The Other Son (21 page)

At sunrise, she sees a woman walking an Alsatian. It’s cold in the car and she’s feeling damp and cramped, so deciding that she’ll be safer near a woman with a big dog, she gets out and walks at a respectful distance behind them. The woman walks fast, constantly jerking at the choke chain around the dog’s neck. He must be a youngster. She must be trying to train him.

The grass is wet and the cloud cover still heavy but the sun is managing to shine through a gap on the horizon. It reflects beautifully on the water of the Blue Pool, not blue this morning but pink.

Eventually, they reach the far side of the park and the woman walks on towards the city centre. The dog, Alice now sees, is old.
Trying to teach an old dog new tricks
, she thinks.

Alice hesitates about the idea of following the woman, of searching, perhaps, for a coffee shop, but her purse is in the car so she turns back. It’s daylight now so at least she feels unafraid and, attracted by some flower beds, she takes a new path off to the other side of the park. She wonders if she’ll ever find her car again. She wonders if she cares.

She checks her watch. It’s almost six a.m. Ken will be getting up soon. She wonders what time he’ll get to Tim’s house. She reckons it will be about nine.

She comes across a bandstand and, searching for some lost memory connected with the place, or perhaps merely with a
similar
place, she sits on the damp steps. But the memory evades her.

She tries to think clearly about what to do next. She attempts to make a proper adult decision but none of the options (go home, return to Tim’s, go to Dot’s) appeal.

She starts, again, to cry. She had thought she was all out of tears, but here they are again. She wonders if all this crying is dehydrating her. She supposes that it must be. She promises herself she’ll drink more when she gets to... wherever she’s going.

She fails, through her tears, to see another dog-walker approaching. The man, in his fifties, stops in front of her. His cute black and white Collie dog looks up at her. He wags his tail. “Are you OK?” the man asks.

Alice wipes her eyes and laughs falsely. “Yes,” she says, instantly more embarrassed than she is upset. “I just... A friend died,” she says, thinking only as she says it that this is somewhat incompatible with her laughter, and then remembering that she has a black eye to boot.

“But I’m fine,” she says, forcing a smile and already standing, pulling her sunglasses from her pocket, and striding away.

It takes her half an hour to find the car park again. She lets herself in and locks the door. She grips the steering wheel. She runs her tongue across her teeth – they feel furry. She could do with a shower; she could do with a change of clothes.

She pulls her mobile from her pocket. She’s almost out of battery power. The charger is yet another thing she didn’t bring with her. The screen says she has two percent remaining, but even though it usually shuts down at around four percent, it lets her check her messages before the screen goes blank. There’s a text message from Ken. “Come home,” it says, simply. And there’s a voice message from Dot. “I’m worried about you, Alice,” she says. “Are you OK? Please call me back. You’re my best friend, and I can’t sleep for worry, damn you.”

PART FOUR – THE OTHER SON

APRIL

“Put your finger there would you, honey?” Connie says, pulling the ribbon tight.

Bruno, momentarily distracted by a woman peering in, turns his attention to the package his mother is in the process of wrapping. “There?” he asks, placing his finger at the point where the two ribbons cross.

“Uh huh,” Connie confirms.

“So who’s this one for, eh?”

“Oh, some walk-in guy,” Connie replies. “Well, the walk-in’s wife actually. It’s her birthday. He’s coming back for it at five.”

“Which one is it?” Bruno asks, glancing at the walls and trying to play spot-the-missing-painting.

“One of Hugh’s,” Connie tells him. “He’s selling well at the moment.”

“Hugh Fleetwood?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Lucky wife, eh?”

“Actually, it’s kind of a funny choice for a birthday present. It’s
very
sombre.”

“The Fleetwoods often are,” Bruno says. “But we love ‘em.”

“We do.”

“It’s not that one of the dead guy holding the woman in his arms, is it?”

Connie laughs gently. “You got it,” she says.

“That
is
a weird gift for a birthday.”

“Beats flowers, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“You can have that back now.” Connie pushes her son’s finger away, then adds, “So have you had any inspiration about what to get for yours?”

Bruno pulls a face. “Not really,” he says.

“That boy is
so
difficult to buy for.”

“Yes he is!”

“Clothes? A shirt? Some pants, maybe?”

“He doesn’t really care about clothes so much, you know?”

“No... I don’t know... some gadget?” Connie suggests. “He lost his iPod thing, didn’t he? They make really tiny ones now. I saw it on the TV.”

“No. He just uses his phone nowadays. Everyone does.”

“A trip somewhere, then?”

“We’re all travelled out, I think,” Bruno says.

“Yes, I guess you must be.”

“The only thing he really wants is a dog.”

“A
dog
?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of weird the way it keeps coming up. When we were travelling together, it became like a tour of the world’s dogs, you know? I don’t think we ever saw a dog without him letting the darn thing lick him all over.”

Connie wrinkles her nose. “Eww.”

“I know. Even in India, where they were, like, street dogs?”

