Léon and Louise by Alex Capus, John Brownjohn Page B

miniature lions, giraffes and hippos out of wood shavings and scraps of material. The curtain behind the glass was drawn, but issuing from the door of her lodge, which was open a crack, came the sound of frying fat and the smell of braised onions. He tiptoed past, reached the foot of the stairs, and thought he was safe when Madame Rossetos emerged in her widow’s weeds, her black widow’s bonnet, and her blue floral apron.
    â€˜Why, Monsieur Le Gall, you startled me! Fancy creeping into the building like a burglar at this hour!’
    â€˜Forgive me, Madame Rossetos.’
    â€˜You’re late tonight, I hope there’s nothing wrong?’ The concierge aimed the tip of her nose at him as if taking scent.
    â€˜No, no. What should be wrong?’
    â€˜You’re pale, monsieur, you look a positive fright. And what’s that awful thing in your hand? Give it here. No, no arguments, give it here. I’ll deal with it.’
    She darted forwards and snatched the carton out of his hand. Then, never taking her eyes off him, she backed into her glassed-in den like moray eel withdrawing into a coral reef with its prey. Léon had no choice but to follow her in. He made his way into the onion fumes and watched as she deposited the carton on the kitchen table, removed the battered strawberry tartlets, put them on a floral plate, moulded them into shape with her swollen fingers, and replaced the dislodged strawberries on the custard. He smelt the aroma of onions in her trog-lodytic abode and the cloying smell of stale sweat that clung to the bombazine dress on her ample form, eyed the red of the lipstick that had seeped into the wrinkles around her mouth, the garish Madonna on the little family altar, the lighted candle in front of the hand-coloured portrait photograph of her late husband in his sergeant’s uniform, the lace antimacassar on the armchair, the sooty grey of the wall above the stove, and he listened to the crackle of the stove and the heavy, concentrated breathing from Madame Rossetos’ flared nostrils.
    A heavy curtain divided the living room from the bedroom in which her two young daughters were slumbering their way to next morning under dark-red blankets and growing a quarter of a millimetre each night in the serene certainty that they would, in the not too far distant future, blossom into young ladies and, at the first opportunity, escape from their mother’s clutches for ever. They would elope with some boyfriend who bought them silk lingerie or enter the service of some lady who would bear them off to Neuilly as chambermaids. But Madame Rossetos would remain behind on her own, vegetate in her lair for a while longer and wait for her daughters’ ever rarer visits until one day she would fall ill, drag herself off to hospital, and soon afterwards, after a last look at the water stains on the ceiling, die a meek and submissive death.
    The concierge sprinkled the tartlets with icing sugar to hide the worst of the ravages, wiped her hands on her apron, and looked up at Léon with an expression eloquent of all the guileless vulnerability of her tormented soul.
    â€˜Here you are, Monsieur Le Gall, that’s the best I can do.’
    â€˜I’m much obliged to you.’
    â€˜You must go now, your wife will have been waiting for you.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Waiting a long time.’
    â€˜Yes indeed.’
    â€˜Two hours. You’re very late tonight.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I can’t ever remember you getting home so late. Madame must be worried.’
    â€˜You’re right.’
    â€˜Nothing bad happened, that’s the main thing. I’ll put my calves’ liver in the pan now. I never eat until the girls are in bed, then I can do so in peace. Do you like calves’ liver in red wine sauce, Monsieur Le Gall?’
    â€˜Very much.’
    â€˜And sautéed potatoes with rosemary?’
    â€˜It’s my idea of