The Nature Of The Beast Part 4

"I know the history of the village," said Ruth.

"Let's change the subject," said Brian. He turned to Reine-Marie. "Are you going to join the Estrie Players?"

"Join?" asked Armand, looking at his wife.

"I was thinking it might be fun."

"It is fun," said Gabri. "Drop by the rehearsal tomorrow night and see. I'll leave my script for you to read."

"Great, I'll come by. What time?" said Reine-Marie.

"Seven," said Brian. "Wear something you don't mind throwing out. We'll be painting. How about you, Ruth?"

"Yes, you'd be good at it," said Gabri. "You've been pretending to be human for years."

"Though not very convincingly," said Myrna. "I never believed it."

But Ruth had fallen into a stupor, deep in thought.

"Let's go into the living room," said Reine-Marie, once dinner was finished. "Leave the dishes. Henri will lick them clean later."

The guests looked at each other as they left the table, and saw Reine-Marie smiling. In the living room Armand tossed another log onto the fire, putting his hands, palms out, toward the flame.

"Are you cold?" Reine-Marie asked. "Getting sick?"

She put her hand on his forehead.

"No, I just feel a chill," he explained.

Antoinette came by and nodded toward the fire. "They're nice in September, aren't they? Cheerful. In June they're just depressing."

Reine-Marie laughed and walked over to join Ruth. Antoinette turned away but Armand called her back.

"The play," he said quietly.

"Yes?"

"Brian said it was by John Fleming."

She grew still, her clear eyes studying him. "He shouldn't have said that."

"But he did. Why do you want to keep it a secret?"

"Like I said, marketing. It's a new play, we need to do everything we can to pique interest."

"A secret playwright is hardly going to get camera crews out."

"Not at first, maybe. But the play's not your run-of-the-mill work by an unknown, Armand. It's brilliant. I've done professional and amateur theatrics for years and this is among the best."

"For an amateur," said Gamache.

"For anyone. Wait until you see it. I'd put it beside Miller and Stoppard and Tremblay. It's Our Town meets The Crucible."

Gamache was used to hyperbole, especially from people in the theater, so this didn't surprise him.

"I'm not questioning the quality of the work," he said, lowering his voice so that it was barely audible above the crackle of the fire as it caught the dry wood. "I'm wondering about the playwright."

"I can't tell you anything about him."

"Have you met him?" Gamache asked.

Antoinette hesitated. "No. Brian found the script among my uncle's papers after he died."

"Why did you white out the playwright's name?"

"I told you. I wanted to create a buzz. Once the play opens everyone's going to want to know who wrote it."

"And what'll you tell them?"

Now Antoinette looked decidedly tense.

"Who wrote She Sat Down and Wept?" Gamache asked, his voice low.

"Like Brian said, it's by some fellow named John Fleming."

"I know a John Fleming," he said. "And so do you. And so does everyone." He stared at her. "Is it that John Fleming?"

"I don't know," she said after a pause.

He continued to stare until she flushed. "You know."

"Know what?" asked Gabri, offering them coffees. Too late, he picked up on the tension between the two.

"Please tell me it's not the same man," said Gamache, searching Antoinette's face. And then his went slack before he whispered, "My G.o.d, it is, isn't it?"

"What is?" asked Gabri, wis.h.i.+ng he could back away but knowing it was too late.

"Will you tell him?" Armand asked. "Or shall I?"

"Tell him what?" asked Myrna, joining them.

Armand walked over to the table by the door where Gabri had left his script.

"Tell them who wrote this," he said, holding it out to Antoinette. "Tell them the real reason you didn't want anyone to know."

Hearing the tone of his voice, Reine-Marie looked over. Armand was dangerously close to being rude to one of their guests, something he'd rarely been in all the years she'd known him. He hadn't liked all their guests, certainly hadn't agreed with all of them, but he'd always been courteous.

But now he toed the line. And then he crossed it, thrusting the play at Antoinette.

"Tell them," he said.

She took it, then turned to the other dinner guests. "It was John Fleming."

"We already know that," said Myrna. "Brian told us this afternoon in the bistro, remember?"

"That's what's going to get people excited?" asked Gabri. "Your brilliant marketing plan? He's hardly a household name."

