The boy kept up his patter as Pascal climbed into his car, rolled down the windows, and turned on the air conditioning. Antoine-Luc waxed on about the beauty of the old green BMW sedan, how powerful and beautiful it was even at its age with the sun spots on the paint, and on and on. Pascal thought he would never shut up. Finally, he looked at his watch and it really was time to go.
He had a train to meet.
Four
The man in the blue coveralls paused in his chores, his cycling cap pulled low over his eyes, watching the green car blow up dust as it wound out of the vineyard and turned onto the highway. The sound of the gears grinding faded as he squinted into the sunlight bouncing off the rear window.
It couldn’t be. Probably not. No. It was just a similar automobile. Although green was an unusual color. So maybe he sold the car to this man who came to look at the vines. The man in the straw hat who walked up and down the rows, checking grapes like he was a buyer or a winemaker.
Léo Delage knew he could ask someone. Maybe the little man— what was his name? The grandson. But that guy had no time for field workers, flitting here and there like a butterfly. He was just like his father and grandfather, looking down on the common man. Sometimes Léo wondered why his ancestors had bothered to overthrow the nobles all those years gone by. The common man — the dirty man, the coarse, uneducated, and ill-dressed man— what had they called them? Sans-culottes? Had they worn no pants? That was a stupid name. Or knee breeches? Léo couldn’t remember. Maybe they were truly ‘without fancy pants.’
Pants or no pants, the common man was still treated like dirt in this country. Everyone knew it even if they had giant televisions and big bank accounts to distract them. Those people knew it because they dished it out every day to the little people, their cleaners, their waiters, their farmers. He had gotten no help, no encouragement during his years ‘away.’ No training, no new vocation. He was jettisoned onto the street like yesterday’s garbage, with only a cheap set of clothes and twenty Euros. That hadn’t gone far.
He had gone to South America on a freighter. He had liked that, being on the ocean. For awhile it was good, until the incident that sent him jumping another freighter for France.
The country hadn’t exactly welcomed him back. Perhaps they were hoping they’d seen the last of him. At least he had work now. The old man knew his old man, that was the way things still worked. Another thing that hadn’t changed since the Revolution. France was a constant, a river that kept flowing no matter what happened around it. Ah, the old man would like that, he loved poetry, and France. Léo’s father had died while he was away. Missing the funeral was not a burden that weighed on him.
It was the man in the green car who annoyed him.
Léo walked down the vines with his secateurs, trimming off errant growth. Now, mid-July, the energy from the sun needed to go to the swelling grapes as they entered the homestretch toward harvest. Many were still impossibly tiny. But they would grow and ripen under the Mediterranean sun. Léo felt no emotion toward grapes. Why would he? They weren’t his, they would not feed him. They were not children, or dogs, or even friends. They were just grapes and would soon feel the boot heel of the master like Léo so often had.
If the man in the green car was who he thought he was, well, it appeared to be an omen. He had gotten out of prison at the perfect time, he had found this vineyard at this moment, it had to be a sign that things would turn around for him. It was about damn time.
No, past time. He had little left to waste.
Five
Malcouziac, Dordogne
When Pascal turned his car into Rue de Poitiers, Merle felt the warm rush of familiarity run through her. This was home. She loved this little village with its ancient walls much more than her actual hometown in Connecticut. Was it the cobblestones? Was it the sunlight on the golden facades? Was it the collection of colored shutters down the short block — sky blue, turquoise, burgundy? Was it the disreputable jumble of stones at the end, where the bastide wall had crumbled centuries before?
It was everything. She felt her shoulders sink into the leather seat. She loved France. It was going to cure everything, all her ailments, her worries, her heart.
“What the hell?” Tristan growled from the back seat. Merle blinked, coming back from her French daydream. “Oh my god.”
She turned to see what Tristan was looking at. Something on his phone? “What is it? Bad news?”
Pascal glanced at her, his brow furrowed. “Don’t worry. We will make it right.”
“Make what right?”
