And Paul was willing, had been so from the first moment he'd met Mr. Guy. Twelve years old at the time, a skinny kid in his older brother's clothes which would soon enough be handed down to the next brother in line, Paul had shaken the hand of the gentleman in jeans, and all he'd been able to say at the time was “White, that” as he stared with abject admiration at the pristine condition of the T-shirt that Mr. Guy wore beneath his perfect V-necked navy sweater. Then he flushed so hotly that he thought he'd faint. Stupid stupid, the voices shrieked in his head. As sharp as a tack without a point and just about as useful, you are, Paulie.
But Mr. Guy knew exactly what Paul was talking about. He'd said, It's not my doing, this. It's down to Valerie. She does the laundry. Last of her kind, she is. A real housewife. Not mine, unfortunately. She's spoken for by Kevin. You'll meet them both when you come to Le Reposoir. That is, if you want to. What d'you think? Shall we try each other out?
Paul didn't know how to reply. His third-form teacher had sat him down in advance and explained the special programme to him—adults from the community doing something with kids—but he hadn't listened as well as he might have done because he'd been distracted by a gold filling in the woman's mouth. It was close to the front and when she spoke, it glittered in the overhead lights in the classroom. He kept trying to see if there were more. He kept wondering how much her mouth was worth.
So when Mr. Guy talked about Le Reposoir and Valerie and Kevin—as well as his baby sister, Ruth, whom Paul had actually expected to be a baby when he finally met her—Paul took it all in and nodded because he knew that he was supposed to nod and he always did what he was supposed to do because to do anything else sent him directly into panic and confusion. Thus, Mr. Guy became his mate and together they embarked upon their friendship.
This consisted mostly of messing about together on Mr. Guy's estate, because aside from fishing, swimming, and walking the cliff paths, there wasn't much else for two blokes to do on Guernsey. Or at least that had been the case until they'd begun the museum project.
But the museum project needed to be dismissed from his mind. Not to do that meant to relive those moments alone with Mr. Ouseley's shouting. So instead, he plodded over to the pond where he and Mr. Guy had been rebuilding the winter shelter for the ducks.
There were only three of them left now: one male and two females. The others were dead. Paul had come upon Mr. Guy burying their broken and bloody bodies one morning, innocent victims of a vicious dog. Or of someone's malice. Mr. Guy had stopped Paul from looking at them closely. He'd said, Stay there, Paul, keep Taboo away, too. And as Paul watched, Mr. Guy had buried each poor bird in a separate grave that he himself dug, saying, Damn. God. The waste, the waste.
There were twelve of them, sixteen ducklings as well, each with a grave and each grave marked, set round with stones and headed by a cross and the entire duck graveyard fenced off officially. We honour God's creatures, Mr. Guy had told him. It behooves us to remember we're just one of them ourselves.
Taboo had to be taught this, however, and teaching him to honour God's ducks had been something of a serious project for Paul. But Mr. Guy promised that patience would pay off and so it had done. Taboo was now gentle as a lamb in a dream with the three ducks that remained, and this morning they might have not been at the pond at all for the degree of indifference the dog showed them. He trotted off to investigate the smells among the stand of reeds that grew near a footbridge which spanned the water. For his part, Paul took his burden to the east side of the pond, where he and Mr. Guy had been working.
Along with the duck murders, the winter shelters for the birds had been destroyed. These were what Paul and his mentor had been re-building in the days preceding Mr. Guy's death.
Over time Paul had come to understand that Mr. Guy was trying him out on one project or another in an effort to see what he was suited for in life. He'd wanted to tell him that carpentry, brick laying, tiles setting, and painting were all fine and well but not exactly what led one into becoming an RAF fighter pilot. But he'd been reluctant to admit to that dream aloud. So he'd happily cooperated with every project presented him. If nothing else, the hours he spent at Le Reposoir were hours away from home, and that escape was fine by him.
