Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

He stopped for a moment, then looked at me and laughed. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, she did, as a matter of fact.’

I was puzzled by his attitude. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘is that all you have to say?’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Aren’t you angry?’

‘Why should I be angry? It didn’t mean anything.’

I felt an icy fear grip me. ‘What do you mean, it didn’t mean anything ?’

‘You know. It was just a quickie, a bit of a laugh. She said she got excited by the street fighting and you happened to be the nearest man. It’s not the first time, you know. I don’t expect April to be faithful or any of that bourgeois crap. She’s her own woman.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said it didn’t mean anything. You don’t think she could be serious about someone like you, do you? Come off it, Richard, with your tatty jeans and your little goatee beard. You think you’re a real hip intellectual, but you’re nothing but a joke. That’s all you were to her. A quickie. A laugh. A joke. She came straight to me afterwards for a real-’

The blow came from deep inside me and my fist caught him on the side of his jaw. I heard a sharp crack, distinct from the sound of a distant gas gun, and he keeled over into the Seine. We were under a bridge and it was very dark. I stopped, listened and looked around, but I could see no one, hear only the sounds of battle in the distance. Quickly, my blood turning to ice, I climbed the nearest stairs and re-entered the fray.

I had never imagined that love could turn to hatred so quickly. Though I had fantasized about getting rid of Brad many times, I had never really intended to harm him, and certainly not in the way, or for the reason, that I did. I had never thought of myself as someone capable of killing another human being.

They pulled his body out of the Seine two days later, and the Anarchists claimed that he had been singled out and murdered by the CRS. Most of the students were inclined to believe this, and another bloody riot ensued.

As for me, I’d had it. Had it with April, had it with the revolution and had it with Paris. If I could have, I would have left for London immediately, but the cross-Channel ferries weren’t operating and Skyways had no vacancies for some days. What few tourists remained trapped in Paris were queuing for buses to Brussels, Amsterdam or Geneva, anywhere as long as they got out of France.

Mostly, I felt numb in the aftermath of killing Brad, though this was perhaps more to do with what he had told me about April than about the act itself, which had been an accident, and for which I didn’t blame myself.

April . How could she deceive me so? How could she be so cold, so cruel, so callous? I meant nothing to her, just the nearest man to scratch her itch.

A quickie. A joke.

I saw her only once more, near the Luxembourg Gardens, the same gardens we jumped into that marvellous night a million years ago, and as she made to come towards me I took off into a side street. I didn’t want to talk to her again, didn’t even want to see her. And it wasn’t only April. I stayed away from all of them: Henri, Alain, Brigitte, Nadine, the lot of them. To me they had all become inextricably linked with April’s humiliation of me, and I couldn’t bear to be with them.

One day Henri managed to get me aside and told me that April had committed suicide. He seemed angry rather than sad. I stared at him in disbelief. When he started to say something more, I cut him off and fled. I don’t think anyone knew that I had killed Brad, but clearly April lamented his loss so much that she no longer felt her life was worth living. He wasn’t worth it, I wanted to say, remembering the things he had told me under the bridge that night. If anyone was the killer, it was Brad not me. He had killed my love for April, and now he had killed April.

I refused to allow myself to feel anything for her.

The people at Skyways said I might have some luck if I came out to the airport and waited for a vacancy on standby, which I did. Before I left, I glanced around my room one last time and saw nothing I wanted to take with me, not even April’s silk scarf, which I had kept. So, in the clothes I was wearing, with the 500 francs that was all the Bank of France allowed to me withdraw, I left the country and never went back.

Until now.

I think it must be the memory of tear gas that makes my eyes water so. I wipe them with the back of my hand and the waiter comes to ask me if I am all right. I tell him I am and order another pichet . I have nowhere else to go except the grave; I might as well stay here and drink myself to death. What is the point of another miserable six months on earth anyway?

The girl who reminds me of April crushes out her cigarette and twists a strand of hair. Her lover is late. I dream of consoling her, but what have I to offer?

‘Professor Dodgson? Richard? Is that you?’

I look up slowly at the couple standing over me. The man is grey-haired, distinguished looking, and there is something about him… His wife, or companion, is rather stout with grey eyes and short salt and pepper hair. Both are well dressed, healthy looking, the epitome of the Parisian bourgeoisie.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.’

‘Henri Boulanger,’ he says. ‘I was once your student. My wife, Brigitte, was also a student.’

‘Henri? Brigitte?’ I stand to shake his hand. ‘Is it really you?’

He smiles. ‘Yes. I wasn’t sure about you at first. You haven’t changed all that much in the face, the eyes, but you… perhaps you have lost weight?’

‘I’m ill, Henri. Dying, in fact. But please sit down. Be my guests. Let’s share some wine. Waiter.’

Henri looks at Brigitte, who nods, and they sit. She seems a little embarrassed, uncomfortable, though I can’t for the life of me imagine why. Perhaps it is because I told them I am dying. No doubt many people would feel uncomfortable sitting in a cafe drinking wine with death.

‘Funnily enough,’ I tell them, ‘I was just thinking about you. What are you doing here?’

Henri beams. ‘Now I’m the professor,’ he says with great pride. ‘I teach literature at the Sorbonne.’

‘Good for you, Henri. I always believed you’d go far.’

‘It’s a pity you couldn’t have stayed around.’

‘They were difficult times, Henri. Interesting, as the Chinese say.’

‘Still… It was a sad business about that girl. What was her name?’

‘April?’ I say, and I feel an echo of my old love as I say her name. Ap-reel .

‘April. Yes. That was around the time you went away.’

‘My time here was over,’ I tell him. ‘I had no job, the country was in a state of civil war. It wasn’t my future.’

Henri frowns. ‘Yes, I know. Nobody blames you for getting out… it’s not that…’

‘Blames me for what, Henri?’

He glances at Brigitte, who looks deep into her glass of wine. ‘You remember,’ he says. ‘The suicide? I told you about it.’

‘I remember. She killed herself over an American boy the CRS beat to death.’

‘Brad? But that wasn’t… I mean…’ He stares at me, wide-eyed. ‘You mean you don’t know ?’

‘Don’t know what?’

‘I tried to tell you at the time, but you turned away.’

‘Tell me what?’

Brigitte looks up slowly from her wine and speaks. ‘Why did you desert her? Why did you turn your back on her?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You rejected her. You broke her heart. The silly girl was in love with you, and you spurned her. That’s why she killed herself.’