The Islanders (5 page)

Olivier had not phoned Odile, or the lawyer, still less Emmaus. He had forgotten. He had decided to forget everything, and the rest. It gave him a pleasure akin to that of a child skipping school. Ever since his treatment two years ago, he had got into the habit of writing a list of everything he had to do the next day, and derived a slavish satisfaction from seeing it through to the end. This now seemed like the stupidest thing imaginable. He had failed to complete a single one of today’s tasks and would put his mind to keeping up the same record tomorrow. Rid of the burden of his chores, he felt lighter, freer. Tomorrow was the perfect cupboard in which to shelve what had not been done today. The medals awarded to good little recovered alcoholics seemed to him to be made of the same chocolate as the ones they gave to the war wounded, whichever war it was this time. To hell with them, to hell with the lot of them. He no longer had any wish to be prim and proper, to set a good example, to be praised for his hard work. He had done enough hard work. Now he just wanted to enjoy life, to take advantage of things that normally passed him by. The jack-in-the-box had sprung out, the genie had emerged from its bottle. Of course there would be a price to pay; what did it matter? What was the point of scrimping and saving? So what if his mother had died in the bed he was now stretched out on? Dead people were toothless; there was nothing she could do to stop him. She was cold, frozen stiff like a breaded fish fillet. He, on the other hand, was burning with fever, like Jeanne across the hall. He had been building up to this moment for years. No one could take it away from him. It had been a long,
painful slog, but he had walked that road, searched for the Holy Grail and he had found her again; they still loved one another, it was still the same …

Olivier hauled himself up by holding on to the side of the bed. He weighed a ton! Emotion, that was it, all the emotion. He had one last drop of Negrita, just a drop. The Negress on the label gave him a wink.

‘None of that, love, I’m spoken for!’

He put his hand over his mouth and exhaled. The problem with rum was that it stank something awful.

He would go out and buy a bottle of champagne and tell them in the shop he had just had a rum toddy for a cold. It would hardly be surprising, in this weather. Actually, you know what, fuck it, he had nothing to apologise for, he wouldn’t say anything to anyone. His key, where had he put his key? The flat was all lopsided, it was impossible to tell the floor from the ceiling. It was dark everywhere, narrow, gut-red … his key, damn it!

He knocked over a frame, which fell and broke. It was a picture of himself with his hair brushed to one side and his arms crossed, a school photo. He slid down the wall, ignoring the blood on his finger.

‘What are you looking at me like that for, huh? She’s back;
Mathilde est revenue!
’

He seemed to hear the kid in the photo reply, ‘You poor old thing, you poor old thing …’

He dropped the picture and reached the bathroom just in time to vomit all that was left of himself.

Jeanne was peeling potatoes and tucking them into a tin around a pallid chicken dotted with curls of butter. Rodolphe was sitting on the other side of the kitchen table, his eyes directed towards the ceiling. He was rolling pea-sized balls of soft bread between his fingers and lining them up on the oilcloth. The scene looked every inch the domestic idyll, a cosy snapshot of everyday life.

‘What do you make of Roland?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve only just met him. Shy?’

‘Yes, he is. He’s young and hasn’t had much luck in life. It’s terrible being unlucky. There’s no way of treating it, it’s incurable; people avoid you like the plague. Take me, for example, even without my eyes, I’m better off than him. I’ve got a roof over my head, I can eat what I want when I want, and above all I have a sister to look out for me. He, on the other hand, has nothing, nothing but his unlucky self. Imagine that for company!’

‘He had a stroke of luck today, meeting you.’

‘That wasn’t luck. He’s part of a carefully crafted plan.’

‘Planned by you?’

‘Oh, no! I’m just a humble cog in the magnificent machine.’

‘Well, for the time being, he’s got a warm bed for the night and a roast chicken dinner.’

Jeanne stood up, wiped her hands on her apron and pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. She looked like a person with a song in her head, a little tune with a calming effect. As she opened the oven door to slide in the tin, a puff of hot air engulfed the small kitchen. Rodolphe jumped.