He pulled the car up to her maison de ville, a two-story stone and stucco townhouse with blue shutters that were falling apart. At least the roof was repaired, and she had plumbing and electricity. So much had been done that first summer, it still amazed her. So much left to do, yes, but—
Tristan was out of the car, swearing. Pascal turned off the car and patted her arm. He also climbed out. Merle unclipped her seatbelt, worried now. What had happened? Was it the house? She could see a little of it and—
No. She stood by the hood of the car, hand over her mouth. In shock. Someone had vandalized the front of the house with spray paint, swirling circles and lines of purple and orange and black, then used it as a paintball target. Splats of fluorescent paint in orange, pink, and green pocked the beautiful stone from the sidewalk right up to the eaves. The door shutters had been ripped off their hinges and hung limply, still attached in one place. More paint splatters covered the glass panes and raised panels of the door.
She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Trying to make this sight go away. This was a dream, wasn’t it? She hadn’t been to her house for a year, not since she and her sisters had taken a walking tour together here. And when she returns, this slap in the face.
“Connards,” Pascal spat, wiping a hand across his brow. “Dirty scum.”
He looked back, frowning at Merle who stood frozen, eyes wide. A tear threatened to stream down her face and she quickly brushed it away. Tristan was silent now too, a worried look as he glanced at his mother. Pascal took her hand.
“It will be all right, blackbird,” he soothed. “It can be cleaned.”
“But why— ?” she began. “What did I do?”
“It is the act of voyous, les bons à rien, good-for-nothings who have nothing better to do with their pathetic lives.”
Her first days in Malcouziac flooded back, painful memories she would rather forget. Trying to evict a squatter, the awful policeman, the horrible mayor, a murder, unfriendly people at every turn. Things had improved eventually. Hadn’t they?
“Do you have the key, Mom?” Tristan asked as he pried the door shutters out of the way and tried to peer inside. “We better check everything.”
As she handed her son the key, Madame Suchet stepped out onto her stoop, wearing a plum-colored dress and her ever-present pearls. She lived directly opposite, at the end of the street. Merle turned toward her and the old woman nodded, lips clamped together in a half-grimace. She waited, hands tightly clasped, eyes flickering over the spray paint on the front of the house.
Merle told Tristan and Pascal to go ahead. She greeted Madame Suchet with a smile.
“Bonjour, ça fait longtemps.” It had been a long time since they’d spoken.
“Bonjour, madame.”
Madame Suchet looked the same, full makeup, heels, and manicure, except she had a new haircut. Before she wore her hair piled high in the old style. Now she’d had her steel gray locks cut short, grazing her chin. It made her look younger.
In her emotional state Merle struggled with her French, managing to ask if she knew when the vandalism on the house had occurred. Madame Suchet expressed regret over the whole business and said it took place in the night, several weeks before. Had she seen who did it? She shook her head.
Merle squinted up at the ugly mess. Weeks had passed. And no one thought to tell her? But then, who would? Another neighbor, Josephine, was tasked with occasional ga
rden maintenance in the back but she might never come down the street at all, only using the alley gate. And, come to think of it, Merle hadn’t heard from Josephine in months, since before Christmas. Once in awhile, every few months, she would get a postcard. But nothing recently.
Madame Suchet was now saying she didn’t have a phone number for Merle in the United States, and anyway, it was too expensive to call.
“Has the gendarme been around? Does he know about this?”
Madame S had no idea. There was a new gendarme, someone from elsewhere, not a good sign. No one really knew him.
Merle shook herself and began to come to her senses. This could be cleaned up, as Pascal said. It would be all right. The door shutters were misfits anyway. She would order new ones.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” Merle told Madame Suchet. “For you to have to look at this out your windows.”
The old woman nodded in a friendly but sad way. Merle felt she had said the right thing for once. Madame Suchet looked as pained as Merle felt.
“You will tell the other neighbors that I am very sorry I was not here to stop this. To fix it right away?”
Madame reached out and patted Merle’s arm. It was as kind as anyone had been in this village besides Albert. Maybe vandalism was a local problem. Maybe others had been hit as well.
