This is Life

by Dan Rhodes

  She remembered being very calm as it had blasted from the barrel. She felt the kick, and the report rang in her ears, and then there was a silence so total it was eerie. Sébastien was slumped on the bed, his face pressed into the duvet.

  Slowly he opened his eyes, and looked up at her. She had missed. She could see he was unhurt, and she stood there smiling her sweetest smile. He was petrified. The silence continued, and now there was something familiar about it. It seemed strange that an absence of noise could have a particular quality, and then she realised what it was. It was the same as the silence that had followed the times when Herbert had been hurt, those awful quiet moments before he cried. But this time no cry had come.

  Frantic, she scrambled past a whimpering Sébastien and looked on the floor on the other side of the bed.

  She saw what she had done.

  She had shot Herbert.

  XVII

  In a restaurant three streets away from Le Charmant Cinéma Érotique, Jean-Didier Delacroix sat in the private booth that his assistant had reserved for him. He had a talent for typing with one hand and eating incredibly expensive food, paid for by L’Univers, with the other, and he had been doing this ever since getting to his table over an hour before. He checked the clock on his computer screen, but unsatisfied with the quality of time it offered, he looked at his recently acquired 1974 Blancpain watch instead. That, he thought, was much better. Both told him the same thing: he had three minutes until the deadline. Back at the office the sub-editor would be nervously staring at her inbox, wondering if she would have to run the back-up article after all. This would be a disaster: Jean-Didier Delacroix’s piece on Le Machine had been heavily flagged all week, and to fail to run it would irritate their readers and embarrass the paper in front of its competitors.

  He had expected to have had it finished by this time, to have put the piece to bed at least fifteen minutes ahead of time. He should have been in a taxi by now, on his way back to his apartment to have vigorous sex with his horrible girlfriend, but here he was, still wrestling with the copy. A white-gloved waiter refilled Jean-Didier Delacroix’s glass with wine from the very top of the list as he read through the article, making adjustments here and there. Still acutely aware that he was in public and could be observed, his face betrayed nothing.

  One minute to go. The sub-editor would be frantic by now. Thirty seconds. He opened a blank email, and attached the file. Twenty seconds. He wrote a brief covering note. Add question mark to title. It now reads: The End of Life?

  Five, four, three, two, one . . . He pressed send. Jean-Didier Delacroix had never filed copy late. His reputation, for punctuality if nothing else, was intact.

  He closed his computer, finished what remained of his food, and drank his wine. Normally he would have simply gathered his things and left, but he felt too exhausted to stand. Never before had a job left him so drained. Very soon his wine glass was empty again.

  He called for a brandy.

  XVIII

  After turning in for her customary early night, Old Widow Peypouquet had woken at the sound of a loud bang. Not one to be woken by a loud bang and then just roll over and go back to sleep, she listened for further sounds. None came. She wondered for a moment whether it had been a car backfiring, or a frying pan falling in a neighbour’s kitchen, but she dismissed these possibilities. She was accustomed to those sounds, and while she would sometimes be woken by them, it was never with quite such a jolt. There was something unusual going on. In a flash she recalled her visit to the girl across the corridor, and she jumped out of bed and into her slippers.

  She pulled on her robe, went out into the hall and pressed her ear to her neighbour’s door. She heard voices. Mademoiselle Renard had a man in there, and they were whispering. She couldn’t work out what they were saying, but it didn’t feel as if she was eavesdropping on a romantic scene.

  Herbert’s eyes were open, but they seemed not to be registering anything. He was completely still, and the tears that had followed his previous traumas had not come. There was blood on his blanket, and a panicked Aurélie lifted it up to find out what had happened. The shoulder of his Eiffel Tower top was red, and she pulled it back to reveal the wound.

  Sébastien leant over to see what she was looking at, then leapt back at the sight of the wounded baby, as if thrown by an explosion. ‘I’m getting out of here,’ he said. ‘You’re fucking mental.’

