The Cleaner of Chartres

by Salley Vickers

  ‘I can’t read, really. That is to say, I am learning with Professor Jones.’

  If the Abbé Paul was surprised to hear that his cleaner was not literate, he gave no sign. ‘You’re welcome to read anything you like here. You are interested in the labyrinth?’

  ‘When I was a young girl I had a picture of it. I didn’t know then what it was.’

  ‘And you do now?’

  ‘No, no. I mean –’

  ‘I’m teasing you. But since no one knows what it quite was there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be the one to uncover the mystery.’

  ‘Maybe it is better left uncovered.’

  The Abbé Paul looked at Agnès rather as Alain had, with respect. ‘How sensible. People are desperate to probe mysteries which for the most part are best left unprobed. It is the modern curse: this demented drive to explain every blessed thing. Not everything can be explained. Nor should be, I think.’

  ‘Some things should be, though.’ She was thinking of the riddle of her own birth.

  ‘To be sure. I often wonder if happiness isn’t knowing what should and what should not be explained.’

  ‘But how can we tell which is which?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said the Abbé Paul. ‘That, I suppose, is wisdom.’

  ‘The nuns who brought me up used to say that happiness was self-control. But they were not very good at it themselves, or I didn’t think so anyway.’ The image of Sister Véronique, her face boiling with anger, still frightened her.

  ‘No,’ said the Abbé Paul, and he sounded sad. ‘That, I fear, is too often the way with we religious. Full of fine precepts but none too fine at putting them into practice. I include myself in this bad habit.’

  Agnès, looking at the old black-and-white photograph in the open book, said, ‘Someone told me there was once a plaque in the middle here with a picture of – is it the Minotaur? You can see the bolts there still.’

  ‘Minotaur is right. And the Minotaur’s slayer, Theseus – and Ariadne, who became a spider in some tellings.’

  ‘Do you have the story?’

  ‘Many versions of it. Would you like to borrow one?’

  ‘They’d be way too hard for me.’

  The Abbé Paul went across to a modest pine bookshelf that stood on its own under the window and took out a slender book. ‘These here are my old books from childhood. And this one was my introduction to Greek myths when I first came to France from Scotland. My mother was French so I spoke it well, but I was behind in my reading. You’re very welcome to borrow it, or any of the others on the shelf, and if there are words I can help you with, please . . .’

  That evening the Abbé Paul had poured himself a glass of Chinon when the doorbell rang twice, and ferociously. He had learned to interpret his callers from the manner in which the bell was rung, so it was with the anticipation of trouble that he put down his wine.

  ‘Good evening, Father.’

  Madame Beck. In what could only be a wig. ‘Madame, what a splendid evening, is it not?’

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, Father.’

  You’re not sorry at all, thought the Abbé Paul, ushering his unwelcome guest into his receiving room.

  ‘Only I heard,’ said Madame Beck, ignoring the visitor’s chair and placing herself instead in the dead centre of the blue chaise-longue, the better to fix him with her disturbingly pale eyes, ‘that you had taken on my ex-cleaner.’ Her throat in pronouncing the ‘ex’ made a slight but sinister click.

  The Abbé Paul thought very longingly of his wine. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Mademoiselle Morel.’

  ‘Yes, Agnès.’

  ‘I felt that I should warn you, Father. She is a thief and a liar.’

  Under duress, the Abbé Paul thought effectively and fast. It was a quality he had perhaps inherited from his father’s military ancestor, and indeed had his conscious inclinations not been of an opposite bent he might have made a successful general himself. ‘I am so sorry, Madame Beck. My hearing is not what it was. Would you be so kind as to wait while I go and put in my hearing aid?’

  He left the room and almost ran to his study, where he dashed down most of the glass of wine before removing the untried hearing aid first from his bureau drawer and then from its irritating packaging. How in God’s name did one get the damn thing to function?

  Returning, with the aid lodged uncomfortably in his ear, to the room where Madame Beck sat marmoreally on his chaise-longue, the Abbé Paul began to talk at high speed.