He dropped the wood and the tools a short distance from the water and he shrugged out of his rucksack as well. He made sure Taboo was still within sight before he opened the tool case and studied its contents, trying to remember the exact order in which Mr. Guy had instructed him when building something. The boards were cut. That was good. He wasn't much use with a saw. He reckoned the nailing part came next. The only question was what got nailed to where.
He spied a folded sheet of paper beneath a carton of nails, and he remembered the sketches Mr. Guy had made. He reached for this and unfolded it on the ground, kneeling over it to study the plans.
Large A circled meant here's where you begin. Large B circled meant do this next. Large C circled was what followed B and so forth till the shelter was made. As easy as easy could be, Paul thought. He sorted through the wood to find the pieces that corresponded to the letters on the drawing.
This was a problem, though. For the timber pieces had no letters scrawled on them. They had numbers instead, and although there were also numbers on the drawing, some of these numbers were the same as others and all of them had fractions as well and Paul had been an utter disaster at fractions: He couldn't ever sort out what the top number meant to the bottom. He knew it had something to do with dividing. Top into bottom or bottom into top, depending on the least common nomination or something like that. But looking at the numbers made his head swim and brought to mind excruciating trips to the chalk board with the teacher demanding that he for heaven's sake just reduce the fraction, Paul. No no. The numeration and nomination will change when you divide them properly, you stupid stupid boy.
Laughter, laughter. Thick as shoe leather. Paulie Fielder. Brains of a cow.
Paul stared at the numbers, and he went on staring till they swam away. Then he grabbed the paper and crumpled it up. Useless, looseless, goose of a git. Oh, tha's it, cry, li'tle nancy pantsy prick. Bet I know wha' you're crying 'bout, I do.
“Ah. There you are.”
Paul swung round at the sound. Valerie Duffy was coming along the path from the house, her long wool skirt catching against the fern fronds on the way. She was carrying something folded neatly across her palms. As Valerie drew near, Paul saw it was a shirt.
“Hello, Paul,” Valerie Duffy said with the sort of good cheer that sounded deliberate. “Where's your four-legged mate this morning?” And as Taboo came bounding round the pond's edge, barking his greeting, she went on with “There you are, Tab. Why didn't you stop for a visit in the kitchen?”
She asked the question of Taboo, but Paul knew she really meant it for him. It was how she often communicated with him. Valerie liked to make her remarks to the dog. She continued to do so now, saying, “We've got the funeral tomorrow morning, Tab, and I'm sorry to say that dogs aren't allowed in church. But if Mr. Brouard was having his say, you'd be there, love. Ducks would, too. I hope our Paul's going, though. Mr. Brouard would've wanted him there.”
Paul looked down at his scruffy clothes and knew he couldn't go to a funeral, no matter what. He hadn't the proper kit and even if he had, no one had told him the funeral was tomorrow. Why? he wondered.
Valerie said, “I phoned over to the Bouet yesterday and spoke to our Paul's brother about the funeral, Tab. But here's what I think: Billy Fielder didn't ever give him the message. Well, I should have known, Billy being Billy. I should've phoned again till I got hold of Paul or his mum or his dad. Still, Taboo, I'm glad you've brought Paul by to see us, 'cause now he knows.”
Paul wiped his hands on the sides of his jeans. He hung his head and shuffled his feet in the sandy earth at the edge of the pond. He thought of all the dozens and dozens of people who would attend the funeral of Guy Brouard, and he was just as glad that he hadn't been tol
d. It was bad enough to feel how he felt in private now that Mr. Guy was gone. Having to feel it all in public would be more than he could face. All those eyes fastened on him, all those minds wondering, all those voices whispering That's young Paul Fielder, Mr. Guy's special friend. And the looks that would go with those words—special friend—the eyebrows-raised, eyes-wide looks telling Paul that something more than words alone was being said by the speakers.
He looked up to see if Valerie had the eyebrows-raised eyes-wide face on her face. But she didn't, which made his shoulders relax. He'd been holding them so tight since fleeing Moulin des Niaux that they'd begun to ache. But now it felt like the pincers gripping his collar bone had suddenly been loosed.
