by Louise Penny
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ they heard a woman’s voice behind them, ‘but if we could have the nice table under the maple tree that would be great.’
‘I believe it’s already taken, madame,’ said Pierre.
‘Oh really? Well, it doesn’t matter.’
Bert Finney was already down, as was Bean. They both read the paper. He had the comics while Bean read the obituaries.
‘You look worried, Bean,’ the old man said, lowering the comics.
‘Have you noticed that more people seem to be dying than are being born?’ Bean asked, handing the section to Finney, who took it and nodded solemnly.
‘That means there’s more for those of us still here.’ He handed the section back.
‘I don’t want more,’ said Bean.
‘You will.’ And Finney raised the cartoons.
‘Armand.’ Reine-Marie laid a soft hand on his arm. She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. ‘Is Bean a boy or girl?’
Gamache, who’d been mildly wondering the same thing, looked again. The child wore what looked like drugstore glasses and had shoulder-length blond hair around a lovely tanned face.
He shook his head.
‘Reminds me of Florence,’ he said. ‘I took her up and down boulevard Laurier last time they visited and almost everyone commented on our handsome grandson.’
‘Was she wearing her sun bonnet?’
‘She was.’
‘And did they comment on the resemblance?’
‘They did, as a matter of fact.’ Gamache looked at her as though she was a genius, his brown eyes wide with admiration.
‘Imagine that,’ she said. ‘But Florence is just over a year. How old would you say Bean is?’
‘Hard to say. Nine, ten? Any child reading the obituaries looks older.’
‘Obituaries are ageing. I’ll have to remember that.’
‘More jam?’ Pierre replaced their near empty containers with fresh jars of home-made wild strawberry, raspberry and blueberry confitures. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked.
‘Well, I do have a question,’ said Gamache and tilted his croissant towards the corner of the Manoir. ‘There’s a block of marble over there, Pierre. What’s it for?’
‘Ah, you noticed.’
‘Astronauts would notice.’
Pierre nodded. ‘Madame Dubois didn’t say anything when you checked in?’
Reine-Marie and Gamache exchanged glances and shook their heads.
‘Oh well.’ The maître d’ looked a little embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ask her. It’s a surprise.’
‘A nice surprise?’ asked Reine-Marie.
Pierre thought about it. ‘We’re not really sure. But we’ll know soon.’
FIVE
After breakfast Gamache placed a call to his son in Paris and left a message with the number for the Manoir. Cell phones didn’t work this deep into the woods.
The day meandered along pleasantly, the temperature slowly and inexorably climbing until before they realized it it was very hot indeed. Workers dragged Adirondack chairs and chaises longues about the lawns and gardens, seeking shade for their baking guests.
‘Spot!’
The shout cut through the humid noon hour and into Armand Gamache’s repose.
‘Spot!’
‘Strange,’ said Reine-Marie, taking off her sunglasses to look at her husband, ‘it’s said with the same inflection you’d yell “Fire!”.’
Gamache stuck his finger in his book and looked in the direction of the shout. He was curious to see what a ‘Spot’ looked like. Did he have floppy ears? Was he actually spotted?
Thomas was calling ‘Spot!’ and walking swiftly across the lawn towards a well-dressed tall man with grey hair. Gamache took his sunglasses off and stared more closely.
‘This is the end of our peace and quiet, I imagine,’ said Reine-Marie, with regret. ‘The odious Spot and his even more wretched wife Claire have materialized.’
Gamache put his glasses back on and squinted through them, not really believing what he was seeing.
‘What is it?’ Reine-Marie asked.
‘You’ll never guess.’
Two tall figures were converging on the lawn of the Manoir Bellechasse. Distinguished Thomas and his younger brother Spot.
Reine-Marie looked over. ‘But that’s—’
‘I think it is,’ he said.
‘So where’s—’ Reine-Marie was flabbergasted.
‘I don’t know. Oh, there she comes.’
A rumpled figure appeared round the corner of the Manoir, a sun hat imperfectly screwed to her flyaway hair.
