Читать книгу Under the Channel - Gilles Pétel - Страница 7

Juliette was laying the table for dinner. It had just gone eight o’clock and Roland was late, as usual. The children, Ludivine and Corentin, were watching a cartoon. It was the only thing Juliette could find to keep them quiet. The last few days’ stormy weather and heavy atmosphere had been driving them up the wall. Wafts of the beef bourguignon bubbling on the stove were coming from the kitchen. It was a dish that could easily be reheated, she had told herself as she shopped, already anticipating that her husband would be held up at work. She had gone to buy the ingredients on her way home from the special school where she taught French. She liked her job, in spite of its challenges. While she waited in line at the butcher’s, the sound of a police siren had taken her back ten years, to when she first met Roland.

It was chance that had thrown them together. Juliette was living in the tenth arrondissement at the time. One night, she had returned from the opera to find her flat had been burgled. Shock quickly gave way to panic and fear. She called the police, who told her to come and make a statement the following day or later in the week. Instead, she set off immediately, leaving the door to her flat wide open and falling off its hinges. She practically ran to the police station and arrived in a state of disarray, it having dawned on her en route that another thief might seize the opportunity to steal what little she had left: two pairs of jeans, three dresses and the bag she took to school. She was twenty-five and just starting out in her career. A junior officer took her into a small glass-walled room. It was past midnight and the man’s tiredness was showing. He began tapping out Juliette’s statement on an old typewriter in a perfunctory manner. Having expressed her surprise at the antiquated equipment – those were her exact words, ‘Your equipment really is antiquated’ – she met with a blank reaction and was forced to rephrase her remark, suddenly smiling and genial, having almost forgotten why she was there.

‘That’s some knackered old kit you’ve got there. I never thought I’d see one of those things again.’

Smiling half-heartedly, the officer replied weakly, ‘The computer’s broken.’

She was reeling off her name and address when a police lieutenant stuck his head round the door to have a word with the officer. She heard his voice before she saw his face; its tone was warm but firm. He was asking for a report that his subordinate had not yet finished. While the officer mumbled his excuses, Juliette turned round to look at the man he was speaking to. He was standing right behind her, almost touching her. Flustered, unprepared for the encounter, she straightened in her chair. Looking up at him, she met his gaze searing deep into her eyes. And then he was gone. Under interrogation by Juliette, the junior officer told her the man in question was Lieutenant Desfeuillères. She made her way home soon afterwards feeling strange, wondering if she had imagined that voice and the look he had given her, which she couldn’t get out of her mind. Nothing else about him had stood out. If someone had asked her to describe what he looked like, she wouldn’t have known where to start.

‘What can I get you?’

The butcher shook her from her daydream. She stammered two or three words before pulling herself together.

‘I’ll have eight hundred grams of stewing steak, please.’

The young man behind the counter, who could barely be eighteen, had not been working there long. He had a nice manner with the customers and took his role seriously. He made Juliette laugh; he was a joker. He could have been one of her students. She had only been served by him two or three times when he started trying to flirt with her, but he did the same to everybody. ‘Looking gorgeous today, Madame.’ After the second time he told her his name: ‘I’m Mohamed.’

‘Anything else for you?’

Le flic. Nowadays she called Roland ‘the cop’. The junior officer had warned her that burglars were very rarely caught. There was no need for her to come back to the station. They would write if there was any news. Nevertheless two weeks later, naturally having heard nothing, Juliette returned ‘just on the off-chance’, as she told the officer manning the front desk. He was preparing to turn her away when Lieutenant Desfeuillères appeared. If chance had brought them together the first time, their next encounter could only be the work of fate. The lieutenant recognised Juliette at once and invited her into his office.

‘I’ll look after Madame,’ he told the officer. And the rest was history.

It was after nine when Juliette heard the key turn in the door. By now she was furious. The children had eaten. She was on the verge of putting them to bed, but knew how much Roland loved to be welcomed home by them. The sight of the two kids running at his legs instantly made him happy.

