The Islanders Read Free Page A

selling the family home, but in fact he couldn’t care less. He had completely wiped Versailles from the map.
    Getting off the train two hours earlier at the gloomy, silent, freezing Gare Rive Droite, he had been surprised to feel nothing at all. It could have been any other provincial town, curled up in its shell, hiding from the cold and dark. He was relieved, because he had been approaching his reunion with the place with a degree of apprehension. It was silly to have worried; after all, it was only stone, cobbles and bricks. And yet nothing had changed. Looking out of the window of the taxi taking him to his mother’s home, he recognised everything, even if a few shops had changed hands. The lead-coloured avenues and boulevards fanning out from Place d’Armes in front of the chateau were still the same. A quilt of snow softened the street corners and padded the pavements. Versailles was wearing a wig. He had been to pick up the keys from Madeleine, whom his mother had often talked about, but whom he had never met.
    From the moment they laid eyes on one another, he could see she had hated him for a long time.
    ‘Oh, Monsieur Olivier, you look so much like her! My sincere condolences, Monsieur Olivier. It’s so sad! Excuse me.’
    She plunged her nose (which looked like a rancid hunk of Gruyère) into a handful of tissues, while continuing to give him the evil eye. She was much as he had pictured her, voluntarily enslaved, even more of a Versaillaise than her mistress. A by-product. She had insisted on coming with him to the home of his ‘poor maman’, whom he sadly could not see until the next day because the undertakers had transferred the body to the morgue.The trouble was, with the weather like this and the Christmas holidays approaching, people were dying in large numbers. The funeral might not be held until the 26th or even 27th.
    ‘The 27th?’
    ‘That’s what they told me!’
    For a good half-hour she carried on about his poor mother’s poor armchair, his poor mother’s poor mirror, his poor mother’s poor life. All the above swam in a poor whiff of poor leeks.
    ‘Thanks for everything, Madeleine. If you’ll excuse me, I’m rather tired …’
    ‘Of course, you poor thing, I understand. I’ll leave you to your memories. If you need anything at all …’
    ‘That’s very kind of you, Madeleine. Thanks again.’
     
    Everything he touched had been touched by the hand of a dead person and he found the idea vaguely disgusting, even if that person was his mother. He wondered where he was going to sleep. Not in the bed, that was for sure. Tomorrow he would look for a hotel, but he didn’t have the strength to go out again in the bitter cold tonight, roaming this ghost town in search of a place to stay. The sofa, maybe? Curling up like a winkle, he should fit. He plumped up the cushions and removed the ubiquitous lace doilies from the arms. Before anything else, he must call Odile to let her know he had arrived safely and that proceedings might be delayed.
    What had the old bat been talking about, having the funeral on the 26th or 27th? It was the 21st today. A whole week to kill here! She must have got her wires crossed. Either she was losing the plot or was saying it to wind him up because she couldn’t bear him. He could just picture his mother leaning on Madeleine’s bony shoulder and pouring her heart out. ‘Ungrateful child … cast me aside like an old apple …’ That was exactly what he should have done instead of having her down on the coast with them for afortnight every August. She was never satisfied, always putting Odile down, constantly criticising and complaining – her legs, her shoulders, her head, off with her head … No doubt the two old biddies exchanged notes on everything. He would find out for himself tomorrow.
    It was an old telephone with finger-holes, covered in garnet-red velour with an elegant trim of gold braid. The receiver smelt of dried spit.
    ‘Odile? It’s