Vintage (39 page)

There were changes at the Villa itself too. Prior to the series, the Villa Bacchante had not been open to the public. It was Greg who suggested that it was time to change that. There was a small area of land near the gate that wasn’t suitable for growing vines. With Greg’s help, Christina applied for permission to build a tasting room with a picnic area. The design of the building echoed the faux Tuscan architecture of the main house. It was surrounded by a garden planted with fresh herbs, like rosemary and lemon verbena, which filled the air with a fabulous scent, mingling with the roses that were a vineyard tradition. From the tasting room she sold Villa Bacchante’s wine and other local produce that had been featured on the show.

It was wonderful. Christina had to admit that she got a kick out of the tasting room. Far from being “the great unwashed,” most of the people who visited her property in Napa were interesting folk, eager to know about wine rather than coming just to gawp at her home. From time to time, Christina even helped out with pouring glasses. She enjoyed chatting with the wine aficionados and felt exceptionally proud when even the biggest snobs grudgingly admitted that the Villa Bacchante made good wine. Sales went through the roof.

Meanwhile, Christina kept up her involvement with ISACL. Rocky persuaded her to hold a fund-raising dinner
for the charity at the Villa Bacchante. It was sponsored by Greg’s cable company, who were only too pleased to pay for the catering in return for some footage of Christina’s glittering guests. The theme was Bacchanalia, of course. Fancy dress. All the staff (handpicked by a Hollywood casting agent for their suitably gorgeous Roman looks) were dressed in short white tunics. Christina wore a costume originally made for Saffron Burrows in her role as Andromache in
Troy.
It seemed suitably goddesslike.

Greg wore a simple tunic and a wreath of vine leaves. He was a little self-conscious until he’d had a couple of glasses of wine. It wasn’t just because he was wearing a skirt, it was also because it was the first time Christina and Greg had gone public with their relationship. As they danced to a slow song at the end of the evening, Christina didn’t care who saw them together. She just lay her head on Greg’s shoulder and let him waltz her around the room. She was completely, perfectly, happy.

Her happiness continued the next day as she filmed the first segment in her winery for season two. Bottles filled with wine from her very own first harvest were about to get their corks. Christina donned protective specs and stood in front of the production line as the necks of her bottles were dipped in liquid nitrogen, freezing the sediment that had been shaken down by the gyropalettes so that it expanded and popped out.

“This process is known as ‘disgorgement,’ ” Christina told her viewers.

The bottling machines had rattled into life again in Sussex too. And there were changes afoot. Hilarian suggested that a new look was needed to persuade potential customers that Froggy Bottom had moved on from the days when Dougal might as well have been making sparkling vinegar.
Kelly was delighted to take up the challenge of designing a new label.

Everyone agreed that you can’t be called “Froggy Bottom” and not have an amphibian somewhere on your bottle. Kelly spent half a day on the Internet looking for a book her mother had read to her when she was a child. Those bedtime stories formed some of her happiest memories. She ordered the book in secret, then, when it arrived, she proudly presented the book and her idea for a label image to Guy and Hilarian.

The book was
The Wind in the Willows.
The illustration that she wanted to copy was a tiny picture of an open-topped classic car sailing over the brow of a hill. At the wheel … 

“Mr. Toad,” said Hilarian.

“Great idea, eh?” said Kelly.

“Kelly,” said Hilarian. “There’s a clue in the name here. Mr.
Toad?”

“And … ” Kelly looked confused. “You wanted a picture of a frog. Same thing, isn’t it?”

Hilarian sighed but relented when he saw the disappointment creep into Kelly’s expression. “Close enough,” he told her.

And so the Froggy Bottom label went to press with a picture of Mr. Toad. What did it matter really? It was a funny, humorous little image that would hopefully catch the eye of the wine buyers and their customers in turn. Kelly, at least, was very pleased with it.

Guy wrote the blurb for the back of the label, making much of the “young team” eager to “shake up” the world of winemaking.

“We don’t advise you to go shaking up this bottle, however,” Guy’s blurb concluded. “Acting like a racing driver could leave you with nothing to drink.”

When the first bottle bearing the new label rolled off the production line, Kelly snatched it up and cradled it in her arms like a newborn child.

“We made this,” she said to Guy proudly.

She finally felt like part of the team.

The post always arrived late at Froggy Bottom. Guy and Kelly were out in the vineyard long before the postman skidded into the courtyard in his red and yellow van and so it wasn’t until lunchtime that they found out what had been delivered.

Guy handed Kelly the big envelope. She held it. Her face dropped.

“What is it?”

“I think it’s my results from UC Davis,” she said. She peered at the American stamp and the postmark that covered it. “It’s definitely my results.”

“Go on, then. Open it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“What if I’ve failed?”

“You won’t have failed.”

“I might have.”

“Well, if you have failed, not opening the envelope isn’t going to change things, is it?”

Kelly knew that but right then, with the envelope still sealed, all her dreams were still intact. Once she opened the envelope and saw that capital letter “F,” it would all be over. The good feeling taking the course had given her would evaporate. She would be officially thick again.

“For heaven’s sake.” Guy snatched the envelope from her. Kelly made a desperate lunge to grab it back but Guy held it high above his head and well out of her reach.

“Sit over there,” he commanded, pointing toward the
kitchen table. “And don’t move until I say so. I’m going to open this damn envelope for you.”

Kelly sat at the table. She leaned forward on her elbows, closed her eyes and covered her ears. Guy ripped the envelope open, pulled out the letter and scanned it quickly.

After what seemed like an age, Kelly opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was frowning.

“I knew it. I knew I’d bloody failed!” Kelly cried. She pushed her chair back from the table and got ready to run upstairs and sob.

