Feelings of Fear (23 page)

Mme Leduc stood looking at Vincent and Vincent waited for her to continue, but she didn't. After a while, he said, “Go on. She wished that it would last for twenty-four years. Then what?”

“Then it did.”

Another long pause. “I don't understand,” said Vincent.

“It's not difficult,” said Mme Leduc. “The day lasted for twenty-four years. At least, it did for them. The sun stayed high in the sky and they didn't notice the time passing by. It was all like a dream. When at last they returned to the school they found that it was closed, and that all their friends had gone. It was no longer 1924. It was 1948.”

She went over to a rosewood bureau on the opposite side of the room and returned with a yellowed newspaper. “Here,” she said. “This is what happened.”

It was a copy of
The St Michel-des-Monts-Sentinel.
The front-page headline read SEARCH FOR ST AGATHE GIRLS CALLED OFF – Little Hope of Finding Missing Nine and Teacher, say Mounties.

Vincent read the first paragraph. “Police now believe there is little or no hope of them ever finding the teacher and nine girls from St Agathe's Academy who went missing three months ago on a picnic at Lac du Sang. The entire area has been thoroughly searched and there
is no evidence to suggest that they all ran away together or that their disappearance is a practical joke. RCMP inspector René Truchaud called the Lac du Sang incident, “The greatest single mystery in Canadian police history.”

Mme Leduc said, “They came looking for us on the day after we disappeared, but of course we weren't there. To them, we were still in yesterday, still lying in the grass by the lake.”

“It was
you
? It was you and your girls?”

Mme Leduc gave him a sad, elegant nod. “We had a day like no other day has ever been; or ever will be. But we came back here and found that half of our lives had passed us by. I still don't know what happened to us; or why. I still don't know whether it was supposed to be a gift or a curse. But the first part of my wish came true, too, and so long as we stay here, inside the house, we remain as we were, all those years ago. It's almost as if my wish diverted us out of the stream of time, into a backwater, and that me and my seven girls are doomed or blessed to stay here forever.”

“It says here nine girls.”

“Yes … there
were
nine. Two of them left – Sara five years ago, and Imogene just before Christmas. Sara tried to come back but she didn't look like a young girl any longer. Time had caught up with her, and aged her over forty years in a single week. I received a letter from Imogene. Only two lines. Do you want to read it?”

She passed over a sheet of paper that had been folded and refolded until it was soft. The handwriting on it was so crabbed and spidery that Vincent could barely decipher it. It said,
“Chère Mme Leduc, I am very old and close to death. Tell all of the girls that I will wait for them in Heaven.”

Mme Leduc said, “It appears that the further time leaves us behind, the quicker we will age if we try to leave. So … the rest of us decided to stay.”

“I can't believe any of this,” said Vincent. “Days can't last for twenty-four years. People don't stay young forever. Who are you kidding? You're just trying to stop me from taking Catherine away from you. All you care about is how much you can make out of her. A pregnant teenager, what an attraction! Jesus, if you cared about any
of these girls you wouldn't be selling their bodies to every lecherous old guy with a fat enough wallet.”

“You exclude yourself from that category, I suppose,” said Mme Leduc.

“I was tempted, I admit it. She's a beautiful girl, she tempted me. But that doesn't stop me from trying to put things right.”

“Vincent … has it occurred to you that this is the only way in which we can make a living? None of us can leave the house, so what else are we supposed to do? We may stay young forever, but we still need to eat; and we still have bills to pay.”

Vincent laughed and then abruptly stopped laughing. He looked at Mme Leduc and said, “You're seriously crazy, you know that? If you really believe that you disappeared in 1924 for twenty-four years and that you're never going to grow old … well, I don't know. I'd just like to know what stuff you're on.”

At that moment Catherine walked into the room in her long white nightgown. Her hair was tied back and she looked especially young and vulnerable. It had only been three days since Vincent had seen her, but he had forgotten how mesmerising she was. The way she looked up at him from underneath her long, long eyelashes. The way she pouted. The way her breasts moved underneath the fresh-pressed cotton.

