Talking to Ghosts (24 page)

“What if it suddenly went hard? I mean you never know. You could be stuck there with a car heading straight for you.”

“Then you get out of your shoes, dumb-ass,” Victor said.

The kid slowed his pace, glanced over at Victor, pulling a face beneath the huge peak of his baseball cap, then bowed his head, staring at his shoes, perhaps, or at the road.

“Yeah, but then you'd be in your bare fuckin' feet on the hot tarmac. Think about it, you'd end up with blisters on your soles! Fifth-degree burns!”

Victor put a hand on the kid's shoulder to shut him up. They were no more than thirty metres from the house now. Here and there pyracanthas spilled out through gaps in the broken railings and this botanic barbed wire represented a barrier more impenetrable than a wire fence – even an electrified one. As they stepped towards it, a blackbird flew out of the tangle of thorns with a raucous cry, making them both jump. They stopped in front of the gate, a crude metal frame, set with bars, some of which were warped as though someone – or some animal – had tried to escape without bothering to jump the gate. A few smudges of black paint were still visible on the rusted ironwork.

They never heard the dogs approach. From Victor's scream it sounded as though one of the beasts had its jaws around his throat, and Julien started violently and found himself sitting on the road. A pair of Rottweilers had leapt at the railings, pushing their jaws between
the bars. The two boys had felt warm breath and wet drool on their faces. They had seen the fangs up close, seen the jaws snap right under their noses. The gate shook from the dogs' assault.

“Fucking dogs!” Julien screamed.

Victor watched the dogs leap and howl, their dead eyes rolling back in their heads. He had brought his hand to his heart to calm the terror in his chest, the hammering fit to break his ribs; he tried to catch a little breath, just enough to give him the strength to get away from here.

“C'mon, let's get out of here!” he managed to say. Julien had moved closer to the railings and Victor tried to drag the kid away.

“Hey, don't panic. I know this kind of dog. Papa used to have one. They're fine with me most times.”

“Well, this isn't most times, Jesus, you can see for yourself they're fucking savage! They'll eat us alive! Now, come on!”

Victor screamed when he saw Julien place his hand flat against the gate. Rearing up on his hind leg the larger dog, the male, was taller than Julien; it sniffed loudly at the little fingers, forcing its snout between the bars. The other dog, a bitch, stood back, barking frantically, teeth bared, muscles trembling, moving beneath her sleek coat like fists. The kid whispered gently to the dog, calling him “Pépère”, his nose only inches from the gaping maw.

“Let's get out of here,” Victor said again. “Shit, that thing'll rip your face off!”

But the dog had stopped growling. It was now licking at Julien, whose hand was stroking its head, scratching between its ears, disappearing into its huge mouth. With his other hand, Julien lifted the latch on the gate and pushed gently.

“Come on,” he said without looking around. “It's all cool. Follow me.”

They walked across an area of gravel that crunched under their feet. Tufts of grass had tried to force their way between the pebbles, but the drought – or a dose of weedkiller – had completely shrivelled them. The bitch lumbered over to a sort of tumbledown lean-to, moving slowly at first as though exhausted; she thrust her snout into a bowl and lapped greedily, then trotted back, describing a semicircle, her
nose pressed to the ground, her eyes fixed on Victor. The boy froze, arms pressed against his body so as not to agitate the animal as it growled and sniffed, first at his ankles, then at the bag.

“She can smell the snake,” Victor said.

Julien turned, one skinny arm wrapped around the neck of the other dog as it strained to lick his face.

“Don't worry about her. She's scared. Don't say anything, just ignore her.”

He whistled. The bitch looked up at him and yapped, jumping up and raising a small cloud of dust.

“Fucking hell, how d'you do it?” Victor said.

“Are you using some kind of magic words or what? It's like they know you.”

The kid nodded proudly then launched into a little routine to demonstrate his control over the dogs. The male followed him meekly, walking to heel, but the bitch simply ran in circles around them giving little barks, sniffing at Victor, stretching her neck towards him, eyes fixed on his.

