Coastliners - A Novel Part 29

The boy was GrosJean's son.

13.

I know guilt. I know it very well. That's my father in me, the bitter core of him I inherited. It paralyzes; it stifles. When P't.i.tJean and his boat were washed up at La Goulue, that's how he must have felt. Paralyzed. Sealed shut. He had always been the silent one; now it seemed that he could never be silent enough. P't.i.tJean alive must have caused him enough heartache; P't.i.tJean dead was an obstacle that could never be removed.

By the time my father thought to contact Eleanore, she had already gone, leaving behind the letter, which he found, opened, addressed to himself, in the pocket of his brother's coat, hanging by a hook behind his bedroom door.

I found it, you see, as I made my final search through my father's old house. It is from the letter that I was able to piece together the final details; my father's death; P't.i.tJean's suicide; Flynn.

I don't pretend to understand it all. My father left no other explanation. I don't know why I expected him to; in life he never gave any. But we discussed it for a long time, the sisters and I, and I think we may have come close enough to the truth.

Flynn was the catalyst, of course. Without knowing it, he had set the machine in motion. My father's son; the son he could never acknowledge, because to do that, he would have to admit his responsibility for the suicide of his brother. Now I could understand my father's reaction when he learned who Flynn was. Everything returns; from Black Year to Black Year, Eleanore to Eleanore, Eleanore, the cycle was complete; and the bitter poetry of this ending must have appealed to the romantic in him. the cycle was complete; and the bitter poetry of this ending must have appealed to the romantic in him.

Perhaps Alain had been right and he had not intended to die, I told myself. Perhaps it had been a desperate gesture, an attempt at redemption, my father's way of making amends. After all, the man responsible for all of this was his son.

The sisters and I returned the papers and registers to their original place. I was silently grateful for their presence, their incessant chatter, which kept me from examining too closely my own part of the tale.

Night had fallen, and I walked slowly back to Les Salants, listening to the crickets in the tamarisk bushes and looking at the stars. From time to time a glowworm shone sickly between my feet. I felt as if I had given blood. My anger had gone. My grief too. Even the horror of what I had learned seemed terribly unreal, as remote as stories I'd read as a child. Something in me had been cut loose, and for the first time in my life I felt that I might be able to leave Le Devin without that dreadful sensation of drifting drifting, of weightlessness, of flotsam on an alien tide. At last, I knew where I was going.

My father's house was silent. However I had a peculiar feeling that I was not alone. It was something in the air, a scent of stale candle smoke, an unfamiliar resonance. I was not afraid. Instead I felt oddly at home, as if my father had simply gone night fis.h.i.+ng, as if my mother were still there, maybe in the bedroom, reading one of her tattered paperback romances.

I hesitated for a moment at my father's door before pus.h.i.+ng it open. The room was as he had left it, perhaps a little neater than usual, with his clothes folded and his bed made. I felt a pang at the sight of GrosJean's old vareuse vareuse hanging from a peg behind the door, but otherwise I was calm inside. This time I knew what to look for. hanging from a peg behind the door, but otherwise I was calm inside. This time I knew what to look for.

He kept his secret papers in a shoe box, as such men do, tied up with a piece of fis.h.i.+ng twine, at the back of his wardrobe. A small collection; as I shook the box I could tell that it was barely half full. A few photographs-my parents' wedding, she in white, he in island dress. Beneath the flat-brimmed black hat his face was achingly young. A few snapshots of Adrienne and me; several of P't.i.tJean at various ages. Most of the other papers were drawings.

He drew on butcher's paper, mostly in charcoal and thick black pencil, and the pa.s.sing of time and the friction of the papers against one another had blurred the lines, but even so I could see that GrosJean had once had an extraordinary talent. Features were represented with a spa.r.s.eness that almost matched his conversation, but every line, every smudge was expressive. Here his thumb had traced a fat line of shadow around the contour of a jaw; there a pair of eyes peered with strange intensity from behind a mask of charcoal.

