excavators, rollers, all that stuff. The work’s coming along quickly, but it’s doing damage.’
‘Have you still got a temperature?’
‘Sometimes, but it goes over. I’m taking the tablets the doctor gave me. I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’
‘Shall I serve up?’
‘If you like.’
Yolande took his plate and disappeared into the shadows. The ladle clanged against the side of the pot, and there was a sound of trickling juices. Yolande came back and handed the plate to Bernard. He took it, Yolande kept hold.
‘Have you been scared?’
Bernard looked away and gave the plate a gentle tug.
‘Yes, but it didn’t last. Give it here, I’m feeling better now.’
Yolande went back for her own food. From the shadows she said, without knowing whether it was a question or a statement, ‘You’ll get more and more scared.’
Bernard began to eat, mechanically.
‘That may be, I don’t know. Machon’s given me some new pills.’
Yolande ate in the same way, as if scooping water out of a boat.
‘I saw the butcher this morning. He tried to see in again.’
Bernard shrugged. ‘He can’t see anything.’
‘No, he can’t see anything.’
Then they stopped talking and finished their lukewarm
pot-au-feu.
Through the closed shutters, shafts of light from the street picked out occasional sections of the chaos cluttering the dining room. A network of narrow passages built into the heaped-up jumble of furniture, books, clothing, all kinds of things, made it possible to get from one room to another provided you changed your shape to move like an Egyptian. Stacks of newspapers and magazines were more or less managing to prop up this rubbish tip, which threatened to collapse at any moment.
At the table, Yolande had swept the used plates, cutlery and glasses from the evening before into one corner. She was busy cutting pictures out of a magazine and sticking them on to pieces of cardboard to make a kind of jigsaw puzzle. By day the pendant lamp still oozed the same dead light as it did by night.
‘Bernard’s not gone to work today, he wasn’t up to it. He’s getting tireder and tireder, thinner and thinner. Hisbody’s like this house, with seams hollowed out of it. Where am I going to put him when he’s dead? There’s not a bit of space left anywhere. We’ll get by, we’ve always got by, ever since I can remember. Nothing has ever left this house, even the toilet’s blocked up. We keep everything. Some day, we won’t need anything else, it’ll all be here, for ever.’
Yolande hummed to herself, to the accompaniment of mice scrabbling and Bernard’s laboured breathing in the room next door.
He was asleep or pretending to be. He was fiddling with a sparkling pendant on a gilt chain: ‘More than yesterday and much less than tomorrow.’ He wouldn’t be going back to the doctor’s. Even before setting foot in the consulting room he had known it was his final visit, almost a matter of courtesy. As usual, Machon had adopted specially for him the jovial manner which he found so irritating. But yesterday evening he’d struck more false notes than usual, stumbling over his words while looking in vain for the prompt. In short, when he’d sent Bernard away, his eyes had belied what his lips were saying.
‘It’s a question of attitude, Monsieur Bonnet, and of willpower. You’ve got to fight, and keep on fighting. In any case, you’ll see, two or three days from now and you’ll be feeling much better. Don’t forget now, take three in the morning, three at noon and three in the evening.’
It was true, on leaving Bernard had felt relief, but that had had nothing to do with the medication. These regular appointments with the doctor, for months now, had been eating away at him as much as his illness, a never-endingchore. He who had never had a day’s illness in his life had experienced something like profound humiliation at handing himself over body and soul to Dr Machon, despite knowing him
‘Have you still got a temperature?’
‘Sometimes, but it goes over. I’m taking the tablets the doctor gave me. I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’
‘Shall I serve up?’
‘If you like.’
Yolande took his plate and disappeared into the shadows. The ladle clanged against the side of the pot, and there was a sound of trickling juices. Yolande came back and handed the plate to Bernard. He took it, Yolande kept hold.
‘Have you been scared?’
Bernard looked away and gave the plate a gentle tug.
‘Yes, but it didn’t last. Give it here, I’m feeling better now.’
Yolande went back for her own food. From the shadows she said, without knowing whether it was a question or a statement, ‘You’ll get more and more scared.’
Bernard began to eat, mechanically.
‘That may be, I don’t know. Machon’s given me some new pills.’
Yolande ate in the same way, as if scooping water out of a boat.
‘I saw the butcher this morning. He tried to see in again.’
Bernard shrugged. ‘He can’t see anything.’
‘No, he can’t see anything.’
Then they stopped talking and finished their lukewarm
pot-au-feu.
Through the closed shutters, shafts of light from the street picked out occasional sections of the chaos cluttering the dining room. A network of narrow passages built into the heaped-up jumble of furniture, books, clothing, all kinds of things, made it possible to get from one room to another provided you changed your shape to move like an Egyptian. Stacks of newspapers and magazines were more or less managing to prop up this rubbish tip, which threatened to collapse at any moment.
At the table, Yolande had swept the used plates, cutlery and glasses from the evening before into one corner. She was busy cutting pictures out of a magazine and sticking them on to pieces of cardboard to make a kind of jigsaw puzzle. By day the pendant lamp still oozed the same dead light as it did by night.
‘Bernard’s not gone to work today, he wasn’t up to it. He’s getting tireder and tireder, thinner and thinner. Hisbody’s like this house, with seams hollowed out of it. Where am I going to put him when he’s dead? There’s not a bit of space left anywhere. We’ll get by, we’ve always got by, ever since I can remember. Nothing has ever left this house, even the toilet’s blocked up. We keep everything. Some day, we won’t need anything else, it’ll all be here, for ever.’
Yolande hummed to herself, to the accompaniment of mice scrabbling and Bernard’s laboured breathing in the room next door.
He was asleep or pretending to be. He was fiddling with a sparkling pendant on a gilt chain: ‘More than yesterday and much less than tomorrow.’ He wouldn’t be going back to the doctor’s. Even before setting foot in the consulting room he had known it was his final visit, almost a matter of courtesy. As usual, Machon had adopted specially for him the jovial manner which he found so irritating. But yesterday evening he’d struck more false notes than usual, stumbling over his words while looking in vain for the prompt. In short, when he’d sent Bernard away, his eyes had belied what his lips were saying.
‘It’s a question of attitude, Monsieur Bonnet, and of willpower. You’ve got to fight, and keep on fighting. In any case, you’ll see, two or three days from now and you’ll be feeling much better. Don’t forget now, take three in the morning, three at noon and three in the evening.’
It was true, on leaving Bernard had felt relief, but that had had nothing to do with the medication. These regular appointments with the doctor, for months now, had been eating away at him as much as his illness, a never-endingchore. He who had never had a day’s illness in his life had experienced something like profound humiliation at handing himself over body and soul to Dr Machon, despite knowing him
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