Garnier Gallic Noir: Volume 3

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80533-605-1
Verlag: Pushkin Vertigo
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

Reihe: Gallic Noir

Written over a 15-year period from the mid '90s, Garnier's short novels weave a profound and darkly comic tapestry of human experience. Volume 3 includes The Eskimo Solution, which combines the story of a struggling writer with excerpts of the crime novel he's writing, which will spill over into his own life; Low Heights, in which a cantankerous retiree falls for his nurse and finds himself confronted with a man claiming to be his long-lost son ... but the family reunion is threatened by the vultures circling above; and Too Close to the Edge, the tale of a quiet retirement in the foothills of the Alps turned upside down.

Pascal Garnier, who died in March 2010, was a talented novelist, short story writer, children's author and painter. From his home in the mountains of the Ardèche, he wrote fiction in a noir palette with a cast of characters drawn from ordinary provincial life. Though his writing is often very dark in tone, it sparkles with quirkily beautiful imagery and dry wit. Garnier's work has been likened to the great thriller writer, Georges Simenon.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Garnier, Pascal

Weitere Mitwirkende

Aitken, Jane

Florence, Melanie

Boyce, Emily

Leseproben

1

Louis had slept on the bottom bunk in the children’s room. He was surrounded by soft-toy monsters and a fire engine dug into his back. Somewhere outside a drill ripped into a pavement; it must be daytime. Louis turned over and curled up, knees under his chin, hands between his thighs, nose squashed under a downy pink dinosaur smelling of dribble and curdled milk.

Why had they rowed the previous evening? … Oh, yes! It was because Alice wanted to be cremated whilst he wanted to be buried. For Alice, with her straightforward common sense, it was crystal clear. First of all, cremation was less expensive; secondly, it was cleaner; thirdly, it avoided uselessly occupying ground (think what could be built instead of the Thiais cemetery, for example!); and fourthly, her somewhat romantic conclusion was that she would like her ashes to be scattered off the coast of Kalymnos (where they had spent their last holiday) from the bow of a beautiful white boat.

He had interrupted her a bit abruptly. First of all, when you’re dead you don’t give a flying fuck about the burial costs; secondly, we already tip enough muck into the sea; thirdly, cemeteries are much more pleasant to wander through than dormitory towns; and fourthly, given the progress of science, it’s entirely possible that one day we’ll be able to recreate life from skeletons, whereas a handful of ashes thrown in the sea, well … He’d accompanied the last point with an obscene gesture.

And who was going to pay for his fucking burial? Was it not enough that he sponged off everyone while he was alive, did it have to continue after his death? Such egotism! Would he like chrysanthemums every Hallowe’en as well?

Of course he wanted chrysanthemums! And trees filled with birds, and cats everywhere! Wasn’t she the one who went into raptures over the mossy old gravestones in the Père-Lachaise? That one where the stone had split under pressure from a growing laurel tree?

OK, so why didn’t he put money aside to pay for his old moss-covered gravestone? Why was that, then?

Here we go, money, it’s always about money …

After that all he remembered was a sordid slide into a petty domestic squabble and the harsh realities backed up with numbers that she threw in his face. He didn’t have the ammunition to argue with Alice about money, so he had risen from the table, saying, ‘If that’s the way you feel, I just won’t die. That’ll be cheaper, won’t it?’

And that was really what he had in mind. It was a conviction rooted deep inside him: he would never die.

But that certainty had been severely shaken this year; four of his friends had died. Obviously, as he was forty, he had encountered death before, but this was different. Before it had always either been old people – an uncle, an aunt – or acquaintances who weren’t expected to live long, or if they were young, accidents, mostly car accidents, and the deaths seemed normal. But the last four had been people like him, going to all the same kinds of places, enjoying the same books, music and films. Their deaths had not been sudden; they had had time to get used to the idea, living with it for months, discussing it calmly, as you might discuss money problems, work problems or problems in your relationship. And it was that attitude of rational acceptance that had thrown Louis. People like him (not exactly like him now they were dead) had accepted the unacceptable. Four in one year.

As for the others …

Every day at the same time I go up to my study, read over these pages and ask myself, ‘What’s the point of writing a story I already know off by heart?’ I’ve explained it to so many people that the tiresome formality of putting it down on paper is about as exciting to me as opening the TV guide to discover The Longest Day showing on every channel. In an ideal world I’d sell the story as it is, in its raw state, to someone who had some enthusiasm for writing it. Or who didn’t, but would write it for me all the same. Not that it’s a bad story, far from it. Madame Beck, my editor, is the only one to have expressed any reservations. I had a hell of a time winning her over.

