He has stopped to look out the window and for a moment, I think he has policed the flow of his own thoughts and imprisoned them. But he begins again, even more quietly now, as if there might be some eavesdropping cleric at the door.
‘And then, Guy Tremblay didn’t come back. Killed in Normandy. Father did though and when I was little we used to see a lot of Claire and Monique. Sometimes I had the impression he felt guilty about being the sole survivor and he wanted to make that up to them. Anyhow, then the decade turned, 1950, and you came along and mother got all involved with you, didn’t want to do anything.’
He glances at me. It is a glare and in it I suddenly sense a burning childhood jealousy of the mewling intruder that was myself. I remember a family photograph, the four of us, myself a plump presence in my mother’s arms. My gawky brother doesn’t look at the camera. He is staring at me with naked hatred, as if he wants to take the cushion from the sofa and squash it down on my face with obliterating force.
His voice continues. ‘As a family we stopped seeing the Tremblays. But father carried on with his visits. I knew that. Mother complained of it. Then too, on a number of occasions on my way home from school, I saw him coming out of his office with Monique. She was already big then.’
He hesitates, makes a curving gesture with his hands, blushes slightly, and I see him as a boy on the cusp of puberty, hormones beginning to rage. The gesture makes me feel oddly close to him. I daren’t move for fear of rupturing the mood.
‘Developed, pretty. Maybe sixteen. I think she had left school. Was doing some part-time work for father. Anyhow, they were together. And he had his hand round her shoulder, casually, paternally. But there was something about the way she sidled up to him while they were walking, the way she looked at him. Then in the car, she sat very close. Presumably he was taking her home. Or maybe not.’ His voice cracks. ‘Once I approached them and father shooed me away, sent me running. He didn’t want me there.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re saying, Jerome.’ I wade through the muggy heat of adolescent imaginings which have mired us in silence. ‘Are you really implying that our father was also Madeleine’s? I suggest you’ve been listening to too many confessions. You’ve grown prurient.’
He doesn’t rise to the bait. He is staring out the window at the snow-clad maple in the yard. Its branches cast shadows over his face.
‘Maybe. But he was after all only thirty-nine or so then. Not an old man. Your age. It was soon after that that Mme Tremblay took Monique off and by the time I was up in Montreal, it was common knowledge that she had given birth to a girl. Then, too, father left a healthy bequest to Mme Tremblay in his will. And a separate one to Monique.’
My mind races over the times I saw my father with Madeleine. I search out little telling gestures, hidden caresses. I remember Madeleine performing for us, stroking the keys of the piano and crooning a song. I see her looking up at him, seeking approval. My father’s expression is fond. But not overly so. No. I reassure myself.
But the seeds of doubt are sown and like rampant weeds, they don’t need much watering. In order to trample them, I tell myself that Mme Tremblay would never have allowed Madeleine and my closeness had my brother’s version of history been true. Yet I have to acknowledge that we didn’t give her much choice.
‘So you see why I always wanted you to keep away from her. And now, now… The last thing we need is a bunch of snooping reporters digging over the past.’ He shudders. The dirt has already found its target. He is sullied.
‘Madeleine’s birth certificate lists her father as Alexandre Papineau,’ I say with a notary’s precision, though the note of triumph in my voice is not as firm as I would wish it.
‘Are you sure? I thought it was Père…’ He stops himself, but I have caught him out.
‘You thought it was one of your lot? A priest?’
He has the decency to look shamefaced. ‘He wasn’t a priest then,’ he mumbles. ‘But it’s not the named father that matters. We just have to stop the local tongues wagging. There were not a few of them way back then. I heard father and mother arguing over it. Over the gossip about Monique spending so much time in his office.’
‘What did he say?’
‘I think he said he owed it to his dead friend.’
We look at each other, both of us bowed down with our separate thoughts. Any rancour I may have felt towards him has dissipated. Even his vocation appears to me now in a new light. I have a sudden sense that he rushed with troubled and unseemly haste into the safety of sanctity in order to protect himself from the sins of the family. To expiate them, he became an expert in sin.
