Free The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen Page B

ended up in Provence. Apart from Philippe Meunier, who also went into neurology, my contemporaries – the surgeons particularly – have a theory that it’s a thankless task, caring for these devastated people. They see what I do as being only a step away from pathology: ministering to humans who are no more than the husks of men and women, living corpses. But they couldn’t be more wrong. Even damaged brains can make connections. The mind is more than the sum of its parts.
         As soon as I had taken my leave of Madame Drax, I went back to my office. Passing through the small annexe where Noelle works, I caught myself unawares in the small mirror she keeps on the wall, and was vaguely shocked by how severe, how dogmatic my face looked, framed by hair that thinned at the temples. How set in its ways. My eyes, deep-set, suddenly looked sunken. Did I still have what you could call handsomeness, or had age done for me?
         I will be dead one day, I thought suddenly. Dead and gone.
         One of the four bonsai trees a patient, Lavinia Gradin, had given me – my favourite, the cherry – was looking in need of a trim, so I began pruning it with my little secateurs while I rang Philippe Meunier in Vichy. Philippe had just returned, according to his secretary, from a short convalescent break.
         —Back on your feet? I asked when she put me through. —What did you have?
         —What did Michelle tell you? he snapped. He sounded even brusquer than usual, and I felt a nudge of the usual animosity.
         —That you were off sick, I said. I hoped he couldn’t hear the sound of snipping.
         —Just needed to recharge the batteries, he said. —A post-viral thing.
         He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. Doctors can be cagey when it comes to their own health. Frankly, we hate to succumb to anything. Illness always feels like a defeat of sorts.
         —The case of Louis Drax, I said, inspecting a small, shiny, perfect leaf.
         —He arrived OK then? asked Philippe heavily. —All in order, I trust?
         He sounded more than usually annoyed that I was bothering him.
         —No problem. He’s settled in the ward.
         There was a short silence, in which I contemplated my artistry. I remember feeling a certain dismay when Lavinia Gradin first gave me the trees, as a thank-you gift after her emergence from six years in a coma. Wasn’t it, I asked her, a bit like being presented with a pet? But she just smiled and told me to wait. They’re like coma patients, she said. They take a lot of time and nothing happens fast but then when they blossom–
         She was right: their restrained aesthetic slowly grew on me. But it’s a strange passion to have, as Sophie often reminds me. She calls them my geriatric babies .
         —So how’s he doing? asked Philippe bluntly.
         —Fantastically active. Jumping up and down all over the place and singing the Marseillaise.
         There was another silence, of a different shape, from Philippe’s end of the phone.
         —Well, what d’you expect? I asked. I found it nettling that Philippe couldn’t take a joke. Does something happen when a man hits fifty? —You sent him to me, what more is there to say?
         More silence.
         —Actually the reason I called is I’m a little intrigued as to the genesis of his condition. This fall he had.
         —Charvillefort hasn’t briefed you?
         —Who’s he?
         —She. The detective working on the Drax case. Stephanie Charvillefort.
         —Not yet. She’s called, I believe.
         —Well, don’t you read the papers? Family Picnic Turns to Tragedy? It even made Le Monde , I think. It was on TV too.
         Annoyingly, Philippe had now gained the upper hand; disconcerted, I put down my secateurs and reached for pen and paper.
         —I must have missed it, I said. —Tell me.
         —Well, he muttered. —It’s one hundred per cent