The Panda Theory (14 page)

‘Listen to that, Juliette. It’s the Breton sea. Your mummy and daddy are there right now. Do you want to say something? I’ll pass you over.’

The sea grunted. It was grumpy that day. The drizzle made their mouths slippery.

‘Darling, build us an island in the sun!’

And he di
d.

It was still dark when they left the hotel. Apart from the wind whistling, the streets were empty. There were only a few lights on, one at the baker’s where they had bought croissants, and a neon sign belonging to the bar by the pier where they sought shelter from the rain lashing against the austere facades of the blank houses. Madeleine stirred her hot chocolate in a daydream, smiling like the panda. Gabriel chewed his croissant while watching the raindrops slide down the dark pane of glass. Besides the owner, there were two other people in the bar: a tall red-haired man with a moustache who was speaking English, and an old woman dressed in tweed and fur-lined boots, who looked very dignified, her white hair pulled back into a tight bun. The old woman sipped a cup of tea and stared
absent-mindedly
at the row of bottles above the bar. From time to time he made chit-chat about the weather or unknown people with John, the owner. There was a smell of stuffy
bedrooms, cosy duvets and morning coffees in the air.

‘Gabriel?’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing. I feel good.’

Madeleine placed her hand on Gabriel’s. She had said it without smiling, as if it was something serious, something solemn.

‘Me too,’ he replied.

‘Do you regret it?’

‘What?’

‘Us two, last night?’

‘Not at all – the opposite actually. Was I okay? It’s been such a long time.’

‘It would have been great even if we hadn’t done it.’

After eating some excellent seafood pancakes at the crêperie they had gone back to the hotel. They had taken turns in the shower and then lain on the bed watching TV, enjoying a mindless game show. Looking at them, you would have thought they had spent their lives together. In the end, they had turned the light off and made love simply and quickly with all the awkwardness of first-timers.

‘There’s the boat.’

John pointed to the squat outline of a boat arriving from Île de Batz in the first light of dawn, walnut-sized on the horizon. The old woman got up and put on a long green raincoat and a rain hat. She wasn’t particularly tall, but with her fixed gaze she seemed to dominate everything around her, like a lighthouse.

It was hard to stay upright walking along the jetty, with the wind charging at them like a battering ram. The old
lady walked in front of them, head straight, indifferent. Two men helped them onto the boat. The three passengers went and sat inside on wooden benches. It was like being back at school, packed in, their arms crossed. The waves rocked them from side to side, shoulder to shoulder.

Under the lowering sky, the Île de Batz appeared, a naked shoulder emerging from the sea. The crossing had only taken fifteen minutes but long after they had set foot on land the boat’s pitching remained in their legs.

‘Which way, left or right?’

‘It doesn’t matter. An island is like a beret – there’s no right way.’

‘Let’s go left then.’

‘Why?’

‘We write from left to right and for me today is a blank page.’

They weren’t really villages, just clusters of houses and place names – Kenekaou, Porz Kloz – separated from one another by creeks, dunes, moors and fields. It took them just half an hour to reach the island’s easterly tip and a botanical garden. It was an island within an island, an exotic oasis where palm trees grew as if back home under sunnier climes. A ray of sunlight breaking through the clouds shone like a spotlight on the leaves of the rubber, yucca and other plants with unpronounceable names. A tern landed on a palm tree in front of Madeleine.

‘It’s unbelievable. This is paradise. That’s what it is, paradise!’

‘I know. Are you coming?’

Blandine had said exactly the same thing, in exactly the same place, ten years earlier.

Side by side, stooping into the wind, they followed the smugglers’ path, the sea on their right shaking its petticoat tails in a breathtaking can-can.

‘Let’s sit down here for a moment.’

Down below, pink granite boulders were jumbled on top of each other, making the shapes of bizarre animals in the process of transformation.

‘See that one? It looks like a tortoise. And that one over there looks like a sad dog. And over there—’

‘You know what this place is called?’

‘No.’

