This is Life

by Dan Rhodes

  ‘As if I’d tell anyone about what just happened. Aurélie, you are a fucking psycho.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. She made sure she was beautifully arranged across the bed. ‘One last thing, Sébastien,’ she purred.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can you draw hands?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I can draw hands.’

  Normally this would have been a cue for Sébastien to launch into an extended monologue about how the old ways are redundant, that to expect an artist to be able to draw hands was the same as expecting a designer of synthesisers to be able to whittle panpipes, that times had moved on. But today, mainly because a madwoman was pointing a gun at his head, he just stood there, not knowing what to say.

  Aurélie gave an ostentatious yawn. ‘Now go, Sébastien.’

  ‘Yes.’

  And he was gone.

  Aurélie stroked Herbert’s tummy. He was sleepy, exhausted by all the action of the day. She unwrapped him from his towel and checked his wound. It was no longer bleeding, but it was ugly: shiny and open, and about two centimetres long and half a centimetre wide. She opened his first aid box and started to dress it. He wasn’t happy about that, and a brief and noisy wrestling match ensued. Aurélie was victorious, and got the dressing on.

  She put him in the only one of his T-shirts that wasn’t hanging up to dry, then decided he had earned some food. She opened a jar of pasta and vegetable puree, which was followed by an apple and peach puree. Then she filled his bottle, and he had a long drink of milk. She took off his clothes and nappy and washed him with a warm damp flannel before dressing him again in hopelessly inadequate nightclothes, then she brushed his teeth and tucked him into bed.

  She stroked his hair, and sang him the only song she knew all the way through – Charles Aznavour’s ‘Hier Encore’. He seemed to enjoy it, so she sang it again. She wasn’t such a bad substitute mother after all.

  She watched him drift off to sleep, and when he was finally under she felt very much alone again. She knew this was her cue to break down, for the realisation of what had happened to hit her, and for a landslide of guilt and shame to crush her. It didn’t happen. She had shot a baby, very nearly in the throat, she accepted that. It had been a mistake, but she had learned from it. She had hurt Herbert though, and while she felt awful about it, she also knew she couldn’t turn back the clock, and there was nothing to be gained from beating herself up about it. It had been stupid of her, but he was going to recover and she was going to make double sure she never shot a baby again. He would have a scar there, probably for the rest of his life, just where his shoulder meets his neck, but women like men with scars so, if anything, she had probably done him a favour in the long run.

  She had proved quite decisively that she couldn’t be trusted with firearms, and she was going to give Sylvie her gun back. The lessons had been learned, and everyone was going to be OK. And besides, she had given Sébastien the fright of his life. He had been well and truly revenged.

  She stood up, poured another glass of wine and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was pleased with what she saw: a gun-toting femme fatale. Madame Peypouquet was right – she did have a good body. Léandre Martin and Sébastien had really blown it. She walked right up to the mirror, and stood eye-to-eye with her reflection.

  That was when the landslide happened. It all came crashing down.

  She had shot Herbert.

  Sébastien was right: she was a fucking psycho.

  She spent the night curled up on the bed in her short, tight black dress, a sobbing mess of guilt and shame.

  SAMEDI

  XIX

  In July, Natsuki Kobayashi had bought a cat. He was not a pleasant cat. He had mean, narrow eyes and a sour, arrogant nature, and she had named him Makoto.

  Toshiro Akiyama had not found out about Makoto Kobayashi until he had gone to visit Natsuki’s apartment and been hissed at the moment he walked in. It was a hiss both aggressive and disdainful.

