Lost (9 page)

Coco looked up at the façade of Santarosa’s only bar, at the orange-and-white canopy, torn and flapping in the wind. The bar had not been redecorated since the early seventies and reflected badly on his village. He would offer to redo it. As he stepped down into the bar he listened with distaste to the new electric bell striking midday.

Inside, the TV on a high shelf in the corner gave off most of the light in the room. Coco could make out a football match in what looked like a black snowstorm. The mayor was settling down to a game of cards with Albert, a man who had been in the same year as Coco at school. At the sight of him Coco asked himself if he were the only one not ageing.

‘Morning, Mayor. Who’s playing?’ he asked, nodding up at the television.

‘It’s a replay of last night,’ the mayor said, keeping his back to Coco and surveying his cards.

Albert turned in his chair as though the effort were painful. No Nissan Patrol would bring his youth back, Coco thought. He was already an old man with a dowager’s hump. That, Coco believed, was what happened to you if you married a beautiful woman. Coco had understood, even as a young man, that a beautiful wife was ill-advised for anyone interested in power. Nor did he regret his choice: Liliane was ugly and clean and grateful.

‘We could have done with you here yesterday, Santini,’ the mayor said, still plucking at his cards. Coco was sure the man had throat cancer. ‘It was a fiasco,’ he rasped. ‘The gendarmerie ought to be an outlawed organisation. They’re incompetent and they’re a threat to public safety.’ He shook
his head. ‘My guess is the kid just went for a walk.’

‘The new captain seems …’ Albert began. ‘He seems …’

The mayor of Santarosa spat out air.

‘He’s nothing.’ He waved his hand over his cards. ‘He’s wind.’ He pointed at his head. ‘In here. Down here. They’re all the same.’ He looked up and grinned at Coco. ‘Eh, Santini?’

Coco jangled the change in his pocket.

‘Get the child back to its mother, Coco,’ the mayor said, avoiding his eyes. ‘The village is already cursed. But this’ll pull us over the edge and into the sea. There.’ He laid down his hand.

‘Get the bell changed, Mayor,’ Coco said. ‘It’s been two years. That electric one’s a disgrace.’

The mayor stiffened but did not look up, and Coco moved on. He approached the bar and pointed at Albert’s wife Betty who was polishing glasses.

‘I’m getting you a new TV.’

Betty smiled. ‘What’ll you have, Coco?’

‘A Ricard, please, Betty,’ he said, looking at her so hard she had to turn away.

She put the glass she had been polishing on the shelf and glanced at herself in the mirror that ran the full length of the bar. She licked her finger and wiped away a smudge of mascara from under her eye, checked her teeth for lipstick and smiled again. Her chin was beginning to sag. There was nothing to be done except smile a lot. She let Coco look at her again as she poured water into his pastis, turning the gold syrup cloudy and pale as his eyes. She wouldn’t refuse Coco now, she thought. Something she had until recently mistaken for disgust moved inside her when he looked at her. She watched another fly electrocute itself on the new blue neon fly-toaster and join the pile of the dead, and it occurred to her that as a modern woman, able to order American nails by catalogue and get a decent home perm kit for her hair, she had the edge on her mother’s generation.

Coco ordered another Ricard, which he downed in one. He
leaned over the bar, pinched Betty’s cheek, paid and tipped her, and left.

He crossed the square, the pastis still heating the walls of his mouth. Since he had made his peaceful divorce from the FNL, they had never made a move without consulting him first. The Sam-7s were open defiance. He looked down at the shadows of the chestnut leaves playing on his shoes and he saw for the first time that they were all over him. They were a standing army: it was time to break them up.

He walked down the stone steps that led to the lower part of the village. On either side of him at waist level there were terraced beds planted with vegetables. Children stole the tomatoes and left the rest.

In the alley that led to his house, his soft shoes hardly made a sound. Wasps drank from the open drains. He stayed in the shade of the high wall that ran the length of his vegetable garden, tended every day by his wife. He liked the smell of the alley, of the drains and the honeysuckle fermenting in the heat. His head was turning a little from the pastis, and he stood still a moment and closed his eyes. He could feel his heart beating high up in his chest as if it were in a stranglehold and it was his gut that was doing it. He had lost his peace of mind for twenty-six votes he could have found elsewhere.

