The Cleaner of Chartres (9 page)

Chartres

For several days after their breakfast encounter Agnès heard nothing from Alain other than his early blackbird whistle from above. But the following Thursday, coming out of the door to the crypt, she met him again in person as she approached the North Door. He was standing at the foot of the steps, gazing up at the porch. ‘I was thinking, I like this side best.’

‘I do too.’ It had provided her with her first sanctuary.

‘You know all the cast of characters?’

‘Some.’

‘That’s Job, up there.’ He indicated the Old Testament exemplar of patience above the right door. ‘Poor guy. What he had to suffer. And all because God wanted to win a bet with Satan. This here’ – he pointed to the central portal – ‘is Anne, Mary’s mother. People imagine that it’s Mary because she has a baby in her arms, but, look, see, she doesn’t have a halo. I don’t know why the Grandmother of God doesn’t merit a halo but she doesn’t.’

‘And these?’ Agnès indicated the two tall figures who had stood sentinel over her sleeping body that first night at Chartres.

‘The one to the left is St Peter. The one on the right is the prophet Elijah. See that wheel he’s apparently balancing on? It looks like a monocycle but in fact that’s because the other wheel – look here – is broken. They’re the wheels of his chariot of fire.’

Agnès examined them. ‘They look so –’

‘Yes, don’t they? Domestic. And that behind you, there, is the ark of the covenant.’ She turned to look at a humble-looking medieval farm cart worked in stone.

‘I like that.’

‘Yes. I do. I like this too.’ He walked across the porch to the base of another pillar. ‘Look, David, here with his harp and there his sling, but look here – he’s slaying Goliath but it’s David who’s lost his head, not Goliath! Ironic, isn’t it? He lost it in the Revolution.’

‘I don’t know too much about the Old Testament,’ Agnès said. ‘I was brought up by nuns.’ It was a remark more intimate than she had quite intended and she blushed.

If Alain noticed her slight discomfort he gave no acknowledgement. ‘The stories in the Old are better, by and large.’

‘There was one nun who liked some of those stories.’ She was thinking of Sister Laurence. Sometimes she missed Sister Laurence. ‘But mostly I heard about Jesus and the parables.’

‘They’re not bad either. A lot of wisdom in parables.’

They went inside. Alain pushed open the two heavy doors for her and she caught his distinctive male smell as she passed by his stretched arm.

‘Have you breakfasted? I’ve some sausage left. And olives.’

Meaning to decline she said, ‘That would be nice.’

‘D’you want to come up?’ He gestured at the scaffolding.

‘Well . . .’

‘It’s only seven. Your aged admirer won’t be here for at least an hour.’

Agnès, driven nearly to distraction by the Abbé Bernard’s faltering demands, felt bound to defend him. ‘He’s only looking for someone to listen to him.’

‘And who better than a pretty young girl? I don’t blame him.’

‘I’m forty in January!’

‘That’s a girl in his eyes. Anyway, forty’s the fulcrum of life. I can’t wait to get there.’

So, Agnès thought, he’s younger than me. ‘I don’t think I –’

‘Come on. You’ll like it. God’s-eye view. A god’s eye, anyway.’

‘All right.’

He unfolded a door in the fabric of the protective screen behind the altar. ‘This is the secret entry to my kingdom.’

‘I wondered how you got in.’

‘Do you want go ahead so I can catch you or would you rather come behind?’

‘I’ll come behind you.’

Climbing up the ladder, trying to manage her full skirt, Agnès had a fleeting memory of another ladder – in the apple orchard at the convent.

•   •   •

When Madame Beck discovered that her new doll had gone missing, she was filled with a white panic, as if some demon had reached inside her and insolently tweaked her guts. Who could have perpetrated this crime? She had few visitors and fewer friends. Of those, only Madame Picot visited regularly.

Her mind ran rapidly through the list of visitors to her apartment since she had returned from Paris with the new doll. The air-conditioning man had walked around surveying possibilities for the conduits; but naturally she had accompanied him all the time. There was Jeanette of course. The only other suspect had to be Agnès.

