by Claire King
‘Hey, listen, give me a job!’ someone called out behind me, accompanied by more mirth from those nearby.
I turned to look at him, a short, slightly built young man with the kind of haircut your mother takes you for. ‘What kind of a job do you want?’ I asked.
‘We can’t hear you!’
Didier’s friend moved forward then, climbing the steps until he was standing next to me, looking out at the wind blowing through the crowd. I felt another lurch in my stomach. Why didn’t I just get down off the dais? Why was I letting myself be intimidated? Sophie was nowhere in sight, swallowed up in the sea of faces. The dragon’s apprentice grabbed my hand and spoke into the megaphone. ‘What would make me happy would be a job when I leave college next year, decent pay when I work, and a pension when I’m sixty. Anyone else feel the same?’ There was a flutter of applause.
I tried to focus on him. To drown out the others. To see just that one person. ‘It’s what you’re concerned about right now,’ I said, ‘but will those things really satisfy you?’
‘Those are my basic rights. Once I have those I can take care of the rest myself.’
I tried to think back to myself at his age. Had I felt that way too? No, I had learned better from my parents than to expect providence, divine or otherwise. I rubbed my eyes. ‘I don’t like being the one to break it to you,’ I said, ‘but who told you you have the right to anything?’ This brought a tumult of howls from the students within earshot, causing still more to turn and close in, a thunderhead gathering.
Sophie’s friend stepped closer, tightening a hand on my shoulder. ‘Wait, give our friend here a chance to change our minds. Maybe he’s right. Maybe we don’t deserve the respect! The support! The commitment of this government we didn’t even vote for! Maybe our generation doesn’t deserve the rights that he has enjoyed! I want to hear what he has to say!’ The crowd jeered.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘This is a mistake. I’m sorry.’ I moved towards the steps.
But the young man held up his hands. ‘Not yet,’ he said, blocking my exit. A hungry silence fell over the crowd. They were waiting for me to make a fool of myself. I could have got past him if I’d tried, but still I stood there. Why? I thought of my mother, of her valleys and mountains. Never mind what the students were doing there, what was I doing there?
I turned to face the sun, letting it hit my face so I could see nothing in front of me but shadows against the white light. That was better. Beyond the crowd and the city, beyond the river and the canal, somewhere to the south, the mountains rose up to the sky. I could almost see them. They were calling to me. ‘I’ve never complained about a thing in my life. Funny, I hadn’t really thought about that until now. Maybe I’m too easily satisfied. Maybe I should have looked for more than I had. My mother certainly thinks so.’ The mountains, I had seen them from the train, so many shades of violet, rising up, rising away. ‘But to do that you not only have to be clear about what’s important to you and be ready to fight for it, you have to be willing to give other things up to have it. You can’t have everything, even if it’s right there in front of you, no matter how unfair that seems.
‘There is no easy answer, and there’s no one and nothing to hold accountable for what we have or don’t have but ourselves. None of us are children any more.’
I suddenly became aware of myself again then, realising that I was speaking out loud, and turned to see the crowd’s reaction, but my voice must have been almost inaudible and the spark of energy in the crowd had dissipated. A few at the front were shaking their heads, some had lifted their phones and were taking my photo, sniggering with their friends, others had already turned their backs. Then Sophie scrambled up the steps to my side. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, waving her hands at the front row of students, shooing them back. ‘Do NOT take my photo.’ No one paid much notice to her. Some kind of disruption had broken out on the far edge of the square, and the crowd was already turning away of their own accord, the flock shifting under its own weight. I sat down on the edge of the steps, feeling my heart pounding in my chest, and Sophie sat beside me, putting a hand on my knee. ‘Where did that come from?’ she said.
Before I could answer, Didier stepped up. ‘I thought you knew how to make people happy, Baptiste,’ he said, sinking his teeth into my name.
I looked up at him. ‘We all have to learn the difference between wanting happiness and wanting life to be fair.’
22
If only we had known what that first time would lead to. It was just a whim to take you there. We laughed when we planned it. We thought it might light a fire under you, shake you out of your inertia. It was such a mistake, but how could we have known?
That day changed you. You felt for those students. You could see yourself in them I suppose, how you might have been if fate had not nudged you towards your perfect job, your perfect home. You did want to help them, not as a crowd but one by one, and how could you ever do that? It has troubled you ever since.
Not so long ago I had to collect you from the police station. They had arrested you in the Place du Capitole, where you had been preaching or trying to tell a story, they said. That hadn’t been a problem as such, but when a crowd had gathered around you one of the pavement cafés on the square had called the police to complain about the disturbance. By the time they got there you were curled on the ground asking to be taken home. There was a woman sitting beside you with a badly cut arm from where she had fallen, or (witnesses said) been pushed. No, it had been an accident, she insisted. She didn’t press charges, and left her number with the police for whoever came for you, ‘in case they want to talk.’ As if she didn’t have enough problems of her own. Sometimes the kindness of others overwhelms me.
