hand of a motherly sadist from Alsace. Salaries are paid in cash every fortnight. The managers of Quik-Kleen consider the quota for declared employees to be reached when half of its cleaners receive a pay slip. Sophie is part of the other half. For form’s sake she protests, while praying to God they will not listen.
At 10.00 every night, Sophie goes outside and waits on the pavement. A shuttle bus comes to pick her up. The teams are dropped off, first at an insurance firm and later at an I.T. company. The “day” finishes at 6.00 a.m. sharp. “Lunch” is eaten in the bus en route between the two jobs.
*
Shehas only two and a half months to carry out her plan and it is vital that she succeeds. At the beginning of the month, she had her first meetings. She signed up with a dating agency. Later, she may subscribe to others, but even a single agency is expensive. She stole 1,400 euros from the manager’s office, just enough to fund her initial searches.
Her identity as Marianne Leblanc was guaranteed only as a “medium-term solution”, which means she does not have long. She has settled, therefore, on a golden rule: take the first man who comes along. Although she is utterly desperate, trembling constantly from head to foot, sleeping barely three hours a night and shedding weight with every passing day, on her first date Sophie realised that the word “first” was meaningless. She had drawn up a short checklist: the man must have no children, an uncomplicated private life – as for everything else, she is prepared to make do. At the agency, she pretended that she was not particularly fussy in her criteria. She offered banal phrases: “a simple guy”, “a quiet life”.
17
RenéBahorel, forty-four, a simple, quiet guy.
They had agreed to meet in a brasserie. She recognised him at once, a chubby-cheeked farmer with terrible B.O. He looked exactly as he had sounded on the telephone. A hearty character.
“I’m from Lembach,” he says knowingly.
It takes her twenty minutes to realise that this means he is a wine-grower who lives somewhere in the back of beyond. Sophie lit a cigarette. He tapped the pack on the table with his finger.
“Let me tell you straight off, if you’re with me, you’ll have to quit.”
He smiled broadly, visibly proud of expressing his authority in what he considers a tactful manner. Like all men who live alone, he is garrulous. Sophie does not need to do anything, she merely stares at him and listens. Her mind is elsewhere. She feels a desperate urge to get away. She imagines the future, visualises the first physical submission to this man and feels the need for another cigarette. He talks about himself, about his smallholding. There has never been a wedding ring on his finger, or if there was, it was long ago. Perhaps it is the stifling heat of the brasserie,the clamour from the tables where diners are ordering their main courses, but Sophie feels a wave of nausea rising in her stomach.
“. . . I mean, obviously, we get E.U. subsidies, but it’s still a nightmare. What about you?”
The question comes out of the blue.
“What about me?”
“What do you think? Are you interested in farming?”
“Not particularly, to be honest . . .”
Sophie said this because, regardless of the questions, it was the right answer. René says, “Oh.” But the guy is a Weeble, he might wobble, but he won’t fall down. You have to wonder how farmers end up being run over by their own tractors. His vocabulary might be limited, but certain words recur with a worrying insistence. Sophie tries to decode what she is hearing.
“So, your mother lives with you?”
René says, “Oh, yes”, as though reassuring her. Eighty-four years old. And still “fit as a fiddle”. It is terrifying. Sophie imagines herself lying beneath the weight of this man while the old woman prowls the corridors, the shuffle of slippers, the smell of cooking. For a second, she pictures Vincent’s mother in front of
At 10.00 every night, Sophie goes outside and waits on the pavement. A shuttle bus comes to pick her up. The teams are dropped off, first at an insurance firm and later at an I.T. company. The “day” finishes at 6.00 a.m. sharp. “Lunch” is eaten in the bus en route between the two jobs.
*
Shehas only two and a half months to carry out her plan and it is vital that she succeeds. At the beginning of the month, she had her first meetings. She signed up with a dating agency. Later, she may subscribe to others, but even a single agency is expensive. She stole 1,400 euros from the manager’s office, just enough to fund her initial searches.
Her identity as Marianne Leblanc was guaranteed only as a “medium-term solution”, which means she does not have long. She has settled, therefore, on a golden rule: take the first man who comes along. Although she is utterly desperate, trembling constantly from head to foot, sleeping barely three hours a night and shedding weight with every passing day, on her first date Sophie realised that the word “first” was meaningless. She had drawn up a short checklist: the man must have no children, an uncomplicated private life – as for everything else, she is prepared to make do. At the agency, she pretended that she was not particularly fussy in her criteria. She offered banal phrases: “a simple guy”, “a quiet life”.
17
RenéBahorel, forty-four, a simple, quiet guy.
They had agreed to meet in a brasserie. She recognised him at once, a chubby-cheeked farmer with terrible B.O. He looked exactly as he had sounded on the telephone. A hearty character.
“I’m from Lembach,” he says knowingly.
It takes her twenty minutes to realise that this means he is a wine-grower who lives somewhere in the back of beyond. Sophie lit a cigarette. He tapped the pack on the table with his finger.
“Let me tell you straight off, if you’re with me, you’ll have to quit.”
He smiled broadly, visibly proud of expressing his authority in what he considers a tactful manner. Like all men who live alone, he is garrulous. Sophie does not need to do anything, she merely stares at him and listens. Her mind is elsewhere. She feels a desperate urge to get away. She imagines the future, visualises the first physical submission to this man and feels the need for another cigarette. He talks about himself, about his smallholding. There has never been a wedding ring on his finger, or if there was, it was long ago. Perhaps it is the stifling heat of the brasserie,the clamour from the tables where diners are ordering their main courses, but Sophie feels a wave of nausea rising in her stomach.
“. . . I mean, obviously, we get E.U. subsidies, but it’s still a nightmare. What about you?”
The question comes out of the blue.
“What about me?”
“What do you think? Are you interested in farming?”
“Not particularly, to be honest . . .”
Sophie said this because, regardless of the questions, it was the right answer. René says, “Oh.” But the guy is a Weeble, he might wobble, but he won’t fall down. You have to wonder how farmers end up being run over by their own tractors. His vocabulary might be limited, but certain words recur with a worrying insistence. Sophie tries to decode what she is hearing.
“So, your mother lives with you?”
René says, “Oh, yes”, as though reassuring her. Eighty-four years old. And still “fit as a fiddle”. It is terrifying. Sophie imagines herself lying beneath the weight of this man while the old woman prowls the corridors, the shuffle of slippers, the smell of cooking. For a second, she pictures Vincent’s mother in front of
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