by Adam Thorpe
‘All because of what happened, of course. Her saying these silly things. Finding Henri, you see. In the showroom.’
‘I know.’
‘Yes, but I have to say it, Gilles. Otherwise you might wonder why. Her mind rejected it. It was too shocking. That’s what happens. It’s called something. It’s got a name. Her mind pushed it away deep down in the unconsciousness. That’s what you call it. The unconsciousness. Where it fermented. Like M. Cuvier’s liqueur in his cellar that you mustn’t tell anybody about. That’s what it’s like. Yes. The treatment drags it up to get rid of it and she gets very confused.’
She was a little breathless, perhaps from our quick pace down the road – so quick I was having to perform little scampers every now and then to keep up.
‘I see,’ I said.
This was what the doctors had told her, obviously. She’d added the bit about old Cuvier, that’s all. My grandfather had visited us from Le Bourget and brought some Calvados a few days earlier in an unmarked bottle. There were bits floating about in it and it had filled the whole house with a smell my mother said reminded her of the sandalwood oil her grandmother used to put on cuts.
My mother chattered on and I grunted at the right moments. I could tell my mother was nervous from the way her voice had gone higher. I wondered what on earth my sister could have said that was so upsetting for everyone. Maybe she just said what she’d said to me in the shed, about hating the family and so on. I had thought once or twice of visiting Carole after school, but never very seriously. Now it seemed more attractive, and at the same time a little scary.
‘As long as they are firm with her, and use these modern methods,’ my mother said, as we turned into our road, ‘she’ll bounce back right as rain. She was such a smiley little girl. You were both very smiley. Meanwhile, we can only pray, dear.’
I thought, sprawled in my inflatable chair that evening, how it was like a suspense story – like the tale by Gaston Leroux I’d just finished. Not knowing what Carole had said was more exciting than knowing.
I had a plastic Rataplan figure with a weighted round base that wobbled and rocked from side to side for ages if you flicked him, and I was flicking him now with my foot. He was almost impossible to knock over, even if you pressed his head to the floor: he always bounced back, rocking from side to side.
That’s what everyone’s like, I thought: we don’t move anywhere, we just rock from side to side. I was half-whistling Le Roi Dagobert, and Rataplan was dancing to it, completely out of his head. That’s what everyone’s like, I thought.
I flicked him hard once and switched off the light and jumped into bed. Poor Rataplan was trapped in this desperate dance: I could hear it, in the dark, against the tiles. He’ll slowly settle after I’ve fallen asleep, I thought, still perhaps making the minutest of movements for ages into the night. The tiniest movements imaginable, not even measurable under a microscope, minuter than the moving of the hour hand on my clock, or even molecules.
11
I thought of Rataplan rocking away when I went with my mother to Mademoiselle Bolmont’s bungalow on some office business.
It was the following Wednesday afternoon. On the Tuesday there had been some bad news. The phone went in the office just after I’d got back from school.
Tuuu Tuuu, Tuuu Tuuu, Tuu—
‘Oh dear,’ my mother said into it, with her hand to her head. ‘In rags? Oh dear. No. Should I come—? No. Yes. No. Thank you so much.’
I was watching a programme about experimental cars of the last ten years. My sister had had some sort of fit and torn up her nightdress and was now tranquillised. She was fine now she’d been tranquillised. It was under control. They were showing the Ford Cougar 406 prototype, with electric doors that opened vertically and automatic gears and the most powerful Ford engine in production.
‘We’ll have to buy her a new nightdress,’ I said.
‘Please do your homework, Gilles,’ my mother said, switching off the television, as if the fit was my fault.
‘What’s tranquillised mean, exactly?’
‘Making sure she doesn’t hurt herself or anybody else.’
‘A straifjacket?’
‘No, of course not, dear. Don’t be childish. Drugs.’
On the Wednesday she asked me to go with her to Mademoiselle Bolmont. She lived about ten minutes away by car. I’d been quite a few times before, but my mother always asked me as if it was the first time.
‘She likes talking to young people,’ she said, as usual. ‘Poor thing. And I’m too tired to handle her all on my own, dear.’
