Love & Death in Burgundy

by Susan C. Shea

  “You just told me the police don’t believe that’s likely. Everyone piles on about Gypsies whenever there’s trouble,” he said, rolling a cigarillo around in his mouth with enough force to make Katherine wonder if it would end up in tatters, “but I’ve never even seen Roma or Spanish Gypsies here, have you? And the French ones, what do you call them—gens de voyages?—you’d know if they were camping nearby. Jeannette’s father is the sticky-fingered one around here.”

  They were at the riverbank by the time Michael had finished his rant. Not that he was wrong, but some topics agitated him so much that Katherine tried to avoid them. Injustice for Gypsies was one of them. She picked up a small rock and tossed it in, a habit from childhood. As the ripples spread, she was distracted by how she would paint them glistening in the sluggishly moving water, and by the urge to do a painting set right on this bank at the end of the day, perhaps with golden sunlight slanting in among the trees. And a girl sitting at the water’s edge in a long skirt, dabbling her fingers in it. Jeannette would model, of course. She’d catch up with the girl in the morning and set a time for a modeling session.

  “I think Penny suspects Yves. Listen, Michael. When Penny told Emile and me that Yves was in Paris, Emile said that couldn’t be true because he’d seen him in Chablis. What if Emile was right?”

  “Emile is hardly the most observant guy in the world. But even if Yves wasn’t in Paris, it doesn’t mean he was at the castle. He might have another girlfriend.”

  Katherine gasped. “Does he?”

  “I don’t know, but the man’s always looking to be the center of attention. Maybe he found someone who gives him more than Penny or that sad-looking daughter of Albert’s.”

  “Penny doesn’t give him much more than attention,” Katherine said with a small laugh. “I think she’s still dangling the promise of sex.”

  Michael snorted. “That only works for young kids. If she really is holding out, that makes my idea even more likely. Let’s let the cops figure this out, if it’s anything other than the most likely reason for Albert’s death. You’ll only get burned if you try to influence the investigation.” To soften his words, he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe you and that writer should get together and solve a pretend mystery.”

  She laughed. “Poor girl, she doesn’t get any respect around here, does she? I think I will invite her over for tea. No,” she said when Michael raised an eyebrow, “not to figure out whodunit about Albert, but to talk with another Reigny outcast and see how she handles it. Although, I think she doesn’t handle it at all, simply doesn’t care as much as I do.”

  “There’s a lesson for you, Kay. Sometimes you care too much.”

  “Michael, darling,” she said, staring at the water and changing the topic to one that was pressing on her even more than the drama in Reigny. “If J.B. is able to get a tour set up for the new album, you will go, won’t you? I mean, you really wouldn’t let the opportunity slip past?”

  “First off, he’s a big talker. So far, we don’t have ten songs I think anyone would pay to hear us sing. And let’s be real. Betty Lou might have a fan base of old hippies who’d come out for her, but me? I’m an unknown, I sing ballads, I’m no Mick Jagger, ready to prance around in tight pants.”

  She grinned lasciviously, but said, “No one would expect that. James Taylor’s no Jagger either, and you’re as good as he is.”

  “Maybe, but people have been listening to Taylor for a few decades. It would be ‘Michael who?’ and I don’t relish sitting in front of a bunch of empty chairs.” He called the dogs abruptly and started walking. Katherine had to trot to keep up with him.

  “J.B. says a lot of people will remember the early days of the Crazy Leopards, and he said he found some old photos you’re in. Plus, the songs you wrote are famous.”

  “Kay, you’re forgetting that part of the deal that gave us the stake to move here was my signing a paper saying I wouldn’t perform either song.”

  “But J.B. says he’ll get a lawyer to fix that. Didn’t he say something about it being easy to challenge?”

  “J.B. is a wheeler-dealer. He’d say anything to get what he wants.”

  “He wants you to make some money, for heaven’s sake. And you know we need it. I’m afraid to think about what happens to us when the settlement money is gone. This is our chance—your chance, Michael.”

