A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(99)

CHAPTER 30

“What would you call a group of S?reté cadets?” asked Myrna, nodding across the crowded bistro to the four students drinking Cokes and hungrily grabbing fries from the mounded platter in the center of their table.

“What do you mean?” asked Ruth, speaking into her glass so that the words came out muffled in a Scotch mist.

“Well, there’s a cackle of hyenas,” said Myrna, watching the cadets feed.

“A litter of puppies,” said Olivier, delivering two more bulbous glasses of red wine to their table by the fireplace. “These are for Clara and Reine-Marie. Don’t touch them.” He gave Ruth the stink eye, and got one in return. “They just finished walking the dogs. I expect them any moment.”

“Dogs?” said Gabri. “Aren’t you the optimistic one, mon beau.”

The Gamaches had had Gracie for a couple of days and she was not looking any more like a puppy. Nor, truth be told, was she looking like anything else. Except Gracie.

Gabri reached for a piece of baguette with aged Stilton and a dab of red pepper jelly on top, narrowly avoiding Rosa, who’d decided to peck him every time he went for food or drink.

“A flight of butterflies,” said Myrna.

“A confit de canard.” Gabri glared at Rosa.

“I see,” said Ruth, putting down her glass and picking up a red wine. “You’ve finally said something that interests me.”

“I can die happy now,” said Myrna.

Ruth looked at her expectantly and seemed disappointed when Myrna didn’t keel over.

“So what would you call a gathering of students?” asked Myrna.

“A disappointment?” asked Ruth. “No, wait. That’s children. Now, students? What would you call a group of them?”

“Hello,” said Reine-Marie, as she and Clara joined them. “A group of what?”

Myrna explained, then excused herself, returning a few minutes later with a thick reference book from her shop. She sat down heavily on her side of the sofa, almost catapulting Ruth into the air.

“I always suspected Ruth would end up a stain on the wall,” Gabri said to Clara. “But I never thought the ceiling.” He turned to Myrna. “I’ll give you five dollars to do that again. Maybe we can make this a game at the next fair. You win a stuffed duck.”

“Fag,” muttered Ruth, wiping red wine off Rosa. Not, they suspected, for the first time.

“Hag,” said Gabri.

“Do you know these people?” Clara asked Reine-Marie.

“Never met them before in my life,” she said, settling into the armchair and handing Clara the remaining glass of red wine.

“And to think,” said Clara, “we could’ve been having a quiet drink in my studio.”

That had in fact been the plan. Henri and Gracie and Leo would play together, while Reine-Marie went through a box of archival material from the historical society and Clara painted.

Until Reine-Marie had arrived and seen what Clara had done to her portrait.

It was, apparently, a self-portrait. But something had happened. It had shifted, evolved. And not in a Darwinian direction. This was not, Reine-Marie had to admit to herself, an improvement on the species.

For the first time since knowing Clara and seeing her astonishing portraits, Reine-Marie had the sinking feeling that Clara had lost her touch.

For a few minutes they sat in silence in the studio. Clara painted while Henri crawled onto the sofa, exhausted by the puppies, and laid his head on Reine-Marie’s lap. She kneaded his extravagant ears as they watched Gracie and Leo play.

Clara’s self-portrait looked not at all like Clara anymore. What had been brilliant was now distorted. The nose was off, the mouth was set in a strange expression, and there was something wrong with the eyes.

There was cruelty in them. A desire to hurt. They looked out at Reine-Marie as though searching for a victim. She looked at the mirror leaning against the armchair and wondered what Clara had seen there, to produce that.

“What do you think?” Clara asked, before putting the brush between her teeth like a bit and staring at her work.

Clara had said her portraits began as a lump in the throat, but it was Reine-Marie who felt like gagging.

“Brilliant,” she said. “Is it for a show, or for yourself?”

“For myself,” said Clara, getting off the stool.

Thank God for that, thought Reine-Marie, and had to remind herself that art is a process. Art is a process.

Art is a process.

“Let’s go over to the bistro,” she said, lugging herself off the sofa, unable to watch what Clara was doing anymore. “Armand’s on his way back and he’ll probably be looking for me there.”

“Does he even know he has a home here?” asked Clara, putting her brush down and wiping her hands.

Reine-Marie laughed and picked up the small box of old photographs she’d planned to go through. “He thinks our place is just another wing of the bistro.”

“He’s not far off,” said Clara.

While Clara washed up, Reine-Marie took Henri and Gracie back home, then met her friend just outside the bistro.

Through the window, they could see the four students gobbling fries and gesturing, arguing, the map on the table between them. They looked like generals arguing over a battle plan.