This is Life (28 page)

Quite often Aurélie would join her for a few hours on the Sunday, keeping her company and even minding the stall while she took breaks, but today she had texted to say she wasn’t
going to make it.

—
How’s that baby you kidnapped?
Sylvie had texted back.

—
He’s fine. Am staying with creepy Prof. Long story, but nothing funny going on. Not creepy any more. On way to see
Le Machine
. Will track you down soon. Much to
report
.

It was another cold day, and she sat on her folding chair in her duffel coat and hat as she waited for customers to drift by. So far she had been asked out twice, and each time
she had given a firm
no
. One of the boys had been a hopeless case, wide-eyed and trembling as he asked her if he could treat her to a coffee when she had finished work. When she had declined
he had thanked her, apologised and run away. The other one, though, had been something else. He looked like a male model, the kind who would pose in corduroy with a Golden Retriever. He was tall
and healthy-looking, with a thick head of hair, and he was wearing really great clothes. He had even chosen to buy a battered copy of her favourite book of all time,
Timoléon
,
chien fidèle
.

‘I love the ending,’ she had said, as she handed him his change. ‘It’s not easy to read, but it says something that needs to be said. I don’t think I could ever
really be friends with anyone who didn’t get this book.’

‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it,’ he said, his smile revealing great teeth and dimples. ‘I love the ending too. I’m buying it to depress a
friend of mine who’s been a bit too happy lately.’

Sylvie laughed, and they fell into a conversation about the brilliance of the author, and how underappreciated he was, and she told him she had heard a rumour that the last time he had been
translated into French his publisher, Editions Stock, hadn’t even bothered to send him a copy.

‘It’s a scandal if it’s true,’ said the handsome man. Sensing his opportunity, he had asked her if she was going to be free at all that week, and she had told him, very
firmly, that she wouldn’t be, and that she already had a boyfriend.

He took this graciously, told her it had been nice to meet her, and went on his way. It was only as she watched him go that she realised she hadn’t been entirely truthful when it had come
to her romantic status. She really had felt as if she already had a boyfriend, though. She realised how ridiculous this was, and hoped she wasn’t setting herself up for a broken heart. She
replayed their conversation, and she knew that that was all it was – a conversation. She had liked him, he had a pleasant manner and exemplary taste in books, and it was plain to see that he
was almost supernaturally handsome, but she hadn’t been attracted to him at all, and she hadn’t been flirting with him. Not once had her devotion to Toshiro wavered. Nobody could
compare to Toshiro.

She sat on her folding chair, and tried to fight the thought that she was being stupid, that it was unlikely that she would ever even meet this man she had fallen for in such a frightening
way.

There was something inevitable about the appearance of Lucien and the Akiyamas, and Sylvie threw herself at them. Monsieur Akiyama seemed at last to be getting used to this,
and rather than standing like a baffled statue as Sylvie hugged him, he even smiled a little bit, and tentatively returned her embrace.

‘Look at you,’ said Madame Akiyama. ‘A few days in Paris and you’ve become European.’

Monsieur and Madame Akiyama announced that they were going over the bridge to Notre Dame cathedral, and that they wouldn’t be needing Lucien for a while. He pulled up a
folding chair beside Sylvie, and tried to work out what to say to her. She had never known him to be so quiet; normally the banter had flowed between them so naturally. To get conversation going,
she found the postcard of her mother. She handed one to him.

‘What do you think of her, then?’ she said.

Lucien looked at the postcard, then looked at Sylvie. Back and forth several times. ‘Your mother?’ At dinner the night before, Sylvie had mentioned her mother’s tendency to
take her clothes off.

Sylvie nodded.

Lucien looked at the photograph. The hair, make-up, leg warmers and baguette were distracting, but her face was as pretty as Sylvie’s, and her body was timeless. ‘She’s
beautiful,’ he said.

Sylvie smiled. ‘I’m so proud of her. Sometimes I really miss her,’ she said. ‘It’s funny to think that she was younger than I am now when these were taken. I always
seem to sell at least one every week. I’m so glad she lives on in these postcards.’