‘So you’ll go? Go away for a while. Go to Europe perhaps, until all this blows over.’ The edge of steel in his tone takes me by surprise, cuts through the aura of complicity which existed just a moment before. Jerome is not posing a question. He is ordering.
‘No. Of course not.’ I am again the rebellious younger brother.
‘You should, Pierre. You really should.’ He scrutinizes my face and in his look I suddenly sense that there is something he is holding back, that everything that has gone before was of secondary importance.
His features crystallize into a mixture of suspicion and distaste. ‘It will be far better if you go. Trust me. It’s for your own good. I need to protect you from yourself. There are rumours.’
His voice flutters like his hand, but his gaze remains insistent. Beneath it, my skin turns clammy. What is it that he knows about me?
‘Rumours?’ I ask.
‘Things I can’t repeat,’ he says solemnly. ‘But take my advice, Pierre. Otherwise…’ He fingers his cross in a gesture which makes me feel I am the evil he is warding off.
As I turn on my heels, my spine prickles in disquiet.
A smell of old grease mingled with the sickly sweetness of some canned fragrance floats across the threshold of Senegal’s diner. Potato plants droop and twine from the window ledge. The chequered linoleum floor is wet and gritty with boot tracks.
Huddled in their coats, a few old-timers sit at the plastic sheathed tables. Slowly, they spoon up what could be soup or coffee. This is not the most fashionable restaurant in town.
Detective Contini looks like a sleek seal who has mistakenly blundered into the scruffy harbour of a forgotten fishing village. He is working hard at impersonating a minnow, but no one is fooled. Every eye and ear is attune to him.
He waves me over and pushes a plate of fat, perspiring chips towards me.
‘Hungry?’ he asks hopefully.
‘No. Coffee will do me.’
‘Can’t really recommend it.’ He glances at the murky liquid in front of him, then smiles as a plump young dungareed woman comes bouncing towards us.
‘Bonjour M. Rousseau. Can I get you anything?’
‘Maybe not, Martine. Just came to fetch my friend here. How’s your grandpa?’
‘He went up to have a nap.’
She is staring at me, her eyes sparkling. She opens her mouth, then shuts it. She wants to tell me something, but can’t quite bring it out.
‘Yes, Martine.’ I encourage her. I am glad that she has not run off to Montréal like so many others and joined the crowds of pallid drugged youth who grow prematurely old in the less salubrious parts of the metropolis.
‘Look!’ She points at the scarf coiled round her neck and starts to unwind it so that her dungarees are suddenly ablaze with russets and orange and gold. ‘Look what Madeleine Blais gave me. The other night. Isn’t it pretty?’
‘Beautiful.’ Despite myself, I finger the silk. I would like to bury my face in it.
‘She just took it off and gave it to me. Right there in front of the church. Because I said I liked it.’
‘That was very kind of her.’ My voice feels hoarse.
‘Yes. Very.’ Martine’s eyes grow blurry. ‘And then… It feels so strange. She was very beautiful,’ she adds with a note of defiance.
‘Did she look unhappy at all
?’ Contini asks quietly.
‘Oh no! Well maybe, just a little. Around the eyes.’
‘Hmmm. Did you see her leave?’
‘No. Maman dragged me away. It was cold.’
Contini puts some bills on the table.
‘I think she was wonderful,’ Martine murmurs as if she is still carrying on an argument with someone.
‘Learn anything?’ Detective Contini asks me as we cross the street.
I keep my eyes on the ground. ‘Not really. Nothing useful. You?’
‘A few things. None that make sense. Yet.’
In the car, he says casually. ‘Your brother didn’t like Madeleine Blais much?’
‘Not much.’ I can feel his eyes on my profile as I pull away and I add. ‘He thinks she got people worked up, excited. Frenzied. He prefers calm, as you can imagine. It’s better for the soul.’