The interior of Merle’s townhouse was musty and dark with that closed-up smell. The old fireplace, huge and blackened, contributed to the odor. Maybe this year she would get it cleaned. The long, rustic table, too large to remove, was covered with dust. The window over the horsehair settee was filthy, barely letting in light.
With a sigh Merle did a quick inventory. Everything seemed to be in place. She plugged in the little fridge, kicked the door shut, and sighed in relief as the motor started up. The water wouldn’t have been turned on yet. She would have to wait for Pascal to help with that. She could see him with Tristan in the back garden, and made her way outside.
Their heads were bent together and both had their hands stuffed into their pockets. They looked up at her in unison.
She paused, another blow hitting. Her beautiful, secret garden. It had been vandalized as well. The green metal table and chairs were gone. In their place were broken flower pots, torn-up plants, and garbage from some kind of party: soda bottles, wrappers, sacks, and bottles. It littered every corner of the garden, once a sanctuary but now defiled.
Merle kicked trash as she walked across the stone patio to the low wall surrounding the acacia tree. Sinking down on the wall she finally looked up at the back of the house. Thankfully there was no spray paint. But the espaliered pear tree that grew against the wall was damaged, some limbs broken and the lattice frame ripped out.
Why. The word reverberated in her head: why had someone done this? But she knew Pascal was right. Just bastards with nothing better to do, that’s all they were.
Tristan had gone inside, emerging now with a garbage bag. He began silently picking up trash. Pascal poked around behind the old pissoir, a stone outhouse that Merle had hoped to make a laundry room. She noticed the back gate hung open a crack. Jumping up she stalked angrily to the gate and pulled it open. On the other side, in the alley, was more trash.
How had they broken in? Then she saw the key that hung on the pissoir wall was gone. Someone must have climbed the wall and unlocked the door, letting the party inside. More than once. Where had they taken her patio furniture? She would have to get new chairs. She would need the locksmith again.
Across the alley another gate opened. It was Albert, in his workmen’s blue jumpsuit, a straw hat on his head, and gardening gloves on his hands. He raised his arms, smiling in welcome.
“Bonjour! Bonjour! You have returned at last!”
At least someone in the village was happy to see her. She felt stiff with anger as she and Albert exchanged cheek kisses. He burbled on, asking her about her travels, her winter, how was the boy, and so on. She pulled him over to her back garden and showed him what had happened.
“Mon Dieu,” Albert breathed. “Ah, Tristan! Bonjour! Content de te revoir!”
Setting down the garbage bag Tristan allowed the old priest to clap him on the back and kiss his cheeks like an old friend. Pascal popped out from behind the pissoir and got the same treatment.
Albert linked his arms through Merle and Pascal’s. He beamed happily. “We are all together again. Tout va bien.”
Merle glanced at Pascal. Everything was not well. But showing Albert the vandalism on the front of the house seemed unnecessary.
“We are so happy to be back in the village,” she said instead. “It’s been too long. But I will stay through the fall this time. Long enough to get lots of work done on the house.”
And work it needed. In its neglected, vandalized state it didn’t look promising. It didn’t look like the house in her memory, full of laughter and friends and sisters, wine and boyfriends and goat cheese. At least Pascal would be around. She eyed him again. Would he? He would probably leave for work assignments and she’d be here alone, waiting for the next gang of hooligans to break into her garden.
It wasn’t a comforting thought.
“We have some unpacking to do, Albert,” she said. “Shall we go out to dinner later?”
He agreed and waddled back out the gate. Merle watched Tristan pick up ugly soaked newspapers and broken beer bottles. How long had they sat out here in the yard— months? A year? Was it the same bunch that painted the front of the house? Albert didn’t mention a party; had he seen anyone? She called to Tristan: “Do you see a date on those newspapers?”
Her son blinked, surprised. Then he fished a soggy paper out of the bag and squinted at the masthead. “July fourteenth.”
“Bastille Day,” Pascal reminded her. “Many celebrations.”