“We're setting out at half past eleven tomorrow,” Valerie said, but she spoke to Paul himself this time. “You can ride with Kev and me, love. You're not to mind about your clothes. I've brought you a shirt, see. And you're to keep it, mind you. Kev says he's got another two like it and he doesn't need three. As for the trousers . . .” She studied him thoughtfully. Paul felt the heat at each spot that her eyes rested upon his body. “Kev's won't do. You'd be lost inside them. But I think a pair of Mr. Brouard's . . . Now, you're not to worry about wearing something of Mr. Brouard's, love. He'd've wanted you to if you had the need. He was that fond of you, Paul. But you know that. No matter what he said or did, he was . . . He was that much fond . . .” She stumbled on the words.
Paul felt her sorrow like a band that pulled, drawing out of him what he wanted to quell. He looked away from Valerie towards the three surviving ducks, and he wondered how everyone was going to cope without Mr. Guy to hold them together, to set them on a course, and to know what ought to be done from now on.
He heard Valerie blow her nose and he turned back to her. She gave him a shaky smile. “Anyway, we'd like you to go. But if you'd rather not, you're not to feel guilty about it. Funerals aren't for everyone and sometimes it's best to remember the living by living ourselves. But the shirt's yours anyway. You're meant to have it.” She looked round, seeming to seek a clean spot to set it and saying, “Here we are, then” when she spied the rucksack where Paul had left it on the ground. She made a move to tuck the shirt inside.
Paul cried out and tore the shirt from her hands. He flung it away. Taboo barked sharply.
“Why, Paul,” Valerie said in surprise, “I didn't mean to . . . It's not an old shirt, love. It's really quite—”
Paul snatched up the rucksack. He looked left and right. The only escape was the way he'd come, and escape was essential.
He tore back along the path, Taboo at his heels, barking frantically. Paul felt a sob escape his lips as he emerged from the pond path out onto the lawn with the house beyond it. He was so tired of running, he realised. It seemed as if he'd been running all his life.
Chapter 4
RUTH BROUARD WATCHED THE boy's flight. She was in Guy's study when Paul emerged from the bower that marked the entrance to the ponds. She was opening a stack of condolence cards from the previous day's post, cards that she hadn't had the heart to open until now and she heard the dog barking first and then saw the boy himself pounding across the lawn beneath her. A moment later Valerie Duffy emerged, in her hands the shirt she'd taken to Paul, a limp and rejected offering from a mother whose own boys had fledged and flown far before she had been prepared for them to do either.
She should have had more children, Ruth thought as Valerie trudged back towards the house. Some women were born with a thirst for maternity that nothing could slake, and Valerie Duffy had long seemed like one of them.
Ruth watched Valerie's progress till she disappeared through the door to the kitchen, which was beneath Guy's study, where Ruth had taken herself directly after breakfast. It was the one place she felt that she could be close to him now, surrounded by the evidence that told her, as if in defiance of the terrible manner in which he'd died, that Guy Brouard had lived a good life. That evidence was everywhere in her brother's study: on the walls and the bookshelves and sitting on a fine old credence table in the centre of the room. Here were the certificates, the photographs, the awards, the plans, and the documents. Filed away were the correspondence and the recommendations for worthy recipients of the well-known Brouard largesse. And displayed prominently was what should have been the final jewel needed to complete the crown of her brother's achievements: the carefully constructed model of a building that Guy had promised the island which had become his home. It would be a monument to the islanders' suffering, Guy had called it. A monument built by one who had suffered as well.
Or such had been his intention, Ruth thought.
When Guy hadn't come home from his morning swim, she'd not worried at first. True, he was always punctual and predictable in his habits, but when she descended the stairs and didn't find him dressed and in the breakfast room, listening intently to Radio News as he waited for his meal, she merely assumed that he'd stopped at the Duffys' cottage for coffee with Valerie and Kevin after his swim. He would do that occasionally. He was fond of them. That was why, after a moment's consideration, Ruth had carried her coffee and her grapefruit to the telephone in the morning room, where she rang the stone cottage at the edge of the grounds.
