A Trick of the Light cig-7

by Penny, Louise

  “Clara seems to know her,” said Olivier. “But she never mentioned her to me.”

  He looked over at Gabri, who shook his head.

  In doing that he noticed that someone else had slipped in after them and was standing quietly by the door.

  Agent Isabelle Lacoste had been watching the whole thing, sent there by Chief Inspector Gamache, who understood that the two men would give away all they knew. And the Chief wanted to know whether someone in the bistro, on hearing it, would then give themselves away.

  * * *

  “Tell me,” said Gamache.

  He was leaning forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees. One hand held the other lightly. In a new, but necessary, gesture.

  Beside him, Inspector Beauvoir had his notebook and pen out.

  Clara sat back in the deep wooden chair and held on to the wide warm armrests, as though bracing herself. But instead of hurtling forward, she was plunging backward.

  Back through the decades, out the door of their home and out of Three Pines. Back to Montréal. Into art college, into the classes, into the student shows. Clara Morrow slammed backward out of college and into high school, then elementary school. And nursery school.

  Before skidding to a stop in front of the little girl with the shining red hair next door.

  Lillian Dyson.

  “Lillian was my best friend growing up,” said Clara. “She lived next door and was two months older than me. We were inseparable. But were opposites, really. She grew fast and tall and I didn’t. She was smart, clever in school. I kinda plodded along. I was good at some things, but sort of froze up in the classroom. I got nervous. Kids started picking on me early, but Lillian always protected me. Nobody messed with Lillian. She was a tough kid.”

  Clara smiled at the memory of Lillian, her orange hair gleaming, staring down a bunch of girls who were being mean to Clara. Daring them. Clara standing behind her. Longing to stand beside her friend, but not having the courage. Not yet.

  Lillian, the precious only child.

  The precious friend.

  Lillian the pretty one, Clara the character.

  They were closer than sisters. Kindred spirits, they told each other in flowery notes they wrote back and forth. Friends forever. They made up codes and secret languages. They’d pricked their fingers and solemnly smeared their blood together. There, they’d declared. Sisters.

  They loved the same boys from TV shows and kissed posters and cried when the Bay City Rollers broke up and The Hardy Boys was canceled.

  All this she told Gamache and Beauvoir.

  “What happened?” the Chief asked quietly.

  “How do you know anything happened?”

  “Because you didn’t recognize her.”

  Clara shook her head. What happened? How to explain it.

  “Lillian was my best friend,” Clara repeated, as though needing to hear it again herself. “She saved my childhood. It would’ve been miserable without her. I still don’t know why she chose me as a friend. She could’ve had anyone. Everyone wanted to be Lillian’s friend. At least, at first.”

  The men waited. The midday sun beat down on them, making it increasingly uncomfortable. But still they waited.

  “But there was a price for being Lillian’s friend,” said Clara at last. “It was a wonderful world she created. Fun and safe. But she always had to be right, and she always had to be first. That was the price. It seemed fair at first. She set the rules and I followed. I was pretty pathetic anyway, so it was never an issue. It never seemed to matter.”

  Clara took a deep breath. And exhaled.

  “And then, it did seem to matter. In high school things began to change. I didn’t see it at first, but I’d call Lillian on Saturday night to see if she’d like to go out, to a movie or something, and she’d say she’d get back to me, but didn’t. I’d call again, to find she’d gone out.”

  Clara looked at the three men. She could see that while they were following the words they weren’t necessarily following the emotions. How it felt. Especially that first time. To be left behind.

  It sounded so small, so petty. But it was the first hairline fracture.

  Clara hadn’t realized it at the time. She thought maybe Lillian’d forgotten. And besides, she had a right to go out with other friends.

  Then, one weekend, Clara had arranged to go out with a new friend herself.

  And Lillian had gone ballistic.

  “It took months for her to forgive me.”

