Chapters (43)
- A Fatal Grace
- ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY
- A Fatal Grace
- CONTENTS
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
‘Not many people know about Ramen Das. There was more, of course.’ Mother plopped into a seat. ‘CC called her philosophy Li Bien. I’d lived for over seventy years and only ever heard that phrase from one other person. El. CC called her business and her book Be Calm. And she used a logo only we knew about.’
‘The eagle?’
‘The symbol of Eleanor of Aquitaine.’
‘Explain that to me, Mother.’ Beauvoir couldn’t believe he’d just called her Mother, but he had, and it felt natural. He hoped he wouldn’t be suckling soon.
‘We studied British and French history in school,’ said Mother. ‘Canada apparently had no history. Anyway, when we got to the section on Eleanor of Aquitaine El became obsessed. She decided she was Eleanor of Aquitaine. Don’t look so smug, Inspector. You can’t tell me you didn’t run around playing cowboys and Indians or pretending to be Superman or Batman.’
Beauvoir snorted. He’d done nothing of the sort. That’d be crazy. He’d been Jean-Claude Killy, the world’s greatest Olympic skier. He’d even told his mother she had to call him Jean-Claude. She’d refused. Still, he’d skied astonishing races in his bedroom, winning Olympic gold, often outrunning catastrophic avalanches, saving nuns and grateful millionaires along the way.
‘El was searching even then, knowing something wasn’t right, as though she didn’t belong in her own skin. She found comfort in thinking she was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Em even made her a necklace with Eleanor’s heraldic symbol. The eagle. A particularly aggressive eagle.’
‘So you put it all together and when CC moved here you realized she was El’s daughter.’
‘That’s right. We knew she’d had a child. El had disappeared for a few years, then we suddenly got a card from Toronto. She’d gotten into a relationship with some guy who quickly disappeared, but not before getting El pregnant. She wasn’t married and at the time, in the late fifties, that was a scandal. I’d known when she left India that she wasn’t well emotionally. Her mind was brilliant and delicate and unbalanced. Poor CC, being raised in a home like that. No wonder the idea of balance was so important to her.’ Mother looked at Beauvoir, stunned. It had just occurred to her. ‘I felt no sympathy for CC, no compassion. At first, when we realized she was our beloved El’s daughter we tried to invite her into our lives. I can’t say we ever warmed to her. She was unlikable in the extreme. El was like sunshine, bright and loving and kind. But she gave birth to darkness. CC didn’t live in her mother’s shadow, she was her mother’s shadow.’