Trespass. Part 18

'Who changed whose mind?'

'Monsieur Verey. He changed his mind that's what my brother told me. Maybe he'd found another house. And Aramon was-'

'Yes?'

'Well, I think he was very disappointed. It was a large sum. He'd thought he was going to be rich.'

Travier sat down again and he reached out to Audrun, as though to take one of her hands in his, but she held herself apart, folded her hands in her lap. She imagined the film director saying to her: 'No, no. Don't let him take your hand, Audrun. Remember you're innocent. Innocent. Innocent. The innocent don't betray weakness. On the contrary, they demonstrate that they've got no need of special kindness.' The innocent don't betray weakness. On the contrary, they demonstrate that they've got no need of special kindness.'

But Travier nevertheless spoke in a kind voice when he said: 'Let me ask you, Mademoiselle Lunel, do you think your brother bore any animosity towards Verey?'

Audrun stared at Travier, held his gaze. 'Are you asking me,' she said, 'if I think he could have harmed him?'

'Yes. I'm asking you if you think your brother has anything to do with the death of Anthony Verey.'

Now, she began to cry. It wasn't difficult.

It never had been difficult. To summon tears, she only had to think about Bernadette. It wasn't even acting. It was just Bernadette calling to her from her chair in the sunlight, where she sat stringing beans, with a colander in her lap.

Audrun put her head in her hands and let her head shake from side to side and she felt the gentle touch of Inspecteur Travier's hand come gently to rest on her shoulder.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'to ask you such a terrible question. You don't have to answer it. You don't have to-'

'I'm afraid for him!' Audrun burst out. 'He has blackouts. He does things and then can't remember them. Poor Aramon! His memory's all gone. I'm so frightened for him!'

She sobbed for a long time and her own crying sounded beautiful to her and full of harmony.

The policemen didn't stay long after that, as she knew they wouldn't.

They walked back to one of the cars on the road and the radios roared with staccato sound all down the valley. Audrun stayed out of sight, in the shadow behind the window, watching and waiting, and the sun went down and the light became grey and flat.

In this grey light, she saw them come past her door: twenty or thirty armed officers.

Far too many, she thought. Far too many for what's needed.

She opened her door a crack and stood watching, without moving.

The armed men moved slowly and quietly, fanning out onto the gra.s.s in front of the Mas Lunel. Travier was with them. A police van waited.

As the dogs caught the scent of them of so many human bodies all at once they began braying and howling and Audrun wondered whether Aramon wouldn't in one last act of defiance let the dogs loose on the policemen. She could hear their claws scrabbling against the wire of the pound.

She craned her neck to see. Three of the officers had broken off from the group and were going towards the barn, as the others crept silently onwards towards the mas. Audrun's mind stayed for a moment with those headed for the barn. She could hear them breaking the new padlock Aramon had fitted, tugging open the doors...

And she thought that at first, even with the flashlights they carried, they might not see it, because the vaulted dark s.p.a.ce of the barn was so huge and because she'd succeeded so well with her camouflage... but then, in a matter of moments, they'd find it...

Driving it in there a car so much larger and more powerful than her own little machine had caused her anguish. It had been the worst moment of all. Her heart had fluttered pathetically, like a bantam's heart. Her hands had begun to sweat, inside her rubber gloves. She'd stalled the Renault on the driveway, had had to rev the engine loudly when it re-started, all the while petrified that Aramon would see or hear what she was doing and then everything everything everything would be lost. But n.o.body came. No other car had gone by on the road. would be lost. But n.o.body came. No other car had gone by on the road.

And once the Renault was in place with the horrible sandwich locked away inside and Audrun had begun the task of draping the car with sacking and laying on the sacking a wild collection of objects broken and abandoned by Aramon over time, she'd exalted in her own cunning. People thought she was stupid. Just because she hadn't been able to have a proper life with a husband she loved, they thought she had no idea how the world worked. But now she asked herself: how many of them could have done what she'd done? How many could have done this and felt such exaltation in their hearts?

Later, the police van pa.s.sed her door, with its lights a burning yellow in the darkness. And Audrun knew Aramon was inside it. She imagined the police cell where he'd be taken and his old scarecrow head tumbling down on some comfortless bed and his face, cross-eyed with confusion, staring out at the unfamiliar room.