They were all portraits; every one of the same woman. I knew her name; I'd seen the elegant scrawl of her writing on the church register. Now I saw her beauty too: the arrogance of her cheekbones, the c.o.c.k of her head, the curve of her mouth.

These were his love letters, I realized, these drawings of her. My silent, illiterate father had once found a beautiful voice. From between two sheets of butcher's paper a dried flower slid; a dune pink, bleached yellow with age. Then a piece of ribbon that might once have been blue or green. Then a letter.

It was the only written doc.u.ment. A single page, breaking open at the seams from having been so many times folded and unfolded. I recognized her handwriting at once, the looping scrawl and the violet ink.

My dear Jean-Francois,Maybe you did well to stay away from me so long. I resented it at first, and I was angry; but now I understand it was to give me time to think.I know I don't belong here. I'm made of a different element; for a while I thought we might change each other, but it was too hard for both of us.I've decided to leave on tomorrow's ferry. Claude won't stop me; he's gone to Fromentine on business for a few days. I'll wait for you on the jetty until 12.00.I won't blame you if you don't come with me. You do belong here, and it would be wrong of me to force you to leave. But all the same, try not to forget me; maybe one day our son will come back, even if I never do.

Everything returns, Eleanore I folded the letter carefully again, and replaced it in the shoe box. There it was, I told myself. The final confirmation, if one was needed. How it had come into P't.i.tJean's possession, I did not know; but for an impressionable and melancholic young man, the shock of his brother's betrayal must have been terrible. Had it been suicide, or a dramatic gesture that went wrong? No one was certain, except perhaps for Pere Alban.

GrosJean would have gone to him, I knew. An Houssin, a priest, only he was far enough from the center of the affair to be trusted to decipher Eleanore's letter. It was confession enough for the old priest; and he had kept the secret well.

GrosJean had told no one else. After Eleanore's departure he had become increasingly withdrawn, spending hours at Les Immortelles, looking out to sea, retreating further and further into himself. For a time it had seemed that perhaps his marriage to my mother might draw him out of himself, but the change had been short-lived. Different elements, Eleanore had said. Different worlds.

I put the lid back on the shoe box and carried it out with me into the garden. As the door closed behind me I was struck by a feeling of certainty; I would never set foot inside GrosJean's house again.

"Mado." He was waiting by the boatyard gate, almost invisible in his black jeans and jumper. "I thought you'd come if I waited long enough."

My hands tightened around the shoe box. "What do you want?"

"I'm sorry about your father." His face was in shadow; shadows leaped in his eyes. I felt something tighten inside me. "My father?" I said harshly.

I saw him wince at my tone of voice. "Mado, please."

"Don't come near me." Flynn had reached out his hand to brush my arm. Though I was wearing a jacket, I imagined I could feel his touch burning through the heavy fabric and felt a sick horror at the desire that uncoiled like a snake at the pit of my stomach. "Don't touch me!" I cried, las.h.i.+ng out. "What do you want? Why did you come back?"

My blow had caught him across the mouth. He put a hand to his face, watching me calmly. "I know you're angry," he said.

"Angry?"

I'm not usually a talker. But this time my anger had a voice. A whole orchestra of voices. I gave him everything: Les Salants, Les Immortelles, Brismand; Eleanore; my father; himself. At the end I stopped, breathless, and thrust the shoe box into his hands. He made no move to retain it; it slipped onto the ground, spilling all the sad trivia of my father's life into a drift of papers. I kneeled to pick them up, my hands trembling.

His voice was blank. "GrosJean's son? His son? son?"

"Didn't Eleanore tell you? Wasn't that why you were so eager to keep it in the family?"

"I had no idea." His eyes narrowed; I sensed he was doing some very quick thinking. "It doesn't matter," he said at last. "This doesn't change anything." He seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to me. He turned toward me again with a rapid movement. "Mado," he said urgently. "Nothing's changed."

