A Trick of the Light cig-7

by Penny, Louise

  “A wet dream, certainly,” agreed Clara, smiling.

  “Have you had a chance to read them?”

  Myrna didn’t need to point again to the reeking papers, they both knew what she meant.

  “No. Something keeps getting in the way.”

  “Something?” asked Myrna.

  “Some fucking body,” said Clara, then tried to rein herself in. “God, Myrna, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be upset, devastated that this has happened. I should feel horrible for poor Lillian, but you know what I keep thinking? The only thing I keep thinking?”

  “That she ruined your big day.” It was a statement. And it was true. She had. Lillian herself, it must be admitted, had not had a great day either. But that discussion would come later.

  Clara stared at Myrna, searching for censure.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” said Myrna, leaning toward her friend. “I’d feel the same way. Everyone would. We just may not admit it.” She smiled. “If it had been me lying back there—” But Myrna got no further. Clara burst in.

  “Don’t even think such a thing.”

  Clara actually looked frightened, as though saying a thing made it more likely to happen, as though whatever God she believed in worked like that. But Myrna knew neither Clara’s God nor hers was so chaotic and petty they needed or heeded such ridiculous suggestions.

  “If it was me,” Myrna continued, “you’d care.”

  “Oh, God, I’d never recover.”

  “These papers wouldn’t matter,” said Myrna.

  “Not at all. Never.”

  “If it was Gabri or Peter or Ruth—”

  Both women paused. It might have been a step too far.

  “—anyway,” Myrna continued. “If it was even a complete stranger you’d have cared.”

  Clara nodded.

  “But Lillian wasn’t a stranger.”

  “I wish she had been,” admitted Clara, quietly. “I wish I’d never met her.”

  “What was she?” Myrna asked. She’d heard the broad strokes, but now she wanted to hear the details.

  And Clara told her everything. About the young Lillian, about the teenage Lillian. About the woman in her twenties. As she got further into the story Clara’s voice dropped and dragged, lugging the words along.

  And then she stopped, and Myrna was silent for a moment, staring at her friend.

  “She sounds like an emotional vampire,” said Myrna, at last.

  “A what?”

  “I ran into quite a few in my practice. People who sucked others dry. We all know them. We’re in their company and come away drained, for no apparent reason.”

  Clara nodded. She did know a few, though no one in Three Pines. Not even Ruth. She only drained their liquor cabinet. But Clara, oddly, always felt refreshed, invigorated after a visit with the demented old poet.

  But there were others who just sucked the life right out of her.

  Lillian was one.

  “But it wasn’t always like that,” said Clara, trying to be fair. “She was a friend once.”

  “That’s often the way too,” nodded Myrna. “The frog in the frying pan.”

  Clara wasn’t at all sure how to respond to that. Were they still talking about Lillian, or had they somehow veered into some French cooking show?

  “Do you mean the emotional vampire in the frying pan?” asked Clara, uttering a sentence she was pretty sure had never been said by another human. Or at least, she hoped not.

  Myrna laughed and sitting back in her armchair she raised her legs onto the hassock.

  “No, little one. Lillian’s the emotional vampire. You’re the frog.”

  “Sounds like a rejected Grimm’s fairy tale. ‘The Frog and the Emotional Vampire.’”

  Both women paused for a moment, imagining the illustrations.

  Myrna came back to her senses first.

  “The frog in the frying pan is a psychological term, a phenomenon,” she said. “If you stick a frog into a sizzling hot frying pan what’ll it do?”

  “Jump out?” suggested Clara.

  “Jump out. But if you put one into a pan at room temperature then slowly raise the heat, what happens?”

  Clara thought about it. “It’ll jump out when it gets too hot?”

  Myrna shook her head. “No.” She took her feet off the hassock and leaned forward again, her eyes intense. “The frog just sits there. It gets hotter and hotter but it never moves. It adjusts and adjusts. Never leaves.”

  “Never?” asked Clara, quietly.

  “Never. It stays there until it dies.”

