Marguerite, page 19
‘Marguerite?’
‘Hello,’ she said. Her scowl dropped and she smiled politely, squinting a little into the gloom of the car.
‘This is your new machine,’ he said, and he thought she looked embarrassed. ‘Can I give you a lift the rest of the way?’
‘Oh,’ she said. She removed her backpack, opened the door, got in. ‘Thank you.’ She put the bag on her lap, fastened her seat belt. Slow and methodical. A stick of bread poked out of the top of her bag. She hadn’t even looked at the car.
‘The morning bread run?’ he asked, setting off again.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’ll be able to drive next time.’
‘Yes.’
They drove the rest of the way in silence; he noticed her hands fidgeting with the bread. Pulling off little flakes of crust. She only spoke again when they pulled up in the drive-way.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I just remembered. Will you be staying here for a little bit?’
‘Can do. I have to wait for Thierry to drive over and pick me up.’
‘Great. If you can, Jérôme said he’d like to see you.’
‘Okay,’ he said, though he didn’t want to. He thought of his own father’s sickbed. He had struggled to reconcile the stale, talc-sweet, inhuman smell with his always immaculate dad. The head he knew so well emerging from his diminished neck like a big lollipop.
‘I’ll need to check with him first,’ she said. ‘Check that it’s a good time.’
‘Of course. I’m happy to wait.’
‘Thank you for driving the car over,’ she said as they walked towards the house, but still she didn’t turn to look at it.
* * *
• • •
Jérôme had been excited at the news. He’d asked for a shave and a shirt, and she’d combed his hair carefully. When she’d brought Henri into the room Jérôme had barked out a jovial laugh.
‘Henri, old boy. Great to see you.’ They’d shaken hands, and Henri had taken the chair she offered him. ‘Bigger than ever, I see,’ said Jérôme, ‘or is it just that I’ve shrunk? Excellent to see you.’
She’d left them then, door ajar, and sat in the kitchen, listening out for signs of life from upstairs. She flicked through one of the papers she’d already read. Then she got up, walked out and around the corner of the house to the driveway to look at her little car. She liked it: small, dark green, tired-looking. She liked that Henri had given it to her, not Brigitte or one of the sons. She imagined getting into it now and driving away for miles and miles. Perhaps until she found the sea.
And then what, she thought. She heard the clanking of pipes from inside the house and headed back into the kitchen. She’d have to find somewhere in the house to spend the day where she wouldn’t have to speak to any of them.
* * *
• • •
Jean-Christophe was the first to emerge.
‘God, I do not feel pretty this morning,’ he said. His face was puffy. ‘Beer and red wine is not a good combo. Where’s the coffee?’
He poured the dregs from what she’d made for Jérôme and Henri.
‘Henri Brochon is here,’ she said. ‘He’s visiting your father.’
‘Is he now!’ Jean-Christophe shook his head as he sliced a baguette. ‘I didn’t know that had been arranged. Looks like Dad’s got all sorts of new friends.’
She didn’t say anything, didn’t want to explain that he’d come to bring her the car.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Good luck to him.’
When Henri came back into the room, bowing his head elegantly under the low doorframe, she thought again that she caught something shy in his expression.
‘Henri!’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘Good to see you again. Why haven’t you been over? Can you stick around a bit today?’
‘A little while, sure.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Your father asked to see whichever of you was up,’ he said, and Jean-Christophe gulped his bread.
‘Here we go.’
Henri smiled at her when Jean-Christophe had left.
‘Oh, here are your car keys.’ He took them from his pocket and held them out to her. ‘I almost forgot.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘It must be strange having the house so full.’
‘It’s okay, it’s fine. It’s not for long.’
He was leaning against the dresser, looking around the room. ‘I’ve eaten so many meals in this room,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘I used to spend most of my time here, when I was a young boy.’ He shook his head. ‘It used to drive my mother mad.’
‘So you were good friends with the Lanviers?’
