Consolation

  They got it.

  ‘Now then. The little ones have the right to toss the sock at these tins here (pointing to the larger ones, that the cook had given them and that must have once contained ten good kilos of mixed vegetables or peeled tomatoes), and the bigger kids have to knock down these ones here (smaller and far more numerous). You’re allowed four socks each, and to win a prize you’ve got to knock down the whole lot . . . Are you still with me?’

  Respectful nodding of heads.

  ‘Finally, I don’t want to spend my Saturday picking up your mess, so I need an assistant. Who’d like to be my assistant number one? And don’t forget, an assistant is allowed a few free shots . . .’

  A struggle was waged to provide him with a second.

  ‘Perfect,’ exulted General Balanda, ‘perfect. And now . . . may the best one win!’

  Now all he had to do was count the points, encouraging the younger kids and provoking the teenagers. Guiding the arms of the little ones, and pretending to lend his glasses to the teenagers if any of them got too big for their boots – maaan! This Tin Can Alley, dead easy – and hit the wall more often than they should have . . .

  Fairly quickly a crowd gathered and, with the resulting echo chamber, Charles reckoned that while he may have saved his back, and his honour, by nightfall he would probably be deaf . . .

  Speaking of his honour . . . From time to time he looked up and scanned the crowd for her. He would have liked her to see him like this, triumphant among his sharpshooters, but no such luck. She was still among her cakes, chattering, laughing, leaning over to throngs of children who came to hug her and . . . she couldn’t care less. About him, so to speak.

  If he could even hear himself speak by the day’s end . . .

  Never mind. He was happy. For the first time in his life he felt he was enjoying his role as project manager, and as for overseeing aluminium buildings, well, that was a first, too.

  Jean Prouvé would have been proud of him.

  Naturally, no one ever came to fill in for him; naturally, he wanted to have a piss and a smoke and, naturally, he eventually gave up the whole business of blue tickets.

  ‘You’ve run out?’

  ‘Well, yeah . . .’

  ‘Go on, have a go anyway . . .’

  No ticket? The news spread so quickly that he had to abandon any vague desire he might have had for an escape from the stand. He was the Tin Can King, he had made his decision and, for the first time in years, he regretted not having his sketchbook with him. There were a few smiles, a few acts of bravado, a few poses that would have been well worth catching for eternity . . .

  Lucas came to see him.

  ‘I gave my parrot to Daddy.’

  ‘That was a good idea.’

  ‘It wasn’t a parrot. It was a white pigeon.’

  Well, well. Yacine must have been there, too.

  He was saved by the tombola. The loudspeaker announced that it was time for the draw, and all the kids vanished as if by magic. Ungrateful wretches, he thought, sighing with relief. He handed his notebook to the boys, collected the socks scattered all over the schoolyard, gathered all the tins into a canvas bag and picked up all the sweet wrappers, wincing each time he had to bend over.

  He held his sides.

  Why did it hurt so much?

  Why?

  He grabbed his jacket and looked for a place where he could have a smoke without being caught by the supervisor.

  He made a detour via the toilets and found himself . . . in difficulty. The bowl was so low to the ground . . . He took aim as best he could and rediscovered the odour of carbolic soap, the kind that never produced any lather and never went away, clinging in a dry shrivelled lump to its chromed brass knob.

  The irresistible pull of nostalgia . . . He hid behind the old building to have a smoke.

  Aah . . . That was good.

  Even the graffiti had not changed much . . . The same hearts, the same Thingammy + Whatsit = Eternal Luv, the same tits, the same willies and the same enraged lines crossing out the same revealed secrets . . .

  He flicked his cigarette butt over the wall and headed back towards the loudspeakers.

  He was walking slowly. He didn’t really know where to go. He didn’t feel like seeing Alexis again. He could hear the rubbish that Jean-Pierre’s mate was spouting, and did a mental countdown of the number of hours until he’d reach the outskirts of Paris.

