Cupid's Arrow

by Isabelle Merlin

  The owner was polishing glasses behind his counter. One of the guys who'd been in there when I went in before was still there, leaning on the counter. The other one was gone. But there were a couple of other people in there, a man and a woman. They were sitting at a table, eating a meal. It looked good, and I suddenly felt really hungry myself.

  'So, you found Our Lady of the Fountain, then?' the café-owner asked, quite shattering any hopes I might have had that he wouldn't recognise me.

  I nodded. 'Yes, I did.'

  'And what did you think of it?'

  'It's a very interesting place. And beautiful.'

  'Did you make a wish?' said the guy leaning on the counter.

  I shrugged. 'Wishes do not come true if you tell them.'

  He laughed. 'The little Mademoiselle has teeth.'

  I ignored him. 'I want to buy some food.'

  'Food?' said the café owner, sardonically, raising his eyebrows. 'Then you have come to the right place.' He gestured to the blackboard behind the counter. 'A stew? A soup? A salad? What do you desire? Go and sit at a table and I will –'

  'No. No. I need something quick. Something easy to carry. Sandwiches,' I stammered.

  'Sandwiches?'

  'I am having a picnic.'

  'Alone? Such a sad thing, a picnic by yourself,' said the guy leaning on the counter. By this time, the couple who'd been eating their meal were watching me interestedly. I could feel myself going red. I said, sharply, to the café owner, 'Can you do some sandwiches, Monsieur? Please. I am in a hurry and cannot wait.'

  'Ah, then it is not a picnic by yourself,' said the annoying stickybeak, a big smile over his face. 'Young love, eh?'

  I wanted to slap him. Why didn't he mind his own business? But the café owner, after a sharp little glance at me, said, 'Ham? Cheese? Saucisson? I do them on baguettes, not that bread you English are used to.'

  I was going to say I wasn't English, but couldn't be bothered. I nodded. 'Yes. Please. All three. Oh, and a bottle of water, too, please.'

  He raised his eyebrows again. 'Still? Sparkling?'

  'Still, please.'

  He went out the back somewhere and for a few agonising minutes I was left there, the target of three pairs of curious eyes. I made as if I didn't notice, pretending to look with great interest at a framed picture on the wall – the café in 1890 or something, with a guy in front of it who looked rather like the current owner, except with a beard. I was very glad when the café owner came back with a large parcel wrapped in brown paper and a bottle of water. He said, 'I made one of each, as you said.' He handed me the parcel. I took out my wallet. 'Er – how much is it?'

  What if I didn't have enough? But the sum he mentioned was much smaller than I'd feared. I gave him the money. 'Thank you very much, Monsieur.'

  He shrugged, and reached in under the counter. 'Take these, too.' These were two beignets. He wrapped a twist of paper around them and handed them to me.

  Taken aback, I took out my wallet again. He waved it away. 'No. I had them left over,' he said gruffly. 'Enjoy them, you and your young friend. A sweet ending to a sweet day.'

  I did go red, that time. I was sure now that he remembered Remy and me, coming in the day before. Muttering thanks and goodbyes, I took the beignets and the sandwiches and hurried out of the café. I knew they'd be discussing me as soon as I turned my back. But somehow it didn't bother me as much as before. The gruff kindness of the café owner at the end had seen to that.

  When I reached the well, everything was quiet. I had a sudden fear that he'd gone, vanished, that I'd never see him again. But then Patou came out from behind a tree, grinning all over her long face, and Remy followed close behind. I said, 'Sorry it took so long.'

  'It's okay. I've been dozing.'

  'Are you ... are you feeling okay?' I had found a nice grassy spot, and was clearing away the twigs and sticks from round about.

  He nodded. 'Better.' He sat down, and reached out to touch me on the hand. 'Fleur?'

  I was unwrapping the sandwiches. Well, filled half-baguettes actually. They looked wonderful. 'Yes?'

  'I don't deserve you.'

