The Snakes

by Sadie Jones

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘I love ideas. Not good with absolutes. If I have any belief system, it’s that I know I don’t know anything. Religious people think they know. Catholics particularly.’

  ‘It was the hypocrisy and paedophiles that put me off,’ said Alex, ‘but now you mention it presuming to know the mind of God is a bit wankerish. Your Simone Weil said something like – the only sin is failing to recognise how powerless we are.’

  ‘“Miserable”.’

  ‘Wretched, yes.’

  ‘It’s a better word,’ said Bea, ‘but it seems a bit harsh.’

  ‘She says the rich and powerful can’t be pure, because they can’t accept they are nothing. They can’t accept their wretchedness. Like our father. The rich man. The big I Am.’

  She looked across at him. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Being nothing is all right,’ he said quietly. ‘Absolute attention. When I’m thinking how fucked I am. I think about that.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘I try. I try. But I fail. I just fail. I fail.’ The word repeated was like a nail he was driving into himself.

  She touched his shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He sat up, reached for his cigarettes and lit one. ‘Do you need to go and pacify your husband?’

  ‘He doesn’t need pacifying. He’s an adult.’

  ‘Cor,’ said Alex. ‘I wonder what that’s like.’

  Dan was on their bed when she came in. He had a sketchbook out, but hadn’t opened it. He was playing on his phone.

  ‘Any luck?’ said Bea, coming in.

  ‘I registered us on Airbnb. No word from the tenant. Leanne thinks she’s back in Seoul.’

  ‘OK,’ said Bea, ‘nothing more we can do, then. Shall we go into town?’

  ‘Town?’

  ‘You know – sightseeing?’ She made a comedy face, but it didn’t take.

  He shrugged. ‘If you want.’

  5

  Being back in the Peugeot was comforting, the smell reminded them of their long drive, ancient fag smoke and an edge of vomit. They rested their arms on the open windows, sunshine on bare skin, pastures roaring by in a stream of warm air, round the bends towards the village. They had come through Arnay the day before and seen almost nobody. Today the square was filled with market stalls which, even as they got there, were being taken down. The meat and fish on the shaded side of the square, the cheese, fruit and vegetables, all the way to the sweets and children’s Disney dresses on plastic hangers, all of it packed up, like a circus leaving town.

  ‘A market,’ said Bea.

  ‘We missed it,’ said Dan.

  The terrasse of the Café de la Place was crowded. French families organised their shopping and children, and tourists watched like anthropologists. Dan and Bea found a table at the edge, hard up against the plastic awning, the only one free because it was in full sun. They both put on their sunglasses. Bea was uncomfortable in the heat. Other people felt cool and sexy in the sun, but it set her body into opposition with itself. A small shiny truck was picking up rubbish.

  ‘J’arrive,’ said a waiter, taking money from a man drinking a cognac.

  When he came over, Dan asked for two coffees in French and she looked away so he wouldn’t feel embarrassed.

  ‘It’s good to be out of that hotel,’ he said. ‘No offence.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  The waiter brought their coffees and they drank them. Afterwards, they left the cafe and crossed the road holding hands, like stepping into the frame of a picture. Children ran across their path, and a rack of clothes, with the person pushing it invisible. They reached the top of the square, where a long, narrow tabac and bar occupied the corner under the concrete colonnade. They started up a small street, looking for prettiness, but it soon closed in and became an alley and then barely more than a crevice. The pavements disappeared, and there were bricked-in doorways and graffiti on either side and heaps of wipes or tissues, lumping underfoot, and the smell of piss.

  ‘Desirable,’ said Dan, in his estate-agent voice, ‘well appointed.’

  The noise of the square faded. They passed a bicycle with no wheels leaning beneath peeling posters.

  ‘What’s that about the beautiful villages of France?’ said Dan.

  They heard running feet, yells and a clatter, and two teenage boys careered round the corner towards them, jumping into their way, wild-eyed. The boys swerved, one to each side, shoulders bouncing off the walls, and shouted and were gone.

