A joyful novel full of humanity from the author of Soft in the Head - a July 2016 Indie Next pick.
Saved from drowning in Paris's River Seine, a sixty-something misanthrope finds himself stuck in a hospital bed for six weeks while he recovers. As he looks back on his life, the good and the bad, he makes some unexpected new acquaintances, and just when he thought life had no more suprises in store for him, he finds out he was wrong....
Release date:
September 5, 2017
Publisher:
Pushkin Press
Print pages:
224
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I don’t like to big myself up, but by the time I was, maybe, six or seven, I’d already had a crack at a bunch of things in terms of committing crimes and stuff that’s illegal by law. Aggravated robbery, sexual assault and battery, blackmail and extortion… The sexual assault and battery involved snogging Marie- José Blanc. She kept her teeth clenched so I didn’t exactly get very far. But it’s the thought that counts. I’d commit aggravated robbery every Saturday after rugby: I’d blag sweets and stuff from the littler kids. I’d smack them about a bit in the changing rooms. Sometimes I’d show mercy to one of them. I’ve got a bit of Robin Hood in me. If you want to know about the extortion, just ask my brother. He used me as a bad example with his kids when they were young. Don’t grow up like your uncle, or you’ll have me to deal with. In my defence, I have to say that if he had nothing to be ashamed of, he wouldn’t have emptied his piggy bank and handed me the cash. To guilt-trip someone, they have to be guilty. People called me “The Terror.” I thought that was pretty cool! I felt like I was destined for greatness.
Back then, there were five and a bit of us living at home: my parents, my kid brother and me, pépé Jean and my dead mémé Ginou. My paternal grandparents had died in a dumb accident when my father was only eight, refusing to give way, it was my grandmother’s fault, she never saw the point of stop signs. My father was brought up by his grandparents, his mother’s parents: pépé Jean, still very much alive and kicking at the time I’m talking about, and mémé Ginou in her cremation urn out in the garage. I found it difficult to imagine how he must have felt, heading back to school the day of the accident, when he realized his folks were never coming home again. At the time, he could have thought he was finally free to live his life: no more bare-arse whipping for every little slip-up. Freedom. Total freedom. But listening to him talk about his childhood, I could tell that there are some kinds of freedom which fuck up your life more surely than a whole bunch of restrictions. Based on that, it didn’t seem all that tempting, getting to be an orphan. I was quite fond of my parents, despite the fact that they were parents, with all the shortcomings that implies authority-wise. I was particularly fond of my father. I thought he was well cool, and not just because he had biceps thicker than most people’s thighs. He was a strong guy, in every sense. Feet firmly planted in his size elevens. He had no shortage of opinions, though he didn’t have much else. He was a bigmouth, a bruiser, but the kind of guy who had to get out the hankies at weddings and christenings and called my mother “my little love bundle” and didn’t give a toss if people laughed, and was never afraid to say to her “I love you”. The man I most probably wanted to be. Even as a little kid, I could tell the power he had over people from the way they would always say to me: “Oh, your father! Your father… He’s really somebody!” He was so good at being somebody that, next to him, I felt like nobody. Personally, I would have preferred a father who was a bit more ordinary. It would have made it easier to leave the nest. The worst thing about it was that I was the eldest, I was the standard-bearer. My brother brought himself up without bothering anyone, he was blessed. He was the youngest, the second child. The perpetual runner-up in the human race. I was the one they were pinning their hopes on. I still remember the way they looked at us, our neighbours, our cousins, and every man jack. The sliding glance from my-father-the-hero to his snot-nosed-shit-stirring brat. The sad, incredulous faces that silently said: “How is it even possible? How can a guy like this father a kid like that?” I probably worked out pretty early that I could never fill my father’s boots and in order to survive I’d have to find some different footwear. I made every effort to be as much of a pain in the arse as possible and the most creative arsehole. Unfortunately, I had no real vices: for all my pretence at being a hoodlum, underneath I was a sweet kid. I wished I could be a Mafioso, a bad guy, a bastard. Actually, I was an arse-wipe. A two-bit moron with no ambition. And to top it all, my father would always lay a hand on my shoulder and say: “He’s a complete dunce, but he’s a good kid. I’m sure he’ll go far anyway…” That was probably his way of showing he believed in me. But to my ears anyway sounded a lot like a despairing in spite of everything.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. And if I didn’t drown, I’d have to say I came pretty close. A few days ago, I was fished out of the Seine just in the nick of time. Two feet from the bank, to be precise, but that’s more than far enough to sink into the mud and float to the surface a couple of weeks later, limp and soggy as the hunks of bread people throw to the ducks. They cleared out my bronchial tubes, put various bits of me in plaster. I had clearly ricocheted off the bridge. Botched suicide, drunken binge, mugging? Everyone had a theory. I was in a coma, so I could hardly voice an opinion. I woke up in intensive care with multiple trauma, which sounds pretty impressive, watched over by a concernedlooking cop. The sort of kid my father might have spared, even on a day of political unrest. He was a young guy, a decent sort, with huge, sad antelope eyes and a three-day beard he’d probably been growing for three months. He seemed completely overawed. My charisma, obviously. But maybe the chest drain, the oxygen mask and all the huge tangle of wires to keep me monitored had something to do with it too. This junior cop was a young thirty-five, he had a black leather jacket and a black leather notebook with the face of Chewbacca printed on the spine. He could have been my son, if I’d ever procreated. When I opened my eyes, I did it like a drowning man desperately trying to catch his breath. Then again, I had drowned, or as good as, so that probably explains it. I wondered what I was doing here, feeling a vague uneasiness over the general anaesthesia and the unpleasant sensation of not knowing where I began and ended. Part of my mind was panicked, racing in every direction, trying to get the lie of the land, where the fuck am I? Am I still in one piece? Can I move? The other part could not tear itself from the face of this strange guy leaning over me, too close, who was whispering so low that I could hardly hear a thing. The words seemed to come from far away, his voice sounded weird, much too slow. Eventually, I managed to catch the phrase: “… any idea what might have happened to you? Because, right now, we’ve made no progress in our investigation…” Then, studying the oxygen mask, he added: “Just a yes or no will do. Do you remember what happened?” I dimly shook my head, just enough to set the ceiling spinning and the mattress lurching. Sorry. I had no idea how I’d got there. He asked me another question, one that took some time to percolate. Before I closed my eyes, I shook my head again. No: I had not tried to put an end to my life. I’ve no wish to kill myself. Time will take care of that bit of business.
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