Marguerite, page 18
‘I did,’ she said. The knock came again, and the door opened slowly: Jean-Christophe, poking his head around the door, his expression studiously benign.
‘Hi, Dad,’ he said.
Jérôme looked away, mouth clenched. Jean-Christophe came in, looked at Marguerite and down at the book in her hand. ‘Sorry to interrupt. I know you’re tired, but just thought I’d say a quick hi.’
‘Get out.’
Marguerite squirmed, looked down.
‘Dad, I hope you’re not put out that we went out today?’
Jérôme’s head snapped around. ‘I said get out,’ he said.
Jean-Christophe looked pained, but he left. Jérôme tutted when the door clicked shut. ‘You can’t play with people like that,’ he said, not quite to her. Then he looked at her. ‘Coming to visit me unannounced one day, off without saying a thing the next. Are they here on bloody holiday or what? Or just waiting for me to die?’
A fat fly flew in and his eyes darted to it, startled. Tiredness swept across his face then.
‘Well, go on. Keep reading.’
* * *
• • •
They were cooking pasta when she came back into the kitchen.
‘I hope you don’t mind, we opened a pack of this,’ said Marc, holding up an empty box of fusilli. It was boiling furiously on the hob.
‘Of course.’
‘We’re going to sit outside,’ said Thibault.
‘We do hope you’ll join us,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Are you allowed?’
Marguerite frowned. ‘Of course.’
‘Splendid. Glass of wine?’
‘Perhaps in a bit.’
‘Ah, perhaps in a bit. Very sensible.’ He poured one for himself. ‘So was he being as badly behaved with you as he’s been with us? Or are you exempt from his moods?’
She couldn’t see a way to respond. ‘He—’
‘You don’t have to answer that,’ said Marc.
Thibault was watching her. When she caught his eye, he smiled. Without warmth, she thought.
‘Well you’ve been doing a majestic job,’ said Jean-Christophe. He raised his glass. ‘To Marguerite, the saint, for looking after our dear old father with apparently inexhaustible patience.’
They raised their glasses, and she tried to smile. Thibault stood and took out an empty glass, filled it and passed it to her.
‘Go on, take it,’ he said. ‘You deserve it.’
When the pasta was done – overdone, she thought, looking at it – they piled it onto plates and took them outside, sitting on the grass to eat. Sunset had forged forward into dusk; the sky was violet, the grass a little wet. As they ate, the focus moved from her and they swapped stories about their lives in Paris and people they knew. The tension crumpled. Thibault sat cross-legged, like a yogi. Jean-Christophe and Marc lay on their sides, heads propped up on an elbow. She finished her food and waited for a polite amount of time, and then rose to take her plate inside.
‘You’re not going to bed, are you?’ asked Jean-Christophe, mock-expansively. ‘Stay, stay.’
‘Stay,’ echoed Thibault.
‘We’re only just getting to know you,’ said Jean-Christophe. They were playing. He pouted like a little child.
‘She can go if she wants,’ said Marc.
‘But she doesn’t want to go,’ said Thibault. ‘Does she? She wants to stay with us.’
He smiled, almost sweetly, and she sat back down.
‘There we go.’
‘We need light,’ said Marc.
‘We’ll get candles. Lanterns.’ They were drunk, but there was an air of joviality to their drunkness. She thought she didn’t mind staying a little longer.
They were lighting the lanterns, the darkness settling softly around them, when they heard an engine approach and slow, gravel prickling under tyres. They looked at each other; Marc and Jean-Christophe got up, chests a little puffed, walked around to look. They came back and sat down.
‘Some woman?’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Headscarf.’ He gestured around his face. They all looked at Marguerite. ‘A friend of yours?’
‘I didn’t – I’m not—’
Suki came around the corner from the drive then, braced to head into the kitchen but her attention was caught by the lights.
‘Oh!’ she said, holding one hand to her chest, walking towards them. ‘You gave me a fright!’ She approached and everyone stood. ‘You must be Lanvier’s sons, am I right?’ she asked. She looked majestic in loose green scarves, her lips dark in the sparse light. ‘I had no idea you were in town!’ She leant forward to kiss Marguerite on each cheek. ‘I was just coming to check up on you,’ she said. ‘See how you’re doing.’
But that’s a lie, Marguerite thought, and felt unnerved.
‘Hi Suki,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Suki,’ repeated Marc. ‘We’ve met, a long time ago.’