At first the police just wanted to help you get home, but the problem was you wouldn’t give them an address, just kept repeating, quite calmly, that you were Baptiste de la Candice. There was no one of that name in Toulouse, or anywhere, as far as they could work out. Eventually you had begun to panic and struggle. It took three officers to overpower you, they said. I saw the bruises. I doubt you will ever trust anyone in uniform again.
By the time they got you down to the station you were in tears. Thank goodness someone there had been compassionate enough to fetch you a drink and just sit and listen to you until eventually you were calm enough to explain that Baptiste was your name and that the Candice was where you lived.
‘It must be difficult for you,’ the sergeant said as I signed for you. ‘But you really ought to think about getting him into care.’
‘Of course I’ve thought about it,’ I said. ‘But most of the time he’s fine. You just have to know how to—’ I stopped myself. What was the point? The sergeant was right.
You had never wandered off alone before, it was unusual for you to be awake in the daytime anyway, but now you had. Things would have to change. I could no longer leave you alone, but how could I be with you all the time? I’m not strong enough for that. It was time to admit I needed help.
Heart-breaking as these practicalities are, I had been expecting them. What I hadn’t expected was people’s cruelty.
I had a call from Sabine later that week. Gaëlle had recognised you in a video that was being shared around her friends: ‘Jesus in Toulouse’. It’s a shaky recording, taken over someone’s head with a mobile phone, but there you are. Your arms are up, your palms out, the sun on your face and your eyes half closed against it. Your feet are bare, your face half hidden by your unkempt hair and the unruly beard that you won’t let me trim. You are calling out, ‘There is another way. Don’t compare yourselves to others. You have to listen to your heart.’
Most people are just walking by, embarrassed or disinterested or simply getting on with their lives, but others, like whoever shot the film, have stopped and are standing at a distance, pointing and giggling. As you continue your homily more and more people join them, wide-eyed, their arms stretched up, snapping photos on their phones. Then, just before the clip ends, there
is a woman pushing her way through, trying to get to you, clearing some space. ‘Leave him alone,’ she is shouting. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.’
I had the same nightmare every time I slept for weeks afterwards. In the dream it is me who is trying to get to you, but the more I push my way through the crowd the more it swells and swells. I lose sight of you, and even as I am shouting your name, futile over the roar of the crowd, I am telling myself I should just turn away. Just go home before it gets worse. But I can’t. Something draws me on. I keep going, insisting that I have to help you, and why is no one else helping? When finally I reach the place you had been standing you are gone and there is blood smeared across the paving stones.
23
When I arrived at the bar that evening the place was empty and the television blaring. Sophie huddled on a low chair behind the bar, her head down, concentrating on something. I leaned over the bar to catch a glimpse. Her shoes were off, her feet resting on the crossbar of the chair with the toes curled under like a bird on a perch. She was bent over a pad of thick creamy paper that rested on her knees, sketching something in soft, dark pencil. She caught sight of me and looked up with a start.
‘Baptiste! Don’t sneak up on me like that!’
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I can’t hear you over the television.’
She handed me the remote. ‘Here. Turn it down if Rémy doesn’t mind.’
‘Rémy who?’
Sophie stood up in surprise, and took note of the coins on the table in the corner. ‘Oh, right.’ She lifted her chin, her eyes drawn towards the TV. Even on mute it was intrusive, the electronic ticker tape scrolling along the bottom of the screen. Violence on the streets of Paris, more rallies planned, more strikes, more political rhetoric, Europe looking on with morbid interest. I clicked it off. ‘I think I’ve had enough demonstrations for one day.’
Sophie watched wordlessly as I pulled up a stool, resting my elbows on one of the brass bars that ran the perimeter of the bar itself, and my feet on the other. ‘I’m not disturbing you, I hope?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t think you’d come tonight. Have you forgiven me?’ She looked up at me, her eyes almost yellow in the shadow of the dark twists of hair piled around her face.
‘Don’t do it again,’ I said. Sophie pushed the pencil in her hand behind her ear and closed the sketchpad. ‘Wait, what were you drawing?’
She gave me a pre-emptive scowl. ‘The primeur,’ she said. ‘It’s just in.’
The first red wine from the year’s harvest, generally unremarkable, certainly not something I could imagine would inspire anyone to art. ‘Can I see?’
Sophie’s colour rose, her tawny skin deepening in tone, but she retrieved the book and showed me her sketch. ‘Don’t you dare laugh.’
Her drawing was beautiful. Grape vines poured out from a tilted bottle, curling out and around the page, filling it with bunches heavy with grapes. Surrounding them were the wisps and curls of smoke rising from a fire at the bottom of the page, its flames licking up over the bottle. Beside the fire was a small congregation of tiny stick-people, some bent over walking sticks, some holding infants, others holding banners. At the centre of the fire, piles of money were set ablaze.
‘You got all this from the primeur?’ I said.
She filled a glass and pushed it towards me. ‘Try it.’ I took a sip, feeling the alcohol descend swiftly to my knees, making them buzz. When was the last time I had eaten? I would order a steak. ‘What does it taste of to you?’ she said.
I certainly couldn’t taste burning money. The wine was thin and sharp. ‘It tastes young, raw, a little bitter.’
‘I think it tastes of change.’
‘If you can taste revolution in this wine you really are wasted as a waitress.’
