The Dead of Winter

by Lisa Appignanesi

  But the tortuous tangle of emotions and suspicions persists. I cannot face the office. I go home instead and lie on the bed where I wish Madeleine was, so that I could grill her, interrogate, fume. But she is away until the weekend. Away doing what?

  It occurs to me as I close my eyes that in fact my jealousy is in no way particular. Why am I bothering to distinguish an inevitable tawdriness. All jealousy is embroiled with phantoms. It doesn’t need the spur of the real. It only needs the sense that we are losing something we had. Something we do not wish to lose.

  Yet Madeleine doesn’t belong to me. Has never belonged to me absolutely. I know that, know too that I didn’t fall in love with a nun. The knowledge doesn’t help. Nor does the grim recognition that in certain ways Madeleine now belongs to everyone. That horrible little man in the cinema as much as myself. The realisation cuts more sharply than a knife.

  My thoughts go round and round. I find myself picking up the telephone just to break their treacherous circularity. I am dialling the office. I hear myself asking Christiane Dumont whether she would like to go out to dinner tonight. She says ‘yes’ in her clear crisp voice. Christiane has made it plain often enough that she likes me, that she would be interested, if I were so disposed. She is a tall, angular intelligent woman with jet-dark hair and a wide mouth, a divorcée and older than I am.

  As I shower and try to wash away the grime of the afternoon, I wonder for a moment what it is that I am doing. But I don’t allow myself to think too hard. I plunge into my meeting with Christiane and astonish myself with my verve and occasional wit. It doesn’t flag, even later in her bed, even though I know that if I make one slightly mistaken gesture, Madeleine’s image which I have been keeping at bay all night will overwhelm me.

  No sooner have I congratulated myself on what I choose to call my act of homeopathic medicine and I am out on the streets, than the thought of Madeleine comes crashing back. She is in bed with someone else. I know it. Or she is being filmed in bed with someone else for all the world to see. The democracy of her passion annihilates me. It destroys my uniqueness, my very sense of individuality.

  As I turn the key in the lock, my hand trembles, already the hand of a man touched by death.

  There is light coming from the kitchen where I don’t remember leaving it. A typescript lies scattered on the living room sofa. On the corner table a bottle of Perrier emits a soft hiss like a child’s snore. I tighten its top and peer into the bedroom.

  In the half light, I make out Madeleine. She looks so utterly innocent as she lies there asleep, her hair fanned out against the pillow, her cheeks slightly flushed, her arms akimbo. I tell myself I am mad, as deranged as Othello perched over his blameless Desdemona.

  Then she stirs. A long bare leg peeks out from beneath the duvet, curves and nestles against its softness. An image from the afternoon’s film lunges into my line of vision. The duvet takes on the musculur contours of a man’s back. The temptation to cover Madeleine over, to destroy the sight of her is so great that I rush into the bathroom and lock the door.

  The water scalds and freezes me by turn. I am grateful to it.

  As I stand under its erratic stream, I suddenly remember a terrifying hell-fire sermon one of my priestly teachers devlivered on the sin of concupiscence. It was full of the burnings and lashings of the flesh, of horned devils pricking and prodding at tender parts, of the torments of the mind chained to lustful desires whose satisfaction was always out of reach.

  I silence the exhortations of that haranguing voice. Quietly I slip into bed. Madeleine turns over, places a warm hand on my chest.

  ‘Working late?’ she murmurs sleepily.

  ‘Mmm.’

  She doesn’t ask me anymore. She nestles into the pillow and is asleep again within seconds.

  Though moments before I wished for nothing more than that she stay asleep, now I feel that her unconsciousness is a crime. It is the sign of her disinterest in me. Her lack of passion here is a signal of its surfeit elsewhere.

  The clatter of dishes in the kitchen rouses me in the morning. Above their sound, Madeleine is singing. Her voice rises in a false soprano trill then cascades into that androgynous timbre she likes to imitate. There is the smell of coffee. For a floating drowsy moment I am happy and then I remember. My limbs take on a painful rigidity. I keep my eyes firmly shut.

  ‘Morning sleepyhead.’ Madeleine plants a kiss on my cheek. I turn over with a grunt and she ruffles my hair.

