Three Pines was robed in white. A foot of snow had fallen in the last few weeks and every old home round the village green had its own tuque of purest white. Smoke wafted out of the chimneys as though the homes had their own voice and breath, and Christmas wreaths decorated the doors and gates. At night the quiet little Eastern Townships village glowed with light from the Christmas decorations. There was a tender hum about the place as adults and children alike prepared for the big day.
‘Maybe her car won’t start.’ Clara’s husband Peter walked into the room. He was tall and slim and looked like a Fortune 500 executive, like his father. Instead he spent his days hunched over his easel, getting oil paints into his curly gray hair as he slowly created his excruciatingly detailed works of abstract art. They went for thousands of dollars to collectors internationally, though because he painted so slowly and produced only one or two a year, they lived in constant poverty. Until recently, that is. Clara’s paintings of warrior uteruses and melting trees, had yet to find a market.
‘She’ll be here,’ said Clara. Peter looked at his wife, her eyes blue and warm, her once dark hair streaked with gray, though she was only in her late forties. Her figure was beginning to thicken round the stomach and thighs and she’d recently begun talking about rejoining Madeleine’s exercise class. He knew enough not to answer when asked if that sounded like a good idea.
‘Are you sure I can’t come?’ he asked, more out of politeness than a real desire to squeeze himself into Myrna’s death trap of a car and bounce all the way into the city.
‘Of course not. I’m buying your Christmas gift. Besides, there won’t be room in the car for Myrna, me, you and the presents. We’d have to leave you in Montreal.’
A tiny car pulled up to their open gate and an enormous black woman got out. This was probably Clara’s favorite part of trips with Myrna. Watching her get in and out of the minuscule car. Clara was pretty sure Myrna was actually larger than the car. In summer it was a riot watching her wriggle in as her dress rode up to her waist. But Myrna just laughed. In winter it was even more fun since Myrna wore an ebullient pink parka, almost doubling her size.
‘I’m from the islands, child. I feel the cold.’
‘You’re from the island of Montreal,’ Clara had pointed out.
‘True,’ admitted Myrna with a laugh. ‘Though the south end. I love winter. It’s the only time I get pink skin. What do you think? Could I pass?’
‘For what?’
‘For white.’
‘Would you want to?’
Myrna had turned suddenly serious eyes on her best friend and smiled. ‘No. No, not any more. Hmm.’
She’d seemed pleased and even a little surprised by her answer.
And now the faux-white woman in her puffy pink skin, layers of brightly colored scarves and purple tuque with orange pompom was clumping up their freshly shoveled path.
Soon they’d be in Montreal. It was a short drive, less than an hour and a half, even in snow. Clara was looking forward to an afternoon of Christmas shopping but the highlight of her trip, of every trip into Montreal at Christmas, was a secret. Her private delight.
Clara Morrow was dying to see Ogilvy’s Christmas window.
The hallowed department store in downtown Montreal had the most magical Christmas window in the world. In mid-November the huge panes would go black and blank, covered by paper. Then the excitement would start. When would the holiday wonderment be unveiled? It was more exciting to Clara as a child than the Santa Claus parade. When word spread that Ogilvy’s had finally taken off the paper Clara would rush downtown and straight to the magical window.
And there it would be. Clara would rush up to the window but stop just short, just out of eyeshot. She’d close her eyes and gather herself, then she’d step forward and open her eyes. And there it was. Clara’s village. The place she’d go when disappointments and dawning cruelty would overwhelm the sensitive little girl. Summer or winter, all she had to do was close her eyes and she was there. With the dancing bears and skating ducks and frogs in Victorian costume fishing from the bridge. At night, when the ghoul huffed and snorted and clawed beneath her bedroom floor, she would squeeze her tiny blue eyes shut and will herself into the magical window and the village the ghoul could never find because kindness guarded the entry.
Later in her life the most wonderful thing happened. She fell in love with Peter Morrow and agreed to put off taking New York by storm. Instead she agreed to move to the tiny village he loved south of Montreal. It was a region Clara was unfamiliar with, being a city girl, but such was her love for Peter that she didn’t even hesitate.
And so it was, twenty-six years ago as a clever and cynical art college grad Clara stepped out of their rattle-trap Volkswagen, and started to weep.
Peter had brought her to the enchanted village of her childhood. The village she had forgotten in the attitude and importance of adulthood. Ogilvy’s Christmas window had been real after all and was called Three Pines. They’d bought a little home by the village green and settled into a life more magical then even Clara had dared dream.
A few minutes later Clara unzipped her parka in the warm car and watched the snowy countryside drift by. This was a special Christmas, for reasons both devastating and wonderful. Her dear friend and neighbor Jane Neal had been murdered slightly over a year before, leaving all her money to Clara. The previous Christmas she’d felt too guilty to spend any. Felt she was profiting by Jane’s death.
Myrna glanced over at her friend, her thoughts traveling along the same lines, remembering dear, dead Jane Neal and the advice she’d given Clara after Jane’s murder. Myrna was used to giving advice. She’d been a psychologist in Montreal, until she’d realized most of her clients didn’t really want to get better. They wanted a pill and reassurance that whatever was wrong wasn’t their fault.
