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Nico ambled towards me, his tats and fine physique covered in oilskins, from top to toe. The salaud still managed to look sexy.
“You’re famous,” he declared, with a nod to my salt flat. “You and your muddy pond.”
“Oh yeah?” I stopped shoring up the far bank and leaned on my spade. “Does that mean I’m going to be rich, too?”
Delving inside his oilskin, he produced a near-empty pack of fags and pulled one out. “Nah.” He poked it between his lips. “Keep raking.”
We sat side by side on my narrow bench, me taking nips of coffee from my thermos and Nico happily smoking, puffing lazy rings into the damp air.
“Go on, then. The suspense is killing me.”
“My mum’s sister is visiting for a few days from Lille. You remember, the one that got breast cancer.”
I nodded. It hadn’t been a lie when I’d told Charles that Nico and Jerome were like brothers. I knew their families as well as my own. The women in Nico’s family played Russian roulette with a dodgy breast cancer gene. In more uplifting news, Jerome’s family now included a chubby baby boy, the apple of his grandfather’s eye.
“She’s had all the treatment and she’s in remission.”
Ash dropped from the end of his cigarette, darkening to grey mud as it soaked into the wet ground at our feet.
“That’s good.”
“Anyway, yesterday evening, her and my mum went to an art exhibition in Ars. Put on by one of the groups of local artists. My aunt likes all that kind of bollocks, and it was opening night, so free wine and canapés were up for grabs.”
Idly, I picked at a wood splinter poking out of the bench. I had no idea where this story was headed but was in no rush to get on. Nico visited me most mornings these days, and his familiar company and catching up with the gossip was nice. After Christmas, as the tourism dropped off, L’Escale closed for a couple of months. This particular winter had felt longer, colder, and more miserable than any other.
“Alors, while they stuffed their faces, they felt they ought to wander around. And you’re not going to believe this, Flor, but one of the artists has plastered about twenty pictures of you all over the wall! You! My mum nearly choked on her crab vol-au-vent!”
“What??”
He waved his cigarette at me. “You! Here, raking your salt flat at sunset, looking all mean and moody. Apparently, there are some close-ups of your face too. She says it’s obviously you, and very flattering, according to my aunt, who’s always had a thing for you, even though I keep telling her you’re gay and she’s like, fifty, and married. Anyway…”
Nico stubbed out his cigarette before pocketing it. “Some of the pictures look like you’ve got the world’s worst hangover, or the artist had when they drew it, because my mum says they’re all made up of fat black lines and your face is distorted. Like he or she has spent too long in the Picasso section of the Louvre.”
Oh, fucking merde. “Are… are… is she sure it’s me?”
He laughed. “Yeah, of course. She’s known you since you were in nappies! They both spotted it straight away! And even if she had been uncertain, the whole fucking exhibition has your big fat girly name written across the top of it. Florian. You’ve got yourself an obsessive admirer, mate.”
Putain de merde. Charles. It had to be. A whirlwind of emotions spiralled through me. Overwhelming relief at first. That he was alive and well, or well enough to put on an exhibition at any rate. And after that, I didn’t know how I felt. Angry, hopeful, embarrassed? Full of renewed fresh heartache?
Unaware of the turmoil he’d triggered, Nico helped himself to another fag and I held out my hand.
“Give me one of those.”
“You don’t smoke.”
“I do today. Putain, Nico. Just fucking… putain.”
My hand shook as I lifted the cigarette to my lips. I took a long drag; the thing would either settle my nerves or make me throw up. Damn Charles. I was fucking getting over him. Sorting out the cooperative had been a blessing in disguise, because I’d thrown myself into it. Hadn’t had time to worry about him or lose myself in what could have been. And now a new season was starting. Tourists were returning to the island, some attractive homosexual ones amongst them, with a bit of luck. Damn him.
“Was the artist there?”
Nico shook his head. “No, my mum said not. And they made an effort to find out the name, once she realised they were all pictures of you. The signature on them was an indecipherable squiggle in the corner, but the pamphlet said they were painted by someone called C. Heyer. One of the other artists said a man had been around at the beginning but then left early. Don’t get too excited—he was probably the dad of one of your girly groupies who hang around here all summer. Giving her a hand setting up. Some of those girls like to paint, don’t they? They’re not all photographers.”
“He wasn’t,” I managed, and barked a cough as the unaccustomed smoke burned the back of my throat. “The paintings aren’t by a woman. It’s Charles. He drew me. Lots of times. I saw some of them when he was living here—the charcoal sketches of my face. He’s good, Nic, really good.”
I’d caught a glimpse of the anguished ones, too, as I’d torn through his apartment to rescue him and again on my way out. Not only had he daubed the walls, but there were sketches too. Where he’d split the canvas from pressing so hard, where charcoal had been mixed with rage and fear and sadness and fuck knows what else running riot in that poor man’s head. Huge angry splodges of oranges and reds, ripped to shreds and tossed to the floor.
Nico swore. “I don’t care how good he is. That fucker has got a nerve coming back here after what he did to you. If I’d have known it was him, I’d never have told you.”
