Stone Bruises (23 page)

‘They can manage.’

He finishes one last scallop of bread and cheese, brushing his mouth with his fingertips. But despite the relaxed pose there’s a restlessness about him. Abruptly, he pushes back his chair.

‘Come on. We’ll go into the sitting room.’

Both Mathilde and Gretchen stare after him in surprise as he leaves the kitchen. Now what? I wonder, reluctantly following him.

Arnaud goes through a doorway at the far end of the hallway. It’s a long, narrow room that looks like it runs the whole width of the house. As I go in he’s kneeling by the fireplace, holding a match to a balled piece of newspaper under half-burned logs. Once it’s caught he tosses the match into the grate and straightens, knees cracking like gunfire.

He motions brusquely to one of the chairs.

‘Sit.’

I do, but not where he indicates. There’s a sofa and several chairs more or less facing the fire. I pick an old wooden chair with curved arms that’s deceptively comfortable. Despite the warm night it’s cold in the room, which has a fusty smell of old furniture. A television set that looks old enough to be black and white stands in a corner. I notice one of the windows is boarded up: a reminder of Didier’s visit the night before.

Arnaud switches on a lamp and goes to the bureau. On either side of its roll-top are two small cupboards. He opens one and takes out a bottle and two glasses.

‘You like cognac?’

I overcome my surprise to say yes. He pours a little into each of the glasses and puts the bottle away. Handing one to me, he sits at the opposite side of the fire in a high-backed armchair and takes a sip of cognac.

‘Ahh.’

He settles contentedly into the chair. I take a drink myself. The pale-gold liquor is smooth and seems to evaporate before it reaches the back of my throat.

‘Thirty years old,’ Arnaud says.

‘Very nice.’

Better than his wine, at least. But I’m too ill at ease to enjoy it, certain that the bill for all this is still to be presented. An awkward silence descends. Whatever’s on Arnaud’s mind, I’m far from certain I want to hear it. I take another drink of cognac and look around the room. Several framed photographs are on a small gate-legged table by the fireplace. The more recent are of Gretchen when she was little. The biggest, visible even though it’s at the back, is of a dark-haired woman and a young girl.

Arnaud sees me looking. ‘My wife and Mathilde.’

‘They look alike.’

He nods, staring at the photograph. ‘Gretchen takes more after my side.’

‘Your wife was a teacher, wasn’t she?’

It’s meant innocuously enough, but he looks at me sharply. Wondering how I know, although he doesn’t pursue it. He takes his pipe from his shirt pocket and begins filling it.

‘When I met her Marie was a teacher, yes. But she gave it up. There was plenty of work for her to do here.’

‘She still taught Mathilde, though.’

That earns me another look. ‘She wanted to. English, German, Italian, she thought Mathilde should learn them all. Especially Italian. Because of its culture.’ He lights the pipe and draws on it scornfully. ‘There’s no place for
culture
on a farm. She learned that soon enough.’

His mouth clamps down on the pipe’s stem. There’s no hint of sympathy or affection. I think about the wedding photograph left in the disused bedroom and feel sorry for the woman.

I nod towards the photograph of his wife and daughter. ‘How old was Mathilde there?’

‘Ten or eleven. It was taken before Marie became ill.’ He takes the pipe from his mouth and points the stem at me accusingly. Blue smoke meanders up from its bowl, filling the room with a thick, sweet smell. ‘Have you heard about that as well, eh?’

‘I know she died.’

‘Oh, she died, all right. Eventually. Some wasting disease. The last six months she couldn’t get out of bed. Left me trying to run a farm with an invalid wife and two young daughters. The doctors said it might be this, it might be that, but never got around to putting a name to it. Small wonder they couldn’t cure her. Officious bastards.’

Arnaud angrily knocks back the rest of his cognac and stands up. He takes my glass without asking and goes to the bureau.

‘The world’s full of people who think they know better than you,’ he says, refilling both glasses. He hands me mine and returns to his seat, taking the bottle with him. His expression is broody as he jams the pipe back into his mouth. ‘There’s always someone who thinks they have a right to tell you what to do. Doctors. Neighbours. Police.’

He shoots me a quick glance.

