Vintage (13 page)

“I dunno,” she said. “Just got fed up of London, I suppose. Thought it might be a laugh to come to the country for a bit.”

“Well, I’m sure your father would have been very glad to welcome you to Froggy Bottom so I will do my best to make you feel at home on his behalf.”

“Thanks,” said Kelly. She stared out of the window at the blackness passing by. Guy had a feeling she was still trying very hard not to cry.

“It might be a bit cold in the farmhouse,” Guy continued. “The place has been pretty much shut up since your dad died. I stay in the flat above the barn. Smaller and easier to heat. You could have my room tonight. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“The farmhouse will be OK,” said Kelly.

Guy let Kelly into the old place and showed her where the ancient boiler was hidden and what she should do to reignite the pilot light when it blew out, as it often did. He turned on the equally antique immersion heater so that she could have hot water for a bath. There was linen in the airing cupboard, but since the house had been empty for so long, it smelled distinctly musty. Guy nipped across the courtyard to his own home and returned with a set of bedding and two towels from his own collection. He made another trip and came back with half a pint of milk and the remains of a loaf of bread that he had been saving for his breakfast the following day.

“We’ll go into town tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll show you where the supermarket is. You can get yourself properly set up.”

“Thanks,” Kelly managed.

But Kelly didn’t bother to dress the bed with the sheets that Guy had provided for her. Neither did she bother to run a bath with the hot water from the boiler that had valiantly spluttered into life. Instead, keeping all her clothes on—taking off only her boots—she climbed under the bare duvet and the scratchy blankets. She lay in bed, looking up at the beams that made frightening shadows on the peeling paintwork and wondered what she had just done.

On the other side of the courtyard, Guy fell asleep pretty quickly. He felt sorry for Kelly but also optimistic. She was a sweet girl, he decided. He’d soon instill in her some enthusiasm for Froggy Bottom and what he hoped to create there. He’d long since decided that Froggy Bottom was a magical place. No one who came there for any length of time could possibly remain unchanged.

T
wo moths after her father’s death Madeleine was still in Champagne. Geoff had stopped calling daily with news from London. For her part, Madeleine’s time in the City was slowly receding and becoming more and more like a dream. She found herself considering letting her
London flat out to tenants. Only in the short term, of course. But her life in Champagne was definitely taking on something of a routine.

Henri Mason was only too pleased to remind Madeleine of the way the vines needed to be cared for. He had known Madeleine since she was a little girl and Henri was, as Axel had promised, a very reliable worker. But he was almost as old as Madeleine’s father had been and he was starting to show his age as he moved around the vineyard. Likewise the three other guys Henri referred to as “the youngsters” were a bunch of emphysematic fifty-somethings, who spent more time complaining about their backs than pruning. Madeleine soon found herself picking up the slack.

That morning, Madeleine left Henri alone in the Clos while she went up to the Arsenault vineyards on the hill above the village. When she began work, thankful that her years in the City had made her used to early starts, it was quite cool, but by midday she had stripped down to a T-shirt and a pair of cutoff jeans she’d found stuffed in a drawer in her old room.

Pausing for a drink from a battered canteen that had belonged to her father, she looked down over the valley and spotted Axel’s car. He was quite a way off. It was unusually hot for the time of year and he’d taken down the soft top of his BMW. The music he was playing drifted toward her across the vines. Some heavy rock band. Madeleine smiled to herself. Axel might dress like a grown-up these days but his musical taste was that of a teenager.

Seeing Axel’s car turn onto the track that led to her vines, Madeleine set down her canteen and her pruning shears. She took off her gloves and gave herself a quick once-over in the rearview mirror of her father’s old Twingo. By the time Axel got to her, the big smudge of dirt
on one cheek was gone and her lips glistened with Blistex, the only thing approaching makeup she had to hand.

But Axel didn’t seem to care whether Madeleine was perfectly groomed. He skidded his car to a halt on the dusty track and sprang out. When he opened his arms Madeleine practically skipped into them. They kissed. Deliciously.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming out here today,” she said.

