THREE
Pierre Patenaude leaned against the swinging kitchen door and pushed just as a rumble of laughter came out. It stopped as soon as he appeared and he didn’t know what upset him more, the laughter or its abrupt end.
In the middle of the room stood Elliot, one hand on a slender hip, the other raised slightly, his index finger erect and frozen, a look on his face both needy and sour. It was an exceptionally accurate caricature of one of their guests.
‘What’s going on?’
Pierre hated the stern disapproval in his voice. And he hated the look on their faces. Fear. Except Elliot. He looked satisfied.
The staff had never been afraid of him before, and they had no reason to be now. It was that Elliot. Since he’d arrived he’d turned the others against the maitre d’. He could feel it. That shift from being at the very centre of the Manoir staff, their respected leader, to suddenly feeling an outsider.
How had the young man done it?
But Pierre knew how. He’d brought out the worst in him. He’d pushed the maitre d’, taunted him, broken the rules, and forced Pierre to be the disciplinarian he didn’t want to be. All the other young staff had been trainable, willing to listen and learn, grateful for the structure and leadership the maitre d’ provided. He taught them to respect the guests, to be courteous and kind even when faced with rudeness. He told them their guests paid good money to be pampered, but more than that. They came to the Manoir to be looked after.
Pierre sometimes felt like an emergency room physician. People streamed through his door, casualties of city life, lugging a heavy world behind them. Broken by too many demands, too little time, too many bills, emails, meetings, calls to return, too little thanks and too much, way too much, pressure. He remembered his own father coming home from the office, drawn, worn down.
It wasn’t servile work they did at the Manoir Bellechasse, Pierre knew. It was noble and crucial. They put people back together. Though some, he knew, were more broken than others.
Not everyone was made for this work.
Elliot wasn’t.
‘I was just having some fun.’
Elliot said it as though it was reasonable to stand in the middle of the crowded, busy kitchen mocking the guests, and the maitre d’ was the unreasonable one. Pierre could feel his rage rising. He looked around.
The large old kitchen was the natural gathering place for the staff. Even the gardeners were there, eating cakes and drinking tea and coffee. And watching his humiliation at the hands of a nineteen year old. He’s young, Pierre said to himself. He’s young. But he’d said it so often it had become meaningless.
He knew he should let it go.
‘You were making fun of the guests.’
‘Only one. Oh, come on, she’s ridiculous. Excusez-moi, but I think he got more coffee than I did. Excusez-moi, but is this the best seat? I asked for the best seat. Excusez-moi, I don’t mean to be difficult, but I did order before they did. Where’s my celery stick?’
Titters, quickly stifled, filled the warm kitchen.
It was a good imitation. Even in his anger the maitre d’ recognized Sandra’s smooth, cool whine. Always asking for a little bit more. Elliot might not be a natural waiter, but he had an uncanny ability to see people’s faults. And magnify them. And mock them. It was a gift not everyone would find attractive.
‘Look who I found,’ said Julia cheerfully as they stepped into the Great Room.
Reine-Marie smiled and rose to kiss her husband, holding out a bulbous cognac glass. The rest looked up, smiled, and returned to what they were doing. Julia stood uncertain on the threshold, then picked up a magazine and sat in a wing chair.
‘Feeling better?’ Reine-Marie whispered.
‘Much,’ Gamache said and meant it, taking the glass warmed by her hands and following her to a sofa.
‘Bridge later?’ Thomas stopped playing the piano and wandered over to the Gamaches.
‘Merveilleux. Bonne idee,’ said Reine-Marie. They’d played bridge most nights with Thomas and his wife Sandra. It was a pleasant way to end the day.
‘Find any roses?’ Thomas asked Julia as he walked back to his wife. There was a rat-tat-tat of laughter from Sandra as though he’d said something witty and brilliant.
‘Some Eleanor roses, you mean?’ Mariana asked from the window seat beside Bean, a look of great amusement on her face. ‘They are your favourites, aren’t they, Julia?’
‘I thought they were more along your line,’ Julia smiled. Mariana smiled back and imagined one of the wooden beams falling and crushing her older sister. It wasn’t as much fun having her back as Mariana had hoped. In fact, quite the opposite.
‘Time for bed, old Bean,’ said Mariana and put her heavy arm round the studious child. Gamache had never known a ten year old so quiet. Still, the child seemed content. As they walked by he caught Bean’s bright blue eyes.
‘What’re you reading?’ he asked.
Bean stopped and looked at the large stranger. Though they’d been together in the Manoir for three days they hadn’t really spoken, until now.
‘Nothing.’
Gamache noticed the small hands close more tightly over the hardcover book, and the loose shirt fold as the book was pressed closer to the childish body. Through the small, tanned fingers Gamache could read only one word.
Myths.
‘Come on, slowpoke. Bed. Mommy needs to get drunk and can’t before you’re in bed, now you know that.’
Bean, still looking at Gamache, suddenly smiled. ‘May I have a martooni tonight, please,’ Bean said, leaving the room.
‘You know you’re not allowed until you’re twelve. It’ll be Scotch or nothing,’ they heard Mariana say, then footsteps on the stairs.
‘I’m not completely convinced she’s kidding,’ said Madame Finney.
Gamache smiled over to her but his smile faded as he saw the stern look on her face.
‘Why do you let him get to you, Pierre?’
Chef Veronique was putting hand-made truffles and chocolate-dipped candied fruit on small plates. Her sausage fingers instinctively placed the confections in an artistic pattern. She took a sprig of mint from the glass, shook the water from it and clipped a few leaves with her nails. Absently she chose some edible flowers from her vase and before long a few chocolates had become a lovely design on the white plate. Straightening up, she looked at the man opposite her.
They’d worked together for years. Decades, come to think of it. She found it odd to think she was almost sixty and knew she looked it, though happily in the wilderness it didn’t seem to matter.
She’d rarely seen Pierre so upset by one of the young workers. She herself liked Elliot. Everyone did, as far as she could tell. Was that why the maitre d’ was so upset? Was he jealous?
She watched him for a moment, his slim fingers arranging the tray.
No, she thought. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something else.
‘He just doesn’t listen,’ said Pierre, setting the tray aside and sitting across from her. They were alone in the kitchen now. The washing up was done, the dishes away, the surfaces scrubbed. It smelled of espresso and mint and fruit. ‘He came here to learn, and he won’t listen. I just don’t understand.’ He uncorked the cognac and poured.
‘He’s young. It’s his first time away from home. And you’ll only make it worse by pushing. Let it go.’
Pierre sipped, and nodded. It was relaxing being around Chef Veronique, though he knew she scared the crap out of the new employees. She was huge and beefy, her face like a pumpkin and her voice like a root vegetable. And she had knives. Lots of them. And cleavers and cast-iron pans.
Seeing her for the first time new employees could be excused for thinking they’d taken a wrong turn on the dirt road into the woods, and ended up at a lumber camp instead of the refined Manoir Bellechasse. Chef Veronique looked like a short-order cook in a cantine.
‘He needs to know who’s in charge,’ said Pierre firmly.
‘He does know. He just doesn’t like it.’
The maitre d’ had had a hard day, she could see. She took the largest truffle from the tray and handed it to him. He ate it absently.
‘I learned French late in life,’ Mrs Finney said, examining her son’s cards.