Tangled Ashes (7 page)

Thérèse arrived at noon, looking exactly as she had the day before. Her graying hair was in its tight, formal chignon, her clothes impeccable and her face set in a haughty and mildly condescending expression. None of the nervousness he’d witnessed when he’d arrived was evident. She seemed more subdued, though she still moved with the speed and energy of a woman half her age. In the States, someone her age would have been eyeing her 401(k) and planning a move to Florida. But Thérèse seemed to have no such plans.

Beck stood with Fallon and the interior designer in the entrance of the castle and read aloud the list of “assignments” for Thérèse that he’d jotted on a notepad. Beck was pleased to be able to pass a few of the responsibilities off to her. They included ordering materials, renting power tools, hiring labor for basic tasks around the castle—like painting, stripping wallpaper, and sanding floors—and getting
the château connected to the Internet. He’d need it for research, communication, and
consultation
with Gary. One of them was big on that.

He ticked off each of Thérèse’s assignments as he quickly and curtly explained them to her, lapsing into the construction/renovation jargon that was his bread and butter. He was nearing the bottom of the first page when Fallon cleared his throat in a very deliberate manner. Beck stopped midsentence and glanced up at his employer, a little put out by the interruption.

“Lad, I know you know what you’re talking about,” he said, one hand in the pocket of his cashmere pants and the other held up, urging caution, “but . . .” He looked pointedly at Thérèse, who stood wide-eyed next to Beck, still staring at the list of duties he held in front of him. “It might be helpful to slow down a little and allow for some questions,” Fallon suggested in a mildly insistent tone.

Beck had been so intent on getting through his list and moving on to the next item on his own agenda that he hadn’t been aware of the growing discomfiture of the woman standing next to him. Though her poise was unaffected, there was a small muscle twitching at the corner of her mouth, a subtle symptom of the nervousness he’d seen the evening before.

“Sorry, Thérèse,” he said, feigning good nature. “Let me slow it down a little for you. I know it’s early in the day and all.”

It was far from early, and she was far from slow—and the statement had the desired effect. Her composure crumbled a little around the edges as she pulled herself up straighter, the muscle spasm more pronounced. Her face seemed to shrink into a pointed mask of pursed lips and narrowed eyes. “There’s no need to slow it down, Mr. Becker,” she said, darting a glance at Fallon. “All I require is more ample information. I am not the imbecile you suggest, but this is all rather . . . outside my realm of expertise.”

Fallon stepped in before the situation could escalate, giving Becker’s arm a warning squeeze. “Miss Gallet, would you mind making a couple calls to the Internet company and seeing what they’ve come up with? The phone number for my contact with Wanadoo is on the desk in the office. Henri, I believe, is his name.”

She marched off in the direction of the office, her heels clicking primly on the castle’s marble floor.

Beck dislodged Fallon’s hand by reaching for an imaginary itch on the side of his neck.

“What was that?” Fallon asked, not so much angry as confused.

“We, uh, got off to a rough start yesterday,” Beck said, scanning the notes he’d jotted down earlier.

“Well, do what you have to do to unroughen it, Mr. Becker. I leave for England in the morning and don’t want to return to a war zone in five days.”

Becker hung his head and bit back an unnecessary retort.

“Listen,” Fallon said, lowering his voice. “Thérèse appeared on my doorstep a year ago and offered me her services based solely on hearing that I’d acquired the château. This is her dream project and she was a godsend—I wasn’t even in the market for an interior designer at the time. Her résumé is impeccable and her expertise in the field is well established. I assure you that Miss Gallet’s assistance and connections in the community are going to be important for your work.”

Beck nodded. “I understand.”

“Just . . . give yourself some time to get used to her, lad. And try not to hurt her feelings. I get the impression they’re rather . . . fragile.”

“Of course,” Beck said with just enough conviction to assuage his employer. He turned his attention to the staircase that rose with sweeping grace from marble floors to molded ceilings.