  ‘I’m so grateful to you, Madame, for sending me Agnès. It was extremely generous, as she’s such a marvellous cleaner – well, of course you know that from your own experience. I was going to ring you myself to thank you but you’ve beaten me to it, so let me go and cut you some of my roses instead, as a thank-you, you know. With this weather we’re having they’re blooming again and it seems too selfish of me to keep them all to myself. My goodness, but you are looking well. I do think a spot of sun does us good, don’t you . . .’ And keeping up a relentless flow of conversation, he steered an astonished Madame Beck into his garden, where, donning gardening gloves and taking up his secateurs, he cut a bouquet of his sweetest-smelling roses, while still maintaining the flow.

  And really, he thought, removing the aid after his unwelcome caller had left holding the flowers, too overwhelmed and out-talked to say what she had clearly come to say, the poor creature has probably not been given flowers by a man for years, so it was the right and proper Christian thing to do.

  And the Abbé Paul, after examining the little hearing aid, which had done nothing but make his ear hurt, threw the annoying device into the waste-paper basket and poured himself another glass of wine.

  35

  Chartres

  Philippe had invited his sister to stay – or, more precisely, had acceded without protest to her inviting herself – because, as his friend Tan said, he was easy-going. But Philippe was also good-natured and sorry for his sister. She was one of those people who seemed always to be in trouble, and on this occasion it seemed she was in trouble with her man. Philippe was too delicate to ask the precise circumstances. But he knew that she had had a newborn baby.

  Philippe had never met this partner, or any of Brigitte’s men, but he had come to a point where, he confided to Tan, he had nothing but sympathy for the current unfortunate and could not imagine how he had stood the course with Brigitte long enough to spawn a child. It was not so much that he minded how she had taken over his clean, uncluttered apartment – though he minded that greatly – but that nothing satisfied her. Nothing, he could see now, was ever going to satisfy her.

  She had always been one of nature’s complainers. What was new now was her attitude to her child. She left him to cry. This was more disturbing at night, as it woke Philippe so that he was unable to get back to sleep; but he minded less for himself than for the baby.

  He rang Tan in some distress. ‘The silly creature has read some book which says you can “train” babies by leaving them to cry.’

  ‘Train them for what?’ Tan had asked.

  ‘To sleep, I suppose. But it doesn’t work.’

  That it didn’t work was evident. On the first night of their stay, little Max howled and howled and then, which was more dismaying, was left to sob uncomforted. Finally, unable to endure it a moment longer, Philippe had got up and gone himself to the shaking little body, whereupon Brigitte had flown at him screaming reproof.

  Philippe had had to relinquish the tearful creature to his mother but he could hardly bear doing so. During the day, he was told, the baby was subjected to a regime of black cloths placed over his buggy to ensure that he slept at the correct hour.

  ‘But he’s missing all the sunlight and the vitamin D,’ he’d suggested, exasperated. But his sister had angrily told him he knew nothing about it, to shut his face and keep his opinions to himself.


  Walking to the station, wondering how this situation had come to pass, he considered his sister’s history. That he had always been the favoured child he was guiltily aware. His mother was fair-minded and even-handed; but children can sniff out a preference more accurately than a truffle hound a truffle. Brigitte had been neither clever nor good-looking. She was the one who whined, who wet the bed, who had had few friends at school. In short, as he was ashamed now to recognize, she had been rather obviously despised by her family. When he had left for art school, his sister had quarrelled with both her parents. Their parents had retired since and moved to the south-west, where, he gathered from his mother, his sister had never visited them. Indeed, it was the first time since she had left to become a secretary that Brigitte had been back to her home town of Chartres.

  Meeting Agnès on his way to the station, he answered her polite inquiry with, ‘Since you ask about Brigitte, she’s driving me insane.’

  ‘She doesn’t like the apartment?’

