The Nature of the Beast

by Louise Penny

  “Ruth Zardo?” said Brian.

  There was surprised silence, followed by laughter. Including Ruth’s.

  Brian Fitzpatrick didn’t say a great deal, but when he did it was often worth the wait.

  “I don’t think Laurent’s psychotic, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Myrna. “No more than any kid. For some, their imagination’s so strong it overpowers reality. But, like I say, they grow out of it.” She looked at Ruth, stroking and singing to her duck. “Or at least, most do.”

  “He once told us a classmate had been kidnapped,” said Brian. “Remember that?”

  “He did?” Armand asked.

  “Yes. Took about a minute to realize it wasn’t true, but what a long minute. The girl’s parents were in the bistro when he came running in with that news. I don’t think they’ll ever recover, or forgive him. He’s not the most popular kid in the area.”

  “Why does he say things if they aren’t true?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “Your children must’ve made things up,” said Myrna.

  “Well, yes, but not anything so dramatic—”

  “And so vivid,” said Antoinette. “He really sells it.”

  “He probably just wants attention,” said Myrna.

  “Oh God, don’t you hate people like that,” said Gabri.

  He put a carrot on his nose and tried to balance it there.

  “There’s a seal just asking to be clubbed,” said Myrna.

  Ruth guffawed then looked at her. “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?”

  “Shouldn’t you be cutting the eyes out of a sheet?” asked Myrna.

  “Look, I like the kid,” said Ruth, “but let’s face it. He was doomed from the moment of conception.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “Well, look at his parents.”

  “Al and Evelyn?” asked Armand. “I like them. That reminds me.” He walked to the door and picked up a canvas tote bag. “Al gave me this.”

  “Oh, God,” said Antoinette. “Don’t tell me it’s—”

  “Apples.” Armand held up the bag.

  Gamache smiled. When he’d dropped off Laurent, his father Al had been on the porch, sorting beets for their organic produce baskets.

  There was no mistaking Al Lepage. If a mountain came alive, it would look like Laurent’s father. Solid, craggy. He wore his long gray hair in a ponytail that might not have been undone since the seventies.

  His beard was also gray and bushy and covered most of his chest, so that the plaid flannel shirt underneath was barely visible. Sometimes the beard was loose, sometimes it was braided and sometimes, like that afternoon, it was in its own ponytail so that Al’s head looked like something about to be tie-dyed.

  Or, as Ruth once described him, a horse with two asses.

  “Hi, cop,” Al had said when Armand parked and Laurent had jumped out of the car.

  “Hello, hippie,” said Armand, going around to the back of the car.

  “What’s he done now, Armand?” Al asked as they yanked the bike out of the station wagon.

  “Nothing. He was just slightly disruptive in the bistro.”

  “Zombies? Vampires? Monsters?” suggested Laurent’s father.

  “Monster,” said Armand, closing the hatchback. “Only one.”

  “You’re slipping,” Al said to his son.

  “It was on a huge gun, Dad. Bigger than the house.”

  “You need to clean up for dinner, you’re a mess. Quick now before your mother sees you.”

  “Too late,” said a woman’s voice from the house.

  Armand looked over and saw Evelyn standing on the porch, hands on her wide hips, shaking her head. She was much younger than Al. At least twenty years, which put her in her mid-forties. She too wore a plaid flannel shirt, and a full skirt that fell to her ankles. Her hair was also pulled back, though some wisps had broken free and were falling across her scrubbed face.

  “What was it this time?” she asked Laurent with a mixture of amusement and weary tolerance.

  “I found a gun in the woods.”

  “You did?”

  Evelyn looked alarmed and Gamache was once again amazed that this woman still believed her son. Was that love, he wondered, or the same form of delusion Laurent suffered from? A potent combination of wishful thinking and madness.

  “It was just the other side of the bridge. In the woods.” Laurent pointed with his stick and almost hit Gamache in the face.

  “Where is it now?” she asked. “Al, should we go and see?”

  “Wait for it, Evie,” her husband said in his deep, patient voice.

