Consolation (59 page)
Authors: Anna Gavalda
The last drawing
.
The back of her neck
.
The place where Anouk had touched her, so furtively, and where he, Charles, had just caressed her, for hours
.
It was very early, she was still sleeping, stretched out on her stomach and, through the tiny arrow slit, a ray of light revealed all that he had rued not being able to see in the dark
.
She was even more beautiful than anything his hand had led him to believe
. . .
He pulled the blanket up over her shoulders and reached for his notebook. Gingerly, he parted her hair, and refrained from kissing her beauty spot yet again, for fear of waking her. And drew the highest point on earth
.
The basket was tipped on its side, and the bottle was empty. He had told her, between embraces, how he had come to her. From the marbles games to Mistinguett, held tight to his chest between the pavement and the little bit of himself still faintly beating that morning
. . .
As he was telling her about Anouk, his family, Laurence, his profession, Alexis, and Nana, he confessed he had loved her from the very first moment, round that big campfire, and he hadn’t taken his trousers to the cleaner’s because he wanted to keep, deep in his pockets, the wood dust she’d left in his hand that first time she’d held it
.
And it wasn’t only about her, either. It was her children, too . . . And they were ‘her’ children, not just ‘the’ children, for no matter how she might protest to the contrary, however different they might be, they were all in her image. Absolutely, marvellously sparky
.
At first he had thought he would be too overwhelmed, or too troubled, to make love to her the way he had fucked her in his dreams, but then
there
were her caresses, her confessions, her own words . . . The beneficial effects of the bottle and the notes of honey and citrus
. . .
His life, his story, had all come out, and he loved her accordingly. Honestly, chronologically. First as an awkward teenager, then a conscientious student, an ambitious young architect, a creative engineer, and finally – and this was the best bit – a man who was all of forty-seven: rested, shorn, happy, who has attained a distant goal he’d never thought possible, let alone dared hope for; and with no flag to plant other than these thousands of kisses which, if strung together, would go to make the most precise of cookie cutters
.
Her body. To be savoured crumb by crumb, nibbled, gobbled. That is how she would like it
.
He felt her hand searching for his, so he closed his notebook and checked that he had not got the perspective wrong
.
‘Kate?’
He had just opened the door
.
‘Yes?’
‘They’re all here.’
‘Who, all?’
‘Your dogs.’
‘Bloody hell . . .’
‘And the llama.’
‘Ooooh,’ moaned the blankets
.
‘Charles?’ she said, coming up behind him
.
He was sitting in the grass, savouring a peach the colour of the sky
.
‘Yes?’
‘It will always be like this, you know.’
‘No. It will be better.’
‘We’ll never have any peace and –’
She couldn’t finish her sentence, savouring lips that tasted of peach
.
12
‘WELL? DID YOU
find a four-leafed clover?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘No particular reason,’ laughed Mathilde.
She was perched on the windowsill.
‘So it seems we’re leaving tomorrow?’
‘I have to go back, but you can stay a few more days if you want to. Kate will take you to the station.’
‘No. I’ll come with you.’
‘And you . . . You haven’t changed your mind?’
‘About what?’
‘The arrangements for your room and board . . .’
‘No. We’ll see. I’ll get used to it. I think it’s my dad who’s going to be given the push, but, oh well, I’m not even sure he realizes . . . As for Mum, it will be good for us.’
Charles put his papers aside for a few minutes and turned to face her.
‘I never know when you’re serious and when you’re just putting on an act . . . I get the feeling you’re going through a lot at the moment so I find all this cheerfulness a little bit suspicious.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘I don’t know . . . be angry with us?’
‘But I am
totally
angry with you, I assure you! I think you’re useless and selfish and a big let-down. Typical adults, in other words. On top of that I’m jealous as hell . . . Now you’ve got a whole bunch of other kids besides me and you’re going to be off in the country all the time . . . Except there’s things that can’t be downloaded in life, y’know.’
