She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau

Author:Pierre Boileau [Boileau-Narcejac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782271406
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2015-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

When he woke up, Ravinel recognized the hotel bedroom. He remembered walking for hours on end. Then he recalled the image of Mireille and heaved a sigh. It took him several minutes, however, to decide that it was probably Sunday. It was indeed certain, because Lucienne was arriving by the twelve-something train. She must already be in the train. What was he to do to fill in the time? What could one do on a Sunday? A dead day, a day on which you could only mark time. And he was in a hurry to forge ahead.

Nine o’clock.

He got up and dressed, then drew back the threadbare curtain that concealed the window. A gray sky. Roofs. A few skylights, some of them still painted blue, a relic of the blackout. Certainly not an inspiring view. Downstairs he paid his bill to an old woman in curlers. It wasn’t till he was on the pavement that he realized he was in the neighborhood of the central market, within a stone’s throw of where Germain lived.

Why shouldn’t he fill in the time there?

Mireille’s brother lived in a flat on the fourth floor. A dark staircase. The lights didn’t work, and Ravinel had to grope his way up as best he could. Sunday smells. Sunday noises. Behind their doors, people hummed a tune or switched on the wireless, thinking of the afternoon’s football game or the movie they’d go to in the evening. On one landing he could hear the hiss of milk boiling over, on another some howling brats. A man with an overcoat slipped on over his pajamas came downstairs leading a dog. It was all very intimate and Ravinel had the feeling of being out of it.

On the fourth floor, he found the key in the door. It was always left there, but Ravinel never took any notice of it. He knocked. It was Germain who came to let him in.

‘Why, Fernand! How are you?’

‘All right, thanks. And you?’

‘Not too good… Excuse the mess: I’ve only just got up. Now you’re here, you’ll have a cup of coffee. Yes, yes. Of course you will.’

He led Ravinel into the dining room, pulled out a chair for him, and swept away a dressing gown that was lying there.

‘And Marthe?’

‘She’s gone to church, but she’ll soon be back. Sit down, old boy… You’re in fine form, Mireille’s been telling me. Wish I could say the same of myself… By the way, you haven’t seen my latest X-rays. Here, help yourself to some coffee, while I go and fetch them.’

There was a medicinal smell lingering in the air. Eucalyptus mixed with something else. And near the coffeepot was a little saucepan with a hypodermic syringe in it and some needles. What a bore! He wished he hadn’t come. Germain was pottering about in the bedroom, occasionally shouting out something to his brother-in-law.

‘You’ll see. They’re beauties. As the doctor says, with proper treatment…’

When you marry you think you’re marrying a wife, but you’re really marrying a family.

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