Julien walked around to the back of the house. They passed two cars so patched and mended with salvaged parts it was impossible to determine their original colour. They were old large Peugeots with rusting chrome bumpers and windows grimed with dust. Victor glanced inside the first wreck and, where the back seat had once been, he noticed a filthy pile of empty cans and bottles, dirty rags and plastic containers on top of which lay a chainsaw. He looked away because the mess disgusted him and, though he did not understand why, it frightened him a little. He decided not to look inside the other wreck, vaguely thinking that he might just as easily have seen a nest of rats or maggots devouring a corpse. His mind filled with grisly images, he hurried to catch up with Julien, who was already rounding the corner of the house, bouncing along like a puppet on his spindly legs and his huge trainers, followed by the huge dog.

Behind the house – the one part of the grounds where a little order seemed to reign – a well-tended vegetable garden, protected from the dogs by posts and wire fencing, ran along the right-hand wall to the
end of the lot with rows of tomato plants, lettuces and other vegetables that Victor did not recognise. The rest of the garden was an overgrown area of grass overlooked by three peach trees laden with fruit, and a cherry tree. Beyond the back fence, stretching away interminably, were the vineyards, their dark green leaves shimmering in the sun. Victor wanted to steal some peaches, but Julien was already inside the house and holding the door open for him.

They stepped into a narrow hall, the dark blue wallpaper was patterned with big pink flowers and the damp had left brownish stains and streaks that ran down from the ceiling. The place smelled of mould, stale tobacco and perhaps urine. A khaki oilskin coat hung from a lopsided coat stand, and a pair of rubber boots crusted with dried mud stood on the floor. Julien, who had been peering into each room in turn, now pushed the door opposite, drawing his head back at the terrible screech of hinges as it swung open to reveal a dark corridor at the far end of which was a glass-panelled door leading into a room bathed in sunlight.

“Down there, that's the kitchen,” Julien said in a whisper.

“That's his bedroom, it's got his bed in it.”

“What about that one?” Victor pointed to the door on their left. The kid opened it.

“The living room? Let's take a look.”

The room was dark, Victor fumbled for the light switch and found it under a painting depicting a hunting dog with a pheasant in its mouth. Three of the five bulbs flickered on in a fitting shaped like a cartwheel. The room smelled of wood and dust. The board cracked under their feet as they walked slowly across the creaky floor, gazing around them with the astonished air of explorers in a pharaoh's tomb at the furniture covered in curios and framed photographs, the geometric orange and black wallpaper hung with gilt-framed paintings bought from supermarkets and furniture shops. They were rural landscapes, meadows ringed by tall trees in which cattle grazed, country scenes from a far-off time: cows down by the river, a couple of shepherds with their sheep.

Victor studied the paintings in this pitiful gallery. He did not know what to think of them, but the luxuriant vegetation reminded him of scenes he had seen in cartoons, only uglier. They exuded a curious sadness he found somehow fascinating. Eventually his contemplation was disturbed when he felt the snake jerk inside the bag and he continued quickly on his way.

Everything was grey with dust. He blew on the table raising a cloud that prickled his throat. With a fingertip, he traced the word
FUCKER
on a dark wood tray whose varnish made the word shimmer.

Julien wandered over to a bell jar enclosing a figurine of a flamenco dancer playing castanets. A souvenir of Toledo. Next to it, in a large frame, a bride and groom smiled out of a photograph. Julien studied it in the light from the chandelier and laughed.

“That's him there with his slut of a wife.”

Victor came over. He looked at the photograph, then threw the frame against the wall where it shattered in a crash of breaking glass.

“What d'you do that for?”

Victor turned away without answering. He stood in front of a sideboard on which stood a stopped carriage clock garlanded with tarnished gilt. Around it was a crowd, a sort of tribe, peering out of photographs in black-and-white or in washed-out colours, most of them in dusty frames. He could see mouse droppings on the frayed doilies.

“It's disgusting,” he said, and, with the back of his hand, swept the whole mess onto the floor in a deafening crash.

Julien shouted something at him, alarmed, but Victor did not hear because of the racket made by the carriage clock as it shattered on the floor. Cogs and springs bounced and rolled. A clear, shrill note pierced the sudden silence as the two boys hesitated.