‘All these people who prattle on about rights and freedom, and being part of society. Society! Ha! Society isn’t about freedom, it’s about doing as you’re told!’

He takes a gulp and slams his glass down on the chair arm so hard some of the thirty-year-old spirit slops over the lip.

‘A man has the right to live his own life as he sees fit. Take you. You’re not even French. You’re a foreigner. English, but I don’t hold that against you. Other than that, what do I know? Nothing. Except that you’ve got something to hide.’

I try to keep a poker face, wishing I’d not had so much to drink. He grins.

‘Don’t worry, that’s your business. Whatever it is, I don’t care. You keep yourself to yourself, and I like that. But whatever it is you’re hiding, or running away from, you’re no more a part of society than I am.’

Arnaud takes another drink, watching me all the while.

‘Why did you lie to the police?’

The abrupt change takes me unawares. ‘Would you rather I hadn’t?’

‘That’s not the point. You could have caused trouble over the traps, but you didn’t. Why not?’

I try to think of something bland and non-committal, but it’s too much effort. I just shrug, letting him read into it what he wants.

He smiles. ‘Me and you, we’re more alike than you think. What do you know about Louis?’

I take a drink of cognac, not sure where this is leading. ‘Not much.’

‘But you’ve wondered, eh? Why we don’t like to talk about him. And why those cattle in the town treat us as they do.’

I shrug again, liking this even less.

‘Don’t worry, I don’t blame you.’ Arnaud grimaces, taking the pipe out of his mouth as though it’s left a bad taste. ‘Louis was a time-waster. Made his living doing odd bits of building work, but he was full of big ideas. Always had some scheme or another on the go. Like the vines he knew of going cheap. Or the statues. He had the lifting gear and a pick-up truck, I had the space to keep them until they were sold. Of course, I didn’t know then he was getting into my eldest daughter’s pants.’

Arnaud glowers at his pipe.

‘I can’t blame Mathilde. Louis could charm the flies off a cow’s arse. She should have known better than let herself get pregnant, but when she did Louis saw his big chance. He asked her to marry him. Not because he wanted to do the right thing, you understand. He just saw it as a way he could get his hands on all this …’

He gestures around him, taking in the house and land beyond it.

‘What he didn’t know was that when I die everything will pass to Michel. Gretchen and Mathilde will be looked after, of course, but they won’t get the farm. And neither will anyone they marry, I’ve made damn sure of that. My big mistake was telling Louis. Oh, he showed his true colours then, right enough. Told me he’d got a buyer lined up for the statues, and that he knew of someone in Lyon who’d more to sell. Said we’d get double the return on them, and like a fool I believed him. So I stumped up the cash – plus extra for his expenses – and that was the last we saw of him. He stole my money and abandoned the mother of his child like she was so much garbage!’

Poor Mathilde, I think. I’d already guessed the story’s broad strokes, but even allowing that Arnaud’s version of events is probably biased, it must have been a humiliating experience for her.

‘Of course, then all the back-stabbing and gossip started,’ Arnaud goes on bitterly. ‘I could hardly tell anyone about the statues, but it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. Louis was popular in town, one of their own. So whatever made him leave couldn’t be his fault, could it? Never mind that he’d fucked my daughter and betrayed my trust. Oh, no, they weren’t about to blame
him
! No, it was
our
fault he’d left, we’d obviously
driven
him to it!’

The bottle rattles against his glass as he pours himself another cognac. He almost bites a drink from it.

‘It gave the small-minded bastards the excuse they’d been waiting for. My daughters, even Gretchen, were harassed whenever they went into town. When we stopped going they came out here. There were obscene phone calls; one night someone tried to set fire to the barn. The tractor’s petrol tank was spiked with sugar. So I had the phone taken out and put up barbed wire. I made no secret about setting the traps, so the bastards knew what they could expect if they came on my land.’

Or anyone else, I think. But any irony is lost on Arnaud. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘So you know what the position is. Because you kept your mouth shut when the police talked to you.’

I don’t believe him. There’s another agenda here, but whatever it is I’m not going to find out now. Arnaud gets to his feet, signalling that the audience is over.