  “It’s huge, Mom. Bigger than the house. And there’s a monster on it. With wings.”

  “Ahhh,” said Evelyn. “Thanks for bringing him back, Armand. Are you sure you don’t want to keep him for a while?”

  “Mom.”

  “Go inside and wash up. We’re having squirrel for dinner.”

  “Again?”

  Gamache smiled. He was never sure if what they claimed to eat was the truth. He actually thought they were vegetarians. He did know they were as self-sufficient as possible, selling their organic produce in panniers to subscribers. He and Reine-Marie among them.

  In the winter they made ends meet by teaching courses on how to live a sustainable lifestyle. It was one of the great miracles that these two should find each other. Like Henri and Rosa. And then that Al and Evie should, later in life, have a child. One miracle begetting another. A wild child.

  “Why’s it always guns?” Al asked.

  “Well, you’re the one who gave him that stick for his birthday,” said Evie. “Now all he does is dive behind furniture shooting at monsters. I can’t tell you how often I’ve been mowed down,” she confided in Armand.

  “It’s meant to be a magic wand,” said Al. “At most a sword. Not a gun. I’d never give him a gun. I hate them.”

  “You gave him a stick and an imagination,” said Evie. “What did you think a nine-year-old boy was going to do with it?”

  “It’s a wand,” said Al to Gamache.

  Armand smiled. If he’d given his son, Daniel, a stick for his ninth birthday there’d still be tears twenty years later. What kid not only accepts the stick, but cherishes it?

  “Say hi to Reine-Marie,” said Evie. “The next pannier’s almost ready, we’re just finishing the harvest. In the meantime, take this.”

  She handed him the sack of McIntosh apples.

  “Merci,” he’d said, trying to sound sincere, and surprised.

  Evie went inside and Al followed her, turning to Gamache at the door. “Thank you for bringing him home.”

  “Always. He’s a great kid.”

  “He’s crazy, but we love him.” Al shook his head. “A gun.”

  A monster, thought Armand as he got in the car and drove home.

  But the monster he was thinking of wasn’t from Laurent’s imagination. This one was very real. And had a name and a pulse, though not, Gamache suspected, a heartbeat.

  * * *

  “Why don’t you like Laurent’s parents, Ruth?” Reine-Marie asked, putting the chicken stew with fresh herb dumplings on the table.

  They’d moved into the large country kitchen and taken seats at the pine table. Antoinette cut the bread while Gabri tossed the salad.

  “It’s not her, it’s him,” said Ruth, putting her glass on the table and looking at them. “He’s a coward.”

  “Al Lepage?” asked Brian. “I’d heard he was a draft dodger, but that doesn’t make him a coward, does it?”

  Both Ruth and Rosa glared at him but said nothing.

  “They were kids themselves at the time, drafted into a war they didn’t want to fight,” said Armand. “They gave up home and family and friends to come here. Not exactly the easy option. They took a stand. I don’t think they were cowards at all. I like Al.”

  “They took a stand by running away?” said Ruth. “Some other kid had to go in his place. Do you thi

nk he thinks of that?”

  “This whole village was settled by people fleeing a war they didn’t believe in,” Myrna pointed out. “The three pines is an old code for sanctuary.”

  “More like asylum,” said Gabri.

  “I know the history of the village,” said Ruth.

  “Let’s change the subject,” said Brian. He turned to Reine-Marie. “Are you going to join the Estrie Players?”

  “Join?” asked Armand, looking at his wife.

  “I was thinking it might be fun.”

  “It is fun,” said Gabri. “Drop by the rehearsal tomorrow night and see. I’ll leave my script for you to read.”

  “Great, I’ll come by. What time?” said Reine-Marie.

  “Seven,” said Brian. “Wear something you don’t mind throwing out. We’ll be painting. How about you, Ruth?”

  “Yes, you’d be good at it,” said Gabri. “You’ve been pretending to be human for years.”

  “Though not very convincingly,” said Myrna. “I never believed it.”