Maman drove without my uncle; she’d just passed her test and he’d bought her an old green Frélgate. He’d picked it up for a song. It was two years older than me and had a radiator that looked like an electric fire. The doors were so heavy they nearly took you with them when opened. I had to sit right up to get a clear view out, and it didn’t have a radio. When I’d told Christophe, he’d scoffed, saying the Frégate was the worst-ever Renault model – it drove really badly and they’d just slapped on a lot of chrome to disguise it. I’d thought it was my mother’s driving, in fact. We pulled up very slowly in front of Mademoiselle Bolmont’s bungalow, one of a row that looked all the same on the edge of Bagneux, with big front windows like giant television screens. Mademoiselle Bolmont’s had a ramp up to the front door instead of three low steps. It made it stand out. My mother was concentrating on parking, staring at the middle of the bonnet to keep it in line with the kerbstone.
‘Remember not to mention the robbery,’ my mother said, drawing on the handbrake. ‘She’s fragile at the moment.’
I opened the door my side and said, for a joke, ‘You’ve left enough room for three brooms, Maman.’
‘Not you as well, if you please.’
Mademoiselle Bolmont greeted us very warmly, as she always did, in a cloud of talc. Her eyelashes were clotted with mascara and her lips left a mark on our cheeks as we bent over her: I checked in the mirror, which took up a whole wall in the hallway, and had to rub it off secretly. Under the perfume smell there was a staleness, which I found nice and sick-making at the same time. She didn’t seem fragile at all. We went into the sitting-room and sat down with the chocolate whirls in front of us while she wheeled herself in and out with the tea. We were not allowed to help, and the tea splashed a bit on the low formica table. Her paralysed legs were bony, I could see that, under her thin silky skirt. It felt rude, thinking about her legs while she chatted away. Supposing people could see your thoughts on a little screen set into your forehead, as people were going to be able to see you on their little telephones in 1990? God could see everything you thought, of course. Her legs were resting to one side, because they couldn’t move, like something, folded up against a wall. They didn’t move at all when she talked.
She was talking about books, as usual. She read novels, new novels by what she’d call ‘proper’ authors who ‘loved words’, although the covers always had a girl on the front with a clinging dress looking desperate or in love. She was very rude about most of the novels she read, even the ones by French authors.
‘I can tell you,’ she would sigh, patting a book in her lap, ‘this is the most boring novel I’ve read in twenty years. Have you read it?’
Even though my mother hardly ever read books, except for short religious ones the priest recommended, she would always look at it thoughtfully before shaking her head.
‘No, not that one,’ she would say, without even taking it.
‘Well, don’t bother, it’s utterly dull and pointless. I could do better myself!’
And Mademoiselle Bolmont would laugh wheezily, as if she’d never made the joke before, rippling from her waist in the wheelchair.
‘It’s amazing she’s so slim,’ my mother would always say, afterwards, ‘when she gets no exercise.’
On that Wednesday, Mademoiselle Bolmont was even cheerier than usual, talking non-stop while she made the tea.
‘I drink it
with milk these days, like the English. Just a little cloud. Soon I’ll be growing umbrellas out of my bottom!’
My mother winced a bit, even though she was used to Mademoiselle Bolmont’s odd jokes. There was a book by Henri Troyat on the table – a name even I recognised. Mademoiselle Bolmont picked it up in her long fingers, her nails painted a bright purple, and nestled it in her lap.
‘Now this,’ she said, ‘is what I’m currently wading through. Dear Monsieur Troyat.’
‘Ah yes,’ said my mother. ‘Is that the one who works nine hours a day, standing up?’
‘Standing up?’ Mademoiselle Bolmont blinked in surprise.
‘Oh, I read it somewhere,’ said my mother, blushing. ‘This is very nice tea.’
‘Do try it with milk, Madame Alain.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Jacques?’
‘Gilles. No, thank you.’
Although I’d always drink it, not wanting to be treated like a kid, I didn’t like Mademoiselle Bolmont’s tea – it was real, with tiny black curly bits in it, and tasted of old socks. It was even worse with sugar. Fortunately, the cups were small china ones that went narrow at the base like high-heeled shoes.
