Trespass. Part 7

Anthony loved Madame Besson now. He forgave her her bad driving, her disdain for Veronica's fat stomach, her smoking habit. She'd done her job as an agent with intelligence. She'd replaced for him something ordinary with something marvellous. She had, in fact, made the house one one: a beautiful gem, with its most audacious wonders still waiting to be revealed behind flimsy slabs of plasterboard. He wanted to slap a kiss on her sun-wrinkled face.

He walked to one of the bedroom windows and stared out at the big parcel of land which would belong to him. There was even a sizeable stone barn below the lawn, which could be put to some magnificent use (Pool house? Separate guest suite?), and to the left of this he could glimpse the terraces falling away towards the south. They were overgrown with weeds, but they were planted with vines and olives and what looked like gnarled old fruit trees, sweetly fuzzed with grey lichen. The window was open and Anthony leaned on the sill, hearing nothing now but birdsong. He adored the feeling of being high up. And he thought how, with V's help, this view might in time become so seductive he'd never ever want to leave it...

He was on the very precipice of calling Veronica over to him and whispering to her that he wanted to buy the house, that he'd made up his mind already, that he had a sublime vision of what it could be, when Kitty arrived beside him. She'd said nothing so far, but he'd noticed her ferret eyes go peering into corners, seen how, straight away, the dogs in their pen upset her, sentimentalist that she was. Now she stood by Anthony, peering out.

'It's interesting,' she said. 'From inside, and even from here, you feel as if the house is on its own.'

'What d'you mean?' said Anthony. 'It is is on its own.' on its own.'

'Well, not quite. There's the bungalow.'

'What bungalow?'

Kitty leaned further out. Anthony couldn't stand the way she cut her hair so short at the back, like a man's hair, as if enticing you to keep noticing the tough sinews of her neck.

'Over there,' she said. 'You can just see it. There. On the bend in the driveway.'

He looked to where she was pointing. Saw a low, corrugated iron roof, the edge of a facade, painted pink, geraniums in what looked like plastic pots.

'Didn't you notice it as we drove in?' asked Kitty.

'No,' he said. 'No.'

And he hadn't noticed it. He'd been staring straight ahead, fixated on his first sight of the Mas Lunel. But there it was. Another habitation, another person's life, with all its mess and clutter, squatting on land he'd been imagining was his.

He cursed silently. He'd believed he'd been looking at a slice of paradise and he'd chosen to forget that there were no paradises left in the world. All the still-beautiful places were blighted by their nearness to some other thing you didn't wish to see or hear or have to think about. And here was that blight again, like the face of the old crone in the Aubusson tapestry, mocking the blithe aristocrats at the very moment when delicious food and wine were being brought to them.

He felt choked, furious with himself. Why hadn't he, who was normally so vigilant about the details of his surroundings, taken in the d.a.m.n bungalow? He kept staring at it now, as though willing it not to be there. Of course, he thought wearily, it had to be Kitty, it had had to be her who drew his attention to it, who came and took away his excitement, his incipient joy. to be her who drew his attention to it, who came and took away his excitement, his incipient joy.

The only question that remained was, did the fact of the bungalow ruin the whole place for him, or might some compromise with it be reached? He knew he'd have to go outside and look at it face to face to be able to answer this question, but he shrank from doing this. He was afraid that its ugliness would send him plunging back into depression.

Anthony called Madame Besson over to him.

'Ah yes,' she said, 'that little house belongs to Monsieur Lunel's sister. But most of her land is on the other side of the road. She just has a bit of gra.s.s and a small vegetable garden there. You could easily screen her off. Plant some fast-growing cypresses. Then you wouldn't know anything was there.'

Oh yes, thought Anthony, this was agent-talk of the kind they loved to perfect, but he was Anthony Verey, and he would would know. Even if he couldn't see it, he would feel it: the hag in the forest, another human existence, with all its distress and noise, all its grinding ordinariness, when what he yearned for was perfect, unpolluted solitude a kingdom of his own, where he could grow old in style. know. Even if he couldn't see it, he would feel it: the hag in the forest, another human existence, with all its distress and noise, all its grinding ordinariness, when what he yearned for was perfect, unpolluted solitude a kingdom of his own, where he could grow old in style.

Anthony turned to Madame Besson. He was too agitated to try to speak French. 'I love the house,' he said in English. 'The high ceilings, the s.p.a.ce. The position, even. But I think the bungalow ruins it. I think, for me, the bungalow makes it impossible.'

Out of politeness, they had to drink the tea Monsieur Lunel had prepared.