  'That's a silly thing to say,' I said, sharply, my heart hammering under my ribs. 'You mustn't say things like that. I'm not anything special.'

  'And you mustn't say things like that,' he retorted. 'You are the most special person ever. Trusting me, when everything looks so bad.'

  'I told you, I didn't really believe it. I knew, I always knew, that you couldn't have done it. Anyway, don't let's talk about that right now. Let's eat, okay? And then we can talk.'

  And so that's exactly what we did. We ate and drank in silence, leaning up against each other, feeling the warmth of each other's skins, and the sun, all mingled together, Patou sitting at our feet, her head up for the odd titbit that we flung to her. I can honestly say, though it might seem weird to you, that I was happy in those few moments. Really, really happy. There was this bond between Remy and me, this thing that felt stronger and deeper than anything I could ever have imagined or dreamed.

  Between us and Patou, we'd soon finished every crumb and every drop. We were still leaning up against each other, but now I rested my head against Remy's chest, and he was stroking my hair. I found myself strangely reluctant to break the sweet silence that surrounded us. It was he who spoke first.

  'I have to tell you first exactly what happened yesterday, from the moment I arrived home. Because maybe too if I go over it with you, we can begin to understand, to work out what was really going on. Because, you see, I've thought and I've thought, and I think it wasn't, it can't be, because we'd spent the day together that she got angry, though she went on and on about how I didn't know you, how I had neglected her for you, how I was ungrateful.'

  'She said all that?' I said, amazed.

  'She did. I couldn't understand it. She'd seemed to like you, that day when you came to our house. But she's –' He broke off, swallowing. 'She was never easy, poor Maman. She had these moods. She got scared. Angry. She had these nightmares, sometimes. I knew it was because of what had happened back in Quebec. She had never spoken much about it – I only know the barest outline of what happened, she didn't want to tell me, said she wanted me to grow up without fear, without horror – but I knew it haunted her. She had good days and bad days, you see. On her good days, she was – just wonderful –' He bit his lip. The bleakness had come back into his eyes. 'But she – she had just never really got over it. And on her bad days, well, she could just go ballistic over the least little thing. I–I tried to keep out of her way, then. I went for walks. Hunting. She didn't mind that. She told me, when she was better, that it was the best thing I could do. She would cry and tell me she was sorry.'

  I stared at him, appalled. I could only begin to imagine what it must have been like for him, having to cope with that sort of thing all by himself in the cottage in the woods. I thought of my own mother and how easy I've had it with her, how, even if we irritated each other sometimes, still, basically we got on well and I had never had to deal with anything like what Remy had been putting up with for years.

  He saw my expression. He said, 'Don't think it was all terrible. It wasn't. Not mostly. She was ... she could be – the very, very best.' He paused, then continued, quietly, 'Sometimes it was a bit like being in Siege Perilous, you know?' I didn't. He explained. 'It's in the Arthurian stories. The seat at the Round Table that's never filled, the dangerous seat, the one that's waiting for the one person who can fill it, and anyone else who tries has a really hard time of it. Anyway, it could be like that. But, usually it wasn't. And I'd never – ever – seen her as bad as she was yesterday. She was raving. Screaming at me to get out. I thought she had really lost control, that time. I was really angry too. I wasn't usually, when she got like that. But you see, it looked like she was jealous. Really jealous that I had been with you. And I couldn't work out why. I couldn't understand it. I said all sorts of things to her. Horrible things.' He broke off, and put a
hand to his head. 'I said she was stark raving mad, that she needed help, that I couldn't stand it anymore, that I was going and never coming back. I left her in such fury, and I never once looked back, you know, Fleur. And those were the last words I said to my mother. The last words she heard from me.'

  'Oh, Remy,' I said, turning and hugging him close. I couldn't say anything more. My heart was wrung with pity for him.

  'But now that I think of it,' he said, very gently, I don't think, I can't think – that it was really about you. I think that it started – it started when I told her about the dream book, and what we'd found in it, and what you thought – what we'd both thought, about the coin, and where Raymond might have hidden it. She didn't react. Not at first. I mean, she just listened, and nodded. It was only later that she began.'

