The Man of Their Lives

378 Pages·2016·1.2 MB·English

by  Bourdin Francoise

The Man of Their Lives
By Françoise Bourdin
Translated by Jean Charbonneau
CHAPTER 1
The technician on the other side of the window gave Louis the thumbs up. Louis
lowered his steely gaze to the orchestra, who remained frozen anticipating his
verdict.
“Thank you, gentlemen. It was…”
For a second he tried to come up with the words to express his satisfaction.
“It was right on,” he finally said with a smile.
He set his baton on the side of the lectern and gathered the score. The
heavy soundproof door opened and the director barged into the studio, beaming.
“Awesome!” he shouted. “I swear, you’re saving my movie. Actually, I’m
going to use the score wall-to-wall. No use wracking my brain with post-
production and those damned actors. They’re driving me nuts, every single one
of them. The second theme, the one I told you I like so much, with all the
violins? I want it to be swelling, you know? Like, haunting. Louis, we’re going
to get tons of tears you and me!”
In the spacious recording studio, the musicians were putting away their
instruments. Some had worked with Louis before, and admired him
unconditionally. If they gave him their best effort, they knew he’d be a pleasant
conductor. Fussy but patient, demanding but always courteous. Louis preferred
to record in Paris whenever the producers—and their budget—allowed. So he
was popular with the local musicians’ union.
“It was missing a bit of emotional impact, you know?” the director
continued. “I couldn’t be more adamant about that. We need maximum
emotional impact.”
Louis nodded but said nothing. He thought the director had no talent
whatsoever. His stupid film was going to tank at the box office in eight days,
tops. No music in the world, no matter how amazing, could turn his pic into a
masterpiece.
“Buy you a drink?” the director said, clutching Louis’s arm.
“Sorry, I have to go home. I promised my son I was going to spend the
evening with him. I’ll see you on Monday for the mixing.”
It wasn’t some lame excuse. He did need to speak to Frédéric. He’d neglected
him too much these past few days. Though he knew better than to hold his
breath, he wished that for once traffic wouldn’t be too heavy on the highway.
Coming out of the studios, in front of the Palais des Congrès, Louis realized
that the sun had already begun to set. The early evening was cold and dreary,
matching his frame of mind to a T. He’d composed the music they’d recorded in
just five days. It was perfectly melodramatic, both “swelling” and “haunting,”
just as that moron director liked.
Instantly he regretted thinking that. Looking down on the people who hired
you only meant that you were belittling yourself. Of course, all movie directors
wanted the same thing—for the audience to reach for the tissues. Like it or not,
Louis excelled at exactly that kind of stuff. And, he’d been given a full orchestra
to work with, something increasingly rare in this day and age. Why was he
complaining?
He got to his car and searched for his keys. They’d escaped through the hole in
his jacket pocket and found their way in the lining. He took his time fishing the
keys out, all the while admiring his brand new red coupe. A beautiful thing, as
elegant and powerful as the manufacturer claimed. He’d managed to make Alix
crazy with envy when he bought it. Their passion for sports cars would
undoubtably ruin them one day if they didn’t stop trying to one up each other.
Twenty years ago, their father had made the mistake of giving them driving
lessons at the Montlhéry racetrack—both of his children had fallen in love with
speed. Since then, despite their fair share of traffic violations and suspended
licenses, nothing could to stifle their passion.
Louis tossed his score on the backseat and slid behind the steering wheel. With
a little luck he’d be able to make it to Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer in time for supper.
Back at the house, Frédéric was probably scratching his head, wondering what to
take out of the fridge.
Louis was about to put the car in gear when someone rapped on the window.
He lowered it.
“I loved the recording! Musicians are always better when you’re the one
conducting…”
“Where were you hiding?” said Louis, staring at his sister.
“In the booth, behind the consoles. And you know what? Everything was so
incredibly tight, from beginning to end!”
“Alix,” he reminded her, “you know nothing about music.”
“Maybe. But everybody was happy. Here, you forgot the CD of the recording.
You always leave too quickly.”
“What are you doing here anyway?”
“I had to be in this part of town for a meeting, and I thought I’d drop by to see
how you were.”
Leaning against the roof of the coupe, she looked at him with an unabashed
tenderness.
“Frédéric is waiting for me,” Louis said.
“Go, then!”
Alix backed away from the car looking sad so Louis said in a softer voice,
“Are you coming over on Saturday?”
“I’ll be there before lunch, but only if you let me try that new toy of yours.”
Before driving off, he smiled at her with that incredibly youthful smile that
moved her every time. Their resemblance wasn’t as striking as it used to be.
When they were young twins, people misplaced them all the time, especially
before she began to wear skirts and he shorts. Later, of course, their differences
became more pronounced. Now, they both had the same dark eyes and straight
nose. But Alix’s brown hair was now dyed blond and she’d put on a few extra
pounds. Meanwhile Louis remained as thin as ever, almost looking emaciated
because he was so tall. His attractiveness resided in his high cheekbones and
narrow face, whose hard expression sometimes morphed into an irrepressible
child-like smile. But Louis was clueless about all that.
The Porte Maillot was clear, and traffic was smooth on the Boulevard
