Consolation (60 page)

Charles found his smile a bit sad, and returned it.

‘No problem,’ continued Alexis, looking up, ‘as for me, I’ve had my share of exotic . . .’

They went to find Lucas, who was playing hide-and-seek with the dead.

‘You know I . . . I meant what I said when you called me the first time. And I still think that –’

Charles gestured to him that it was all right, that he didn’t need to justify himself, that . . .

‘And then when I saw everything they were doing for their dog, I . . .’

‘Balanda?

‘I’d like you to make the journey with me.’

His friend agreed.

*

Later, walking along the road: ‘Tell me, is it serious with Kate?’

‘No, no. Not at all. I’m just going to marry her and adopt all the kids. And the livestock, while I’m at it . . . I’ve asked the llama to be maid of honour.’

Charles recognized that laugh.

After they had walked for a moment in silence: ‘Don’t you think she resembles Mum?’

‘No,’ said Charles, to protect himself.

‘Yes. I think she does. Just like her. But more solid.’

15

CHARLES MET HIM
at the station and they went straight to the waste depot.

Both were wearing a white shirt and a light-coloured jacket.

When they got there, two heavy-set men were already pulling her up.

Their hands behind their backs, without exchanging a single word, they watched as the coffin came up to the surface. Alexis was weeping, but not Charles. He remembered what he had looked up in the dictionary the night before:

Exhume, verb [trans.] Recall from oblivion, bring back
.

The suits from the funeral director’s took over the next stage of the operation. They carried her to the van and closed the doors on all three of them.

They were sitting facing one another, separated by a strange coffee table in pine . . .

‘If I’d known, I’d have brought a deck of cards,’ joked Alexis.

‘Have mercy, no . . . She’d be perfectly capable of cheating as usual!’

Over the bumps and in the curves they instinctively placed their hands on her, despite the fact that she’d been cinched round and round to prevent any sliding. And once their hands were where they were, they left them there for a long time, feeling the gnarls in the wood, as if they were gently caressing her.

They did not talk a lot, and only about topics of no interest. Their jobs, their back problems, their teeth, the difference in cost between a city dentist and a country dentist, the car that Charles ought to buy, the best used-car lots, the cost of a car park season ticket at the station, and the crack in the stairwell . . . What the
assessor
had said, and the form letter Charles would give Alexis for the insurance company.

Neither one of them, that much was clear, felt like exhuming anything other than the body of the woman who had loved them so much.

At one point, however – and of course it had to be about him, because he was always the one who set the mood and lowered the lighting – they evoked memories of Nana.

No. Not memories. His presence, rather. His vitality, the energy of a little fellow all covered in jewels, and who had always had their chocolate croissant waiting for them when they got out of school.

‘Nana . . . we’re sick of your chocolate croissants . . . Can’t you get us something else, next time?’

‘And the myth, duckies, and the myth?’ he replied, dusting off their collars. ‘If I get something else, you’ll end up forgetting me, whereas like this, you’ll see, I’m leaving crumbs behind for your entire life!’

And now they saw.

‘Some day, we ought to go and see him, with the children,’ said Alexis, a more cheerful note in his voice.

‘Pfff . . .’ sighed Charles, exaggerating the ‘pfff’ somewhat (he was a very poor actor), ‘do you know where he is?’

‘No . . . But we could find out . . .’

‘Find out how?’ retorted Charles, fatalistic. ‘Ask the Association of Friends of Old Queens?’

‘What was his name anyway . . .’

‘Gigi Rubirosa?’

‘Shit, that was it. And you remembered that?’

‘No. In fact I’ve been hunting for it since your letter, and it came to me just now.’

‘And his other name . . . his real name?’

‘I never knew.’

‘Gigi . . .’ murmured Alexis thoughtfully, ‘Gigi Rubirosa . . .’

‘Yes. Gigi Rubirosa. The great friend of Orlanda Marshall and Jacquie the Jam Tart . . .’

‘How can you remember all that?’

‘I don’t forget a thing. Alas.’

Silence.

‘Well that is, when it’s things that deserve to be remembered.’

