Ritual (6 page)

He pushed the
intercom button again. This time, there was a sharp crackle of interference,
and then a voice demanded, ‘Qui?
Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?’

Charlie cleared
his throat. ‘Is that Mr Musette?’

‘Who is it who
is wanting him?’ the voice asked, in English this time, but with
a strong
French accent.

‘My name’s
McLean. I was wondering if you had a table for two for dinner
tonight?
’

‘You must have
made a mistake,
monsieur
. This is a
private restaurant. Reservations can only be made by advance booking.’

‘Well, this is
advance
booking, isn’t it?’

‘
jfe
regrette,
monsieur
,
booking is always effected in writing, and bookings are accepted only at the
discretion of the management.’

‘What kind of a
restaurant operates like that?’ Charlie wanted to know.

‘This restaurant,
monsieur
.
Although I must correct you.
It is a dining society,
rather than a restaurant.’

‘So I’ve been
told. Is it possible to join?’

‘Of course,
monsieur
, by
personal recommendation.’

Charlie ran his
hand through his hair. ‘You people sure make life difficult.’

‘Yes,
monsieur
, you could say that.’

‘So somebody
has to put me up for membership? Is that it?’

‘Yes,
monsieur
.’’

Charlie thought
for a moment, and then said, ‘Is everything I’ve heard about you true?’

‘It depends
what you have heard,
monsieur
.1

‘I’ve heard
that you’re exceptional.’

‘Yes,
monsieur
.’’

Charlie had
nothing more to say. The voice on the other end of the intercom refused to be
drawn. Charlie took hold of the gates and shook them, just to make sure that
they were locked,
then
he walked back to the car and
climbed into it. He leaned over towards the glove box and took out a pack of
Rol-Aids. The Colonial-style sauce was resisting all his stomach’s determined
efforts to digest it. That was the trouble with bad food, it always fought
back.

‘They won’t
take reservations unless somebody sponsors you,’ said Charlie.

‘What does that
mean?’ Martin asked.

‘It means
they’re just about the most exclusive restaurant in the whole continental
United States.

It may not be
easy getting into the Four Seasons, but at least they want your business. This
place

.. .
who
knows? How can you run a restaurant right in the middle
of nowhere at all, with no advertising, no promotion, not even a signpost to
tell you how to get there, and booking by personal recommendation only, in
writing, in advance?’

‘Maybe they’re
really good,’ said Martin.

‘What the hell
do you mean, “
maybe
they’re really good”!’ Charlie
retorted. ‘The Montpellier is really good! L’Ermitage is really good! There are
twenty restaurants in America which are really good! But, darn it, even the
best restaurants have to advertise. Even the best restaurants have to let
people in!’

Martin said,
‘What are you getting so upset about? If they won’t let you in, they won’t let
you in.

Forget them.
There isn’t any point in including a restaurant in M A RIA if nobody can get to
eat there.’

Charlie took
one last look at the implacably closed gates of
Le Reposoir
, then started up the car and turned back towards Alien’s
Corners. ‘If it’s that good, if it’s really that good, then I want to eat
there, that’s all. Even my stomach can only take so much good old country
cooking. I could use a revelation.
Quite apart from the fact
that I’d be fascinated to find out what it is about
Le Reposoir
that upsets everybody at Alien’s Corners so much.’

They drove back
through the woods. Another thunderhead had swollen up in front of the sun, and
the landscape had suddenly grown chilly and cheerless.

Martin said,
‘Where are we going to stay tonight? Are we going to drive on to Hartford?’

Charlie shook
his head. ‘Tonight we’re going to stay at Mrs Kemp’s boarding house, 313

Naugatuck. I’m
not leaving Alien’s Corners until I can fix a table for two at
Le Reposoir
.’

‘Dad – we’re
going to be days behind schedule. What are the people at M A RIA going to say?’

‘I can fudge
the schedule, don’t worry about that. I want to eat at that Goddamned private
exclusive dining club and that’s all there is to it. There must be somebody
around here who belongs. That bank president, Haxalt, don’t tell me that he’s
not a member. All I need is one person who’s prepared to sponsor my
reservation.’

Martin remained
silent as they drove back into Alien’s Corners. The light was turning to pale
purple, and the streetlights had already been switched on.
Christopher
Prescott and Oliver T.

