‘Étienne, this is ridiculous! Everyone does silly things every once in a while.’
‘You’re not everyone! … Draw the curtain please.’
Éliette reluctantly did as she was asked. The night sky was so beautiful, like the one Van Gogh painted while wearing candles on his hat. She was sincerely sorry; how fragile their dream seemed to be.
‘Will you forgive me, please? I’m going to order a bottle of champagne – do you want some?’
They were brought not champagne but Asti Spumante. Not that it really mattered; it was the lightness of the bubbles they needed. After two glasses and another line each, Étienne had reconciled himself to life, but a knot remained in his chest like a wrecking ball. They talked, both making extravagant plans and recalling fragments of fictitious or muddled memories. This blend of equally hypothetical pasts and futures was a kind of lifebelt that kept them afloat amid the treacherous waters of the present. Around four in the morning, exhausted, having run out of words, they let the night pull black wool over their eyes. Étienne woke with a start two hours later, his mouth apparently lined with blotting paper. In his dream, Agnès had been shaking something in her hand, something like a salad spinner. She was shouting, ‘It’s ready, Papa, it’s ready!’ It was a severed head, with blood spurting from the sawn neck onto virgin snow. In the fog, he could not see whose head it was.
He got up and went to drink as much water from the tap as he could manage. It was warm, and tasted of toothpaste. He splashed his face. Outside, daylight had come, a pearly white sky like an oyster, the sun struggling to break through the clouds. A breeze lifted the curtain like a veil, but otherwise everything hung flat: the clothes on the backs of the chairs, the fake crystal chandelier, the seaweed-floppy terry towels, his cheeks, his arms, his balls. It was going to be muggy today.
Éliette groaned and rolled over as he lay back down next to her.
‘Is it morning? What time is it?’
‘Six thirty.’
‘Can’t you sleep, my love?’
‘Yes, yes, I was just thirsty.’
‘Is it nice out?’
‘Grey.’
‘Come here … closer …’
She felt for Étienne’s body under the sheet. She found his thigh, the pelvic bone jutting out, his hand, his shoulder, but it was like stroking a statue. Not a shiver, not the slightest quivering muscle.
‘Is something wrong, darling?’
‘No, no, go back to sleep.’
She snuggled against his shoulder, murmuring something like, ‘Everything’s fine, everything’s fine.’ Étienne ran his hand through his hair as his gaze followed the grey light creeping in through the folds of the curtain like a toxic gas, and went back to sleep thinking to himself that the end of the world was not a big black hole, nor a multicoloured firework display, but, all the more stupidly, it was a day like any other, only a little overcast.
They left the hotel around ten o’clock, Étienne having barely touched his breakfast. He could not have said exactly what was wrong. He felt like the sky: a bit low. Despite her best efforts, Éliette could not instil her good mood in him, and this upset her.
‘Won’t you tell me what the matter is?’
‘I don’t know. I had strange dreams. It’s left a weird taste in my mouth. It’s this car; I’ll feel better once we’ve got rid of it.’
They headed out of town on a coastal road. Étienne drove slowly as if seeking a picnic spot, looking out for tracks either side of the road where he could abandon the car, but found none suitable. Éliette was baffled. As far as she was concerned, any old parking space would have done the job, but Étienne pressed on, determined to find ‘the right place’.
‘Étienne, it doesn’t matter. We’re wasting time.’
‘No, I know what I’m doing. We need to put it in a place where no one will find it for several days.’
‘All right, fine.’
As they drove out of a village a kilometre or so further on, Étienne leapt out of his seat, pointing a finger skywards.
‘There! That’s the place – do you see it?’
A flight of gulls was circling in the air above a sort of truncated volcano with white gases rising up from its summit.
‘Is it a landfill site?’
‘Yes! That’s the spot. It’s as if I knew where I was going!’
‘There might be people there.’
‘No, we’ll push the car in from up there. It’ll soon be covered by tons of rubbish. It’s perfect!’
