Gallic Noir. Pascal Garnier

I know you? D’you work at the station?’

      ‘Yes.’

      The stripes on her trousers looked like scratches. She had sturdy thighs, and the same smell as Yolande when she came home late from the factory. Their father would thump his fist on the table.

      ‘Have you seen the time?’

      ‘Well, how d’you expect me to get home? There isn’t a bus any more. There’s a war on, haven’t you heard? What are we having to eat?’

      They always had the same, and she would always have some boyfriend waiting in the wings.

      ‘Why are you smiling?’

      ‘Because you remind me of my sister when she was your age.’

      ‘Oh. What’s she called, your sister?’

      ‘Yolande.’

      ‘I’m Maryse. And what about you, what’s your name?’

      ‘Bernard.’

      ‘Like my brother-in-law!’ She was practically family. Nothing for it but … He had stopped thinking about his death. This girl was like his life, a huge gift which he hadn’t dared even begin to unwrap.

      ‘What does your sister do?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘Housewife and mother, then?’

      ‘Something like that.’

      On each side of the road the houses dissolved in a wash of brown ink. A triangular yellow sign had appeared right in the middle of the road, forcing a diversion.

      ‘The fucking motorway, it’s driving me mad! We don’t need it, do we?’

      ‘The march of progress. If you’ll excuse me, I just have to stop for a few minutes, a call of—’

      ‘Got it!’

      The girl’s laughter had sounded in his ear like the tinkling of the doorbell when you’re not expecting a visitor. The rain had eased off and was now little more than a drizzle, the tears of a star freshening his face. Standing squarely in the mud, he had urinated against a concrete block bristling with metal rods. Work on the motorway had begun at the same time as his pain. With a wry smile, he noted how fast it was progressing. The arched back of the unfinished A26 soared like a diving board into the violet sky. A star had appeared between two banks of cloud. His hard-on was so big that he hadn’t been able to do up his flies again. On the way back to the car his feet made a squelching sound with every step.

      ‘I’m sorry, I’ve dropped my watch. There’s a torch in the glove compartment.’

      ‘Would you like some help?’

      ‘That would be good. Thank you.’

      The pair of them had waded about in the mud, Maryse’s backside just a few centimetres from Bernard’s nose. A whole life right in front of him. The girl had made a sound like a deflating balloon when he had jumped on her. Lying on top of her wildly flailing body, he held her head down in a puddle. It had gone on for quite some time, the girl was sturdy. But the grip of Bernard’s hand on the back of her neck had finally proved too much for Maryse’s ‘nearly’ eighteen years. ‘Strong as death! I’m as strong as death!’ His eyes were like a hound’s when it bays at the moon. The water in the puddle became calm again. Soon it reflected nothing but a sky empty save for one quivering star. Bernard had loosened his grip. A slender gilt chain had got twisted round his wrist, at its end a small disc inscribed ‘More than yesterday and much less than tomorrow’.

      The hardest part had been dragging her to the far side of the building site. There he had heaved the body into one of the holes which would be filled in with vast quantities of concrete the next day, and covered her with earth. Maryse no longer existed, had never existed perhaps.

      Bernard let the chain drop back on to his belly. It was unbelievably heavy. He thought he would give it to Yolande as a present. What would become of her without him? Nothing. She had stopped ‘becoming’ the best part of fifty years ago.

      She would go on, every morning knitting the little scrap of life which she then unravelled every night, tirelessly, without ever thinking there might be an end.

      ‘Bernard, there’s the grocer’s van!’

      ‘I’m tired, Yoyo. Do you really need something?’

      ‘Yes! Those little chocolate biscuits with the animals on. Please …’

      ‘OK. Give me my coat, will you?’

      ‘Get a few packets, just in case.’

      Since Monday evening there has been no news of young Maryse L., born on 4 April 1975 in Brissy. The young woman was last seen close to the Jean-Jaurès bus stop. She is described as one metre sixty-four centimetres tall, of medium build, etc. Anyone with information should contact the police in …

      Bernard did not think the photo was a good likeness.

      Newspaper photos never looked like anything, or rather they all looked alike, sharing a family resemblance, hangdog and miserable. The papers said any old thing. They never had anything very interesting to report, so they told lies. There wasn’t so much as two lines to be said about the girl. Apart from a handful of individuals, no one knew Maryse existed. Her death made no difference. What album had they dug that photo out of? She couldn’t be more than twelve in it. The silly smile of the young girl turned his stomach.

      ‘Oh Bernard, you haven’t eaten a thing! That’s no good, and you know you like shepherd’s pie.’

      ‘I have, Jacqueline, I’ve had some. I’m just a bit out of sorts, that’s all.’

      ‘I can see that. You haven’t touched your food. Have you seen Machon again?’

      ‘Yes, on Monday. Everything’s fine.’

      ‘Everything’s fine, my foot!’

      Jacqueline put her pile of plates down on the corner of the table and ran her hand over her face as if removing an invisible spider’s web. She had had this habit ever since they’d been at primary school together. Jacqueline was his best friend. They might have got married, had children, a dog, a caravan, the most modest of lives but a life even so. But there was Yolande. Jacqueline had waited for a long time, and then married Roland. They had the restaurant across from the station.

      ‘Are you coming on Sunday, for Serge’s First Communion?’

      ‘I don’t know, maybe.’

      ‘But you’ve got to. He’d be hurt … I suppose you’re fretting about Yolande, is that it?’

      ‘Of course not.’

      ‘Of course you are! She’ll take advantage of you for your whole life, that one! Why don’t you put her in a home? It’s about time you started taking care of yourself. Have you looked in a mirror recently?’

      ‘You know perfectly well that’s impossible. She’s not capable of—’

      ‘Give me a light, will you? Yes, Roland, I’m coming, just a second! He’s a bloody nuisance, that one. Can’t do a damn thing for himself. It’s a mess, isn’t it?’

      ‘Please don’t start, Jacqueline.’

      ‘What? What would we have left if we no longer had our regrets?’

      ‘Remorse, perhaps.’

      ‘Sometimes I think I might prefer that. At least it would mean we’d done things.’

      ‘Things? They don’t leave much of a trace behind them.’

      ‘Well, did you want to leave pyramids behind you? Things aren’t just stuff made of stone, your churches, castles, monuments! It’s the little things, like when you used to go fishing in bomb craters, smoking your