Cassis told us she was actually related to us. Yannick’s grandmother-” She broke off again to grasp at my hand. Her fingers were long and cool, her nails painted shell-pink like her lips. “Mamie, you’re the last of her children. Cassis dead, Reine-Claude useless…”
“You went to see her?” I said blankly.
Laure nodded.
“She doesn’t remember anything. A complete vegetable.” Her mouth was wry. “Plus no one in Les Laveuses remembers anything worth mentioning-or if they do, they won’t talk-”
“How do you know?”
Rage had given way to a cold feeling, a realization that this was much worse than anything I had previously suspected.
She shrugged. “Luc, of course. I asked him to come over here, ask a few questions, buy some rounds at the old anglers’ club, you know what I mean.” She gave me that impatient, quizzical look. “You told me you knew all that.”
I nodded in silence, too benumbed to speak.
“I have to say you’ve managed to keep it quiet for longer than I would have thought possible,” continued Laure admiringly. “No one imagines that you’re anything but a nice Breton lady, la veuve Simon. You’re very much respected. You’ve done well for yourself here. No one suspects a thing. You never even told your daughter.”
“Pistache?” I sounded stupid to myself, my mouth yawning like my mind. “You’ve not been talking to her?”
“I wrote her a few letters. I thought she might know something about Mirabelle. But you never told her, did you?”
Oh, God. Oh, Pistache. I was in a landslide where every movement starts a new rockfall, bringing a new collapse of the world I thought steady.
“But what about your other daughter? When did you last hear from her? And what does she know?”
“You have no right, no right-” The words were harsh as salt in my mouth. “You don’t understand what it means to me-this place-if people get to know-”
“Now, now, Mamie.” I was too weak to push her away, and she put her arms around me. “Obviously, we’d keep your name out of it. And even if it got out-you have to face it, it might one day-then we’d find you another place. A better place. At your age you shouldn’t be living in a dilapidated old farm like this anyway-it doesn’t even have proper plumbing, for Christ’s sake-we could settle you in a nice flat in Angers, we’d keep the press away from you. We care about you, Mamie, whatever you may think. We’re not monsters. We want what’s best for you-”
I pushed her away with more strength than I knew I had.
“No!”
Gradually I became aware of Paul standing silently behind me, and my fear blossomed into a great flower of rage and elation. I was not alone. Paul, my loyal old friend, was with me now.
“Think what it might mean to the family, Mamie.”
“No!”
I began to push the door closed, but Laure put her high heel into the crack.
“You can’t hide away forever-”
Then Paul stepped forward into the doorway. He spoke in a calm and slightly drawling voice, the voice of a man who is either deeply at peace or a little slow in the head.
“Maybe you didn’t hear Framboise.” His smile was almost sleepy but for the wink he gave me, and in that moment I loved him completely and with a suddenness which startled away my rage. “If I’ve understood this right, then she doesn’t want to do business. Isn’t that so?”
“Who’s this?” said Laure. “What’s he doing here?”
Paul gave her his sweet and sleepy smile.
“A friend,” he told her simply. “From way back.”
“Framboise,” called Laure from behind Paul’s shoulder. “Think about what we said. Think about what it means. We wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. Think about it-”
“I’m sure she will,”
said Paul kindly, and closed the door. Laure began to knock persistently upon it, and Paul drew the latch and put on the safety chain. I could hear her voice, muffled by the thickness of the wood, now with a high buzzing note in it.
“Framboise! Be reasonable! I’ll tell Luc to go away! Things can go back to the way they were! FRAMBOISE!”
“Coffee?” suggested Paul, going into the kitchen. “Make you feel… you know… better.”
I glanced at the door. “That woman,” I said in a shaking voice.
“That hateful woman.”
Paul shrugged.
“Take it outside,” he suggested simply. “Won’t hear her from there.”
It was as easy as that to him, and I followed, exhausted, as he brought me hot black coffee with cinnamon cream and sugar, and a slice of blueberry far from the kitchen cupboard. I ate and drank in silence for a while until I felt my courage return.
“She won’t give up,” I told him at last. “Either way she’ll keep at me until she forces me out. Then, she knows there won’t be any point in me keeping the secret any longer.” I put my hand to my aching head. “She knows I can’t hang on forever. All she has to do is wait. I won’t last long anyhow.”
“Are you going to give in to her?” Paul’s voice was calm and curious.
“No,” I said harshly.
He shrugged.
“Then you shouldn’t talk as if you are. You’re smarter than she is.” For some reason he was blushing. “And you know you can win if you try-”
“How?” I knew I sounded like my mother, but I couldn’t help it. “Against Luc Dessanges and his friends? Against Laure and Yannick? It hasn’t been two months yet and already they’ve half-ruined my business. All they need to do is go on the way they began, and by spring…” I made a furious gesture of frustration. “And what about when they start talking? All they have to say-” I choked on the words. “All they have to do is mention my mother’s name…”
Paul shook his head.
“I don’t think they’ll do that,” he said calmly. “Not at once, anyway. They want something to bargain with. They know you’re afraid of that.”
“Cassis told them,” I said dully.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’ll leave you alone for a while. Hope to make you come around. Try to make you see sense. They’ll want you to do it of your own accord.”
“So?” I could feel my anger reaching toward him now. “How long does that leave me? A month? Two? What can I do with two months? I could rack my brains for a year and it still wouldn’t do any-”
“That’s not true.” He spoke flatly, without resentment, pulling a single crumpled Gauloise from his top pocket and popping a match against his thumb to light it. “Do anything you’ve a mind to do. Always could.” He looked at me then over the red eye of the cigarette and gave his small, sad smile. “Remember from the old days. You caught Old Mother, didn’t you?”
I shook my head. “That isn’t the same thing,” I told him.
“It is, though, just about,” replied Paul, dragging acrid smoke. “You must know that. You can learn a lot about life from fishing.”
I looked at him, puzzled. He went on:
“Take Old Mother, now. How d’you catch her, when all those others didn’t?”
I considered that for a moment, thinking back to my nine-year-old self.
“I studied the river,” I said at last. “I learned about the old pike’s habits, where it fed, what it fed on. And I waited. I was lucky, that’s all.”
“Hm.”