How's the Pain? (2 page)

Even though the street was bathed in sunlight, Madame Ferrand’s little shop remained hopelessly gloomy. It was years since she had pulled back the faded cretonne curtain across the shop window, and its dust-coated folds made it impossible for passers-by to see in. But it didn’t matter, since nothing was for sale here any more. It had become Madame Ferrand’s apartment. The back room was used as a kitchen-cum-bathroom and a small adjoining storeroom served as a bedroom. The ‘shop’ itself, as Madame Ferrand still called it, now formed the living room. It was furnished with a sagging sofa heaped with cushions, throws and blankets of dubious cleanliness; three ill-assorted chairs; a wobbly pedestal table; a dining table with flaking varnish, and a curious floor lamp in the shape of a life-sized nude Negress, wearing a raffia lampshade askew on her head. The floor was covered with a patchwork of threadbare rugs. On the walls, dog-eared adverts for long-gone brands, posters of dead singers, and
tourist-office promotions for countries since ravaged by war bandaged the wounds in the peeling wallpaper. Odd remnants of shelving, racks and spotlights bore witness to the owner’s many and various ventures, snuffed out one by one by stubbornly adverse fate.

Madame Ferrand had invested the sum total of her meagre savings in these modest premises twenty years earlier. She had had no hesitation in entrusting little Bernard, then aged two, to the care of her parents, leaving her free to seek her fortune in Vals-les-Bains. Why Vals-les-Bains? Perhaps because of Jean Ferrat, whose revolutionary lyrics could not fail to ignite the pure working-class heart of a mother seduced by a stockbroker from Lyon, who vanished without trace when baby Bernard was born. Unless it was something as mundane as an ad in
Le Dauphiné
that put the idea into her head one lonely evening, kindling in her the hope of escaping her unremittingly squalid fate.

She was thirty-five, feisty, determined, good with her hands and not without talent. Ignoring the derision of neighbouring shopkeepers, she worked on her hats by night and fixed the place up during the day, successfully transforming an old-fashioned haberdasher’s into a stylish millinery boutique in the space of a month. Chez Anaïs opened on schedule at the end of May, just in time for the tourist season. But by October, she had to face facts: she had not found her clientele. Her extravagant headpieces certainly amused the spa visitors who came to try them on, giggling in front of the mirrors, but they never bought anything.

After a period of understandable despondency, she
sold her stock to a ragman for next to nothing and, with the same enthusiasm and pugnacity as before, opened a local handicrafts shop with a young hippy by the name of Daphne. A new sign, ‘Aux Herbes Tendres’, went up in place of the old. They sold beeswax candles, real leather belts and bags, brass jewellery, weird preserves, strange infusions and incense sticks, a lot of incense sticks, some of which were kept tucked inside Daphne’s long woollen coat. Business was going pretty well until the day Anaïs’s partner ran off with the till, leaving her with nothing but her eyes to cry with, a few armfuls of lavender and bitter memories of her first Sapphic love affair. ‘
La femme est l’avenir de l’homme
,’ crooned Jean Ferrat, so couldn’t a woman be another woman’s future too? She was furious with Jean Ferrat that autumn and furious with the rest of humanity too, which is what set her thinking about going into dog grooming. You rarely come across a retired couple on a spa break without one of those hideous golden poodles in tow. Of course, Anaïs knew nothing about dogs and the equipment costs would be substantial, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. This time, she was sure she was onto something. She’d had it with the human race and was putting her faith in man’s best friend. Come spring, Madame Ferrand donned an immaculate white coat to welcome the first customers to her pooch parlour. But at the beginning of July, she was forced to close the doors due to an unfortunate incident. A faulty switch on a drier had turned a dachshund called Caruso into a hot dog. The sale of the equipment just about covered the legal fees.

Anaïs was by no means the only one to experience a run of bad luck. One by one, the shops along Rue
Jean-Jaurès
 
went under, turning it into a ghost town. Only those supplying life’s basic essentials (namely the baker, the butcher and the tobacconist) were able to survive. This part of town, where tourists wandered aimlessly as if roaming the ruins of a lost civilisation, seemed destined for oblivion. After buying a few postcards, they would hurry back across the Volane to the reassuring shade of manicured hotel gardens.

But Anaïs was not one to throw in the towel at the first hurdle, nor the second, nor even the third. There must be a lesson to be learnt from this string of failures. One evening, as she groped for her glasses in the storeroom, her light-bulb moment came: ‘That’s it! Seeing!’ The scent of incense wafted back to her as she recalled her former partner’s mysterious revelations, secrets she had made her solemnly swear never to share.

‘No way am I going to keep that to myself, you old bitch!’

True, she might have drunk a little too much rum from the bottle of Negrita she was clutching, but she was just as shrewd as the next person!