He sat them down at the kitchen table, cleared of the apples and the pastis. He pa.s.sed round a plate of stale biscuits.

'So,' he said, 'I'll take you down to the vines when you've drunk your tea. They've got a bit overgrown. I'm on my own here. I've got no son to help me or take over from me, which is why I'm selling up. But it's good land, worked for generations...'

Anthony, sipping disdainfully at the tepid brew, said to Madame Besson: 'Please can you ask him how much of the land belongs to his sister.'

'I already informed you,' said Madame Besson. 'Most of the sister's land is on the other side of the road.'

'Nevertheless, ask him please,' snapped Anthony.

When Madame Besson put the question to Lunel, Anthony saw sudden anxiety darken the man's face. He didn't reply immediately, but then leaned over and whispered to the agent: 'Tell them my sister's of no account. She'll be gone. That house will be gone. It never should have been built where it is.'

Madame Besson pursed her lips. She s.h.i.+fted in her chair and began patting her hair as she turned to Anthony and said: 'There is... a... suggestion suggestion that Monsieur Lunel's sister may also be leaving. In which case, I suppose that plot with the small house would become available to buy. But I am not certain about this.' that Monsieur Lunel's sister may also be leaving. In which case, I suppose that plot with the small house would become available to buy. But I am not certain about this.'

'Audrun owns a whole wood!' Lunel burst out. 'I told her to build there, in her d.a.m.ned wood. That's where the house should have gone. And instead it went on my land.'

'Are you saying that your sister's house is, in fact, on your land, Monsieur Lunel?' said Madame Besson.

'Yes, it's on part of my land... part of it...'

'Ah. That was not made clear to me. According to the plans I've seen-'

'I'm getting a new surveyor!' said Aramon Lunel, banging his fist on the table. 'Those boundaries are all wrong and Audrun knows it!'

Madame Besson took a notebook out of her handbag and began to write in it. Anthony saw sweat begin to bead at Lunel's temple. His clenched fist was shaking. 'I've told Audrun,' he said to Madame Besson, 'she's in breach of the rules. We're just waiting for the surveyor to come and sort it all out.'

'I think you should have informed us, as agents, about this... family dispute, Monsieur Lunel,' said Madame Besson. 'I can't continue to show people round the property while there's uncertainty about boundary lines.'

'No, no!' cried Lunel. 'There is no uncertainty. There is no "dispute". You'll see! It's all going to be sorted out. Just as soon as I can persuade the surveyor at Rua.s.se to get off his a.r.s.e...'

Madame Besson got up and made a sign to the others to do the same. Lunel clutched at Madame Besson's sleeve. 'Don't go!' he implored. 'I like these buyers. The Britanniques Britanniques have money. They haven't finished their tea. Let me show them the vines...' have money. They haven't finished their tea. Let me show them the vines...'

'No, I'm sorry, we have to go,' said Madame Besson, pulling her arm away and consulting her watch. 'We have an appointment to see a house at Saint-Bertrand.'

Audrun was cutting her gra.s.s with her small petrol mower when Aramon came limping down the driveway and began shouting at her. She manoeuvred the mower towards him, thinking how extraordinary it would be to run over his feet.

'Turn it off! Turn it off!' he yelled.

But she let it idle near her, like a weapon primed and ready.

He was drunk on pastis. His gaze looped and swivelled all around him. The sun beat down on his wild head.

'I've got a buyer!' he babbled. 'It's eighty per cent sure. Ninety per cent sure. An English buyer, some dealer in antiques, stuffed with cash. But he's hesitating, d.a.m.n him! He's hesitating because he wants your bungalow gone, and I've told the agents it will will be gone!' be gone!'

'You've told the agents-'

'I'm not letting this sale go. It's my due. It's my right, pardi pardi!'

Audrun said nothing. She held onto the mower handle. She could imagine the blood and tissue and bone from his feet exploding in a fountain over the gra.s.s, the colour of the pink lake in her dreams. Aramon lurched nearer to her. 'Surveyor's coming tomorrow,' he said, shaking a finger at her, almost in her face. 'And I've told him, your house is illegal!'

'Leave me alone, Aramon,' she said.

'Didn't you hear me? Surveyor's coming in the morning. And by next week, there'll be a demolition order on your bungalow. And I've told those stupid agents, I'm taking care of it. I've told them-'

He was sick then. He convulsed and spewed up on her cut lawn, clutching his gut. Audrun had to look away, the sight was so repellent, it made her retch. And she thought about where she'd bury him once she'd killed him; not in the family vault at La Callune, where their parents lay, but in some unsanctified place, some unvisited slope of land, among the th.o.r.n.y gorse. And birds of prey would come, smelling his terrible flesh, and pick him clean, as he'd never been clean in his adult life. And all of this was only a matter of time.