  ‘Shit,’ said Dan. ‘Thought they were going to rob us.’

  The alley ended in a lopsided fan-shape, with a few back doors and guttering, and the only way to carry on would be a footpath that was more like a concrete drain, downhill past a broken fence. There was a cat lying against the wall in the sun, and a plastic mop with a red handle.

  ‘Dead end,’ said Dan.

  They looked at the closed doors and loose shutters and a balcony above a door open to a vestibule with a lino floor.

  ‘When I was nine,’ said Bea, ‘my parents went to the Carribean for Easter and forgot me.’

  ‘Nine?’

  She nodded. ‘We had this Australian au pair called Jo. It wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know the housekeeper wasn’t home either, and went to visit her boyfriend. Anyway, my parents were on a plane so I couldn’t call them.’

  ‘Nine?’ said Dan again.

  ‘Yes. I went to sleep under the bed, and in the middle of the night I was woken up by a window smashing. It was unbelievably loud. I stayed under the bed, under all my teddies. And I remember seeing blue lights, flashing on the wall, from the police cars.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was Alex. It was completely fine. He was meant to be somewhere else, and he thought the house was empty. It was one of the best nights of my life.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I remember hearing him talking to the police at the door. You know, I was hiding upstairs, and he was doing the whole posh-boy, Oh yes, Officer, Alexander Adamson, thank you, Officer. And the police went away, and I came down – and I thought he was going to be angry, but he was unbelievably sweet. He let me stay up –’

  ‘He let you stay up?’

  ‘Yes, and gave me supper, and made all his friends be nice to me. And the next day we had breakfast. It was just amazing. It was just the best.’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t even know where to start with this,’ said Dan. ‘What about the window?’

  ‘I told them I broke it – he wasn’t meant to be there. But the point is, it wasn’t anything bad. It was Alex. And he was lovely. And I felt this … joy.’

  ‘That’s your take-away, from being dumped by your parents and scared witless in the middle of the night? Joy.’

  They faced one another in the awkward, private space.

  ‘I’m trying to explain how nice he is.’

  ‘I see he’s nice.’

  ‘We should have gone the other way from the square,’ said Bea.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

  A radio above them somewhere was playing French pop, a man’s deep voice pronounced Europe Deux smoothly to the empty air. They stood close in the asymmetrical suntrap. It wasn’t picturesque. It wasn’t anything to do with their shared vision. It was just a place they had stumbled upon. He kept hold of her hands but looked at the ground.

  ‘Why is it’, he said, ‘that you feel lucky, and I feel unlucky? What is that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Bea.

  He touched her hair with his fingertips, where the sun was catching it, then her cheek, like a blessing, then the small blue stone hanging from the silver necklace he had given her for her thirtieth birthday. They were going to kiss. The radio started playing Ed Sheeran. They started laughing.

  ‘Boy. No escape from that,’ said Dan.

  ‘Seriously.’

  He pul
led her head into his chest and pushed her hair aside to kiss the flame tattoo. They walked back the way they had come and in a few moments they were out in the square again. Already there was almost no trace of the market, just bareness, and scraps of litter eaten up by the small truck as it went back and forth. They went back to the cafe, with the feeling it was their cafe, now they were there a second time, and found a table in the shade and ordered ice cream.

  ‘About your art,’ she said, pouring the hot chocolate sauce.

  ‘Let’s talk about it another time.’

  Art. Even the word came more easily to her than it did him. A notion of fulfilment which had expectation at its core.

  ‘I’m thirty,’ said Dan. ‘The runners are already on the track. They’ve started and I’m laps behind.’

  ‘It’s not impossible,’ she said. ‘Just doing it. Just doing it would make you happier.’

  He watched her scooping up the chocolate sauce and melted vanilla ice cream, and licking her fingers.

  ‘Messy girl,’ he said.

