Vintage (8 page)

The beef in Guinness was accompanied by a Minervois, to which the Baronne would not have given house-room, which Declan had bought from the off-licence. The talk,
into the small hours of the morning, ranged from the tenuous peace agreement in the north, to the respective merits of Anglo-Arab and Anglo-Normand mounts, to Irish literature at the turn of the century.

The evening ended with a recital of ‘…Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream…’ by Declan after which Clare and Jamie tactfully excused themselves and went upstairs.

‘Your mother’s great,’ Jamie said as they got undressed.

‘She likes you.’

‘Did she say so?’

‘I would have heard all about it by now if she didn’t…’

Flinging his trousers on the floor, Jamie put his arms round her, lifted her, as if she were weightless, off her feet and covered her neck with love bites.

‘Jamie, what are you doing?’

‘It’s all this talk about stallions.’

From the window of her boutique, Beatrice Biancarelli looked out on to the deluge that descended from the threatening sky on to the canopy of the deserted café opposite. Behind her, in the tiny cubicle, the plump Marie-Paule Balard struggled into a turquoise satin sheath, one size too small, which she had set her heart on wearing for the forthcoming Fête de la Fleur, the great party given by the château owners to celebrate the June flowering of the vines.

The rain that fell on to the deserted Allées de Tourny, to bounce off again in watery stalagmites, was not like the soft rain of Ireland, which, as Viola had assured Jamie, was not really rain at all but a gentle and
welcome
precipitation which softened the skins and greened the meadows of the Irish. The cordes which plummeted relentlessly into the grey Garonne – capable not only of rising but of flooding dramatically – made a wide river of the Esplanade de Quinconces, with tributaries in the running gutters, swelled the basins of the bronze fountains with their chariots drawn by sea-horses, and transformed the Friday market, lined with flower booths and stalls of symetrically hung hams, into a sea of coloured umbrellas.

Although it was almost twenty years since Beatrice Biancarelli had eloped to Bordeaux with a handsome tenor (who had left her stranded outside the Grand Théâtre when the final curtain came down on Turandot), she still had not come to terms with the climate.

In her native Corsica, where she had spent the first fifteen years of her life, summer, fierce and blazing, had
been summer, and winter – despite the fact that the island had the best weather in all of France – winter. One knew, at least, where one was.

The poverty of her childhood had left its indelible mark. Reluctantly switching on the lights in the shop, Biancarelli, for thus she was known in the town and by her many lovers, examined her reflection in the cheval glass. It passed the time while she waited for Madame Balard, an exceedingly demanding customer, to emerge from the cubicle.

‘Puis-je vous aider, Madame?’ Biancarelli trilled automatically, lest Madame Balard, doing battle with the turquoise satin, should think herself forsaken.

The enquiry was merely polite. Biancarelli knew, as of old, that assistance with buttons and zip fasteners was not what Madame Balard required. Only when she had arranged herself to her own satisfaction and emerged, all sixty-six kilos of her, would she want to be reassured that she looked, at the very least, like Isabelle Adjani or Claudia Schiffer, for which some positive reinforcement would be required.

Examining her face dispassionately in the mirror, Biancarelli thought, with alarm, that it was showing distinct manifestations of its approach to the dreaded fifth decade. The emerald chiffon scarf she had wound round her hennaed hair not only accentuated the deep green of her eyes – which could have a man at her feet in thirty seconds and in her bed in as many minutes – but revealed a few almost invisible lines which traversed her forehead. At the first signs of crow’s feet around the eyes, or, worse still, bags beneath them, it would be off to the cosmetic surgery clinic.

Beautiful herself, with taut brown skin, strong legs and good bone structure, not to mention a lively and
volatile personality, Biancarelli hated anything that was not beautiful. For this reason she was not anticipating, with any sort of eagerness, the sight of Marie-Paule Balard emerging from the cubicle, squeezed into the turquoise dress which she had warned her was a size too small. With youth and beauty, the attributes that had transported her from the granite hell-hole of Bonifacio to the green pastures of Bordeaux, as her trump cards, she liked to look upon youth and beauty. The only exception she made was for her lovers, in the main old and ugly, who provided the means to the end.

Tilting her chin and half closing her lids in order to get a better view of herself, she wondered what Madame Balard, now doing battle behind the curtain, would have to say if she knew that less than an hour from now, when she had handed the boutique over to her vapid assistant, Danielle – who rarely managed to sell anything at all but whose discretion could be relied upon – Biancarelli would be in bed with her husband.

