Consolation

  ‘You’ve got it coming to you, then.’

  ‘I hope not . . .’

  Her smile drifted for a long time across the tablecloth and Charles reckoned that he had reached the last refuge before the mountain pass. Before the final assault on Mons Veneris . . . What a dreadful expression. Ha, ha! He was pissed again, and got himself roped into the conversations on all sides, without really following a single one. One of these days he would grab her by the hair and drag her the length of the courtyard before delivering her to his Teflon thing so that he could lick her scrapes.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she said.

  ‘I put too much paprika in.’

  He was in love with her smile. It would take him some time to get round to telling her, but then he’d tell her for a long time.

  He was over two score in years, and he was sitting across from a woman who had lived twice as much as he had. The future had become a terrifying prospect, to both of them.

  Because the amazing plan was indeed amazing, for a few days he abandoned his notebooks.

  Only one drawing remains as testimony . . . Spoiled with a pastis watermark as well . . .

  It was evening, and they were all in the village square. The evening before, his beloved Parisians had arrived, with great fanfare (crazy Claire, honking all the way along the oak avenue . . .); now Sam and his consorts were ravaging the pinball machine, while the little ones played around the fountain.

  Charles had formed a boules team with Marc and Debbie, and they’d taken a terrible beating. Kate had warned them, all the same: ‘You’ll see, these old fellows will let you win the first round to make you feel good, and then, they’ll kick your ass!!!’

  With their well-kicked asses – what do you expect from bloody Parisians and Yanks – they sat nursing their anisettes to find some consolation while his sister, Ken, and Kate were laboriously trying to save the day.

  Tom was keeping score.

  The more they lost, the more they had to pay another round, and the rounder they got, the harder it was to locate that fucking little co-sho-nay.

  Claire is the one who is rolling the boule on that solitary drawing of a very colourful weekend.

  She isn’t concentrating very hard. She’s flirting with Barbie boy in English that is basic at best but very quaint: ‘You teer my bioutifoule Chippendale or you teer pas? Bicose if you teer pas correctly, nous are in big shit, you oondairstonde? Show me please, what you are kah-pabble to do with your two boules . . .’

  The super genius, researcher into the atom’s atoms, could not oondairstonde a thing, other than that this woman was completely barmy, that she could roll a joint like no one else, and if she continued to cling to his arm like that while he was desperately trying to save the last round, he would ‘push elle dans fontaine, okay?’

  Later, and in somewhat more precise English, Charles set out to explain to Ken what his sister did and how she had become one of the most feared attorneys in all of France, if not all of Europe, in her particular field.

  ‘But . . . what does she do?’

  ‘She saves the world.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Ken looked up at the woman who was busy fooling around with an old geezer, spitting her olive pits in the direction of Yacine’s head, and he looked extremely puzzled.

  ‘What the hell are you telling him now?’ shouted Claire to Charles.

  ‘About your profession . . .’

  ‘Yes!’ she exclaimed, turning to Ken, who was transfixed, ‘I am very good in global warming! Globally I can warming anything, you know . . . Do you still live chez your parents?’

  Kate was laughing. As was Marc, who had driven down with Claire to join them, and according to whom Claire was the most disastrous navigational system on the market.

  But she had great music in the car . . . So much the better, they’d got lost no less than six times, after all . . .

  Between two thrashings they all savoured ventrèche de porc and very greasy pommes frites, and with their nonsense and their laughter they managed to lure the entire village under the linden trees.

  This was Kate’s gift, mused Charles.

  To create life wherever she went . . .

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Claire would ask, two evenings later, on the other side of the bridge, before starting to load kilos of fruit and veg into her little car.

  And as her brother would not interrupt his scrupulous wiping of her windscreen, she would aim a big kick directly at his arse.

  ‘You’re bloody stupid, Balanda.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘You know why you’ll never be a great architect?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, because you’re too bloody stupid.’

  Laughter.

  *

  Tom had just shown up again, his hands full of ice cream for the kids, and Marc was picking up the stray boules when Kate announced, ‘Right! La consolante, and after that, we’ll head home.’

  With a nod the old geezers pulled the rags from their pockets to wipe the boules.

  ‘What is it? Some sort of rotgut?’ asked Charles worriedly.

  She blew on her lock of hair: ‘What, la consolante? You’ve never heard the expression?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well . . . there’s the first game, the second, the decider, the revenge, and then finally the consolation match. It’s a game for no reason at all . . . nothing at stake, no competition, no losers . . . Just for the pleasure, really.’

  Charles played a perfect game, thus enabling his team to win – no, not win – to honour the magnificent notion.

  Consolation.

  As he was getting ready to head off to bed, he said good night to everyone, and was leaving his sister to her private lessons (he suspected she spoke English much better than she was letting on, in order to create new challenges with her tongue), when she came up to him and said, ‘You’re right, go and get some sleep. You have to be at the station in Limoges tomorrow at eleven.’

  ‘Limoges? What the fuck d’you want me to go to Limoges for?’