  He made her feel adorable for spilling ice cream on her hand. She didn’t know how he did that.

  They walked around the village and looked at the shops, but didn’t buy anything, then went back to the car. Bea remembered the way to Paligny and Dan remembered to drive on the right. When they got back to the hotel, it was six o’clock.

  As they came through the gates, they heard the thick thud of a rock bassline. The sun was behind the trees. They parked in the smoky shadows. Dirty guitar and drums soaked the air. Nirvana’s ‘Love Buzz’. Alex came running out of the hotel. He was barefoot, and he flung his arms wide.

  ‘Just in time!’ he shouted.

  Bea and Dan exchanged a look.

  ‘What for?’ said Dan warily.

  ‘Tea? Booze? Booze? Tea?’ His voice was shrill. ‘Booze?’

  He rushed inside ahead of them and disappeared through the fire door.

  ‘Is he high?’ said Dan.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The garden was strewn with traces of activity, the mower stood abandoned in a stretch of tattered stalks. There were two empty bottles of wine, half a baguette, a T-shirt, and a five-litre pot of white paint, on its side on the grass, with a skin forming over the puddle.

  ‘Getting some things together!’ they heard Alex shout from inside. ‘Hold on!’

  ‘Look at all this,’ said Dan, setting the paint pot upright, and shaking his head.

  Alex came running out, clutching the hotel visitors’ book to his chest and a fistful of pens, which he threw down on a table.

  ‘I thought if I paint the tables they won’t look so nasty,’ he said. ‘I should sand them but I don’t have a sander. I should sand them. I should’ve done it before. I haven’t done it.’

  They tried not to stare. He sat down and rubbed his hands together and opened the visitors’ book.

  ‘Robert Robertson!’ he said. ‘Too obvious? Tom Thomas. Tom. Tim. Andrew. Thomason Anderson. Shit. Can’t think.’

  Bea walked slowly towards her brother. Her skirt was pale in the dusk. The white paint on the grass glowed and the sky shone like opal.

  ‘Has something happened?’ she asked.

  Alex looked up at her. ‘Kind of.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘They’re coming out.’

  ‘Who?’

  He didn’t answer. She was surprised she’d had to ask, she knew who.

  ‘Our parents,’ she said.

  He nodded, looking up at her as if there was something she could do. There was nothing. She sat down next to him. They didn’t speak.

  ‘Your parents are coming here?’ said Dan.

  Bea and Alex were looking at one another like people clinging to wreckage.

  ‘When?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘When were they here last?’ she asked.

  ‘He comes –’ he shook his head, ‘they come – every couple of months.’

  ‘How long for?’

  Alex looked down. ‘A few days, a couple of days.’ He shrugged, blinking. ‘She came alone, once.’

  Dan was embarrassed. He started to pick up the bottles from the grass.

  ‘What’s really sick’, said Alex, ‘is that it’s sort of nice they bother.’

  She tried to take his hand but he pulled it away to bite his thumbnail. Dan approached the table.

  ‘We’ll help you clear up,’ he said.

  Alex looked at him as if they’d never met.

  ‘What do they come for?’ asked Dan.

  ‘Just normal shit,’ said Alex. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Dan.

  ‘Dad’s got stuff to do,’ said Alex. ‘They just like it.’

  ‘They like the hotel?’ pressed Dan.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex.

  ‘They like staying here?’

  ‘Dan,’ said Bea, with a look that meant Stop talking.

  She was blocking him out. They both were, but he wasn’t married to Alex. He waited for a moment, then he went inside.

  Neither Alex nor Bea reacted to his leaving. They didn’t speak. The minutes went by. The evening settled like a gauze, hiding detail. Bea looked up at the blurry sky.

  ‘Remember waiting for the first star?’ she said at last.

  ‘I still do sometimes,’ said Alex, but he didn’t look up.

  ‘What else? What else do you do?’ she asked.

