Consolation

  As if he were someone else. Lighter, more pronounced.

  ‘I’m Kate,’ she added.

  ‘I . . . I came with Lucas to –’

  He pulled a little sponge bag from his pocket.

  ‘I see,’ she said, with a different smile, even more incisive, ‘the instrument of torture. So, you’re a friend of the Le Mens?’

  Charles hesitated. He knew what was customary, but felt it would be pointless trying to give a girl like this the usual chit-chat.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I used to be . . . of Alexis, I mean, and . . . No, nothing . . . It’s an old story.’

  ‘Did you know him when he was a musician?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right, then I see what you mean . . . When he plays, he’s my friend as well . . .’

  ‘Does he play often?’

  ‘No, sadly.’

  Silence.

  Back to the customary stuff.

  ‘Where are you from? The land of Her Gracious Majesty?’

  ‘Well . . . yes and no. I . . .’ She went on, extending her arm, ‘I’m from here.’

  In her gesture she included the fire, the children, their laughter, the dogs, the horses, the meadows, the woods, the river, Captain Haddock, her hamlet of crumbling roofs, the first diaphanous stars, and even the swallows, which were having a grand time putting the entire heavens between brackets.

  ‘It’s a lovely part of the country,’ he murmured.

  Her smile became dreamy, distant: ‘This evening, yes . . .’

  Then back to earth: ‘Jeff! Roll up your tracksuit bottoms or you’ll catch fire!’

  ‘It already smells like roast pork!’ someone chimed in.

  ‘Jeff! The mechoui! The mechoui!’ came a loud shout from across the way.

  And Jeff, before sprinting off again, knelt to roll up his tracksuit bottoms.

  Hey . . . ‘lovely part of the country’, that was sucking up, thought Charles, but it was her arm you were looking at . . .

  Obviously. Have you seen how she’s put together? All those muscles along such a slender arm, it’s quite astonishing, you have to admit.

  Yeah, yeah . . .

  Uh . . . Excuse me, but lines and curves are part of my profession, after all . . .

  Well, now . . .

  A magnificent laugh suddenly knocked Mr Jiminy Crap-Talk straight off his perch.

  A flutter beneath a broken rib. Charles turned around very slowly, located the source of the wild chimes and knew that he hadn’t come all this way in vain.

  ‘Anouk,’ he murmured.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘She . . . over there . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that her?’

  ‘Who, her?’

  ‘The little girl . . . Alexis’s daughter . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was she. The one who leapt highest, shouted loudest, and whose laugh carried furthest.

  The same gaze, same mouth, same forehead, same rakish air. Same gunpowder. Same wick.

  ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

  Charles nodded. He was overjoyed, in seventh heaven.

  For once the rush of emotion made him feel immeasurably happy.

  ‘Yes, beautiful . . . but a right little monkey,’ Kate confirmed. ‘It isn’t over for our friend Alexis yet. For someone who has always been extremely careful to put things back in their case whenever they were falling out, he’s going to have a right old time of it . . .’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘About the case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know . . . An impression . . .’

  ‘He really never plays any more?’

  ‘He does . . . When he’s a bit drunk . . .’

  ‘And does that happen often?’

  ‘Never.’

  The famous Jeff went by them again, rubbing his calves. This time it did indeed smell of something charred.

  ‘How did you recognize her? She doesn’t really look like him . . .’

  ‘Her grandmother.’

  ‘Granouk?’

  ‘Yes. You – you knew her?’

  ‘No . . . hardly. She came here once with Alexis.’

  Charles said nothing.

  ‘I remember . . . We were drinking coffee in the kitchen and at a certain point, on the pretext of putting her cup in the sink, she came and stood behind me and stroked my neck.’

  Charles didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s ridiculous but it made me burst into tears. But why am I telling you all this?’ She took hold of herself. ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘Oh no, please.’

