Ricochet

by Robyn Neilson

  ‘Cajot wants us to do another yacht, but this time it’s haut de gamme. It means we won’t leave here for at least another two hours. You’ll have to work fast and well. Que-est ce que vous en pensez?’

  ‘Aller, on y va’ we all agree.

  This vessel is smaller, but much classier, with a walnut and oak interior which we all vie to sheen. I covet the exquisite joinery. But the bathroom and sleeping births are complicated to clean, and by the time we have finished, I can barely straighten up. We stagger back to the old Mercedes and Vincent’s van, buggered and seasick but light-hearted in our newfound amitié. And then commences a pantomime. Cajot has lost his keys.

  Up and down the docks we troll, on all fours once again. Vincent leaps lightly onto each of our shining yachts, but the keys cannot be found. Maybe you shouldn’t have drunk the entire bottle of Guigal… Cajot, you old bastard.

  Now we are stuck. The sun sinks, impervious to our dilemma. When I ring Loup he is unimpressed. He finally agrees to meet Vincent’s van halfway along the Autoroute, so Cajot and Shakir climb in the front, and Alika and I clamber in with the chemicals in the back of the van, like the gentille filles that we are.

  Again, I cannot wait to get out of that car fast enough.

  The next day, I go back for more. Truth is, I like being with Alika; her confidence is catchy. I like the smell of the sea underneath and the gentle licking smack of it along the keel as I kneel and scrub. And Vincent does remind me of my little brother back home. But this day is even longer and more fatiguing. Upon our return, as we approach the rise in the road overlooking La Ciotat; Le Mugel is crowned by a halo of light; of magenta and tangerine crystals, and I think with pride and relief, I am home, where I should be.

  The next day no cleaning has been assigned. I awake sore and stiff. Loup and I still sleep on our bunk beds in the hallway, having not yet saved up for our big bed. I flop out of the lower bunk onto the floor; my mouth feels weird and swollen. In the bathroom mirror, I see that my lips are all ulcerated, as is the entire inside of my mouth and tongue.

  At the Doctor’s again:

  ‘Syphilis, gonorrhoea, HIV…. Madame, I want you tested for all of these’, he pronounces matter-of-factly whilst I fall off my chair. Back I go again with swabs to the male nurse, whose one good eye looks at me differently now. The other one maintaining its’ distant orbit.

  ‘But Loup, it’s just not possible to catch an STD from random pubic hair, or discarded condoms, is it? Please tell me it’s not fucking possible!’

  ‘How would I know Frey? Honnêtment, je ne sais pas chérie.’

  Turns out the mysterious ulcers were some kind of thrush, made worse from inhaling cleaning chemicals at close quarters. Turns out, I was not carrying any of the above sexually transmitted diseases. Turns out, my two-day stint at Toulon was never to be repeated, although Vincent did ring me, and regretfully I did turn him down. Turns out, Alika may have been paid well, but I wasn’t paid at all. She had assured me in private, ‘Cajot will pay you at least 80 to 100 euro per day. And you’ll get a bonus for doing the extra boat.’ But zero was what he paid me.

  Afterwards, for a long while, Loup no longer had the dubious pleasure of Cajot ferreting around in his office, so my two days of cleaning went unrecognised. Each day I would anticipate Loup coming home with a wad of cash, but as the weeks became a month and a half, I lost my nerve.

  ‘Either you tell that fat prick, or I will ring your boss and let him know what I think, as well as what you really think of him and his slithering snitch.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got my own reasons to mistrust Cajot… he’s always boasting about his young gypsy girl friend… and today I saw a woman lying on the back seat of his car, asleep or passed out, in the middle of the day… she looked no older than twenty-five! Sale vieux con!’

  Two days later Loup came home with an envelope with ‘FREYA’ scrawled across it. Inside was a desultory 40 euros.

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me? That’s only 2 euros per hour!’

  ‘Encouler Cajot’ said Loup.

  ‘Connard Cajot’ said I.

  Neither of us imagined he would turn up again in a movie we were watching years later in Australia. Based upon a true story about the mafia of Marseille; a story we both loved because we had walked its streets and swam its seas. And loved it even more for the moral restitution of its sexy opera-humming hero. And the cronies of Cajot who meet their maker.

