Blowback

by Peter May

  He looked up to find Sophie stifling a grin. “Oh, papa. I guess it must have been awful for you at the time. But looking back, you’ve got to admit it was maybe just a little bit funny?”

  Enzo grinned, too. “Sure.” But his decades-long feud with his half-brother prevented him, still, from fully appreciating the joke. “I never did snitch on him. So the lie went undiscovered.”

  Sophie shook her head. “And that’s why you haven’t spoken to him for thirty years?”

  “No.” Enzo stood up and pushed his hands in his pockets again. “We spoke for the last time at your grandfather’s funeral, though the feud between us dated from well before that. And it wasn’t anything to do with that first day at school.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “Like I said, it’s a long story.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “And if I don’t want to tell it?”

  “I won’t let you not tell it. You know that. You’ll never hear the end of it until you do.”

  Enzo drew a deep breath and closed his eyes, and was saved by a knock at the door. Three soft raps. He froze where he stood, and he and Sophie exchanged panicked glances.

  “What’ll we do?” Sophie whispered urgently

  Enzo nodded toward the toilet door. “Go into the bathroom and stay out of sight. I’ll see who it is and get rid of them.”

  She slipped off the settee and hurried across the room. As soon as she pulled the bathroom door shut behind her he straightened out the cushions where she had been sitting and crossed to the door as the knock came again.

  With apprehension beating in his chest, he opened it a few inches to see Guy standing beaming at him from the darkness of the hallway. He had a conspiratorial air about him and was clutching a bottle and two glasses. Enzo let the door fall open a little wider and tried to adopt a casual air of surprise. “Guy?”

  “I hope you weren’t in bed.” He glanced up and down then and grinned. “Ah. I see not. I hope you don’t mind me disturbing you like this, Enzo. But this is a mirabelle that I don’t share with just anyone.” He held up the unlabelled bottle. “And I knew you’d want to try it.”

  Enzo didn’t see how he could refuse the invitation without seeming churlish, and he needed to keep Guy on-side if he was going to make progress with his investigation. He forced a smile. “Just a quick one, then. I’m pretty tired.” He held the door open to let Guy in, then shut it quickly, remembering the laptop, and moved hurriedly past him to close its lid and hide the screen.

  “Doing a bit of homework?”

  “Just checking my email and making a few notes.”

  “Elisabeth said you were looking at Marc’s old laptop today. Find anything interesting?”

  Enzo wondered why he would ask, when Elisabeth would surely have relayed to him the answer he had already given her to the same question. “Not really, no. Just looked back through some of his old emails. I tried to open a couple of files, but they were locked.”

  Guy nodded solemnly. “He was very secretive in some ways, Marc. There was a part of him he never let anyone into. Not even Elisabeth. I think he shared more secrets with that damned computer than he did with his family.”

  “Well, if he did, he didn’t leave them accessible to anyone else.” All of which was true. Still, Enzo felt he was indulging in a deception and felt uncomfortable with that. He changed the subject. “What’s so special about the mirabelle?”

  “It’s made by an old farmer on the far side of the village. Wonderful stuff. You know, the government is taking away the inherited right to distill a certain quantity of your own alcohol each year, so whatever his secret is, it’s going to die with him.” He set the two glasses down on the coffee table and uncorked the bottle. He poured two small measures of the crystal clear liquid, and the perfume of mirabelle plums suffused the air around them. “It’s about eighty percent proof, so go easy. It’s got a helluva kick, but a taste to die for.”

  Each raised his glass, they chinked them together, then sipped in silence. The taste of the plums filled Enzo’s mouth, and the alcohol burned all the way down to his stomach. It almost brought tears to his eyes. He blinked several times. “Wow!”

  Guy grinned. “Told you it was good.” And he sank down into the settee where Sophie had been sitting only a matter of minutes earlier. “Take the weight off your feet, man.” He nodded toward the armchair opposite. “Elisabeth said you wanted to learn everything you could about Marc.” He chuckled. “And I’ve got a few stories I can tell you.”