Fallon took the hint. “One more thing before I leave you to
your craft,” he said, motioning for Beck to move with him to the entryway doors. He pointed at the dilapidated gatehouse attached to the tall wrought-iron fence that guarded the entrance to the castle grounds.

“You want to remodel that too?” Beck asked, starting to wonder if his boss had delusions of grandeur.

“Oh, no! Heavens, no. You just need to know that Jojo lives there. A strange old fellow who sort of . . . came with the property.”

Beck gave his boss a questioning look. “Jojo?”

“The old boy has lived in that poor excuse for a house since as long as anyone can remember around here, and no one seems inclined to evict him. I briefly raised the issue in one of our negotiations for the acquisition of the castle, but the reaction was so strong that I decided to let the poor soul stay put.”

Beck squinted at the old building, noting the broken windows, the rotten thatched roof, and the overgrown path that led to its peeling door. “Well, as long as he stays out of my way . . .”

“That’s why I’m telling you about him, actually. He tends to . . . wander. Usually at night, mind you. And he isn’t much for talking either. The townsfolk seem to think he’s either mute or a ghost.”

Beck remembered Thérèse’s remark about finding alternate lodging and wondered if this “ghost” was what she’d been referring to.

“Either way,” Fallon continued, “he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he could scare the wits out of you if you didn’t know to expect him!”

“Well, now I know.”

“Just consider him another historical feature of the Château de Lamorlaye,” Fallon said dramatically, tracing an invisible marquee in the air in front of him.

“Sure, I’ll do that,” Beck said. But he still planned on sleeping with a crowbar near his bed.

W
ITH THE TWINS
out playing in the park, Jade had put some elbow grease into scrubbing the smell out of Becker’s apartment. When he entered his quarters after a long shopping expedition with Thérèse in search of the perfect wood to repair the main staircase, he found Jade backing out of the room, spraying an air freshener as she went.

She heard him coming and turned, smoothing the fabric of her khaki skirt over her hips. “Mr. Becker—I’m just finishing up here. . . .”

Beck tossed his coat and wallet onto the chair just inside his bedroom door, then moved down the hall to where Jade stood.

“I scrubbed the room with vinegar and soap. Including the walls. And I used bleach in the corner with the . . . pee in it.” She seemed embarrassed to have to use the word. “I read online that baking soda helps, so that’s what you see on the floor over there. It’s supposed to sit at least overnight. And you might want to leave the window open too. Just to air it out. I’ll be back in the morning to mop up the soda.”

She’d scarcely made eye contact with him while she spoke. She’d taken in his faded jeans and the white T-shirt he wore under an unbuttoned plaid shirt but had merely skimmed his face.

“I didn’t expect you to—”

“It’s nothing.” She smiled a little and bent over to toss her supplies into the yellow bucket on the floor. “Mr. Fallon doesn’t like his employees to complain that their rooms smell like urinals.”

Beck wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. An apology? A more heartfelt thank-you? Whatever it was, he wasn’t inclined to play along.

After a moment of silence had passed, Jade pulled down on the hem of her pale-blue long-sleeved T-shirt and smiled tightly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to finish supper. It will be served at six, if you care to join us.” She paused. “Or I can bring a tray up to your quarters for you if you’d rather eat alone.”

She brushed past him on her way to the stairs, leaving a hint of lily of the valley in the castle’s stale air. He watched her go, her ponytail swinging and her head held high.

He dropped a pair of pink rubber gloves on the sink when he entered the kitchen half an hour later.

“You left these upstairs,” he said.

Jade gave him a look and tossed the gloves into a bucket beneath the sink. “Thank you, Mr. Becker.”

The kitchen smelled of onions and basil. A thick stew bubbled on the stove, and lettuce floated in a sink full of water under a window with a view on the outside corridor that led to the fruit cellar.

