Selected Stories

The tourists hired bicycles at the harbour or in the village and rode about the sandy tracks. They came for the day or lodged in one of the small village hotels if not in Monsieur Perdreau’s rather grander one. The only vehicles that were permitted on the island were the farm trucks, the tractors, the delivery vans, and the minibus that delivered and collected guests. Cigarettes were forbidden in wooded areas because of the risk of fire.

‘Oh, we enjoy the tourists,’ Madame Buissonnet commented. ‘Of course we do.’

One by one, the tables were deserted. When the waiter whom Madame Buissonnet considered stylish brought chocolates and coffee, only a few were still occupied – the one at which the girl sat alone, a corner one at which Italian was spoken, a third at which a couple now stood up. The man in the blue suit returned, his progress unsteady and laboured, an apologetic smile thrown about, as if he were unaware that the chairs he circumvented were empty. He sat down noisily and at once stood up again, seeming to seek the attention of a waiter. When one approached he waved him away but, still on his feet, filled his glass and spilt it as he sat down. The girl poured coffee. She did not speak.

‘È oritologo

,’ someone said at the Italian table, a woman’s voice carrying across the restaurant. ‘Scrive libri sugli uccelli.’

The man in the blue suit stood up and again looked around him. He pulled at the knot of his tie, loosening it. He groped beneath it for the buttons of his shirt. His companion stared at the tablecloth. Was she weeping? Guy wondered. Something about her bent head suggested that she might be.

There was a glisten of sweat on the man’s forehead and his cheeks. He raised his glass in the direction of the Italians, smiling at them foolishly. One of them – a man in a suede jacket – bowed stiffly.

The waiters stood back, perfectly discreet. Amused at first by the scene, Madame Buissonnet now glanced away from what was happening. They should be going, she said.

‘Mi dà i brividi,’ one of the Italians exclaimed quite loudly, and they all got up, the women gathering handbags and shawls, one of the men lighting a fresh cigarette.

Watching them go, Guy realized that all evening he had been stealing glances at the girl who shared the drunk man’s table. Especially when she was alone he had kept glancing at her, unable to prevent himself. She was very thin. He had never seen a girl as thin. All the time he had talked about Gérard and Jean-Claude, and André Délespaul and Colette, all the time he had listened to the details of the olive harvest, while he’d shaken Monsieur Perdreau’s hand and laughed at his joke, he had imagined being with her in the little bay where he swam and at Le Nautic or the Café Vert in the village. He had looked for a wedding ring, and there it was.

The drunk man laughed. He waved at the Italians, his laughter louder, as if he and they shared some moment of comedy. The one who’d just lit a cigarette waved back.

‘Hi!’ the drunk man called after them, and lurched across the restaurant, knocking into the chairs and tables, apologizing to people who weren’t there. He stopped suddenly, as if his energy had failed him. He was confused. He frowned, shaking his head.

It wasn’t a real smile when the girl smiled at Guy; it was too joyless for that, with a kind of pleading in it. She smiled because all evening she had been aware he’d been unable to take his eyes off her. Had she really once married this man? Guy wondered. Could they really be husband and wife?

‘Thank you, Guy,’ Madame Buissonnet said, as she always did when the evening ended. The bill came swiftly when he gestured for it. He signed the carte bancaire.

‘Yes,’ Monsieur Buissonnet said. ‘Thank you.’

It was then that the man fell down. He fell on to an unlaid table and slithered sideways to the ground. Waiters came to help him up, but he managed to scramble to his feet by himself. His wife didn’t look. Guy was certain now she was his wife.

‘Hi!’ the man shouted at the Buissonnets. ‘Hi!’

He was laughing again and he shouted something else but Guy couldn’t understand what it was because the man spoke in either English or German; it was difficult to distinguish which because his voice was slurred. He clattered down, into the chair he’d been sitting on before. He spread his arms out on the tablecloth and sank his head into them. The girl said something, but he didn’t move.

Guy didn’t let his anger show. He was good at that; he always had been. It could happen like this that you fell in love, that there was some moment you didn’t notice at the time and afterwards couldn’t find when you thought back. It didn’t matter because you knew it was there, because you knew that this had happened.

‘I talked to those people on my walk today.’ It seemed hardly a lie, just something it was necessary to say. Anything would have done.