by Louise Dean
She pressed on the volume button and sat back, biting a finger and holding her cigarette off while she did. Telly Savalas was worried too, and his problem was a double murder, but that problem could be solved within forty minutes. It gave them some relief to see him do it.
Chapter 51
She sublet the flat. She packed the bags. She put the school on notice. She got everything out of proportion, on the basis of his email to her and the email she sent back and the many others that followed in the same day, going from polite enquiry to lightly sexual teasing, to revelations, to distress and culminating in the plainly stated need to see each other as soon as possible. She got everything out to pack and was then awed by the absurdity of it. When she might have been doing useful things, she was standing gazing gormlessly into the fridge.
She peeked at Maud here and there as if to check how much she loved her; Maud sitting on the toilet, swinging her legs. Maud with her tongue out colouring the insole of her shoes with a felt-tip pen. Maud sitting with her thumb in her mouth in rapt engrossment with the television screen. She peeked at her for clues to right and wrong. She sat and held Maud to her and kissed her head, not thinking, just feeling whether what she was doing was right. She had to go fast and go slow.
After Ashford, the train went at such a terrific speed, faster than the trucks and cars on the motorway, into the limbo of the tunnel, the long pause, where no one dared to think about the water around them, and then the train went through the auburn landscape of northern France, through fields washed too often, the fabric of them pilled and worn thin, and on the horizon the grey and apricot tones of later afternoon, the clouds moving above the fields, the low sky licking its hide.
In the Gare du Nord, a freezing cold came up from the ground.
‘This station must be the coldest place in the world,’ she said to Maud, and mooted the idea of a hot chocolate before departure.
Upstairs in the Eurostar hallway, couples kissed goodbye, young and matching, blonds with blondes, brunettes with brunettes, boys with girls. She watched a couple French-kissing. She could stand and watch as long as they could keep kissing. She saw how they had their hands in the backs of each other’s sweaters, how they moved their tongues in each other’s mouths, eyes closed.
Watching them, she took a sip from each hot chocolate in turn. ‘Too hot,’ she said to Maud, ‘too hot yet.’
Maud was speaking but Rachel was listening to the couple, she was close enough to hear the sound of their kissing. She could hear the tiny wet lapping slaps, the flimsy sighs and miniature groans and the breath that became a sigh in another person’s world.
‘It’s not hot now,’ said Maud, poking her staring mama.
* * *
After Avignon, through the window again, the brown fields looked damp at the thought of snow in distant mountains, and though there had been no rain here, the lesser-windowed houses kept an eye open just in case. An olive orchard was like a hundred ghostly harpies, hair-strewn, all the trees leaning the same way.
‘Oh God, I’m scared,’ she said, taking Maud on to her lap and kissing her.
‘Mummy, you’re hot, your hand is hot.’ Maud put a hand on her mother’s forehead. ‘Your head is hot. You must be ill. Are you losing a tooth?’
‘I’m fine, darling,’ she said and drew Maud to her just to smell her, to smell her breath, to hold her, to feel her, how little she was, how squashy she was with her plump tummy and bottom, and she smelt her neck, and brought her hands to her nose and smelt the odour of the girl’s thumb where she sucked it.
‘You’re all mine,’ she said.
‘And a little bit Daddy’s too,’ said the girl and went back to her thumb, keeping an eye on the window, keeping an eye on her own interests.
Chapter 52
That evening, Richard drank six beers in the Café des Amis and then instead of going back to the studio he walked the four or five kilometres towards his former home. The long roadway out of the town was well lit now, offering as it did access to new villas, to vineyards and a restaurant with a helipad.
He addressed himself fondly as he walked, he had a little chitchat with himself, he quizzed himself on this and that, made a joke at his own expense, avoided a difficult question with a sly poke at the questioner, gave himself some paternal solace with a few old wise saws. He considered how odd it was to have this otherness inside of him, and to rub along together, not always as a team, but more, much more, provocative than that; this internal noise of contradiction was life, the bang and boom of being only assuaged by the palliatives of drink, sleep, death; slightly less immanent thanks to 40mgs citalopram and 3mgs risperidone twice daily.
