Louise Penny: Still Life (Three Pines Mysteries)

Clara’s head acted as a food magnet. She was the Carmen Miranda of baked goods. Peter, on the other hand, was always immaculate. It could be raining mud and he would return home cleaner than when he went out. But sometimes, some glorious times, his natural aura failed him and a piece of something stuck to his face. Clara knew she should tell him. But didn’t.

‘Do you know,’ said Peter and even Irenée looked at him, ‘I think it’s great.’

Irenée snorted and shot a meaningful look at Henri who just ignored her. Peter sought out Clara and held her gaze for a moment, a kind of touchstone. When Peter walked into a room he always swept it until he found Clara. And then he relaxed. The outside world saw a tall, distinguished man with his disheveled wife, and wondered why. Some, principally Peter’s mother, even seemed to consider it a violation of nature. Clara was his centre and all that was good and healthy and happy about him. When he looked at her he didn’t see the wild, untamable hair, the billowing frocks, the Dollar-rama store horn-rimmed spectacles. No. He saw his safe harbor. Although, granted, at this moment he also saw a walnut in her hair, which was pretty much an identifying characteristic. Instinctively, he put his hand up to brush his own hair, knocking the piece of cupcake from his cheek.

‘What do you see?’ Elise asked Peter.

‘Honestly, I don’t know. But I know we need to accept it.’

This brief answer somehow gave his opinion even more credibility.

‘It’s a risk,’ said Elise.

‘I agree,’ said Clara. ‘But what’s the worst that can happen? That people who see the show might think we’ve made a mistake? They always think that.’

Elise nodded in appreciation.

‘I’ll tell you what the risk is,’ said Irenée, the ‘you idiots’ implied as she plowed on. ‘This is a community group and we barely make ends meet. Our only value is our credibility. Once it’s believed we accept works based not on their value as art but because we like the artist, as a clique of friends, we’re ruined. That’s the risk. No one will take us seriously. Artists won’t want to show here for fear of being tainted. The public won’t come because they know all they’ll see is crap like—’ here words failed her and she merely pointed at the canvas.

Then Clara saw it. Just a flash, something niggling on the outer reaches of her consciousness. For the briefest moment Fair Day shimmered. The pieces came together, then the moment passed. Clara realised she’d stopped breathing again, but she also realised that she was looking at a work of great art. Like Peter, she didn’t know why or how, but in that instant that world which had seemed upside down righted. She knew Fair Day was an extraordinary work.

‘I think it’s more than wonderful, I think it’s brilliant,’ she said.

‘Oh, please. Can’t you see she’s just saying that to support her husband?’

‘Irenée, we’ve heard your opinion. Go on, Clara,’ said Elise. Henri leaned forward, his chair groaning.

Clara got up and walked slowly to the work on the easel. It touched her deep down in a place of such sadness and loss it was all she could do not to weep. How could this be? she asked herself. The images were so childish, so simple. Silly almost, with dancing geese and smiling people. But there was something else. Something just beyond her grasp.

‘I’m sorry. This is embarrassing,’ she smiled, feeling her cheeks burning, ‘but I actually can’t explain it.’

‘Why don’t we set Fair Day aside and look at the rest of the works. We’ll come back to it at the end.’

The rest of the afternoon went fairly smoothly. The sun was getting low, making the room even colder by the time they looked at Fair Day again. Everyone was wiped out and just wanted this to be over. Peter flipped on the overhead spotlights and lifted Jane’s work on to the easel.

‘D’ accord . Has anyone changed their mind about Fair Day?’ Elise asked.

Silence.

‘I make it two in favor of accepting and two against.’

Elise stared quietly at Fair Day. She knew Jane Neal in passing and liked what she saw. She’d always struck Elise as a sensible, kind and intelligent woman. A person you’d want to spend time with. How was it this woman had created this slapdash, childish work? But. And a new thought entered her head. Not, actually, an original thought or even new to Elise, but a new one for this day.

‘Fair Day is accepted. It’ll be shown with the other works of art.’

Clara leapt up with delight, toppling her chair.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Irenée.

‘Exactly! Well done. You’ve both proven my point.’ Elise smiled.

‘What point?’

‘For whatever reason, Fair Day challenges us. It moves us. To anger,’ here Elise acknowledged Irenée, ‘to confusion,’ a brief but meaningful look at Henri who nodded his grizzled head slightly, ‘to ...’ a glance at Peter and Clara.

‘Joy,’ said Peter at the very moment Clara said, ‘Sorrow.’ They looked at each other and laughed.

‘Now, I look at it and feel, like Henri, simply confused. The truth is I don’t know whether Fair Day is a brilliant example of naive art, or the pathetic scrawling of a superbly untalented, and delusional, old woman. That’s the tension. And that’s why it must be part of the show. I can guarantee you it’s the one work people will be talking about in the cafés after the vernissage.’

‘Hideous,’ said Ruth Zardo later that evening, leaning on her cane and swigging Scotch. Peter and Clara’s friends were gathered in their living room, around the murmuring fireplace for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner.

It was the lull before the onslaught. Family and friends, invited or not, would arrive the next day and manage to stay through the Thanksgiving long weekend. The woods would be full of hikers and hunters, an unfortunate combination. The annual touch football game would be held on the village green on Saturday morning, followed by the harvest market in the afternoon, a last ditch effort to download tomatoes and zucchini. That evening the bonfire would be lit filling Three Pines with the delicious scent of burning leaves and wood, and the suspicious undercurrent of gazpacho.

Three Pines wasn’t on any tourist map, being too far off any main or even secondary road. Like Narnia, it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise that such an elderly village should have been hiding in this valley all along. Anyone fortunate enough to find it once usually found their way back. And Thanksgiving, in early October, was the perfect time. The weather was usually crisp and clear, the summer scents of old garden roses and phlox were replaced by musky autumn leaves, woodsmoke and roast turkey.

Olivier and Gabri were recounting that morning’s events. Their description was so vivid everyone in the snug living room could see the three masked boys picking up handfuls of duck manure from the edge of the village green: the boys lifted their hands, the manure sliding between their fingers, and then hurled the stuff at the old brick building. Soon the blue and white Campari awnings were dripping. Manure was sliding off the walls. The ‘Bistro’ sign was splattered. In moments, the pristine face of the café in the heart of Three Pines was filthy, and not just with duck poop. The village had become soiled by the words that filled the startled air: ‘Fags! Queers! Dégueulasse !’ the boys screamed.

As Jane listened to Olivier and Gabri, she recalled how she had emerged from her tiny stone cottage across the green and, hurrying over, had seen Olivier and Gabri come out of the Bistro. The boys had roared their delight and aimed at the two men, striking them with the manure.