Consolation (30 page)

He frowned, lit a cigarette, waited for the nicotine to free his grey matter from the wreckage and eventually confessed his misery to himself: ‘I would like to think she didn’t die for nothing.’

Ah, at last, there we are! Right, it’s okay now. Deep breath. There you are. You’ve conceptualized the thing.

Hey? You’ve got your project now, no? So drive. Drive, keep your mouth shut and, sorry, don’t breathe quite so hard. You may not realize it, but you’ve got a cracked rib.

Yes but if things don’t go –

Shut up, we said. Disconnect.

Because he could not trust himself, at least on that level, he reached his arm out, ouch, to switch on the FM.

Between two idiotic adverts, a pop singer with a squeaky voice began to bleat,
Relax, take it easy
at least a dozen times.

Eeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaa-sy
.

Okay, okay, I got it.

He looked for his sunglasses, immediately took them back off, too heavy, too many injuries, slammed the glove compartment shut and turned off the sound.

His mobile began to vibrate. It suffered the same fate.

A moth-eaten dove and a disfigured cripple in a tiny Japanese car, not exactly the greatest Noah’s ark imaginable, and yet, and yet . . . Beneath his sticking plasters he was secretly disintegrating.

After him, the deluge . . .

*

He left the motorway for the main road, then the secondary roads.

And then he realized, for the very first time in months, that the Earth turned around the Sun – well what d’you know – and that he lived in a country that was subject to the rhythm of the seasons.

His own sluggishness, and the lamps and neon lights, and the flicker of computer screens and the changing time zones had all conspired to make him forget. It was the end of June, the beginning of summer; he opened the windows wide, and brought in his first hay.

Another revelation, France.

So many landscapes for such a small country. And so much colour. An extraordinary palette with variations and contrasts and specificities according to region and building material . . . Bricks, brown flat tiles, the warm hues of the Sologne. Stones with a patina, or a coating, the ochre sand of the riverbeds. Then the Loire, clay and tufa. The endless play of grey and chalky white on the facades . . . Ivory and greyish beige in this late afternoon light . . . Bluish roofs highlighted by the red brick of the chimney stacks . . . The woodwork was often pale, or darker, depending on the owner’s fantasy or what was left at the bottom of the tin of paint.

And before long, another region, other quarries, other stones . . .
Shale
, thackstone, sandstone, lava, even granite here and there. Other rubble stones, other bondings, other facings, other coverings. Here gutter-bearing walls have replaced gables, there winters will be harsher and the dwellings built closer together. Or there, the door and window frames or the lintels are not as finely wrought, and the tones are more . . .

This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for Charles to invoke the remarkable work of Jean-Philippe Lenclos and his Atelier, but, well . . . He’d been asked not to keep on about it, so . . . So he kept it to himself, all his paraphernalia, his contacts, his
references
, and he was driving ever more slowly. He turned his head, made a face, ran onto the embankment, jerked the steering wheel suddenly, scraped the kerb and went through tiny villages attracting everyone’s gaze.

The soup was on the stove. It was time to nip out the geraniums and sit on benches and pull chairs outdoors in front of facades still drenched with sunlight. People shook their heads as he drove through and commented on it until the next turn of events.

As for the dogs, they hardly raised an ear. Let sleeping fleas and Parisians lie.

Charles was useless where nature was concerned. Groves, hedges, forests, moors, prairies, pastureland, hillsides, copses, woods, arbours – all words he was familiar with, but he wouldn’t have known where to put them, on a topographical chart. He had never built anything far from a town, and he could not recall any books to which he might have referred, as the likes of Lenclos confined themselves to housing, for example.

In any case, for him the countryside meant one thing: a place to read. By a fireplace in the winter, against a tree trunk in the spring, and in the shade in the summer. It was not for lack of opportunity, however. When he was little, at his grandparents’, during the grand epoch of Monsieur Canut, with Alexis; then, later on, when Laurence had dragged him off to stay with one friend or another, at their
country home
.

