The Extinction of Snow Page 16

  “Do you intend to still go to the village?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let me come.”

  I shake my head, without looking at him. I can sense his rage. I am not at all sure who is at fault here. He seems to think that sleeping with me means I have to be open to all of his whims, virtues and demands, whereas I admit to nothing but adultery. I say: “I don’t ask to know anything of you.”

  “Then ask, ask whatever. I want you to know.”

  I shake my head again, this time lifting my eyes so that I can see him. His face is a static, staring mask, fixed to a single moral message. I can’t deflect or defend myself against that. I remain silent. I have no questions to ask.

  I say no to more wine, dessert or coffee. I suggest it would be better just to go. We return straight to the hotel. He leaves me inside my door. We are obviously not going to spend the night together. I’m not sure whose decision that was. There were certainly no words between us. The parting wasn’t difficult but it wasn’t easy either, perhaps clumsy best describes it.

  It is only a quarter past nine. I’m not ready to chance the attempt to sleep, but can’t sit in this deadly room. I go out, stroll up the road and go into a bar opposite The Blue Cat where I sit in a window so I can watch the life outside. At this time of night The Blue Cat is wide open, its daytime secrecy cast aside. A girl sits on a stool in the door-frame, her legs crossed, her bulging shapely thigh milky in the pale blue glow from within. Every so often another girl joins her and they talk and laugh. Together they call to passers-by. When they are together it seems like a game. When she is alone it is altogether a more hazardous and solitary life, perched on a stool, apparently fair game. Perhaps that is why I keep Bill at arm’s length. I don’t want this to be a game. It is real. I need it to be real. I am seeing the girl through glass, which would send Frank into madness, but her reality doesn’t escape me. Selling sex to strangers, however much they are fleeced and cleaned out, is a terrible act of womanhood. In her borrowed space she is an object of infinite variety and meaning, staggeringly false in every one. I should be careful; I could go mad as well.

  I drink a bottle of wine and then return to the hotel, suitably floating, ready to sleep, to have my usual dose of nightmares, an on the run murderess, a disgraced wife and mother.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Noisiel is a terrible disappointment. It is the suburb where Dominique Dufour says Joseph and Joanne were living. It is a chaotic place of concrete walkways, subways and steps. I was given directions at the station but very quickly have become hopelessly lost. There are rows of low storied flats, set in perimeters of green space. Every few yards there is another roundabout. The traffic is light. I feel as if I am behind the main routes in and out of the city. I didn’t tell Bill I was coming today. I want to be here alone. In some ways I feel it is a macabre sight-seeing expedition. What really will I discover about Joseph in such a place? Already I have decided that the girl, Joanne, will not be here. I don’t know where I think she is, simply fled, gone back to whatever is familiar and normal for her, her moment of adventure concluded. I left the hotel early, avoiding breakfast. I dashed past the open doorway of the breakfast room, fully expecting that Bill would call me back. Would I have stopped or rushed away? He didn’t call, so the question is immaterial.

  I acquire further directions from a group of elderly women standing together along the street, flats to every side. I don’t know what they are doing. They don’t seem to waiting for a bus but simply gathered, talking, waiting for a stranger like me whom they can guide. I hand over the piece of paper bearing the address. Should one of them crumple it up, wantonly destroy it, then my search will be over. I am reliant on good-will. There is some discussion about the best route to take, by road or through the flats. Eventually they agree on the latter. Their directions are easy to understand. My skill is returning. I am again becoming a competent French speaker. It has taken longer than usual. I am getting old. The evidence multiplies. Am I still capable of new thought, new insight, or am I only able to live out discoveries I have already made? I wonder what my counsellor would say to my being in Noisiel. Am I moving on or digging in deeper and deeper, all movement constricted and closed for the foreseeable future? But there are varied emotions at play here, grief and detection, together combining to make something new and rather incomprehensible. Where is this leading me? I fear the worst.

