He jumped. A cat was licking his hand.
On the wall of the toilet he found Kate’s handwriting. A quotation from E. M. Forster which said,
I believe in aristocracy though – If that is the right word, and a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos.
Thousands of them perish in obscurity, a few are great names. They are sensitive to others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness, but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.
Well well, sighed Charles, who had already felt himself shrinking as she was telling him her life story, put that in your pipe and smoke it . . . Only a few hours ago he would have read the text, focusing principally on a few translation issues – queer race, swankiness – but now he heard the words. He had eaten their cakes, drunk their whisky, had wandered around with them all afternoon, and had seen them become incarnate in a smile that was never far from tears.
The castle may have fallen down, but the nobility endured.
Bent over, his trousers round his ankles, he felt shitty.
While he was hunting for the loo paper, he came across her haiku anthology.
He opened it at random and read:
Climb slowly
Little snail –
You are on Fuji!
He smiled, thanked Kobayashi Issa for his moral support, and fell asleep in a young man’s bed.
*
Charles got up at dawn, let the dogs out and, before going to his car, went out of his way to catch the first rays of sunlight on the ochre walls of the stables. He placed his hands against the window, saw a herd of sleeping adolescents, then drove to the bakery and bought the entire oven-load of croissants. Or of, well, what the shop assistant, who was still pasty with sleep, referred to as croissants . . .
A Parisian would have called them, ‘your curved brioche thingies’.
When he came back, the kitchen had a smell of coffee, and Kate was in her garden.
He prepared a tray and went to join her.
She put down her shears, walked barefoot through the dew, was even more pasty than the baker’s shop assistant, and confessed that she hadn’t slept a wink all night.
Too many memories.
She squeezed her mug of coffee to warm herself.
The sun rose in silence. Kate had nothing more to say, and Charles had too much to unravel.
Like cats, the children came to rub against her.
‘What are you going to do today?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know . . .’ Her voice was sad. ‘And you?’
‘I have a lot of work.’
‘I can imagine . . . We’ve kept you from the straight and narrow.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far . . .’
And as the conversation was veering towards the blues, he added, more cheerfully, ‘I have to leave for New York tomorrow and for once I’m going as a tourist . . . An evening devoted to an old architect I admire a great deal.’
‘Really, you’re going to New York?’ she said, her voice suddenly lively. ‘How lucky! Dare I ask you to –’
‘Dare, Kate, dare. Tell me.’
She sent Nedra to fetch something on her night table and then handed it to Charles.
It was a little round tin with a badger on the lid.
Badger Healing Balm. Relief for Hardworking Hands.
‘Is it badger grease?’ he asked with a chuckle.
‘No, beaver, I think. At any rate, I’ve never found anything better. A friend used to send it to me but she’s moved away.’
Charles turned the tin over and read, ‘“Paul Bunyan once said, ‘Give me enough Badger, and I can heal the cracks in the Grand Canyon.’” Indeed. Quite the project. And where can I find this stuff? In a drugstore?’
‘Will you be anywhere near Union Square?’
‘Of course,’ he lied.
‘You’re lying.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Liar.’
‘Kate, I’ll have a few hours to myself and I would be . . . honoured to devote them to you. Is it right on Union Square?’
‘Yes, a little shop called the Vitamin Shoppe, I think. Otherwise, Whole Foods might have it . . .’
‘Perfect. I’ll manage.’
‘And . . .’
‘And?’
‘If you go a bit farther down Broadway, there’s the Strand Bookstore. If you have two more minutes to spare, could you just have a quick wander round the stacks for me? I’ve been dreaming about it for so long . . .’
‘Would you like any book in particular?’
‘No. Just the atmosphere. You go in, go to the back on the left, where they have the biographies, look at all the books you can and breathe in and think of me . . .’
Breathe in and think of you? Hmm. Do I need to go that far?
As he was searching for the way to the bathroom, he came upon Yacine who was deep in an encyclopedia.
‘Tell me, how high is Mount Fuji?’
‘Uh, hold on. “Highest point in Japan, an extinct volcano, 3,776 metres.”’
Extinct? My foot.
He took his shower and wondered how such a big family managed in such a spartan place. Not a single jar of beauty cream in sight. He stopped off at each bedroom to kiss the children goodbye, and asked them to say goodbye to the older kids for him when they woke up.
He looked everywhere for Kate.
‘She went to take some flowers to Totette,’ Alice informed him. ‘She told me to say ’bye to you for her.’
‘But . . . when will she be back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, that’s why she told me to tell you goodbye.’
So like Ellen she preferred to avoid a pointless scene . . .
This impossible departure felt very violent.
Beneath the dark arch of the oak trees he thought back on Ellen’s leave-taking, while Baloo was teaching Mowgli to sing, after him, about the bare necessities of life . . .
He breathed out, felt the pain, and turned right, back on to the asphalt.
IV
1
‘PARIS 389.’