Veronica was driven to the hospital morgue in Rua.s.se.

She'd been told on the telephone that forensic identification had already been done conclusively from DNA samples; she wouldn't be forced to identify her brother; those days of putting relatives through this agony were in very many cases, such as this one past.

But Veronica knew that until she'd seen Anthony, until she was sure that the world wasn't lying to her, she'd never believe that he was dead. And then she'd probably go mad. She'd sit at her window, listening for his car. She'd grow old sitting and listening there. She'd keep his room dusted, the sheets aired. She'd never rest in her delusion that, one day, he'd walk in through the door.

Now, she was looking down at a grey and bloated corpse, an a.s.semblage of decayed and stinking flesh, its features gone, half-zippered into a waterproof bag.

It could be anyone... she wanted to say. It's certainly not Anthony. He was a lean man. His hair was strong and springy. His hands were delicate...

But she saw that it was him.

Pity for him swelled in her like the long slow movement of a symphony, pity boundless and deep.

There was a little room where she was taken to recover. She sat on a hard sofa. A mortuary a.s.sistant brought her water. In England, she thought, it wouldn't have been water, it would have been tea, but she didn't care.

None of these small details mattered one jot and never would again.

She didn't know where to go then or what to do. Above her, all around her, she thought about the life of the hospital going on. Doctors and nurses rushing from ward to operating theatre, to recovery room, to ward again, trying to overcome suffering, trying to save lives. And the patients so touching in their belief that suffering would be overcome, their lives saved! Forgetting that in the end, every battle is lost. Every single one.

The young mortuary a.s.sistant, a student in his twenties, had stayed with Veronica. He knelt beside her, holding her hand. Over his green overalls, he wore a green plastic ap.r.o.n, scrubbed violently clean.

'I know,' said Veronica to this young man, 'that there are things I should be doing. Lots and lots of things. But I just can't imagine what they are.'

He shook his head, encased in a soft gauzy cap. 'You will remember these things later, Madame,' he said gently.

'I don't know if I will,' said Veronica. 'I feel my mind has... just... more or less melted away.'

'This is normal,' said the mortuary a.s.sistant. 'Absolutely normal. It's the shock. Now, can you get to your feet? I'll take you to the police car and they will drive you home.'

'What's your name?' asked Veronica in a tender, motherly voice.

'Paul,' said the boy.

'Paul,' repeated Veronica. 'That's a very nice name. Easy to remember. I like it when that is the case.'

So many things to do...

But she did nothing. She knew this was lamentable.

She sat on the terrace, watching leaves fall. She sat so still that she lost almost all the feeling in her feet. Then she got up and limped to her room and lay down, unable to hold herself upright any more. She covered herself with the sheet and the blue-and-white bed cover and closed her eyes.

She knew that crying was one of the things she should be doing, but this felt like an impossible demand, the kind of stupid, insensitive demand Lal might have made Lal, or some stranger who didn't know her properly and who would never know her, would never ever never ever know how it felt to be Veronica Verey, alive in the world... know how it felt to be Veronica Verey, alive in the world...

She wondered whether, in fact, she'd never do anything again, except lie there in her room at Les Glaniques. Just lie there unable to move, like someone in a ghastly play by Samuel Beckett, in which nothing ever happened. It seemed very likely.

She tried to think of all the things she might might do, but none of them attracted her. She remembered that when the vet had had to be summoned to put Susan down, she'd run into the spinney behind Bartle House and taken a stick and charged round and round and round, whacking the trees. She'd kept on running until the stick broke, then she'd found another stick and kept hitting and hitting until she had no more breath in her lungs and had to fall over and let her face come to rest on a pillow of moss. do, but none of them attracted her. She remembered that when the vet had had to be summoned to put Susan down, she'd run into the spinney behind Bartle House and taken a stick and charged round and round and round, whacking the trees. She'd kept on running until the stick broke, then she'd found another stick and kept hitting and hitting until she had no more breath in her lungs and had to fall over and let her face come to rest on a pillow of moss.

Now, she admired from a distance the girl who had done all this charging about. She could imagine the high colour it had brought to her cheeks.