  ‘Oh, she likes the apartment all right. It’s her child she doesn’t like. Poor scrap. I’d adopt him if I weren’t single.’

  ‘How old is he?’ Agnès asked.

  ‘Just gone two months.’

  ‘Perhaps she needs some help. A baby can be overwhelming.’

  ‘Rather you than me!’

  ‘I expect she’s just tired.’

  That evening Philippe tackled his sister. ‘You should take a night off sometime. We could get in a babysitter.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our old babysitter Agnès.’

  Brigitte made a face.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? She was good enough for us. Maman thought so.’

  ‘Maman! What did she know?’

  ‘Quite a lot, as it happens. You were very horrid to Agnès then. She may not want to help you.’

  ‘So? I don’t particularly want her type –’

  ‘Stop,’ said Philippe, holding up a warning hand. ‘Just stop before I have to kick you out. OK?’

  ‘Pardon me for living!’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Philippe under his breath and left for the jazz café.

  • • •

  It was Wednesday, so Agnès and Terry were at the café too. Terry was telling Agnès about a man she had met, maybe a potential boyfriend. ‘He’s cute. Younger than me but quite mature. And not stingy. I hate stingy.’

  ‘How much younger?’

  ‘Five years. He’s thirty-three.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He’s a patents lawyer. Brainy.’

  ‘He sounds OK,’ said Agnès. ‘Don’t mess it up.’ Terry’s impossible standards had wrecked many relationships.

  ‘I’m not going to. And I’m going to sleep with him right away. If all that’s not going to work, it’s better to find out soon.’

  ‘What is?’ asked Philippe, joining their table suddenly.

  ‘Nothing you need to know about, big ears,’ said Terry rudely.

  ‘It’ll be sex, then. Listen, Agnès. I’m going crazy with my sister staying and I can’t go out every night. I’m not exactly paternal but it’s completely awful the way she treats that little kid. I know she was a pig to you when we were small but for me might you –’

  ‘Yes,’ said Agnès. ‘For you I would.’ She did not add ‘and for the baby’.

  When Philippe got home, his sister was lying on the sofa with a copy of Marie Claire, apparently indifferent to the sound of desperate sobbing from the room next door. Philippe walked into the spare bedroom and picked up his nephew.

  Cradling the squalling Max, Philippe spoke in a voice of low anger. ‘He’s sleeping with me tonight, and tomorrow night, or soon after, you are going out. I need a break. You need a break and your baby needs you to take a break. I’ve asked Agnès and she’ll come over and I’m paying. And that’s final.’

  He left the room, shutting the door firmly but quietly, so as not to further distress the child.

  The following evening Agnès rang the bell at Philippe’s apartment. Philippe appeared at the door with Max over his shoulder. ‘Thank goodness you’re here. He’s been sick.’

  ‘All babies are sick.’

  ‘He’s been sick all down me.’

  ‘It’ll wash off. Babies’ sick is harmless. Here.’

  Agnès took the tiny soft person from Philippe.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here, Agnès.’

  ‘He’s adorable.’

  Agnès sat on the sofa with Max in her arms and Philippe made coffee. ‘Have you eaten? Because there’s masses in the fridge.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make something. Where’s Brigitte?’

  ‘I threw her out. Told her to go to the pictures, or whatever.’

  Agnès said, ‘Why don’t you go out too? I’ll be fine.’

  ‘To be honest I wouldn’t mind an early night. He slept in my room last night. I was so nervous I didn’t sleep a wink. His feeding stuff’s all here. You have to sterilize everything.’

  ‘It’s OK. I know.’

  Philippe opened the fridge door. ‘There’s soup.’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘Eggs, you could do an omelette. Or finish the rillettes, they won’t keep, and there’s some Roquefort that needs eating. And fruit. I’ve red and white currants, the white are specially good. And there’re fresh walnuts in the bowl on the side.’

  ‘I’m fine. I’ll have something when he’s asleep.’

  ‘He looks very comfortable with you. By the way, I met Old Ma Beck on the train. I gather you’ve fallen out.’

