‘There is one little thing,’ Yolande had explained in a cloying voice.
‘Go on.’
‘There was a murder there. And an attempted murder.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Well, I guess, technically, there was also a kidnapping. Anyway, that’s why the house is so cheap. Still, it’s a great buy. Terrific pipes, mostly copper. The roof is only twenty years old. The—’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Don’t you want to see it?’ As soon as the question was out Yolande could have kicked herself. If this moron wanted to buy the old Hadley house sight unseen, without inspection or exorcism, then let her.
‘Just draw up the papers. I’ll be down this afternoon with a cheque.’
And so she had. She’d told her husband a week or so later, when she’d needed his signature to cash in the RRSP. He’d protested, but so feebly it would have been impossible for a casual observer to even recognize it as a protest.
The old Hadley house, the monstrosity on the hill, was hers. She couldn’t have been happier. It was perfect. Three Pines was perfect. Or at least it would be, by the time she was finished with it.
Saul snorted and turned away. He could see the writing on the wall. He’d be dumped by CC as soon as the next photo assignment of her in that dreadful hick village was complete. It was for her first catalogue and he’d been told to get pictures of her frolicking among the natives at Christmas. If possible he had to get shots of the locals looking at CC with wonder and affection. He’d need cash for that.
Everything CC did had a purpose. And that purpose came down to two things, he figured: it fed her wallet or her ego.
So why had she bought a house in a village no one had ever heard of? It wasn’t prestige. So it must be the other.
Money.
CC knew something no one else did about the village, and it meant money.
His interest in Three Pines perked up.
‘Crie! Move, for Christ’s sake.’
It was almost literally true. The fine-boned and swaddled issue of a trust fund and a beauty pageant was struggling to be seen behind the drift that was Crie. She’d made it out on stage, dancing and twirling with the rest of the angel snowflakes, and then she’d suddenly stopped. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that snow in Jerusalem made no sense. The teacher, quite rightly, figured if anyone believed in a virgin birth they’d believe there was a snowfall that miraculous night. What did seem to matter, though, was that one of the flakes, a kind of microclimate unto herself, had stalled in the center of the stage. In front of the baby Jesus.
‘Move, lardass.’
The insult slid off Crie, as they all did. They were the white noise of her life. She barely heard them any more. Now she stood on stage staring straight into the audience as though frozen.
‘Brie has stage fright,’ the drama teacher, Madame Bruneau, whispered to the music teacher, Madame Latour, as though expecting her to do something about it. Behind her back even the teachers called Crie Brie. At least, they thought it was behind her back. They’d long since stopped worrying whether the strange and silent girl heard anything.
‘I can see that,’ Madame Latour snapped. The immense stress of putting on the Miss Edward’s Christmas pageant every year was finally getting to her.
But it wasn’t the stage that petrified Crie, nor was it the audience. It was what wasn’t there that had stopped her dead in her tracks.
Crie knew from long experience it was always the things you didn’t see that were the scariest.
And what Crie didn’t see broke her heart.
‘I remember my first guru, Ramen Das, saying to me,’ CC was now walking around the hotel room in her white robe, picking up stationery and soaps and recounting her favorite story, ‘CC Das, he said. Ramen Das called me that,’ CC said to the stationery. ‘It was rare for a woman to have such honor, especially in India at the time.’
Saul thought maybe Ramen Das didn’t realize CC was a woman.
‘This was twenty years ago. I was just a kid, innocent, but even then I was a seeker of the truth. I came upon Ramen Das in the mountains and we had an immediate spiritual connection.’
She put her hands together and Saul hoped she wasn’t about to say—
‘Namaste,’ said CC, bowing. ‘He taught me that. Very spiritual.’
She said ‘spiritual’ so often it had become meaningless to Saul.
‘He said, CC Das, you have a great spiritual gift. You must leave this place and share it with the world. You must tell people to be calm.’
As she spoke Saul mouthed the words, lip-synching to the familiar tune.
‘CC Das, he said, you above all others know that when the chakras are in alignment all is white. And when all is white, all is right.’
Saul wondered whether she was confusing an Indian mystic with a KKK member. Ironic, really, if she was.
‘You must go back into the world, he said. It would be wrong to keep you here any longer. You must start a company and call it Be Calm. So I did. And that’s also why I wrote the book. To spread the spiritual word. People need to know. They’ve got it all wrong with all those flaky sects just out to take advantage of them. I needed to tell them about Li Bien.’
‘Now, I get confused,’ Saul said, enjoying the flush of anger this always produced. CC was predictable in the extreme. She hated anyone suggesting her ideas were in any way muddled. ‘Was it Ramen Das who told you about Li Bien?’
‘No, you idiot. Ramen Das was in India. Li Bien is an ancient oriental philosophy, passed down through my family.’
‘Of ancient Chinese philosophers?’ If he wasn’t long for this relationship he might as well get his licks in. Besides, it would make a funny story to tell later. Ward off the insipient dullness of his conversation. He’d make CC a laughing stock.
She clicked her tongue and huffed. ‘You know my family’s from France. France has a long and noble history of colonialism in the East.’
‘Oh, yes. Vietnam.’
‘Exactly. Being diplomats my family brought back some of the ancient spiritual teachings, including Li Bien. I’ve told you all this. Weren’t you listening? Besides, it’s in the book. Haven’t you read it?’
She threw it at him and he ducked but not before he felt a sting on his arm as it bit him on the way by.
‘Of course I’ve read your fucking book. I’ve read it and read it.’ He used all his effort not to call it the load of crap he knew it to be. ‘I know this story. Your mother painted a Li Bien ball and now it’s the only thing you have left from her.’
‘Not just from her, you asshole. From my whole family.’ Now she was hissing. He’d wanted to anger her but he’d had no idea what he’d unleashed. He suddenly felt two feet tall, an infant cowering as she rose and blocked the sun, blocked all the light from him. He shrank and withered and hunched. Inside. On the outside the grown man stood stock-still, staring. And wondered what had produced such a monster.
CC wanted to rip his arms out. Wanted to pluck his bulging eyes from their sockets, wanted to tear the flesh from his bones. She felt a power growing and aching in her chest and radiating out like a sun gone nova. Her hands strained to feel his heart throbbing in the veins of his neck as she throttled him. And she could. Even though he was bigger and heavier, she could do it. When she felt like this she knew nothing could stop her.
After a lunch of poached salmon and gigot d’agneau Clara and Myrna had split up to do their Christmas shopping. But first Clara was heading off in search of Siegfried Sassoon.
‘You’re going to a bookstore?’ asked Myrna.
‘Of course not. I’m going to have my hair done.’ Really, Myrna had grown quite out of touch.