The Dead of Winter Read online

  That evening, despite Madeleine’s command to the contrary, I go to the theatre. I can’t stay away.

  I wait until the lights have dimmed and slip into a seat at the back of the stalls. I keep well down. The place is half-empty and I am afraid that even at this distance, Madeleine may somehow decipher my silhouette.

  She has never played Hedda Gabler before. It is a role that has always intrigued her and I know that it is the challenge of playing Hedda that has tempted her back to the stage. But it is clear from the moment that Madeleine steps on that something is very wrong.

  The fire - that wildness, unleashed or contained, which has so often made her a mesmeric stage presence, that magic of glamour in which we all bathe - is simply not there. She moves woodenly, as if afraid that Hedda’s matchless witchery will rebound on her. Instead of delighting in Hedda’s small, everyday acts of manipulative spite, she holds back, a reluctant bitch. When it comes to the charged bravura of playing with pistols or burning the manuscript and ruining the life of the only man she has ever loved, she advances in an unwilling trance, her hands on the midriff where an unwanted child lodges.

  Only at the very end, when her pale face appears, already disembodied, through the curtained door to announce, ‘Never mind. From now on, I promise to be quiet,’ do her words emerge with an uncanny force - a herald of that pistol shot which within moments disrupts the quiet respectability of the stage.

  Despite my earlier desire for invisibility, I find myself rushing backstage. I flash an old press card, dash towards Madeleine’s dressing room. Inside, there is a murmur of voices. I knock insistently.

  Madeleine opens the door a fraction. From the whiteness of her creamed face, her eyes stare at me without a flicker of recognition. ‘Not now,’ she says in a dull tone. ‘I’m too tired.’

  I barely stop my fist before it can inflict a pounding on the slammed door. Instead, I walk slowly to the front of the theatre and prowl the emptying street. When Madeleine emerges, she is with another woman. I hesitate for a moment. Too long. She is already inside a waiting taxi. As it lurches away, her gaze skirts over me. Her eyes grow wide, but I cannot quite read her expression. She does not wave.

  Later, as I speed north along the darkened autoroute towards Ste-Anne, I force myself to concentrate on Madeleine’s performance and realise how oddly unnerving it has been. She has given the proudly inviolable Hedda who relished playing with pistols and with lives - even if she hadn’t the courage for sex and scandal - an aching vulnerability, made her forcibly into a woman trapped by whatever amalgam of circumstance and nature. What her suicide lacks in the more usual defiance, it gains in emotion. It is a driven and snared creature’s exit from an impasse.

  In the mirror above the sink, I meet my eyes for the first time that day. Against the foam of the shaving cream, they look unnaturally dark. Liquid, Madeleine used to tell me in the old days.

  She would stand there, secretly, invisibly, in the corner of whatever bathroom and watch me until by some accident of angle our eyes met in the mirror and I would shoo her away. She always went recalcitrantly. Perhaps she was so fascinated because she had never had a father to watch when she was small.

  Shaving, she told me, was my most intimate act. The taut concentration with which I presented cheek and chin to the mirror, the intensity of my gaze, the surgical precision with which I wielded the razor, the unconscious tension of my movements as if danger had to be averted at every stroke; and then the happy lap of water, the smile, boyish and stern, a little smug, yet undeniably attractive - in all this she claimed she saw my essential being.

  Once, she showed me. She gave me a rendition of myself so unnervingly correct in its accumulated detail that sometimes now, in the act of shaving, I think I am enacting my double rather than engaging in an everday routine.

  Madeleine is a voracious observer. She observes obsessively, ferociously. She doesn’t think about it. She does it with her body. And then she can play it all back. In the flow of that instinctual mimicry, she loses herself completely. She becomes that friend or acquaintance, that politician or animal. Yes, those too. I remember once, when we were still very young and lazing about in the field, she lifted herself on her haunches, stuck out her chest, did something with arms and face, and suddenly she was that preening robin on the branch. It’s an uncanny talent.