  ‘Yes.’ Agnès’ face became instant stone.

  Guessing he had blundered, Philippe said, ‘Hey, don’t take what she says to heart. She’s a batty old woman. No one listens to her.’

  • • •

  Philippe had gone for his shower. Max, after drinking half a bottle of milk and then much jiggling by Agnès, had finally burped and fallen asleep on her shoulder. As always it was the feeling she loved and dreaded most. The soft, relaxed, utterly trusting weight and the faint moth’s breath against her cheek.

  Try as she might, she could never recall the exact moment when they took him from her, her own baby with the crumpled tangerine-coloured face, the snubby nose bearing a trace of her blood, the marvellously curled hands, which had held her finger in the firm clutch of exquisite rosy fingers – a grip so instinctively sure of belonging, an instinct so brutally denied. Her baby. Her own Gabriel, of whom she had not a single clipping of his mother-of-pearl nails nor a black curl of his squashed little head.

  Little Max with his soft black hair was very like Gabriel. He stirred and sighed in his sleep, and she began again to walk him up and down, flexing her knees from time to time to make a slow soothing bounce.

  She had ‘sat’ for many children since she came to Chartres, but it was the babies she loved to be with most. She was ‘good’ with them. People said so – and she knew it was true. She had the knack of calming, of lulling them when they were fretful. Odd that someone as frightened as she was could be such a source of calm. But it was so – even poor old Bernard felt it, for he was well on the way to being a child again.

  The fracas with Madame Beck had churned up the terrible memories – of that other child who wasn’t Gabriel, and the dreadful time in Le Mans. A lifetime ago and yet always there, like a dangerous old wreck under the sea ready to rise up and hole her fragile raft.

  She buried her face in the child’s soft neck and breathed in the milky smell of innocence. She was afraid, always afraid. Since those two blessed years with her ‘father’, only when holding a child had she been quite free of fear.

  The baby stirred again and she resumed her walking. What had happened to Dr Deman? Did she try to contact him after she left the farm? And Maddy? What happened to Maddy? She ow
ed her escape from Le Mans to Maddy. She couldn’t recall at all.

  Those few months before she came to Chartres were also a white blur. She had found work here and there, washing dishes, waiting, living in hostels with some rough people, though some kind ones too, always short of food, hungry, never sleeping, always afraid. And then, one day, thinking of the picture that Dr Deman had given her, and she had so carelessly abandoned, she had come to Chartres.

  Philippe put his head round the door in his bathrobe. ‘I’m done in. If it’s really OK by you I’m going to put my head down. But call me if you need me.’ He came across to look at the baby. ‘Good night, Maxling. He’s sweet, isn’t he? I wouldn’t mind one myself.’

  ‘He’s very sweet.’

  ‘His crib’s next door. D’you want to put him down?’

  ‘In a minute,’ Agnès said. ‘I’ll make sure he’s really off first.’

  • • •

  When Brigitte came home, Agnès was on the sofa reading.

  ‘Baby asleep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He go down all right?’

  ‘He was fine.’

  ‘Really? Thanks.’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘I might take you up on that. What you reading?’

  ‘A book about Greek myths.’

  ‘I hate that old stuff.’

  ‘I’d better be off, Brigitte. Good night.’

  ‘Night, then. Thanks.’

  For all that the days were still unseasonably warm, an autumnal nip was sharpening the air. In the light of the street lamps, the sky glowed a vivid indigo. Agnès turned right to walk through the close, passing the cathedral, its stone facets palely pleated into the darkness. Walking down to the Boulevard, under the spangling stars, she heard an owl hoot and shivered. There had been both tawny and barn owls at the farm. There, from her box bed in the kitchen, the long, low calls of the tawny owls had sounded homely.

  Thinking of little Max, heavy in his lightness on her shoulder, she thought, as she always thought, of her own son. Gabriel would be twenty-five in January. He might be married. He might even have a child, or children of his own.