The Long Way Home(41)

“Amusement,” said Myrna.

“Were you laughing at them?” he asked, and Myrna considered.

“No,” she said slowly. “I think they made me happy.”

“Me too,” said Clara. “They were weird and fun and unexpected. I felt sorta buoyed up, you know?”

Myrna nodded.

“And this?” Gamache gestured toward the easel.

All three looked again at the bleached, tasteful canvas. It would go perfectly in someone’s penthouse, in the dining room. No danger of ruining the appetite.

Both women shook their heads. Nothing. It was like looking into a void.

“So Bean is the better painter after all,” said Gamache. “If only Bean had painted them.”

And that was the giant piece of the puzzle they’d all found at the same time.

Bean hadn’t painted those silly pictures. Peter had.

They were a mess, because they were the beginning. Peter’s first chaotic steps toward brilliance.

* * *

“You need to describe the paintings for me, in more detail,” said Gamache.

They’d moved with their coffees into Clara’s garden, feeling the need for fresh air and color after the tasteful oppression of Peter’s studio.

Rain was still threatening but hadn’t yet arrived.

“What struck me first were the purples and pinks and oranges all squashed in together in that one over Bean’s desk,” said Myrna.

“And the one by the window?” asked Clara. “It was like someone had thrown buckets of paint at a wall, and the drips had somehow taken shape.”

“And those mountains in the one behind the door,” said Myrna. “The smiles.”

Clara smiled. “Amazing.”

Taking a pain au chocolat, she ripped a section off so that the gooey dark chocolate core was exposed and flakes of pastry fell to the table.

“I don’t want you to think they were great,” Clara said to Gamache, who’d put strawberry jam on a croissant and was reaching for the marmalade. “It’s not like we’re turning them into masterpieces in our minds now that we know a kid hadn’t painted them.”

“They’re still crap,” agreed Myrna. “But happy merde.”

“Peter did them.” Clara shook her head. It was unbelievable. But true.

She’d called Peter’s sister, Marianna, and caught Bean in. She asked Bean who’d painted the pictures and Bean’s answer came immediately, and with surprise. Surely Aunt Clara knew.

“Uncle Peter.”

“He gave them to you?”

“Yes. And some he mailed. We got a pipe thing with more a few months ago.”

It was at that point Clara spoke to Marianna again and arranged for all the paintings to be couriered to her in Three Pines.

“I’ll get them out this morning. I’m sorry, I thought you knew he’d painted them. Not very good, are they?” Marianna said with barely disguised pleasure. “He showed some to me when he came over. Seemed to want me to say something about them. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.”

Poor Peter, Clara thought as she sat in the garden. So used to applause for everything he did. So used to getting it right the first time. How strange it must be to suddenly not be very good at something he was once celebrated for. Like a great golfer changing his swing, to become greater. But making it worse in the short term.

Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up. It seemed that was what Peter had done. Thrown out all he knew and started again. In his mid-fifties.

A brave man, thought Clara.

“I received a message from the S?reté in Paris this morning,” said Gamache. “They visited LaPorte and spoke with their Chef des bénévoles. He confirmed that Peter had volunteered there last year, but had left after a couple of months.”

“Why go all the way to Paris, to volunteer at LaPorte, then leave so soon?” asked Clara.

“Peter went to LaPorte because it had worked for Vincent Gilbert,” said Myrna. “Vincent arrived at LaPorte a selfish, callow, vile *. And he emerged an * saint.”

“Progress,” said Gamache. “Of a kind. I think it was like Oz and Peter was the Tin Man, looking for a heart. He thought he could find it there, doing a good deed for the less fortunate. And that would in turn make him a better painter.”

“No heart, no art,” said Myrna. “He must’ve thought that if it worked for such a ridiculous creature as Vincent Gilbert, surely it would work for him. But Peter’s reasons were selfish, and more than a little condescending. That might’ve changed, had he toughed it out, but he took off. Looking for another quick fix.”

“Sometimes the magic works,” said Clara, and looked at them expectantly. “You don’t know where that comes from?”

Gamache and Myrna shook their heads.

“It’s from my favorite scene in a movie,” she said. “Little Big Man. Chief Dan George is old and frail and he decides his time has come. He and Dustin Hoffman build a bed on stilts and Chief Dan George climbs up, lies down, and folds his arms over his chest.”

Clara mimicked the action, closing her eyes and turning her face to the cloudy skies.

“Dustin Hoffman is devastated,” she said. “He loves the Chief. He keeps vigil all night and in the morning, just as the sun rises, he goes over to the deathbed and Chief Dan George’s face is still and quiet. He’s at peace.”