The Long Way Home

EIGHTEEN

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat,” said Armand Gamache as he took a seat on one of Ruth’s white preformed chairs.

“You make it sound like a fur ball,” said Ruth. She slopped Scotch into a glass, not offering him any. “Something horked up. My poems are finely honed, each fucking word carefully chosen.”

Rosa was asleep in her nest of blankets beside Ruth’s chair, though Gamache thought he noticed the duck’s eyes open a slit. Watching him.

It would have been unnerving if he didn’t keep reminding himself it was just a duck. Just a duck. An unnerving duck.

“Well, you’re the one who said it.” Gamache tore his eyes from the watch duck.

“Did I?”

“You did.”

Ruth’s kitchen was filled with found objects, including the plastic chairs and table. Including the Scotch bottle, found in Gabri’s liquor cabinet. Including Rosa. Found as an egg, Gamache knew. Ruth had spotted the nest by the pond on the village green one Easter morning and had touched the two eggs inside. The touch had tainted them, and the eggs had been abandoned by their mother. So Ruth took them home. Everyone had naturally assumed she’d meant to make an omelet. But instead the old poet had done something unnatural, for her. She’d made a tiny incubator out of flannel, and warmed the eggs in the oven. She’d turned them, watched them, stayed up late into the night in case they started to hatch and needed her. Ruth paid her Hydro-Québec bill, to make sure her power wasn’t cut off. She paid it with money she’d found at Clara’s.

She prayed.

Rosa had hatched on her own but her sister, Flora, had fought to get out. So Ruth had helped. Peeling back the shell. Cracking it further.

And there, inside, was Flora. Looking up into those weary, wary old eyes.

Flora and Rosa had bonded with Ruth. And Ruth had bonded with them.

They followed her everywhere. But while Rosa thrived, Flora grew frail.

Because of Ruth.

Flora was meant to fight her way out of her shell. The struggle would make her strong. Ruth’s helping hand had weakened her. Until, late one night, Flora had died in that same helping hand.

It had confirmed all Ruth’s fears. Kindness killed. No good could come of helping others.

And so Ruth made it a policy to turn her back. Not for herself, but to protect those she loved.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“A poem begins as a lump in the throat. A sense of wrong,” Gamache continued the quote. “A homesickness, a lovesickness.”

Ruth glared at him over the rim of her cut glass tumbler, one she’d found in the Gamaches’ home.

“You know the quote,” she said, cupping the glass between two scrawny hands. “Not one of mine, as you know.”

“Not even a poem,” said Gamache. “It’s from a letter Robert Frost wrote to a friend describing how he wrote.”

“Your point?”

“Is the same true for any work of art?” he asked. “A poem, a song, a book.”

“A painting?” she asked, her rheumy eyes sharp, as though a barracuda was staring at him from the bottom of a cold lake.

“Does a painting begin with a lump in the throat? A sense of wrong? A homesickness, a lovesickness?” he asked. In his peripheral vision he saw that Rosa was awake and watching her mother. Closely.

“How the hell should I know?”

But finally, under Gamache’s patient gaze, she gave one curt nod.

“The best ones do, yes. We express ourselves differently. Some choose words, some notes, some paint, but it all comes from the same place. But there’s something you need to know.”

“Oui?”

“Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it’s true. We don’t build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh.”

“You tear down all that’s familiar, comfortable,” said Gamache. “It must be scary.” When the old poet was quiet he asked, “Is that the lump in the throat?”

“Can I ask you a question?” Clara asked.

Olivier was busy setting the bistro tables for dinner. One of the servers had called in sick and they were shorthanded.

“Can you fold napkins?” Without waiting for a response, he handed her a pile of white linen.

“Suppose,” said Clara uncertainly.

Olivier searched through his tray of antique silver knives and forks and spoons for sets that matched. And then he separated them. First he matched, then he mismatched.

“Do you know where Peter went?” Clara asked.

Olivier paused, a spoon in his hand, like a microphone. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you were good friends.”

“We all were. Are.”

“But I think you and he were especially close. I think if he was going to tell anyone, it’d be you,” said Clara.

“He’d have told you, Clara,” said Olivier, going back to setting the table. “What’s this about?”

“So he didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t heard from him since he left.” Olivier stopped what he was doing to look at her directly. “I’d have said something earlier, when he didn’t show up. I’d never have let you stew.”

He gathered up more silverware and Clara folded the napkins. They moved around one table, then over to the next.

