Consolation (22 page)

‘I don’t know.’

‘Of course you do, you know . . . You always know everything.’

‘No. Not any more.’

‘Do you . . .’

‘Do I what?’

‘Did you find out how Anouk died?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t call Alexis?’

‘I did, but I forgot to ask him.’

‘Oh?’

‘He pissed me off and I hung up.’

‘I see . . . Want some dessert?’

‘No.’

‘Good, because I haven’t got any. Would you like –’

‘Laurence is cheating on me,’ he interrupted.

‘Well, what do you know,’ she scoffed. ‘Oh, sorry –’

‘Was it that obvious?’

‘Noooo, course not, I was just joking . . . Want a coffee?’

‘So it was that obvious.’

‘I also have some “flat stomach” herbal tea, if you prefer.’

‘Am I the one who’s changed, Claire?’

‘Or “Sleepytime” . . . that’s a nice one, too . . . It relaxes you . . . You were saying?’

‘I can’t hack it any more. I just can’t hack it.’

‘Hey . . . you wouldn’t be warming up for a little mid-life crisis, would you?’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Well, it looks that way to me . . .’

‘God, how dreadful. I would have liked to be a bit more original. I think I’m disappointing myself,’ he managed to joke.

‘It’s not as bad as all that, is it?’

‘Getting old?’

‘No, Laurence . . . For her, it’s just like a trip to the Spa . . . It’s . . . I don’t know . . . some sort of beauty mask . . . Little bit on the side, discreetly, it’s surely less dangerous than Botox . . .’

Charles didn’t know what to say.

‘And besides . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘You’re never there. You work like an idiot, you’re always worrying about something, try to put yourself in her shoes . . .’

‘You’re right.’

‘Of course I’m right! And you know why? Because I’m the same.
I
use my profession so that I won’t have to think. The more shit cases I get, the more I rub my hands. Brilliant, I go, look at all these hours I’ve saved and . . . And you know why I work?’

‘Why?’

‘To forget that my butter dish stinks.’

Charles was silent.

‘How do you expect anyone to remain faithful to people like us? Faithful to what, to who? How could they be faithful . . . But . . . You like your profession, don’t you?’

‘I’m not sure any more.’

‘Yes, you like it. And don’t you go getting picky about it. That’s a privilege we can’t afford . . . And then you’ve got Mathilde.’

‘I
had
Mathilde.’

Silence.

‘Stop it,’ she said, irritated now, ‘you cannot make that kid part of your post-nuptial property in common or something . . . And besides, you haven’t left.’

He said nothing.

‘Have you left?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘No. Don’t leave.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too hard to live alone.’

‘You manage quite well.’

She got up, opened all her cupboards and the door to the refrigerator – wasteland – and looked him straight in the eye.

‘You call this living?’

He handed her his plate.

‘I have no rights over her, do I? From a legal standpoint, I mean.’

‘Of course you do. The law has changed. You can very well put a case together, provide affidavits and . . . But you don’t need to do that, you know that perfectly well.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she loves you, you fool. Right,’ she said, stretching, ‘you’re not going to believe me but I have work to do now . . .’

‘Can I stay?’

‘As long as you like. It’s still the same old pre-war sofa bed, should bring back a few memories . . .’

She moved her mountains of junk and handed him a set of clean sheets.

As in their heyday, they took turns in the tiny bathroom, and shared the same toothbrush, but . . . the atmosphere was gone.

So many years had passed, and the only important promises that they’d made to each other had not been kept. The only difference was that both of them now paid ten times, a hundred times more in taxes.

He stretched, complaining about his back, and lapsed into the sound that had so often provided the background rhythm to his sleepless nights as a student: the elevated railway.

He could not help but smile at the thought of it.

‘Charles?’

Her figure appeared, a shadow puppet against the wall.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘You don’t need to. Of course I’ll leave again, you needn’t worry.’

‘No. It wasn’t that.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You and Anouk?’

‘Yes?’ he went, changing position.

‘You . . . No. Forget it.’

‘We what?’

She said nothing.

‘You want to know whether we ever slept together?’

