Consolation (47 page)

‘You asked me earlier on why I have so many animals; well, at that point, I knew why. It was so that I would get up in the morning – feed the cats, open the door for the dogs, take the hay out to the horses and have the children none the wiser. The animals enabled the house to go on living and to keep the children busy, away from me . . .

‘The animals reproduced during mating season and the rest of the time all they cared about was eating. It was a glorious example. I didn’t read any more bedtime stories, and I gave the kids these ghostly kisses, but every evening, when I closed the door to the their room, I made sure that each one had his or her appointed kitty as a hot water bottle . . .

‘I don’t know how long it would have lasted nor how far it would have gone . . . I was beginning to lose my grip. Wouldn’t they be better off in a real family? With a standard issue mummy and daddy? Wouldn’t I do better to just ditch all this and go back to the States with them? Or even without them?

‘Wouldn’t I . . . I wasn’t even talking to Ellen any more, and I kept my eyes down to make sure I never met her gaze . . .

‘My mother rang one morning. Apparently I had turned thirty years old.

‘Oh?

‘Already?

‘Only?

‘I knocked myself senseless with vodka to celebrate.

‘I’d fucked up my life. I was willing to do the minimum, three meals a day and take them to school and back, but that was it.

‘In the event of a claim, please refer to the judge.

‘That was more or less the stew I was in when I met Anouk and she put her hand on my neck . . .’

Charles was staring at the firedogs.

‘And then one day I got a call from the gynaecologist’s office where I’d been examined a few weeks earlier. They couldn’t tell me anything over the phone, I had to go in. I wrote down the appointment date, fully aware that I wouldn’t go. The matter was no longer on the agenda, and probably never would be, ever again.

‘But for some reason I did go. To get out, get a different perspective, and because Alice needed some tubes of paint or some other supply that you can’t find anywhere around here.

‘The doctor called me in. Analysed my X-rays. My uterus and my tubes had completely atrophied. Tiny, blocked, in no condition to procreate. I would have to do another series of more advanced tests, but he’d read in my file that I’d spent long periods of time in Africa, and he thought I must have caught tuberculosis.

‘But . . . I have no recollection of ever being sick, I protested. He was very calm, he must have been the top-ranking officer in the barracks and he was used to having to break unpleasant news to people. He went on for a long time but I wasn’t listening. Some sort of tuberculosis that you don’t even notice and . . . I can’t remember what else . . . My brain as necrotic as all the rest.

‘What I do remember is that when I was back out on the street, I touched my belly underneath my jumper. Stroked it, even. I’d completely had it.

‘Fortunately time was passing. I had to get a move on if I wanted to stop by the big stationer’s before going to pick up the kids at school. I bought everything for her. Everything she could have possibly dreamed of. Paint, pastels, a box of watercolours, charcoal, paper, brushes of all sizes, a Chinese calligraphy set, beads . . . Everything.

‘Then I went into a toy shop and spoiled the other two rotten as well. It was really daft, I had trouble enough making ends meet, but never mind. Life was
indisputably
a bitch.

‘I was very late, nearly had an accident, and arrived outside the gate utterly dishevelled. It was almost night time and I could see them there waiting for me, anxious, all three sitting under the overhang.

‘There was no one else in the schoolyard.

‘I saw them look up and I saw their smiles. The smiles of children who have just realized that no, they haven’t been forgotten. I threw myself at them and took them in my arms. I laughed and cried and begged their forgiveness and told them I loved them and that we’d never be apart, that we were the strongest and that . . . And that the dogs must be expecting us by now, right?

‘They opened their presents, and I began to live again.’

*

‘There,’ she concluded, putting down her cup, ‘you know it all. I don’t know what sort of report you’ll file with whoever sent you on this mission out here, but as far as I’m concerned, I’ve shown you everything.’

‘And the other two? Yacine and Nedra? Where did they come from?’

‘Oh, Charles,’ she sighed, ‘this makes nearly –’ She reached out and took his wrist, turned it over to consult his watch – ‘nearly seven hours I’ve been talking about myself without interruption. Haven’t you had enough?’