There was a difficult moment, with no one talking, the cups just clinking in the saucers.
‘Well, I say,’ Mademoiselle Bolmont started again, looking at the author’s photograph on the back of the book, ‘however can he stand up for nine hours? Maybe he’d be better if he sat down to it. It has virtually no plot and is very boring. I’ve turned every page but only to skim it, to see if it gets any better. It doesn’t. His last one was just the same. Rather unpleasant, it was. Pointless. I can’t remember a word of it, now. The dialogue, for instance, is meaningless. You cannot believe them for an instant.’
‘I have very little time to read anything, these days,’ my mother said. ‘Even magazines.’
‘I don’t have time, either,’ said Mademoiselle Bolmont, as if caught out. ‘I have the impression that Monday morning comes round quicker and quicker. It’s almost as if there’s nothing but Monday morning. But I must read, it’s my one great pleasure in life. Everybody ought to read. It’s just a matter of organising your time properly. You must read, Madame Alain, or your brain will go soft.’
‘I don’t think it’s just organisation, Mademoiselle Bolmont. I regard myself as very well organised—’
‘I can’t get out much, you see. I used to love getting out.’
She looked around at the small sitting-room. It had doors with corrugated glass and huge pictures of wild green horses which suddenly seemed to close in, like a trap. ‘Now the world must come to me. It’s made such a difference to my life. The job, I mean. Alain is so thoughtful. Without that I would – I would sincerely consider ending my days, Madame Alain.’
‘No, surely, Mademoiselle—’
‘Yes. I won’t go into details in front of young ears. Have another cake, dear. Life for you is spread out like a wonderful dream, it knows no sorrows. Keep it that way, Jules. I think you have a lot of promise, you know. I’m sure you do. It’s the way you look. Your eyes. A lot of promise in them, Jules.’
‘Gilles,’ I corrected her.
‘Your father is one of the saints, Jules. There’s no doubt about it. I’ve no religion myself, in fact I’m an atheist, but I recognise that Alain is one of those Christians who deserve the name. You, too, of course, Madame Alain. He has Alain’s eyes, of course.’
She patted her hair in silence. Her breathy voice seemed to settle slowly on us like a powder, as if someone had taken the cap off a bottle of talc and shaken it over us. I wondered how my uncle behaved in front of her, to make her think he was a good Christian. I felt quite proud of him, and pleased that she thought I had promise. No one else had ever said that to me in my life. The boys at school had taken to calling me Oreilles Poilues, copying Jonquille’s donkey jibe, and this made me feel stupid and hairy – as if bristly hairs were actually growing all over my face. I grinned at her. Her shiny top kept folding away from her chest, showing a lacy black hem – her underslip, probably.
‘Well,’ my mother said, ‘we don’t regard it as charity.’
‘Oh, of course not! The moment I suspected it was, I’d throw the files right back at you, Madame Alain!’
She giggled and snorted, squirming a little in her seat, her skirt and top rustling their shiny material. Then she turned to look at me again.
‘I expect you’ll be taking over, won’t you, little chap?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The business. Like father, like son.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, looking at my mother in a rather bewildered way. This idea had never occurred to me. It had never been discussed. I hated being called ‘little chap’.
‘Nobody knows,’ said my mother, ‘what the future will hold.’
‘Quite right. We mustn’t go scaring him off! I think it was a brilliant idea of Alain’s to drop the Europeans, by the way,’ said Mademoiselle Bolmont, her voice suddenly changing. ‘An excellent idea.’
‘Do you?’
‘Oh yes. Don’t you, Madame Alain? We discussed it for ages, Alain and myself. He was a little afraid of the franchise thingummy but I said you must always trust the Americans. I used to work for Pan Am, you know. I love the Americans.’
‘I didn’t know you worked for Pan Am.’
‘I was an air hostess.’
There was a little pause, Mademoiselle Bolmont studied her teacup, her head on one side as if listening for something.
‘Oh yes, I was an air hostess.’
