Read Online How's the Pain? by Pascal Garnier - Free Book Online Page B

was going so fast, even the present day had to be glimpsed through a rear-view mirror.
    ‘Aren’t you going to finish your mussels, Monsieur Marechall?’
    ‘I’m too tired. I’m going to bed. Don’t forget, eight o’clock tomorrow morning!’
    ‘Without fail, Monsieur Marechall. Good night.’ 
     
    He had barely made it into the caravan when Bernard and Fiona heard him coughing and throwing up in the bathroom.
    ‘Do you think it was my mussels?’
    ‘No, they’re lovely. It’s him – he’s not well, your Monsieur Marechall.’
    ‘What’s wrong with him?’
    ‘Death, that’s his disease. You can see it on his face and it’s nothing new. That man has never had feelings for anyone.’
    ‘I think you’re wrong there. I think he likes me a lot.’
    ‘Maybe … Maybe he loved someone once but she turned him down and he never got over it. Watch out. A drowning man never wants to go down alone.’
    The sea and the sky, vying with each other in their vastness, traded handfuls of stars.
    ‘I’m a bit chilly. Violette’s asleep; I think I’ll head indoors.’
    ‘I’ll walk you back.’
    A few TVs still hummed, but most had been turned off. With the little girl in his arms, Bernard felt he could go anywhere, do anything. He took strength from the warm, squidgy human ball of dough he held against him – and the sight of Fiona’s moonlike buttocks strutting in her tight white shorts.
    ‘You can come in if you want.’
    ‘That would be nice, but I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just I’m a bit worried about Monsieur Marechall. He might need me. See you tomorrow then?’
    ‘See you tomorrow.’
    Fiona’s lips …
     
    Monsieur Marechall was sprawled across the dishevelled bed wearing only his boxers, open-mouthed and scrawny as a giant skinned rabbit. Just as he was used to doing for his mother, Bernard put him straight, slid a pillow under his head and pulled the blanket up to his chin. Bernard wasn’t sleepy. If life was as kind to him every day as it had been today, he would never sleep again. Excitement bubbled through his veins like champagne. It was even better than the day he’d passed his driving test, because this time the only thing he was drunk on was pure, unalloyed happiness.
    Once he had made sure everything was in order, Bernard went back down to the beach. The sand was crisscrossed with the footprints of thousands of children, adults and dogs, which seemed almost to come alive in the moonlight. It was as moving a sight as the red clay handprints discovered on the walls of prehistoric caves. Not as ancient, of course, but renewed and immortalised with each passing day. A white plastic bag was lifted high on a gust of wind like a miniature hot air balloon, and then disappeared behind a bush. This thing with Fiona could turn into something, a relationship. And what was more, she already had a baby he had not even needed to have a hand in making. Things with Monsieur Marechall were not so rosy, though. He was worried about him. What was this ‘death’ disease Fiona had talked about? Something he had picked up through his job? The truth was, he was really quite attached to the old grouch. Without a father of hisown, he had to find a substitute, and Monsieur Marechall fitted the bill.
    Bernard lay down on the sand, which moulded snugly around his body. The waves were lapping, the stars whispering. Everything was as it should be, perfectly still, until he caught sight of a stupid green satellite flashing in the distance, reminding him that time was passing. Monsieur Marechall had an important meeting in the morning, at nine thirty on the dot, and then … then it would be time to say goodbye to Fiona and Violette and he would be back to square one, in Vals-les-Bains. He didn’t fancy the prospect of going back to his humdrum existence one bit. Except … he could drive Monsieur Marechall back to Vals and maybe, if he had done a good job, he might even get a bonus, in