“So what are you, exactly?” Beck asked, kicking himself moments later for his lack of tact.
Nice job, Becker.

Jade turned to look at him, brow furrowed, and repeated, arms crossed, “What am I?”

Becker conceded the point. “Okay, that was poorly put,” he said. “What I meant to ask is, what exactly do you do?”

“Aside from graciously scrubbing the pee off a perfect stranger’s floor?” she asked sweetly.

Beck paused, trying to guess at the subtext of her statement, then giving up. “Yup, aside from that,” he said.

Jade turned back to the sink and began to take lettuce leaves from the water, checking each one for dirt and bugs before tossing it in the basket of a spinner. “Well, Mr. Becker, since you ask so kindly, I’m a bit of a . . . what would you call it? A home assistant, perhaps.”

“Une femme à tout faire?”
Beck asked in perfect, albeit
québécois
, French.

Jade’s head snapped around, then tilted to one side, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “That’s a good French term, Mr. Becker. ‘A woman who does everything.’ Not the type of French an American student would normally learn in basic language studies.”

Beck decided he liked the precise and delicate way she shaped her words. It made her English sound somehow daintier and lighter than the language Americans spoke. “I was raised in Québec,” he finally said. “Just until the age of ten, but I thought you should know.” Jade looked at him questioningly. “You know—in case you get tempted to talk about me behind my back or something.”

“I’ll try not to talk about you at all,” she said with a sweet smile, turning back to the lettuce in the sink. “Yes, I am indeed a
femme à tout faire
, though the term is often used in a derogatory way.”

Beck held up his hands. “Hey, no offense . . .”

Jade looked at him pointedly. “I love kids. I love teaching. I love cooking. I love cleaning. If I can make a decent living doing what I love, I’d prefer to call it a career rather than label it a social status.”

Beck considered her statement for a moment, surprised again at the fluency of her English. He eyed the clock. Twenty minutes ’til six. He’d miscalculated this move. Twenty minutes of conversation seemed an overwhelming prospect.

“And you, Mr. Becker? Is your trade a calling or a status symbol for you?”

Beck opened his mouth for a sarcastic reply, but Philippe and Eva interrupted his retort with a flamboyant entrance into the kitchen. “Jade, Jade! We found a giant snail!” Philippe yelled as he ran up to the sink, the pride of the hunter on his face. “Look!” He held out his prize, a nondescript snail of fairly large size—but to his eyes, it seemed to be a fantastic dinosaur.

Jade took a step back. “That’s—hmm—that’s lovely, Philippe,” she said, clearly not inclined to get a closer look at the snail.

“Can we cook him and eat him?” Eva chimed in, her British accent round and rich.

Jade put a hand to her chest in mock horror. “What?” she squealed. “You want to kill the biggest snail this castle has ever seen?” The children’s eyes grew wider. “You want to eat the largest creature you’ve ever trapped during your fierce hunting expeditions in the woods?” She was making the statements so dramatic that even Beck found himself getting caught up. The children began to shake their heads, her words elevating their common snail to the rank of mythical beast. “You want to slaughter the king of this venerable castle for
meat
?!” she finished with great flair.

Eva and Philippe stared, wide-eyed, as her words settled over the kitchen. When they finally spoke, it was in a machine-gun fire of overlapping statements.

“We’re not going to eat him!” Philippe declared.

“No, we’re really, really not!”

“We’re going to make him a crown . . .”

“And build him a little mini snail castle . . .”

“And dig a moat around it and put water in it . . .”

“And call him King Snail.”

Philippe paused long enough to give his sister a disparaging look. “We can’t call him King Snail.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too normal,” he said, drawing out the last word. They both stared at the snail for a while, trying to derive inspiration from its dull brown shell. Jade looked on in amusement, and Becker tried hard not to find the scene endearing.