  ‘You’re going nowhere,’ snapped Aurélie. In a flash her rising panic had evaporated. She was beyond that now. The effects of the wine had vanished, and her head was absolutely clear. She had an urgent task in front of her, and there was no time for hysterics. She looked at where the bullet had hit. It had grazed his shoulder, close to where it met his neck. ‘Get his bag from the back of his buggy. It’s in the shower. Empty it on to the bed and find the first aid box.’

  She reached down and scooped Herbert up, and held him tight. She was relieved to see his eyes start to look around the room. He was alive. Then he looked at her. His eyes seemed to be saying, Why, auntie Aurélie, why? Why did you shoot me?

  ‘I’m so sorry, Herbert,’ she said. ‘And don’t you worry, the nasty man’s going to get you some antiseptic and we’ll have you cleaned up in no time.’

  ‘I’m the nasty one, am I?’ snapped Sébastien as he carried out his orders. He found the first aid box and opened it. Aurélie reached in and took out an antiseptic wipe. ‘You’re the one who shoots babies, and I’m the nasty one?’

  Aurélie found herself obliged to concede that he had a point. Maybe they were both as nasty as each other.

  ‘What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Herbert.’

  ‘Air-bear?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wasn’t going to bother teaching his name to Sébastien. It wasn’t as if the two of them would be hanging out together a great deal after today.

  ‘How old . . .?’ Sébastien turned a shade whiter still as he tried to work out whether or not he was the father of the child. In his dazed state it took him a while to compute the numbers and work out that there was no way they could be related.

  She took off Herbert’s top, and prepared to wipe the wound. That was the moment Old Widow Peypouquet chose to make her presence known. They both jumped as she banged on the door.

  ‘Open up,’ she said. ‘Open up – I know you’re in there.’

  Aurélie wiped Herbert’s shoulder, and this jolted him from what must have been a state of shock. His mouth opened wide, and out came the most primal howl she had heard from him yet. She had never been so relieved to hear the sound of a child in pain. She cleaned his shoulder, took out a cotton wool ball, dipped it in antiseptic and dabbed the wound. Herbert wriggled to get away. As the blood cleared she told herself that the wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been; that it would scab up nicely, and probably scar, but he was going to be OK.

  Old Widow Peypouquet knocked again. ‘What are you doing in there?’ she shouted through the woodwork.

  ‘I’m coming, Madame Peypouquet,’ she said. ‘Just a moment.’

  The old woman banged on the door again.

  Aurélie threw the bloodied clothes behind the bed, and turned to Sébastien. ‘Get a towel.’ He went through to the shower room, took the towel from the back of the door and threw it to her. She wrapped it around Herbert, taking care to hide the wound from view. His crying was subsiding now. She hoped that after the initial sting the antiseptic was having some kind of soothing effect. She looked at Sébastien. He was still white, and trembling.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Follow my lead, and don’t give anything away.’

  Carrying a bundled-up Herbert, she hid the gun under a pillow, scrambled over the bed and opened the door. ‘Hello, Madame Peypouquet,’ she said. ‘What can we do for you?’

  She looked around, taking in the situation. It was the boy she had seen before, but he seemed a little paler this time. Still, it had been summer back then. He was still very handsome, though. ‘What wa
s that bang?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ said Aurélie. She had become accustomed to thinking on her feet. ‘It was Sébastien. He thought it would amuse the baby if he set off a firecracker. He’s not very good with children.’

  Old Widow Peypouquet turned to Sébastien. ‘So you thought it would be a wonderful idea to set off a firecracker?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Indoors?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘While old people are trying to sleep?’

  He nodded.

  ‘In front of a baby as well?’

  Old Widow Peypouquet stared at him, and he knew he had to say something. He did as he was told, and followed Aurélie’s lead. ‘I thought babies liked that kind of thing,’ he said.

  ‘No, you didn’t. I can see right through you. You were teasing it. You thought that just because the baby’s made of rubber it wouldn’t mind being given the fright of its life – that’s it, isn’t it?’