  Right. I ought to go and say goodbye to her all the same, this time. Goodbye, Farewell, So long: it was not so much the vocabulary that was lacking . . . there was even Adieu, which, like many of the loveliest words, was elegant enough to travel without a passport.

  Yes, adieu, to God . . . not bad, for a woman who –

  And he had reached this point in his ruminations when Lucas suddenly jumped on him: ‘Charles! You won!’

  ‘The pedalos?’

  ‘No! A huge basket of pâté and sausages!’

  Oh dear Lord.

  ‘Aren’t you happy?’

  ‘Yes, yes . . . Wickedly happy.’

  ‘I’ll go and fetch it for you. Don’t budge, okay?’

  ‘That’s great. You’ll be able to invite me to my place, then.’

  He turned around.

  She was untying her apron.

  ‘I don’t have any flowers,’ he smiled.

  ‘It doesn’t matter . . . I’ll lend you a few.’

  One of the boys he’d glimpsed the evening before greeted him before interrupting their little gallantries: ‘Can Jeff, Fanny, Mickaël and Leo come and sleep over at the house tonight?’

  ‘Charles,’ she said, ‘I’d like to introduce Samuel. My big boy.’

  It’s true that he was big . . . He was almost as tall as Charles himself . . . Long hair, teenage skin, a wrinkled but very elegant white shirt, which must have belonged to someone from an earlier generation, monogrammed with the letters L.R. in sans serif, jeans with holes in them, a straight nose, a frank gaze, very thin and, in a few years, very handsome.

  They shook hands.

  ‘Hey, have you been drinking?’ She frowned.

  ‘Well . . . I wasn’t exactly at the cake stall, I can tell you.’

  ‘Well then, don’t go home on your scooter.’

  ‘I won’t . . . It’s just I spilled the last of a barrel onto my kecks . . . Look . . . Right, and about tonight?’

  ‘If their parents are okay with it, I’m okay. But you’ve got to help us put everything away, all right?’

  ‘Sam!’ She called him back. ‘Tell them to bring their sleeping bags, okay?’

  He raised his thumb to show that he’d heard.

  To Charles: ‘You see what I mean . . . I told you there’d be half a dozen kids but I’m always a bit pessimistic . . . And I’ve got nothing to eat . . . Good job you bought some tickets.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘And the Tin Can Alley? How did –’

  They were interrupted yet again, this time by the little girl she’d called Hattie the evening before, or so he recalled.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘And now here comes Miss Harriet, our number three . . .’

  ‘Good evening.’

  Charles gave her a kiss.

  ‘Can Camille come and sleep over at the house? Yes, I know, sleeping bag . . .’

  ‘So, if you know, that’s perfect,’ replied Kate. ‘And Alice? Has she got someone for us as well?’

  ‘I don’t know, but wait till you see everything she found at the junk sale! You’ll have to bring the car closer . . .’

  ‘Good Lord, no! Don’t you think we already have enough bloody stuff as it is?’

  ‘But wait, it’s really terrific! There’s even an armchair for Nelson!’

  ‘I see . . . Hang on a sec,’ she said, running to catch up with her and handing her a wallet, ‘run to the bakery and buy all the bread that’s left.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘You’re so organized!’ said Charles, impressed.
/>
  ‘Oh? You call this organized? I would have said it was quite the opposite . . . Are you – are you coming anyway?’

  ‘And how!’

  ‘So, who’s Nelson?’

  ‘A very snooty dog . . .’

  ‘And L.R.?’

  Kate stopped in her tracks. ‘Why are you asking me that?’

  ‘Samuel’s shirt.’

  ‘Oh yes. Sorry. Louis Ravennes, his grandfather. You don’t miss a thing, I see.’

  ‘Yes I do, a lot of things, but monogrammed teenagers are not that common.’

  Silence.

  ‘Right.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘Let’s clear all this away and go home. The animals are hungry and I’m tired.’

  She pulled her hair back into an elastic band.

  ‘And Nedra?’ she asked Yacine, ‘where has she got to this time?’

  ‘She won a goldfish.’

