or so since they’d stopped and gotten out he had started to feel peculiar. He kept his mouth shut. Steve took a few more digitals.
“I’ll make a note, but let’s go on,” Melanie said. “I’m gonna get worried about Barrett Reinhardt, if this is his idea of a money shot.”
“The man wants to sell books,” said Greg. “This is, like, a photo of a painting everyone knows. Comfort food.”
They got back in. Ned swallowed, tasted something metallic in his mouth. He had no idea what this was. Veracook’s lunch? Unlikely. It was more of a headache than anything else, and it had come on really fast. He never got headaches, if you didn’t count the two times he and Barry Staley had drunk cheap wine at class parties and he’d thrown up on the walk home.
I really shouldn’t have remembered that, he thought.
He did feel nauseous, actually. The road continued to twist and wind south of the mountain. The swinging movement didn’t help at all. There were parking lots on their left where people could leave their cars and climb. He saw a big wooden signboard with a map of the mountain trails on it.
There was a kind of needle in his head now, as if someone had a sharp, small lance and was jabbing it into his left eye, repeatedly. A humming sound, too, high-pitched, like a dentist’s drill.
The others were busy talking as they went, Greg stopping and starting the van, the three of them eyeing angles along this side of the mountain, approaches to a shot, foreground, middle ground. Melanie was going on about the history of the place.
It sounded as if they’d decided none of these spots by the road was going to work. They were all too close to the mountain, no way to frame it. Ned was hardly listening now. He was just happy the three of them were busy and hadn’t noticed him leaning against his door, eyes closed behind the shades.
As if from a muffled distance he heard Melanie reading from her notes. History and geography. Maybe she’d write an essay for him. That was a thought. He could buy her some escargot.
He managed to open his eyes. There was a broad, green-gold plain ahead of them, stretching east and south, away from the mountain. Melanie was pointing that way. Ned couldn’t follow what she was saying. He closed his eyes again. He tried to focus on her voice, ride over the stabbing in his head.
“The whole landscape will change now,” Melanie was saying. “We’re directly south of the mountain. Everyone thinks of it as a triangle because that’s the side Cézanne mostly painted, but from here it’s a long, long ridge, no triangle, no peak. And ahead, where we turn north, is Pourrières, where the battle was. Just past that we’ll get to where he sent men for the ambush.”
“We take a look there?” Greg said.
“The ambush place? Yeah, sure. Pain de Munition, it’s called. Look for a sign. Maybe we’ll climb a bit. A photo from where they waited? Oliver Lee wrote a bit about the battle, I think.”
“Well, yeah, if there’s a photo,” Steve said. He didn’t sound happy. The three of them tried hard to please his father, Ned knew. They joked a lot, teased, but it was pretty obvious they were proud to be working for Edward Marriner.
He put a thumb to one temple and tried applying pressure. It didn’t help. He had no idea what Melanie was talking about. What ambush? What battle?
“Got a Tylenol?” he asked.
She turned quickly. “What’s wrong, Ned?”
“Kind of a headache.”
“Dork! The guy doesn’t say that on the date!”
“Be quiet, Gregory.” Melanie was fishing in the bottomless black tote. “Tylenol, Advil, Aspirin, which do you like? Advil’s better for a headache.”
Three choices. Figured. “Advil, please.”
They were in a village now, twisting through it, then they seemed to be out and going north. She gave him a couple of pills and some bottled water. Ned drank, managed a wan smile.
There was no photograph worth taking here, either; they were east of the mountain now, heading north to double back home along the other side, but trees blocked their view.
“Here’s your Painful Munitions place,” Greg said.
“That’s how I feel,” Ned muttered. “Artillery in my head.”
Greg followed a bumpy gravel road a short distance past a sign strictly forbidding entry, then braked to a halt. Ned was extremely happy when the car stopped.
“Okay, campers, out and scout,” Greg said. “Let’s get higher and see what’s what.”
“I don’t think I’ll climb up, if that’s okay,” Ned said. He was afraid he was going to be sick. The needle and drill had been joined by a hammer. “You guys do what you have to, I’ll wait here.”
He got out with them. Didn’t want to throw up in the van. He found a tree stump and sat down, his back to the sun.
“I’ll stay,” Melanie said. “You two go up. Phone if you need me.”
“You call if you need us,” Steve said, looking at Ned.
“I’m fine. Melanie, go and—”
“You aren’t fine. You’re halfway to green. I like green, but not in guys’ faces. Go on, you two.”
“We’ll be quick,” Greg said.
Ned felt acutely embarrassed, partly because he was actually glad Melanie was staying. He had never fainted in his life, but it crossed his mind that he might. He closed his eyes again behind the shades. It wasn’t that hot but he seemed to be sweating. His mouth was dry.
“Drink some more water,” Melanie said, bringing him the bottle. She took off her big straw hat and put it on his head to block the sun. “Do you get migraines?”
“Never in my life. You?”
“Lots. Is it off-centre, behind one eye? You feel like there’s an aura in your head?”
“What’s an aura in my head feel like?”
She laughed a little. “Who’s good at describing that stuff?”
He heard her walking around. “I don’t think there’s gonna be a photo up there, either,” she said. “The mountain’s just a treed slope from this side.”
Ned tried to function normally. “Maybe he could shoot at sunrise from up on top of it? Looking down and out? The opposite of Cézanne, sort of? Or look, maybe Dad just does the mountain from Barrett’s spot and the book says this is what Cézanne painted a hundred years ago.”
“Your father be happy with that?”
“Maybe. Probably not.” Ned swallowed some more water. Pressed the bottle to his forehead under the hat. “What was this ambush about?”
“You don’t need a history lesson now, Ned.”
“I need something to distract me. Have you ever fainted?”
“That bad? Oh, Ned! I’ll call the others.”
“No. Just talk. I’ll tell you if it gets worse.”
It was worse; he was waiting for the Advil to do something useful.
She sighed. “Okay. This area, right where we turned north, was like the biggest battlefield. One of those change-the-course-of-history things? A Roman named Marius beat this massive army of barbarians who were marching to take Rome. If he hadn’t stopped them here they might have, people think.”
“What kind of barbarians?”
“Couple of tribes joined together, migrating from the northeast. Celts, basically. The Romans called them barbarians, but they called everyone that.”
“How