  ‘He’s just getting used to you,’ Natsuki had said, but this hissing had continued all evening, and started up again the moment he stepped out of her bedroom the next morning, and it had not abated since. Natsuki seemed to love Makoto though, and the cat tolerated her in return. She spent a lot of time tickling his belly, and making him small hats, helmets and headdresses, and posting photographs of him wearing them on the Internet. In each of these photographs Makoto had an unpleasant look in his eye, and even the people of the Internet, so many of whom love nothing more than commenting favourably on photographs of hat-wearing cats from around the world, were reticent in their praise. Each picture received only two or three hundred responses, and though they were always positive they seemed only ever to come from people who had specifically set out to find pictures of sinister-looking felines in unorthodox handcrafted headgear. The rest of the Internet maintained a diplomatic silence on the subject of Makoto Kobayashi.

  One evening, after weeks of this, Toshiro was at Natsu-ki’s place and the cat had scratched him through his trousers, drawing blood yet again. Finally, he asked the question he had been holding in for such a long time. ‘Natsuki,’ he said, at last, ‘why didn’t you tell me you were going to get a cat?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t have to tell you everything.’

  ‘No, of course you don’t, but things are pretty serious between us, and it’s a big deal.’

  ‘Since when was getting a cat a big deal? It’s just normal. And anyway, it doesn’t matter how serious we are, I don’t need to ask your permission if I want a pet.’

  ‘But we’ve already agreed that at some point we’ll be living together. What happens to the cat then?’

  ‘He’ll live with us. Anyway, we’re not even engaged. I’m still an independent woman and I can do what I want. And if you love me you’ll love my cat.’

  ‘I’m never sharing a home with that thing. He’s mean. This is something we should have talked through together. He could live for another twenty years.’

  ‘I hope he does.’

  ‘But I don’t want to spend the next twenty years of my life being hissed at by a furry ball of negativity. I work from home, so when you’re out all day I’ll be stuck in the apartment with him. And I’ve noticed that since you got him you don’t come to mine so much because you don’t want to leave him alone, and to be honest I haven’t looked forward to coming round here as much as I used to.’

  ‘Well, that’s your problem.’

  ‘It’s not just my problem.’

  The bickering continued throughout the evening.

  A few more weeks went by without the subject being raised again, but it was always there, looming over them. Toshiro thought about it a lot, turning the dilemma over in his mind. He didn’t want to stifle his girlfriend’s independence, but the more he dissected the situation the surer he became that she really should have spoken to him before making a decision that was going to affect them both in the long term. Even if the cat had turned out to be a tolerable creature, a conversation should have taken place. The whole episode had revealed a side to her that he supposed he had been in denial about. She was selfish, and perhaps even sly, and no matter how much she tried to make him look petty for complaining, this was a big deal. And what if they were to have a baby? He wouldn’t want this hissing cat anywhere near it. And if they couldn’t even agree about looking after a cat, then how could they ever agree about raising a child?

  Makoto had been a test of some sort, he was sure of it, part of a mind game. He had found himself looking forward to times when he wouldn’t be seeing his girlfriend, because seeing her meant being hissed at, and he knew that wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Even when they went out it would be as if the cat was there with them, a ghostly presence snaking around his mistress’s ankles and readying himself to scratch his legs. There was a constant tension.

  He had even begun to find Natsuki Kobayashi less attractive. He had always found her so beautif
ul, but now there were times when he didn’t want to look at her. Until Makoto’s sudden arrival she had never shown any signs of being a cat person, but her conversation had become almost exclusively about this unpleasant creature, be it worming tablets, flea collars or her plans for fashioning novelty headgear: her latest project was an English policeman’s helmet sewn out of felt, and she had told him about this plan as if he would have wanted to hear about it. She had even had some photographs of the cat printed onto fabric, which she then made into clothes. It was as if she and the cat were merging into a single intolerable entity. He had started to wonder quite seriously whether he could bring himself to be with her any longer.

  And then it hit him: she was deliberately driving him away. Whether she knew it or not, she was sabotaging their relationship. On some level, conscious or unconscious, she was putting up a force field around herself. Suddenly everything seemed clear. It was over. He felt sad about that, but his sadness was for the passing of what had once been, and it was outweighed by a sense of relief that the stand-off was over. He was glad to put an end to the tension of the last few months. He was also relieved to know that deep down or otherwise, this was what she really wanted. No hearts were going to break. If anything, it was going to be a happy occasion. He decided right away that he was going to be single for the foreseeable future.