  ‘I’ve made coffee,’ she says in her most seductive voice. She pulls open the curtains.

  Light bounds into the room and she bounces onto the bed. She is as bright and playful as the light. ‘Drink it. It’s right beside you. Just the way you like it.’

  I sip the sweet, milky café au lait and gaze at her. ‘You came back early?’ My voice doesn’t sound quite right.

  ‘Olivier developed laryngitis, so they’re shooting some other scenes first.’

  Madeleine has been filming a small cameo part for a television drama.

  ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

  I nod and look away, then say with what I hope is a teasing voice. ‘I saw you yesterday.’

  ‘Oh? Were you out in Le Mans?’ Her expression betrays more confusion than I would like.

  ‘No. I saw you on the screen.’

  Madeleine laughs. ‘Did you like it better this time? No, no, don’t protest. I know you loathed me as Julie. I could feel the waves emanating from you. Big black waves of dislike.’ She wriggles her fingers like a voodoo magician.

  I shrug and sip my coffee.

  ‘There was a man sitting down the row from me. He was masturbating.’

  Her face crinkles. She bursts into giggles, falls back on the pillows in hilarity.

  I cannot understand her reaction and sit there in rigid silence.

  ‘You don’t think it’s funny?’ she asks wiping tears from her eyes. She represses another giggle. ‘Not even a little bit?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘That poor man,’ she says in a solemn voice.

  ‘Poor man! What about you?’

  She casts a quick glance at me, then stares at her toes. ‘Let’s talk about something else. I’ve got some news.’ Playfully, she walks her fingers up my chest. I stop her hand.

  ‘Good news. Very good news’ The golden flecks in her eyes dance as she looks up at me. ‘There’s been an offer. From Hollywood.’ She snuggles into me, strokes, intersperses her narrative with little nips of kisses. ‘A good, fat part. An ultra-modern take on the golden hearted whore. And mega bucks. Maybe we can buy a house. I’m going to fly out and meet the people. Week after next. I thought I’d stop on the way back and spend some time with mémère.’

  Madeleine’s fingers work their magic on me. We make love. But in the midst of the images which ransack the space of my imagination, I no longer know whom I am making love to. My anger at this spurs my passion. I delve and probe. I am searching for a Madeleine prior to this chaos. I want the smell and touch of her flesh to eradicate the jumble of flickering betrayals which succeed each other in my mind.

  At last in the blinding whiteness of orgasm, there is a momentary respite.

  ‘You’re pleased,’ Madeleine whispers as we lie clasped in each other’s perspiration.

  I nuzzle against her. I cannot contradict her. There is no ready translation for what I feel.

  Later, before heading off in our separate directions, we pause for coffee and a cigarette in the breakfast room. Madeleine has her bottle green Chanel suit on and her hair is wound into a smooth coil in readiness for her meeting with her agent. I have always liked that efficient smoothness, the way it sets off the structure of her bones and veils her sensuality.

  I touch her hair. Her neck curves towards me. Her eyes catch the light in a particular way and suddenly I say it.

  ‘As Julie, you did it, didn’t you? With Bruno. There were no cuts.’ My voice is peculiarly flat.

  Madeleine takes a long puff
of her cigarette and stubs it out. She meets my eyes and gets up. She doesn’t deny anything. Her face has that tragic cast which works to such effect on the screen, grounding her characters in a tangible if unspoken emotion.

  Only when she reaches the door does she speak. ‘I’m a free agent, Pierre. I always have been and I always will be. I didn’t come to you with a guarantee. A guarantee from heaven that nothing would ever change. You’ve changed too.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yet I’m here with you.’ She slams the door behind her.

  In that moment, as she confirms her betrayal, Madeleine feels very real.

  PART TWO

  9

  _________

  The coil of my thoughts is so tight that again I miss the Autoroute turn off for Ste-Anne. I force myself into attentiveness, loop round at the next exit and retrace the kilometres.

  The sky has turned a deep crystalline blue, the kind of cloudless electric blue that only comes with the freezing temperatures of winter. In the distance, the vault of the church sparkles and shimmers like a thousand polished blades. I avert my eyes from it, am greatful for the dip and curve of the slip road.

