Simon Beckett - Stone Bruises

‘Here?’

‘For the sanglochons.’

It takes a moment for her meaning to sink in. Jesus . Horrified, I look around the blackness of the small hut, remembering the stunned sow being hauled off the floor, the sound of the blood spattering into the bucket. Something Arnaud said suddenly takes on an awful significance.

Pigs eat anything.

‘How much does Gretchen know?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know.’ Mathilde sounds weary. ‘She was dazed and hysterical afterwards, and she’s never spoken about it. Ever since she was a little girl, Gretchen’s been able to block out anything she doesn’t want to think about. As though it never happened.’

I’ve seen that for myself. But the memory of Gretchen’s bizarre amnesia is swept away by a far worse thought. I’ve been assuming that Arnaud killed Louis.

Maybe he didn’t.

My foot hurts when I stand up, though not so much that I won’t be able to run if I have to. I peer out through the chink in the wall. What I can see of the clearing in the leprous moonlight is empty.

‘Your father didn’t kill Louis, did he?’ I ask, without turning round.

There’s the briefest of pauses. ‘No.’

‘Gretchen’s sick, Mathilde. She needs help.

‘Sick?’

‘You can’t keep on protecting her. Even if she didn’t mean to kill Louis, sooner or later she’s going to hurt someone else. Or herself.’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ she says, as though she’s explaining to a child. ‘Gretchen didn’t kill Louis. I did.’

Something cold uncoils in my stomach. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Louis was beating my father. Hurting him.’ Her voice is flat, as though all the emotion has been drained out of it. ‘When Gretchen tried to stop him he punched her. Hard, in her face. So I picked up a spade and hit him.’

The crook on Gretchen’s nose, I think, numbly. I turn towards Mathilde. I can barely see her in the darkness, but she’s so close we’re almost touching.

‘If it was an accident why didn’t you go to the police?’

‘I can’t go to prison.’ For the first time since I’ve known her she sounds scared. ‘It’d be hard enough for Michel, but I couldn’t leave Gretchen alone here. Not with my father.’

‘Why not? I know she’s your sister, but—’

‘She isn’t my sister. Gretchen’s my daughter.’

There’s a second when I think I must have got it wrong. Then I realize. Arnaud? The foul air in the hut seems to congeal around us.

There’s a soft movement as Mathilde brushes at her cheeks.

‘I was thirteen. My father told my mother the baby was some boy’s from town. He said they had to pretend it was theirs to protect my reputation. Then he told the school I was ill and kept me at home until Gretchen was born. No one ever questioned it. After that it was as though she really was their daughter.’

‘Couldn’t you have told someone?’ I say, appalled.

‘Who? My mother must have known, but she wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him. And when she died who else was I to tell? Georges?’

‘Does Gretchen have any idea?’

‘No!’ Her sudden vehemence takes me aback. ‘She mustn’t, not ever. I won’t let him destroy her life as well. I told him if he ever touched her I’d kill him. The only time he tried, I pushed him so hard downstairs he was bedridden for a month.’

She says it with cold satisfaction. It makes her sound like a different woman from the one I know. Or thought I did.

‘What about Michel? Is he…?’

‘He’s Louis’s. But my father regards him as his own. He always wanted a son, an heir to leave the farm to. Daughters aren’t the same, not even Gretchen. I think that’s why…’

‘Why what?’ I ask, when she falls silent.

I hear her sigh, as though she’s drawing breath from a long way away. ‘After my mother died, there was another baby. A little girl. My father never let me see her. He told me she was stillborn, but I… I thought I heard her cry.’

The farm is like a macabre set of Russian dolls, I think. Each time I’m convinced I’ve reached the last secret there’s another, even uglier, inside. ‘For God’s sake, how can you stay here? Why don’t you leave?’

‘It isn’t that easy.’

‘Yes, it is! You pack your things and go! He can’t stop you!’

‘I couldn’t leave without Gretchen.’

‘Then take her with you!’

‘Haven’t you been listening ?’ she flashes, again giving a glimpse of the emotion dammed up behind the façade. ‘What do you think I was doing with Louis? She won’t leave her father. At least, not with me.’

So now we’re back where we started. I turn away and look outside again, as much to give myself time as anything. Torn clouds pass over the moon. The small section of clearing that’s visible looks harmless and tranquil, but all around it the trees form a wall of impenetrable shadow.

‘Now you see why I have to get Gretchen away from here,’ Mathilde says from the darkness. ‘I don’t care how or where. Anything’s better than this. She’ll go with you.’

I’m grateful it’s dark in the small hut so I don’t have to face her. It’s a sign of her desperation that she’s still trying to persuade me to take her daughter after all this. Or maybe she hopes I’ll feel obliged now she’s confided in me. Either way it makes no difference.

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

I hear something behind me. Turning, I see the thin light around the door blocked out as Mathilde passes in front of it, and then there’s another sound. Only faint, barely more than a whisper: the soft scrape of steel on stone. And I suddenly remember the butchering knife that Georges picked up from the slab.

‘Will you reconsider?’ Mathilde asks from the darkness.

The moment seems to hang. I remember the hammer that also sits on the slab. There’s a muscle twitch that might be the start of my hand moving, then a noise comes from outside. It’s quickly stifled, but there’s no mistaking it.

A child’s whimper.

There’s a flurry of movement and moonlight floods into the hut as Mathilde wrenches open the door. As she rushes out I see her hands are empty. I hurry after her, half-expecting to find Arnaud waiting with his rifle.

But it isn’t her father who’s standing outside. It’s Gretchen.

She’s clutching Michel to her like a shield. Her hand is clamped across his mouth, pinning him as he struggles. There’s no need to ask how much she’s heard.

Mathilde falters. ‘Gretchen…’

‘It isn’t true. You’re not my mother.’

‘No, of course not.’ Mathilde tries to smile.

‘Papa didn’t do those things. I don’t believe you, you’re lying!’

‘That’s right. I was making it up.’ Mathilde holds out her hands. ‘You’re hurting Michel. Here, let me—’

‘Stay away!’ Gretchen backs off. Michel twists his face away from her hand and begins to wail. Mathilde takes a step towards her.

‘I only want to—’

‘ Stay away from me! ’

Still holding Michel, she turns and runs. Ignoring the pain in my foot, I overtake Mathilde as she chases after her, but Gretchen has already reached the sanglochon pen. She hoists Michel into the air above the boar’s enclosure.

‘Get away ! I mean it!’

Mathilde stumbles to a halt next to me as Gretchen holds Michel poised over the fence. The boar is nowhere in sight, but the baby’s howling has disturbed the sows in the next pen. Their agitated grunts add to the commotion.

‘Come on, Gretchen, you don’t want to hurt him,’ I say.

‘ Shut up! ’ she yells, her face blotched and wet with tears. ‘You don’t care about me, you’re as bad as her!’