Consolation Read Free Page A

up completely and utterly. It went this greenish-yellow colour. So ugly, you can’t begin to imagine.’
    She was laughing.
    ‘But do you think that stopped me? Not likely. I wrapped myself inside the thing, with the collar up and the belt undone, “my fists in my torn pockets” like Rimbaud’s Bohemian, and off I went . . .’
    I mimed the loser I must have been. Peter Sellers in his prime.
    ‘. . . taking these great long strides, right through the crowd, mysterious, elusive, ever so careful to avoid the gaze of all those people who weren’t even looking at me. Oh, he must have laughed, old Leonard off on his promontory among the great Zen masters, let me tell you!’
    ‘And now?’
    ‘Well . . . he’s still alive, far as I know.’
    ‘Nah, the raincoat.’
    ‘Oh, that! Vanished, along with everything else. But you can ask Claire tonight if she remembers it.’
    ‘Okay . . . And I’ll download it.’
    I frowned.
    ‘Hey, that’s enough already! You’re not going to do your head in about all that
again
. He’s earned enough as it is.’
    ‘It’s not a question of money, you know that perfectly well. It’s more serious than that. It’s –’
    ‘Stop. I know. You’ve told me a million times. The day there are no artists left, we’ll all be dead and blah blah and all that.’
    ‘Exactly. We’ll still be alive but we’ll all be dead. Hey, look, speaking of which . . .’
    We were standing outside Gibert’s books and music store.
    ‘Come on in. I’ll buy it for you, my lovely sickly green raincoat.’
    I stood frowning hesitantly at the till. Three other CDs had miraculously appeared on the counter.
    ‘Oh, come on!’ she said, as if it were fate, ‘I had been planning on downloading those ones, too.’
    I paid and she grazed her cheek against mine. Just a touch.
    Once we’d rejoined the flow of people on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, I grew bolder. ‘Mathilde?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Can I ask you a delicate question?’
    ‘No.’
    Then a few metres farther along, she covered her face with her hands. ‘I’m listening.’
    ‘Why have things got this way between us? So . . .’
    Silence.
    ‘So what?’ asked her hood.
    ‘I don’t know . . . predictable. Cash-oriented. I get out my credit card and only then am I entitled to a tender gesture. Well, tender . . . A gesture, at any rate. How . . . so what’s the going rate for a kiss from you at the moment, anyway?’
    I opened my wallet and checked the receipt from Gibert’s. ‘Fifty-five euros and sixty cents. Right.’
    Silence.
    Tossed the receipt into the gutter.
    ‘You know it’s not just a question of money really, I was happy to give them to you, but . . . I really wish you could have said hello earlier on when I came in, I was so –’
    ‘I
did
say hello.’
    I pulled on her sleeve so she’d look at me, then I lifted my hand to imitate her limp-fingered greeting. Or the limpness of her intention . . .
    She pulled her arm away abruptly.
    ‘And it’s not just with me, anyway,’ I went on, ‘I know it’s like this with your mum, too. Every time I call her, even though I’m far away and I might like a little . . . That’s all she talks about. Your attitude. Your rows. This sort of ongoing blackmail . . . A little bit of kindness for a little bit of cash. All the time. All the time. And –’
    I stopped in my tracks and took hold of her again.
    ‘Answer me. How did it get like this between us? What did we do? What did we do
to you
to deserve this? I know . . . Some might say it’s adolescence, the awkward age, the dark tunnel and all that rubbish, but you – You, Mathilde. I thought you were more intelligent than the others, I didn’t think it would affect you like them. I thought you were far too clever to get caught up in their statistics –’
    ‘Well you were wrong.’
    ‘So I see.’
    She’d been so hard to get close to
. Why had this ridiculous pluperfect sprung to mind above my coffee cup earlier on? Simply because