‘OK.’
They found the den close to the lock. It wasn’t a tree house, but a small shack built from assorted dump-rubbish: corrugated cardboard, sheets of tarpaper and fibreglass. It had windows of plastic sheeting and a door taken from somebody’s old shed. It looked deserted.
‘Go on, then,’ said Gilly. ‘I’ll keep watch.’
Jay hesitated for a moment. Gilly grinned brashly; her face looked stretched into one giant freckle. He felt suddenly dizzy at the sight of her.
‘Ah, get on with it, will you?’ she urged.
Touching the talisman in his pocket, Jay walked resolutely towards the den. It was bigger than it had looked from the path and, despite its eccentric construction, it was solid. The door was padlocked, a heavy industrial lock which might have come from someone’s coal cellar.
‘Try the window,’ said Gilly from behind him. Jay whipped round.
‘I thought you were keeping watch!’
Gilly shrugged.
‘Ah, there’s nobody here,’ she said. ‘Go on, try the window.’
The window was just big enough to crawl through. Gilly pulled back the plastic sheeting and Jay squeezed inside. It was dark, and there was a smell of sour earth and cigarette smoke. A pile of blankets lay on the floor above a couple of crates. A box of clippings. A dog-eared poster cut from a girls’ magazine was stapled to one wall. Gilly put her head through the window.
‘Find anything good?’ she enquired pertly.
Jay shook his head. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable in there, imagining himself trapped in the den as Zeth and his friends rounded the corner.
‘Look in the crates,’ suggested Gilly. ‘That’s where they keep their stuff. Magazines and cigarettes, stuff they’ve lifted.’
Jay pushed over one of the crates. Assorted rubbish spilled out across the floor. Make-up, empty lemonade bottles, comics. A battered transistor radio, sweets in a glass jar. A paper bag filled with fireworks, bangers and jumping-jacks and Black Cats in their waxy casings. Two dozen Bic lighters. Four unopened packets of Player’s.
‘Take something,’ said Gilly. ‘Take something. It’s all nicked anyway.’ Jay picked up a shoebox of clippings. Rather half-heartedly he scattered them across the earth floor of the den. Then he did the same with the magazines.
‘Take the cigs,’ urged Gilly. ‘And the lighters. We’ll give them to Joe.’ Jay looked at her uneasily, but the thought of her contempt was more than he could take. He pocketed cigarettes and lighters, then, at Gilly’s insistence, the sweets and the fireworks. Fired by her enthusiasm he tore down the poster from the wall, stamped the records, stomped the jars. Remembering how Zeth had smashed his radio, he took the transistor as well, telling himself they owed it to him. He spilled cosmetics, crunched lipsticks underfoot, threw a tin of face powder against the wall. Gilly watched, laughing wildly.
‘I wish we could see their faces,’ she gasped. ‘If only we could!’
‘Well, we can’t,’ Jay reminded her, climbing quickly out of the den. ‘Come on, before they get back.’ He took her hand and began to pull her after him up the path to the ash pit, their stomachs suddenly filled with butterflies at the thought of what they’d done. The sensation was not altogether unpleasant, and suddenly they were both laughing like drunks, clinging to each other as they stumbled up the path.
‘If only I could see Glenda’s face,’ spluttered Gilly. ‘Next time we’ll have to bring a camera or something, so we can have a permanent record.’
‘Next time?’ The thought killed the laughter.
‘Well, of course.’ She spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘We’ve won the first skirmish. We can’t just leave it now.’
He supposed he should have told her, This is where it ends, Gilly. It’s too dangerous. But it was the danger which attracted her, and he was too intoxicated by her admiration to plead caution. That look in her eyes.
‘What are you staring at me for?’ she demanded belligerently.
‘I’m not staring at you.’
‘Yes, you are.’
Jay grinned. ‘I’m staring at the great – big – earwig that just landed in your hair from that bush,’ he told her.
‘Bastard!’ screamed Gilly, shaking her head.
‘Wait a minute! It’s just there,’ he said, slyly knuckle-rubbing the top of her head.
Gilly kicked him hard on the ankle. Again normality was restored.
For a while.
29
Lansquenet, March 1999
THE NEXT THING JAY DID IN LANSQUENET WAS TO FIND A builder’s yard. The house needed extensive repairs, and although he could probably manage some of the work himself, most of it would have to be done by professionals. Jay was lucky to find them to hand. He imagined it would cost a great deal more to have them come over from Agen. The yard was large and sprawling. Wood had been stacked in towers at the back. Window frames and doors propped up the walls. The main warehouse was a converted farm, low-roofed, with a sign above the door which read, CLAIRMONT – MEUNUISERIE-PANNEAUX-CONSTRUCTION.
Unfinished furniture, fencing, concrete blocks, tiles and slates were piled messily by the door. The builder’s name was Georges Clairmont. He was a short, squat man, with a mournful moustache and a white shirt, greyed with perspiration. He spoke with the thick accent of the region, but slowly, reflectively, and this gave Jay time to understand his words. Somehow everyone here knew about him already. He supposed Joséphine had spread word. Clairmont’s labourers – four men in paint-spattered overalls and caps turned down against the sun – watched with wary curiosity as Jay passed. He caught the word Anglishe in a rapid mutter of patois. Work – money – was limited in the village. Everyone wanted a share in Château Foudouin’s renovation. Clairmont flapped his hand in annoyance as four pairs of eyes followed them into the woodyard.
‘Back to work, héh, back to work!’
Jay caught the eye of one of the labourers – a man with red hair tied back with a bandanna – and grinned. The redhead grinned back, one hand across his face to hide his expression from Clairmont. Jay followed the manager into the building.
The room was large and cool, like a hangar. A small table near the door served as a desk, with papers, files and a telephone-fax machine. Next to the telephone was a bottle of wine and two small glasses. Clairmont poured out two shots and handed one to Jay.
‘Thanks.’
The wine was red-black and rich. It was good, and he said so.
‘It should be,’ said Clairmont. ‘It was made on your land. The old proprietor, Foudouin, was well known here once. A good winemaker. Good grapes. Good land.’ He sipped his wine appreciatively.
‘I suppose you’ll have to send someone out to see the house,’ Jay told him.
Clairmont shrugged. ‘I know the house. Went to see it again last month. Even drew up some estimates.’
He saw Jay’s surprise and grinned.
‘She’s been working on it since December,’ he said. ‘Painting this, plastering that. She was so sure of her agreement with the old man.’
‘Marise d’Api?’
‘Who else, héh? But he’d already made a deal with his nephew. A steady income – a hundred thousand francs a year until his death – in exchange for the house and the farm. He was too old to work. Too stubborn to leave the place. No-one else wanted it but her. There’s no money in farming nowadays, and as for the house itself, héh!’ Clairmont shrugged expressively. ‘But with her it’s different. She’s stubborn. Been eyeing the land for years. Waiting. Fencing it off bit by bit. Serve her right, héh!’ Clairmont gave his short, percussive laugh. ‘She’d never give me any work, she said. Rather get a builder in from town than owe money to someone from the village. Do it herself, more likely.’ He rubbed his fingers together in a speaking gesture. ‘Close with her savings,’ he explained shortly, finishing the rest of his wine. ‘Close with everything.’