  ‘That,’ he said. He moved his head towards the open pages of the visitors’ book. ‘It’s stupid. It helps.’

  Bea looked down at the pages of the book. She picked up two pens and held one out.

  ‘Anne and Richard Henderson from Stroud,’ she said clearly.

  There was a pause, and then he took the pen. She straightened the book for him. Slowly, carefully, he wrote the names.

  ‘What did they like?’ he said.

  ‘They liked the weather, and the cooking,’ said Bea steadily.

  He wrote.

  ‘Wait, when were they here?’ he asked, panicking. ‘When did they stay here?’

  ‘April the 14th,’ said Bea. ‘They were on their way to Paris.’

  ‘April in Paris,’ he enunciated.

  He wrote the names, and date, then put down that pen and she handed him another.

  ‘Malcolm Elford,’ she said. ‘From Guildford.’

  ‘Elford-Guildford,’ said Alex, and giggled. He wrote the name and dates himself. ‘Mr Elford couldn’t be arsed to write a comment. He was only here on business.’

  He picked up another pen and stretched his arms up. ‘Rebecca and Ian Price from Hull!’ he declared to the evening air. ‘The Prices of Hull!’

  ‘They loved the food,’ said Bea.

  ‘They did!’

  They put in twenty names, only pausing for Alex to turn on the outside lights.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said. He closed the book and the only sound was the treetops slightly rustling in the breeze. ‘Does Dan know how shit they were to you?’

  ‘Me?’ Bea answered. ‘Bits and pieces.’

  ‘Listen, you don’t have to stay. I’m used to them.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Bea.

  ‘Seriously, go. He sends me off to do stuff, she likes to think we’re going to turn this place into something – it’s fine. You can come back when they’re gone.’

  ‘No,’ said Bea. ‘I’m here.’

  She found Dan at the window in their bedroom, in the dark, as if he had been watching them in the garden. She switched on the light.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ she said.

  ‘Did you sort him out?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘You OK?’ he said. ‘We can just leave if you want.’

  ‘No. I’d like to, but I can’t. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll handle it. Why is it so terrible? You haven’t seen them in two years. We’
ll be polite, do the in-law thing, I get to charm them –’

  ‘No, stop it –’

  ‘How bad can it be?’

  She sat on the edge of the bed. She covered her face.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What makes you so crazy?’

  ‘I’m not crazy.’ Her voice was muffled by her hands. ‘I’m just dreading it.’

  He couldn’t see her face. He couldn’t read her.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I just am.’

  ‘Because your mum’s a bitch?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Why?’ he asked again.

  ‘I don’t want you to see them,’ she said.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I don’t want you having anything to do with them.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘What are you afraid of?’

  She looked up. He took a step back, and crossed his arms.

  ‘Look, whatever it’s about,’ he said, ‘who gives a shit? Let’s just go. Before they get here. We’ve got enough to deal with. Bea, let’s go –’ He saw her eyes flicker. ‘We can pack up in ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Alex will handle it. Bea –’

  He was going to say more but they heard Alex’s footsteps, in the corridor running towards them, and then the bedroom door flew open.

  ‘There you are!’

  He was carrying a bottle of wine, a shovel, some bamboo sticks and a fire extinguisher. Three red plastic boxes were slung over his shoulder on strings. He held them up and shook them.

  ‘What are you doing up here? It’s time to check the snake traps!’

  6

  They hurried after him along the corridor.

  ‘There are loads of snakes,’ he said. ‘But mostly they’re just grass snakes. They’re sort of company –’

  ‘Company?’ said Bea.

  ‘They’ve got nice round eyes. It’s the vipers I don’t like. Asp vipers. Vipera aspis. They’re in the roof, and it pisses me off.’

  ‘I think we heard them above our bed last night,’ said Bea.

  ‘Little fuckers keep me up nights,’ said Alex, ‘snacking on mice. I want them out.’

  ‘Fuck sake,’ said Dan quietly, running out of patience.