This is Life

by Dan Rhodes

JEUDI

  IX

  Nearly twenty years earlier two boys of eight, best friends and next-door neighbours, had been allowed out by their mothers on two conditions: that they stay together at all times, and that they keep out of trouble. They had not hesitated in accepting these terms. Trouble was the last thing on their minds. Being out in the city alone was enough excitement for them, and they set off through the streets to the Canal Saint-Martin to watch the boats go by.

  The boys, Dominique Gravoir and Léandre Martin, knew the canal well, having walked there with their families for as long as they could remember. Léandre Martin liked that it shared his name, and he had always thought of it as his canal. They threw stones in the water, stood beside locks as barges made their way up and down the waterway, and when the canal disappeared underground they walked through the streets until they got to the point where it re-emerged, at Port de l’Arsenal, where the boats, owned by rich people, were bigger, and were there to be stared at. Dominique Gravoir and Léandre Martin identified the one they liked above all the others, and agreed that one day they would sail a boat just like it along the Seine to Le Havre and out on to the open sea.

  From the Port de l’Arsenal, they walked by the river, along the Quai Henri-IV, and watched the big tourist boats go by.

  It was Léandre Martin who first saw the cormorant. He watched it dive, then waited for it to come back to the surface. After a while, it reappeared. Léandre Martin said nothing, but he kept his eyes on the bird. It dived again, then, after a long while, rose once more to the surface. It gave him an idea for a game.

  Dominique Gravoir liked games. If anything, he liked them a little too much. He was a personable child, but whenever there was a challenge before him he would rise to it with a single-mindedness that was absolute. People had noticed this about him, and had often commented on his determined streak. It wasn’t the kind of determined streak that would ever result in a display of bad temper, but on the rare occasions when he was not victorious in whichever game he was playing, he would quietly and seriously reflect on his performance, and work out ways to do better the next time. Nobody knew until it was too late quite how deep his determination ran.

  When Léandre Martin told him his idea, Dominique Gravoir accepted the challenge straight away. Léandre Martin had thought carefully before mentioning the game, and had only decided to tell his friend because it wouldn’t pit them against one another, and their day, which had been such a success so far, would not be blighted by competition. Instead of boy against boy, it would be boys against bird.

  The challenge was simple: they would watch the cormorant, and when it went under the water they would each hold their breath until it rose again. The aim was for them to beat the cormorant every time. They would work as a team, and as long as one of them beat the bird, they would both consider themselves victorious.

  The cormorant dived, and the boys held their breath.

  It was too easy. The dive was short, and disappointing, and they wondered whether it would be much of a game after all. They kept their eye on the bird, hoping for a tougher round, and soon it went down again. This time it was under for longer. Their eyes scanned the water, waiting for it to reappear. It seemed to be staying down forever.

  When at last it popped back up, a few metres from where it had gone down, the boys finally breathed again, and were elated at having beaten the cormorant again, this time in a closely fought battle. As they regained their breath they kept their eyes on the bird, waiting for the next round. Before long it went underwater again, and again Dominique Gravoir and Léandre Martin held their breath.

  Their eyes scanned the surface of the river as they waited for the bird to reappear. Léandre Martin often thought back to this third round of the game, and when he did it was as if he was still there, standing on the quay with Dominique Gravoir by his side. He felt the pressure building inside him as he willed the bird to return to the surface, and this pressure turning to pain in his lungs, and his head. It felt as if his eyes were about to pop out, and the veins in his temples were ready to burst open. The bird remained resolutely underwater as Léandre Martin fought his instincts. His body was crying out for breath, and he knew that he needed it, but he would not let the bird beat him. He crouched into a foetal position, hoping this would help him, but it was no use. He could stand it no longer. His mouth opened, and air flooded back into his lungs. Dizzy, he stood up, accepting defeat.