‘Clara?’ whispered Reine-Marie to Gamache. ‘My God, Armand, Spot and Claire Finney are Peter and Clara Morrow. It’s like a miracle.’ She was delighted. The blight that had appeared imminent and unstoppable had turned into their friends.
Now Sandra was greeting Peter and Thomas embraced Clara. She was tiny in his arms and almost disappeared and when she pulled back she was even more dishevelled.
‘You look wonderful,’ Sandra said, eyeing Clara and happy to see she’d put on weight around her hips and thighs. And was wearing unbecoming striped shorts with a polka-dotted top. And she calls herself an artist, thought Sandra, feeling much better.
‘I feel good. And you’ve lost weight. My God, Sandra, you have to tell me how you did it. I’d love to lose ten pounds.’
‘You?’ exclaimed Sandra. ‘Never.’
The two women walked arm in arm out of the Gamaches’ hearing.
‘Peter,’ said Thomas.
‘Thomas,’ said Peter.
They nodded brusquely to each other.
‘Life good?’
‘Never better.’
They spoke in semaphore, all punctuation unnecessary.
‘You?’
‘Great.’
They’d trimmed the language to its essentials. Before long it would just be consonants. Then silence.
From the dappled shade Armand Gamache watched. He knew he should be delighted to see their old friends, and he was. But looking down he noticed the hairs on his forearms sticking up, and felt a whispered cold breath.
On this shimmering hot summer day, in this pristine and tranquil setting, things were not as they seemed.
Clara made for the stone wall of the terrasse, carrying a beer and a tomato sandwich which dripped seeds, unseen, onto her new cotton blouse. She tried to fade into the shade, which wasn’t difficult since Peter’s family paid little attention to her anyway. She was the daughter-in-law, the sister-in-law, nothing more. At first it had been annoying, but now she found it a great advantage.
She looked out into the perennial garden and noticed if she squinted just so she could believe herself back home in their little village of Three Pines. It wasn’t actually all that far away. Just over the mountain range. But it seemed very distant indeed just now.
Each summer morning at home she’d pour a cup of coffee then walk barefoot down to the Rivière Bella Bella behind their house, sniffing roses and phlox and lilies as she passed. Sitting on a bench in the soft sun she’d sip her coffee and stare into the gently flowing river, mesmerized by the water, glowing gold and silver in the sunshine. Then she’d go into her studio and paint until mid-afternoon. Then she and Peter would get a beer and walk the garden, or join friends at the bistro for a glass of wine. It was a quiet, uneventful life. It suited them.
But one morning a few weeks earlier she’d gone as usual to check their mailbox. And there she’d found the dreaded invitation. The rusty door had shrieked as she’d opened it, and sticking her hand inside she’d known even before she’d seen it what was inside. She could feel the heavy vellum of the envelope. She’d been tempted to just throw it away, toss it in the blue recycling box so it could be turned into something useful, like toilet paper. But she hadn’t. Instead she’d stared at the spider writing, the ominous scrawl that made her skin feel as if ants were crawling all over her, until she coul
dn’t stand it any longer. She’d ripped it open, and inside was the invitation to the family reunion at the Manoir Bellechasse at the end of June. A month ahead of normal and just when Three Pines was taking down the Saint-Jean-Baptiste flags and preparing the annual July first Canada Day celebrations on the village green. It was the worst possible timing and she was about to try to get out of it when she remembered she was supposed to organize the children’s games this year. Clara, who got along with children by pretending they were puppies, was suddenly conflicted and decided she’d leave it up to Peter. But there was something else included in the invitation. Something else would happen while they were all there. When Peter came out of his studio that afternoon she’d handed him the envelope and watched his handsome face. This face she loved, this man she longed to protect. And could, against most things. But not his family. They attacked from within, and she couldn’t help him there. She saw his face, uncomprehending at first, and then he understood.
It was going to be bad. And yet, to her surprise, he’d picked up the phone and called his mother, and accepted the wretched invitation.
That was a few weeks ago, and now, suddenly, it was upon them.
Clara sat alone on the wall and watched as the rest of them sipped gin and tonics in the blinding sun. None wore sun hats, preferring sunstroke and skin cancer to spectacle. Peter stood talking to his mother, his hand to his brow to block out the sun, as though in a permanent salute.