Connie appraises the parcel, then flips it over to check the back. Finally, its having met her approval, she slides it to the edge of the counter. “Well, maybe that’s your answer,” she says, looking up at her son. She’s just under five feet and her husband is barely taller. She’s used to feeling dwarfed, but today, with Bruno in his tattered cowboy boots and Connie in flats, he seems even taller than usual.

“They’re such a drag, though, Mom,” Bruno says. “What if we need to move to some tiny apartment over the winter?”

“You could get a tiny dog, maybe. A Chihuahua or something?”

“The li’l ones suck. Neither of us like ‘em. What he
wants
is a cocker spaniel. He loves those dogs.”

“Well, it could be worse. They’re not
so
big, eh?”

“Sure, but what if we want to go travelling again? What if I suddenly miss home and want to go back? What’ll we do then?”

“Do you think you
might
?” Connie asks. She looks concerned.

“Not really,” Bruno says. “But you never know.”

The door to the gallery opens, causing the mechanical bell hung above it to ring. Mother and son look up and then Connie steps out from behind the counter. Murmuring, “We’ll think of something, honey,” she gives her son’s arm a squeeze and moves gracefully across the gallery to meet the client. “Bonjour,” she says.

“Bonjour,” the elderly woman replies. “J’ai vu les vases en vitrine et...”
– I saw the vases in the window and...

“Yes, they’re lovely, aren’t they?” Connie replies in French, gesturing towards the glass display cabinet. “There are more here. And some beautiful new Raku objects we just received from the artist this morning. Do you know about Raku? It’s a Japanese technique.”

Bruno senses himself blushing. He grabs his jacket from the hook behind the rear wall and heads for the door. Watching his mother trying to sell his work is so excruciating that it actually makes his teeth hurt, plus not a single sale has ever happened while he has been present. It’s best if he escapes the scene. It’s best if he leaves her to it.

His mother
claims
to sell his work regularly but Bruno suspects that it’s all a setup designed simply to support him. He thinks that one day he’ll probably stumble upon a locked cupboard somewhere containing every pot he ever made. But for now, he, too, plays along. He needs the money. As he passes, the woman replies, “No, it’s the ones in the window I liked.” Connie winks discreetly at her son.

Bruno pauses in the doorway to the gallery and takes in the beauty of the Cours Mirabeau. Aix en Provence does this to him, and often. He forgets where he is and suddenly is struck by the sheer aesthetic harmony of the place.

It’s a beautiful April morning, one of those mornings when the sky is of pure deepest blue and the light is what they used to call in the detergent ads,
whiter than white
. It seems to make the colours vibrate.

The temperature is perfect, neither hot nor cold, and yet there’s a suggestion of heat in the air, a hint of the summer to come, a sense that picnics and midnight dips are just around the corner. The air, if that’s possible, seems filled with optimism.

Around him, the terraces of the cafés are already buzzing with people drinking coffee and eating croissants and, being French, smoking. Waistcoated waiters are flapping white tablecloths and arranging glistening cutlery and perfectly polished wineglasses. At the top of the square, three market sellers are trying to outshout each other with news about today’s selection of vegetables.

France always somehow manages to look so much like itself, Bruno reflects. It’s a country that has such a strong sense of self, and that’s even more the case within the sunlit streets of Provence. But Aix en Provence and the Cours Mirabeau in particular look, Bruno reckons, a bit
too
French, like, perhaps, items from a film set. Aix looks the way Canadians
think
France should look, the way American films
make
France look. He sighs and smiles.
No,
he thinks.
Not tempted by home one bit. Not yet, at any rate.

He starts to walk towards the top of the Cours Mirabeau. The plane trees, he notices, are sprouting green. The French hack them back to ugly stumps in winter, but by August they will have spread wide and bathed the entire square in dappled shade.

As he passes in front of Les Deux Garçons café, another whiff of espresso hits his nostrils.
Hum. Coffee,
he thinks. He continues on to the top of the square, and then into the side streets beyond. Even with his mother pretending to sell every piece of work he makes he still can’t afford the prices at Les Deux Garçons.

He walks through the backstreets of the ancient city and marvels again at the effect the place has on him. For even though he has visited Aix often since his parents moved here from Toronto five years ago, and even more often since he too got “stuck” here last September, these streets, these sounds, these smells of bread and cheese and coffee still make his senses tingle.

It’s a strange thing, but there’s something magical about these French streets that makes him feel more alive than he does elsewhere, more alive, in fact, than he does anywhere else in the world.

He turns a corner into Rue Aude and almost bumps into Matt and his father coming the other way. “Ha!” he laughs. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Where are you going?” Matt asks. “I thought you were at the gallery with Connie.”

“I have a coffee craving,” Bruno says. “I was heading up to Coffee to Go.”

Matt glances at Bruno’s father questioningly, and he shrugs in response. “Sure,” Joseph says. “Why not?”

Matt and Joseph turn back and begin to walk alongside Bruno.

“Someone’s been shopping,” Bruno says, bumping his hip against Matt’s waist as they walk.

“Your Dad bought me jeans,” Matt says.

“Thank God,” Bruno laughs, glancing down at Matt’s knees, poking as ever from his trousers.

“He made me choose Levis!” Matt says.

“There’s no point buying rubbish,” Joseph explains.

