Consolation (31 page)

Charles leaned over to give the boy a kiss. And took his time. He’d forgotten the fresh perfume of a child’s skin . . .

He asked him whether he wasn’t fed up with Spider-Man clinging to his T-shirt, he touched his hair, his neck; what? Even on your socks? Well, well . . . and your pants, too? He learned how to place his fingers to make the ‘sticky’ web, tried it himself, got it wrong, promised he’d practise then stood up straight and saw that Alexis Le Men was weeping.

He forgot all his good resolutions and ruined the chemist’s good work.

All the cuts and scrapes and bumps and stitches and barriers and plasters in life – they all gave way.

Their hands closed over each other and it was Anouk that they were embracing.

Charles stepped back first. Pain, bruises. Alexis lifted up his kid, made him laugh by nibbling his tummy, but actually it was so that he could hide, and blow his nose; then he lifted him onto his shoulders.

‘What happened to you? Did you fall off some scaffolding?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see Corinne?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were just passing through?’

‘That’s right.’

Charles stood still. Three steps along, Alexis finally turned around. Put on his arrogant air of landed gentry and pulled on his son’s legs to balance his load. That load, at any rate.

‘Did you come here to lecture me, is that it?’

‘No.’

They looked at each other for a long time.

‘Are you still going on about cemeteries?’

‘No,’ said Charles, ‘no. I’ve finished with that.’

‘So where are you then?’

‘Are you going to invite me for dinner?’

Relieved, Alexis granted him a fine smile, from the old days, but it was too late. Charles had just taken back all his marbles.

One Mistinguett in exchange for dinner at the Clos des Ormes, for the price of bad taste, petrol, and time wasted: it seemed like a fair bargain.

The sky was clear, my darling. Did you see her, did you get your olive branch, then?

Of course it was short-lived, more of a withdrawal than a surge, I’ll grant you that, and of course it’s not enough for you. But nothing ever was enough for you, so . . .

And to feel his pockets full again, to have that certainty that the game was over, that he wouldn’t play any more, and so he wouldn’t lose any more, because this course, however hellish, was now too short for him to measure up against such a mediocre opponent, and this was an immense relief.

He had a jolly lilt to his limp now, tickled the knees of the super hero, opened his hand, curled back his index and ring finger,
took
aim and pow! snared a little bird that was dancing on the telegraph wires:

‘You didn’t really!’ countered little Lucas. ‘Where is it, then?’

‘I put it in my car.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You ought to.’

‘Pfff . . . know what, I’d’ve seen you if you truly did.’

‘I’ll have you know that that would really surprise me, because you were looking at the neighbours’ dog.’

And while Alexis was unloading the weekly shop, going to and fro between the boot of his car and his perfect garage, Charles silenced a very suspicious little boy.

‘Yes, but why is he already stuck onto a piece of wood, then?’

‘Uh . . . May I remind you that spiderwebs are sticky . . .’

‘Shall we show Daddy?’

‘No. It’s still a bit shaken up, now . . . We should leave it alone for a while . . .’

‘Is he dead?’

‘No, he isn’t! Of course not! He’s a bit shaken up, I said. We’ll let him go a bit later on.’

Lucas nodded gravely then looked up, Light bulb!, and asked,

‘What’s your name?’

‘Charles.’ He smiled.

‘And why d’you have all those plasters on your head?’

‘Guess.’

‘’Cause you’re not as strong as Spider-Man?’

‘Yup. Sometimes I miss . . .’

‘Want me to show you my room?’

His mother disturbed their arachnoid complicity. First they had to go through the garage and remove their shoes. (Charles raised an eyebrow, he’d never yet had to remove his shoes on entering a house.) (Except in Japan, naturally . . .) (Quite. What a snob he was . . .) Then she raised her index finger. No making a mess, all right? Finally she turned to this individual who seemed to be imposing on them.

‘Will you . . . will you stay for dinner?’

Alexis had just appeared behind his handful of Champion shopping bags. (This would please his brother-in-law no end . . . What a
delightful
vignette . . . If he dared, if he could get reception what a fine MMS he could send to Claire . . .)

