‘Let’s go, I said! I don’t want to go inside. Let’s get out of here!’
‘If that’s what you want. Where do you want to go?’
‘Anywhere, I don’t care. Let’s go.’
Rita’s cheeks were red and glazed with tears, which she let run down her face without wiping them away. She sniffled, her lower lip sticking out dejectedly. Gabriel drove around aimlessly, a left turn here, a right turn there. They drove through a small estate full of new houses, all identical, reproduced ad infinitum. Past that, they travelled through fields, all flat except for the odd cluster of bare trees. Rita’s tears had dried up. Her breathing was back to normal. She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.
‘I’m sorry, Gabriel, but I just couldn’t.’
‘You don’t need to apologise.’
‘Can you pull up here by the trees? I need to pee. Those beers …’
Gabriel turned off down a rutted dirt track and cut the engine. Rita jumped out of the car. Through the wet windscreen he could see her scrambling through the undergrowth and then suddenly disappearing into a thicket. One day, he had taken Juliette to the mountains to see the marmots. Every time he had pointed one out to her, the animal had disappeared down a hole before she had managed to see it. They returned home with Juliette convinced that it had all been one big joke. As far as she was concerned, marmots didn’t exist.
Without thinking, Gabriel started playing with one of the laces he had bought at the cobbler’s. He wound it round his hand and tested its resistance by pulling on it. The rain started hammering on the roof. Rita ran back to the car and jumped in, her hair flattened by the rain.
‘Fucking mud! My shoes got bloody stuck in it. I’ve got mud up to my knees. I hate the countryside.’
Rita brushed her hair back, slumped into the seat, closed her eyes and sighed.
‘My God, it feels good to take a piss when you really need one. It’s nice hearing the rain, when you’re under cover …’
Rita wasn’t as heavy as he had thought. But these brambles catching at his clothes, and the slippery mud … He got to the spot where he thought he had seen her crouch. Her face was calm, peaceful. The rain washed away her tear-smudged make-up. She hadn’t struggled when Gabriel had leant in. Maybe she thought he wanted to kiss her. It was only by reflex that she had stretched her legs and arms out as the lace tightened round her neck.
‘… I never left the apartment. I didn’t answer the phone, pick up my mail or answer the doorbell. I spent my days lying on the terrace looking at the sky. It was still just as blue, the kind of blue you can get lost in. And then one day I got up from my deckchair and shut the door behind me. I took only what I could carry on my back. I think I caught a ferry or a train, I can’t remember. Once the door had shut I started to forget. The days and nights merged into one. I slept wherever and whenever I could. With each day that passed, I forgot a little more of myself. I wandered around Paris for a bit. I could have chosen anywhere, but I chose Paris. Perhaps because I was born there and wanted to go back to where it had all started, or perhaps it was just to disappear into the crowd. It was cold. When I was so drunk I couldn’t sleep, I would walk until I started to hallucinate. It was like that every day. Always the same. I couldn’t feel anything, except the weight of my tiredness, and that’s all I wanted. One night I got picked up half frozen off a pavement. I woke up in hospital. I don’t know how but my friends found out. I asked them to sell everything I owned, the house, the car, everything, and then not to come searching for me ever again. I never wanted to go back, ever. After I left the hospital I went into a convalescent home. I stayed there for weeks, months, until one day I felt a sudden urge to see the sea. I needed something to look at other than the walls of my room. I felt trapped. I needed space, to be far away. I got the first train to Brest. Don’t ask me why – I couldn’t tell you. I was suffocating in the train carriage. I needed air. That’s the whole story.’
The headlights from the cars travelling in the opposite direction flashed across Madeleine’s face. Since Gabriel had started telling his story, she had gone rigid, as milky-white and transparent as an alabaster statue.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’
‘Because we’re alone in a car at night. Let me know if you want to stop to eat or drink something.’
‘No. I can’t take it all in. Rita, José, you … You’ve all been through so much. And I’m just floating through it all, oblivious …’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Of course you should. It’s always good to talk.’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never spoken about it to anyone. My suffering has stopped though. It’s just the pain of others which hurts me. I always want to help them.’
‘You’re very good at it. You’ve been great to José, and Rita as well.’
‘But not you?’
‘Oh, you can forget about me. I’ve never been too happy or too sad, just bored. You get used to it. I’m so happy to have met you and to be here with you now in this car, tonight.’
‘It’s lucky you were able to get away for a couple of days.’
‘My boss owed me! I had so much holiday to take. What else was I going to do with it? It was fine. It was kind of José to lend you his car.’
‘It was him who suggested it. He said, “You’re looking after me and Rita too much and you’re neglecting Madeleine. Borrow the car and take her to the sea.”’
‘What a great idea! It’s just that I’m a bit worried about Rita.’
‘Don’t be. When she reads your note, she’ll understand. She was fine, really, when I dropped her off at the hospital.’
‘So we’ve got clear consciences then?’
‘Absolutely. What time is it?’
‘It’s just gone quarter past eight.’
‘We’ll be at Roscoff in half an hour. I hope there’ll be a restaurant still open.’