  I felt cold. I said, 'Did you show it to her?'

  'Yes. Briefly. I said I'd keep it in my room.'

  'What did you do – with the dream book, I mean?'

  'I left it in my desk.'

  'You didn't take it with you, when you left?'

  'No. I forgot about it. I was too angry. I–I just slammed out of the house. I didn't take anything. Except Patou, because she came after me. But nothing else. I was, I was intending to go back for some things in a day or two, when my mother – when she might have simmered down.'

  A coldness crept up my spine. 'The police didn't find it in your house,' I said. 'I described it to them, but they said they hadn't found anything like it.'

  There was a silence.

  'Maybe the police just weren't looking for it,' said Remy, at last. 'I mean, why would they think it was important? They wouldn't have known about it till you told them, would they?'

  'I suppose not,' I said, slowly.

  'Maybe it's still there, in my desk. Maybe that's where we should start.'

  'But Remy – that means –'

  'That means we have to go back to my house,' he said, very pale.

  'But we can't – I mean, it's a crime scene – there'll be police everywhere – we can't just –' I swallowed. 'Anyway, I don't think it's there. I think whoever did this to your mother also took the dream book. I think that's what they were really after. That's what they wanted. They must somehow have discovered that I'd found it, that I'd given it to you. They came looking for it. Your mother – she – she just got in the way. It was nothing to do with – with what she'd said to you, what happened.'

  'You mean, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,' he said, his eyes fixed on my face.

  I nodded.

  He said, explosively, 'No. I don't believe, I can't believe – not again. She – it's not fair. What happened to my father, my uncle – she was in the wrong place then. It was something to do with their job – an enemy they'd made in their police work – that killed them. And she just happened to get in the way too. It couldn't happen again.'

  'Things like that do happen,' I said, through the lump in my throat.

  He closed his eyes. 'No. Fleur, I can't believe that. I'm sure – sure now there was something in that dream book that set her off. Something that frightened and angered her. That made her tip into one of her moods. We've got to get hold of it, Fleur. We've got to go back to my house and check if it's still there.'

  'It won't be,' I said, shaking my head.

  'How do you know?'

  'Because whoever killed your mother took it. That's what they were after. And they killed her because she knew who they were. She'd seen them.' I swallowed. My voice trembled as I went on. 'You know how I told you about how they'd defaced the tarot – the one your mother was working on? And how that card was missing? What if – what if it was a portrait of the person who killed her, the person who took the dream book? And that's why they took that card, too.'

  There was a long silence. Then Remy said, 'She was making the Bellerive Tarot. The Bellerive Tarot, Fleur. So that means –'

  'It means that whoever that card portrayed, it was someone from Bellerive. From the manor. Or the village. Not a stranger. Someone she knew.'

  'But, my God, Fleur!' He looked at me in horror. 'That can't be right. I mean, people here were a bit wary of her, I think –' I remembered what Marie Clary had said, and kept quiet – 'because she was different, but I'm sure no-one hated her. No-one was her enemy. Not like that.'

  'Maybe they didn't hate her. Not personally. They just wanted what she had, and she got in the way.'

  'But why would anyone in Bellerive – I mean, finding a coin that proves King Arthur's existence – well, it's exciting, but people don't kill for that. They can't. It's too weird.' He broke off, suddenly. There was a strange expression in his eyes 'Unless –'

  'Unless what?'

  'Unless it wasn't proof of the coin they were after,' he said, slowly, 'but something else.'

  'What do you mean? What something else?'

  'Something else in the dream book,' he said, his eyes alight. 'Something we've missed – that we haven't understood the significance of.'

  'But what? The drawings?'

  'No. Remember, there was that other piece of paper. The Hotel du Lys, Terrebonne. Remember, I told you that the only Terrebonne I knew was in Montreal, where we came from. What if – what if that's right, and there is no Terrebonne in France, and it has nothing to do with King Arthur – but with something else. Something back in Canada. Something my mother recognised – but that somebody else recognised, too.'

