‘So you were planning an attack?’
‘I don’t know what I thought I was doing exactly. I stole a scarf from a nurse at the clinic and wrapped it round my face. I don’t know if I meant to kill the woman but I don’t think I cared if I did. All I knew was I was going to get back my baby.’
Dear God, thought the Abbé Paul.
‘I went back to the trees and waited. It seemed hours. I thought she wasn’t going to come and then I saw her. Pushing my baby. He was asleep. I waited till she was passing the trees where I was hiding and then I must have stabbed her. Stabbed her in the back. I don’t really remember this bit properly. I suppose I just went mad.
‘Someone driving past saw me and pulled the woman away and I ran off and got back to the clinic. I put the scarf back on its hook and hid in the old laundry where no one ever went, but nobody said anything. Nothing happened for ages and then one day Dr Deman asked me about it and I still thought the little boy was my Gabriel, so I said so. I suppose I was off my head.’
‘But he wasn’t your child?’
‘I only found that out later. Anyway, I was very confused and I kept saying that the baby was mine. Dr Deman reported what I’d said – he had to, I don’t blame him – and the police questioned me but I never admitted to attacking the girl. I just went on about Gabriel. I’m not sure what I was saying, really. They weren’t either. I don’t think they knew what to believe so they had another doctor examine me. I don’t remember him at all or what I said to him, but he sent me to a secure psychiatric hospital, which was awful, I hated it. There was this big woman psychiatrist, not at all like Dr Deman. But Dr Deman came to see me there and took me, and I don’t quite know how he worked this, but he took me to see the man who found me when I was a baby, who I called “father” . . .’
The Abbé Paul got up to fetch a box of tissues.
‘I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.’
‘It’s good that you are, Agnès, I think.’
‘Anyway, I don’t know how but Dr Deman arranged for me to come back to stay at the clinic and there was this Australian nurse there, Maddy. I really liked her, and she told me how to get out of the other hospital. “Just say you didn’t mean it about him being your child and you didn’t know what you were saying,” she told me. “Keep saying it. Just stick to your story.” It was Maddy who’d given Dr Deman the address that was in my file. She’d been a nanny to the couple who’d adopted the baby that wasn’t Gabriel, and the girl I attacked was the new nanny. I guess Dr Deman must have thought for some reason that the baby was Gabriel too. Otherwise, why would he put the address in my file?’
‘And you did what Maddy said?’
‘Yes. I just kept repeating that I had not known what I was saying before but I knew now the little boy wasn’t mine and in the end it worked. They let me go from the secure hospital and I went back to the clinic for a bit and then I went to live with the man I called my father. And everything was good for a while.’
‘You had no father of your own?’
‘No. Nor a mother. I was found. The man I called my father found me.’
‘And you lived with this man?’
‘For just over two years. And then he died.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I really liked it at the farm.’
Not for the first time, the Abbé Paul reflected that it was not surprising that people had trouble believing in a merciful God. ‘And then you came here?’
‘It was because of the labyrinth. Dr Deman gave me a photo of it for my seventeenth birthday. He had it on his office wall and he knew I always liked it. I used to try to do it, get to the centre, with my eyes, but I never could. I left it behind when my father’s niece and her husband took over the farm. I was in a state, I suppose, and they were so anxious for me to leave I forgot to take it with me. They told me when I rang to ask about it that they had burnt it. If they hadn’t, I mightn’t have come here.’
‘It’s called Providence, I believe,’ said the Abbé Paul. ‘Agnès, have you told this to anyone else?’
‘No, Father. I couldn’t have told anyone but you. Because . . .’
There was a silence in which the Abbé Paul waited. Agnès got up, looked down at her bare feet and made an odd wriggling movement with her long toes. ‘I would never harm a baby.’
‘How about an adult?’
She smiled, which was a relief to him because he saw that she had read his mind and grasped the irony, and in his view the ability to correctly read another’s mind and interpret irony was a sign of health.
‘I’m not off my head now.’
‘No. I don’t believe you are. What would you like to do, Agnès?’
He observed her, quite literally, straighten her shoulders. ‘Should I tell the police, Father?’
The Abbé Paul also got up but he walked over to the window and seemed to be looking out. In the garden, still alive with fiery colour, a goldfinch was balancing on a long spray strung with rose hip beads. The red on the berries did not quite reflect the spot of red on the bird’s head. Lord, he thought, what a conundrum you’ve set me.
With his gaze still averted, the Abbé Paul said, ‘I think what is important is that you have told me. I am not God, and would never claim to speak for Him, but if God is, as I believe Him to be, all comprehending and merciful, He would, I think, say you have been punished enough. I don’t see what good could come of a further confession to the police. You were beside yourself.’
The berries that autumn were truly magnificent. It was going to be a hard winter.
‘She was in hospital for ages.’
Of course, thought the Abbé Paul. All of this is why she cleans. It crossed his mind to refer to the Prodigal Son but another story came to his aid. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘have you maybe come to the story of Ajax in my book of myths?’
‘It’s one of the names they list at the front. It’s an easy name to read.’
