Rachael's Gift (28 page)

I fished the piece of canvas out of my pocket and held it towards her. ‘I know about the painting.’

She stared at it dumbly and then shrugged. ‘Know what?’ The wind blew her hair about her face.

Frustration set in. ‘It’s what’s left of that girl’s painting from your school – you took it, didn’t you? And Everett caught you.’

She snatched the canvas from me and held it close for a good look. ‘Jesus, Wolfe,’ she sneered. ‘I never knew you had a talent for making up stories. I burnt this ages ago – it belonged to my
Rooms
series. I hated it.’ She handed it back. Her lips were blue. She tucked her hands under her armpits. ‘Can we go now? I’m freezing.’

We queued up again. The small lift arrived, the crowd crammed together and we were the last to squeeze in. The doors shut and the lift fell past the levels of iron balustrades. My gut somersaulted. Out the window, Paris grew bigger. Rach pressed against my back, and whispered into my ear, ‘You must think I’m some kind of monster.’ The lift jolted to a stop. She looked up at me, the rims of her eyes red, water gathering at the corners. I didn’t know if she was crying or if it was just the damn cold. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, touching the edge of the canvas. The crowd piled out and we waited in another, much larger queue for the second lift down.

It was day three since Wolfe had arrived and his presence had changed everything. I took Rachael to the Jeu de Paume, just the two of us. The museum now held contemporary art installations – a far cry from its days as the Nazi art collection depot.

‘So he believed you?’ I asked, as we stood before a display of coloured fluorescent lights.

‘I guess.’ She stuffed her hands in her pockets.

‘Did he suspect anything?’

She shrugged. ‘Dunno.’ The lights changed from blue to green. ‘Is it true about the death threats? Have you seen them?’

‘Yes.’

Rachael moved away, her shoulder bumping mine as she wandered off to the next installation. I looked at the back of her head, wondering what was going on in there and whether we were okay. Somewhere a thread had come undone.

I won’t lie. When I saw Wolfe again, with his trusting eyes and his good heart, on a personal crusade to save an innocent man, I felt sick to my stomach. My resolve was faltering. It was all I could do not to heave right there on the floor in front of him. What was the matter with me? Were my nerves failing? Was I losing sight of the prize? In the past, I’d never felt guilty, but this time I’d had to grip my hands underneath the table to stop them from shaking. So Rachael had lied to save her skin; she had stolen the painting to win the prize and was stupid enough to get caught. Why couldn’t they all have just let it die down? First the school, then the investigation and now a group of vigilantes. What next – the police? Well, it wasn’t like she’d broken the law – what were they going to do? Charge her with stealing something worthless? It was a moral question, not a criminal one. What if she did return and tell the truth? What would that do? Her reputation would be destroyed – I’d never get her into another school again; hopefully I wouldn’t have to. There was only one school I cared about. Anyway, people would believe what they wanted, and unfortunately Everett would be a casualty. Nothing Rachael said now would change that. The damage was done.

Burning the canvas had been easy. There’d been a strong wind that morning, the clothesline creaking and our clothes flapping wildly. I had a few hours until Wolfe and Rachael returned; I went into the laundry and pulled out a plastic bag from behind the washing machine – a place I knew Wolfe would never go. I found a metal bucket and a bottle of kerosene. I couldn’t do it outside because of the wind and the heat so I cleared an area in the garage and placed the bucket in the middle of the concrete floor. The canvas had been rolled up. I didn’t bother to unroll it; I knew what it was: a portrait of someone’s mother. Rachael had hidden it in my mother’s box, where I’d found it when I searched for my mother’s address book. She had even taped the box back up.

Brown and white paint was encrusted on the curled-up edges of the canvas. I pushed it deep into the bottom and covered it with pages of yesterday’s newspaper. I poured kerosene over the canvas, struck a match, and let it fall. There was a loud pop, followed by a roar, and a huge fireball leapt into the air. I jumped back and out of my skin. I was shaking. The fire licked up out of the bucket, swallowing the canvas in one mouthful. I’d stared at the yellow blaze as its flame rose to my height. And just as quickly it fell low, burning itself out. I was panting. The workshop reeked and was filled with black smoke. I hadn’t thought of that. I crouched down, putting the lid on the bucket – it was hot to the touch. There, it was done. Gone. Rachael was protected. They had no proof now.

