Free Consolation by Anna Gavalda Page B

and forced her to drink to better days.
    After a long while she tried to roll herself a cigarette.
    ‘Charles?’
    ‘That’s my name.’
    ‘You won’t tell, will you?’
    ‘What am I supposed to tell him?’ he sniggered. ‘Talk to him about honour?’
    Her cigarette paper tore. He took the packet from her hands, painstakingly sprinkled a gutterful of tobacco into the paper and lifted it to his lips to lick it.
    ‘I meant Anouk.’
    He froze.
    ‘No,’ he said, spitting out a flake of tobacco, ‘no. Of course not.’
    Handed her the cigarette and shifted his chair to make more room.
    ‘Are . . . are you still in touch with her?’
    ‘Rarely.’
    His glasses had just fallen down onto his nose. She didn’t push him any further.
    *
    In Paris it was raining. They shared a taxi and parted at Les Gobelins.
    ‘Thanks,’ she murmured into his ear. ‘It’s over, I promise you. I’ll be all right.’
    He watched as she hurried down the steps into the metro.
    She must have felt his eyes on her back because she turned round halfway down to make a diver’s O with her thumb and index finger, and gave him a wink.
    A comforting little gesture, reassurance that all was well.
    He’d believed her, and he’d gone off with an easy heart.
    Young and naïve in those days . . . Believed in signs.
    It was yesterday, and in a few weeks, it would be nineteen years.
    She’d fooled him, good and proper.

7
    HE WAS DOZING and when he came round, Snoopy was gazing at him silently. It was Snoopy from the old days, with a round face, puffy with sleep, rubbing her ear with her front paw.
    Dawn tapping at the window; he wondered for a moment whether he was not still dreaming. The walls were so pink . . .
    ‘Did you sleep here?’ she asked him sadly.
    Dear Lord, no. This was life. New round.
    ‘What time is it?’ he yawned.
    She’d already turned round and was headed back to her room.
    ‘Mathilde . . .’
    She froze.
    ‘It’s not what you think . . .’
    ‘I don’t think anything,’ she replied.
    And vanished.
    Six twelve. He dragged himself to the coffee maker and put in a double dose. It was going to be a long day . . .
    Frozen stiff, he locked himself in the bathroom.
    With one buttock on the edge of the bathtub and his chin crushed against his fist, he let his mind drift amidst the bubbling water and warm steam. What was absorbing him at the moment did not require many words: Balanda, you’re pissing me off. Stop it right now, and get a grip.
    Up to now you have always been capable of finding your way without giving it too much thought, so you’re not going to start today. It’s too late, you understand? You’re too old for the luxury of this sort of disaster. She’s dead. They’re all dead. Pull the curtain and take care of the living. Behind that wall there’s a little Dresden doll who’s acting tough, but actually she looks like she’s having a hard time. She gets up far too early for her age . . . Turn off that bloody tap and go and yank those headphones from her ears for a second.
    He knocked gently and went in and sat on the floor, at her feet, his back against the side of her bed.
    ‘It’s not what you think.’
    Silence.
    ‘What you up to, my loyal friend?’ he murmured, ‘are you sleeping? Are you listening to sad songs under your duvet or are you wondering what this old fool of a Charles has come to bore you with?’
    Still she said nothing.
    ‘If I was sleeping on the sofa, it’s because I couldn’t sleep, actually . . . And I didn’t want to disturb your mum.’
    He heard her turn over and felt something of hers, perhaps her knee, brush his shoulder.
    ‘And even as I’m telling you this, I figure I’m wrong . . . Because I don’t have to justify myself to you . . . None of this is any of your business, or, rather, it doesn’t
concern
you. It’s grown-up business, well, between adults, and –’
    Oh, what’s the bloody use, he thought, why go getting up to your neck in . . . Talk to her