“When you left Three Pines—” she began, but Olivier interrupted.

“When I was taken away,” he corrected.

“Did you miss Gabri?”

“Every day. All day. I couldn’t wait to come back. It’s all I dreamed of.”

“But you told me that the night you returned you stood out there”—she fluttered a napkin toward the bay window of the bistro—“afraid to come inside.”

Olivier continued to set the places, his expert hands making sure the old silver was properly mismatched and properly placed.

“What were you afraid of?” Clara asked.

“I already told you.”

They’d moved on to another table, and were circling it, setting it.

“But I need to hear it again. It’s important.”

She watched his blond and balding head bowed over the chairs, as though the empty places were sacred.

Olivier straightened up so abruptly it gave Clara a start.

“I was afraid I no longer belonged. I stood out there and watched you all in here, laughing, having fun. You seemed so happy. Without me. Gabri seemed so happy.”

“Oh, Olivier.” She handed him a napkin and he covered his face in the white linen. He rubbed his eyes and blew his nose and for a moment after he lowered the napkin he looked just fine. But then another drop made its way down his cheek. Then another. He seemed unaware it was happening.

And perhaps, thought Clara, he was. Maybe this was now normal for Olivier. Maybe every now and then he simply wept. Not in pain or sadness. The tears were just overwhelming memories, rendered into water, seeping out. Clara could almost see the images inside the tears. It was winter. A bitterly cold night. And Olivier stood outside the bistro. Through the frosted panes he saw the logs in the hearth. He saw the drinks and festive food. He saw his friends, he saw Gabri. Not just moving on, but apparently happy. Without him.

It no longer really hurt, but neither could it be forgotten.

“You know he missed you so much it almost killed him,” said Clara. “I’ve never seen anyone so sad.”

“I know that now,” said Olivier. “And I knew it then. But seeing—”

Words failed. He fluttered the napkin and Clara knew what he meant, and how he’d felt. And in his tears she saw all Olivier’s fears and insecurities and doubts.

She saw all he had, and all he stood to lose.

“I know,” she said.

Olivier looked at her with annoyance, as though she was laying claim to his territory. But his irritation disappeared when he saw her expression.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

“Peter sent some paintings to Bean in Toronto.”

“Oui,” he said. “Gabri told me.”

“Did he tell you what they looked like?”

“A little.” Olivier grimaced. “On the bright side, since looking at them he’s cleaned out the drains in the B and B and is now scraping guck off the oven.” Olivier jerked his head toward the swinging doors into the bistro kitchen. “I’m thinking of hanging some of Peter’s paintings at home.”

Despite herself, Clara grinned. “Ten dollars and they’re yours.”

“You’ll have to pay him more than that, I’m afraid,” said Gabri.

He’d come out of the kitchen wearing bright yellow rubber gloves, holding them up as though emerging from surgery.

“They’re not that bad,” said Clara.

Gabri stared at her in disbelief. The patient was clearly beyond help.

“Okay, they’re not great,” Clara admitted. “But when was the last time Peter’s painting made you feel anything, never mind drove you to actually do something?”

“I don’t think running away is what most artists want,” said Gabri, peeling off the gloves.

“Actually, some do. They want to provoke. Push and shove your preconceptions. Challenge.”

“Peter?” asked Olivier, and Clara had to remember he hadn’t yet seen the latest paintings.

“What did you feel, when you looked at them?” Clara asked Gabri.

“Revolted.”

But Clara waited, and she could see Gabri considering.

“They were awful,” he said finally, “but they were also kind of fun. So ridiculously inept they were sort of silly. Almost endearing.”

“Peter?” asked Olivier again.

“I think what upset me were all those colors mashed together—”

“Peter?” Olivier demanded. “Colors? Come on.”

“And you didn’t even see the lips,” said Clara.

“What lips?” they asked together.

“Peter put smiles in one of his paintings. It was sort of genius.”

As she said it, she felt light-headed, off balance. Gabri was yacking away about the likelihood of what he saw being anything other than soft and smelly. But Olivier was watching her.

“What’s happened?” he asked again, quietly.

Clara knew then that those paintings, and especially the one with the lips, were her mullioned windows. Frames through which she could see into Peter’s life. Like Olivier watching Gabri on that cold winter night.