‘Yes,’ she said, narrowing her eyes as if trying to place them. ‘I know we’ve definitely come across each other at some point or another over the years . . .’ She looked to each of them, smiling brightly. ‘Please excuse my rudeness, but I can’t remember your names?’
‘JC. Jean-Christophe.’
‘I’m Marc, this is Thibault.’
‘Lovely to meet you properly,’ she said.
There was silence, then Marc spoke again. ‘Would you like to join us?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, looking down at the lanterns. ‘What a romantic set-up.’ They sat back down a little awkwardly, one by one, and she settled herself easily on a hip, legs tucked to one side. She reached in her little bag for her pack of cigarettes, offered it around.
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Thibault, reluctantly.
‘What?’ Playful, exaggerated surprise in her eyes and voice. ‘Four Parisians, and none of you smoke?’
She lit her own and then Thibault gave in, gesturing to her. There was silence for a moment as he lit it, took a deep drag. Jean-Christophe was watching Suki carefully.
‘Aren’t you married to Philippe . . . What’s his name again?’ asked Jean-Christophe then.
‘Lacourse,’ she said, and Marguerite caught a glimmer of embarrassment. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Not really.’ Jean-Christophe smirked a little. ‘I mean, everyone knows everyone.’
‘Very true,’ she said.
‘I mean I know who he is but we wouldn’t have overlapped at school or anything. No, it’s just I remember him marrying someone – a lot younger than him,’ he said. ‘Not meaning to be rude.’
‘Not at all.’ She blew out smoke, batted it with a hand.
‘Can I get you a glass?’ asked Marguerite, and Suki smiled and nodded.
‘Bring another bottle?’ called out Thibault as she walked back into the house. As if he knew her, as if they were all friends. She opened a new bottle, got an empty glass for Suki. She looked out of the window to see them, dark figures around little boxes of light. Why had Suki come? But she knew, of course. She didn’t judge her for it at all; she just couldn’t understand how she could lie in front of Marguerite like that – ‘I had no idea you were in town!’ – without being crippled with embarrassment. And Thibault, the way he acted like nothing had happened last night, to the extent that she had doubted momentarily that it had. Would he reach out for her body again? Would she let him? She didn’t want it, she thought. But still she hadn’t insisted on leaving them after dinner; she was staying.
When she got back to the group, Suki was holding forth. She made them laugh when she referred snidely to Brigitte; she filled them in on the most outlandish things that had happened in the village over the years, and Jean-Christophe was rapt. But after a while, Marguerite noticed Thibault start to become bored. He gazed to one side, long fingers fidgeting with the grass.
When Suki saw that, she stopped. ‘But you must stop me. I can keep talking for hours.’ She smiled at Marguerite, a lovely film-star smile. ‘Marguerite will back me up on that.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Thibault. He looked from one to the other. ‘So are you two friends?’
‘Yes,’ Suki said.
‘It’s nice you’ve found an ally in the village,’ said Jean-Christophe to Marguerite. ‘So you’re not completely alone.’
‘Oh, Marguerite’s very independent,’ said Suki. ‘I force my company on her, really.’
‘Well as long as she has some sort of human interaction,’ said Jean-Christophe, and Marc coughed. ‘I was starting to worry she might be a robot.’
‘Jean-Christophe,’ said Marc.
Thibault looked amused.
‘No offence, no offence,’ said Jean-Christophe, smiling. ‘I mean it in the best possible way. I just – I mean, you have to admire it. I don’t know how you do it. All the hours you must spend staring into space.’
‘She’s too busy looking after your father to stare into space,’ said Suki.
‘The women are ganging up on me,’ said Jean-Christophe to the others.
‘You like goading people,’ Suki said then, smiling. ‘Ruffling feathers. I get that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘At last, someone who understands me.’
Thibault and Marc rolled their eyes. ‘Don’t encourage him,’ said Marc, and they all laughed, though weakly. The conversation moved on, back into the men’s lives. Marguerite caught Suki’s eye a few times, smiled. Suki kept sipping from her glass, refilling it and everyone else’s. She smoked continually, reaching her pack out to Thibault, who took one every now and then. She listened to their jokes and stories with great attention, flicking from one face to the other as if watching a tennis game, laughing and smiling with them.
At some point they spoke about a man called Grégoire, and when Jean-Christophe referred to his teeth falling out, Suki joined in the laughter.
Thibault shot her a sharp look. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘What?’ she said, still smiling.