‘No. Well, no, that isn’t what I wanted to know. My question was less . . . more sentimental, I think.’

Charles didn’t know what to say.

‘Sorry.’

She had turned away.

‘Good night,’ she added.

‘Claire?’

‘Forget I ever said anything. Go to sleep.’

And in the dark came this confession: ‘No.’

She held the door handle and put her palm flat against the door to close it as discreetly as possible.

But after the fifth noisy passage of the number 6 line, he re-adjusted his reply: ‘Yes.’

And later still, contributed to the racket as he threw down his weapons: ‘No.’

*

‘White dress, hair pulled back, the exact same smile as on the first photograph, beneath the cherry –’

White dress. Hair pulled back. The exact same smile.

A huge reception. They’d been celebrating everything, that night: Mado and Henri’s thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, Claire’s first year at law school, Edith’s engagement, and Charles’s successful results.

Which results? He couldn’t remember. Some major exam . . . And for the first time, he’d brought a ‘girlfriend’ to his parents’ place. Who was it? He could try and remember, but it was of no importance. A young woman who was like him . . . Serious, from a good family, nice-looking, ankles somewhat thick . . . A first year student; he must have initiated her in the room next door, in fact . . .

Come on, Charles . . . You’ve accustomed us to something a bit classier than that . . . She must have had a first name, that girl . . .

Laure, I think. Yes, that’s it, Laure. She wasn’t much fun underneath her fringe, she always wanted the room to be dark, and chatted about kinetic energy after making love. Laure Dippel . . .

He held her round the waist, spoke in a loud voice, raised his glass, said stupid things, said he had not seen daylight in days, let off steam, and trampled on his own hard-earned laurels by dancing like a crazy thing.

He was already three sheets to the wind when Anouk put in her appearance.

‘Will you introduce us?’ she smiled, glancing quickly at the other woman’s revealing top.

Charles did as she requested, and used it as an excuse to extricate himself.

‘Who’s that?’ asked the little genius, still under observation.

‘The next door neighbour . . .’

‘And why is her hair wet?’

(That was exactly the type of question this girl could not refrain from asking.)

‘Why? How the hell should I know? Because she just had a shower, I suppose.’

‘And why did she only get here now?’

(See . . . She must have two columns’ worth in the
Who’s Who
by now . . .)

‘Because she was at work.’

‘What –’

‘She’s a nurse,’ he interrupted, ‘a nurse. And if you want to know where and in which ward and how long she’s been there and her hip measurements and how much she’s got put aside for her retirement, you’ll have to ask her yourself.’

She made a face; he walked away.

‘Well, young man? Are you ready to devote yourself to the cause of giving old age pensioners a whirl on the dance floor?’ he heard behind him, as he was trying to fish his lighter from the bottom of a huge bowl of punch.

His smile turned around before he did.

‘Go and put your cane down, Grandma. I’m all yours.’

White dress, funny, beautiful, and devilishly kinetic.

Which means, resulting from motion.

Unleashed in the arms of her prize-winning graduate. She’d had a rough day, had struggled against opportunistic infections and lost. She was always losing, these days. She wanted to dance.

Dance, and touch him, with his millions of white blood cells and his oh so very efficient immune system. He was so modest, he was so careful to keep a safe distance from her dress, she pulled him closer with a laugh. Who gives a fuck, Charles, who gives a fuck, growled her expression. We’re alive, you understand? A-live.

And he let her do as she liked, beneath the appalled gaze of his girlfriend. But in the end he was reasonable, oh yes, such a reasonable sort, alas, and eventually he gave her back her arm and the energy proportionate to her mass, before going outside to get some fresh air under the stars.

‘Hey, she’s hot, your neighbour.’

Shut up.

‘Nah, I just mean for her age . . .’

Bitch.

‘I have to go home.’

‘Already?’ he asked, forcing himself.

‘You know I have an oral exam on Monday,’ sighed his sweetheart.

He had forgotten.

‘Are you coming?’

‘No.’

‘Sorry?’

Right, let’s spare ourselves the rest of this deadly conversation. In the end he called her a taxi and she went off to revise what she probably already knew by heart.