  I wash my face and wonder whether my smile is still smug and boyish. The rest hasn’t changed all that much. I am thirty-nine years old and my hair is still thick, my stomach firm… I stop the inevitable catechism of vanity and find a hum on my lips. I am happy in anticipation of seeing Madeleine. I will convince her she is not the flop the newspapers have proclaimed. Far from it. She is a Hedda for our troubled times.

  On the landing, I pause to look out the window. The sky above the valley is almost colourless, as pale as the frost that ices ground and trees. In the distance, the horizon has a steely charcoal tinge. Perhaps the snow is coming.

  Downstairs, I deliberate between a turn to the right or the left. The house is too big for me. My father’s thoughts turned on grandeur when he had it built, as if he had at last, my mother dead and a new younger wife in tow, attained the desired status of a seigneur. A turn to the left means the leap and crackle of a fire to accompany my solitary breakfast. A turn to the right promises freshly-brewed coffee sooner.

  I find myself in front of the fire. I sweep out last night’s ashes, pile logs and twigs and newspaper into a haphazard pyramid, watch paper curl and twigs catch flame, before replacing the ornate metal guard with the sweeping R at its centre.

  Apart from the bookcase and sound system lodged in a far corner, this room is just as my father left it. Overstuffed floral sofas face each other across a low table of old honeyed pine. In random groupings, there are armchairs and rockers and rounded tables topped by pottery lamps and vast silken shades. There is even a curiosity of a nineteenth century bench which unlatches into a rock-hard bed. The floor is solid shining birch, covered here and there by a blazen of rag-rugs.

  The heritage bug, which hatched with Québec’s quiet revolution and proliferated at an astonishing rate during the noisier end of the ’sixties and ’seventies had bitten my father early, had made him into a collector. With a truck bought for the purpose, he scoured the habitable length and breadth of the province, covered a distance greater than that of Western Europe. In search of ‘authentic’ Québecois furniture and bric a brac, he travelled the Gaspé Peninsula and the banks of the Saguenay, the streets of the capital and the farms of the loyalist townships, not to mention the northernmost tips of the Laurentian range. He acquired enough furniture to keep an auction room happy for a year. He also collected a mountain of sacred hearts and maple sugar moulds, cushion covers embroidered by Ursuline nuns and butter dishes sprouting Gallic cocks, as well as the inevitable array of carved crucifixes.

  They all still lodge in an accumulation of moulded cabinets and pannelled chests. I have even left his unfinished history of the region safe in the centre of his eighteenth century éscritoire - though I’m not sure this last mightn’t be a French import.

  Across the front hall from the salon is a dining room which would do justice to a small conventual order. Indeed the long refectory table comes from just such a site, as do the uncomfortable assortment of chairs, though the elegant diamond and losange shapes in the two cupboards suggest a different provenance. So too does the bronze chandelier with its array of candle holders now carefully replaced by bulbs.

  I tiptoe through this room like a stranger. It is not that I don’t like what is here. But living alone in a museum makes one behave a little like a ghost, unsure whether one inhabits past or present. Unsure, too, whether one should touch anything or simply tear it all down.

  Thankfully the kitchen is modern. It has all the signs of human negligence - unwashed teacups and mugs and glasses, heat stains on the table, the lingering aroma of last night’s bacon and eggs and one too many cigarettes.

  I switch on t
he radio and listen for a moment to the unfolding of the Christmas story, then quickly redial. Bach plays over the coffee grinder. The cat leaps through the hatch, bumps into a pair of old boots I don’t remember having left here and rubs herself against my legs. I empty out a tin for her and watch her concentrated lapping, the thrusting back of dainty head as she chews a large morsel.

  I butter some toast and carry a tray to the fireside table. I have a pleasant sense of lazy hours stretching in front of me. At the same time I am restless, impatient for the time that separates me from Madeleine to pass. I wonder if she has arrived yet. Yesterday’s newspaper sits in my hand, seen but unread.

  After breakfast, I pull on the old boots, my raggedy fur-lined suede jacket and lumber out with the excuse of a search for firewood. There is a ready supply of logs in the shed, but twigs are more scarce and always useful. I have gone through my hoard over this long weekend. Monday is a lame day for Christmas, though it has meant that Madeleine can come here where I so much want to see her. Today I will find the opportunity and tell her. I must tell her.