  Clara look a long, slow, deep breath, then exhaled.

  “I saw it with my clients who’d been abused either physically or emotionally. The relationship never starts with a fist to the face, or an insult. If it did there’d be no second date. It always starts gently. Kindly. The other person draws you in. To trust them. To need them. And then they slowly turn. Little by little, increasing the heat. Until you’re trapped.”

  “But Lillian wasn’t a lover, or a husband. She was just a friend.”

  “Friends can be abusive. Friendships can turn, become foul,” said Myrna. “She fed on your gratitude. Fed on your insecurities, on your love for her. But you did something she never expected.”

  Clara waited.

  “You stood up for yourself. For your art. You left. And she hated you for it.”

  “But then why’d she come here?” asked Clara. “I haven’t seen her in more than twenty years. Why’d she come back? What did she want?”

  Myrna shook her head. Didn’t say what she suspected. That there was really only one reason for Lillian to return.

  To ruin Clara’s big day.

  And she had. Only not, almost certainly, in the way Lillian had planned.

  Which, of course, begged the question: Who had planned this?

  “Can I say something to you?” Myrna asked.

  Clara made a face. “I hate it when people ask that. It means something awful’s coming. What is it?”

  “Hope takes its place among the modern masters.”

  “I was wrong,” said Clara, perplexed and relieved. “It’s just nonsense. Is this a new game? Can I play? Wallpaper chair is often cows. Or,” Clara looked at Myrna with suspicion, “have you been smoking your caftan again? I know they say hemp isn’t really dope, but I still wonder.”

  “Clara Morrow’s art makes rejoicing cool again.”

  “Ah, a conversation of non sequiturs,” said Clara. “It’s like talking to Ruth, only not as many fucking swear words.”

  Myrna smiled. “Do you know what I was just quoting?”

  “Those were quotes?” asked Clara.

  Myrna nodded and looked over at the damp and smelly newspapers. Clara’s eyes followed her, then widened. Myrna rose and went upstairs, finding her own copies of the papers. Clean and dry. Clara reached out but her hands were trembling too hard and Myrna had to find the sections.

  The portrait of Ruth, as the Virgin Mary, glared from the front page of the New York Times art section. Above it was a single word, “Arisen.” And below it the headline HOPE TAKES ITS PLACE AMONG THE MODERN MASTERS.

  Clara dropped the section and grabbed for the London Times art review. On the front page was a photo of a Maoist accountant at Clara’s vernissage. And below it the quote, “Clara Morrow Makes Rejoicing Cool Again.”

  “They’re raving, Clara,” said Myrna with a smile so wide it hurt.

  The pages dropped from Clara’s hand and she looked at her friend. The one who’d whispered into the silence.

  Clara got up. Arisen, she thought. Arisen.

  And she hugged Myrna.

  * * *

  Peter Morrow sat in his studio. Hiding from the ringing phone.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  He’d gone back into their home after lunch, hoping for some peace and quiet. Clara had taken the papers and gone off, presumably to read t
hem by herself. So he had no idea what the critics had said. But as soon as he’d walked in the door the phone had started to ring, and had barely stopped since. All wanting to congratulate Clara.

  There were messages from the curators at the Musée, thrilled with the reviews and the subsequent ticket sales. There was a message from Vanessa Destin-Browne, of the Tate Modern in London, thanking them for the party and congratulating Clara. And wondering if they might get together to discuss a show.

  For Clara.

  He’d eventually just let the phone ring and had gone to stand at the open door to her studio. From there he could see a few puppets, from the time she thought she might do a series on them.

  “Perhaps too political,” Clara had said.

  “Perhaps,” said Peter, but “political” wasn’t the word that had sprung to mind.

  He could see the Warrior Uteruses stacked in the corner. Left there after another disastrous show.

  “Perhaps ahead of its time,” Clara had said.

  “Perhaps,” said Peter. But “ahead of its time” wasn’t what came to mind either.

  And when she’d started in on the Three Graces, and even had the three elderly friends pose for her, he’d felt sorry for the women. Thought Clara was being selfish, expecting the old women to stand there for some painting that would never see the light of day.

