The Ninth Life of Louis Drax (12 page)

     —You can call me Pascal if you like, I told him. —Or Dr Dannachet if you prefer. You’re in a coma, Louis. Like sleeping, but deeper. A fascinating place to be. But we don’t want you to stay there for ever. You know, Louis, I have quite a few theories about the state you’re in. And Isabelle and Kevin and the others. I think that some people stay in their comas because they don’t want to wake up. They’re frightened of what they might find. Or remember. So they stay asleep. And maybe they only wake up when they’ve managed to get up the courage. But the world’s a good place, Louis. Full of the oddest things. I’d love to take you up to Paris and show you something I read about in the newspaper. A pickled giant squid, fifteen metres long. The Latin name’s
architeuthis
.

     Occasionally Sophie has asked me difficult questions about what goes on in my head, questions I find myself at a loss to answer. What do I think about, where do my thoughts really travel, when I am sitting with my patients? Why do I feel so convinced that something is getting through?
What attracted me so much to coma in the first place
? She has her own theories, of course, being Sophie and a little cynical about me. Such as: I can lecture them for as long as I like and they won’t answer back. I can propound preposterous theories that my peer group refuse to countenance. Or, she argues (conversely), it’s because I am in another world myself. Perhaps the latter explanation is closest to the truth. In my sleepwalking years, I learned the existence of another dimension. I do not inhabit it any longer. But somehow, it continues to inhabit me.

     Madame Drax arrives, bringing with her some of the electric dazzle from outside. Her hair is more disorderly today, and her paleness has been replaced by a faint honey glow. More freckles have broken out, scattering her forehead like tiny grains of sand. Provence does everyone good. Then I notice her fingernails. They are much longer than when I saw them last, and painted bright red. False nails, the stick-on kind that my daughters use. For some reason this shocks me. She shakes my hand and kisses Louis, bending to whisper him a greeting that I cannot hear.

     —So, she says, shifting slightly, her hand running up and down Louis’ forearm. —Is there paperwork to do?

     —Noelle’s preparing it. Just a few things for you to sign when you leave today, and the rest can wait till next week. Why not take a look around? I suggest. There’s a day-lounge where some of the parents sometimes get together and drink coffee; you’ll meet all the regulars soon, I’m sure. Madame Favrot is the doyenne of all the mums – she’ll make you feel at home. Her daughter Claire’s been with us for nearly eighteen years.

     But I have once again said the wrong thing.

     —
Eighteen years?

     —It happens. But other cases – well, I had one last year. In one week, and recovering the next. Look, see our gardens? You are welcome to walk in the grounds, I say quickly, gesturing hopelessly at the window. —And of course there is plenty going on in the town – we have a cinema in Layrac, you know, and a golf course if that takes your fancy  ...

     Trying to recover from my faux pas, I find myself gabbling, and unable to stop: my mouth is running ahead of me. And so I explain that a retirement community such as Layrac is also abundant with chiropodists, medical centres, hunting-and-fishing outlets, and toyshops for indulgent grandparents. A little lacking in nightlife perhaps, but a friendly town, with an excellent swimming pool ... I blabber on in the same vein a little more, before petering out almost in mid-sentence.

     —I’m sure I’ll settle in, she says, but the catch in her voice betrays her. I’m blind sometimes. I just don’t see things. What I’ve missed until now is that all the time I have been gabbling she has been fighting back tears, and now she can hold back no longer. She has sunk into a chair next to Louis and flung her arms across him, kissing his face, pawing at his hands, sobbing openly in front of him. It’s a pitiful sight. Despite my edict that there should be no crying on my ward – because misery, you must understand, can leak from one soul to another – I can’t bring myself to tell her to leave. And nor can I put my arms around her, as I long to, while we are on the ward. So instead, desperate to get her away, I take hold of her elbow and ease her to her feet. Silently, we walk down the ward together, then out through the French windows and into the intense heat of the summer garden, where in the shelter of a laurel bush, I take out a tissue and gently dry her tears.