  ‘It was the most practical route I could find for her.’

  ‘Who, her?’

  ‘Hmm, what’s her name, already?’ she said, pretending to frown, ‘Mathilde, I think . . . yes, that’s it, Mathilde.’

  The-happiest-of-his-entire-life.

  Here’s why.

  On arriving back from Limoges with Mathilde he found them all still, once again, and as always, sitting round the table.

  They moved over to make room and gave a distinguished welcome to the new recruit.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon by the stream.

  For the first time since he had come here, Charles did not take his notebook with him. All the people he loved on earth were here around him, and there was nothing else he could dream, imagine, conceive, or draw.

  Absolutely nothing.

  *

  The next morning they ran into Alexis and Madame his wife at the market.

  Claire hesitated for a few seconds before deciding to give him a kiss.

  But she did give him a kiss.

  Cheerfully. Tenderly. Cruelly.

  They were already gone when Corinne turned around and asked who the girl was.

  ‘Charles’s sister.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She turned to the cheesemaker: ‘Hey, you haven’t forgotten the grated Gruyère like the other time?’

  Then, to her ghost of a husband: ‘What are you waiting for? Pay the man.’

  Not a thing. He wasn’t waiting for a thing. That is exactly what he was doing.

  He would go to Les Vesperies the next day under the pretext that he wanted to borrow some tool or other, and one of the children would inform him that she had already left.

  Charles, who was working with Marc in the living room, didn’t bother to get up.

  Tom, Debbie, and Ken, who had already postponed their departure for Spain any number of times,
finally left, too.

  And Kate’s mother, who had arrived the day before, took Hattie’s room in their wake.

  Hattie was already managing really well at poker and very kindly gave up her second room to Mathilde . . .

  For two nights only.

  After that, Mathilde took her mattress down to the saddle room.

  Charles, who had worried about whether the ‘city mouse country mouse’ transplant would take, was quickly reassured. Mathilde had got back in the saddle after the second day, plugged in her headphones, and fleeced them all.

  He already knew what a good bluffer she was. He could have warned them . . .

  He went to bed, disgusted, as he heard her laugh and bid higher than all the others . . .

  One morning when they were alone, she asked him, ‘Just what is this house?’

  ‘Well . . . it is what is called a house, actually.’

  ‘And Kate?’

  ‘What, Kate?’

  ‘You in love?’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You’re a case,’ she confirmed, rolling her eyes skyward.

  ‘Shit. Is it a problem?’

  ‘I don’t know. And what about the flat I haven’t even seen, yet?’

  ‘That doesn’t change anything. But incidentally . . . There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you . . .’

  He asked his question, and got the answer he had hoped to hear. Then he remembered Claire and her story about kindness.

  Always the right pleadings, his learned friend . . .

  He recognized his sister’s writing and the shape of a CD.

  If the goat hasn’t eaten your laptop, put track 18 on repeat. The words aren’t very difficult, and with your stentorian voice, you should do a good job with it.

  Good luck.

  He turned over the box: it was the soundtrack of a Cole Porter musical.

  The title?

  Kiss me, Kate.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Mathilde.

  ‘Oh, just some silly nonsense your aunt sent me,’ he said with a daft smile.

  ‘Pfff . . . you guys are such babies.’

  Later, reading through the libretto, he would learn that this was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.

  Of the Shrew, no doubt about it; Taming, however, was a lot more hypothetical . . .

  The next four pages are a catalogue of little wooden houses.

  One morning, Charles suggested to Nedra, who spent long hours playing alone in the depths of a huge box shrub behind the henhouse, that he build her a real little house.

  The only answer she gave was a slow batting of her eyelashes.

  ‘Rule number one: before you build a single thing you have to find a good location. So come with me, to tell me where you’d like it.’

  She’d hesitated for a few seconds, looking around for Alice, then got up, smoothing her skirt.

  ‘From the windows, would you rather see the rising sun or the setting sun?’

  He felt bad to be putting her through such an ordeal, but he couldn’t manage it any other way, it was his profession . . .

  ‘Rising sun?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Right you are. South, south-east would make the most sense.’

  They went silently round the house in a big loop . . .

  ‘This would be a good spot because you’ve got a few trees for shade and then the stream isn’t too far away . . . Very important to have water nearby!’

  When she saw him in this light-hearted mood, she gradually brightened, and at one point, because they had to make their way through some brambles, she forgot herself and gave him her hand.

  The foundations were laid.

  After lunch, she brought him his coffee, as she had done ever since his first visit, and leaned against his shoulder while he drew the entire range of chalets offered by Balanda and Co.

  He understood her. Like her he believed that a picture was worth a thousand words and he drew innumerable variations for her. The size of the windows, the height of the door, the number of window boxes, the length of the terrace, the colour of the roof – and what should they carve in the middle of the shutters: lozenges or little hearts?

  He could have guessed which model she would point to . . .

  Charles really had intended to leave, but now Mathilde was there, and Kate, between her nutcase of a mother and Mathilde, had given him a summit to aim for. All the more reason to stay and embark on this new childish undertaking.

