Charles the Bold Page 13

  “What am I going to do with you now, Boff? Why did you eat that forty dollars? Now you can’t come home with me any more. My father will kill you.”

  Boff kept on licking the boy’s face as though nothing else mattered now that he and his master were back together.

  “Stop, Boff, that’s enough, you’re getting on my nerves now. Poor Monsieur Fafard,” he said, still trying to figure out what to do. “The vet is going to yell at him, and he’ll probably call the police, and the police will come to our place. God, what a mess we’re in! I shouldn’t have gone looking for you, Boff, but I couldn’t stop myself, you see, because I love you too much, you stupid old hound.”

  By now fatigue was making Charles’s eyes burn; weariness had so overcome over him that he was tempted to lie down on the ground and go to sleep.

  “I have to let Monsieur Fafard know what’s happened,” he murmured, and began walking. “He’ll know what to do.”

  His wounded hand felt the stub of a pencil in the pocket of his wind-breaker and suddenly everything became clear in his mind. When he arrived on rue Dufresne, he saw a piece of cardboard lying on the street beside a car. He tore off an end and slipped it into his jacket. Walking down the Fafards’ driveway, he found himself in the backyard, at the end of which was their garage. The door was not usually locked. He tried the latch and let out a sigh of relief.

  While Boff explored the yard, always keeping an eye on Charles, the boy leaned against the garage wall and wrote a note for Monsieur Fafard:

  I’m very sorry M. Fafard but I was too worried, I went to get Boff from the veterinarian. Please do not call the police I’ll pay for the window. But take care of Boff for me, please. I put him in the garage, I don’t think he’ll be cold in there.

  Thank you very much,

  Charles

  To his great annoyance Boff was once again shut in after having been warned very seriously to keep quiet; Charles went to the Fafards’ front door and slid his note through the mail slot. He then carefully returned to his apartment; vigorous snoring from his father’s room told him that his adventure had so far gone undetected. A few minutes later Charles himself was sound asleep, lying fully clothed on his bed.

  At six-thirty that morning Wilfrid, head throbbing, legs wobbly and refusing to bear his weight, stomach feeling as though it were full of sludge, was sitting at the kitchen table staring lugubriously down at a cup of triple-strength instant coffee made with lukewarm tapwater, wondering whether he had enough strength to lift it to his lips. The idea of getting through the workday ahead filled him with dread; the memory of his binge of the night before brought on a shudder of self-loathing, a disgust made all the more depressing by the knowledge that every five, maybe six days, two weeks at the most, he’d be going through the whole thing again, the beer, the reproaches, the morning-after, for as long as he could buy beer and drink it. The foreman’s thinly veiled hints came back to him. He was a hard man who got along with no one, not even the best of the workers. Wilfrid shouldn’t take his criticisms so much to heart, because his anger often made him say whatever came into his head. Anyway, the guy had been right yesterday. He really had screwed up those goddamn stairs. Completely misread the blueprints, like an idiot. For some time now he’d had the feeling that he was losing it, that his eye was becoming less sure, his common sense failing him. Was the booze finally getting to him? He’d have to wait and see.

  Overcoming a wave of nausea that filled his mouth with saliva, he took a mouthful of coffee and grimaced, then looked at his watch. He’d have to leave in a few minutes.

  Suddenly a thin ray of sunshine shone through the dark and murky thoughts that were stuffing his head. Last night he had done one good thing. He’d taught that goddamn dog a lesson. Ate forty bucks! Nearly a whole day’s pay! Well, by now he should be mouldering with them in his grave, the bloody money-swallowing son of a bitch!

  He smiled with satisfaction, but at the same time felt a slight tightening in the pit of his stomach. His son had wanted that dog for a long time. He’d never heard the boy cry so much. So what? That was life. You can’t go around crying over spilt milk, you have to get on with it. If Charles had taken the trouble to train the dumb animal, it would still be sleeping in his bed with him this morning. Wilfrid took a second drink of coffee. It went down a bit better than the first. Then he heard a low sound coming from the back porch, followed by scratching. He turned his head, let out a cry, and spilled half his coffee on his lap.