Memories of weekends where he felt a bit lost, where people were constantly begging him for an opinion, an estimate, advice on whether to knock down a wall. He would clench his teeth as he surveyed hideous bay windows, criminal apertures, incongruous swimming pools, padlocked cellars, and country folk in their Sunday
best
, their wellingtons skilfully muddied, their cashmere in matching tones.

He’d given vague answers – it was hard to say, he’d have to see, he didn’t know the region – and then, once he had scrupulously disappointed all these fine folk, he’d go off with a book in his hand, looking for a nice little hidey-hole where he could take a nap.

Talk about holes, he was in one now – no more signposts, no indication, ghostly hamlets, pavement colonized by wild grasses and, for sole escort, a squad of rabbits out for a good time.

What was Miles Davis’s heir doing in this hole?

And where was he, anyway?

His diary was useless as a GPS. Where was the D73? And why hadn’t he gone through the dump of a village whose name he couldn’t even read any more?

Anouk . . .

Where are you taking me this time?

Can you see me now? The petrol gauge and my stomach on empty, completely lost at a fork in the road telling me nothing other than that I’ll find firewood eight kilometres from here, or how to get to some long-extinguished summer solstice bonfires?

Where would you go, in my place?

Straight ahead, right?

Right.

In the next village, he rolled down his window.

He was lost. Marcy? Manery? Maybe it was Margery? Did that ring a bell?

No.

And the D73?

Oh, yes, in that case. It was the road over there, to the left on your way out of town, cross the river and immediately after the sawmill, take the first right.

One woman said, ‘Maybe it’s Les Marzeray the gentleman from the Oise is looking for?’

And there, he had to admit it, Charles felt a moment of overwhelming solitude. What on . . .

To his poor brain he granted the respite of a stupid smile, to give it time to untangle the whole mess.

First of all, as for the Oise, it must have been his number plate, he hadn’t noticed when he’d picked up the car but that must be why; and then how did you write, and pronounce, Les Marzeray? Did it end in a ‘y’? An ‘M’ and a ‘y’ that he’d scribbled any old how on the page of 9 August, that was all he had to go on. He tried to read it again but there was nothing for it: apart from the name of that day’s saint, nothing was clear. As for the saint in question, hah hah, St Hilarious indeed.

The villagers put their heads together, argued for a fairly long time, and came to an agreement. Must be a ‘y’.

They sure asked some funny questions, that lot from the Oise . . .

‘But . . . is it still a long way?’

‘Well . . . twenty-odd kilometres . . .’

Twenty kilometres, far enough for his steering wheel to get very slippery and his ribcage increasingly rough. Twenty very slow kilometres which confirmed one thing to him: he really did look like a fool.

When the steeple of Les Marzeray appeared in the distance, he pulled over onto the verge.

He was limping, he took a piss in the brambles, then a deep breath, felt the pain, let out his breath, loosened his shirt, lifted it by the tips of the collar and shook it to make it dry. Then he wiped his brow on his arm. His scratches were hurting him. He breathed in again, God what a pong, buttoned himself, put his jacket back on, and breathed out one last time.

His stomach began to rumble. He was grateful for the reminder but told it off, on principle. Shit, things were pretty serious here! A what? A steak? But there’s no more room, you idiot. You’re all skin and bone, now, can’t you see?

Yes, that’s it . . . A nice big steak with Alexis . . . To make him happy . . .
Eat, boys, eat, the rest will follow
. . .

His only problem (what, more? Starting to have his fill of all this!), was his stomach.

Which was beginning to heave.

So he lit up a fag.

To quieten it.

He sat on the warm bonnet, took his time, increased his risk of impotence, and covered a swarm of little bugs in a cloud of smoke.
He
could remember the rough time he’d had of it, however. He’d been a real cynic back then: he said that giving up smoking was the only great adventure left to overfed little Westerners like themselves. The only one.

No longer a cynic.

He felt old, haunted by death, dependent.

He switched his mobile back on just to check. Nothing. No more coverage.

2

OUTSIDE THE TOWN
hall he turned to the page for 10 August: Alexis lived on the Clos des Ormes. He searched for a long time and eventually had to switch once again to Radio Gossipy Neighbours:

‘Oh, that’s way further along . . . In the new houses, past the cooperative.’

