“We never specify the room, madame,” said Gamache, his voice deep and warm. “Do you know why?”
Madame Dubois shook her head. She’d long been curious, but never wanted to cross-examine her guests, especially this one. “Everyone else does,” she said. “In fact, this whole family asked for free upgrades. Arrived in Mercedes and BMWs and asked for upgrades.” She smiled. Not meanly, but with some bafflement that people who had so much wanted more.
“We like to leave it up to the fates,” he said. She examined his face to see if he was joking, but thought he probably wasn’t. “We’re perfectly happy with what we’re given.”
And Clementine Dubois knew the truth of it. She felt the same. Every morning she woke up, a bit surprised to see another day, and always surprised to be here, in this old lodge, by the sparkling shores of this freshwater lake, surrounded by forests and streams, gardens and guests. It was her home, and guests were like family. Though Madame Dubois knew, from bitter experience, you can’t always choose, or like, your family.
“Here it is.” She dangled an old brass key from a long keychain. “The Forest Room. It’s at the back, I’m afraid.”
Reine-Marie smiled. “We know where it is, merci.”
One day rolled gently into the next as the Gamaches swam in Lac Massawippi and went for leisurely walks through the fragrant woods. They read and chatted amicably with the other guests and slowly got to know them.
Up until a few days ago they’d never met the Finneys, but now they were cordial companions at the isolated lodge. Like experienced travellers on a cruise, the guests were neither too remote nor too familiar. They didn’t even know what the others did for a living, which was fine with Armand Gamache.
It was mid-afternoon and Gamache was watching a bee scramble around a particularly blowsy pink rose when a movement caught his attention. He turned in his chaise longue and watched as the son, Thomas, and his wife Sandra walked from the lodge into the startling sunshine. Sandra brought a slim hand up and placed huge black sunglasses on her face, so that she looked a little like a fly. She seemed an alien in this place, certainly not someone in her natural habitat. Gamache supposed her to be in her late fifties, early sixties, though she was clearly trying to pass for considerably less. Funny, he thought, how dyed hair, heavy make-up and young clothes actually made a person look older.
They walked on to the lawn, Sandra’s heels aerating the grass, and paused, as though expecting applause. But the only sound Gamache could hear came from the bee, whose wings were making a muffled raspberry sound in the rose.
Thomas stood on the brow of the slight hill rolling down to the lake, an admiral on the bridge. His piercing blue eyes surveyed the water, like Nelson at Trafalgar. Gamache realized that every time he saw Thomas he thought of a man preparing for battle. Thomas Finney was in his early sixties and certainly handsome. Tall and distinguished with gray hair and noble features. But in the few days they’d shared the lodge Gamache had also noted a hint of irony in the man, a quiet sense of humor. He was arrogant and entitled, but he seemed to know it and be able to laugh at himself. It was very becoming and Gamache found himself warming to him. Though on this hot day he was warming to everything, especially the old Life magazine whose ink was coming off on his sweaty hands. Looking down he saw, tattooed to his palm, . Life Backward.
Thomas and Sandra had walked straight past his elderly parents who were lounging on the shaded porch. Gamache marvelled yet again at the ability of this family to make each other invisible. As Gamache watched over his half-moon glasses Thomas and Sandra surveyed the people dotted around the garden and along the shore of the lake. Julia Martin, the older sister and a few years younger than Thomas, was sitting alone on the dock in an Adirondack chair, reading. She wore a simple white one-piece bathing suit. In her late fifties she was slim and gleamed like a trophy as though she’d slathered herself in cooking oil. She seemed to sizzle in the sun, and with a wince Gamache could imagine her skin beginning to crackle. Every now and then Julia would lower her book and gaze across the calm lake. Thinking. Gamache knew enough about Julia Martin to know she had a great deal to think about.
On the lawn leading down to the lake were the rest of the family, the younger sister Marianna and her child, Bean. Where Thomas and Julia were slim and attractive, Marianna was short and plump and unmistakably ugly. It was as though she was the negative to their positive. Her clothes seemed to have a grudge against her and either slipped off or scrunched around awkwardly so that she was constantly rearranging herself, pulling and tugging and wriggling.