Périphérique. A few minutes later, Louis emerged from the Saint-Cloud tunnel.
He slipped the CD into the console and listened to the beginning, brows
furrowed. There was a slight discordance with the violins, as he’d noticed while
conducting, but nobody would notice. As a whole, the piece was pretty good,
almost brilliant, and there was no doubt that the soundtrack was going to be a
hit.
Louis stepped on the gas on the other side of the Marly Forest, where the
highway shrank to three lanes. The hum from the six cylinders was tremendous.
Alix would absolutely go nuts when she took the Alfa Romeo for a spin
tomorrow. At the Mantes tolls, he tossed a few coins in the collection basket and
right away heard a nasal voice say, “Payment rejected.” He should’ve used the
electronic payment lane. Two highway patrolmen on motorcycles glanced at him
as he searched for more coins, but they seemed more interested in the slick hood
of his sports car.
A few miles later, he pulled off the highway to take the secondary road that
ran along the Seine . Night had fallen and only a slight shimmer could be seen
on the river. The clock on the dashboard read eight o’clock as Louis made a left
after Port-Villez, heading for Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer. He took the road that
snaked around the hill, the car’s headlights scanning the bushes on the roadsides
without encountering another car all the way to the house. It was his favorite
place in the world, and he knew he’d never let go of it. If he’d wanted to sell it,
he would’ve right after Marianne died.
In front of the tall wooden gate, Louis activated the remote control. When the
doors opened, he saw that Frédéric had turned on all the lights in the house.
More likely, he’d forgotten to switch them off in the morning.
Inside, a synthesizer and drums blasted. He stood at the foot of the staircase
with the onslaught of noise for two minutes, and then shrugged. Tomorrow
morning, if Louis remembered correctly, was his son’s math test. Frédéric
should be studying instead of torturing the keyboard.
Resigned, Louis ran up the stairs and into his son’s room. A teenager Louis
had never met was beating the living daylights out of a drum set, while Frédéric
pounded on the keyboard. The concert came to an abrupt end when the kids
realized that Louis was standing there.
“That was something else,” Louis said in a deadpan voice. “Let’s eat now,
okay?”
“Hey, Dad. You know Richard?”
“No, I don’t. Hi, Richard. Are you joining us for dinner tonight?”
“Gotta go,” the young man mumbled.
One second later, he was gone.
“How’s he getting home?”
“He’s got a moped.”
Frédéric’s room was an incredible mess, nothing new there.
“We were having fun, and time just flew by. But I did put the Shepherd’s pie
in the oven!”
Shepherd’s pie was Frédéric’s favorite food, that and spaghetti and meatballs.
Louis went over to his son, a look of concern on his face.
“You didn’t study at all, did you?”
“Well, you know, math... I don’t get it.”
“You’re not trying to get it, that’s not the same thing!”
“Dad...”
Something in his son’s voice alerted him to the danger. After eight years of
living alone with Frédéric, he’d learned to read him very well--his rebellious
outbursts, his pangs of anxiety, his passions and fears. Life in high school was
the root of a lot of his moodiness.
“I’m famished,” he simply said.
Relieved, the teenager passed him on the landing and ran down the stairs with
his father on his heels, a game they played all the time. The kitchen was huge,
and Frédéric had set a couple of plates, paper towels, and utensils on the table.
“Did I scare off your friend Richard?”
“Of course not! Well, actually, maybe...You know, you do intimidate them a
bit.”
Once in a while, Louis ran into kids who were so-called friends of Frédéric’s,
and they’d ask him to sign CDs. They had wanted to make sure that Frédéric
wasn’t messing with them, that his old man really was the Louis Neuville, who’d
written the scores to Home of the Braves and Setting Sun, which had become cult
favorites for their generation. Frédéric often showed the kids around the music
room and sat at Louis’s piano and nonchalantly played a few famous bars. Even
if he’d wanted to play correctly he couldn’t; Frédéric had given up his music
lessons after two years of torture.
Louis opened the oven door and saw that the pie’s creamy sauce was erupting
from the top like some kind of volcano.
“Let’s have some salad, too,” he said with forced enthusiasm.
“The lettuce looked awful. I tossed the two bags in the garbage.”
“We have to eat some vegetables,” Louis mumbled. “Or anything that has
vitamins.”
Frédéric felt bad so he fetched the fruit basket on the counter while his father
opened a bottle of Chablis. During the week, they managed as well as they
could. No matter how many time Louis went to the supermarket, something was
always missing. Every Saturday morning, Louis’s youngest sister Laura
inspected the contents of the fridge and cupboard. Then she’d launch into a
speech on proper diet, before leaving to buy “real” food. Louis and Frédéric did
indeed eat and live a whole lot better on the weekend. The house was full of
people, the kitchen smelled wonderful, and three generations lived together with
laughter and never-ending card games.
Frédéric slouched on a chair. “Don’t worry,” he said, “Laura is going to cook
something terrific tomorrow!”
He liked his aunt Laura a lot because she was so nice to him. Actually, he also
liked his other aunt Alix, his uncle, his grandfather, and his two little cousins. He
always hated Sunday evening, when everybody left after supper. This succession
of solitary weeks and family weekends had started seven years ago. Frédéric
knew that he was spoiled, pampered like a baby even, because his mother was