  Once again I feel that I am lost. There are flats all around, set in the middle of neatly cut swards edged with pavements. It is rudimentary, the outline of a possible place rather than a real lived place. There are no people to be seen. A lower ground flat to the left has its windows wide open, with music sounding out, not blaring but loud. A young man appears and leans out. I traipse across the grass and again ask to be directed. He is impeccably polite, which surprises me. It is deplorable that I am surprised, but I can’t deny it. He draws me a small diagram with arrows taking me through a sequence of concrete alleys. He reassures me that I am nearly there. My gratitude is real, if excessive. Within minutes I have found what I came for.

  The block in which Joseph lived is a large rectangular complex with numerous entry doors. There are long rows of wide concrete steps leading up to it from what is presumably a parking area but today holds a market, a bustling, crammed market. Alongside the door I want are two cash tills. There is a group of black youths leaning against the walls, blocking the doorway. We stand looking at each other for a while, one in particular eyeing me with a fixed yet languid stare. It troubles me. I apologize but say I need to get to the door. With slow, mannered movements they make a space for me. In looking at me, what do they see? Would I recognize that image if it was shown to me? And if I didn’t would it mean it wasn’t true? I suppose seeing is everything, images subjective.

  Joseph teased me about seeing. He said that colour is a myth, something we see only because we have the rods and cones in our eyes to allow it. Colour is imposed on the world, he said, and all creatures see the world differently, constructing it according to need. He smiled at me, his flamboyant artist mother, as he explained that the need a human being had was to be able to pick out a red apple from a green background. Of course, he was inferring that such primitive need formed the origins of art. I don’t suppose he wanted to rubbish my material, just assert his knowing, his own particular seeing.

  I push open the door and find the stairway to the upper flats. Joseph and Joanne’s was number five.

  I knock repeatedly, three raps followed by a period of silence. With each attempt the sound deepens and the silence deepens, the two becoming internalised. What am I trying to do, summons my dead child, draw him back from his false death to his true destiny, indulging myself in the perverted magic of hopeless hope? This is not my child’s home, not a place he should ever have called home. A home is a subtly created space, a space of negotiations, agreements, mutual identities. This is a shelter. But perhaps that is what Joseph needed, a refuge from hostilities. I knock again, a final drum beat, a final grieving call. The door of the adjacent flat opens and a young woman appears. She is tall and thin with olive skin, her expression listless. She doesn’t speak but simply gazes at me, or even past me, her interest in me being purely mechanical, the person making the noise.

  I explain that I was hoping to see the people who live here. She looks confused, perplexed. Perhaps she knows that one of the people who lived here is dead and doesn’t want the responsibility of breaking that news. Eventually she tells me that no one has been here for weeks. Does she know what happened to the people who lived here? She shrugs, but I can’t read whether that means she doesn’t know or isn’t telling. How were they, I ask, the question slipping involuntarily from my mind. From a complete stranger I want a good report of my son, confirmation that his actions were worthwhile, meaningful.

  All she can say is that she didn’t have any trouble with them. Her starting point is the expectation of trouble. It seems meagre. She goes on to say that it is much
quieter now and she has little children, so she doesn’t miss them because it is quieter. I look at her questioningly. Still without animation she says that there were people coming and going all of the time, doors opening, closing, banging. Sometimes there were rows. She supposes the couple had rows but says it isn’t any of her business, everyone has rows, just she didn’t like the fact it was next door because she has little children. She qualifies it by saying they sleep through anything and yet still she isn’t sorry that the flat is quiet. She supposes they were involved in drugs, everyone who has visitors at all times is involved in drugs. She says it isn’t any of her business but she has little children and she doesn’t want them mixed up in anything like that, though she doesn’t doubt they will. She is already crippled with defeat. I shake my head and say that I don’t think they were involved with drugs.

  She smiles for the first time and tells me she knows these flats, knows just what goes on here. I tell her that sometimes there is a gulf between appearance and reality. She asks if I am with the other people who came. I tell her that I’m not and that I know nothing of any other people. She shrugs and says they were here for a while, looking around. I ask her how they got in. She has a key. She can let me in if I want. I say that I do want, though I don’t suppose I really do.