‘Bedtime!’ Juliette announced emphatically, in a tone that admitted no protest. However, the soon to be nine-year-old Ludivine was intent on staying up to give her father a goodnight kiss.

‘He doesn’t care!’ Juliette spat without thinking.

Before she knew it, Ludivine was in tears. Her younger brother took advantage of the distraction to race towards the front door.

‘Papa!’

Ludivine scurried after him, her tears suddenly dried and her face lit up.

‘Did you find the murderer? Go on, tell me, Papa!’ the little boy asked, while his sister let herself be scooped up in the arms she would have liked all to herself. ‘Do you still love me?’

The children went off to bed, taking their excitement with them. The apartment felt quiet and empty in their absence. Juliette was at the end of her tether. She no longer found the kids’ nightly performance amusing. She picked a book off the shelves at random and made for the living room. Passing her husband, she nodded towards the kitchen.

‘There’s a beef bourguignon on the stove. Serve yourself.’

Roland grabbed her by the arm.

‘Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?’

Juliette dropped the book.

‘Stop it.’

Roland wouldn’t let go. He tried to pull her towards him for a hug. She held back.

‘Let go.’

Her face dropped. She looked up at her husband, afraid. He suddenly realised what was going through her mind. He had seen so many battered wives at the station. He was overcome by a mixture of shame and anger. How could she believe such a thing? He had never even raised his voice at her let alone dreamt of raising a hand to her. Something between them had just snapped. They both felt it without yet understanding it. Roland pulled his hand away sharply, as if he had accidentally touched a scorching hotplate. His tiredness was written on his face; it had been a long day, which had started early.

He had sweated in his suit. The slight bulge of a burgeoning gut showed through the damp white shirt. He got away with carrying a bit of extra weight because he was tall: six foot, and proud of it. He was, or rather had been a good-looking man in his day. Now only his black hair seemed to have escaped the ravages of age. Tonight it was messy and greasy. Juliette couldn’t help passing a critical eye over the man she had been so in love with, and wished she could love still. She no longer saw in the cop who stood before her the sexy, self-assured man who had taken her into his office ten years earlier. ‘How can I help?’ he had asked with a smile on his lips and that warm voice she had come back to hear again.

Juliette picked her book off the floor without a word. He watched her cross the corridor. She was still beautiful. It was only the way she acted that had become a bit stiff. Sometimes, like tonight, she played this cross, schoolmarmish part that Roland couldn’t stand. The day they met, he had first seen her from behind. Her long, curly brown hair fell onto the bare skin at the top of her back. Juliette had just got back from a performance of Tristan and Isolde at the Opéra Bastille. She was wearing a simple, elegant short-sleeved black dress which showed off the shape of her back. That was the image of her that stayed with Roland for a long time afterwards: hair tumbling onto a perfectly straight back in a close-fitting evening gown. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he had been struck by the intensity of her green eyes meeting his gaze. They had often reminisced about that moment. Juliette spoke of the ‘captive stares’ they had exchanged, and her turn of phrase had lingered in Roland’s mind as much as the memory of the moment itself.

Roland really couldn’t face an argument tonight. He had only just left a crime scene. No matter how used he was to seeing dead bodies, they still left him shaken, and he wasn’t prepared for coming home to a fight. He hung in the corridor, incapable of making a decision. Not today, not now, he kept telling himself. Not that there was ever a good time for a domestic. Unless you were gunning for an argument, that was, and had laid the ground, brought it about on purpose. Picking a fight as a way out. At first, the thought made him shudder, but a second later he was smiling slyly. Not now. By this point he just felt confused and weak. He wasn’t really hungry. What had possessed Juliette to make beef bourguignon in this heat? The smells coming out of the kitchen made him gag. He couldn’t stop thinking about the case he had been attending to less than an hour earlier.