  At the next crest, I see a thick black stream of smoke tainting the sky. I wonder where it could be coming from, the plywood factory perhaps.

  The wail of a siren fills the air, grows louder and louder as it approaches from behind. I pull over and a fire engine screeches past. It is not our local one. I watch it hurtling away, see the cloud of smoke again billowing from the valley and suddenly a twist in the road rights my perspective.

  I push my foot down on the accelerator and follow in the wake of the engine. I wish I could overtake it. My father’s house is burning.

  Apocalyptic images rush through my mind, punctuating the speed with which we take the bends. I have a hazy sense that I should have been in that conflagration. Not here in the coccooned safety of my car, trying to rewrite the course of my life with Madeleine in order to give it a different end.

  When we rise out of the scoop of the valley, I realise my mistake. The smoke is not coming from my house, but from behind it on the other side of the hill. A new kind of terror pulses through me.

  It takes another few minutes to whizz round the bend and climb the narrow road on the hump of the hill. I can smell the smoke here, despite my closed windows. It seeps round the edges and attacks my nose. Mme Tremblay’s house is cloaked by it. But the blaze is not here.

  The fire engine bumps down the drive and squeals to a halt. Four men leap out of it and unwind the thick hoses at its side. Through the greyblue clouds of smoke, I can see the flames now. Orange and gold and red, they leap and prance from what was once the barn. The roof is gone, sunk down on one side, like a man on a broken crutch.

  I think of Mme Tremblay and am relieved that she spent the night in Montreal.

  Smoke clutches at my nostrils as I leave the car. I raise my scarf to my nose. All around me voices shout above the heave and crackle of burning timber. Through the acrid haze, I see the outline of a second fire engine on the other side of the building and the flashing lights of police cars. I try to make my way towards them. A looming hulk of a man emerges from the smog and waves me away with a giant’s gloved hand.

  I wend my way round to the side, but I have chosen the wrong direction. Two of the outhouses have given way to the flames. The branches of Madeleine’s favourite beech are charred. The wind carries sprays of water from the thick jets towards me. I turn away and ark round to the other side.

  In the distance, coming out from the first copse, I make out a thin gangly figure in uniform. It looks like Gagnon. He is flanked by two men, one of whom pushes a slighter, stumbling person before him. I run towards them, my feet clinging to the thicker snow of the field which has grown sticky from the heat.

  ‘Where’s Mme Tremblay?’ Gagnon asks as soon as he recognizes me.

  ‘In Montréal as far as I know.’ I fall in beside him.

  ‘Can you get hold of her?’

  ‘I’ll try. Shall we radio from your car? It’ll be quicker.’

  He nods. ‘Damned bloody mess.’ He gestures towards the blaze, ‘But just look what we got ourselves here.’ He prods the arm of the man who is walking in front of his constable. ‘Stupid bugger.’

  I look at the man properly for the first time and notice that he is handcuffed. His hair is long and black, his face thin and as beautiful as a woman’s with its full lips and high cheekbones. Above them, his dark eyes are vast and vacant. He looks young and confused, as if he didn’t know what was happening to him.

  ‘Dumb bugger,’ Gagnon repeats. ‘But they all do it, don’t they! Come back to the scene of the crime. Like lemmings. Or moths to the flame.’ He cackles at his own joke.

  ‘You mean…’

  ‘Damn right, I mean. This is our man. The very man Mme Tremblay described. Leather jacket and all. Just need to tie his hair into a tail. And we found him right here, sniffing round the blaze. You bet your bottom dollar he started it, too. We can tell that sneering ponce of a Contini where to get off now.’ He snorts with derision.

  We are close to the blaze. The flames lick and spit and lurch under the jets of water. The youth stares at the fire with rapt, empty eyes.

  ‘What’s his name?’ I ask Gagnon as we veer to the side and give the firefighters a wide berth.

  ‘Hasn’t told us yet. Hasn’t said a word, in fact.’ He taps his forehead. ‘He’s a bit slow.’

  One of the constables shoves the boy forward in the direction of the police car.