  Reluctantly, Enzo eased himself down into the armchair. There was going to be no easy escape. And Guy looked as if he was settling himself down for an extended stay.

  ***

  Sophie had long ago given up hoping that Guy would make an early departure. He had been regaling Enzo for some time now with stories of adventures that he and Marc had shared during their apprenticeship together chez Blanc. She had all but stopped listening, standing with her back to the wall, then slowly sliding down it to squat on the floor counting the minutes till she could get out of here, back to the staff annexe and her bed. She glanced at her watch. It was gone midnight. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

  “The thing about Marc and Jacques Blanc was that they just didn’t get on,” she heard Guy saying. “Jacques hated Marc, and Marc was terrified of Jacques. Once Marc found his feet in the kitchen he’d become a bit of a smart ass. And Jacques, I think, figured he was trying to péter plus haut que son cul. Accusing the apprentices of trying to fart higher than their asses was his favourite insult.” He chuckled. “The Blanc brothers had complete control over us, you see. You did what they told you, or else. And when you got asked to do something, they would stand over you and watch you do it. And, believe me, with just one of those sets of eagle eyes on you, it was only too damned easy to screw up.”

  Enzo nodded. He knew how difficult it was to do anything well under the watchful gaze of a critical eye.

  “So there was this one time… Marc was busy charging the firebox with coal. It was right before dinner service, and Jacques suddenly barked at him. He wanted him to add some ingredient to a jus that had been reducing on the grill for over two hours, and he slapped it down on the worktop beside the stove. Marc stood up in a panic and lifted it up. Can’t remember what it was now, but he had the ingredient in one hand, and a scuttle of coal in the other. ‘Well, go on then, kid!’ Jacques shouted at him. And in a moment of total confusion, Marc emptied the scuttleful of coal into the stockpot.”

  Guy roared with laughter at the recollection of it. “Well, I don’t think I ever so Jacques Blanc so angry. A two-hour reduction totally ruined. And inexplicably. What on earth possessed Marc to do it, I’ll never know. But in a fit of temper Jacques swept the pot off the stove, and it went everywhere. Damned lucky that nobody got scalded. Anyway, he refused to let anyone clean it up, and it got tramped all over the floor, and dried in on all the work surfaces, and burned on to the stove top. And when the dinner service was finally over, he brought a toothbrush into the kitchen and handed it to Marc. ‘Use that to clean it up, kid,’ he said. ‘Every last drop of it. Even if it takes you all night. And if I find a single trace of it in the morning, you’ll be out of here, sweeping the streets where you belong.’

  “Well,” Guy shook his head, “Marc was up all night. And Jacques got himself out of his bed several times to check on him. But in the morning, there wasn’t a damn trace of it anywhere. I really think Jacques was quite disappointed. It would have been his perfect excuse to get rid of Marc once and for all.”

  Guy leaned forward and refilled the empty glasses on the coffee table before Enzo could stop him. Guy lifted his and took a mouthful. Enzo reluctantly followed suit. “But Marc got his revenge,” Guy went on. “About a month later, we had a couple of days off and went up to Paris the two of us. First time there. Went on the train. Well, we visited the catacombs. You know, the bit that’s open to the public, where they dumped all the bones from the
cemeteries they redeveloped for housing. A spooky place. Human bones floor to ceiling.”

  Enzo nodded, his mind suddenly flooded with recollections. He knew the catacombs only too well.

  Guy chuckled. “Marc managed to filch one of the skulls and sneak it out with him. About a week later, back at the Lion d’Or, Jacques had a big stock pot bubbling away on the stove. And when no one was looking, Marc slipped the skull into the pot. You can imagine Jacques’ reaction when he went to check on the reduction about half an hour later, and saw a foreign object in there. And then his horror when he fished out the skull. None of us could look. He was apoplectic, demanding to know who was responsible. Of course, no one owned up, and he was never able to prove it was Marc, although I’m sure he knew it was.”