Mme Leduc took hold of her hand. “Mr Jeffries here wanted to take you away with him, Catherine. I had to explain why he couldn't.”

“And of course I believed every word,” said Vincent. “That must have been some picnic, out at Lac du Sang. Don't tell me you didn't run short of sandwiches – you know, in twenty-four years?”

Mme Leduc said, “Why don't you take Vincent to your room, Catherine? I expect that he'd like to talk to you alone.”

Without a word, Catherine took his hand and led him along the corridor. She opened the door of her room and let him in. “I just came to talk,” he told her.

“You mean you don't like me any more?”

“I came to ask you to leave this place. I came to persuade you to do the best for your baby.”

Catherine took a few steps away from him, and then pirouetted,
and lifted her nightgown over her head, so that she was standing in front of him completely naked. “
Now
tell me that you don't like me any more.”

“Catherine, you can't go on doing this. I've found an apartment for you. It's pretty small but the landlady can take good care of you, and there's a clinic only four blocks away.”

Catherine stood up close to him, smiling her dreamy smile. Her nipples were knurled and stiff, and she pressed the hard globe of her stomach up against his reluctantly rising erection. “There,” she said, “you
do
still like me, after all.”

“I don't just
like
you, Catherine.”

“Then prove it,” she challenged him. She tugged down his zipper and pried his cock out of his shorts. He said, “No, not that,” but she gave him two or three irresistible rubs with her hand and he didn't say anything else after that.

He watched her as she knelt in front of him, her eyes closed, her pouting lips encircling his reddened erection. Her cheek bulged as she took him in deeper, and her tongue swam around his glans like a warm seal. He ran his hands through her hair and fondled her ears and he felt so weak, but so transported with pleasure, that he knew he had to have her for ever, for himself. He would raise her and he would raise her baby, both. He would guard her and protect her and make love to her all night.

His sperm flew into her hair and crowned her with pearls. She looked up and smiled at him, and outside the house the thunder rumbled and rattled the windows.

“Would you like to live with me?” he asked her.

She squeezed his softening penis with her hand. “Of course … if only it were possible.”

“Then let me take you away from here. Tomorrow night, I'll come for you, yes?”

She held out her hand and he helped her on to her feet. “If only it were possible,” she repeated, and kissed him, very frankly, on the lips.

“You're nuts,” said Baubay. “You know what the penalty is for kidnap?”

“She wants me,” Vincent told him. “She said she'd come to live with me, if I got her out of there.”

“Those girls say anything you want to hear. It's what you pay them for.”

“Catherine's different.”

“The only thing different about Catherine is that she's got a bun in the oven.”

“François, if you don't help me with this then I'll do it on my own.”

“I still say you're nuts.”

They drew up outside the house. Vincent had persuaded Baubay to bring him up here for another evening with Mme Leduc and her girls, with the promise that he would pay, but as they approached St Michel-des-Monts he had explained his plan to take Catherine away with him.

“Supposing Violette was telling you the truth about Lac du Sang?”

“Oh, come on, François. Get real. A bordello full of immortal schoolgirls?”

“I guess, when you say it like that.”

They knocked at the door and Mme Leduc answered, dressed in scarlet silk. “Well, well,” she said, as she took them inside. “Like a bee to the honeypot, Vincent? Can't keep away?”

Vincent gave a self-deprecating shrug.

The girls were all in the living-room, and Minette was playing Brahms on the piano. They stood up when Baubay and Vincent came in, and twittered around them, giving them little kisses of welcome and touching their hair. Only Catherine remained seated, and Vincent deliberately didn't catch her eye.

“Who takes your fancy tonight, François?” asked Mme Leduc.

Baubay looked around the room. He glanced at Vincent, and then he said, “You, Violette. It's you that I want tonight.”

Later, after champagne, Baubay and Violette climbed the stairs together while the girls clapped and giggled and whistled their encouragement. As soon as they had gone, Vincent went over to Catherine and took hold of her hand. “Our turn?” he suggested.