Silence.

‘Charles . . .’ murmured the erstwhile junkie.

‘Shut up.’

‘It’ll have to come out someday . . .’

‘Okay but not today, all right? We’ll each have our turn. Hey, what is it with you,’ he said, pretending to get annoyed, ‘you piss me off in the end you Le Mens with all your psychodramas! It’s been going on for forty years now! What about some respite for the living, no?’

He lifted up his briefcase. After a split second of hesitation he placed it before him, pulled out his files, and proved to Anouk, leaning on her, that no, you see I haven’t changed, I’m still that diligent little old schoolboy who . . .

Nana would have loved that song . . .

And instruction leaflets, just like autumn leaves, can be shovelled into piles. Memories and regrets too. When autumn leaves . . . na na na . . .

Yves Montand, that was something else. Nana had known him well.

‘What are you humming, there?’

‘Rubbish.’

*

It was nearly one o’clock when they arrived in the village. Alexis invited the undertakers to lunch at the grocery-store-bistro.

They hesitated. They were in a hurry, and didn’t like leaving the merchandise out in the sun.

‘Go on . . . just something quick,’ he insisted.

‘Just a boxed lunch,’ joked Charles.

‘With a good stiff hot dog,’ added Alexis.

And they had a good laugh, still the two young jerks they had always been.

Once they’d swallowed the last of their beer, they went back to their ropes.

*

When she was once again in the cool earth, Alexis approached the edge of the grave, stood still, lowered his head and . . .

‘Excuse me, Sir, would you mind getting out of the way?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Well, we’re really in a rush now. So we’ll put the other one in right away, that way you’ll have all the time you need afterwards to meditate –’

‘The other what?’ he said, startled.

‘Well, the other . . .’

Alexis turned round and saw a second coffin waiting on a trestle near the Vanneton-Marchanboeuf family, raised his eyebrows, then saw his friend’s smile.

‘What . . . what’s all this about?’

‘Come on . . . Make an effort . . . Can’t you see it – the boas and the pink ruffles around his wrists?’

Alexis broke down and it took Charles forever to console him after the added shock.

‘How . . . how did you manage it?’ he stammered, while the experts were packing up their gear.

‘I bought him.’

‘Huh?’

‘To start with, I actually did remember his name. I have to admit I’ve had time to think about it over these last months . . . Then I went to see his nephew, and I bought him.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘There’s nothing to understand. We were sitting round having a drink, having a chat, and this Norman bloke wasn’t going along with it, it was shocking, he said, and it made me laugh to see that these people, who’d had nothing but bad things to say about him when he was alive, had suddenly got so mindful of his maggots . . . so I brought myself into line with their vulgar behaviour and pulled out my cheque book.

‘It was grand, Alex . . . Grandiose, even. It was like . . . something out of a short story by Maupassant. There was this stupid fool trying to pass off his crass stupidity as some kind of dignity, but after a while his wife came over and said, “Oh, all the same, Pierrot . . . The boiler wants replacing . . . and what’s it to you whether Maurice has his final rest here or elsewhere, huh? He’s had his last rites . . . Huh?”
Last rites
. . . Sublime, isn’t it? So I asked how much it cost for a new boiler. They told me some amount and I copied it out without batting an eyelid. For that price, I reckon you could heat the entire Calvados region!’

Alexis was lapping it up.

‘And the best is yet to come: I’d filled everything out – the stub, the date, the place, but just when I was about to sign the cheque, up went my pen: “You know . . . given what this is costing me, I need at least . . .” Long silence. “Pardon?” “I want six photos of Na— of Maurice,” I said, “it’s that or nothing.”

‘You should have seen the way they went into action. They could only find three! They had to call Aunt Whatsit! But she only had one! But maybe Bernadette, well she ought to have a few! So the son goes rushing over to Bernadette’s place, and in the meantime we went through all the albums, going berserk with all that fiddly transparent paper. Oh, it was a fine moment . . . For once, I was putting on the show for Nana . . . Well, anyway . . .’

He pulled an envelope out of his pocket.