“I didn’t expect to be. But Randon wanted me to show some Americans around the house. I just put them on a train back to Paris and decided I would take the rest of the day off.”

“Good. I’m glad you did. You work much too hard.”

“It suits you,” said Axel, smoothing Madeleine’s hair out of her face.

“What does?”

“Outdoor work. You look more fantastic every time I see you. Do you have time for lunch?”

“Sure. I’ve just about finished up here for the day,” said Madeleine. “I’ll follow you down into the village. I’ve got nothing in the house but if we hurry we should be able to catch the brasserie.”

“Not necessary,” said Axel. “I’ve brought lunch to you.”

He took Madeleine by the hand and led her to the BMW. On the back seat was a wicker basket covered with a bright red and white gingham cloth.

“Oh, how lovely,” said Madeleine. “Where shall we have it?”

“Not here,” said Axel. “Too much like having lunch at your desk. How about at Les Faux?”

Madeleine grinned. The Faux De Verzy—a forest of beech trees that had somehow grown so twisted that they were more like domes than trees—was a well-known
courting spot. Or, rather, it had been. These days the trees were fenced off and the tourists could only troop past on prescribed paths.

Axel opened the passenger door to the BMW and Madeleine slid gracefully onto the seat. She might have been wearing the clothes of a farmworker, but she put her knees together and swung her legs into the car in one smooth movement like a finishing-school graduate. As Axel whipped along the road toward Reims, Madeleine untied her long dark hair and let it flow behind her.

En route to the forest, he amused her with his impressions of the American visitors. One of them had asked for some Perrier to mix with a glass of Éclat.

“Can you imagine?” Axel asked. “She’s lucky Randon wasn’t there. He’d have gutted her with his Mont Blanc pen.” Taking one hand off the wheel, Axel mimed the action. Slash, slash, stab. Madeleine shivered.

A couple of minutes later, Axel pulled the car off the road into the tourist car park but he and Madeleine were soon well away from the crowds who stopped to marvel at nature’s diversity from behind the barriers.

“There’s a particularly good tree over here,” he said, taking Madeleine by the hand and leading her farther into the woods.

“How do you know? Don’t tell me you’ve brought another woman out here?” Madeleine teased.

“Of course not,” Axel teased back.

There weren’t many people who’d grown up in Champagne who hadn’t taken someone to Les Faux. It was the perfect trysting place for anyone who didn’t have a home of their own or, for other reasons, couldn’t go home with the one they wanted to make love to.

Axel parted the branches so that Madeleine could step inside this particular domed beech. He took the red and
white checked cloth from the top of the basket and spread it out on the forest floor. It was wonderfully cool beneath the tree. And private.

“Like our own little house,” said Axel.

Madeleine was surprised to feel a little frisson of pleasure at the words “our own.”

Axel had packed a wonderful picnic, cobbled together from the lunch the Maison Randon chef had prepared for the American visitors. They’d hardly touched a thing, he explained. Too many dietary complications that the Randon chef—like most French chefs—refused to pander to. And there was champagne, of course.

“Maison Randon?” Madeleine observed.

“What can I say?” Axel shrugged. “It was free. And in any case,” he added, “I think the ‘96 Éclat tastes perfectly good. If you mix it with Perrier.”

Madeleine laughed. Axel removed the cork from the Maison Randon with a pop.

“I’m feeling exuberant,” he explained.

Madeleine held out two tulip-shaped glasses, also lifted from the Maison Randon tasting room, and Axel filled them halfway.

“We should have a toast. To you,” he said, raising his glass. Simple but perfect.

“And to you,” said Madeleine.

They both took a sip. And pulled suitable faces of disgust though in fact the Éclat was excellent by anyone’s standard. Even that of a rival champagne grower.

“It’s OK,” joked Madeleine afterward. “I have had worse. Pass me that egg to take away the taste.”