Coco crossed the courtyard to the front door. Chickens scattered before him. It was good to be home where nothing changed. Beyond, things had changed so much, people were even lifting kids. He stepped into his dark house and met his daughter in the hall as she was coming out of the kitchen. He took her face in his hands, bent and kissed her forehead. He held her face, his hands squashing her mouth open slightly. She stared back without blinking.

‘Where are you going?’

‘For a walk.’ Her voice sang.

He let go of her face.

‘It’s time to eat.’

‘We’ve had lunch.’

‘Would you like to eat with me tomorrow, Nathalie?’

‘Yes, Papa.’

She stood still, her hands hanging limply by her sides, looking up at him, waiting to be dismissed. He knew she did not want to eat with him. She never spoke to him except to answer his questions. She just watched and waited like an intelligent gun dog. When she was with her mother she was quite different, he knew. She was bold and graceful and on some mornings, when he was still in bed, her laughter filled the house.

Coco pointed to the top of the stairs and clicked his fingers.

‘There’s too much wind for a walk.’

As she turned he had to stop himself from catching hold of her. She was sixteen; the thought appalled him. She ran up the wide stairs and he watched her dark plait bouncing on her back and, just below her skirt, the creases behind her knees.

He walked through into the kitchen, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. It was a lilac colour, chosen by Evelyne and made of silk. He only ever wore silk now that he could afford it, because his skin was softer than a woman’s and any other cloth caused him discomfort.

In the kitchen he took off his shirt and handed it to his wife.

‘It needs washing.’

She folded the shirt over her arm and watched him sit down at the table. He unclasped the heavy gold bracelet of his watch, which he took off and laid on the table beside him. Liliane put the shirt in the sink to wash and set about feeding him.

‘Where’s Nathalie going?’ he asked.

‘For a walk.’

‘What’s this walking business? She shouldn’t be walking all over the place. It’s unhealthy.’

He listened to the sound of Liliane’s slippers brushing the flagstone floor. She shuffled back and forth between the larder and the kitchen table.

‘You’re old,’ he told her, without looking up.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is everything all right? Stuart was here early this morning.’

‘What did he want?’

‘It was about the child.’

Liliane put a plate of
charcuterie
, some goat’s cheese and a bowl of black olives in front of her husband. She fetched the bread, which she held against her stomach and cut, drawing the knife upwards. Her husband inspected the slice she handed him, turning it over, then took a bite.

‘He’s gone crazy,’ he said as he chewed.

Liliane poured red wine into a glass, which she set on the table with the bottle.

‘Get me the phone,’ he said, taking a sip. ‘It’s on the table in the hall.’

Liliane wiped her hands on her apron and left the room. Coco sat at the table and ate. He was proud of his torso, which was as smooth and broad as when he was a young man. It was just his belly that had changed. In his forties it had swelled to make room for his intestines, which had turned against him and refused to digest what he enjoyed. His stomach ached and groaned whenever he ate, squeezing out vindictive farts that were punishment only to his entourage, for Coco liked their warmth. Sensitivity to temperature was an important component of his sensuality. What he prized in Evelyne’s body was the contrast between her hot mouth and her cool cheeks, her warm stomach and her cold buttocks.

Liliane handed him the phone. He put down his knife, wiped his mouth on his napkin and punched out Georges’ number. Liliane filled the sink to wash his shirt. Coco clicked his fingers at her to indicate that the noise bothered him, and she left.

‘Did you find Mickey?’

‘Not yet,’ Georges said.

‘Get Karim to look. I need you to set up a meeting for me. I
want out with the FNL, Georges. They’ve got to empty the cache. Do you understand? I want to see Jean, by himself. I don’t need this relationship when Stuart’s all over me about this kid.’

When Coco hung up, Liliane was standing in the doorway.

She watched him punch out another number and left him alone.

‘Evelyne,’ he began.

‘Coco. Hi, baby. Come to the club later.’

‘No.’

‘I can’t talk,’ Evelyne told him. ‘I’ve got Gino asking for more money.’

‘Say no. He’s got nowhere else to go.’