  The air is still and moistly cold. Not even the usual distant rumble of cars disturbs it. My footsteps crunching over frosted ground sound unnaturally loud.

  I look back at the house and through the mist of my breath, see it in all its sentimental habitant splendour - a sweeping colonnaded terrace, walls of neatly pointed local stone, an old- fashioned sloping roof with a row of mansard windows, the timbers, like that of the wide door, painted a deep blue-green to match the most resplendent of the firs.

  The wood stretches behind the house, up and over the hill. Birds twitter and swoop from gnarled oak to birch to maple to wild cherry, their branches dark and brittle. In the autumn, everything here is ablaze with colour, the maples an incandescent red, the birches golden, the ground a burnished carpet of leaf, as if in the act of dying, the woods gave of their best, a soaring climax before the long emptiness of winter. Now only the solemn green of the pines reminds one of the existence of colour.

  At the top of the incline I stop for breath and through the bare trees glimpse the distant grey of the river. I am tempted to make a detour just to see whether Madeleine’s car really has arrived in her grandmother’s drive. I restrain myself, note instead that the wisps of smoke in the air can only be coming from her chimney.

  My burlap sack laden with twigs, I return to the house and like some renegade Father Christmas, empty the contents in a shapeless heap on the floor of the shed. For the sheer joy of the sound, I splice some logs with the old axe which hangs on the wall. It still surprises me that I take pleasure in these mundane tasks. Until I came back here, I had always thought of myself as fundamentally an urban being.

  As I carry a second load of wood to the house, the stillness is suddenly pierced by the barking of dogs. Excited howls, angry yaps and yelps and growls. I can’t quite distinguish the mood, but I recognize the animals. Mme Tremblay’s two collies. Perhaps Madeleine has decided on a walk and a visit.

  I hasten into the house, deposit my load and nervously brush chips and splinters from my sweater and survey the living room. It is a long time since Madeleine last came here.

  A glance at my watch tells me it is already eleven o’clock. I gaze out the window. The dogs are still barking, their excitement unabated. But they don’t seem to be coming any closer. Madeleine is probably playing with them, stirring them into a frenzy in the way she likes to do. They’re lazy mutts, she thinks, will grow old before their time with all their genteel strolls and lying about in front of the fire.

  To still my impatience, I brew more coffee and pour it into a thermos flask. I prepare a fresh tray, add some biscuits and bring it into the living room. The dogs have gone quiet now. As I stand in front of the window, I hear only the occasional muted yelp.

  I hide my disappointment in a book, then remember that I still haven’t wrapped the Christmas presents. By the time I reach my bedroom, the yapping has begun again, closer now. At first, from the height of my window all I can see is a fine dusting of powder like flurries of talcum trapped in the air. The snow has started.

  Then I make out the dogs and a lone figure, half walking, half running, a little way behind them. They race ahead of her, then pause and race back, their golden coats streaming. I rush down the stairs and out the door, skidding a little on the freshly powdered steps of the porch.

  But it is not Madeleine I see coming towards me.

  ‘Get your coat,’ Mme Tremblay says. She doesn’t bother with French, nor a greeting. Her hair is wild, her long scarf trails the ground behind her. She is panting, seems barely capable of speech, though she rasps out again, ‘Get your coat.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like some coffee?’ I murmur. The words sound inane as I meet her glazed eyes. I fetch my coat and am back in an instant.

  Her gloved hand grips my arm. She leans heavily against me. She has never done this before.

  ‘Don’t ask me any questions.’ Her voice chafes. ‘Just come. Quickly.’

  We follow the dogs, skirt the side of the house, walk down the path which cuts through the field and up again through the small apple orchard and round. It is the quick route to the old farmhouse.