He makes a sound which is neither negation nor acquiescence. He is looking round the streets, the few desultory shops, the garage by the bridge, the shiny funeral parlour where the cinema used to be, the smattering of passers-by.
When we stop at the traffic lights, he seems transfixed by the windows of the Bon Marché, the one remaining general store in town not yet to have succumbed to the competition of the shopping mall. The single mannequin with her out-of-date bob and bright unfocussed eyes wears a gold lamé dress. It hangs limp and too large over her pallid frame. Slung awkwardly over her extended arm is a matching purse and a mismatched shawl. At her feet a tubby Santa Claus slews shirts and pyjamas onto a cluttered floor.
The detective makes that sound again and I pull away quickly, veer into the Rue Turgeon with its row of what were once fine houses. I feel defensive, as if I don’t want Ste-Anne negatively judged by outsiders.
Maybe he senses that for he says, ‘Nice old porch, there.’
We drive past the new development of identikit duplexes where the younger people live. There is a skating rink here. Above the wooden frame, children’s hats bob, brightly coloured. A group are rolling a huge ball across the ground, the base of a snowman.
‘You haven’t got any?’ Contini asks me.
I shake my head. ‘You?’
‘Two. We considered a third, but my wife said she wanted to get back to work. Now she’s wondering. Heh, you know what the old gals told me,’ he says with no transition, ‘Madeleine Blais was busy signing autographs after mass. In front of the church. A whole crowd of local fans round her. Preening and smiling and sprawling against a shiny motorbike as if she were posing for some fashion magazine. Like some Jezebel, according to Mme Groulx. Apparently even young Père Gaucher wasn’t immune.’ He chuckles. ‘Are those old ladies reliable witnesses?’
‘They can more or less see what’s in front of them, I guess. I can’t vouch for the commentary.’
‘What about the motorbike?’
‘Don’t know. I’ve only ever seen Madeleine ride one in movies.’ I refuse the images which leap into my mind and focus on the road. We are in the countryside now, the roads slippery. ‘I doubt it was hers.’
‘Not likely to be the hitchhiker’s either. Old man Senegal is certain he saw her drive away in a silvery car.’
‘That would be hers. Was she alone?’
‘He couldn’t tell me that. Still, hardly the demeanour of a woman on the verge of suicide.’
‘No. But then she is an actress.’
‘Was.’ Contini corrects me. He is staring at my profile again. I can feel his eyes as acutely as if they were surgical probes.
‘Right,’ he says as we pull into the drive.’Time to check in and see what the boys and girls have come up with.’ He slides out of the car and then sticks his head back in. ‘By the way who stands to benefit from Madeleine’s death? She must be worth a few tidy pennies.’
The query flusters me. ‘I don’t know,’ I stammer.
‘She didn’t come to you for her will?’
I shake my head. ‘Madeleine never thought about such things. I can’t remember her ever mentioning…’
‘Come, come. A rich woman like that. Didn’t you advise her?’ His expression accuses me. He doesn’t believe me.
‘You can ask Mme Tremblay.’
‘Yes…’ He muses for a moment, then is suddenly in a hurry. ‘Right. If you see or hear anything, get in touch.’ He hands me a card. ‘And why don’t you make up a list for me. All the dark, pre-geriatric men in and around town who sometimes sport leather jackets and might have had a crush on Madeleine Blais. Or nurtured a grudge.’
‘I don’t think that would…’
‘Don’t think, Rousseau. Just do what I ask. And while you’re at it, note down any priests under your brother’s aegis who might have had or fancied a little fling with the great lady. It’s been known to happen. And that might account for your brother’s venom. Who knows what he’s heard!’ He gives me a wink and slams the door hard.
As he plunges towards his car, he turns back and waves. There is an odd little grin on his face. It may have taken the passage of years to tilt the balance. But now he knows he has the upper hand. Next time we meet I will remember exactly who he is.
4
_____
The house feels as bleak as a cemetery on a windy November night. Even the lights I switch on do nothing to dispel the gloom. Nor does the music.
