Читать книгу Hector and the Secrets of Love - Francois Lelord - Страница 10

HECTOR AND CLARA GO TO THE BEACH

ONE place on the island’s beach seemed to belong to a large family of little pink crabs that were constantly mounting or fighting each other. Hector watched them, and he very quickly understood that when they mounted each other it was the males mounting the females and when they fought it was the males fighting amongst themselves. And why were they fighting? To be able to mount the females, of course. Even for crabs, love seemed like quite a difficult thing, especially for the males that lost a pincer during a fight. It reminded Hector of something one of his patients had said to him about a woman he was very much in love with: ‘I would have done better to cut my arm off than meet her.’ He was exaggerating of course, especially as, unlike with crabs, an arm doesn’t grow back.

‘You like your little friends the crabs, don’t you?’

It was Clara, who had arrived wearing a pretty white bathing suit. She had started to tan a little and to Hector she looked as appetising as a freshly picked apricot.

‘You’re crazy, be careful, people can see us! And so can the crabs!’

Exactly! It was watching the crabs that had given Hector ideas, but he had also just noticed that the people from the company were looking in their direction. They were having a drink on the veranda of the hotel’s biggest bungalow, which was built on stilts. The sunset was magnificent, the waves breaking on the beach made a gentle murmur, Clara looked all golden in the setting sun and Hector thought: This is a moment of happiness. He had learnt that you mustn’t waste any of these.

It gets dark very quickly in that part of the world, and everybody met for dinner in the big bungalow. And what was for starters? Crab!

‘We’re delighted you could all be here,’ said the very important man from the company, whose name was Gunther. He had a slight accent and broad shoulders. He was very tall, but came from a very small, very rich country specialising in chocolate bars and big pharmaceutical companies.

‘Yes, indeed!’ said his colleague, Marie-Claire, a tall redhead with a dazzling smile and magnificent sparkling rings.

Hector had noticed she and Clara didn’t like each other very much.

The old psychiatrist who had been invited didn’t respond; he was concentrating on his crab. He wasn’t wearing his bow tie and the strange thing was that in a polo shirt he looked even older. There’s a good piece of advice, thought Hector. When you get very old, always wear a bow tie. He began thinking about what to advise very old ladies. To wear a hat?

‘I’ve been here before,’ said Ethel, the woman who was an expert in love, ‘and I adored it.’

And she mentioned the name of another big pharmaceutical company that had invited her to that same island, and Hector saw a touch of annoyance in Gunther’s and Marie-Claire’s smiles.

But Ethel didn’t notice a thing. As previously mentioned, she was a jolly little woman who was always cheerful, which must have done the people who went to see her a lot of good.

‘Did you know the redness in crabs is sexual?’ she asked. ‘In proportion to their size, they are extremely well endowed!’

And she gave her jolly laugh again. Hector noticed that the maître d’hôtel, a tall, Asian-looking fellow, had been listening and had given a faint smile.

At either end of the table, there was a group of young men and women also employed by the company, and you could tell that some of the young men, and, of course, some of the young women, would one day be bosses.

And it was one of the girls who smiled at Hector and said to him, ‘I really liked your last article. What you say is so true!’

This was an article Hector had written for a magazine explaining why so many people needed to see psychiatrists.

Hector said he was glad but, at the same time, he saw that Clara wasn’t altogether happy about his little chat with the young woman.

Later, Clara whispered in his ear, ‘She’s always showing off, that girl.’

The old psychiatrist had finished shelling his crab, and he began delicately eating the tiny pile of meat he had collected in the middle of his plate.

‘As methodical as ever, my dear,’ Ethel said to him, chuckling. ‘No pleasure without a struggle!’

The old psychiatrist replied without looking up from his plate, ‘As you well know, my dear, at my age everything is a struggle, alas.’

And everybody laughed because he was the type of old-school psychiatrist who had a dry wit.

His name was François, and Hector liked him very much.

At the end of the meal, Gunther wished them all a very good night since tomorrow they were going to get up early for the meeting, and he added in Hector’s language, ‘The best advice is found on the pillow,’ apparently very pleased at having learnt this expression because Hector’s language was not Gunther’s mother tongue; in the small country he came from they spoke several languages.

Much later, when Hector looked back on this whole affair and remembered ‘The best advice is found on the pillow’, he felt like laughing and crying at the same time.