Rachael’s silhouette paused in front of a blue fluorescent lamp. Burning the canvas had been easy. Maintaining the lie was becoming difficult.

*

‘Have you ever lied about anything?’ I said as we lay side by side in the darkness in our pushed-together beds. I was in a perpetual state of fear. So jumpy, I thought I would hit the ceiling. I looked at Wolfe’s profile, so strong and so calm – how could I have doubted him? What if I had done things differently? Done it his way? Would it have been any different? I felt tears prick behind my eyes. Had I gone too far this time? Should I just tell him everything? He didn’t need to know about Lucien – that was something else, something personal, from long before he was around. But there might still be a chance to save the teacher and Rachael – we could return to Australia and then come back to Paris. But what if Rachael was punished? Maybe she’d be let off with a warning, have to do community service or something. Maybe I could buy us some more time? I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling my head begin to throb with the weight of it all. The sheets rustled as Wolfe shifted his legs. He was such a good man – so simple, so trusting. Of course he had never lied about anything.

‘I’m sure I told a few porkies about missing school,’ he said, half asleep.

‘My family had secrets.’ My breathing was loud and uneven.

‘Everyone has something,’ he murmured, seemingly unaware of the turmoil inside me.

‘In the old days they sent you away if you got into “trouble”. Sent you abroad until you had “recovered”. They’d arrange adoption.’ She paused. ‘But they couldn’t make my mother give me up.’

I heard his intake of breath. He was awake now. ‘Shit, Cam. Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I felt the weight of his arm on my shoulders as he drew me towards him. But I was like a stone in his arms. ‘I had some idea there was a rift in your family, but I didn’t know it was anything like that.’ He stroked my skin and we stayed that way for a while and the sickening nerves in my body began to subside for the first time since he had arrived – and then a familiar old buzz ran through me. I turned towards him. We kissed.

He nuzzled my hair away from my ear and whispered, ‘When all this is over and we go home, let’s go away to the beach – just you and me, like old times.’

‘Hmm, I’d like that.’ We kissed again but I put my hand on his chest and stopped him. ‘I want to ask you one thing . . .’

He kissed my neck. ‘Mmm?’

‘I promise we’ll go home – but I just need a bit more time.’

He fell back on his pillow and sighed. ‘How much time?’

‘It is her funeral, after all. Just a few more days.’

I heard the rustle of the sheets as he moved his legs around. ‘Okay.’

I leant into him again, kissing his lips, tasting salt. Always salt.

The gunshot cracked into the air. A cartridge reloaded. Another crack. Eight dogs barked and screeched at a one hundred and fifty kilo boar they had cornered against the hollowed-out trunk of a chestnut tree. A bullet about the size of a five-cent piece had lodged in its neck. The boar staggered, disoriented, and tried to charge the dogs, but instead rammed its tusks into the trunk and emitted a high-pitched whine; the dogs kept on coming. Thank god these were only chase dogs and not catch dogs. ‘Not in France,’ Rupert had explained earlier. ‘Only the Americans do it that way.’ Catch dogs tore into the animal with their teeth.

The dogs were growling and the boar was squealing; the noise alone was enough to make me want to run in the opposite direction.

Rupert, in his green hunting jacket and with pants tucked into a pair of long socks, threw down his rifle, handed me something from his belt of hunting tools, trod through the mud behind the tree, and took hold of the front right leg of the beast.

‘Okay, old boy, he’s all yours!’ Rupert yelled over the noise, his body jerking with the boar’s struggle.

‘What?’ I reached for my own rifle, still slung over my shoulder. It was heavy and bulky and caught between my legs, and I thought I’d shoot my own bloody foot off if I wasn’t careful. Rupert had given me a quick lesson; even though the old man had been a good shot, I’d never fired a gun. I wasn’t a hunting sort of bloke. I could barely catch and gut a fish. It was good to get out of the city now, though, get some fresh air. Clear the old noggin.