  ‘It was rather a rough time. I expect she knew about . . . my predicament . . . You don’t really have such a word in French, do you, the shit I was in I suppose you’d say. Then they left, but after they’d gone a few metres the car stopped and she came back up to me.

  ‘“Did you forget something?” I asked.

  ‘“Kate,” she murmured, “just don’t drink alone.”’

  Charles was watching the fire.

  ‘Yes . . . Anouk. I remember. Hey! Let the little ones have a go now! Lucas, why don’t you come over this way . . . It’s not as wide . . . Jeez, if I send him roasted back to his mum, I’ll be for the high jump, won’t I . . .’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Charles, ‘we’d better get going. They must be waiting for us to start dinner.’

  ‘You’re already late,’ she joked, ‘there are people who, even when you’re on time, give you the impression that you’ve kept them waiting . . . I’ll walk you back.’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Yes, yes!’

  Then, calling out to the older children, ‘Sam! Jeff! I’m going back to my cakes! Who wants to come and help? You stay by the fire until the end and no more jumping, all right?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ bleated the echo.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ announced a rather round little boy with olive skin and a head full of curls.

  ‘But . . . you said you wanted to jump, too. Go on. I’ll watch you.’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘He’s scared stiff!’ shouted someone to their right. ‘Go, Yaya! Go! Work off some of your fat, c’mon!’

  The little boy shrugged his shoulders and turned round: ‘D’you know Aeschylus?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ went Charles, opening his eyes wide, ‘is that . . . is that one of the dogs?’

  ‘No, he was a Greek who wrote tragedies.’

  ‘Ah! That shows how much I know . . .’ laughed Charles, ‘well, I know him vaguely, sort of . . .’

  ‘And do you know how he died?’

  Silence.

  ‘Well, eagles, when they want to eat a tortoise, they have to drop it from very high up to break it open, and since Aeschylus was bald, the eagle thought he was a rock and boom! dropped its tortoise on his head and that was that.’

  Why is he telling me this story? I’ve got a little bit of the stuff left on my head, haven’t I?

  ‘Charles,’ she said, coming to his rescue, ‘let me introduce Yacine . . . commonly known as Wiki. For Wikipedia. If you need some information, or someone’s biography, or you’re curious to know how many baths Louis XVI took in his life, he’s your man.’

  ‘How many?’ asked Charles, squeezing the little outstretched hand.

  ‘Hello, forty, when’s your birthday? November 4th?’

  ‘Do you know the entire calendar by heart?’

  ‘No, but November 4th is a very important date.’

  ‘Your birthday?’

  Slight. A child’s very slight disdain.

  ‘Rather that of metres and kilos, I’d say. 4 November 1800, official date of the transition in France to the decimal system of weights and measures.’

  Charles looked at Kate.

  ‘Yes . . . It’s a bit wearing at times, but you eventually get used to it. Right. Let’s get going. And Nedra? Has she disappeared?’

&nbsp
; He pointed in the direction of the trees: ‘I think that . . .’

  ‘Oh no,’ she went, woeful. ‘Poor thing. Hattie! Come over here a minute!’

  She walked away with another girl and murmured something in her ear before sending her into the foliage.

  Charles glanced at Yacine questioningly, but the boy pretended not to understand.

  She came back and bent down to pick up –

  ‘Leave it, leave it,’ said Charles, bending down in turn.

  Okay. He was almost bald, and almost an ignoramus but never, ever would he let a woman walk by his side carrying a heavy load.

  Nor would he ever have suspected this thing could be so heavy. He stood up straight, turned his head to one side to hide his wincing, and walked on with a, um, casual stride, gritting his teeth.

  Oh, fuck . . . Yet he’d done his share of schlepping girls’ things around in his life. Handbags, shopping bags, coats, boxes, suitcases, blueprints, even files, but a chainsaw, that . . .

  He felt his cracked rib spreading, expanding.

  He lengthened his stride and made one last effort to appear, er, virile: ‘And what’s that there behind the wall?’

  ‘A vegetable garden,’ she replied.

  ‘That big?’