‘The breath of hell! So you don’t believe a word of it?’

‘A word of what? Hell?’

‘No! The plan, the cogs, all the jigsaw pieces slotting into place. You think it’s all perfectly normal, this reunion with Olivier?’

Even though Rodolphe could not see the blood rising in her face, Jeanne turned away and ran her hands under the tap.

‘Aren’t you going to answer me?’

‘What do you want me to say? It’s chance, it’s life, it’s really not that unusual. A friend’s brother who—’

‘What kind of idiot do you take me for? Do you think I don’t know your little story?’

Jeanne turned off the tap and gripped the edge of the sink.

‘Jeanne Mangin and Olivier Verdier, aged fifteen and sixteen respectively, suspected of the kidnap and murder of two-year-old Luc Flamand, for whom Jeanne babysat. Hastily drawn-up ransom note, five days of anguish for the parents ending in the discovery of the little body in Fausses-Reposes forest. Of course, it was never proven, and it was a poor unfortunate tramp who got the blame because the Mangins had friends in the right places and something had to be done to put an end to the whole business …’

‘Shut up!’

Using the flat of his hand, Rodolphe swept the dozen little bread balls off the table, sending them scattering and bouncing on the chequered tile floor. It was no longer a little ditty going round in Jeanne’s head, but the blades of a helicopter whipping up the black clouds of an impending storm.

‘I don’t give a fuck whether you killed the kid or not, whether the tramp was innocent or not, what sticks in my mind is “Jeanne and Olivier”, like “Romeo and Juliet” or “Héloïse and Abélard”. Your little love affair was all anyone talked about, cooing over “the little married couple”! Since nursery school! The whole world revolved around you. They put you on a pedestal, so well-behaved,
so polite, so perfect, so revoltingly self-obsessed. As for me, I had no eyes, I held out my hand to you and when you didn’t take it, I strained my ears instead, and I heard everything!’

Jeanne had let go of the sink and sat back down at the table. Her legs no longer held her. She placed her hands flat against the oilcloth and closed her eyes. The black space inside her head was being bombarded with phosphorescent images from long ago: a pram, a cabin in the woods, a postcard of an island covered in palm trees, letters cut out of a newspaper, a pillow so soft and malleable you would never believe it capable of killing …

‘He’s back, Jeanne, he’s back!’

‘It was an accident. Just an accident. We wanted to leave …’

Rodolphe didn’t recognise his sister’s voice. It quivered like the voice of an old lady or a little girl.

‘I said, I don’t care! You could have killed half the human race and I still wouldn’t give a shit. Just tell me you don’t feel anything for him, that it’s all over, finished!’

Little by little, something inside her was righting itself, like those Chinese paper flowers which blossom on contact with water, the first tears shed in so long. Her heart was opening up. At the same time, she was becoming aware of the danger her brother’s distress represented. Rodolphe was not the kind of kid you could smother with a pillow. She took three deep breaths.

The scent of roast chicken was beginning to fill the air, a reassuring smell.

‘Of course it’s over. I’m sorry … Do you remember that line of Lacenaire in
Les Enfants du Paradis
? “The past that leaps at your face like a rabid cat.” He’s leaving anyway, in three or four days, after his mother’s funeral. He’s married, he lives on the Côte d’Azur. It’s all so far behind us!’

Rodolphe didn’t reply. He had gone back to fashioning little balls of bread, keeping an ear on his sister as she opened
the fridge, took out a lettuce and began separating the leaves, sniffling as she went.

Liar, filthy fucking liar …

Hangovers always had the lingering aftertaste of a funfair: lurid wooden horses dancing a merry-go-round inside the head, a sugar-coated palate and tongue, a whiff of stale fat in the nostrils and fluorescent confetti floating before the eyes. Lying tangled in bed sheets steeped in the sour tang of sweat, Olivier felt as if he had been plaited into a rope of marshmallow. He could not even find the strength to hang up, leaving the receiver dangling on the cord and emitting a monotonous beep.