‘Here they are. Look how sweet he was . . . Of course, the one where you recognize him best is the baby photo, naked on an animal skin . . . Yes, there you can tell he really is in his element.’

Alexis leafed through the photos and smiled, ‘Don’t you want one?’

‘No . . . you keep them.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s your only family.’

Alexis was silent.

‘And Anouk’s too, actually . . . That’s why I went to get him.’

‘I –’ he began, rubbing his nose, ‘I don’t know what to say, Charles . . .’

‘Don’t say anything. I did it for myself.’

Then he bent forward all of a sudden and pretended to be tying one of his shoelaces.

Alexis had just taken him by the shoulders, ‘brothers in arms’, and the embrace upset him.

He’d done it for himself, the purchase. As for the rest – their complicity – that was no longer part of this world.

Alexis was astonished to see Charles heading off towards the van, and he called out, ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m leaving with them.’

‘But . . . and . . .’

Charles didn’t have the courage to listen to the end of his sentence. He had a site meeting the next morning at seven, and the night would not be long enough to prepare it properly.

He squeezed in next to the two vultures, and just as the
Les Marzeray
road sign with its red diagonal stripe disappeared behind them on the right, he felt – he suffered – his only sorrow of the day.

He had been so close to her, and to go away again without having kissed her – it was . . . mortifying.

Fortunately, his travelling companions turned out to be regular bricks.

They began by wiping off their graveyard expressions, loosened their ties, took off their jackets and finally let their hair down completely. They told their passenger a whole slew of stories, each one more macabre and salacious than the next.

Dead bodies farting, mobile phones ringing in the satin, secret mistresses showing up with the holy water sprinkler, the last will and testament of certain late merrymakers which, as the undertakers put it, were ‘literally killing them’, survivors so off their rocker that you ended up with enough bloody anecdotes to carry you through retirement, and any other thing you could think of that was mortally hilarious.

When the source of the stories had run dry, the
Grosses Têtes
quiz show on the radio took over.

Bollocks. Just in time.

Charles, who’d accepted their offer of a cigarette, took the opportunity as he tossed the butt out the window to offload his black armband at the same time.

He laughed, asked Jean-Claude to turn up the volume, left behind his mourning, and concentrated on the next question from Madame Titi.

From Brest.

16

MID-SEPTEMBER. LAST WEEKEND
Charles picked two kilos of blackberries, put paper dust jackets on twenty-four schoolbooks (twenty-four!), and helped Kate to trim the goat’s hooves. Claire had come with him and took Dad’s place by the copper cauldrons, where she chatted for hours with Yacine.

The day before, she’d gone completely crackers over the blacksmith, and decided she would change professions and go into the Lady Chatterley line.

‘Did you see that torso under his leather apron?’ she pined, all day long and well into the evening. ‘Kate? Have you seen him?’

‘Forget it. He has a hammer in his head.’

‘How do you know? Have you tried him out?’

She waited until Claire’s brother had gone into the other room, then winced, yes, she had played the, er, anvil a while back . . . ‘Yeah but still,’ sighed Claire, drooling, ‘that torso . . .’

A few hours later, on happy pillows, Kate would ask Charles if he thought he would last the winter.

‘I don’t understand the meaning of your question . . .’

‘Okay, forget it,’ she murmured, turning over and giving him back his arm so she could lie on her stomach.

‘Kate?’

‘Yes?’

‘What did you mean?’

She didn’t know what to say.

‘What are you afraid of, my love? Me? The cold? Or time?’

‘Everything.’

The only answer he would give was to caress her, for a long time.

Her hair, her back, her bottom.

He wouldn’t struggle with words any more.

There was nothing to say.

Make her moan, once more.

And lull her to sleep.

Now he was in his office and trying to understand the graphs for the analysis of the arches subjected to unequal weights provok—

‘What is this bloody shit?’ Philippe burst into his office like a jack-in-a box, shaking a wad of papers at him.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Charles without looking up from his screen, ‘but you’re going to tell me.’

‘Confirmation of an application for a design contest for a shitty village hall in Back-of-Beyond-on-Bullshit! That’s what it is!’