Within a month she had digested the Egyptian Book of the Dead, that of the Tibetans and even the Popol Vuh. She mastered palm reading as easily as a shareholder learning about the stock exchange or a racegoer studying form. Finally, she saw a future ahead. Even better, the investment required was paltry: a pedestal table, a tarot set, a clock and that was it. Not to mention the fact that, in order for her to concentrate, she would need to be in complete darkness, drastically reducing her electricity bills. With the last of her money she had business cards printed to drop through
letterboxes. It was cold, it was winter, she wheezed and her legs puffed up, but the Negrita kept her going. All she needed to do was wait.

Her first three clients suffered violent deaths in quick succession. One choked on a plum stone, another was hit head-on by a bus on her way to mass and the last was devoured by her own dog. Rumours spread quickly in small towns like this and nobody else took the risk of consulting her.

Anaïs took to coughing to pass the time, a hacking cough which tolled like a death knell inside her chest and which she had come to accept, like an old dog that had latched onto her.

In one last, admirable burst of optimism, she wrote a slate sign: ‘Anaïs’s Bric-à-Brac’, which she hung in the shop window. The only remnants of her failed ventures were a few musty felt hats, some bunches of dried flowers, three or four candles which had lost their scent, a dozen cracked leather dog collars and a tarot set. Strangely enough, she sold the lot.

These days she lived off her incurable cough, which brought her a small disability allowance, along with the modest but regular parcels she received from Bernard. It was enough to buy her daily bottle of Negrita, enabling her to watch calmly as the dust settled like grey snow on a life that should not have been. ‘My past is a joke, my present’s a disaster, thank goodness I have no future,’ she would say to console herself.

‘Mother, lunch is almost ready, come and sit down!’

Walking past Béatrix ice-cream parlour down the road from his hotel, Simon gave in to a childish whim. He sat down at a table underneath the plane trees whose leaves filtered the sunlight, casting extraordinary shadows. With the defiance of a little boy, he ordered the biggest and most expensive ice cream on the menu. While he waited for it to arrive, he flicked through the spa brochure he had picked up from reception that morning. The town boasted six springs: Constantine was the best for treating weight problems, dyspepsia and gout; Précieuse was the one to go to for liver conditions and diabetes; Dominique was very effective against anaemia and fatigue; Désirée was recommended for its laxative effects; Rigolette was prescribed for colitis; Camuse, to ease digestion. These waters could only be drunk on prescription, but there were three others – Saint-Jean, Favorite and Béatrix – which could be consumed in limitless quantities. The list of the conditions they were capable of curing was both endless
and disconcerting: industrial dermatitis, nasal fractures, tropical liver diseases, trigger finger, abnormally large intestines … There were as many ailments to treat as there were ice creams on the menu. Who could claim not to suffer from a single one of them?

He glanced up. The average age of the clientele was somewhere between sixty and a hundred. Though he fell into this age bracket himself, the sight of so many pensioners in one place made him dizzy. While he had always considered his presence on earth to be a miscasting and had done his best to distance himself from his playmates from a tender age, he had never felt so trapped, in the clutches of some merciless predator. A young waitress set down in front of him the huge glass of garish ice cream studded with ridiculous cocktail umbrellas. Aside from her, he could see only three humanoids who had so far escaped the ravages of time. All of them were on wheels (bicycle, skateboard and rollerblades) as they zipped past, intent on dodging the Zimmer frames.

Why on earth had he stopped at Vals-les-Bains? It was simply down to a pun. A Strauss waltz had been playing on France Musique as he drove towards the town. ‘A last waltz … a last Vals?’ Admittedly a violent bout of sickness had also forced him to stop for an hour, leaving him feeling shaky. He was in luck, a Belgian couple had just cancelled and there was one room left at the Grand Hôtel de Lyon. He had planned to stay just one night, but when he woke up to a glimpse of spring sunshine, a coffee and some excellent croissants, something in the air had made him want to truant for the day.

He still hadn’t touched his ice cream, which was
beginning to resemble a jaundiced cowpat. He toyed with his spoon, looking at his reflection in its curved surfaces. What had come over him, inviting that lad to dinner? He probably took him for an old queer. What if he didn’t turn up? He hadn’t seemed too bright, but that was what he liked about him: his honesty, his awkwardness, and that bandaged hand he moved about like a glove puppet. There was no denying it, he had made some strange choices since his arrival, like this ice cream he had never even wanted in the first place and which was now just a mess. He tried a mouthful anyway. All the flavours had mingled together and it was impossible to identify a single one. It was just cold and sweet.

While he was fishing for change in his jacket pocket, his revolver almost fell out.

‘Shit, it really is time to call it a day.’

‘So why’s this man invited you to dinner then? You don’t think he might be a poofter?’

‘Don’t think so, no. He seems normal.’

