Blackbird Fly (24 page)

Albert showed up a half-hour later with a bottle of
wine and a bunch of flowers, like a suitor. He felt terrible, he
said over and over. He was so angry with the officials that made
rules that they told no one. He stayed for dinner on the condition
that he help cook.

Tristan set the old table with a new green tablecloth
and the cheap white dishes. The priest had examined him for
injuries and exclaimed over the lack thereof. A little stiffness, a
little swelling, that was all. Pascal was invited to dinner too. He
went home and returned, showered and in American blue jeans, his
curls dripping on a chamois shirt, carrying a bottle of Bordeaux, a
cru bourgeois but very fine according to him. Only seven euros, he
told her with a wink. “You must improve your taste buds.”

“
What is cru bourgeois then?” she
asked, holding the bottle. “The workingman’s version of grand
cru?”

“
If it were only so easy,” he said.
He ticked them off on his fingers. “There is Premier Grand Cru,
Deuxieme, Troisieme
, and so on. Second, third, fourth,
fifth. Then, Cru Grands Exceptionels, Grand Bourgeois, Cru
bourgeois, Bordeaux Superieur. And that is just for the Médoc and
the Graves. For each classification specific techniques must be
used in the making. Only a few are Grand Cru, from the old
houses.”

Albert beamed at him. “Your father taught you well,
Pascal.”

“
Papa had a keen taste for the
grape,” Pascal said quietly. “Too keen, some might say.”

Tristan’s mood improved with the company of men,
Merle noticed. He so needed a man in his life again, even if it was
someone as part-time as his father had been. She hadn’t told him
about Courtney and Sophie yet. She hated to burst the shining image
of Harry that his son carried in his heart. It seemed cruel, yet it
also seemed inevitable. Pascal mimicked a boxing match and made him
laugh.

“
I have a special wine I want to
share with you tonight.” Merle had taken the three bottles from the
wine cave up to her bedroom, stashing them in her suitcase under
the bed. She ran up, pulled out the Château Pétrus, and carried it
downstairs. She had to know if it was spoiled. And what better time
to see, and to share it, than with friends who know
wine.

Pascal looked stunned. He examined the bottle, rubbed
the label, showed it to Albert who shrugged. “Where did you find
this?”

Tristan opened his mouth and she kicked him under the
table. She said, “We don’t have to open it. It’s probably spoiled.
Let’s drink yours.”

“
Not so fast. It looks — well —
possible. If it was stored properly, and the cork kept its
integrity — ” He sniffed the lead and raised his eyebrows. “You
never know until you open it.”

Tristan handed him the corkscrew.

They held their breaths as Pascal carefully peeled
off the lead and tapped the cork with his fingertip. The lip of the
bottle was gray with mold.

“
Good?” Merle asked. His eyebrows
wiggled in anticipation. He positioned the corkscrew and gently
pressed down as he turned it. When it was down as far as it would
go, he gripped the handle, his elbows in the air, and looked
wide-eyed.

“
Go on, Pascal. I don’t care if it
crumbles,” Merle said.

He pulled it out slowly, carefully. With a low,
mellow pop the cork came out, all in one piece. Pascal beamed as
they clapped. “Well done,” Albert said. “Smell it.”

He unscrewed the cork from the screw. Albert’s
sniffer was a huge Gallic nose like Harry’s. Pascal’s was more
proportionate and possibly, after that mini-lecture about levels of
quality, educated. He sniffed the cork then nodded.

“
Seems — okay.” He picked up the
bottle and put it to his nose. His eyes closed as he breathed in
and smiled as he handed it reverentially to Merle. “Pour
it.”

She poured the wine for the three of them, in small
juice glasses. At home she would be bothered by her lack of
appropriate stemware, but here it didn’t matter. Wine was one of
the four food groups. Pascal raised his glass then stopped. “No
wine for the mighty warrior?”

Albert cried, “He is a man, isn’t he?”

