Vintage (19 page)

‘I had a good teacher.’

‘If I don’t raise the capital on the château, Monsieur Huchez and Monsieur Combe will have something to say. How else do you suggest I pay my back-taxes?’

‘I’m afraid, Papa, that’s your problem.’

Through the window Clare could see Jamie, in his running gear, setting off round the vineyards with a loping Rougemont at his heels. Trying to control the banging in her chest, she faced the Baron.

‘From now on Château de Cluzac will be efficiently – and legally – run,’ she said.

‘I am already committed in Florida. Who, may I ask, will run it?’

The words that escaped from Clare’s lips came as much of a surprise to herself as they did to the Baron.

‘I will.’

The announcement that Château de Cluzac was no longer on the market, and that young Clare de Cluzac was taking over the estate from her father, ran through the Médoc with the speed of a forest fire. To some the news was as welcome as the plague of phylloxera, which at the end of the 1870s had attacked the vines and wiped out
seventy-five
per cent of the harvest.

It was Harry Balard, who had the information from the golf club, who brought home the news that dashed his sister’s romantic hopes, shattered his mother’s aspirations and spiked his father’s guns.

For Marie-Paule it was the end of a dream. Her marriage to the handsome Claude Balard had turned out to be a disappointment.

The first major indication that all was not well had come with the birth of their son Harry, conceived on their honeymoon. Marie-Paule had been led to believe that a new mother was a blessed Madonna whose image must be worshipped; a fragile human being, pushed to the edge by childbirth, who was in desperate need not only of tender loving care but of understanding from her spouse.

Contrary to her expectations, any compassionate
feelings
towards her which her husband had previously
harboured
, and which had been expressed beneath the covers of the lit matrimoniale, had, at the moment of Harry’s birth, been snuffed out like a candle. After a brief glance at his son, Balard had handed the bundle back to
Marie-Paule
and allowed her to get on with it, which she had done, more or less, ever since.

From that moment on, the marriage had started to fall apart. That it held together at all was due to the fact that Marie-Paule put her husband’s displeasure with the way she looked (pregnancy did nothing for her), and with the manner in which she ran the house, down to deficiencies in herself rather than his own disposition. Despite her best efforts, there were times when she was unable to please him. If she chattered, he wanted to be left alone. If she said nothing, he wanted to know why she wasn’t talking to him. If she laughed, it was too loud. If she dominated the conversation she was diverting attention from him. Either she said the wrong thing, or she said the right thing, but in the wrong way. Blaming her thoughtless words or ill-chosen remarks for his bad moods and his frequent retreat into a silence that cast a pall over the household and sometimes lasted for days, she felt obliged to make excuses for him. When he returned to his normal indifference, it was as if a load had been removed from her shoulders, and the resumptions of their conjugal duties was like sunshine after rain.

To avoid confrontation (it was not worth the candle) Marie-Paule had learned to acquiesce with her husband, to defer to his authority at all times, and to allow any will or opinion which had not already been knocked out of her by his bullying to be consumed by his. It was a cross she accepted, the weight of which she had to bear.

The burden was made more tolerable by the presence of Harry, upon whom she doted, unable to refuse him anything, and whom she protected from his father. That this was not too difficult was due to the fact that, like many other chartronnais, her husband was so busy peddling his wines at home and abroad that she saw him only at mealtimes.

While his run-of-the-mill clients were wined and dined in one of the many Bordeaux restaurants, those of importance were subjected to an excruciatingly formal dinner, chez Balard, at which English was invariably spoken. Other than on these, fortunately rare, occasions for which she was directly responsible, Marie-Paule’s time was taken up with charity work and there was even a local clinic which bore her name.

By contrast to Harry, Christiane was her father’s girl. From the moment that Balard had glanced into the crib at the end of his wife’s bed, he had been instantly captivated. He babbled and booed at her, swung her upside down, clapped his large hands (startling her out of her wits), and sang to her in his coarse and tuneless voice. Later he bought her toys. Pull-along ducks that quacked cacophonously and dogs which did somersaults.

Despite Marie-Paule’s disapproval, he indulged his own appetites vicariously, and stuffed the child with sweets and cakes. Despite her father’s insensitive parenting, Christiane Balard, who was not over-endowed with brains, grew up to be not only good-looking but sweet-natured and gentle. Although her father was putty in her hands, she rarely made demands upon him, and as the only member of the family to be excluded from the paranoid circle, in which nothing they did was right, Christiane could do no wrong.