"What do you mean?" I was close to striking him again. "Of course it's changed. Everything's changed. You're my brother brother." I could feel my eyes beginning to burn; my throat was raw and bitter. "My brother," I said again, my fists still full of GrosJean's papers, and went off into a harsh scream of laughter that ended in a long, painful bout of coughing.

There was a silence. Then Flynn began to laugh softly in the darkness.

"What now?"

Still he laughed. It should not have been an unpleasant sound, but it was. "Ah, Mado," he told me at last. "It was going to be so easy. So beautiful. The biggest trick anyone had ever pulled. It was all there; the old man, his money, his beach, his desperate need to find someone to inherit...." He shook his head. "It was all in place. All it needed was a little time. More time than I'd expected, but hey, all I had to do was to let events take their course. Spending a year in a sink like Les Salants was no great price to pay." He gave me one of his dangerous, sunlight-on-water smiles. "And then," he said, "along you came."

"Me?"

"You with your big ideas. Your island names. Your impossible plans. Stubborn, naive, utterly incorruptible you." He touched the nape of my neck briefly; I felt static in his fingertips.

I pushed him away. "Next you'll be saying it was me you did it for."

He grinned. "Who did you think think I was doing it for?" I could still feel his breath on my forehead. I closed my eyes, but his face seemed to be imprinted onto my retinas. "Oh, Mado. If only you knew how hard I tried to keep you away. But you're like this place; slowly, insidiously, it gets to you. And before you know it, you're getting involved." I was doing it for?" I could still feel his breath on my forehead. I closed my eyes, but his face seemed to be imprinted onto my retinas. "Oh, Mado. If only you knew how hard I tried to keep you away. But you're like this place; slowly, insidiously, it gets to you. And before you know it, you're getting involved."

I opened my eyes. "You can't," I said.

"Too late." He sighed. "It would have been great to have been Jean-Claude Brismand," he said ruefully. "To have money, land, to do whatever I liked-"

"You still can," I told him. "Brismand need never know-"

"But I'm not Jean-Claude."

"What do you mean? It's there, on the birth certificate."

Flynn shook his head. His eyes were unreadable, almost black. Fireflies danced there. "Mado," he said, "the guy on that birth certificate isn't me."

I listened in growing confusion as he told his story. This was his secret, the s.p.a.ce into which I had never been invited, flung wide open at last. A story of two brothers.

They were born a thousand miles and a little less than two years apart. Though they were only half-brothers, they favored their mother, and as a result looked strikingly alike, although in every other way they were very different. Their mother had poor taste in men, and changed her mind often. As a result, John and Richard had had many fathers.

But John's father was a wealthy man. Although he lived abroad, he continued to support the boy and his mother, staying in touch, even though he never came in person. As a result the two brothers came to see him as a benevolent, if shadowy, figure; one to whom they might turn in time of need.

"That was a joke," said Flynn. "I learned that the hard way, the day I started school." John had been sent, two years earlier, to a grammar school where he learned Latin and was in the cricket First Eleven; but Richard went to the local comprehensive, where differences-intelligence above all-were exposed without mercy and subjected to a number of ingenious and brutal persecutions.

"Our mother never told him about me. She was afraid that if she told him about her other men, he might cut the support money." As a result, Richard's name was never mentioned, and Eleanore took pains to give Brismand the impression that she and John were living alone.

Flynn went on. "When there was money, it was always for my brother. School trips, school uniform, sports kit. No one said why. John had a savings account at the post office. John had a bike. All I had was the stuff John was tired of, or had broken, or was too stupid to figure out how to use. No one ever thought I might want something of my own." Briefly I thought of myself and Adrienne. Almost without knowing it, I nodded.

After school John had been sent to university. Brismand had agreed to finance his studies providing he chose something that would prove useful to the business; but John had no skill in engineering or in management, and resented being told what to do. In fact, John resented the idea of having to work at all, having been indulged for so long, and dropped out of university in his second year, living on his savings and hanging around with a group of disreputable-and perpetually bankrupt-friends.