  “I know we could use the money. I agreed to work on an album, didn’t I? J.B. can promote it any way he wants.” His voice tightened. “Maybe if there’s some interest, well, we’ll see about a trip to the States. Wait ’til we have something worth putting out there, though.”

  Katherine had to be content with that. He hadn’t said no. She was daydreaming of repairs to her little studio as she climbed into bed.

  CHAPTER 15

  Jeannette was late, of course. Katherine had told her specifically that she wanted to catch the late-afternoon light for the first couple of drawings, the color sketches that would help her decide the composition of the new painting. Doing one at the quiet riverbank, with its deep green grasses and the rich bark of the horse chestnut trees was an inspired idea, and she itched to get started. She had dug out a skirt of some stiff old cotton that Jeannette could slip on over her habitual shorts as she sat. The billowing fabric and Jeannette’s flyaway curls would make such a lovely contrast to the stillness of the setting. But it was already a half hour later and the light wasn’t coming into the glade at the perfect angle.

  She turned as she heard footsteps. “Ah, there you are, child,” she began, then stopped as the stern face of Mme Pomfort came into view. “You startled me,” she said with a short laugh. “I have asked Jeannette to model for me and I thought I heard her.”

  “Model?” The way she said it made Katherine nervous. Surely the old woman didn’t think Katherine was going to ask Jeannette to take off her clothes?

  She jumped up from her stool to explain, holding out the skirt. “As an eighteenth-century shepherdess, you see. Isn’t this pretty? I found it at a brocante last year. I love the old rose color.”

  “Why you encourage that child, I cannot understand,” Mme Pomfort said, standing with her feet apart and her hands clasped in front of her torso. “She is a thief. She will come to no good. No one in that family ever does.”

  “She’s only a child,” Katherine said, smiling to soften the fact that she wasn’t agreeing with the town’s arbiter of acceptance. “She needs some good examples, people like you, for example, to show her how to behave.”

  “Nonsense. She is already throwing herself at that nasty American boy, and only the other day trampled my geranium plants with her bicycle and rode away when I called out to her. She is of bad stock. Those boys are ruffians already. I know they steal my beans and tomatoes. And her father, well, no one speaks to him unless it is to try and recover something he has stolen. You should not encourage her,” she said again.

  Katherine fiddled with her pastels. She had already set out a handful of the colors she wanted to use. What should she say? It appeared Mme Pomfort was waiting, would wait as long as it took, perhaps for Katherine to pack up and retreat back to America, leaving the village to itself. At that moment, sounds of raised voices reached into the concavity of the river’s edge, followed immediately by a sprinting Jeannette, two of her youngest brothers and, bringing up the rear, Jean, the father, dressed in dusty pants and a sleeveless undershirt, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

  “Bonjour, Madame,” Jeannette called out as she skidded to a halt next to Katherine and quickly kissed her cheeks. She looked sideways at Mme Pomfort but made no other move to acknowledge her.

  “Hey, Madame,” Jean said in a rough voice, taking the cigarette out and waving it, “je jeux vous parler.” He took a few sliding steps down the side of the gully as he spoke, and jabbed his finger in her direction.

  “You want to talk to me?” Katherine said, confused, thrusting the costume skirt at the teena
ger, and instinctively gathering the expensive pastels as the little boys crowded up to her, chattering to each other and reaching for her large pad of paper.

  “What you want with my girl, eh? You want her to pose for you, you must pay.” He swaggered close enough that Katherine could smell his sweat and the wine on his breath. “What kind of posing? No clothes? I don’t like that for my girl.”

  “No,” Katherine said, as much to the little boys who were trying to pull out sheets of her expensive paper as to the father. Jeannette was grinning at everything and nothing and pulling the skirt up over her hips. Mme Pomfort was standing like a stone. “No, I mean, yes, certainly with clothes on, like she did for the last painting. She was a shepherdess in that one too.” She realized Jean had probably not seen the painting, which was still on an easel in the studio while she decided if it was finished. “Boys, here,” she said, snapping a precious pastel crayon in two and handing a piece to each along with half a sheet of the precious paper, not sure how else to quiet their manic attack on her art supplies. “Go over there and draw the tall yellow flowers.”

