Marguerite, page 23
‘Why not?’
‘For many reasons, Margo.’
‘What reasons?’
‘This is ridiculous, I’m not going into them.’
‘Why not?’
She would have sighed, creased her lips. Then given the reasons: that it was a waste of a good education. That no one they knew became a nurse, it wasn’t for people like them. And then, when she’d realised that Marguerite was actually serious, she’d told her she’d make a terrible nurse, that it would actually involve difficulty and hard graft and dealing with ‘real’ people, that Marguerite didn’t have that in her. And finally she’d said, pushed by exasperation, that the only reason Marguerite wanted to do it was out of guilt.
‘And guilt will only take you so far. Then you’ll realise it’s a career for a stronger kind of person than you, Margo, and you’ll quit.’
She was too warm when she got into bed, the blood in her face and feet still pumping, hot, from the bath. As she lay on her side, waiting for sleep to take over, she imagined Henri lying on his side behind her, one arm around her waist, his breath cool on her neck.
* * *
• • •
He knew what was happening when he turned his keys in the ignition, Jojo on the seat beside him. He’d known what was happening when he’d got into the bath after work, filling it with water and draining it and filling it again until the water was cold but clean. He’d dressed in the green shirt he knew looked particularly good with his eyes, and he’d known why he’d chosen that one. But still, as he drove down the winding track, Jojo excited, her head out of the window to taste the warm summer evening, he didn’t let himself look properly at what he knew. He let it sit there, untested, unexamined, and he was surprised by how easy that was.
He spoke to Jérôme about the farm, and then he let the old man talk, watched his posture change as he spoke about his former career, at length, until the colour in his face and the volume of his voice changed, very suddenly, his exhaustion clear.
He saw that he’d brought Jérôme pleasure, by visiting again. And it was with pleasure that he walked back through to the kitchen, placed his empty glass on the table, looked through the window in the twilight to see Marguerite throwing something to the dog. She threw well, like a boy.
* * *
• • •
It was painful not to go back the following evening. The evening stretched out before him, unutterably dull. Brigitte was unusually quiet over dinner, which he found a relief. He didn’t care that she was sulking about something; she would get over it. He could hear the squelch of her mastication as they ate and he wanted to get up and take his food outside and eat it there, in silence, but he didn’t.
He planned to go the following day, but a few of the ewes became ill and he had to call Cédric to check it wasn’t something sinister. He managed to get him to stay for dinner afterwards, and then he suggested a glass of whisky after that but Cédric looked tired, excused himself – he had an early start the next day. Henri poured a glass anyway, stayed up on his own when his friend had gone and Brigitte had thudded her way up to bed.
But the next day he told Paul and Thierry he’d be out; he needed to get a new milk pump. And he did, he drove to the dealer and looked at a replacement but decided not to get it just yet, that the current one was old but would hold out a little longer, and then with a feeling of lightness he got back into the truck and left, driving it in the heat through the forest, to Rossignol.
15
She could barely meet his eye when he arrived. She was cooking, making béchamel for lasagne, and was relieved to be able to turn her back to him, stir the sauce. She felt his presence behind her. She felt as if every hair on her face and neck were alive with it.
‘I’m afraid he’s just gone to sleep,’ she said. She lowered the heat, took a breath and turned. He was standing, one hand resting on the table. She thought that he looked embarrassed.
‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I can come back over the next few days.’
She thought, wildly, for a reason to keep him. ‘That oak tree,’ she said. ‘The one that died. Was there a disease – in the tree? Will it spread?’
She hadn’t even thought for one moment about the tree since it had gone.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ He looked serious, frowned. ‘But I can take a look.’
‘I don’t want to trouble you.’
‘It’s no trouble. While I’m here, I may as well.’
They walked down the garden together, the air thick and delightful around them. She sat on the grass, waiting while he examined the stump of the oak. She dared herself to look at his face while he examined it and then she was too embarrassed, in case she might see that he was only pretending.
He came to sit down next to her, and she looked at him briefly and then away.
‘It doesn’t look like it was anything pernicious,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought so originally, but it’s always worth checking.’
She nodded. She couldn’t find a single word to reply. He was sitting right beside her, on the grass, the closest they’d ever been to each other. His body, right there beside her.
‘I spent some of my happiest days here.’ He reached forward and plucked a cornflower from the ground, gently, rotated it between his forefinger and thumb. She imagined him as a teenager: clear-faced, uncertain.
He handed the flower to her. ‘It’s from the same family as a marguerite.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ She thought that her voice sounded scratchy, unclear.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I think it’s the second biggest family, there are tens of thousands of different species within it.’
She rotated the flower as he had done.
‘We have marguerites growing throughout the farm,’ he said.
She laid it on her knee. Her jeans were thinning at the knees; the cotton was wearing through. She looked at the cornflower, looked down at her trainers, breathed in and out. She couldn’t think about anything at all apart from the sense of him, his presence beside her. She closed her eyes and exhaled. She opened them and turned her face very, very slightly towards him, still not looking at him. She could feel the still air between their faces, between her right and his left cheek. The space was full. She tried to imagine it closing, and the skin of his cheek against hers.