A decapitated body had been found in a rubbish container. The stench had alerted people nearby. For the last three days, a refuse collectors’ strike had been blighting the streets of Paris. The city’s bins were overflowing. Hundreds of bags of rubbish were piled up on pavements. Rats had been spotted. Buried under the mountain of waste lay the torso of a young black man. He must have been there for a couple of days. A kid of sixteen or seventeen, judging by his frame. The body had been stripped naked. The police had gone through all the junk without finding the slightest piece of evidence. Decapitations don’t happen every day. Cutting off a man’s head isn’t easy. The neck is strong. You need the right tools, the right knowledge and, of course, the will to do it, which is to say one heck of a motive. As he recorded the details of the scene before him – the exact location of the container on Boulevard Magenta, the number of bin bags it held (ninety-five), the position and state of the body – Lieutenant Desfeuillères mulled it all over. A mafia hit, a dispute over drugs that had gone missing, perhaps, or been sold to the wrong person. Maybe the kid had tried to go it alone and had been busted, in the nastiest possible way. Forensics turned up soon after Roland, taking photographs, checking for fingerprints. The body was inspected from every angle before being sent to the coroner. Roland signed his report and made a run for it, feeling sick at what he had just seen. It was after 8.30 p.m. when he left. By the time he got back to the twentieth arrondissement, the kids would be in bed and Juliette would be fuming. Roland hadn’t had a chance to let her know he would be late. He had got the call to attend the scene while he was packing up for the day, eager to get home to his wife. The beat officer who had rung him had sounded so panicked that the lieutenant had reacted in the same way.

‘I found the headless body of a tall black man inside a rubbish container.’

‘Shit!’ Roland blurted. ‘On my way.’

At what point could he possibly have rung his wife?

Now he was standing with his arms dangling by his sides in the gloom of the corridor, which the light from the living room did little to lift. What a stupid argument about nothing. Roland was on the verge of turning round and leaving. But where to? Neither could he face going into the living room to be glared at. What am I doing here? Some part of him was on its way out. He knew neither which part, nor where it was going. It was like water leaking from a burst pipe. He suddenly pictured a whirlpool. He saw himself trying to swim against the current, being sucked towards an enormous plughole. Then, for no apparent reason, this image led on to another, perhaps to counteract it: a nice shower, which would make him feel better again.

Roland tiptoed into the bathroom to avoid waking the children. The sight of his own face in the mirror gave him a fright. His features were drawn. The stubbly chin and greasy hair made him appear five years older. He looked awful. He slapped his cheeks. 1) Shave; 2) shower: wash hair and have a rub-down; 3) dry off, moisturise, slap on some after-shave lotion. No. Cologne. Juliette’s most recent gift to him. He wanted to smell nice for her, win her round. Twenty minutes later, Roland stood facing the mirror again. He admired himself, pleased with the results of his efforts. He was peering more closely at his skin when the memory of the torso-man returned, putting an abrupt end to the brief spell of satisfaction. It was shaping up to be a difficult inquiry. The person, or rather persons, who had committed the murder – they were definitely murderers in the plural – the crazy bastards who had cut the kid’s head off were no amateurs. Roland hoped someone else would be put in charge of the case. He had only just wrapped up a delicate fraud investigation involving a number of celebrities. He had tackled the job sensitively and with the utmost discretion. Only two names had got out into the press. He had been congratulated by the public prosecutor. Nice work. Roland looked up. He was smiling again. It was the start of a quiet weekend. He was looking forward to spending time with his children and his wife. It was time he went to find her.

Dressed in a new pair of jeans and a white shirt, Roland made his entrance into the living room like an actor embarking on his debut performance. He had stage fright. Juliette had put her book down at her feet. She was curled up in the armchair looking determinedly relaxed. The halogen lamp cast a warm glow. A Gustav Mahler concert was playing on the radio that Friday, live from the Royal Albert Hall. Stopping to listen, Roland recognised the piece as the Austrian composer’s symphony Juliette had put on almost every night for the last few months. The music, which Roland found boring, helped her unwind after work, she said. The storm seemed to have passed. Roland hesitated, seized with a feeling of doubt as he looked around the room, closely scrutinising the place they had called home for the past five years. The white walls of the living room had greyed over time. The red sofa had faded, as had the canary yellow armchairs which Juliette had bought to liven up the room. And Juliette herself was perhaps not as beautiful now as Roland wanted to believe she was. Still feeling unsure of himself, stumbling over his lines, he found himself thinking it was about time they gave the living room a fresh lick of paint, and a new set of furniture wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

‘Hello, anybody home?’ asked Juliette, level-voiced.

