“You did choose to come out,” the man said. “We invite our fate, some of the time.”
He said it the way you might comment on the weather or someone’s new shirt or shoes. He brushed at his jacket and looked at the crowd around them. “I suggest departing, unless you want to spend an evening answering questions you can’t answer.”
Ned swallowed. The man looked at him another moment. He hesitated. When he did speak, Ned had to strain to catch it.
“She is worth it, always and ever,” was what he heard.
Then, before Ned could say anything, or even begin to think of what he might say, the man spun around and began to run, north up the road towards the cathedral.
For an uncertain moment, Ned looked at the frightened, concerned faces around him. He shrugged, gestured vaguely, and then took off as well.
He ran the other way, across the market square, hearing urgent shouts in his wake. Someone even grabbed for him. Ned slashed the brief, restraining hand away, and kept going.
He sprinted until he was out of town.
Only on the Route de Vauvenargues, leading east towards the cut-off to the villa, did he settle into a proper stride. He was in jeans, wasn’t dressed for a run, but he had his Nikes on, and he badly needed to be moving just now.
Somewhere along the way he started to swear under his breath, rhythmically. His mother hated it when he swore. A failure of imagination, she called it.
His mother was in a civil-war zone where people were dying every day. Ned’s shoulder hurt, his cheek was banged up, and he was scared and angry in pretty much equal measure. He actually felt as if he might be sick for the second time in a day.
Amusing? Someone had meant that to be funny?
It occurred to him that the man—he really needed a name—had said pretty much the same thing about the skull and sculpted head yesterday.
Ned could almost smell the hot breath of the animal that had leaped for him. If he hadn’t grabbed that chair on the way out—he had no idea what had made him do that—he’d have had teeth ripping into him.
How amusing. Just hilarious. Put it on America’s Funniest Home Videos with all the other cute little animals and men falling over tables. And how extremely grateful that arrogant son of a bitch had been, come to think of it. Not a word of thanks.
We invite our fate, he’d said.
Whatever the hell that meant. Ned, rubbing his shoulder now as he ran, muttered a few more words that would have got him into trouble if either parent had been there to hear.
Well, they weren’t. And they weren’t going to be much good to him in this. Whatever this was, anyhow.
She is worth it, always and ever.
He was pretty certain that was what he’d heard.
As he turned off the main road, taking their own uphill lane, the words hit him hard, a different sort of blow. Tidings from that still-distant, really complicated adult world he seemed to be approaching. And from somewhere else, as well, a place farther away, that he also seemed to be entering now, like it or not.
A few dozen strides later it occurred to Ned Marriner that if he’d wanted to, or had been thinking clearly enough, he could have taken those last words as a thank-you of sorts, after all. A confiding, explanation, even an apology from someone not obviously inclined to any of those things.
As the villa came in sight at the top of their roadway, beyond a sloping meadow and the lawn, framed against the trees that sheltered it from the wind, he was thinking of a rose placed yesterday beside a sculpted figure that was not the Queen of Sheba.
CHAPTER VI
The others were on the terrace having a drink as Ned came up the gravel drive. The sun, west over the city, sent a long, slanting light. It fell on the cypresses, the house, the water in the pool, and on the four people sitting outside, making them look golden, like gods.
“You should see yourselves,” Ned called, keeping his tone cheerful. “The light’s amazing.”
In a moment like this, he thought, you could get a pretty good idea of what people loved so much about Provence.
He kept on moving; he didn’t want to get close to the others until he checked himself in the mirror. “I’m gonna shower, be right out.”
“Dude,” Greg called out, “you were supposed to phone me for a ride!”
“Too nice a day,” he shouted back, going around the side of the house to enter through the front, not from the terrace doors where they were.
“Ned, are you all right?” his father called.
They’d told him about earlier, obviously. He supposed they’d had to. He’d been pretty sick.
“I’m fine,” he said, not breaking stride. “Down in twenty minutes.”
He passed Veracook in the hallway and she didn’t seem too alarmed at the sight of him. He looked in the bathroom mirror upstairs. His shoulder hurt, he’d have a bruise, be sore for a couple of days, but nothing worse than what you got in a hockey game, and he didn’t think his cheek looked too bad. They might not even notice.
“OH, MY GOD, Ned! What happened to your face?” Melanie cried, the second he walked out on the terrace with a Coke.
Melanie, he thought. He bet the three men wouldn’t have seen a thing.
He shrugged. “Stupid accident. I got rushed by a dog near the fruit-and-veg market and fell over a café table.”
“A dog ?” his father said.
“Big one, too,” Ned said, taking a chair and stretching out his legs casually. He sipped from his Coke and put it on the table. Larry Cato had told him years ago that when you lied you cut as close to the truth as you could or way far off. One or the other. It was aliens with ray guns, or a dog and a café table. Larry was the type who had theories about these things.
“What the hell?” Steve said. “Did you, like, get bit?”
“No, no, no. I just fell. He ran off when people yelled at him.”
Melanie had gone into the kitchen. She came back out with ice cubes in a plastic bag, a dish towel wrapped around them. She handed it to him, wordlessly.