  Now she saw it in Jean Guy’s face. A look of revulsion. For the way Lillian had treated her, or the way she’d taken it? How to explain it to him? How did she explain it to herself?

  At the time it had seemed normal. She loved Lillian. Lillian loved her. Had saved her from the bullies. She’d never hurt Clara. Not on purpose.

  If there was bad blood it must have been Clara’s fault.

  Then everything would shift. All was forgiven and Lillian and Clara would be best friends again. Clara was invited back into the shelter that was Lillian.

  “When did you first suspect?” Gamache asked.

  “Suspect what?”

  “That Lillian was not your friend.”

  It was the first time she’d heard the words out loud. Said so clearly, so simply. Their relationship had always seemed so complex, fraught. Clara the needy, clumsy one. Dropping their friendship, breaking it. Lillian the strong, self-reliant one. Forgiving her. Picking up the pieces.

  Until, one day.

  “It was near the end of high school. Most girls fell out over boys or cliques, or just misunderstandings. Hurt feelings. Teachers and parents think those classrooms and hallways are filled with students but they’re not. They’re filled with feelings. Bumping into each other. Hurting each other. It’s horrible.”

  Clara moved her arms off the Adirondack chair. They were baking in the sun. Now she folded them across her stomach.

  “Things were going well for Lillian and me. There didn’t seem the wild ups and downs anymore. Then one day in art class our favorite teacher complimented me on a piece I’d done. It was the only class I was any good in, the only one I really cared about, though I did quite well in English and history. But art was my passion. And Lillian’s too. We’d bounce ideas off each other. I see now we were really muses for each other, though I didn’t know the term then. I even remember the piece the teacher liked. It was a chair with a bird perched on it.”

  Clara had turned to Lillian, happy. Eager to catch her friend’s eye. It had been a small compliment. A tiny triumph. She’d wanted to share it with the only other person who’d understand.

  And she had. But. But. In that instant before the smile appeared on Lillian’s face Clara had caught something else. A wariness.

  And then the supportive, happy smile. So fast Clara almost convinced herself her own insecurity had seen something not really there.

  That once again, it was her fault.

  But looking back, Clara knew that the fissure had widened. Some cracks let the light in. Some let the darkness out.

  She’d had a brief glance at what was inside Lillian. And it wasn’t nice.

  “We went on to art college together and shared an apartment. But by then I’d learned to downplay any compliments I got about my work. And spent a lot of time telling Lillian how terrific her work was. And it was. Of course, like all of our stuff, it was evolving. We were experimenting. At least, I was. I sort of figured that was the point of art college. Not to get it right, but to see what was possible. To really be out there.”

  Clara paused and looked down at her hands, fingers entwined.

  “Lillian didn’t like it. My stuff was too weird for her. She felt it reflected on her, and said people thought that if she was my muse then my paintings must be about her. And since my paintings and other pieces were so strange, then she must be strange.” Clara hesitated. “She asked me to stop.”

  For the first time she saw a reaction from Gamache. His eyes narrowed just a
bit. And then his face and demeanor returned to normal. Neutral. Without judgment.

  Apparently.

  He said nothing. Just listened.

  “And I did,” said Clara, her voice low, her head down. Speaking into her lap.

  She took a ragged breath and exhaled, feeling her body deflate.

  That was how it had felt back then too. As though there was a small tear and she was deflating.

  “I told her time and again that some of the works were inspired by her, some were even a tribute to our friendship, but they weren’t her. She said it didn’t matter. If others thought they were that’s all that mattered. If I cared about her, if I was her friend I’d stop making my art so strange. And make it attractive.

  “So I did. I destroyed all the other stuff and started making things that people liked.”

  Clara rushed ahead, not daring to look at the people listening.

  “I actually got better grades too. And I convinced myself it was the right choice. That it would be wrong to trade a career for a friend.”

  She looked up then, directly into Chief Inspector Gamache’s eyes. And noted, again, the deep scar by his temple. And the steady, thoughtful gaze.

