Consolation (36 page)

Charles took advantage of the applause to slip away. He had no desire to hear the plangent sobbing of violins.

Mission accomplished.

Time to go back to real life.

He was heading out of the school gates when a very English ‘
Hey!
’ caught up with him. He put his cigarette back in his pocket and turned round.

‘Hey, you bloody liar!’ She was shaking her left first at him, ‘Why did you say, I’m counting on it, if you don’t give a shit?’

She didn’t wait for his face to give him away before adding in a more affable voice, ‘No . . . sorry. That is really not
at all
what I meant . . . Actually, I wanted to invite you to . . . no . . . forget it . . .’ She looked in his eyes and said, even more quietly, ‘Are you – are you leaving already?’

Charles did not try to return her gaze.

‘Yes, I . . .’ he stammered, ‘I should have said goodbye, but I didn’t want to . . . I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘Oh?’

‘I hadn’t planned on coming. I’ve been, how can I put it, of a truant disposition, and now I really do need to head back.’

‘I see . . .’

With a final smile, one he had not seen before, she loaded, without any real conviction, her most pathetic shot: ‘And what about the tombola draw, then?’

‘I didn’t buy a ticket.’

‘Oh, right. Well then. Goodbye . . .’

She reached out her hand. Her ring had slipped round; the stone was cold.

Invite me to what? recalled Charles, but it was too late. She was already beyond reach.

He sighed and watched: fading into the distance, the swing of her arabesques.

*

Looking for his own car, he recognized hers, parked sideways beneath the plane trees opposite the post office.

The boot was still open and the same dogs that had been there the night before greeted him with the same good-natured wagging and panting.

He opened his diary, found the page for 9 August and went over the list of names of towns he’d be driving through.

He drove for half an hour, literally miles away. He looked for a petrol station, found one behind a supermarket, and took absolutely ages to find the bloody fucking piece of shit of a button to release the cover of the fuel tank. He opened the glove compartment, hunted for the instruction manual, got even more noisily angry, found it, filled the tank, used the wrong card, then the wrong pin, gave up, paid cash and went three times round the roundabout before he could read the spidery scrawl in his diary.

He switched on the radio, then switched it off. He lit a cigarette, then crushed it. Shook his head, and regretted it: it merely brought on one of his headaches. He finally found the signpost he’d been waiting for. He stopped at the white line, looked to the left, looked to the right, looked straight ahead and . . .

. . . indulged in some verb conjugation:

‘I am one bleeding idiot. You are one bleeding idiot. He is one bleeding idiot!’

5

SHE WAS BUSY
fumbling for something in her apron pocket.

‘Yes?’

‘Hello, uh . . . I’d like a slice of that chocolate cake that was cooking in your oven last night at around quarter to nine . . .’

She raised her head.

‘Well, yes,’ he continued, shaking a handful of tombola counter-foils, ‘after all . . . The playground for boules
and
the giant karaoke . . . I had second thoughts . . .’

It took her several seconds to react: she frowned and bit her lip to keep from smiling.

‘There were three.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Cakes . . . in the oven.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ she retorted, still just as tight-lipped, ‘as it happens, we don’t do things by halves in my house.’

‘I was under the impression . . .’

‘So?’

‘Well, uh . . . Perhaps you could give me a little bit of each?’

Without further ado she sliced three tiny portions and handed him a plate: ‘Two euros. You can pay the young girl next door.’

‘What did you want to invite me to, Kate?’

‘Dinner, I think. But I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Oh?’

She was already helping someone else.

‘And what if I invite you?’

She stood up straight and gently sent him packing: ‘I promised to help them with the tidying up, I have half a dozen kids to keep an eye on, and there’s not a restaurant within fifty kilometres, so, apart from that, is it good?’

‘Sorry?’

‘The cake?’

Uh . . . Charles no longer really felt like it. He was hunting for a heartfelt reply when a fellow came up out of breath and visibly very out of sorts and stole the scene. ‘Hey? Wasn’t your son supposed to be looking after the Tin Can Alley this afternoon?’

‘Yes, but then you asked him to look after the drinks stand.’