She turned her back on him and resumed her mowing, going in wider circles now, without looking in his direction. The scent of the mown gra.s.s gradually replaced the stink of his vomit. And after a while, Audrun knew that he'd walked away, going shakily along the drive towards the Mas Lunel. She imagined him crawling up the stairs to his room and collapsing onto his bed. He should have been working on his vines, but he'd be snoring in his pit, with daylight flooding the walls, and she began to wonder, would this be a good time to do the things she had to do... ?

She'd seen the English people, heard the sound of their voices, peculiarly loud. And the smaller of the two women had come a little way down the drive and stared at the bungalow. Audrun had watched her from behind her lace curtains. The woman resembled a man. She was short, but she walked with a swagger. And the swagger had made Audrun feel strange, as though this person had mystical power.

She found herself wondering, had Jesus of Nazareth walked along the sh.o.r.e towards the fishermen in this swaggering kind of way, when He summoned His disciples and they'd risen up from their boats and left their nets and all that they'd worked for, to follow Him there and then? Audrun knew this was an inappropriate kind of idea, a blasphemy, exactly the kind of thought which made ordinary people believe she was crazy. But n.o.body seemed to understand that thoughts couldn't always be chosen. This was one of the confusing things about Audrun's life: thoughts chose her. thoughts chose her. And not only thoughts. She was a vessel, a receptacle for unimaginably terrible actions. And this was what she lived with: the fact that, sometimes, the unimaginable became real in her: only in her. And not only thoughts. She was a vessel, a receptacle for unimaginably terrible actions. And this was what she lived with: the fact that, sometimes, the unimaginable became real in her: only in her.

She sat in her chair, resting after her mowing. She asked herself how long it would take her to s.n.a.t.c.h Aramon's pills, grind them up and dissolve them in warm water and fill the enema bag and go silently back to his room. Would he wake up too soon, and begin struggling with her? Or would she, even as she worked with the fluid and the tube, be able to calm and rea.s.sure him, tell him she was trying to do him good with a special kind of purge that would flush the sickness out of him? And then he would submit. He would submit to his own death...

Audrun closed her eyes. Once, when they were children, before Bernadette had left them to lie in the cemetery at La Callune, Aramon had fallen out of an apricot tree on one of the far terraces, and she, his ten-year-old sister, had heard him screaming and found him in a swoon of pain and tried to soothe him and calm him as he writhed on the ground with his ankle broken.

She'd attempted to pick him up and carry him, but the weight of him was too great and she had had to lay him down on a mush of fallen apricots and dry leaves. She told him she was going to run and fetch Bernadette or Serge, but Aramon clung to her. He was thirteen and afraid and he said: 'Don't leave me out here. Don't leave me alone, Audrun...'

So she laid his head in her lap and stroked his face and tried to calm him and after a while he was quiet and fell into a kind of trance. She sat there, on the mushy ground, tormented by wasps, holding him and waiting. Not daring to cry out for help, in case she broke his peculiar sleep, proud of the way she'd been able to bring this sleep about.

And only later, after Serge had found them as the light was fading, was she told that she'd done wrong, that Aramon could have died of shock out there on the lower terraces, that she should have covered him with her own coat and run immediately for help. In the night, she heard her father say to Bernadette: 'That daughter of yours has no sense. She doesn't do what's right. G.o.d knows what kind of life she's going to have.'

G.o.d knows what kind of life.

And now, it could go wrong again, that thing she called her life. If she did what she wanted to do, what she knew she had to do had to do, wasn't she afterwards guaranteed a miserable end? Because prison would feel like dying, just as working in the underwear factory at Rua.s.se had felt like dying. She'd spend her days trudging between a freezing cell and some noisy, echoing room, where women laughed and screamed like demons as they went about their ugly work. In this place, her eyesight would surely fail. Her episodes episodes would increase, until they joined one to another in a skein of unp.r.o.nounceable suffering and confusion. And in the nights, she'd be haunted by dreams about her wood, knowing that she'd never see it again, never hear its sighing, never see the glad spring, but only imagine the seasons pa.s.sing and flying on... would increase, until they joined one to another in a skein of unp.r.o.nounceable suffering and confusion. And in the nights, she'd be haunted by dreams about her wood, knowing that she'd never see it again, never hear its sighing, never see the glad spring, but only imagine the seasons pa.s.sing and flying on...