Odile had found the number on the Minitel. She had been trying to get through until one o’clock the night before. Where had he been? Why had he not called? Why had he started drinking again? Why? Why? Each ‘why’ resounded in his head like the blow of a sledgehammer.

‘I dunno, I dunno,’ was all he managed to say in reply. Eventually he mustered the energy to start explaining about the transport problems brought on by the bad weather, but she already knew about them.

‘I know, darling, I heard it on the news. It’s unbelievable in this day and age. Maybe that’s why you … you let yourself go. And besides I’m sure your mother’s death has hit you more than you care to admit. Even if you weren’t on the best of terms, she was still your mum. All the memories must be coming back … I understand, my love, but you need to look after yourself. You need to be strong …’

He let her build up a list of excuses he could never have come up with by himself and then she rang off, promising to call again that evening and sending love and strength at this difficult time.

It was still dark outside. The chrome lamp in the shape of a giant sprig of lily of the valley lit only one corner of the bedside table and a patch of the rug, which was decorated with swarms of red and green arabesques. Olivier closed his eyes again. For a moment he pictured Odile, immaculately coiffed and made up, emerging from Résidence des Mimosas at the wheel of her black Polo, jumping the stop sign she considered unnecessary before weaving her way through the traffic to reach the shop, where Mireille would be pacing up and down. In a lull between permed customers, Odile would tell her everything.

How far away she seemed – and not just geographically.

All he had retained of the previous day’s events was a collection of jumbled, fragmented images in no particular order: Rodolphe circling the table with the camcorder clamped to his dead eye like a monstrous prosthesis, indiscriminately filming the dinner, the ceiling, faces, a spoon falling off the table; Roland perching stiffly on the edge of his seat, constantly offering to wash up before the meal was even over; Jeanne, ghostly pale, chain-smoking cigarettes; and himself chain-drinking without even checking what was in the glass – champagne, wine, brandy, more wine. The room was immersed in gloom like a murky fish tank, with a shiny glint of cutlery or crystal here and there. It was bizarre, extraordinary, and yet Olivier felt as if he was attending a family reunion,
his own
family reunion. Rodolphe had even called him ‘my brother-in-law’ several times, until his sister told him to pack it in.

‘What? We all know how it is with friends’ brothers …! Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it? Done and dusted, wiped clean, swept under the carpet …’

It was always hard to tell what Rodolphe was playing at. There were two sides to him: refined one minute and coarse the next. Light and shadow alternated on his moon-shaped face.

To tell the truth, Olivier didn’t care what Rodolphe was up
to. The alcohol had numbed him; he was untouchable. Rodolphe was just a bit-part in this scene, like Roland, who was rushing to clear the table. Olivier only had eyes for Jeanne. He discovered her anew with every little gesture: the way she pushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead or rubbed her nose before snapping at her brother, how she rested her chin in the palm of her hand and glanced at him sidelong. Their gazes would meet in a kind of electric arc, a bridge leading from one to the other. At that moment, everything around them became a blur, all of life’s sounds, words and cries dissolved to nothing and the island, their island, emerged once more. Their lashes stopped blinking, their pupils dilated, they feasted on the sight of one another until tears filled their eyes. Several times at nursery school the teacher had panicked and been forced to shake them out of their growing state of catalepsy. ‘Stop that at once! Look at them, their eyes are all red!’

From that age, long before they were able to put it into words, they had sworn to one another they would never leave the island.

Olivier didn’t react until the third ring. He had heard the bell the first two times, but failed to connect it with himself. He almost broke his neck taking his first step out of bed. His foot had landed on an empty bottle of Negrita which was now rolling across the parquet floor, alternately revealing and concealing the dazzling grin of the West Indian woman in her headscarf.

The bell rang again. It was as if it were directly wired to his nervous system.

‘Coming!’

