Vintage (30 page)

‘Why are you telling me this?’

Tante Bernadette dismantled the steeple.

‘Take another look at your rosary, my dear. If prayers can turn back the Turkish fleet, just think what they might do for you.’

Walking slowly back from the vineyards, Clare was pondering Tante Bernadette’s words. Much as she had enjoyed the parable of the Turkish fleet, enjoyed talking to her aunt, and found pleasure in her company, she had long ago abandoned her rosary and paradoxically did not think that praying was the answer to her prayers.

Crossing the courtyard on her way to the Bureau d’Acceuil, she suddenly realised that Rougemont, who now followed her everywhere, as he once had followed the Baron, was no longer by her side.

‘Rougemont! Rougemont!’

At the sound of her voice an exceptionally tall and well-built flaxen-haired girl in a pale blue sun-dress, carrying a briefcase, who was approaching the steps of the château, turned round.

‘Hi!’

‘Are you my lunch?’ Clare was surprised. She was expecting a party of sommeliers. ‘The Visitor Centre is this way…’

The girl shook her head. She seemed amused.

‘Rosa Delaware, from Virginia…’ She held out her hand, large as a man’s. ‘Mrs Spray’s PA. I’m here to help your father. We’ve just arrived.’

The atmosphere at lunch, for which two extra places had been set for the Baron and Rosa Delaware and during the entire course of which Charles-Louis addressed not one word to Clare’s guests, was decidedly tepid.

Having got her business lunches down to a fine art, Clare generally had no trouble in breaking the ice. Aided by Sidonie’s cooking, and whatever was appropriate by way of wine, she had become adept at making her clients feel so well disposed towards Château de Cluzac that, by the time coffee was served in the salon, she had no difficulty in adding them to her rapidly growing list of customers, impressing them if they happened to be journalists, or clinching the business in hand.

Having been unaware of the date of her father’s arrival – typically he had not informed her of it – and already in an apprehensive state of mind, Clare found his presence at the table, heading it as of right, produced in her the familiar feeling that she was no more than three feet tall.

She tried hard to keep a lively conversation going and in particular to make the party of sommeliers feel at home, so that they would leave with memories of Château de Cluzac that would be reflected in the future wine lists of their restaurants. She found her heart as heavy as the
leaden sky outside, which made it necessary to put the lights on in the salle-à-manger – although the weather forecast had been good – and her tongue inexplicably tied.

If she had been angry with Charles-Louis before, she was now even more so. The Baron was fussed over by Sidonie, who looked comparatively cheerful for the first time in weeks, and indulged by Rosa Delaware – who could not have been more than eighteen and clearly exceeded her role as Laura Spray’s PA – who anticipated his every need and never took her large grey eyes off him. Although his presence was clearly welcomed by an overjoyed Rougemont, who did not leave his side, it not only effectively silenced Clare, but cast a pall over the proceedings.

In an effort to draw her father into the conversation, if only for courtesy’s sake, Clare had enquired after Laura Spray, who he said was fine, and about the oranges, which were also fine. After that, she had given up.

Rosa Delaware, totally unaware of the undercurrents, took it upon herself to keep the visitors entertained with an account of the goings on of the Palm Beach set, delivered in her Virginian drawl, which the European visitors found mainly incomprehensible (although they smiled politely) and which amused them not at all.

Over coffee, as if they were alone, Charles-Louis made his views known to Clare about the ‘improvements’ she had carried out, which gave the estate the appearance of a circus rather than a château.

‘I met von Graf in New York…’ He appeared to change the subject. ‘The word at Estaminet is that you are planning to sell my wine in screw-top bottles…’

‘My wine. I’ve called it…’

‘I’m not interested in what you call it. It comes from my vineyards. And as for that unspeakable pancarte…’

‘The sign happens to bring people in, Papa…’ Clare said quietly while Rosa Delaware transfixed the
sommeliers
with a verbal portrait of the vast tracts of land her people owned in Virginia, which had been in the family since the Civil War, accompanied by vivid descriptions of their old colonial home.

‘…The château is ticking over nicely and even with the extra staff I’ve taken on the wages are being paid…’

Handing her his empty coffee cup, as if she were a servant, Charles-Louis cut her short.

‘As long as you make enough to keep me in the manner to which I am accustomed…’

Before Clare had a chance to answer, the Baron had nodded curtly to the visitors, whistled softly to Rougemont, and followed by Rosa Delaware – Clare guessed that despite the official-looking briefcase they were heading for the bedroom – swept from the room.

