A Place of Hiding

Deborah took the document and promised to hand it over to her husband.

She left the flat feeling buoyed. Outside, she walked back round the building, where she found Cherokee lounging against a railing across the street and in front of a holiday hotel that was closed for the winter. The collar of his jacket was turned up against the chill and he was drinking from a take-away cup of something steaming as he watched the Queen Margaret Apartments like an undercover cop. He pushed himself away from the railing when he spied Deborah, and he came across to her.

“How was it?” he asked. “Things go okay? She’s been on edge all day.”

“She’s all right,” Deborah said. “Bit anxious, though.”

“I want to do something, but she won’t let me. I try, and she just flies off the handle. I don’t think she should be in there alone, so I hang around and say we ought to go for a drive or take a walk or play cards or watch CNN and see what’s happening at home. Or something. But she just freaks.”

“She’s scared. I don’t think she wants you to know just how much.”

“I’m her brother. ”

“That may be why.”

He thought about this, emptying the rest of his cup and crushing it between his fingers. He said, “It was always her taking care of me. When we were kids. When Mom was...well, being Mom. The protests. The causes. Not all the time but when someone needed a body willing to tie herself to a redwood tree or carry a placard for something. Off she’d go. Weeks at a time. Chine was the strong one all through that. It wasn’t me.”

“You feel indebted to her.”

“Big time. Yeah. I want to help.”

Deborah considered this: his need balanced against the situation they faced. She glanced at her watch and decided there was time.

“Come with me,” she said. “There’s something you can do.”





Chapter 12


The morning room of the manor house was fitted out with an enormous frame, St. James saw, similar to that used for making tapestries. But instead of weaving, what apparently went on at this device was needlepoint on an unthinkable scale. Ruth Brouard said nothing while he observed this frame and the canvas-like material stretched upon it, looking from it to a finished piece that hung on one of the walls of the room, a piece not unlike the one he’d seen earlier in her bedroom. The enormous needlepoint seemed to depict the fall of France during the Second World War, St. James noted, with the Maginot Line beginning the story and a woman packing suitcases ending it. Two children watched this woman—a boy and a girl—while behind them a bearded old man in a prayer shawl stood with a book open on his palm and a woman his own age wept and appeared to be comforting a man who might have been her adult son.

“This is remarkable,” St. James said.

On a drop-front desk, Ruth Brouard placed a manila envelope she’d been holding when she answered the door. “I find it therapeutic,” she said, “and far less expensive than psychoanalysis.”

“How long did it take?”

“Eight years. But I wasn’t as quick then. I didn’t need to be.”

St. James observed her. He could see the disease in her too-careful movements and in the strain on her face. But he was reluctant to name or even mention it to her, so intent did she seem upon maintaining the pretence of vitality.

“How many have you planned?” he asked, giving his attention next to the unfinished work stretched upon the frame.

“As many as it takes to tell the whole story,” she replied. “This one”—

with a nod at the wall—“this was the first. It’s a bit crude, but I got better with practice.”

“It tells an important story.”

“I think so. What happened to you? I know it’s rude to ask, but I’m quite beyond that sort of social nicety at this point. I hope you don’t mind.”

He certainly would have done had the question come from someone else. But from her, there seemed to be a capacity for understanding that superseded idle curiosity and made her a kindred spirit. Perhaps, St. James thought, because she was so clearly dying.

He said, “Car crash.”

“When was this?”

“I was twenty-four.”

“Ah. I’m sorry.”

“That’s completely unnecessary. We were both drunk.”

“You and the lady?”

“No. An old school friend.”

“Who was driving, I expect. Who walked away without a scratch.”

St. James smiled. “Are you a witch, Miss Brouard?”

She returned his smile. “I only wish I were. I’d’ve cast more than one spell over the years.”

“Upon a lucky man?”

“Upon my brother.” She turned the desk’s straight-backed chair to face the room, and lowered herself to it, one hand on its seat. She indicated an armchair nearby. St. James took it and waited for her to tell him why she wanted to see him a second time.