Moon in a Dead Eye (7 page)

What on earth was up with them all today? Honestly, the looks on their faces! Not even Léa could bring herself to smile. Fair enough, it was hot and sticky, there was a storm brewing, and it made your body prickle all over, but even so … It was bad timing because Nadine had read an article earlier in the week about ‘laughter therapy’, a new technique devised by doctors, psychologists, yoga teachers, sophrologists, masseurs and other therapists, and today was the day she was going to try it out on the group. She had mugged up on a few physical and mental exercises designed to promote happiness, positive thinking and self-esteem, and to help things along she had baked herself a little hash cake which was beginning to kick in. The Sudres, the Nodes and Léa had listened obediently as she introduced her theme, assuring them it was scientifically proven that we should all laugh for at least fifteen minutes per day to maintain good health, upping the dose in case of illness to re-establish a virtuous circle, stimulating the immune system and ending the vicious cycle of illness, depression and weakened defences …

For Christ’s sake! There really wasn’t much to it; all they
needed to do was join hands and laugh … Five pairs of eyes as cloudy as the sky stared blankly back at her. The air conditioning in the clubhouse had still not been fixed, so Nadine found herself standing in front of a row of streaming faces, like waxworks of forgotten celebrities being melted down before coming back as more contemporary figures. All in all, a disconcerting sight. Nadine’s mouth was dry and her eyelids drooped as though too big for her eyes. A dull itch tickled the palms of her hands. Clearly her audience was unconvinced. They looked at the floor, avoiding her gaze, all except Maxime, who glared right at her with a face like thunder.

‘Give me one thing to laugh about. Just one!’

‘Well … I don’t know, Maxime … Anything, it doesn’t matter! … You don’t have to have a reason to laugh.’

‘OK, here’s one for you. Here we all are, thinking we’re among friends, you know, people we can trust, and the minute your back’s turned, someone goes and tells all sorts of stories about you, stories that could land you in a whole heap of trouble, and then that person ever so quietly sneaks back in as though nothing ever happened. How’s that for a joke, huh?’

Wedged into his chair, white-knuckled hands clutching the wheels, elbows sticking out and shoulders raised, Maxime looked like a disabled athlete poised to start a race. Marlène turned stiffly towards him, as though swivelling on a pivot.

‘What on earth are you talking about, Maxime?’

‘I’m telling it like it is. There’s no way I’m going to sit here laughing with someone who goes blabbing behind my back, when they weren’t even there!’

Nadine was beginning to wonder if that cake had been such a good idea. She was getting the most awful vibes off this man. Nothing for it but to take the snail approach and curl up within
herself, praying for her guardian angel to come and rectify this casting error and take her safely home.

Marlène pressed on.

‘What do you mean, Maxime? Who’s saying what about whom?’

‘No need to spell it out, she knows exactly who she is! If there’s anyone here who needs to explain themselves, it’s her.’

With the exception of Nadine, who had just closed her eyes, the women looked questioningly at each other until Léa began shaking her head with a sigh.

‘Fine, I get it! If it’s me you’re talking about, Maxime, there’s really no need for all this fuss. I was on my way out the night before last when Monsieur Flesh stopped me to give me the same rubbish about the gypsies he had spouted to Marlène. I told him it was stupid of him to scare people with stories like that and, thanks to him, there had almost been a very serious accident. I didn’t say a word against you. That’s all there is to it.’

‘And how did you know what happened that day, when you weren’t there?’

‘Because Odette told me!’

‘Oh, that’s just great, isn’t it? Just great. So now everybody’s in on it! Thanks, Odette, thanks a lot!’

Odette looked as though she had been slapped round the face with a wet fish. For a few seconds, a heavy silence hung in the air, before everyone began talking over each other.

‘Well, excuse me!’

‘Odette, please …’

‘Maxime, say you’re sorry!’

‘Stop it! This is ridiculous. It’s all down to that idiot caretaker …’

‘I wasn’t talking to you …’

‘Anyway, my son Régis is a lawyer, so …’

‘No one said anything about pressing charges!’

‘Mind your manners! Martial, say something!’

‘But even if you did, Régis …’

‘Marlène, will you stop banging on about Régis! He’s dead, for Christ’s sake! Dead! Can’t you get that into your head?’

The conversation too was cut dead. It was like a henhouse after the fox has left, a few stray feathers left swirling in the air. Marlène had gone pale. Standing in the middle of the room with her hands clamped over her stomach, she seemed to be teetering on the edge of an abyss. Then she loosened up, took a deep breath and fluffed up her hair. She was smiling.