  “It seemed a small sacrifice. Then came the student show. I had a few works in it, but Lillian didn’t. Instead she decided to write a piece for credit in the art criticism course she was taking. She wrote a review for the campus paper. In it she praised a few of the student pieces but savaged my works. Said they were vacuous, empty of all feeling. Safe.”

  Clara could still feel the quaking, the rumbling, volcanic fury.

  Their friendship had been blown to smithereens. No piece large enough to even examine. Impossible to mend.

  But what did rise from the rubble was a deep, deep enmity. A hatred. Mutual, it seemed.

  Clara came to a stop, trembling even now. Peter reached out and unfastening her hand from its tight grip, he held it and smoothed it.

  The sun continued to beat down and Gamache got up, indicating they should move the chairs into the shade. Clara rose, and flashing a quick smile at Peter she took her hand back. They each picked up their chair and walked to the edge of the river where it was cooler and shady.

  “I think we should take a little break,” said Gamache. “Would you like something to drink?”

  Clara nodded, unable to speak just yet.

  “Bon,” said Gamache, looking across to his forensics team. “I’m sure they’d like something too. If you can arrange for sandwiches from the bistro,” he said to Beauvoir, “Peter and I will make some drinks.”

  Peter led the Chief toward the kitchen door while Beauvoir walked to the bistro and Clara wandered along the riverbank, alone with her thoughts.

  “Did you know Lillian?” Gamache asked, once he and Peter were in the kitchen.

  “I did.” Peter got out a couple of large pitchers and some glasses while Gamache took the bright pink lemonade from the freezer and slid the frozen concentrate into the pitchers. “We all met at art college.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  Peter pursed his lips in concentration. “She was very attractive, vivacious I think is the word. A strong personality.”

  “Were you attracted to her?”

  The two men were side-by-side at the kitchen counter, staring out the window. To the right they could see the homicide team scouring the scene and straight ahead they could see Clara skipping stones into the Rivière Bella Bella.

  “There’s something Clara doesn’t know,” said Peter, turning away from looking at his wife, and meeting Gamache’s eyes.

  The Chief waited. He could see the struggle in Peter and Gamache let the silence stretch on. Better to wait a few minutes for the full truth than push him and risk getting only half.

  Eventually Peter dropped his gaze to the sink and started filling the lemonade containers with water. He mumbled into the running water.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Gamache, his voice calm and reasonable.

  “I was the one who told Lillian that Clara’s works were silly,” said Peter, raising his head and his voice. Angry now, at himself for doing it and Gamache for making him admit it. “I said Clara’s work was banal, superficial. Lillian’s review was my fault.”

  Gamache was surprised. Stunned in fact. When Peter had said there was something Clara didn’t know, the Chief Inspector had assumed an affair. A short-lived student indiscretion between Peter and Lillian.

  He hadn’t expected this.

  “I’d been to the student exhibit and seen Clara’s works,” said Peter. “I was standing beside Lillian and a bunch of others and they were snickering. Then they saw me and asked what I thought. Clara and I had begun dating and I think I could see even then that she was the real deal. Not pretending to be an artist, but a genuine one. She had a creative soul. Still does.”

  Peter stopped. He didn’t often speak of souls. But when he thought of Clara that was what came to mind. A soul.

  “I don’t know what came over me. It’s like sometimes when it’s very quiet I feel like screaming. And sometimes when I’m holding something delicate I feel like dropping it. I don’t know why.”

  He looked at the large, quiet man beside him. But Gamache continued to be silent. Listening.

  Peter took a few short breaths. “I think too I wanted to impress them, and it’s easier to be clever when you criticize. So I said some not very nice things about Clara’s show and they ended up in Lillian’s review.”

  “Clara knows none of this?”