  But the women hadn’t minded. Had seemed to have fun, judging by the laughter that disturbed his concentration.

  And now that painting was hanging in the Musée d’Art Contemporain. While his meticulous works were on someone’s stairway or perhaps, if he was lucky, above a fireplace.

  Seen by a dozen people a year. And noticed as much as the wallpaper or curtains. Interior decoration in an affluent home.

  How could Clara’s portraits of unremarkable women possibly be masterpieces?

  Peter turned his back on her studio, but not before he saw the afternoon sun catch Clara’s huge fiberglass feet, marching across the back of her space.

  “Perhaps too sophisticated,” Clara had said.

  “Perhaps,” Peter had mumbled.

  He closed the door and went back to his studio, the sound of the ringing phone in his ears.

  * * *

  Chief Inspector Gamache sat in the large living room of the bed and breakfast. The walls were painted a creamy linen, the furniture was handpicked by Gabri from Olivier’s antiquing finds. But rather than heavy Victoriana he’d gone for comfort. Two large sofas faced each other across the stone fireplace and armchairs created quiet conversation areas around the room. Where Dominique’s inn and spa gleamed and preened like a delightful gem on the hill, Gabri’s bed and breakfast sat peacefully, cheerfully, a little shabbily in the valley. Like Grandma’s house, if Grandma had been a large gay man.

  Gabri and Olivier were over at the bistro still serving lunch, leaving the Sûreté officers alone with the B and B guests.

  It had been a rocky start to the interviews, beginning before they’d even crossed the threshold. Beauvoir gingerly took the Chief aside just as they reached the porch of the B and B.

  “There’s something I think you should know.”

  Armand Gamache looked at Beauvoir with amusement.

  “What have you done?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You sound exactly like Daniel when he was a teenager and had gotten into trouble.”

  “I got Peggy Sue pregnant at the big dance,” said Beauvoir.

  For just an instant Gamache looked surprised, then he smiled. “What is it really?”

  “I did something stupid.”

  “Ahh, this does bring me back. Good times. Go on.”

  “Well—”

  “Monsieur Beauvoir, what a pleasure to see you again.”

  The screen door opened and a woman in her late fifties greeted him.

  Gamache turned to Beauvoir. “What exactly have you done?”

  “I hope you remember me,” she said with a coy smile. “My name’s Paulette. We met at the vernissage last night.”

  The door swung open again and a middle-aged man appeared. Seeing Beauvoir, he beamed.

  “It is you,” he said. “I thought I saw you coming down the road just now. I looked at the barbeque last night but you weren’t there.”

  Gamache gave Beauvoir an inquiring gaze.

  Beauvoir turned his back on the smiling artists. “I told them I was the art critic for Le Monde.”

  “And why would you do that?” the Chief Inspector asked.

  “It’s a long story,” said Beauvoir. But it wasn’t so much long as embarrassing.

  These were the two artists who’d insulted Clara Morrow’s works. Mocking the Three Graces as clowns. And while Beauvoir didn’t much like art, he did like Clara. And he’d known and admired the women who became the Three Graces.

  So he’d turned to the smug artists and said he very much liked the work. Then he used some of the phrases he’d heard floating around the cocktail party. About perspective, and culture and pigment. The more he said the harder it was to stop himself. And he could see that the more ridiculous his statements the more these two paid attention.

  Until he’d finally delivered his coup de grâce.

  He trotted out a word he’d heard someone use that evening, a word he’d never heard before and had no idea what it meant. He’d turned to the painting of the Three Graces, the elderly and joyous old women, and said—

  “The only word that comes to mind is, of course, ‘chiaroscuro.’”

  Not surprisingly, the artists had looked at him as though he was mad.

  Which made him mad. So mad he said something he instantly regretted.

  “I haven’t introduced myself,” he said in his most refined French. “I am Monsieur Beauvoir, the art critic for Le Monde.”

  “Monsieur Beauvoir?” the man had asked, his eyes widening nicely.