A week ago. She bobbed her head, worn out by all the travel and lists and prospect of work ahead. She felt all the optimism drain out her fingertips, leaving her as dusty and dry as this summer’s day. Pascal took her chin in his hand and tipped it up. “No fretting, blackbird. We can fix all this. It will be better than before. You have the insurance, oui?”
“Yes. I think.”
Why couldn’t she remember about the homeowner’s insurance? She must have it, she wouldn’t be so careless… She was just tired. She shut her eyes. She hated this. For a moment she wanted to leave it all, go home, forget she ever inherited this stupid, unlucky, dark, antiquated house in this godforsaken village. Go back to Paris, run home to Connecticut, go to Spain or Italy or the Greek Islands. Anywhere but here.
Then Pascal pulled her in, wrapping her in his strong arms and pushing her head against his shoulder. She couldn’t bring herself to raise her own arms. They hung limp at her sides. But the gesture, the warmth, made the urge to flee lessen, the pain diminish. As she breathed into his shirt, expelling air from her lungs, she knew she was still alive. And that meant she wasn’t going to give up on her dream. She wasn’t going to be chased away.
“It will be all right, won’t it?” she muttered into his shoulder.
“Ah, chérie, bien sûr. Do not worry, blackbird. It will all be fine.”
The rest of the afternoon was spent taking photographs of the front of the house, the damaged door shutters, the paint on the stone and door. Then itemizing the damage in the back garden: missing furniture, damaged plants and containers, some bent pieces on the ancient metal cistern that sat on ten-foot legs, collecting run-off water from the roof. Inside the pissoir there was a disgusting mess better left to the imagination. Merle decided not to mention it to the insurance agent, whoever he was.
She wouldn’t be able to search her online records for the insurance company until she had a wifi signal. She would find one somewhere this evening, in the village. Tristan finished picking up trash in the back and in the alley, loading broken flower pots to the bag and setting it outside the garden gate.
Pascal came down from the second story and announced that everything was fine up there.
“Some small visitors, chérie. But you put your mattresses in the plastic things so all is well. I swept up the tiny calling cards.”
“Did you find the sheets and pillows?”
“Just where you left them. I put them on the bed.” He leaned in for a kiss. “For you.”
Tristan cleared his throat. “Did you put them on my bed?”
Pascal laughed. “You can do that yourself.”
“I cleaned up all this crap! And I can’t even take a shower yet. Look at my hands!”
“Can you turn the water on, Pascal?” Merle asked. “I’ll plug in the water heater. You can clean up after dinner, Tris. Until then, use the rainwater and we’ll go get a nice dinner.”
They met Albert at Les Saveurs, a small, intimate restaurant with an enormous cornucopia of plastic fruits and vegetables spilling onto a dusty sideboard. They managed to sit far from the garish decor by requesting an outside table. The small patio overlooked the acres of vineyards and the ruins of a chateau atop a distant hill. Last year the Bennett sisters had taken a quick tour of the ruins. Merle wanted to go back and look around more this year. Albert insisted on sitting with his back to the setting sun, something about eye strain.
It felt good again, to be back in the Dordogne with sunlight glancing off tile roofs and the smell of herbs wafting up from kitchen gardens. Merle decided she would plant more herbs this year, to fill in the holes where some of her favorite plants had been yanked from the earth. That yellow rose, for instance, had been lovely. At least the wisteria was too cumbersome for the little fuckers to mess with. Merle smiled to herself. Once in awhile the term did seem appropriate.
Just as their food arrived so did another group of diners, entering the small patio and taking the table next to them. Three men, all middle-aged, they looked like they were on business. No smiles or small talk, dress shirts, long silences. Now that he was eating, Tristan was happy again, filling his stomach with pasta and truffles and babbling to Pascal about his plans for college, the town he would be living in (a small one in Pennsylvania), and a few hopes and dreams. Pascal was attentive. He liked Tristan as much as the boy liked him, and had told Merle that he missed Tristan at the family wedding that spring in Scotland. Merle asked Albert a few questions about his life in the village. Nothing much going on, as usual, he said with a smile.
Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6 Page 3