Valerie answered. No, she told Ruth, Mr. Brouard wasn't there. She hadn't seen him since the early morning when she'd caught a glimpse of him as he went for his swim. Why? Hadn't he returned? He was probably on the estate somewhere . . . perhaps among the sculptures? He'd mentioned to Kev that he wanted to shift them about. That large human head in the tropical garden? Perhaps he was trying to decide where to put it because Valerie knew for certain that the head was one of the pieces that Mr. Brouard wanted to move. No, Kev wasn't with him, Miss Brouard. Kev was sitting right there in the kitchen.
Ruth didn't panic at first. Instead, she went up to her brother's bathroom where he would have changed after his exercise, leaving his swimming trunks and his track suit behind. Neither was there, however. Nor was a damp towel, which would have given further evidence of his return.
She felt it then, a pinch of concern like tweezers pulling at the skin beneath her heart. That was when she remembered what she'd seen from her window earlier as she'd watched her brother set off towards the bay: that figure who'd melted out from beneath the trees close to the Duffys' cottage as Guy had passed.
So she went to the phone and rang the Duffys again. Kevin agreed to set off for the bay.
He'd returned on the run but not to her. It was only when the ambulance finally appeared at the end of the drive that he came to fetch her.
That had begun the nightmare. As the hours passed, it only grew worse. She'd thought at first he'd had a heart attack, but when they wouldn't let her ride to the hospital with her brother, when they said she would have to follow in the car that Kevin Duffy drove silently behind the ambulance, when they whisked Guy away before she could see him, she knew something had dreadfully and permanently changed.
She hoped for a stroke. At least he would still be alive. But at last they came to tell her he was dead, and it was then that they explained the circumstances. From that explanation had come her waking nightmare: Guy struggling, in agony and fear, and all alone.
She would have rather believed that an accident had taken her brother's life. Knowing that he'd been murdered had cleaved her spirit and reduced her to living as the incarnation of a single word: why. And then: who. But that was dangerous territory.
Guy's life had taught him that he had to grasp for what he wanted. Nothing was going to be given to him. But more than once he had grasped without considering if what he wanted was what he should actually have. The results had brought suffering down upon others. His wives, his children, his associates, his . . . others.
You can't continue like this without someone being destroyed, she'd told him. And I can't stand by and let you.
But he'd laughed at her fondly and kissed her forehead. Headmistress Mademoiselle Brouard, he called her. Will you rap my knuckles
if I don't obey?
The pain was back. It gripped her spine like a spike that was driven through the nape of her neck and then iced till the horrible cold of it began to feel exactly like fire. It sent tentacles downward, each one an undulating serpent of disease. It sent her from the room in search of rescue.
She wasn't alone in the house, but she felt alone, and had she not been in the grip of the devil cancer, she might have laughed. Sixty-six years old and untimely ripped from the womb that a brother's love had provided her. Who would have thought it would come to this on that long-ago night when her mother had whispered, “Promets-moi de ne pas pleurer, mon petit chat. Sois forte pour Guy.”
She wanted to maintain the faith with her mother that she'd maintained for more than sixty years. But the truth was what she had to deal with now: She couldn't see a way to be strong for anyone.
Margaret Chamberlain hadn't been in her son's presence for five minutes before she wanted to give him instructions: Stand up straight, for the love of God; look people in the eye when you talk to them, Adrian; don't for heaven's sake keep banging my luggage about like that; watch out for that cyclist, darling; please signal for your turns, my dear. She managed, however, to hold back this deluge of commands. He was the most beloved and the most exasperating of her four sons—that latter a fact that she put down to his paternity, which was different to the other boys—but since he'd only just lost his father, she decided to overlook the least irritating of his habits. For the moment.
He met her in what went for the arrivals hall at the Guernsey airport. She came through pushing a trolley with her cases piled on it, and she found him lurking by the car hire counter where worked an attractive red-head to whom he could have been chatting like a normal man, had he only been one. Instead, he was making a pretence of studying a map, losing yet another opportunity that life had placed squarely in front of him.
A Place of Hiding Page 10