Louise Penny - A Fatal Grace

Amateur and banal. All her suspicions, all her fears had been true. The voice that whispered to her in the dark while Peter slept hadn’t lied after all.

Her art was crap.

Shoppers swirled around her, no one offering to help. Just as, Clara realized, she hadn’t helped the vagrant outside. Slowly Clara gathered herself and her packages up, and shuffled through the revolving door.

It was dark and cold, the wind and snow now picking up and surprising her warm skin. Clara stopped to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

There, under the window, still slumped on the ground, was the bum.

She approached the beggar, noticing the vomit had stopped steaming and was frozen in place. As she got closer Clara became convinced the beggar was an old woman. She could see a scraggle of iron-gray hair and thin arms hugging the crusty blanket to her knees. Clara bent down and caught a whiff. It was enough to make her gag. Instinctively she pulled back, then moved closer again. Putting her weight of bags on the ground she laid the food next to the woman.

‘I brought you some food,’ she said first in English, then in French. She inched the bag with the sandwich closer and held the coffee up, hoping the bag lady might see it.

There was no movement. Clara grew concerned. Was she even alive? Clara reached out and gently lifted the grime-caked chin.

‘Are you all right?’

A mitten shot out, black with muck, and cupped itself round Clara’s wrist. The head lifted. Weary, runny eyes met Clara’s and held them for a long moment.

‘I have always loved your art, Clara.’

FIVE

‘But that’s incredible.’ Myrna didn’t want to sound as though she doubted her friend, but really, ‘incredible’ was charitable. It was unbelievable. And yet despite the cup of tea and fire in the grate her forearms broke out in goose bumps.

They’d driven home from Montreal in silence, listening to the Christmas Concert on CBC Radio. The next morning Clara was at her bookshop bright and early and eager to talk.

‘It is,’ Clara agreed, sipping tea and taking another star-shaped shortbread cookie, wondering when she could in all conscience start eating from the bowls of licorice goodies and candied ginger Myrna had scattered around.

‘She really said, “I’ve always loved your art, Clara”?’

Clara nodded.

‘And this was right after CC said your work was, well, whatever.’

‘Not just CC but Fortin as well. Amateurish and banal, he’d called it. Doesn’t matter. God likes my work.’

‘And by God you mean the shit-covered bag lady?’

‘Exactly.’

Myrna leaned her bulk forward in her rocking chair. Around her were the usual stacks of books waiting to be inspected and priced. Clara had the impression they sprang legs and followed Myrna about the village. Wherever she was there were books, like very unwieldy calling cards.

Myrna thought back. She’d noticed the vagrant, but then Myrna noticed most vagrants. She wondered what would happen if she ever recognized one. For years she’d seen patients at the mental hospital in Montreal, then one day, not so out of the blue as she liked to pretend, a memo appeared. Most of the clients—the patients overnight had become clients—were to be released. She’d protested, of course, but had eventually given in. And so she’d found herself looking across her battered desk at a succession of ‘clients,’ and into their eyes, and giving them a piece of paper that lied, that said they were ready to live on their own, with a prescription and a prayer.

Most quickly lost their prescription and never really had a prayer.

Except, perhaps, Clara’s woman.

Was it possible—Myrna watched her friend over the rim of her mug—that Clara had met God on the streets? Myrna believed in God and prayed God wasn’t one of the men or women she’d betrayed by signing their release. Myrna’s weight wasn’t all carried around her middle.

Clara was looking past the wooden shelves full of books and out the window. Myrna knew exactly what Clara was seeing. She’d sat in that very chair countless times staring out that window, dreaming. Her dreams were simple. Like Leigh Hunt’s Abou Ben Adhem, all she’d ever had was a deep dream of peace. And she’d found it here, in this simple, forgotten village in the Eastern Townships. After decades of treating people who never got better, after years of looking out windows at lost souls wandering toward a street that would become their new home, Myrna longed for another view.

She knew what Clara was seeing. She was seeing the village green, now covered in a foot of snow, and an irregular skating rink, and a couple of snowmen and three enormous pine trees at the far end that were lit at night with cheery Christmas lights of red and green and blue. And on the top of the tallest a brilliant white star shone visible for miles around.

Clara was seeing peace.

Myrna got up and went to the wood stove in the center of her shop, and taking an old tea pot from the top she poured herself another cup. She wondered whether she should get out the small pan and warm up some milk for hot chocolate, but decided it was a little too early.

On either side of the stove she’d placed a rocking chair, and facing it a sofa Peter had found while dumpster diving in Williamsburg. A Christmas tree she and Billy Williams had dragged from the woods stood in a corner and filled the shop with its sweet scent. Now it was decorated and under it were brightly wrapped gifts. A tray of cookies sat beside it for anyone who dropped by and bowls of candy were placed within easy reach around the store.

‘So how’d she know your art?’ Myrna had to ask.

‘How d’you think?’ Clara was genuinely curious to hear Myrna’s thoughts. They both knew what Clara believed.

Myrna thought for a moment, holding a book in her hand. She always thought better when holding a book. Still, no answer came.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Clara with a grin.

‘You don’t know either,’ said Myrna. ‘You want to believe it was God. I have to tell you, people are locked up for less.’

‘But not for long.’ Clara caught Myrna’s eye. ‘Now, in my place what would you believe? That CC was right and the work is crap or that a vagrant was God and the work is brilliant?’

‘Or you could stop listening to the outside world and decide for yourself.’

‘I’ve tried that.’ Clara laughed. ‘At two in the afternoon my art is brilliant, at two in the morning it’s crap.’ She leaned forward until her hands were almost touching Myrna’s. She looked into her friend’s warm eyes and said very quietly, ‘I believe I met God.’

Myrna smiled, not in a patronizing way. If Myrna knew one thing it was how little she really knew.

‘Is that Ruth’s book?’ Clara picked up I’m FINE . ‘May I buy it?’

‘But you bought one yesterday. We both did. Even had her sign it. You know, I think I saw her signing some books by Auden too.’

‘I lost mine somewhere. I’ll get this and if she signs an Anthony Hecht I’ll buy that too.’

Clara opened the book and read, at random.

‘Well, all children are sad

but some get over it.

Count your blessings. Better than that,

buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.

Take up dancing to forget.

‘How does Ruth do it? I swear she’s just an old drunk.’

‘You thought that about God, too,’ said Myrna.

‘Listen,

Forget what?

Your sadness, your shadow,

whatever it was that was done to you

the day of the lawn party