The clothes he had slept in clung to his skin. Madeleine glared at him with her little porcelain eyes, bundled up to her weaselly nose in her frayed black astrakhan coat, her scarf wrapped three times around her vulturous neck, a shapeless brown woolly hat
on her head and spindly legs planted in red fur-lined boots that looked like flower pots.

‘Is this a bad time?’

‘Um … no. What did you …?’

She stepped back in disgust, catching a whiff of his foul breath.

‘Are you ill? You don’t look very well. Oh, don’t you worry, I know exactly how you feel, you poor thing. So anyway, I’ve come about the wreath.’

‘The what?’

‘The wreath, the flowers for your poor maman! Would you like me to take care of it? I’m going into town anyway and I thought to myself maybe you wouldn’t be up to …’

‘The wreath … Yes, of course, if you want to, Madeleine.’

‘Great, leave it to me. I’ve got very good taste, and I’m a dab hand at this sort of thing. If you only knew how many I’ve seen go before me! What do you want written on it?’

‘Written on what?’

‘On the wreath! “To my dear maman” … “To my mother”? You need to choose something. I’m going to put: “To my neighbour, sadly missed.” It’s simple, but it gets the message across. I’ll pick up a pot plant, even though nothing will survive in this weather. Well then?’

It was freezing out on the landing. Olivier rubbed his bare feet together and wrapped his arms around himself, hands tucked under his armpits.

‘Whatever you think, Madeleine. You know better than I do about these things.’

‘OK, well then, I’ll put: “To my mother, from her loving son”. That’s got quite a nice ring to it, hasn’t it?’

‘Very nice, yes. I’m sure you’ll do a great job, Madeleine. Goodbye, thank you.’

He was about to close the door, but the old woman edged closer.

‘It’s just … about paying for it …’

‘Oh, yes, sorry. I’ll sign a cheque and you can write in the amount.’

‘You can trust me. I’ll give you the receipt!’

The sound of Madeleine’s voice was like a fork scraping against a dish. He went back inside the flat to look for his jacket. He eventually found it scrunched up in a corner, and took out the cheque book. The old woman had not moved an inch. She was like a statue, the doormat her plinth.

‘Do you have a pen?’

‘No, I don’t, I’m afraid.’

‘Right, OK, well, how about you pay for it and I’ll pay you back later. Sorry, I’m coming down with a rotten cold; I think I might be ill already.’

‘OK then. Is there a maximum you want to spend?’

‘I don’t know, Madeleine, whatever you think. See you later, thank you.’

He slammed the door in her face and slumped back against it. He was dripping with sweat. It was streaming down his back, zigzagging across his forehead. His stomach was seized with a sudden need to vomit. He gulped back his saliva and took several deep breaths. ‘Calm down, no need to panic. You just overdid it a bit last night. You’ll get over it, everything’s fine.’ He incanted these magic words over and over and by the time he got back to sprawl on his bed, he felt much better.

The distorted reflection of his face in the back of a teaspoon. That was the only image he remembered from the end of the dinner party. Rodolphe had kept topping him up as if trying to drown him, which he succeeded in doing. Jeanne had disappeared, leaving the three men to ramble on around the wreckage of the meal. Roland was giggling for no apparent reason while
watching Rodolphe film the dregs on plates, in glasses and at the bottom of wine bottles. ‘The dregs of the dregs!’ as he called them. And then there was him, Olivier, leaning on the table gazing at his own reflection in the convex mirror of a teaspoon. Afterwards? Total blackout. He was now kicking himself. How could he have let himself get into that state when he had Jeanne right there in front of him and should have grabbed her by the hand and taken her away, somewhere far from this seedy, sleazy atmosphere. Alcohol. It was down to the alcohol and Rodolphe, who had immediately identified Olivier’s weak spot. He was disgusted with himself. He felt like banging his head against the wall. He had just been reunited with his one true love and the best he could offer her was the pitiful sight of a raving alcoholic. All things considered, maybe it was better this way. The past was history and they had their own lives to go back to. The emotion of seeing her again had gone to his head. So many years had passed, they were not the people they once were. Those versions of themselves were dead and buried.

