The Man of Their Lives Read online

  “But if you guys absolutely need to talk business, then we should have something nice to drink,” Grégoire said with a wink. “Louis, where do you hide the Calvados?”

  Laura got up. “Alright,” she said, “I’m getting the main course. Come on, girls, help me out. Make yourselves useful.”

  Sabine made a beeline for the kitchen, followed by her younger sister.

  Tom made a funny face at Louis, which was his way of apologizing for bringing up music.

  Louis relaxed a little. At the same time, he couldn’t help feeling melancholy. He’d give anything to be in love again, but for some reason he had the lingering feeling that it probably wouldn’t happen. Pretty women were everywhere and it wasn’t as though he didn’t meet any. It wasn’t that he held Marianne’s memory sacred—he wasn’t fooling himself about that. Even though he dreamed of falling head over heels in love, he feared he might be old and gray and decrepit before it happened to him. He was sick and tired of waking up alone every morning.

  “I’m thinking of going for a long hike this afternoon,” Hugues said. “Anyone want to come with me?”

  “I can’t,” Frédéric said. “I have a date. With a girl…”

  Louis glanced at his son, smiled, and said, “I’ll go with you.”

  “No way,” Alix said. “You and I have to have a talk.”

  “Not now, we don’t. I’m going for a hike. Tom, are you joining us?”

  Once in a while, the men in the family felt the need to walk in the country and talk. This habit began before Marianne’s death, and now the only difference was that Grégoire no longer joined them because of his arthritis.

  “Sure,” Tom said, his eyes glued on Alix.

  If she’d hinted in even the smallest of ways that she was annoyed or disappointed, he would’ve changed his mind in a second. Instead she spewed, “Fine! This’ll give me the chance to make a few calls. You all go ahead with your hiking and boring guy talk.”

  Tom swore to himself that he was going to make her pay for this dismissive comment. Tonight, while having sex. Out here she wouldn’t be able to pretend she had a meeting early the next morning or say she was tired and had to go home immediately—they’d be able to settle their scores.

  “Who’s going to carve the leg of lamb?” Laura said back in the room. She was puzzled by the unusual silence.

  “I hate carving lamb,” Grégoire said with a beaming smile, “but I’ll sacrifice myself for the cause.”

  “He’s going to butcher the poor thing,” Louis whispered.

  “I’m not deaf, sonny!”

  For some reason, Grégoire’s good mood made Louis even sadder. He wondered whether he needed a vacation by himself, away from his family, from Frédéric even. And away from the Steinway. He had a hard time participating in the conversation, which languished after a while as often happened at the end of a hearty meal. After coffee, he was the first to leave the table, as he couldn’t wait to go outside. At the end of the driveway, Hugues and Tom caught up to him, and they began walking in silence. At this time of day, there was nobody in the streets and only a dog barked at them from behind the fence of house. In single file, they climbed the stone steps of the bluff to enjoy the view of the Seine Valley down below. When Louis took a cigarette out of his pack, Tom gave him a light.

  “You look out of sorts,” Tom finally told him.

  “Well, I’m like everybody else. Some days I’m sick of it all. But please don’t ask me why.”

  He said it with enough fatigue in his voice to convince the others not to press him. He wasn’t doing well and he didn’t try to hide that fact. After a long moment, Hugues said, “Shall we go, gentlemen?”

  They enjoyed each other’s company, in spite of occasional argument, and they headed for the woods.

  Hugues wasn’t too worried about his brother-in-law. Melancholy seemed to be at the heart of the creative process.

  “Alix is breaking my balls with that contract,” Louis blurted suddenly.

  “And yet you’re going to sign it?” Hugues asked.

  There was a trace of sarcasm in Hugues’ question, or so Louis thought. Or maybe he looking at this like a psychologist, which further irritated Louis.

  “Of course, I’m going to sign the damned contract! How do you think I manage to keep that house afloat?”

