‘Mind? I’m thrilled. Did you need something?’
Should he say he needed some Cadmium Yellow? A number four brush? A ruler?
‘Yes.’ He went over and put his long arm round her waist. ‘I needed to see your painting. I’m sorry. I should have waited until you were here and I should have asked.’
He waited to see her reaction. His heart sank. She was looking up at him, smiling.
‘You really wanted to see it? Peter, that’s wonderful.’
He shriveled.
‘Come back in.’ She took his hand and led him back to that thing in the center of the room. ‘Tell me what you think.’
She whisked the sheet off the easel and there it was again.
The most beautiful painting he’d ever seen.
It was so beautiful it hurt. Yes. That was it. The pain he felt came from outside himself. Not inside. No.
‘It’s astonishing, Clara.’ He took her hand and looked into her clear, blue eyes. ‘It’s the best thing you’ve done. I’m so proud of you.’
Clara’s mouth opened but no words came out. She’d waited all her artistic life for Peter to understand, to ‘get’, one of her works. To see more than paint on a canvas. To actually feel it. She knew she shouldn’t care so much. Knew it was a weakness. Knew her artist friends, including Peter, said you must create for yourself and not care what anyone thinks.
And she didn’t care about any one, just this one. She wanted the man who shared her soul to also share her vision. At least once. Just once. And here it was. And, blessing of blessings, it was the one painting that mattered more than any other. The one she would be showing to the most important gallery owner in Quebec in just a few days now. The one she’d poured everything into.
‘But are the colors quite right?’ Peter leaned into the easel then stepped back, not looking at her. ‘Well, I’m sure they are. You know what you’re doing.’
He kissed her and whispered, ‘Congratulations,’ into her ear. Then he left.
Clara stepped back and stared at the canvas. Peter was one of the most respected and successful artists in Canada. Maybe he was right. The painting looked fine to her, but still…
‘What’re you doing?’ Olivier asked Gabri. It was the middle of the night and they were standing in their living room at the B. & B. Olivier had reached over and felt Gabri’s side of the bed cold. Now Olivier pulled the belt of his silk dressing gown tighter and through bleary eyes watched his partner.
Gabri, in rumpled pajama bottoms and slippers, was holding a croissant in his hand and seemed to be taking it for a walk round their living room.
‘I’m getting rid of any evil spirits that might have followed me home from the séance.’
‘With baked goods?’
‘Well, we didn’t have any hot cross buns, so this was the next best thing. Isn’t the crescent the symbol of Islam?’
Olivier was constantly surprised by Gabri. His unexpected depth and his profound silliness. Olivier shook his head and went back to bed, trusting that in the morning all the evil spirits and the croissants would be gone.
SEVEN
Easter Sunday dawned gray, but there were hopes the rain would hold off until after the Easter egg hunt. All through the church service parents ignored the minister and instead listened for drumming on the roof of St Thomas’s church.
The church smelled of lily of the valley. Bunches of the tiny white bells and their vivid green leaves were placed in every pew. It was lovely.
Until little Paulette Legault launched a bouquet at Timmy Benson. Then all hell broke loose. The minister, of course, ignored it.
Kids ran up and down the short aisle, parents either trying to stop them or ignoring them. Either way the outcome was the same. The minister gave a little reading from the rite of exorcism. The congregation said Amen and everyone raced from the chapel.
A lunch was organized by the Anglican Church Women, led by Gabri, in the basement and picnic tables with red check tablecloths had been set up around the green.
‘Happy hunting,’ the minister shouted and waved as his car mounted du Moulin, heading for the next chapel in his next parish. He was pretty certain his little service had saved no one. But then, no one had been lost either and that was good enough.
Ruth stood on the top step of the church, balancing a plate of thick maple-cured ham sandwiches on Sarah’s bread still steaming from the boulangerie, home-made potato salad with eggs and mayo, and a huge slice of sugar pie. Myrna came up beside her wearing a plank on her head scattered with books and flowers and chocolate. Villagers wandered around the green or sat at picnic tables, women in massive exuberant Easter bonnets and men trying to pretend they weren’t.
Myrna stood beside Ruth, her own plate sagging under an embarrassment of food, and together they watched the hunt. Children darted around the village, shrieking and screaming with delight as they discovered the wooden eggs. Little Rose Tremblay was knocked into the pond by one of her brothers and Timmy Benson stopped to help her out. While Madame Tremblay yelled at her son Paulette Legault whacked Timmy. A sure sign of love, thought Myrna, grateful she wasn’t ten any more.
‘Wanna sit together?’ Myrna asked.
‘No I don’t “wanna”,’ Ruth said. ‘Have to get home.’
‘How’re the chicks?’ Myrna took no offense from Ruth; to do that would be to live in permanent offense.
‘They’re not chicks, they’re ducks. Ducklings, I suppose.’
‘Where do we get the real eggs?’ Rose Tremblay stood in front of Ruth like CindyLou Who before the Grinch, holding three exquisite wooden eggs in her pudgy pink palms. For some reason the children of Three Pines always went straight to Ruth, like lemmings.
‘How should I know?’
‘You’re the egg lady,’ said Rose, wearing a soggy blanket. She looked a little, Myrna thought, like one of Ruth’s precious duck eggs wrapped in her own flannel.
‘Well, my eggs are at home getting warm, where you should be. But if you insist on this foolishness, go ask her for the chocolate ones.’ Ruth waved her cane like a crooked wand at Clara, who was trying to make her way to a picnic table.
‘But Clara has nothing to do with giving the kids their chocolate eggs,’ said Myrna as little Rose took off, calling the other kids until it looked like a tornado descending on Clara.
‘I know,’ Ruth sneered and limped down the stairs. At the bottom she turned and looked up at the massive black woman popping a sandwich into her mouth. ‘Are you going tonight?’
‘To Clara and Peter’s for dinner, you mean? We all are, aren’t we?’
‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’ The old poet didn’t turn to look at the Hadley house, but Myrna knew what she meant. ‘Don’t do it.’
‘Why not? I do rituals all the time. Remember after Jane died? All the women came, including you, and we did a ritual cleansing.’
Myrna would never forget walking round the village green with the women and the stick of smoking sage, wafting the smoke around Three Pines, to rid it of the fear and suspicions that had overtaken them.
‘This is different, Myrna Landers.’
Myrna didn’t realize Ruth knew her last name, or even her first. For the most part Ruth just waved and commanded.
‘This isn’t a ritual. This is deliberately disturbing evil. This isn’t about God or the Goddess or spirits or spirituality. It’s about vengeance.
‘I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts;
‘Oh, yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there’s talk of demons
these come in handy.