Claire sent one last letter, not to the garret but to the shop, where she knew for an absolute fact he would receive it.
Cheri,
Mes parents horribles insistent que nous déménageons. Je les déteste. Alors, si tu penses de moi du tout, s’il te plaît sauve-moi! Sauve-moi! Je suis à ‘the Pines, 14 Orchard Grove, Tillensley.’
Si tu ne réponds pas, je comprendrai que tu ne m’aimes pas et je ne te contacterai encore.
Mon coeur, mon amour, viens avec vitesse,
Claire.
Nothing.
I do think there is something about the French psyche that can be incredibly useful. That solid practicality—it is very unusual for a French person to be over the top with excitement or laid low with misery—is useful. They do not feel it necessary to be cheery or even terribly polite if the occasion doesn’t warrant it. Which means you can get a lot of necessary information in an unemotional way.
Laurent started up.
“How is he?”
Alice whipped around and, without saying a word, shut off her phone. The doctor’s face was still completely impassive, and I could feel my heart beating a mile a minute, pounding my chest. I suddenly found I wished I could take Laurent’s hand, squeeze it. Just to have someone there while we faced the worst. I looked at his large, hairy hand, hanging down by his jacket pocket. It was shaking.
“It’s far from clear,” said the doctor, her voice impeccable, ringing out in the small dingy room. “We have operated, inserted stents. But his general condition…” The tone of her voice made it very clear that this was a reproach. “His general condition makes it very difficult to see what the outcome will be.”
“But he’s still alive now,” said Laurent, his face an animated mixture of hope and terror.
She nodded curtly. “Bah oui,” she said. “He will be unconscious for some time.”
“I want to see him,” said Laurent. She nodded and turned around. We all followed the clacking of her heels up the shiny linoleum floor, until she turned around.
“Not too many,” she instructed. Frédéric and Benoît immediately backed off, and I did too. But Laurent, almost without realizing what he was doing, tugged at my sleeve.
“You come,” he said quietly. I realized later, of course, that he just didn’t want to be alone with her, with Alice, and all the unsaid things that passed between them, and that I was a witness; I’d been there. But at the time, it felt more than that; I felt like I’d been chosen. Although in the same way, I still felt that if he died, it would be my fault.
“Of course,” I said, trying not to betray the nerves in my voice.
“Why is she coming?” asked Alice loudly, but Laurent ignored her. I just stayed out of her way.
- - -
The recovery room was gloomy, the lights low. Machines bleeped and whirred to themselves; I looked around to make sure I wouldn’t stumble over any essential tubes or wires. In the center, dimly lit by above, Thierry made a huge mound in the bed, like a gigantic Easter egg. They had, to my terrible sadness, shaved his mustache to insert the tubes up his nose. Without it, he looked odd, insulted somehow.
His skin was gray, absolutely gray. It was a horrible muddy color you couldn’t look at for any length of time at all. Alice coughed and glanced down. Laurent though was just staring at Thierry’s great barrel chest, still moving up and down.
“Papa,” he cried, stepping over to the bed, his arms open wide. He sounded like a child. The doctor gave a disapproving clicking noise and he stepped back, not wanting to disrupt anything, but there were tears in his eyes. Then he turned back to the doctor.
“Thank you,” he said.
The doctor shrugged. “Don’t thank me yet,” she said.
She left after warning us for the fiftieth time not to touch anything, and we three, an odd company, were alone in the room, with Thierry, like a great beached walrus, spread out between us. There was a silence broken only by the bleeping and the great hiss of the respirator, which moved up and down like a broken accordion.
“So,” said Alice at last. Laurent wasn’t listening; he was sitting forward hard in his chair, staring at his father. “This is what it takes to get you to visit your dad.”
I really wanted to knock her block off then. It was like she’d searched the world for the most unpleasant thing she could possibly say and then gone ahead and said it anyway.
Laurent must have noticed my horrified face, because he patted me on the arm.
“It’s all right, she’s always like this,” he said in English, which was clever, because Alice pretended all the time she didn’t know any English or that she’d forgotten it all.
“Actually it wasn’t my dad I was avoiding, it was you,” he said pleasantly. “Now would you like to smoke in here and make him worse? Or maybe you’d just like to lever him up and wheel him out to one of your soirées.”
Alice went very white again. “Actually, I’ll have to go and organize the business you want no part of,” she said. “With two half-wits and whatever she is. By myself. Thanks though.”
I was struck with a hand of fear. It had never occurred to me I was going to have to work for Alice now, but of course she was right. Oh goodness. I hardly knew what I was doing yet, and now I was going to have to do it under the disapproving eye of this person who thought I’d try to kill myself.
“Of course, you’d ask if you needed help,” said Laurent.
There was a standoff then, neither of them prepared to move at all.
- - -
It became increasingly clear that neither of them wanted to be the first to leave, in case Thierry woke up. It was warm in the room, and with horror I realized I was becoming very drowsy. There must be loads of people they needed to contact, but both were sticking by the signs that there were no mobile phones allowed near the equipment. It was like a power struggle between the two of them, and it made me very cross. Eventually I snapped.
“I’m going to get coffee,” I said. “Does anyone want anything?”
Alice jumped up, obviously cross she hadn’t thought of it.
“No, I’ll go,” she said brusquely, her fingers already fumbling in her Hermès bag for her lighter and phone. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”
After she had left the room and vanished down the long corridor, Laurent collapsed back onto the chair and let out a long sigh. He let his curly head continue on downward, until it was level with the bottom of the bed. Then he let it collapse into the soft sheets. After several moments of witnessing his shoulders shaking, I realized he was crying.