Eleanore covered for him as long as she could. But John was beyond her influence now, making his money the easy way, selling stolen car radios and contraband cigarettes, and constantly boasting, after a few drinks, of his wealthy father.

"It was always the same. Someday he'd get a job; the old man would fix him up; not to worry; plenty of time. Secretly I think he was hoping Brismand would die before he had to make a decision. John's never been much good at sticking to anything, and the idea of moving to France, learning the language, giving up his mates and his easy life-" Flynn gave an ugly laugh. "As for me, I'd been working in dockyards and building sites for long enough, and the role of Jean-Claude was vacant. Golden Boy didn't seem to be in any hurry."

It had seemed the perfect opportunity. Flynn had enough doc.u.mentary and anecdotal evidence to pa.s.s for his brother, as well as more than a pa.s.sing resemblance to John. He had left his job with a building company and used his few savings to get a ticket to Le Devin.

At first his plan had simply been to take Brismand for whatever cash he could get his hands on before making his escape. "A gold card would have been nice to begin with, or maybe a trust fund. Not an unusual arrangement between father and son. But islands are different."

He was right; islanders have no trust in funds. Brismand wanted more commitment. He wanted help. First with Les Immortelles. Then with La Goulue. Then Les Salants. "Les Salants clinched it," said Flynn with a touch of regret. "It would have made me. First the beach, then the village-then the whole island. I could have had it all. Brismand was ready to retire. He would have put me in charge of the bulk of the business. I would have had complete access to everything." He sighed. "It would have been nice," he said regretfully. "To have been wanted, for a change. To have somewhere of my own."

I stared at him. "But not now."

He grinned and touched my cheek with his fingertips. "No Mado. Not now."

From afar I could hear the hisshh hisshh of the incoming tide from La Goulue. Even farther away, a yarking of seagulls as someone disturbed a nest. But the sounds were distant, m.u.f.fled by the huge beating of my blood. I struggled to understand Flynn's story; but it was already slipping away from me. My temples throbbed; there seemed to be an obstacle in my throat that made breathing difficult. It was as if everything else had been overshadowed by one single, giant reality. Flynn was not my brother. of the incoming tide from La Goulue. Even farther away, a yarking of seagulls as someone disturbed a nest. But the sounds were distant, m.u.f.fled by the huge beating of my blood. I struggled to understand Flynn's story; but it was already slipping away from me. My temples throbbed; there seemed to be an obstacle in my throat that made breathing difficult. It was as if everything else had been overshadowed by one single, giant reality. Flynn was not my brother.

"What's that?" I pulled away almost without knowing I'd heard it. A warning sound, something deep and resonant, just audible above the sound of the sea.

Flynn shot me a glance. "Now what?"

"Shh!" I put my finger to my mouth. "Listen."

There it was again, barely a drone in the still evening air, the pulse of a drowned bell throbbing against our eardrums.

"I can't hear anything." Impatiently, he made as if to put an arm around my shoulders. I stood up and pushed him away, more forcefully this time. "Can't you hear what that is? Don't you recognize it?"

"I don't care."

"Flynn, it's La Marinette."

14.

That's how it ends, as it began. The bell-not the fabled Marinette, as it happened, but the church bell from La Houssiniere, ringing the alarm for the second time that month, in a voice that carried its message clear across the marshes. At night a bell has a tone different from the one it has in daytime; dark urgency was in its ringing now, and I responded to it with an instinctive haste. Flynn tried to stop me, but I was in no mood for interference; I sensed a disaster maybe even worse than the loss of the Eleanore 2 Eleanore 2, and I was running down the dune toward Les Salants before Flynn realized where I was going.

The village was the only place he couldn't follow me, of course; he stopped at the brow of the dune and let me go. Angelo's was open, and a group of drinkers had gathered outside, alerted by the sound of the bell. I saw Omer there, and Capucine, and the Bastonnets. "Tha.s.s the alarm, heh," said Omer in a thick voice. He had already drunk enough devinnoise devinnoise to slow him down considerably. "Tha.s.s the Houssin alarm." to slow him down considerably. "Tha.s.s the Houssin alarm."