  Mme Pomfort now stirred. “You see, Mme Goff? To get along here, you must not ally yourself with these … these people.” She glared at Jean, who seemed to see her for the first time. Because she was speaking in rapid French, Jean could not miss the insult.

  “Ah, it’s you, Madame. I heard that you told Emile I stole his garden tools. You are a troublemaker, you know?” He advanced on her, shaking the fist in which he held the cigarette, as he denounced her as a busybody. “You would do well not to slander me that way, if you get my meaning.”

  The old woman drew herself up as tall as she could, standing her ground as solidly as a boulder, staring him straight in the eye. Even though Katherine couldn’t be completely sure because the two were speaking so fast, she was confident insults were being traded at machine-gun speed. When she noticed that the corners of Mme Pomfort’s closed mouth had turned so far down they made the shape of a crescent moon, Katherine decided the doyenne of Reigny society was winning, and she wasn’t surprised that it was Jean who backed off marginally.

  “You are a disgrace, you and your family,” Mme Pomfort hissed, “and no one around here will have anything to do with you, you understand?” She turned to glare at Katherine. “Prennez-garde, Madame.” Then, having warned Katherine to watch out for her disreputable neighbor, she spun on her heel and marched up the slope, leaving silence behind.

  Jeannette peered at the departing woman with watchful eyes and a thoughtful expression, then shrugged the rest of the way into the skirt, which covered her down to the ankle. The little boys paid no attention, being thoroughly engaged in trying to fold their drawing paper into boats. Even Jean was silent for a beat before turning back to Katherine.

  The gist of his demand seemed to be that Jeannette was missed at home and that he, Jean, couldn’t work if she wasn’t there to take care of the boys. Since the boys in question were more likely to be nosing around the mairie, the village’s business office, or trying to steal candy from the café’s meager display than to be sitting at home, Katherine wasn’t moved. She had a hunch any money he managed to wrest from her would get spent on wine the same day. When Jean saw that she wasn’t going to cave easily, he called his brood and demanded they all go home. The boys went easily, laughing and knocking into each other, waving their pastels like the spoils of war. Jeannette said something fast to her father, who shouted at her but left without repeating his order.

  “Well, cherie,” said Katherine in the quiet that followed. “I don’t know about you, but my bucolic mood is gone for today. I’ll take the skirt back—yes, I’ll bring it next time we try this—but today’s not a day for painting, desolée. Tell you what, though,” she said as she folded the travel easel and slipped the pad of paper and box of pastels into it, “I would be glad to pay you a model’s hourly rate. It’s quite small, the trouble for models through the ages, but if I give you euros, can you keep them for your schoolbooks or clothing?”

  The girl’s assurances burst out and she danced ahead of Katherine up to the road, her face alight with excitement. It saddened Katherine to know that the girl’s future was laid out for her in such a negative way by the tiny society of Reigny-sur-Canne. It bothered her even more to know she, Katherine, was already bending to Mme Pomfort’s will in thinking to herself that she would arrange her small support for the girl so no one else knew about it.

  * * *

  As she trudged up the garden path and toward her little studio building, a leaky nineteenth-century add-on to the main house that had been a shed before she claimed it for her work, Katherine heard a woman’s voice coming from her living room. Adele, perhaps come to find sympathetic company? No, she heard a throaty chuckle. Betty Lou, then, which made sense since locals never paid an impromptu call on her. Still outsiders after three years, and now Mme Pomfort would be watching to make sure she cut her ties with Jeannette.

  As she dumped her art supplies and made her way back to the house, she realized Adele hadn’t called with updates about Albert’s death, or even news of a funeral date. Adele wasn’t much of a friend, in all honesty. Why had she called, then, when she was so upset?

