The Poisoning Angel by Jean Teulé

Author:Jean Teulé [Jean Teule]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908313850
Publisher: Gallic Books
Published: 2014-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Port-Louis

‘Sardines, get your sardines! A mackerel too, rays, a tuna, oh, beautiful lumpfish!’

Beneath a rampart decked with pennants, a fishwife climbed back out of the hold of a small boat, barefoot, streaming with seawater, and yelling, ‘The catch is in at Port-Louis!’

On the quayside, fishermen in canvas waistcoats and long sailor-style breeches were gathering up the leaping sardines that had escaped from their baskets beside the mooring bollards. Ancient seadogs with weather-beaten faces were chatting and smoking their pipes, never tiring of watching the fishing boats come and go, and the warships in the basin.

Once past the large port ropeworks, Thunderflower turned down an alleyway and emerged inside the walled town where large numbers of sea birds were flying overhead. In the corners of the fortifications, there were still women selling wild flowers. It was late in the season and they had lost their bloom but retained a rare and lingering scent.

‘Next to virgins, the rarest things in this town are stars in the daytime and roses in winter.’

A man was standing in the porch of a house with a criss-crossed gable covered in whitewash mixed with shells, a low door and a single window near to a flaking sign with a mermaid painted on it. He was shouting at a half-naked and decrepit pauper woman. ‘I can replace you easily enough! Look at what you’ve turned into. We could call you Catel-gollet (Catherine the ruined), what with your messy hair, breasts hanging halfway down your stomach and a face that would frighten small children. You no longer have a single customer, and what you bring in doesn’t cover what you eat. Your cooking’s disgusting, and when you do have a couple of sous you drink them!’

Thunderflower looked at the shouting man. He had an unusual face and a very big nose. She had seen him before, she thought.

‘Who’s the master here, you slut?’ he repeated to the pauper. ‘What’s his name?’

‘You, François.’

‘François what?’

‘François Aupy.’

‘So who is sensible and knows how you ought to have behaved under my roof?’

‘Maybe—’

‘No maybes! Me, François Aupy. I have absolute authority at La Sirène,’ he concluded, slapping the wall of his wretched establishment with his palm. The weathervane on the roof fell down. Part of the porch collapsed. The man was wearing a cassock patched up with a hundred scraps in different shades and, at his wrists, lace cuffs. He had a straw hat with a yellow velvet band round it.

Thunderflower remembered. ‘That’s it, it’s coming back to me now! You’re the son of Madame Aupy at Hennebont.’

‘Have we met?’ asked the man, turning towards the beauty with the bag over her shoulder.

‘I saw you in a drawing at your poor mother’s, while she was eating her last carrot soup. You’re no longer in Orléans?’

‘Well, no. I’m a defrocked priest and here I am, a brothelkeeper. Has my mother died?’

‘I was her cook. I’m looking for work. I’ve been given to believe I could turn up pretty well anywhere in Port-Louis and be taken on.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.