Night Sky (13 page)

Raoul bought two pastis and plonked them on the table. ‘Look, the idea of setting up your stupid club would never have worked anyway. We’re small-fry. We could never have set up a big place like that. Hundreds of women indeed! High-class décor!’ He shook his head. ‘Look, for a start our police contacts just weren’t good enough. And then do you think the existing businesses would have made room for you without a fuss? I tell you it would never have worked.’

Vasson watched him coldly. He decided Raoul was simply a very stupid man.

Raoul said tolerantly, ‘You know, you should use that learning of yours, and get a good job with prospects. You
do
have an education, don’t you, eh? I mean you read books and all that. It’s obvious that someone stuffed the knowledge in somewhere. Well, you should use it!’

Vasson stared out of the window. He loathed people referring to his past.

Raoul went on, ‘Was it the priests? That gave you the learning, I mean? I knew a lad once who’d started life with nothing – on the scrapheap at five years old, he was – and the priests took him in and stuffed his head full of books and Latin and he ended up a professor, a
professor
! The nephew of my mum’s best friend, he was. Very proud, his family, very proud.’ He turned to Vasson. ‘Was it the priests, then?’

‘Shut up,’ Vasson snapped.

He downed his pastis and stood up. Raoul looked up in surprise. ‘Where are you off to?’

‘Away. Somewhere. So I’ll say goodbye. I hope you enjoy the army and getting killed. Should be fun.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

Vasson leant over the table. ‘We’ll see who’s the clever one, and I tell you, it isn’t going to be you!’

He strode out of the café and up the street, swearing under his breath. So Raoul wanted out. Fine! Let them all go to hell. He could manage very well on his own.

The room was at the back of a tall, dingy house in the Rue St Vincent. It cost him a few francs a week, so that, after meals and clothes, he could save about one hundred a week. When he had a job.

The idea was to save enough for a lease on a club premises. By any calculations it should take twenty years to buy even the most modest property. Even assuming he had a job. He grimaced: it was pathetic, laughable.

Wearily he climbed the dirty narrow stairs and opened the door of the room. It was dark inside. He felt his way across the window and opened the shutters. Even then there wasn’t much light: the window gave onto a narrow opening between tall buildings.

The room was a mess. High-heeled shoes lay scattered on the floor and piles of skirts and dresses were draped over the two chairs. I’ll have to get rid of her, Vasson thought. She was a brainless little country girl named Yvette, and she was cluttering up his life. It had been her idea to move in, not his. He should have kicked her out straight away.

He threw some cheap magazines off the bed and lay down. His head ached and his kidney was still hurting badly. He wondered if the damage was serious. Perhaps he should go and see a doctor, except that doctors cost money and he begrudged paying them.

He lit a cigarette and began to think.

No job. No prospects. He’d been through it before. There’d been four, maybe five jobs in the last four years. The story was always the same: they wanted him to work like hell, but they offered him nothing in return. No real share of the action. No opportunity to change or improve things. And then – then came the disagreements. They always blamed him –
him!
– though the problems were their own stupid faults.

He felt cheated. Frustrated. Bitter.

Like he did now. Especially now. Because he hadn’t managed to control himself and he’d half killed a man and that frightened him.

But it was the fault of the system. It was the system which was killing him. The fat kings ran the system and they had it sewn up. You didn’t have a chance without weight and influence – and that meant money. And you couldn’t get the money without the influence.

The system stank.

Christ, he thought, I just go round in bloody circles. And the circle always comes back to money.

Suddenly he was tired. He stubbed out his cigarette and closed his eyes. He liked sleep. He liked the blackness and the peace of it and the way it passed so much of the time.

The dream, when it came, was vivid. He was back in Marseilles, in the Algerian’s car. His arms were bound and he was lying on the floor. The Algerian was discussing how he would kill him. But Vasson didn’t care because he had the money on the floor next to him.
He had the money
. He knew he’d be all right.

But then he was slipping, down the floor of the car, on to the road. Someone had opened the door. It was his mother. As he fell past her he called to her, but she looked past him at the Algerian and smiled.

There was darkness. He was in the cupboard again. He shouted and yelled, but the door was made of steel and so thick that no-one could hear. Finally, after time which seemed to have lasted for ever, the door was opened. He did not want to come out. But it was one of the priests and refusal was not allowed.

He asked for his mother.

‘Your mother is a long way away, Paul.’

‘But I want her.’

‘Paul, your mother has not yet found the way to the true God. She is – searching for Him. While she searches, she cannot come to you.’

‘Searching? Why is she searching?’

‘Paul, your mother is a long way away …’

No, she was near, he knew she was near. Why did they lie to him? Why did they keep her away?

Maman, maman
—

He awoke. Someone was there, in the room.

It was Yvette.

‘You all right?’ She teetered across to the bed on her high heels and put her heavily made-up face close to his. He closed his eyes in disgust.

‘You were muttering away. I thought you were awake, talking to yourself! Sorry, did I actually wake you up?’ She was using the little-girl-lost voice she usually kept for fat rich men. It annoyed him.

He said irritably, ‘Get out. I want to sleep.’

‘Oh, well, don’t mind about me. I’ll stay quiet as a mouse. You won’t even know I’m here.’ She began to stroke his forehead.

He brushed her hand away and reached for a cigarette.

‘Let me get you a cold drink, eh?’ she persisted.

‘No. And I’ve something to tell you. I’m going away.’

She stared at him and then nodded. She wasn’t surprised. ‘Can I come too?’ She knew it was risky to ask, he might fly off the handle like he sometimes did. But she wanted to go with him. She wanted to look after him.

