Moon in a Dead Eye: Shocking, hilarious and poignant noir. Pascal Garnier

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      Martial and Odette hardly ever drank, even with dinner. They had had to stock up in time for the Nodes’ first visit and since then, Martial had not been averse to the odd glass when the opportunity arose, as it did more and more often. It had not escaped Odette’s notice, and she had brought it up with him recently. Well, he was hardly going to become an alcoholic at his age. There was no harm in loosening up and letting that warm fuzzy feeling come over him now and then. Odette took those pills every night, after all …

      ‘And what about this black beast that’s been seen prowling around the dunes near Calais? They’re saying it could be a panther. Did you see it on telly?’

      ‘The photo the police showed wasn’t very convincing. It looked more like a large cat.’

      ‘Judging by the paw prints, they reckon the animal weighs about eight stone. That’s one hell of a moggy!’

      ‘Do you know the Côte d’Opale?’

      ‘No. I know the Basque coast very well though. I spent six months in Biarritz in ’56 … no, ’57. That was the life! One night, at the casino …’

      Martial sucked his ice cube. The Côte d’Opale, the dunes studded with with marram grass which scratched at your calves, the cliffs, the wind … Wissant, between Calais and Boulogne, where he had spent his holidays as a little boy … So long ago … He would go out fishing for crabs and winkles with Nicole, a girl of his own age from Lille … Back then, he had no idea he was destined to spend his life behind a desk – he wanted to be a deep-sea diver when he grew up. It had been centuries since he last visited Wissant, even in his thoughts. The beast in the dunes took him back. It must have changed there too, no doubt about it … At low tide you could walk along the beach for miles with your eyes closed, without bumping into anything at all … Straight ahead …

      ‘What do you mean, “straight ahead”?’

      ‘I’m sorry?’

      ‘You just said “straight ahead”.’

      ‘Did I?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Sorry, I must have been daydreaming out loud.’

      ‘That’s all right. One more for the road?’

      ‘No, I won’t, thank you.’

      ‘If you’re sure … So, she’ll be here tomorrow!’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘The newcomer, of course, the single lady.’

      ‘Oh yes, that’s right.’

      ‘What do you think she’ll be like?’

      ‘I don’t know. Odette thinks she’s a widow.’

      ‘How funny, that’s what Marlène says too! She could just be divorced.’

      ‘Or she might never have married.’

      ‘Exactly! Why do they insist on her being a widow?’

      ‘I don’t know. Maybe the thought reassures them; it implies someone respectable and dignified.’

      ‘Dignified? Please! I knew a widow in Limoges, by God, she was a feisty one! Listen to this, one day I got back to my hotel and …’

      After casting a furtive glance towards the house, Maxime leant close to his neighbour’s ear. Martial could not stand people sharing these sorts of secrets with him. They brought out the same feelings of shame and disgust as when he saw his first porn magazine. Thankfully, Odette and Marlène chose that moment to come out onto the deck and Maxime pulled away with a wink, holding a finger to his lips.

      ‘We all know women like to gossip, but look at the men! Martial, have you seen the time?’

      For the past week, Odette had been trying her hand at exotic cuisine, cooking anything and everything as long as it originated from the other side of the world. Distance seemed to be a key ingredient in the recipe. On the menu that evening was that dish Mexicans went wild for, chicken cooked in chocolate. She had spent most of the afternoon making it. Martial sat back while Odette served him, keeping his mouth shut. It looked like coq au vin, but smelt like a dessert. He took a mouthful. Though his taste buds had had a few days to adjust to their culinary world tour, his tongue was immediately on fire.

      ‘Don’t you like it?’

      ‘No, I do! It’s just very hot …’

      ‘Maybe I put a bit too much ginger in.’

      ‘No, it’s fine.’

      ‘What were you talking to Maxime about?’

      ‘This and that … animals.’

      ‘What about the widow?’

      ‘Come on, Odette, why are you so set on her being a widow?’

      ‘Why shouldn’t she be? Anyway, Marlène agrees with me.’

      ‘And what does that prove?’

      ‘Women can sense these things.’

      ‘Oh, right! Look, I really couldn’t care less. We’ll soon find out one way or the other.’

      ‘We will, won’t we?’

      Martial woke up with a start in the middle of the night. It was not a nightmare, more a sense of having forgotten something important, like turning off the gas or a switch … something vital … It had something to do with the dunes at Wissant … At least, he thought it did … His throat raging, he got out of bed to fetch a glass of water and was amazed, looking down, to see his erect penis straining the fabric of his pyjama bottoms. In the kitchen, he swallowed one of Odette’s pills with his water.

      Léa took one last walk around the house before turning off the lights and going into her room, where she fell back on the bed, arms outstretched.

      ‘My final resting place …’

      She had never pictured it like this. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Madeleine had always been generous towards her, but with this bizarre gift she had ensured her dreadful taste would live on after her death. That said, Léa would not have been at all surprised if this unlikely inheritance (the house and a comfortable pension) had been somewhat cynically arranged by the family of the deceased, all too happy to see the back of the very personal assistant to the owner of Lomax pharmaceuticals. Madeleine would have signed anything at the end. It was only right to provide for a faithful … employee. Perhaps if she had pressed the solicitor to look more closely at the will, Léa might have got more out of it, but what was the point? There was nothing else she needed now.

      Good old Madeleine … Perhaps she might have preferred to end her days here herself, rather than in her mansion on Paris’s Avenue de Wagram. She liked the simple things in life: going for walks, watching TV, eating stews … That was pretty much all they had done together for the last few years, yet they were both contented. Each of them had looked back at her СКАЧАТЬ