She breathed in and out deeply, took the flower from her knee and stood up. ‘I must check in on Jérôme.’
He didn’t respond; still sitting there, still staring in front of him, he nodded. When he finally looked up at her she had to turn away.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’ She spoke slowly. Each word felt heavy, a stone on her tongue. Then she walked towards the house, left arm wrapped around her waist, right hand holding the flower to her mouth.
* * *
• • •
Henri got into his truck and pressed his hands over his face. He breathed hard.
He imagined her now in the house, tidying or nursing Jérôme, her still and private gait as she walked about each room. He knew she was thinking of him. Whatever she was doing right now, she was thinking about him. He knew it incontrovertibly.
He imagined walking in, taking her upstairs, not into Marc’s old room or Jean-Christophe’s, but into Thibault’s. Holding her small stomach. Kissing her throat. He tried to imagine taking off her jeans and touching what was there, the foreign nothingness of her groin. He tried to imagine entering her there, at the front, but then he let himself turn her around and find her from behind.
He opened his eyes and breathed out. He shook his head, banishing images more confusing to him than the very first thoughts he’d had about Thibault, as a boy.
He was startled when another car came through the gates, and turned his key in the ignition, shifted the gearstick, eased up the handbrake. He peered into the other car: Suki Lacourse, who looked as surprised by him as he was by her. He raised a hand, turned back to the gateway and drove through, leaving Rossignol behind.
He went straight to Edgar’s without letting himself think. Edgar was outside, reading on a bench. He looked up and smiled, the surly smile Henri had never liked. He pretended to finish his passage as Henri approached him; calmly, he placed a bookmark at his place and looked up again.
He wasn’t in the mood for kissing or talking or foreplay. He fucked Edgar immediately and wordlessly, pinning him by his hands up against the outside wall of the house. He came within a matter of minutes. He stood there for a moment to catch his breath, then withdrew. He zipped his trousers, fastened the belt. And then he dropped down onto the bench, closed his eyes, leant his head back against the wall. Edgar pulled his trousers back up and sat beside him.
‘Well . . .’ He laughed. ‘Good evening, I guess?’ Henri didn’t respond. ‘Will you have a drink, or is this a purely social visit?’
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I can’t stay.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Henri.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He tried to think of something further to say, some casual word of explanation for his presence.
But Edgar touched his shoulder gently. ‘Are you all right?’
Henri pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, feeling his face break as the tears finally came.
‘Hey, hey,’ Edgar said softly. ‘You’re all right, big guy.’ He rubbed Henri’s shoulder as you might a young boy. Henri let himself cry soundlessly. Finally, he thought, these tears had come – but they brought with them no relief.
He stood, breathed out hard, dropped his hands and raised his eyes to the sky. He willed the tears to stop. He imagined, as so often he did, what his father would think if he could see him now. He looked at Edgar finally, smiled lightly. ‘Sorry about this.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m here if you need to talk, you know. Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’
‘I really can’t,’ Henri said. He patted Edgar’s shoulder now, tried to be matey. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see you.’
‘Will that be any time soon?’
‘Things are extremely busy on the farm.’
Edgar stared at him for a moment, and Henri thought his eyes were wet now too. ‘You know what?’
Henri waited, willed him to speak. He wanted Edgar to stop watching him. He thought that Edgar could see something despicable in his face.
‘I’m not sure I can play this game any more.’ He smiled sadly. ‘You’re not such a magnificent lay that you can simply turn up and fuck me every time you’re too exhausted by your heterosexual scam. And then scuttle back to it until the next time you need some.’ Henri said nothing, and Edgar shook his head. ‘That came out too harshly. I’m sorry for your unhappiness, and your confusion – I really am. But I’m damned if I’m going to keep sitting around, just – waiting for you to see the light. I can’t be just this for you, the mechanism of your self-disgust.’
A ready, well-oiled phrase, Henri thought. Edgar would have thought it up some other time, thinking about Henri and their predicament on his own. It was, of course, bang on. A mechanism was all Edgar had become to him. He nodded, staring at the ground, and Edgar let out a little gasp of incredulity.
‘Of course, not even a response. God forbid you’d pay me that final compliment.’
Henri looked at Edgar. Unremarkable-looking, not tall, chin a little weak, shoulders narrow. But he looked handsome now, full of conviction. Henri felt the very opposite, standing there with his head bowed: small and stupid, diminished by cowardice and denial.
‘Well, goodbye Henri.’ Edgar picked up his book, turned, walked towards the house.
‘Goodbye.’ Henri made his way back to the truck, replaying Edgar’s words in his mind. And then he heard Marguerite’s ‘goodbye’, too, the barely perceptible whistle in the back of her teeth as she spoke: ‘I’ll see you soon.’ He wondered if he could see her again, remote as she was on the other side of the vast chasm that separates the pure from the sullied.
He drove fast back to the farm, letting the truck hurtle through the quiet roads.