‘You might like to read his story. Ajax was one of the Greek heroes who went to fight in Troy. He became possessed by a demonic anger and tried to kill his colleagues – it was over something far more trivial than a baby, some armour, in fact, but that isn’t why I mention him. The goddess Athene made sure that he didn’t slaughter his colleagues in arms but some cattle instead, which is another way of saying that Ajax was beside himself. Not in his right mind.
‘I think you too were beside yourself. The young woman did not die and you cannot take back what you did to her by serving a prison sentence. You are not mad or out of your mind now, so nothing would be gained by your return to a psychiatric hospital. Indeed, much may be lost.’
It was the longest speech the Abbé Paul had made to a living soul since as a young man he had joined a philosophical society and discussed Spinoza. He turned and levelled a long look at Agnès, the image of the red hips still in his nether sight. ‘Ajax committed suicide when he found what he’d done. There was, is, no need for anything like that. Have you noticed, there are no tombs in our cathedral?’
‘No.’
‘You perhaps wouldn’t. The human mind doesn’t deal well in non-events. We tend not to notice what is not there when often absence is the more vital thing. All the great and famous cathedrals have the dead interred there save ours. Not ours, in honour of Our Lady, and I like to think it’s because she is for life, not for death.’
Words, words, words, as the afflicted young prince said, what were they worth? But, letting his mind go free, the Abbé Paul found himself adding, ‘There are forms of justice which override human law. I propose that the telling of this to me is your means to forgiveness, Agnès. Agnès, my dear . . .’
But she was crying and words were no longer needed.
53
Chartres
Madame Beck had been most put out to receive that Saturday morning a letter from Mother Véronique. The letter was writt
en in violet ink on notepaper embellished with a quotation from St Thérèse of Lisieux. Below the saint’s maxim about following the example of ‘the poor in spirit’ Madame Beck read these words.
‘I have been thinking and praying’ – ‘praying’ was underlined three times – ‘and, with God’s help, I have reached the conclusion that I was at fault in sending you the press cuttings. Nothing was ever found to connect Agnès with the terrible event described there.’
Madame Beck, frowning, took a disbelieving sip of coffee.
‘I sent them to you to give you a better idea of what the poor girl has been through,’ the violet ink continued, ‘but I fear now I have been precipitate and unwise. I would ask you, dear Madame, to destroy the copies and not to repeat their contents or to let the story fall into the wrong hands.’
This kind of reversal, had Madame Beck known it, was typical of Mother Véronique, who drove the Sisters of Mercy almost crazy with her inability to stick to one line.
Madame Beck was, as a consequence, not in the best of moods when she opened the door a little later to Madame Picot. ‘I must say you might have rung first, Jeanette.’
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but I have something on my conscience. I felt it could not wait.’
This potentially enlivening prospect did not somehow sound well to Madame Beck’s ear. ‘Yes?’
‘May I sit down, dear?’
‘Don’t be silly, Jeanette.’
‘It’s about your china dolly. The little coloured girl.’
‘Lulu?’
‘Lulu, yes. The truth is, you see, well, the truth is, dear, I took her. I broke her, you see, and wanted to get her mended and then you became so angry about it all I felt abashed. But it was wrong of me to let the blame fall on Agnès.’
The news of this perfidy from a friend almost succeeded in dumbfounding Madame Beck. ‘You took Lulu?’
‘I brought her back, though, all mended. She’s tucked away at the bottom of your bed. I’m surprised you haven’t found her but I suppose without Agnès here you haven’t had the strength to turn the mattress.’
Madame Picot found to her surprise that she was enjoying this revelation. Rather than remorse, or fear, she seemed to be feeling unusually blithe. After all, what could Louise do to her but drop the friendship? And that prospect no longer seemed so very dreadful.
‘Frankly, I’m speechless, Jeanette.’
‘Well, dear, there it is. We all make mistakes. If you go and look . . .’ But Madame Beck had already flown to her bedroom and was scrabbling like a terrier at the foot of the bed.
‘It’s just that,’ said Madame Picot blandly when her friend returned, inspecting the recovered doll in her hand, ‘I felt you should let the Abbé Paul know that you’ve been mistaken and Agnès is not a thief. Of course, the dear little baby boy is another matter, but I do hope it turns out to be another mistake. She seems such a nice woman, Agnès. I was thinking I might ask her to clean for me. Now, dear, take a look at Lulu’s neck and tell me if you can see the join.’
• • •
Philippe said, ‘Brigitte, what train did you catch last Sunday?’
‘How do you expect me to remember that?’
‘You remembered when you spoke to the doctor.’
‘So?’
‘Only Agnès apparently said you got back at nine and you told the doctor it was seven.’
‘You’re not going to believe her?’
‘I can’t see why Agnès would lie about it.’
‘She would, wouldn’t she?’
‘Why’s that, Brigitte?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I don’t, in fact,’ said Philippe, who knew perfectly well and hoped to be able to control himself enough not to slap his sister. ‘You see, I was thinking that if, as you told Agnès, the train was cancelled and that was checked, and it turned out that it wasn’t cancelled after all, wouldn’t that show you up as rather unreliable? And you might not wish to come across as unreliable in the circumstances. You see, what’s bothering me is you’ve tried that trick about trains on me before.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that you might need some help, Brigitte. I’m saying that I doubt Agnès did this terrible thing to Max. Brigitte?’