Tristan grinned, manfully. Another glass appeared,
and the circle was complete at four. They held their glasses high.
“To Tristan who may never fence like a Musketeer but can fight like
a man,” Pascal said. Merle shot him a warning look that he ignored.
He kept his glass high and added, “And American friendliness.”

“
And French friendliness, wherever
you may find it,” Merle said.

Pascal held up his free hand. “Wait. You must look
the person you toast in the eye as you touch glasses. If you don’t
it is an insult. Do it again.” They laughed, clinked again, then
stared pointedly at each other as instructed. “To friends, wherever
you find them,” he said as he looked into her eyes.

Merle put her nose over the lip of the glass and
breathed in slowly. She remembered the proper way to taste, and
swirled, sniffed again. The flavors began to change, to move up
through the midnight black wine. They each took a small sip the
dark, thick liquid from the old bottle as if it might poison them.
Merle felt the flavors slide over her tongue: oak, berry, anise,
tarragon, limestone, apple, a whiff of lemon. She closed her eyes
and refused to swallow, buoyed, caught by the viscous essence. The
moment lingered, the fluid thick as motor oil, as complex and
layered as an autumn breeze. It sank down her throat
reluctantly.

Pascal’s breath, close to her ear, whispered, “Ooh
lala. You have hit the wine jackpot.”

BOOK THREE

Winging it

Chapter 26

Smoothing her skirt Merle felt the sun on the back of
her neck, a warm breeze drying her skin, the unexpected pleasure of
the haircut. It had been a sudden decision, of the moment. Having
the same hairstyle for twenty years wasn’t a reluctance to face
change, now was it? No, it was a terror of it. She felt almost
giddy, this dangerous pleasure, this haircut, then felt ridiculous
and immediately took it back. What would Annie say?
Don’t get
your prayer flags in a twist
.

She looked over the crowd milling around the door to
the tasting room, a little nervous, counting heads; they were still
waiting for two tourists to show. So, new haircut, new job. She
took a deep breath, almost afraid of what she might do next.

She touched her bare neck. The haircut was a symbol,
of
something
. A new life, a new phase, an imperative that
sent her flying madly across the
ville
. Preparations for
whatever happened next. She’d be ready, if only because her hair
was up-to-date. All her life she never gave her hair a thought
until the very last moment, until her mother rolled her eyes, until
her sisters dragged her to a salon, until Harry dragged her to a
formal party. Then there was no time for changes, for new
directions. This was different. This time a change seemed deeply,
deeply necessary. She looked at the trees blowing in the wind and
nodded to herself: yes, this is vain, shallow, and — and yet. It
felt right.

The morning Albert drove Tristan to the train she
felt lost, as if she’d never see him again, that he was still that
baby tearing away from her breast to live on his own, without her.
He stood hunched at the front window, frowning out at the
cobblestone street. He was off to camp in four days. She finally
had screwed up her courage to tell him that she couldn’t fly home
with him because of the murder. Who was she, he asked. What
happened? She gave him the short version: a woman fell from the
cliff, she lived in this house,
their
house, and she didn’t
want to move. He groaned when Merle made him promise not to tell
his aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandparents. A hard secret to keep:
your mother under the steely eye of the French police.

She made him a list, of course, all the instructions,
the tickets, the directions. He had to find the train, find the
right terminal at the airport, go through security alone, go
through immigration, find his gate, his seat, fly the wide
Atlantic, do customs on the other end. All by himself. She took a
deep breath and let it out slowly. He was almost a man. Her little
boy. He waved to her from the car, then he was gone.

Tristan the child had been gone for a long time. He
had gone where children go, slipped away into manhood as if he’d
never fit into her arms, never cried on her shoulder, never run to
her with a skinned knee. He was his own person now, not a child but
independent, free to make his own choices — or would be very soon.
Even though her heart hurt it was everything she wanted for
him.

She’d burst into the tiny, upstairs beauty salon on a
side street over a florist, holding a magazine photograph of a
woman in a short page-boy, bangs, dark-haired, no gray. Audrey
Hepburn, without the swan neck. And that was how she walked out.
She had been a little breathless the rest of the day. What would
the workmen say? Would Albert notice? Would Pascal exclaim about
her new look? But the roofer, her roofer, never came, not that day
or the next or the next. Albert didn’t know where he was.

