The Long Way Home (12 page)

Ahead of him he heard the Chief grunting in laughter.

“There it is.” The Chief pointed, and in that moment Beauvoir knew exactly what this reminded him of. A drawing of Don Quixote he’d seen in a book.

Gamache was pointing toward a rude cabin in the woods, with a ruder man inside. Or it might have been a giant.

“Should we tilt at it?” Beauvoir asked, and heard the soft rumble of unmistakable laughter from the Chief.

“Come, Sancho,” he said. “The world needs our immediate presence.”

And Jean-Guy Beauvoir followed.

*   *   *

Professor Massey listened, not interrupting, not reacting. Simply nodding now and then as Clara told him about Peter. About his career, his art, their life together.

And finally there was nothing left to say.

The professor inhaled, a breath that seemed to go on forever. He held it for a moment, his eyes never leaving the woman in front of him. And then he exhaled.

“Peter’s a lucky man,” he said. “Except in one respect. He doesn’t seem to know how lucky he is.”

Myrna sat down then, on the stool by his easel. He was right. It was what she’d long known about Peter Morrow. In a life filled with great good fortune, of health, of creativity, of friends. Living in safety and privilege. With a loving partner. There was just one bit of misfortune in his life, and that was that Peter Morrow seemed to have no idea how very fortunate he was.

Professor Massey reached out and Clara put her large hands in his larger ones.

“I’m hopeful,” he said. “You know why?”

Clara shook her head. Myrna shook her head. Mesmerized by the soft, sure voice.

“He married you. He could have chosen any of the bright, attractive, successful students here.” Professor Massey turned to Myrna. “Peter was clearly a star. A deeply talented student. Art college isn’t just about art, as it turns out. It’s also about attitude. The place is full of scowling kids in black. Including Peter. The only exception was…”

He jerked his head dramatically toward Clara, who was blotting beer off her jeans.

“As I remember it, Peter did his share of dating,” said Massey. “But in the end he was attracted not to the talented girls with attitude, but to the apparently talentless, marginal girl.”

“I feel there’s an insult in there,” said Clara with a laugh. She also turned to Myrna. “You didn’t know him then. He was spectacular. Tall with all this long, curly hair. Like a Greek sculpture come alive.”

“So how’d you win him over?” Myrna asked. “Your feminine wiles?”

Clara laughed and fluffed her imaginary bouffant. “Yes, I was quite the vixen. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“No, really,” said Myrna, getting up from the stool and wandering over. “How did you two get together?”

“I honestly have no idea,” said Clara.

“I do,” said Professor Massey. “Attitude is tiring after a while. And boring. Predictable. You were fresh, different.”

“Happy,” said Myrna.

She’d walked past the sitting area, and into the back of the studio, examining the canvases on the walls.

“Yours?” she asked, and Massey nodded.

They were good. Very good. And one, near the back, was exceptional. Professor Massey followed her with his eyes. No matter the age, thought Myrna, an artist is always slightly insecure.

“So we know what Peter found attractive in you,” said Myrna. “What did you like about him? Beyond the physical. Or was that it?”

“At first, for sure,” said Clara, thinking. “I remember now.” She laughed. “It sounds so small, but it was huge back then. When my work was displayed in the Salon des Refusés, instead of treating me like a leper, Peter actually came and stood beside me.” She ran her hands through her hair, so that it stood almost straight out from her head. “I was an outcast, a joke. The weird kid who did all these crazy installations. And not crazy in a Van Gogh, artistic, cool way. My stuff was considered superficial. Silly. And so was I.”

“It must’ve been upsetting,” said Myrna.

“It was, a little. But you know, I was still happy. I was at the OCCA, doing art. In Toronto. It was exciting.”

“But you were upset about the Salon des Refusés,” said Professor Massey.

Clara nodded. “That was a professor doing it. It was humiliating. I remember staring at my work, front and center in the gallery reserved for failures. Where Professor Norman had put it. Peter came over, and he stood beside me. He didn’t say anything, he just stood there. For all to see.”

She smiled at the memory.

“Things changed after that. I wasn’t exactly accepted, but neither was I mocked. Not so much, anyway.”