  I move to the youth’s side. ‘What’s your name? I ask him in English. He gazes at me from those blank eyes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I repeat.

  There is an answering flicker in the vast pupils. He moistens his lips and forms a single syllable.

  ‘Will,’ he says.

  ‘He doesn’t speak French,’ I fall back with Gagnon.

  ‘Heh, who cares what he speaks? This is not a case for the language police. We leave that for the guys in Montréal. Leave that for Contini’s boys.’

  Gagnon is more garrulous and happier than I have ever seen him. Contini has got to him.

  ‘He’s also on something.’

  ‘What do you mean “on something”?’

  ‘Drugs. Heroin, I imagine.’

  His eyes tighten into slits. ‘That’s Miron’s domain. He’s off today.’ He seems to be about to say something else, but changes his mind. ‘Nevermind. Mauditcriss, we can get the bastard on three counts.’

  We have reached the car and the constable prods the youth into the back seat and gets in beside him.

  ‘You stay here,’ Gagnon orders the second one. ‘We’ll go back to the station. So what’s that number?’ He turns to me and I give him the number of Madeleine’s apartment.

  The radio sputters and crackles as he calls into the station and gives them instructions to ring and get straight back to him.

  ‘Not that there’s any real hurry,’ he grins at me. ‘That one’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘You better let the Sûreté know.’

  ‘In due course. All in due course. You want to come down to the station with us?’

  ‘I’ll come in my own car.’

  The radio leaps into sound. He picks it up. ‘No one there? Never mind. We’ll try later.’ He turns to me. ‘Mme Tremblay’s not there. Only an answering machine. Lucie left a message.’

  I swallow hard as I think of the voice on that machine.

  Gagnon glances at the back seat where the youth sits, his eyes fixed on the fire. ‘Still, as I say, no real hurry. And better to have the blaze out, before we get Mme Tremblay down here. Good thing she stayed in Montréal last night. It’s not going to make her very happy.’

  He suddenly pats my shoulder with a paternal gesture. ‘You don’t look too happy either, Pierre. I’ll have Martine bring some hot soup round from Senegal’s when you get down to the station. God awful Christmas this! But at least we got
him.’

  As I make to leave the car, a flash goes off in my face. When my eyes refocus, I see the youthful pair who were first at the crime scene on Monday. This time, there’s a television news crew right behind them. I slip round the back of the car and make my escape.

  The air is clogged with smoke, but the fire seems calmer now, less hungry, the tips of the flames an iridiscent blue. Beneath my feet, where tires and water have ousted the snow, the ground is cloying and muddy.

  By the time I reach my car, my boots are clogged with it. I watch the flames from my window for a few minutes and think of the youth with the vacant eyes and imagine him in Madeleine’s bed and then in the barn, but I can’t see it. I can’t rouse any rage. Maybe my mind and emotions are as clogged as my boots. Or maybe Gagnon has got it wrong.

  I decide to stop at home before heading down to the station. It won’t take long to shave and change.

  No sooner do I emerge from my car, than the cat leaps down at me from the roof and miaowls emphatically. She is hungry. I have forgotten to leave her food out. Nor does she like the dense smoke the wind has brought. It hovers in the air like a bad omen.

  I pick her up and stroke her and carry her into the house. ‘Pauvre minou,’ I console her and only stop to take off my boots before filling her bowl to the brim. She rubs himself gratefully against my leg and then abandons me for her food.

  The light on the answering machine is flashing red. I avoid it. There is something gnawing at my mind which I can’t quite bring to the surface. I shave quickly, don fresh clothes and a blue workaday suit and stare out the window where the dingy smoke has obscured the brilliant blue of this morning’s sky. The something still won’t quite materialize. Impatiently I press the button on the answering machine.

  Maryla again. Out of fairness, I will have to ring her later. Then two more of my lonely women friends. Then the political editor of Le Devoir asks whether I would consider doing some think-pieces on the constitutional crisis. Then my brother. He wants to know whether I’ve left yet and if I check into my machine, could I just let him know where I’ll be - in case he needs to find me. I take a deep breath and try not to let his tone irritate me.