The A26 Read Free Page B

them, they had never liked her. It had let her get shot of all those bastards for good and all. Besides, they must all be dead by now. But what had he been playing at in the lav for the past hour?
    ‘Bernard, what are you doing in there?’
    ‘Trying to unblock the toilet. How many times have I told you not to use newspaper!’
    ‘I didn’t have anything else. You forgot to get toilet paper when you were at Auchan.’
    ‘There’s tissues.’
    ‘They’re no use to me, there’s nothing to read on them.’
    The sound of the flush drowned out Bernard’s reply. He emerged from the toilet, wiping his hands. He was wearing a white shirt, the collar gaping wide round his thin neck.
    ‘What are you dressed up like that for? Are you going to a wedding?’
    ‘No, it’s Jacqueline’s nephew’s First Communion. I told you that last night.’
    ‘You didn’t tell me a thing. You’re always up to something behind my back.’
    ‘For one thing, I did tell you, and for another, I’m not up to anything. I’m going to the Communion, and that’s all.’
    ‘So basically you’re going to get yourself filled full of liquor by that cuckold she calls a husband.’
    ‘Yoyo, that’s enough. I won’t be staying long. I’m done in but I’ve got no choice. I won’t be late back. The toilet’s unblocked and I’m begging you, please don’t put any more newspaper in there.’
    Yolande shrugged and buried herself in
La Semaine de Suzette
again. Bernard rolled down his sleeves, slipped on his jacket and planted a kiss on his sister’s neck.
    ‘Come on now, don’t sulk – I’ve got a present for you.’
    The pendant on its gilt chain was dangling over the book like a pendulum. Catlike, Yolande caught at it.
    ‘What does that mean, “More than yesterday and much less than tomorrow”? Is it about the blocked toilet?’
    ‘No, it means I love you more than yesterday and much less than tomorrow.’
    ‘You’re going to love me less tomorrow?’
    ‘No, it’s the other way round.’
    ‘It’s beyond me. Can you put it on for me?’
    Bernard’s fingers had a little difficulty in doing up the clasp. Strange, the skin on Yolande’s neck wasn’t an old lady’s but a baby’s, all soft, warm little folds.
    ‘You’re very beautiful.’
    Yolande put the pendant into her mouth.
    ‘I used to have one with the Virgin Mary, a blue one, it tasted of electric wire. At school when you went for anX-ray, you had to put it in your mouth so you wouldn’t see right through to the Virgin’s bones. This one doesn’t taste of anything.’
    ‘See you later, Yolande.’
     
    The countryside, accustomed to low skies and drizzle, looked ill at ease done up in its Sunday best in the sunlight. The bricks were too red, the sky too blue, the grass too green. It was as if Nature felt embarrassed at being so extravagantly made up. As if for the camera, she was quite still except for the occasional crow hopping about in the middle of a field. At the wheel of his car Bernard was feeling good, for the first time in a long while. He loved these expanses of brown stretching as far as the eye could see, you could almost fancy you were by the sea. He passed a motorcyclist at the roadside, leaning against his bike. He was smoking a cigarette, at right angles to the horizon. There was no house nearby. Here was a chap who had simply said to himself, ‘I know what, I’ll stop here for a cigarette because this is absolutely the best place in the world for that.’ It was over in seconds, just the time it took for the motorcyclist’s image to disappear in the rear-view mirror, but Bernard felt every bit of that man’s happiness in his own body: ‘I feel good.’
    ‘And what’s going to happen to me as long as Yolande’s still alive?’ He realised he had never asked himself that question before. He would very much have liked to be a biker stopped at the roadside for eternity. No doubt Yolande had never asked herself that question either.
    She