Éliette remained unconvinced but, at the end of the day, whether it was here or somewhere else … She just wanted him to stop obsessing about this and move on. They turned down a small bumpy track that ran through a pine forest. The further they went, the stronger the acrid stench of burnt rubbish became. They eventually came into a clearing that looked down over the landfill site. It was deserted but for the gulls scouring the rubbish, pecking here and there and letting out piercing squawks. Étienne seemed as happy as a little boy who has won a treasure hunt.
‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it?’
‘It smells horrible.’
‘Let’s take it up to the edge. You get out with the bags and all I’ll have to do is give it a little shove. It’s nice here, isn’t it?’
‘Uh … There’s a certain charm to it, but I don’t know that I’d spend my holidays here.’
Étienne rolled slowly forward. With every turn of the wheels, worrying cracking noises could be heard – crates, cans, piles of boxes. A fridge wobbled in front of them, its door hanging wide open. Withered plastic bags flew up like sluggish hot-air balloons. The birds stirred up the air, which was thick with the stench of rotten cabbage. Étienne appeared fascinated, peering over the steering wheel. Soon there was nothing ahead but the void waiting to swallow them.
‘Étienne! Don’t go any further, we’re right on the edge!’
‘Huh? … Oh, yes.’
The car came to a stop. Shielding her eyes to avoid looking down, Éliette got out, her legs trembling. Her feet sank into a pile of warm filth. Étienne was still clutching the wheel, dazzled by the emptiness before him.
‘Étienne! … Étienne!’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m getting the bags out. Let’s push the car off and get out of here. It’s making me dizzy.’
He had the same smile on his face as on the day she had met him by the little bridge, and the sight of it lifted her spirits. Wading through the nauseating sludge, she took out the bags and the briefcase and moved back a few metres. Étienne opened his door, took off the hand brake and turned towards her with his hands in the air, beaming.
‘We did it!’
He leant against the car and it started to wobble. As it began to tip, a gust of wind slammed the door closed, trapping Étienne’s jacket. It happened before Éliette could even cry out. She heard the sound of crumpling metal as the car fell apart thirty metres below, and the thwack of the gulls’ wings as they scattered, screeching off into the white sky. And then nothing but tumbling rubbish.
She stayed still for a moment, as if dazzled by a camera flash, before falling to her knees, her head in her hands. In the darkness between her palms she saw Étienne’s face as he realised the trap had closed on him, his mouth opening to utter a word he would never speak, and his hands flailing in thin air. Click, clack!
She had no tears left, only spasms that shook her back. She stood up and with all her might threw Étienne’s bag to the ends of the earth, where she now found herself. She opened the briefcase, tipping out the contents of one of the plastic bags which puffed out like a white cloud on the wind. She was about to move on to the next bag when she saw the gulls returning one by one, perching on broken mattresses and bicycle wheels. They were watching her with their beady little eyes and ruffling their feathers as if to say, ‘No need to make a song and dance about it. If you’re not dead, you must be alive.’
Éliette closed the briefcase, turned her back on the sky and began w
alking down the bumpy track.
About the Authors
Pascal Garnier
Pascal Garnier was born in Paris in 1949. The prize-winning author of more than sixty books, he remains a leading figure in contemporary French literature, in the tradition of Georges Simenon. He died in 2010.
Emily Boyce
Emily Boyce is in-house translator at Gallic Books. She lives in London. She has previously translated The Islanders.
Also by Pascal Garnier:
The Panda Theory
How’s the Pain?
The A26
Moon in a Dead Eye
The Islanders
The Front Seat Passenger
Boxes
Copyright
Original title: Trop près du bord
Copyright © Éditions Zulma, 2010
First published in Great Britain in 2016
by Gallic Books, 59 Ebury Street,
London, SW1W 0NZ
This ebook edition first published in 2016
All rights reserved
Translation © Gallic Books, 2016
The right of Pascal Garnier to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 9781910477267 epub
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Too Close to the Edge Page 11