She thought it all admirable and right, for that adorable little pony. But as she lay on her bed, the idea of any bodily movement made Veronica feel so tired that she seemed to sink right down into the mattress, as if it were as deep and soft as a quicksand. Breathing felt exhausting.

Perhaps she slept. She wasn't sure.

She could see now that the room was dark and she could hear something going on, a sound she was meant to recognise, but she couldn't recognise it.

It belonged in a different life.

After some time, she decided the sound might have been the telephone ringing, but she couldn't think of anybody she wanted to talk to. She was glad of one thing: that she was alone. She thought that in this loneliness there was a kind of dignity and peace.

Her memories came tumbling towards her, like sprites, like characters escaping from a story, holding hands and running fast. 'Look at us! Look at us! We're alive!' 'Look at us! Look at us! We're alive!'

An evening when...

...she and Anthony sat alone in the kitchen at Bartle House, eating cereal. Lal had gone out to dinner. She, Veronica, would have been fifteen and Anthony twelve or thirteen. All they had to eat for supper was the cereal. Anthony went to the fridge and opened it and saw that it was filled with bottles of champagne and with dishes of dressed game and fish, waiting to be cooked for a party Lal was giving for her smart Hampshire friends the following night.

'Nothing's ever for us,' he said. 'I don't know why.'

'Yes you do,' said Veronica.

'You mean she doesn't care about us?'

'She doesn't love love us.' us.'

He sat down and stared at the cereal, half eaten in a blue bowl. Then he overturned the bowl and let the milk and cornflake mush seep into the tablecloth. He pushed it about with his hands. Veronica got up and came to him and put her arms around him. She kissed the top of his head.

'I love you,' she said. 'And I always will. I promise I always will.'

'I know, V,' he said.

Had she kept her promise?

There had been times of dereliction, months when she didn't call him or even think much about him, particularly after she'd met Kitty Meadows. For she saw it clearly now: Kitty had always wanted to separate her from Anthony, always wanted to destroy the feelings she had for him as though they'd been s.e.xual feelings and posed a threat. So, in a sense, Kitty was responsible for his death...

This felt like a coherent thought: Kitty is responsible Kitty is responsible.

And Veronica decided that it might always feel like that to her, that Kitty Meadows had sent Anthony to his death. Someone else, some crazed, unhappy stranger had shot him for being an English tourist? For a reason which would always feel unreal to her. But Kitty was the one who'd wanted him dead. She was the one who'd been too obtuse to see the truth of what Anthony and his sister felt for each other and so, out of inappropriate jealous feelings, she'd willed his end.

The telephone rang again but Veronica didn't move.

In the night, she woke up and thought she heard rain.

But she knew that sometimes, you couldn't tell: was it rain or was it just the wind changing direction, breathing differently through the trees?

It went on, this sighing sound. On and on. She half wanted to get up, just to see see if the rain had come, if all the weeks of drought were ending. But then she realised that she didn't care about this either. Let the garden die. if the rain had come, if all the weeks of drought were ending. But then she realised that she didn't care about this either. Let the garden die.

Because what is a garden? A piece of ground changed temporarily by artifice, requiring inordinate attention. An attempt at creating some baby 'paradise' to console you for all the other things that will never be yours.

And then a new thought came: There should have been a child There should have been a child. Mine or Anthony's, it wouldn't have mattered which. There should have been someone to whom all of what we've tried to do could now be given.

Someone beloved beloved at last. at last.

Fire came to the hills behind La Callune.

A thoughtless rambler discards a cigarette.

A dry leaf begins to burn...

The mistral chivvied the flames across the skyline. The wind blew from the north and the fire, gorged by pine resin on the high tops, paused for a moment, then changed direction and began an a.s.sault on the valley.

The air was filled with smoke and with the wailing of the fire trucks. Marianne Viala came panting up the road to Audrun's bungalow and the two elderly women stood by the gate, watching. They'd watched it before, year upon year: Cevenol fire in all its heartless grandeur. They'd seen the sky turn black. They'd seen the vinefields greyed and choked with ash. They'd seen power lines explode. But never before had they seen it come straight towards them like this, straight towards the Mas Lunel on the veering wind.

Marianne clutched Audrun's hand. The fire-fighters struggled up the steep terraces with their heavy hoses.