‘You’re a grown man,’ he said aloud. ‘Come on.’ He turned into the driveway to the farm; Jojo was already there, barking excitedly. He stopped the truck, removed the keys from the ignition, inhaled deeply and exhaled. ‘Get a fucking grip.’
* * *
• • •
Marguerite sat in the kitchen, slumped forward so that her chin rested on her arms on the table. She twisted the cornflower between her thumb and forefinger, brushed her palm with its petals. She felt aware of every part of her body. She felt as if she were cocooned by something – as if anyone who saw her right now might see a halo or aura surrounding her. She heard footsteps then: he was back.
But it was Suki standing at the door. She had a cigarette already burning between her fingers, hand hanging down by one hip. She didn’t come in.
‘Hi,’ said Marguerite, sitting upright and smiling. But Suki didn’t smile back, and Marguerite realised then that she looked angry, very angry. Her eyes darted to the discarded flower on the table.
‘Been picking flowers?’
‘Are you all right?’
Suki rolled her eyes, flared her nostrils, took a long drag. Looked out at the garden as she exhaled, looked back at Marguerite.
‘You think you’re so safe, don’t you? Hidden away behind your grief.’
Marguerite felt herself flush. ‘What grief?’
Suki flapped a hand vaguely. ‘All that pain you hide behind. Whatever you left behind in Paris. Whatever it is that’s made you opt out of the world.’
‘Why are you being so unkind?’ she asked. She stood. ‘Why are you angry with me?’
Suki laughed. ‘You don’t even get it, do you. You can’t step out of that little locked-up world of yours. Although, what am I saying, you clearly can for the right kind of people.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Do you remember me? Remember who I am?’
‘Of course.’
‘But you haven’t seen fit to come and see me this week, have you? Check I was okay after the Lanvier boys ripped me apart?’ She started to cry, angrily, and Marguerite was appalled. She looked like a child, standing there with one hand over her face, her shoulders hunched. ‘Didn’t feel the need to stick up for me at all that night, did you, and then you haven’t even followed up once.’
‘I’m sorry. I was going to come by your house, as soon as I had the chance.’
‘Oh wow, great, that’s okay then. Thank you for making such a huge effort.’ She shook her head, wiped away the tears. ‘You know what, it’s not even your fault, it’s just – God, I don’t even know why I bother. Just – have fun with Henri, okay? The two of you, just, have a great time together. It makes much more sense anyway.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’
‘No, of course not. No one ever does.’
‘I’m really sorry about Jérôme’s sons. I knew you were hurt, I knew I was useless, but I just couldn’t—’ She paused.
‘Couldn’t what?’
‘I couldn’t think of the right words. I never can.’
Suki rolled her eyes. ‘Sure.’ She dropped her cigarette, stamped it out. ‘It’s not rocket science, sticking up for someone. But then, what would you know about other people. You don’t even know real friendship when it hits you in the face.’
She wiped inky tears from her eyes, took a deep breath and walked away, around the corner into the drive. Marguerite followed her, called out as she got into her car, but Suki didn’t stop. She turned her head to guide the car out in reverse and then she held her hand up in a stiff, perfunctory wave, and was off.
* * *
• • •
A milky, opalescent sunset. Pink, peach, violet, fabric-conditioner blue – a spectrum of pastels that would be kitsch if put together in any context other than the natural phenomenon of nightfall. Edgar looked away to examine the tomatoes sprouting plumply in front of him. He pinched a few, gently. Then he plucked the four ripest, carried them in his plastic bowl back into the cottage. He heard a few dogs howling somewhere: they sounded like greyhounds. Not Jojo.
Edgar realised he’d been holding his breath. He forgot to breathe deeply most of the time. When he remembered, like now, he’d take a really huge breath in and out, try to expel all the gunk he imagined got stored up inside with all that shallow breathing. He’d done a weekly meditation class for a while, God, six or seven years ago now though it felt like just a few; time here had a way of curdling. He remembered the scrawny teacher with her flaccid grey curls, breasts like long slippers under her tank top, telling them to envisage breathing in all the good (through the nose), out all the bad (through the mouth. Bad mouth). It never quite worked for him, though. He’d imagine breathing out all the bad and then realise it didn’t have time to waft away from his face entirely before he inhaled again – so all the allegedly positive air he breathed in would be contaminated with the dregs of the negative that he’d just concentrated so hard on expunging. So really you should probably exhale, he thought, hold your breath entirely, walk into another space full of clean air, and only then feel free to inhale. But of course, it was all a load of crap.
And now, exhaling deeply as he washed his tomatoes, he could feel that at the end of the breath there was absolutely no sense of relief: still the big, hard rock in the pit of his lungs. Henri: self-loathing, arrogant, beautiful Henri. And he wouldn’t let that self-loathing and lovely sadness make him pity the man, either. Look how far that’d got him. He must think about what he’d tell a friend in his position: sweetheart, you’re a big, fat fool, that man doesn’t give a toss about you, he’s got you wrapped around his little finger. Scapegoat for his heterosexually brainwashed shame. His brainwashed sham. No, no more pity.