Claude Balard was not her only regular lover. In addition to her several petits-amis who came and went with the seasons, Biancarelli had another daily assignation, this time in the early afternoon, with the Baron de Cluzac. Although the arrangement had been going on for several years now, and her address was used as a poste restante for both men when the occasion arose, neither of her two protectors had any idea that she was bestowing her favours upon the other. Claude Balard being a self-opinionated egotist of the first order, and
Charles-Louis de Cluzac an autocrat par excellence, such a thought would not have occurred to either of them.

Both Claude Balard and Charles-Louis treated her extremely generously, each taking it upon himself to ‘look after’ her both in financial terms and in respect of trips to the Côte d’Azur and to Paris. Claude Balard had even promised her a little house by the sea in Arcachon when his current plans came to fruition. Biancarelli did not make herself available either to them or her other paramours, however, solely for the money. She loved sex and she loved men, although making them happy, indulging their little ways, never quite filled the vacuum of the aching void within her. Unaware of the identity of her father, and abandoned by her mother, she had been brought up in an orphanage from which she had escaped to make her own way in the world. Her only assets had been her figure, which was fully developed by the age of thirteen, a lively if untutored mind, and a definite way with clothes.

Lying about her age, she had wheedled her way into service in a small hotel in Bonifacio built into the ramparts of the citadel. Making the beds and cleaning the rooms, the walls of which were covered with scarlet fabric, gave her a taste for luxury.

Although she had already been sexually abused by the superintendent of the orphanage – a situation which she accepted, as she did the physical punishment and frugal meals, as par for the course – she had no idea, until she was taken in hand first by the plongeur, a hot-blooded young man who sweated, stripped to the waist, cleaning dishes in the kitchens all day, and later by a middle-aged male guest (when his wife was out shopping), of the fascinating potential of her own body. Like a musical instrument, it was, she discovered, capable of playing a great many variations on the same tune.

It was from the Italian tenor, however, who had picked her up in a nightclub in Ajaccio and spirited her away to Bordeaux, where he swore to make an honest woman of her, that she had learned the true art of making love. It was only the Italians, as she was later to learn, who were capable of taking the exercise seriously. The Germans were too fastidious, the French preoccupied with their stomachs, and the English had no idea about women. The Italian tenor, a short and overweight man with a
pockmarked
face, had initiated her into the finer points of lovemaking, in which his artistry was consummate. Devoting himself, regardless of time, entirely to her pleasure, he had increased it tenfold by the judicious placing both of pillows and himself, while simultaneously instructing her how best to augment his own enjoyment.

When the singer had abandoned her to return to his wife and children in Paris, she had used her newly acquired knowledge to divert the afternoons of a Bordeaux jeweller. When the jeweller decamped to Abu Dhabi, he had set her up, among the chic fur shops, in the boutique in the Allées de Tourny, in gratitude for the happiness she had given him.

Claude Balard, a greedy and avaricious man, was
dissatisfied
with his marriage to Marie-Paule, who would have nothing to do with her husband’s sadistic fantasies. He used the willing Biancarelli, herself a victim both of her abandonment by her parents and her upbringing, as a vehicle for the acting out of his hostility towards women. During their afternoon sessions, he subjected her to a variety of indignities, including tying her to the bed and spanking, which was not altogether playful.

Charles-Louis, on the other hand, isolated,
self-centred
, and far removed from reality, looked to the boutique owner to provide him both with the reassurance
that he was loved, and the warmth and affection that had been missing from his early life. When the time came to faire l’amour, he could do so only when her back was turned.

Much of the time with the Baron was spent talking. This afternoon, taking Biancarelli into his confidence and using her as a sounding-board, he had told her that the forthcoming sale of Château de Cluzac had been ratified by his handshake with the South African, Van Gelder.

Biancarelli was upset that her post-prandial lover would shortly be leaving Bordeaux for Florida. She was going to miss the Baron. Despite his quick temper – which he arrogantly considered a mildly funny extravagance – and his occasional bullying, to which she paid little attention, she was fond of Charles-Louis. In the privacy of her cosy boudoir, in her non-judgemental presence, he reverted to the habits of his childhood and exhibited the touching dependency of the son she had never had.