‘It’s lovely, what you’re listening to. I haven’t heard this part before,’ he replied, trying to sound interested.

The brass section tutti of Mahler’s tenth suddenly blasted out. ‘Great,’ thought the lieutenant. ‘Here come the trumpeters of doom.’

‘Aren’t you going to eat something?’

‘I’m not really hungry. I’ve had a bit of a day of it. Shall we have a whisky?’

The storm was far off now. If Juliette agreed to this drink, it meant there was light on the horizon. She didn’t jump at the offer.

‘I promised myself I wouldn’t drink today.’

‘On a Friday night?’ Roland asked incredulously.

He moved closer, gently placing a hand on her shoulder.

‘Alright, just the one.’

She was backing down.

‘Tell me about your day,’ she finally said.

The following Friday 19 September, Juliette booked a babysitter for the evening. Roland had asked her out for dinner. Juliette agreed without displaying much enthusiasm, but the truth was she was pleased. It was about time her husband tried to patch things up. Roland had been thinking the same thing. He felt it was his job to sort things out. Going for a meal seemed a good solution. He had chosen a nice restaurant in the seventh arrondissement.

Roland had booked a table for nine o’clock, anticipating he might be late leaving work. As luck would have it, he had only minor matters to deal with that day: break-ins, pickpocketing, fights between junkies at Gare du Nord, credit card fraud and so on. The mystery of the torso-man had been entrusted to one of his colleagues. So in fact Roland arrived home early to find Juliette in the bath. ‘It worked!’ he concluded at once. ‘She’s making an effort. We’re back in business!’ He kissed her neck, complimenting her on the softness of her skin, to demonstrate his desire to win back her affection. She had had an exhausting day. A class of twelve-year-olds she thought she had under control had turned against her. She couldn’t understand why. Was she incompetent? ‘Not just at school, I mean, but generally.’

‘Do you still love me?’

The question caught Roland off-guard. He had been expecting it, hoping for it even, but later – at the end of the meal, for example. He chose to reply with a kiss. Juliette waved him away, smiling.

‘Not now.’

When Juliette had finished in the bathroom, Roland took a quick shower. Cleanly shaven, combed and cologned, he put on a navy blue shirt over a clean pair of jeans. ‘A bit hello-sailor. But, hey, blue does suit me.’

Juliette was waiting for him in the living room, going over her instructions to the babysitter. Absolutely no sweets. TV off at nine. The girl nodded silently. She was intimidated by Juliette’s elegant appearance.