Harry’s pronouncement about the sale of Château de Cluzac, made over lunch in the gloomy dining-room with its heavy Provençal furniture and collection of plates inherited from Marie-Paule’s mother (dismissed contemptuously by Balard as ramasses nids à poussières, although he did not have to dust them), did not have quite the explosive effect upon her husband that Marie-Paule might have expected.

Putting down his spoon on the potage au cresson – the current cook was not inspired – which he rudely dismissed as Bouillie Bordelaise (the ‘Bordeaux Mixture’ specific against mildew and potato disease), he accused Harry of lying.

Marie-Paule, as usual, sprang to her son’s defence.

‘How could he make up such a terrible thing, cheri? Why would he wish to do so?’

Commanded to do so, Harry, whose transient stammer was exacerbated by the presence of his father, reiterated the news that the château on which his father had set his heart had been withdrawn from the market and would henceforth be run by Clare de Cluzac. His pronouncement shattered the tranquillity of the family mealtime, not exactly an oasis of peace at the best of times.

‘Idle gossip,’ Balard said, as if the vehemence with which he delivered his comment made it true.

Harry shrugged. ‘Everyone in the clubhouse was talking about it…’

‘Someone in the English Bookshop was saying that the Baron had already sold Château de Cluzac to a South African…’ Christiane Balard ventured.

‘Another silly rumour!’ Balard looked at Harry, taking him down a peg. ‘The next thing we’ll be hearing is that Asterix has bought Château de Cluzac. These stories have been circulating for months.’

‘Fine!’ Harry said insolently, looking at his watch – he had a date in Bordeaux.

‘Surely the agents would have let you know, chéri.’ Marie-Paule poured oil on troubled waters. ‘Surely they would have written to you…’

Ignoring his wife, and picking his teeth assiduously – a habit that irritated her intensely – Balard, who was unable to repudiate Harry’s pronouncement entirely, turned to his son.

‘Who is it that’s been spreading this malicious gossip?’

‘Pierre Kilmartin…’

‘And where did young Kilmartin get it from?’

‘Clare de Cluzac.’

The fact that her husband was not snoring like a pig meant that Balard was awake. At the risk of having her head bitten off, of being accused of waking him up, of introducing controversial subjects when he was about to go to sleep, of meddling in things that did not concern her, of voicing an opinion on matters she knew nothing about, Marie-Paule, unable to sleep herself at the thought of the prize she had craved for so long being snatched from beneath her nose, decided to take a chance.

‘She doesn’t even live in France.’

The fact that her husband knew immediately what she was talking about, that he didn’t taunt her with her inability to make herself clear, gave her an indication that all was not well. She decided to push her luck.

‘Clare de Cluzac a château owner!’ Her voice was scornful. ‘Did I tell you that I met her chez Biancarelli…?’

Balard pricked up his ears.

‘My femme de ménage has a better idea how to dress.’

Turning over suddenly, and without warning, Balard flopped down like a great porpoise coming to rest.

‘You are Charles-Louis’ negociant,’ Marie-Paule said soothingly, wondering if she should put a reassuring hand on her husband’s shoulder. ‘He would not have done anything without telling you…’

‘Charles-Louis is capable of anything.’

‘Maybe you should telephone him…’

‘At three o’clock in the morning!’

‘If it is true,’ Marie-Paule said, now near to tears, ‘I will look a complete fool. I have told everyone that we were buying Château de Cluzac. A Venetian Carnival…’

‘Venetian Carnival?’

‘The Fête de la Fleur. A Doge’s Palace. I had it all planned. I shan’t be able to look my Baby Home committee in the face again.’

‘If Clare de Cluzac thinks she can run a château,’ her husband’s voice boomed from the depths of his vinous belly, ‘she’s mistaken. It’s not like dabbling in an art gallery. You have to make financial choices. It’s more like being in charge of a bank. It’s like owning a racing stables – you win one race, then you lose four more. Anyone can make good wine in a good vintage. It takes years to learn how to deal with a difficult vintage, to know when to keep a reserve and when to release it. Photographic palate! What you see in your glass is a very small part of the story. It starts in the bare fields in winter, with the wet summers, with knowing how to cope with the contrariétés. When we want rain we get drought. When we want drought we get rain. You have to make decisions. Decisions that make the difference between an average wine and a great one. You have to know the weather. And when to start picking. Are you going to wait? If you wait, will it be raining? How will you handle the rain? Can you pick the grapes fast? Will the petit verdot ripen? What does Clare de Cluzac know about sanitation in the vineyards – I used to carry her on my shoulders when she was a baby – about fermentation? Has she even heard of the malo? Is she aware that the Cluzac chai is archaic, that the equipment comes out of the ark? A vineyard is a business. With seventy hectares under cultivation it is big business. Every day is a battle. What does she know about it? The girl must be as mad as her mother. She must think that running a vineyard is some kind of game…’

