After the Crash (31 page)
Authors: Michel Bussi
Marc’s love for Emilie grew steadily over time, warmed by his
generosity of spirit and his love of home. His was a shy, discreet,
almost silent presence.
The girls in his school idolised him, but Marc was indifferent to
their sighs and wide eyes. His only ambition, from the time I first
met him, was to be utterly devoted to Emilie: to be her brother, her
father, her grandfather. To be everything she needed. To shelter her
from the world.
Emilie made him happy. She was so full of life, she made everyone
happy. In a place that lacked beauty – with its abandoned factories,
its grey brick walls, its filthy gutters – she shone like the sun on the
beach at Dieppe, was radiant as a rainbow over the sea.
Like a lost butterfly. Or a dragonfly, if you prefer . . .
The music she played – airs by Chopin and Satie – turned the
cramped little house on Rue Pocholle into a castle, a cathedral. And
her laughter lit up the home with brightness and warmth.
When she was sad, she consoled herself with music.
She was not haughty. She was just different. Alone. And even
then, not always. Emilie would cheer every muddy tackle Marc
made at the rugby stadium. She would put on a pair of trainers
and run seven miles with him, over a succession of hills and valleys.
Dieppe–Pourville–Varengeville–Puys.
Like a big sun, she made everyone melt, including me.
Crédule-la-Bascule
.
She had come too close to losing her life at three months old to
let a single moment of it go to waste. And she was so proud of her
Marc, just as he was of her. Her tall, strong, guardian angel.
Marc and Emilie realised early on that they were not brother
and sister. Not really, anyway. Not like other brothers and sisters.
The secret, so jealously guarded by Nicole Vitral, was out as soon
as they set foot in the playground at the local nursery. Parents talk,
and their children repeat those words, getting their facts mixed up
in the process.
The children at the Paul-Langevin school invented a game: they
would run around Emilie, heads lowered, arms spread wide, making
aeroplane noises, buzzing around her before crashing close to where
she stood. And Marc would stand next to her, like King Kong on
the Empire State Building, swatting them away angrily. Sometimes
he would get punished for it, but he never stopped protecting her.
Marc and Emilie were never truly brother and sister. They grew
up in the shadow of a doubt.
The other kids in the playground would make fun of them,
calling them boyfriend and girlfriend. And yes, they did love each
other. That was very, very obvious. But what kind of love was it?
I think Marc must have begun to wonder about this when he was
ten years of age. He and Emilie had been sharing a room ever since
the verdict. They slept in a bunk bed: him below and Emilie on top.
When Marc turned ten, he remained in the little bedroom, while
Emilie shared her grandmother’s room.
Nicole did the best she could with the resources she had.
What kind of love . . .?
I have a confession to make. Not only did I wonder about this, I
tried to find out for myself. I spied on them. I armed Nazim with a
telephoto lens and told him to take pictures.
It made no difference. Feelings are not always visible.
What kind of love?
Only they know the answer to that question.
I certainly don’t.
I knew Mathilde de Carville would ask me to take care of that for
her eventually. In spite of her principles, her faith. She wanted to
know. It is only human. Actually, it seemed miraculous to me that
she had managed to resist the temptation for so long.
would that count for, against three drops of blood in a test tube?
Grand-Duc’s words danced in front of Marc’s eyes.
‘What kind of love? Only they know the answer to that
question.’
The Pays de Caux undulated outside the window. Above,
high-tension lines from the nuclear power station, which the train
would follow all the way to Dieppe.
‘What kind of love?’
What could he possibly have understood, that old detective with
his telephoto lens?
Who
could possibly have understood?
‘Marc loves Emilie! Emilie loves Marc!’
The children’s taunts still echoed in Marc’s ears. Like their poor
imitations of a plane crashing.
Lylie, where are you?
Marc didn’t feel like calling any more hospitals. Just one more perhaps. Another failure.
‘Marc loves Emilie . . .’
Who knew the truth, apart from the two of them? Who knew
their secret?
Nobody.
It had only begun two months before. On the sixteenth of
August.
Lylie was still seventeen.
Marc closed his eyes.
Only two months.