‘The Snake’s Hole. Legend has it that it was here that St Pol killed a dragon which was terrorising the island’s inhabitants. If you lean over the side and listen carefully to the waves, it sounds like laughter. Listen.’

Madeleine inched tentatively forward.

‘It must be terrifying here when there’s a storm.’

‘Terrifying.’

‘But with you I’m not scared of anything. If you only knew how happy I am, to be here with you between the sea and the sky. You can’t get any happier than this.’ She paused. ‘Gabriel, what’s wrong?’

At the foot of the hole the water whirled, lapping hungrily against the rocks.
You can’t get any happier than this.

‘Gabriel? What are you doing?’

They were high up, very high. All it would take was one small dancing step, the half-turn of a waltz, and Madeleine, like José, like Rita, like the others, would be happy ever after.

‘Gabriel, you’re holding me too tight; you’re hurting me.’

And the waves below applauded. They applauded.

‘And what would you like to drink with the crab? A white wine perhaps?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘And a jug of water, please.’

‘Of course, Madame.’

The romantic Bernique was the only restaurant that was open on the island. They had a choice of crab or … crab. They were enormous, the size of tanks. Madeleine fiddled with the surgical tools to extract the white meat from the creature lying open in front of her, claws hanging off the plate. Gabriel, his eyes half closed, watched her through the swirling smoke of his cigarette.

‘They’re enormous! I don’t know where to start.’

‘Do you want me to crack the claws for you?’

‘Yes, please.’

Gabriel got to work using a nutcracker-like tool, itself in the form of a crab claw.

‘You know, earlier, at the Snake’s Hole, it’s stupid but I thought you were going to push me in.’

‘Really? Why would I have done that?’

‘I don’t know. You were holding on to me so hard and we were so close to the edge. Your eyes were empty, like the drop behind me.’

Gabriel hadn’t been able to. Madeleine had reached the peak of her happiness, and would never make it up there again. Anything else would only be a slow and tedious decline. To finish her at the height of her happiness and in water, her favourite element, too, seemed like a
no-brainer
. But he couldn’t do it. His hands had relinquished their grip on her shoulders and fallen limply by his side. His head was ringing with the roar of the sea from the hole, that swirl of foaming green jelly, indignant that it had been refused its ration. Madeleine had quickly taken two steps forward and rubbed her shoulders, staring ahead, open-mouthed.

‘Let’s go, Gabriel.’

‘Yes … yes, of course. Are you hungry?’

They had reached the restaurant without having said a word to each other.

Four locals, their caps pulled down low over their eyes, were playing cards at a table near the entrance. Depending on how the game was going, they let out onomatopoeic grunts and groans. It was impossible to hold a conversation, even a boring one, and shell a crab at the same time. Like the belote players, Gabriel and Madeleine spoke only in sucking noises, chewing sounds and the occasional sharp crack. Their tray was now littered with shell shrapnel and
crumpled balls of lemon-scented hand wipes.

‘What time’s the boat?’

‘Five, I think.’

‘And then what?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Once we get to the other side?’

‘And then …’

The boat had barely set sail and already the island had faded in the distance. Only a few twinkling lights remained on the skyline. They hadn’t noticed it getting dark. It was difficult to keep your balance, even gripping the handrail, as the round-bottomed boat was thrown about by the waves. Even so, Madeleine was determined to stay on deck. It smelt of salt and tar.

‘It feels like the island only existed today, for us. I’m never going back.’

She said this without sadness or regret. It was what it was … ‘I’m never going back.’

‘Excuse me, could you please return below deck? It’s too dangerous out here in this weather.’

José’s car was waiting for them on the quayside. Loyal. Resigned.

‘Do you want to get a hot drink before we hit the road?’

‘No, let’s head off straight away.’

The names of the towns and villages flashed by once more in the glare of the headlights, but this time in reverse order, like a film being rewound. Sometimes, at the youth club, Gabriel used to help the priest pack away the projection equipment. It was magical to see Charlie Chaplin step backwards onto a roof from which he had fallen only fifteen minutes earlier. Of course it was a film, but in his heart of hearts Gabriel thought it possible to do something similar in real life: to crank back the camera and, hey presto, wipe the slate clean and start again.