‘Don’t be silly, Régis isn’t dead. He’s absolutely fine. In fact, he sent me a tape yesterday of a piano piece he composed himself. He’s a brilliant musician … I’ll go and get it.’

She calmly crossed the room without catching anyone’s eye, opened the door and disappeared into the blinding daylight outside.

Léa turned back to Maxime. ‘I can’t make out if you’re a total bastard or just thick as shit.’

‘Shut your mouth, you filthy dyke! Stop sticking your damned oar in!’

Suddenly he sprang out of his wheelchair and ran after his wife.

Odette was gobsmacked. ‘He can walk?’

Nadine was the only one still sitting down. Of course, the story had gone right over her head, but blimey, they had acted it out brilliantly, with such conviction. She was almost tempted to break into applause.

Odette closed her clubhouse folder with a look of sadness.

‘I think I’ll put, “Meeting cancelled due to adverse weather”. What do you say, Nadine?’

‘Good idea, yes … What’s all this about the gypsies?’

‘Didn’t you see them, by the main road?’

‘Yes, but they’re all over the place at this time of year. What’s the problem?’

‘Come with me, I’ll tell you all about it. I need to get some air, even if there isn’t any.’

The three women walked out, whispering. Martial sat himself down in Maxime’s wheelchair. It really was comfortable, apart from the gun sticking into his back. He stayed there for a while, looking up at the ceiling where all the names that had been flung around continued to reverberate. It made his head spin …

It’s going to blow up … Everything does, sooner or later, even the star-studded sky that’s nothing more than a great moth-holed curtain, drawn across to hide the mess, with that Cyclops ogling us from the other side. Lieutenant Bardu was right: ‘Life is like this fucking minefield. No one gets out alive. Onward!’ All that had been left of him was his shoes. So what? Can’t keep it up for ever, can we? Everything’s temporary, the Pyramids as well as Les Conviviales, built on shifting sand, based on guesswork. Long live death! It’s what keeps us alive. Nothing to it, that’s just the way it is, all goes to rust and dust. They were at each other’s throats, those seniors and
senioritas
! Christ alive, they were ripping each other to shreds! The lame ducks weren’t bobbing around on their pond today, no siree, they were tearing each other’s feathers out, pecking and scratching … The names they were calling each other! … Mouthing off about anything and everything: just you wait, I’ll press on your boils, your buboes, I’ll show you my stump … Doesn’t bear repeating. They don’t know what’s in store for them. It’s all wrapped up. Right about now, Dacapo and company are emptying the coffers, getting
ready to take the money and run, far, far away from here, to some distant tax haven. It’s bye-bye Les Conviviales! Total flop, gone bust! Open up the hatches, the rats are fleeing this sinking ship. Five years, tops, and it’ll be nothing but jungle here. The monkeys will be climbing on the ruins. You only have to look at the quality of the materials: shoddy plaster slapped onto
balsa-wood
frames bought with rubber cheques! Why bother making it sturdy? It’s only for doddery old people, on their last legs and with more money than they know what to do with. So they take it off them – it only has to look shiny and stay standing long enough for them to fill their pockets and then it’s so long, suckers! … Afterwards, there’ll be no one left to tell the tale. Nature will take back what’s rightfully hers. Nature was what I took care of; as for the houses, I couldn’t give a stuff. I like plant life, it’s reliable, doesn’t want to chat and wave its hands about, takes its time, grows out of sight underground and once it’s taken root in the depths of hell, it breaks out and smothers everything, like an anaconda, a python, one huge muscle wrapping itself around the planet and then … crack! Enough said. Of course it was bound to go to shit, putting all these old folk in one place, but it would have been just the same if they were young. People can’t help devouring one another – whether they’re hungry for hate or love, it all boils down to the same thing. Doesn’t bother me – I’m out of here tomorrow, heading back to Saint-Dié. I’ve got a lifeboat waiting for me. Let’s just say I’ve done well out of Dacapo, so silence is golden – hand over the money and thank you, sir! I could smell trouble brewing, way back. My bags are packed. Sorry, what’s that? The camera’s stopped working? … Never mind, nothing to see here, carry on … I can just imagine the looks on their faces, the Sudres, the Nodes, the pretty one, Léa, and that other airhead, Nadine … I was starting to enjoy
watching them squirm … You end up getting attached, even to fuckwits like them … They keep you company, at least … When I get to Saint-Dié, I’m going to open my own kennels; I’ve already bought the land. There’s a lot of money in dogs, you know. All you get from old people is gossip. No teeth left, so all they can do is dribble and lick. Good for nothing but sticking stamps on letters they’ll never post. More or less useless once they’re just skin and bone, down to their last drops of blood, sweat and tears. When all the liquid’s gone … What if, before I go, I, Gérard Flesh tell them they’ve been screwed over right from the start? … But why should I? … They don’t like me … and there’d be no point anyway … We’d all just end up saying we didn’t like each other, and there’d be no point in that either … Oh, would you look at that stupid prick Martial! The man can’t drive to save his life – he’s reversed right into my privet hedge …