For the first three hundred and eighty-eight kilometres, Charles thought of nothing else but those hours, still warm, he had just spent. He put himself on automatic pilot and was assailed by a host of images.
Nedra like a wounded bird with her gaping jaw, the names of the horses, Lucas’s smile in the rear view mirror, his long gold cardboard sabre, the church steeple, the love letter that Alexis kept in his wallet, the taste of Port Ellen, the shrieks of one of the Amazons when Léo wanted to spray her with ‘Lures for Wild Boar, scent of sow in heat’, the aroma of strawberry ice lollies melting on the tips of their sticks, the lapping of the stream in the night, the night beneath the stars, the stars that the man she’d wanted a child from claimed to know, the donkeys in the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Quick Burger where he’d so often taken Mathilde, the toy store on the Rue Cassette where they had also stood dreaming and which was called Once Upon a Time, the dead flies in the grooms’ quarters, that dork Matthew who hadn’t known how to isolate the DNA of happiness, the curve of her knee when she had come to sit next to him, the spark that had followed, Alexis’s embarrassment, the case he no longer opened, Big Dog’s sad smile, the llama’s menacing eye, the purr of the cat that had come to console him, the view from over the rims of their bowls in the morning, the great wall of dreary convention with which Corinne had enclosed her very fragile husband, the laughter of their daughter Marion who would not take long to knock it all down, the way she would blow on a lock of hair even when it was firmly tied behind her head, the
children’s shouts and the din of tumbling tins in the schoolyard, the Wedding Day rosebush that was collapsing beneath the arbour, the vestiges of Pompeii, the whirling of the swallows and the owl banging with his broom handle to complain about the noise when they reminisced about Nino Rota, Nana’s voice as he sent them off to bed one last time, the lorry driver’s bladder, the old professor of classics who on his youngest daughter’s cheek had left the imprint of a handsome ephebe, the utterly new sensation of the taste of warm fruit, the Lacoste T-shirt he’d never wear again, René’s prediction, the four of them clowning around on the scales, the mouse in the carpet, the ten children with whom they’d had dinner the night before, homework beneath the lamp, the consent they’d refused to give her, the bridge that would collapse some day and leave them cut off from the world for good, the beauty of the roof beams, the spots of greyish-green lichen on the walls in the stairway, her ankle next to his, the design of the locks, the delicate outline of the cornices, the old banger of a Volvo, her two nights in a hotel near the funeral parlour, Alice’s studio, the smell of singed trainers, the beauty spot on the back of her neck which had fascinated him all through her confession – as if Anouk were winking at him every time Kate held her face between her palms with laughter or tears, the resilience of little Yacine, the resilience of them all, the fragrance of honeysuckle, and the dormer windows, the corridor on the first floor and the wall where they had all written their dreams, her own dream, the policeman’s condolences, the urns in the barn, the condoms among the sugar lumps, her sister’s face, the life she had left behind, the beds she had moved together, the passport which must be expired, her dreams of plenty that had left her sterile, the thickness of the walls, the scent of Samuel’s pillow, the death of Aeschylus, the headlamps in the night, their shadows stretched before them, the window she had opened, the . . .
During the last kilometre, where, according to the day’s forecast, the air quality was ‘fair to good’, he realized that he had spent the entire outbound trip obsessed with death, and the entire return trip amazed by life.
One face had been superimposed upon another, and that hard letter of the alphabet that they shared eventually left him completely shaken.
Instruction manuals were a waste of time; as far as the ear was concerned, twists of fate opened and closed with the letter ‘k’.
2
HE WENT STRAIGHT to the office. Nearly threw a fit because some of the lights had been left on. Decided not to (have a fit). Some other day. He plugged his mobile into the charger, looked for his travel bag and finally got changed. While struggling with a trouser leg he saw the pile of mail waiting on his desk.
He fastened his belt, and switched on his computer without letting it get to him. The bad news was behind him, the rest could only be hassles, and hassles would no longer affect him. Their new standards, their environmental regulations, their laws, their estimates, their rates, their interest, their conclusions, their judicial appeals, their reminders and their claims, their hypocritical legal decisions to save a planet that had already been bled dry – froth, froth, nothing but froth. There are, in our midst, people of another caste, who have a secret understanding between them when they meet, and now they had taken him into their trust.
And yet he was not one of them. He was not the courageous sort, and he’d been careful not to ‘endure’ any heartbreak. Except here was the rub. He could no longer ignore that special caste. Anouk had passed on a dead bird, and he’d ventured into a henhouse . . .
He may have come back disfigured, but his hold was laden with spices and gold.
Do not shower the mapmaker with honours, nor receive him at court; but let him sift through his gold in peace.
Perhaps he would never go back there, perhaps he would never have the chance to say goodbye to her, perhaps he would never hear Nedra’s voice, or find out whether Samuel had trained hard enough; but one thing was certain, he would never leave it all behind, either.
Wherever he went, whatever he did from now on, he would be with them, and would move forward, palms outstretched.
