‘I should not mind,’ he continued, looking resolutely at the ceiling as she pulled the trousers up past the shrunken bud of his penis, his soft, felt-like balls, the static fuzz of his white pubic hair, ‘if you would find something to read. Before I sleep.’
She tied the trousers’ drawstring in a gentle bow at his waist, smoothed the flannel shirt down over his belly. It was distended, hard as a drum. He flinched and flapped his hands.
‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘Stop fussing.’ She stood and he put his hands on her arms and gave her his weight – considerable, in spite of his boniness – as she swung him gently onto his back, lowering him down onto the clean bedsheets.
‘Is there anything in particular you’d like me to read?’ she asked.
He frowned furiously. ‘It’s not for my sake, it’s for yours. Pick something you can read, only make sure it isn’t some ghastly romance. And I don’t want poetry. I want something with a real story, something noble. I used to enjoy the classics: Dumas, Hugo, Gaston Leroux. Albert Cohen, even. Just for God’s sake no romance or girly tripe.’ Then he added, ‘Whatever you think you could benefit from.’
And so she found herself two days later in the municipal library. It was as she had imagined, both dim and too bright. The librarian, young and sallow, stamped her books carefully and listed the rules of the place in a flat voice.
‘Returns must be made before twelve weeks have elapsed. Extensions can be made only by direct request in person and at the discretion of the librarian on duty. Care must always be taken to keep both food and liquids away from all books issued by this library, and in case of damage you should be prepared to pay a fine of up to twenty-five euros.’ Once he had reeled the rules off, he looked a little embarrassed. He secured his glasses, which had not slipped, with one finger, smiling faintly. His nails were chewed right down to the quick, a metro-map of veins across his hand.
‘I hope you’ll enjoy the three volumes,’ he said, turning to disappear back into the solemn darkness of his little booth.
Throughout his monologue, Marguerite had been conscious of being watched, and as she turned to leave she caught the eye of the woman sitting at a table close by. She wore a dark green hijab; her chin was raised imperiously. She didn’t drop her gaze. As Marguerite walked past to leave, she said: ‘And you are from …?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I haven’t seen you before. Where are you from?’
Marguerite paused. ‘I’m working here,’ she said.
‘Working where?’
‘In Saint-Sulpice.’
The woman narrowed her eyes, contemplating her. Then she smiled, a little wryly. ‘You’re Jérôme Lanvier’s new nurse, am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I could tell instantly. You’re from Paris?’
‘Yes.’
‘I knew that accent. Well, you must find it rather different here.’
‘Not so different from other places I’ve worked.’
The woman reached a hand out to shake Marguerite’s; she had long nails painted a dark, shiny aubergine. ‘I’m Suki. Very good to meet you. How do you like Rossignol?’
‘It’s comfortable.’
‘And Lanvier himself?’
‘Fine.’
‘That’s good. And your name …?’
‘Marguerite.’
‘Well, as I said, it’s good to meet you.’ She smiled again. ‘Enjoy your books, Marguerite.’
When she left the library, Marguerite stood for a moment to study the noticeboard on the wall outside, to delay the long walk home. A sign for a missing cat, a pamphlet listing a course of dance classes for the previous June, and a notice advertising a babysitter, with the phone number printed several times for people to tear off. Only two had been torn.
‘“What, no wine?” said Dantès, turning pale, and looking alternately at the hollow cheeks of the old man and the empty cupboards. “What, no wine? Have you wanted money, father?”
‘“I want nothing now I have you,” said the old man.’
‘Tired,’ Jérôme said loudly, with a croak as if he had not spoken for days. ‘Enough.’
‘Are you sure?’ Marguerite let the pages fall back, with her finger as a marker. He closed his eyes tight instead of answering. She had been enjoying reading; she hadn’t used her voice so much for almost a month. ‘Can I get you anything? Are you feeling comfortable?’ His response, as so often, was simply to screw his eyes tighter shut.
She rose and took the book he’d chosen from her selection to the table: a 1970s edition of The Count of Monte Cristo, its faded jacket showing a large full moon, shivering on the dark surface of water. She folded the corner of their page to mark it and felt a twinge of guilt for doing so; she thought of the librarian and his long list of rules, from which the prohibition of dog-earing a page had surely only been omitted on account of its sheer obviousness. ‘Flagrant disregard for the item’s longevity …’ she imagined him saying, and smiled to herself.
Turning to leave the room, she saw that the old man was watching her. He was lying flat on his back, a rigid straight line down the bed, his eyes swivelled to stare at her.
‘Don’t you laugh at me,’ he barked.
‘Sir, I—’
‘I will not tolerate it.’
‘But I didn’t—’
‘Just get out, now!’ He shut his eyes. ‘I can send you away the minute I don’t want you. Just one phone call and you’re out of here, scuttling back to whichever deplorable little hole you came from.’
She felt her cheeks colour; she took a deep breath.
Gradually, she became aware of a whirring in the room: a moth, throwing its body again and again at the ceiling lamp.
The old man was lying stiff and straight in the bed, his fists and eyes and everything clenched.
She watched him for a moment but he didn’t speak again and she left the room, walked straight out of the kitchen into the garden, into the blanket darkness. She breathed in deeply, felt the thud of her heartbeat gradually slow. There was a lightness in the air in spite of the cold; she could believe for the first time that spring was here.
She had never had a garden. Her childhood had been spent in an apartment on the fourth floor in the 16th arrondissement – large, with high ceilings and rich, heavy curtains. There was a balcony that they had been allowed to step out onto only under supervision from her mother or the au pair; it looked down over a wide, dappled avenue lined with trees. There was always someone walking a dog – she and her sister would think up names for the dogs they came to recognise.
She didn’t like to think of that. The garden here was hers and she wanted to make it grow. She would grow herbs, plant flowers. She would sit in the shade in the narrow olive groves and look over at her herb garden and pluck rosemary to put in little pots around the house. It would be her project.
And then when it was dark – this heavy, enveloping blackness – it would comfort her to think of her plants outside. They could line the house like ramparts.
The vegetables here were huge and beautiful. She had discovered the village market that morning, by chance, and bought red, yellow, brown and green tomatoes,