The Crowded Grave

road when he was driving, but he looked quickly across at her, not sure what she meant.
    “It means I’ll have to see my ex-husband again,” she said, her voice flat and almost dull. She was looking fixedly at the road ahead, not meeting Bruno’s eye. “He stayed very close to Mummy even after the divorce, and she always thought the world of him. She was furious when I left him, barely spoke to me for ages. He still visits her from time to time.”
    “That’s to be expected,” he said, not sure why she was telling him this. Pamela had always spoken of her mother with great affection, even though Bruno had sometimes wondered why she never came to visit her daughter in France. “An illness in the family, it brings people together.”
    “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s just that knowing I’ll see him will bring back all the things I disliked about marriage, not just him but the institution, the way it forces people into roles.” She paused, and then said almost to herself, “I hate depending on people, or their depending on me.”
    Bruno wondered whether she was talking about their relationship, rather than her former husband. She was still twisting her gloves in her hands, her knuckles white. He slowed at the last bend before the stop sign and the turn onto the bridge over the Dordogne. Some small drops of rain spattered his windshield.
    “I don’t know why I’m talking about this,” she said. “The thought of seeing him again just adds to all the pressure, I suppose. And my mother will be so pleased to see him, probably more than she will to see me. I’m the daughter who let her down, with no grandchildren and a failed marriage.”
    “It’s a difficult time for you,” he said. Pamela had always made it clear that she had no desire to settle down and was determined never to have children. They had never talkedseriously about it, but it was something that Bruno knew placed a limit on their relationship. He sometimes asked himself if it had been a mistake to break his traditional rule of never starting an affair with someone who lived in St. Denis.
    “He’ll probably expect to stay at the house when he comes up, and I’ll have to be polite to him,” she said, her voice cold. “God, I hate that kind of acting.”
    Perhaps unconsciously, Bruno thought, she had timed her last remark to end just as he turned the final bend that led to the train station. They still had a few minutes before the train left.
    “Just think about your mother. She’s the only thing that matters now.” He brought the car to a halt outside the station. “Would it help if I came to Scotland?”
    “No, absolutely not. That would just make everything much more complicated and it’s much more help to me that you’ll be living at my place and looking after the horses. But it’s sweet of you to offer. I know this is a busy time for you, but I don’t want you to start living on pizzas and sandwiches.”
    He laughed. “You know me better than that.”
    “Fabiola will keep an eye on you. She said she’ll invite you around for meals.”
    He opened the door, climbed out and walked quickly round to help her out with her carry-on bag, then held open the station door for her. “Have you got your train ticket?”
    “I’ll get one onboard—no, don’t wait for me.”
    He ignored her, went to the ticket counter and greeted Jean-Michel who played for St. Denis and whose nose was still swollen from his encounter with Teddy at the rugby practice. He bought her an open return, exchanged a joke about Jean-Michel’s bruises, punched Pamela’s ticket in the required yellow box and led the way across the rails to the platform for Bordeaux.
    “I have no idea how long I’ll have to stay,” she said as they walked over the wooden pathway across the rails that led to the far platform for the Bordeaux train. “I suppose it will depend on her recovery and whether she can continue to live alone.”
    “You could bring her over here. You have plenty of room.”
    “She’d hate it, being away from Edinburgh and her friends. She’s always wanted me to move back there.”
    Bruno hadn’t known that. He could see the train coming in the distance. They were the only people on the platform. He took her hand, still gripping the mangled gloves. He looked her in the eye, raised her hand to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist. She looked back, her lip trembling.
    “I’ll miss you, but we’ll take care of everything here.