  He looked over to Dominique Gravoir, and saw that he was standing still, with a familiar look of complete determination on his face that told him that while Léandre Martin may have given up, he was not going to let this bird beat them. The boys were as close as brothers, and Léandre Martin knew that his friend would never cheat. There was no way he was secretly breathing through his nose, as other boys might have done. Every day since then, Léandre Martin had wished he had somehow stopped him right then. If only he had playfully bumped him, or tickled him under the arms, or even punched him in the belly. Anything to get him breathing again. It might have put him in a bad mood, but he would have got over it and they would have been friends again by the end of the day.

  Dominique Gravoir’s skin turned a shade of purple that Léandre Martin had never seen on a face before. His eyes were almost closed, staying open just enough for him to survey the surface of the water. His fingers clenched into fists. Léandre Martin started to worry.

  ‘Well, you’ve beaten me,’ he said. ‘You and the cormorant have won.’ Dominique Gravoir gave him an angry look, and Léandre Martin understood why. They had gone into this as a team, not in competition with one another. Dominique Gravoir had not beaten his teammate; he was now holding his breath for both of them.

  His face betrayed the pain he was experiencing. ‘I think you should stop now,’ said Léandre Martin.

  Dominique Gravoir shook his head.

  ‘I expect the bird’s surfaced downriver.’

  Again Dominique Gravoir shook his head.

  Léandre Martin knew that the bird hadn’t surfaced. There was an expanse of water before them, and the cormorant was nowhere to be seen. He was worried now. ‘Is that it over there?’ He pointed. ‘I think I can see it.’

  Dominique Gravoir was not fooled. There was no cormorant. With a horrifying mixture of determination and panic on his face, he fell to his knees. It was as if he had known what was going to happen.

  ‘Give up,’ said Léandre Martin. ‘We can’t win every time.’ By this point he was shouting. He looked up and down the quay but it was quiet. The nearest passers-by were a long way away, and walking in the wrong direction. ‘Breathe. Just breathe.’ At least he had said this. At least when he looked back on this day he knew he hadn’t stood silently by and let it happen. He had done as much as an eight-year-old boy realistically could. He looked helplessly around him, wishing he had never thought of this game.

  Dominique Gravoir slumped on to his side, but his eyes stayed open, fixed on the water as he waited for the bird to surface. A man had appeared, walking in their direction along the quay. ‘Hey, you,’ called Léandre Martin, defying his mother’s instruction not to speak to strangers. ‘Come here.’ The man saw the collapsed child and rushed over. ‘Make him breathe,’ said Léandre Martin.

  The man tried to force a finger into the boy’s mouth, but it was clamped shut. Dominique Gravoir shoved the man away, and was still again, looking out at the water. The man assumed he was having some kind of fit, and he called to a woman who had appeared on the deck of a boat that was moored some way along the quay. The woman could see that something was wrong, and she called out to them, saying she would radio for an ambulance.

  Dominique Gravoir kept on looking out across the water, his eyes now wide open. And then something happened to them. They were still wide open, but there was a glassiness to them. Léandre Martin could tell that his friend was no longer looking for the cormorant. He was still.

  The bird had beaten them.

  The man didn’t know what to do
. He pumped the boy’s chest, and tried to breathe into his lungs, but his mouth remained clamped shut. Léandre Martin shouted for his friend to wake up, to start breathing again. He was frantic, and he was crushed by guilt. This had been his game, his idea, and Dominique Gravoir had been holding his breath for the two of them.

  Minutes later the paramedics arrived, and Dominique Gravoir was at last surrounded by people in uniform who knew what they were doing, and who tried their very best for him. Léandre Martin went with them to the hospital in the back of the ambulance.

  Later that day, Dominique Gravoir’s mother wept as she was told by a doctor that her son had symptoms consistent with asphyxiation. At this point they had no idea whether or not he would regain consciousness.

  He never would.

  Léandre Martin never looked for a friend to replace him.

  And he never found out what had become of the bird.

  X

  At eight thirty in the morning, Aurélie Renard sat on a bench in the garden at the centre of the Place des Vosges. She had not slept well.