'The canadairs canadairs are on their way,' said Marianne. 'Luc called Jeanne and she rang me. The are on their way,' said Marianne. 'Luc called Jeanne and she rang me. The canadairs canadairs will put it out, Audrun. They're at the coast now, refuelling with water.' will put it out, Audrun. They're at the coast now, refuelling with water.'

Audrun stared up. What fascinated her about fire was the way it appeared so alive. In its crackling and spitting, she could almost hear its boast: The earth is mine, the tinder-dry earth has always been mine. The earth is mine, the tinder-dry earth has always been mine.

In contrast to the tireless, boastful fire, Audrun felt like a shadow. She knew she was faltering on the edge of one of her episodes episodes. She knew she ought to go and lie down, now, before it began. But she was trying to fight it off this time. She clung to Marianne, with her head lowered, her vision concentrated on the ground at her feet. Sometimes, it could be fought like this, with her concentration on the earth, with her will alone.

When she next looked up, Raoul Molezon was there, his pickup on the driveway. She heard Marianne say to him: 'She's not well, Raoul. She's going to go...'

But there was no time to think about this. Audrun herself knew that there was no time. She felt the touch of Raoul's hand on her arm. 'The dogs,' he almost shouted at her. 'I'm going to set the dogs free.'

'The dogs?'

'You can't let the dogs be burned alive!'

He began to run towards the mas and Audrun thought how sweet a thing it was that Raoul Molezon could still run fast, like a boy. She broke away from Marianne and tried to run after him, not because he was still beautiful to her, but because he was right, the dogs had to be saved those poor animals she'd kept alive with offal and bones since Aramon had been driven away in the locked and guarded van.

But she also understood, as she ran, that if the dogs needed saving, then there were other things at the Mas Lunel that had to be saved too.

Audrun could hear Marianne trying to call her back, but she hurried on.

She knew she looked awkward, attempting to run. One of her feet seemed to kick out in the wrong direction and she kept stumbling. But she had to reach the house before the firemen swarmed in and prevented her. Because all that remained of Bernadette was in the house. The sink where she'd peeled potatoes. The bed where she'd slept. The table where her elbows had rested...

Raoul was at the pound. Audrun saw him slide open the bar of the gate and the dogs clawed and pressed on each other to come out into freedom and then ran round in frenzied circles and p.i.s.sed and defecated with joy and confusion. Only one dog remained in the pound, lying in the dry mud, its eyes open in a terrified stare, but its voice mute. Raoul went into the cage and took this dog in his arms, to bring it out, and Audrun thought, Raoul Molezon is a good man and always was a good man...

But she went on by him and up to the house. She pushed open the door of the Mas Lunel, the heavy door splintered by the police, that would no longer close. She stood in the kitchen which, when Aramon had left, when the gendarmes gendarmes had finished their searches, she had scrubbed to the bone, throwing out everything he'd owned: all his half-broken gadgets and contrivances, every domestic item he'd ever laid his hands on. The kitchen no longer smelled of him. It smelled of caustic soda and beeswax polish. The old bra.s.s taps on the sink shone in the sunlight. The blackened oak table was slowly returning itself to a sweet whiteness. had finished their searches, she had scrubbed to the bone, throwing out everything he'd owned: all his half-broken gadgets and contrivances, every domestic item he'd ever laid his hands on. The kitchen no longer smelled of him. It smelled of caustic soda and beeswax polish. The old bra.s.s taps on the sink shone in the sunlight. The blackened oak table was slowly returning itself to a sweet whiteness.

And Audrun thought that if fire was going to come now to destroy it all... now, when everything was scoured and renewed, beginning its journey back to what it had once been... she thought that this didn't seem right. She said it aloud: This isn't right. This isn't right.

She began to push the heavy table towards the broken door, to try to get it outside to save it from the fire, but then she saw that the table was too wide to go through the door, even if she could have lifted it. So, with the table jammed against the door, she just stood behind it, like a shopkeeper, as though waiting for customers to arrive. She knew this was stupid, this standing still behind the table: it achieved nothing. But she couldn't think what else she was supposed to be doing. She could smell the fire, coming closer, but had no idea how it could be fought off. When she fell, she fell with her head on the table and her arms outstretched.