‘It’s the story of a man in his forties called Louis, who’s a nice guy but skint, and kills his mother for the inheritance.’

Madame Beck’s harsh-sounding name suits her down to the ground. After a long, sharp intake of breath, she replied.

‘Not exactly original.’

‘Wait a minute, let me go on. It’s a very modest inheritance – but that’s beside the point. Since everything goes to plan, no trouble with the law or anything, he starts killing the parents of friends in need. Of course, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing – it’s his little secret, pure charity. He’s an anonymous benefactor, if you like.’

Madame Beck lowered her head in despair.

‘Why don’t you carry on writing for children? Your kids’ books are doing well …’

‘This is a kids’ book! He’s a really nice guy! He loves his mother, loves his friends, his friends’ parents, he loves everyone, but these are tough times for all of us, aren’t they? He kills people’s parents the way Eskimos leave their elders on a patch of ice because … it’s natural, ecologically sound, a lot more humane and far more economical than endlessly prolonging their suffering in a dismal nursing home. Besides, he’ll hardly be doing them harm; he’ll do the job carefully, every crime professionally planned and tailored to the person like a Club Med holiday. Plus there’s nothing to stop us giving him his comeuppance at the end. I could have him murdered by the twenty-something son he hasn’t seen for years, who’s got in with a bad crowd. Or have him fall prey to a random act of violence, a mugging on the métro gone wrong, something like that … What do you think?’

Two hours later, Madame Beck was reluctantly handing me a cheque, barely able to look at me.

With that meagre advance, I’ve been able to rent a cottage by the sea from a painter friend of mine, where I’ve spent the past two months yawning so hard I’ve almost dislocated my jaw.

‘I wake up in the morning with my mouth wide open. My teeth are oily: I’d be better off brushing them before bed, but I can never bring myself to do it.’ These words of Emmanuel Bove’s, the opening line of his novel My Friends, sum up my state of mind exactly. I put aside my typewriter – already thick with dust – and tackle tasks more suited to my skills: washing up, a bit of housework, starting a shopping list, bread, ham, butter, eggs … I don’t mind chores; they stop me beating a permanent retreat to my bed. Plus, routines are a useful way of preparing for the hereafter. Then I head to the beach, whatever the weather.

Today, it’s glorious, a picture-postcard sky, framed by the inevitable seagulls. The beach is very close to where I’m staying – a five-minute walk straight down Rue de la Mer. It’s always a surprise to see that mass of green jelly at the end of the road and the no-entry sign sticking up like a big fat lollipop on the horizon. You find yourself leaning forward as you walk, head down against the wind that stands guard along the front. There’s something minty about the cold. You can clearly see the chimneys of Le Havre and the tankers waiting their turn at Passage d’Entifer.

When you are mute, or almost mute, certain words explode inside your head like fireworks: ENTIFER. Or even: TOOTHBRUSH. I never speak to anyone, only the woman in the tobacconist’s on Rue de la Mer.

‘Good morning, Madame … How are you today, Madame?’

Like the sea, she’s up and down – she lives above her shop and is never seen anywhere else.

There are two people on the beach. As they approach the waves, they stop and ponder whether to turn left or right. In the end they part ways, one sticking out her chest and grabbing an armful of sunshine, the other spinning on the spot, flapping the wings of her coat. She stumbles into the foam and re-emerges, knees held high. I can put up with happy people, from a distance.

I never walk far along the beach.

Yes, when I was first here, I went exploring, clambering over rocks and craggy outcrops, coming back exhausted, my pockets filled with pebbles, shells, bits of wood. Now I prefer to sit on the bench for old people. There are none of them here at this time of year – it’s too cold. For a brief moment, I enjoy the exhilarating feeling of being right where I should be, a feeling made all the sweeter by my knowing exactly where I’m headed: back to humanity with a thud.

Here comes the ‘thug’! I know him by his lumbering gait; he walks as if pushing an invisible wheelbarrow. Shaved head, face like a suitcase that’s been dragged around the world, hands like feet and feet that make furrows in the ground, whether sand, concrete or tarmac. The man has a permanent black eye or a hand in plaster – they say he’s always getting into fights. And yet everyone accepts him, puts up with him. I, on the other hand, am terrified of him. If it was up to me, he’d have been locked up long ago, or simply eliminated. He forces me to get up and walk further. But further is too far for me. I decide to head back along the beach.

I love trampling on...