So Myrna had chucked it all. She’d loaded her little red car with books and clothes and headed over the bridge, off the island of Montreal, south toward the US border. She’d sit on a beach in Florida and figure it out.
But fate, and a hunger pang, had intervened. In no hurry and taking the picturesque back roads Myrna had been on her journey for only an hour or so when she suddenly felt peckish. Cresting a hill along a bumpy dirt road she’d come across a village hidden among the hills and forests. It came as a complete surprise to Myrna, who was so taken by the sight she stopped and got out. It was late spring and the sun was just gathering strength. A stream tumbled from an old stone mill past a white clapboard chapel and meandered around one side of the village. The village was shaped like a circle with dirt roads running off it in four directions. In the middle was a village green and ringing it were old homes, some in the Québecois style with steeply sloping metal roofs and narrow dormers, some clapboard with wide open verandas. And at least one was fieldstone, built by hand from stones heaved from the fields by a pioneer frantic to beat the oncoming murderous winter.
She could see a pond on the green and three majestic pine trees rising at one end.
Myrna brought out her map of Quebec. After a couple of minutes she carefully folded it up and leaned against the car in amazement. The village wasn’t on the map. It showed places that hadn’t existed in decades. It showed minuscule fishing villages and any community with two houses and a church.
But not this one.
She looked down at villagers gardening and walking dogs and sitting on a bench by the pond reading. Perhaps this was like Brigadoon. Perhaps it only appeared every number of years, and only to people who needed to see it. But still, Myrna hesitated. Surely it wouldn’t have what she craved. Almost turning round and heading for Williamsburg, which was on the map, Myrna decided to risk it.
Three Pines had what she craved.
It had croissants and café au lait. It had steak frites and the New York Times. It had a bakery, a bistro, a B. & B., a general store. It had peace and stillness and laughter. It had great joy and great sadness and the ability to accept both
and be content. It had companionship and kindness.
And it had an empty store with a loft above. Waiting. For her.
Myrna never left.
In just over an hour Myrna had gone from a world of complaint to a world of contentment. That had been six years ago. Now she dispensed new and used books and well-worn advice to her friends.
‘For Christ’s sake, shit or get off the pot,’ had been her advice to Clara. ‘It’s been months since Jane died. You helped solve her murder. You know for sure Jane would be annoyed she gave you all her money and you’re not even enjoying it. Should have given it to me.’ Myrna had shaken her head in mock bewilderment. ‘I’d have known what to do with it. Boom, down to Jamaica, a nice Rasta man, a good book—’
‘Wait a minute. You have a Rasta man and you’re reading a book?’
‘Oh, yes. Each has a purpose. For instance, a Rasta man is great when he’s hard, but not a book.’
Clara had laughed. They shared a disdain for hard books. Not the content, but the cover. Hardcovers were simply too hard to hold, especially in bed.
‘Unlike a Rasta man,’ said Myrna.
So Myrna had convinced her friend to accept Jane’s death and spend the money. Which Clara planned to do this day. Finally the back seat of the car would be filled with heavy paper bags in rich colors, with rope handles and embossed names, like Holt Renfrew and Ogilvy. Not a single blinding yellow plastic bag from the Dollar-rama. Though Clara secretly adored the dollar store.
Back home Peter stared out the window, willing himself to get up and do something constructive. Go into the studio, work on his painting. Just then he noticed the frost had been shaved off one of the panes. In the shape of a heart. He smiled and put his eye to it, seeing Three Pines going about its gentle business. Then he looked up, to the rambling old house on the hill. The old Hadley house. And even as he looked the frost began to grow, filling in the heart with ice.
THREE
‘Who did these?’ Saul asked CC, holding up the artist’s portfolio.
‘What?’
‘This here.’ He stood naked in their hotel room. ‘I found it in the garbage. Whose is it?’
‘Mine.’
‘You did these?’ He was staggered. For an instant he wondered whether he’d misjudged her. These were clearly the works of a gifted artist.
‘Of course not. Some pathetic little person from the village gave them to me to show around to my gallery friends. Trying to suck up, it was the funniest thing. “Oh please CC, I know how well connected you are.” “Oh CC would you mind very much showing my work to some of your contacts?” Very annoying. Imagine asking me for a favor? Even had the gall to ask me to show it to Denis Fortin specifically.’
‘What did you say?’ His heart sank. He knew the answer, of course.
‘Said I’d be delighted. You can put them back where you found them.’
Saul hesitated, then closed the portfolio and put it back in the garbage, hating himself for helping to destroy such a luminous portfolio, and hating himself even more for wanting to destroy it.
‘Don’t you have something on this afternoon?’ he asked.
She straightened the glass and the lamp on the bedside table, moving each a millimeter until they were where they should be.
‘Nothing important,’ she said, wiping some great carbuncle of dust off the table. Really, at the Ritz. She’d have to speak to the manager. She looked at Saul, standing by the window.
‘God, you’ve let yourself go.’
He’d obviously had a good body once, she thought. But now everything was flaccid. CC had been with fat men. She’d been with buff men. And in her opinion either extreme was all right. It was the transition that was disgusting.