  A dog was looking at him through the back-door window, its mouth hanging open. It was wearing a dark brown leather collar. It was a spaniel. It had to be Boff!

  The dog and the carpenter stared at one another without moving. Wilfrid, hand shaking, set down his cup and rubbed his eyes. Was he seeing things? Were his excesses of the night before giving him hallucinations? Or had that goddamn Fernand Fafard made a bloody fool of him?

  He jumped up and bounded towards the back door, caught his foot in a chair leg, and nearly went down in a heap on the floor.

  A deep sigh floated out from the bedroom.

  “What’re you doing out there?” Sylvie mumbled sleepily.

  With his nose pressed to the window, Wilfrid watched Boff run down the stairs, cross the yard, and disappear under the fence. Rage rushed the air from his lungs. His head began to pound. His neck and throat caught fire. His fingers spread wide open then slowly closed into a fist. He turned around, barely able to gulp in air, and there was Sylvie, standing in the middle of the kitchen, watching him with eyes still heavy from sleep.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she said, frightened. “You don’t look so good.”

  “That dog … he’s not dead,” Wilfrid managed to croak.

  “Who? Boff?”

  He nodded his head, his eyes staring crazily.

  “He was just looking at me through the door. As soon as I got up he took off. Fafard has tricked me. And Charles, too.”

  She gave a little pout of disbelief, then tightened her robe as though protecting herself from something.

  “But I tell you I just saw him!” he thundered. “What do you think, you think I’m crazy?”

  “Okay, okay, I didn’t say anything,” she replied bitterly, backing up quickly to let him pass.

  Wilfrid roared into Charles’s room like a hurricane. “Get out of that bed!” he shouted.

  The child opened his eyes and stared up at his father for a second, then sat up.

  “So,” Wilfrid said, crossing his arms on his chest, “you think it’s funny, lying to me straight in the face?”

  Charles continued to look at him without saying anything.

  “Answer me! What did you do with Boff?”

  “I … I don’t know,” stuttered Charles, trembling terribly inside.

  “You don’t know? You’re telling me you don’t know what you did with him? Well, I’ve got news for you. Two minutes ago your precious Boff, who should have been dead twelve hours ago, was out on the back porch thumbing its nose at me through the window. What have you got to say about that?”

  “I … I don’t know,” repeated Charles.

  The carpenter took a step towards the bed, then looked at his watch, stopped, and retreated slowly to the door.

  “I have to go to work,” he said. “I’m going to be late. But this isn’t over by a long shot. I’m giving you fair warning. When I get home tonight, you and I are going to have a nice long chat.”

  A few seconds later Charles heard his father’s heavy footsteps thundering down the outside staircase.

  Fernand, dripping with suds, sang his own idiosyncratic version of “O sole mio” in the shower while going over in his head his recipe for ham-and-cheddar omelette with maple syrup and green peas, which he was going to prepare in a few minutes. After lathering his cranium, whose smooth, pink surface had been a source of regret for a number of years, he turned his attentions to a more intimate and infinitely more satisfying part of his anatomy, the dimensions of which brought
a smile of contentment and pride, consoling him as usual for the ignoble treason that nature had visited upon his shiny pate. He was conjuring up a few naughty memories when he heard a knocking at the bathroom door.

  “What is it?” he called out. “What’s going on?”

  He recognized Lucie’s voice. From her halting delivery he could tell she had bad news, but he couldn’t make out was it was.

  “I’m coming!”

  Twenty seconds later, wrapped in a towel, he was walking with great wet steps towards the kitchen, from which he could hear an unusually loud uproar.

  Henri, his feet bare, a coat thrown over his pyjamas, was hurriedly shoving his feet into his boots while Lucie rummaged crossly through the refrigerator. Céline, standing on the radiator, was shouting with glee and signalling through the window at something in the backyard.

  “Hurry, Mama!” Henri implored. “He’s getting away!”