‘You don’t know Grégoire,’ he said.
But the others ignored it.
‘He’s aging at an accelerated rate because of his wife,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Belly, teeth, grey hair . . .’
Marguerite watched Suki’s face, how she kept it composed. She wanted to reach out and touch her hand.
She watched their volley of anecdotes: quick puns and wordplay, a bank of shared stories. They had a language and a repertoire all their own. Suki and Marguerite sat on the outside. She begged, in her mind, for Suki to get up to go, so she too could leave, head upstairs to the safety of her room. But Suki kept watching and listening, still smiling, though laughing less.
When there was a silence in the conversation, Suki leant in. ‘How is it to be back at Rossignol?’ she asked, and then, before they could answer: ‘And how is your father?’
It didn’t sound authentic, the knowing sympathy in her tone. Marguerite could see Thibault bristle.
‘Well, we haven’t seen much of him,’ said Jean-Christophe.
‘Oh?’
‘Marguerite doesn’t let us in. She’s like a sentinel at his door.’
Suki looked at Marguerite.
‘Cerberus,’ said Thibault, and Jean-Christophe laughed.
A quick, vague montage of myths flashed through her mind, things she’d learnt some time at school: harpies, rocks that came crashing together, deadly whirlpools. She couldn’t remember who or what Cerberus was.
‘I can think of kinder comparisons for Marguerite than a three-headed dog,’ Suki said. She cocked her head to one side, gazed at Marguerite. ‘Oh, for me, you’re one of the sirens.’
Three-headed dog, she thought. She remembered Thibault’s words the evening before: Lovely Marguerite. She set her glass aside. She didn’t want any more. She wanted to go.
‘I have a question,’ said Jean-Christophe, looking at Suki. He swirled a finger twice around his face. ‘What’s this about?’
There was momentary silence; Marc looked away, Thibault’s eyes darted from one face to another.
‘You mean this?’ asked Suki, smiling politely. She touched the emerald silk around her face. ‘It’s a hijab.’
Jean-Christophe looked irritated. ‘No, I mean I know what it is. I’m just interested – please, do tell me to back off if I’m being rude—’
‘No, it’s fine. You don’t approve of us wearing them?’
‘Oh, I don’t care about that. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s a symbol of oppression, but each to their own. I just, as you can tell, I say things as they are. I’m just interested.’
‘That’s fine, ask away,’ said Suki. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
‘I just, you know, you smoke, you drink – I’m interested, are you actually a Muslim?’
‘I think Suki is too polite to tell you that you are actually being quite rude,’ said Marc.
Jean-Christophe’s eyes widened, innocently. ‘Is that so?’ he asked.
‘It’s fine,’ she said.
‘Do you always wear it?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘But why? You’re clearly not – again, please correct me if I’m wrong or overstepping the mark – but, here you are, un-chaperoned by your husband, smoking, sharing salacious gossip, drinking alcohol, so why the hijab?’
‘It’s fashion,’ said Thibault. ‘You don’t have to be—’
‘It’s not fashion,’ said Suki, sharply, and there was total silence. ‘It’s my identity, my heritage. It’s . . .’
She struggled for the words.
Say something, Marguerite told herself; say something, say something. But she couldn’t find the words either.
‘Fair enough, fair enough,’ said Jean-Christophe, holding his hands up. ‘I was just interested.’
Marguerite wanted to reach over to Suki, suggest they go inside or say a kind word about the incredible earrings that swung, pendulous, when she moved her head. But Suki wouldn’t have liked that. She didn’t need Marguerite’s help.
‘Cigarette, Thibault?’
‘No thanks.’ There was silence.
‘You really can smoke, can’t you,’ said Jean-Christophe.
‘Yes, I can,’ she said. Her voice was hard. ‘I can’t believe that none of you does,’ she said, repeating herself. ‘I’m with four Parisians, and not a single one smokes!’
‘Our mum died of lung cancer,’ said Thibault. He stared at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and Marguerite spoke then, finally.
‘She didn’t know.’
Thibault looked from one to the other, a flicker of tongue on his lip.
‘I’m going to have to go to bed,’ she said. ‘I have an early start. Suki, will you be staying longer?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll head with you.’ She collected her cigarette butts together with her perfect fingers and nails. She emptied her glass onto the grass, shovelled the coiled butts into it. ‘Well, good to meet you all,’ she said and they raised hands.
‘Good to meet you,’ said Marc.