There is only one place I want to be and I can’t allow myself that. Not now. Not yet. It is too unpredictable. There are things I cannot allow myself to think about.
Despite the earliness of the hour, I pour myself a hefty drink. My brother’s words mingled with Contini’s have insinuated themselves into my mind and set up an unstoppable babble. In my search for distraction, I half wish that I hadn’t prevented Maryla from coming back today, as she had wanted to. I stare at the telephone, wonder if I am going to ring her against my better judgement, when I notice the flickering of the light on the answering machine.
With a fierceness I don’t like in myself I prod the message button. Voices, even displaced ones, are better than echoes.
Janine Dupuis asks me to dinner, whenever I can manage. An open invitation. Her tone is soft, seductive, reeks sympathy. Perhaps she can help me, the way I helped her, she suggests.
Maryla masks her nervousness. She has only rung to see how I am, but if I’d like company, she could arrange to be free.
Danielle Leblanc, a sometime friend of Madeleine’s and myself has just heard the news. She wants to talk. Should she come and visit or will I drive up to Montréal and see her? Her voice fades into a murmur of condolence which is also an invitation.
I stop the cynicism which flickers through me. Over these last years of my apparent availablity, women have offered themselves to me at every opportunity. They seem to find me irresistible, my presence compelling, my meagre achievements Napoleonic.
I have come to realise that their desire is rarely specific. It is not directed at me but at that rare breed of which I form a part: reasonably attractive unattached men, in work, and approaching middle age with no visible scars.
Returning this diffuse desire is often difficult, since it owes little to chemistry. It is compounded of loneliness and fear. A fear that life is slipping irretrievably through one’s fingers.
The fact that I might prefer my solitude or even a solitary bed is incomprehensible to them. They are sad and angry by turn and both emotions seem to evoke cruelty. I don’t like this cruelty in myself. I have known too much of the kindness of women. Often I feel the lesser cruelty is to keep myself to myself.
The next voice is not a woman’s. Louis Debord, a friend from Le Devoir suggests we meet up and drown sorrows in whisky. His tone is frank, friendly. He offers comradeship. Eagerly I jot down the number he leaves. Even though I know journalists and their mixed motives too well, I tell myself Le Devoir has always been a serious paper. Serge is not interested in gossip.
When I hear Mme Tremblay’s voice, I realise this is the one I have been waiting for. She stumbles a little over
her words, as if there is someone in the room with her and she can’t say what she means. Yet her veiled urgency is clear. She wants to see me as soon as possible.
I don’t bother with the rest of the messages. I dash for the door without even rehearsing a diplomatic way of putting the questions my brother has so poisonously seeded. Only the sight of the spare housekeys hanging on a hook by the door’s side give me pause. The monogramed rectangle, another relic of my father’s time, is missing from the thick silver ring. Where could I have lost it? The memory of Contini’s casual query sidles into my mind. I prod it away. I have more important matters to consider.
Three cars are parked in Mme Tremblay’s drive. As I come close, a man leaps out of one of them and adjusts the lens of a camera. More journalists waiting to feed off Madeleine’s dead body. My one-time profession saddens me.
With a sharp twist, I pull off into the lane which leads towards the barn. Half way down it, I park and make my way through the trees to the side door of the house. From the kitchen, I can hear voices. I hesitate for a moment, then knock. Mme Tremblay’s outline is visible through the flowered curtain. She lifts a corner of it and peers out with the gestures of a woman under siege. When she recognizes me, she unbolts the door quickly.
‘Good of you to come straight away, Pierre.’ She touches my arm. She looks composed, her hair tightly coiled, her clothes neat. Only the pouches under her eyes and her trembling fingers betray her inner commotion.
Standing at the counter and pouring out tea is a figure I don’t recognize.
‘Mlle Solange,’ Mme Tremblay introduces me to a buxom black woman who smiles at me so brightly that the room seems to shed its mourning. ‘Dr Bertrand sent her. She’s been struggling to keep me in order. And to protect me from the vultures.’
The Dead of Winter Page 8