The beam of torchlight swept over the shrub’s flattened corner. Gérard Flesh knelt down and collected the broken branches. He felt a pang of hurt, like the time he threw the bouquet into the bin at … which station was it again? … She hadn’t come …

‘Monsieur Flesh …?’

The humble tune, called simply ‘To My Mother’, had been playing on a loop in the Nodes’ living room for hours. Each time the cassette ended, Marlène rewound it and set it off from the beginning again. For Maxime, this was turning into abject torture akin to the dentist’s drill on a decayed tooth. How he would have loved to put on a big pair of ski boots and stamp on the damned tape!

‘Marlène, you’ll only upset yourself …’

‘This is my favourite bit … And to think he taught himself …’

‘Marlène, please …’

She didn’t hear him. She had shut him out; he no longer figured in her field of vision. She hadn’t reproached him, she hadn’t cried, she had just set that blasted music going and barricaded herself inside it, out of reach, as smooth and devastating as a mirror.

Régis was fifteen when he composed this piece on the white piano he got for his birthday. No one could know that a year later he would die of an overdose, alone in a filthy squat around the back of the Gare de Lyon. They had not heard from him in six months. Nothing, not even a phone call or a letter. He had simply
vanished into thin air, in spite of the countless attempts of police, private detectives and diviners to trace him. That’s the problem with kids who don’t have problems, who have always done well and apparently never wanted for anything. Maxime and Marlène had not seen it coming and had never understood why. When they had been called to the morgue to identify the body, Régis looked so different that for a split second they thought it was a mistake. So thin, with the beginnings of a beard … This faint glimmer of hope was short-lived, at least as far as Maxime was concerned – for ever since that day, even after the funeral, Marlène continued to harbour doubts in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Half of her had had to face facts, but the other half carried on day after day embroidering a glittering future for her adored son. To begin with, Maxime had been troubled by his wife’s morbid fixation and had made appointments with various doctors, but it had been no use. In the end, he had come to accept the ghostly figure standing between them, even if at times, as now, he found it abhorrent.

‘Marlène, I’m begging you … I’ve already said I’m sorry – what the hell do you want from me? Turn it off, it’s driving me mad!’

‘I’m not angry with you. You don’t know what love is, you couldn’t understand.’

‘I loved Régis too, just as much as you did!’

‘No, you didn’t. You love cars, nice suits, material things … But you don’t love people, or if you do, you love them as objects. You pick them up, play around with them, then chuck them away. You must feel very lonely sometimes …’

‘No, no, I don’t! How dare you tell me I haven’t suffered, that I’m not still suffering? I would have given him everything! Everything!’

‘Everything except what mattered. But how can you give what you don’t have?’

‘It’s easy for you to lay all the blame on me. What was I supposed to do when I was on the road all the time? I had to be, so I could keep sending money for you to spoil him, for you to screw that poor kid up, for you to stuff all your love down his throat until he couldn’t breathe! … Cheer up. Was it something I said?’

Wrapped in their colourful satin dressing gowns, they looked like two knackered boxers. For how long had they been wearing each other down with endless fights from which neither emerged victorious, always gearing up for a rematch? The music had stopped. Marlène made no attempt to start it up again. The round was over, nil-nil. Oddly enough, it was at moments like this when they had thrown in the towel that they felt closest to one another, like two survivors in no man’s land. Then they would suddenly feel the urge to throw themselves on one another and make love like animals.

The French windows leading out onto the deck were wide open but there was not the slightest breeze coming in. The huge, dense bulk of darkness let nothing through.

‘I fancy a mint julep. Shall I make one for you too?’

‘That would be nice.’

Maxime had just stood up when a deafening shot rang out.

‘What on earth …’

‘It came from the Sudres’.’

In a split second, Maxime added it all up: gunshot + his gun hidden under the seat of the wheelchair left behind in the clubhouse + Martial’s curious fascination with the weapon = …

‘Oh Jesus!’