She was beautiful enough, I thought, to be an air hostess. I imagined her as glossy, suddenly, smiling with all her teeth above the clouds, bending over on two straight legs to serve a passenger some wine or caviar in a silvery jet.
‘I found myself in Beirut after the war,’ she said, in her sad, sing-song way, ‘and my English was quite sufficient. I had all sorts of jobs. How was I in Beirut? Oh, a passionate story of love, don’t ask me now. I wanted to go to America. I joined Pan Am and met a man. A pilot, of course. He had flown in the war, over Germany. Terribly brave. Burnt all down one side of his face but so handsome and suave. He let me down. Oh, the usual thing. Wouldn’t leave his wife. So I did get to America, but only for a while. Miami, in Florida. I’ve lived a very full life. I was Miss Miami Airport 1950, I’ll have you know!’ She giggled. ‘It was between me, the hut and the windsock!’ She giggled again. ‘I’m nearly forty, you know.’
My mother looked astonished, or pretended to. It did seem a lot, although it was younger than my mother.
‘Alain doesn’t treat me like an invalid, you see. He treats me like a full person.’
My mother nodded. There was a silence with only the clock ticking over it.
‘And how’s your dear daughter?’ Mademoiselle Bolmont asked, frowning, with her head on one side like a priest.
‘Carole? Oh, she’s as independent as usual,’ my mother sighed. ‘You know my daughter.’
Then she got up.
‘We must be going,’ she said.
I was disappointed: Mademoiselle Bolmont had become much more interesting. As we were going out, I asked her what it was like to fly in a jet aeroplane.
‘Oh, I’ll tell you this, Jules,’ she said, braking her wheelchair in front of the door and waving her smooth arms about; ‘it’s like the clouds are your couch and you’re reclining on them for all eternity.’
She insisted on opening the door herself, loosening the chain with a grunt and backing off as she pulled the door open.
‘Actually,’ she added, seizing my arm, her mouth very close to my face, ‘I was too damn busy to notice a thing. What about that gardening? You did promise.’
‘Did I?’
‘Earn some pocket money? It’s such a mess, and I’m much too busy. I need someone to clip the borders, that’s all. I can’t get the right angle. My borders are so ragged. They are the frame, you see. However lovely the picture
, it is ruined by a ragged frame.’
‘OK.’
‘Thank you, Jules.’
I felt grown-up, suddenly, and glanced at myself in the wall that was a mirror. I looked like someone’s pathetic little cousin.
‘After all, it’s not Versailles!’ Mademoiselle Bolmont laughed, flinging herself back in her wheelchair so that it shifted and bumped against the flowery wallpaper.
The air seemed very fresh after the bungalow. My mother breathed it in deeply through her nose as we unlocked the car.
‘She said I can go and garden for her.’
‘I suggested it last time, if you remember. But you’re to do a proper job, Gilles.’
‘I will.’
We got into the car. The bungalow door closed.
‘How did she get crippled?’
‘Her husband drank.’
‘Husband? But she’s Mademoiselle.’
‘Fiancé, then. Don’t interrupt. They went into a tree on the fourteenth of July, so I believe. She has a wealthy brother, she tells me, who lives in Châtillon. Papa knows him. Or knows of him.’
‘He knows everybody.’
‘One has to do one’s Christian duty, I suppose,’ she went on. ‘Did you notice all the dust and dirt in the corners and under the dresser? And she gets no exercise, you know. I don’t know how she doesn’t get podgier. If you do do gardening for her, don’t let yourself be ordered about. Remember who you are.’
I thought of what Père Phare had said a few weeks back about simple deeds of charity. I could clip Mademoiselle Bolmont’s edges for nothing. I could do the whole of her garden for nothing. In my mind’s eye, I saw her garden becoming very neat and full of wonderful flowers, a bit like the park at Sceaux, with its huge mansion. I was on my knees with a trowel and she was watching me, full of gratitude among the wonderful flowers. I even imagined a fountain splashing away in the middle, transported from Sceaux, with Miss Miami Airport 1950 carved on it.