When he came back towards the house after a vague kiss and some strong encouragement, the gravel crunched beneath the mock orange.

‘So, it would seem you’re in love?’

About to answer no, he came out with the opposite.

‘Oh? That’s nice . . .’

He said nothing.

‘And you’ve . . . How long have you known her?’

Charles raised his head, looked at her, smiled at her, and looked down again.

Then went back into the noise.

For a long time . . .

He was restless, sought her with his gaze now and again, didn’t see her, drank, forgot himself, forgot her.

But when his sisters asked everyone to be silent, when the music stopped and the lights went out, when an enormous cake was brought in, and his mother clasped her hands, and his father pulled a speech from his pocket while others were whispering ssh and oh and ssh again, a hand took hold of his and pulled him away from the circle.

He followed her, climbed the steps behind her, hearing snatches of bravura on the way, ‘so many years . . . dear children . . . hardship . . . trust . . . helped . . . always . . .’ then she opened a door at random and turned round.

They went no farther, stood there in the dark, and all he knew about life in that moment of her life, was that her hair was no longer wet.

She shoved him so hard that the door handle dug into his back. He did not have the presence of mind to find it painful, however. She was already kissing him.

Devouring her face, his face, devouring each other.

They had never been so far apart.

Charles struggled with the hairpins in her chignon, while she battled with his belt buckle; he spread her hair, she opened his trousers, he tried to keep her head straight while she kept looking down, he was hunting for words, words he’d said over and over a thousand times and which had changed when his voice did, whereas she was begging for him to be quiet, he was forcing her to look at him while she moved to one side to bite his ear, he nuzzled into her neck while she was biting him until he bled, he hadn’t even begun to touch her and already she had wrapped herself around his leg and was pressing herself against him, moaning.

Between his hands he was holding the love of his life, the Madonna of his childhood, the most beautiful of all, the obsession of so many nights and the reason for all his prizes, whereas she was holding . . . something else altogether . . .

The taste of blood, the buzz of alcohol, the smell of her sweat, her whimpers against his skin, the pain in his back, her violence, her orders, her fingernails – none of that could affect his courtly love. He was stronger, managed to hold her still, and she had no choice but to listen to him murmuring her name. But headlamps passed in the distance and he glimpsed her smile.

So he gave up. Restored her arms to her, her twisted bracelets, bent his knees and closed his eyes.

She touched him, stroked him, slipped her fingers into his mouth, licked his eyelids, whispered inaudible words into his ear, pulled on his jaw to make him cry out while obliging him to remain silent, grasped his hand, spat in it, guided it, undulated, moved back and forth on him, hooked him to her, almost broke him –

May he be damned. Damn who he was, damn his feelings. Damn her. Damn this fraud. He pushed her away.

He
didn’t want
this.

And yet he had dreamt it all. The worst debauchery, the most unbelievable phantasms, his clothes torn from him, his pain, his pleasure, his pleas, their saliva, his cum and their kisses, the . . . All of it. He had imagined all of it, but not this. He loved her too much.

Too well, too badly, too inappropriately, perhaps, but always too much.

‘I can’t,’ he moaned. ‘Not like this.’

She froze for a moment, dumbfounded, before slumping forward, her head against his chest.

‘Sorry,’ he continued, ‘sorr—’

She moved her hips one last time to let her skirt slip down. She dressed him in silence, tightened his belt, smoothed his shirt, smiled as she saw the number of orphaned buttonholes and then, her skin softer, her arms by her side, she came back to him and let him put his arms around her at last.

Sorry. Sorry. That was all he knew how to say. Without even knowing if he was talking to her or to himself.

To her beautiful soul, or his crotch.

Sorry.

He held her tight, breathed in her nape, caressed her hair, making up for twenty years and ten lost minutes. Heard his heart pounding, managed the disaster while applause filtered through the floorboards, and he hunted for . . . other words.

Other words.

‘Sorry.’

‘No. It’s me,’ whispered a little voice, ‘I –’ and broke. ‘I thought you’d grown up.’