  “Boff! Boff!” cried Céline, in an agony of excitement. “Come back, Boffie, come up on the porch. We’ve got something for you!”

  “Boffie?” exclaimed Fernand.

  “Yes, it’s Boff!” Lucie replied, handing a plate to Henri, who took it and ran with it out into the yard.

  She half-turned, picked up a piece of cardboard from the table and passed it to her husband. “I found this in the vestibule, dear,” she said.

  “Ah, the poor little tyke!” said Fernand after reading Charles’s note. “What in the world got into him? He’s landed me in doo-doo up to my neck, for crying out loud.”

  “Henri!” Lucie called through the half-opened door, “get back in here this instant before you catch your death of cold! It’s not summer, you know!”

  “He’s already gobbled up everything on the plate,” exclaimed Céline. “He must have been famished, poor Boffie!”

  Just then the telephone rang. Lucie answered, muttered a weak “Hmm, hmm,” allowed her eyes to widen slightly, then motioned to Fernand to pick up the extension. It was Dr. Roberge, the vet who owned the Maisonneuve Veterinary Clinic, and he’d been in better moods.

  “Listen, Paul, I don’t know anything about it. It was my neighbour’s little boy, Charles Thibodeau, who pulled this stunt. I don’t know what he was thinking either, but he’s going to tell me, and I don’t mean next week. I’ll send someone over to repair your window and I’ll pay for everything, don’t worry. No other damage, was there? Good. But most important, don’t go calling the cops, okay? That’ll only make things worse. He’s a good boy, I assure you: I’ve known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, but he’s had some trouble at home, mostly with his father … Thanks, Paul, you won’t regret it. Thanks.”

  With the omelette he’d been imagining now a distant dream, as was the feeling of well-being that had come with it, he watched Henri grunting as he pulled off his boots by the kitchen door.

  “Were you in on this?” he asked his son, pointing a patriarchal finger at him.

  Henri hunched his shoulders with such a gesture of innocence that Fernand’s finger sank down and humbly rejoined its colleagues.

  “He’s leaving!” cried Céline, jumping down from the radiator.

  “Don’t open the door!” ordered Lucie, blocking her path to the back porch. “Go finish your cereal this instant, and then go get dressed. Ah, what a way to start the day! Gracious God in Heaven, it’s enough to make a saint curse.”

  Fernand, meanwhile, had looked up Charles’s telephone number and was about to dial when the doorbell rang. Henri ran to open it, and a few seconds later Charles came into the kitchen, looking red in the face, scared and guilty. Seeing him, Lucie opened her arms despite herself and the boy ran into them, crying, babbling excuses, trying to explain his actions and blaming himself for putting Monsieur Fafard in such an embarrassing position; then in the same breath telling them that half an hour earlier Boff had been stupid enough to show up at their house and his father had seen him through the kitchen door and was furious and had promised Charles he’d give him a real licking when he came home that night.

  Lucie and Fernand looked at each other.

  “I’ll speak to him,” Fernand promised. “But between you and me and the gatepost, my boy, you’ve really put your foot in it this time! If it wasn’t for me, the clinic would have had the police on your tail by now! Oh, yes! … Don’t you trust me? When I say I’m going to do something, by the jumping Jehosephat, I do it. If you’d been smart enough to stay in your bed last night, everything would be going along fine right now. But now … the wheels have come right off the hay wagon! Anyway, I’ll see what I can do.”

  He took Charles firmly by the shoulders:

  “You know, you’ve got a lot of guts, no question, my boy!” he said. “I’d hate to see what you’ll be like when you’re twenty! Holy cow! Wild horses won’t hold you back!”

  On the verge of tears, Charles started pouring out more excuses, promising that from then on – assuming there would be a from then on – he would follow Monsieur Fafard’s word to the letter, take his protector’s advice and counsel to heart, and he thanked him over and over for interceding on his behalf with the veterinarian. He spoke with such emotion that both Fernand and Lucie were silenced, captivated, and Fernand was almost sorry he had spoken so harshly.

