Too Close to the Edge Read Online Free Page B

listening to me a long time ago. Thought other people were a waste of space, his father especially. I gave that kid everything … Would you like a bite to eat, Éliette? I’ve warmed up some leftover stew.’
    ‘No, thank you. I’ve got someone waiting for me at home.’
    ‘Oh, I didn’t know. I …’
    ‘It’s fine. Besides, I think your stew’s burnt. I just took it off the heat. Can’t you smell it?’
    ‘No. Another time, then?’
    ‘Of course. Do you want one of the pills I gave Rose?’
    ‘No, thanks. I’ve got that.’
    He indicated the half-empty bottle of pastis with his chin.
    ‘Take care of yourself, Paul. It’s no use letting yourself go. Remember you’ve got Rose to think of.’
    ‘It’s kind of you to have come, Éliette. At times like this you need your friends.’
    ‘I was glad to help. You did the same for me when Charles died. And tomorrow, Serge will be here.’
    ‘Yes … but it’s not the same with Serge, we don’t speak the same language. Patrick and me, we were salt of the earth. We didn’t need to chat … I love Serge just as much … only, I never feel totally comfortable around him.’
    ‘He’s just very different from his brother, that’s all. I’m heading off now, Paul, so you should go to bed. If you need anything at all, just call. Either way, I’ll pop in tomorrow morning.’
    He nodded, but was no longer listening. His gaze was clouding over, his eyes turning the colour of pastis. Éliette patted his shoulder and left the kitchen.
     
    Outside, the smell of thoroughly burnt food lingered in her nose and throat. The rain had stopped and a single star was twinkling above hills as rounded as Paul’s back. Old Bob barely turned his head as Éliette passed him. The look in his eyes expressed something beyond weariness. Éliette started the car, and once the lemon-yellow light of the Jauberts’ window had disappeared from her rear-view mirror, she broke into sobs. It wasn’t only the Jauberts she was crying for, but Old Bob, the single star, the dark hillsand herself. The tears flowed on and on like the swollen Lavezon river, washing away all her sadness. Paul and Rose were neither friends nor family, more like fellow passengers on an overnight train. They had nothing in common besides existing in the same space and time.
    She had once read a definition of poetry as ‘two words meeting for the first time’. There was an element of that in her relationship with her neighbours. It was so easy to love like-minded people, but when chance threw someone totally different in your path … like the man awaiting her at home, whose name she didn’t even know. What if he had gone? He might well have called a taxi. Éliette lifted her foot off the accelerator. The truth was she had spent the whole time at the Jauberts’ thinking of him. That was probably why she had forced Rose to go to sleep and encouraged Paul to do the same. She had to some extent been trying to get shot of their sadness. And why not? Today was not just any day! Her heart was pounding in her chest as she put her foot back on the pedal. What if he had got hold of a mechanic? What if …? She saw the light at the living-room window and let out a cry of joy. For the first time in so long, someone was waiting for her.
    He was sitting by the hearth where a fire was blazing. He straightened up when Éliette came in, as though caught doing something he shouldn’t.
    ‘You didn’t get through to a garage then?’
    ‘Er … no.’
    ‘I’m not surprised – we’re out in the sticks here. At least the rain’s stopped. It’s clearing up.’
    ‘How are your friends?’
    ‘He was their favourite son. I gave them some sleeping pills. Nothing else we can do. Such a terrible blow. But it happens all the time round here; people drive like lunatics; they’re a law unto themselves. Every weekend, they roll out of the discos and it’s carnage on the roads … Listen, here’s what I think you should do. It’s too