TWENTY-ONE
Clara had left the table. She’d heard enough. She’d tried to feel sympathy for Peter’s mother, had tried to be compassionate and patient. But really, damn her, damn them all, thought Clara as she stomped across the lawn.
She could feel her heart racing and her hands trembling as they always did when she was enraged. And of course her brain didn’t work. It had run away with her heart, the cowards, leaving her defenceless and blithering. Proving to the Morrows once again she was an ill-bred idiot. Because leaving the breakfast table early was rude, but apparently insulting other people wasn’t.
The Morrows seemed to believe there was a special code that allowed them to say what they liked about others, deliberately within their hearing, without its being discourteous.
‘Isn’t that the ugliest baby you’ve ever seen?’
‘You shouldn’t wear white if you’re fat.’
‘She’d be prettier if she didn’t scowl all the time.’
That last had been said about her, on her wedding day, as she’d walked down the aisle smiling and joyful on her father’s arm.
The Morrows could be counted on to choose the right fork and the wrong word. Their comments were always casual. And when confronted they’d look hurt, offended, perplexed.
How often had Clara apologized for being insulted?
And what Mrs Morrow had just said about Gamache’s father was about as insulting as Clara had ever heard.
‘It’s all right, Jean Guy,’ said Gamache a few minutes later as they drove down the rough dirt road towards the local cemetery and the man who made Charles Morrow. ‘I’m used to it. Bert Finney told me he’d known my father at the end of the war. I suppose he said something to his wife.’
‘He didn’t have to.’
‘My father isn’t a secret, you know.’ The Chief Inspector turned to look at Beauvoir, who stared straight ahead at the road, not daring to look at the boss.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I know what people think.’
‘It was a long time ago, and I know the truth.’
Still, Beauvoir stared ahead, hearing the man beside him but also hearing the plummy, rounded voice of Madame Finney and the word that stuck in his head, that stuck in everyone’s. That seemed attached forever to the name Honore Gamache.
Coward.
‘Clara, are you all right?’
Peter walked quickly across the lawn.
‘I suppose you set your mother straight?’ said Clara, staring at him. His hair stuck out in all directions as though he’d run his hands through it over and over. His shirt was untucked and there were croissant crumbs clinging to his slacks. He stood silent. ‘For God’s sake, Peter, when’re you going to stand up to her?’
‘What? She wasn’t talking about you.’
‘No, she was smearing a friend of yours. Gamache heard every word she said. He was supposed to.’
‘You didn’t say anything.’
‘You’re right.’ Clara remembered the tablecloth tucked into her waistband and giving the breakfast china a tug as she’d jerked to her feet.
All eyes were on her. Do it, they seemed to be saying. Humiliate yourself again.
And, of course, she had. She always did. She’d arm herself with the mantras ‘One more day, just one more day’ and ‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter’. She’d meditate and surround herself with white, protective light. But eventually it all failed against the Morrow onslaught, and she’d be standing, quaking like an aspen, in front of them. Incensed, appalled and struck dumb.
And it’d happened again this morning, as Mrs Morrow had explained it all to her family.
‘You’ve never heard the story?’
‘What story?’ Thomas had asked, thrilled. Even Peter seemed eager to hear it. It took the heat off him.
‘Tell us,’ said Peter, throwing Gamache into the fire so that he himself could escape.
‘Irene,’ Bert Finney warned. ‘It was a long time ago. History.’
‘This is important, Bert. The children should hear it.’ She turned back to them, and Clara, God help her, was curious herself.
Irene Finney looked down the table at them. She’d spent most of the night begging, praying, bargaining for sleep. For oblivion. For a few hours away from this loss.
And in the morning, when she awoke, her soft, pink, crusty cheek to the pillow, she’d lost her daughter again. Julia. Now gone, but she’d taken disappointment with her. No more birthdays forgotten, no more empty Sundays waiting for phone calls that never came. Julia at least would never hurt her again. Julia was safe. Safe now to love. That was what the void had coughed up. A dead daughter. But a beloved one. Finally. Someone safe to love. Dead, true. But you can’t have everything.
Then Bert had returned from his morning walk with this wonderful gift. Something else to think about.
Honore Gamache. Somehow the void had coughed him up as well. And his son.
‘It was just before the war. We all knew Hitler had to be stopped. Canada would join with Britain, that was a given. But then this Gamache started giving speeches against the war. He said Canada should stay out of it. Said no good ever came of violence. He was very articulate. Educated.’
She sounded surprised, as though a beluga had graduated from Laval University.
‘Dangerous.’ She appealed to her husband. ‘Am I wrong?’
‘He believed what he was saying,’ said Mr Finney.
‘That only makes him more dangerous. He convinced a lot of others. Soon there were protests in the streets against going to war.’
‘What happened?’ asked Sandra. She looked up. The ceiling was smooth. Swept clean by the Manoir staff without comment. Not a cookie left. Sandra couldn’t help but feel sad for Bean and all that work. But Bean didn’t seem bothered. In fact, Bean was riveted to the story.
‘Canada delayed entering the war.’
‘Only by a week,’ said Finney.
‘Long enough. It was humiliating. Britain in there, Germany brutalizing Europe. It was wrong.’
‘It was wrong,’ agreed Finney sadly.
‘It was that Gamache’s fault. And even when war was declared he convinced a lot of Quebecers to be conscientious objectors. Conscientious.’ She loaded the word with loathing. ‘There was no conscience involved, only cowardice.’
Her voiced lifted, turning the sentence into a weapon and the last word a bayonet. And across the room, the human target.
‘He went to Europe himself,’ said Finney.
‘With the Red Cross. Never in the front lines. He never risked his own life.’
‘There were a lot of heroes in the ambulance corps,’ said Finney. ‘Brave men.’
‘But not Honore Gamache,’ said Irene Finney.