  He looked at Aurélie, who, out of Old Widow Peypou-quet’s line of vision, tapped her head, indicating that the old lady was prone to flights of fancy. She didn’t want Sébastien to complicate everything by letting it slip that Herbert was real.

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’

  ‘But it’s cleverer than that. Look at it – it’s upset. It’ll all be recorded on the microchip, you know. It’s only the size of a grain of sugar, but nothing gets past it. It’ll all be in there.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it will.’ Sébastien looked at the floor as he accepted his telling off, and tried to make sense of what she was saying.

  She carried on. ‘You’re quite right to look ashamed, making a row like that, waking up old people and upsetting a rubber baby.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Monsieur Simoneaux had heard the disturbance and come up to investigate in his pyjamas and slippers. His head appeared around the door, his grey hair wild, as if he had only just woken up.

  ‘Don’t worry, Monsieur Simoneaux,’ said Old Widow Peypouquet. ‘It’s just the boyfriend of the girl with the rubber baby setting off a firecracker. I’ve given him a stern talking to. He won’t be doing it again in a hurry, I can tell you.’

  Monsieur Simoneaux called down the hall, to the neighbours who had congregated. ‘Panic over, ladies and gentlemen. It was just a firecracker, a student prank that’s upset this rubber baby you’ve all been hearing so much about. Old Widow Peypouquet has dealt with it, so we can all return to our homes.’

  There was a choral intake of breath from the onlookers, and Monsieur Simoneaux realised at once what he had said. It was his turn to lose all the colour from his face.

  Old Widow Peypouquet gave him a look that could shatter a diamond, and he felt his knees weaken.

  ‘Old Widow Peypouquet?’ she rasped. ‘Old Widow? Who are you calling an old widow?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’re not old.’

  She gave him a look. ‘Of course I’m old. I’m ninety-four if I’m a day. But for your information, not that it’s anybody’s business but my own, I’m not a widow. I never married. But,’ she waved a long, bony finger at them all, ‘that doesn’t mean that I never had a boyfriend. Oh no. Don’t you go thinking Old Widow Peypouquet never had any fun in her day. Far from it, as a matter of fact. I was quite the girl about town. I got around – if anything I had something of a reputation. There was no stopping me. I even caught VD a couple of times.’

  The assembled neighbours looked at her, ashamed. Each one of them knew they were guilty of the same crime, and they felt a mixture of pity for Monsieur Simoneaux and gratitude that it had been he and not they who had made the slip.

  Aurélie was relieved, because it took the focus away from her. Now this would no longer be the night her boyfriend had startled a rubber baby with a firecracker, but the night Monsieur Simoneaux had called Madame Peypouquet an old widow. She now had just a supporting role, like all the others.

  ‘Be off with you,’ she said, and they all scuttled away.

  Madame Peypouquet, as she would now be known by all her neighbours, looked at the young people. ‘Honestly,’ she said. ‘Old Widow Peypouquet.’ She saw the funny side, and started to laugh. ‘If I’m in mourning for anyone, it’s for the girl I once was. I was quite something back then. You might not think so to look at me now, but I’d have given even you a run for your money, Mademoiselle Renard.’ Once again, she lifted a bony finger and pointed. ‘And even though this ear sticks out a bit more than the other one, and your teeth aren’t exactly straight, I still count you as a very pretty girl.’

  Aurélie smiled as she accepted the compliment.

  ‘I consider myself to be quite the judge of the female form,’ continued Madame Peypouquet, ‘and I never knew you had quite such a good body – you should wear slutty clothes like that more often.’

  Despite the strangeness of the situation, Aurélie found herself buoyed by Madame Peypouquet’s compliments.

  ‘Well, I’ll be going,’ said the old woman. She poked Sébastien’s chest. ‘And no more firecrackers, young man.’ She turned back to Aurélie. ‘For a moment there I thought you’d been firing that gun of yours.’

  Aurélie froze. So she had seen the gun on her last visit.