     —I dream about it every night, she whispers. —The same dream, over and over again. Just like a film. It’s always in silhouette, I can’t see their faces. It’s like I’ve blanked them out. Two people wrestling with each other. One huge, one tiny, in the distance. And they get too close to the edge. I’m screaming at them. But they can’t hear me, I’m too far away. I’m just powerless. Completely powerless. And then he’s falling. And that’s when I wake up.

     Her eyes have glazed over; suddenly, as though becoming aware of herself again, she shakes her head and blinks.

     —Forgive me, I ask eventually. —But when it happened – what did your husband do? Afterwards?

     —Pierre? She stops and bites her lip, then turns her back on me. Lowering her head, she says in a blank voice: —He went and had a look at what he’d done. But Louis was in the water by then. There was nothing to see.

     Although we are outside, and out of earshot of the ward, we are both whispering. She is so small, so frail-looking in that moment against the dark leaves of the laurel bush. Her hair is like gold spun through with copper and honey. I can feel the heat of the sun full on my back.

     —He ran away. He just left me there. Screaming for help.

     Her voice is flattened out, expressionless as ever. She turns her head slightly; I can see the blood rise in her cheek. Through the glass doors, we have a view of the beds, including Louis’. We can see the boy, too: a small hump beneath the bedclothes. As if prompted by its pathos, she suddenly spins round to face me, her eyes glittering with tears.

     —You see what a coward I was married to? she blurts. —Who would do that to his own son, and then just run away?

     I’m about to say something conciliatory, something about how not all men are like that, how her husband must have–

     But the words don’t come. Instead, I take her perfect oval face in my hands and kiss her. She does not resist; indeed, she succumbs in such a sweet, almost grateful way that I wonder whether the resistance I sensed in her before – a certain coolness, a diffidence, an untouchability – was a figment of my imagination, an idea my conscience cooked up to ward me off. She smells of the same perfume I smelt on her before. It’s insistent, sexual. Or is it the sun on my back? How did I come to do this? How did I dare? It’s a delirious kiss which I fall into like a sleepwalker. I’m drowning in it.

     —I’ve never done this before, I say pulling back from her gently, still amazed at myself, and wondering if I have shocked her, done the wrong thing.

     —Kissed the mother of a patient? she says softly. The tears are still wet on her cheeks; I brush them away softly.

     —No.

     —I suppose I should consider myself flattered.

     —I can’t help finding you very attractive.

     —Can’t help?

     —I’ve been fighting it, I confess. —Should I – carry on?

     —What? Finding me attractive, or fighting it?

     —Fighting it.

     —Yes. Certainly for a little while. I’m not really ready for anything. I’m sure you understand.

     But she doesn’t resist as I lean to kiss her again. Deeper this time, and once again I am in another world, where I am drowning. Drowning–

     Until something halts me. I cannot explain what it is, this bad feeling, this strangely amorphous dread that creeps up on me and tells me that something’s wrong. Is it Philippe Meunier’s warning, or my own vague guilt about Sophie, or is it something else? A distant noise? An instinct? Something, anyway, that forces my eyes open in the middle of the kiss and makes me look through the French windows and into my ward, where what I see – a swift, decisive movement in the far bed – stops me in my tracks and makes me gasp aloud. I pull away from Natalie, my heart tugging painfully.

     —What is it? she asks, alarmed. I open my mouth but can’t speak. My eyes are fixed on the ward.

     Where Louis Drax is sitting up.

You see what a coward I was married to? Who would do that to his own son, and then just run away?

     It’s like electricity going through me and I sit up.

     They were kissing.

     They shouldn’t do that, should they? Bad things will happen, and it’ll end in tears. The sun’s too bright. If you look into the sun, you go blind.

     —Where’s my Papa?

