How's the Pain? (5 page)

Babies are like open-ended tubes, filled up at the top and emptied at the bottom. Since this baby had just been filled up at the service station, it emptied itself around Avignon. Even with the windows open, the smell was overpowering. Simon knew the stench of shit, blood and rot all too well; it was the smell of war, and he was used to it. But something about this poo, mingled with wafts of sour milk, was getting to him. It was not a horrible smell, exactly; it was a farmyard odour, the whiff of the compost heap, a primeval human memory that aroused a certain nostalgia. But these two impromptu passengers were really beginning to try his patience. They had not been planned for and Simon hated surprises.

‘Will you stop shaking her around? It’s making her give off even more gas.’

‘I’m not shaking her, I’m rocking her. She’ll cry if I don’t.’

‘That’s all we need.’

Bernard had said nothing but could feel the tension rising.

‘What’s the baby’s name?’ he asked.

‘Violette.’

‘Oh, that’s a pretty name!’

Simon shrugged his shoulders and ground his teeth.

‘Doesn’t smell like violets, that’s for sure!’

‘Well, she’s a baby, Monsieur Marechall, it’s only natural.’

‘Only natural? What about death cap mushrooms, they’re natural too, and hemlock, and a lot of other poisons besides! The world’s full of natural children.
Three-quarters
of them should never have seen the light of day.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because it’s true. Half the planet’s dying of hunger. The poor should just eat their offspring. I mean, it’s protein, isn’t it? That’s the way to cure starvation.’

‘That’s a bit much, Monsieur Marechall. People eating their own children!’

‘Well, why not?’

Wriggling about in her dirty nappy, Violette began to screech. Her mother, Fiona, held her more tightly.

‘That’s a horrible thing to say. She heard everything … Don’t worry, poppet, Mummy will never eat you … She needs changing but I’ve run out of nappies.’

Simon clapped his hand to his forehead and took deep breaths to calm his nerves.

‘Here’s what we’re going to do. In a quarter of an hour we’ll be in Avignon. We’re going to drop you off at a
chemist’s, or a supermarket, wherever, and we’re going to say goodbye. We all go our separate ways. Understood?’

‘I don’t know anybody in Avignon … What am I going to do with the baby?’

‘Do what you like! You’re young, you’re not
bad-looking
, you’ll find another man like the last one and so it’ll go on. Bernard, stop as soon as you can; we’ve already wasted too much time.’

‘Right, Monsieur Marechall.’

On the back seat, the child had fallen asleep, her body floppy and mouth wide open. Fiona was snivelling quietly, tears glistening on her cheeks. Bernard kept glancing back at her in the rear-view mirror. It hurt him to see her like that. She reminded him of that girl … Liliane, who had only stayed at the factory a few days. Long enough for him to fall in love with her. Nothing had really happened between them other than sharing a lunchbox once and grabbing a coffee at the bar of Le Penalty. Even so, it had been a love affair. Fiona had that same vacant look in her eyes, the same sickly skin that bruised easily, the aloofness of those who are just passing through.

Ma môme, ell’ joue pas les starlettes/ Ell’ met pas des lunettes/ De soleil/ Ell’ pos’ pas pour les magazines/ Ell’ travaille en usine/ A Créteil.

My girl don’t put on airs and graces/ She don’t wear sunglasses/ In the shade/ She don’t pose for no magazines/ She works in a factory/ in Créteil.

Good old Jean Ferrat. He knew how to talk about that stuff.

‘Bernard, we just went right past a chemist’s. Why didn’t you stop?’

‘I didn’t see it until too late. There’s a lorry on my tail.’

They could have been anywhere. The outskirts of towns look the same in every part of the world. Uncertain places, business parks and shopping centres,
terra incognita,
no man’s lands cluttered with neon signs promising eternal happiness to whoever buys this or that product. You know you’re alive when you’re buying stuff. Judging from the rows of parked cars lined up with military precision, heaven could wait. Here, it was possible to live and die just like in real life, in a fraction of the time.

‘Park up, Bernard. They have everything here. Well, goodbye, Fiona. Good luck.’

Fiona’s gaze seemed to fall elsewhere, a place where nobody ever looked. Her hair was piled messily on top of her head. She played with a loose strand, twisting it around her finger.

‘I haven’t got any money.’

Simon puffed out loudly through his nostrils like a buffalo, scrunching up his eyes.

‘Bernard, here’s fifty euros. Give it to her and take them to die somewhere else, OK?’