Marguerite and Suki walked back to the house together. ‘Are you okay?’ asked Marguerite.
‘Of course,’ said Suki, smiling bravely at Marguerite. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? Are you?’
‘Yes, fine,’ she said. Marguerite wanted to reach out through the unspoken words between them and tell her she thought they were all assholes, and that Suki should never even have bothered making an effort with them.
‘See you soon?’ she asked instead.
* * *
• • •
When she came out of the bathroom on the first floor, teeth cleaned and face washed, Thibault was standing there, leaning in the doorway to his room.
‘Are you going to bed?’ he asked. His lips were wine-blackened on the inside; it looked like dried blood.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Sure I can’t tempt you to stay up just a little longer?’ he asked, stepping forwards, his face softer than it had been all night. She reached her doorway and turned.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
Closing the bedroom door behind her, she thought she heard him laugh.
12
Marguerite left the house early. She’d get fresh croissants for Jérôme today. The ground was still wet when she set out, the light high and thin.
The village was different at this time: there was a bustle of industry. Bleary-eyed men in overalls leaning on the high tables in the boulangerie, drinking foul-smelling coffee in tiny plastic cups. Was there a factory near here, she wondered – where were these blue-smocked men all going on a Saturday morning?
There was a thin, stressed young woman in the queue in front of her, buying enough bread for a large household. Her daughter, perhaps three or four, looked up at Marguerite, a little coquettish. Practising her smile. Marguerite smiled back and the girl hid her face in her mother’s bottom, then turned back to take another peek. I don’t find you sweet, Marguerite imagined saying. Stop smiling at me. You have nothing on Cassandre.
On the way home, she stopped to sit by the side of the road. She had become used to seeing a flattened toad there, stretched like a large sticker on the broken tarmac. It had been there, in varying degrees of decomposition, ever since she started the job here; finally someone had removed it. She looked closer to see if there were any remnants of its body, but found nothing but slight discolouration.
She took the claw from a croissant, then ate the whole thing. Then she ate another. She only got to her feet when she heard a distant engine. When she heard it coming closer, she said aloud, ‘Oh, piss off.’
* * *
• • •
Henri was driving too fast. He only realised he was when he saw the nurse appear suddenly at the side of the road; he slowed and she turned, a bald look of irritation on her face. He lowered the window, came to a halt.
‘Hi, Dad,’ he said.
Jérôme looked away, mouth clenched. Jean-Christophe came in, looked at Marguerite and down at the book in her hand. ‘Sorry to interrupt. I know you’re tired, but just thought I’d say a quick hi.’
‘Get out.’
Marguerite squirmed, looked down.
‘Dad, I hope you’re not put out that we went out today?’
Jérôme’s head snapped around. ‘I said get out,’ he said.
Jean-Christophe looked pained, but he left. Jérôme tutted when the door clicked shut. ‘You can’t play with people like that,’ he said, not quite to her. Then he looked at her. ‘Coming to visit me unannounced one day, off without saying a thing the next. Are they here on bloody holiday or what? Or just waiting for me to die?’
A fat fly flew in and his eyes darted to it, startled. Tiredness swept across his face then.
‘Well, go on. Keep reading.’
* * *
• • •
They were cooking pasta when she came back into the kitchen.
‘I hope you don’t mind, we opened a pack of this,’ said Marc, holding up an empty box of fusilli. It was boiling furiously on the hob.
‘Of course.’
‘We’re going to sit outside,’ said Thibault.
‘We do hope you’ll join us,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Are you allowed?’
Marguerite frowned. ‘Of course.’
‘Splendid. Glass of wine?’
‘Perhaps in a bit.’
‘Ah, perhaps in a bit. Very sensible.’ He poured one for himself. ‘So was he being as badly behaved with you as he’s been with us? Or are you exempt from his moods?’
She couldn’t see a way to respond. ‘He—’
‘You don’t have to answer that,’ said Marc.
Thibault was watching her. When she caught his eye, he smiled. Without warmth, she thought.
‘Well you’ve been doing a majestic job,’ said Jean-Christophe. He raised his glass. ‘To Marguerite, the saint, for looking after our dear old father with apparently inexhaustible patience.’
They raised their glasses, and she tried to smile. Thibault stood and took out an empty glass, filled it and passed it to her.
‘Go on, take it,’ he said. ‘You deserve it.’