Burack had left
the green; but there were lights on the upper floor of the First Litchfield
Savings Bank, and a few people were walking past the lower end of the green, on
their way back from the supermarket. Birds sang in the maples, that sad
intermittent song of early evening.

‘I don’t know,’
said Charlie. ‘This reminds me of something. Deja vu, I guess.’

He drove around
the green until they reached Naugatuck Avenue. This was one of the oldest
streets in Alien’s Corners, running directly west to east away from the green.
At one time, before the main road had been laid at the lower end of the green,
Naugatuck Avenue had been a main highway through to Hartford. English redcoats
had marched drumming along here, while the people of Alien’s Corners had
watched them from their upstairs windows.

Mrs Kemp’s
boarding house stood at the corner of Naugatuck and Beech; a gaunt saltbox house
with flaking weatherboard and windows blinded by grubby lace curtains. It was
fronted by a paling fence, half of which was sagging sideways, and a small
brick yard in which a single maple grew. Charlie drew up outside it, and eased
himself out of the car. ‘Are you coming?’ he asked Martin.

‘Are you sure
it’s open?’ Martin frowned. ‘It looks derelict to me.’

‘It could use a
lick of paint,’ Charlie admitted. He opened the wooden gate and walked up the
path. ‘The last time I was here, the place was immaculate. I gave it a Gold
Feather for comfort.

Maybe Mrs Kemp
has closed up shop.’

Martin followed
Charlie cautiously up to the front door. There were two stained-glass panels in
it, one of them badly cracked as if the door had been slammed during a violent argument.
In the centre of the door hung a weathered bronze knocker cast in the shape of
a snarling animal – something between a wolf and a demon. Charlie nodded
towards the knocker and said, ‘That’s new. Welcoming, isn’t it?’

Martin looked
up at the loose tiles that had slipped down the porch in a straggling
avalanche.

‘This can’t be
open. And I wouldn’t want to stay here, even if it is.’

‘There’s no
place else, not in Alien’s Corners, anyway.’

Charlie picked
up the knocker. It was extraordinarily stiff and heavy, and he didn’t much like
the way the wolf-demon was snarling into the palm of his hand. He couldn’t
think why, but the knocker seemed familiar. He could vaguely remember reading
about a wolf-like knocker in a book, but he couldn’t remember what book, or
when.

He banged it,
and heard it echo flatly inside the house. He waited, chafing his hands,
smiling at Martin from time to time. A stiff breeze had arisen with the setting
of the sun, and Charlie felt unnaturally cold.

‘Nobody here,’
said Martin, standing with his hands in his pockets, ‘Looks like we’ll have to
go on to Hartford after all.’

They were just
about to turn away when they heard somebody coughing inside the house. Charlie
banged the knocker again, and after a while footsteps came along the hallway.

Through the
stained-glass windows a small pale figure appeared, standing close behind the
door.

After a
moment’s pause, the figure reached up and drew back two bolts, and opened up
the door on the safety-chain.
A woman’s face appeared, white
and unhealthy-looking, with dark smudges of exhaustion around her eyes.
Her hair was untidily clipped with plastic barettes, and she was wearing a
soiled blue quilted housecoat. From inside the house there came the vinegary
odour of stale air and cooking.

‘Mrs Kemp?’
asked Charlie.

‘What do you
want?’ the woman demanded.

‘It says in the
guidebook that this is a boarding house.’

Mrs Kemp stared
at him. ‘Used to be,’ she told him.

‘I see. You’ve
given it up.’

‘It gave itself
up. I tried to keep open but nobody wanted to come here any more.’

‘Is there
anyplace else to stay the night?’

‘There’s the
Wayside Motel outside of Bristol, on the Pequa-buck road.’

‘Nowhere in Alien’s Corners?”

Mrs Kemp shook
her head.

‘Well,’ said
Charlie, ‘I guess that fixes it. I might as well introduce myself. My name’s
Charles McLean, I’m a restaurant inspector for MAR I A. I guess I can take your
boarding house out of the book.’

Mrs Kemp’s eyes
narrowed. ‘I remember you. You stayed here three or four years ago.’

‘That’s right, you’ve
got some memory.’

