Too Close to the Edge Read Online Free Page A

usually barely touched the stuff. Éliette filled a glass with water from the tap and handed Rose a tablet.
    ‘I’ll take her up to bed and I’ll be right back down, OK, Paul? Paul?’
    ‘Huh? Yes, yes.’
     
    Rose let herself be guided up to the bedroom, which was decorated in the most ghastly brown and orange flowery wallpaper. The blue satin quilt gave a kind of sigh when Rose fell onto it. A piece of boxwood fell off the crucifix above her head and went spinning onto the carpet.
    ‘He did whatever he wanted. He came top in everything … It’s not fair, no, not fair … Have to look after Paul. We’re old … We’ve become old all of a sudden.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I’m here. You need to sleep.’
    ‘I’ll never sleep again.’
    ‘You will. Just let yourself go.’
    In the mirrored wardrobe door, Éliette could see herself holding Rose’s hand. Her neighbour’s face was hidden behind her round belly; in the foreground was one bare foot and another with an old slipper hanging off the toes. The scene was dimly lit from above. This was where they made love, where the couple’s children had been conceived … The wedding photo on the bedside table seemed to come from another age, from a time when children died not in car accidents but in wars, or crushed between the jaws of some agricultural machine.
    Rose was extremely house-proud. There was not a speck of dust or the merest cobweb to be seen, whereas Éliettecollected them like the works of old masters. How did they have sex? From the front? From behind? It was ridiculous, but it was all she could think about. She tried to rid herself of these visions of copulation – all the more obscene in the circumstances – to bat them away like persistent flies. She felt Rose’s hand go limp. She was asleep, mouth open and nostrils pinched. Éliette wriggled her hand free and tiptoed out of the room.
    Paul had not moved an inch. He seemed to have become permanently embedded in the table edge and was staring straight ahead.
    ‘She’s asleep. It’ll do her good. You should do the same, Paul.’
    ‘Huh? Yes, yes.’
    Éliette smelt something burning. The remains of a stew were turning to charcoal on the hob. She turned the heat off under the pan and came to sit across the table from Paul.
    ‘How did it happen? Do you want to talk about it?’
    ‘Happened around midday, the gendarmes say. They found him at two o’clock down the bottom of a ravine off the little road at Le Coiron – you know the one. Nice views but it’s so narrow and wiggly. Someone had left a car parked on the road, right before a bend. Maybe Patrick was going too fast, but what was that driver thinking, leaving his motor in a place like that? The road’s tight enough as it is! Even if he’d run out of petrol, even on a hill … I don’t know … You’d push it or something, you’d get it off the road! He was trying to get round it … He died instantly … When we heard, I tried to call you, but you weren’t in.’
    ‘No, I was out shopping in Montélimar. Have you told Serge?’
    ‘Yes, he’ll be here tomorrow. What do we do now?’
    ‘There’s nothing you can do except go to bed and sleep next to Rose. She mustn’t be left alone. You need to look after one another. All these dark thoughts going round in your head, they’re not getting you anywhere.’
    ‘You’re right, of course … You know, the strange thing is, the guy never came back for his car. The gendarmes called me earlier. They think it was stolen.’
    ‘That is odd, yes.’
    ‘Yes … and what are all these kids doing, driving around like mad things? Five this year, just in our little patch! Last one was young Arlette, Robin the builder’s daughter, remember? In November?’
    ‘Yes, I remember.’
    ‘They think they’re untouchable! How many times did I tell him, “Patrick, you’re better off getting there late than not getting there at all”? Might as well have been talking to a brick wall! He stopped