Myrna had no idea Peter had done that. He’d always seemed slightly superficial to her. Handsome, physically strong. And he knew the right things to say, to appear thoughtful. But there was a weakness about the man.

“Can I give you some advice?” Professor Massey asked.

Clara nodded.

“Go home. Not to wait for him, but go home and get on with your life and your art. And trust that he’ll meet you there, when he’s found what he’s looking for.”

“But what’s he looking for? Did he tell you?” Clara asked.

Professor Massey shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Why Dumfries?” asked Myrna.

The two artists turned to her.

“I can understand Paris and the other places,” she continued. “But why a small town in Scotland? He’d just returned from there when he came to see you. Did he tell you about his trip?”

Again the professor shook his head.

“We talked about his time here, at the college,” he said.

“Is there anything that connects all those places he visited?” Clara asked.

“Not that I know of,” said the professor, looking perplexed. “As you say, Paris and Florence and Venice make sense for an artist. But then a small town in Scotland? Did he have family there?”

“No,” said Clara. “Then from here he went to Quebec City. Do you know why?”

“I’m sorry,” said the professor, and looked terribly sad. Myrna began to feel they were harassing the elderly man, haranguing him for answers he so clearly didn’t have.

She walked over. “I think we should be going. We have to catch the train back to Montréal.”

At the door, Professor Massey shook Myrna’s hand.

“We should all have a friend like you.”

Then he turned to Clara. “This should be the happiest time of your life. A time of celebration. Makes it all the more painful. It reminds me of Francis Bacon and his triptych.”

Then he brightened. “I’m an idiot. I just heard that one of our professors had to drop out because of illness. He taught painting and composition to first-year students. You’d be perfect for it. I know you should be teaching a much more advanced class”—he held up his hand as though to ward off Clara’s objections—“but believe me, by the time they get to third year they’re insufferable. But the new students? That’s exciting. And they’d adore you. Interested?”

Clara had a sudden image of standing in a large studio, like this. Her own studio at the college. Her own sofa, her own fridge stocked with contraband beer. Guiding eager young men and women. Emerging artists.

She’d make sure that what was done to her wasn’t done to them. She’d encourage them. Defend them. No Salon des Refusés for them. No mocking, no marginalizing. No pretending to encourage creativity, when all the college really wanted was conformity.

They’d come to her studio on Fridays and drink beer and talk nonsense. They’d throw around ideas, philosophies, predictions, bold and half-baked plans. It would be her own salon. A Salon des Acceptés.

And she would be the gleaming center. The world-renowned artist, nurturing them.

She would have arrived.

“Think about it,” Professor Massey said.

“I will,” said Clara. “Thank you.”

*   *   *

Dr. Vincent Gilbert lived in the heart of the forest. Away from human conflict, but also away from human contact. It was a compromise he was more than happy to make. As was the rest of humanity.

Gamache and Gilbert had met many times over the years and, against all odds, isolation and a life dedicated just to himself had not improved Dr. Gilbert’s people skills.

“What do you want?” Gilbert asked, looking out from under a straw hat he might have stolen from Beauvoir’s horse on an earlier visit.

He was in the vegetable garden and looked, to Gamache, more and more like a biblical prophet, or a madman. Gilbert wore a once white, now gray, nightshirt down to mid-calf, and plastic sandals he could hose off. Which was a good thing, because he was up to his ankles in compost.

“Can’t a neighbor come to visit?” asked Gamache, after securing his mount to a tree.

“What do you want?” Dr. Gilbert repeated, straightening up and walking toward them.

“Drop the act, Vincent,” said Gamache with a laugh. “I know you’re happy to see me.”

“Did you bring me anything?”

Gamache gestured toward Beauvoir, whose eyes widened.

“You know I’m a vegetarian,” said Gilbert. “Anything else?”

Gamache reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a brown paper bag and the map.

“Welcome, stranger,” said Gilbert. He grabbed the paper bag, opened it, and inhaled the aroma of the croissants.

Tossing one precious pastry into the woods, without explanation, he took the rest into his log cabin, followed by Gamache and Beauvoir.

*   *   *

The train lurched forward but was soon traveling swiftly and smoothly toward Montréal.

