He stepped behind her and looked over her shoulder. He smelled of woodsmoke, and his breath was warm on her neck.
“My mother made it this way. Her oven was small and it never worked very well. See, you make the incisions and fill them with sliced garlic, then brown it in the olive oil with onions and add thyme and white wine. Then it cooks slowly, for about half an hour. But of course, you must never overcook it. That’s the mistake people make in this country.” Liliane was talking faster than usual, a nervous habit.
He inhaled deeply, and when he did his belt buckle grazed her ribs.
“One Scotch on the rocks,” Pip announced from the doorway. He stopped when he caught sight of his mother and looked questioningly at George.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll get right on it,” George said. He crossed the kitchen and opened the bottle on the counter.
Pip delivered the cocktail, then came straight back and took a seat at the kitchen table, sipping his ginger ale until dinner was served in the dining room.
* * *
Two hours later dessert was a guilty memory, both wine bottles lay empty, the children were upstairs in bed, and Caspar was dozing by the fire in Mason’s favorite armchair, the top button of his pants undone, the occasional snore gurgling up through his open mouth. In the kitchen, George washed the dishes while Liliane dried and put them away. He worked methodically, starting with the glasses, then moving on to the plates and utensils before tackling the pots and pans. Just the way I do it, she thought.
When the dishes were done, he replaced the heavy serving pieces on the top shelf and carried the trash out to the garage. While she rinsed the sink, Liliane watched George walk back to the house. He was even taller than Mason, lanky where her husband was broad, scruffy instead of clean-shaven. Mason was fastidious about his appearance, but George stopped just short of slovenly; she wondered how he’d look with a decent suit and haircut.
Two snifters waited on the kitchen table where she and George sat down to avoid disturbing Caspar. He asked how Mason was related to Cap, apparently confused by the fact that the kids called him uncle. They spoke in low tones, Liliane in French and George slipping back into English when he couldn’t find the right word.
“I think it must be a French custom. I can’t have them calling him by his first name, but he’s like family, so ‘Mr. Titcomb’ isn’t right either. They call him uncle, a compromise.”
“He’s a good uncle.”
“I think Mason decided to build our house here, because he knew Caspar would be near when he was at sea. If you look out the window, you can see the path through the woods that leads to his house. In the winter, when the trees are bare, his porch light shines through at night. See?”
“It must be difficult for you to be alone so much. Annie told me that the happiest day of their marriage was when Cap unpacked his sea bag for the last time.”
George was looking at her a little too intently, and she turned away, picking an imaginary piece of lint from her sweater.
“It’s hard in winter. Summer, too, I suppose, but not as much. We have a garden, and my family visits, so that helps. I think maybe next summer I’ll take the children to France if Mason’s away during the school vacation. So they can practice their French, you know?”
Until that moment, Liliane hadn’t even considered the possibility, and she was as surprised by the thought as she was by her own words. She said, “I’ve heard Annie was very sweet. She died just a few years after Cap retired, no?”
“She was and she did.”
“How sad. And you never married?” Liliane hadn’t intended to ask, but the question seemed to form itself in her mouth and push its way past her teeth all on its own. “Excuse me, that’s very personal. I’m sorry.”
George sat back in his chair, and in the low light Liliane thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of that hard look again. The navy may have rounded his edges, but there was flint beneath the exterior. He said, “No need to apologize. I was married. Years ago and not for long. My fault. I didn’t turn out to be much of a husband. Or father. My daughter’s thirteen now. Her mother remarried a long time ago. A teacher. They’re down in Connecticut.”
“Do you see her often?”
“Not as much as I’d like. You know, I was gone a lot when she was little, and now…”
He was looking out the window at Cap’s porch light, his right hand on the snifter, stopped in mid-swirl.
“So, you served with Cap?”
He nodded. “He was my first commanding officer, mopping up in the Pacific in ’45. I was green as summer grass, so he looked out for me. I was the only other Mainer onboard.”