And like Olivier, what she clearly saw was that Peter was happy. That was the message of the paintings. He was experimenting, he was searching. He’d left all that was artistically safe behind. He’d broken the ropes, the rules, and sailed off, leaving the known world behind. Exploring. And he was having the time of his life.

The works were messy. But emotions were.

Clara had looked through the window of those works and seen that Peter was happy.

Finally.

Without her.

Olivier looked around the bistro for a napkin to give Clara. Only then did he notice that she’d twisted the linen into all sorts of shapes. Intentionally or not, the napkins looked like creatures of the deep. Washed ashore in Three Pines. Landing on the bistro tables.

Olivier offered a napkin to Clara, who took it with surprise. She didn’t realize she’d made them. And she didn’t realize she’d been crying. She dabbed a sea creature to her cheeks and wondered what Olivier saw in her tears.

Gamache tossed the ball and watched Henri bound after it, through the deep grass and wildflowers.

He and Henri had walked up the hill and out of the village to the meadow behind the old mill. He needed to be alone with his thoughts.

Gamache knew that what Ruth had said about the creative process was significant. Important. And he felt on the verge of the answer. Almost there.

Toss, retrieve. Toss, retrieve.

A sense of wrong. A homesickness. A lovesickness. The words of Robert Frost surrounded him.

A lump in the throat. Every act of creation came from the same place, Ruth had said. And every act of creation was first an act of destruction.

Peter was dismantling his life. Picking it apart. And replacing it with something new. Rebuilding.

Toss, retrieve.

And the paintings were snapshots of the process.

That’s why he wanted to keep them. As a testament. A travelogue. A diary.

Gamache’s arm stopped. Henri, tail wagging his entire backside, stared as the hand and the ball slowly lowered.

Then Gamache threw, and both the ball and the dog sailed into the meadow.

Peter had left his home, physically, emotionally, and creatively. He was turning his back on everything familiar, everything safe.

Where once Peter used muted colors, now he used bright, clashing colors.

Where once Peter’s images were tightly controlled, now they were chaotic, unruly. Slapdash.

Where once his paintings were almost painfully self-satisfied and even pretentious, now they were silly, playful.

Where once Peter stuck to the rules, now he broke them. His first act of destruction. Experimenting with color, perspective, with distance and space. He wasn’t very good, yet. But if Peter kept trying, he’d get to where he wanted to be.

This new Peter was willing to try. Willing to fail.

Gamache stepped forward, approaching the answer. Seeing it just ahead of him. Henri had lost the ball in the thick growth and was rooting around, his bottom high and his nose down.

Every now and then he looked over at Gamache, for guidance, but Armand had his own search.

Where once Peter’s paintings were abstract, now … now.

Henri lifted his head in triumph. The ball in his mouth, along with a good chunk of wildflowers and grass.

Henri stared at Gamache. And Gamache stared at him. Both had what they were looking for.

“Well done,” Armand said to Henri. He took the slobbery tennis ball and clipped the shepherd on to the leash. “Well done.”

They hurried back to Three Pines, Gamache’s thoughts racing ahead.

Though he’d lived in the countryside, Peter had kept nature at arm’s length, eschewing it as the territory of amateurs. Still lifes, landscapes. All too figurative, too obvious. Unworthy of a great artist. Like himself. Who saw the world as more complex. As abstract.

Gamache had assumed the splashes of paint on Peter’s latest works were exercises but still abstracts. They were the first attempts of a tidy mind to be messy.

But if Peter had left everything else behind, why not his style as well?

Suppose they weren’t abstract?

Suppose Peter was painting what he saw?

Gamache knocked on Clara’s door, then opened it.

“Clara?”

There was no answer.

He scanned the village green, then looked over to the bistro.

“To hell with it,” he said, and walked into Clara’s home. He and Henri found the paintings where they’d been left, nailed to the kitchen wall.

He stared at them, then walked over to the pictures still on the kitchen table, their corners kept from curling by salt and pepper shakers and chipped coffee mugs.

Pulling out his device, he took photos, then left.

He drove to Cowansville, where he could connect to high speed and email the photos. He looked at his watch.

Four thirty-five. Nine thirty-five in the evening in Scotland. Late, too late to expect a response. But still, for twenty minutes Gamache sat in his car and stared at his device. Willing an answer to appear.

It did not.

As he drove back to Three Pines, he thought about the Robert Frost quote. He’d come across it years ago and remembered it because, while a poem might begin as a lump in the throat, so did a murder investigation.

So did a murder.