Juliette had decided to wear black, perhaps in homage to the famous dress she had been wearing the night she met Roland. Her first thought had been to go for a simple T-shirt, worn without a bra. ‘I can still get away with it,’ she had told herself, running her hands over her breasts in front of the bedroom mirror. Then, less confidently, she had felt her stomach. There was no use lying to herself. It wasn’t flat anymore. ‘I’ll look ridiculous in a tight-fitting top. I’ll bulge out of it. Better not.’ She put the T-shirt back in the cupboard. She might just about be able to wear it on holiday. Or perhaps she should get back to the gym. But when would she find the time? She pored over every inch of her body, as if it belonged to another woman. She had put on a few pounds. Not much. She wasn’t overweight. Just a bit of flab. Her body was just tired. She smiled at her own words. That was it, spot on, exactly the right way to describe it; but try telling that to the cop. Roland didn’t look at her enough. She had let herself go because he wanted her less. Did he want her at all? Juliette brushed away the question. Thankfully her legs were still in good shape. She had always been proud of her long, slender legs. Gazelle legs. Where had she read that? In The One Thousand and One Nights? The image cropped up all over the place. So skinny jeans it was, a well-cut black pair. They would have gone well with the black top which she had taken back out of the cupboard for another look. But no, she really couldn’t. The question of shoes was solved on the spot. Espadrilles. Sporty, elegant and relaxed, all at once. Perfect for the occasion. Juliette would never have dreamed of wearing heels. She didn’t need the added height since she was already six foot tall, plus she thought stilettos looked common. So now for the top half. A black shirt didn’t work with black jeans; a T-shirt, yes, a shirt, no. It was too much. Too prim and proper. She wasn’t sure why but she knew instinctively it would make her look frumpy. The blue one was a no-no too. Juliette suspected that Roland would be wearing the blue shirt she had bought him. Yet she wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice. The rail was hung with a sad selection of shirts and skirts she never wore. She didn’t have much of a wardrobe. Thanks to her job, she had gradually come to wear pretty much the same thing all the time: low-key, functional outfits. Juliette rarely wore make-up. Age had begun to make her care less about looking good. Her husband’s disinterest had done the rest. Tonight, she felt newly aware of her own femininity. She was grateful to Roland for that. Being asked out for dinner at a smart restaurant forced her to learn the art of seduction again, like being sent back to school. The next minute she felt a pang of resentment for the fact he had taken so long about it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be a schoolgirl again. ‘What game are we playing with one another?’ she asked herself. She didn’t have the answer. This red silk blouse was the one. She had bought it on a whim a year earlier at Bon Marché, when she had been in the mood for an impulsive purchase. She had never worn it. Too red, too showy. Maybe tonight was the night to stand out. Juliette wanted to be looked at. Her brown hair, almost as long now as it had been when they met, was tumbling in an artful mess over her shiny blouse when Roland found her talking to the babysitter in the living room. He couldn’t help but think to himself that Juliette had not so much got dressed as got into costume. ‘We shall go to the ball,’ he said to himself. Juliette had caught the look of surprise on her husband’s face and been seized with doubt, but brushed the feeling aside. The blue shirt. ‘I knew it,’ she told herself, examining Roland in turn.

Desfeuillères had come home from the station early, leaving his new deputy, Sub-lieutenant Bouallem, in charge. Originally from Marseilles, Samy Bouallem had been transferred to Paris in early summer. Having just turned thirty-five, he was younger than his boss, and had his sights set on moving up the ranks. Dynamic as well as thorough, he had very quickly become invaluable to Desfeuillères. The two men got on well and often had lunch together.

Roland therefore had no qualms at all about leaving work a bit before time. He had to pick something up before going home, something important. It was a purchase he had been contemplating for some time, ever since two of his colleagues had put the idea in his head. One had told him it was fashionable, the other that everybody had one. Despite having hit forty, the lieutenant wasn’t all that worldly wise. He had only ever been with one woman, and had never been tempted to cheat on Juliette. As their sex life had dwindled both in frequency and quality, Juliette had on more than one occasion faked an orgasm; her husband had not been fooled. Roland had 1) told himself these things happen over time; 2) wondered if a dip in your sex life could break up a marriage; 3) decided to be more attentive to his wife. This simple chain of thoughts had taken a good few weeks to formulate. The events of the previous weekend had persuaded him to bring forward his plan. Lying awake in the middle of the night, he had put his thoughts in order: 1) time, 2) sexuality, 3) desire. Or was it 1) sex, 2) the years passing? No, he told himself as his eyelids grew steadily heavier, no one fucks the same way at forty as they did at eighteen. So time came top. Having to endure his colleagues’ teasing had allowed him to see his relationship troubles in perspective.

‘You need to win her back,’ said one. ‘Surprise her,’ added another.

The problem, as is so often the case, lay in deciding how to go about it. A dirty weekend just wasn’t going to cut it.

‘Too easy, too obvious,’ threw in the younger of his colleagues. ‘Teenage tactics,’ the other mocked.

Desfeuillères sat in uncomfortable silence.

