"
"Uh-huh."'
"I bought it!
They made love in an empty guest room while her mother was at the supermarket, and in the walk-in airing cupboard.
She had acquired the recklessness of sexual obsession. The risk was a drug for her. Her whole day was spent contriving moments for them to be alone together.
"When will you go to the priest?" he asked.
"When I'm ready," she replied, with something of Sophie's quirkish dignity.
She decided to be ready next day.
* * *
The old curé Savigny had never let Yvonne down. Since childhood she had brought him her cares, triumphs and confessions.
When her father struck out at her, it was old Savigny who dabbed her black eye and talked her round. When her mother drove her to dementia, old Savigny would laugh and say, She's just a silly woman sometimes. When Yvonne started going to bed with boys, he never told her to slow down. And when she lost her faith, he was sad, but she went on visiting him each Sunday evening after the Mass she no longer attended, armed with whatever she had filched from the hotel: a bottle of wine or, like this evening, Scotch.
"Bon, Yvonne! Sit down. My God, you are glistening like an apple. Dear Heaven, what have you brought me? It's for me to bring presents to the bride!"
He drank to her, leaning back in his chair, staring into the infinite with his leaky old eyes.
"In Esperance we were
"I know."
"It is only yesterday that everyone was a stranger here, everyone missed his family, his country, everyone was a little afraid of the bush and the Indians."
"I know."
"So we drew together. And we loved each other. It was natural. It was necessary. And we dedicated our community to God. And our love to God. We became His children in the wilderness."
"I know," said Yvonne again, wishing she had never come.
"And today we are good townspeople. Esperance has grown up. It's good, it's beautiful, it's Christian. But it's dull. How's Thomas?"
"Thomas is great," she said, reaching for her handbag.
"But when will you bring him to me? If it is because of your mother that you do not let him come to Esperance, then it is time to submit him to the test of fire!" They laughed together. Sometimes old Savigny had these flashes of insight, and she loved him for them. "He must be some boy to catch a girl like you. Is he eager? Does he love you to distraction? Write to you three times a day?"
"Thomas is kind of forgetful."
They laughed again, while the old cure kept repeating "forgetful" and shaking his head. She unzipped her handbag and drew out two photographs in a cellophane envelope and handed one to him. Then handed him his old steel-framed spectacles from the table. Then she waited while he got the photograph into focus.
"
Still admiring Jonathan's photograph at arm's length, he tilted it to catch the light from the window.
"I'm dragging him off on a surprise honeymoon," she said. "He hasn't got a passport. I'm going to press one into his hand in the vestry."
The old man was already fumbling in his cardigan for a pen.
She held one ready. She turned the photographs facedown for him and watched him while he signed them one by one, at child's speed, in his capacity as a minister of religion licensed by the laws of Quebec to perform marriages. From her handbag she drew the blue passport application form: "Formule A pour les personnel de 16 ans et plus," and indicated for him the place where he must sign again, as a witness personally acquainted with the applicant.
"But how long have I known him? I've never set eyes on the rascal!"
"Just put forever," said Yvonne, and watched him write down "
When Jonathan brushed against her door she pretended to be asleep and didn't stir. But when he stood at her bedside she sat up and seized him more hungrily than ever.
* * *
It was soon after this episode and at much the same early-evening hour that Madame Latulipe paid her call by appointment on the oversized superintendent of police at his splendid offices. She was wearing a mauve dress, perhaps for half-mourning.
"Angelique," said the superintendent, drawing up a chair. "My dear. For you, always."
