ten, as in every watch advertisement. His hour seemed to have come, on tiptoe certainly, but it was well and truly here. Strangely, although he had invoked it a good number of times in his life, he now no longer wanted it. It was too soon. People didn’t die at ten past ten, it was ridiculous. Besides he hadn’t done the housework, or made his will. He had to tidy it all up, that whole muddle of things, stuff, bits and pieces … If he could just have a little time to sort out the mess, then he would be ready to discuss it. Valiantly rolling up his sleeves, he confronted the chaos.
Organise, classify … but how? Initially he thought of arranging the jumble in order of size like in a school photograph, the smallest in front and the taller ones at the back, starting with the coffee spoons and ending with the ironing board. That was one solution. Alphabetical order seemed more logical, however. In the beginning was … the abacus. At least that was one thing he could count on. He placed it in the back left-hand corner of the garage.
The task proved as absurd as it was overwhelming, since he was unable to put names to most of the things he was sweating blood to move. Him upstairs had had six days to come up with this shambles, but He was the boss. Without fear of argument, He could pronounce, ‘This is a moped, this is a sandal, this is a chick-pea, and that chap there is my son.’ Easy in those circumstances to call a spade a spade. In short, Brice succeeded only in replacing one muddle with another.
The cat began exploring the new layout, wasting no time in claiming its territory. How Brice envied it that marvellous ability to adapt.
‘Are you sure it suits me, Blanche?’
‘Absolutely! You’re as handsome as Papa.’
Noting the pitiful state of Brice’s wardrobe, Blanche had decided to wash his clothes, lending him some of her father’s things in the meantime: a comfortable black velvet suit and a few woollen shirts. He had a little difficulty recognising himself in the bathroom mirror, but there was nothing unpleasant in this sartorial disorientation – quite the reverse. As a child, Brice had loved dressing up, and had owned a most extensive range of outfits going from Davy Crockett to Ivanhoe by way of policeman, fireman or Bozo the Clown. Those pitiful board game compendia, Meccano sets and electric trains received from distant cousins at Christmas had always left him profoundly downcast. He had never understood the pleasure to be had from hours spent watching a miniature locomotive go through a pasteboard tunnel time and time again. The Meccano set with its misleading picture on the lid, suggesting you could build a near life-size model of London Bridge, contained barely enough pieces for a miserable three-wheeled cart. (He had calculated that he would need twenty boxes for London Bridge. At the rate of one Christmas a year, he’d have been about twenty-five by the time he finished his opus.) As for the sets of 1,000 Milestones, Yellow Dwarf, the little horse game and Monopoly, where, like in grammar lessons, you had to follow the rules to the letter or be severely penalised, they necessitated the distressing presence of ‘little friends of his own age’, usually offspring of his parents’ friends, whose very existence he refused to acknowledge. His heroes were all loners: Tarzan (summer only), Zorro, Buffalo Bill, Black Eagle and even the Three Musketeers, since the four of them still made only one.
Who had claimed it was better to die in one’s own skin than to live in someone else’s? Some megalomaniac philosopher, no doubt.
‘You approve, then.’
She was looking at him with tears in her eyes, open-mouthed.
‘Is something wrong, Blanche?’
‘No … It’s just … It’s like before, as if he had come back.’
‘Well, I’m not a ghost. It’s me, Brice.’
‘Of course, yes. Can I watch TV?’
‘Certainly. Would you like a little Viandox?’
‘I’d love some.’
He virtually lived on Viandox, plain in the daytime, and with a little celery salt, Gruyère and soup pasta in the evening. Blanche shared his passion for the bitter bouillon.
While waiting for the kettle to whistle, Brice paced around the kitchen, sitting down and standing up again, bending his knees and elbows like an actor getting into his character’s skin, and soon the thick velvet of the suit moulded itself to his shape. He felt completely at ease in it; the pockets were becoming used to his hands. Slipping two fingers into the waistcoat’s fob pocket, he pulled out a small piece of paper folded into quarters. A furious scrawl covered a page torn out of a spiral-bound notebook in faded ink: ‘Blanche, my child, my dearest, don’t be angry with me. I’m so tired …’ After that the lines were illegible, presumably blurred by tears. Brice did not try to make out the contents of the note, which had apparently never reached its addressee, but it was easy for him to guess the gist. It was like finding a letter from a private at Verdun in an attic.
As the doorbell rang, he hurriedly refolded the piece of paper and put it back in its place.
Myriam and Simon, his parents-in-law, were standing outside the door, as unexpected as a pair of garden gnomes in the middle of the desert. Myriam opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
‘Myriam, Simon? This is a surprise!’
‘Hello, Brice. You’ve changed so much – we almost thought we’d got the wrong house.’
‘I expect it’s the beard. But come on in, don’t stand in the cold.’
They made their way in without a word, eyes fixed on the ceiling like overawed tourists visiting the Vatican.
‘I was just making some Viandox, but perhaps you’d prefer tea?’
‘Please.’
‘Do sit down.’
‘Well, it’s been quite a while!’
‘Sorry?’
‘I was saying, we hadn’t seen one another for ages.’
‘Yes, it’s been a long time.’
Myriam was making more conversation than her spouse who, as an expert DIYer, was still assessing the condition of the beams and the quality of the plaster.
‘Forgive us for turning up like this, on the off-chance. We’re on our way back from visiting friends in Marseilles. We did try phoning you several times but your line must be faulty. It crackles.’
‘It’s the storms.’
‘Ah. You look well enough. The beard and hair, and then those clothes … I won’t say they don’t suit you, but you do look different.’
It was odd. Everyone here was so eager to recognise him and these people, virtually family, could no longer place him.
‘It’s the fashion in the country. You look in fine fettle, the pair of you.’
‘Touch wood. You can’t turn old into new.’
As if to underline the truth of the adage, Simon looked meaningfully at the gaping hole linking the kitchen with the dining room.
‘So this is where …’
‘Yes, this is where.’
‘It’s big! Don’t you agree, Simon, it’s big?’
‘Very! There’s still work to be done, but it’s got potential.’
‘Would you like to see round?’
‘Love to.’ As they wandered from room to room, each one emptier and colder than the one before, his parents-in-law shot each other furtive glances increasingly filled with question marks. When they arrived in the attic, which even the spiders had abandoned, Myriam suddenly turned to Brice, her eyes wide.
‘But, Brice, where do you live? Where’s your room, your studio?’
‘I moved into the garage while I’m waiting.’
‘Waiting for what?’
‘For Emma