  ‘It was the kitchen garden for the château.’

  ‘And do you – are you the one who looks after it?’

  ‘Of course. Though it’s really René’s private kingdom . . . He used to be the farmer.’

  Charles could not go on, he was in too much pain. It wasn’t so much the weight of the gear, it was his back, his leg, his restless nights . . .

  He stole sidelong glances at the woman walking next to him.

  Her tanned complexion, her short fingernails, the bits of twig in her hair, her shoulder courtesy of Michelangelo, the cardigan she’d wrapped around her waist, her worn T-shirt, the traces of sweat on her chest and back – and he felt absolutely pathetic.

  ‘You smell like freshly cut wood . . .’

  Smile.

  ‘Really?’ she went, bringing her arms back alongside her body, ‘you’re very gallant.’

  ‘Actually . . . You know why he is called René?’

  Phew . . . Trivial Pursuit Junior was aiming his question at her this time.

  ‘No, but you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘Because his mother had another boy before him who died almost right away, so he was Re-né, Re-born. Same root as in Renaissance and renascent and –’

  Charles had got ahead of them, to be able to offload his burden more quickly, but he could hear her murmur, ‘And you, Yacine? Do you know why I adore you?’

  A sound of birds.

  ‘Because you know things that even the Internet will never know . . .’

  He thought he would not make it, changed hands, that was even worse, felt huge drops of sweat pouring off him, scrambled the last few yards and ended up leaving the thing outside the door of the first barn he saw.

  ‘Perfect. I have to take the chain off, anyway.’

  Oh?

  Blimey.

  He pulled out his handkerchief to hide his agony.

  Fucking hell, what he had just done, he’d be willing to swear that not even Hercules could have done it. Right . . . and now where was Lucas?

  She walked with them back to the other side.

  Charles would have had a ton of things to say to her, but the bridge was too fragile. Something like, ‘I was very happy to make your acquaintance’ seemed out of place. He was not really acquainted with anything other than her smile and her calloused hand. Yes, but . . . What else could you say in circumstances like these? He was hunting round desperately, and found . . . his keys.

  He opened the rear door and turned round.

  ‘I would have been very happy to make your acquaintance,’ she said, simply.

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘You’re all messed up.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your face.’

  ‘Oh, I . . . I wasn’t concentrating.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Me too. I mean, I would have been happy . . .’

  By the time they’d passed the fourth oak tree, he managed to come out with a sentence that made sense, after a fashion.

  ‘Lucas?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Kate married?’

  3

  ‘WELL? YOU TOOK your time!’

  ‘It’s ’cause they were right down the other end of the meadow,’ explained the little boy.

  ‘What did I tell you,’ she scowled, ‘come on then . . . let’s have dinner . . . I’ve still got three buttons to sew on.’

  The terrace was tiled, the tablecloth was the kind with protective spot-proofing, and the barbecue ran on gas. Charles was shown to a white plastic chair, and sat down on a flowered cushion.

  In short, it was bucolic.

  The first quarter of an hour lasted an age.

  ‘Penelope’ was in a mood, Alexis didn’t know what to do, and our hero was lost in thought.

  He was looking at this face that he had grown up with; he had watched it play, suffer, love, promise, and lie, he had seen it grow handsome then gaunt, then finally twist and vanish, and he was fascinated.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that? Have I aged that much?’

  ‘No . . . I was telling myself the opposite, in fact. You haven’t changed.’

  Alexis reached over with the wine bottle: ‘I don’t know whether I ought to take that as a compliment . . .’

  She sighed. ‘Oh, please. You’re not going to start with the old comrades-in-arms routine, are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Charles, looking her straight in the eye, ‘you can take it as a compliment.’ Then, turning to Lucas, ‘You know that your dad was smaller than you are when I met him?’

  ‘Is that true, Daddy?’

  ‘It’s true . . .’

  ‘Alex, it’s burning, you know.’