16 August, 1998, 6.00 p.m.
This is madness, thought Marc. Going for a run in the middle of
August! It was late afternoon, but still nearly thirty degrees. Normandy in a heatwave.
But Lylie would not give up on the idea. She was crouched in the
front doorway, tying the laces of her trainers, as if she couldn’t wait
to get out. Marc sighed. Reluctantly, he took off his espadrilles and
went to look for his running shoes.
Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail with a pale blue ribbon.
Marc loved her hair like that. It made her face look bigger, exposing
her forehead. She looked like a princess. A bouncing, impatient
princess . . .
‘Come on, let’s go!’
‘All right, all right . . .’
Ever since she had won a cross-country race at school, Lylie had
been running regularly. All through the spring, she had been putting in five hours a week, with Marc acting as her coach.
Marc was cursing; he could not find his left shoe.
‘If you don’t want to come with me . . .’
‘I do!’
Lylie picked up a bottle of mineral water and took a swig. A drop
of water rolled down her lips, her chin, her neck. Confused, Marc
looked away.
He found his trainer at last and tied the laces. Lylie was wearing
a tight-fitting, super-expensive Sergio Tacchini sports outfit which
flattened her breasts but exposed her flat stomach and the tops of
her hips. Her skin was soft and slightly tanned.
‘Are we ready?’
Marc grudgingly followed her out of the door.
Why was he so unenthusiastic about running today? Was it just
the heat, the absence of a breeze? Or did he have a bad feeling about
something? Lylie seemed almost too happy.
They ran through Pollet, crossed the ferry bridge, went along the
sea wall and then climbed the steep hill to the castle.
Lylie always ran in front. Marc adapted his stride to hers. They
passed the golf course and then the Ango school, with its futurist architecture, at the foot of the cliffs. Lylie mischievously waved
goodbye to the school.
They now had half a mile of flat road until they reached Pourville, so they could lengthen their stride. As they rounded a bend,
the view opened up before them: the hanging valley of Pourville,
dazzling in the sunlight. Lylie sped up as they descended. People
watched as they ran past. Men especially. They were hypnotised by
the regular movement of Lylie’s long bare legs. Marc acted like a
bodyguard, with 360-degree vision, as they ran.
He was used to men ogling Lylie, but that did not make him any
less jealous. They had crossed Pourville beach and were now climbing the Varengeville hill, the steepest and most sheltered on their
run. Along this slope the most beautiful houses were hidden, with
stunning views and shielded from the west wind.
Lylie toiled up the steep hill. Marc followed her without any difficulty. He stared out at the wild Scie valley in the distance. Above
all, he did his best not to spend too long looking directly ahead, as
Lylie’s bottom bounced pertly in front of his eyes.
He was turned on, in spite of himself. Did Lylie have any idea of
the effect her body had on him? One last bend and the road finally
flattened out. Marc accelerated until he was running alongside her.
She turned to smile at him. Radiant.
So beautiful.
Marc felt an emotion rising within him. It was far from new, but
it was more intense, more powerful than ever before.
For the next two or three miles, all the way to Varengeville, the
road was flat. Varengeville was the most densely wooded village on
this coastline, and the shade it offered would be welcome. They ran
past the Manoir d’Ango, the floral gardens in Moûtiers, in single
file, for fear of cars trying to overtake them from behind.
Two hundred yards from their destination, Lylie looked as if she
was about to sprint. Marc gave her a short headstart. That was a
mistake. Sweat was running down Lylie’s bare back. The drops glistened as they ran into her shorts. Marc wished he could run his
tongue up that naked flesh, taste that salty sweat.
Calm down. Jesus, calm down!
Marc accelerated, laughing as he overtook Lylie, then slowed
down so that they would finish together. Lylie collapsed on the
grass, exhausted. Again, Marc looked away from that beautiful
body, stretched out in the sun.
He walked to the gate of the sailors’ cemetery, and pushed it open.
Lylie caught up with him a few seconds later. They were not alone
there. There must have been about twenty tourists walking around
the tiny graveyard, some of them looking for Georges Braque’s
tombstone, and for his stained-glass window in the church. Others
posed for photographs in front of the dazzling view: Dieppe, Criel,
Le Tréport . . . all the way up the coastline to Ault, in Picardie.