‘Gabriel, you know, I think I’m going to take your advice.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Go to an island in the sun. I’m going to find a job in a little hotel and perhaps, maybe, a husband. And I’m going to spend my days swimming, not thinking of anything.’

‘That’s a very good idea, Madeleine.’

Yes, I think so too. Can you stop at that service station? I want a coffee. Could you go and get me one?’

‘Of course.’

A gust of wind blew into the car as Gabriel opened the door. It was as if someone was pushing from the other side, preventing him from getting out.

‘Would you like sugar?’

‘Yes, please.’

Just before he stepped out Madeleine grasped his hand.

‘Gabriel?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you.’

An elderly woman was having trouble with the vending machine. Her feeble fingers pressed all the buttons in vain.

‘Would you like me to try?’

With the palm of his hand Gabriel hit the side of the machine, which immediately delivered a cup and jerkily filled it with brownish liquid.

‘Thank you, you’re very kind.’

‘My pleasure.’

Using the same method, Gabriel filled his own soft plastic cup with the same indiscriminate liquid.

Outside, the car was gone. In its place lay his bag, abandoned on the asphalt. There were only three or four cars parked on the forecourt and José’s car wasn’t one of them. Gabriel immediately realised what had happened. Madeleine was a good woman. She had done what she had to do. He picked up his bag, threw the cup in a bin and crossed the forecourt.

The harsh neon light created petrol rainbows in the iridescent shimmering puddles of water. There was no need to look up at the sky to admire the stars. They were all there, fallen on the ground. You could walk on them and splash them. A car engine growled. It was a small Austin. It looked like a toy car. Gabriel knocked on the window.

‘Excuse me, madame, but would you mind giving me a lift to the nearest train station?’

‘I’m going to Morlaix. Ah, you’re the one who helped with the coffee machine. Come on, get in.’

The car was small, no bigger than a family-size box of matches. With his bag on his knees Gabriel climbed in as best he could. It smelt of mints.

‘Thank you very much.’

‘I don’t normally take hitchhikers, but seeing as you helped me with the coffee machine it’s the least I can do. We already know each other a bit. And, anyway, Morlaix isn’t far. You wouldn’t have the time to do away with me!’

The woman gave a tinkling laugh. Gabriel’s laugh was a little forced. The woman drove in fits and starts with her nose up close to the steering wheel and her forehead almost touching the front windscreen.

‘You know, I complained at the checkout about their coffee machine, but they didn’t care! And I followed all the instructions properly!’

‘I’m sure you did.’

‘I’ll tell you something. I don’t for a moment believe in their progress. It’s like the telephone. My children bought me a mobile phone because it reassures them. Well, believe it or not, the thing doesn’t work. And it’s always my fault. I’m never in the right place, or I didn’t recharge the batteries, or I pressed the wrong button, goodness knows what else! There’s always something that makes it my fault. They bought me a computer as well, to be closer to me, apparently. And so now I only see my grandchildren in photos and I don’t get postcards any more. It’s a young person’s world, full of buttons. That’s how it is. Anyway, no offence, but aren’t you a bit too old to be hitchhiking?’

‘It’s a long story. I was supposed to meet somebody.’

‘Where are you heading?’

‘The south.’

‘The south is a good place to grow old. Cannes is nice. What on earth is going on up ahead?’

A maelstrom of flashing blue lights filled the sky as a policeman dressed in a fluorescent jacket signalled to the oncoming cars to slow down. Driving up to him, the woman wound down her window.

‘What’s going on?’

‘There’s been an accident.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘Someone’s been killed. A woman. If she had wanted to kill herself, she couldn’t have done a better job. It’s a straight road. Either that or she fell asleep at the wheel. Could you move on, please? There are people behind you.’

José’s car sat smoking, crumpled up against a wall as firemen in shiny helmets covered it in dry ice.