Her strained white face stared up at him, and he thought – hoped – that perhaps she might turn to him, embrace him, maybe, and even cry. For a fraction of a moment her lips trembled and then the past superseded the possibilities of the present and they became hideously distorted. ‘You’ve always had it just the way you wanted it, haven’t you, mother’s little darling?’
‘Brigitte, you need help. You can’t punish Max because he reminds you of me.’
‘Get out, get out of here, mother’s little queer boy.’
‘Thank you, Brigitte, you’ve just managed to convince me of Agnès’ innocence. And if you don’t mind I shan’t be leaving my own apartment.’
54
Chartres
Alain had not forgotten his promise to Agnès over the silver chain. He had borrowed a wetsuit for the purpose from a colleague who liked to scuba dive and had already spent a morning trawling the river by the watermill where the body of Father Bernard had been found. Saturday also being his day off, he reinstated the search.
It had been his hope that the chain with the earring on it was not too light to have been washed away. But it was a hope which was waning as he sifted through another clump of waterweed and dead sycamore leaves.
A gang of children, old enough to be out alone but too young still for café life, had congregated on the bridge to observe this operation and pass whispered insults among themselves. After some giggling one of them questioned him. ‘What you doing there, mister?’
‘Searching for treasure. Want to help?’
‘What we looking for?’
As Alain explained the face of one of the girls turned knowing. ‘Is there a reward?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘How much?’
The girl’s expression became more arch. Alain did a swift calculation and decided it was best to pitch the reward high. ‘Fifty euros.’
The crowd made approving noises indicating that they were impressed. The girl fiddled in her pocket and produced something. ‘This it?’
‘My dear child. What is your name?’
‘Chantal.’
‘Chantal, you have just performed a miracle. Let me get this damned frog suit off and fifty euros is yours before the sun goes down.’
Later that afternoon, the astonished Chantal having been paid her dues, Alain called round at the Deanery.
Agnès had retired again to bed and the Abbé Paul was ironing. ‘I don’t know why people complain about doing this. I find it soothing.’
‘I wouldn’t know, I never iron.’
‘People like their clergy ironed.’
‘How is Agnès?’
‘Better, I think. She’s resting. My own view is that we must back her up in simple denial.’
(‘How will I cope?’ she had asked him and he had answered, ‘Do as Maddy advised. Stick to your denial. It worked before . . .’)
‘I don’t want to disturb her. I came to give her this. She gave it to Father Bernard and a child found it in a grate by the river. It must have fallen out of his gown when they pulled him from the river. Poor old boy.’
‘Yes,’ said the Abbé Paul, who was missing his dead friend and aware that in time he would come to miss him more. ‘Thank you. I’ll give it to her. And I’m sure she’ll want to see you, so do, please, call again later.’
• • •
The enthusiasm in the Abbé Paul’s voice as he issued this invitation was not, in truth, squarely matched in his heart. He could hardly fail to notice that the young man had a more than ordinary fondness for Agnès.
The Abbé Paul was not the jealous sort but had he been he might have been experiencing some discomfort.
The young woman with her lithe form and expressive eyes, even before she had made her brave revelation, had come, he had been recognizing, to inspire in him a new and quite delightful emotion. And that she had chosen him to confide in seemed to affirm the rightness of this feeling. Unlike the Abbé Bernard, the Abbé Paul had not lost his faith, but he had grown in the belief that fidelity to God might bear a larger, more human, interpretation than he had once supposed.
He had not embraced celibacy as many of his colleagues had: as a refuge from heterosexual uncertainty, disinclination or downright distaste or dislike. He had undertaken the state because as an ardent youth he had felt that loving any mortal woman might stand between him and his love of God. It was a belief that over the years he had come to find callow. Mistaken. Even possibly damaging.
He had therefore braced himself to meet, with sufficient warmth, when he answered the door again early that evening, the tanned face of his new young acquaintance and was startled to encounter instead the pallid face of Madame Beck beneath her grotesque bonnet of hennaed hair.
‘Good evening, Madame.’
‘I have something I must discuss with you, Father.’
‘It is not,’ said the Abbé Paul, ‘terribly convenient.’ Accustomed as he was to the practice of ready accessibility, he surprised himself at the bluntness of this statement.
But it took more than a departure from established form to deter the zeal of Madame Beck. ‘Just a brief word, Father, if you please.’
‘As you wish, Madame. Come in.’
The tenderness that Agnès had inspired in the Abbé Paul had been expressing itself in his cleaning of her recovered treasures. He had polished the chain with the cloth bought by Agnès for the candlesticks, and when the doorbell rang he had been busy with the decorative silver surround in which the single turquoise earring was set. Having had it in his hand when, expecting Alain, he went to the door, he now laid it carefully on the coffee table in his receiving room.
The Cleaner of Chartres Page 25