Like many people whose energy is fuelled by malice, Madame Beck had a penetrating negative intuition; but in this instance it played her false. Perhaps she did not credit her old friend with sufficient guile to conceal such a monstrous disloyalty. She was inclined to underrate Madame Picot, who was more knowing, and more worldly-wise, than she appeared. Unlike Claude Beck, Auguste Picot had found his wife sexually attractive and had admired her amply rounded body to the end. On a visit to London once, he had sent her a postcard of a painting by Seurat, of a sexily plump woman sitting at her dressing-table applying a powder puff, together with a little amorous note on the back to the effect that the nights were lonely and the woman made him miss his ‘Pretty Jeanette’.

Madame Picot still had the card tucked away with many lavender bags in a drawer of underwear that her husband had liked her to wear, for which, alas, she had only sentimental use now. Still, to have been attractive to the man one lives with is a blessing; it had conferred on Madame Picot the touch of indulgent benignity which Madame Beck scornfully regarded as weakness.

What Madame Beck had not reckoned correctly was the fear she inspired in her friend. Madame Picot had made no calculation when she gathered up the bits of the decapitated doll and hid them in her bag. She had acted on instinct without thought of what she would say when the matter came up – as it did that Thursday.

Had Madame Beck wanted to ascertain if Jeanette knew anything about the missing doll, she would have done better to tell her of it in person. She had made the discovery late the previous evening. The rage that had mounted in her overnight had led to a pressing need to vent her fury. She rang Madame Picot as early as seemed decent (unlike herself Jeanette was a late riser) with the news.

‘My dear, I hope I didn’t wake you but I’ve had such a shock. Lulu, my new little doll, is missing.’

Madame Picot had more command of her voice than her expression, and over the phone was able to sound properly concerned when Madame Beck had finished her tale.

‘My dear, how very puzzling.’

‘Puzzling? It’s outright theft!’

‘But my dear, who would want to steal a dolly? Was it valuable?’

‘Indeed she was.’ Madame Beck had actually beaten the price down by twenty euros at the shop, which, as a regular, she felt entitled to do. ‘I shall have to speak to Mademoiselle Morel. She’s been in since I bought Lulu. Do you remember seeing her when you were here last?’

Madame Picot did a rapid calculation. ‘I don’t recall, dear. As you know, I’m not the nosy sort.’

This was a mistake, since Madame Beck knew quite well that her friend snooped surreptitiously round her apartment when she supposed her hostess was not looking.

‘She was quite distinctive, a little brown girl with a lace bonnet, on the round scallop-edged table, you know, the one Claude and I brought from Evreux, right by the sofa where you sit. I would have expected you to notice her.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t remember, dear,’ said Madame Picot. She was aware that she was on dangerous ground and it seemed safest to stick to her story.

The suspicion that Agnès was to blame for the missing doll worked on Madame Beck’s ill mood. Impossible to wait for her next cleaning day. It was ten minutes off 8.30 a.m., the time the cathedral officially opened. She dressed and without bothering even to take her usual coffee almost ran across the close to the Royal Portal.

She was just in time to meet the Abbé Bernard, slightly later than usual, who, deceived by the purposefulness of her expression, assumed it must be time for the public to be admitted and ushered her into the cathedral nave before him.

Rouen

It was only driving back from Le Mans, a town that by now he heartily loathed, smoking one of the Gitanes that, thanks to Dr Nezat’s example, he had gone out and bought, that Dr Deman realized he had not delivered the turquoise earring. The recognition caused him such dismay that he took his eye off the road and narrowly missed another collision with a lorry. Swerving the car on to the hard shoulder in his effort to avoid the lorry’s path, he felt the tell-tale bump, bump of a flat tyre.

The spare, he discovered on looking for it, was missing from the boot. Only then did he remember that he had taken it into the garage a few weeks earlier to fix a slow puncture.