  She was perfect. Charles wondered if he’d tell Claire about this evening. No, probably not. Although . . . Alexis in Quechua shorts with his well-starched ‘I’m the Chef’ apron: it might help her to swallow the myth.

  ‘And he was the greatest marbles champion of all time.’

  ‘Is that right, Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  Charles winked at Lucas to confirm that it was true.

  ‘And did you have the same teacher?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So, you knew Granouk, too –’

  ‘Lucas,’ she interrupted, ‘eat your dinner, now! It’s getting cold.’

  ‘Yes, I knew her very well. And I thought that my friend Alexis was very lucky to have her for a mother. I thought she was beautiful, and kind, and we always seemed to be laughing when we were with her.’

  As he said these words, Charles knew he had said all he would say, that he would go no further. To let her know as much, and reassure her, he turned to the lady of the house, gave her a charming smile, and switched to two-faced bastard mode: ‘There . . . That’s enough talk about the past. The salad is delicious. And so you, Corinne . . . what do you do in life?’

  She hesitated for a second and then decided to leave her pincushion behind. It was actually rather nice to be questioned in this way by an elegant man, who didn’t roll up his shirtsleeves, who had a nice watch, and who lived in Paris.

  She talked about herself, and he went along with it by drinking more than was strictly necessary.

  To stay the course.

  He didn’t hear all of it, but gathered she worked in human resources (as she said these last two words, she probably misjudged the nature of her guest’s smile), in a branch office of France Telecom, and her parents lived in the area, and her father had a small business in cold rooms and cold storage for industrial catering, and times were hard, there was a chill in the air, and there were a lot of Chinese about.

  ‘And you, Alexis?’

  ‘Me? I’ve been working a lot with the father-in
-law! Commercial stuff . . . What’s wrong? Did I say something?’

  Silence.

  ‘It’s the wine? It’s corked, is that it?’

  ‘No, but I . . . You . . . I thought you were a music teacher or, uh . . . I don’t know . . .’

  At that very moment, because of his slight grimace, his hand swatting at a – shall we say – mosquito, and because of the ‘Chef’ on his apron that had disappeared under the table, Charles saw at last, on the forehead of the local rep in fast freezing units, the twenty-five years of distance between them.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘music . . .’

  Implying what an easy lay that had been; just a passing fling.

  A nasty bout of acne.

  ‘What did I say?’ he asked again anxiously. ‘Did I say something stupid?’

  Charles put down his glass, forgot the roller for the awning above his head, and the tabletop rubbish bin that matched the tablecloth, and the scold who matched the tabletop rubbish bin: ‘Of course you did. And you know it perfectly well. In all those years we spent together, every time you had something important to say, I remember, every time, you would use music . . . And when you didn’t have an instrument you’d invent one, when you started at the Conservatory you finally became a good student, whenever you auditioned, you blew them away, when you were sad you’d play happy stuff, when you were happy you made us all cry, when Anouk sang it was Broadway numbers, when my mother made crêpes for us, you’d get out your bloody Ave Maria, when Nana was down you’d –’

  He didn’t manage to finish his sentence.

  ‘It’s past, Balanda. Everything you’ve just said there is in the past tense.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Charles in a still more neutral voice, ‘yes. You’re right. That’s the best way to put it. Thanks for the grammar lesson.’

  ‘Look. Why don’t you wait until Lucas and I have gone to bed before you start showing each other your scars, all right?’

  Charles lit a cigarette.

  She stood up at once and started clearing their plates. ‘And who is this Nana, anyway?’

  ‘He never told you about Nana?’ asked Charles, startled.

  ‘No, but he told me a lot of other things, you know . . . And your crêpes and your so-called happiness, well, excuse me, but I –’

  ‘Stop,’ said Alexis curtly, ‘that’s enough, now. Charles . . .’ His voice grew softer. ‘You’re missing a few episodes, you realize that, don’t you . . . and I hardly have to explain to you that you’re on shaky ground with a theory that’s missing some basic calculations.’