Ripley's Game Read Free Page B

and accepted the eighty francs agreed upon.
    Then Jonathan pushed a broom over his wooden floor, and feather-dusted the three or four pictures in his small front window. His shop was positively shabby, Jonathan thought that morning. No colour anywhere, frames of all sizes leaning against unpainted walls, samples of frame wood hanging from the ceiling, a counter with an order book, ruler, pencils. At the back of the shop stood a long wooden table where Jonathan worked with his mitre boxes, saws and glass cutters. Also on the big table were his carefully protected sheets of mat board, a great roll of brown paper, rolls of string, wire, pots of glue, boxes of variously sized nails, and above the table on the wall were racks of knives and hammers. In principle, Jonathan liked the nineteenth-century atmosphere, the lack of commercial frou-frou. He wanted his shop to look as if a good craftsman ran it, and in that he had succeeded, he thought. He never overcharged, did his work on time, or if he was going to be late, he notified his clients by postcard or a telephone call. People appreciated that, Jonathan had found.
    At 11.35 a.m., having framed two small pictures and fixed their owners’ names to them, Jonathan washed his hands and face at the cold water tap in his sink, combed his hair, stood up straight and tried to brace himself for the worst. Dr Perrier’s office was not far away in the Rue Grande. Jonathan turned his door card to OUVERT at 14.30, locked his front door, and set out.
    Jonathan had to wait in Dr Perrier’s front room with its sickly, dusty rose laurel plant. The plant never flowered, it didn’t die, and never grew, never changed. Jonathan identified himself with the plant. Again and again his eyes were drawn to it, though he tried to think of other things. There were copies of Paris Match on the oval table, out of date and much thumbed, but Jonathan found them more depressing than the laurel plant. Dr Perrier also worked at the big Hôspital de Fontainebleau, Jonathan reminded himself, otherwise it would have seemed an absurdity to entrust one’s life, to believe an opinion of whether one lived or died, to a doctor who worked in such a wretched little place as this looked.
    The nurse came out and beckoned.
    ‘Well, well, how’s the interesting patient, my most interesting patient?’ said Dr Perrier, rubbing his hands, then extending one to Jonathan.
    Jonathan shook his hand. ‘I feel quite all right, thank you. But what is this about – I mean the tests of two months ago. I understand they are not so favourable?’
    Dr Perrier looked blank, and Jonathan watched him intently. Then Dr Perrier smiled, showing yellowish teeth under his carelessly trimmed moustache.
    ‘What do you mean unfavourable? You saw the results.’
    ‘But – you know I’m not an expert in understanding them – perhaps.’
    ‘But I explained them to you – Now what is the matter? You’re feeling tired again?’
    ‘In fact no.’ Since Jonathan knew the doctor wanted to get away for lunch, he said hastily, ‘To tell the truth, a friend of mine has learned somewhere that – I’m due for a crisis. Maybe I haven’t long to live. Naturally, I thought this information must have come from you.’
    Dr Perrier shook his head, then laughed, hopped about like a bird and came to rest with his skinny arms lightly outspread on the top of a glass-enclosed bookcase. ‘My dear sir – first of all, if it were true, I would not have said it to anybody. That is not ethical. Second, it is not true, as far as I know from the last test. – Do you want another test today? Late this afternoon at the hospital, maybe I —’
    ‘Not necessarily. What I really wanted to know is – is it true? You wouldn’t just not tell me?’ Jonathan said with a laugh. Just to make me feel better?’
    ‘What nonsense! Do you think I’m that kind of a doctor?’
    Yes, Jonathan thought, looking Dr Perrier straight in the eye. And God bless him, maybe, in