Nutshell(36)

Later, I’m woken by voices. I’m on a slope, which suggests my mother is sitting up in bed propped by pillows. The traffic outside is not yet at its usual density. My guess is 6 a.m. My first concern is that we might be due a matutinal visit to the Wall of Death. But no, they aren’t even touching. Conversation only. They’ve had pleasure enough to last till noon at least, which opens an opportunity now for rancour, or reason, or even regret. They’ve chosen the first. My mother is speaking in the flat tone she reserves for her resentments. The first complete sentence I understand is this:

‘If you weren’t in my life, John would be alive today.’

Claude considers. ‘Likewise if you weren’t in mine.’

A silence follows this blocking move. Trudy tries again. ‘You turned silly games into something else, bringing that stuff into the house.’

‘The stuff you made him drink.’

‘If you hadn’t—’

‘Listen. Dearest.’

The endearment is mostly menace. He draws breath and considers yet again. He knows he must be kind. But kindness without desire, without promise of erotic reward, is difficult for him. The strain is in his throat. ‘It’s fine. Not a criminal matter. We’re on course. That girl’s going to say all the right things.’

‘Thanks to me.’

‘Thanks to you is right. Death certificate, fine. Will, fine. Crem and all the trimmings, fine. Baby and house sale, fine—’

‘But four and a half million—’

‘Is fine. In case of worst case, the plan-B plan – fine.’

Only syntax might make one think that I’m for sale. But I’ll be free at the point of delivery. Or worthless.

Trudy repeats with contempt, ‘Four and a half million.’

‘Fast. No questions.’

A lovers’ catechism, which they may have been round before. I’m not always listening. She says, ‘Why the hurry?’ He says, ‘In case things go wrong.’ She says, ‘Why should I trust you?’ He says, ‘No choice.’

Have the house-sale papers come already? Has she signed? I don’t know. Sometimes I doze and don’t hear everything. And I don’t care. Having nothing myself, property is not my concern. Skyscrapers, tin shacks, and all the bridges and temples in between. Keep them. My interest is strictly post-partum, the departing hoof mark in the rock, the bleeding lamb drifting skyward. Always up. Hot air without a balloon. Take me with you, chuck the ballast. Give me my go, my afterlife, paradise on earth, even a hell, a thirteenth floor. I can take it. I believe in life after birth, though I know that separating hope from fact is hard. Something short of eternity will do. Three score and ten? Wrap them up, I’ll take them. On hope – I’ve been hearing about the latest slaughters in pursuit of dreams of the life beyond. Mayhem in this world, bliss in the next. Fresh-bearded young men with beautiful skin and long guns on Boulevard Voltaire gazing into the beautiful, disbelieving eyes of their own generation. It wasn’t hatred that killed the innocents but faith, that famished ghost, still revered, even in the mildest quarters. Long ago, someone pronounced groundless certainty a virtue. Now, the politest people say it is. I’ve heard their Sunday-morning broadcasts from cathedral precincts. Europe’s most virtuous spectres, religion and, when it faltered, godless utopias bursting with scientific proofs, together they scorched the earth from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. Here they come again, risen in the East, pursuing their millennium, teaching toddlers to slit the throats of teddy bears. And here I am with my home-grown faith in the life beyond. I know it’s more than a radio programme. The voices I hear are not, or not only, in my head. I believe my time will come. I’m virtuous too.

*

The morning is without event. Trudy and Claude’s exchange of muted acrimony falters then yields to hours of sleep, after which she leaves him in bed and takes a shower. In the thrumming warmth of speeding droplets and the sound of my mother’s tuneful humming, I experience an unaccountable mood of joy and excitement. I can’t help myself, I can’t hold the happiness back. Are these borrowed hormones? It hardly matters. I see the world as golden, even though the shade is no more than a name. I know it’s along the scale near yellow, also just a word. But golden sounds right, I sense it, I taste it where hot water cascades across the back of my skull. I don’t remember such carefree delight. I’m ready, I’m coming, the world will catch me, tend to me because it can’t resist me. Wine by the glass rather than the placenta, books direct by lamplight, music by Bach, walks along the shore, kissing by moonlight. Everything I’ve learned so far says all these delights are inexpensive, achievable, ahead of me. Even when the roaring water ceases, when we step into colder air and I’m shaken to a blur by Trudy’s towel, I have the impression of singing in my head. Choirs of angels!

Another hot day, another floating confection, so I dream, of printed cotton, yesterday’s sandals, no scent because her soap, if it’s the bar Claude gave her, is perfumed with gardenia and patchouli. She doesn’t braid today. Instead, two plastic devices, highly coloured, I’m sure, attached above her ears hold her hair back on each side. I feel my spirits begin to droop as we descend the familiar stairs. Just now, to have forgotten my father for minutes on end! We enter a clean kitchen, whose unnatural order is my mother’s night tribute to him. Her exequy. The acoustic is altered, the floor no longer sticks to her sandals. The flies have moved to other heavens. As she goes towards the coffee machine she must be thinking, as I am, that Elodie will have finished her interview. The officers of the law will be confirming or abandoning their first impressions. In effect, for now, for us, both are true at once. Ahead of us the path seems to fork, but it’s forked already. In any event, there will be a visit.