  Paid work.

  A conversation with the local épicier at the bottom of l’Homme Rouge road, leads me to the idea of a different sort of cleaning. Cleaning for the elderly. I put up notices in the shops with my phone number and soon have a trio of couples to clean for. These old-timers prove to be my saviours; teaching me, telling me their stories and offerings of Vieux-France humour. They in fact form the richest part of my time spent in this town by the sea, and it is they whom I will miss most deeply when stuck in the isolation of the hut. Especially Jeanine et André. Their apartment terrace looks out over the Plage Capucins. Scintillating blue-green. A small cove where beautiful young creatures, black and white and brown, come to play volley ball, flirt and eat ice creams. Their perfect youth adorns the crystal sands. Algae adorns the baking rocks. The sea is green and the sky is blue. It's all a bit of a cliché.

  Except for the real life of my elderly friends. There is nothing to dismiss or make light of here. Madame Hélin is in tears one day; Monsieur Hélin is in fits of laughter another. They are both unwell. There is a nurse who comes twice daily. The French know how to look after their elderly. In return for the Hélin's freindship I offer them potted gerberas and frangipane pastries from the boulangerie. When I make their bed and vacuum their rugs and dust their precious objects and polish their bottles of cologne and make their bath shine; it feels like a privelege, not a job. They treat me like a daughter and I feel safe again.

  Another visit from the Gendarmes

  The daily life in La Ciotat becomes something of an unexpected gift, to which I awake eagerly. I have a routine; cleaning three times a week for my ‘oldies’, sewing at home, walking down under the pines to le vieux ville to visit Irène, and up the hill and under the rail-tracks with Agnés. I rarely go to the beach during the day, preferring to wait for Loup in the evening, when the crowds are diminished. Les plages of the Mediterranean are horrendously crowded to my way of thinking. Besides, I cannot simply lie on the sand or swim whilst Loup is working all day.

  Some days however, when the intercom buzzes and I know it is Agnés, a malaise comes over me, and I do not answer. Shamed and unwilling to pretend that our life is equal to the life she and her husband lead, as they gaze from their elegant balcony across the glistening bay, over their swimming pool and their terraced garden and their olive trees. But it is not even envy that I feel, as I do not covet their grand life. It is more the doubts that stalk Loup; his daily struggles to keep his company afloat, the tiny erosions of faith that have seeped in to the crevasse that Pascal vacated…. it is these things I brood upon and which prevent me from answering the door. Even as the sun is boldly shining.

  But today I have no choice. A male voice speaks through the intercom:

  ‘Bonjour Madame Zorn, c’est le Gendarme de La Ciotat. Vueilliez vous ouvre la porte, s’il vous plaît, nous avons besoin de vous parler.’

  Not again, surely?

  I press the entry button, and two plain-clothes detectives appear at our door. One step further, and they are wedged between the big bed we have finally splurged on, the table and myself. This is our studio; more cramped than a yacht. Quickly I smooth the bed covers tight and perch on the edge whilst offering our only two chairs. Déjà vu.

  ‘Madame, we have some questions, très grave. Are you or your husband the registered owner of a white Ford Laser 1980?’

  ‘Si, Monsieur, it’s my husband’s car, which I drive.’

  ‘So, when was the last time you drove it Madame?’

  ‘Eh ban, that would have been last ni
ght. We drove to the Lioquet for a swim about 8pm, and got home by 10ish.’

  ‘And where did you park your car?’

  ‘Well, in the street, like I always do’.

  ‘Is there someone who can temoinage, witness this was indeed so?’

  Alarmed, I try to remain polite.

  ‘Excusez-moi Monsier, but is there something you are accusing us of?

  ‘Have you used your car this morning? Or has your husband?’

  ‘Mais NON Monsieur!’

  My distress get’s the better of me; the other detective comes to my aid. He opens a folder of photographs.

  Most are of the contorted incinerated chassis of a car. In a place I do not recognize. Evidently this is our car. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. A charred gaping mangled melted metal cavern, a grotesque parody of my little run around, in which last night I drove Loup to the sea. To watch him swim out deep, the tension from his face wash away, and then together we sat in silence and watched the sun disappear behind the massive Mugel.

