Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé Page 25

  Back home, I made dinner for everyone – home-made soup and olive bread; baked rice pudding and peach jam – but I was too restless to eat anything. Instead I drank coffee and sat by the window and watched the lights on the boulevard, and felt homesick for Roux, and our houseboat with my little chocolaterie in it, and Nico, and my mother, and all those simple, familiar things that aren’t so simple any more.

  Roux was right. Why am I here? It was a mistake for me to come; a terrible, ruinous, stupid mistake. How could I have ever believed that chocolate could solve anything? The ground beans of a South American tree; some sugar; a pinch of spices. Sweet conceits, no more substantial than a handful of powder on the wind. Armande said Lansquenet needed me. But what have I done since I arrived but kick open doors that should have stayed shut?

  Roux asked me to come home last night. Roux, who never asks for anything. If only he’d asked a week ago, before all this. Now it’s too late. Nothing has turned out as I planned. My trust in him has been broken; my friendship with Joséphine compromised. Even Reynaud, whom I promised to help, has come to grief since I came here. Why did I stay? To help Inès? She clearly doesn’t want my help. And as for Rosette and Anouk – well. Is it fair to bring them here, to let them make friends – and maybe more – knowing that it cannot last?

  There’s something different about Anouk. I’ve sensed it over the past few days. Today she is excessively bright; yesterday she was moody. Her colours are like the autumn sky, veering from grey, to purple, to blue, all in the space of an instant. Is she hiding something from me? Is something preying on her mind? With Anouk, it’s so hard to know; although I suspect that Jeannot Drou may have something to do with it. The furtive glances; the innocent airs; the time spent on her mobile phone, texting, or searching Facebook. And now, this new, almost fey Anouk; this stream of chatter; this girlish glow like that of a latent fever. All the more reason not to stay. And yet, perhaps—

  At nine o’clock, a knock at the door. I opened it to see Luc Clairmont, out of breath and slightly embarrassed. I didn’t need to read colours to know that Caroline had sent him.

  He came in, declined coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. Alyssa, who had fled upstairs, came quietly back down again. Of course, she looks very different now, with her short hair and cast-off jeans. But whatever she says about not loving Luc, it is clear to me that he loves her. His face lit up when he saw her; his eyes were almost as wide as Rosette’s.

  She said: ‘Don’t tell anyone I’m here.’

  ‘O-OK.’ He gave her a sideways look from under his overlong fringe. The stutter that he has mostly outgrown made a brief reappearance. ‘Have you left home?’

  Alyssa shrugged. ‘I’m nearly eighteen. I can do whatever I like.’

  Now I saw envy in Luc’s eyes. Leaving Caroline Clairmont will be no simple achievement. Although he is older than Alyssa and already has a house of his own, his mother still casts a long shadow, and he has not yet escaped it. Some people never do – trust me, Luc, I should know.

  He gave me an apologetic look. ‘My mother says you were at Reynaud’s house.’

  I said: ‘Yes, I was. But he wasn’t home.’

  ‘Well, that’s the problem,’ Luc went on. ‘He hasn’t been seen since yesterday. My m-mother just checked his house. He’s not home. She phoned Père Henri. He hasn’t seen him either. She thought he might be here w-with you.’ That little ghost-stutter was back in his voice. He looked profoundly uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t really want to ask, but people are getting worried, and—’

  ‘No, Luc.’ I shook my head. ‘I haven’t seen him either.’

  ‘Oh. But I mean – where would he go? It isn’t like him just to disappear. And without even telling anyone? It doesn’t make sense—’

  Actually, it makes perfect sense. I know exactly how he feels. We have tried and tried, he and I, and still Lansquenet defies us. We are not so very different, after all, Reynaud and I. We both feel the pull of the Black Autan. We both have known disappointment here, and sadness, and betrayal. That vision of Reynaud I saw when I was making the chocolates – I took it as a diversion, when all the time I was seeing the truth almost as it was happening—

  ‘Why would he leave?’ I said it aloud. ‘Because he can’t face it any more. Because he thinks he’s let you down. He tried to help, but it made things worse. He thinks you’ll be better without him. And maybe he’s right—’ I realized I was no longer speaking entirely for Reynaud. ‘Some things – some people – can’t be saved. There’s a limit to what goodwill can do. We can only be what we’re made to be, not what others expect, or hope—’ I broke off, seeing Luc staring. ‘What I mean is,’ I went on, ‘sometimes walking away is best. I should know. It’s my speciality.’