Marlène’s heeled mules slowed her down as she scurried after
her husband towards the Sudres’ house. Her dressing gown flapped around her skinny legs, making her look like a gigantic moth fluttering down the street.

Nadine’s little red Clio had categorically refused to start. It had broken down on her before, but judging by the large puddle of oil on the ground beneath the engine, it seemed to have made its mind up this time. Léa had offered to let her come back to her place and call out a mechanic, but Nadine was not keen. Getting a breakdown truck to come out here would cost a fortune. But her old friend Gilbert, who always knew how to get her going again (in more ways than one), could easily tow away the wreck with his Land Rover. Unfortunately, she had to make do with leaving a message on his answering machine, asking him to call her back as soon as possible on Léa’s number. There was nothing for it but to wait, a discipline she had been well trained in over the years. Léa had poured them cold drinks, which they now sipped in silence. They were hitting the spot, but the mood remained subdued.

‘What a mess! And all over nothing … I really don’t get this whole thing with the gypsies. It’s just such a load of balls! Sorry, Léa, but there’s no other way to describe it.’

‘It’s the only word for it. We’ll have trouble breathing the same air now. There wasn’t much of it to go round to start with … Right from day one, I’ve felt like I was living under a bell jar here – do you know what I mean?’

‘Absolutely. A big glass cloche, like the ones you put over melons.’

‘Exactly … A glass trap.’

‘Why don’t you get out of here, Léa? Who cares about the house? You’ll find something else. I know of a few places up for rent around here, can’t be any worse …’

‘You’re right, that’s what I should do … only, I don’t think I will.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because for me, this is where it’s going to happen.’

‘Where what’s going to happen?’

‘I don’t know … I’ve just got a feeling about it, something important. It’s hard to explain, it’s just knowing that there’s a kind of … logic to it all …You know, many years ago, when I was four or five, my mother lost me at a market. I was all alone in a forest of moving people, their legs cutting across me like scissors every way I turned. At first I was scared, short of breath, frozen with panic at having no hand to guide me … and then suddenly it struck me that, in fact, I was right where I was supposed to be. How can I describe it? I was like a stone at the side of a road; I stopped asking questions, I was just there. I remember it very clearly, that feeling of certainty, of total belief … Didn’t stop me spending the rest of my life wondering what the hell I was doing here … Oh, it’s raining.’

A few drops spattered down on the dusty ground, warm and heavy, slow enough to count. It made you want to ask the sky, ‘Is that all you’ve got to show for yourself?’, as the clouds slunk away.

‘Gilbert still hasn’t called me back … I’m sorry.’

‘Let’s wait a while longer and if we don’t hear from him, I’ll take you home.’

‘Oh no, you won’t! It’s a long way. And then there are the gypsies …’

‘Oh please, not you as well! Otherwise, you’ll just have to stay
the night here. Unless Maxime’s “revelations” have put you off me …?’

‘I couldn’t care less; it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Whatever makes you happy.’

‘Do you like opera?
Madame Butterfly
?’

Maria Callas’s voice rose and fell like water spurting from a fountain. The temperature had not changed; it was still just as hot, the air just as static. The moon had now appeared, right in the middle of the sky. Suddenly a loud bang blew it to smithereens. Nadine and Léa got up off their loungers in unison, each as pale as the other.

‘Was that a gun?’

‘I don’t know … It came from the Sudres’.’

All things considered, you could get on just fine with a fly. You only had to rub along together and lay out ground rules that suited you both. Not that you had much choice in the matter … Now, for example, the fly must be asleep. Thus, in order to avoid disturbing it, Odette tried to make as little movement as possible. Why was it so difficult to live together? Why did you always have to pick sides? Why had they all started laying into each other? The scene at the clubhouse had left a shameful taste in her mouth, something obscene and indecent she could not get rid of. People turn stupid and ugly when they’re angry, even Léa … So what if Léa liked women? … A manager she had shared an office with for twenty years was one of them too, and it had never been an issue. We all have our weaknesses … Martial had not stopped grinding his teeth all evening. The day’s events seemed to have
knocked him sideways, perhaps even more than her. ‘I’m going for a walk’; he had barely touched his dinner. He’s a sensitive soul, Martial, he doesn’t give anything away, bottles it all up inside … ‘The Mystery of the Ministry’, his colleagues used to call him. Perhaps the two of them needed to get away for a few days … Even when you spent your whole life on holiday, you were still entitled to a break now and then! … Maybe they could go up to the mountains; it would be cooler there … Take a step back, see the bigger picture …