Furious with herself for once more allowing her father to wrong-foot her, Clare had tried to rescue what remained of the sommeliers’ goodwill. Only partially successful – a tour of the cellars had resulted in promises to ‘think about it’ and to ‘let you know’ – euphemisms she had used herself to get out of sticky situations, she was glad when they piled into their minibus and left for their next appointment.

Having seen them off, and missing Rougemont – she had in her father’s absence grown used to his company – she was reluctant either to confront the pile of paper-work in her office or to return to the château. With no desire to face either the Baron or what was patently his latest mistress (she wondered if Laura Spray knew), she walked disconsolately round the moat and, leaning over
the stone wall, watched the hypnotic toing and froing of the darting fish.

She was thinking about Jamie, who was due at the weekend, and wondering if her father and Rosa Delaware would still be in residence – if she questioned Papa about his plans he would merely stare at her blankly – when she felt a glancing blow, as if someone had thrown a stone, on the side of her head. Looking round, she saw that there was no one in sight; the lack of sunshine seemed to have discouraged any afternoon visitors. She was about to put the incident down to her imagination, when there was a further assault on her scalp and a shower of pebbles landed in quick succession to disturb the placid surface of the water. Taken unawares by the suddenness of their appearance, she was amazed to see that the ground at her feet was white, and she had to put up an arm to protect her face from injury, before she realised that what was falling from the heavens were the dreaded giant hailstones which were capable of expunging an entire récolte in moments. Her first thought was for her vineyards and for the safety of her crop.

It was Albert Rochas who had impressed upon her the significance of the summer storms, for which he was constantly on the lookout, and which, fortunately only rarely, decimated the Bordeaux vineyards. She remembered his graphic account of the year 1811 when, between eight and nine o’clock in the morning, hail had so badly damaged the communes of Ludon, Macau and Cantenac, that Latour had been left with a mere
two-thirds
of its harvest; and the tragedy at Yquem, in 1952, when a freak summer storm not only destroyed the entire crop, but had affected the quality of the two succeeding vintages.

Beaten and battered by the hailstones, which now came at her from all sides, scarcely able to see where she was
going, and protecting herself as well as she could, Clare lowered her head and made for the safety of the château. Shaking the ice from her hair on to the stone floor, she ran upstairs to the library where the windows, which looked out over the vineyards, were being battered by what looked like a barrage of white cannonballs.

In twenty agonising minutes, each one of which seemed to last an hour, it was all over. With her heart in her boots, Clare left the château and made for the vineyards where Albert Rochas, who had beaten her to it, was already assessing the damage. Walking slowly between the rows, stooping now and then to pick up the bruised and battered bunches torn from their branches, he had difficulty in meeting Clare’s eye.

‘Nous avons perdu beaucoup, Albert?’

‘Enormément!’

Leading the way through the vineyard, in which each parcelle or plot was handed down from father to son, and mother to daughter, and marked with the worker’s name, Albert’s mud-caked boots mulched the stony soil scattered with grapes and sodden leaves. Like a mother who had lost her baby, he touched his remaining offspring tenderly. Watching his calloused hands as he caressed his ‘children’ took Clare back to her own childhood when she had watched, fascinated, as the chef de culture, more patient then than now, had shown her how to prune. Carefully choosing the branch that would bear the grapes – an intrinsic skill which was by no means as easy as it looked – he would hold the vine in his fingers and, like a surgeon making his first incision, silently prepare for the operation that would ‘harmonise’ the vine. Bending at the knees, he would caress the bark, hesitate, then, leaving one small spur on the far side so that the vine would not die if the branch bearing the grapes should break, make a swift cut with
his pruning-shears to prepare the way for the new buds. A slow pruner, Albert was quickly outdistanced by his workers, whose families, like his own, had been pruning the Château de Cluzac vines for two or three generations.

Muttering as he went, that at a conservative estimate, the hailstones had stripped at least ten hectares of vines, Clare got the distinct impression that Albert Rochas held her directly responsible for the ravages of the storm.

‘C’était la vendange verte…’ The old man turned angrily to face her.

Clare couldn’t see what the summer pruning she insisted he carry out in the interests of the quality of the grapes had to do with the hail.

