SEVEN
‘I didn’t really want to go, you know,’ said Clara, not looking at Reine-Marie. ‘But I said I would because it seemed important to Peter. This is probably better.’
‘Will you join us, sir?’ Gamache walked up to Bert Finney, also looking out at the lake. Finney turned and stared at Gamache. It was a disconcerting look, not only because of his forbidding face and odd eyes but because people so rarely stared that openly for that long. Gamache held the stare and finally Finney’s lips parted and his disarray of yellow teeth showed in what might have been a smile.
‘No, merci. I believe I’ll stay here.’ He walked to the end of the dock. ‘Seven mad Morrows in a verchere. What could possibly go wrong?’
Gamache took his floppy hat off and felt the full force of the sun. He couldn’t remember a hotter day. It was stifling now. There was no breeze, nothing stirred, and the sun beat down on them relentlessly, bouncing off and magnified by the lake. Perspiration had plastered his fresh shirt to his skin. He offered the hat to the old man.
Very slowly Bert Finney turned round as though he was afraid of capsizing. Then an old hand, like twigs stripped of bark, reached out and held the gaily patterned sun hat.
‘It’s your sun bonnet. You need it.’
‘I prefer to think of it as my helmet,’ said Gamache, letting go of the hat. ‘And you need it more.’
Finney chuckled and held the hat, his fingers stroking it slightly. ‘A sun helmet. I wonder who the enemy is?’
‘The sun?’
‘That would be it, I suppose.’ But he seemed unconvinced and nodding to Gamache he put the hat on his satellite head and turned back to the lake.
An hour later Peter joined them in the garden, his face red from sunburn, Clara was pleased to see. She’d decided to play it cool. Not show how she felt.
Gamache handed him a cold beer, ice slipping off the sides. Peter held it to his red face and rolled it on his chest.
‘Have fun?’ Clara asked. ‘Get caught up with the family?’
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ said Peter, sipping the drink. ‘We didn’t sink.’
‘You think not?’ said Clara and stomped away. Peter stared at Gamache then ran after her, but as he neared the Manoir he noticed a huge canvas blanket that seemed to hover in the air.
The statue had arrived. His father had arrived. Peter slowed to a stop, and stared.
‘For God’s sake, you can’t even leave your family long enough to chase me,’ yelled Clara from the other side of the Manoir, no longer caring that she was proving all the Morrow suspicions true. She was unstable, emotional, hysterical. Mad. But so were they.
Seven mad Morrows.
‘God, Clara, I’m sorry. What can I say?’ he said when he caught up with her. Clara was silent. ‘I’m really fucking up today. What can I do to make this better?’
‘Are you kidding? I’m not your mother. You’re fifty and you want me to tell you how to make this better? You fucked it up, you figure it out.’
‘I’m so sorry. My family’s nuts. I probably should’ve told you sooner.’
He smiled so boyishly it would have melted her heart had it not turned to marble. There was silence.
‘That’s it?’ she said. ‘That’s your apology?’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I wish I did.’
He stood there, lost. As he always was when she was angry.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated. ‘There wasn’t room in the boat.’
‘When will there be?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You could have left. Joined me.’
He stared at her as though she’d told him he could have sprouted wings and flown. She could see that. For Peter it was demanding the impossible. But she also believed Peter Morrow was capable of flight.