‘There’s bound to be a crêperie.’
‘I hope so. I’m hungry. Here we are at Morlaix.’
Road signs lit up by their headlights flashed by: Saint-Martin-des-Champs, Sainte-Sève, Taulé, Saint-Pol-de-Léon … They were just signposts, that was all. Nothing was there to prove that these places actually existed. The night dissolved these villages like sugar in coffee. You passed them by without seeing them and forgot them almost as quickly: a high street, a war memorial, a town hall, a post office, a church, a graveyard and it was over. You moved on to the next one.
‘Why did you choose the Île de Batz, Gabriel?’
‘Because you can walk all the way round it in a morning.’
‘Gabriel, look at this shell – it’s huge!’
Blandine was running over to him holding something in her hand that looked from a distance like a skull. Her yellow raincoat was the only splash of colour in an otherwise pearly-grey landscape. He was scared she would slip on the green and brown algae-covered rocks. The wind carried his voice away, so he signalled to her to be careful. But she took no notice. She leapt over rock pools in the oversized wellington boots they had borrowed from the hotel. Her momentum carried her into Gabriel’s arms and the two of them fell onto the sand. She smelt of salt and of the breeze. The shell looked like a big ear. She put it up to her ear, then up to Gabriel’s and then held it against her already round stomach.
‘Listen to that, Juliette. It’s the Breton sea. Your mummy and daddy are there right now. Do you want to say something? I’ll pass you over.’
The sea grunted. It was grumpy that day. The drizzle made their mouths slippery.
‘Darling, build us an island in the sun!’
And he did.
It was still dark when they left the hotel. Apart from the wind whistling, the streets were empty. There were only a few lights on, one at the baker’s where they had bought croissants, and a neon sign belonging to the bar by the pier where they sought shelter from the rain lashing against the austere facades of the blank houses. Madeleine stirred her hot chocol
ate in a daydream, smiling like the panda. Gabriel chewed his croissant while watching the raindrops slide down the dark pane of glass. Besides the owner, there were two other people in the bar: a tall red-haired man with a moustache who was speaking English, and an old woman dressed in tweed and fur-lined boots, who looked very dignified, her white hair pulled back into a tight bun. The old woman sipped a cup of tea and stared absent-mindedly at the row of bottles above the bar. From time to time he made chit-chat about the weather or unknown people with John, the owner. There was a smell of stuffy bedrooms, cosy duvets and morning coffees in the air.
‘Gabriel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing. I feel good.’
Madeleine placed her hand on Gabriel’s. She had said it without smiling, as if it was something serious, something solemn.
‘Me too,’ he replied.
‘Do you regret it?’
‘What?’
‘Us two, last night?’
‘Not at all – the opposite actually. Was I okay? It’s been such a long time.’
‘It would have been great even if we hadn’t done it.’
After eating some excellent seafood pancakes at the crêperie they had gone back to the hotel. They had taken turns in the shower and then lain on the bed watching TV, enjoying a mindless game show. Looking at them, you would have thought they had spent their lives together. In the end, they had turned the light off and made love simply and quickly with all the awkwardness of first-timers.
‘There’s the boat.’
John pointed to the squat outline of a boat arriving from Île de Batz in the first light of dawn, walnut-sized on the horizon. The old woman got up and put on a long green raincoat and a rain hat. She wasn’t particularly tall, but with her fixed gaze she seemed to dominate everything around her, like a lighthouse.
It was hard to stay upright walking along the jetty, with the wind charging at them like a battering ram. The old lady walked in front of them, head straight, indifferent. Two men helped them onto the boat. The three passengers went and sat inside on wooden benches. It was like being back at school, packed in, their arms crossed. The waves rocked them from side to side, shoulder to shoulder.
Under the lowering sky, the Île de Batz appeared, a naked shoulder emerging from the sea. The crossing had only taken fifteen minutes but long after they had set foot on land the boat’s pitching remained in their legs.
‘Which way, left or right?’
‘It doesn’t matter. An island is like a beret – there’s no right way.’
‘Let’s go left then.’
‘Why?’
‘We write from left to right and for me today is a blank page.’
They weren’t really villages, just clusters of houses and place names – Kenekaou, Porz Kloz – separated from one another by creeks, dunes, moors and fields. It took them just half an hour to reach the island’s easterly tip and a botanical garden. It was an island within an island, an exotic oasis where palm trees grew as if back home under sunnier climes. A ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds shone like a spotlight on the leaves of the rubber, yucca and other plants with unpronounceable names. A tern landed on a palm tree in front of Madeleine.
‘It’s unbelievable. This is paradise. That’s what it is, paradise!’
‘I know. Are you coming?’
Blandine had said exactly the same thing, in exactly the same place, ten years earlier.
Side by side, stooping into the wind, they followed the smugglers’ path, the sea on their right shaking its petticoat tails in a breathtaking can-can.
‘Let’s sit down here for a moment.’
Down below, pink granite boulders were jumbled on top of each other, making the shapes of bizarre animals in the process of transformation.