‘Yes,’ he said quickly. He cleared his throat, pushed himself away from the dresser. ‘Could I make another coffee?’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘Thank you.’
Jean-Christophe came back into the room, didn’t speak. He had his BlackBerry in one hand, scrolling through it. The kettle clicked, and she let it rest as Suki had instructed her, measured out fresh coffee, left it for a moment. Then she realised that Jean-Christophe had stopped scrolling, and was staring at her.
‘It’s funny,’ he said. ‘My father’s just asked me to arrange a visit from his lawyer.’
She frowned, poured the water in. She forgot to do it from a height.
‘He wants, as he put it, to “review certain things in his will”.’
‘Who’s his lawyer?’ asked Henri. ‘A local?’
‘Yes, ish. A Monsieur Richoux.’ She started to plunge. Jean-Christophe was still watching her.
‘Did you know anything about this?’
She looked up. ‘No, of course not. I’m just his nurse.’
‘Hm,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t mentioned anything to you?’
‘No.’ She poured the coffee into Henri’s empty cup, passed it to him. ‘But I don’t see why he would.’
‘No, quite,’ said Jean-Christophe. ‘One wouldn’t think that his will should have anything to do with you.’
She looked at him, then. What are you saying? she thought. Just say it. She could feel that she’d become flushed.
‘I’m going to get on with the washing,’ she said, addressing Henri. She tried to slow her step, not to run from the room as she wanted to. She had a flash of a memory: staying at their uncle’s big house in Provence as a child; exploring the cold, spidery basement until she became spooked, then sprinting down the corridor and up the stairs until she emerged back into the light of the house, her breath ragged.
* * *
• • •
‘What do you think of the nurse?’ Henri asked.
‘Marguerite?’
Thibault looked over to the house, thought for a moment. They were sitting on the low wall surrounding the old pool area: Thibault’s suggestion that the two of them come outside, ‘catch up’. Henri could see the stump of the old oak tree he had had to lop down. ‘Oh, she’s a total nut job.’
‘What? Really?’
‘Yeah. Come on, she’s twenty-four, clearly very well-to-do, and she’s decided to leave Paris for this job? She barely speaks. She sees no one all day, every day, lives in the middle of fucking – forest and shrubs, in a decaying old house. Wiping my father’s arse. Though I must admit, she does seem to have worked some Svengali shit on dad. He loves her.’ He pulled a little piece of the wall away with his hand, crumbling it in his fingers. Like a little boy, Henri thought.
‘JC thinks she’s snivelling around for inheritance money, of course. Classic JC conspiracy theory. Though there may be some truth in it. If she’s not a masochist then she’s certainly the patron saint of patience. There’s got to be something in the situation for her.’
‘I think that’s a little unfair.’
‘Of course you’d think that,’ said Thibault, his voice bored, and he smiled to make up for it. ‘Always seeing the best in people, aren’t you, Henri?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’
‘My theory is that she’s running from something.’
And what about you? thought Henri.
‘What’s it like, coming back here?’ he asked instead.
Thibault stared into the distance for a moment. ‘Weird. Really depressing actually.’
Henri tried to suppress the feeling of hurt, the light punch to his stomach. ‘How so?’
‘Well, we’re getting older, aren’t we. Like it or not. I’ll be forty next year. And this place just reminds me of being young. Don’t get me wrong, I hate the place, it’s full of painful memories. I can see Mum everywhere, for one thing. But we were also right in the prime of everything, weren’t we?’
‘Yes. I know. I feel like that too when I come back here.’
‘But it wasn’t your house,’ said Thibault, eyes darting to him.
‘Yes, obviously I don’t feel the same as you.’ Henri frowned. ‘But I still associate a lot of my youth with Rossignol. We spent some amazing times here.’
Thibault relaxed, nodded. ‘We certainly did.’ He gestured at the pool with his chin. ‘You know JC lost his virginity in there?’