‘That’s enough talk for tonight. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Taking up the traps. The police were asking about them. Those bastards from last night must have said something.’ He looks at me with sudden suspicion. ‘You sure you didn’t tell anyone?’

‘I’ve already said I didn’t.’

I told Jean-Claude I’d injured my foot in the wood, but nothing more than that. It doesn’t seem to occur to Arnaud that the neighbours he has such contempt for might not feel obliged to keep his secret, especially not after being shot at. But contradictions like that evidently don’t count for much with him.

‘That fat pig of a gendarme lectured me about traps being illegal. Illegal! On my own land!’ Fury makes his voice quaver. ‘I told them what I did here was my business, and unless they came back with a search warrant I didn’t want to hear anything about it.’

That sends a chill through me. ‘Do you think they will?’

‘How should I know? But I’m not about to give the bastards the satisfaction of finding anything if they do.’

‘And you want me to help you?’

‘That’s right.’

Arnaud throws back his head to drain his cognac, the tendons standing out either side of his throat like a rungless ladder. Smacking his lips with pleasure, he lowers his glass and grins. It gives him a crafty expression in the firelight, but his eyes are as hard as ever.

‘Unless you’d rather explain to the police why you lied to them as well?’

Arnaud’s cognac hums in my head as I go back to the barn. The night seems unnaturally clear, contrasting with the muzziness in my head. I meander a little across the courtyard, the walking stick skidding off the rounded tops of the cobbles. It’s dark in the recesses of the barn and I’ve left the lamp upstairs. I pick out an empty wine bottle by touch, knocking over several others. Icy slivers of water spatter on the floor as I fill it at the tap, then cup my hands and splash my face.

Better.

I haul myself up the steps, glad to reach the familiarity of the loft. It’s too much effort to close the trapdoor, so I leave it open. My walking stick slides to the floor when I try to lean it against the wall, but I can’t be bothered to pick it up. I manage to pull off my T-shirt before I flop down onto the bed still in my jeans. I want to take them off, I really do, but the rich food and alcohol are like lead weights on my eyelids. I close them, just for a few seconds. In a moment I’ll get up and finish undressing.

In a moment …

I’m back in the old room, the old bed. I feel the shift of the mattress and then the warmth of her next to me. Her lips brush my mouth, feather against my cheek. There’s a glow of happiness in my chest that she’s here, that everything’s back to normal. But even as I start to respond I know something’s wrong. The feeling grows as she presses against me, the scents and contours different. Soft hair drapes across my skin as a hand strokes me, and then I open my eyes and I’m back in the loft, and Gretchen’s face is only inches from mine.

There’s a second or two when instinct almost takes over. Then I’m wide awake as shock kicks in. I sit up, tumbling her off me onto the mattress.

She giggles. ‘Did I frighten you?’

My head and heart are both thumping. I push myself away from her a little more. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you think?’ Her teeth and eyes shine in the darkness. She’s wearing a short white T-shirt and nothing else. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘Why not? Everyone’s asleep. And you are pleased, I can feel.’

Her hand reaches for my jeans. I move it away. ‘You need to go.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Yes, I do.’

I swing my feet off the mattress and stand up. The last thing I want is any entanglement with Gretchen, but that’s easier to remember if I’m not lying next to her.

Even in the moonlight I can see her confusion. ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like me?’

‘Look …’ I stop myself before I say anything I’ll regret. ‘It’s not that. I just think you should go.’

There’s a silence. I try to think of something else to say, some way of getting her out of here without prompting another tantrum. If she starts on about Mathilde now, things could turn ugly. Then I see her smile, teeth white in the darkness.

‘Are you scared of Papa? You are, aren’t you?’

I stay quiet, let her draw her own conclusions. It’s easier to let her believe that, and it isn’t as if there isn’t some truth in it. She kneels up on the bed.

‘What did he want to talk to you about earlier? He can’t have been too cross if he gave you his best cognac. I know he did because I washed the glasses.’

‘It was just about the farm.’

‘Liar.’ She laughs. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt you. Not unless you’re mean to me, anyway.’

I don’t know if she’s joking or not. ‘Look, he wants me to help him with the traps. I’ve got to be up in a few hours …’