Among the messages on his desk when, exhausted and demoralized, he got to his office the following morning, was a request to call the Mother Superior at the Sisters of Mercy. He had considered, during the time of Agnès’ alleged assault on the nanny, whether or not to let the convent know what had happened to their charge. His disquiet over his own conduct had made him reluctant to discuss her case with anyone, let alone Mother Catherine. In the end, unsure what the right course was, he had let things drift.

So it was with reluctance that he took up the phone to return her call.

‘Mother Catherine?’

‘Yes, who is speaking, please?’ The voice had lost none of its civil-service clip.

‘Denis Deman. You called my office.’

‘That was three days ago.’

‘I regret,’ said Dr Deman somewhat stiffly, ‘that I have been away for a few days.’

‘It was about Agnès that I called.’ Dr Deman, who had had his fill of self-confident women, waited gloomily to hear what she had to say.

‘We have only just had news of the awful tragedy.’

‘Yes?’

‘I must say this, Doctor, I think you should have informed us.’

Dr Deman summoned up his faltering moral courage. ‘Mother Catherine. I had heard nothing from you or the convent for months. Had you been concerned about Agnès, you could have rung me.’

Mother Catherine’s stock of moral courage was more than equal to Dr Deman’s. ‘I have rung you now.’

Dr Deman sighed inwardly and explained he had just come from Le Mans, where he had seen Agnès.

‘And how was she?’

He was about to say ‘fine’ when he was overtaken by an impulse to be honest. ‘The psychiatrist there seems happy enough with her progress. I felt concerned. She seemed to me to have deteriorated. Frankly, she looked terrible.’

Surprisingly, Mother Catherine’s voice became more conciliatory. ‘I was afraid of that when I heard about the move. The poor child was used to you and the clinic.’

‘Yes.’ But he had failed to protect her.

‘The man who found her first informed us of what had happened,’ Mother Catherine continued. ‘In the circumstances I felt you should know. He would like to see you.’

‘But of course. He can come to the clinic as before.’

‘I gather he is unwell. He has asked me if I would ask you if you would consent to visit him at his home.’

‘He might have rung me himself.’

‘He believes he has lost your number,’ said the Mother Superior. ‘Or possibly he never had it.’

‘I’ll call him,’ said Dr Deman. The weariness which had dragged him down since seeing Agnès again wrapped him round in another drear fold. ‘Remind me of his number, if you wouldn’t mind, Mother Catherine.’

Dr Deman postponed the call to Jean Dupère until the evening, when he could fortify himself with a large drink. His feelings of guilt about Agnès were now extending to Jean Dupère, whose trust in him seemingly had also been misplaced. He had the matchbox containing the turquoise earring by him when he finally nerved himself to ring.

The conversation was mercifully brief. Jean Dupère said he would be much obliged if the doctor would visit him as he wanted to hear about little Agnès. Unfortunately he was indisposed so could not go to the clinic himself. He was very sorry to inconvenience the doctor.

•   •   •

That Saturday, Dr Deman drove to Jean Dupère’s farm. The year had just turned past the vernal equinox and the longer evenings were being lifted by stretches of yellowing light.

Driving through the dimming countryside, Denis Deman was reminded of his childhood. His father had been a country doctor, the old-fashioned sort, in a market town not so far from there. He had grown up near these wide, lush fields, cold rivers and solid white cattle. Perhaps he should return there and marry his adolescent sweetheart, Elise. According to his mother – who was not reliable – Elise still nursed a fondness for him.

Driving down the rough track to the Dupère farm, which he had found finally only by stopping to inquire at the local inn, the startlingly white form of a barn owl swept across the beam of his headlights. He pulled up at the black outline of a building.

No light was visible and it took him some time to find the door. He knocked and, getting no answer, was about to return, gratefully, to his car and drive quickly home when he heard a gruff call.

‘Come in, please.’

Jean Dupère was lying, with a woollen muffler round his neck, in a bed in the kitchen, the kind of bed – wooden and built into the walls – he had occasionally seen when accompanying his father on his patient rounds. Over the bed was a patchwork cover of many-coloured, unevenly knitted squares.