“You're mad!” Julien whispered, “What the fuck did you do?”

Victor walked over to an armchair, unzipped his pants and started pissing on it. He shook himself off then spat on the back of the chair.

“You do it too,” he said.

“Shame I don't need to take a shit.” Julien went over to the window and pissed on the curtains.

“Fuck, this is so cool!” he said.

Victor was already opening the door of the sideboard and peering in at the crockery. Bone-china plates, soup tureens and sauce boats, serving dishes decorated with floral patterns: a whole dinner service, probably given to the couple as a wedding present. He rummaged about brutally.

“Shit, that's enough,” Julien said.

“He'll come back.”

Victor shrugged and kicked the sideboard closed.

“Stop it!”

He waved the sack he had been carrying all this time.

“Where should we put it?” Julien said, his eyes wide.

Victor opened the kitchen door. The smell of rancid oil mingled with the stench of piss made his stomach heave. He knocked over two bottles next to the fridge and the sudden crash made his heart skip a beat. Boxes and crates covered the work surfaces and were piled up on top of the cupboards. The gas cooker was covered with a brown film and there were brown spatters on the hood. In the sink, plates and cutlery were soaking in murky greasy water. Everything was caked in grime. The floor was stained with a slick film that sometimes squeaked underfoot: probably a mixture of oil and dirt.

“Jesus, this place is scuzzy,” Julien said.

“Can you imagine what it was like for Rebecca?”

Pinned to the wall were yellowed press clippings, one of which was a large photograph of a bunch of grape pickers, wooden baskets strapped to their backs, posing in front of horse-drawn carts piled high with fruit. Victor read that a warm welcome had greeted the owner, an important, indeed a legendary figure in the Médoc, who had come to implore the pickers to take great care with the precious harvest which would once again be transformed, through the magic of winemaking, into an illustrious vintage that would be served at the most prestigious tables the world over. The boy peered at the image and saw, amid the fly specks, men with moustaches and women in scarves doing their best to smile while, in the middle of the crowd, a man in a large hat and polished boots posed with one hand on his hip and the other holding a pipe to his lips. The boy was surprised to discover the man's name
was double-barrelled and clearly aristocratic, then remembered that the French Revolution, for all its good intentions, had not managed to chop off all their heads.

“Over here,” Julien said from behind him.

He had just opened a drawer in the table. Cutlery, a napkin in a napkin ring. The oilcloth was worn here and there where the old man rested his elbows.

“This is where he sits when he's eating, look,” said Victor.

“Well tonight when he goes to get his fork the viper will bite his hand. And apparently when you're bitten on the hand the poison goes straight to your heart.”

He opened the drawer wider and started untying the string around the bag.

“What if someone finds out it was us?” Julien said.

Victor stopped what he was doing and looked at the kid, trying to think of an answer.

“It was the snake. They'll find him, see he's been bitten by a snake and that's that. The bastard could have been bitten out in the garden, couldn't he? Besides, the snake will slither away, no-one's ever going to find it.”

The kid looked at him, chewing his nails.

“But what if someone saw us?”

“Fuck's sake, shut it! This was your idea, so stop whining! We'll tell them the whole story about Rebecca and that'll be that. Justice is done. Anyway, at school they told us that if you're a minor you get like half the sentence. What have we got to lose? Nothing.”

Julien was still staring into the drawer. “Shit, we should have caught two. With one, we can't be sure he'll croak.”

“We haven't got time now. He'll be back soon. Come on, let's do it. Shut the drawer as soon as the snake's in there.”

He shook the bag and they immediately heard the viper wriggling among the knives and forks as Julien slammed the drawer shut.

They stood for a moment by the table, staring at their trap. Victor put a hand on Julien's shoulder and the kid nodded imperceptibly, struggling with some private conflict or perhaps nodding at his own determination.

They were still standing transfixed by the drawer when the dogs began to bark. The boys heard them run to the railings, heard the iron gate clang, shaken by the strangled rage of barks and cries. Victor went to look out of the window but could see nothing but the thorny hedge hiding the road and the bounding dogs.