SIX
Finally, after a luncheon that lasted a thousand years, Clara was able to get away, and the first thing she wanted to do was go on the hunt for the Gamaches.
‘I think Mother would prefer us to stay here.’ Peter hovered on the stone terrasse.
‘Come on.’ She gave him a conspiratorial look and held out her hand. ‘Be daring.’
‘But it’s a family reunion.’ Peter longed to go with her. To take her hand and race across the perfect lawn, and find their friends. Over lunch, while the rest of the family either ate in silence or discussed the stock market, Peter and Clara had whispered urgently and excitedly about the Gamaches.
‘You should’ve seen your face,’ said Peter, trying to keep his voice down. ‘You looked like Dorothy meeting the Great and Powerful Oz. All stunned and excited.’
‘I think you’re spending way too much time with Olivier and Gabri,’ said Clara, smiling. She’d never actually smiled at a family reunion before. It felt odd. ‘Besides, you looked like the Tin Man, all stunned. Can you believe the Gamaches are here? Can we sneak away and spend some time with them this afternoon?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Peter, hiding behind a warm bun. The prospect of killing a few hours with their friends instead of enduring the family was a great relief.
Clara had looked at her watch. Two p.m. Twenty more hours. If she went to bed at eleven and woke up at nine tomorrow morning that would leave just – she tried to work it out in her head – eleven more waking hours with Peter’s family. She could just about make it. And two hours with the Gamaches, that left just nine hours. Dear Lord, she could almost see the end coming. Then they could return to their little village of Three Pines, until another invitation arrived, next year.
Don’t think about that.
But now Peter hesitated on the terrasse, as she secretly knew he would. Even over lunch she’d known he couldn’t do it. Still, it had been fun to pretend. Like playing emotional dress-up. Pretending to be the brave one this time.
But in the end, of course, he couldn’t do it. And Clara couldn’t leave him. And so she walked slowly back inside.
‘Why’d you tell your family about my solo show?’ she asked Peter, and wondered if she was trying to pick a fight with him. To punish him for making them stay.
‘I thought they should know. They’re always so dismissive of your work.’
‘And you’re not?’ She was pissed off.
‘How can you say that?’ He looked hurt, and she knew she’d said it to wound. She waited for him to point out that he’d supported her all these years. He’d put a roof over their heads and bought the food. But he stayed silent, which annoyed her even more.
As he turned to face her she noticed a small dot of whipped cream, like a whitehead, on his cheek. It might as well have been an aeroplane, so odd was it to see anything unplanned attached to her husband. He was always so splendid, so beautifully turned out. His clothes never wrinkled, the creases crisp, never a stain nor a fault. What was that thing on Star Trek? The tractor beam? No, not that. The shields. Peter went through life with his shields raised, repulsing attack by food or beverage, or people. Clara wondered whether there was a tiny Scottish voice in his head right now screaming, ‘Cap’n, the shields are down. I canna git them up.‘
But Peter, dear Peter, was oblivious of the small, fluffy, white alien attached to his face.
She knew she should say something, or at least wipe it off, but she was fed up.
‘What’s wrong?’ Peter asked, looking both concerned and a little afraid. Confrontation petrified him.
‘You told your family about the Fortin gallery to annoy them. Especially Thomas. It had nothing to do with me. You used my art as a weapon.’
Cap’n, she’s breakin’ up.
‘How can you say that?’
But he sounded unsure, something else she rarely heard.
‘Please don’t talk about my art with them again. In fact, don’t mention anything personal at all. They don’t care and it just hurts me. Probably shouldn’t, but it does. Can you do that?’
She noticed his slacks pocket was still inside out. It was one of the most disconcerting things she’d ever seen.
‘I’m sorry,’ he finally said. ‘But it wasn’t Thomas, you know. Not any more. I think I’ve grown used to him. It was Julia. Seeing her again has thrown me.’
‘She seems nice enough.’
‘We all do.’
‘Twenty more hours,’ said Clara, looking at her watch then reaching up and rubbing the whipped cream off his face.
On their way up the footpath the Gamaches heard a voice calling to them, and stopped.
‘There you are,’ puffed Madame Dubois, holding a basket of herbs from the garden. ‘I left a note at the front desk. Your son called from Paris. Said he’d be out this evening, but he’ll try again.’
‘Quel dommage,’ said Gamache. ‘We’ll connect eventually. Merci. May I carry that?’ He put out his hand for the basket and after a small hesitation the innkeeper handed it to him gratefully.
‘It is getting hot,’ she said, ‘and I find the humidity wearying.’ She turned and started up the path at a pace that flabbergasted the Gamaches.
‘Madame Dubois.’ Gamache found himself chasing after a woman in her mid-120s. ‘We have a question.’
She stopped and waited for him.
‘We were wondering about the marble cube.’
‘What marble cube?’
‘Pardon?’ he said.
‘Pardon?’ said Madame Dubois.
‘That big box of marble down there, on the other side of the Manoir. I saw it last night and then again this morning. Your young gardener doesn’t know what it’s for and Pierre told us to ask you.’
‘Ah, oui, that marble box,’ she said as if there were others. ‘Well, we’re very lucky. We’re …’ and she mumbled something then headed off.
‘I didn’t hear what you said.’
‘Oh. All right.’ She behaved as though they’d tortured her for the information. ‘It’s for a statue.’
‘A statue? Really?’ Reine-Marie asked. ‘Of what?’
‘Of Madame Finney’s husband.’
Armand Gamache saw Bert Finney in marble in the middle of their beloved gardens at Manoir Bellechasse. Forever. His wretched face etched in stone and watching them, or God knows what, for eternity.
Their faces must have alerted Madame Dubois.
‘Not this one, of course. The first one. Charles Morrow. I knew him, you know. A fine man.’
The Gamaches, who really hadn’t given it much thought, suddenly understood a great deal. How Spot Finney had become Peter Morrow. His mother had married again. She’d gone from Morrow to Finney, but no one else had. In their minds they’d been thinking of them all as Finneys, but they weren’t. They were Morrows.
That might explain, at least in part, how a reunion to celebrate Father seemed to ignore Bert Finney.