Vintage (17 page)

“Fifty quid a head. Easy,” said Kelly as she spilled roughly the same amount’s worth of wine down the front of her shirt.

M
adeleine Arsenault is no vigneronne.”

Axel Delaflote’s words echoed in Madeleine’s head. From the moment she awoke in the morning to the moment she finally managed to go to sleep—with the aid of the pills she’d persuaded her doctor she needed to cope with bereavement—she could hear his voice as he discussed the future of Clos Des Larmes with that idiot Mathieu Randon. Axel had turned out to be a big swinging dick indeed. She had never felt so humiliated. And hurt.

Well, she would show them both. Madeleine Arsenault had champagne in her blood. She may have chosen to leave Champagne as soon as she was able but that didn’t mean she had forgotten the things she learned by her father’s side. Her pride was at stake. She was going to make this work. The very morning after Axel’s sudden departure from her life, Madeleine was back in the vineyard.

Madeleine knew that ninety-nine percent of good winemaking took place among the vines. Unraveling her father’s financial affairs still took up plenty of time but Madeleine made sure she was in the vineyards on the hill and the Clos next to the house daily, inspecting progress with Henri.

For a few days after her fight with Axel, Madeleine worried that Henri might be in the employ of Randon too, hired to scupper that year’s harvest so that Randon could get his hands on her land for even less. But eventually she
came to realize that idea was ridiculous. She had known Henri since childhood. He had carried her to hospital when, aged seven, she fell off the wall of the Clos and broke her arm. She couldn’t think of a more honest man. In fact, when she told him the reason why young Monsieur Delaflote was no longer welcome at Champagne Arsenault, Henri seemed genuinely shocked.

“You did the right thing, mademoiselle,” he assured her. “You should never part with Arsenault. Your father would be proud.”

Madeleine accepted Henri’s compliment gracefully though she very much doubted he was right about her father. She couldn’t think of a single time in her childhood when she felt that Constant Arsenault had truly been proud of her. After Georges’s death it seemed he couldn’t even be bothered to be exasperated with her anymore. The house, which had once been filled with the sound of children playing, was suddenly silent. A house so deep in mourning it was as though time had simply stopped. No one seemed to consider that Madeleine missed her brother too.

Madeleine preferred to think of her grandmother.
Grand-mère
Arsenault looked fierce but she’d always been soft for her granddaughter. When Madeleine was in trouble with her father, she would creep into her grandmother’s room at the back of the house and cuddle up on her lap.

“You’re as good as the boys, Madeleine. Always remember that.”

Well, she was going to prove her
grand-mère
right.

A month after her fight with Axel, Madeleine received a visit from one of her girlfriends from London, Lizzy Parker. Madeleine and Lizzy first met when Madeleine was sent to boarding school in Hampshire. Later, they
shared a flat in London before Madeleine’s career took off and she could afford a place of her own. Lizzy’s career had also taken off—she was a well-respected magazine journalist—but her personal life was never quite so successful. She had drifted through a number of hopeless live-in relationships that always ended with her turning up on Madeleine’s doorstep with her bags. That weekend was no exception. Like Madeleine, Lizzy was heartbroken. She’d just come out of a three-year affair with a dope-smoking physics teacher who’d claimed he was too damaged to love. Of course, just a couple of weeks after dumping Lizzy, he was seeing someone else. Thus Lizzy was only too happy to corroborate Madeleine’s view that men were not to be trusted.

“I’m not in the least bit surprised to hear that Axel bloke turned out to be such a cast-iron arse,” said Lizzy. “He was much too good to be true. Just like James! I can’t believe I put up with his crap for three years! Three years, Maddy. All that bleating about how damaged he was. Making me feel sorry for him when he was really just being crap like the rest of them. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did,” said Madeleine. “We all did. Even he did,” she observed.

“Well, we’re better off without them.”

Lizzy clinked her champagne glass against Madeleine’s, spilling half its contents as she did so.

Over the next three hours Lizzy dissected James’s character—or lack of it. Madeleine remained quiet except for the occasional psychiatrist-style “mmm-hmm.” She knew that was all Lizzy wanted really, the sense that she was being listened to. She wasn’t asking for answers or advice, which was lucky since Madeleine didn’t have any to give.

Between them, the girls drank two bottles of wine.
Madeleine had cooked a fabulous dinner but Lizzy hardly touched the food laid before her.

“The only good thing about splitting up with James is that I can get into my old jeans again,” she said ruefully. “I’m so miserable, I just keep forgetting to eat. You’re looking very thin, Mads,” Lizzy added with something approaching admiration.

“Working in the vineyards,” she said.

“Oh yes,” said Lizzy, forcing herself out of her solipsism at last. “How is that going?”

Madeleine was only too glad to change the subject. She told Lizzy in great detail about the state in which she had found the house and the vineyard when she returned for her father’s funeral.

“Despite all that, this may actually turn out to be a good year. I may even make a Clos Des Larmes.”

“What is a Clos Des Larmes?” Lizzy asked.

“It’s the name of Champagne Arsenault’s finest wine. A clos is a walled vineyard. Clos Des Larmes is the walled vineyard behind this house. It means ‘Vineyard of Tears.’ ”

“Tears?”