‘Oh yes, of course. Never mind, I’ll ask –’

‘Wait a second,’ she interrupted, turning to Charles, ‘didn’t Alexis tell me you’re an architect, is that right?’

‘Uh . . . yes . . .’

‘Right then, that’s the perfect stand for you. Making piles of tin cans, that should be right up your alley, no?’ Then, calling to the other fellow, ‘Gerard! No need to look further!’

In the time it took Charles to devour a mouthful of cake he found himself being led to the far side of the schoolyard.

‘Hey!’

Now what . . .

He turned around, wondering what
bloody
thing she could reproach him with this time.

But, it was nothing.

Just a little wink above a huge knife.

*

‘For each game, the kids have to give you a blue ticket, they know where to buy them . . . and the winners get to choose a prize from this box over here . . . One of the parents will drop by in the afternoon to fill in for you for a few minutes if you have to take a break,’ explained the man, herding to one side the children who were already clustered round. ‘Will that be okay? Do you have any questions?’

‘No questions.’

‘Good luck, then. I always have trouble finding a kind soul to take over this stand – well, you’ll see,’ and he mimed covering his ears, ‘it’s a bit noisy . . .’

For the first ten minutes, Charles was quite content to pocket the tickets, hand out the rolled-up socks filled with sand, and put the cans back in place, and then he began to feel more confident,
so
he did what he had always done: improved the site under construction.

He placed his jacket on a stool and announced the new land use plan:

‘Right. Be quiet a minute here, I can’t hear a thing. Okay, you – go and fetch me a piece of chalk . . . First of all, no more of this mess here, you’re going to make a proper queue and stand one behind the other. The first one who tries to cheat, I’ll put him in the middle of the tin cans, is that clear? Thank you.’

He took the piece of chalk, drew two distinct lines on the ground, then a mark on the wooden pole: ‘This is the height gauge. Anyone shorter than this mark has the right to step up to the first line, and the others have to stand behind the second one, got it?’

They got it.

‘Now then. The little ones have the right to toss the sock at these tins here (pointing to the larger ones, that the cook had given them and that must have once contained ten good kilos of mixed vegetables or peeled tomatoes), and the bigger kids have to knock down these ones here (smaller and far more numerous). You’re allowed four socks each, and to win a prize you’ve got to knock down the whole lot . . . Are you still with me?’

Respectful nodding of heads.

‘Finally, I don’t want to spend my Saturday picking up your mess, so I need an assistant. Who’d like to be my assistant number one? And don’t forget, an assistant is allowed a few free shots . . .’

A struggle was waged to provide him with a second.

‘Perfect,’ exulted General Balanda, ‘perfect. And now . . . may the best one win!’

Now all he had to do was count the points, encouraging the younger kids and provoking the teenagers. Guiding the arms of the little ones, and pretending to lend his glasses to the teenagers if any of them got too big for their boots – maaan! This Tin Can Alley, dead easy – and hit the wall more often than they should have . . .

Fairly quickly a crowd gathered and, with the resulting echo chamber, Charles reckoned that while he may have saved his back, and his honour, by nightfall he would probably be deaf . . .

Speaking of his honour . . . From time to time he looked up and scanned the crowd for her. He would have liked her to see
him
like this, triumphant among his sharpshooters, but no such luck. She was still among her cakes, chattering, laughing, leaning over to throngs of children who came to hug her and . . . she couldn’t care less. About him, so to speak.

If he could even hear himself speak by the day’s end . . .

Never mind. He was happy. For the first time in his life he felt he was enjoying his role as project manager, and as for overseeing aluminium buildings, well, that was a first, too.

Jean Prouvé would have been proud of him.

Naturally, no one ever came to fill in for him; naturally, he wanted to have a piss and a smoke and, naturally, he eventually gave up the whole business of blue tickets.

‘You’ve run out?’

‘Well, yeah . . .’

‘Go on, have a go anyway . . .’

No ticket? The news spread so quickly that he had to abandon any vague desire he might have had for an escape from the stand. He was the Tin Can King, he had made his decision and, for the first time in years, he regretted not having his sketchbook with him. There were a few smiles, a few acts of bravado, a few poses that would have been well worth catching for eternity . . .