  Louis realized that his comment might be taken the wrong way. He had no reason to complain about Hugues and Tom quickly added, “I meant nothing by that. I’m the one who decided to take on the house and live there. I have no regrets whatsoever. I adore the house, especially when you guys are here. I’ll write the stupid score. Maybe I’ll even enjoy doing it…”

  Louis angrily kicked a pebble, contradicting his last statement. Hugues smiled while Tom asked, “Why don’t you come over to the club one of these nights and get good and drunk with me? There’s always lots of good-looking women at the bar and they’d throw themselves at you. Frédéric can stay by himself for one night, right? By the looks of things, spending nights alone doesn’t do much for you…”

  Louis punched Tom in the stomach in a way that looked offhanded but was deliberately hard. Tom bent in two, winded.

  “That’s how you solve your problems?” Louis said, jokingly. “Getting smashed in some bar?”

  Hugues slid between the two men and put a hand on Tom’s shoulder.

  “Jesus, Louis,” Tom said in a grunt, “I’m just trying to help.”

  Louis wasn’t Tom’s rival or his enemy, so he couldn’t jump him to get rid of his pent-up frustration.

  They continued walking deeper into the woods. Louis was now whistling softly, in perfect harmony with the birds, even adding notes from his own to the songs. Hugues watched him, perplexed. Louis was unpredictable these days, but Tom was out of line for making fun of his solitude. Tonight or tomorrow morning, everybody was going to head back to Paris. Once again Louis would find himself stuck between his piano, which sometimes was a torture, and his teenage son.

  “But really, Hugues,” Louis said as he stopped in his tracks. “Don’t you wish that sometimes we could find a couch right here in this trail so I could lie down on it and you could do your shrink thing? Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Taken aback by such a direct attack, Hugues wanted to strike back but had nothing to say.

  “Now it’s your turn, friend,” Tom said to Hugues, laughing. “And you should thank God you don’t really have Louis as a patient!”

  Against all odds, Louis burst out laughing, suddenly jazzed up. In order to make a living, he didn’t have to listen to the jabbering of mental cases like Hugues and Laura did every single day of their lives. Nor did he have to be at the beck and call of alcoholic celebrity egomaniacs every night like Tom. All he had to do was grab a blank sheet of music and write down notes that he could hear in his own head. Nothing too difficult for him, nothing overwhelming or exhausting, and certainly nothing to feel so horrible about.

  CHAPTER 3

  Francine only caught a glimpse of Louis the first two times she went over. Her disappointment was somewhat alleviated by the splendor of the house . Originally, Frédéric thought that his room would be the best place for the lessons. He soon changed his mind and opted for the small living room on the ground floor. And so Francine happily followed him across the long hallway and down the main staircase.

  While Frédéric was reading and writing about a passage she chose for him, she seized the opportunity to take in her surroundings. The ambience differed slightly in each room, all of them were untidy to some degree. Old papers here and there, jackets left on the back of chairs, piles of books, and withered flowers in vases. A very masculine atmosphere, almost moving.

  She had to wait until the third week for Louis to come over to her at the end of the hour. He was smiling but in a hurry, his checkbook in hand. He seemed embarrassed at the idea of talking money. By the time they’d taken care of payment, Frédéric had vanished. Louis walked her to the front door. Just before stepping
outside she remembered the CD case that was still in her purse. With a sheepish smile she asked for an autograph for her son.

  “Your son?” he asked her with a smile. “He likes music?”

  “Enormously.”

  “What kind of music?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she admitted. “But he owns two of your CDs and he finds your music very… I can’t remember how he put it… Technical? I know he meant it as a compliment.”

  Louis’s smile broadened and he shut the door.

  “Come with me,” he said. “You have a minute?”

  She followed him to the music room at the other end of the ground floor. While he was foraging for something in a closet, she took a look at the Steinway, then at the synthesizer, the tape recorders, the intertwined cables that ran across the floor, the music stand, the mikes, the loudspeakers, the giant TV screen. She was gazing at the portrait of Puccini when Louis returned, a few CDs in hand.

