The Front Seat Passenger Read online

  They had never had children. To Fabien children were just receptacles that you constantly had to empty and fill. They clung to you for years, and as soon as they took themselves adults, they reproduced and ruined your holidays with their offspring. And Sylvie could barely stand her best friends’ children for more than an hour. If they ever had one of them over, as soon as they were gone, she cleaned and vacuumed to erase all traces of their presence, then sank onto the sofa, sighing, ‘That kid is such hard work.’

  They were only interested in each other. Their love was the only thing that counted and they indulged it like an only child, until they smothered it. Today, Fabien realised how obnoxious their happiness had made them to other people. It was a real provocation. Little by little they had created a void around themselves. No one invited them out any more. They were kept at a distance, a bit like the bereaved. Everyone knows that excessive happiness is as off-putting as excessive misfortune.

  It was at that point that Sylvie fell pregnant. Whilst waiting for her to come out of the clinic, he went to buy flowers. It was Valentine’s Day. The abortion went smoothly. It was as if she had had a tooth removed, nothing more. But something else must have grown in its place, something that didn’t like Fabien, because from that day on they didn’t make love any more. Well, that’s to say, only very rarely, after a drunken party or instead of playing Scrabble on one of those interminable February Sundays.

  The annoying brat finally earned himself a smack on the bottom, whereupon he let out such a high-pitched wailing that the poor woman was obliged to drag him into the corridor by his arm. Not easy to raise a child on your own. It was obvious to Fabien that she was a single mother. He could always spot them. The way they and their child behaved like an old married couple, that mania for apologising for everything, and the way they let themselves go. Lank hair, no make-up, leggings bagging at the knee. The beautifying effect of motherhood? Hardly! It was no surprise that they found themselves dumped. Although the lot of their nonexistent partners wasn’t any more enviable – washing their socks in the basin, handing over the child support, eating out of tins. This was the liberated generation …

  Three minutes’ stop at Dijon station. That was probably the amount of time he would have devoted to the city had he not had to go to the hospital. The succession of picture postcards going past the taxi window did not resonate with him. Pictures for a Chabrol film: restaurants, lawyers’ offices, more restaurants. He agreed with the taxi driver that it was all the same, whether on the left or on the right. He always agreed with taxi drivers, barbers, butchers, whoever he happened to be speaking to, and that was probably how he had survived.

  At reception they asked him to wait a moment and someone would come and get him. He sat down on one of the moulded red plastic chairs that lined the bilious green walls. If he were ill, what he would find most humiliating would be hanging around the corridors in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. He found that as repulsive as the leggings and trainers combination favoured by the young, or the intolerable shorts and baseball cap outfit of American tourists. ‘All this time ahead of us, we might as well be comfortable. The Adidas view of eternity.’ After much reflection he had opted for smart casual – tweed jacket over a cashmere jumper, grey trousers and polished oxblood brogues. The man who was coming towards him wore a crumpled poor-quality beige suit and did not look like a doctor.

  ‘Inspector Forlani.’

  ‘Gérard,’ added Fabien, reading the name from the man’s identity bracelet.

  Forlani came out with a tangled explanation from which the word ‘sorry’ buzzed like a fly. It must be terrible to do a job that made you say ‘sorry’ so many times. He would certainly not last long in the police. Fabien wanted to ask him if he liked his work, but he told himself it wasn’t the time and, anyway, the policeman wasn’t giving him the chance.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind following me to the morgue. I’m so sorry …’

  The inspector walked the way he talked, in hurried little bursts, throwing anxious glances over his shoulder, as if he feared Fabien would try to escape. The brown paper case from a cream cake was stuck to his left heel. It reminded Fabien of one of those paper fishes from April Fool’s Day.

  ‘Monsieur Forlani?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ve got a cake paper stuck to your left shoe.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A paper stuck to your shoe.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  Hopping on one foot, he removed the paper from the other shoe, looked around for a waste-paper basket, then crumpled the paper in his hand and put it in his pocket with a shrug of the shoulders.

