How's the Pain? (8 page)

By the time Fiona had taken care of his clothes, Bernard had stepped back into his old skin, but not his old life. Nothing would ever be the same again. While Monsieur Marechall slept in the caravan, Bernard went for a walk on the beach with Violette nestling against his shoulder. He walked a certain distance before turning round and going back, over and over again. It was not the same sky above him now, nor the same sea. Everything had changed, but no one else had noticed. It all had the whiff of an illusion, an artful fake. Nothing was certain any more. The rocks could be made of cardboard, the pine trees out of balsa wood; Violette might be nothing but an inflatable toy, the sun a spotlight and himself just another walk-on actor. Life had lost its substance. All it had taken was a little
plop!
for everything to vanish, without explanation.

There was a small souvenir shop selling postcards next to the campsite reception. Having promised to send
one to his mother, Bernard paid it a visit. The postcard he chose depicted a sunset so dazzling he almost needed sunglasses to look at it. He sat at a table in the adjoining bar and ordered a mint cordial. Violette was still asleep, glued to him like a leech. He could not think what to write, so he began with the address, chewing the cap of his pen while he waited for inspiration. ‘Dear Mother … [Was she really that dear to him?] I’m down at Cap d’Agde which is … an up-and-down sort of place. [‘Up-and-down sort of place’ didn’t really mean anything, and yet it summed it up perfectly. You could go from heaven to hell here and not even notice.] The weather is good. It’s nice to see the sea, which is bigger than Lake Geneva.’

Bernard put down his pen and drank half his glass of mint cordial. The ice cubes had melted to the size of
cufflinks
. The sight of the green syrup took him back to the aquarium and made him gag. The little girl started to wriggle, dribbling into the neck of his T-shirt. Instinctively he jiggled her up and down, which made his writing wobbly. ‘The sea isn’t green here, same as the Red Sea isn’t red. Monsieur Marechall told me that, because he’s been there. It just shows you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’ Bernard drained the last drops of his drink. The ice had completely melted. He had nothing else to say so he rounded off with: ‘I’m fine and hope you are too. Lots of love, your son Bernard.’

A rush of sadness surged from his chest to his eyes. He would have liked to send his mother a message in a bottle, saying: ‘Come and get me, Mummy, it’s too grown-up here!’ But it would never arrive. He stuck on a stamp and
slipped the postcard into the back pocket of his jeans.

‘What a lovely baby! Is it a little boy or a little girl?’

‘A little girl.’

Sitting at the next table was a podgy woman, with a mass of curly hair like a panful of macaroni. She looked like a cartoon fairy godmother.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Violette.’

‘Violette! It’s good luck to be named after a flower, you know. My name’s Rose.’

And she really was rosy, everything from her skin to her clothes, but not her eyes, which were periwinkle blue. She looked well over fifty and was drinking a strawberry milkshake.

‘Are you here on holiday?’ she asked.

‘Yes and no, a bit of both.’

‘I’ve been coming for years, same weeks, same bungalow. I’m a creature of habit. I’m from Namur, in Belgium. And you?’

‘Lyon.’

‘Thank heavens for that! I’m not keen on Parisians, they’re so snooty! Are you having a nice time?’

‘It’s OK.’

‘You must be here with your wife?’

‘Um … yes, but my boss as well. My wife’s at the dry cleaner’s and my boss is having a lie-down.’

‘I see … You must think me awfully nosy, but what do you do for a living?’

‘Driver.’

‘How wonderful! You must travel a lot. I’m a taxidermist. Well, I’m retired now, I just do it for fun.’

‘Taxi— So a bit like me, then?’

‘Oh, no! I’m a taxidermist, I preserve dead animals.’

‘Ah, you stuff things?’

‘That’s it. I used to work for museums, now I have private clients, mostly old ladies who can’t bear to be parted from dead pets – dogs, cats, parrots, all sorts. Last time it was a boa constrictor!’

‘A boa, really … My boss works in a similar field, although he doesn’t do preserving. He’s a pest controller; he gets rid of cockroaches, bugs, mice, rats …’

‘I’ve done rats too! How fascinating, I’d like to meet him!’

‘We’re leaving tomorrow.’

‘Oh, what a shame! Well, how about this evening? Come for a drink at my bungalow. It’s the last one, over there, under the big pine tree.’

‘I’ll have to ask him …’

‘Yes, of course. I’m sure he’ll agree to it. I’ll expect you around seven.’

