‘I have a better idea.’
Within minutes they were on the dock, kicking off their sandals and dropping their towels like nests onto the warm wooden surface. Gamache and Reine-Marie looked onto this world of two suns, two skies, of mountains and forests multiplied. The lake wasn’t glass, it was a mirror. A bird gliding across the clear sky appeared on the tranquil water as well. It was a world so perfect it broke into two. Hummingbirds buzzed in the garden and monarch butterflies bobbed from flower to flower. A couple of dragonflies clicked around the dock. Reine-Marie and Gamache were the only people in the world.
‘You first,’ said Reine-Marie. She loved to watch this. So did their kids when they were younger.
He smiled, bent his knees and thrust his body off the solid dock and into mid-air. He seemed to hover there for a moment, his arms outstretched as though he expected to reach the far shore. It seemed more of a launch than a dive. And then, of course, came the inevitable, since Armand Gamache couldn’t in fact fly. He hit the water with a gargantuan splash. It was cool enough to take his breath for that first instant, but by the time he popped up, he was refreshed and alert.
Reine-Marie watched as he flicked his head around to rid his phantom hair of the lake water, as he’d done the first time they’d visited. And for years after that, until there was no longer any need. But still he did it, and still she watched, and still it stopped her heart.
‘Come on in,’ he called, and watched as she dived, graceful, though her legs always parted and she’d never mastered the toe-point, so there was always a fin of bubbles as her feet slapped the water. He waited to see her emerge, face to the sun, hair gleaming.
‘Was there a splash?’ she asked, treading water as the waves headed into the shore.
‘Like a knife you went in. I barely even knew you dived.’
‘There, breakfast time,’ said Reine-Marie ten minutes later as they hauled themselves up the ladder back onto the dock.
Gamache handed her a sun-warmed towel. ‘What’ll you have?’
They walked back describing for each other impossible amounts of food they’d eat. At the Manoir he stopped and took her off to the side.
‘I want to show you something.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve already seen it.’
‘Not this,’ he chuckled and then stopped. They were no longer alone. There, at the side of the Manoir, someone was hunched over, digging. The movement stopped and slowly the figure turned to face them.
It was a young woman, covered in dirt.
‘Oh, hello.’ She seemed more startled than they. So startled she spoke in English rather than the traditional French of the Manoir.
‘Hello.’ Reine-Marie smiled reassuringly, speaking English back.
‘Desolee,’ the young woman said, smearing more dirt onto her perspiring face. It turned to mud instantly, so that she looked a little like a clay sculpture, animated. ‘I didn’t think anyone was up yet. It’s the best time to work. I’m one of the gardeners.’
She’d switched to French and she spoke easily with only a slight accent. A whiff of something sweet, chemical, and familiar came their way. Bug spray. Their companion was doused in it. The scents of a Quebec summer. Cut grass and bug repellent.
Gamache and Reine-Marie looked down and noticed holes in the ground. She followed their gaze.
‘I’m trying to transplant all those before it gets too hot.’ She waved to a few drooping plants. ‘For some reason all the flowers in this bed’re dying.’
‘What’s that?’ Reine-Marie was no longer looking at the holes.
‘That’s what I wanted to show you,’ said Gamache.
There, off to the side and slightly hidden by the woods, was the huge marble cube. At least now there was someone to ask.
‘Not a clue,’ was the gardener’s answer to his question. ‘A huge truck dropped it here a couple of days ago.’
‘What is it?’ Reine-Marie touched it.
‘It’s marble,’ said the gardener, joining them as they stared.
‘Well here we are,’ said Reine-Marie eventually, ‘at the Manoir Bellechasse, surrounded by woods and lakes and gardens and you and I,’ she took her husband’s hand, ‘are staring at the one unnatural thing for miles around.’
He laughed. ‘What are the chances?’
They nodded to the gardener and returned to the Manoir to change for breakfast. But Gamache found it interesting that Reine-Marie had the same reaction to the marble cube he’d had the night before. Whatever it was, it was unnatural.
The terrasse was mottled with shade and not yet scorching hot, though by noon the stones would be like coals. Both Reine-Marie and Gamache wore their floppy sun hats.
Elliot brought their cafe au lait and breakfasts. Reine-Marie poured Eastern Townships maple syrup onto her wild blueberry crepe and Gamache speared his eggs Benedict, watching the yolk mix with the hollandaise sauce. By now the terrasse was filling with Finneys.
‘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 maitre 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 Riviere 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 couldn’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.