  “But where’s Boff?” Charles said suddenly. “Where’s my dog? Is he here?”

  “He just ran out of the backyard,” Céline told him.

  “I gave him a big bowl of shepherd’s pie,” added Henri, “and he swallowed the whole thing!”

  Lucie, who had sat down again with her cup of reheated coffee, pulled Charles onto her ample lap.

  “Don’t worry about your dog, Charles,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll come back. He knows he has friends here.”

  She gave him a hug.

  “I have to go,” Charles said, jumping down. “Sylvie won’t like it if I’m away too long. She told me I’m not supposed to come here any more.”

  “And you came anyway?” said Fernand, surprised.

  Charles gave a faint smile that betrayed a wisdom unusual in a child of his age.

  “I told her that if she turned a blind eye this time I would do the same for her some day. And it worked!”

  Just before five o’clock, having shown the colour to the customer and made sure she was happy with it, Fernand hammered the lid back on a can of paint with a rubber mallet and called Clément to come over and fill in for him. He wanted to get home a bit earlier than usual so he could go see Wilfrid Thibodeau as soon as the carpenter returned from work.

  He put on his coat and overshoes but left his gloves in his pockets because the weather was getting milder. When he walked out onto the sidewalk, he noticed with satisfaction that it was almost entirely free of ice. “The sun’s done a full day’s work today,” he said to himself. “Another two or three days like this and we’ll be able to go outside in just our shoes.”

  He walked along rue La Fontaine and turned right on Dufresne. His house was a ten-minute walk from the store. Two years before, Lucie had persuaded him to walk to and from work, to help him lose weight. And he was grateful to her for it, since his daily walks, although undertaken primarily for reasons of health, also gave him more time to himself than he’d had before. Time to work out the thousand little problems that cropped up during the day, time to look at all the pretty young women who lived in the neighbourhood, and enough exercise to justify a snifter of cognac every night after dinner.

  He felt a drop of rain on his cheek, then another on the tip of his nose. Looking up, he saw that the sky had become heavy and grey and looked about ready to open up. He picked up his pace. A tall, thin man wearing a helmet passed him on a bicycle, looking miserable, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Fernand felt a connection with him without knowing why, then remembered that two days before the man had come into the store and bought a hatchet and ten pounds of finishing nails, and had launched into an impassioned diatribe against Premier Bourassa, whom Fernand particularly
disliked; he’d found the man’s eloquence so moving that he’d given him a discount.

  The raindrops were falling closer and closer together. Fernand began jogging, but after two blocks he had to stop because flames were shooting up from his lungs into his throat. There came a crack of thunder above his head, and rain started pouring down by the bucketload.

  By the time he got home he was drenched. Ordinarily Lucie would have chewed him out for not taking a taxi, then helped him out of his clothes and into a warm bath. She had an inordinate fear of respiratory diseases – her grandfather had died of asthma and her father of pneumonia. But tonight she barely seemed to notice his soaked hat or his dripping clothes.

  “Wilfrid just left,” she said breathlessly. “He wanted his dog. It’s a good thing I saw him coming through the window. I told Céline to hide Boff in the garage, and she stayed there with him to keep him from barking. What on earth are we going to do, Fernand? Playing hide-and-seek like this is fun for a day, but not for a week! Go see him and figure something out between the two of you, for pity’s sake. He’s waiting for you.”

  Fernand handed her his coat, which was twice its usual weight. “That’s just what I intended to do,” he said.

  “What are you going to tell him?” Lucie asked.

  “God knows and the Devil’s not saying,” Fernand sighed. “It’s been crazy in the store all day, I haven’t had a minute to think about it.”

  “Well, be ready to get an earful, my poor Fernand. He was looking pretty mean. Whatever possessed you to come to that dog’s rescue I’ll never know.”

  He looked her straight in the eye.

  “I’m not a bit sorry I did it – and neither are you. So there’s no point crying over water under the bridge, is there Lucie? Eh?”