‘OK, Monsieur Marechall. I’ll walk them to the entrance.’

‘Fine.’

Through the windscreen, he watched them walking towards Auchan. They looked like a happy little family pushing their trolley along. The sun was shining into his lap. He leant back against the headrest and rubbed his temples.

‘One day I came into the world … and then what?’

He felt a sudden sense of emptiness coupled with an awareness of the sheer incongruity of the situation. What the hell was he doing sitting in the middle of nowhere, waiting for some gangling halfwit to come back? He had a contract to carry out and he had never to this day failed to do the job. He was feeling much better; he did not need anybody else. Those three were all of the same ilk. They would get by just fine without him.

Simon slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Where the hell was the exit? There were arrows pointing in every direction, but they never seemed to lead anywhere. Driving round in circles, he inevitably, fatally, ended up back at square one. Bernard was standing with Fiona and Violette, holding a huge pack of nappies under his arm and watching unfazed and entirely unquestioningly as Simon pulled up alongside them.

‘I was going to fill up but there’s a queue. You get back behind the wheel, Bernard. Get in then.’

The motorway carved its way through a moonscape of scrubland and dry rock. It was eleven o’clock and the sun was beating down relentlessly.

‘… and while you’re working, I’ll find them a place to stay, somewhere nice but not too expensive. What do you think, Monsieur Marechall?’

‘I don’t give a damn, I just want them out of my hair.’

‘Don’t worry, Monsieur Marechall. I’ll pay for it out of my wages.’

In the back, Fiona was shaking her head as the arid hillsides flashed past.

‘Can we put some music on? It’ll help send Violette to sleep.’

‘Do you mind, Monsieur Marechall?’

On Radio Nostalgie, Dalida was belting out her
tear-jerking
classic, ‘Ciao Amore’ … Simon was asleep before the baby.

‘Time to wake up, Monsieur Marechall. We’re nearly there.’

Simon opened one eye and closed it again almost immediately, assailed by the sunlight daubing the windscreen with a lurid carousel of colours. Past a certain age, sleep becomes a rare luxury, given up reluctantly. His mind had been empty of dreams or nightmares, which seemed to him like the most perfect state of grace, as though he had never existed at all. But now he was forced to re-inhabit his pitiful skin that sagged over tired muscles and stuck to creaking bones; to regain his basic thoughts and functions, which at that moment meant nothing to him.

‘Where to now?’

‘Le Grau d’Agde. Go right, along the River Hérault.’

‘Oh yes, it’s signposted … Ah, look. Isn’t that sweet?’

‘What?’

‘The two of them sleeping in the back. It’s like a First Communion picture.’

‘Do you remember what I said? I don’t want to see them again. You’re going to find us a decent place to stay. We’re moving on tomorrow.’

‘Don’t worry, Monsieur Marechall. No probs. Here we are, this is Le Grau whatsitsname.’

‘Right then, drop me off here. We’ll meet at … four o’clock sharp, at the aquarium, OK?’

‘I’ll be there, without fail. Oh, Monsieur Marechall, I meant to say … I’m just so happy to be here, thank you.’

‘The sea’s straight on, at the end of the road. Four o’clock.’

The car drove off, leaving Simon standing slightly disorientated on the pavement, pounded by the force of the sun. For a fraction of a second he wished he could change places with the big schmuck who thought he was on holiday, even if it meant having two fingers missing. He only stepped back into his shady world once he had put his dark glasses on.

He bought thirteen red roses at the first florist’s he came to.

‘Thirteen? People usually buy a dozen.’

‘Not me.’

While the florist – a pretty enough girl, despite her repaired harelip – made up the bouquet, the shop’s warm, humid atmosphere and exotic fragrances transported Simon back to the Indonesian forests he had so loved. He could have stayed there for ever, too … He could have lived anywhere but here, in fact. Funny how things turned out.

‘That’ll be twenty-six euros, please.’

Outside the shop, he looked at his map. Impasse du Lavandin was only a few streets away. He did not pass a single person on his way. The theme tune of a German soap opera floated from open windows, a daily dose to numb the tired brains of the local retirees. They lived in big houses and apartment blocks with fragrant-sounding names like Les Acacias, Les Mimosas and Les Pins. In reality it smelt more like a cemetery, with hints of barbecue smoke and sulphur ointment used for hernia bandages.

