“Careful!” Raymond suddenly snaps at her. “Don’t move anything!” He turns back to me. “Miss Audette?”
“Non, merci. I would like to see your work. Ze piece most dear to you in ze world.” I’m trying to hurry him along, but Raymond doesn’t seem the hurrying type.
“I have so much to ask you,” he says.
“And I ’ave much to ask you,” I counter. Which, at least, is the truth.
“You’ll have noticed my Darin.” He nods toward the shelves.
Darin? What’s a Darin? Is Darin an artist?
“Absolument.” I nod briskly. “Shall we go?”
“What’s your take on his use of form?” His eyes blink at me earnestly.
OK, this is exactly the kind of question I didn’t want him to ask me. I need to come up with some convincing artisty answer, quick. Something about form. Except I never listened in art lessons.
“Form is dead,” I pronounce at last, in my most Gallic accent. “C’est morte.”
Perfect. If form’s dead, I don’t have to talk about it.
“Let us go to ze studio,” I add, trying to usher Raymond out of the kitchen. But he doesn’t move. He seems slightly staggered.
“Form is dead?” he echoes finally.
“Oui, c’est fini.” I nod.
“But—”
“Form, eet ees no more.” I spread my hands, trying to look convincing.
“But Miss Audette, h-how can this be?” stammers Raymond. “Your own design…your writings…your books…are you really giving up on a life’s work? It can’t be!”
He’s staring at me in consternation. Clearly that was the wrong thing to say. But I can’t backtrack now.
“Oui,” I say after a pause. “C’est ca.”
“But why?”
“I am artiste,” I say, playing for time. “Not woman, not human, artiste.”
“I don’t understand,” says Raymond, looking unhappy.
“I must seek ze truth,” I add, with sudden inspiration. “I must be brave. Ze artiste must always be brave above all, you understand? I must destroy ze old ideas. Zen will I a true artiste be.”
I hear a tiny snort from Suze but ignore her.
“But—”
“I do not weesh to speak of it further,” I cut him off firmly.
“But—”
“To ze studio!” I wave my hands. “Allons y!”
My heart is thumping hard as I follow Raymond through the house to the far end. I can’t cope with any more conversations about art; I just want to know about my dad.
“Are you supposed to be Pauline Audette or Yoda?” Suze’s murmur comes in my ear.
“Shut up!” I mutter back.
“We need to cut to the chase!”
“I know!”
We arrive at a big room with white walls and a glass roof. It’s bright and messy, with a heavy wooden table in the center and two potter’s wheels, all covered with splotches of clay. But that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m eyeing up the big set of display shelves at the far end of the room. They’re covered with clay statues and sculptures and weird-looking vases. Bingo. This is what we wanted.
I glance at Suze, and she gives a tiny nod back.
“You must tell me, Raymond,” I order. “Which, to you, are ze most precious pieces in ze room?”
“Well.” Raymond hesitates. “Let me see. Of course, there’s Twice.” He gestures at a sculpture which seems to be of a man with two heads. “That was nominated for the Stephens Institute Prize, few years ago. It was mentioned on a couple websites; I don’t suppose you…” He shoots me a hopeful look.
“A fine piece,” I say, with a brisk nod. “And which ees precious to your heart?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Raymond gives an awkward, heavy laugh. “I have a fond spot for this one.” He points at a much larger, abstract piece, glazed in lots of different colors.
“Aha.” I nod. “We will examine zem….” I pick up Twice, and Suze picks up the multicolored one. “Let us study zem in ze light….” I move away from Raymond, and Suze follows. “Aha. Zis one, it remind me of…a potato.”
Suze was right. Potato is a really, really bad code word. But it works. In one seamless movement, Suze and I hold the sculptures above our heads.
(Suze’s looks much heavier than mine. I feel a bit bad. But, then, she’s got strong arms.)
“All right,” I say, in my most menacing voice. “Here’s the truth. I’m not Pauline Audette. My name is Rebecca. Graham Bloomwood is my father. And I want to know the truth about what happened on your road trip. If you won’t tell us, we’ll smash the pieces. If you fetch help, we’ll smash the pieces. So you’d better start talking.” I break off, breathing hard, wondering whether to add “buster,” then think better of it.
Raymond is clearly one of those very slow, think-everything-through types. It feels like about half an hour that we’re standing there, our arms aching, our pulses racing, waiting for him to respond. He scans from me to Suze. He blinks. He screws up his face. He opens his mouth to speak, then stops.
“We need to know,” I say, trying to prod him into action. “We need to know the truth, right here, right now.”
Again, Raymond frowns, as though pondering the great mysteries of life. God, he’s frustrating.
“You’re not Pauline Audette?” he says at last.
“No.”
“Well, thank God for that.” He shakes his head in wonder. “I thought you’d gone crazy.” He peers more closely at me. “You look like her, though. Just like her.”
“I know.”
“I mean, that is incredible. You’re not related?”
“Not as far as I know. It is incredible, isn’t it?” I can’t help unbending to him a little. I knew I looked like Pauline Audette.
“Well, you should google that.” His eyes brighten with interest. “Maybe you have some ancestor in common. You could go on one of those TV shows—”
“Enough of zis chitchat!” barks Suze, sounding like a Nazi kommandant. “We need the truth!” She frowns disapprovingly at me, and I see I’ve let myself get sidetracked.
“That’s right!” I say hastily, and hold Twice up even higher. “We’re here for a reason, Raymond, so you’d better give us what we need.”
“And don’t try any funny business,” adds Suze menacingly. “The minute you call the cops, your two pieces of pottery will be in smithereens.” She sounds like she can’t wait to get smashing. I didn’t realize Suze had quite such a violent side.
There’s another minute or so of silence—which feels like half an hour—as Raymond digests this.
“You’re Graham’s daughter,” he says at last, staring at me. “Don’t look like him.”
“Well, I am. And he’s gone missing. We’ve been trying to track him down and help him out, but all we know is, he’s trying to put something right. Do you know what that is?”
“Has he been here?” puts in Suze.
“Has he made contact?”
“Can you tell us what this is all about?”
Raymond’s face has closed up as we’ve been talking. He meets my eye briefly, then glances away, and I feel a twinge in my stomach. He knows.
“What is it?” I demand. “What happened?”
“What’s he doing?” chimes in Suze.
There’s another flicker in Raymond’s eye, and he stares at the far corner of the room.
“You know, don’t you?” I try to catch his eye. “Why won’t you speak? Why did you turn my mum away?”