“My own fault, probably,” Ned said. “I was jogging through the market and who knows what the dog thought I was. A terrorist or something.” His father looked dubious. “I’m okay, really. A bruise. I’ll live, Dad.” He held the ice dutifully to his face.
“What about earlier?” his father asked. “On the drive?”
He really did have a lot to explain. “That was weird,” Ned said. “And then it totally went away. Don’t say food poisoning or Veracook will kill herself.”
“We all ate the same food, anyhow,” Melanie said. “I’m thinking motion sickness after jet lag.”
Ned managed a grin. “You just keep thinking, Butch, that’s what you’re good at.”
Steve laughed. Movie joke. Ned saw that his father was still eyeing him.
“I’m fine, Dad. Honestly. How did it go at lunch?”
Edward Marriner leaned back in his chair. “Very pleasant. Perfectly likable man. Likes his wine. He said he saw the book as more mine than his, so I said the opposite and we got on like a house on fire.”
“Where does that expression come from, anyhow?” Greg asked, of no one in particular.
No one answered. Ned relaxed a little. He heard birds from the slope above the house. Aix gleamed below them, down the valley in the late daylight.
“This,” said Steve, looking the same way, “is pretty cool, have to say.”
It was, Ned thought. There were at least a couple of more hours before sunset, but the light was already turning everything an amber hue and the shadows of the cypresses were falling vividly across the grass.
“I told you,” he said, “you guys were a photograph up here—for your own albums.” A thought occurred to him. “Dad, if you tried Barrett’s money shot right around now the mountain would look pretty goddamned unbelievable.”
“Language, Ned,” his father said, absent-mindedly. “Your mother’s calling soon.”
“Right. And God forbid I swear within a
n hour of talking to her. She’ll know!”
Steve laughed again.
His father grinned. “Touché. Steve said Barrett’s would be a tourist shot.”
“Maybe not at this hour,” Steve said. “Ned could be right. And those plane trees we told you about—if you didn’t shoot down the alley but across, from the west, with the sun on them, their shadows, maybe an hour later than this . . .”
“We’ll have a look,” Ned’s father said. “One day when the light looks right we’ll drive out. If I buy it, we can arrange to set up another time. It’s only—what?—twenty minutes from here.”
“Bit more,” said Melanie. “Ned, keep the ice on your cheek.”
Ned put the ice back. It was really cold. He knew what she’d say if he said that. How did someone with a punk look and green-streaked hair get so efficient, that’s what he wanted to know.
“How was the hot date?” Greg asked. “Before the dog had to beat you off her.”
“It wasn’t hot or a date. But it was fine,” Ned said, repressively. There were limits.
“Who is this?” his father asked, predictably.
Ned gave him a look. “Her name’s Lolita LaFlamme, she’s a stripper at the HotBooty Club in town. She’s thirty-six and studying nuclear physics in her spare time.”
Melanie giggled. Edward Marriner raised an eyebrow.
“I do sometimes forget,” his father said slowly, brushing at his moustache with one hand, “that amid the blessings of my life, which are many and considerable, I am raising an adolescent son. Having had your brief moment of dubious wit, my child, could you enlighten me more cogently?”
His father talked like that to be funny, Ned knew. He wasn’t actually upset. You had no doubts when his dad was really angry.
Ned sighed, rattled it off. “Kate Wenger, my age, here for a term at school, exchange from New York. Met her yesterday. Student-geek type. Giving me some help with one of my essays.”
That last, he realized—too late—was a mistake.
Larry Cato would have shaken his head sorrowfully. Dude, never tell more than you need to, he’d have said.
“Ah. Some help? I believe I know what that means. Are you going to copy her paper?”
His father asked it mildly. His mom would have gone ballistic.
“Of course he’s going to copy her paper!” Greg said. “Jeez, cut him some slack, boss, he’s in the south of France!”
“I do know his approximate geographic location,” Ned’s father said, trying to sound stern. He looked at his son a moment. “Very well. Here’s our deal, Ned: you can get notes for one paper from this girl, the other two you write yourself. Fair?”
“Fair.”
It was, especially since they had no way of checking on him. Larry would have called it a no-brainer, flat-out win.
“And no one tells your mother or we’re both in trouble.”
“You think I’m going to tell her?”
“I might,” said Melanie cheerfully, “if some unnamed people aren’t nicer to me.”
“Blackmail,” said Ned darkly, “is a crime, threatening the peace and security of the world.”
On cue, the phone rang inside.
“Shall I get that?” Melanie said sweetly.
But even as she spoke, Edward Marriner was out of his chair and moving through the terrace doors.
They all looked at each other. He’d gone in very fast. It made Ned think for a moment. He wasn’t, obviously, the only one worried about his mother, waiting for that call.
After a bit, as the other three remained silent, he got up and went quietly into the kitchen. His father was at the table they’d set up against the wall in the dining room where the main computer and a telephone were.
Bending to grab an apple from the fridge, Ned could hear his father’s voice. He washed the apple at the sink. Veracook smiled at him again.
Ned heard his dad saying, “That’s not especially far from shelling, Meghan.”
And after a pause, dryly, “Oh, fine then, if someone said they’re going the other way.”
