17
The next morning the cuckoo clock on the wall between the front door of the shop and the window next to the counter reads eight o'clock. Above its enamelled-iron dial the Grim Reaper appears - a skeleton in lime-tree wood, dressed in a long white robe and holding a scythe in his hand - and he sings: 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!'
The shop's radio switches on automatically for the news: 'After the fracture of the San Andreas fault near Los Angeles, and the series of volcanic eruptions that spread their lava and ash all over the continent in the last century, life is returning to America. Iranian scientists have detected the first signs that lichen is appearing on the former site of New York since the Big One. Sport: another defeat for the regional tea-'
Lucrèce, in apron and gas mask, is sluicing away the poisons that fell onto the floor the previous day, and wonders out loud: 'Won-won-won, won-won-won?'
Mishima turns off the news on the radio. 'What are you saying?'
His wife unfastens some straps and removes the filtration cartridge from her mask. 'What are we going to do with Marilyn? Either she goes on as if nothing has happened or she stops. I won't hide the fact that I would regard that as a shame, for it brought a sudden boost to sales in the fresh produce section. Close the drawer of the cash register, Mishima.'
Her husband does so, then puts back the ropes thoughtfully. He sweeps up, using a dustpan and brush to collect the fragments of the broken jar and the sweets, which he empties onto the counter in a heap. Then he orders Alan: 'Pick out the bits of glass from this confectionery. We can't have the children cutting their tongues! And watch yourself too, don't cut yourself on a fragment. I don't know ...' he admits to his wife.
Marilyn is wearing her work dress: a lamé creation with a plunging neckline, which clings to her body. She raises her arms, which tantalisingly accentuates the flawless flow of her curves, the perfect arch of her back, her smooth, tensed belly, her outrageously rounded buttocks, her curved breasts high up because she is perched at the top of a ladder, re-hanging the last of the little paintings from the frieze of apples.
'There, that's done! While you're having a think, I've got almost an hour before we open to go and see if Ernest has arrived at the cemetery and tell him the good news.'
'Oh, damn!' exclaims Mishima, who is under the ladder.
His daughter thinks she has dropped a picture on his head. She bends down to him. 'What?'
Her father strikes the top of his bald forehead with the palm of his hand. 'I did something stupid ...'
Lucrèce, who is wearing surgical gloves and rinsing a floor-cloth in a bucket, straightens up. 'What?'
'Yesterday evening, in a panic, I gave Ernest a disposable Smith & Wesson.'
'What?!'
Madame Tuvache is stunned, and Marilyn's feet slip off the step on the ladder to glide down the uprights to the floor. Her stretchy dress, which was so sexy a moment ago, suddenly puffs out, swelling up like a ridiculous parachute.
'But, Father, we have to do something!'
'What?'
'Last night with your revolver ... m-my love' - she stammers at the thought of it - 'he may have sho- he may have sho-'
'What?
Her stupefied father does not want to hear her spell it out, while Lucrèce takes off her surgical gloves and takes matters in hand:
'I know what we are going to do, Mishima.'
'What?'
'Go quickly to the Tristan and Isolde florist, and ask if they've seen him go past this morning, while I go to his mother's place in the Moses tower. Marilyn, run to the cemetery and as for you' - she calls to Alan - 'while you're waiting for us to come back and open up, you're in charge of the shop.'
Alan turns round in astonishment:
'What?'