  They passed several canteen trolleys pushed by bored-looking West Indians. Fabien wondered what he would have for lunch; he was hungry. The morgue was right at the other end of the hospital, near the bins. Forlani turned back to Fabien and paused for a moment. ‘Here it is.’

  He sounded so serious that Fabien couldn’t suppress the beginnings of a smile. The inspector was like a dwarf on tiptoes. As he pushed open the door, they had to stand aside to let two women pass, one young, the other a bit older, both very pale. The room was reminiscent of an office canteen – vast, with white tiles, glass and chrome. Forlani spoke to two men in short white coats. They glanced briefly at Fabien and pulled the handle of a sort of drawer. Sylvie slid out of the wall.

  ‘Is this your wife?’

  ‘Yes and no. It’s the first time I’ve seen her dead. I mean, the first time I’ve seen a dead body. It’s not at all like a living person.’

  Forlani and the men in white coats exchanged looks of astonishement.

  ‘It’s very important, Monsieur Delorme. Do you recognise your wife?’

  Of course he recognised Sylvie, but not the smile fixed on her face.

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s her.’

  ‘Right. Do you know what her final wishes were?’

  ‘Her final wishes?’

  ‘Yes, whether she wanted to be buried or cremated?’

  ‘I’ve no idea … I imagine like everyone she didn’t want to die at all.’

  ‘OK, we’ll sort that out later then. Don’t worry, we’ll look after everything.’

  ‘I’m not worried. I trust you. It’s my first time; I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘We understand, Monsieur Delorme, we understand. If you’d like to follow me, I have some questions to ask you.’

  They went back the way they’d come, still at the jerky pace of the inspector. Fabien felt as if he were watching a film in reverse. Had they not stopped by the coffee machine, he could have gone back in time to before his visit to his father, and found Sylvie fresh and elegant. He wouldn’t have been surprised. Since the previous evening, nothing much surprised him.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘So, Monsieur Delorme, you weren’t aware your wife was in the area?’

  ‘No, she didn’t tell me she was coming here. I thought she would be at home.’

  ‘In Paris, 28 Rue Lamarck?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Monsieur Delorme, where were you this weekend?’

  ‘I was visiting my father in Ferranville, in Normandy. I helped him clear out his attic. There was a car-boot sale.’

  ‘You went on Friday and came back on Sunday evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had no idea your wife had come to Dijon?’

  ‘No, we don’t know anyone here. At least, I don’t.’

  Forlani was taking notes in a brand-new 12.50-franc notebook, the price sticker still on it. The cap on his biro was chewed and the stem bent outwards so that he could bounce it on the edge of the table as he was thinking. What was it he was not saying?

  ‘Monsieur Delorme, do you know if your wife was having an affair?’

  ‘An affair?’

  ‘Whether she had a lover?’

  ‘A lover? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Your wife wasn’t alon
e in the car.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She was with a man who also died in the accident.’

  ‘But just because he was in the car with her doesn’t necessarily mean …’

  ‘Of course not, Monsieur Delorme, but the evening before they went to an inn where they were well known because they’d been there several times. Le Petit Chez-Soi. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘Le Petit Chez-Soi? No. That’s a horrible name, don’t you think?’

  Clearly Forlani had no opinion about the name. He simply made a face as he waved his biro like a rattle.

  ‘I bet they have lamps made from wine bottles with tartan lampshades.’

  ‘I couldn’t say, Monsieur Delorme. Perhaps, perhaps they do … Tell me, do you have a car?’

  ‘No, I don’t drive.’

  ‘Do you mean that you don’t have a driving licence?’

  ‘That’s right. I hate cars. With good reason now, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes, indeed … In that case I won’t detain you much longer.’

  ‘Before I go, I’d like to know a bit more about how the accident happened.’