‘What’s “normal”? Everyone seems normal, but they’re not really. Anyway, you’re a big boy now, you can look after yourself.’

‘Don’t you want any more of your chop, Mother?’

‘No, it’s too fatty.’

‘Lamb’s always a bit fatty, that’s what makes it so tasty. You never eat anything.’

‘Well, you can’t do everything. Eat or drink, you have to make a choice.’

‘You drink too much. You smoke too much as well. No wonder you’re always tired.’

‘I like being tired, it’s relaxing. What are you doing today?’

‘Not sure. It’s a nice day, might go for a walk down by
the river. How about I make you some vegetable soup for tonight? You like veggie soup, don’t you?’

‘If you like. How’s your hand?’

‘It’s all right. I went to see Dr Garcin this morning to get the dressing changed. He asked after you.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘That you were fine.’

‘You’re a rotten liar … just as well.’

‘And what are you going to do?’

‘Same as usual. A nice nap before I go to bed.’

It was a place only he knew. You went under the bridge before taking a pebbly path beside the Volane for about fifteen minutes. Then you had to jump from rock to rock, without worrying about getting your feet wet, to reach a little sandy cove shaded by gnarled willows. No one could see you. The bubbling of the water drowned out the hubbub of the town and the cars on the road above. He had discovered this spot when on holiday here at the age of ten. It was in the days when his mother was selling strange herbs with Daphne. He’d never much liked that lady. Firstly, she was ugly, with all that red hair and hippy clothes. She couldn’t smile properly either; every time she tried, stroking his head, she looked like the wicked stepmother offering Snow White the poisoned apple. She smelt bad and painted her nails black like claws. If he’d been a dog, he would have bitten her.

Bernard leant against the warm rock, took off his shoes and socks and wiggled his toes in the grey sand. The pebbles formed a pool where the water could catch
its breath before continuing along its course, foaming at the mouth. Dragonflies flitted across the surface and sometimes you might see a trout circling in the clear water below. They were beautiful, the dragonflies, as delicate and glittery as Tinkerbell. The trout were pretty too; so gentle, so shiny, so alive. Once he had caught one in his hand. That was a moment he would never forget. It was like holding life itself between his fingers with its golden eyes, supple body, shimmering scales and gills that pulsed like pipe valves. He stroked it for a long time, too long. It bucked one last time and all that was left in his hands was a limp, motionless object. He had tried to put it back in the water but it had instantly capsized, baring its white belly to the sky. He had buried it tearfully, right there under the willow stump. Even after washing his hands ten times, it took two days to get rid of the smell of sludge. He never did it again.

No, this Monsieur Simon Marechall was no queer. He had invited him out because he liked him, simple as that. It was spending all her time shut away in that dump of a shop that made his mother see the dark side of everything. Anyway, he had known queers who were no worse than the people who didn’t like queers. All you had to do was say no. Once he had said yes, just to see what would happen. It was in the third year of secondary school and the boy’s surname was Gambin or Gamblin or something. Gamblin’s dick had the same effect on him as the trout between his hands. He let it go. Gamblin wanted to be a diver when he grew up. He swam like a fish. Everyone dreamt of being something then: diver, pilot, fireman or
farmer. But Bernard had never found his calling.

‘What do you want to do for a living?’

‘Dunno.’

Having miraculously got to the end of the fourth year, borne along like a stowaway, he was advised to take the vocational route, not being academically inclined. Baking, hairdressing, mechanics, plumbing – he was happy to have a go at anything, only nothing went right. However hard he tried, however much he concentrated, nothing went in. Sometimes he thought he had understood, but he was so used to being taken for an idiot that when things seemed too straightforward, he undid everything he had done and it would all go to pot. It was only during his military service that he finally achieved something, passing his driving test first time. It was the best day of his life – well, not the whole day. That night, after celebrating with some mates, he had gone joy-riding in a Jeep and ended up inside for two weeks. It was still a good memory though. The best. In truth, he had no other memories to speak of, just little things like the trout, Gamblin’s dick, random bits and pieces that resurfaced now and then for him to toy with in his head, the way a baby plays with its feet. Mostly, though, each day just wiped out the day before.

A fly landed on his knee. It was young and quivering with energy. In a fraction of a second, Bernard held it captive under his hand. He could feel it batting around inside. It tickled. Slowly he spread his fingers and the insect zigzagged away. When it came to catching flies, he was unbeatable. Shame you couldn’t make a career out of it.

He stood up and looked for a really flat pebble. Skimming stones was another of his talents. The pebble glanced across the surface of the water like a flying saucer, bouncing six times before reaching the opposite bank. It was a hot day. He took his clothes off and lay in the current, holding his injured hand up towards the sky like a periscope so as not to get the bandage wet. He wasn’t thinking about anything now. It was just nice to dissolve into the water.