‘See that one? It looks like a tortoise. And that one over there looks like a sad dog. And over there—’
‘You know what this place is called?’
‘No.’
‘The Snake’s Hole. Legend has it that it was here that St Pol killed a dragon which was terrorising the island’s inhabitants. If you lean over the side and listen carefully to the waves, it sounds like laughter. Listen.’
Madeleine inched tentatively forward.
‘It must be terrifying here when there’s a storm.’
‘Terrifying.’
‘But with you I’m not scared of anything. If you only knew how happy I am, to be here with you between the sea and the sky. You can’t get any happier than this.’ She paused. ‘Gabriel, what’s wrong?’
At the foot of the hole the water whirled, lapping hungrily against the rocks. You can’t get any happier than this.
‘Gabriel? What are you doing?’
They were high up, very high. All it would take was one small dancing step, the half-turn of a waltz, and Madeleine, like José, like Rita, like the others, would be happy ever after.
‘Gabriel, you’re holding me too tight; you’re hurting me.’
And the waves below applauded. They applauded.
‘And what would you like to drink with the crab? A white wine perhaps?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘And a jug of water, please.’
‘Of course, Madame.’
The romantic Bernique was the only restaurant that was open on the island. They had a choice of crab or … crab. They were enormous, the size of tanks. Madeleine fiddled with the surgical tools to extract the white meat from the creature lying open in front of her, claws hanging off the plate. Gabriel, his eyes half closed, watched her through the swirling smoke of his cigarette.
‘They’re enormous! I don’t know where to start.’
‘Do you want me to crack the claws for you?’
‘Yes, please.’
Gabriel got to work using a nutcracker-like tool, itself in the form of a crab claw.
‘You know, earlier, at the Snake’s Hole, it’s stupid but I thought you were going to push me in.’
‘Really? Why would I have done that?’
‘I don’t know. You were holding on to me so hard and we were so close to the edge. Your eyes were empty, like the drop behind me.’
Gabriel hadn’t been able to. Madeleine had reached the peak of her happiness, and would never make it up there again. Anything else would only be a slow and tedious decline. To finish her at the height of her happiness and in water, her favourite element, too, seemed like a no-brainer. But he couldn’t do it. His hands had relinquished their grip on her shoulders and fallen limply by his side. His head was ringing with the roar of the sea from the hole, that swirl of foaming green jelly, indignant that it had been refused its ration. Madeleine had quickly taken two steps forward and rubbed her shoulders, staring ahead, open-mouthed.
‘Let’s go, Gabriel.’
‘Yes … yes, of course. Are you hungry?’
They had reached the restaurant without having said a word to each other.
Four locals, their caps pulled down low over their eyes, were playing cards at a table near the entrance. Depending on how the game was going, they let out onomatopoeic grunts and groans. It was impossible to hold a conversation, even a boring one, and shell a crab at the same time. Like the belote players, Gabriel and Madeleine spoke only in sucking noises, chewing sounds and the occasional sharp crack. Their tray was now littered with shell shrapnel and crumpled balls of lemon-scented hand wipes.
‘What time’s the boat?’
‘Five, I think.’
‘And then what?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Once we get to the other side?’
‘And then …’
The boat had barely set sail and already the island had faded in the distance. Only a few twinkling lights remained on the skyline. They hadn’t noticed it getting dark. It was difficult to keep your balance, even gripping the handrail, as the round-bottomed boat was thrown about by the waves. Even so, Madeleine was determined to stay on deck. It smelt of salt and tar.
‘It feels like the island only existed today, for us. I’m never going back.’
She said this without sadness or regret. It was what it was … ‘I’m never going back.’
‘Excuse me, could you please return below deck? It’s too dangerous out here in this weather.’
José’s car was waiting for them on the quayside. Loyal. Resigned.
‘Do you want to get a hot drink before we hit the road?’
‘No, let’s head off straight away.’
The names of the towns and villages flashed by once more in the glare of the headlights, but this time in reverse order, like a film being rewound. Sometimes, at the youth club, Gabriel used to help the priest pack away the projection equipment. It was magical to see Charlie Chaplin step backwards onto a roof from which he had fallen only fifteen minutes earlier. Of course it was a film, but in his heart of hearts Gabriel thought it possible to do something similar in real life: to crank back the camera and, hey presto, wipe the slate clean and start again.
‘Gabriel, you know, I think I’m going to take your advice.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Go to an island in the sun. I’m going to find a job in a little hotel and perhaps, maybe, a husband. And I’m going to spend my days swimming, not thinking of anything.’
‘That’s a very good idea, Madeleine.’
Yes, I think so too. Can you stop at that service station? I want a coffee. Could you go and get me one?’
‘Of course.’
A gust of wind blew into the car as Gabriel opened the door. It was as if someone was pushing from the other side, preventing him from getting out.
‘Would you like sugar?’
‘Yes, please.’
Just before he stepped out Madeleine grasped his hand.
‘Gabriel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
An elderly woman was having trouble with the vending machine. Her feeble fingers pressed all the buttons in vain.
The Panda Theory Page 11