  Peter shook his head. “She and Lillian barely spoke after that and she and I grew closer and closer. I even managed to forget that it happened, or that it mattered. In fact, I convinced myself I’d done Clara a favor. In breaking up with Lillian it freed Clara to do her own art. Try all the things she wanted. Really experiment. And look where it got her. A solo show at the Musée.”

  “Are you taking credit for that?”

  “I supported her all these years,” said Peter, a defensive note creeping into his voice. “Where would she be without that?”

  “Without you?” asked Gamache, turning now to look the angry man straight in the face. “I have no idea. Have you?”

  Peter made fists of his hands.

  “What became of Lillian after art college?” the Chief asked.

  “She wasn’t much of an artist, but she was, as it turned out, a very good critic. She got a job at one of the weekly papers in Montréal and worked her way up until finally she was doing reviews in La Presse.”

  Gamache raised his brows again. “La Presse? I read the reviews in there. I don’t remember a Lillian Dyson by-line. Did she have a nom de plume?”

  “No,” said Peter. “She worked there years ago, decades ago now, when we were all starting out. This would’ve been twenty years ago or more.”

  “And then what?”

  “We didn’t keep in touch,” said Peter. “Only ever saw her at some vernissages and even then Clara and I avoided her. Were cordial when there was no option, but we preferred not to be around her.”

  “But do you know what happened to her? You say she stopped working at La Presse twenty years ago. What did she do?”

  “I heard she’d moved to New York. I think she realized the climate wasn’t right for her here.”

  “Too cold?”

  Peter smiled. “No. More a foul odor. By climate I mean the artistic climate. As a critic she hadn’t made many friends.”

  “I suppose that’s the price of being a critic.”

  “I suppose.”

  But Peter sounded unconvinced.

  “What is it?” the Chief pressed.

  “There’re lots of critics, most are respected by the community. They’re fair, constructive. Very few are mean-spirited.”

  “And Lillian Dyson?”

  “She was mean-spirited. Her reviews could be clear, thoughtful, constructive and even glowing. But every now and then she’d let loose a real stinker. It was amusing at first
, but grew less and less fun when it became clear her targets were random. And the attacks vicious. Like the one on Clara. Unfair.”

  He seemed, Gamache noticed, to have already floated right past his own role in it.

  “Did she ever review one of your shows?”

  Peter nodded. “But she liked it.” His cheeks reddened. “I’ve always suspected she wrote a glowing review just to piss off Clara. Hoping to drive a wedge between us. She assumed since she was so petty and jealous Clara would be too.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “Clara? Don’t get me wrong, she can be maddening. Annoying, impatient, sometimes insecure. But she’s only ever happy for other people. Happy for me.”

  “And are you happy for her?”

  “Of course I am. She deserves all the success she gets.”

  It was a lie. Not that she deserved her success. Gamache knew that to be true. As did Peter. But both men also knew he was far from happy about it.

  Gamache had asked not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he wanted to see if Peter would lie to him.

  He had. And if he’d lie about that, what else had he lied about?

  * * *

  Gamache, Beauvoir and the Morrows sat down to lunch in the garden. The forensics team, on the other side of the tall perennial beds, were drinking lemonade and eating an assortment of sandwiches from the bistro, but Olivier had prepared something special for Beauvoir to take back for the four of them. And so the Inspector had returned with a chilled cucumber soup with mint and melon, a sliced tomato and basil salad drizzled with balsamic, and cold poached salmon.

  It was an idyllic setting disturbed every now and then by a homicide investigator walking by, or appearing in a nearby flower bed.

  Gamache had placed Peter and Clara with their backs to the activity. Only he and Beauvoir could see, but he realized it was a conceit. The Morrows knew perfectly well that the gentle scene they looked upon, the river, the late spring flowers, the quiet forest, wasn’t the whole picture.

  And if they’d forgotten, the conversation would remind them.

  “When was the last time you heard from Lillian?” Gamache asked, as he took a forkful of pink salmon and added a dab of mayonnaise. His voice was soft, his eyes thoughtful. His face kind.