He said, ‘No.’

She kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed beside him. She knew exactly how far she could go before he got angry. She put an arm across his waist and moved her head against his.

‘I’ll miss you terribly.’

‘Like hell.’

‘I know I don’t suit you … I mean I’m not attractive to you, and all that. But I’d look after you, you know that.’

Vasson sighed. The sex thing again. It was her only level of understanding. Everything began and ended with sex. She couldn’t understand how repulsive she was to him, how he couldn’t bear her to touch him.

He sat up suddenly and, pushing past her, stood up. ‘I’m off tomorrow, so you’d better find somewhere else.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What about this war then?’

He glanced at her impatiently. ‘What about it?’

‘Well,
that
might offer some opportunities, I mean for the two of us.’ She was always trying to think of money-making ideas. They were always pathetic, just like her.

He didn’t answer, but began to pack his suitcase.

She fluttered valiantly on. ‘There’ll be shortages, right? And a black-market. Bound to be. That’s where the money’ll be. In buying things up cheap. You’ve got enough saved to make a start. It’ll be a real money-spinner, you’ll see!’

Vasson paused and looked at her. ‘And what do you think people will be short of?’ he asked.

She thought for a moment, her pencilled eyebrows puckered in concentration. At last she said, ‘Oh, stockings, make-up, clothes, things like that … Oh and food, I suppose. And I could think of lots more, I’m sure I could—’

Vasson stared out of the window. The silly girl might actually have something. Perhaps there
would
be a war, perhaps it would go on for some time, perhaps there would be plenty of money to be made.

He pushed the last few things into his suitcase. He said abruptly, ‘I’m off then.’

‘Oh, please …!’ She started towards him, a pleading expression on her face.

He glanced at her, thinking again how repulsive she was, and turned away to open the door.

She yelled, ‘You shit!’ But he walked quickly down the stairs and by the time he reached the street he couldn’t hear her any more.

He walked rapidly, needing to get away quickly. He thought: It’s good to be free again. He would get another room, alone. He would start again.

He stopped for a coffee and a cigarette in a place he hadn’t been to before. He thought about the girl’s idea. There definitely might be something in it. Luxuries, food, what else had she said – stockings. Yes, and cigarettes would be short too.

A war might be rather a good thing after all.

T
HE COAST IS
wild and rugged and utterly beautiful. From its border with Normandy to the point where the land turns to face the open Atlantic the North Brittany coast measures little more than a hundred miles as the crow flies. But this means nothing. It is so indented with bays and deep estuaries that its true length is at least twice that distance. Most of this length is impenetrable to anything but the smallest craft – and then only in good weather – for the land is defended by a great barrier of natural hazards.

A thousand storms have shaped the jagged cliffs and eaten into the soft rock, leaving a dense fabric of reefs, islands and islets to seaward. Some of the dangers stand proud and high in the water: great stacks of rock rising like dragon’s teeth, or larger islands which lie cowed and barren before the wind. But most of the perils lie near the surface: sharp reefs marked only by breaking water, or islets so low that they are almost invisible. These dangers reach out four, five, sometimes twelve miles from the land.

Then there are the tidal streams. They run very strong along these shores, ripping across rocks and reefs, tearing through the deep channels, and swinging into bays and inlets, making accurate landfall difficult even for the most careful of navigators.

The strongest winds come in winter, blowing storm force from the Atlantic. They send before them armies of waves which curve in towards the shore, gathering speed until they break on the myriad of rocks and islets in a cauldron of white foaming surf, then advance, still snapping and roaring, on to the fragile mainland itself.

This coast is no friend to the sailor. Only those familiar with its dangers dare approach it with impunity; strangers must rely on good charts and blind faith. At night the dangers are marked by the powerful lights of tall lighthouses; with the help of leading lights and channel buoys it is even possible for small fishing craft to navigate one or two of the estuaries in darkness. But for the most part this coast does not invite visitors; the great lighthouses serve to warn rather than welcome.

The wind blows the fine salt mist several miles inland, so that only the hardiest vegetation can grow there. There is gorse and heather and thin coarse grass, and the pastures, such as they are, support only a small number of cattle. Further inland there are market gardens and fields of wheat and richer pastures, but even here the land gives grudgingly and there is none of the lush abundance of Normandy or Picardy.

Like all wild, windswept places the land is rich with romantic legend. Except that in Brittany fact and fable are closely intertwined. The people who have inhabited this land for centuries are quite alien to their neighbours in the rest of France. Brittany is French by nationality, but not by race, language or culture. The proud, tough Bretons are not Gauls but Celts, and their closest links are with Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland, whence they came centuries ago. The Breton language sounds harsh to the French ear and the names of the rocks and headlands are easier spoken by a Cornishman than a Frenchman: Beg an Fry, Mean Nevez, L’Aberwrac’h, Lizen Ven, Pen Ven. You would even be forgiven for thinking you were in Scotland when you hear their music, for they play not the accordion, but the plaintive, mournful bagpipes.

To the great nation of France, Brittany is something of a backwater, not sufficiently fertile or industrially developed to demand a great deal of attention. For the Bretons, proudly nationalistic and stubbornly independent, their subjugation to the mother country is tolerated with equanimity, and the benefits, if any, absorbed. The idea of freedom has long been forgotten – the land has been fought over often enough as it is – but the people remain independent in spirit.

The land is poor and in places infertile, but the Bretons find it sufficient for their needs; the way of life is simple and austere and not to the taste of the sophisticated French, but for the Bretons this is the only life they know. Many of them live off the sea, and the sea is the harshest life there is.