Stone Bruises полностью

I look down. Gretchen has come out of the house and is standing in the courtyard with Michel.

‘Nothing. I’m just… checking the scaffold.’

She shields her eyes with a hand, tilting her head to look at me. ‘It sounded like it was collapsing.’

I wipe my damp palms on my jeans. ‘Not yet.’

She smiles. She’s hardly spoken to me since the afternoon I told her I was leaving, but it seems she’s finally decided to forgive me. I wait till she’s gone back inside, then sink onto the platform with unsteady legs. Christ, what am I doing?

It’s two days since Mathilde offered me the job. At first I was content just to rest and get my strength back, carried along by relief at finding an unexpected refuge. I spent most of yesterday down by the lake, making a half-hearted attempt to read Madame Bovary under the old chestnut tree on the bluff. Sometimes I was able to forget the reason I was there. Then I’d remember, and it would be like falling. Before long my thoughts were gnawing away at me again. Last night was the worst. The few times I managed to drift off to sleep I woke gasping, my heart racing. This morning, as I watched the small window in my loft gradually grey and lighten, I knew I couldn’t stand another idle day.

I’d hoped that physical work might help. Now I’m up here, though, the sheer scale of the task terrifies me. I’ve no idea where to start. Come on, you can do this. It’s only a wall.

I get to my feet and confront the house again. Nearby, two windows face out onto the platform. One of them is hidden behind wooden shutters, but the other is uncovered. On the other side of the dusty glass is an empty bedroom. There are bare floorboards and peeling wallpaper, an old wardrobe and an iron bedstead with a striped mattress. On the back wall is a dresser on which stands a framed picture. It looks like a wedding photograph; the man in a dark suit, the woman in white. It’s too far away to make out any detail, but I guess it’s Arnaud and his wife. The period looks about right, and shutting his wedding photo in a disused bedroom is about what I’d expect of him.

Careful where I put the crutch, I shuffle along the scaffold to look around the side of the house. There’s the same air of incompleteness as there was at the front, a sense of interruption. Halfway along the platform a large cup rests on a folded tabloid newspaper, empty except for a dead fly lying in the dried brown crust at the bottom. The newspaper is as brittle as parchment when I pick it up. The date on it is eighteen months ago. I wonder if anyone has been up here since the unknown builder drained his coffee cup, put it down on his newspaper and didn’t bother to come back. Maybe he had the right idea, I think, looking at how much work there’s still to be done.

There’s a commotion from behind the house. I limp to the end of the scaffold and find myself looking down on a kitchen garden. Neat rows of vegetables and cane tepees of beans form an oasis of order, beyond which is a paddock with a few goats, fruit trees and a hen house.

Mathilde is feeding chickens. As I watch she scatters a last handful of seed for them to squabble and cluck over and sets down her empty bucket. Unaware she’s being observed, her unguarded face looks tired and sad as she goes to a corner of the garden. Hidden away there is a tiny flowerbed, a bright splash of colour amongst the more practical vegetables. Kneeling down, she begins tugging up the weeds growing between them. A soft sound drifts up to me and I realize she’s humming to herself. Something slow and melodic; I don’t know the tune.

I quietly move away. Back around the front of the house, the sun is blinding. At this time of day there’s no shade on the scaffold, and my skin is already prickling where it’s uncovered. I check my watch and see it’s past noon; if I stay up here any longer I’ll fry. The metal scaffolding poles burn my hands as I transfer myself onto the ladder and slowly make my way down. As I reach the bottom Mathilde comes around the corner of the house, wiping her hands on a cloth.

‘You’ve taken a look?’ she asks. The sadness I saw on her face in the garden has gone, concealed behind the usual calm. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s, uh, a bigger job than I thought.’

Mathilde looks up at the scaffold, shielding her eyes from the sun as Gretchen did earlier. In the sun her hair isn’t so very much darker than her sister’s. It just looks as though all the light’s been taken from it.

‘You don’t have to start just yet. Not if you don’t feel up to it.’

It isn’t my health that worries me. Trying to keep my weight off my foot isn’t easy, and the climb down has set it throbbing again. But it’s bearable, and anything’s better than inactivity.

I shrug. ‘Only one way to find out.’

‘I’ll show you where everything is.’