  He looked at me, incredulous. ‘Is that really what you think?’

  ‘I know it’s hard to understand, but—’

  ‘Oh, I understand just fine.’ Suddenly, he was furious. ‘You’re the queen of walking away, aren’t you, Vianne? My grandmother said you’d leave, and you did. Right on cue, just like she said. But she was sure you’d be back some day. Even wrote you a letter. And now, here you are again, saying that sometimes walking away is best. You think any of this would have happened if you’d stayed here in the first place?’

  I stared at him in astonishment. Could this really be Luc Clairmont? Little Luc, who’d once had a stammer so pronounced that he could hardly finish a sentence? Luc, who’d read Rimbaud’s poems in secret when his mother was in church?

  A voice in my head gave a gleeful chuckle. Not my mother’s voice, this time, or even Zozie’s, but Armande’s voice, which made it very hard to dismiss. That’s my boy. You tell her, it said. Sometimes even a witch needs that.

  I tried to ignore it. ‘That’s not fair. I had to leave,’ I told him. ‘My journey wasn’t finished, Luc. I had to try to find myself.’

  ‘And did you?’ He was still furious.

  I shrugged.

  ‘I didn’t think so.’

  His words stayed with me long after he’d left and the children had all gone to bed. Of course it’s ridiculous and unfair. Francis Reynaud is not a child. He must have his reasons for leaving. And yet, that inner voice persists: You think any of this would have happened if you’d stayed here in the first place?

  If I’d stayed in Lansquenet, Roux would never have left Joséphine. The fire in the chocolaterie would never have happened. Reynaud would never have been accused. We would have made friends with the Maghrébins – Inès Bencharki and her brother would never have found a foothold in Les Marauds.

  I texted Roux:

  I’m sorry. I meant to come home. But I don’t even know what that means any more. Too many things are happening here. I’ll try to call again. V.

  I wondered if he would understand. Roux, like Rosette, lives for the present, and has no patience with what-if or if-only. Places have no hold on him; he makes his home wherever he wants. If only I could be like Roux, and leave the past where it belongs.

  But the past is never far from my thoughts; regret never more than a blink away. When I was a child, I liked gardens; the tidy rows of marigolds; the lavender bushes along the walls; the nicely tended vegetable plots with their rows of cabbages and leeks and onions and potatoes.

  Yes, I’d have liked a garden. Even a handful of herbs in a pot. My mother said: ‘Why bother, Vianne? You make them grow, you water them, and then one day you have to move on. There’s no one left to care for them. They die. Why try to make them grow at all?’

  All the same, I always tried. A geranium on a window-ledge. An acorn underneath a hedge. A scatter of wildflowers along a stretch of roadside verge; something that might take root and grow, and still be there if I came by again—

  I remembered Reynaud in his garden, grimly fighting the yearly invasion of dandelions that poke their green tongues from the flowerbeds, the vegetable patch, the neatly trimmed lawn. If he stays away, in a month his garden will be overgrown. Dandelions will mar
ch across the garden path, invade the lawn, and scatter regiments of parachutes into the grey and turbulent air. Lavender will grow spidery through the gaps in the garden wall, and ivy will sink its tendrils between the loosened blocks of stone. In the flowerbeds, anarchy. The ranks of dahlias will fall, and the morning glories will blow their trumpets in triumph as the weeds begin to take over.

  Reynaud, where are you?

  I tried the cards. But they were as indistinct as before. Here comes the Knight of Cups again; the Eight of Cups; despair; debauch. Is the Knight of Cups Reynaud? His face is in shadow, too raddled to tell. The cards, which were cheap to begin with, are badly stained with handling. And now comes his partner, the Queen of Cups; and between them, the Lovers – Joséphine and Roux? – and the Tower, broken and tumbling. Thrown dice. Destruction. Change. But who rings the changes?