  But Ruth had fallen into a stupor, deep in thought.

  “Let’s go into the living room,” said Reine-Marie, once dinner was finished. “Leave the dishes. Henri will lick them clean later.”

  The guests looked at each other as they left the table, and saw Reine-Marie smiling. In the living room Armand tossed another log onto the fire, putting his hands, palms out, toward the flame.

  “Are you cold?” Reine-Marie asked. “Getting sick?”

  She put her hand on his forehead.

  “No, I just feel a chill,” he explained.

  Antoinette came by and nodded toward the fire. “They’re nice in September, aren’t they? Cheerful. In June they’re just depressing.”

  Reine-Marie laughed and walked over to join Ruth. Antoinette turned away but Armand called her back.

  “The play,” he said quietly.

  “Yes?”

  “Brian said it was by John Fleming.”

  She grew still, her clear eyes studying him. “He shouldn’t have said that.”

  “But he did. Why do you want to keep it a secret?”

  “Like I said, marketing. It’s a new play, we need to do everything we can to pique interest.”

  “A secret playwright is hardly going to get camera crews out.”

  “Not at first, maybe. But the play’s not your run-of-the-mill work by an unknown, Armand. It’s brilliant. I’ve done professional and amateur theatrics for years and this is among the best.”

  “For an amateur,” said Gamache.

  “For anyone. Wait until you see it. I’d put it beside Miller and Stoppard and Tremblay. It’s Our Town meets The Crucible.”

  Gamache was used to hyperbole, especially from people in the theater, so this didn’t surprise him.

  “I’m not questioning the quality of the work,” he said, lowering his voice so that it was barely audible above the crackle of the fire as it caught the dry wood. “I’m wondering about the playwright.”

  “I can’t tell you anything about him.”

  “Have you met him?” Gamache asked.

  Antoinette hesitated. “No. Brian found the script among my uncle’s papers after he died.”

  “Why did you white out the playwright’s name?”

  “I told you. I wanted to create a buzz. Once the play opens everyone’s going to want to know who wrote it.”

  “And what’ll you tell them?”

  Now Antoinette looked decidedly tense.

  “Who wrote She Sat Down and Wept?” Gamache asked, his voice low.

  “Like Brian said, it’s by some fellow named John Fleming.”

  “I know a John Fleming,” he said. “And so do you. And so does everyone.” He stared at her. “Is it that John Fleming?”

  “I don’t know,” she said after a pause.

  He continued to stare until she flushed. “You know.”

  “Know what?” asked Gabri, offering them coffees. Too late, he picked up on the tension between the two.

  “Please tell me it’s not the same man,” said Gamache, searching Antoinette’s face. And then his went slack before he whispered, “My God, it is, isn’t it?”

  “What is?” asked Gabri, wishing he could back away but knowing it was too late.

  “Will you tell him?” Armand asked. “Or shall I?”

  “Tell him what?” asked Myrna, joining them.

  Armand walked over to the table by the door where Gabri had left his script.

  “Tell them who wrote this,” he said, holding it out to Antoinette. “Tell them the real reason you didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Hearing the tone of his voice, Reine-Marie looked over. Armand was dangerously close to being rude to one of their guests, something he’d rarely been in all the years she’d known him. He hadn’t liked all their guests, certainly hadn’t agreed with all of them, but he’d always been courteous.

  But now he toed the line. And then he crossed it, thrusting the play at Antoinette.

  “Tell them,” he said.

  She took it, then turned to the other dinner guests. “It was John Fleming.”

  “We already know that,” said Myrna. “Brian told us this afternoon in the bistro, remember?”

  “That’s what’s going to get people excited?” asked Gabri. “Your brilliant marketing plan? He’s hardly a household name.”

  “But he is,” said Armand. “Everyone in Canada knows him. In North America. He’s famous. Infamous.”

  They looked perplexed, genuinely baffled by Armand’s behavior and insistence. But then Myrna sank down. Had the sofa not been there, she might have gone all the way to the floor. Brian took the cup and saucer from her just before it spilled.