We’d driven to the hunt – about an hour from Paris – in the early hours of the morning. Rupert had lent me a pair of khaki duds and matching hunting jacket, the pockets filled with bullets, whistles and cough lollies. The forest was full of thick ground cover, twiggy oaks, beech and chestnuts, tangled branches and thorny brush. A grey mist hung in the air. The hunting party had been waiting for us by the side of a dirt road, hands in pockets, fluoro jackets, guns and caps. A real French horn sounded, the dogs were let loose and bolted off into the brush. We followed them. Not far in, a single hoof print was spotted in the mud; its scent was picked up and we had our boar.

‘The knife, old boy, use the bloody knife!’

I opened my fist and saw that Rupert had handed me a knife with a plastic handle, its serrated blade a meagre six inches long. The boar bucked and thrust itself against Rupert’s strong grip. The dogs bayed. Where was the rest of our party? At five feet long, its skin covered in coarse black bristles matted with mud, the beast was hardly going to feel this piss-ant excuse for a weapon.

‘He’s getting loose!’ Rupert yelled, his face turning purple. ‘Do it now!’

The rest of our party caught up to us, but hung back, watching, waiting. Great, a fucking audience. I was no stranger to blood, but stabbing an innocent creature made me want to gag. My hands shook as I ran over, desperate for this struggle to end.

‘Remember what I said: aim for the heart. Watch for the plume,’ Rupert said, fighting for breath as I crouched in front of the beast, my head inches from the snarling jaws of the dogs. The pig shrieked as if it knew what was coming.

‘On three, I’m going to lift. One . . . two . . . three!’ Rupert yanked the beast with all his strength, exposing the right flank. ‘Now!’

The boar thrashed its head wildly from side to side; I drove the knife into the hairless patch where I thought the heart was, but the pig just squealed and lunged towards me, throwing Rupert into the mud and grazing my arm with his tusk.

‘Again. Go again!’ Rupert commanded, amazingly finding his footing and still gripping on to the boar’s front leg.

But I had dropped the knife, and it was caught up among the mess of dogs, beast and mud.

Quick as a blow, Louis, the dog wrangler, dashed up from behind and plunged his own knife into the boar’s chest, about four inches below my own stab. In one swift movement he severed the aorta and pierced the heart; the blood seeped out in a flower-shaped plume – just as Rupert had said it would. The beast went slack instantly. The sight of the blood made me bend over and retch.

Louis whispered a command to his dogs and they abruptly fell quiet, slinking into the forest. The silence was worse than the noise. Louis bent to retrieve my blade. He handed it to me as I was still leaning over my knees. Driving his meaty fingers into my shoulder, he murmured something that I couldn’t understand, but I recognised the tone: It’s okay, mate. You fucked up, but it’s all okay.

The rest of the party stood over the dead animal, deep in conversation. Its black beady eyes were vacant; its body slumped against the tree trunk.

Rupert came over. ‘How are you?’ He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face and hands. ‘They’re worried the meat might be spoilt,’ he said.

‘Shit. It’s my fault.’ The long kill would have triggered too much adrenalin, toughening the meat.

‘It’s your lucky day – they got another one over at the pass. Lunch and dinner,’ he said, winking. He lowered his voice. ‘It’s always hard the first time. You’ll get used to it.’

I made a mental note that this would be the first and last time. Rupert threw me his handkerchief and I saw I was covered in blood. It was all over my hands. My coat was torn and my forearm was bleeding where the tusk had sliced my skin open.

‘You’re lucky you’ve still got that arm,’ he said. ‘Better get it looked at.’

Eventually they decided it would be worth carrying the boar back. Four men took a leg each and set off for the cars, their faces straining under the weight. At the clearing, the boar was swung in the back of one of the Land Rovers. The dogs were put in their cages and thrown chunks of meat. A foldout table was pulled from the boot and spread with cheese, wine, bread and some kind of pink paste. The men stood around, the butts of their rifles between their legs, laughing and patting each other on the back. I thought I had a pretty strong gut at the best of times, but eating cheese and bread beside two dead animals was beyond me. I poured myself a cup of wine and leant against the engine. I could smell the blood on my hands.

*

Rupert drove us to the house, the boars weighing down the boot of the car. There was a cook waiting to skin, gut and spit roast them for Marguerite’s wake on Saturday.

Rupert banged on and on, mostly about the chase, wondering if I’d enjoyed it as much as he had. I told him I had and he seemed pretty chuffed he’d been able to show me the ropes, as he kept on saying.