‘You know what you have to do…’

The lieutenant normally did his best to avoid this kind of conversation, but the fear of losing Juliette had weakened his defences. We often tell ourselves (only to take it back straight afterwards) that we can learn from others, that deep down we’re all bogged down in the same issues, the same miserable existence that catches us all in the end. So, what are you going to do about it?

As he left the station, Roland had been on the brink of telling his sub-lieutenant the reason behind his rush, but thought better of it. In spite of Samy’s warm and friendly manner, there was sometimes an austere expression on his face which suggested a puritanical streak. Best not to say anything. He was still young. Having arrived outside the sex shop, Roland dived in like a thief afraid of being caught in the act.

He and Juliette were now sitting face to face across the table. Elegantly laid though it was, with damask tablecloth and napkins, porcelain dishes, crystal glasses and silver candlesticks, its location was awful. Juliette and Roland had been seated at the back of the restaurant, close to the toilets.

‘How lovely,’ remarked Juliette, who immediately asked to move to another table.

The waiter, a young Asian man with a curious manner, waved his hand at the packed dining room by way of response before scarpering, leaving their menus on the table in front of them. Roland suggested ordering a glass of champagne, a notion immediately shot down by Juliette. She felt ridiculous in her red silk blouse. Walking into the restaurant, she had glanced around at what the other women were wearing; it didn’t take long to realise scarlet was out of fashion. Everyone was in pink. When the waiter showed them to their outlying table, Juliette told herself it was no wonder they were putting her in the corner. ‘I look like a peasant in my Sunday best,’ she thought. A glass of champagne would have been the icing on the cake. They might as well be living in the provinces. Juliette belonged to a family of boho Belleville artisans. Roland was from Brittany. He had grown up in the town of Lorient, a fact she could not resist reminding him of.

‘This is just like one of those Relais & Châteaux places in your village.’

‘It’s not in the bag yet,’ thought Roland, choosing to remain silent. Playing the smooth cop, he waved authoritatively at the waiter, who hurried over.

‘I’ll have a whisky. What do you want?’ he asked, staring hard at his wife.

‘The same,’ she told the waiter.

‘One–nil,’ thought the lieutenant. He felt relaxed. He was comfortable in his sailor kit. It hadn’t crossed his mind to even glimpse at what anyone else was wearing. Like all headstrong people, Roland saw everything he started right through to the end. This pig-headedness could sometimes evolve into self-delusion, and from there to catastrophe. Tonight he was heading for disaster. As far as Juliette was concerned, the night was hanging in the balance. She was waiting, though for what, she wasn’t sure. A stroke of magic, probably; a miracle, in other words. ‘Is he going to get a handle on this?’ she asked herself as she peered over her menu at her husband, who was making a show of studying his. ‘I’ll hand it to him, he came back well on the whisky. But now what?’

By the time the waiter delivered the coffees, Juliette was beginning to enjoy herself. She and Roland had both ordered the chef’s special, the Oriental-style pigeon. They had drunk an excellent Pommard which had started to go to their heads. Several times during the night, between the starter and main course and again between the pigeon and dessert, Roland had stroked his wife’s hand. As they moved on to the final dish, an orange soufflé accompanied by a glass of syrupy dessert wine, the ice was finally broken. From the whisky right up until the theatrical arrival of the soufflé, the talk had been strained and excessively polite. Each of them knew that the occasion demanded a certain level of conversation, a turn of phrase in line with the glamorous setting: ideas and feelings in the Relais & Châteaux mould. Yet it also struck both of them that they had no more to say to one another here than they did eating together at home.

It was the celebratory feel and amusing appearance of that marvel, the soufflé, a kind of hot-air balloon of patisserie flying against the laws of gravity, that finally made them relax and enjoy each other’s company. It was also the signal that dinner was almost over. They took it as the cue to finally open up to one another. Roland said he was sorry for what he had done the previous Friday, when he had grabbed Juliette’s arm in a manner she had found threatening, though he hadn’t meant it that way.

‘I was knackered. It was the end of a long day. I just needed a hug.’

