The Suicide Shop
Page 10
‘Quick, help me!’
Mishima, Lucrèce, Marilyn and Ernest leap to Vincent’s aid and together they pull gently on the bandage to prevent it tearing. Alan comes up, in a series of small jolts. With ten careful hands, they bring him back towards them. They are almost there. As the child, who is light, rises, they let down the crêpe bandage they’ve pulled in, in order to double or triple its thickness and safety.
‘I was so afraid,’ confesses Lucrèce.
‘It’s a good job you were here, my lad,’ sighs Mishima.
‘My head doesn’t hurt any more!’ exclaims Vincent in astonishment.
‘Our boy shall be called Alan,’ decides Marilyn, with tears in her eyes. ‘If it’s a girl, she’ll be Alanne.’
Ernest nods his agreement and the little Tuvache boy climbs, climbs. Hanging in the air, he observes the heads bent towards him, the faces of his father, his mother, sister, brother and almost brother-in-law.
Mishima laughs. ‘In any case, we wouldn’t have to worry if the regional government did close the Suicide Shop by decree! With the money we’ve earned recently by selling jokes and novelties, we’ve got enough to move to the other side of the boulevard and take over management of the François Vatel, which we’d rename Better Than the Shop Opposite. We’d turn it into –’
‘A crêperie?’ asks Vincent.
‘If you like!’ laughs Monsieur Tuvache. Since his birth, his youngest child has never seen him as joyful as he is here.
The eldest child is radiant too (which is new) as he pulls on the bandage:
‘I’ll stop doing the skulls – it’s getting a bit tiresome – to make pancakes as round as Alan’s face, with two holes for his laughing eyes and a slit for his big optimistic smile. Around the pancake, with batter drizzled from the ladle, I’ll trace golden curls and I’ll dust the cheeks with a little chocolate powder for his freckles. Even people with no appetite would want to hang that up under glass above their beds so they could believe in something nice.’
‘Oh, oh, that would be happiness …!’ sings Lucrèce. Her youngest child has never heard her sing before.
And the child rises up, holding on with one hand. He’s no more than three metres from them. Chinese ideograms slide over the back of his bright pullover and trousers. Gripping the bandage, without calling for help, and without fear or bitterness for what they have been, Alan looks at them as he rises upwards, jolt by jolt. Their collective happiness, their sudden faith in the future and those radiant smiles on their faces are his life’s work. Two metres away from him, his sister is laughing. Madame Tuvache watches him approaching as if she has suddenly seen her mother arrive in the school playground. Alan’s mission is accomplished.
He lets go.
THE SUICIDE SHOP
Jean Teulé
Jean Teulé lives in the Marais with his companion, the French film actress Miou-Miou. An illustrator, filmmaker and television presenter, he is also the prizewinning author of ten books including one based on the life of Verlaine. In researching that book he discovered that a group of nineteenth-century poets had founded a review called The Suicide Shop and this inspired his novel. He has also written biographies of Rimbaud and François Villon.
Sue Dyson
Sue Dyson has been writing and translating for around twenty years. She is perhaps most widely known as bestselling novelist Zoë Barnes.
First published in France as Le Magasin Des Suicides by Éditions Julliard Paris
Copyright © Éditions Julliard Paris, 2007
English translation copyright © Sue Dyson 2008
This ebook published in Great Britain in 2010 by Gallic Books,
134 Lots Road, London, SW10 0RJ
The right of Jean Teulé
to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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ISBN 978–1–906040–91–8