“What was that about Francis Bacon?” Myrna asked. The steward had taken their lunch order. “I’m presuming he meant the twentieth-century painter and not the sixteenth-century philosopher.”

Clara nodded but said nothing.

“What did Professor Massey mean?” Myrna pressed. It had clearly meant something.

Clara looked out the window, at the rear end of Toronto. For a moment Myrna wondered if she’d heard the question. But then Clara spoke. To the overflowing garbage bins. To the washing on the line. To the graffiti. Not actual art, but the artist’s name over and over. Declaring himself. Spray-painted in huge, bold, black letters. Over and over.

“Bacon often painted in threes.” Clara’s words created a fine fog on the window. “Triptychs. I think the one Professor Massey had in mind was George Dyer.”

That meant nothing to Myrna, but it clearly meant a great deal to Clara.

“Go on.”

“I think Professor Massey was trying to warn me.” Clara turned away from the window and looked at her friend.

“Tell me,” said Myrna, though it was clear Clara would have rather done just about anything else than put these thoughts into words.

“George Dyer and Bacon were lovers,” said Clara. “They went to Paris for a huge show of Bacon’s paintings. It was the first great triumph of his career. While Bacon was being celebrated—”

Clara stopped, and Myrna felt the blood rush from her own face.

“Tell me,” she repeated softly.

“Dyer killed himself in their hotel room.”

The words were barely audible. But Myrna heard them. And Clara heard them. Put out into the world.

The women stared at each other.

“It’s what you were trying to warn me about,” Clara said, her voice still barely above a whisper. “When you told me about Samarra.”

Myrna couldn’t answer. She couldn’t bear to add to the dread in Clara’s face. In her whole body.

“You think Peter has done the same thing,” said Clara.

But still Clara’s eyes pleaded with Myrna. To tell her she was wrong. To reassure her that Peter was just off painting. He’d lost track of the time. The date.

Myrna said nothing. It might have been kindness. Or cowardice. But Myrna remained silent, and allowed Clara her delusion.

That Peter would come home. Might even be waiting for them, when they got back. With beer. A couple of steaks. An explanation. And profuse apologies.

Myrna looked out the window. The tenements were still whizzing by, apparently endless. But the graffiti artist’s name had disappeared.

A fine hotel room in Paris, she thought. Samarra. Or some corner of Québec. However he got there, Myrna was afraid Peter Morrow had reached the end of the road. And there he’d met Death.

And she knew that Clara feared the same thing.

*   *   *

Vincent Gilbert’s log cabin hadn’t changed much since the last time Beauvoir had visited. It was still a single room, with a large bed at one end, and a kitchen at the other. The rough pine floor was strewn with fine Oriental carpets, and on either side of the fieldstone fireplace were shelves crammed with books. Two comfortable armchairs with footstools sat facing each other across the hearth.

Before Vincent Gilbert had moved in, this rustic cabin had been the scene of a terrible crime. A murder so unnatural it had shocked the nation. Some places held on to such malevolence, as though the pain and shock and horror had fused to the structure.

But this little home had always felt strangely innocent. And very peaceful.

Dr. Gilbert poured them glasses of spring water and made sandwiches with tomatoes still warm from his garden.

Gamache spread the map of Paris on the table, smoothing it with his large hand.

“So, what do you want, Armand?” Dr. Gilbert asked for the third time.

“When you went to Paris, after you left your wife, where did you go?”

“I’ve told you that before. Weren’t you paying attention?”

“I was,
mon ami
,” said Gamache soothingly. “But I’d like to see again.”

Gilbert’s eyes filled with suspicion. “Don’t waste my time, Armand. I have better things to do than repeat myself. There’s manure to spread.”

Some considered Vincent Gilbert a saint. Some, like Beauvoir, considered him an asshole. The residents of Three Pines had compromised and called him the “asshole saint.”

“But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still a saint,” Gamache had said. “Most saints were assholes. In fact, if he wasn’t one that would disqualify him completely.”

The Chief had walked away with a smile, knowing he’d completely messed with Beauvoir’s mind.

“Asshole,” Beauvoir had hissed.

“I heard that,” said Gamache, not turning back.