Henri laughed. ‘Yes! To that girl – she was actually quite hot.’
‘Camille Brun. She was extremely hot. I still can’t understand how he pulled that one off.’
‘I’m sure he still can’t understand it either.’ They laughed, shook their heads, and Henri remembered other things: the bursting pulse of his lungs as Marc dunked him, the sting of chlorine in the back of his nose as he gasped back up into the air, the run-up and jump into a neat somersault, whipping around quick enough to enter the water cleanly, feet first. Strong young bodies. Sunburn and tight, aching muscles.
‘And now look at the dump,’ said Thibault. They stared at what it had become, this big empty decaying coffin. Then suddenly Thibault jumped to his feet and for a wild moment Henri thought he was going to dive in. He jumped up to stop him, but Thibault ran to the side of the pool and then came running back waving something at Henri: a huge rope, like a snake, he thought, and then: yes, a snake, and involuntarily he yelled and held his hands in front of his face as Thibault flung it at him.
It was dead, though it thrashed as it landed on the floor by his feet, the impact lending its body a last tug of movement. Henri stepped back quickly, squeamishly away from it, and then he stood there and looked up at Thibault, whose head was thrown back in laughter, and he was flooded with fury. He kicked the snake into the pool, heard it splash as it hit the murky water that had collected at the bottom.
‘What the hell, Thibault?’
‘The look on your face!’ Thibault gasped, through gulps of laughter. ‘Ah, priceless!’ He leant over, hands on his knees, straightened up with a few stray chuckles. ‘Henri the big brave farmer.’
‘You’re a dick,’ said Henri, though he was starting to see the funny side. He breathed out, felt his heart calm in his chest. Then he laughed, stepping forwards to peer down into the pool. The brown, scuddy surface was rippling.
‘Thing is,’ said Thibault then, eyes darting over at him, sly. ‘You love a bit of snake in your face, don’t you.’
Henri felt his shoulders square, his jaw clench. The adrenaline came soaring back into his body.
‘What?’
They stared at each other. Thibault’s eyes were serious, locked into Henri’s. And then his face cracked into a smile.
‘Relax, buddy, I’m making a joke.’ He clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Chill. It’s just a joke.’ He stared into the pool. ‘There it is. Big motherfucker.’
Henri looked at Thibault’s sharp profile and thought that it was too sharp. And he realised with the sudden clarity that comes with adrenaline that he didn’t like the man standing next to him. A wave of exhaustion came over him then.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get going.’
‘Okay,’ said Thibault, in the same tone of voice in which he’d told Henri to ‘chill’. As if Henri were making a scene. They left the pool area and walked up the grass towards the house in silence.
‘Say goodbye to the others from me,’ said Henri. He would walk into Saint-Sulpice, call the farm for a lift from there. He couldn’t face going back into the house. ‘It’s a shame I didn’t catch Marc today.’ He didn’t want to look at Thibault’s face again, but he made himself look him in the eye.
‘That man could sleep for France,’ said Thibault.
‘Well. Good to see you.’
Thibault half smiled, raised one hand and called out his goodbye over his shoulder, already in the threshold of the kitchen. ‘Till the next time, buddy.’
* * *
• • •
Henri poured himself a whisky when Brigitte went to bed, even though he was exhausted. He felt emptied out. Sitting at the kitchen table, swivelling the whisky in the glass, he let himself picture Thibault’s face by the pool: the sharp lines of his profile. The too-short, too-sharp nose. The thin top lip. He tried to put the features back together in the way he used to see them – in a softer, fuller way – but he couldn’t manage it. He couldn’t see the face he’d seen before.