‘It’s a bad atmosphere. He’s stopped fucking the brunette and now she wants to leave the band. He’s asking for more money because he feels like shit and he doesn’t want it to show.’

‘Say no.’

‘He’s now fucking the blonde, the one you liked. The one with the big shoulders.’

‘She hasn’t got big shoulders.’

‘The atmosphere is really bad. The two girls don’t talk. There’s no musical cohesion any more. They’re drowning each other out. The brunette’s doing the dance moves like a traffic warden. I can understand her point of view. She’s feeling underconfident. There’s nothing worse.’

‘I can’t listen to this. I’ll be over later.’

He hung up.

Liliane stood in the doorway and watched Coco lay his napkin on the table, clip his watch back on to his wrist and then rise to his feet.

‘Babette called. She says could you go up and see the woman.’

‘What woman?’

‘The Aron woman. About her boy. Babette says she’s going wild.’

He stared at her as though he was trying to remember something; then he nodded and she moved aside to let him pass. She listened to him cross the hall and climb the stairs. He would have a shower and wash his body thoroughly in his slow and ordered way, and now that he had broken what he called the summer regime, he would go back down to the villa. Something was bothering him.

She tidied up the remains of his lunch, washed his shirt and went out through the back door to hang it. The fly curtain, red and white strips of plastic, flapped violently. She hung the shirt and watched the wind chase her eight chickens round and round the paved courtyard looking for shelter. They ran in a swirl of dry eucalyptus leaves, scattering and regrouping, riddled with ticks. She held out her arms and advanced towards them, clicking her tongue and coaxing them into their pen. Since the
maestrale
, they had stopped sitting on their eggs.

Liliane kept two aluminium chairs under the lime tree in the far corner of the enclosed courtyard. Every afternoon Babette would come and sit with her. She usually brought with her a magazine or a mail-order catalogue, and they would sit together turning the pages and talking as if they really might just buy something. But because of the business with the child, Babette was stuck up at the house. She said the mother couldn’t look after the younger one, in the state she was in. The bedraggled eucalyptus towering behind the stone wall creaked in the wind.

She fetched one of the aluminium chairs, placed it in the doorway, climbed on to it and unhooked the fly curtain, which she took indoors. In the kitchen she laid it out on the table to wash it. She pulled rubber gloves over her beautiful white hands and heard Coco slam the front door behind him.

In spite of everything her life was her own. She had made it against the odds, like her vegetable garden that she had created out of an arid, rocky slope. People recognised the quality of her life. They came to her to sit with her, ask her
advice. It was her will and her silence that enabled her to keep her life apart from her husband’s. She did what was necessary to keep him happy. She fed him, clipped his beard, washed his back and cut his toenails. Since the birth of their daughter she had not been expected to sleep with him.

Babette was puzzled by Liliane’s determination to ask nothing of Coco.

‘Your husband is one of the richest men on the island and you live in that black housecoat and won’t even get your yard tarmacked. You could at least ask him for a new pair of slippers.’

‘What would I do with a new pair of slippers?’ she answered.

Nathalie’s voice echoed in the hall. She could hear Raymond Battesti, too, and thanked heaven Coco had gone. One day he would have to accept that Nathalie would leave. She was a good girl, only a little stubborn. In this she was like her father. Liliane heard Nathalie’s laughter and their footsteps on the stairs. They were going up to her room. Liliane glanced up at the ceiling then went back to her work.

Of course the Aron woman was going wild. Take a woman’s child from her and she’ll lose her mind. Liliane had lost hers long ago. What was left of her former self was a perfect imitation. Another burst of her daughter’s laughter came through the ceiling. Liliane did not talk to Nathalie about her brother. She believed that her daughter should not be made aware of her pain. Her life must be kept as light and free as that laughter.

Nathalie did not even know that in two weeks her brother Rémy would be thirty. It was twelve years since Liliane had seen her son. He lived in Paris with a wife and two children whom she had never met. Other islanders back from the mainland had told her that he worked for the Central Post Office; otherwise she would never have known. She once sent Betty to see him while she was on her trip to the International Manicure Fair. Betty had telephoned him and they had met for a drink in a café near his work. Betty had always
liked Rémy. When she came home, all she could talk about was how surprised she was by the photo of his wife. She had expected her to be much prettier.