He held her hand quite tightly as they left the living-room and crossed the hallway. Then – as they passed the front door – he suddenly pulled her and said, “This is it! Come on, Catherine, this is our chance!”

Catherine tried to wrench herself away from him. “No!” she cried out. “What are you doing?” But Vincent twisted open the doorhandle, flung the door wide open, and dragged Catherine out on to the porch.

“No!”
she screamed.
“No, Vincent, I can't!”

She deliberately sank to her knees, but Vincent bent down, and bodily picked her up. “No!” she shrieked at him. “I can't! I can't! No, Vincent, you'll kill me!”

She pulled his hair and dug her fingernails into his face, but he found the pain almost exciting. He carried along the pathway and out into the street, where his car was parked. He opened the driver's door and managed to force her inside, pushing her across to the passenger seat. Then he climbed in, started the engine, and sped away from the house with a high-pitched squealing of tires.

“Go back!”
she shouted, trying to snatch the steering-wheel.
“You have to go back!”

“Listen!” he shouted back at her. “Whatever Violette told you, it's garbage! She said it to scare you, so that you wouldn't leave! Now stop worrying about her and start thinking about yourself, and your baby.”

“Go back!”
Catherine howled. “Oh God, you can't do this to me! Oh God please go back! Oh God, Vincent, please take me back!”

“Will you shut up?” Vincent told her. “Shut up and put on your seatbelt. Even if you don't feel protective toward your baby, I do.”

“Take me back! Take me back! I can't go with you, Vincent! I can't!”

She punched him again and tried to tear at his ear, and the car swerved wildly across the highway. But in the end he managed to catch hold of both of her wrists in his right hand, and restrain her. She stopped trying to hit him, and she curled herself up in her seat, and softly sobbed.

She was asleep by the time they reached Montreal. He parked
outside the apartment building and switched off the engine. He looked across at her and brushed the hair from her face. She was so beautiful that he could hardly believe she was real. He lifted her out of the passenger seat and carried her in through the entrance hall. It was stark and brightly lit, but it was late now and there was nobody else around. He went up in the elevator and by the time they reached the sixth floor she was beginning to feel heavy.

He opened the door and carried her into the apartment. It wasn't much – a plain, furnished place with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a small kitchenette. By day it had a narrow view of the Prairies River, partly blocked out by another apartment building. He took her through to the bedroom and laid her on the bed. Over the white vinyl headboard hung an almost laughably incompetent painting of a forest in the fall.

He sat beside her and took hold of her hand. “Catherine?” he coaxed her. “Come on, Catherine. We're here now, sweetheart. We've escaped.”

Her eyes flickered open. She stared at him, first in bewilderment, and then in horror. She sat up and looked around her. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, this can't be true.”

“Come on, it's not that bad,” said Vincent. “A few flowers, a couple of loose covers.”

But Catherine ignored him. She climbed off the bed and went directly to the mirror over the dressing-table. “Oh God,” she kept repeating.

Vincent stood beside her as she peered frantically at her face. “Catherine, nothing's going to happen to you. That story that Violette tells … it's only a way of frightening you.”

“But I was
there.
I was there at Lac du Sang in 1924.”

“You couldn't have been. It simply isn't possible. I don't know what Violette did. Maybe she brainwashed you or something. But no day ever lasted longer than twenty-four hours and nobody ever stayed young forever.”

“You have to take me back. I'm pleading with you, Vincent. I'm pleading on my child's life.”

“You want to go back? Back to what? Back to being a whore?
Back to sucking men's cocks and opening your legs to anybody who can pay the price?”

“Is that your problem? Is that why you took me away? Because you wanted me to open my legs but you didn't want to pay for it?”

“For God's sake, Catherine, I took you away because I love you.”

For the first time she took her eyes away from her reflection in the mirror. There was an expression on her face that he had never seen on any girl's face before. It laid him open right to the bone, as if she had cut him with a ten-inch butcher's knife.