  He drained his glass. “I’m certain he must have heard us all laughing our asses off up in the attic that night and cursed the day he ever took on les frères Fraysse.” He lifted the bottle. “Another?”

  “No, no thanks,” Enzo said hurriedly. “I’ll not sleep if I do.” He hoped that Guy would take the hint.

  But Guy was lost in his memories again. “You’d have thought it would be Marc that would drop out and not me.” He shook his head. “My problem was, I just didn’t really have the talent. But Marc hated it. I mean he really hated it.” Guy looked at Enzo, frowning at the recollection. “Until we came down one morning. And everything changed.”

  Enzo found his interest piqued, in spite of his pressing sense of Sophie still hiding in his bathroom. “How?”

  Guy grinned. “I don’t think any of us had ever seen the Blanc brothers smiling. But they were like two Cheshire cats that morning. The whole family was in the kitchen, the daily routine abandoned. They were opening bottles of Champagne. And, damnit, if they weren’t pouring glasses for the apprentices, too. Unheard of, Enzo. Unprecedented.” His eyes were wide and shining as he recalled the moment. “They’d just had a call from the director of the Guide Michelin. They were to be given a third star in the forthcoming edition. Well… the phone never stopped ringing. There was a constant procession of folk in and out of the kitchen. It was magical, glamorous. A crowning glory. Here were these two surly, bad-tempered brothers whose magic in the kitchen had elevated them to the status of superstars. And Marc saw that. And suddenly he knew exactly where he wanted his life to take him. He wanted that superstardom, too. More than anything. And it changed his life.”

  He sat for a while, still lost in the moment, then slapped his thighs and stood up. “A quick pee and I’ll leave you in peace to get to your bed.” And he headed for the bathroom door before Enzo could dream up some excuse for stopping him.

  Enzo got slowly to his feet and waited for the commotion that was certain to follow. But all he heard was the sound of Guy urinating in the toilet and then flushing it. The sound of rushing water came from the taps, and then a few moments later Guy emerged to recover his bottle and the two glasses. Enzo was still tense, but Guy seemed oblivious.

  “Listen, Enzo, I want you to have lunch in the dining room tomorrow. On me. The full three-star treatment, a true taste of the vrai style Fraysse.”

  Enzo was both astonished, and excited. He knew that the full menu ran to nearly 200 euros. It was a rare privilege even to sit down to a three-star Michelin meal, never mind have someone else pick up the tab. “That’s very generous, Guy,” was all he could think to say.

  Guy grinned. “See you tomorrow, Enzo. Good night.” And he vanished off into the hotel.

  Enzo closed the door behind him and hurried into the bathroom. There was no sign of Sophie. Where the hell had she gone?

  He was startled by the sudden sound of the shower curtain on the bath being pulled roughly aside, and a pink-faced Sophie stood perched in the bath glaring at him.

  “You couldn’t have got rid of him sooner?”

  Enzo shrugged helplessly. “I tried Sophie.”

  “Not very hard.” She spoke through clenched teeth as she stepped out of the bath. “Seemed to me you were more interested in scoffing that damned mirabelle.” She sniffed the air. “I can even smell it off you.” As she strode out into the sitting room Enzo followed. “Next time someone knocks on the door when I’m here, let’s just pretend you’re asleep, huh?”

  She opened the door a crack and peered out into the hallway before opening it a little wider. Then she turned back and lowered her voice.

  “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you and brother Jack. I want that story, papa. The whole, unexpurgated truth.”

  And then she was gone, slipping off into the darkness, pulling the door softly shut behind her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Enzo wandered into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. He felt tired, slightly heady from the mirabelle, and still heavy with the emotion of unburdening himself to Sophie about Jack. It was something he had never intended to do, and yet now it was out in the open, he wondered how on earth he had been able to keep it from her for so long.

  He thought, too, about Marc Fraysse. How, in some ways, they had a lot in common. The dominating elder brother, the early lack of ambition or direction in life.