‘New houses’: at the time it hadn’t registered, but what was meant was the housing estate, in its fancy parade. Off to a good start, then . . . Everything he loved . . . Crap construction, crap roughcast, sliding shutters, letter boxes all in a row and ornate pseudo streetlamps.

And the worst of it is that eyesores like that don’t come cheap.

Right, enough. So where is number 8?

Thuyas, a pretentious fence and a gate with DIY medieval ironwork. All that was missing were the little lions at the top of each pillar. Charles smoothed his jacket pockets and, open sesame, pressed the buzzer.

A little blond genie appeared in the window in the door.

A pair of arms moved it to one side.

Okay . . .

He pressed the bloody buzzer again.

A woman’s voice answered, ‘Yes?’

No? Could it be? There was an entry phone? He hadn’t noticed. An entry phone? Here? In one of the most deserted regions in France? Classified a national park and all that? Fourth house in a botch-up of a development that hardly had more than a dozen, and there was an entry phone? But . . . what could it possibly mean?

‘Who are you?’ repeated the . . . device.

Charles answered fuck off but articulated it somewhat differently: ‘Charles. A fr— – an old friend of Alexis’s.’

Silence.

It was not hard to imagine their astonishment: action stations at Dunroamin’, calls of ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘Did you hear properly?’ He squared his shoulders, made himself a sort of sublime garment worthy of a gladiator, and waited for the (automatic) gate to open and splatter Moses.

Missed.

‘He’s not here.’

Right . . . slowly, slowly catchee monkey, etc. Seems he had a surly client at the other end of the wire, time to get on with it, get out the heavy artillery.

‘You must be Corinne,’ he simpered. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you . . . My name is Balanda, Charles Balanda . . .’

The front door (exotic wood, a Cheverny model, or was it Chambord, comes ready to install, lattice work with lead-look strips set into the double glazing and peripheral waterproofing seals on the frame) opened onto a face that was . . . not quite as stylishly put together.

She reached out her arm, her hand, her battering ram, and because he was trying to smile in order to mollify her, he finally understood what it was that was making her so tense: it was his face. His own bloody face.

But still, all the same . . . He’d forgotten about it. His trousers had a hole in them, his jacket was torn, and his shirt was covered in blood and antiseptic.

‘Hello . . . Sorry . . . It’s . . . Just . . . I fell down this morning. I’m not disturbing you?’

She didn’t reply.

‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘No, no . . . He should be back any minute.’ Then, turning to the little boy, ‘You get back in the house!’

‘Fine . . . I’ll wait for him, then.’

She was supposed to say, ‘Well, do come in, please’, or ‘Would you like something to drink while you’re waiting?’ or . . . but all she said was, ‘Fine,’ very curtly, and went back into her little builder’s house.

The genuine article.

Quality stuff, too.

So Charles indulged in a bit of anthropology.

Wandering down Clos des Ormes.

Compared the hollow, embossed granite-style rough-hewn pillars, the balusters costing less than ten euros the linear metre, the factory-aged cobblestones, the concrete flagstones dyed to look like stone, the grandiose barbecue equipment, the epoxy resin garden furniture, the fluorescent children’s slides, the polyester arbours, the garage doors as wide as the so-called ‘living’ area, the . . .

God what taste.

True enough, no longer a cynic. He was a snob.

Turned around and walked back. Another car was parked behind his. He slowed, felt his leg grow even stiffer, and the same little blond boy bounced out of the garden, followed by a man who must have been his daddy.

And at that point – it’s bloody pathetic when you think of it, but you’re not thinking, you’re merely stating a fact – the first thought to enter Charles’s mind after so much shock was: ‘Bastard. He’s still got all his hair.’

Shattering.

And then. What could possibly happen next?

Violins? Slow motion? Soft focus?

‘And what’s this? You walk like a little old man, now?’

What did you expect . . .

Charles didn’t know what to say. He must be getting soft.

Alexis hurt him when he slapped him on the shoulder.

‘What brings you here?’

Stupid jerk.

‘This your son?’

‘Lucas, get over here! Come and say hello to your uncle Charles!’