‘I know,’ she said. She closed her sketchpad again and slid it under the cash register. ‘Taste it again. Even when a wine is young you can taste the past year in it. Every year the wine from the same vines is different because every year is different, the essence of the earth they grow in, the air around them. This hasn’t been a peaceful year. This isn’t a peaceful wine.’
‘Next year’s isn’t looking too cheerful either then,’ I said.
Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘I was thinking about what you said earlier, at the demo. You were right.’
‘Right about what?’ I could barely remember what I had said. At the time it had seemed amorphous, more like a thought than words.
‘That rallying on the streets is as useless as complaining to our parents. The young have no money, no power and no influence, why would anyone listen to us there? No, you’re right. To make any difference at all I need a plan. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon and I know what I’m going to do.’
‘You’re going into politics?’
‘No. I’m going to get a job on the trains.’ I stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘What?’ she said. ‘If I can tend a bar here I can just as easily be a barista on a train.’
‘And how would that be different? How would it make better use of your talents?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with what Didier said. I like working here, don’t get me wrong. The hours suit me and the customers aren’t too annoying.’ She tilted her head and smiled in a way that I supposed was meant to be charming, but which didn’t suit her at all. ‘But what effect can I have on anything here? It’s as though I don’t matter.’
I felt a stone swell in my stomach. I had never expected Sophie’s company to be any more than friendship but I had come to count on it. I had thought there was something special between us. Could she really leave just to prove a point? Without thinking I put my hand over hers on the bar, as though to hold her there. ‘You matter to me.’
Sophie dragged her hand from under mine with an exasperated sigh and turned to mix herself a drink. Grey storm clouds of liquorice syrup bloomed up into the water as she stirred. ‘But not to those who make the decisions that affect me,’ she said. ‘Not the government, not the establishment. I need a job where I can join a union and go on strike.’ I opened my mouth to speak but she continued. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘You can’t tell me to make my own choices then criticise the choices I make. You can’t have it both ways.’
I fixed on the small bowl of olives she had placed on the counter between us, uncertain if at that moment I could look at her and remain composed. Despite my distress my stomach growled and Sophie responded by shoving a menu into my hand. ‘Cheer up,’ she said. I feigned interest in the menu and Sophie left me to it for a minute, although we were both aware I knew it by heart.
Eventually she poked my arm. ‘You’re still mad at me,’ she said. ‘You’re sulking. Look, I’m sorry about the thing with Didier, it was my fault, I should have known he’d do something like that. He gets very passionate, that’s all. But he was a total arse to you and I gave him hell afterwards.’
I shrugged. ‘Not my business.’
She grinned. ‘I think he’s jealous of you.’
‘Is he your boyfriend?’ I said. Sophie put her face in her hands and shook it in mock exasperation. ‘Well,’ I could hear the petulance in my own tone, ‘he wants to be.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
I felt a small thrill as she waved a dismissive hand and quickly checked myself. Why should I feel so absurdly pleased at that? What was happening to me lately? Whatever it was I needed to snap out of it. I leaned towards her. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a strange day. But I am glad you took me. It did me some good. If nothing else it set me thinking about what I really want these days.’
She sipped at her drink thoughtfully. ‘I got that impression. And what conclusions have you drawn?’
‘Just how little consideration do you think these things deserve?’ I said. All I knew was that I had surprised myself by even thinking about it.
‘Well, don’t take too long.’ Sophie tugged the menu from me with one hand and refilled my glass with the other. ‘Now, since
you are clearly feeling indecisive, shall I just order you a steak and have done with it?’
‘Thank you.’
She pulled the pencil from behind her ear and started to sketch on my place mat. A few swift, deft little strokes and there was my kingfisher again. I felt calmed, as though a connection between us had been restored, reinforced.
‘Baptiste?’ Sophie lay down the pencil on the counter.
‘Yes?’
She pushed a wisp of hair back off her face and looked hard straight into my eyes. Her pupils were as black as the water in a new moon. ‘When you said you can’t have everything you want, what, or who, were you talking about?’
I looked back at her, trying to shake off the strange feeling of déjà vu it gave me. ‘Is that what I said? I don’t remember.’
She arched an eyebrow coolly and turned for the kitchen. ‘Right. And Baptiste?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m not kidding. I’m going for that job.’
24
I saw Amandine approaching from the far end of the street, where the low sun warmed the bricks of the library from ice pink to salmon. Even in the shade it was pleasant enough to eat outdoors and I had taken a table for two on the narrow pavement. There was a second restaurant on the other side of the street, so between us we caused eddies of pedestrians to converge on the cobbled road.
Amandine stepped out of the flow and I stood to greet her. Our cheeks brushed as I kissed the air beside her smile, dizzied by her proximity, the whisper of her perfume. As she turned to sit down I saw her fingertips move briefly over the curve of her chin. Instinctively I raised my hand, touching my own face and finding it rough with stubble. I thought back hastily to that morning: what could have distracted me from my usual routine? I had, despite myself, paid particular attention to my appearance, or so I thought. I would have said something, but my apology tied knots in my throat so instead I sat down again as though nothing were wrong.