  It had been almost midnight by the time she and Herbert had got back to her apartment the night before. As they headed home from the bus stop, Aurélie had stopped to buy a kebab. This was something she did every once in a while, and normally she thought nothing of it, but it hadn’t seemed quite right having a baby with her as she waited alongside the motley collection of late-night customers for her pitta bread to rise.

  When they had at last made it home, it had taken her a long time to get the baby settled. She realised he didn’t have pyjamas, so after she had put him in a fresh nappy and brushed his teeth, procedures he yielded to with nonchalance, she dressed him in his new Eiffel Tower top and Mona Lisa trousers. Their fabric was soft, and she hoped he would be comfortable.

  He was wide awake, and showed no sign of wanting to go to sleep. She hummed fragments of lullabies to him, she read him passages from inappropriate books, and she cuddled him, but nothing would wind him down. He seemed hell bent on staying up for an all-nighter. She didn’t like the idea of him sleeping on the floor, and had decided to have him by her side in bed. Hoping to inspire him to become at least a little bit tired, she turned off the main light, leaving only the kitchen spotlight on, with the door open so she could just about see. She tucked him under the duvet, and he lay there staring at her.

  This was the first time they had spent time together without there being some kind of immediate drama about the situation. It was nice, but even so it was time to sleep. It had been an extremely long day. She took a close look at him. The bruise hadn’t got any bigger, which was a relief. She closed her eyes, and hoped this would encourage him to start thinking about drifting off. It didn’t work. He rolled towards her, and kept patting her face. She took his hands in hers, and not for the first time she marvelled at the difference in size. Then she closed her eyes again, and once again he patted her face until they re-opened. His eyes were open wide in the near darkness, and he looked beautiful.

  ‘You are a handsome boy, Herbert,’ she said. She knew it made no sense, but she felt proud of him. He pulled a face and made some noises in return. Some of them almost sounded like words.

  She wondered what on earth his mother was doing, handing over her beautiful boy to a complete stranger for a week, no matter how kind that stranger’s face. She must have been having a breakdown. She had certainly been acting strangely, her mood shifting every few seconds. If that was the case, Aurélie told herself, then she was doing valuable social work, taking the pressure off a stressed mother, allowing her some breathing space. Maybe the call she had made had been to her therapist, who had told her that handing the baby over to a stranger who had just thrown a stone at his face was a terrific idea, that it would give her just the opportunity she needed to relax. She hoped that when the week was up and the time had come to hand him back, she would find her fully refreshed and ready to take care of her son again.

  It was half past one by the time he finally fell asleep, and Aurélie at last began to drift off. She was jolted awake by the sound of her phone’s ringtone. She had recently changed it, and realised now that she hadn’t made a good choice. It was an ear-shattering sequence of apparently unrelated beeps. As she leaned over the side of the bed and fumbled to find the phone in her bag, she heard a gurgle. Herbert had been woken by the noise, and was rubbing his eyes and looking around in the darkness. Aurélie found the phone, but it had already stopped ringing and had gone to voice mail. She checked it.

  It was Sylvie. She had remembered the piece of child-rearing advice she had once heard, and was calling to pass it on: Sleep whenever the baby sleeps, because when they’re awake you won’t have a chance.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ croaked Aurélie, into the unlistening phone. ‘Goodnight.’

  She turned the phone to silent, and looked at the baby.

  ‘Go back to sleep, Herbert,’ she said gently. She rubbed his tummy. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  And that is just what Herbert did, an hour and twenty minutes later.

  Aurélie had managed three and a half hours’ sleep when she was woken by a tiny hand on her face. It took her a while to realise what was going on, and when the events of the day before replayed in her mind she felt a knot in her stomach. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. For the first time that day, and it would by no means be the last, she wondered what she had got herself into.

  ‘Hello, Herbert,’ she said. ‘And how are you this morning?’