  “Attractive fellow, don’t you find?” Louis said, jutting his chin at the picture. The old Italian Maestro seemed to be looking down on them.

  “I’m not too crazy about the mustache,” Francine said with a laugh.

  “Here,” Louis said. “I autographed your son’s case. And you can give him the rest of my CDs. He might like that?”

  “Oh, yes! That’s so nice of you.”

  “Or very pretentious… You can use this door to get out. It’s faster. You’re parked at the back of the driveway, right?”

  He walked over to one of the French windows that opened on the backyard and she followed him outside, regretfully, while stuffing the CDs in her purse.

  “Is Frédéric making progress?” he asked in a light tone.

  “It’s too early to tell, but at least he’s listening to what I’m telling him. I bet he is picking up something. Have a good evening, Mr. Neuville.”

  She shook his hand, excited and disappointed by this brief contact. Once in her car, she wasted no time starting the engine and drove toward the gate without looking back. She only let herself smile when on the road. Normally, when she tutored she didn’t go to her students’ houses for the lessons, even though she’d told Frédéric otherwise. But she certainly didn’t regret the ten-mile drive from Vernon to Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer! No question about it, she’d fallen for that Louis Neuville. Unfortunately, in his eyes she’d always remain a nice little high school teacher if she didn’t try something more intelligent than asking for an autograph for her music-loving son. But what?

  “You better find something quick, missy,” she mumbled while glancing at herself in the rearview mirror.

  What had gotten into her? She was fantasizing like a teenager about a man she didn’t know in the slightest. For the past three weeks, she’d come up with all the possible and impossible scenarios, none of them likely to come to life. She wasn’t one to chase after men, and she was no femme fatale either. At the same time, her stubbornness could be limitless; Antoine could attest to that.

  In the parking lot of her apartment , she turned off the car’s engine, and fished the CDs out of her purse. As she’d hoped, there was a picture of Louis on the back of a couple of the plastic cases. She looked at the photos without tearing the transparent casing, leaving that pleasure for Romain. An unexpected present constituted a very small first step. Eyes fixed on Louis’s face, she whispered in a firm voice, “I want this man.”

  * * *

  Louis had been waiting for a good thirty minutes when the door to Alix’s office swung open and a young actress shot him a harsh look before putting on her shades and rushing for the exit.

  “I don’t know what you did to her,” Louis said as he kissed his sister, “but she didn’t seem particularly happy.”

  “Claudia? Those starlets are all the same and they get on my nerves big-time! And that one is the worst of the lot. She’s going to have to find herself a new agent if she keeps it up. A small role, that’s nothing degrading…You’ve got to start somewhere!”

  “Here,” he said as he retrieved an envelope from his breast pocket. “At least I’m not one of your troublemakers.”

  Alix refrained from gloating—he’d finally accepted!—but she did make sure that he’d signed and initialed all the documents properly.

  “Perfect!” she said, before putting the contract in her desk drawer. “And don’t tell me you’re not thrilled about this! Did you see how much you’re going to rake in? At first the producers were balking a little, but the director wanted you and only you, and she and I won in the end. Did she call you yet? They started filming already, and she’s going to send you some dailies. We need to schedule a lunch date, the three of us. She can’t wait to meet you.”

  “Alix…” he sighed.

  “Louis,” she responded, mimicking his tone of voice, separating the two syllables of his name. “Why don’t you come down from your ivory tower. I know I’m busting your balls— Tom tells me that’s the expression you used—but I have no time to waste. Nobody does in this insane business! By the way, I emailed the record company to have them send us your yearly royalties. They’re screwing with us, we all know that. Still, you’re going to receive a big, fat check. You want some coffee?”

  “You drink too much coffee. That’s why you’re so wired. But don’t get up. I’ll get you a cup. With or without sugar?”

  The look of reproach she threw his way reminded Louis that he was supposed to know everything about his sister.

  “How come you’re not marrying Tom?” he asked out of the blue.