  You do.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thursday, 26th August

  I MUST HAVE slept again, Père, because I dreamt. I do not dream often – it is a habit I seem to have lost – but this time my dreams were like locusts, swarming all over me, picking me dry, and the world was filled with the sound of their wings. I awoke feeling stiff and exhausted. My ribs still hurt, and my injured hand was swollen and throbbing fiercely. I wished I had brought some painkillers with me, but of course I had left them at home.

  Home. Oh, what a fool I’ve been. To think that I could try to outrun the shadows that pursue me. To be like Vianne Rocher, to go wherever the winds blow. That’s where I made my mistake, père. Oh, God, for the chance to take it back.

  The little pale square around the grille had reappeared again. It was daylight. The trickle of water from the pipe has now reached the top of the lowest step. I finished the last of my supplies and examined my position, which, on the whole, does not look good.

  I must have been here a day and a night. In that time, no one has come, either to explain the reason for my imprisonment or (better still) to ensure my release. I was hoping that, in the light of day, whoever did this might get cold feet, decide that I have been punished enough and simply let me go on my way. This has not happened, and now I begin to wonder whether my assessment of the situation has not been overly optimistic. How long am I to be kept here? Why am I a prisoner? More importantly, who has made himself judge and jury over me?

  Above me, the sound of the treadmill maintains a steady heartbeat, occasionally joined by the sound of other fitness machinery. I had no idea that Saïd’s gym was such a hub of activity. Of course, I knew it was popular, but I never suspected the number of men who use it as a meeting-place. Over time, I have learnt to distinguish the voices of the different machines; the thumping of the treadmill, the creak-thump of the rowing machines; the ack-ack-ack of the bicycles; the purposeful nearly-there thud of the weights. There are classes, too; I can hear them, the scuffling of many feet on the floor above punctuated by muffled cries of encouragement. Keep-fit? Martial arts? Difficult to say for sure, but from what I can hear, half the male population of Les Marauds is there, stamping their feet more or less in time, presumably wholly unaware of my presence here, in the bilges.

  I tried calling for help again. No one heard me. No one came. For half an hour, the sound of activity stopped completely and I guessed that it was time for prayer. During that time, I heard noises; scuffling noises in the walls. Rats, I imagine. The cellars are infested with them. Then the treadmill began again.

  I stood on the crates and looked outside. The rain has stopped for the present. The view was as dull as yesterday, a brick wall, skirted with litter; dandelions between the stones. I prepared to call for help again—

  And saw a small, round, curious face staring at me (upside down) from between a pair of pink wellington boots. Espresso-dark eyes blinked in surprise.

  ‘Are you a Jinni?’ said Maya.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Thursday, 26th August

  AFTER A RESTLESS night’s half-sleep, I went out to check if Reynaud had come home. I was not alone in this. In the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, I found Caro Clairmont holding court outside Reynaud’s back door, with Joline and Bénédicte. It soon became clear that Caro viewed Monsieur le Curé’s disappearance as suspicious, maybe even sinister.

  ‘I think Père Henri would do well to check the parish accounts for the past few months,’ she was saying as I arrived. ‘Say what you like, there’s no smoke without fire, and with everything that’s been happening—’ She shot me a disapproving glance. I suppose my presence also counts as an unusual happening. Her blue eyes, pale and powdery, lingered on me like chalk dust. ‘Of course, if he’s somehow involved with that girl—’

  ‘What girl?’ I said.

  She gave a tight little smile. ‘One of the girls from Les Marauds,’ she said. ‘According to Louis Acheron, he was seen last week, around midnight, with a girl by the side of the bridge. A Maghrébine, by all accounts.’

  I shrugged. ‘So what?’

  ‘So, who was she? Louis says she was wearing a veil.’

  ‘Half the women in Les Marauds wear a veil,’ said Charles Lévy, who was watching from over his garden fence.

  ‘But do half the women in Les Marauds have midnight meetings with Monsieur le Curé?’ Caro’s voice was like baba au rhum.

  ‘Maybe they do.’ It was Bénédicte. ‘I’ve heard that Joséphine Muscat has been getting awfully friendly with him.’