‘No. But if you’re tired –’

‘Are you completely out of cigarettes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shit. Well . . . Put on another log, then. I’ll be right back.’

She’d put on a pair of jeans underneath her dress.

‘To start to live again, with my dead belly, meant opening my home to other children.

‘Such a big house, with so many animals, so many hiding places, so many little sheds . . . And I had so much time on my hands, in the end . . . So I submitted an application to the social services to become a foster carer. My idea was to take children in over the holidays. To give them a fabulous holiday camp, with great memories, and . . . Well, I wasn’t really sure but it seemed to me that our way of life here might be well adapted to that sort of thing . . . We were all in the same boat, and we had to stick together . . . and then I thought that I could make myself useful, after all. I talked to the kids and they must have answered something like, Well, does this mean we’ll have to share our toys, then?

‘If that was as traumatic as it could get . . .

‘I discovered a new world. Went to get the paperwork at the mother and child care office and filled out every box. My status, my income, my motivations . . . I used a dictionary so I wouldn’t make any spelling mistakes and I added photos of the house. I thought they’d forgotten about me but a few weeks later a social worker got in touch so she could come out and see if I could obtain a consent.’

She touched her forehead with a laugh.

‘I remember, the night before, we washed all the dogs in the
yard
. I had to admit that they really reeked! And then I plaited the girls’ hair . . . I think I may even have disguised myself as a proper lady . . . We were per-fect!

‘The social worker was young and smiling; her co-worker, the nursery nurse was, um, less pleasant. I began by offering to show them round, and we set off with Sam, his sisters, any of the village kids who happened to be hanging about, the dogs, the – no, the llama wasn’t here yet . . . well, anyway, you can imagine the parade.’

Charles could imagine it well.

‘We were as proud as peacocks. It’s the most beautiful house in the world, no? The nursery nurse was spoiling our pleasure asking every three seconds whether this or that wasn’t dangerous. And the stream? It’s not dangerous? And the moat? It’s not dangerous? And the tools? They’re not dangerous?

‘And the well? And the rat poison in the stables? And . . . that big dog over there?

‘And your bloody thick head? was what I felt like replying. Hasn’t it caused enough damage already?

‘But I played fair. Well, my kids have managed fine up to now, was what I said, jokingly.

‘After that I invited them into my lovely living room. You haven’t seen it yet but it’s very elegant. I call it my Bloomsbury. It wasn’t Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant who designed the frescoes on the walls and above the fireplace, it’s my lovely Alice . . . The rest is somewhat the same atmosphere as at Charleston. Piles of things, bric-a-brac, paintings . . . At the time of that visit, it was more civilized. Pierre and Ellen’s furniture still had a certain style, and the dogs weren’t allowed to climb onto the chintz sofas . . .

‘I’d brought out the heavy ammunition. Silver tea set, embroidered napkins, scones, cream, and jam. The girls did the service and I smoothed my skirt before sitting down. The Queen herself would have been . . . enchanted . . .

‘With the young social worker, we hit it off straight away. She asked me some very pertinent questions about my “vision” . . . My ideas regarding child-rearing, my ability to question my own judgment, to adapt to difficult children, my patience, my tolerance level . . . Even with the lack of self-esteem that I mentioned earlier, and which has remained my faithful companion ever since, at that point in time I felt untouchable. It seemed to me that I’d proven
my
worth . . . That this draughty old house radiated tolerance, and that the children’s joyful cries in the courtyard were proof if ever any was needed . . .

‘The other nanny-goat wasn’t listening. She was looking, horrified, at the electric wires, the sockets, the gnawed bone that my eagle eye had missed, the broken windowpane, the spots of damp on the walls . . .

‘We were chatting quite calmly when she suddenly let out a cry: a mouse had come to see whether there might be a few crumbs under the coffee table.

‘Holy shit!

‘“Oh, this one’s an old friend,” I said, to reassure her, “she’s a member of the family, you know. The children feed her cornflakes every morning . . .”

‘It was true, but I could tell she didn’t believe me . . .

‘They left at the end of the afternoon and I prayed to the heavens that the bridge wouldn’t collapse under their car. I had forgotten to warn them to park on the other side . . .’