The appartement above the shop in the Allées de Tourny was not Biancarelli’s only confessional. The ladies of Bordeaux relied upon her for their tailleurs and their gowns, and she bore each one of them in mind as she attended the prêts-à-porter. Gossiping freely as they riffled through the garments on her rails, the ladies were secure in the knowledge that any indiscretions on their part would go no further.

Drawing back the curtain of the cubicle, Marie-Paule Balard emerged into the showroom. Biancarelli regarded her client’s turquoise reflection in the mirror.

‘Magnifique!’

It was a lie of course. Although it was not in her nature to dissemble, there were occasions on which it was necessary to be sparing with the truth both to her ladies and her lovers. She did not like to hurt people, to
puncture their often frail egos. Where was the point? If she could make them feel better about themselves by perjuring herself a little, she was willing to do so.

You had, of course, to know your customers. An
intuitive
knowledge of psychology, of the weird and wonderful processes that made people tick, was Biancarelli’s stock in trade. It accounted for her success both in business and in bed.

Little Madame Balard held the turquoise satin skirt, which was far too long for her stunted figure, in both hands and pirouetted before the mirror.

‘Qu’est-ce que vous pensez, Madame Biancarelli?’

Biancarelli, pins in her mouth, fell to her knees. Grasping the superfluous material at the hem of the beaded dress, which flowed on to the grey carpet, she turned it up expertly.

‘Elle vous va très bien,’ she said. It suited her.

Marie-Paule Balard smoothed her plump, beringed hands over her stomach where the turquoise satin, pulled tight, was wrinkled.

‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ Biancarelli’s mouth was full of pins. She inclined her head. ‘You’ve heard that Château de Cluzac is for sale?’ Biancarelli nodded. ‘Monsieur Balard is buying it!’

Biancarelli removed the pins from her mouth. ‘Vraiment?’ She knew perfectly well it was untrue.

‘Negotiations have been going on for some time between my husband and Baron de Cluzac. You mustn’t mention it to a soul.’

Biancarelli, indicating that her client should turn, made the sign of the cross to indicate that her lips were sealed.

‘Château owners! And what a château…’ The little body quivered with excitement. ‘Badly neglected of course. Can you imagine?’

Deciphering the sub-text, Biancarelli knew that what Madame Balard was trying to tell her was that no longer would the Balards be subjected to the intermittent myopia of the château owners at the Fêtes de la Fleur, no longer would she be humiliated, but would be able to humiliate in her turn.

The hem completed, Biancarelli stood up and put her hands on the back of the dress where the material strained over Marie-Paule’s hips. She was not required to comment on Madame Balard’s secret. Refraining from disillusioning her about the sale of Cluzac, she stuck a pin, as an indication to her seamstress to let it out as much as possible, into the seam of the turquoise dress.

‘Un petit centimetre ici…’

It would need a great deal more than a centimetre. She hoped that there would be sufficient material to
accommodate
Madame Balard’s ample hips, not to mention her bosom.

‘Voilà!’ She stood back.

‘I’m not quite sure about the colour…’

It was time for the psychology, for the strong reassurances which would not only convince
Marie-Paule
that she looked svelte and elegant, but that the turquoise satin, although arguably a little tight, was the most suitable dress in the shop. She had already, on several visits over the past week, tried on all the others. The scarlet halter-neck was too revealing – her arms were not her best feature – the floral chiffon too diaphanous, and the long pleated skirt with the tailored silk jacket made her look like a lampshade. It was
make-up
-your-mind time, the distasteful acceptance of the fact that the hoped-for miracle would not, on this occasion, be wrought.

The recognition that she would never be Isabelle Adjani was followed, as night followed day, by the inevitable doubts.

‘You haven’t sold this model to anyone else?’

‘Of course not.’

‘It’s very expensive!’

Biancarelli caressed the fabric. ‘It’s the finest slipper satin.’

‘A small discount, perhaps…?’

Biancarelli shook her head. Madame Balard did not possess the ladylike qualities of a château owner. Besides, it was too early in the season to start slashing her prices.

‘Well, if you’re quite, quite sure, Biancarelli, I suppose it will have to do.’

‘With Madame’s pearls and some satin shoes…’ Biancarelli moved in for the kill.

‘I already have a turquoise evening bag…?’

‘Perfect. I’m sure Monsieur Balard will like it.’ She knew very well that Monsieur Balard couldn’t give a damn.