Balard’s voice was getting louder. He suffered from high blood pressure, he was not supposed to get excited. Marie-Paule switched on the light.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Doctor Hébèque said you shouldn’t get excited…’

‘I am not excited! I am trying to tell you something, woman, and all you do is interrupt.’

‘I am going to get you a pill!’

‘I do not want a pill!’ Balard was sweating profusely. He was dangerously red in the face.

‘Then I am going to fetch Harry…’

‘I forbid you…’ Balard said.

But Marie-Paule was half-way down the passage. Calling Harry by name, she knocked and, without waiting for an answer, opened the door on to his empty room. Sitting down for a moment on the neatly made bed with its simple cotton quilt, she was overcome by a wave of maternal jealousy. Tracing an outline of Harry’s head on the pillow, she pictured him in some Bordeaux disco dancing with another woman.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Although Harry was in Bordeaux, although he was in fact in a disco, although his partner wore the highest of heels, the shortest of skirts and sported the most luxuriant of eyelashes, he was not dancing with a girl.

Having not only been christened with a fashionable English name, but sent away to a fashionable English boarding school – against his mother’s wishes – Harry
Balard had grown up somewhat confused about his sexual orientation.

He was waiting to go up to Oxford when Julien Gilles, the tennis coach at Primrose, had, on more than one occasion, put his arms around him ostensibly to monitor his stroke. Together with an impressive backhand, and a service that was virtually unreturnable, the tennis coach had subsequently indoctrinated his pupil with skills other than those having to do with the game.

The sight of Julien’s massive thighs in the showers, of his broad shoulders and muscular arms as he lathered his chest with soap, had provoked a response from Harry’s body hitherto associated with the girls, optimistically introduced to him by his mother, with whom he danced, played tennis, took sailing on the Garonne, and only occasionally to bed.

In love, for the first time, with a man old enough to be his father, Harry Balard was introduced by his protector to the underbelly of Bordeaux.

In a moment of typical braggadocio, Harry had taken Julien home and introduced him to his mother.
Marie-Paule
, not immune herself to the indisputable charm of the bronzed athlete, had innocently enquired how Harry’s tennis was coming along, and, when the two of them remained closeted in Harry’s bedroom for an unconscionably long time, assumed that Julien was demonstrating to her son the finer points of the game.

When Harry deceived Julien (who was scuba-diving in the Red Sea) with Apollo Durand, a young man whom he picked up in a gay bar, the shit had hit the fan. Julien made every threat in the book, from killing himself to denouncing Harry to his family, but it was too late.

By the time Harry went up to university, from which he came down speaking French with an Oxford accent, he had discovered the delights of bisexual promiscuity.
Fearful of AIDS, he did not permit his brief and indiscriminate male encounters – which belied his fastidiousness in all other respects – to include penetrative sex.

Failing to find Harry in his bedroom, Marie-Paule went to wake Christiane in her room across the passage, which was as cluttered and revealing, with its frilled cushions, miniature scent bottles, pictures of rock idols and cuddly animals, as Harry’s was secret and stark.

She was unable to bring herself to rouse Christiane from what appeared to be an extremely deep sleep. With a wistful sigh at the sight of the youthful body exposed to the heat, Marie-Paule caressed a strand of her daughter’s fine hair, streaked golden by the sun, which strayed across the pillow, and tiptoed out of the room.

Returning to the master bedroom, she found Claude, lying in the middle of the bed and spreadeagled over two thirds of it, breathing stertorously through his open mouth, and fast asleep.

Making herself as small as possible, she climbed in beside him. Alone for once with her thoughts – even when he was not actually controlling her, Balard’s wires were in her head – she made her own plans for Château de Cluzac; plans which she was not going to give up without a struggle, and for which she would enlist Harry’s willing help.