Rose was barely taller standing than she was sitting down. She called over the waiter.

‘Gégé, put these two drinks on my tab, would you? So I’ll see you this evening, Monsieur …?’

‘Bernard.’

She stroked Violette’s cheek with her chubby little finger.

‘Isn’t she pretty? What lovely soft skin! And those great big eyelashes, they’re like butterfly wings! You just don’t want them to grow up, do you?’ 

She bounced off down the road like a tennis ball, the net of darkness already closing in around the trees.

Simon was well practised in taking his gun apart and putting it back together with his eyes shut. But this time he had dropped a spring and could not find it anywhere, even with his glasses on.

‘Have you lost something, Monsieur Marechall?’

Bernard was standing in the hallway, his suit hanging over his arm in its plastic bag like a sheath of dead skin.

‘No, I’m looking for four-leafed clover. One of the springs fell out, a stupid little spring!’

Bernard crouched down next to him and held up the missing piece.

‘This one?’

‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘Just hanging around, waiting for Fiona to bring back my clothes.’

‘We’re leaving tomorrow.’

‘I thought so. We haven’t been here long.’

‘Long enough. Help me up.’

Once he had settled back into his chair, Simon continued putting together the pieces of his deadly jigsaw puzzle. One by one he got the action working, loaded another round of bullets and secured the safety catch. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, governed by a force stronger than his own will. He clasped them tightly together, interlocking his fingers until they turned white. Bernard sat down opposite him at the table.

‘I know what you really do for a living now.’

‘So?’

‘So nothing. It’s not exactly your average nine to five.’

‘The job needs doing, as long as there’s a demand for it.’

‘Even so, I’d have rather you just got rid of rats.’

‘Rats, people – they’re all the same. They breed just as quickly.’

Bernard was staring at the pistol on the table. It was hard to believe such an ordinary-looking object could do so much damage.

‘Why the woman? She hadn’t done anything to you.’

‘No witnesses. Never leave any witnesses.’

‘What about me?’

‘You? Well, you’re working for me, which makes you my accomplice.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing. I’d forget the whole thing ever happened if I could.’

‘That’s exactly what you have to do. Tomorrow’s another day, after all.’

‘Yes, and it’s when we’re leaving … Oh, I met a woman earlier who does a similar sort of job to you.’

‘What woman? What does she do?’

‘Hang on, let me think … Taxi-something … She stuffs things.’

‘Taxidermist?’

‘That’s the one! She stuffs dogs, cats, boa constrictors, all kinds of dead animals. She’s Belgian and she’s retired. She invited us to pop round for a drink this evening.’

Simon stood up, rubbing his back. He had to stop himself laughing. This young imbecile was really too much – first the teenage mother, now a Belgian taxidermist!

‘Where on earth do you find them?’

‘I didn’t go out looking for her! She was the one who started talking to me. I was writing a postcard to my mother in the bar by reception. I had Violette on my lap; she was cooing over her and started chatting to me. She’s here on holiday, staying in the last bungalow along the main path. Rose, her name is. She’s getting on but she’s got all her bits in the right places. She’s expecting us at seven, but I can call it off if you’d rather.’

Simon could not help but admire Bernard’s ability to adapt to the most bizarre situations. That great twerp had a born gift for resilience.

‘Well, why not?’

‘I was worried you’d be angry. Right, I’d better go and tell Fiona – I didn’t want to say anything before talking to you … Oh and by the way, she thinks Fiona and I are married and Violette’s our daughter. I couldn’t put her straight, it would have got too complicated.’

‘And I’m the granddad, am I?’

‘No! You’re my boss, I’m your driver.’

‘Well, that’s all right then. OK, off you go, back to your little family.’

Simon could not remember the last time he had been in such a good mood. He smiled as he weighed the gun in his hand, the steel gradually warming in his palm. It was nothing but a memento now, like the tools retired labourers hold on to as a reminder of times gone by. They had come a long way together, he and his gun, but neither seemed fit for much any more. He slid it under his pillow out of habit, but something told him he would not be using it again and he felt a huge weight lifting.

Rose had everything she could possibly need in her bungalow, with glasses for every type of drink and a crocheted coaster to go under each one. Olives, peanuts, cocktail sausages and homemade crisps were piled high in cut-glass dishes. The hostess twirled around the table in a flimsy lilac chiffon negligee like a moth dancing in the light of the scented anti-mosquito lamp. She had a kind word for everyone, especially Violette, whose cheek she stroked each time she went past. Simon and Fiona were on the pastis, Rose on beer, Bernard on mint cordial and Violette on her bottle, staring up at Venus in the night sky. Unlike her neighbours, Rose had personalised her bungalow, decorating it with fairy lights, frilly curtains and pots of brightly coloured geraniums.

