This is Life

by Dan Rhodes

  He was always there, as well. If the stone had hit somebody else, anybody but a baby, she would have been able to maintain at least some distance from them. There would have been opportunities for them to have a break from one another. She would have been able to get some sleep, and it would have been unlikely that she would have had to wipe them down after they’d gone to the toilet.

  Her eyes closed, and she put down her pencil. She fell asleep.

  Something Aurélie Renard was coming to learn was that there is a certain kind of old woman who has granted herself a licence to take an aggressive interest in babies with whom they have no personal connection. It is as if these old women spend their days doing nothing but walking around public places looking out for them and, uninvited, leaning over their buggies and offering exuberant compliments. Most of them will leave it at this, but there are some who don’t know when to stop, who will take too much of an interest in the child, an interest which manifests itself in the offering of unsolicited and long outmoded advice, and the asking of all sorts of personal questions, the answers to which couldn’t possibly be considered any of their business.

  Aurélie’s experience with Old Widow Peypouquet, as well as her encounters with various old women on the street and on buses, had taught her that she was going to have to get used to these assaults, and assess each one as it occurred and deal with it in the best way she could. She had found that the most efficient thing to do was to agree with everything they said, no matter how ridiculous, and wait for them to move away. So far she had assured one old lady that she would wrap Herbert in vinegar-soaked brown paper at the first sign of a runny nose, nodded while another told her to prevent him from becoming homosexual by sending him to boxing lessons the moment he could walk, and bowed her head in insincere admiration as yet another boasted about how all nine of her children had been fully potty-trained by the time they were Herbert’s age. She had even disguised her indignation at the implicit swipes at her mothering abilities. It was relentless.

  She had no idea how long she had been asleep when a nearby presence roused her. A shadow had fallen over Herbert. She looked up and, sure enough, there was the latest old woman.

  She was staring at him, and smiling. She saw that Aurélie had woken up. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ she asked.

  Aurélie rubbed her eyes. She was still half asleep, and her question, while simple, seemed so stupid that Aurélie wondered if there was a trick to it. ‘Er . . .’ She looked at Herbert. He was a boy, wasn’t he? She thought back to changing his nappy. Yes, she wasn’t in any doubt. ‘He’s a boy.’

  ‘And isn’t he a handsome boy?’

  ‘Er, yes.’ She wanted her to go away, but the old woman seemed to think that her presence was somehow welcome.

  She addressed Herbert directly now. ‘Aren’t you a handsome boy?’ Seconds earlier she had not even known he was a boy. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Aurélie decided she would tell the next old woman who asked after his gender that Herbert was a girl, just to see if they then went into raptures about how pretty he was.

  He was still asleep, and the old woman’s voice was loud. Aurélie hoped she wouldn’t wake him up.

  ‘And how old is he?’

  She spoke softly, almost whispering, in the hope that the old woman would follow her lead. ‘He’s Aquarius.’

  ‘Aquarius?’ If anything her voice was now even louder. ‘Which makes him . . .?’

  Aurélie thought back to the souvenir shop. ‘Er . . . about nine months old. Roughly speaking.’

  ‘You’ve been drawing a picture of him.’

  ‘Yes.’ Aurélie looked at what she had done. It had been going well. ‘It’s only half done.’

  The old woman said nothing, but her face registered her disapproval of Aurélie’s work. It really was time for her to go away.

  She looked intently at the baby, and as she did, something about her changed. She was no longer a random old woman cooing over a baby in a public garden. There was something more threatening about her.

  ‘How did he get that bruise on his face?’

  Aurélie started. She should have had an answer ready for this. There was no way she could tell the truth, so she scrambled for an answer. ‘He’s been fighting.’ The old woman stared at her, and she added, ‘You know what boys are like.’

  The old woman stared at her. Aurélie decided she would use some of her concealer on Herbert, and if anyone noticed it she would tell them it was eczema.

  ‘And is he your baby?’

  Aurélie was stunned by the question. It went far beyond the usual level of interference. ‘Yes, of course he’s my baby.’ The old woman just stared at her. Aurélie wondered whether she had made herself clear enough, and carried on. ‘He came out of here,’ she said, pointing at the place from which babies emerge. Then she realised what she was doing, and remembered she was in a public garden. She folded her finger away.

  The old woman seemed to accept this. She was quiet for a moment, then she said, ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Herbert.’ She braced herself for the usual exchange, but this time it didn’t happen. The old woman pronounced it correctly first time.

  ‘Herbert? Why Herbert?’

  ‘That’s a good question. I’m glad you asked me.’ She raced to think of a plausible answer. ‘I called him Herbert because I thought it was a nice name.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, there really is no accounting for taste. What’s his surname?’

  Aurélie realised she had no idea. She was beginning to panic under the weight of the old woman’s pitiless interrogation. She was tired, her defences were low, and she felt she had to say something. She wasn’t going to use her own name, so she used the first one that came to mind. ‘Cruchaudet-Gingembre,’ she said. She had no idea where that had come from. Even as the words were leaving her mouth she knew they sounded ridiculous.

