his bed any day!”
Alcohol was making her exuberant, and Jérôme didn’t seem to be enjoying himself, “I’m just kidding around, honey … you know that.”
I told them I only worked on the scripts and, consequently, I’d never actually been on a set or met the actors. Françoise made no attempt to hide her disappointment. I could have won back their attention by telling them all sorts of savoury anecdotes I’d been told by Aaron Spelling himself, like how ABC would have preferred to have the great Orson Welles play Mr. Roarke instead of Ricardo Montalbán (the erstwhile legend hadn’t found work in a while, dragging his two hundred thirty-eight pounds to Pink’s in Hollywood to order nine hot dogs at a time); but what did Françoise and her brothers know about Orson Welles?
No chance in hell they’d talk to me about In Gad. I still remembered a conversation with Josh when we spoke of distribution rights for the first time. The show would be broadcast in Canada, but only out West and in parts of Ontario. Something about cable, antennas, and territories. It wasn’t likely they had heard about it, which reassured me. I had no inclination to launch into fastidious explanations and justifications about Chastity’s abortions and the complaints we had received. I didn’t want to face Françoise’s shocked look. She seemed to have kept a sentimental attachment to the God of our childhood. I’d noticed my mother’s bleeding crucifix, looking like raw meat, hanging above the marriage bed when I’d gone to the bathroom. There were other things that had been owned by my mother in her house too — the silverware, the d’Arques crystal glasses on the dining room table — but I felt no nostalgia, only a twinge of tenderness. But Françoise quickly explained, “Your father gave them to me after your mother’s death. I said no, I couldn’t accept it, but he insisted.…”
My father. Of course he’d given my mother’s things to Françoise. Like the rest of it. Everything was clearer now, Françoise’s discomfort that afternoon, her insistence on giving me the coat and the gloves. I said, without a trace of bitterness, “If I understand correctly, he left you the store as well.”
The colour drained out of her. “If you want, we can figure something out, Romain.”
“Why? He gave it to you. And what do you want me to do with a clothing store?”
“Money. If you sold it.”
“Money? I don’t need any, Françoise.”
“It’s not fair. I tried to reason with him.…”
I burst out laughing. “Reason with the old man?”
“Romain, I don’t want you to think.…”
“Think what?”
“I … well … never mind.”
Perplexed, I watched her turn tragic in her inebriation. What would I do with a store? Jean, protective brother that he was, turned the conversation onto another track and became briefly interested in Gail and her disease, “Cancer?” “Leukemia.” “How old?” “Fifty-one.” Silence, then.
“And Louis?”
I asked the question with a far dryer tone than I’d anticipated, and Jean gave a half smile, as if we were finally getting to the conversation he’d been waiting for.
“What about Louis?”
“He’s probably in prison somewhere, after everything he did.”
“Louis is doing time in Orsainville.”
“Well, there we go!” I exclaimed. “It’s what I was saying, right? And for what? Murder? Did Louis ended up killing someone?”
Jean bit his lip, then swallowed the rest of his rum and Coke — he didn’t drink wine, didn’t like it. “No, not for murder.”
“So for what?”
“Robbery.”
I laughed harshly. “After robbery, it’ll be murder. He’ll get there. Believe me. When you kill animals, that’s the next step. All serial killers begin that way. It’s well documented.”
Françoise became very nervous; her hands trembling. She took our plates, almost knocking over our glasses, but we held onto them. I had the feeling I was the only one around the table to see that something was wrong with her, her moist forehead, visible sweat under her arms, and no one to help her, nobody to say, Are you okay, Françoise?
Jean said, “Louis didn’t kill the Egan dog, if that’s what you think.”
Again a nervous laugh broke in my throat.
“Don’t laugh,” Paul said, “It’s true.”
“Sure it is,” I heard myself say in a voice that was quickly losing its confidence. “The cats, the seagulls, Clifford Wiggs’ swans.…”
“Louis is innocent.”
Françoise stiffened, inexplicable tears in her eyes, and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving a pile of dirty plates on the table. What was happening, good God?
“I was with Louis, that night.”
Paul spoke, his face red with the sudden attention.
“You?”
“Tell him,” Jean ordered. “Tell him so he stops thinking we’re liars.”
Were they making fun of me? I was convinced I’d seen Louis’ silhouette under the almost full moon, his black clothes, the way he had of running with his fists clenched, head forward.…
In a tired voice, Paul began his tale of that evening’s events. The Buick Louis had stolen in Baie-des-Sables, which he drove through the village, bottle of whisky — stolen as well — in hand. Louis was drunk, red, glassy eyes, dumb smile drawn on his face. “Hey, Paul! I’ve got good whisky! Come on, let’s go for a ride!” Paul hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. “I climbed in,” he said. “I shouldn’t have, but I did. I liked to drink in those days. We got on the road to Mont-Joli and went to visit one of his friends. We drank the whole bottle, just the three of us. We were too drunk to get back on the road, and the cops found the car easily. They knocked on the door, nearly knocked it off its hinges, but we escaped through a window, hard to believe, we were so drunk we could barely stand. It was past ten o’clock by then, and it was dark. We roamed around part of the night, avoiding cop cars, and ended up finding a shed in the back of a house, where we slept a little until the next morning. You couldn’t have seen him that night in Métis Beach.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No?” Jean was speaking now, anger in his voice. “When Paul came back home the next day, our father was waiting for him. Believe me, he got it good. We didn’t forget it.”
“Exactly,” Paul added, with the tone of someone telling a tale of derring-do. “The old man wasn’t big, but he was strong. My eye was like a grapefruit for two weeks. You wouldn’t remember it, you disappeared that day.”
Jean gave me another of his satisfied smiles. “Exactly. You ran away to the States. Just like a criminal.”
I chose to
