Read Online The Foundling Boy by Michel Déon - Free Book Online Page B

Marie-Dévote came back to him more tender than ever, and as though her appetite had merely been whetted.
    *
    Théo appeared first at the sound of the Bugatti’s engine revving for the last time before Antoine switched off. Antoine pulled off his helmet and goggles. The sight of his face reddened by the air, with a white line across his forehead and pale circles around his eyes, made Théo buckle with laughter.
    ‘Saints! You should see your face, old friend. You look like a watermelon. Come on, get out if you can. If not I’ll fetch the corkscrew.’
    Antoine, ordinarily rather thin-skinned, put up with Théo’s jokes. He felt he owed it to the man whose wife he was sleeping with so openly. At least that was how he saw it, although from his point of view Théo was convinced that it was he, the husband, who was cuckolding the lover. As a result they were both full of sympathy for one another, and incapable of hurting each other.
    Marie-Dévote was on the beach, at the water’s edge, her skirt hitched up to her thighs, showing off her beautiful long brown legs as she washed the catch she had just gutted.
    ‘Really, Antoine, it looks like you smelt there was going to be bouillabaisse today.’
    ‘My sense of smell is acute.’
    He kissed her on both cheeks. She smelt of fish, and as he closed his eyes for an instant she changed in his imagination into a sea creature, a siren come to warm herself in the sun. He would happily have laid her down on the beach and wriggled beneath her skirt there and then, but Théo was standing a few steps away, his hands on his hips and his brown face lit by a wide smile.
    ‘I’m hungry!’ Antoine said to conceal his agitation.
    And he was hungry for Marie-Dévote. She was one of those women that one wants to bite and eat, whose skin tastes of herbs and conjures up the pleasures of food as much as those between the sheets. He kissed her again on the neck and she squealed, ‘Hey! I’m not a radish, just because I’ve got a sprinkling of salt on me. Leave a bit of me for Théo. He needs feeding too.’
    *
    Unluckily, the sea’s blue suddenly darkened, violent gusts whipped across its surface, and a warm drizzle stained the sand. Eating under the arbour was out of the question. Marie-Dévote laid the tables in the dining room, one for Antoine, Théo and herself, another for the two painters living on the first floor, who came down soon afterwards.
    Antoine regarded them with suspicion. He distrusted artists, though he had never seen any at close quarters and all his knowledge of them was from books. These two looked reasonable, however. Properly dressed in corduroy and suntanned, they conversed normally without raising their voices, ate with knives and forks, and drank in moderation. One was well-built and had a thick neck, the other was slim and distinguished-looking. Marie-Dévote served them but so gracefully, unobtrusively and rapidly that she never seemed to leave her place at the table between her two men, both in a cheerful mood after drinking several glasses of pastis. Antoine watched her from the corner of his eye as she crossed the room, flitting from one table to the other. Then he saw one of the painters studying her, and his heart sank.
    ‘Come on, Papa, don’t be jealous!’ Théo, leaning over, muttered to him. ‘They’re not going to steal her from under your nose.’
    Of all Théo’s jokes ‘Papa’ was the only one that irritated Antoine, especially in front of Marie-Dévote.
    ‘If you call me “Papa” again, I’ll break a bottle over your head.’
    ‘Keep calm, Antoine, I didn’t mean to upset you. You’re “Papa” because I think of you as part of the family.’
    Turning to the two painters, who had stopped talking at the commotion, he added, ‘Antoine is a friend. Our great, great friend. He’s not from round here. He comes from the north where it’s cold and it rains a lot.’
    ‘I should like to point out,’ Antoine said, ‘that it is likewise