And he remembered a time when they’d been ten, eleven years old. It was the end of a long, hot summer; they’d spent almost every day together and most nights and they’d run out of humour. They were ready to go back to school, oppressed by the heat, the moronic whir of cicadas, the long, repetitive days. Thibault with closely cropped hair, still mousy. The soft, blonde fur on his face like the fuzz of a peach. He’d squatted next to Henri on the baking-hot tiles outside the house, sullen, setting large ants on fire using a magnifying glass. There was the smell of plastic burning as the Tupperware he’d collected them in melted too. Burning plastic and something else.
‘Stop it,’ Henri had said, twice. Thibault ignored him. He said it a third time. ‘Stop it.’
‘Piss off.’
‘I mean it. Stop it. It’s just cruel.’
Thibault had turned to him and stared. And then he’d thrown his head back and roared with laughter. ‘Stop it,’ he said in a whiny voice. ‘Save the darling ants, Thibault. It’s so cruel.’
‘Shut up,’ Henri said.
‘Can’t you just go home, Henri?’ He tapped the magnifying glass on Henri’s face, between his eyes. ‘I am so, extremely, bored of you.’
Then they were entangled on the ground. Henri’s face scraped across the tiles; he twisted Thibault’s arm back and then they were biting, hissing, puce, a pair of stag beetles locked to each other. It had taken Jérôme and Marc to pull them apart.
* * *
• • •
It was too hot; she couldn’t get comfortable in the bed. There was a sort of spasmodic pulsing in her feet and legs, as if her nerves were twitching. She imagined Jérôme’s life, confined perpetually to the dull flatness of a mattress. The irritating weight of sheets and blankets on his legs.
He hadn’t eaten a thing this evening, had barely spoken. He hadn’t asked about Thibault, though he must have realised that he’d left.
‘He’s even worse than he ever was,’ she’d heard Thibault say to Marc as she stood, hiding, in the utility room. His voice was hoarse with the threat of crying, and then the thud of a kick against something: a chair, a door. ‘It’s like he’s compensating for not being able to lash out physically any more by nailing the art of ripping you apart with words.’
‘Thibault, one more day. That’s all we have to get through.’
‘Not me. I’m going to get the train, I’ve got an hour. Drive me to the station?’
‘You’ll regret it. Stay, I’ll make sure you don’t have to speak to him on your own again.’
‘I won’t regret it. Honestly, Marc. Thank you, I appreciate your concern, but I’m beyond regret. I never want to see that cunt again.’
She’d had to watch their confrontation. Jérôme had insisted she stay in the room, sitting in the background by her table, as he’d called in each of the sons one by one. The interviews with Marc and Jean-Christophe were innocuous enough: the usual needling, the thick tapestry of things left unspoken. Thibault came in last. By that time, she was sickened and exhausted by these exchanges.
‘I must go now,’ she’d said. ‘I need to start preparing your dinner.’
‘No, we won’t be long, Marguerite. I insist you stay.’
He’d kept her there to make his sons more uncomfortable, she supposed, having to enact an intimate scenario in front of a stranger. And beyond that, she sensed that in an indirect way she was there for back-up: some adult version of the playground principle of two against one. She made him somehow stronger, bigger, legitimised.
He’d asked Thibault a little about his job. About his salary: ‘Decent enough, Dad, put it that way.’
‘Not going to give me the actual figure?’
‘As I said, it’s decent enough.’
‘Fine, fine.’
He’d asked him if there was a particular woman in his life.
‘There might be,’ he’d said. Marguerite remembered his warm kiss on her forehead, the easy affection with which he’d rested one hand on the back of her neck.
‘Not going to tell me about that either?’
‘I don’t want to jinx it. Surely you understand that.’
‘All right.’ Jérôme had sniffed. They’d jabbed and feinted and blocked, a guardedly civil back and forth. Thibault stayed determinedly calm. She could see Jérôme thinking, working out how to get a rise.
‘I saw Henri today.’
‘So I hear.’
‘He wanted to visit. We always got on very well.’
‘I know.’
‘Henri Brochon,’ he’d mused, gazing ahead of him. ‘Now that’s a man.’
‘Here we go.’