  ‘Herbert Cruchaudet-Gingembre? The poor child. What a terrible start in life.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘it is terrible.’ This old lady seemed more relentless than her other attackers. Nodding and agreeing was not enough to satisfy her.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked. ‘Yes? So you agree? Then why did you give him such a ridiculous name? I understand that you can’t choose his surname, but why Herbert? Why not Jean-Pierre, or Jean-Luc, or Jean-Louis, or Jean-Paul? Surely even Jean-Marcel would have been better than Herbert?’

  For the first time, Aurélie found herself actually agreeing with an interfering old woman, rather than just pretending to agree. Herbert was a ridiculous name for a French baby, and she had to somehow formulate a defence of it off the top of her head. She hadn’t helped herself by saddling him with such a preposterous surname. ‘It just seemed like the right decision at the time.’

  ‘And this was a decision you came to along with his father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where is his father?’

  Aurélie was running out of patience. She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Who is his father?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The old woman crossed herself. ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘Well, it’s because . . .’ Aurélie had had enough. She wasn’t going to put up with this. ‘Oh, mind your own business, you nosey old bat. Get lost.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘That is the final straw. I am declaring you to be an unfit mother. This baby is not in safe hands, and I am taking him straight to the authorities.’

  The old woman kicked off the buggy’s brake, and at high speed she made off with Herbert across the square.

  He saw the baby first from the other side of the square. His eyes were drawn to the child, who was just waking up. There was something about him, about his serious expression and line of his brow that he found mesmerising. He was so absorbed by the sight of the boy that it was a while before he noticed the commotion surrounding him. The first participant he saw was the old woman, determinedly pu
shing the buggy across the square. And beside her, at first protesting, then trying to wrest control of the buggy, was the girl. The girl, the one he had been waiting for all his life. Until this moment he’d had no idea that he had been waiting for anyone all his life, but now he knew he had been, and here she was.

  As they drew closer, this was confirmed. She was right before his eyes, arguing over a child with a bad-tempered old woman. His heart should have leapt, but instead it sank. Just moments earlier he had considered himself to be a lifelong loner, someone who would never lose his heart, someone for whom there was no love, just occasional sexual interludes that he regarded as a medical necessity as much as anything else. But now he realised this was not the case at all, that there was a girl out there he could love. His carapace had crumbled, and as it did he was exposed to the weakness it had been hiding. Every love song he had ever heard suddenly made sense, and at last he knew what people were talking about when they spoke of broken hearts: somebody else had found her first.

  They drew closer to him, and he could see that this was no normal domestic argument. The girl was frantic. She looked up and saw him. She appealed to him.

  ‘Please don’t let her take my baby.’

  She looked at him. He was tall, with shaggy hair and a short, full beard. He had eyes that were at once piercing and warm. There was no getting away from it – there was something Christ-like about him, though this Jesus was wearing jeans, training shoes and a black puffa jacket. Something about him seemed familiar, and comforting; it was as if they were already friends. If anyone was going to help her, it was him. Without a word he held up his hand, signalling them to stop, and they obeyed. He looked at the three of them for a long while.

  ‘Madame,’ he said to the old lady, ‘it is wrong to take people’s babies away.’

  ‘It is for the child’s own good. This young lady has no maternal instinct. I’ve seen evidence of this with my own eyes. First I saw her puffing on a cigarette with the child right beside her, then she fell fast asleep and the baby was sitting there completely unprotected. It’s unnatural for a mother to put her child at risk in this way. There are strange people out there, you know – people who are perverts for babies – and what’s more she doesn’t even know who the father is. And you should hear the name she’s given the poor child – Herbert Cruchaudet-Gingembre. I mean to say . . .’

  Gently he put a finger to his lips, and the old woman stopped talking. He tried to hide his delight at this information about the girl’s personal life. If the father was out of the picture, maybe he could step in. ‘Go now,’ he said to the old woman.

  ‘I . . . well . . .’ She didn’t know what to do or say. ‘That poor child.’ She turned to Aurélie, and said, ‘Don’t go thinking I’m not going to report you anyway.’ She looked at the man, and said, ‘And look.’ She pointed. ‘His shoes are on the wrong feet.’ With a look of disgust, she went away.

  Aurélie looked at Herbert’s feet, and realised with shame that the old woman was right. She really had put the shoes on the wrong way round. She crouched, took them off and swapped them over.

  ‘Thank you,’ Aurélie said, looking up at the man as she fastened the Velcro straps. With the old woman gone, she felt a rush of guilt. While she still considered her to have been a nosey old bat, she knew she had been right: she wasn’t fit to be in charge of a baby. She shouldn’t have been smoking so close to him, and she shouldn’t have fallen asleep while she was supposed to be taking care of him in a public place. There really were people out there who were perverts for babies. Maybe it would have been the best thing for everyone if the old woman had been able to hand the boy over to the authorities.

  She looked at the baby, and thought again. No, she wasn’t going to let any interfering old bat take Herbert, and for as long as he was in her care she was never again going to leave home without the gun. When she got home she would put it in the big inside pocket of her coat, and there it would stay until Herbert was safely back with his mother. As her anger bubbled away, she told herself that if another old woman came for him she would shoot her kneecaps out sooner than allow her to take him away.