‘Si nous n’aviez pas bléssé les vignes la perte n’aurait pas été aussi catastrophique…’

It was her fault. For thinning out her vines. There was one consolation. Every grower in the Médoc, having lost ten per cent of the récolte, would be in the same boat. But in this, too, she was wrong. As she was to learn over the next few days, the hailstorm, isolated and contained, had, in true Bordeaux fashion, largely targeted a single area – in this case the Château de Clauzac vineyards.

Her sense of desolation, as if not only the Balards but now the gods were after her, was exacerbated by the latest copy of Wine Watch, which had been delivered, along with the inevitable bills, by the courier.

Bypassing the German and Italian wines and turning to the French section, she discovered that the Château de Cluzac, which had been distributed by Balard et Fils, was now described by Big Mick, albeit regretfully, as ‘inconsistent’ and ‘flabby’.

The buzz on the Place de Bordeaux was to ‘forget Château de Cluzac’. By dint of keeping her eyes and ears open as she went about her business, and listening to Alain Lamotte during their late-night sessions in his
office (it was now the only time she had to deal with her complicated tax returns with which he was helping her), Clare was in no doubt that, although his vineyards had been kept impeccably, it was her father’s sloppy winemaking over the past few years that was responsible for Big Mick’s downgrading.

Since his return, her father, together with Rougemont, the tireless Rosa and a team of advisers, had spent all day closeted in the garages with his Maserati Bird Cage, his Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet and his Hudson Sedan. Some of the cars were to go to Florida and some to Newport Pagnell, in England, where, shrouded in plastic, they would remain in store.

The Baron was amused by Clare’s increasing
despondency
. The more dispirited she became at the ravages caused by the hailstorm – which turned out to be far more extensive than Albert had at first thought – at the sinking reputation of the estate wine, at the fact that Jamie, busy now with the Medical Research Council grant applications for which he was responsible, found it hard to get away, the more it seemed to please
Charles-Louis
and it occurred to her suddenly that he was jealous of her.

Coming back from his morning ride with Rosa, the Baron buttonholed Clare over breakfast.

‘Rumour has it that Van Gelder – not to mention the Balards…’

‘I suggest you don’t mention the Balards!’ Clare had said nothing to her father, with whom she communicated only when necessary, about Harry Balard and his efforts to unseat her.

‘The South African, évidement, despite all his huffing and puffing, is still sniffing around.’

‘Then let him sniff.’

‘I warned you that there’s a great deal more to running an estate than selling junk from a barrow…’

Clare ignored the insult.

‘If you’re asking do I want to turn it in, the answer is no. I have to get my harvest in…’ Clare finished her coffee and rose from the table.

‘Is there anything left to get in?’

‘According to Albert, a fine September could compensate for the hail. From the look of the grapes, this year could be another sixty-one.’

‘Provided you know when to pick…’ Charles-Louis’ voice was cynical.

‘You are not the only one with knowledge of the world, Papa,’ Clare said, with a great deal more confidence than she felt.

When her father wished to assert his superiority he always reiterated what he had said, as if the repetition, not to mention the authoritative voice in which it was delivered, made it right.

‘Provided you know when to pick!’

By the time Viola arrived at Château de Cluzac, Charles-Louis had finished with the cars and turned his attentions to the stables.

Taking out his Plymouth Impala for the last time, he drove to Mérignac to meet his estranged wife, who was coming to Bordeaux not only to advise about selling the horses but to put a legal end to their marriage.

Divorce in France, for which the major criterion was le caractère intolérable du maintien de la vie conjugale (the unbearable nature of marital ties), was still considered a crime, not only against one’s spouse but against society. It was an offence for which the ‘guilty’ were punished and the ‘innocent’ indemnified, and it was not uncommon for substantial damages to be
awarded, by way of compensation, by the highly specialised juges des affaires matrimoniales.

Viola who, after twenty years, was still smarting from the cavalier treatment meted out by Charles-Louis to both herself and her daughter, had come to Bordeaux to exact her pound of flesh.

The fact that Charles-Louis greeted her in the arrivals hall at Mérignac with a bouquet of gladioli impressed her not at all. She had never been one either for flowers, which she considered it a sin to cut, or for the Baron’s transparent attempts at flattery, to which she was immune.

After pleasantries had been exchanged, the Baron, still her husband in name only, had relapsed into silence. For the greater part of the drive to St Julien he revelled in the sheer beauty of his classic automobile in motion, while Viola, who would have been equally happy in the front of a horse-box and was never at a loss for words, chattered away about a filly she had just bought and the shows she had seen during her few days in London. She didn’t mention Declan. Not until after the divorce.