Ned took a bite of the apple, unhappily. He heard, “I’m sorry, Meg, you have to allow us to worry. You can’t stop that any more than we can stop you going.”
He thought about heading back outside. Wasn’t sure he felt good about hearing this. His stomach was tight again.
“Ned’s fine,” his father said. “A bit jet-lagged. Yes, of course he’s concerned, tries to pretend he isn’t.” A pause. “I think he likes the set-up well enough. Who knows at that age? He’s made a friend already, it seems.” Another silence. “No, he hasn’t started his essays. Honey, we’ve been here three days.” He stopped again. “Yes, I’m working. Doesn’t mean—”
His father stopped, and then, surprisingly, laughed.
Edward Marriner’s laughter was different when he was talking to his wife, Ned realized.
“He’s out on the terrace with the others,” he heard, and moved back through the kitchen door, to be out on the terrace with the others.
Melanie glanced up. She didn’t wink or anything, just looked at him.
A little later he heard his father call his name and he went back in and took the phone. His dad walked away.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, honey! How are you?” The connection was pretty good. His mother sounded the way she always did.
“I’m cool. Nice house. A pool and stuff. Come visit.”
She laughed. “Wish I could. Send me jpegs. There’s a satellite link at our base.”
“Okay. So, hey, you all right?”
“I’m fine, sweetie. Busy. There’s lots to be done.”
“I’m sure.”
“They badly need doctors here.”
“I’m sure,” he said again. “Well, all right, okay then, good talking. You take care.”
“Ned?”
“Yeah?”
A little silence. “I really am fine.”
“I believe you.”
A small laugh; he knew that laugh. “Make your father believe me.”
“Not easy, Mom.”
And that was about as much as he intended to say. She was smart, though, she was really smart, and he could tell from the silence that she was trying to think how to reply. “Leave it, Mom,” he said. “Just keep calling.”
“Of course I will. Dad says you’ve made a friend.”
“Yeah, I’m quick that way.”
Another silence, he was a bit sorry about that one.
She said, as he’d been pretty sure she would, “Ned, don’t be angry. Doing this is important for me.”
“Sure,” Ned said. “And you’re doing a lot of good. Stay cool, keep phoning. Don’t worry about us. I’ll get started on my essays soon.”
She was silent again, he could hear her breathing, far away, could picture her face right now.
“Bye, Mom,” he said, and hung up.
It had become necessary to get off the line. He stared down at the phone and took a few deep breaths. He heard his father come back in. He turned around. They looked at each other a moment.
“Damn it to hell,” said Edward Marriner.
Ned nodded. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. “Exactly.”
His father smiled crookedly at him. “Watch your language,” he murmured. And as Ned smiled back, he added, with a rueful shake of his head, “Let’s go for dinner. I’ll let you have a beer.”
THEY WENT TO A BISTRO on the road east, a place out of town towards the mountain, but not so near as to worry Ned about what had happened earlier.
Melanie had picked the place. She had about twenty restaurants in her notebook: phone numbers, specialties, hours. Probably all the chefs’ names, Ned thought. In green ink.
Everyone else had some kind of special asparagus appetizer, and fish, but Ned stayed with steak and frites, a chocolate mousse after, and was happy enough. His shoulder hurt but he’d known it would. His father did actually offer him half a beer but Ned passed. He didn’t much lik
e beer.
His new cellphone rang as they were walking back to the car.
“Damn,” said Greg. “Damn! I knew it was a hot date. How does he get chicks to call him so fast?”
“Better swim trunks,” Melanie said.
“Right. And how would she know that?”
“Women know these things,” Melanie said. It was dark in the parking lot, but Ned was pretty sure she winked at him.
The stars were out by then, winking themselves in a blue-black sky, and the moon, nearly full, had risen while they were inside. He walked away from the others, his sandals crunching on gravel, and answered the phone.
A woman. Not Kate Wenger.
“Hello, is this Ned? Ned Marriner?”
Not a voice he’d ever heard. Speaking English, slight British accent.
“It’s me. Who is this, please?”
“It is you. I’m so glad. Ned, listen carefully. Did anyone hear you ask that question? You need to pretend you’re talking to someone you know.”
“Why do I need to do that?”
It was curious, he really had never heard this voice, but there was something about it, nonetheless. A variant, a riff.
“I’ll answer later, I promise. Can you make an excuse to go out for a bit when you get home from dinner? Running, maybe? I’ll meet you.”
“How do you know I run?”
“I promise answers. Trust me.”
“And how do you know this number?”
“The woman at the house gave it to me. I called there first. Ned, please? We need to meet, somewhere without people.”
“That’s a bad movie line.”
She chuckled at that; it made her sound younger. “It is, isn’t it? Meet me alone by the old oak tree?”
“Then why? Why with no one there?”
She hesitated.
He had, with every word she spoke, more of that sense of something almost recognized.
“Because I can keep track inwardly of anyone approaching,” she said.
“What? How do you . . . ?”
“You know how I do that, Ned. Since yesterday.”
That silenced him pretty fast. He walked a bit farther away.
His father called. “Ned! You’re keeping people waiting. Bad manners. Phone her back from the villa.”