  He opened his laptop for the first time in a while, and checked his mail. His agent had been in touch to tell him that a television quiz show for which he had written the theme music had been given a second run, and he would be paid accordingly. That was very good news. He tried to remember the last time he had met his agent. It had been at least a year ago. All his business was done online now. He checked the next message. He had lost an auction for a 1983 Korg drum machine, and was annoyed about that. He had never quite got along with his 1984 Korg drum machine and had been hoping the 1983 model would be an improvement. It didn’t escape his notice that he felt more upset at having lost an auction for a drum machine than he had at having lost his girlfriend. Finally he opened a mail from his mother, headed News from Paris. He had never been to the city, and had been wondering how they were doing.

  The message was short, sent from her phone. It just said: Your father and I are having a good time. We have made a new friend: Sylvie Dupont. She is very nice. I hope you and she will meet one day. Below the text was a photograph. It was sideways, because his mother always seemed to manage to send her photographs sideways, but even before he had spun it around his heart sped up. When he had aligned the photograph, it was even more incredible than he had thought. There she was, Sylvie Dupont, the prettiest and happiest girl he had ever seen, her arm around a small horse.

  His plan to remain single for the foreseeable future had been forgotten.

  Toshiro Akiyama picked up his phone and dialled Natsuki Kobayashi. He arranged for them to meet at her place. There are some things, cat scratching his leg or no cat scratching his leg, that need to be done face-to-face. He was elated. His soon-to-be-ex girlfriend had won. Her game had worked, and she had forced him into a position where he had no choice but to break up with her. It was going to be a good day for both of them.

  The appointment made, he called his travel agent. While he was on hold he printed out the photograph of the girl and the horse, pinned it to his notice board and got back to work. There was no point in wasting time. A piece he had been working on for a month, and had been close to abandoning, was finished within an hour. He sent it off to his agent, who emailed straight back to tell him how perfect it was. The client was going to love it.

  There were three hours left before he had to be at Natsuki Kobayashi’s apartment, and his plane wasn’t taking off until the morning. He downloaded a Teach Yourself French audio book, and started learning straight away.

  ‘Bonjour,’ he said, looking at the photograph as he packed his suitcase. ‘Bonjour, Sylvie Dupont.’

  XX

  At ten twenty in the morning, Professor Papavoine’s wife picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  —Ah. Yes. Hello. Please could I speak to Professor Papavoine?

  ‘I’m afraid he’s not available at the moment. May I take a message?’

  —How unavailable is he? Is he in the house?

  ‘He’s in the shower, if you have to know.’

  —Tell him not to leave.

  ‘Not to leave the shower?’

  —No, not to leave the house. Tell him I’ll be arriving in about twenty minutes.

  ‘Oh really?’

  —Yes. And I’ll be bringing a baby. The professor knows about me, but he doesn’t know about the baby.

  ‘Does he not?’

  —Tell him he’ll be watching the baby for a few hours while I catch up on sleep. I’ve not slept all night. Are you his wife?

  ‘Yes.’

  —Then maybe you can help with the baby too.

  ‘Just out of interest, not that it’s any of my business or anything, but who are you?’

  —I’m one of his students.

  ‘You’re not this Aurélie Renard, are you?’

  —Er . . . yes?

  ‘Interesting. He told me he’d given you our number. I didn’t think you would call, and neither did he. But he’s told me everything about you.’

  —Everything?

  ‘Well, everything he knows. Which isn’t much. Mainly what you look like, I’m afraid – how your blue eyes sparkle, how your smile lights up the room and so on. I can’t wait to meet you, to see if it’s all true.’