He was not taking the meds for their prescribed purpose. He was using them to reduce his libido and to decrease his desire for drink and, as a bonus, he was quite happy.
He looked back over his shoulder before he left the long straight. Powerfully lit at night, the great old church next to his studio was shaped like a big thumbs-up.
He slipped over the rough stone wall along their lane, catching his backside a little, and dropped on to the grass. He smelt the thyme and walked through the lane of cacti on to the gravel driveway, going past his house and towards his neighbours’.
He saw the fairy lights at his in-laws’ windows. Christmas was approaching with a snarl, the hyena season of goodwill, going for the straggler separated from the herd. He walked in through the front door, which was open as always.
‘Pack your bag, I’ve come to take you away.’
Maxence turned round. He had used his mother’s lipstick to write on the overmantel mirror: There is no love here.
‘Max. What the hell are you doing?’
‘Writing. So they all can see it. So they’ll know.’
‘OK. Well, it’s strong.’
‘Yeah. It is strong. It’s powerful. It’s a spell. A curse.’
‘OK, now put the lipstick down. I’ve come because I decided to take you to London tomorrow. We’ll see the . . .’ he saw himself in the mirror, looking a bit lopsided, ‘the Christmas lights. And Rachel. We’ll see Rachel and Maud. That will be nice, right?’
‘OK, we’re going away.’ Max smiled and put his hands out to his father rather in the manner of the romantic heroine. ‘All my life I’ve waited for this.’
His eyes looked glassy, his smile was wistful. He reminded Richard of the girl with acute dystonia in Nyeri.
‘Max. Are you drunk or something?’
‘I’ve been smoking Gérard’s weed.’
‘Shit, no. You’ve been smoking grass! At thirteen years old? Shit. Let me make some coffee. Where’s your mother?’
‘Upstairs getting pumped by that guy.’
‘Hey. Watch your mouth. Christ, Max, we’ve got to get you into Catholic school. What have they done to you, your mother and that arsehole? They’ve completely dropped the ball. You were such a . . . a kid, you were just a kid. Now, cigarettes, dope, and all of this . . . !’ He gestured at the mirror to mean everything, the fact that his son was coming undone in his wake, and he ran out of words and he felt like he might break into tears so he went to the kitchen to make them coffee. ‘Come and help me then, Max, will you?’ he asked him weakly.
In the kitchen he watched the boy go from cupboard to cupboard seeking the coffee; he threw a door open as if trying to catch someone out, then peered into each saying, ‘Anybody home? Hello? Anyone in? You think you’re pretty smart, hiding in there while your old pal Max needs a cup of coffee . . .’
Richard blew out. His son looked back at him. ‘What?’
‘Why did you write the letters, Max?’
‘What letters?’ He put his hand on a jar of Nescafé. ‘There you are.’ The jar fell and he caught it. He bounced it in the palm of his hand.
‘The ones your mother and I got. You wrote them, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, those ones. Yeah.’
‘They were disgusting.’
‘Yeah. Simone helped me.’
Richard shook his head. ‘You’re lying.’ He put his hands on the counter.
Max turned round, he put his hands out and shook his sleeves loose. ‘Actually, Dad, the truth is it was all done by magic.’
‘OK, let’s just get the coffee made.’
‘And you’ll never guess what, but I can fly.’
‘Dear God.’
‘I can.’
‘OK. So show me then.’
‘It doesn’t work all the time.’ Max gave him a roguish look. Richard set to making them both large cups of sweet coffee, which they drank in silence. Then he put his son to bed and sat down on the rug next to him, waiting for his breathing to change.
He felt the two tendons at the back of his son’s head, in the soft hair.
He put his face next to his son’s. ‘I made you. You’re not me but you’re in my care.’ He put a knuckle on his son’s cheek and stroked it tenderly. ‘I love you so much. I’ll put us both back together again, I promise you.’