  ‘Well, that’s not about to make her any more talkative . . . C’mon, let’s get to work.’

  Charles and Yacine piled up chairs and dismantled canopies for over an hour. Well . . . mainly Charles . . . Yacine was not particularly efficient, because he was forever telling him stories:

  ‘See, for example, you just stuck out your tongue while you were untying that knot. D’you know why?’

  ‘Because it’s hard and you’re not helping me?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s because when you concentrate on something, you use the side of your brain that’s also in charge of your motor activity, so by blocking one thing in your body on purpose, you can concentrate better . . . That’s why people, when they walk, they slow down when they start thinking about a complicated problem . . . D’you understand?’

  Charles stood up straight, holding his lower back: ‘Hey, Mr Encyclopaedist . . . Wouldn’t you care to stick out your tongue a bit now, too? We’d go a lot faster . . .’

  ‘And the most powerful muscle in your body, d’you know which one it is?’

  ‘Yes. It’s my biceps when I use it to throttle you.’

  ‘Wrong! It’s your tongue!’

  ‘I should have known . . . C’mon, take the other end of the table, there . . .’

  He seized the chance while Yacine was struggling with the sides of his brain to ask him his own question:

  ‘Is Kate your mum?’

  ‘Oh,’ he replied, in that fluty little voice that children use when they want to wind us up, ‘she said she isn’t, but I know that she is . . . at least a little bit, that is.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘She says she’s twenty-five but we don’t believe her.’

  ‘No? And why not?’

  ‘Because if she were really twenty-five she wouldn’t be able to climb trees any more . . .’

  ‘No, of course not . . .’

  Stop, thought Charles, stop right there. The more you try to find out the less you understand. Put the operating instructions to one side. Play the game yourself, too . . .

  ‘Well, I can tell you that she really is only twenty-five . . .’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You can tell.’

  When they’d finished sweeping everywhere, Kate asked if he could drive the two youngest back.

  While he was settling them on the rear seat, a tall girl came up to him: ‘Are you going over to the Vesp’?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Kate’s place, that is . . . Can you drive us over there, with my friend?’

  She pointed to another tall girl.

  ‘Uh . . . sure.’

  Everyone squeezed into the tiny rental car and, with a smile on his face, Charles listened to them chattering.

  He hadn’t felt this useful in years.

  The hitchhikers were talking about a night club where they weren’t allowed to go yet, and Yacine was saying to Nedra, the mysterious little girl who looked like a Balinese princess:

  ‘Your fish . . . You’ll never see him asleep because he doesn’t have any eyelids and you’ll think he can’t hear you because he doesn’t have any ears . . . But in fact, he’ll be resting, you know . . . And goldfish are the ones who have the best hearing because water is a very good conductor and they have a bone structure that reflects all the sounds to their invisible ear, so, uh . . .’

  Charles, fascinated, was trying hard to focus on what he was saying above the giggling of the two girls. ‘. . .

  so you’ll be able to talk to him all the same, you see?’

  In the rear view mirror, he could see her nodding her head, gravely.

  Yacine caught his eye in the mirror, leaned forward and murmured, ‘She almost never speaks . . .’

  ‘And what about you? How do you know all that you know?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘So you’re a good pupil?’

  A little scowl.

  And a big smile from Nedra in the mirror, shaking her head.

  He tried to remember what Mathilde was like at that age. But couldn’t . . . didn’t remember at all. For someone who never forgot a thing, this was something he’d lost along the way. The childhood of children . . .

  Then he thought about Claire.

  About the mother she would have –

  Yacine, who didn’t miss a thing, put his chin on Charles’s shoulder (ah, he’d found his own parrot . . .) and said, to help him think about something else, ‘Still, you’re glad you won them, aren’t you, your sausages?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘you’ve no idea how glad I am . . .’

  ‘Actually I’m not supposed to eat any . . . Because of my religion, y’know . . . But Kate said God doesn’t care . . . He’s not Madame Varon after all . . . D’you think she’s right?’

  ‘Who is Madame Varon?’