A gunshot doesn’t sound like a tyre bursting or a firework going off. It’s in the silence that follows that you begin to gauge the gravity of it. Odette had the impression it was the moon that had been fired at; she saw it quivering like a gong, right in the middle of the sky. It came from just behind the house … the way Martial had gone …

Monsieur Flesh looked like a starfish washed ashore, arms and legs outstretched and his face reduced to a blood-spattered sketch. The bullet had ripped out his right eyeball which now lay half a metre from his head, staring up at the moon from the freshly mown lawn. A big white marble. Mashed-up face aside, Monsieur Flesh did not look dead; it was as though an echo of life was left in him. Martial would not have been surprised to see him get up, pick up his eye and put it back in place, grumbling as he went. But he didn’t get up. The revolver at the end of his arm was heavy and searing hot against his thigh. Martial felt incredibly serene, at peace. If the others had not descended on
him practically all at once, crowding in on him, he would have happily gone to bed. Maxime snatched the gun from his hand and began circling the caretaker’s body, flapping his arms up and down as though trying to fly away.

‘Oh, Jesus! … And with my gun as well! … You fucking idiot! Why the hell did you do it?’

It was the first time Maxime had sworn at him, and Martial felt a certain sense of achievement. Nadine bent over and began vomiting. Léa had turned into a pillar of salt, utterly white, while Marlène was hiding her face in her hands, letting out little mouse-like squeaks. Odette opened and closed her mouth, unable to produce the slightest sound, flailing about hopelessly like a person drowning. The moon had returned to its quarters and averted its gaze, displaying complete disinterest in this clutch of homunculi. Maxime came and stood squarely in front of Martial.

‘Come on, why did you do it, you stupid bastard? Why?’

‘I don’t know. It just happened … It wasn’t me …’

‘It wasn’t you?! Well, who the hell was it then? Of course it was bloody you! And with my gun!’

Odette placed herself between Maxime and her husband.

‘You mustn’t talk to him like that, Maxime. Martial’s very sensitive …’

‘Oh please, Odette, I think the time for niceties is past! In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a dead man lying in front of us! But no, everything’s just hunky-dory!’

Léa stepped towards Martial and Odette, who now formed one inseparable bloc.

‘How are you feeling, Martial?’

‘OK … Yes, OK, I think … He was there, by the hedge. I held my arm out towards him, I said, “Monsieur Flesh …” It went off
… My whole arm shook, the shot rang out and I saw him almost lifted off the ground … It was the gun, you see, it wasn’t me …’

‘We’ll have to call the police.’

Maxime stepped in, pouring with sweat.

‘The police? Are you mad?!’

‘We have to!’

‘Wait, it was
my
gun he fired. Do you have any idea what that means? Anyway, it was an accident. Martial clearly isn’t in his right mind.’

‘But … what else do you suggest we do?’

Odette clung to her husband, nervously muttering over and over, ‘Not the police! Not the police! Not prison …’ Nadine was sitting on the ground, rubbing her temples as she rocked back and forth, eyes closed. Marlène had crouched at her side like a frightened little poodle.

Maxime went on, ‘All we have to do is hide the body. Just get rid of it somewhere.’

‘Have you completely lost it? And where do you suggest we do that?!’

‘Behind the gypsy camp, in that patch of scrubland.’

‘But … that’s … You can’t be serious!’

‘Just think about it for a second, Léa. What do you want to do, tear Odette and Martial’s life apart and ruin ours while you’re at it? Say “to hell with it all”? You could never stand the man anyway. Why should you give a toss? We’re the only witnesses and as long as we keep our mouths shut, no one’s going to come sniffing around a bunch of poor old pensioners minding their own business. Martial, are you up to this? Say something, damn it, it’s your neck on the line!’

The truth was Martial no longer felt he had anything to do with all this. The moonlight was amazing; everyone and everything
seemed to have been chalked up on a blackboard. Any minute it could all be rubbed off … Odette began shaking him like a rag doll.

‘He’s right, darling. We have to do as Maxime says. Afterwards we won’t have to think about it ever again; we just need to do this one little thing … No, no, you’re not going to prison … How should we do this, Maxime?’

‘We’re going to need a tarpaulin or some bin bags to wrap around the head. Then we stick him in the boot and chuck him out over there, in the rubble, and no one’s any the wiser. It’s watertight. No one will suspect us for a minute … As long as we keep this between ourselves, that is. We have to be sure we can trust each other. Isn’t that right, Léa?’