Simon Beckett - Stone Bruises

She looks sullenly at the floor. ‘Nothing.’

‘Then why is the boar upset? What was the dog doing by his fence?’

Gretchen shrugs. ‘Just playing.’

His mouth tightens. ‘You shouldn’t bring the dog down here.’

‘We didn’t. She ran off.’

Georges just looks at her. I’m not happy that she’s making me complicit in the lie, but I don’t contradict her. Not that he seems interested in me anyway.

‘You shouldn’t bring the dog down here,’ he says again. He goes past us to the pen. The boar snaps at him when he reaches over the fence, but then subsides and lets him scratch its head. I can hear him talking to it, soothingly, but can’t hear what he’s saying.

Gretchen pulls a face at his back. ‘Come on. We mustn’t upset Georges’s precious pigs.’

She takes angry swipes with the stick as we leave the clearing. ‘He’s such an old woman! All he cares about are the stupid pigs. He even smells like them, did you notice?’

‘Not really.’ I did, but I’m not going to side with her. This was a bad idea in the first place: all I want now is to get back before Arnaud sees us together.

‘It’s the vinegar he rubs on them,’ she goes on, oblivious. ‘He says it toughens their skin against the sun but it makes him stink as bad as they do.’

Not just Georges. As we near the barn it becomes apparent that something of the sanglochons has accompanied us from the pens.

‘What’s that smell?’ Gretchen asks, sniffing.

I look down at the muddy smears on my jeans and hands. ‘Oh, shit…’

‘You smell worse than Georges!’ she laughs, backing away.

She’s right, but at least it’s encouraged her not to hang around any longer. I wait until she’s out of sight before I strip off my T-shirt. Grimacing, I go inside the barn to clean myself up.

The sanglochon stink is still in my nose as I cross the courtyard to the scaffold. The sun has lost some of its bite since Gretchen and I came back, but the cobbles still shimmer with heat. It doesn’t seem to have any effect on the storeroom’s dank interior, though. After the dazzling brightness of the courtyard, it’s like stepping into a crypt. I block open the door with a bag of sand, waiting until the shadows take on individual shapes before I go inside.

There’s something eerie about the way everything has been left. The spade in its petrified mortar, the scatter of tools and materials; it all reminds me of a preserved archaeological scene. As my eyes adjust, I grope behind the door and take down what I’m looking for.

The overalls are red, or rather they were once. Now they’re crusted with dried mortar, dirt and oil. I’d remembered seeing them in here, and Mathilde told me to use whatever I needed. My skin creeps at the thought of wearing them, but they’ll protect me from the sun. And, filthy as they are, they don’t smell of pig shit.

Leaning my crutch against the wall, I strip to my shorts and pull the overalls on. The damp cotton feels unpleasantly clammy and gives off a stale whiff of old sweat. Still, they’re not a bad fit so I guess they belonged to the previous builder. They’re too long in the leg for Arnaud, and Georges could fit in one of the pockets.

I search through them as I go back outside. There’s a pair of leather work gloves in the side pockets, so stiff and curled they look like amputated hands. I discard them along with a pencil stub and a small notepad that’s filled with scrawled measurements. That seems to be about it, but then as I pat down the pockets for a last time I find something else.

A condom, still sealed in its wrapper.

It’s not the sort of thing I was expecting to find in a pair of work overalls. I look back at the storeroom as something occurs to me. I haven’t given it much thought, but now I wonder if there’s a connection between the unfinished house and Michel’s absent father. That would explain Mathilde’s strange behaviour earlier, and also Gretchen’s reaction down by the lake. She told me that Michel’s father had betrayed them and let them down.

Maybe in more ways than one.

Leaving the condom in a corner of the storeroom, I wedge the crutch under my arm and climb up the scaffold. The ladder rungs are hot enough to sting my hands, and the platform at the top is like a kiln. There’s no shade, and I’m already thankful for the overall’s long sleeves. My doubts start to return as I consider the crumbling wall, so I pick up the lump hammer and chisel before I’ve chance to think about it.

‘OK, then,’ I say to myself, and take my first swing.

There’s something Zen-like about hacking out the old mortar. The work is hard and repetitive, but hypnotic. Each steel-on-steel strike produces a clear musical note. With the right rhythm the chisel seems to sing, each new note sounding before the last has died.

It’s actually relaxing.

I have to keep stopping to rest, but I soon find a pace I can maintain. I get around the problem of my injured foot by stacking two or three of the big rectangular stones left on the platform and using them as a rest for my knee. Sometimes for a change I sit on them and work that way. It doesn’t keep the bandage from getting dirty, but there’s no helping that.

I don’t intend to work for long on my first day, but I lose track of time. It’s only when I break off to blink away a fragment of mortar from my eye that I see how low the sun is. The afternoon has passed without my noticing.

Now I’ve stopped various discomforts begin to announce themselves. My arms and shoulders are aching and sore, and I’ve an impressive collection of blisters from gripping the hammer. There’s also a livid bruise forming on the back of my hand, evidence of the times when I’ve missed the chisel.

I don’t mind: it feels like honest pain. But I must have caught my watch as well, because there’s a crack running across its face. The sight of it cuts through my mood like a slap. It’s still working but I take it off and slip it into my pocket anyway. I don’t want to damage it any more, and the watch is an uncomfortable reminder of things I’d rather forget.

Besides, I don’t need to know the time while I’m here: the farm operates to its own rhythm. Taking off the cap from my sweat-damp hair, I look at what I’ve achieved. The newly hacked-out mortar is paler than the older areas, but also dispiritingly small seen against the expanse of wall that remains. Still, I’ve made a start, and that feels surprisingly good.

Leaving the hammer and chisel on the platform, I climb slowly down the ladder. The sun-heated rungs sting my blisters, and each step is an effort. I’d kill for a beer, I think, limping into the storeroom to collect my clothes. A bottle – no, a glass. Tall and amber and misted with condensation. I can almost taste it.

Tormenting myself with the thought, I go back into the courtyard. I don’t notice Mathilde until I hear a crash of breaking crockery. I look round and see her in the doorway with Michel on one arm. At her feet is a shattered bowl of eggs, the bright yellow yolks smearing the cobbles.

She’s staring at me, white-faced.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,’ I say.

‘No, I… I didn’t realize you were there.’

Her eyes stray to the red overalls I’m wearing, and suddenly I think I understand. ‘There’s no shade up there so I put these on. I hope that’s OK?’

‘Of course,’ she says, too quickly.

I feel bad for giving her a shock but I wasn’t to know wearing the overalls would upset her. Her reaction makes me think I’m right about Michel’s father, but she’s already recovered her poise. The baby contentedly gums a piece of bread as she moves him to a more comfortable position.

‘How’s the work gone?’