“How are you really finding it?” Axel asked later. “Being back here in Champagne.”

Madeleine lay back on the gingham cloth and gazed up into the canopy of leaves.

“It has its moments. Lunch breaks weren’t like this when I worked at the bank.”

“But it can get quite dull, can’t it? Hitting the town in Reims can’t be like going out in London. You must be bored.”

“Hitting the town in London with a bunch of bankers was getting pretty boring too.”

“Fair enough. But you’re not itching to go back.”

“Not right now, I’m not. I could stay here forever.”

Madeleine closed her eyes and stretched luxuriously.

Axel plucked a blade of grass from the ground. He rolled over onto his front, supported on his elbows, and used the grass to tickle the end of her nose. With her eyes shut, Madeleine assumed she was being attacked by some kind of insect. She batted the blade away. Eventually she opened her eyes.

“Axel,” she said.

He placed a kiss on the end of her nose.

“Stop teasing me.”

“With the grass?”

“Yes.”

“Can I tease you some other way instead?” A slow smile spread over his lips.

Madeleine felt the blade of grass on her knee this time.

“Axel … ”

Then she felt his lips touch her knee where the grass had been. Meanwhile, Axel was using the blade of grass to trace a path all the way up the inside of her thigh. Madeleine’s inner thigh tensed in anticipation and, sure enough, Axel followed the blade with his lips. Soft short kisses like the footsteps of a butterfly on her silky skin. Both Madeleine and Axel sighed with disappointment as he reached the hem of her tiny denim shorts.

“Foiled,” said Axel.

“Wait there,” said Madeleine. She unfastened her belt
and wriggled out of the denims. Beneath them she was wearing a pair of simple white cotton knickers.

“Shouldn’t you take those trousers off?” she asked Axel. “Don’t want to get them creased.”

Axel had put on a smart linen suit for the Americans’ visit. He happily took Madeleine’s advice and soon they were both completely naked, rolling around on the picnic rug, sending the half-full glasses of Éclat flying.

“Joey!” called a Canadian-accented voice. “There’s another one over here. Bring your camera.”

Madeleine sat up abruptly, pulling the picnic blanket around her just in time. Axel was still naked to the world when Joey’s companion parted the branches of the gnarled old beech and peered into the gloom.

“A glass of champagne perhaps?” asked Axel, offering the poor shocked woman a flute.

That evening, Axel took Madeleine to dinner at Château Les Crayères in Reims. This time, Randon would not call him away.

Madeleine hadn’t been to Les Crayères in almost ten years. The occasion had been her parents’ wedding anniversary—the last anniversary they shared before her mother died. It had been a relatively solemn event. But her evening with Axel was to be very different.

It began with drinks on the terrace overlooking the perfect lawn that swept down toward the trees. Les Crayères was the kind of place that demanded a certain level of effort from its clientele. Madeleine’s lacy black dress suited the occasion perfectly. As did her black satin Chanel evening bag.

The elegant dining room was busy yet somehow still perfectly intimate. The wonderful acoustics kept the place quiet as a cathedral. The last of the sunlight bouncing off
the soft cream-painted walls bathed the room and its occupants in a veil of beauty.

It was so easy to be with Axel, Madeleine reflected as he bantered with the sommelier. He had the kind of manner that fit well anywhere. Even the poor Canadian woman who had disturbed them at Les Faux had left the scene relatively charmed.

Wine chosen, Axel raised another toast.

“To my beautiful Madeleine. I truly cannot think of anywhere in the world I would rather be right now,” Axel said.

“Me neither,” Madeleine agreed.

Madeleine felt almost grateful to her father in that moment. Coming back to the house had brought Axel back into her life. It was astonishing. She had never felt so much excitement at the thought of seeing someone as she did every time she thought of Axel Delaflote. Everything in her life she wanted to share with him. She couldn’t look at him without wanting to reach out and touch his gorgeous face. She hoped he felt the same way; it seemed he felt the same way. As she thought it, Axel reached out and stroked her cheek.