Audrun sat on in her chair and the evening darkness slowly visited the room. She realised now that she didn't have it yet, the plan that would accomplish its end and leave no trace. She pulled her cardigan round her. Then she thought: I don't have it yet, but it will will come. It will arrive in me, unbidden, like a stranger with a swagger arriving at the door. And I will rise up and follow it. come. It will arrive in me, unbidden, like a stranger with a swagger arriving at the door. And I will rise up and follow it.

She got up early and drank her bowl of coffee and put on her flowery overall and began to tidy her house for the surveyor's visit. She dragged a mop over the tiled floors, watching the pathways of s.h.i.+ne its dampness made and wis.h.i.+ng that this glimmer wouldn't fade, the way it always did.

She knew the bungalow was a dump, botched together under its tin roof, but now that she was probably going to lose it she felt her sentimental attachment to it increase. It contained all there was of her: her bed, her armoire, her plants, her television, her stove, her rugs, her favourite chair. The walls had sheltered her, kept her pain in one place.

The morning was bright and still. Audrun watered the geraniums on her terrace, pulled up two white onions for her supper, chased a green frog away. As the frog disappeared into the gra.s.s, Audrun saw Marianne Viala walking up the road towards her.

'The surveyor's coming this morning,' she told Marianne.

Marianne had brought her a piece of her famous tarte au chocolat tarte au chocolat on a blue plate. She set this down on the plastic table. She shook her head that appeared small, with its tightly permed curls, coloured pale brown. 'Aramon should be ashamed of himself,' she said. on a blue plate. She set this down on the plastic table. She shook her head that appeared small, with its tightly permed curls, coloured pale brown. 'Aramon should be ashamed of himself,' she said.

They sat down in the plastic chairs, with the tarte tarte between them, uneaten. Whenever a car came by on the road, they turned and stared, wondering if it was going to be the surveyor arriving. After a while, Marianne said: 'If your brother knocks your house down, you can come and live with me.' between them, uneaten. Whenever a car came by on the road, they turned and stared, wondering if it was going to be the surveyor arriving. After a while, Marianne said: 'If your brother knocks your house down, you can come and live with me.'

Audrun was silent. She knew this was very kind of Marianne, exceptionally kind if she really meant it but it wasn't a thing she could contemplate. She'd lived her whole life here, on land that had belonged to the Lunel family for three generations. To find herself in some little shadowy back-room, surrounded by Marianne's possessions, would be terrible. She lifted her head and said: 'I think I'll go and live at the mas.'

'What,' said Marianne, 'with him him?'

Audrun looked down at her hands, clenched together on the table top.

'The way he's drinking,' she said, 'he can't have long to live.'

After an hour had pa.s.sed, Audrun made more coffee and the two women ate the chocolate tarte tarte and they felt the sweetness of it bring their blood alive. And they started on some reminiscences of their schooldays and among these was a memory of how their teacher, Monsieur Verdier, used to bring his mongrel dog, Toto, to Thursday cla.s.ses because his wife worked in the village shop on that day of the week and Toto was a creature who couldn't bear to be alone. and they felt the sweetness of it bring their blood alive. And they started on some reminiscences of their schooldays and among these was a memory of how their teacher, Monsieur Verdier, used to bring his mongrel dog, Toto, to Thursday cla.s.ses because his wife worked in the village shop on that day of the week and Toto was a creature who couldn't bear to be alone.

At break time, Toto would be let out into the school yard with the children and they hugged him and petted him and pulled his ears and fed him sweets and chased him round and round, and some of the older boys threw sticks at him but he kept scampering on.

Then, one Thursday, Toto wasn't there in his basket in the cla.s.sroom, and Monsieur Verdier set the children a reading a.s.signment and sat at his desk without moving, staring out of the window at the sky.

'Please, sir,' one of the children asked. 'Where's Toto?'

'Toto's disappeared,' said Monsieur Verdier. 'We don't know where. We just hope he's not alone.'

'Did he ever come back?' asked Marianne. 'I can't remember.'

'No,' said Audrun. 'He never came back. The things you love never do.'

Marianne sniffed, as if to say that, really, Audrun's pessimism was wearisome sometimes, and she changed the subject to her daughter, Jeanne, who was a teacher, now, at a school in Rua.s.se. 'The children there,' said Marianne, 'are far less disciplined than we were. Far less in the city schools. Jeanne has terrible difficulty. And she told me in her cla.s.s this term she's got a child from Paris, who's getting bullied.'

'Well,' said Audrun. 'That's not new. Bullying.'