  “But of course. Just Monsieur Beauvoir. I find no need for a first name. Too bourgeois. Clutters up the page. You read my reviews, bien sûr?”

  The rest of the evening had been quite pleasant, as word spread that the famous Parisian critic “Monsieur Beauvoir” was there. And all agreed that Clara’s works were a marvelous example of chiaroscuro.

  He’d have to look it up, one of these days.

  The two artists had in turn introduced themselves as simply “Normand” and “Paulette.”

  “We use only our first names.”

  He’d thought they were joking, but apparently not. And now here they were again.

  Normand, in the same slacks, worn tweed jacket and scarf from the night before, and his partner Paulette, also in the same peasant-type skirt, blouse and scarves.

  Now they were looking from him to Gamache, and back again.

  “I have two pieces of bad news,” said Gamache, steering them inside. “There’s been a murder, and this is not Monsieur Beauvoir, the art critic for Le Monde, but Inspector Beauvoir, a homicide investigator with the Sûreté du Québec.”

  The murder they already knew about, so it was the Beauvoir news they found most upsetting. Gamache watched with some amusement as they lit into the Inspector.

  Beauvoir, noticing the Chief’s grin, whispered, “Just so you know, I also said you were Monsieur Gamache, the head curator at the Louvre. Enjoy.”

  That, thought Gamache, would explain the unexpectedly large number of invitations to art shows he’d received at the vernissage. He made a note not to show up to any of them.

  “When did you decide to stay overnight?” asked the Chief, once the vitriol had been exhausted.

  “Well, we’d planned to head home after the party, but it was late and…” Paulette gave a shove of her head toward Normand, as though to indicate he’d had too many.

  “The B and B owner gave us toiletries and bathrobes,” Normand explained. “We’re heading off to Cowansville in a few minutes to buy some clothes.”

  “Not going back to Montréal?” asked Gamache.

  “Not right
away. We thought we’d stay for a day or so. Make a holiday of it.”

  At Gamache’s invitation they took seats in the comfortable living room, the artists sitting side-by-side on one sofa, Beauvoir and the Chief Inspector sitting opposite them on the other.

  “So who was killed?” Paulette asked. “It wasn’t Clara, was it?”

  She almost managed to hide her optimism.

  “No,” said Beauvoir. “Are you friends?” Though the answer seemed obvious.

  This brought a snort of amusement from Normand.

  “You clearly don’t know artists, Inspector. We can be civil, friendly even. But friends? Better to make friends with a wolverine.”

  “What brought you here then, if not friendship with Clara?” Beauvoir asked.

  “Free food and drink. Lots of drink,” said Normand, smoothing the hair from his eyes. There was a sort of world-weary style about the man. As though he’d seen it all and was slightly amused and saddened by it.

  “So it wasn’t to celebrate her art?” Beauvoir asked.

  “Her art isn’t bad,” said Paulette. “I like it better than what she was producing a decade ago.”

  “Too much chiaroscuro,” said Normand, apparently forgetting who’d mentioned the word to begin with. “Her show last night was an improvement,” Normand continued, “though that wouldn’t be hard. Who could forget her exhibition of massive feet?”

  “But really, Normand,” said Paulette. “Portraits? What self-respecting artist does portraits anymore?”

  Normand nodded. “Her art’s derivative. Facile. Yes the subjects had character in their faces, and they were well executed, but not exactly breaking new ground. Nothing original or bold. There was nothing there we couldn’t see in a second-rate provincial gallery in Slovenia.”

  “Why would the Musée d’Art Contemporain give her a solo show if her art was so bad?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Who knows,” said Normand. “A favor. Politics. These big institutions aren’t about real art, not about taking chances. They play it safe.”

  Paulette was nodding vigorously.

  “So if Clara Morrow wasn’t a friend and if you thought her art was so crappy, why’re you here?” Beauvoir asked Normand. “I can see going to the vernissage for the free food and drink, but to come all the way here?”

  He had the man, and they both knew it.