Unravelling Oliver(52)

What could I do to force the d’Aigses to invite me to stay here with them? How could I endear myself to Monsieur d’Aigse to the extent that he would ‘adopt’ me? I probably could have seduced Madame Véronique if I’d put my mind to it, but I was not attracted to her, and regardless, my dream future entailed my being accepted as me, without pretence. I did not want to live a lie. Not then.

My French was good enough to be able to converse with the locals. I knew of Monsieur’s several acts of bravery during the war. He was a hero in the commune. Could I be a hero too? What if I were to save a life? I began to fantasize about how I could achieve Monsieur’s iconic status. It amused me in my idle hours to imagine being embraced as one of their own. What if I could save Jean-Luc’s life? Wouldn’t that earn their loyalty and gratitude? Wouldn’t they beg me to stay and live with them for ever, as part of the family, their protector? But I reasoned I could never save Jean-Luc’s life without jeopardizing it, and that, obviously, was out of the question. Still, I could not shake off my romanticized dreams of the future. It became as real to me as if it had already happened, and I regarded the old man and his grandson with ever growing affection.

Then, I thought, what if I were to save the chateau? Surely that would be on a par with saving a life. And maybe it was something I could engineer if I put my mind to it. The idea came together slowly over several weeks – though in the beginning I believe I thought of it as comforting fantasy rather than a plan; something to puzzle over, as if teasing out a mathematical equation. But gradually I began to look around with a sense of purpose. I scrutinized the chateau in a new way.

It struck me that fire was something I understood. Any boy who spent time in a boarding school was well versed in the art of pyrotechnics. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, but often it is in fact boredom. We knew what burned fastest, loudest and most colourfully. We knew what caused explosions, what made a damp squib, how to cover up the smell of sulphur. I knew how to start a fire, and I also knew how to contain it.

The harvest started in early September so all hands were required in the vineyard, but by then I knew my way around the ground floor of the house and I knew that the most flammable part of it must be Monsieur’s library, with its dusty collection of books, maps and ancient ledgers detailing the commerce of the house over centuries. If I could be the first on the scene, if I could save the house, then I would be the hero. I could be employed to restore the library to its former glory. I was the only person who knew where everything in it was kept. Surely, Monsieur would see the wisdom of keeping me on? He would blame himself: a spark from his pipe must have escaped unnoticed, he would think, and smouldered slowly until it caught fire.

Shaking Laura off that night was the difficult part. She had something to tell me, she said; she needed time alone with me. I assumed she was going to tell me that her brother was a queer, but everyone knew that already. I put her off, saying that I was exhausted and needed to sleep. She insisted it was urgent; she had to tell me something important. I lost my temper with her then, told her I’d had enough of her clinginess, her jealousy of my work in the house, her demanding my attention constantly. I told her our relationship was over and that she should find somebody else to follow like a dog. I was unnecessarily cruel. I regret it. I was too absorbed by my own skulduggery to give much thought to her feelings.

Monsieur and Jean-Luc came down to the vineyard to say goodnight to me that night. We were working till dusk, and I had not been inside the chateau for a week.

‘Goodnight, Frown!’ said the little boy, and laughed, delighted with himself.

‘Good night, Prince Felix!’ I responded.

I must have drunk six cups of coffee that night to keep myself awake. I was exhausted, naturally, but exhilarated by the task I had determined to undertake. Nobody stayed up too late, aware of another arduous day ahead. I lay in my bunk, listening to their breathing, waiting for each room-mate to succumb to hard-earned slumber. Michael tried to engage me in whispered conversation about Laura. He had noticed she had seemed upset earlier in the evening. I admitted we had had a row, but avoided the details of my vindictiveness. I assured him that I would talk to her in the morning and that we would patch things up. He was content with this, and soon he was breathing evenly.

As soon as everyone was asleep, I made my way silently up to the back door beside the lean-to building and into the library. The leather-bound books and handwritten papers that I had been working on were kept on a shelf in a corner of the room by the door. It struck me that these must be saved from the fire. How grateful might they be to discover that the summer’s work had been rescued and that Jean-Luc’s most personal inheritance was intact?

I put them to one side while I amassed a bundle of loose typing paper all around the bookcase and doused it with lighter fuel. I planned to be the one to discover the fire in about twenty minutes so that I could be the hero who stopped the fire going out of control. I lit the touch-paper and watched for a moment. I hoped the fire would catch in time. Hiding the leather-bound books near the bunk-house, I crept back to wait for the appropriate moment to sound the alarm.

I checked my watch about every six seconds, but time seemed to relax its grip and the minute hand of my watch appeared to freeze. I held it to my ear, and tick, tick, tick, yes, it was working as it should. Minutes before my planned alarm-raising, I heard my name being called softly from the door of the bunk-house. Damn, Laura. I got up and went to her and we had the same argument again that we had had earlier in the evening, but this time she began to fight back.