‘I remember you
specially
because you asked for the Brown Betty. That
was always my late husband’s favourite, and that was why I kept it on the menu.
Maybe two people asked for Brown Betty in seven years, and you were one of
them. Well, well. If I’d known you were an inspector, I would have done you
better, I’m sure.’

Charlie smiled.
‘That’s why I never tell anybody. I want to get the ordinary treatment
everybody else gets.’ He stepped back a little and looked up at the house.
‘Pity you’ve closed up, I liked it here. You ran a good cosy place.’

‘Do you want to
come inside for some coffee and cake?’ asked Mrs Kemp. ‘I mean, if you’re
really pushed for a place to stay, I could air a couple of beds for you. I
wouldn’t charge, it’d be company.’

Charlie glanced
at Martin. It was quite plain from the expression on his face that he didn’t
relish the idea of spending the night here at all; and the truth was that
Charlie didn’t exactly fancy it either. But his curiosity about
Le Reposoir
had been aroused too
strongly for him to leave Alien’s Corners until he found out more about it. And
maybe it would do Martin good to find out who was boss.

‘We’d
appreciate that,’ he said.

Mrs Kemp slid
back the safety-chain. ‘You’ll have to pardon the way I’m dressed. I wasn’t
expecting company.’

They followed
her into the hallway. It was chilly and stale in there, and although the tables
had once been highly polished, they were now covered by a fine film of dust.
Old hand-coloured engravings of colonial Connecticut hung on the cream-painted
walls.

Mrs Kemp
brought them coffee in the best parlour, a gloomy room crowded with massive
sawed-oak furniture of the Teddy Roosevelt era, when bellies and walrus
moustaches had been in fashion. She had changed into a plain grey day-dress
with a white lace collar, and sprayed herself with floral perfume. The coffee
was hot and fresh; the Jubilees stale and chewy. Martin sat in a dark spoonback
chair silent and bored.

‘I guess you
could say that one bad season begets another,’ said Mrs Kemp. She kept
dry-washing her hands, over and over, and then fiddling with her wedding ring,
as if it needed adjusting for size. ‘Business was good until late last year; I
used to have all of my regulars, Mr King from American Paints, Mr Goldberg the
Matzoh Man – well, that’s what I always used to call him, the Matzoh Man. And
there was good steady family trade through the summer and fall, right past
Thanksgiving.’

‘What
happened?’ asked Charlie, setting down his coffee cup. ‘They didn’t build any
new detours.’

Mrs Kemp looked
down at her lap for a moment. When she spoke her voice sounded muffled and
different. ‘I don’t suppose you remember, it was three or four years since you
came here last, but there was a girl who used to help me in the kitchen.’

‘I think I
remember,’ said Charlie.

‘Her name was
Caroline. She was my niece. My brother and his wife were killed in an auto
accident in Ohio when she was seven. I’d been looking after her ever since.
When my husband passed over she was all I had left.’

Mrs Kemp
paused, and then she said, ‘You can imagine, we were very close.’

Charlie said
nothing, but waited for Mrs Kemp to continue.

‘Last November
18, Caroline disappeared,’ said Mrs Kemp. ‘She went to New Milford to see a
friend of hers, but she never arrived. Of course if was hours before I found
out that she was missing. I called the police, and the police searched every
place they could think of, but no trace of her was ever found.
Nothing.
It was just as if she had never existed, except for
her clothes of course, and her personal belongings. The police said that it
happens all the time, young people walking out on their parents or their
guardians. They usually end up in California or some place like that, working
as dancers or waitresses or – well, you know what kind of a world we live in
these days, Mr McLean.’

‘Call me
Charlie,’ said Charlie.

Mrs Kemp
nodded, although Charlie wasn’t altogether sure if she had heard him or not.
She said distractedly, ‘I suppose what happened to the boarding house after
that was my fault, really. Every salesman who came here, I used to give him a
printed sheet with Caroline’s picture on it, and ask him to keep a look out for
her wherever he went. I suppose I used to carry on about her too much for most
people’s comfort. The regulars stopped calling by, and then the casual trade
fell off. I wanted to keep the business going, I did my best, but I wanted to
find Caroline even more, and that kind of affected everything I did.’