When the pasta was done – overdone, she thought, looking at it – they piled it onto plates and took them outside, sitting on the grass to eat. Sunset had forged forward into dusk; the sky was violet, the grass a little wet. As they ate, the focus moved from her and they swapped stories about their lives in Paris and people they knew. The tension crumpled. Thibault sat cross-legged, like a yogi. Jean-Christophe and Marc lay on their sides, heads propped up on an elbow. She finished her food and waited for a polite amount of time, and then rose to take her plate inside.
‘You’re not going to bed, are you?’ asked Jean-Christophe, mock-expansively. ‘Stay, stay.’
‘Stay,’ echoed Thibault.
‘We’re only just getting to know you,’ said Jean-Christophe. They were playing. He pouted like a little child.
‘She can go if she wants,’ said Marc.
‘But she doesn’t want to go,’ said Thibault. ‘Does she? She wants to stay with us.’
He smiled, almost sweetly, and she sat back down.
‘There we go.’
‘We need light,’ said Marc.
‘We’ll get candles. Lanterns.’ They were drunk, but there was an air of joviality to their drunkness. She thought she didn’t mind staying a little longer.
They were lighting the lanterns, the darkness settling softly around them, when they heard an engine approach and slow, gravel prickling under tyres. They looked at each other; Marc and Jean-Christophe got up, chests a little puffed, walked around to look. They came back and sat down.
‘Some woman?’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Headscarf.’ He gestured around his face. They all looked at Marguerite. ‘A friend of yours?’
‘I didn’t – I’m not—’
Suki came around the corner from the drive then, braced to head into the kitchen but her attention was caught by the lights.
‘Oh!’ she said, holding one hand to her chest, walking towards them. ‘You gave me a fright!’ She approached and everyone stood. ‘You must be Lanvier’s sons, am I right?’ she asked. She looked majestic in loose green scarves, her lips dark in the sparse light. ‘I had no idea you were in town!’ She leant forward to kiss Marguerite on each cheek. ‘I was just coming to check up on you,’ she said. ‘See how you’re doing.’
But that’s a lie, Marguerite thought, and felt unnerved.
‘Hi Suki,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Suki,’ repeated Marc. ‘We’ve met, a long time ago.’
‘Yes,’ she said, narrowing her eyes as if trying to place them. ‘I know we’ve definitely come across each other at some point or another over the years . . .’ She looked to each of them, smiling brightly. ‘Please excuse my rudeness, but I can’t remember your names?’
‘JC. Jean-Christophe.’
‘I’m Marc, this is Thibault.’
‘Lovely to meet you properly,’ she said.
There was silence, then Marc spoke again. ‘Would you like to join us?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, looking down at the lanterns. ‘What a romantic set-up.’ They sat back down a little awkwardly, one by one, and she settled herself easily on a hip, legs tucked to one side. She reached in her little bag for her pack of cigarettes, offered it around.
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Thibault, reluctantly.
‘What?’ Playful, exaggerated surprise in her eyes and voice. ‘Four Parisians, and none of you smoke?’
She lit her own and then Thibault gave in, gesturing to her. There was silence for a moment as he lit it, took a deep drag. Jean-Christophe was watching Suki carefully.
‘Aren’t you married to Philippe . . . What’s his name again?’ asked Jean-Christophe then.
‘Lacourse,’ she said, and Marguerite caught a glimmer of embarrassment. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Not really.’ Jean-Christophe smirked a little. ‘I mean, everyone knows everyone.’
‘Very true,’ she said.
‘I mean I know who he is but we wouldn’t have overlapped at school or anything. No, it’s just I remember him marrying someone – a lot younger than him,’ he said. ‘Not meaning to be rude.’
‘Not at all.’ She blew out smoke, batted it with a hand.
‘Can I get you a glass?’ asked Marguerite, and Suki smiled and nodded.
‘Bring another bottle?’ called out Thibault as she walked back into the house. As if he knew her, as if they were all friends. She opened a new bottle, got an empty glass for Suki. She looked out of the window to see them, dark figures around little boxes of light. Why had Suki come? But she knew, of course. She didn’t judge her for it at all; she just couldn’t understand how she could lie in front of Marguerite like that – ‘I had no idea you were in town!’ – without being crippled with embarrassment. And Thibault, the way he acted like nothing had happened last night, to the extent that she had doubted momentarily that it had. Would he reach out for her body again? Would she let him? She didn’t want it, she thought. But still she hadn’t insisted on leaving them after dinner; she was staying.