  The man could see she was upset. ‘You’ve had a horrible experience,’ he said. ‘Come and sit down.’

  They went over to a bench, and sat side-by-side. Aurélie looked at him, and he looked at Aurélie, and they both felt the same thing. They felt as if they had known one another all their lives. It was a feeling that was warm and, more than anything, overwhelmingly arousing.

  Aurélie thought about the chain of events that had brought them together. If it hadn’t been for her project, this wouldn’t be happening. She supposed that there was something to be said for throwing stones at babies after all.

  He noticed the sketchbook in her hand. ‘May I see?’

  She showed him her half-finished picture of Herbert. He liked it very much. ‘It’s really . . .’ He didn’t finish his sentence.

  It was the rarest of things – a kiss with no instigator. He didn’t kiss her, and she didn’t kiss him. They both just kissed. Aurélie clung on to him, and he held her as though she was a precious object. Which, to him, she was.

  Minutes later, when at last their lips parted, they suddenly became keenly aware of the watching eyes of an approximately nine-month-old boy. The man felt it was time to introduce himself to his new acquaintances. ‘I’m Léandre,’ he said. ‘Léandre Martin.’

  ‘Aurélie Renard. And this one here is Herbert.’

  ‘I know. Hello, Herbert,’ he said. He too had pronounced his name correctly first time. Aurélie felt that things were getting better in a big way. ‘Herbert . . .’ He looked sceptical. ‘Herbert Cruchaudet-Gingembre?’

  ‘Er . . .’ Aurélie thought she had better come clean. ‘No. That’s not his real surname.’

  He laughed. ‘I thought not.’

  ‘I was lying to the old woman. I didn’t think his name was any of her business, so I made one up.’

  ‘You did a good job.’

  ‘He is called Herbert, though.’

  ‘Herbert Renard.’

  ‘No.’ She told him the truth. ‘He’s not my baby. He’s . . .’ She wondered whether her new boyfriend, if that’s what he was, was quite ready to hear the whole truth. ‘I’m looking after him for a friend who’s out of town for a few days.’

  XI

  Jean-Didier Delacroix was a happy man for many reasons, four of which were in the forefront of his mind as he lay in his bathrobe on his large bed in the large bedroom of his large apartment:

  1. He was called Jean-Didier Delacroix, and a man can hope for no better name than that. Every day the first thing he said to himself was Good morning, Jean-Didier Delacroix. Just the thought of his name was enough to lighten his mood, and when he saw it in print it was enough to make him feel like jumping for joy. It was perfect.

  2. He was an arts correspondent for a major newspaper, and nobody can hope for a better job than that. Parents leaning over a newborn’s crib will barely even dare to hope that one day their child might become an arts correspondent for a major newspaper. They tell themselves that they only want them to be healthy and happy, although of course if he does become an arts correspondent that would be . . . They will try to stop this train of thought, knowing that it would be wrong to burden a child with such expectations, and true enough the parents of his classmates had found they had no choice but to content themselves with seeing their offspring embark on the road to such humdrum careers as airline pilot, heart surgeon, engineer, lawyer, architect, tennis star, sometimes even artist, taking any path but the golden one upon which he had embarked.

  His parents, unlike most, had been forthright about their ambitions for their child. From the crib they had refused to countenance the possibility of him entering another profession. How is our little future arts correspondent today? they would ask him, when his nanny presented him for his daily appearance before them. And little Jean-Didier Delacroix had indeed shed his sailor suit
and grown up to fulfil their dream: they had seen their son become an arts correspondent for L’Univers. He would never forget the day the editor-in-chief of L’Univers, his uncle Jean-Claude Delacroix, had called him into the office and told him, very sternly, that he wanted him to know that he was not being offered the job because of any family connection, he was being added to the staff for no reason other than his undeniable brilliance. Jean-Didier Delacroix took in every word.

  Now twenty-four, he had been in his position for two years, and had already had the title chief arts correspondent created for him. He was also already in line to become deputy arts editor, and the editorship itself was widely regarded as an inevitability once the post had become vacant – something which was due to occur in around five years’ time.

  3. He had a beautiful girlfriend. He had just finished having sex with her, and right at this moment she was undertaking a carefully orchestrated shower in the large en suite bathroom. At six feet and one inch she was almost a head taller than him even before she had stepped into her inevitable heels, a height which had helped to establish her on the catwalks of the world. She was a foul young woman of twenty – arrogant, scowling and stone-cold, and this suited him very well. She was his type.

  4. And this was the reason which occupied his mind above all others: he, Jean-Didier Delacroix, was the only person from the entire media to have been granted access to Le Machine in the run-up to the opening of Life. This was the biggest event of the year in the art world. Everybody was talking about it, and everybody was going to want to read Jean-Didier Delacroix’s take on it. This was his most high-profile assignment to date, and to be trusted with something of this magnitude was a sure indicator to the outside world that he had arrived. His piece was going to be a triumph. He had already had a long conversation with the arts editor about it, and they were in full agreement on their opinions of Le Machine. It was as much as they could do to stop themselves from rubbing their hands together and cackling with glee.