Thomas looked regal and elegant while Sandra looked alert. Her eyes darted here and there, assessing portions, watching the weaving waiters, monitoring who got what when and how it compared to hers.
On the other side of the terrasse, also in the shade, Clara could just see Bert Finney. He seemed to be watching his wife, though it was hard to tell. She looked away just as his pilgrim eye caught hers.
Sipping her cool drink she grabbed a handful of thick hair, wet with perspiration, and peeled it off her neck. Then she flapped it up and down, to air out the area. Only then did she notice Peter’s mother watching, her faded pink and white face crinkled and lovely, her Wedgwood eyes thoughtful and kind. A beautiful English rose inviting you to approach, to bend closer. Too late you’d realize there was a wasp buried deep, waiting to do what wasps do best.
Less than twenty-four hours, she said to herself. We can leave after breakfast tomorrow.
A deerfly buzzed around her sweating head and Clara waved her arms so wildly she knocked the rest of her sandwich off the stone wall and into the perennial bed below. The answer to an ant’s prayers, except the ones it fell on.
‘Claire hasn’t changed,’ said Peter’s mother.
‘Neither have you, Mother.’
Peter tried to keep his voice as civil as hers, and felt he’d achieved that perfect balance of courtesy and contempt. So subtle it was impossible to challenge, so obvious it was impossible to miss.
Across the scorching terrasse Julia felt her feet begin to burn in their thin sandals on the hot stones.
‘Hello, Peter.’ She closed her mind to her smouldering feet and crossed the terrasse, air-kissing her younger brother. ‘You’re looking good.’
‘So’re you.’
Pause.
‘Nice weather,’ he said.
Julia searched her rapidly emptying brain for something smart to say, something witty and intelligent. Something to prove she was happy. That her life wasn’t the shambles she knew he thought it was. Silently she repeated to herself, Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped. It helped.
‘How’s David?’ Peter asked.
‘Oh, you know him,’ said Julia lightly. ‘He adjusts to anything.’
‘Even prison? And here you are.’
She searched his placid handsome face. Was that an insult? She’d been away from the family so long she was out of practice. She felt like a long retired parachutist suddenly tossed out of a plane.
Four days ago, when she’d arrived, she’d been hurt and exhausted. The last smile, the last empty compliment, the last courtesy wrung from her in the disaster that had been the last year, during David’s trial. Feeling betrayed, humiliated and exposed, she’d come back home to heal. To this cosy mother and the tall, handsome brothers of her magical, mystical memory. Surely they’d take care of her.
Somehow she’d forgotten why she’d left them in the first place. But now she was back and was remembering.
‘Imagine,’ said Thomas, ‘your husband stealing all that money, and you not knowing. It must have been horrible.’
‘Thomas,’ said his mother, shaking her head slightly. Not in rebuke for the insult to Julia but for saying it in front of the staff. Julia felt the hot stones sizzling beneath her feet. But she smiled and held her ground.
‘Your father,’ Mrs Finney began, then stopped.
‘Go on, Mother,’ said Julia, feeling something old and familiar swish its tail deep inside her. Something decades dormant was stirring. ‘My father?’
‘Well, you know how he felt.’
‘How did he feel?’
‘Really, Julia, this is an inappropriate conversation.’ Her mother turned her pink face to her. It was said with the tender smile, the slight flutter of those hands. How long had it been since she’d felt her mother’s hands?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Julia.
‘Jump, Bean, jump!’
Clara turned and watched as Peter’s youngest sister leapt across the manicured lawn, feet barely touching the ground, and behind her ran Bean, beach towel tied at the neck, laughing. But not jumping. Good ol’ Bean, thought Clara.
‘Whew,’ puffed Mariana, stepping onto the terrasse moments later, sweat pouring off her as though she’d run through a sprinkler. She took a corner of a scarf and wiped her eyes. ‘Did Bean jump?’ she asked the family. Only Thomas reacted, with a dismissive smirk.
Clara’s bra itched in the heat and humidity. She reached down and tugged it. Too late, she looked over. Peter’s mother was again watching, as though equipped with a special radar.
