‘Mainly cat food. Heart and chicken – no thanks.’
‘Don’t forget the tin of white beans.’ They really needed to go shopping quickly, but how? Perdu barely had any cash in the register, and Jordan’s cards were floating in the Seine. Nevertheless, the water in the tanks would be sufficient for the toilet, the sink and the shower. He also had two crates of mineral water left. They wouldn’t make it all the way down south on that, though.
Monsieur Perdu sighed. A few minutes ago he’d been feeling like a buccaneer; now he was a rookie.
‘I’m an excavator!’ Jordan said triumphantly, as he emerged soon afterwards from Lulu’s book-filled belly into the wheelhouse with a pile of volumes and a long cardboard tube under his arm. ‘What we have here is a navigation test book containing every traffic sign a bored European bureaucrat can dream up.’ He slammed the book down by the wheel. ‘There’s a book of knots too. I’ll take that one. And look at this: a rear … sorry … stern pennant as well as – wait for it! – an ensign!’
He proudly held up the cardboard tube and slid a large rolled-up flag out of it.
It was a black-and-gold bird with outspread wings. On closer viewing, one could see a stylised book with the spine forming the bird’s body and the cover and pages, its wings. The paper bird had an eagle’s head and wore an eye patch like a pirate’s. It was sewed onto oxblood-red fabric.
‘So? Is this our flag or what?’
Jean Perdu felt a powerful pang to the left of his breastbone. He doubled over.
‘What’s up now?’ asked Max Jordan in alarm. ‘Are you having a heart attack? If you are, please don’t tell me to look up in a book how to insert a catheter!’
Perdu had to laugh despite himself.
‘It’s all right,’ he panted. ‘It’s only … surprise. Give me a second.’
Jean tried to swallow his way through the pain.
He stroked the filigree threads, the fabric and the book bird’s beak – and then its single eye.
Manon had backstitched this flag for the book barge’s inauguration at the same time as she had been working on her Proven?al bridal quilt. Her fingers and eyes had glided across the fabric – this fabric.
Manon. Is this the only thing I have left of you?
‘Why are you marrying this wine man?’
‘His name is Luc and he’s my best friend.’
‘Vijaya’s my best friend, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry him.’
‘I love Luc and it’ll be wonderful to be married to him. He lets me be who I am in everything, no strings attached.’
‘You could marry me, and that’d be wonderful too.’
Manon had lowered her sewing; the bird’s eye was only half filled in.
‘I was already part of Luc’s life plan before you even knew we’d be on the same train.’
‘And you don’t want him to suffer a change of plan.’
‘No, Jean. No. I don’t want to suffer. I’d miss Luc. His lack of demands. I want him. I want you. I want the north and the south. I want life with all it involves. I’ve opted against the “or” and for the “and”. Luc allows me every “and”. Could you do that if we were man and wife? If there was someone else, a second Jean, a Luc or two or …’
‘I’d prefer to have you all to myself.’
‘Oh, Jean. What I want is selfish, I know. I can only ask you to stay with me. I need you so I can survive.’
‘Your whole life long, Manon?’
‘My whole life long, Jean.’
‘That’ll do me.’
As if to seal the pact, she had stuck the needle into the skin of her thumb and soaked the material behind the bird’s eye.
Maybe it was only sex, though.
That had been his fear: that he only meant sex to her.
Yet it was never ‘only sex’ when they slept together. It was the conquest of the world. It was a fervent prayer. They recognised themselves for what they were – their souls, their bodies, their yearning for life, their fear of death. It was a celebration of life.
Now Perdu could breathe more deeply again.
‘Yes, that’s our flag, Jordan. It’s perfect. Raise it in the bow where everyone can see it. Up front. And the tricolore here in the stern. And hurry up.’
While Max leaned towards the stern to find out which of the cables slapping in the wind was the one for raising the national flag, and then traipsed through the bookshop to the bow, Perdu felt the heat rising behind his eyes. Yet he knew he mustn’t cry.
Max attached the ensign and pulled it higher and higher.
With every tug, Perdu’s heart clenched more and more tightly.
The ensign was now fluttering proudly in their slipstream. The book bird was flying.
Forgive me, Manon. Forgive me.
I was young, stupid and vain.
‘Uh-oh. The cops are coming!’ shouted Max Jordan.
17
The patrol boat was closing in on them. Perdu eased back the throttle as the manoeuvrable motorboat came alongside and tied up to Lulu’s cleats.
‘Do you think they’ll put us in a cell together?’ asked Max.