  He didn’t have to answer. She could tell by looking at him that he was very well indeed. There was a big smile across his face, and he was ready for the day. All she had to do was get him through it. She recalled that on the bus home the night before she had written a list of the important things to keep on top of when taking care of an approximately nine-month-old baby. They were:

  1. Food

  2. Drink

  3. Nappy

  4. Teeth

  She had bought a spare baby bottle at the supermarket and, still coming to, she left Herbert on the bed as she got it ready. She boiled some water in a pan and dropped the bottle in, sterilising it just in case, and she put an egg in beside it for herself. Once the bottle had cooled down a bit she filled it with his special milk. She took it through to him, and he latched on to it quite happily.

  While he was getting on with that, she got his breakfast ready: a jar of puréed fruit and rice. She dipped her finger in and tried a bit, to see if it tasted as revolting as it looked. It was a lot nicer than she had anticipated, and she needed to exercise a surprising amount of self-control to keep from taking a big scoop for herself.

  She propped Herbert into a sitting position, and fed him. He finished the lot with gusto. Then he took the bottle again, and when he had had enough he dropped it on to the bed. She found his toothbrush, and cleaned his teeth, and then she changed his nappy, which was heavy after his night’s sleep.

  She had done everything on the list. Looking after a baby was a lot easier than she had ever thought it would be, and she wondered why people made such a fuss about it.

  Feeling a little self-conscious with Herbert watching her from the bed, she undressed and attempted the world’s fastest shower. She stepped under the water, shampooed her hair, rinsed it, and had begun to rub shower gel over her body when from the bedroom came a loud thump, followed by a horrible, yet familiar, silence.

  By the time Aurélie had made it through to the bedroom Herbert was crying his heart out, face down on the floor beside the bed. Frantic, she scooped him up and tried to console him. His makeshift pyjamas got wet as she pressed him to her body. She checked him for signs of bruising. There didn’t seem to be any new marks on his head or face, which was a relief. She hoped he hadn’t broken any bones. She would have to wait and see. She held him close, and whispered to him, and told him she was sorry, and that it was all her fault.

  It took a long while for his wails to turn to sobs, and the sobs to mild grizzling and his mild
grizzling to a sullen demeanour. She checked his bones by running her fingers along his arms and legs and pressing on various parts of his body. He seemed OK. She built him a nest of pillows on the bed, hoping it would stop him from rolling off again, then she jumped back into the shower, which had been running all this time, to rinse off the shower gel. She dried herself, and pulled on some clothes. At last, Herbert was smiling again. He was fine. She lay down beside him, and looked at him, and he looked at her.

  And then something inevitable happened: there was a knock at the door.

  Aurélie had managed to get Herbert upstairs twice and downstairs once without passing anybody. Their isolation from the neighbours had been a small miracle, but now the miracle was over. The knocking continued. ‘Open up, I know you’re in there.’ Aurélie recognised the voice of the woman from across the hall, strident for someone who must have been at least ninety years old. It was Old Widow Peypouquet.

  Like everybody else in the building, Aurélie had no idea that Old Widow Peypouquet had never lost a husband. She had never even married, but even so everything about her screamed widow. On the day she had moved in, it had not entered the concierge’s mind that she could be anything other than a widow. On being asked about the new neighbour by existing tenants, he had casually referred to her as Old Widow Peypouquet, and because of the way she dressed and carried herself, nobody had thought for a moment that this was in any way far-fetched, and so that was what she had been known as ever since. She was unaware that this had been going on for the preceding two decades; as far as she knew, to them she was merely Madame Peypouquet, as this was how they addressed her to her face.

  The people who lived there were decent folk by and large, and none of them wanted to intrude on a widow’s sorrow. Beyond showing her everyday politeness, they left her alone. Hello, Madame Peypouquet, they would respectfully say as they passed her on the stairs. They rarely engaged her in further conversation but she wasn’t to know that this was because they had no idea what else they could possibly say to her. All the words they thought of seemed somehow inappropriate for one who was evidently in such deep mourning, and they stopped themselves before they came out. No matter how they phrased their questions in their minds, in essence they were all the same: Hello, Madame Peypouquet. How are you coping now that your husband is in the ground? They chose instead to make no enquiries, hoping their smiles and gentle greetings would be enough to provide her with at least a little warmth to help her through her bleak, empty days.