  I don’t allow myself to think. I am busy holding up Mme Tremblay’s weight, matching my steps to her erratic movements. The dogs are ahead of us, their barking hectic again. It surprises me when they fail to stop at the white clapboard house with the wrap-around porch which is their home. I glance at Mme Tremblay, but there is no expression on her ashen face. She is all grey pallor. Even the customary line of burgundy which outlines her lips so neatly has disappeared. It has smudged and gathered into a pink welt on her cheek.

  Madeleine’s car isn’t in the drive, nor do I spy its metallic glint beneath the trees which spread their twisted branches over the ramshackle outhouses. We don’t stop at these either, but carry on downhill. At last our destination is clear.

  The dogs are running in circles in front of the old barn where Madeleine used to stable her pony. Mme Tremblay points a shaking finger at the rickety door and turns her back on me.

  It takes a few moments for my eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom. I see a stack of firewood, some old chairs, their backs or legs missing. The earth beneath my feet is hard and bumpy. Light glints in through a knee high crack only to expose a small heap of blown snow.

  I don’t know what I am looking for and when I see it, I don’t want to look. The chair appears first. It is behind the makeshift stall where the horse was once kept. The small scattered bale of left-over hay makes no sense. Neither does the tumbled chair initially.

  Then the feet, neatly shod in their soft lace-up boots, come into view, swinging slightly. The deep pile of a golden fur bristles with spots and synthetic life.

  I step backwards, stumble over a ladder and suddenly she is before me. Madeleine. Suspended by a rope from the thick beam which props up the old hayloft. Her pale face tilts to the side and catches an arc of light from the window above. Her eyes are rounded in surprise. She looks like some larger than life marionette, abandonned by her puppeteer.

  My gaze clings to her. I am waiting for that head to right itself, for that sweet smile and slight bow, for the applause which signals the end of the performance. I am waiting for the darkness of a screen, the roll of credits, the murmur of voices and the shuffle of feet leaving the cinema.

  But this is no theatrical spectacle. Madeleine does not move. She is dead. She has performed that ultimate act and taken her own life. I was not there to prevent her.

  All around me there is the sound of moaning. It takes a moment for me to realise that it is coming from my own lips and in that moment I sense Mme Tremblay next to me. Her arm is on mine. I don’t know who holds up whom but together we stumble towards the house. My leg is tangled in her long scarf so that I trip up the stairs. She lurches behind me and I half-carry, half drag her in, deposit her on the sofa. Her hands are icy.

  From the corner cabinet, I unearth a bot
tle of whisky, force some through her lips. I hear her cough which is also a sob almost at the same time as I hear the telephone signal in my ear.

  The police take a long time to answer. Maybe the station is as firmly shut as my office. When at last a grumpy voice blurts an ‘Allo’, my own sounds inordinately distant. I announce a death.

  Mme Tremblay and I wait in the living room. She hasn’t spoken yet, but everytime I make to set out for the barn, she holds me back with eye and gesture. As if to warm the dead, I stoke and fan the fire into blazing heat.

  Next door the table is already set for Christmas dinner. Four settings on a starched white cloth, gold wrapped crackers and candelabrum in place, glasses gleaming. In the corner there is a Christmas tree. Old wooden ornaments and silver streamers dangle from its branches. An angel with gilded wings and halo perches at its top. I remember that angel. Madeleine made it.

  That thought tempts me again, more seductive than the serpent in the garden. Yes. Madeleine has just been rehearsing one of her parts, playing a prank. She will race through the door any second now, laugh at us and demand a good glass of Bordeaux.

  Then the image of her hanging in the barn cuts across my vision. I see her stillness, her pallor. I sit down and cover my face. Guilt scalds me and with it a sense of utter helplessness. I think of that phone call I didn’t manage to answer. I remember Madeleine’s despair when we last met, my inability to stir her out of it, my stubborn reasonableness. I remember the last scene of the play, her pale Hedda face eerily haloed by the curtain, already a rope.

  A fierce voice slashes the stillness of the room.

  ‘She didn’t do it.’

  Mme Tremblay has been reading my thoughts. Two bright circles illuminate her cheeks, as if all her blood has gathered there.

  ‘She didn’t do it,’ she repeats.

  I don’t understand what she means.