‘Of course he’s staying! What . . .? What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ she retorted in a voice that meant quite the opposite, ‘it’s just that I’ve got nothing ready. Tomorrow is the school fair and in case you’d forgotten I still haven’t finished Marion’s costume. I’m not a seamstress, you know!’

Alexis, feverish and naïve, all wrapped up in the emotion of reconciliation, put down his stuff and brushed aside her arguments: ‘No problem. Don’t worry. I’ll do the cooking.’

He turned around: ‘And where is Marion, anyway? Isn’t she here? Where is she?’

Another sigh emerged from the woman in her cloth pad floor-polishing slippers: ‘Where is she, where is she . . . You know perfectly well where she is.’

‘At Alice’s place?’

‘Obviously.’

‘I’ll call them.’

‘Good luck. They never pick up over there. I don’t know why they even have a phone.’

Alexis closed his eyes, reminded himself that he felt cheerful, and headed for the kitchen.

Charles and Lucas did not dare move.

‘She’s asking if she can sleep over!’ shouted Alexis.

‘No. We have a guest.’

Charles gestured, no, no, no, he refused to act as a poor alibi.

‘She says they’re rehearsing their choreography for tomorrow –’

‘No. She has to come home.’

‘She’s begging you,’ insisted her father, ‘she says, “on her knees”, even.’

Running out of arguments, Corinne the life and soul of the party used the meanest one of all: ‘Out of the question. She hasn’t got her dental brace with her.’

‘Well hang on, if that’s the only reason, I can take it over to her.’

‘Oh, really? I thought you were the one doing the dinner.’

What an atmosphere . . . Charles suddenly felt that he needed a bit of air, so he stuck his nose into something that wasn’t his business: ‘I can be the messenger boy if that’s of any help . . .’

The look she shot him confirmed his suspicion: this was ab-so-lute-ly none of his business.

‘You don’t even know where it is.’

‘But I know!’ exclaimed Lucas. ‘I can show him the way!’

A sudden silence; an angel passing, hugging the walls.

The master of the house felt that it was time to show his mate, his comrade, his former army pal, just
who
laid down the law here. There are limits, after all.

‘Okay, you can stay, but you come back straight after breakfast, all right?’

Charles put him in the back seat, turned the car round and hightailed it out of Noddy Close.

He raised his eyes to the rear view mirror: ‘Right, where do we go from here?’

An enooooormous smile informed him that the tooth fairy had been by twice already.

‘We’re going to the wickedest house in the whole wide world!’

‘Oh, really? And where is it, this wicked house?’

‘Well, uh . . .’

Lucas removed his seat belt, moved forward, looked at the road, thought for two seconds and trumpeted, ‘Straight ahead!’

His driver rolled his eyes heavenward.

Straight ahead.

Of course.

How stupid could he be.

To heaven . . .

Which had taken on a pink hue.

And powdered its nose to accompany them . . .

‘You look like you’re crying?’ said his companion anxiously.

‘No, no, it’s just that I’m very tired . . .’

‘Why’re you tired?’

‘Because I didn’t get much sleep.’

‘Did you take a very long trip to come and see me?’

‘Oh, if you only knew!’

‘And did you fight a lot of monsters?’

‘Hey,’ said Charles cheekily, thrusting his thumb towards his brawler’s face: ‘You don’t think I did this myself, now, do you?’

Respectful silence.

‘And what’s that? Is that blood?’

‘What d’you think?’

‘Why are there some spots that are dark brown and other ones that are light brown?’

The age of why and then why and then why. He’d forgotten . . .

‘Well . . . it depends on the monsters.’

‘And which ones were the meanest?’

They were out in the sticks now, chattering away . . .

‘Hey, is your wicked house much further?’

Lucas peered at the windscreen, made a face, turned round: ‘Oh, we just drove past.’

‘Oh, well done!’ groaned Charles, pretending, ‘well done, copilot! I don’t know if I can take you along on any future expeditions, now!’

Contrite silence.

‘Hey . . . Of course I’ll take you. Why don’t you come and sit on my knee in the front here? You’ll be able to see better to show me the way.’

This time, it was clear, and there would be no regrets: he had just made himself a friend in the Le Men clan, and for life.

But oh Lord, he was aching all over.