Aristide shook his head. "It's none of our business, then, is it, heh? Let the Houssins have the crisis for a change. It's not as if the island's sinking, is it?"

"Someone ought to find out, all the same," suggested Angelo uncomfortably.

"Someone ride out onna bike, heh," said Omer.

Several people agreed with this, though no one volunteered. There were a number of wishful suggestions as to the nature of the emergency, ranging from more jellyfish warnings to Les Immortelles being carried away by a freak cyclone. This possibility found favor with the majority of the a.s.sembly, and Angelo suggested another round of drinks.

It was then that Hilaire rounded the Rue de l'Atlantique, waving his arms and shouting. This was unusual enough, for the doctor was undemonstrative at the best of times, without his peculiar state of dress; in his haste he seemed to have thrown on his vareuse vareuse over his pajamas, and on his feet he wore only a pair of faded espadrilles. For Hilaire, usually very correct even in the hottest weather, this was beyond unusual. He was shouting something about a radio. over his pajamas, and on his feet he wore only a pair of faded espadrilles. For Hilaire, usually very correct even in the hottest weather, this was beyond unusual. He was shouting something about a radio.

Angelo had a drink set up for him when he arrived, and the first thing Hilaire did was swallow it quickly and with grim relish. "We'll all need one," he said tersely, "if what I've just heard is true."

He'd been listening to the radio. He liked to hear the international news program at ten o' clock before going to bed, although islanders rarely follow the news. Papers on Le Devin usually arrive out-of-date, and only Mayor Pinoz really claims to take an interest in politics or current affairs; in his position it's expected.

"Well this time I heard something," said Hilaire, "and it isn't pretty!"

Aristide nodded. "No surprises there," he said. "I've told you, it's a Black Year. It was due."

"A Black Year! Heh!" Hilaire grunted and reached for his second devinnoise devinnoise. "And by the sound of it, it's about to get a lot blacker."

You will have read about it, I imagine. A broken oil tanker off the coast of Brittany, disgorging hundreds of gallons of oil a minute. It's the kind of thing that captures the public imagination for a few days, maybe for a week. The television stations show pictures of dead seabirds; indignant students protest against pollution; a few volunteers from the cities hone their social consciences by cleaning up a beach or two. Tourism suffers for a time, though the coastal authorities usually take measures to clean up the more profitable areas. Fis.h.i.+ng, of course, suffers for longer.

Oysters are sensitive; even a slight taint of pollution can wipe them out. Crabs and lobsters are the same; and as for mullet, it's almost worse. Aristide remembers mullet in 1945 with bellies bloated with oil; all of us remember the spillage in the 1970s-much, much farther away than this one-which had us sc.r.a.ping great gouts of black tar from the rocks at Pointe Griznoz. By the time Hilaire had finished his explanations, a number of other people had arrived at Angelo's bar with conflicting or corroborating information, and we were in a state of near panic; the s.h.i.+p was less than seventy kilometers away-no, make that fifty-she was carrying crude diesel, the worst possible thing; already the slick was kilometers long, and completely out of control. A few of us went to La Houssiniere to see Pinoz, who might have more information. Many of the rest stayed to see if they could find out more details from the television channels, or pulled out old maps from their pockets to speculate on the eventual movements of the slick.

"If it's here," said Hilaire glumly, indicating a spot on Aristide's chart, "then I can't see how it could miss us, heh? This is the Gulf Stream-"

"There's nothing to say whether the slick has reached the Gulf Stream," said Angelo. "They might catch it before it does. Or it might go around here, around the nearside of Noirmoutier, and miss us altogether."

Aristide was unconvinced. "If it hits the Nid'Poule," he intoned, "it could sink right down there and poison us for half a century."