‘And the fact that Sam’s coming with us . . . does that bother you?’
‘Nah. He’s cool. And I’m really curious to see what a bloke like him is going to be like at the lycée Jean-Paul Sartre . . .’
‘And if things don’t go well?’
‘Well then, you’re the one who’ll be pulling out your hair . . .’ Ha ha ha.
The entire household accompanied them as far as the ticket barrier and Kate didn’t have to run away to say goodbye: he would be coming back the following week to fetch his young boarder.
He got rid of the kids for a moment by giving them some change for the sweet machine, then grabbed his lover by the neck and –
A chorus of ‘houuuuuuuhh’ came from all around, so Charles closed his mouth to turn and tell them off, but Kate opened it again, gesturing with her middle finger just in case anyone had forgotten who was in charge.
‘They’re useless,’ muttered Yacine. ‘In the
Guinness Book of Records
there’s an American couple who snogged for thirty hours and fifty-nine minutes without stopping.’
‘Just you wait, Mr Potato Head. We’re going to practise.’
13
CHARLES WAS A
huge hit with his shorn head. He was tanned, he’d put on weight and filled out; he got up early, worked effortlessly, made an offer to Marc to join the firm, took care of Samuel’s enrolment, bought beds and desks, gave the bedrooms to the kids and settled into the living room.
He was sleeping in a single bed and was mortified to have so much room.
He had a long conversation with Mathilde’s mother, who wished him luck and patience, and asked him when he would come and collect all his books.
‘So? I hear you’ve gone into intensive breeding?’
He didn’t know what to say. So he hung up.
He flew to Copenhagen and flew back via Lisbon. He was preparing the ground for a new career as advisor and consultant, instead of tenders and procedures and responsibilities. He sent illustrated letters to Kate every day, and taught her how to answer the telephone.
That evening, it was Hattie who answered.
‘Charles here, everything all right?’
‘No.’
It was the first time he’d ever heard this scatty little miss complain.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Big Dog is dying.’
‘Is Kate there?’
‘No.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know.’
He cancelled his appointments, borrowed Marc’s car and found her, in the middle of the night, curled up in front of her ovens.
The dog was one long death rattle.
He came behind her, put his arms around her. She touched his hands without turning round: ‘Sam is about to leave, you’ll never be here and now he’s abandoning me too . . .’
‘I am here. It’s me, just here behind you.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’
She paused, then said, ‘We’ll have to take him to the vet’s tomorrow.’
‘I’ll go.’
He squeezed her so tightly that night that he hurt her.
It was deliberate. She had said she didn’t want to cry over a dog.
Charles, thinking of Anouk, watched as the syringe drained, and he felt the dog’s dry muzzle breathe its last in the palm of his hand. Then he let Samuel carry him out to the car.
Samuel was crying like a baby, telling him the story about the day Big Dog had saved Alice from drowning . . . And the day he ate all the
confits de canard
. . . And the day he ate all the ducks . . . And all those nights he’d watched over them and slept outside the door when they were camping in the living room, to protect them from the draughts . . .
‘It’s going to be hard for Kate,’ Sam murmured.
‘We’ll look after her.’
Silence.
Like Mathilde, this young man did not have too many illusions about the adult world . . .
If he had not been so sad, Charles would have told him: he was both a natural person and a legal entity, subject to the yoke of decennial liability. He would have said this with a laugh of course, and would have added that he was prepared to restore their bridge every ten years to prevent them from drifting away without him.
But Sam kept turning round to check whether the great totem of his childhood was comfortably settled in the rear before blowing his nose in the shirt that had once belonged to the father he had hardly known.
Out of a sense of decency, therefore, Charles held his peace.
*
They dug the hole together while the girls wrote poems.
Kate had chosen the spot.
‘Let’s have him lie on the hill, that way he can go on protec . . . sorry,’ she wept, ‘sorry.’