Now she pressed her lips together. A strange feeling,
lipstick and new hair, way too grown-up. She smiled, praying for
the lipstick to stay on lips, not teeth. There were a few flecks of
paint on her thumb, remnants of the last three days of high-speed
decorating. It had seemed important to kick things up a notch,
cross items off the list. She painted her bedroom that hopeful
sunrise yellow, sweet, innocent color before tainted with the harsh
banalities of noonday, counted the wine bottles again (
two-hundred-and-one), caught six more mice. She mixed up a batch of
cement and rocked up the plumbing trenches across the bathroom. Her
back had a sore spot.

And now she was a tour guide, a job which apparently
required only the decent mastery of the King’s English and the
ability to pour lightly. The fact that Odile and Gerard, the owners
of the winery, would never know what she told the tourists took
some pressure off. Still she wanted to do well, it was her
nature.

She straightened her back and rubbed the soreness
out. The group included ten or eleven wine lovers, Americans — two
couples traveling together — and three groups of Brits. The
Americans she could spot for miles, the women with gold jewelry and
faces frozen with botox. The Brits were less dressed and smiled
more.

Tristan had called her from Stasia’s, through Albert,
when he got back, tired but happy, and packing for camp. Stasia
said they’d been over to the house to get his sleeping bag and
backpack and everything was fine. Elise was keeping the pool clean.
As if that had been a major worry.

It all seemed so far away. She’d been in France
almost a month. The rat-race of the suburbs, of Manhattan, was
another world. Here the grass grew tall in the ditches along the
road. Two fat ducks flew up from the pond. Roses bloomed in a riot.
She had a new haircut, and she was on her own, making her own
decisions. Was she the same person she had been in April — full of
pain and confusion, kicked out of her job, at sea without her
not-so-loyal husband, the woman who dreamed of magic pearls to save
her from despair, and wrinkles?

“
Good afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen.” She waited for them to stop talking and pay attention,
just like jurors in court. That’s the way to think of them. Speak
just loud enough that they had to be quiet to hear. Impress and
persuade. The only thing they were likely to be persuaded was that
wine was cheap and plentiful. She smiled again and felt her teeth
go dry.

“
My name is Merle and I’ll be your
guide today for the tour of the cellars and vineyards of Château
Gagillac. We’ll start our tour in the state-of-the-art fermenting
facility built two years ago for over four million
euros.”

As they filed inside the dim cavernous building one
of the Brits, a gray-complected man with amazingly bad hair and
small, intense eyes, asked her how the alcohol content in the wine
changed from the beginning to end of the fermentation process.

“
I’m sorry, this is my first week
here,” she explained. “I’m still learning. I could ask
—”

“
Quite all right,” he said, smiling.
“Anthony Simms.” He extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Merle.
You’re doing a good job.”

“
I have a lot to learn.”

“
If you — ” He waved a hand
apologetically.

Despite her first impression he seemed dull but nice,
with warm brown eyes and an upper crust accent. It was nice to have
a conversation with a true English-speaker. A tour guide had to
find good qualities in everyone, she told herself. She turned to
him and said, “Are you offering lessons?”

The other tourists wandered off, poking their heads
into the empty vats and running their hands over the stainless
steel.

“
I shouldn’t presume.” He stopped,
looking pained. “I’m on a prescribed holiday. My friends made me
come.”

“
Oh.” He did look sad. Pathetic
really.

“
I’m keeping you.
Please.”

The group filed through the dim, cool space. Merle
showed off the huge stainless steel vats, explaining the controlled
mix of various grape types, the computerized control room. She was
brisk and efficient, and didn’t ask if they had questions because,
well, factoids were thin on the ground. She felt a little
embarrassed not knowing the answer to Mr. Simms’s question and
vowed to study more about winemaking. She showed them where the
grapes were dumped, how they were crushed and separated, where the
liquid was strained off.