  ‘Madame’, the older one explains more softly, ‘it seems your Ford was stolen last night at about midnight, used to stage a robbery in a local restaurant, then used to take the owners hostage from their home and then, set on fire!’

  Well fuck me dead

  ‘We need the details of your husband’s insurance; his work contact and so on. It is urgent that we get in touch with him.’

  So, this was when the fun starts. It turns out, the Ford was so old, and un-roadworthy to boot, that Loup had not bothered getting Insurance. Certainly not for fire and theft. It was the kind of car where you needed ear-protection and a safety helmet; a handy little get-around for me, but incapable of driving long distances or on the Autoroute. A handy foil for the mafia, said the detectives. Dead easy to steal.

  Loup’s mood from that night on again deteriorated. For not only did he have to arrange for the towing and disposal of the carcass, but also to cover all the costs of cleaning of the tow truck and the driver’s uniform.

  ‘Better to be a putain criminal in this country…they don’t have to pay a fucking thing! What kind of idiot am I, paying for them to screw me!’

  Then it lands.

  ‘It’s your fault Freya, you should have put the anti-theft bar on.’

  This is the way most conflicts were resolved. I simply had to agree, that yes it probably was my fault. My fault that the mafia found our old Ford.

  Chemin de Verdeleau, the move to save our arse, 2013.

  “Love in a hut, with water and a crust,

  Is-Love, forgive us! -Cinders, ashes, dust;

  Love in a palace is perhaps at last

  More grievous torment than a hermit’s fast…”

  John Keats.

  My senses are keening as we enter our new limestone road, Chemin de Verdeleau, under the impressive stone cluster of les Grandes Bastides, over the bridge with more potholes than bitumen, across the canal to the unofficial, deeply corrugated tracks leading past roaming sheep guarded by a shepherd with his massive white Pyrenées dogs, to the secreted huts and mobile homes and gypsy vans and abandoned hippie haunts, and then I see an isolated actual house, hidden behind hedges and steel gates and pine trees, but this is not ours. Ours is the ugly exposed hut at the end of the cul de sac. Where hunters unload their dogs and guns to begin their chasse.

  The sheep do not resemble the pristine white flock dotting the emerald green pastures of Aubrac imbued with Biblical nicety, nor do they remind me of the goatherds I’d hiked passed in the mountains, up high, where trees and wildflowers were of magnified proportions. No, here the sheep are wrung out. As are the blunt bushes upon which they gnaw: even in the dry Autumn, everything is blighted by the battle to stay moist and green, ironically, on the border of a canal.

  Months later, when the skulking sky bursts, the downpour is violent. Within weeks, grass and weeds threaten to devour the hut, so Loup throws open the gates, and invites the shepherd to bring in his sheep. For once our hut is no longer harsh, but rendered soft and painterly, surrounded by contentedly grazing sheep, so many of them that the stained polystyrene walls vanish. But first we had to make the hut inhabitable.

  Our first Christmas Eve at the hut.

  There are times when one in a couple should deservedly leave the other.

  For the first month Monsieur Renard had given us access, to somehow redeem this putrid box, and I had been scrubbing. For two weeks I had been scraping and bleaching and painting, to eliminate the grime and odours. Driving my little car the long way from La Ciotat, or daring to take the Autoroute. Loup would help me when he could on the weekend, but his hard labour was in his office. It was a distribution of work that I happily agreed to. Until the extremes of winter and isolation and no electricity no fire no heater no water no phone no radio no other humans that I knew of, (didn’t yet know of the voyeurs) began to take it’s toll. No glimmer of sky for three days was the worst: a dank fog turning me into a swamp-dweller. By Christmas Eve my enthusiasm for the clean up dwindled. Minus 3 degrees was a hopeless temperature for drying paint. But at least it was Christmas tomorrow, I was sure Loup would come home with an invitation to spend the day with his family. Dark at 3pm. My phone battery on its last legs. We had not yet bought the generator. And my car battery was also dead. Fuck. Fuck!

  So I went for a walk, along the canal where I knew my way and the big houses on the right side all displayed their Christmas lights and their elaborately decorated trees lit my path. Or rather, their neon lightshow cast me further into the shadows, the brightness confirming my status as an outsider. I was the other again, that old melancholy creeping across me like poison ivy. I was the voyeur.