George leaned over to light Liliane’s raised cigarette. She wrapped her left palm around his knuckles as he proffered the lighter. His skin was rough, the back of his hand very warm.
“Thank you,” she said, and removed her hand.
“I’m looking forward to meeting Mason. When’s he due in?”
“Two months, more or less.”
“When he gets back, I’ll ask Cap to throw a party—my cottage is too small—and I’ll make cassoulet. It’s my specialty. I’m sure the old coot would host if you’d bring cake.”
“That sounds nice. Mason loves cassoulet, but I never make it. Without the duck fat and the sausage, it’s not right.”
“Well, he’s a lucky man, duck fat or no.”
The silence hung in the smoke between them. George leaned forward in his chair.
“So, Saint-Rimay. It must have been difficult being in the occupied zone during the war. I found the town on my map, a Nazi command center, right?”
“The Germans took over everything, including my father’s garage. By the time they arrived, he was already dead. At the Battle of Sedan, he was a mechanic.…”
“Hell of a thing.”
“Yes, but we were lucky to have the garage; it was something the Germans wanted. So we ate when others didn’t. It was difficult, but it seems long ago. And now here I am in the land of opportunity, where the streets are paved with … ice.” She forced a smile.
“Funny how things turn out,” he said.
She nodded.
“But you couldn’t have served during the war. Weren’t you too young?” she asked.
“I enlisted just before I turned seventeen. The war in Europe was over and they dropped the bombs on Japan before I finished training. I saw action in Korea, though, on a destroyer at Incheon, some other places.”
“It must have been terrible, being there.”
His focus seemed to slip. “Yeah, but after a while you get used to the fighting. Familiar with it. Then one day, it’s gone and you miss it. Need it. After Korea I started boxing. I wasn’t bad, but one day I realized I looked at my gloves the way a drunk looks at a bottle. I never picked them up again. Decided to get out as soon as my twenty years were up.”
“Why did you join so young?”
He took a deep breath and stroked his beard, running his index finger along a scar on his cheek. Liliane hadn’t noticed it before. He said, “Long story. My parents were … well, I don’t know what they were, but let’s just say there wasn’t much keeping me at home. I wanted to see the world, thought it would be like in books. It was, but it wasn’t. Do you understand?”
Liliane nodded. “And now here you are. Why Wellbridge?”
“My father grew up here—his mother was a Martin. They go back a ways, to Canadian fur trappers, 1700s I think. I never knew his family, but Cap said there were still lots of Martins around. Guess I wanted to see what he ran away from.” He smiled without looking happy. “And of course Cap was here. The man’s been like a father to me.”
“He’s family to us both, then,” she said.
George picked up the bottle of cognac, inclined his head to ask if she’d like more. In the living room Caspar gave a huge grating snore. She shook her head.
Neither of them moved; Liliane was barely breathing, waiting. George said, “Well, I should get the ol
d man home before he brings your roof down,” but made no move toward the living room.
“Of course, it’s late. I’ll get the coats.”
Liliane exhaled. She felt as if she’d been holding the breath for days. The moment evaporated, and George stood. Without looking at him, Liliane walked to the bedroom. She bent over the bed to collect the anoraks; George passed by the door. He paused only a second, as if he were going to speak, but Liliane turned away and busied herself sorting the scarves and gloves.
* * *
Dreading her in-laws’ party seemed to make it come around all the faster, and as Liliane finished her face, she entertained idle thoughts of last-minute emergencies, convenient fevers, and dead car batteries. She could see the snow falling in purposeful diagonals outside the bathroom window, and she thought of Mason in some warm-weather port or the middle of the ocean, close enough to the equator to be sunbathing on deck. She wondered why she hadn’t heard from him yet. He called almost every Saturday, usually about this time to catch the kids while they were still awake.