  ‘The dinner lady, at the cafeteria . . . You think she’s right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He’d just recalled the story that Sylvie had told him the day before about the charity grocery, and he felt a sudden twinge of distress.

  ‘Hey! Watch out! This is where you have to turn!’

  6

  ‘WELL THEN! I can see you haven’t been wasting your time! You’ve already found the two prettiest girls in the county!’

  Who giggled all the more, asked where the others had got to, and vanished into thin air.

  Kate had her wellies on.

  ‘I was about to go on my rounds, are you coming?’

  They crossed the courtyard.

  ‘Normally, the children are supposed to feed the menagerie, but oh well . . . It’s their party today . . . And this way, I can show you round.’

  She turned to him: ‘Are you all right, Charles?’

  He was aching all over. His head, his face, his back, his arm, his torso, his legs, his feet, his diary, his accumulation of late arrivals, his guilty conscience, Laurence, and all the phone calls he hadn’t made.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  She had the entire henhouse following in her wake. And three mutts. And a llama.

  ‘Don’t pet him, otherwise he’ll –’

  ‘Yes, Lucas warned me . . . Then he won’t go away . . .’

  ‘It’s the same with me.’ She laughed, bending down to pick up a bucket.

  No, no. She didn’t say that.

  ‘Why the smile?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Nothing . . . Saturday Night Fever . . . So. Over there you have the former pigsty, but now it’s the pantry. Mind the nests, there . . . Here, and in all the other buildings, it rains bird droppings all summer long . . . That’s where we store the bags of seed and grain, and when I say “pantry” it’s more like one for the mice and the dormice, unfortunately . . .’ She stopped to address a cat who was snoozing on an old duvet: ‘All right, little old guy? Life not too hard for you now, is it?’ She lifted a plank and used a tin can to fill up her bucket. ‘Here . . . Can you take that watering can, over there?’

  They went back across the courtyard in the opposite direction.

  She turned around: ‘Are y
ou coming?’

  ‘I’m afraid I might squash a chick.’

  ‘A chick? No fear. Those are ducklings. Just keep going, don’t worry about them. Here . . . the tap’s right there.’

  Charles didn’t fill the watering can up to the top. He was afraid he mightn’t be able to lift it . . .

  ‘This is the henhouse. One of my favourite spots. René’s grandfather had very modern ideas where the farmyard was concerned, and nothing could be too good for his little hens. Which was apparently the cause of no end of rows with his wife, so I’ve heard.’

  Charles was repelled by the smell at first, then he was amazed by – how to put it – the care, the attention which had been given to planning the place. The ladders, roosts, nest boxes, all in straight rows, prepared, bevelled, even sculpted . . .

  ‘Look at that . . . opposite this beam he even put in a window so that these little ladies could enjoy the view whilst relieving themselves . . . And here, follow me . . . A chicken run for them to romp about in, a rock garden, a pond, watering troughs, a little bit of dust to discourage the vermin and . . . Do have a look at the view, really . . . Look how beautiful it is . . .’

  While he was emptying the contents of his watering can, she added: ‘One day when . . . I don’t know . . . I must have been quite desperate, I suppose –’ She was laughing. ‘– I got the ludicrous notion to take the children to one of those holiday park complexes, you know the ones?’

  ‘Vaguely . . .’

  ‘I think it was the stupidest idea I’ve ever had . . . To put all these wild creatures in a jar . . . They were impossible. Okay, nowadays we all laugh about it a lot, but at the time . . . and when I think how much it cost . . . anyway, forget it . . . My point is that on the first evening, after he’d had a walk around that . . . place, Samuel made this solemn declaration: our hens are treated better. Then they spent the entire week watching television . . . Morning and night . . . Real zombies. I just let them. After all, for them that was exotic . . .’

  ‘You don’t have a telly?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you have the Internet?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t deprive them of the entire world, after all . . .’

  ‘And do they use it a lot?’

  ‘Mostly Yacine. For his research,’ she smiled.

  ‘That kid is amazing.’