Eva’s face was pinched in thought, her freckled nose wrinkled with concentration. “I know!” she finally squealed, clapping and skipping a little where she stood. “We can call him . . .” She paused for dramatic effect and lowered her voice to utter, “King Kong!”

“That’s a monkey,” Philippe said with obvious disdain.

“Yeah, but it’s a really big monkey,” Beck muttered, surprising himself and earning a surprised look from Jade.

“It’s a good name,” Eva persisted. “It’s a really, really good name!”

But Philippe was still racking his mind for a better one. “King . . .” It looked like the perfect name was trapped inside his mind, and the mental constipation was turning his face red. “King . . . Rover!” He punched his fist into the air in victory and did his own little dance. Eva looked like she was about to disapprove of his choice, but she opted to join in the victory dance instead.

Jade placed a hand at the back of each of their necks and steered them toward the kitchen door. “Great. King Rover it is. Wonderful name, really. Now why don’t you find just the perfect place to put him and call it his castle?”

The children looked at each other in anticipation of the task ahead. Apparently communicating without words, they both took off running at the same time, in the same direction, yelling, “To the castle!” at the top of their lungs.

“But come back quickly—dinner’s almost ready!” Jade yelled
after them. When she heard no reply, she closed the door and turned slowly to face Beck. “I suppose I’m going to have to go out and fetch them in a few minutes, aren’t I?”

Beck shrugged. “Probably.” He’d been a kid before—eons ago. He remembered how it worked.

They stood in awkward silence for a while. “I guess I’ll . . .” Jade pointed toward the salad still floating in the sink and got back to work. “Oh, to be a child again, right?” she asked when a few more seconds of silence had passed.

“Actually, it’s been so long that . . .” He found himself tempted to pull up a stool and shoot the breeze—and the notion halted him midsentence. For a brief, uncomfortable instant, he realized that the thought of being alone in his apartment seemed less inviting than sitting in the garishly lit kitchen with a woman he barely knew. Jade looked over her shoulder at him with a puzzled expression. Beck allowed the usual mask to come down over his face.

“I’m going up to my room,” he said, moving toward the door.

“Will you be coming back down for . . . ?”

“No.” It came out more curtly than he’d intended.

Jade bobbed her head, slightly perplexed, and turned back to the sink. “I’ll bring a tray up to you, then,” she said.

Becker nodded and left the kitchen.

Beck didn’t drag his bed up the stairs that night. Though the smell persisted, it was much more bearable thanks to Jade’s intervention, and with his window open despite the February cold, he fell asleep fairly quickly.

And then the dreams came again. Beck’s dreams had alternating plot lines. Some began in a college cafeteria. Others started in the restaurant atop the John Hancock Center. The worst began on a
Sunday morning in Maine. All of them ended with Beck jerking awake, drenched in acrid sweat, a horror so heavy in his stomach, so constricting in his chest, that he had to lie still for a while and fight nausea with deep breaths. It was in those wrenching moments, with the images and emotions of his dreams receding like pale ghosts into his subconscious, that Becker felt most agonizingly alive.

In the early-morning hours of his second night in the castle, Becker reached for the light by his bed, threw back his covers, and let his sweat-soaked body cool. The breeze from the window was wintery and chilled him until he shivered. He neither closed the window nor covered himself again. He preferred the body-numbing cold of reality to the fevered torment of his dreams. After several minutes of the self-inflicted torture, when he could trust his legs to support his weight again, Beck turned off the light and moved from the bed to the window. He draped a blanket over his shoulders and stood by the old-fashioned radiator, looking out.

A heavy fog covered the castle grounds. He could barely discern the circular patch of grass around which the driveway curved. The two guard towers, standing at attention on either side of the château’s front gate, were eerie sentinels guarding the property with gun-slit eyes. The fence, a collection of wrought-iron spikes, ran along the road outside the castle grounds. It stood at least eight feet tall and was mounted on a low stone wall that curved in a perfect arch. If it meant to intimidate, it did a fine job.