‘Uh, well, I …’
I look round with relief as the door to the stairs opens and Mathilde comes into the kitchen with Michel. When she sees us she seems to pause slightly before continuing into the room.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she says, crossing to the high chair.
‘He’s been waiting to have his stitches taken out,’ Gretchen tells her, shoving the chicken under the tap. Blood from its severed neck streaks the sink.
‘I can come back,’ I say.
‘That’s all right.’ The baby struggles, howling as she tries to put him in the chair, his face red and wet. Mathilde turns to her sister. ‘Gretchen, can you take Michel?’
‘No, I’m busy.’
‘Please. He won’t settle in the chair while he’s teething. I won’t be long,’ Mathilde says, trying to calm him.
‘He’s your son, I don’t see why I’ve always got to take him everywhere with me,’ Gretchen grumbles, but dries her hands as she goes for her nephew.
‘I’ll see to your stitches in the bathroom,’ Mathilde says. She turns away, so misses the glare Gretchen shoots at her back.
I go around the table so as not to get too close to Gretchen while she’s near a cleaver. Closing the door behind us, I follow Mathilde upstairs. I sit on the side of the bath while she takes what she needs from a cupboard: tweezers, a small dish, a towel. I peel off the sock, revealing my foot in all its pallid glory. The wounds are still crusted in places but there’s also the raw pink of healing flesh from which the stitches sprout like bristles.
Mathilde crouches in front of me, using a cloth soaked in hot water to clean and soften the scabbed wounds. Then she spreads the towel on her lap and rests my foot on it. It feels awkwardly intimate.
‘This shouldn’t hurt too much.’
There’s a tugging sensation, no more, as she teases at the end of a stitch with a pair of tweezers. When it’s out she drops it into the dish and goes on to the next. Her hands are cool and gentle as she eases out the recalcitrant strands. I watch her as she works, wholly intent on what she’s doing, and find myself remembering Arnaud’s tacit offer. I shift my thoughts onto something else.
‘How’s Lulu?’ I ask.
‘There’s no change. The veterinarian says the stump’s infected.’
I try to think of something to say that won’t sound like a platitude but I can’t. More than ever, I’ve started to agree with Jean-Claude: Mathilde’s sentimentality hasn’t done any of them any favours. Least of all the dog.
‘Did you run into Jean-Claude the other day?’ she asks, as though reading my mind.
‘Jean-Claude …?’
‘When you were in town.’
‘Oh … Yes, he was at the builders’ yard.’ I feel like I’ve been caught out. ‘How did you know?’
‘You were gone a long time. I thought it might be because you’d seen him.’
I’m not sure if this is leading up to something, but she wouldn’t have brought it up if she didn’t want to talk about it. ‘He told me Louis was missing,’ I say.
It’s impossible to read Mathilde’s expression. When I asked before about Michel’s father she’d said only that she didn’t know where he was. But then she doesn’t have to tell me anything.
She pushes back a strand of hair. ‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
Her breath whispers against my foot. ‘Louis said he had some sort of business in Lyon. He persuaded my father to lend him some money and then he left. That was eighteen months ago. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.’
Again, it seems she’s waiting for me to say something. ‘Couldn’t he have just decided to steal the money and not come back?’
‘I don’t think so. If he were still alive he’d have been in touch with someone by now. Not me, perhaps, but Jean-Claude.’
It’s only what his brother’s already told me, but it seems to carry more weight coming from her. ‘Jean-Claude thinks—’
‘I know what Jean-Claude thinks.’ Mathilde raises her head to look at me. The grey eyes are calm and sad. ‘My father didn’t kill Louis. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. He was unhappy when he found out I was pregnant, and the last time I saw him we argued. If not for that, maybe things would have been different.’
‘You can’t blame yourself. Maybe if your father talked to Jean-Claude—’
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘My father’s a proud man. He won’t change his mind.’
‘Then couldn’t you talk to Jean-Claude yourself?’
‘It wouldn’t do any good. He holds us responsible. Nothing I say can change that.’
Mathilde turns her attention back to the stitches, making it clear the conversation has ended. She drops another thread into the dish and repositions my foot. I can feel the warmth of her body through the towel.
‘Just one more.’
There’s a slight sting as the last stitch pulls free. She puts the tweezers in the saucer and dabs antiseptic on the holes where the stitches have been. Without them the foot has an unfinished look, like an unlaced shoe.
‘How does that feel?’ she asks.
‘Not bad.’
My foot is still on her lap. Her hands rest on it, and all at once I’m very aware of the contact. The touch of her fingers on my bare skin is like an electric charge. From the flush that’s risen to her throat, she’s conscious of it too.
‘Mathilde, Michel won’t stop crying!’
Gretchen’s shout comes from downstairs, petulant and demanding. Mathilde moves my foot and quickly rises from the chair.
‘I’m coming,’ she calls. The tiredness is back behind her eyes as she gathers up the tweezers and dish. ‘It might be tender for a day or two where the stitches have been. You should still be careful.’
‘I will. Thanks,’ I say. But she’s already gone.
As I stand I catch sight of my reflection in the mottled bathroom mirror over the washbasin. My face is thinner than I remember. It’s sunburnt and peeling, with white lines radiating from the corners of my eyes where they’ve been screwed up against the light. The beard completes the transformation: it doesn’t look like me any more.
I stare back at the stranger, then go back downstairs.
It feels weird to wear a boot on my injured foot again. The bloodstains on the leather have resisted several scrubbings and there are twin arcs of punctures on both sides. I’ll need a new pair eventually, but for now it’s enough to look down and see two feet that are more or less symmetrical.
The novelty is fading, though. I’m already beginning to forget what it was like to have my foot bound and strapped. I have the strange sensation that everything is reverting to how it was before I stepped in the trap, as though the thread of my life is trying to pick up from where it left off.
Even so, I’m reluctant to put too much weight on my foot, and when I take my afternoon walk down to the lake I still use my walking stick. I’m aware that it’s become more of a psychological crutch than a physical one, but that’s something I don’t dwell on. Once my foot’s fully recovered I’ll have no more reason to stay, and I’m not ready for that.
Not yet.
I go up to my usual spot on the bluff and settle against the trunk of the chestnut tree. The lake is placid, the surface unruffled even by ducks at this time of day. But change is evident even here. The year’s moved on without my noticing it. The leaves of the surrounding trees are a darker green than when I first arrived, and although it’s still hot the sunlight seems subtly sharper. The season is approaching its turn, and so is the weather. I rub my wrist where my watch used to be, looking at a dark smudge of cloud on the horizon.
At one time I couldn’t imagine winter touching here. Now I can.
The cloud bank has encroached further by the time I set off back up the track, obscuring the sun with a preliminary haze. There’s even a threat of rain in the air as I walk through the woods, but the statues at least are unchanged. Pan still capers manically, and the veiled woman still stands bowed and remorseful. Under the darkening sky, the blood-like stain on her worn sandstone looks more livid than ever.