     When I was young, say five or six, I had all sorts of stupid babyish soft toys. Don’t laugh, I was just a little kid then, all little kids have babyish animals, especially if they’re in hospital a lot and they don’t like Action Man because he’s a gay loser. When I got older, say seven or eight, I used them for the Death Game. I’d line them all up – Monsieur Pingouin and Rabbit-Face and Pif and Paf that were kangaroos and Cochonette who’s actually a moose and a black and white cat called Minette – and they’d take it in turns to die. Sometimes they’d die like heroes in a fight against the Forces of Evil and other times stuff would happen to them, unlucky accidents like drowning or being strangled or maybe they’d look up the names of dangerous drugs and poisons and stuff to die from. You can do that if you have the right books. Fungus books, the
encyclopédie médicale
. Insulin. Chloroform. Arsenic. Sarin gas. Lupin seeds. One swallow and you’re dead.

     Sometimes Pif and Paf decided to die together. The best time was when Pif put Paf in her pouch and they got into my model aeroplane and flew out of the window and crashed on to the courtyard. Cool. They enjoyed it too, because it was a proper kamikaze stunt.

     When a toy animal died we did Funeral Arrangements. All the other animals put the dead animal in a coffin that’s a shoebox and made speeches. Sometimes they’d talk about how devastated they were.
I am devastated, I am just so devastated
. But other times they’d laugh. When Cochonette murdered Monsieur Pingouin by putting him in a pretend microwave, he said: I’d do it all over again if I could, because Monsieur Pingouin was evil and I hated him. He deserved to die, he should have his dick cut off.

     —Why’s it just Pif and Paf? Where’s Paf’s Papa? I ask Maman when me and the animals have finished all the funeral popcorn.

     —Paf hasn’t got a Papa, says Maman who’s reading a beautiful-lady magazine again.

     —Why not? Everyone’s got a Papa.

     —No they haven’t actually, says Maman. And she puts down her beautiful-lady magazine and looks at Papa. He’s reading the newspaper, the sports page.

     —Why not?

     —Because some fathers don’t deserve to have children, says Maman. —And others are just pretending to be dads. If they were real men they’d take care of their families, they wouldn’t go chasing stupid dreams in the past that were never meant to happen.

     Papa is folding up his sports page and walking out and then we hear the door slam and the car starts.

     —Where’s he going?

     —To the airport, says Maman. —And then up into the sky.

     And Papa leaves us again. He doesn’t come back for a long time, because he’s with his evil mother in Paris who’s called Lucille or Mamie. She is a bad influence, she treats him like a baby and she spoils him, and he probably believes all the rubbish and slander she tells him about Maman
because she hates Maman because she thinks Maman isn’t good enough for her precious boy, that’s what she tells Papa, she brainwashes him, and brainwashing your son is the evilest thing a mother can do, no decent mother would dream of doing that, manipulating her own child’s feelings
.

     After Papa goes we put the TV in the kitchen and I’m allowed to watch it when I’m eating my dinner. Maman doesn’t eat dinner because she’s always on a diet to stay thin.
Astérix
is on because it’s cartoon time and Maman’s reading a magazine with a picture of a lady and a man getting married, and it says, THIRD TIME LUCKY FOR DOMINIC.

     —Who’s Dominic?

     —A famous actor.

     —Why is it third time lucky for him?

     —Because it’s his third marriage, and when someone tries to do something and it doesn’t work out the first two times, people say third time lucky, to wish them luck.

     —How many times have you been married?

     She laughs. —Just once.

     —And Papa?

     She puts down the Third Time Lucky magazine on the table and looks at me.

     —Has Lucille been talking to you?

     —No. Maybe.

   
Our secret
, Papa said. There’s a long wait before she says anything and when she does she says it fast to get it over with.

     —He was married once for a very short time to someone he never really loved. He just thought he did. It was a mistake. And then he met me, and I was the one he loved. Far more than he ever loved her.