Was Jeanne still Jeanne? Why should life, which spares no one, make an exception for her? The same thing happened every time he drank: he found himself spinning the tiniest incident into an epic novel. No doubt it was because his life was made up of a chain of banal events. The fact of the matter was the island had been submerged. He was now cut off from the beautiful story he preserved in a corner of his heart the way grandmothers keep their wedding tiaras in glass domes. Fate had intervened to take away his one pure place of refuge. He should never have come back to this shithole. Dirty, the whole place was dirty and old, even the daylight beginning to filter through the curtains. He had to do something to lift his mood, take a shower, for example. He threw off the covers, leapt out of bed and charged into the bathroom.

Roland was kneeling on the tiled floor with his feet turned in
and his head and arms dangling into the bathtub, from which an appalling stench of sick was rising.

‘Shit! What the fuck’s
he
doing here?’

Olivier covered his nose with one hand and shook Roland with the other. The moron wasn’t moving.

‘Roland! Shit, Roland, wake up!’

Still nothing. Olivier grabbed Roland under the arms and pulled him backwards. He screamed and dropped him when he saw his face.

Roland’s skin was tinged purple, an enormous black tongue lolled between his blue lips and his glassy eyes were bulging out of his head. Olivier’s tie was knotted tightly around his neck.

‘No, this isn’t happening … it can’t be.’

Olivier sprang out of the bathroom. He roamed the flat – for how long, he did not know – with his hands clamped over his mouth and his mind blazing, incapable of the slightest coherent thought. He was like a trapped bird flapping wildly around a room.

He flung the kitchen window open and received a blast of icy morning air. He closed his eyes and waited for his mind to settle. Even though he knew he had not been hallucinating, he went back to the bathroom to check, peering in from the doorway, too afraid to go in. Roland was still there, his nightmarish head wedged between the bidet and the base of the sink, arms and legs splayed swastika-like, just as Olivier had left him.

‘What happened? What the hell happened?’

No matter how hard he racked his brains, his memory stayed blank; he could not even remember how he had got home. Back when he was an alcoholic, he had often experienced blackouts, sometimes wiping out entire days. He had no idea where he had been or what he had done. People would tell him, ‘I saw you in such and such a place last night; you were wasted!’ and he would
go along with it without having a clue what they were referring to. It was quite frightening. He had always worried he might do something really stupid while he was out of it. And now … No, he couldn’t have! Besides, what reason could he have had for killing the poor sod? There was none, they had got on perfectly well … But alcohol has its own reasons, which reason doesn’t come into. What should he do, call the police? It was more than he could manage. Whom could he turn to? Odile?

He went back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, staring at the telephone. ‘Hello, Odile. Guess what? When I got out of bed this morning I found a guy lying dead in the bathroom with my tie around his neck. It might have been me who strangled him, I have no idea.’ It was impossible. They were no longer living on the same planet. Jeanne, then. It had to be Jeanne. He could hardly believe the way the past was boomeranging back to him: they would be partners in crime again. The rusty old machine was cranking back to life, squeaking inside his head like the wheel of little Luc’s pram. Not only had he let her down with his shocking behaviour the previous night, now he was contemplating dragging her into a sordid murder. He couldn’t do it to her. But he couldn’t just sit here either. He felt incapable of making the slightest decision. He needed advice, someone to tell him what to do or at least point him in the right direction.

He got dressed, shaking all over. It took forever to button up his shirt and even longer to find his keys, which he finally located in his jacket pocket. His hand hovered over the buzzer for a long time before he pressed it. It felt like sticking a finger into an electric socket. His heart sank when Rodolphe’s voice came back through the door asking, ‘Who is it?’

‘Um … Olivier.’

He heard a bolt being slid back and then the door opened.
Rodolphe was wearing a garnet-red Pyrenean-wool dressing gown and tartan carpet slippers. He seemed in buoyant mood.