In his heart, he felt that he might not be able to and he wept. He wanted help. He prayed for it, he said in his mind over and over again, ‘If there’s a God, then help me, please.’
Max was smiling in his sleep, his expression lordly.
Chapter 53
An early riser, Guy had already given handfuls of seed to the birds, going from the tobacco fug of the interior into the cold harsh air outside in his cardigan and underpants and slippers, feeling the wet of the grass seeping into his toes. It had rained all through the night and stopped at dawn. Guy went outside with his coffee to admire the effects. He stood for ten minutes, sipping the bitter drink, looking at the boy jumping on the trampoline.
Maxence was in pyjamas and a hoodie, going up and down monotonously, his hands in the pockets, hood up. There was an ember glowing at his mouth.
Standing with a rucksack, also watching, was the boy’s father. He wore a baseball hat and Guy could see he was rough-shaven and thin and that he looked a few times at his watch.
At the front door of the big house was Jeff, with a towel around him, smoking, watching the boy too. Valérie came to the front door, dressed in a sweater and jeans with a coffee in her hands. She stood back from Jeff.
‘What’s going on?’ Simone called from their front doorstep. Guy gestured towards the boy.
‘My God,’ she said, stepping forwards.
‘He’s on the trampoline.’
‘It’s not even seven.’
‘Seven, eight, nine, what does the time matter?’ said Guy. ‘He’s a boy, time’s of no importance to him.’
‘It’s strange,’ she shivered, pulling her dressing gown tighter.
‘We’re all watching him, you see, that’s what he wants, that does him good,’ said Guy, coming inside and rubbing his hands together, following her in through the door. He went to the window to look again. ‘We think our bodies are our own, our hands we think we own, we work, we drink, we fight, but that’s of no importance, we share more than we know . . .’
‘Take your pills. We’re going to have some horse-meat for lunch. It will do you good.’
She pushed three pills towards him and he took them obediently without water.
‘Do you ever listen to me, Simone? Do you hear me when I speak?’
‘I hear you. Mostly you say the same thing.’
‘Richard’s making the boy get off the trampoline.’
‘Good. That’s good. What’s Richard doing out there?’ She pressed the button on the coffee machine and went to the small kitchen window. ‘Are they going somewhere?’ She reached for the phone and pressed in six numbers. ‘Valérie. What’s going on? Is Richard taking Max somewhere? London! Have you lost your mind? He can’t take him anywhere in his condition!’ She put the phone down. ‘She’s thinking of herself. She’s only thinking of herself and Jeff. Just them. All she wants is to be happy even if it hurts other people. It’s gone wrong, everything we hoped for, and I can’t do a thing about it.’ She raised her swollen eyes to the ceiling. ‘God knows how much I’ve tried for everyone’s sake. I’ve fought all my life, but I can’t go on fighting.’ She shook her head and lit a cigarette.
‘Don’t work yourself up. You’ll make yourself ill.’ She gave a curt laugh and dabbed at her eyes.
Guy went on, from the window. ‘Max is dressed now and they’re going down the track together, he and Richard.’
‘Well, stop them! He’s abducting him!’
He came away from the window and sat in his chair and lit a cigarette. ‘He’s his father.’
‘He’s a mental case. The doc said so. Can’t you stop them? Why aren’t you stopping them? Oh, Guy, you’re no use to any of us . . .’
She went into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. She brought out his gun and held it in front of him. ‘Stop them!’
‘I’m to shoot one of them, am I?’
‘Just frighten them,’ she said, shaking the gun, holding it with two hands in front of him. ‘Just shoot it into the air to scare them, make them come back. I’m exhausted with worry. I need a night’s sleep. Please, Guy, please do it for me.’
Guy extinguished his cigarette, took the gun and smelt it lovingly. ‘No, those days are gone and we’re left behind, that’s all. We can only watch.’
‘My God, you’re useless! You’re nothing more than a lump, a lump of . . .’