  ‘Of course. Well, it was on Saturday evening, about eleven thirty, dry, straight road, at the bottom of a hill. The car must have been going quite fast. It crashed into the security barrier on the right and fell into a ravine. Your wife and the man who was driving were coming back from a restaurant in Dijon, but they hadn’t drunk much. Perhaps the driver was taken ill, or perhaps he had to swerve to avoid an oncoming vehicle? There were tyre tracks from another car. They’re being investigated.’

  ‘What was he called, my wife’s … lover?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Perhaps I know him; affairs often develop between friends. And also, we’re sort of related now.’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Monsieur Delorme. The man is also married.’

  ‘To one of the women we passed as we went into the morgue?’

  ‘Well … yes. You should go home now, Monsieur Delorme. We’ll keep you informed.’

  ‘You’re right … Oh, sorry, I’m so clumsy!’ He had just spilt the remains of his coffee in the inspector’s lap. The inspector rushed off to the toilets, leaving his brand-new notebook and chewed pen behind on the low table.

  His wife’s lover was called Martial Arnoult and his wife was Martine, residing at number 45 Rue Charlot, in the third arrondissement in Paris.

  Martine Arnoult, 45 Rue Charlot. Paris, 3rd arrdt. The first thing he did when he got home was to note the name and address on the white board in the kitchen underneath brown shoe polish, batteries (4), pay electricity bill. He didn’t really know what he would do with it. Probably nothing. He had just collected the information like picking up a stone on a beach. The kind of thing you chucked in the bin when you got back from holiday. Then he had slept straight through for fifteen or sixteen hours.

  But tomorrow wasn’t another day. Sylvie was still dead. In the street and in the supermarket, everyone continued with their lives as if nothing had happened. A warm summer was forecast, the cashier’s sister had just had a little girl. Someone dropped a bottle of oil.

  Fabien bought the brown polish, the batteries, eggs and some strong chorizo. He would do the cheque for the electricity as soon as he got home. Hello, goodbye, everything was incredibly normal. He was torn between the desire to shout out, ‘Hey! Don’t you know? Sylvie is dead; I’m a widower!’ and the bitter pleasure of being in possession of a secret: ‘I know something that you don’t and I’m not going to tell you what it is.’

  In the flat, Sylvie’s presence could still be felt everywhere. It was not just because of the familiar objects dotted about, but it also felt as if she had left behind a little part of herself in every molecule of air she had breathed. It was like watching invisible hands on the keyboard of a pianola. Fabien fried himself two eggs, with onions, tomato and chorizo. That was what he always cooked when he ate on his own. Sylvie couldn’t bear strong chorizo. He loved it and could happily have eaten it for lunch and dinner every day for the rest of his life. Now his delight in it was ruined.

  He went over in his head all the household tasks and other duties that he had never undertaken and quickly felt overwhelmed. He poured a large Scotch to make himself feel better. But it wasn’t just the tasks. It was the loss of all their little routines – evenings in front of the telly, going to the market on Saturday morning, family birthdays, trips to the museum. In short, everything he had detested up until the day before yesterday. This revelation had a strange effect on him; he was even going to miss their petty little squabbles. He helped himself to another glass, fuller than the first one. He hadn’t thought of what he would miss. Until now he had considered widowhood a sort of honorary bonus, like a rosette to pin on his lapel. Of course, it had been a long time since they had been in love, but he hadn’t hated Sylvie; there had been a sort of tender complicity between them.

  The alcohol was making him tearful. Memories of the happy times they had spent together kept surfacing like soap bubbles. Gradually self-pity gave way to anger.