She stepped into her dress. The silk lining slid up and the soft navy wool wrapped her in a cozy embrace; it fit perfectly, not too tight. Her mother’s dress form was exactly her size, and twice a year Madame Bertrand used it to make something special for her absent daughter, always according to the latest trends from Paris. Liliane hadn’t worn this one yet. It arrived at Christmas and would be perfect for dinner. She reached around and pulled the zipper up to the middle of her back. Agnes could finish it when she arrived. Looking in the mirror, she decided the effect was a bit severe, so she added a silver swallow brooch Mason had bought during a stopover in Buenos Aires.
The jangle of the telephone interrupted her reverie, and though she would be happy to hear Mason’s voice, she hoped it was Edith calling to cancel at the last minute. When she picked up the receiver, the familiar crackle of the ship-to-shore radio came through the wire.
“Lil, can you hear me?” Mason shouted.
“Yes, Mason! I was thinking of you. Like always. Where are you, chéri?”
“Gulf of Guinea, off Cameroon. About six days out of port. How are you and the kids? Everyone all right?”
“Everybody’s fine, but we are wishing for you to be with us.”
“I know. I miss you guys, too. Listen, Lil, something’s come up. I got offered an extra trip on the end of this one. Perishable cargo—about a month. I hate to tell you we’re extending, but the money’s good and we could use it for the pound this summer.… Lil? You still there?”
In the seconds it had taken Mason to explain, Liliane’s posture had slumped from an expectant letter I to a deflated C. Her forehead was pressed against the refrigerator, her eyes closed. She was doing the math. Ninety more days alone under the gray sky with no husband in the house and the children in her bed. Philip’s seventh birthday would come and go, the snow would give way to mud, and by Mason’s return, she would have spent another empty white winter alone. He had a choice and he made it.
“Liliane, are you okay? Listen, honey, I’ll write you with the dates. I’m sorry. Lil, say something.”
“Say hello to the kids, Mason. They’re waiting for you.”
Philip and Suzanne were already standing in the kitchen doorway, bouncing on their toes. Their father’s call was their weekly treat. She handed the phone to her son and crossed the kitchen to the sink. With her back turned as if she were looking out the window, she composed her features while the children yammered. Outside, the night was thick and black, the wet snow still coming down, the tree branches bowed under the weight of it.
“Maman, Daddy wants you.”
She turned around, smiled at the beaming children, and took the receiver from her daughter’s fat little hand.
“I have to go now, Mason. There’s a party at your mother house, they are expecting me. I have to go.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Kiss the kids for me, and say hi to everybody. I’ll call you next week. Have fun at the party. I’m sorry, Lil. I’m sorry. Bye-bye.”
The line went dead; the drone of the dial tone replaced the hiss of the radio. Liliane removed the phone from her ear and stood staring at it. To the dead receiver, she muttered, “Have fun, Liliane. Thank you, Mason my love, but I have other plans.”
“What did you say, Maman?” Philip asked, his forehead wrinkled under the tumble of curls.
“Absolument rien. Nothing. Alors, you can finish your show before Agnes will arrive. Allez, tous les deux.”
Suzanne trotted back to the living room, but Philip stayed put, staring at Liliane with his father’s sad eyes. Twice he asked when Mason would be home. When she didn’t answer, he asked a third time, this time whining and stomping his foot. Before she knew what she was doing, Liliane slapped her son, hard, just once across the face.
“Be the man of the house, not the baby,” she spat at him.
Tears welled in the boy’s eyes, now wide with shock, and he turned and ran from the room. His footsteps pounded up the stairs and his bedroom door slammed. Liliane knew she should follow her son, apologize, and gather him in her arms, but he looked so much like Mason, she couldn’t bear to touch him or even look at him.
Ten minutes later, Agnes’s truck ground down the drive to pick up the kids. They loved sleeping over at her house because her kitchen had a hard-packed dirt floor. They said it smelled like camping, and she always gave them homemade doughnuts for breakfast. It occurred to Liliane that her children were probably better off at Agnes’s place than with her just then, and after muttering something about a tantrum, no mention of whose, she asked Agnes to raise her zipper, then pulled on her snow boots and coat, picked up the dish for the buffet, and stepped into the dark.