  He’d covered a lot of ground with Marc, and he’d let him head off to his parents’ place with most of their files in the boot. Now, in order to find a new foothold, he had to keep his hands busy.

  And then . . . building miniature houses was something he’d always done particularly well, so far. If he scrounged around enough he would surely find a slab of marble in the barns somewhere . . . He thought he’d seen a broken mantelpiece somewhere the other day . . .

  At first Kate was annoyed when she found out that he was paying Sam and his mates, but Charles would not listen. Young apprentices deserved a salary.

  But the mates were more idle than venal and very soon let them down, so this gave Charles and Sam a chance to become better acquainted. And to appreciate each other. As is often the case when two blokes are sweating it out together digging ditches, tossing back beers, bellowing bloody hells, and comparing their blisters.

  On the third evening, as they were getting undressed on the pier, Charles asked Sam the same question he’d asked Mathilde.

  Charles understood his hesitation better than anyone. He found himself in exactly the same situation.

  There’s a photo slipped between the next two pages. He printed it out long after his return, and left it lying around on his desk for weeks before deciding to put it in the notebook.

  Inventory statement for end of project.

  Inventory statement full stop.

  It was Granny who took the photo, and it had been an epic event, trying to explain to her how to press the shutter without worrying about anything else. Poor Granny was not well versed in digital hybrids . . .

  They are all there. Standing just outside Nedra’s house. Kate, Charles, the children, the dogs, Captain Haddock and the entire barnyard.

  They’re all smiling, they’re all beautiful, they’re all hanging expectantly on the trembling of an old lady who is about to go into her classic clueless diva routine, but they all have faith.

  They’d known her for so long . . . Let their indulgence set her free.

  Alice was in charge of the décor (the day before she’d gone to fetch her books and had introduced him to the work of Jephan de Villiers . . . And that is what Charles appreciated most about these children, the way they always managed to lead him into unexplored territory . . . Whether it was Samuel’s principles of dressage, or Alice’s talent, or Harriet’s dark humour, or Yacine’s fifty anecdotes a minute . . . In all other respects they were totally typical: wearying, always wanting something, disrespectful, full of bad faith, noisy, unruly, bone idle, artful, and constantly squabbling with one another, but there was something about them that you didn’t find in other kids . . .

  A freedom of spirit, a tenderness, a quickness of mind (even courage, because one had only to see them take on all the chores that their huge house required, without ever making a sour face or complaining), a zest for life and a sense of ease with the world which Charles found endlessly fascinating.

  He remembered something Alexis’s wife had said about them: ‘Those little Mormons . . .’ but he did not agree with her at all. First of all, he’d seen them tear each other to pieces over the joysticks on the video games, spend entire afternoons in chat rooms or polishing up their blogs or selecting the best from YouTube (they’d forced Charles to sit through every single episode of ‘Have you ever seen’?) (which in fact he didn’t regret, he’d rarely laughed so heartily), but above all, he did not for one minute get the impression that they were entrenching themselves on the
other side of their bridge.

  It was just the opposite . . . Everything that still throbbed with life came to them. To rub up against their joyfulness, their valour, their . . . nobility . . . Their farmyard, their dinners, their meadows, their mattresses – all were a stage for endless procession, and each day brought with it a crop of new faces.

  The latest receipt for their food supplies measured over one metre long (Charles was the one who’d been in charge that time . . . hence the aber-ration . . . he shopped, it would seem, like a Parisian on holiday), and at peak hours the beach nearly sank.

  What did they have that made them different from other children?

  Kate.

  She was so unsure of herself – she had confided as much, said that every winter she succumbed to a depression that could last for days, where she was physically incapable of getting up in the morning; so the fact that she had been able to give so much confidence to these children – orphaned of both mother and father, as the official forms required one to specify – seemed to Charles nothing short of . . . miraculous.

  ‘Come back in mid-December,’ she scoffed, to calm the zealous worshipper, ‘when it’s five degrees in the living room, and you have to break the ice on the hens’ water ever morning, and we eat porridge at every meal because I’ve got no strength left to cook anything else . . . And then Christmas comes . . . a wonderful family holiday with me all alone to stand in as the entire family tree, and then we’ll talk about miracles . . .’

  (But another time, after a particularly depressing dinner during which our four professionals of the planet had drawn up an alarming balance sheet, with all the figures, irrefutable with . . . well . . . we know what . . . she had poured out her feelings: ‘This life . . . this very singular life – perhaps discriminating in some way – that I’ve imposed on the children . . . It’s the only thing that might absolve me. In this day and age the world is in the hands of grocers, but tomorrow? I often tell myself that it’s only people who know how to tell a berry from a mushroom or how to plant a seed who will be saved . . .’

  And then, elegant as ever, she had laughed and spouted a lot of nonsense in order to be forgiven for her lucidity . . .)

  So Alice had taken charge of the décor, and Nedra had invited everyone to come and visit her palace.