  Caro and Joline both glanced at me.

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,’ said Caro.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She gave that syrupy smile again. ‘She’s your friend. Why don’t you ask her? As for Reynaud, his behaviour has been – shall we say, irregular. There’s something going on, I’m sure. I’ve called Père Henri. He’ll know what to do.’

  I left them to wait for Père Henri and headed for the Place Saint-Jérôme. If anyone knew where Reynaud had gone, I guessed it might be Joséphine. But Caro’s comment had struck a nerve.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Of course, she has never liked Joséphine. And an unmarried mother in Lansquenet is always the subject of gossip. I ought to know better by now than to let Caro’s gossip trouble me. But all the same, could she have known the truth about Pilou’s father?

  I found the café empty. Even the bar was deserted. I called Joséphine. No answer. Marie-Ange must be on her break. I felt a childish pang of relief. Now I won’t have to see her. Then I saw movement from behind the glass bead curtain dividing the bar from the living quarters at the back.

  ‘Joséphine?’ I called again.

  ‘Who wants her?’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘It’s Vianne,’ I said. ‘Vianne Rocher.’

  For a moment there was silence. Then the bead curtain parted, and a grey-haired man in a wheelchair emerged. For a moment I didn’t recognize him. All I could see was that wheelchair, and the wasted legs tucked neatly beneath a stretch of tartan blanket. Then, I saw him: the dark eyes; the handsome, brutal features; the smile; the muscular arms emerging from the sleeves of a denim work-shirt.

  ‘Hello, you interfering bitch.’

  The man was Paul-Marie Muscat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Thursday, 26th August

  I FELT AS if he’d punched me. Not because of what he’d said, but the shock of his appearance. His face has not altered very much. His grey hair is shorn to a stubble, showing the contours of his scalp. He has lost weight, and the coarseness that once characterized his features has been refined to a kind of severe beauty. But his expression is the same: appraising; vaguely hostile; suspicious, and yet coloured with a kind of trollish good humour.

  ‘Surprised to see me, eh?’ he said. ‘I heard you were back in Lansquenet. I don’t suppose the bitch mentioned me. She wouldn’t. I’m not good for business.’

  I held his gaze. ‘If you mean Joséphine, then no, she didn’t mention you.’

  He laughed harshly and lit a Gauloise. ‘She doesn’t like me smoking in here. Does
n’t like me drinking, either. Whisky?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, thanks.’

  He poured himself a double from a bottle standing on the bar. ‘I built this place out of nothing,’ he said. ‘I ran it like clockwork for six whole years. Of course, she likes to pretend it’s hers, and that she doesn’t owe me a thing. Why would she? I only gave her my name, looked after her, paid for her clothes, lived with her moods. But as soon as we hit a rough patch, she threw me out like a stray dog.’ He gave another joyless laugh and blew smoke out of his nostrils. ‘I guess I have you to thank for that. Giving her ideas. Well, I hope you’re happy now.’ He took a drink of his whisky. ‘Because I’m right where you wanted me.’

  I looked at him. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘What do you care? Or am I one of your causes, now that I’m only half a man?’

  I checked his colours. They were, as I’d expected, as muddy as they’d always been, shot through with the same angry flashes of smoky red and burnt orange. And in the smoke were glimpses of life; a row of optics above a bar; something burning by the side of a road. This was my Knight of Cups, I knew: this angry, broken, contemptuous man.

  ‘You always went for the damaged ones. The hopeless cases. The river-rats. That old bitch Armande. And Joséphine—’ He gave his mean and hateful laugh. ‘I guess she must have surprised you, too. Who’d have thought she had it in her? Throws me out of my own house, threatens me with the police, then when I come back six months later, just to pick up a few of my things, she’s shacked up with that redhead of hers, and he’s building her a boat. Oh yes, and she’s pregnant. Happy days.’ He gave a drag on his Gauloise and chased it with the last of the whisky. ‘Of course, you’ll know all about that,’ he said, giving me his cheerless grin. ‘Tell me, was it one at a time, or both together? Either way, he must have been something pretty damn special for both of you to be—’

  ‘Shut up, Paul,’ said a harsh voice from behind me.