  Loup would call soon, surely. I scan my phone obsessively for a message, until barren, it dies. I wander in circles past the grand twinkling houses with families united, until self-conscious and ashamed that they might mistake me for a reindeer-and-sleigh thief, for the creep that I truly was, I return in the dark to the dark hut. I’d bought some scented candles, and some special treats for the night before Christmas. But as each cold hour passes, I begin first to worry, and then to get angry. I eat most of the Belgian chocolates on my own. 9pm, 10pm, where the putain fucking hell is Loup?

  I am really starting to freak out at 11pm when I hear the unmistakable rumble of the van’s wheels over the stones. But what if it’s not him?

  It is he and after the initial relief that Loup is ok, my attack is not nice:

  ‘Where the hell have you been, is this what you call Christmas Eve? Oh my god, please don’t tell me you were invited to have drinks at Tina’s, with your family, and you chose to leave me here, all by myself in the fucking cold and dark, and no invite for Christmas Day tomorrow! Do you have any fucking idea how lonely and afraid I’ve been? Why didn’t you call me? You couldn’t even let me know…or better still come and get me and include me in your drinks? Oh great, you even forgot the gas bottle, so now we have nothing to cook with either. Nothing to warm up with. Merry Fucking Christmas Freya and Loup!’

  To which Loup’s response was scathing:

  ‘Well if it’s not good enough for you, why don’t you go back to Australia, yeah, just get on the putain first plane back tomorrow. As soon as you can, princess!’

  Winded. I stagger to the cyclone gate, sobbing and tripping into the hunting reserve, falling and tearing myself on rolls of barbed wire. Running in disbelief. Until I came to one of the hunters wooden towers with its platform disguised in branches and leaves. Once up the top I try to breathe deeply; to calmly plan how I would buy my tickets without a phone or Internet and how I would leave. And that if I did, that would mean the end of our brief marriage. For a few detached minutes, there is nothing other than the clear dark sky, the swamp of grey having given way to this silent night. Pageant lights of the distant cliff-top village flicker. I realize I’m actually enjoying this solitary divorced moment. Then a thundering of hooves scares the shit out of me.

  It is a stampede of wild
boar, sangliers, and they are surrounding my tower.

  I watch and listen as they forage and snort. Eventually they grunt and grumble towards another feeding ground: one of the many pièges furnished by the hunters. A feast of corn-cobs. Their last supper. Unsure as to my next move, I clasp my coat tighter against the cold and tug my beanie lower. A dark figure approaches my tower. It is Loup.

  Standing behind me, ‘I did try and ring you Freya. I remembered the gas bottles at the last minute, that’s what made me so late, I went up and down the highway searching for a petrol station that was open. Mmm…. we should try this tower another time when it’s not so cold…. you’d have a nice view, something strong to hold onto.’

  ‘Jesus Loup how can you switch off and on so quickly?’

  The air in the hut is icier than the air outside. Without camping gas or a potbelly, getting warm is impossible. I insist on lighting all our candles and setting our Ikea table and eating our modest treats. Our bed for the night is a blow up mattress, which we lay on the filthy floor. My clean-up thus far had extended to the walls and floor in the main room, and what could loosely be called the kitchen and bathroom; we had not yet dealt with this moribund cubicle. The four walls were all of plywood in various states of decay. Some had the remains of nursery-rhyme themed wallpaper, and where it had been ripped off, clung tenuously a child’s crayon drawing. We stuff some rags into the holes in the wall, but the wind howls and torments us all night; whipping up the loose ply outside so that it bangs and crashes, hurtling in under the rusty chassis so that the floor lifts and shudders. Our sleeping bags and doonas are not enough.

  Neither of us sleep.

  Christmas Day bears none of the gloom of yesterday. The sky is vivid bright. We sit outside in the warm sun on the timber palettes and drink tea made with our small hiking stove, as the ice in our water containers slowly melts and our sleeping bags defrost on the clothesline. I watch a willy-wagtail, une bergeronnette, bounce from tree to tree, and am filled with an urgent nostalgia for home.