside. And as for that old hag, she’d have had Violette off me and stuffed her, no question.’
‘That’s total rubbish! What the hell are we going to do in Spain? I can’t speak a word of Spanish.’
‘It’s no harder than Italian. In Italian, you put an “i” on the end of every word and in Spanish you put an “o”. Also Spain’s really close and I’ve got friends in Barcelona.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, acquaintances, but that’ll do, right? We deserve another shot at life. You have to take your chances where you find them.’
‘I suppose …’
Fiona was sitting in the back, with Violette sprawled across her lap. Looking at her in the rear-view mirror, Bernard saw the face of a stubborn little girl, closed like a fist. How could people change so quickly? Last night, in the half-light of the caravan, she had seemed so gentle, or at least so calm, like Violette after a feed. They had made love with the lightness of two butterflies, simply, without haste or hunger. She had fallen asleep, or perhaps just closed her eyes. She was breathing in time with the child asleep in the Moses basket, following the rhythm of the night. The beauty spot on her left breast was the centre of a world in which pain, fear and sadness were no more. Bernard held his breath, for fear of bursting the fragile bubble in which they were floating. Never before had he felt so complete, a man in perfect harmony with his life. He was exactly where he should be. Then she had opened her eyes so suddenly, he was startled.
How's the Pain? Page 8
