This is Life (22 page)

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

I
n 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 beautiful, 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.’

A
t 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.