When she got back to the group, Suki was holding forth. She made them laugh when she referred snidely to Brigitte; she filled them in on the most outlandish things that had happened in the village over the years, and Jean-Christophe was rapt. But after a while, Marguerite noticed Thibault start to become bored. He gazed to one side, long fingers fidgeting with the grass.
When Suki saw that, she stopped. ‘But you must stop me. I can keep talking for hours.’ She smiled at Marguerite, a lovely film-star smile. ‘Marguerite will back me up on that.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Thibault. He looked from one to the other. ‘So are you two friends?’
‘Yes,’ Suki said.
‘It’s nice you’ve found an ally in the village,’ said Jean-Christophe to Marguerite. ‘So you’re not completely alone.’
‘Oh, Marguerite’s very independent,’ said Suki. ‘I force my company on her, really.’
‘Well as long as she has some sort of human interaction,’ said Jean-Christophe, and Marc coughed. ‘I was starting to worry she might be a robot.’
‘Jean-Christophe,’ said Marc.
Thibault looked amused.
‘No offence, no offence,’ said Jean-Christophe, smiling. ‘I mean it in the best possible way. I just – I mean, you have to admire it. I don’t know how you do it. All the hours you must spend staring into space.’
‘She’s too busy looking after your father to stare into space,’ said Suki.
‘The women are ganging up on me,’ said Jean-Christophe to the others.
‘You like goading people,’ Suki said then, smiling. ‘Ruffling feathers. I get that.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘At last, someone who understands me.’
Thibault and Marc rolled their eyes. ‘Don’t encourage him,’ said Marc, and they all laughed, though weakly. The conversation moved on, back into the men’s lives. Marguerite caught Suki’s eye a few times, smiled. Suki kept sipping from her glass, refilling it and everyone else’s. She smoked continually, reaching her pack out to Thibault, who took one every now and then. She listened to their jokes and stories with great attention, flicking from one face to the other as if watching a tennis game, laughing and smiling with them.
At some point they spoke about a man called Grégoire, and when Jean-Christophe referred to his teeth falling out, Suki joined in the laughter.
Thibault shot her a sharp look. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘What?’ she said, still smiling.
‘You don’t know Grégoire,’ he said.
But the others ignored it.
‘He’s aging at an accelerated rate because of his wife,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Belly, teeth, grey hair . . .’
Marguerite watched Suki’s face, how she kept it composed. She wanted to reach out and touch her hand.
She watched their volley of anecdotes: quick puns and wordplay, a bank of shared stories. They had a language and a repertoire all their own. Suki and Marguerite sat on the outside. She begged, in her mind, for Suki to get up to go, so she too could leave, head upstairs to the safety of her room. But Suki kept watching and listening, still smiling, though laughing less.
When there was a silence in the conversation, Suki leant in. ‘How is it to be back at Rossignol?’ she asked, and then, before they could answer: ‘And how is your father?’
It didn’t sound authentic, the knowing sympathy in her tone. Marguerite could see Thibault bristle.
‘Well, we haven’t seen much of him,’ said Jean-Christophe.
‘Oh?’
‘Marguerite doesn’t let us in. She’s like a sentinel at his door.’
Suki looked at Marguerite.
‘Cerberus,’ said Thibault, and Jean-Christophe laughed.
A quick, vague montage of myths flashed through her mind, things she’d learnt some time at school: harpies, rocks that came crashing together, deadly whirlpools. She couldn’t remember who or what Cerberus was.
‘I can think of kinder comparisons for Marguerite than a three-headed dog,’ Suki said. She cocked her head to one side, gazed at Marguerite. ‘Oh, for me, you’re one of the sirens.’
Three-headed dog, she thought. She remembered Thibault’s words the evening before: Lovely Marguerite. She set her glass aside. She didn’t want any more. She wanted to go.
‘I have a question,’ said Jean-Christophe, looking at Suki. He swirled a finger twice around his face. ‘What’s this about?’
There was momentary silence; Marc looked away, Thibault’s eyes darted from one face to another.
‘You mean this?’ asked Suki, smiling politely. She touched the emerald silk around her face. ‘It’s a hijab.’
Jean-Christophe looked irritated. ‘No, I mean I know what it is. I’m just interested – please, do tell me to back off if I’m being rude—’
‘No, it’s fine. You don’t approve of us wearing them?’
‘Oh, I don’t care about that. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s a symbol of oppression, but each to their own. I just, as you can tell, I say things as they are. I’m just interested.’