Juliette conceded she had overreacted to what was after all just one false move. Then they had gone further back into their shared history, admitting other mistakes they had each made, things they had forgotten, and reliving the high points too. They had always been there for each other. The children had come along. Their two darlings. A stroke of luck? ‘Love,’ said Juliette. Shit, yes, the children. The babysitter was booked until midnight. Juliette checked her watch. They had just under half an hour to get back to the twentieth arrondissement. She thought she ought to warn the girl, ‘We might be a little late.’ Meanwhile Roland settled the bill, glancing at his mobile phone. His deputy had sent him a message.

‘Busy night. Messy situation, but we’re handling it. Would rather be in a restaurant. Samy.’

Intrigued, Roland was about to call him when the waiter arrived to tell them their taxi had just pulled up outside.

*

The sex toy lay dormant inside its hard, transparent plastic case. Under the bed, it waited to be turned on and sent into sweaty battle. It seemed to have a life of its own, like a kind of mythical creature. Roland hadn’t known where else to hide the thing, which embarrassed and fascinated him in equal measure.

Meanwhile Juliette was busy thanking the babysitter and offering her an hour’s extra pay for the additional ten minutes’ work their late return had caused her. As he listened to his wife, full of admiration for her good nature, Roland wondered how best to present her with his find. Was it something that needed to be talked about first, or should he just grab it on the spur of the moment? He couldn’t help smiling. The toy, a simple vibrator, had turned him on in the shop, but now he wasn’t so sure. He probably should have put it back on the shelf with all the other oddities, but Roland had decided to go through with it. ‘What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll get a slap or she’ll laugh in my face. Otherwise, I’ll never know. My own wife is a mystery to me. What does she like? This filthy thing’s making me hard. Why doesn’t she do that to me?’

‘I’ll go and check on the children,’ he told Juliette, slipping out of the room.

The sex toy hadn’t moved an inch. It was sitting quietly under the bed, exactly where Roland had left it several hours earlier. ‘I’m an idiot,’ he told himself, carefully taking it into his hands. He could hear snippets of the conversation going on at the other end of the corridor. The two women were still talking. Roland took the toy out of its packaging and looked at it closely. It was cold and hard, not very pretty, merely suggestive. The appliance was battery-operated. Luckily the woman on the till had pointed this out to Roland. The thing didn’t just vibrate of its own accord. ‘Can’t go expecting miracles,’ he was thinking as he listened to her. How had she come to this career? She handled the gadgets on offer in her shop with the professional air of a saleswoman at Galeries Lafayette. It wasn’t very hard to figure out. Roland inserted the four batteries into the back of the vibrator and tested it. Vrrr… Vrrr… It worked just fine; it purred. Soon it would pounce. An image flashed through Roland’s mind as he let his hand stroke up and down the toy. ‘It’s powered by the thunder of God,’ he said to himself, a sizeable erection straining the fabric of his trousers. At the sound of the front door opening, he put the vibrator back under the bed, ready for use. As he walked back into the living room, he was imagining making Juliette come with the sex toy. Tonight, he was determined to bring her to the peak of pleasure.

She was on edge. She had barely closed the door on the babysitter when Roland was all over her, kissing her full on the mouth before she had time to draw breath.

‘What about the children?’ she said, freeing herself from his grasp.

‘They’re fast asleep.’

Roland was already wrapping his arms back around Juliette, unbuttoning her blouse, grasping at her breasts so he could finally press his skin against hers. It was all a bit much for Juliette. She needed another drink before she could let herself go. They hadn’t had sex for a month, maybe longer. She pushed Roland away gently but firmly.

‘Not so fast,’ she said, affecting outrage to keep him on his toes.

She wished she could remember when and where they had last done it. Not at home – she was certain of that. Roland followed her into the living room. He grabbed her like a ragdoll around the waist and ran his hands over her hips. She was on the verge of giving him a slap. She wriggled free, more forcefully this time. It was sinking in that she didn’t feel any desire for him, at least not right now or like this.