Lucas came to see him.

‘I gave my parrot to Daddy.’

‘That was a good idea.’

‘It wasn’t a parrot. It was a white pigeon.’

Well, well. Yacine must have been there, too.

He was saved by the tombola. The loudspeaker announced that it was time for the draw, and all the kids vanished as if by magic. Ungrateful wretches, he thought, sighing with relief. He handed his notebook to the boys, collected the socks scattered all over the schoolyard, gathered all the tins into a canvas bag and picked up all the sweet wrappers, wincing each time he had to bend over.

He held his sides.

Why did it hurt so much?

Why?

He grabbed his jacket and looked for a place where he could have a smoke without being caught by the supervisor.

He made a detour via the toilets and found himself . . . in difficulty. The bowl was so low to the ground . . . He took aim as best he could and rediscovered the odour of carbolic soap, the kind that never produced any lather and never went away, clinging in a dry shrivelled lump to its chromed brass knob.

The irresistible pull of nostalgia . . . He hid behind the old building to have a smoke.

Aah . . . That was good.

Even the graffiti had not changed much . . . The same hearts, the same Thingammy + Whatsit = Eternal Luv, the same tits, the same willies and the same enraged lines crossing out the same revealed secrets . . .

He flicked his cigarette butt over the wall and headed back towards the loudspeakers.

He was walking slowly. He didn’t really know where to go. He didn’t feel like seeing Alexis again. He could hear the rubbish that Jean-Pierre’s mate was spouting, and did a mental countdown of the number of hours until he’d reach the outskirts of Paris.

Right. I ought to go and say goodbye to her all the same, this time.
Goodbye, Farewell, So long
: it was not so much the vocabulary that was lacking . . . there was even
Adieu
, which, like many of the loveliest words, was elegant enough to travel without a passport.

Yes,
adieu
, to God . . . not bad, for a woman who –

And he had reached this point in his ruminations when Lucas suddenly jumped on him: ‘Charles! You won!’

‘The pedalos?’

‘No! A huge basket of pâté and sausages!’

Oh dear Lord.

‘Aren’t you happy?’

‘Yes, yes . . . Wickedly happy.’

‘I’ll go and fetch it for you. Don’t budge, okay?’

‘That’s great. You’ll be able to invite me to my place, then.’

He turned around.

She was untying her apron.

‘I don’t have any flowers,’ he smiled.

‘It doesn’t matter . . . I’ll lend you a few.’

One of the boys he’d glimpsed the evening before greeted him
before
interrupting their little gallantries: ‘Can Jeff, Fanny, Mickaël and Leo come and sleep over at the house tonight?’

‘Charles,’ she said, ‘I’d like to introduce Samuel. My big boy.’

It’s true that he was big . . . He was almost as tall as Charles himself . . . Long hair, teenage skin, a wrinkled but very elegant white shirt, which must have belonged to someone from an earlier generation, monogrammed with the letters L.R. in sans serif, jeans with holes in them, a straight nose, a frank gaze, very thin and, in a few years, very handsome.

They shook hands.

‘Hey, have you been drinking?’ She frowned.

‘Well . . . I wasn’t exactly at the cake stall, I can tell you.’

‘Well then, don’t go home on your scooter.’

‘I won’t . . . It’s just I spilled the last of a barrel onto my kecks . . . Look . . . Right, and about tonight?’

‘If their parents are okay with it, I’m okay. But you’ve got to help us put everything away, all right?’

‘Sam!’ She called him back. ‘Tell them to bring their sleeping bags, okay?’

He raised his thumb to show that he’d heard.

To Charles: ‘You see what I mean . . . I told you there’d be half a dozen kids but I’m always a bit pessimistic . . . And I’ve got nothing to eat . . . Good job you bought some tickets.’

‘I’ll say.’

‘And the Tin Can Alley? How did –’

They were interrupted yet again, this time by the little girl she’d called Hattie the evening before, or so he recalled.

‘Kate?’

‘And now here comes Miss Harriet, our number three . . .’

‘Good evening.’

Charles gave her a kiss.

‘Can Camille come and sleep over at the house? Yes, I know, sleeping bag . . .’