Saul revolted her and she couldn’t quite remember why she’d thought this was a good idea. Then she looked down at the glossy, white cover of her book, and remembered.
The picture. Saul was a wonderful photographer. There, above the title, Be Calm, was her face. Her hair so blonde it was nearly white, her lips red and full, her eyes a startling, intelligent blue. And her face so white it almost disappeared into the background, leaving the impression of eyes and mouth and ears floating on the cover.
CC adored it.
After this Christmas she’d get rid of Saul. Once he’d finished the last assignment. She noticed he must have bumped into the chair at the desk when he was looking at the portfolio. The chair was now out of alignment. She could feel a tension blossom in her chest. Damn him for deliberately annoying her like that, and damn that portfolio. CC leaped out of bed and straightened the screaming chair, taking the opportunity to also move the telephone parallel to the edge of the desk.
Then she leaped back into bed, smoothing the sheets on her lap. Maybe she should take a taxi back to her office. But then she remembered she did have someplace to go. Someplace important.
There was a sale on at Ogilvy’s and a pair of boots she wanted to buy at the Inuit arts store along rue de la Montagne.
It wouldn’t be long before she had her own line of clothing and furniture in stores across Quebec. Around the world. Soon all the arrogant chichi designers who’d mocked her would be sorry. Soon everyone would know about Li Bien, her own philosophy of design and living. Feng shui was passé. People were crying for a change, and she’d provide it. Li Bien would be on every tongue and in every home.
‘Have you rented a chalet for the holidays yet?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m going down tomorrow. Why’d you buy a home in the middle of nowhere anyway?’
‘I had my reasons.’ She felt a flash of anger at him for questioning her judgment.
She’d waited five years to buy a place in Three Pines. CC de Poitiers could be patient if she had to, and if she had a good enough reason.
She’d visited the crummy little village many times, networking with local real estate agents and even talking to shop clerks in nearby St-Rémy and Williamsburg. It had taken years. Apparently homes didn’t often come up in Three Pines.
Then a little over a year ago she’d had a call from a real estate agent named Yolande Fontaine. There was a home. A great Victorian Grande Dame on the hill overlooking the village. The mill owner’s home. The boss’s home.
‘How much?’ CC had asked, knowing it was almost certainly beyond her. She’d have to borrow against the company, mortgage everything she owned, get her husband to cash in his insurance policy and his RRSP.
But the real estate agent’s answer had surprised her. It was well below market value.
‘There is one little thing,’ Yolande had explained in a cloying voice.
‘Go on.’
‘There was a murder there. And an attempted murder.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Well, I guess, technically, there was also a kidnapping. Anyway, that’s why the house is so cheap. Still, it’s a great buy. Terrific pipes, mostly copper. The roof is only twenty years old. The—’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘Don’t you want to see it?’ As soon as the question was out Yolande could have kicked herself. If this moron wanted to buy the old Hadley house sight unseen, without inspection or exorcism, then let her.
‘Just draw up the papers. I’ll be down this afternoon with a cheque.’
And so she had. She’d told her husband a week or so later, when she’d needed his signature to cash in the RRSP. He’d protested, but so feebly it would have been impossible for a casual observer to even recognize it as a protest.
The old Hadley house, the monstrosity on the hill, was hers. She couldn’t have been happier. It was perfect. Three Pines was perfect. Or at least it would be, by the time she was finished with it.
Saul snorted and turned away. He could see the writing on the wall. He’d be dumped by CC as soon as the next photo assignment of her in that dreadful hick village was complete. It was for her first catalogue and he’d been told to get pictures of her frolicking among the natives at Christmas. If possible he had to get shot
s of the locals looking at CC with wonder and affection. He’d need cash for that.
Everything CC did had a purpose. And that purpose came down to two things, he figured: it fed her wallet or her ego.
So why had she bought a house in a village no one had ever heard of? It wasn’t prestige. So it must be the other.
Money.
CC knew something no one else did about the village, and it meant money.
His interest in Three Pines perked up.
‘Crie! Move, for Christ’s sake.’
It was almost literally true. The fine-boned and swaddled issue of a trust fund and a beauty pageant was struggling to be seen behind the drift that was Crie. She’d made it out on stage, dancing and twirling with the rest of the angel snowflakes, and then she’d suddenly stopped. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that snow in Jerusalem made no sense. The teacher, quite rightly, figured if anyone believed in a virgin birth they’d believe there was a snowfall that miraculous night. What did seem to matter, though, was that one of the flakes, a kind of microclimate unto herself, had stalled in the center of the stage. In front of the baby Jesus.
‘Move, lardass.’
The insult slid off Crie, as they all did. They were the white noise of her life. She barely heard them any more. Now she stood on stage staring straight into the audience as though frozen.
‘Brie has stage fright,’ the drama teacher, Madame Bruneau, whispered to the music teacher, Madame Latour, as though expecting her to do something about it. Behind her back even the teachers called Crie Brie. At least, they thought it was behind her back. They’d long since stopped worrying whether the strange and silent girl heard anything.