Nightingale by Marina Kemp

Author:Marina Kemp [Kemp, Marina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-12-16T17:00:00+00:00

12

Marguerite left the house early. She’d get fresh croissants for Jérôme today. The ground was still wet when she set out, the light high and thin.

The village was different at this time: there was a bustle of industry. Bleary-eyed men in overalls leaning on the high tables in the boulangerie, drinking foul-smelling coffee in tiny plastic cups. Was there a factory near here, she wondered – where were these blue-smocked men all going on a Saturday morning?

There was a thin, stressed young woman in the queue in front of her, buying enough bread for a large household. Her daughter, perhaps three or four, looked up at Marguerite, a little coquettish. Practising her smile. Marguerite smiled back and the girl hid her face in her mother’s bottom, then turned back to take another peek. I don’t find you sweet, Marguerite imagined saying. Stop smiling at me. You have nothing on Cassandre.

On the way home, she stopped to sit by the side of the road. She had become used to seeing a flattened toad there, stretched like a large sticker on the broken tarmac. It had been there, in varying degrees of decomposition, ever since she started the job here; finally someone had removed it. She looked closer to see if there were any remnants of its body, but found nothing but slight discolouration.

She took the claw from a croissant, then ate the whole thing. Then she ate another. She only got to her feet when she heard a distant engine. When she heard it coming closer, she said aloud, ‘Oh, piss off.’

Henri was driving too fast. He only realised he was when he saw the nurse appear suddenly at the side of the road; he slowed and she turned, a bald look of irritation on her face. He lowered the window, came to a halt.

‘Marguerite?’

‘Hello,’ she said. Her scowl dropped and she smiled politely, squinting a little into the gloom of the car.

‘This is your new machine,’ he said, and he thought she looked embarrassed. ‘Can I give you a lift the rest of the way?’

‘Oh,’ she said. She removed her backpack, opened the door, got in. ‘Thank you.’ She put the bag on her lap, fastened her seat belt. Slow and methodical. A stick of bread poked out of the top of her bag. She hadn’t even looked at the car.

‘The morning bread run?’ he asked, setting off again.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you’ll be able to drive next time.’

‘Yes.’

They drove the rest of the way in silence; he noticed her hands fidgeting with the bread. Pulling off little flakes of crust. She only spoke again when they pulled up in the driveway.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I just remembered. Will you be staying here for a little bit?’

‘Can do. I have to wait for Thierry to drive over and pick me up.’

‘Great. If you can, Jérôme said he’d like to see you.’

‘Okay,’ he said, though he didn’t want to. He thought of his own father’s sickbed. He had struggled to reconcile the stale, talc-sweet, inhuman smell with his always immaculate dad.

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