But nothing lasted here; everything turned to mud. Doubtless his wishes weren’t strong enough.
He didn’t understand television ads any more. He couldn’t make out what they were trying to sell him. A drink? A car? A cleaning product? He felt as if there was a whole world of fit guys running through the waves in their Speedos, gorgeous pneumatic girls dripping soap, adorable children smeared with jam, and dogs bouncing around as the family drank their breakfast Nesquik. A world that was nearby but inaccessible to him. The same went for the news (there still just seemed to be good and bad), and for games where he never knew who was supposed to be doing what. And for cop shows where the cop seemed mainly to focus on rear-ending all the cars in front of him. But that didn’t stop him thinking that television was man’s best friend, far ahead of dogs, horses and even Sylvie.
He wondered if he was hungry. ‘Maybe,’ he thought. But the effort of managing frying pan, butter and eggs seemed too great. Instead he went and brushed his teeth to put an end to thoughts of eating. He wouldn’t go and visit his father again for a long time. Each visit crushed him. When he was young he never had time to brush his teeth at night. He fell asleep wherever he happened to be and in the morning picked up where he had left off. Now his days were divided into neat slices interspersed with the mechanics of living. He lay on his bed, the light off, Macha Béranger’s voice stealing into his ear like a hermit crab. He was nothing more than a toothpaste-flavoured empty mouth on the pillow. A little sweet-smelling corpse. Why couldn’t he fall asleep? Was he waiting for a key in the lock, or was it the annoying winking of the three messages on the answer machine?
He knew perfectly well he would regret it, but he pressed the ‘Play’ button.
The first message, ‘Hi Fabien, it’s Gilles … OK, you’re not at home … Um … Would have been great to have a drink with you … Bachelor life’s a bit dull … No worries … Another time. Give me a ring when you get back. Cheers then! … Love to Sylvie!’
Second message: ‘Sylvie? … It’s me, Laure, Sylvie! … Where are you? … Are you in the loo? Well, anyway, you’re not there. Listen, since it’s Saturday evening and you said Fabien was away this weekend, I’d really like to go to a movie, so if you want to, it’s six o’clock now. See you later. Love you.’
Third message: ‘This is an urgent message for Monsieur Fabien Delorme. Could you please ring Dijon University Hospital? Your wife has been in a serious road accident. The number to contact us on is …’
*
He played the tape three times. Three times he heard Gilles snivelling about being on his own, Laure repeating her invitation and Dijon Hospital giving out their number, which he eventually wrote down on the corner of an envelope. He didn’t for one moment think it was a joke or a case of mistaken identity. He didn’t call straightaway. His first reaction was to light a cigarette and go and smoke it naked by the open window. He had no idea what on earth she could have been doing in a car in Dijon, but he was certain of one thing, Sylvie was dead – it was as certain as the wind now ruffling the hair of his balls. He flicked his cigarette butt down five floors onto the roof of a black Twingo.
‘Shit … I’m a widower now, a different person. What should I wear?’
Ever since the train had left the Gare de Lyon, a little Attila had been climbing all over his mother, pulling her hair and wiping his horrible chubby, sticky little hands on the knees of the other passengers. Fabien was not the least interested in the rapeseed-yellow, apple-green and boring blue countryside passing before his eyes. Sometimes in the tunnels he came face to face with his own reflection, like two rams ready to charge at each other.
They had never had children. To Fabien children were just receptacles that you constantly had to empty and fill. They clung to you for years, and as soon as they took themselves adults, they reproduced and ruined your holidays with their offspring. And Sylvie could barely stand her best friends’ children for more than an hour. If they ever had one of them over, as soon as they were gone, she cleaned and vacuumed to erase all traces of their presence, then sank onto the sofa, sighing, ‘That kid is such hard work.’
They were only interested in each other. Their love was the only thing that counted and they indulged it like an only child, until they smothered it. Today, Fabien realised how obnoxious their happiness had made them to other people. It was a real provocation. Little by little they had created a void around themselves. No one invited them out any more. They were kept at a distance, a bit like the bereaved. Everyone knows that excessive happiness is as off-putting as excessive misfortune.
It was at that point that Sylvie fell pregnant. Whilst waiting for her to come out of the clinic, he went to buy flowers. It was Valentine’s Day. The abortion went smoothly. It was as if she had had a tooth removed, nothing more. But something else must have grown in its place, something that didn’t like Fabien, because from that day on they didn’t make love any more. Well, that’s to say, only very rarely, after a drunken party or instead of playing Scrabble on one of those interminable February Sundays.
The annoying brat finally earned himself a smack on the bottom, whereupon he let out such a high-pitched wailing that the poor woman was obliged to drag him into the corridor by his arm. Not easy to raise a child on your own. It was obvious to Fabien that she was a single mother. He could always spot them. The way they and their child behaved like an old married couple, that mania for apologising for everything, and the way they let themselves go. Lank hair, no make-up, leggings bagging at the knee. The beautifying effect of motherhood? Hardly! It was no surprise that they found themselves dumped. Although the lot of their nonexistent partners wasn’t any more enviable – washing their socks in the basin, handing over the child support, eating out of tins. This was the liberated generation …
Three minutes’ stop at Dijon station. That was probably the amount of time he would have devoted to the city had he not had to go to the hospital. The succession of picture postcards going past the taxi window did not resonate with him. Pictures for a Chabrol film: restaurants, lawyers’ offices, more restaurants. He agreed with the taxi driver that it was all the same, whether on the left or on the right. He always agreed with taxi drivers, barbers, butchers, whoever he happened to be speaking to, and that was probably how he had survived.
At reception they asked him to wait a moment and someone would come and get him. He sat down on one of the moulded red plastic chairs that lined the bilious green walls. If he were ill, what he would find most humiliating would be hanging around the corridors in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. He found that as repulsive as the leggings and trainers combination favoured by the young, or the intolerable shorts and baseball cap outfit of American tourists. ‘All this time ahead of us, we might as well be comfortable. The Adidas view of eternity.’ After much reflection he had opted for smart casual – tweed jacket over a cashmere jumper, grey trousers and polished oxblood brogues. The man who was coming towards him wore a crumpled poor-quality beige suit and did not look like a doctor.
‘Inspector Forlani.’
‘Gérard,’ added Fabien, reading the name from the man’s identity bracelet.
Forlani came out with a tangled explanation from which the word ‘sorry’ buzzed like a fly. It must be terrible to do a job that made you say ‘sorry’ so many times. He would certainly not last long in the police. Fabien wanted to ask him if he liked his work, but he told himself it wasn’t the time and, anyway, the policeman wasn’t giving him the chance.
‘If you wouldn’t mind following me to the morgue. I’m so sorry …’
The inspector walked the way he talked, in hurried little bursts, throwing anxious glances over his shoulder, as if he feared Fabien would try to escape. The brown paper case from a cream