  The flat is a mess, the floor strewn with clothes, magazines, drinks cartons, food wrappings. Drawers hang out, their contents draped over the side. There is a smell of dampness and mould. The windows have been covered with old sheets pinned into place. The entire place is chaotic. I turn and ask the woman if the people who came did this. She shrugs and an incomplete smile crosses her lips. She doesn’t know that it wasn’t always like this. I can’t accept what she has suggested. Surely Joseph couldn’t have lived like this. I try to recall whether he was a tidy person or not. It seems such a simple piece of motherly knowledge, but I don’t know. I kept his room in order, and Sara took over. When he was at university he shared lodgings and couldn’t be responsible for how they were. I simply can’t say. But this has to be more than normal disorganization. These rooms have been ransacked. Why am I always allowing doubts into my understanding of Joseph and trust myself so little? I insist on it. Joseph was a well-ordered, organized person who could not have lived like this.

  I ask the woman if she knows anything about the girl. She just shrugs. When was the last time she saw her? She has no idea but it was a while ago. She hasn’t seen anybody but the people who came and me. I move through all of the rooms, each as messy, jumbled and disorganized as the last. The kitchen is squalid, the sink mouldy, the walls black, surfaces smeared with grease. The whole place is squalid. I try to visualize Joseph here, try to hear his voice, place him, but it is impossible. I cannot equate Joseph with this mess in any way. I am beginning to feel sick. I can’t begin to think what I have learnt here. In pursuit of his purpose was Joseph willing to put up with squalor? Or had the girl Joanne brought him to this?

  I call to the woman and ask to know what the two were like. She counters by questioning why it is I don’t know. I step back into the first room where she is waiting, picking my way around the rubbish, and tell her I know one very well, the boy, that he is my son, but no, I don’t know the girl. I am aware that I have said that the boy is my son and not was. She doesn’t have to deal with that. She looks sorry for me and then pleased with herself. She tells me that the girl was pretty, but nothing more. I have to make do with Joseph’s aesthetic discernment.

  I thank her and tell her I have seen enough. We obviously both feel we should say something on parting, perhaps that we’ll meet again when they return, but we both know that is a lie. In the end I turn away and make towards the stairs. She calls me back and asks whether it will be all right to lease the flat. I ask her who owns it. She shrugs and tells me the landlord of course. I turn and leave without answering. It is not in my gift to dispose of the wreck of my son’s shelter.

  Back at the hotel I ask whether Bill has returned. I feel foolish because I don’t know his surname. The man at reception knows exactly who I mean and tells me that he has left, checked out that morning. He looks at me sympathetically and with some apology adds that there is no message. I smile and say I didn’t expect one. I have what I apparently wanted, to be alone, to cope alone. I say that I too will be leaving in the morning.

  On my last night in Paris I eat once again in Chartier, claiming it back, telling myself that I can do it. The trouble is I find that I miss Bill, miss his concern, his formidable singularity, his straight ways, whereas I should be missing John. I betray again and again. Afterwards I drink in the bar opposite The Blue Cat. This is all mine, my memory, my exclusive space. I end up quite drunk but I am not bothered by anyone, and can’t decide whether that is something with which to be pleased or disappointed. I betray everything.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The village of Pont-de-Roche is situated a few kilometres from Orleans on the Orleans canal. A guide-book would describe it as a charming, typical French village with scattered farmsteads with red tiled roofs, set amidst rich agricultural land and forest. It is just the sort of place where John and I would stay. A village with a bakery and a greengrocer, places to walk – woodland and canal towpaths would be perfect – yet close to a reasonable size city because on holiday we like to eat out, a chance to order local cuisine and dress up. We like to dress up, go out smart, make an effort. We do it for each other, proof that it matters how we look in each other’s eyes.