  Michael was sitting in the wooden chair he always occupied in the crowded living room, where he played for hours on end. Sometimes Katherine thought he was singing to pacify the universe, an endless lullaby to keep it from crashing down on their heads in case the money ran out or one of them became too homesick to continue in a foreign land where everything except lying low cost too much money. They had agreed that as long as they owned their little house outright and didn’t eat at restaurants they could make do here a lot better than in California. So they had persevered, stretching his settlement money as far as they could, short of making the dogs give up their bones. She wondered if that accounted for the sad, fretful tune he was playing and that Betty Lou was humming.

  “Kathy.” Betty Lou stopped when Katherine came into the room, and boomed at her. “This insanely talented husband of yours was telling me you’re having a show at a gallery next week in that place with the steep hill and the drop-dead gorgeous church at the top. We were over there the other day looking for some vineyard that was written up in J.B.’s wine magazine, but got lost, I swear for the third time in a week. All these little back roads are pretty as can be, but they do look the same, don’t they? Anyway, that’s fantastic. Two stars in one family. We’ll come to the opening, wouldn’t miss it.” She beamed up at Katherine from the chaise into which Katherine had intended to collapse.

  “Thanks,” Katherine said. “Vézelay has a fascinating religious history, with lots of church politics mixed in. But the gallery is way up the cobblestone street and I live in fear no one will trudge up the hill, and I’ll be forced to consume an entire case of wine and all the pâté we’re bringing.” She laughed to cover up the truth of her words.

  “You’re both amazing,” Betty Lou said, shaking her head.

  “I don’t know about that,” Katherine said, bending to give Betty Lou the traditional French greeting before realizing the singer didn’t understand what she was doing. “May I get you something?” she said.

  “No, I have to go. I thought I’d say hi while J.B. went to get a newspaper at your café. I want to tell Mike that J.B. thinks we’re ready to record the first couple of songs. We’ll lay down some tracks and let my genius husband tinker with them to see how they come out. I’m feeling real good about how it’s coming along. This new song of Michael’s is dynamite. I’m thinking we should postpone our little trip to the Riviera long enough to capture the good stuff while the energy’s still there, you know?”

  Michael hadn’t said anything about energy, or the Hollidays leaving, so she only smiled and wheeled back to the kitchen. Yes, five ten, cocktail time. The small glasses were dirty so she took a larger one and filled it, hoping it wouldn’t attract Michael’s attention. Hell with that. She’d had run-ins with two of Reigny’s nastier
people in a short time while he was up here singing away with his new musical partner.

  Thirty minutes later, Betty Lou waved as she pulled out of the driveway and Michael sat on the patio rather than go back into the stuffy room, where vintage damask drapes made it snug in winter but sweltering in July. Katherine reclaimed her upholstered chaise and tried to let the day’s frustrations slip out of her tense body. No painting done, run-ins with the neighbors she had seen, and no contact with the few who did include her. Of course Penny wasn’t really a resident, and would fly off when the nights got longer and the need for company was greater. When Penny wasn’t here, Yves didn’t visit or include them in any social activities, assuming he had any in Reigny.

  Emile, bless his pointy little head, dropped by now and then, usually in a state of upset over something. The mail truck had run over his rock garden, the mayor had threatened to shut down the pétanque court if the players couldn’t control their noisy arguments. Reminded of Emile, she pulled herself up and went outside, where Michael was strumming softly and chewing on his cigarillo.

  “Darling, all this distraction about Albert made me forget about Emile’s intention of playing rock music with you at the Reigny fête. Has he talked with you yet?”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Well, that’s easy to say, but have you said it to him? He’s going to be massively disappointed, you know. Maybe one number, to be neighborly?”

  “If he asks, I’ll tell him. He’ll be wanting to sing, too, and you know he can’t hold a note.”

  “I do know,” she said, remembering Emile’s voice ringing out at the Christmas program in the little church, not merely off-key but always too slow or too fast, or both. “Poor Emile, he must have a role, and he does have his heart set on sharing the stage with the famous Michael Goff.”

  “I’ll talk with him if he comes to me about it. I promise to be nice. Doesn’t he play the accordion? Maybe he can do some French cabaret songs.”