"But he is," said Armand. "Everyone in Canada knows him. In North America. He's famous. Infamous."

They looked perplexed, genuinely baffled by Armand's behavior and insistence. But then Myrna sank down. Had the sofa not been there, she might have gone all the way to the floor. Brian took the cup and saucer from her just before it spilled.

"That John Fleming?" Myrna whispered.

Gabri, far from buckling, looked as though he'd been turned to granite as he stared at Antoinette. A Medusa in their midst.

"You didn't," he said. "Tell me you didn't."

Once home, Ruth turned the key in the lock and leaned against the door, her heart pounding, her breathing rapid and shallow. She held Rosa to her chest and pressed against the thin wood of the door. All that stood between her and Rosa and an alien world that had produced a John Fleming.

Then she drew the curtains and pulled from her string bag the script she'd stolen.

Making herself a cup of tea, Ruth opened the play and started to read.

The party broke up and Armand went into the kitchen. Reine-Marie could hear the tap water and the clinking of dishes and cutlery.

Then the clinking stopped and she heard only the steady stream of water. Going into the kitchen, she stopped at the door. Armand was leaning over the sink, his large hands clutching the counter, as though he was about to be sick.

"Are you still going to rehearsal tomorrow?" Gabri asked, as he and Myrna walked home.

"I guess. I don't know. I ... I..."

"I know, me too."

Gabri kissed her good night on both cheeks, then went into the bistro to help Olivier with the last of the evening service. Myrna climbed the stairs to her loft apartment above the bookstore and got into her pajamas, then realized she was both tired and wide awake. Looking out the window, she saw a light at Clara's home.

It was eleven o'clock.

Putting a shawl around her shoulders, and slipping on rubber boots, she clumped around the edge of the village green and knocked on the door. Then she let herself in.

"Clara?"

"In here."

Myrna found her in her studio, sitting in front of the unfinished canvas. Peter Morrow stared back, ghostly. Half-finished. A demi-man in an unfinished life.

Clara was wearing sweats and held a paintbrush in her mouth, like a female FDR. Her hair stuck out at odd angles from running her hands through it.

"Pizza for dinner?" asked Myrna, picking a mushroom out of Clara's hair.

"Yes. Reine-Marie invited me over but I wasn't really in the mood."

Myrna looked at the easel and knew why. Clara had been obsessing over the portrait again. And Peter, now gone, was still managing to undermine his wife's art.

"Do you want to talk?" Myrna asked, drawing up a stool.

Clara put down the brush and ran her hands through her graying hair so vigorously that bits of pepperoni and crumbs fell out.

"I don't know what I'm doing anymore," said Clara, waving at the portrait. "It's as though I've never painted in my life. Oh, G.o.d, suppose I can't?"

She looked at Myrna in a panic.

"You will," Myrna a.s.sured her. "Maybe you're just doing the wrong portrait. Maybe it's too soon to paint Peter."

Peter seemed to be watching them. A slight smile on his handsome face. Myrna wondered if Clara knew how very well she'd already captured the man. Myrna had cared for Peter very much, but she also knew he could be a real piece of work. This piece, in fact. And Myrna also wondered if Clara had been adding to the portrait, or taking away. Had she been making him less and less substantial?

She turned away and listened as Clara talked about what had happened. To Peter. It was a story Myrna knew well. She'd been there.

But still she listened, and she'd listen again. And again.

And with every telling Clara was letting go of a bit of the unbearable pain. The guilt she felt. The sorrow. It was as though Clara was pulling herself out of the ocean, dripping in grief, but no longer drowning.

Clara blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

"Did you have fun at the Gamaches'?" she asked. "What time is it anyway? Why're you in pajamas?"

"It's half past eleven," said Myrna. "Can we go into the kitchen?"

Away from the G.o.dd.a.m.ned painting, thought Myrna.

"Tea?" Clara asked.

"Beer?" Myrna countered, and pulled a couple out of the fridge.

"What's wrong?" Clara asked.

"You know I joined the Estrie Players," said Myrna.

"You're not going to ask me again to go and paint sets," said Clara. When Myrna didn't answer, Clara put her beer down and reached out for her friend's hand.

"What is it?"

"The play we're doing. She Sat Down and Wept-"