Guy merely laughed at her distress. He grabbed her arm as she tried to get past him.

“You passed, you silly sausage. What’s more, you passed with distinction.”

He handed her the letter. She wiped her eyes and began to read.

“Which makes you even more highly qualified than I am,” he went on to say.

Kelly’s smile returned as she saw that he really wasn’t joking.

“I passed with distinction! I’ve never passed anything with distinction before!”

“Congratulations,” said Guy. “You really deserve this.”

He gave her a hug. She continued to snuffle her disbelief into his shoulder.

“How are we going to celebrate?” Guy asked.

“Well,” said Kelly. “Now that I am officially the most highly qualified winemaker at Froggy Bottom, I’m going to start bossing you about!”

The one person Kelly really wanted to tell about her success on the wine course was Gina. Before she would allow herself to celebrate, she had to tell her best friend. She
called a couple of times but went straight through to voicemail. Guy started getting impatient to open a bottle of Froggy Bottom’s finest and toast Kelly’s new qualifications. So they went ahead.

Gina finally phoned the next morning.

“Where have you been?” Kelly asked. “I’ve got big news. I passed that exam.”

“I knew you would,” said Gina.

“This will be you soon. Celebrating passing your first-year exams at uni.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to go,” said Gina.

“What?”

“I’m not sure what the point is anymore. I’m making really good money. I couldn’t earn the same in any ordinary job.”

“Come and see me again,” said Kelly, thinking that maybe it was time to have a serious talk about where Gina’s life was headed. “How about this weekend?”

“I can’t,” said Gina. “I’ve got a job. I’m going to St. Tropez. Staying on a yacht.”

Kelly could understand why Gina was finding it so hard to break away from the world she’d become involved in. Who wouldn’t want to spend their weekends on a luxury yacht? “But it’s not as if this guy is your boyfriend,” she said.

“You know what?” said Gina. “I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a little part of you that is actually jealous of what I’m doing with my life. You’re stuck out in Sussex not getting laid and I’m traveling all over the world, getting paid to have better sex than I’ve ever had.”

Kelly was shocked by the force of Gina’s accusation. Not least because she wondered in part if it wasn’t true. Perhaps she was jealous. Gina was certainly right that Kelly hadn’t had much sex since she moved to Froggy
Bottom. Now that she wasn’t into hanging out and smoking weed all day, the guys she used to sleep with seemed to find her less interesting. They certainly interested her far less. A few weeks earlier she had been to a party in London and got off with a bloke in the kitchen but it was nothing more than a kiss really. Perhaps Gina’s love life was making her envious. But it wasn’t a “love life,” was it? Gina was having sex for cold hard cash.

“Don’t go making the mistake of thinking that one of them is going to fall in love with you, Gina. That only happens in
Pretty Woman.
”

Kelly suddenly found herself talking to dead air. She replaced her own receiver thoughtfully. She didn’t feel so much like celebrating anymore.

A
xel Delaflote drove through the night from Champagne to the center of Paris. Randon had summoned him at ten o’clock that evening to discuss the ongoing plans for the expansion of Maison Randon. The meeting could not wait until the following morning. Randon was flying out to Napa via London the next day.

Tired and slightly angry, Axel looked at the table as he explained to Randon once more that none of the owners of the vineyards the great man had earmarked for domination were amenable to becoming part of the Domaine Randon empire.

“They don’t want our money. They’re all doing very well.”

“Then we must set about weakening their position,” said Randon.

“I don’t know how we do that,” said Axel. “This year’s harvest was excellent. They’re all about to release excellent vintages.”

“Use your imagination,” said Randon. “That is what I pay you for. I want Madeleine Arsenault’s vineyard or your head.”

“I can’t get anywhere near her,” said Axel in exasperation.

“Then perhaps you should hand over some of your responsibilities. There’s someone I’d like you to work with.”

Randon walked across his office to the door that led on to a small private library. Someone was waiting in there.

“I’d like you to meet Monsieur Tremblant,” said Randon.

“Jesus,” Axel said under his breath as he took in the man’s horrible and horribly familiar face.

Axel left Randon’s office with a headache but he didn’t go straight home. Right then, he wanted to be away from everything to do with Domaine Randon and that meant staying out of his apartment, with the portraits of his employer’s cold-eyed ancestors hanging on the walls, as though they were Randon’s spies, watching his every move.

Neither did Axel want to go somewhere too familiar. His usual haunt was likely to be full of people he knew, who would ask too many questions about life as Mathieu Randon’s sidekick, and he wasn’t sure that he would be able to refrain from punching anyone who referred to him
as Randon’s “poodle” that night. Axel went instead to the bar of a hotel about a mile away from where he lived. It was one of those corporate places, recently refurbished to bring it into line with the rest of the chain to which it belonged, with identical fixtures and fittings so that the traveling businessman could feel at home whether he was in Paris, France, or Paris, Texas. If you didn’t step outside you wouldn’t know the difference.

Axel took a stool at the long, highly polished bar in the lobby. It was meant to evoke thoughts of Paris in its decadent heyday but there was something just a little too clean about the place. Antiseptic. Right down to the smell. Not that there weren’t a few dubious characters there.

Axel ordered two vodka martinis in quick succession and felt the violent energy within him subside just a little. He caught the eye of a woman at the other end of the bar. She was exactly his type. Slender. Dark. She’d painted her eyes with great sweeps of eyeliner that gave her the air of an Ancient Egyptian princess. She reminded Axel of a girl he’d seen in London a couple of times. She had the same narrow shoulders. Slender arms. Tiny waist. The way she flicked her cigarette ash into the ashtray. That same calculated languidity. The girl slowly smiled at Axel with the self-assurance that made him confident she wasn’t a tourist, nor was she there on any ordinarily respectable sort of business.