“What’s wrong with Levis?” Bruno asks.

“Oh nothing. They’re great,” Matt says. “But do you have any idea how much a pair of Levis costs these days? It’s about what I earn in a week. It’s criminal!”

“Never complain about the price of a gift,” Bruno says gently. “It’s not graceful.”

Matt snorts. Bruno has a whole new theory about life, the latest of many. This one comes from some philosophy book he read recently. It says the whole point of life is to negotiate it with grace. The book says, apparently, that the whole process, from birth to the inevitability of death, is like a dance. And the only reason for any of it is to make the whole process as artful, as graceful as possible, for yourself and for those around you. The creator, the book reckons, likes (and rewards) elegance.

“Anyway, thank you,” Matt tells Joseph. “They’re great. They’re beautiful.”

“And you really need them,” Bruno says.

“Yes, I
really
need them.”

As they cross the Place de l’Hotel de Ville, Joseph asks his son, “Any action at the gallery this morning?”

“Yeah,” Bruno says. “Someone bought one of the Fleetwoods. And a woman came in to look at vases just as I left.”

“Your vases?”

“Nope,” Bruno laughs. “But that didn’t stop Mom trying to sell her one of mine.”

“Huh,” Joseph says. “I wonder if she managed it.”

“I’ll bet my bottom dollar she did,” Bruno says.

After coffee and then lunch, as Bruno drives them home in the battered Citroen C1, Matt reaches across and places his hand on Bruno’s knee. To their left, the Mont St Victoire rises from the fields, dominating the landscape.

“Your folks are too nice,” Matt comments distractedly, some thought he has already forgotten leading to this one.

Bruno glances at him briefly and smiles. Returning his gaze to the almost empty autoroute in front of them, he says, “They’re nice, but they’re just regular nice.”

“They’re not,” Matt laughs. “They’re crazy nice.”

“You’re bound to think they’re nicer than they are,” Bruno says. “They’re not your folks. They’re not perfect. Believe me.”

Matt laughs. “Name one fault,” he says.

“Eh?”

“Name one fault for each parent. I bet you can’t.”

Bruno frowns.

“You see,” Matt laughs, squeezing his leg. “You can’t think of anything.”

“Hold on,” Bruno says, feigning irritation. “Gee!”

Matt rolls his eyes and turns to look out of the side window at a car they’re overtaking. It’s driven by a grey-haired old man. He’s sitting so far forward in his seat that his nose is almost touching the windscreen. Beside him, his wife is asleep, her mouth wide open.

Bruno’s parents are so much younger than Matt’s, that’s half the difference. Being closer in age to Matt than they are to Alice and Ken, they’re an entirely different generation. Plus, at fifty-five and fifty-seven, neither of them have ever had to live through the misery of the aftermath of a world war. But even so, they are, Matt reckons, exceptionally relaxed and unusually generous.

“OK,” Bruno says, “So, Mom’s really insecure about the whole art-world thing, yeah? So if you ever get into
any
kind of argument to do with art, she’ll argue with you endlessly. She’ll argue with anyone about art until they surrender.”

“That’s not
much
of a fault,” Matt says.

“It is when you work in the art business,” Bruno says. “And Dad? He’s scared of so much shit, you have no idea.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“Doctors for one. He won’t go and see a Doctor, ever.”

“OK...”

“And dentists, and banks as well. He won’t ever go to the bank. And he won’t open his bank statements either. Actually he never opens any post. Mom has to do it all.”

“I never knew that,” Matt says.

“Well, now you do.”

“Anyway, I said they were nice, not fault-free. They’re still the nicest parents I ever met.”

“I bet I’d find your parents cool, too,” Bruno says.

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t.”

“Let’s say I’d at least like to have the opportunity.”

Matt blows through pursed lips. “We’ve been through this,” he says. “My parents are not like your parents. You have no idea how much not-like-them they are.”

“And?”

“And you wouldn’t get on. I know you wouldn’t.”

“You can’t know that. You can
think
that you know that, but...”

“I
do
know that,” Matt says, then, “Oh! Be careful. Don’t forget the speed camera.”

“Ah, yeah,” Bruno says, easing his foot off the accelerator. “Thanks for that.”

When they get back, Matt lights a fire while Bruno heads off to a house down the road to feed the absent owner’s cats.

Their three-room cabin, crafted from massive pine trunks, is set in the foothills of the French Alps. It was originally meant to be Bruno’s parents’ summerhouse (plus a base for occasional ski-trips in winter) but when their son returned from his travels with a surprise – namely Matt – they had generously handed him the keys.

Being regularly snowed-under in December and January, and needing a roaring fire every night up until June, it’s not most people’s idea of an ideal home, but to Matt, the place, once the fire is lit, feels like a made-to-measure love nest. He can barely believe his luck.

Bruno returns muddy-handed and brandishing four tatty leeks.

“How were Virginie’s cats?” Matt asks.

“Fine. They still had loads of crunchies left,” Bruno says. “But these are the last of the crop,” he declares, wiggling the leeks in Matt’s face.

“Almost the last or
really
the last?” Matt asks.