‘That’s fine, ask away,’ said Suki. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
‘I just, you know, you smoke, you drink – I’m interested, are you actually a Muslim?’
‘I think Suki is too polite to tell you that you are actually being quite rude,’ said Marc.
Jean-Christophe’s eyes widened, innocently. ‘Is that so?’ he asked.
‘It’s fine,’ she said.
‘Do you always wear it?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘But why? You’re clearly not – again, please correct me if I’m wrong or overstepping the mark – but, here you are, un-chaperoned by your husband, smoking, sharing salacious gossip, drinking alcohol, so why the hijab?’
‘It’s fashion,’ said Thibault. ‘You don’t have to be—’
‘It’s not fashion,’ said Suki, sharply, and there was total silence. ‘It’s my identity, my heritage. It’s . . .’
She struggled for the words.
Say something, Marguerite told herself; say something, say something. But she couldn’t find the words either.
‘Fair enough, fair enough,’ said Jean-Christophe, holding his hands up. ‘I was just interested.’
Marguerite wanted to reach over to Suki, suggest they go inside or say a kind word about the incredible earrings that swung, pendulous, when she moved her head. But Suki wouldn’t have liked that. She didn’t need Marguerite’s help.
‘Cigarette, Thibault?’
‘No thanks.’ There was silence.
‘You really can smoke, can’t you,’ said Jean-Christophe.
‘Yes, I can,’ she said. Her voice was hard. ‘I can’t believe that none of you does,’ she said, repeating herself. ‘I’m with four Parisians, and not a single one smokes!’
‘Our mum died of lung cancer,’ said Thibault. He stared at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and Marguerite spoke then, finally.
‘She didn’t know.’
Thibault looked from one to the other, a flicker of tongue on his lip.
‘I’m going to have to go to bed,’ she said. ‘I have an early start. Suki, will you be staying longer?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll head with you.’ She collected her cigarette butts together with her perfect fingers and nails. She emptied her glass onto the grass, shovelled the coiled butts into it. ‘Well, good to meet you all,’ she said and they raised hands.
‘Good to meet you,’ said Marc.
Marguerite and Suki walked back to the house together. ‘Are you okay?’ asked Marguerite.
‘Of course,’ said Suki, smiling bravely at Marguerite. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? Are you?’
‘Yes, fine,’ she said. Marguerite wanted to reach out through the unspoken words between them and tell her she thought they were all assholes, and that Suki should never even have bothered making an effort with them.
‘See you soon?’ she asked instead.
* * *
• • •
When she came out of the bathroom on the first floor, teeth cleaned and face washed, Thibault was standing there, leaning in the doorway to his room.
‘Are you going to bed?’ he asked. His lips were wine-blackened on the inside; it looked like dried blood.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Sure I can’t tempt you to stay up just a little longer?’ he asked, stepping forwards, his face softer than it had been all night. She reached her doorway and turned.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
Closing the bedroom door behind her, she thought she heard him laugh.
12
Marguerite left the house early. She’d get fresh croissants for Jérôme today. The ground was still wet when she set out, the light high and thin.
The village was different at this time: there was a bustle of industry. Bleary-eyed men in overalls leaning on the high tables in the boulangerie, drinking foul-smelling coffee in tiny plastic cups. Was there a factory near here, she wondered – where were these blue-smocked men all going on a Saturday morning?
There was a thin, stressed young woman in the queue in front of her, buying enough bread for a large household. Her daughter, perhaps three or four, looked up at Marguerite, a little coquettish. Practising her smile. Marguerite smiled back and the girl hid her face in her mother’s bottom, then turned back to take another peek. I don’t find you sweet, Marguerite imagined saying. Stop smiling at me. You have nothing on Cassandre.
On the way home, she stopped to sit by the side of the road. She had become used to seeing a flattened toad there, stretched like a large sticker on the broken tarmac. It had been there, in varying degrees of decomposition, ever since she started the job here; finally someone had removed it. She looked closer to see if there were any remnants of its body, but found nothing but slight discolouration.
She took the claw from a croissant, then ate the whole thing. Then she ate another. She only got to her feet when she heard a distant engine. When she heard it coming closer, she said aloud, ‘Oh, piss off.’
* * *
• • •
Henri was driving too fast. He only realised he was when he saw the nurse appear suddenly at the side of the road; he slowed and she turned, a bald look of irritation on her face. He lowered the window, came to a halt.