  But while Marc had found his raison d’être in a career-long quest for les trois étoiles de Michelin, Enzo had found his motivation in a more negative way. The overweening desire to do better than his brother. To prove himself superior in everything he did. School grades, university degree, career, marriage. It had taken a long time, and Jack’s complete indifference, to make him realize that measuring yourself against others was a futile pursuit. But some lessons come too late in life to be able to undo the mistakes you make in learning them.

  He went through to the bedroom and undressed before slipping between the cool sheets of his bed. Despite his fatigue he lay for a long time unable to sleep, turning on to one side, then the other, before lying finally on his back and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. He cursed the restless thoughts that filled his mind and held sleep at bay, before throwing back the covers and padding through to the sitting room again to retrieve his laptop.

  He carried it to the bed, propping the pillows at his back so that he could sit up with the computer balanced on his thighs. The screen cast a strange blue light around the bedroom, and he felt the glare of it illuminating his face. He reopened the file of Marc Fraysse’s fragmented memories and scrolled through them in the dark, searching for… what? He had no idea.

  Then something caught his attention, and he brought his cursor to a stop on the scrollbar. It was the name ‘Elisabeth’ which had registered on his consciousness, and as he sped read through the first few sentences at the top of the screen, he realized it was Marc’s account of their first meeting.

  It was one of those secret meals that Elisabeth had told Enzo about, which the apprentices from the Lyon d’Or had cooked for the trainee nurses in the lakeside boathouse. A first rendezvous organised by one of the older apprentices, co-opting the assistance of the others to partake in a night-time raid on the kitchen, borrowing pots and pans and stealing food from the larder.

  I remember the first time I saw her, Marc wrote. There in the boat house as we all sat around the fire. Her face was caught in the light of the flames. A soft, warm, flickering yellow light. And I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had no idea then how that chance meeting would drive a wedge between Guy and me, a war of hatred and attrition that would last for the next twenty years.

  Enzo sat up, startled by the unexpected revelation. There had been no hint in anything the family had told him so far of any kind of a feud between Marc and Guy. He spent the following ten minutes scrolling back and forth through the notes and anecdotes. But there was nothing to explain exactly how, or why, Elisabeth had caused this rift between them.

  He closed the lid of the laptop, and slid it down on to the floor, lying back again in the dark, feeling the warm arms of sleep enticing him into their soft embrace. And as he slipped, at last, into a restless, dream-filled slumber, he
was conscious of a final thought flitting through his mind: that here was yet another parallel between him and Marc. It had been a woman who had deepened the rift between Enzo and Jack. But while somehow the brothers Fraysse had found resolution and closure, the brothers Macleod never had.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  An ice cold wind blew across the Massif, down from the north-west, blowing leaves and litter through the narrows streets of Thiers beneath a leaden sky heavy with the portent of winter. There was even a smell of snow in the air, although it was still too early in the season.

  Enzo and Dominique sat behind the glass frontage of the Café Central on the corner next to the gendarmerie, and watched the traffic roll past. Buses, lorries, private cars, and pedestrians huddled in coats and scarves scurrying across the terrasse, tilting against the wind. Beyond, the shadow of the volcanic crags that rose above the town dwarfed the pale pastel houses that clung perilously to their slopes.

  Dominique was off-duty, transformed somehow by her lack of uniform into the merest slip of a woman. Petite, elegant, with her hair tumbling luxuriantly across narrow shoulders, she was suffused with a femininity that the dark, gendarme blue, had contrived to conceal. Her lips and eyes were made-up in a way that would have been frowned on in uniform. But it was not overdone, being just enough to emphasise the fullness of her lips and the warmth of her eyes. She wore tight-fitting jeans with knee-high suede boots, and a warm, knitted sweater with a high, fold-over collar that swaddled her neck. Enzo noticed how small her hands were, folded together in front of her on the table, and how carefully manicured she kept short nails painted the faintest pearl pink. Her yellow anorak hung over the back of her chair, and she sipped her coffee, listening attentively and with wide-eyed curiosity as Enzo told her about the revealing notes he had found in Marc Fraysse’s computer.