‘Ordures,’ he said. His brow gathered. He put the end of the gun in his mouth.
‘Guy! Don’t.’
He took it out again. ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry.’ He laid the gun on the coffee table and it knocked to the floor the little Moroccan brass tea set. ‘My little girl,’ he said. ‘Gone.’ Then he put his head in his hands and cried.
She went to him and put his face to her breasts as she always did. ‘Darling boy,’ she said, into his filthy hair, kissing him.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he murmured, ‘I won’t live without you.’
‘I’ll never leave you. Yes, you’d die without me. I love you. Don’t cry.’
* * *
The boy and his father set to a fast pace going down the hill into the next village, enjoying running where the descent was steep, laughing, each with his rucksack bumping on his back.
‘Are we running away, Papa?’
‘Yes, yes we’re running away.’
‘Just you and me now!’
‘Yes!’
‘Then let’s run fast,’ and Max skipped and skittered into the shingle where the road made a steep bend down into the valley. He skidded to a halt, and sat down and took off his shoes.
‘You need your shoes, Max,’ but Max ran ahead again and so Richard stooped to pick them up and he carried his son’s shoes all the way into the village at the bottom of the hill.
They managed to thumb a lift from the village to Les Arcs, the last stop in the Var on the high-speed line to Paris.
They ambled down the broken hill to the station, picking their way through all the potholes and gravel into the parking compound where no one could park since the Var was determined to be worthy of terrorism too, where the police kept cars moving and booked them for not stopping at the stop sign that their van obscured.
Students and old people wandered in and out of the Eastern European–style building, setting a-rattle the pamphlet holders that were empty, as they passed through to stand on the platform where old newspapers blew up and down the train tracks.
It was a place where bad news was broken, and one saw occasionally the rebuttal of the information, the fumbled protest before the slump of acceptance into the arms of the messenger.
The back draught of a departing train smelt like dog’s fur and the two of them closed their eyes and held their breath.
It was Max who saw them first.
Chapter 54
‘Rachel,’ Max said. ‘And Maud.’
Richard checked the kid’s face, saw the blank expression in it, and the fine white hairs on the boy’s upper lip. He thought: What now? And also: He’ll be
better after a few days away. And then he saw just across from them on the other platform Rachel at the top of the steps trying to deal with a rolling suitcase.
‘Oh, my God,’ he said to Max.
Max went and sat on the orange plastic seat with its small seat-hole and put his legs out. He looked across to the distant shape of Roquebrune.
Then he got up and went inside the station to see if there was a vending machine. He bought himself a Coca-Cola.
He was halfway through the can when he noticed his father gesturing for him to come up to them. He was smiling with exhilaration. Both of them, he and Rachel, were red-faced, and the little girl was wheeling along a suitcase that matched Max’s bedcovers.
‘We were going to Paris, then to London,’ Richard explained, clasping his son’s far shoulder, embracing him. ‘But, we can go tomorrow, or whenever, can’t we, Max?’
‘No,’ said Max. ‘We have to go now.’
‘We can go another day.’ His father squeezed him hard, then let him go.
Richard took off his baseball cap and ran his hand over his lower face. Rachel, flushed, put her hand through the back of her hair. They were paused there together, on the platform at Les Arcs, adding everything up.
Max began to hum a song that had been in his head for days and although he was looking at them he did not bother to listen. The song was important. He liked Justin Timberlake. The guy seemed to know something.
‘Don’t be so quick to walk away, dance with me . . .’
When he replayed a song in his head it was precisely like the original recording; it was another of his powers.
Soon they were in a taxi, all their bags in the back. They’d struggled a little in trying to lower the handle on Rachel’s case. She tried first, then his father took over, then the driver and then they took everything out, piece by piece, each rucksack, the pink case, the large black case with wheels and they laid that flat and put everything else back in on top and Rachel was explaining the suitcase’s failings and shaking her head and saying, ‘I still can’t believe it, such a coincidence.’