  At first taken aback, Alix shrugged.

  “I have no desire to get married. Besides, I work during the day and he works at night. I mean, I adore him, but… Plus he’s never asked me!”

  No doubt Tom had his reasons not to ask, Louis thought.

  He stepped out of the office to fetch the coffee while Alix picked up her phone. He saw a movie producer he knew in the lobby. The man was busy talking to the receptionist and Louis snuck his way back inside the office without being spotted.

  “Marc Valet is here,” he said, setting Alix’s mug by her keyboard.

  “You should go talk to him. He’s working on a very interesting project. It’s the story of—”

  “Stop it, Alix! Because of you I’ve got tons of work already. Enough for six months. Give me a break!”

  More than anything else, Louis hated the social aspects of the business—the fake relationships, the false praise, the empty promises. Louis left all that to his sister. He had no desire whatsoever to have personal relationships in show business.

  “Christ Almighty,” Alix said, “get off your high horse! You churn out music like it’s nothing. You better enjoy your success and the cash coming in because, you know how it is, you could go out of fashion like that.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

  As usual, she’d opened her big trap too quickly hitting him with her favorite argument, the one she used with all her clients.

  “Out of fashion?” he said, aggressively. “You think I care if I’m out of fashion? That’s the opinion you have of what I do? What you make me do? I don’t give a shit, Alix!”

  Louis’s genuine anger made Alix back off. He’d always been difficult to deal with. She thought he was chronically dissatisfied. Not only did his success not surprise him, he wasn’t even happy about it. He’d dreamed of writing something else. She knew of his grandiose fantasies of being a classical composer, and she’d patiently listened to him play gut-wrenching things on his piano. His work was unquestionably superb but utterly unpalatable for today’s audiences. Pieces that would require an orchestra of at least one hundred and fifty musicians. Insane! There was absolutely nothing she could do with that stuff. He wasn’t born a century ago in Italy and the sooner he could come to grips with that the sooner he would abandon his pipe dreams. His frustration actually turned into some sort of dark energy in his music, a style that everyone in the business was trying to emulate. She admired him and had total confidence in his capacity for
work but sometimes she had to make sure that he didn’t fall apart at the seams. The worst period had been after Marianne’s death. Thankfully, the entire family had come together to support him and he’d come out of it okay. In any case, his creative abilities were intact, even though his music had become darker. Since then, Alix had been looking after him--a bit too possessively, perhaps. She stood guard. With particular vigilance when it came to the women who were dying to console this handsome, romantic figure.

  “You hear me?” he asked in a cold voice.

  Leaning toward her, he’d rested both his hands flat on the desk. She looked at his twitchy fingers, the blue veins on his hands.

  “Everybody in this building must’ve heard!” she said. “Calm down, for crying out loud! I didn’t mean to insult you, you should know that! What’s with you this morning anyway?”

  Before he had time to say anything, there was a quick rap on the door and Marc Valet came right in.

  “Well, how do you do, Mr. Neuville?” he said to Louis. “I sure hope your sister is setting you straight. You want to tell me why you didn’t show up for the premiere of The Golden Rule last night? The movie is absolute crap, but your music is pure genius. Everything that idiot director couldn’t express you did for him. And everyone was looking for you.”

  “The horror...” Louis said with an ironic grin.

  “I’m not kidding... Where were you hiding, in that palace of yours up in Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer?”

  “I have a son, Marc. Besides, I’m no social butterfly.”

  “How old is your boy?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “That’s no reason, then. I’m sure he’d like to go with Daddy to a premiere and rub elbows with movie stars. You’ve deprived your son of a wonderful experience.”

  “Go to hell, Marc,” Louis said, and stormed out of the room, slamming the padded door behind him.

  Stunned, Marc turned to Alix.

  “What’s with him? He’s pissed off at the entire profession or what? Is success getting to his head? You better have a talk with that brother of yours. I had a project to offer him, but forget it. I don’t like to work with head cases.”