Anouk didn’t give a damn whether she disintegrated here or elsewhere. She didn’t give a damn about a single thing – except what she had just offered to him, depriving herself of it in turn.
To use Kate’s own expression, the people he admired were head and shoulders above him, he had never had children, and he would perish ‘in darkness’, but in the meantime he would live. He would live.
That was his jackpot, hidden among the terrines and the sausages.
After such eloquently sliced and lyrically peppered thoughts, he read his e-mails and got back to work.
After a few minutes he stood up and went over to the book-shelf.
He was looking for a dictionary of colours.
There was this thing that had been bugging him, since the first bonfire . . .
Venetian: hair colour, with mahogany highlights. The tint known as Venetian blond contributes to the beauty of the Venetian women.
Just as he thought . . .
Since he had the dictionary to hand, he looked up ‘martingale’.
True enough, mate, you’re still back there, aren’t you?
He shrugged his shoulders and really got back to work. The shit was hitting the fan from every direction. No matter. Around his throat was a ‘strap or arrangement of straps fastened at one end to the noseband, bit, or reins of a horse and at the other to its girth, to prevent it from star-gazing or throwing back its head and to strengthen the action of the bit’.
He concentrated until seven, returned the rental car, and went home on foot.
He hoped he would find someone behind the door . . .
The two answerphones he had just checked one after the other were unable to answer his question.
Still somewhat stiff, he headed up the Rue des Patriarches.
He was hungry, and he dreamt he heard a church bell in the distance.
3
‘I WON’T KISS you, I’ve just put a face pack on,’ she warned, speaking out of the corner of her mouth. ‘You’ve no idea how exhausted I am . . . I’ve spent the entire weekend with this lot of utterly hysterical Korean women . . . I think I’ll have a bath and then go to bed.’
‘You don’t want to have some dinner?’
‘No. They dragged us to the Ritz and I ate too much. And you?
How did it go?’
She hadn’t looked up. She was lounging deep in the sofa, leafing through American Vogue.
‘Just look at that, how vulgar.’
No. Charles didn’t feel like looking at that.
‘And Mathilde?’
‘She’s at her girlfriend’s.’
He held onto the knob and experienced a moment of . . . dejection.
It was a made-to-measure kitchen, designed by one of Laurence’s friends who was an interior architect, space designer, volume creator, lighting enhancer and holder of other such nonsensical conceptual qualifications.
Door fronts in light maple, wide vertical columns in brushed stainless steel, countertops in Dolomite stone, sliding doors, a seamless one-piece sink, state-of-the-art hobs and cutting-edge cooling devices, Miele appliances, extractor hood, espresso machine, wine cellar, convection oven and all the bells and whistles.
Oh, yes. Undoubtedly beautiful.
Clean, neat, immaculate. As lovely as a morgue.
The problem was that there was nothing to eat. An abundance of jars of cream in the refrigerator door, but not from the pastures of Normandy, renowned for their dairy cream, but rather, alas, from La Prairie, renowned for their face cream . . . There was some Diet Coke, some non-fat yoghurt, a few microwave dinners and some frozen pizzas.
True, Mathilde was taking off the next day . . . And it was mainly because of her that meals materialized on any sort of regular basis in this house. Laurence cooked for friends, but it would seem that his unpredictable schedules and his trips one after the other had scattered those friends far and wide . . .
br /> Nothing left but meals on expenses these days.
And since he had recently resolved to stop sighing over small things, he grabbed the latest issue of his architects’ newsletter from his briefcase and went in to tell her he’d be going down for a bite at the local bistro.
‘Goodness . . .’ The beauty mask cracked with wrinkles. ‘What happened to you?’
He must have looked as surprised as she did because she added, ‘Were you in a fight?’
Oh . . . That?
It was so long ago . . . In another life . . .
‘No, I . . . I ran into a door.’
‘It’s ghastly.’
‘Oh, there are worse things.’
‘No, I meant your face!’
‘Oh. Sorry . . .’
‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look very odd.’
‘I’m hungry. Are you coming?’
‘No. I just told you I was exhausted.’
He leafed through his weekly bible over a rib steak and ordered another beer to wash down the frites with Béarnaise sauce. He was enjoying his meal, and pored over the invitations to tender, feeling almost invigorated. Whether it was his all-nighter at Alexis’s or the night at Les Vesperies, he wasn’t the least bit tired now.
He ordered a coffee and got up to buy a pack of cigarettes.
And halfway to the counter, turned back.
A sense of solidarity.
To stop smoking would be a good way not to be sure exactly what it was he was craving.
He sat back down, fiddled with a sugar lump, pressed his fingernail into the white paper wrapping and wondered what she was doing at that very second . . .
Twenty minutes to ten.
Were they still having dinner? Were they dining outdoors? Was the air as warm as yesterday? Had the girls found a decent aquarium for Monsieur Blop? Had the big kids left the saddle room the way the Blason Brothers would like to find it upon returning from exile? Had they remembered to close the gate to the meadow? Was Big Dog lying at their nanny’s enamelled feet again?
And Kate?