* * *
Liliane hated driving in the snow and had never gotten used to it. The studded tires made the car awkward to handle, but at least they gave her some sense of security behind the wheel. The melting snow glittered on the windscreen for a split second before it dissolved under the wiper blades. Usually she drove with the radio on for company, but tonight she preferred the silence.
She loved Mason, but she had no illusions about him. He was a good husband and father when he was home, but he was gone half of the year, and what man wouldn’t give in to temptation after months at sea? Her husband was above all a physical being, a smooth talker who preferred to avoid deep or difficult subjects, a lover, not a fighter, he liked to say. They’d never discussed it, but there were bound to be women. She’d spent enough time in port cities to know that. And not for the first time, she wondered whether she was anything more to her husband than a shiny souvenir he’d brought home from abroad.
She swung the car into her in-laws’ driveway, and her thoughts turned from Mason to his family. As far as they were concerned, he could do no wrong. With his education and big job, Mason was the golden goose whose income propped up the lobster business they’d always wanted. So what if the financial demands of keeping the boats and the pound afloat took him away from his wife and children? In the darkness she laughed at the thought. The wind had picked up, driving daggers of ice into the windscreen. She killed the engine, stubbed out her cigarette, and stepped back out into the sleet.
When Liliane arrived in the living room, the air was chewy with cigarette smoke, body heat, and the anticipation of a second, or in some cases a third, pre-dinner drink. She left her boots in the hall with all the others, stepped into her shoes, picked her way through the crowd of umbrella-shaped, pastel party dresses and skinny ties clipped to sweaty white shirts, and placed her platter of green-bean-and-beet salad on the table next to the vats of sauced meat in warming trays. Because the beans were thick and tough, she’d had to spend an hour frenching them before cooking, and now the tender strands, wound around the bloody slices of beet, looked to her as if they’d been tortured to death, heaped in a mass grave, and left for carrion. Most of the other things on the table looked worse.
From across the room, her sister-in-law, Margery, wav
ed her over, sending a shower of cigarette ash onto the head of Henry Baines.
“Lil, come say hello to Pop!” she called.
Liliane crossed to the sofa where her rheumy-eyed father-in-law was sprawled next to Eldridge, an old-fashioned resting on his paunch. One look at Eldridge’s flushed cheeks told Liliane he and his father had started the party well before the first guest had arrived.
“What a pretty dress, Lillian. It must be from France. I guess hems are going up this year. Is it new?”
“A gift from my mother. And you always look so nice in pink, Margery.”
“This old thing? It’s hardly fit for scrubbing the floor, but my kids come first, you know.”
Over a mock pout Margery complained that her children missed their little cousins and offered her girls’ babysitting services, but Liliane knew enough to stay away from the subject of sleepovers; it was a familiar dance. “You are very kind, Margery, but the house is so empty without them—maybe when Mason will get back.”
At the mention of his son’s name, Henry broke the surface of his stupor.
“Heard you talked with the boy ship to shore last week,” he said, slurring only slightly.
Liliane filled him in on the current cruise but couldn’t bring herself to mention the extension. She excused herself on the pretext of checking to see if Edith needed a hand.
“She says she’s got it under control,” Margery said, then stood and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ll bet she’s back there sneaking pepper into everything. She always does. It’s a good thing I wrapped my cake, or she’d probably try to spice that up, too.”
Liliane made a small cluck and moved away to cut off Margery’s complaints.
The kitchen was annexed onto the back of the rambling saltwater farmhouse where the Baines family had lived for more than a hundred years. The only heat came from a small black woodstove that squatted incongruously next to an enormous white electric range. Besides the refrigerator, it was the sole modern convenience. Cold water had to be pumped into the slate sink, there were no cupboards on the mustard-colored walls, and the light glared down from a lone bare bulb on the ceiling. The linoleum floor sat directly on top of hard-packed earth, which gave the room a dank, musty smell. Liliane hated it here; this was Edith’s realm.
The Northern Reach Page 9