  ‘At a stroke you’ve made me a widower and a cuckold. Nice one. Bravo! Do you know that down there in the street no one cares you’re dead? Yes! A widower and a cuckold! I don’t like that word. It’s not right for me. It’s a silly word like poo and wee-wee. But people like it. It’s a comic word, probably because it sounds rude. And at Le Petit Chez-Soi with a guy called Martial! Classy! What got into you, for God’s sake? Of course, now you’re not obliged to answer me. The dead get all the rights, especially the right to remain silent, like my father, like Charlotte … I was going to say you’d sent word round. That’s funny, since none of you actually speak. But I can make any jokes I like! I’m the one who’s been wronged; I have the choice of weapons! I’m free, you hear? FREE! I can stuff my face, vomit on the carpet, belch, fart, wank, spray come all over your ridiculous lace curtains! That’s right, keep saying nothing, but I can ruin your eternal peace by saying anything and everything. I can fill your goddamned nothingness with a torrent of words from morning to night! Oh, fuck it! Do what you like with your death. What do I care? … You’re free, I’m free, we’re all free …’

  It was darkest night when he awoke face down on the carpet. It was so thick it was as if the pile had grown. He rolled onto his side. The bedroom light was on. For a fraction of a second he imagined Sylvie reading in bed, her cheek resting in the palm of her hand, her glasses perched on her nose. The image disappeared as he retched. He staggered to the bathroom. Eggs, chorizo and whisky swirled down the basin plughole. Fabien leant back against the wall and let himself slide to the floor. His hand landed on a book. It was a book on gardens that Sylvie had been reading recently, Secret Gardens by Rosemary Verey. He opened it randomly at page 8: ‘Since his fall from grace, man has not stopped creating gardens, secret places to gather and exchange confidences and pledges, places of reminiscence. Although over the centuries the secret garden has taken on a different aspect, it still symbolises man’s inner secrets.’

  The ringing of the telephone acted on him like an electric shock. He let it go on for a long time, but obviously the person on the other end was not going to give up. Fabien propelled himself towards the phone, banging his leg on the bedside table, and collapsed onto the bed.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Fabien? It’s Gilles. Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, yes … I was asleep. How are you?’

  ‘Me? I’m fine, it’s you I’m worried about.’

  ‘I just banged my shin. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Fabien, I …don’t know what to say …Sylvie …’

  ‘What about Sylvie? She’s not here. She must have gone to the cinema with Laure.’

  ‘What are you saying? Stop pissing about. Your father rang me. He’s really concerned. Your phone call shook him up.’

  ‘My phone call?’

  ‘Yes, your phone call. Don’t you remember? You were dead drunk but he understood every
thing. I feel terrible for you … Do you want me to come round?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To be with you! I’m your friend.’

  ‘Thanks … but not now. Tomorrow morning if you want. I’m going to sleep, for a long time.’

  ‘OK, mate. You’re sure you won’t do anything stupid?’

  ‘Why would I do anything stupid?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘I’m just going to sleep. Come at about nine o’clock.’

  ‘OK, see you then. I’m really sorry. I’m here for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Gilles. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  So that was it. Once again he had blurted everything out to his father. But sooner or later, everyone would have to know. He would have preferred it to be later. The real penance was about to begin. He was going to have to tell the story ten times over, hundreds of times over, thank people, shake people’s moist hands, kiss their flaccid, damp cheeks, see distant provincial cousins. It all seemed beyond him. He told himself coffee would do him good. As he crossed the apartment he took in the damage wreaked by his one and only fit of jealousy: drawers emptied, furniture overturned, ashtrays spilt, and the contents of the wardrobe strewn about and soiled. Devastation as shameful as it was derisory. Who was going to clean up that bloody mess? Gilles? Laure? The best strategy would be to hide behind his new-found status as a betrayed widower floored by grief and to get everyone else to look after him. That wasn’t the noblest of stances but at least it had the merit of giving him time to work out what to do next.

  Somewhat reassured, he fell asleep on the sitting-room sofa, wrapped up in the large blue shawl he’d given Sylvie for her fortieth birthday. Just as his eyes were closing, the thought occurred to him that she had never worn it.

  Laure and Gilles didn’t know that from the bathroom you could hear everything that was said in the kitchen.

  Laure: ‘He can’t stay on his own. He’s never been able to manage on his own.’