'No. But it's hard for Jeanne. She has to try to be fair to everyone. She hates it when any of them are unhappy, but she says this little girl has been very spoilt. Her father's a doctor, or something like that.'

'What's her name?' asked Audrun. 'In Paris, they give children the names of movie stars, American names.'

'Yes,' said Marianne. 'Her name's Melodie. Melodie. Melodie. Imagine calling a child that! And of course it makes another difficulty for Jeanne.' Imagine calling a child that! And of course it makes another difficulty for Jeanne.'

The morning went by and Marianne returned to her house, and there was no sign of the surveyor.

'If you're a woman,' Bernadette once said to Audrun, 'you spend a lot of your life waiting. You wait for the men to come back from the war, or from the fields, or from hunting in the hills. You wait for them to decide to mend all the things that need mending. You wait for their words of love.'

Audrun went indoors. She ate some bread and cheese and then locked her front door and lay down on her bed. She discovered that the waiting had tired her. She slept for two hours and was woken by a knocking on her door and she thought from its frenzy that it was probably Aramon, come back to shout at her about something or other, so she took her time answering.

A man stood there, wearing a crumpled grey suit and a tie tugged loose from the collar of his s.h.i.+rt and hanging down all anyhow. Under his arm was a sheaf of papers.

'I'm the surveyor,' said the man. 'From Rua.s.se.'

Soon after Bernadette died, Serge Lunel had said to his son: 'It's us against the world now, Aramon. You and me against the world. We have to take control. And I'm going to tell you how.'

Aramon stood now near the Lunel tomb in the cemetery at La Callune.

He found that he was holding in his hands a small wreath of plastic flowers, but he wasn't certain how his hands had come by this. Had they taken it from another family's mausoleum? Had they found it lying in the gra.s.s?

He told himself that it didn't really matter, that a plastic wreath was the kind of thing n.o.body cared a fig about, and he set it down distractedly at the foot of the granite tomb that contained his parents and his Lunel grandparents, Guillaume and Marthe, all on top of one another, with his mother and father jammed in last, up against the roof. And it seemed fantastical to Aramon that he was now older than Serge had been when he'd died.

Time, he thought, was so unstable, it was surprising anybody had been able to carve out any rational existence within it at all.

Deep in Aramon's heart lay the knowledge that both their lives his and Serge's had been warped and damaged by what they'd chosen to do after Bernadette was gone. But he didn't want to feel that either of them were to blame for it. Time Time was to blame. Time had given them Bernadette and then taken her away, just as it had taken Renee away, long before. was to blame. Time had given them Bernadette and then taken her away, just as it had taken Renee away, long before. Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live. Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live. Time changed the way your body felt and the things it had to do. Time changed the way your body felt and the things it had to do.

It wasn't a thing you could ever talk about, or had ever been able to talk about. Even while he and his father had hoed the onions (in the long-ago days when onions had still earned the family good money) in the hot earth, moving together up and down the rows, while Audrun worked in the underwear factory in Rua.s.se, they'd been silent on the subject. Only once, right at the beginning, had Serge whispered to him, 'It's perfectly logical, son. There was Renee, but she died, she was punished for what she did, then there was your mother, but she's gone too, she left us. So now... there's the other one. It's logical to keep all of this in the family. Quite logical.'

It used to make Aramon black out. The sheer and terrible thrill of going into Audrun's room in the night and doing that. He thought of it as love, the most delirious perfect love he could imagine. It was too much for his body and his mind. Sometimes, afterwards, Serge had to come and pick him off the floor of her room where she'd tipped him, and carry him back to his own bed, slap his cheeks to bring him round, make him drink cognac. 'Allez,' Serge would whisper tenderly, 'it's all right. You're not dying. You've just done what young men have to do. Go to sleep now.'

Then, he would hear Serge walking back down the corridor and going into her room, too, and closing the door and, later, crying out, like a dog. And Aramon didn't care about this, that his love had to be shared. What he minded about, what made him mad, was that she never cried out. All she ever gave him in return for what he did the love love he gave her was her silence. he gave her was her silence.

The years kept pa.s.sing, like that Serge and Aramon crying out in the dark for more than fifteen years until Serge fell ill. Then, on his death-bed, Serge had said to his son: 'I'm going down to h.e.l.l, Aramon. I feel it. And it's because of that. that. So you... you'd better find a different path now. The mas is yours, and most of the land. Marry some girl. Let Audrun build her own little place. Or your life will go wrong. Do it before it's too late.' So you... you'd better find a different path now. The mas is yours, and most of the land. Marry some girl. Let Audrun build her own little place. Or your life will go wrong. Do it before it's too late.'

Do it before it's too late.