‘How’s your art?’
The question took Clara by surprise. She’d assumed it to be directed at Peter, and had occupied herself by trying to pick off the tomato seeds now baked to her breasts.
‘Me?’ She looked up into Julia’s face. The sister she knew the least. But she’d heard the stories from Peter and was quick to put up her guard. ‘Oh, you know. Always a struggle.’
It was the easy answer, the one they expected. Clara the failure, who called herself an artist but never sold. Who did ridiculous works like mannequins with bouffant hair and melting trees.
‘I remember hearing about your last show. Quite a statement.’
Clara sat up straighter. She knew many people managed to ask the first, polite question. But it was the rare person who asked a second.
Perhaps Julia was sincere.
‘Warrior Uteruses, wasn’t it?’ asked Julia. Clara searched her face for ridicule but found none.
Clara nodded. True, by economic measurements the series couldn’t be considered a success, but emotionally it had been a triumph. She’d considered giving a Warrior Uterus to Peter’s mother as a Christmas gift, but decided that might be a step too far.
‘Didn’t we tell you?’ Peter walked over, smiling. Never a good sign at a family reunion. The more devious they got the more they smiled. Clara tried to catch his eye.
‘Tell us what?’ Sandra asked, sensing something unpleasant approaching.
‘About Clara’s art.’
‘I’d like another beer,’ said Clara. No one paid any attention.
‘What about it?’ asked Thomas.
‘Nothing,’ said Clara. ‘Just lots of crap. You know me. Always experimenting.’
‘She’s been approached by a gallery.’
‘Peter,’ Clara snapped. ‘I don’t think we need to talk about it.’
‘But I’m sure they’d like to hear,’ said Peter. He took his hand out of his slacks pocket and it turned inside out, marring his otherwise perfe
ct appearance.
‘Clara’s modest. The Galerie Fortin in Montreal wants to do a one-woman show. Denis Fortin himself came to Three Pines to see her work.’
Silence.
Clara’s nails dug into her palms. A deerfly found the tender pale skin behind her ear, and bit.
‘Marvellous,’ said Peter’s mother to Clara. ‘I’m absolutely delighted.’
Clara, surprised, turned to her mother-in-law. She could barely believe her ears. Had she been too harsh all this time? Judged Peter’s mother unfairly?
‘So often they’re too thick.’
Clara’s smile faltered. Too thick?
‘And not made with real mayonnaise. But Chef Véronique has outdone herself again. Have you tried the cucumber sandwiches, Claire? They’re really very good.’
‘They are good,’ agreed Clara with maniacal enthusiasm.
‘Congratulations, Clara. What good news.’ The voice was masculine, jovial and vaguely familiar. ‘Félicitations.’
Across the lawn a powerfully built middle-aged man in a funny hat took easy strides towards them. Beside him was a small, elegant woman wearing the same floppy sun hat.
‘Reine-Marie?’ Clara peered, hardly believing her eyes. ‘Peter, is that Reine-Marie?’
Peter was staring almost slack-jawed as the couple hurried up the steps.
‘Oh, Clara, what wonderful news,’ said Reine-Marie, taking her friend in her arms. Clara smelled Joy, the fragrance by Jean Patou, and felt the same way. It was like being saved from torture at the last moment. She pulled back from the embrace and stared at Reine-Marie Gamache, to make certain. Sure enough, the smiling woman was there. Clara could still feel the glares behind her, but it didn’t matter as much. Not now.
Then Armand kissed her on both cheeks and squeezed her arm affectionately. ‘We’re thrilled for you. And Denis Fortin.’ He looked into the fieldstone faces on the terrasse. ‘He’s the top art dealer in Montreal, as you probably know. A real coup.’
‘Really?’ Peter’s mother managed to sound both dismissive and disapproving. As though Clara’s coup was unseemly. And certainly this display of emotion, of elation, was unseemly. This was a rude interruption of a private family affair. And, perhaps worst of all, unmistakable evidence that Peter socialized with the people from the broom closet. It was one thing to play bridge when stuck in a remote lodge with them. That was simply being well bred. But it was quite another thing to choose their company.