  “That John Fleming?” Myrna whispered.

  Gabri, far from buckling, looked as though he’d been turned to granite as he stared at Antoinette. A Medusa in their midst.

  “You didn’t,” he said. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  * * *

  Once home, Ruth turned the key in the lock and leaned against the door, her heart pounding, her breathing rapid and shallow. She held Rosa to her chest and pressed against the thin wood of the door. All that stood between her and Rosa and an alien world that had produced a John Fleming.

  Then she drew the curtains and pulled from her string bag the script she’d stolen.

  Making herself a cup of tea, Ruth opened the play and started to read.

  * * *

  The party broke up and Armand went into the kitchen. Reine-Marie could hear the tap water and the clinking of dishes and cutlery.

  Then the clinking stopped and she heard only the steady stream of water. Going into the kitchen, she stopped at the door. Armand was leaning over the sink, his large hands clutching the counter, as though he was about to be sick.

  * * *

  “Are you still going to rehearsal tomorrow?” Gabri asked, as he and Myrna walked home.

  “I guess. I don’t know. I … I…”

  “I know, me too.”

  Gabri kissed her good night on both cheeks, then went into the bistro to help Olivier with the last of the evening service. Myrna climbed the stairs to her loft apartment above the bookstore and got into her pajamas, then realized she was both tired and wide awake. Looking out the window, she saw a light at Clara’s home.

  It was eleven o’clock.

  Putting a shawl around her shoulders, and slipping on rubber boots, she clumped around the edge of the village green and knocked on the door. Then she let herself in.

  “Clara?”

  “In here.”

  Myrna found her in her studio, sitting in front of the unfinished canvas. Peter Morrow stared back, ghostly. Half-finished. A demi-man in an unfinished life.

  Clara was wearing sweats and held a paintbrush in her mouth, like a female FDR. Her hair stuck out at odd angles from running her hands through it.

  “Pizza for dinner?” asked Myrna, picking a mushroom out of Clara’s hair.

  “Yes. Reine-Marie invited me over but I wasn’t really in the mood.”

  Myrna looked at the easel and knew why. Clara had been obsessing over the portrait again. And Peter, now gone, was still managing to undermine his wife’s art.

  “Do you want to talk?” Myrna asked, drawing up a stool.

  Clara put down the brush and ran her hands through her graying hair so vigorously that bits of pepperoni and crumbs fell out.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” said Clara, waving at the portrait. “It’s as though I’ve never painted in my life. Oh, God, suppose I can’t?”

  She looked at Myrna in a panic.

  “You will,” Myrna assured her. “Maybe you’re just doing the wrong portrait. Maybe it’s too soon to paint Peter.”

  Peter seemed to be watching them. A slight smile on his handsome face. Myrna wondered if Clara knew how very well she’d already captured the man. Myrna had cared for Peter very much, but she also knew he could be a real piece of work. This piece, in fact. And Myrna also wondered if Clara had been adding to the portrait, or taking away. Had she been making him less and less substantial?

  She turned away and listened as Clara talked about what had happened. To Peter. It was a story Myrna knew well. She’d been there.

  But still she listened, and she’d listen again. And again.

  And with every telling Clara was letting go of a bit of the unbearable pain. The guilt she felt. The sorrow. It was as though Clara was pulling herself out of the ocean, dripping in grief, but no longer drowning.

  Clara blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  “Did you have fun at the Gamaches’?” she asked. “What time is it anyway? Why’re you in pajamas?”

  “It’s half past eleven,” said Myrna. “Can we go into the kitchen?”

  Away from the goddamned painting, thought Myrna.

  “Tea?” Clara asked.

  “Beer?” Myrna countered, and pulled a couple out of the fridge.

  “What’s wrong?” Clara asked.

  “You know I joined the Estrie Players,” said Myrna.

  “You’re not going to ask me again to go and paint sets,” said Clara. When Myrna didn’t answer, Clara put her beer down and reached out for her friend’s hand.

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