  ‘Mine’s so old I can’t find anyone who sells the bullets any more. I’ve been thinking about asking if I could borrow yours so I could shoot the pigeon that sits on my windowsill and wakes me up every morning. That would teach it a lesson. I don’t suppose I should, though. I bet they don’t even let people shoot pigeons any more, now they’ve brought in the Common Market. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve taken my advice and invited the young man around again. Just don’t let him get you pregnant.’ She poked Sébastien’s chest again. ‘Don’t get her pregnant. Even if the computer says she’s ready for a baby, you’re not. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone now.’

  And with that, she went away.

  Sébastien sat on the bed and breathed a sigh of relief. He was pretty sure he had managed to sort out fact from fiction. ‘Damn, you’re cruel,’ he said. ‘You almost had me believing that was a real gun, and a real baby.’ He looked at Herbert, who was lying on the bed with his eyes half open. ‘He’s quite realistic from some angles. Latex, right?’

  She nodded as she refilled the baby’s bag with all the things that Sébastien had poured all over the bed.

  ‘I’ve heard about these. I might use one for an art project. I could take him around and take photos of him as if he was a real baby. I could really push the envelope. I could attach a magnet to his back, and stick him to the side of the Eiffel Tower. It could be like robotics meets a barbed comment on the quasi-sexual fetishisation of the child in contemporary society.’

  ‘And what makes you think you’d be the first person to do that?’

  ‘Shit. So that’s why you’ve got him?’

  ‘No, you know me – I just hang around with animatronic rubber children for fun.’

  Sébastien allowed himself to be impressed. ‘Maybe you’re not as hopelessly unadventurous an artist as I thought you were. I had the impression that you were hidebound by convention, but it looks as if you’re challenging some boundaries here.’

  ‘I’m really honoured that you would think that.’

  Sébastien had no idea that she wasn’t being a hundred per cent sincere. ‘You deserve the praise,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to admit you’ve not done too bad a job. The blood and everything . . . it’s almost realistic.’

  ‘It was easy,’ she said, ‘I prepared the blood before you arrived. It’s actually a tomato sauce from my cousin’s farm.’ She began to wonder why she was lying to him, and why her lie was so elaborate. She didn’t have a cousin with a tomato farm. There would be very little point to all her efforts if at the end of it he went away thinking it had all been a big hoax. She owed it to Herbert’s shoulder to make sure Sébastien was scarred for life too.

  He moved towards her, in a movement that she recognised as sidling. ‘I was jus
t playing along,’ he said. ‘Of course I knew it wasn’t a real baby or a real gun.’

  Something caught the corner of her eye. ‘Oh really? Not a real gun? Then what do you call this?’ She pointed to a hole in the sheet, then pulled it back to reveal a hole in the mattress. It must have gone right through before hitting Herbert. She followed the angle of its trajectory, and there in the rug, just where Herbert had been lying, the blunt end of the bullet was visible. She reached down to get it. It was wedged into a floorboard, and she had to use some effort to remove it.

  She held it up in front of his face. It was streaked with blood. ‘So this isn’t real?’

  He was mesmerised by the bullet. ‘You are a crazy, crazy bitch. I had no idea.’ He took her hand, the one holding it. ‘And I have never wanted you more than I do right now.’ He leaned in for a kiss, but before his lips reached hers he felt a now familiar sensation in his side.

  She sighed. ‘Haven’t you learned anything?’

  He got up, and she kept the gun trained on his head as he backed his way over to the door.

  ‘And you’re not that great with materials, are you? It’s not only the gun that’s real. The baby’s not rubber – he’s real too. And the blood wasn’t sauce, that was real blood from a real baby, and he was bleeding because I shot him.’

  Just when it seemed Sébastien couldn’t get any paler, he managed it.

  ‘You remember our agreement, Sébastien?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Remind me, what was it?’

  ‘What happens in this apartment stays in this apartment.’

  ‘And we shook on that, right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘If a single word – a single word – about any of this gets out you’re going to find yourself with a lot of explaining to do to Sculpture Girl, and that’ll just be the start of it.’