The Long Way Home(37)

“I don’t really know what Peter wanted. Do you?” she asked Myrna.

“I think he wanted to recapture the feelings he had when he was there as a student,” said Myrna slowly. “Professor Massey said they talked a lot about Peter’s time there. The students, the professors. I suspect he wanted to be reminded of when he was young, vigorous, admired. When the world was his.”

“Nostalgia,” said Gabri.

Myrna nodded. “And maybe something slightly more than that. He might have wanted to recapture some magic.”

Clara smiled. “I don’t think Peter was into magic.”

“No, he wouldn’t have called it that,” Myrna agreed. “But it would come to the same thing. Art college was a magical time for him, so in his distress he was drawn back to the place where good things happened. In case he could find it again.”

“He wanted to be rescued,” said Ruth.

She’d moved Gamache’s dinner in front of her and was finishing off the last grilled shrimp.

“Too many layers of life,” she continued. “His world was slipping away. He wanted to be rescued.”

“And he went to the college for that?” asked Olivier.

“He went to Professor Massey for that,” said Myrna, nodding. Only slightly annoyed that demented Ruth should see what had eluded her. “To be reassured he was still vigorous, talented. A star.”

Reine-Marie looked around the quiet bistro. Out the mullioned windows to the now-empty tables on the terrasse. To the ring of homes, with soft light in the darkness.

Rescued.

She caught Armand’s eye and saw again that look. Of someone saved.

For his part, Gamache took a piece of baguette and chewed it as he thought.

What did Peter want? He surely wanted something, and was quite desperate for it, to travel so far and so fast. Paris, Florence, Venice, Scotland. Toronto. Quebec City.

His journey had the smell of desperation, of both the hunt and the hunted. A one-man game of hide and seek.

“Your professor mentioned a Salon des Refusés,” he said. “What was that?”

“Actually, I mentioned it,” said Clara. “I don’t think Professor Massey was all that happy to be reminded of it.”

“Why not?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Not the college’s finest moment,” said Clara with a laugh. “There is an annual end-of-year show. It’s juried, judged by the professors and prominent art dealers in Toronto. Only the best get in. One of the professors thought this was unfair, so he set up a parallel show.”

“The Salon des Refusés,” said Olivier.

Clara nodded. “A show for the rejected. It was modeled on a famous exhibition in Paris back in 1863, when a Manet painting was refused entry in the official Paris Salon. A Salon des Refusés was set up, and the rejected artists showed there. And not just Manet, but Whistler’s Symphony in White ended up in the Salon des Refusés.” She shook her head. “One of the great works of art.”

“You know a lot about it, ma belle,” said Gabri.

“I should. My works were front and center in the college’s Salon des Refusés. First I knew that they’d been rejected by the jury. There they were, in the parallel exhibition.”

“And Peter’s?” asked Gamache.

“Front and center in the legitimate show,” said Clara. “He’d done some spectacular paintings. My works were not exactly spectacular, I guess. I was experimenting.”

“Not yet rescued?” said Gabri.

“Beyond saving.”

“Avant-garde,” said Ruth. “Isn’t that the term? Ahead of your time. The rest just needed to catch up. You didn’t need rescuing. You weren’t lost. You were exploring. There’s a difference.”

Clara looked at Ruth’s rheumy, tired eyes. “Thank you. But still, it was humiliating. They fired the professor who set it up. He had strange ideas about art. Didn’t fit in. An odd duck.” She turned to Rosa. “Sorry.”

“What’d she say?” asked Ruth.

“She said you’re an old f*ck,” said Gabri loudly.

Ruth gave a low, rumbling laugh. “She isn’t wrong there.” She turned to Clara and Clara leaned away from her. “But you’re wrong about the Salon. That’s where real artists want to be. With the rejects. You shouldn’t have been upset.”

“Tell that to my twenty-year-old self.”

“What would you rather be?” Ruth asked. “Successful in your twenties and forgotten in your fifties? Or the other way around?”

Like Peter, everyone thought. Including Clara.

“As we were leaving, Professor Massey mentioned Francis Bacon,” said Clara.

“The writer?” asked Reine-Marie.

“The painter,” Clara clarified. She explained the reference.

“Seems a cruel thing to say,” said Olivier.

“I don’t think he meant it that way,” said Clara. “Do you?”

Myrna shook her head. “He seems to care about Peter. I think he just wanted to prepare Clara…”

“For what, that Peter killed himself?” Ruth asked with a guffaw, then she looked around. “You don’t all think that, do you? That’s ridiculous. He has too high an opinion of himself. Loves himself too much. No, Peter might kill someone else, but never himself. In fact, I take that back. He’s much more likely to be the victim than the killer.”