  I don’t know why we lost the urge to travel. I suppose like a lot of people we became a bit sceptical over the years. It came with an understanding that the world is no longer to be discovered but defended. The tiny, ill-used planet is being overrun with western tourists who couldn’t care less about local people or local customs and don’t pay a penny into local economies. We could never accept being a part of that club, not willingly, so we made a stand, no flights, no packages, no trampling on exotic soil. It doesn’t really explain why we stopped visiting the old haunts we always had. It all got wrapped up together somehow. We went to the Lake District often enough and loved that. Were our thoughts so high-minded and correct? I think so, but I am a little forgetful. We maybe just became set in our ways. And now John has gone to America. He clearly has fled. I must have driven him insane.

  There are large hoardings at the fringes of the village advertising all manner of things: furniture, carpets, restaurants, supermarkets, hypermarkets. They are part of the landscape. I used to thrill to the sight of French hoardings and road-signs – the priority signs, route signs and place names, particularly Paris passing through Abbeville. They were an announcement of difference and promise of delight. The sign posts of Pont-de-Roche suggest no such thing. They signify unguarded remarks, acts of omission, heartless interpretations. They tell me that I have been an insufficient mother; that I have failed. They point to the destination of my son. He died here. This is the worst place on earth. My love of this country has turned sour. My love has proved sham. My love was an empty thing. My love is mammoth.

  It is late afternoon. The sky is fiery crimson, the cloud scattered and fragmented suggesting myriad shapes. The eye can construct anything; mine opts for figures, incomplete figures pulling themselves from a restraining background, like figures emerging from flames, from iron-ore, from clay. I would challenge the notion that I am summoning the dead. I don’t have that strength. I simply can’t escape earth beings, try as I might. They circle me like sentinels, austere, magnificently formed guards, but are they watching me in order to help me or hinder me. I presume the latter. I feel desperately alone here. I am so close to Joseph and yet the closeness also tells me just how far away I really am. It is a closeness that destroys everything. The sky with all of its multiple shades is a tent over nothing.

  I have rented a small cottage outside the village boundary, set some way back from the road. I saw the sign for it from the taxi I took from Orleans station. Having sped past I asked the taxi driver to go back. In my mind
I think I realized that I couldn’t stay actually in the village. The woman who owned the cottage said she never let it out before Easter. I didn’t think she was going to relent. She informed me there was a hotel in the village, at the cross-road. She turned away from me suggesting that the subject was closed. I blurted out that I was the mother of the boy who was killed here. That changed everything. Of course I could stay. She had already begun airing the rooms, preparing for the new season. She did wonder whether I wouldn’t be more comfortable in the hotel. I shook my head. I didn’t have to explain a need for space, a need for privacy, the shake of the head was enough. I thank her greatly. She gave a quick explanation of the layout of the area and left me. I haven’t seen her since. She is obviously leaving me to mourn.

  From the cottage the quickest and easiest route to the village is along the canal towpath. The canal is wide and long, its waters murky, the colour of milky tea. The towpath is rough and pockmarked, pitted with puddles and patches of mud. My small boots will be ruined. It seems such a derelict thought to consider my footwear, even momentarily, but the mundane batters at my head to be let in. I mourn my boots. It was a pleasure buying and wearing them, and now in Pont-de-Roche they are wasted. In the quickly gathering twilight there are swift flashes of blue, the dirty water broken, circles lisping to the bank. I presume they are kingfishers but they are too quick to really see, particularly in the failing light. Before long I can hear traffic ahead. Each individual vehicle is an event, the sound at first distant, becoming louder and louder until it passes and the sound fades, becoming distant again.

  Eventually I reach the road. It crosses the canal and is accessible by a path running up to it. The lights of cars send search-beams into the night-sky. I ascend to the road and stand to the side. There is no pavement and the road narrows as it joins the bridge. There is a steady, but broken, passage of vehicles. Each one sets my nerves on edge. I can hear the sound of collision. It is buried deep within me, inescapable. Of course I have no idea of the precise location where Joseph was hit, but it was here somewhere. I suppose I’m searching it out, looking for its hideous sign, wanting to capture it in the same ghastly colours as it was then, with the night thick all around, the roads night-time busy. I know the woman at the cottage could have told me, but it’s better that I see first, have an image in my mind. I am constructing reality here, turning the invention of Pont-de-Roche into something drastically real.