Number 4, Impasse du Lavandin was a detached house built in no discernible style, a sort of 1960s shoebox with a disproportionately large neo-classical terrace tacked on to it. It was surrounded by a high wall topped with shards of coloured glass set into the concrete. Beside the gate, above a letterbox marked ‘J.-P. Bornay’, an intercom invited callers to buzz and give their name or else
BEWARE OF THE DOG
. Said dog was depicted on a ceramic tile, tongue lolling, eager fangs bared. Simon pressed the red button. A crackly voice answered, drowned out by wild yapping.

‘Who is it?’

‘Monsieur Marechall. I’m a colleague of your husband Jean-Pierre’s. He asked me to give you something.’

‘What is it?’

‘Flowers, I think.’

‘Flowers? Are you joking?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind letting me in, I’ll just drop them off. I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

She, on the other hand, seemed in no hurry at all,
making Simon wait a good five minutes before the gate was buzzed open.

Asymmetrical flagstones formed a hopscotch path across the freshly mown lawn, dotted with clumps of spiky succulents and a random assortment of newly planted flowers. Behind a metal grille, the frosted, probably bulletproof door was ajar, letting out the jabbering of a television along with a hyperactive Yorkshire terrier. The flaccid face of a woman appeared in the shadow of the doorway, the bags under her eyes betraying her worries. Simon proffered his bouquet with a smile. She did not take it straight away, eyeing him with suspicion, her nostrils twitching.

‘Isn’t there a card with them?’

‘Oh, yes, there is! I’m so sorry, it’s in my pocket. Do you mind?’

She gingerly took the flowers, while Simon took out of his pocket Jean-Pierre Bornay’s last message to his wife: a bullet between the eyes. She toppled backwards into the dark hallway, her body strewn with thirteen red roses. The dog chased around in circles a few times, trying to understand the rules of this strange game, then stopped to cover his mistress’s face in long tongue strokes. Simon knelt down, snapped a rose from its stem, slipped it into his buttonhole – a little tradition of his – and stood back up, wincing. With the butt of his gun he knocked out the dog, which had started to claw at his trouser leg. So there it was, Jean-Pierre Bornay was free to be joined in holy matrimony with his secretary. Another job well done. Simon could bow out honourably.

The further he got from this geriatric neighbourhood, whose residents generally died of their own accord, the livelier the streets became. Car horns beeped and people hurried by, jostling, cursing or paying no attention to each other. All was right with the world.

Simon could not find a single telephone box in working order, now they had been superseded by mobile phones. He went into a café to call the man who had hired him.

‘It’s done. Meet me at five o’clock at the aquarium … What do you mean, you can’t? … I’m not happy about this … As soon as it opens tomorrow, nine thirty, and no messing about!’

Though considerably annoyed by this setback, Simon nevertheless sat down at a table and ordered a glass of Suze. This, along with the thirteen red roses, was an essential element of an unbending ritual. He got it from his father, a miner from Doullens, who had taught him always to do his best and shown him the satisfaction of a job well done. It was a kind of tribute to this worthy man, snatched from him when he was just twelve, his lungs destroyed by silicosis. If his father had not expressly forbidden him from following in his footsteps, down into the bowels of
the earth, Simon might have been a mining engineer now, or dead, or on the dole. As a child, Simon had lapped up the mysterious tales of subterranean life his father told him, coughing up coal dust into his handkerchief. The firedamp explosions, the sense of brotherhood, the strikes – it was like something out of Zola or Jules Verne. It must have been a wish to experience something similar that had prompted Simon to join the army at the age of eighteen. Everyone had been disappointed because he was a star pupil, destined for great things. But what kind of adult would he be if he did not fulfil his childhood dreams?

Though he moved quickly up the ranks, he soon realised that opportunities for real adventure were few and far between. Although he had the chance to do some digging, it was not to find buried treasure but to bury rigid corpses, bundled up by the dozen like human firewood. It was no more glamorous than working at an undertaker’s.

The Suze seemed more bitter than usual, the noises around him more acute, the colours more vivid. Everything was too strong for him, including the relentless waves of hot and cold sweeping over him. It was coming on again. Staring into the pure white porcelain urinal calmed him briefly, as he stood emptying his bladder next to a man in a blue tracksuit.

‘Lieutenant?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Aren’t you Lieutenant Marechall?’

‘No, I’m afraid you’re mistaken.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought for a moment …’

‘It’s fine, these things happen. Goodbye.’

Picot. He had just pissed next to that arsehole Picot, a play-it-safe mercenary and small-time killer Simon had nevertheless pulled out of a swamp in Burma. There was no denying it: the world was closing in on Simon and soon even he would be surplus to it.