  Aurélie put the phone down. Shit, she thought. As if it wasn’t bad enough that his wife had answered the phone, it turned out that she was just as bad as he was. They were both sex maniacs, hell bent on having a threesome with her. Why did everything have to be about kinky sex? Still, she thought, if his wife was his accomplice then at least she wouldn’t have to invent stories to spare her feelings.

  Her bag was packed, she and Herbert were both dressed and ready, and the baby seemed to be looking forward to the adventure. Aurélie weighed up her options. She hadn’t slept at all, and the combination of exhaustion, mortification and hangover was too much for her to deal with. Unlike Herbert, who was more energetic than she had ever seen him, she could barely keep her eyes open.

  It was Saturday, so Sylvie would be working on a floating restaurant on the Seine and wouldn’t be able to take care of the baby. There were a few vague friends from college she could call, but she didn’t really feel close enough to any of them to ask such a favour. They would all be busy anyway, the rich ones having fun and the normal ones working their weekend jobs, and even if any of them weren’t busy, she was fairly confident that they wouldn’t be impatient to take sole charge of a nine-month-old boy at a moment’s notice. And there was still the complication that she wanted as few people as possible to know what was going on. She wasn’t overwhelmed by the variety of options available to her.

  Sometimes when Sylvie needed a favour, she would call on an ex who was still in love with her. She would explain from the start that she wasn’t going to get back with him, that she was only calling to ask him to help her out, but because he would be so desperate to see her he would be powerless to refuse. This was mainly how she managed to move heavy objects around; the last time she used this tactic had been to get a wardrobe up four flights of stairs.

  Aurélie didn’t have such resources available to her, though. The day after he had burned all his belongings, Guillaume had borrowed his uncle’s boiler suit and left for a town a long way away, somewhere he wouldn’t know anybody. News had reached her that he had married the first woman he met when he got there, a frantic divorcee with four children, who had a tendency to hang around the railway station waiting for new arrivals in the hope that she would find one who would be prepared to take them all on. She had heard through the grapevine that it had worked out well for them, that he had won a medal for being his adopted prefecture’s most devoted stepfather, and that he had even added a chil
d of his own to the mêlée. She wasn’t about to go barging back into his life and demanding that on top of his existing responsibilities he also take care of Herbert. And even if she had felt inclined to utilise him, it wouldn’t have helped that his new home was over four hundred kilometres away.

  Guillaume was the only boyfriend of any significance she had ever had, certainly the only one whose heart she had broken, and by all accounts he had moved on. He wasn’t like Sylvie’s exes, going from day to day doing nothing but longing for a reconciliation. She would have to make do with what she had available: an elderly academic who had sweaty palms over her. And so she had called Professor Papavoine.

  He was already involved, whether he knew it or not, and he owed her. With a bit of squinting, it was even possible to look at the situation from an angle where it seemed as though it were his fault: he was supposed to have been the responsible adult, and he should have prevented her, a mere child of twenty-one, from throwing the stone. He was creepy and he was sleazy, and she had felt her flesh crawl as she dug out his card and dialled his number, but she didn’t see what else she could do. There was no way she could take care of Herbert in her condition. He was her only option, and she didn’t have any choice but to make him useful.

  ‘OK, Herbert,’ she said. ‘Here’s the plan. We’ll get to Papavoine’s, I’ll break the news straight away that he and his wife aren’t going to be doing anything funny with me, then I’ll hand you over to them . . .’ She stopped. She wondered whether it was right to leave Herbert in the care of a pair of swingers. She quickly decided that it wasn’t a problem. They were clearly into young women, not babies. ‘And as soon as you’re with them, I’ll find a quiet corner and fall asleep.’

  She struggled down the stairs. Two neighbours whom she knew by sight but not name passed her, offered greetings and looked intently at the baby. Incredible, said one. Not that realistic, said the other. It’s got a kind of waxy look about it.