Charles was smiling. He had a front row seat, and the play was truly excellent.

‘I didn’t get the consent. I can’t recall all their blah blah exactly, but roughly it was something to the effect that the electricity wasn’t up to standard. Right, at the time I was annoyed as hell, and then I forgot about it. Was it kids I wanted? Well, all I had to do was look out the window! There were kids everywhere.’

‘That’s what Alexis’s wife said,’ retorted Charles.

‘What?’

‘That you were like the Pied Piper of Hamelin . . . That you lured all the children out of the village . . .’

‘To drown them, is that it?’ she asked, annoyed.

Charles didn’t know what to say.

‘Pff . . . She’s a bloody cow, as well . . . How does he manage, your friend, to live with her?

‘I told you, he’s not my friend any more.’

‘That’s your story then, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he the reason you came down here?’

‘No . . . I came for myself.’

Kate said nothing.

‘My turn will come, I promise. So tell me about Yacine and Nedra, then.’

‘Why are you so interested in all this?’

What could he reply?

To look at you for as long as possible. Because you are the luminous side of the woman who brought me to you. Because, in her way, she would have become what you are, had she been less mutilated by her childhood.

‘Because I’m an architect,’ he replied.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘I like to understand what keeps things standing.’

‘Oh really? And what does that make us, then? A zoo? Some kind of boarding house or . . . a hippy camp?’

‘No. You are . . . I don’t know quite how to put it, yet . . . I’m looking. I’ll tell you. Go on. I’m waiting for Yacine.’

Kate rubbed her neck. She was tired.

‘A few weeks later, I got a phone call from the nice one, the one who liked my standards . . . She told me again how sorry she was, and began to rail against the administration and its stupid rules and . . . I interrupted her. No problem. I’d got over it.

‘And, by the way. She had a little boy who really needed a holiday. He was living with one of his aunts but things weren’t going well at all. Could we, perhaps, do without the blessing of the Board? It would just be for a few days. To give him a chance to see something different. She wouldn’t have dared “fiddle” like this if it had been someone else, but this little boy, well, I’d see, he was really something else . . . And she added with a laugh, “I think he deserves to come and see your mice!”

‘It was for the Easter holidays, I think . . . One morning, she “smuggled” him over here, so to speak, and . . . You can see what he’s like . . . We adored him from the start.

‘He was irresistible, asking loads of questions, was interested in everything, was constantly helping out, developed a passion for Hideous, would get up very early in the morning to help René in the garden, knew what my name meant and told all sorts of epic stories to my little bumpkins who’d never been out of their village.

‘When she came to fetch him at the end of the holidays, it was . . . awful.

‘He was sobbing, tears running down his face . . . I remember I took him by the hand and we went down to the end of the garden. I said, “A few weeks from now it’ll be the summer holidays, and then you’ll be able to come for two months.” But, he hiccupped, he wanted to stay for-for-foreh-eh-ver. I promised him that I’d write often, so there, yes, if I could prove to him that I wouldn’t forget him, all right. He’d agree to get back into Nathalie’s car . . .

‘In the time it took for him to give a big cuddle to his favourite dog, well, Nathalie, a civil servant who served straight from the heart, confessed to me that the boy’s father had beaten his mother to death before his eyes.

‘I came down with a bump. That would teach me to play the fine charitable society lady, wouldn’t it . . . I wanted to open a holiday camp, not find myself with a whole slew of problems staring me in the face all over again . . .

‘Anyway. It was already too late. Yacine was gone, but not the images. Not the obsession with a man destroying his children’s mother in a corner of the living room . . . I thought I’d got tough . . . but I guess not. Life always has plenty more nasty surprises up its sleeve . . .

‘So, I wrote to Yacine. We all wrote to him. I took lots of pictures of the dogs, the hens, René, and I’d include one or two with each letter. And he came back, at the end of June.

‘Summer went by. My parents came for a visit. He soon had my mother wound round his little finger, and he’d repeat after her all the Latin names of all the flowers, then he’d ask my father to translate them all for him. My father would be there reading below the tall locust tree, and he’d be declaiming, “
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
,” teaching Yacine to sing the name of the lovely Amaryllis.