They stopped so that Lucas could change places. Then they did a fine manoeuvre on a brown cow pasture, slalomed along the warm tarmac, turned in front of a sign that said
Les Vesperies
, had a job locating the rut that would take them on to the dirt road, then finally found themselves headed down a magnificent avenue lined with oak trees.

Charles, who had forgotten neither the way he smelled nor the way he looked, began to panic.

‘Does she live in a château, your friend Alice?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘But er . . . how well do you know these people?’

‘Well . . . I mainly know the baroness and Victoria . . . Victoria, you’ll see, she’s the oldest and fattest.’

Oh, fuck. The beggar and his scruffy urchin dropping in on the local toffs . . . That’s all he needed . . .

What a day, can you believe what a day.

‘And, uh, are they nice?’

‘No. Not the baroness. She’s a bee-eye-tee-see-aitch.’

Right, okay, uh-huh . . . After the stucco and pebbledash, bring on the crenellations and machicolations.

France, land of contrasts . . .

Because they were tickling him and it felt good, his navigator’s unruly locks get him back on course: ‘Zounds, m’lad! Charge! Straight to the dungeon!’

Yes, but the problem was, that there was no château . . . The centuries-old avenue ended in the middle of a huge meadow, only partially mown.

‘You have to turn that way . . .’

They followed a little stream (the former moat?) for a hundred metres or more, then a cluster of roofs, more or less collapsed (but mostly more) came into view among the trees.

So we’re headed for the former outbuildings, then . . .

He felt better.

‘And now you stop here, because that bridge, it might fall down . . .’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, and it’s really really dangerous,’ he added, with relish.

‘I see . . .’

He pulled over next to an ageless Volvo estate car splattered with mud. The tailgate was open and two mutts were snoozing in the boot.

‘That one’s called “Ergli” and that one’s “Eedyuss”.’

Tails began to wag, stirring up dustclouds from hay.

‘They are really ugly, aren’t they?’

‘Yes but it’s on purpose,’ his mini-guide assured him, ‘every year they go to the pound and they ask the man there to give them the ugliest dog of all . . .’

‘Oh, really? Whatever for?’

‘Well, um . . . to get it out of there, that’s why!’

‘Yes, but . . . How many do they have altogether?’

‘I don’t know . . .’

I see, thought Charles ironically, so we’re nowhere near the residence of Godefroy de Bouillon, but in some refuge for neo-hippies of the back to Nature variety.

God help us.

‘And do they have goats, too?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew it! And the baroness, does she smoke grass?’

‘Hey . . . you’re really silly, y’know. She eats grass, you mean.’

‘She’s a cow?’

‘A pony.’

‘And what about fat Victoria?’

‘No. She used to be a queen, I think.’

Help
.

After that Charles kept quiet. Stuffed his snide thoughts in his pocket and placed his disgusting handkerchief on top of them.

The place was beautiful . . .

Yet this was something he already knew: that the people who lived in outbuildings – the ‘common folk’ if you like – were always more touching than their masters . . . He could think of dozens of examples . . . But he wasn’t trying any more, he wasn’t even thinking, he was admiring.

The bridge should have made him realize right away. The way the stones were arranged, the elegant approach, the pebbles, the guardrail, the pillars.

And the courtyard beyond . . . it was called a ‘closed’ courtyard but it was full of grace . . . These buildings . . . Their proportions . . . The impression of safety, invulnerability, even though everything was crumbling . . .

A dozen or so bicycles had been abandoned along the way and hens were pecking between the sprockets. There were even some geese and, above all, an astonishing duck. How could he describe it . . . almost vertical . . . As if it were standing on the tips of its . . . feet.

‘You coming?’ urged Lucas.

‘What an odd duck, eh?’

‘Which one? Him? And he can run really fast, you’ll see.’

‘But what is it? Is he some sort of cross with a penguin?’

‘I don’t know . . . they call him the Indian . . . And when he’s with the rest of his family, they always walk one behind the other, it’s really funny . . .’

‘In Indian file, you mean?’

‘Are you coming?’

Charles was startled once again: ‘And what’s that thing, there?’

‘That’s the lawnmower.’

‘But it’s – it’s a llama!’

‘Don’t start petting it because if you do it will follow you everywhere and you won’t be able to get rid of it.’