‘It’s another place to call my own. I’ve been coming here for so long, the same weeks every year. Francis, the manager, gets everything ready for me before I arrive. It’s
like having a second home, I suppose. I like to feel at home wherever I am. The world belongs to all of us, doesn’t it?’

‘Absolutely!’

‘Namur is a pretty little town but the winter goes on for ever! Do you know Namur, Monsieur Marechall?’

‘Yes. I’m from the north, so Belgium’s just across … We used to go over to buy beer and tobacco. But I haven’t been back in a long time.’

‘It’s pretty much the same. The north will never change. And what about you, Madame Fiona, where are you from?’

‘From a care home. Don’t s’pose it’s changed much there either. My mother was Italian, I think, or maybe it was my dad … You have to make these things up, when you don’t know the truth.’

‘Of course you do, my poor darling … Well, you have your own family now. All that matters is the here and now.’

‘That’s right. Excuse me for a moment, I need to go and change the baby.’

‘Be my guest!’

‘Will you give me a hand, Bernard?’

Simon and Rose watched the young couple and their baby disappearing into the shadows. The image was almost biblical.

‘How wonderful to be young!’

‘Indeed!’

‘Can I get you another?’

‘Just a drop.’

There was a bit of peanut stuck between Simon’s teeth.
He tried to dislodge it with the tip of his tongue, but there was no shifting it. Soon he could concentrate on nothing else.

‘So you get rid of rodents, I hear?’

‘Not just rodents, all kinds of pests. But I’ve just sold my company to take retirement.’

‘You’ll never look back! To begin with you won’t know what to do with yourself, but really you won’t have a care in the world … unless you worry about how long you’ve got left.’

‘I don’t think about it.’

‘Oh, I do. I don’t have a problem with dying, it’s eternity I’m worried about. The first animal I preserved was a squirrel. Poor little thing! If you’d seen the state he was in … a truck had run him over. But now he’s fresh as the day he was born! You’ll think me ridiculous, but I feel like … like I’m giving the Creator a helping hand, fixing His mistakes. Plus I enjoy needlework.’

‘Nothing wrong with that. I’ve got nothing against eternity, but personally I think I’d die of boredom.’

‘Ah, come on, you’d get used to it eventually!’

Rose looked like a Chinese lantern. Her chubby face bobbed from side to side and her wide smile revealed all her teeth, no doubt just as false as the pearls she wore around her neck. Was falseness really the enemy of truth? Rose reminded him of the Hanoi madam who was just as happy to pocket fake dollars as real ones. Their hands were lying on the table millimetres apart. She was not wearing a wedding ring, and neither was he.

‘It’s getting chilly, I think I’ll put a shawl on.’

Simon lit a cigarette. Without meaning to, he blew a smoke ring that settled around his head like a halo. Meanwhile, in her largest saucepan, the Great Bear was cooking up a fricassee of stars.

‘Didn’t you see the way she was touching her?’

‘She likes children.’

‘Of course she does, she’s a witch! She can do what she likes with her stuffed goats, but I don’t want her coming anywhere near Violette.’

‘Fiona! You’re going a bit far, she’s just a little old lady—’

‘I don’t like old people! They stink, that’s why they put on so much perfume. They’re all at death’s door, just like your precious Monsieur Marechall!’

The nappy spread with innocent shit fell into the bin with a dull thud. Violette was lying on her back, squirming and whimpering.

‘You don’t think you’re being a teensy bit paranoid?’

‘Of course I am! That’s the reason I’m still alive today. Your boss is a hit man, Rose is a monster, and you … you’re just a stupid idiot!’

She threw herself into Bernard’s arms, sobbing and pounding his back with her fists.

‘Let’s get out of here, you, me and Violette. I don’t want us to be tainted by them. We have a right to live our lives, damn it!’

Fiona was wearing a new face. The tears streaming down it gave it the appearance of an unfinished watercolour, an island emerging from the mist.

‘Make love to me.’

‘What here? Now?’

‘Yes.’

Not easy, no, it was not easy at all, but when Violette’s right hand managed to grab her left big toe, she was over the moon. She had finally caught the stupid thing and now she was going to stuff it in her mouth. That was it: she was a big girl now.