‘She lives on in you as well.’

This was no place to get emotional, so she changed the subject. ‘Right – some Japanese, please.’

After learning a few pleasantries, Sylvie called a halt to the lesson. ‘So have you made any progress with the lovely Akiko?’

Lucien looked at the pavement. ‘No,’ he said.

‘OK,’ said Sylvie. ‘We need a strategy.’

Lucien shook his head. ‘We don’t, Sylvie. We don’t need a strategy.’ And he gave her the look she knew so well; the look that told her everything.

Sylvie felt like crying on his behalf. ‘Lucien, no,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t. What about your Japanese girls? Never mind Akiko. Forget her – go to Japan and find
another one. Anyone but me, Lucien, for God’s sake. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said?’

A customer approached the stall, and picked out a print of an antique map of the city and the postcard of Sylvie’s mother. She was in such a hurry to get back to Lucien that she sold them
without mentioning the family connection.

‘It turns out the girl for me wasn’t Japanese after all.’

‘Lucien,’ she said, ‘you’re being stupid. I’m not the girl for you. I don’t love you, and I never will. Not in that way, anyway.’

‘I’m sorry, Sylvie,’ he said. ‘I’d better get back to the Akiyamas.’ He stood to leave, and Sylvie stood beside him. She was so fond of him, and he looked so
forlorn. She put her arms around him and held him close.

‘Lucien,’ she said, ‘soon you’ll realise that we weren’t meant to be together. You’re just having an episode. It’s all going to be OK.’

‘All I want is to marry you on a mutual friend’s llama farm in Avignon. Is that really too much to ask?’

‘Yes, it is, and you know it is.’

As Lucien held her he closed his eyes. He could smell her hair, and feel the shape of her back beneath her duffel coat. He knew her body would be as incredible as her mother’s, and he
couldn’t help imagining her in a short, tight red dress, the kind a prostitute might wear. She would look unbelievable.

He opened his eyes, and it was his turn to feel that one of the worst things imaginable had come to pass. Standing just an arm’s length away as this tender scene unfolded was Toshiro
Akiyama.

Sylvie felt Lucien’s body stiffen, as if he had suddenly gone into a state of rigor mortis. She hoped he hadn’t died in her arms of a broken heart.

‘Er, Sylvie,’ he said, as she felt his arms slowly let go of her body and return to his side. ‘There’s someone here to see you.’

He took her by the shoulders, and turned her around. And there he was, Toshiro Akiyama, even more handsome in real life than he had been in the photographs. It all took a moment to sink in. When
it did, Sylvie opened her mouth and let out a scream of unbridled horror.

As the scream was going on, a crowd of passers-by gathered, wondering what to make of it. When at last it was over, Toshiro Akiyama said something in Japanese, and he and Sylvie Dupont stood
there just looking at one another.

‘What did he say, Lucien?’

Lucien said nothing.

‘Tell me, Lucien. What did he say?’

Lucien, his eyes glazed, told her. ‘He said,
I am sorry. I seem to have misunderstood the situation.
’

‘Tell him he
has
misunderstood the situation, but not in the way he thinks.’

Lucien turned over a sentence in his mind:
Yes, you have misunderstood the situation. The lady and I are very much in love, and your presence is not welcome, so please return to Japan on the
next available flight
.

But he didn’t use it. Instead he marshalled all his inner strength and goodness, and in faultless Japanese he explained the situation to Toshiro, ‘Sylvie was consoling me because I
am in love with her but she doesn’t love me in return.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Sylvie.

He told her, and the onlookers let out a sympathetic
Aaaahhhh
.

Lucien’s statement made sense to Toshiro. He couldn’t imagine anybody
not
being in love with Sylvie Dupont. It didn’t quite fit the story, though. He had surprised his
parents outside the cathedral, tracking them down via a text message exchange in which he neglected to mention that he was in Paris too. Once he had endured his father’s lecture, which he had
predicted word for word, about how there had never been room for spontaneous behaviour within the large corporation in which he had spent his working life, and once his mother’s shock had
subsided, his parents had delivered a short presentation, illustrated by photos on his mother’s phone. As part of this they had told him that Lucien, the nice but slightly gawky interpreter,
was in love with Akiko.