‘Please sit down, Doctor. As you see, I’m unable to get up. There is wine on the dresser. Please.’

Dr Deman helped himself to a glass of wine and sat down on a rocking chair and then started up again. ‘I am so sorry, would you –’

‘No, no. I have mine here beside me, thank you.’

The two men sat in silence. Dr Deman, rocking on the chair, found himself wondering how Jean Dupère managed on his own. But maybe he wasn’t on his own?

‘I heard about my little Agnès.’

‘I am sorry.’ It was the first time Dr Deman had had another soul to whom he could express his regret over Agnès and he felt some relief in expressing it now.

‘My niece knows a nurse at your clinic. She told me. You think she committed this awful crime?’

Dr Deman rocked back and forth on his chair. In his early days as a psychiatrist, he had had a supervisor, a mentor, really, Dr Jacques Germaine, who was also a psychoanalyst. Jacques had never managed to persuade his young friend to undertake an analysis himself – Denis Deman lacked the necessary funds – but, none the less, he had imparted some of his insights. One rather simple one, though easier said than put into practice, was that our deeper mind will tell us the truth of things, provided we don’t impede it with controlling desires and thoughts. The drive through the twilit countryside of his childhood, the pearling sky, the hunting owl, the clean-tasting wine and the old man’s hospitality – all acted as a balm on Dr Deman’s ragged nerves. For the first time he allowed a mind free of guilt and doubt to contemplate the question.

‘No, I don’t,’ he declared.

‘I don’t either,’ the old man agreed.

Dr Deman didn’t question Jean Dupère’s credentials for making this judgement. The fact that he had seen Agnès precisely five times since the day he found her did nothing in Dr Deman’s current mood to disqualify the old man from knowing Agnès as well, probably better, than he did himself. He had dreaded this encounter and yet it appeared that, far from furthering his guilt, it might do something to resolve it. Not quite meaning to, he got up and helped himself to more red wine.

‘It is good,’ Jean Dupère commented. ‘It is from my brother-in-law in Saumur.’

‘Yes, really it’s excellent. Sorry, I shouldn’t, I didn’t mean to help myself.’

‘Please take all you wish.’

‘Thank you. You’re not well?’ Dr Deman suggested, aware that so far this subject had not been broached and that ordinary courtesy demanded it be raised.

‘I have the cancer. It has moved into my spine. They wish me to go to hospital but I prefer to die here, where I was born. And where my grandmother and my father were also born.’

‘And you have someone to care for you, I hope?’

‘I have a good neighbour who comes in each day to fix me up a bit. It is enough. The pain at present is bad but it comes and goes and when it goes I manage.’

Dr Deman, rocking like a child in a crib, stayed for over two hours in Jean Dupère’s congenial kitchen, which was hung about with baskets of herbs and hooks bearing thick sausages and dry hams. As they discussed the breeding of Charolais, the fiendish
EEC
farming policies and Jean’s brother-in-law’s seemingly insoluble problems with vine mould, the wood fire flickered on the stone flags and polished up the copper pans on the hearth, pans which had served the Dupère family for generations.

Dr Deman described a memorable meal he had once had in Brittany – a feast of nameless crustaceans which had lasted four hours – and Jean Dupère explained in turn his favourite way of cooking morel mushrooms (in a little bacon fat with a spoonful or two of thick local cream and plenty of ground black pepper).

At the old man’s request the doctor warmed a saucepan of lentil soup over the fire and took a bowl himself, describing as he drank it his theories about the nourishing properties of milk and soup for his disturbed patients. By this time they were on Christian-name terms – Jean and Denis – and Jean volunteered that his grandmother, whose kitchen they were sitting in, had been of a like mind and would have roundly endorsed the doctor’s nutritional theories.

When Denis Deman left to drive back up the uneven track, now lit by a sailing lemon-slice of a moon, his spirits were brighter than they had been for months. So upbeat was his mood that he quite forgot that he still had the matchbox in his pocket and that he had once again failed to deliver it to its intended recipient.