How many lovers dreamed of marrying here, in this sublime
little sandstone church, set amid greenery, between sea and sky?
Did Marc dream of that?
He shook his head to rid his mind of such ridiculous thoughts.
‘Shall we go back?’
He’d heard somewhere that the cliff here was receding more than
anywhere else. Beneath them, the rock was crumbling. The chalk
was soaked with water. One day, it would all collapse into the sea.
The church. The gravestones. The sandstone cross.
All of it. Into the water, then swept away by the tide.
Lylie had drunk some water from the tap near the cemetery gates,
and was already on her way.
Marc followed, like a faithful dog.
They passed a line of cars coming the other way. The narrow
roadside was bordered by a carefully maintained hedge, so it was
impossible to run side by side. Marc had to follow in Lylie’s footsteps
once more, watching her glistening back, her rounded buttocks, the
nape of her neck with its tiny soft blonde hairs.
Impossible.
Or was it?
Don’t even think about it!
screamed a voice inside his head.
Don’t look at her anymore. Concentrate on your breathing, the length
They were on their way back down towards Pourville. They passed
a series of belle époque mansions, each of them a baroque fantasy.
Suddenly, Lylie turned left in the direction of the Gorge du Petit
Ailly, a little beach at the end of the hanging valley. Only the locals
knew about this place. And yet surely there would be plenty of
them there, in the middle of August. Marc caught up with Lylie
again.
‘Where are we going?’
Lylie’s eyes sparkled. ‘Bet you can’t catch me!’
She turned again, to the right this time. They were in a forest of
willows now, no longer following a path. Barely two hundred yards
further on, they emerged from the woods and passed a little pond
to their right. Lylie kept running.
They ran down towards the sea along a steep path. Cows stared at
them from a meadow. It seemed as if they were on a farm, although
there was no sign of any farmer. Lylie ran alongside an electric fence.
Clearly, she knew where she was going. Marc concentrated and the
map of the local area unfurled inside his mind. They had turned off
to the north of the Gorge du Petit Ailly, so they must have crossed
the farm at Pin-Brûlé and then the one at Morval. Now he felt sure
he could guess where they were headed: Morval harbour. He had
never been there, but had heard about it. It was one of those little
coves inaccessible to tourists. A private beach reserved for the use of
the local landowner, who probably never went there.
In the last twenty yards before they reached the sea, the land was
crumbling. You could see the clay on the surface, running in ochre
lines towards the sea. They had to cross a crater ten yards long,
but it was easy to climb down and it had the distinct advantage of
making the beach invisible from the field.
Lylie’s feet slipped on the clay. Her legs and expensive outfit were
covered in red mud. Laughing triumphantly, she stood up on the
shingle.
The tide was going out now, and there was a sandy space of about
ten feet beyond the line of pebbles.
Lylie pulled the blue ribbon from her hair and it fell like a blonde
cascade. Marc shivered.
‘Shall we go in?’ Lylie asked, frowning sweetly as if asking for
forgiveness.
Marc did not reply. He was worried. That bad feeling had not
left him.
‘Come on!’ Lylie teased. ‘I’m covered in sweat. And the weather
is so nice for a change. It’s the most beautiful day of the summer.’
Lylie was right, at least from a strictly meteorological point of
view.
The calm sea. The heat. The sand. The silence.
Their closeness.
How could he resist?
Anyway, Lylie had not waited for a reply. Her trainers were sent
flying onto the pebbles, and she dived into the water. Her running
outfit worked equally well as a swimsuit. Marc was wearing a baggy
red-and-black T-shirt and a pair of long canvas shorts. He threw his
T-shirt and trainers next to Lylie’s on the shingle.
Marc began to snap out of his mood. Lylie’s body was invisible
beneath the grey waters of the English Channel. They swam breaststroke and crawl, side by side, happy and at ease.
Lylie had been right, as always. This had been a wonderful idea.
So what had he been worried about?
A jet of water startled him from his thoughts. Lylie laughed and
splashed Marc again. He splashed her back. Lylie let him swim
away, and then nimbly climbed on top of his back and pushed his
head under the water. Marc did not resist. He resurfaced and took
a breath of air. Lylie was six feet away from him now, still laughing.