Toshiro had felt sorry for him, because Akiko had told him, though not yet her parents, that she was going strong with a boy she had met at work. When the slideshow was over, his parents had
directed him to Sylvie’s stall, and when he got there he found his sympathy for this interpreter had waned quite considerably as he found out just how fickle he could be.

He supposed he would find out later what was going on with him, but for now it was low priority. He had flown halfway around the world with a clear mission in mind, and the moment had come.
Sylvie Dupont was right in front of him, in a duffel coat and hat, and looking even more perfect than she had in the photograph. He spoke, this time in French.

‘Hello, Sylvie Dupont.’

‘Hello, Toshiro Akiyama.’

‘How are you?’

‘I am very well, thank you. How are you?’

‘I am very well too.’

The language changed to Japanese.

‘Hello, Toshiro Akiyama,’ said Sylvie.

‘Hello, Sylvie Dupont.’

‘How are you?’

‘I am very well, thank you. How are you?’

‘I am very well too.’

And there it is, their first conversation. In years to come they will re-enact this meeting for their children’s amusement. There will be the surprise, and the scream,
but they will always omit one detail: the presence of the heartbroken interpreter looking on.

Sylvie will always wish that things had ended differently for him, that her two boys and her girl might have known him as
uncle Lucien
, that they would have played with his own
half-Japanese children. They wouldn’t have been Akiko’s, because she will have ended up marrying her new boyfriend, but that wouldn’t have mattered. He should have found
somebody
. Her thoughts will often turn to poor Lucien. She had only known him for a short while, but she had liked him very much. She had even loved him, in a funny sort of way.

L
e Charmant Cinéma Érotique had been more or less consistently full since
Life
had opened its doors, and late on the Sunday
afternoon four hundred and seventy-one people were in the auditorium, every one of them looking intently at the bald man’s body and listening to the thunderous sounds that were coming from
inside him.

Then, at last, it happened.

He picked up a glass tray and placed it in the centre of the stage. Until that moment the few people who had noticed this tray had assumed it was an oven dish. Most of them had not given it
another thought, but some had idly wondered why he had an oven dish but no oven. Now, though, it became clear that it was not there for culinary purposes.

Spotting the cue, the sound designer brought the volume right down. The only microphone he kept in the mix was the one Le Machine had swallowed on the Friday night. These moments were to be the
only ones in the whole of
Life
where the background gurgling and thumping of a body at work were brought down, allowing the possibility of moments of near silence. Because this microphone
was a new addition to the show, the crew were on tenterhooks, hoping it would all work out. They had been wondering whether the audience would get excited and start to cheer or shout things out,
but everybody watched in rapt silence as Le Machine crouched over the glass tray.

Aurélie Renard stood in the middle of the crowd. She hadn’t known what she would think about
Life
; she thought it could well turn out to be a load of
pointless, pretentious rubbish, but it wasn’t. To see and hear a body at work, presented in this way, had been really moving. She thought of her mother, and Herbert, and herself. She looked
at Professor Papavoine, and he seemed to be close to tears as he watched Le Machine squat down, getting ready for the big moment.

For Le Machine, this part of
Life
had become routine, so much so that he wondered why people went on about it so much. Everybody did it, so what was the big deal?
Normally he went once a day, and he had expected to have done it by this point, but for some reason he had been a bit blocked up. As he crouched, it became clear that this was not going to be an
easy one. He started to strain. The microphone picked up a small squelch of movement, and the audience gasped in anticipation, but it seemed to be a false alarm. There was still some way to go.
There was a loud pop as some gas forced its way out, and a while later there was another squelch as his faeces crept towards the exit. He could really feel it coming now. All he needed was a big
strain, and it would be out. He readied himself, and went for it.

Like everybody else, Aurélie was watching him intently, and willing him on. Le Machine had won her over, not only with the nature of his show, but also with his
perfectly sculpted body.
Come on
, she was thinking.
You can do it . . .