“Yes. It got its name during the First World War. My great-grandmother had just been widowed. She was pregnant with my grandfather, about seven months gone. It was August. The fighting was within miles of the house but the grapes still had to be harvested. She was able to do it only with the help of two of her old schoolfriends, also widowed. They cried the whole way through. Hence Vineyard of Tears.”

“That’s so sad,” said Lizzy. “Your great-grandmother must have been a brave woman. Can you imagine? I can barely get out of bed because of that stupid shit James. If I’d been widowed in the middle of a pregnancy, I think I would have left all the grapes to shrivel.”

“Times of adversity bring out the best in the
Champenois. In fact, I think that’s true of most people. You’re only as feeble as you allow yourself to be,” said Madeleine.

Lizzy pulled a doubtful face.

“You’re better than this, Lizzy. You’ll be over James in no time at all. I promise you. Perhaps you should come back here at harvesttime. The place will be crawling with young Australians on working holidays. Soon take your mind off James and his saggy jowls.”

“He does have jowls, doesn’t he?” Lizzy finally admitted.

“Terrible jowls. We all used to talk about them when you weren’t around. That and his man-boobs.”

“Oh God. The man-boobs!” Lizzy giggled properly for the first time that night. “You know he was actually considering breast-reduction surgery,” she cackled. “If he started having tucks, I don’t know where he’d finish!”

And so the evening ended on a slightly brighter note as Lizzy convinced herself—at least for the moment—that she’d had a lucky escape. What woman wanted to sleep with a man whose bra size was bigger than her own?

Madeleine couldn’t comfort herself in quite the same way, alas. No jowls on Axel Delaflote.

The following morning she awoke halfway through a dream in which Axel was lying beside her. Their faces were turned to each other. He was looking deep into her eyes. She thought she could see love there.

And then she was awake and back to hearing him sneering about her ability to keep Champagne Arsenault afloat and plotting with Randon to absorb her family name into bloody Domaine Randon along with all those crappy brands.

Unable to get back to sleep, Madeleine got up and roused Lizzy too.

“What? Is it morning already? My head hurts.”

“Have a glass of water,” said Madeleine brusquely. “And put your boots on. We’re going to get cracking with these.”

She waved a pair of shears at her friend.

“On James?” was Lizzy’s sleepy first reaction.

“On the vines, you nitwit. Need to take some leaves off to help the ripening.”

Physical labor. That would keep those stupid men out of their heads.

C
hristina’s faux pas with regard to Domaine Randon’s Fast Life and the ISACL “I Don’t Buy It” campaign unleashed a flurry of legalese between Christina’s agent and Randon’s lawyers. Marisa was terrified, but didn’t show it; Bill was mortified—he did show that; Christina was unrepentant. After all, Domaine Randon wasn’t actually able to quash the accusation that Fast Life products were made using cheap child labor.

“But Bill,” Christina said when they finally found themselves in the same house for more than a couple of hours and were able to discuss the matter face-to-face. “Since Domaine Randon
does
profit from child labor, then we ought not to be involved in their advertising anyway.”

“What?” Bill stared at his wife.

“I mean, never mind Mathieu Randon being upset about the association. How is it going to
look
for me that I
took his dime in the first place? I have to be
so
careful about my image. Either he has to make an announcement saying that he’s willing to ensure his companies don’t use child labor or I will have to resign from the champagne campaign and pay Randon’s fee back.”

“Christina, have you gone completely out of your mind? Do you know how much we got for that campaign?”

“We don’t need his money.”

“Oh, but we do,” Bill murmured half to himself. He cast an eye around the living room of their Malibu beach house, with its unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean. The mortgage was astronomical. Not to mention the cost of everything in it. Even the ashtrays, in which Bill had stubbed out an alarming number of Marlboro Lights in the last hour, cost five hundred bucks apiece. Christina had been responsible for decorating the house and she had expensive taste. While Bill would have been happy with a shack on the sand and a table made of driftwood, she had to have Italian furniture, French china and antiques on every surface. And Bill had indulged her; it seemed to make her happy.

Bill walked out onto the balcony and lit another cigarette to calm the rising panic. He was sure Christina had no clue how much they needed the next Éclat campaign.

“Billy.” Christina followed him outside.

Bill stared out at the sea as she wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder.

“Please don’t be angry with me, sweetheart. It’s not the end of the world if Randon won’t do the decent thing. If we stand down from this campaign there will be others. I know there will. Much better ones. There has to be a brand out there that will actually appreciate our stance on child labor.”

“Our stance?” said Bill. “You think I give a shit who sews my socks?”

“I know you don’t mean that,” said Christina

Bill snorted in response. He unpeeled Christina’s arms from his waist.

“Trust me,” she persisted. “Ultimately this will turn out to have been a fantastic move for both of us. Think of how this could look. The public wants their stars to have integrity as well as glamour. There is a great brand out there that will be very, very happy to be associated with doing the right thing. As we are.”

“Christina, there isn’t a luxury brand left in the Western world that you haven’t just told your fans to boycott! The only thing you approve of is sackcloth. You don’t think the news has got out about this foul-up? Nobody gives a shit about integrity. Everyone is laughing at you. As far as advertisers are concerned, you’re trouble. You’re a fucking liability. You’ve just shot yourself in the foot. And me too.”