All the kids from the summertime had gathered. All of them. Even René, wearing a jacket for the occasion.
Alice read a very moving little piece which said, more or less, you gave us a run for our money but we will never forget you, you know . . . And next to speak would be . . .
They turned round. Alexis and his children were climbing up the hill to join them.
Alexis. His children. And his trumpet.
. . . next to speak was Harriet. Who didn’t manage to get to the end of her tribute. She folded it up and between two sobs she spat, ‘I hate death.’
The children tossed lumps of sugar into the hole until Samuel and Charles filled it up and, while the two of them were bent over their spades, Alexis Le Men played his trumpet.
Charles, who up until that point had respected and understood their emotion without sharing it, paused in his grave-digging work.
Lifted his hand to his face.
Drops of . . . of sweat blurred his vision.
He had forgotten that Alexis could cry like this.
What a concert.
Just for them.
On a late summer’s evening.
With the last swallows in flight . . .
On top of a hill overlooking luscious countryside on one side and, on the other, a farm that had survived the Terror.
The musician kept his eyes closed and rocked gently back and forth, as if his notes were restoring his own breath to him before fading into the clouds.
The
bras d’honneur
, the final fuck-you. The ballad. The solo piece of a man who had not played, not since the era of little spoons heated in a flame; and now he was using an old dog in order to mourn all the deaths in his life.
Yes.
What a concert.
*
‘What was it?’ asked Charles as they were heading back down the hill, one after the other.
‘I don’t know . . .
Requiem for a stupid mutt who ruined two trouser legs
. . .’
‘You mean you –’
‘Oh, this time, yes! I was way too jittery not to improvise!’
Charles, thoughtful, followed him for a few more steps and then clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Yes?’
‘Welcome, Alex, welcome . . .’
Alexis thumped him in his fragile rib.
Just in order to teach him: don’t break out the violins when you’re so utterly tone deaf.
‘You’ll stay for dinner, the three of you, won’t you?’ asked Kate.
‘Thanks, but no. I’ve got to –’
His gaze met his former neighbour’s, and he made a little face and continued in a jollier tone, ‘I’ll have to ring, first!’
Charles recognized that smile, it was the one he used to make when he was about to throw all his ammunition into the ring, to get Philippe Lerouge’s prize marble . . .
He played again that evening, for the red-rimmed eyes. All the daft nonsense of their childhood, and the thousand and one ways they had found to pester Nana.
‘And
La Strada
?’ asked Charles.
‘Some other time.’
They stood by the cars.
‘When are you leaving?’ asked Alexis anxiously.
‘Tomorrow at dawn.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes, this time I just came for . . .’
He was going to say an emergency.
‘. . . the revelation of a young talent.’
‘And when will you be back?’
‘Friday evening.’
‘Could you swing by the house? I’d like to show you something.’
‘Okay.’
‘Right, ducks, shoo!’
‘You said it.’
Kate did not understand the last words he murmured in the hollow of her ear.
You are very? Something merry? You’re a fairy?
No, it must have been something else. Fairies don’t have such ugly hands.
14
THERE HE WAS,
once again standing by the entry phone at 8 Clos des Ormes . . .
God, it pissed him off to spend even a second of his precious time away from Les Vesperies, in this bloody place . . .
‘Coming!’ shouted Alexis.
Good. At least he wouldn’t have to wear felt slippers and put up with the careful figure skater.
Lucas jumped up to hug him.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Charles.
‘Follow me.’
‘Here.’
‘Here what?’
The three of them were in the middle of the cemetery.
And since Alexis did not reply, Charles gestured to him that he had understood: ‘Look, it’s perfect. Here, she’ll be exactly midway between your house and Kate’s. When she needs peace and quiet, she’ll come to your place, and when she’s in the mood for something more exotic, she’ll go to Kate’s.’
‘Oh, I know where she’ll go . . .’