  'Oh my God,' I breathed. 'The police asked us if we'd been in Canada. I thought it was strange, and that's why I asked Nicolas Boron, afterwards. What if – what if the Bellerive Tarot thing was just a blind alley – what if your mother's enemy wasn't from Bellerive at all – not from now, from the present – but someone from the past? From Canada? Someone – someone who'd tracked her down?' Suddenly, I thought of Laurie, the 'film producer', who'd appeared out of nowhere. Who'd vanished without a trace the day Valerie's body was found. Who'd said he was American. But a Canadian accent, at least to non-Canadians, can sound like an American accent. Canadians often complain about being taken for Americans.

  I said as much to Remy. We stared at each other. I could feel his heart beating as fast as mine. He said, 'But that's – that's impossible. How would this Laurie – or whoever – how would they know . . . how would they have found – And why? Why? I mean, she'd done nothing wrong. She was a victim.'

  'You don't know the whole story of what happened,' I said. 'You said. What if there was more to it than you thought?'

  'But why would Raymond – I mean, that piece of paper, it was hidden in the dream book – hidden in his house. Maman didn't know about it. Not till I showed her the book ... Why would Raymond have known about it, and not her? Why had he hidden that paper?'

  'I don't know,' I said. 'I have no idea. But we've got to find out. And we've got to start with what really happened to your family, back in Quebec. We've got to get to an internet café or a library or something like that and look it up. Right away.'

  Quest to nowhere

  We walked away from Mary's Well and back to the crossroads. After some discussion, we'd decided the quickest and most discreet way to get to any town was by hitching a ride. Remy reckoned we were too late for any buses going anywhere, anyway. And I didn't want to go back to the village and run the gauntlet of all those eyes again.

  We waited and waited. No-one came. We were beginning to think we'd have to walk back to the village and try our luck there when a red Renault pulled up and a cheerful voice called out to us, over the throb of a car stereo system, 'Are you okay?'

  He was a well-dressed middle-aged black guy with bright eyes and a quick smile, who said he was on his way to Quarré-les-Tombes if that was any good to us, though he expected we'd want to go to Vezelay or Avallon, as those were bigger towns, and closer, too. Remy hesitated and said we were really after an internet café – a 'cyber café' as they call it in French – and the guy said that though there was none as such in Quarré, one of the shops did have a
computer terminal out the back that local people often used as an internet point. We might want to wait for a car going to one of the other towns, though, he added. There'd be a lot more possibilities there. But we didn't really want to go to Avallon – where the police might pick Remy up before we had a chance to prove anything – and we'd waited long enough here. Perhaps there'd never be a car going to Vezelay. We'd be stuck here forever. So we said that if he didn't mind, we'd like to go with him.

  Much of the way to Quarré – and it was a fair way – the driver, whose name was Claude Diallo, talked and talked, about how he was a representative for a company that made 'superior' blankets and duvets and how he crisscrossed Burgundy visiting his customers and taking orders, and how he'd been married but now his wife had gone back to Senegal, where she originally came from, but that though his own parents had come from Senegal, he was born in France, and this was his home. He talked about how his son and daughter were grown up, and the daughter lived in Paris and the son in Vezelay, and how proud he was of them, the son was now a doctor, the daughter worked for an IT firm. It was strangely restful and cosy listening to him, as if with him we were in a bubble of safety where bad things didn't happen and life chugged happily along in its ordinary and pleasant way. What was more, after the first quick question or two (Remy told him we were visitors from Paris), he didn't seem very curious about us, which suited us just fine. He was quite keen on Patou though, and told us several times how cute she was. He wished he could have a dog, he said, but with his job, it just wasn't possible.

  After a while, he seemed to run out of things to say and instead hummed along to the CD that had kept playing all the time he talked. It was really good music, a powerful mixture of African and Latin stuff, and when I asked what it was, he smiled and said, 'Orchestra Baobab. From Senegal. The best, yes?'