Love in a Warm Climate

by Helena Frith-Powell

Johnny Fray: you couldn’t make him up. Possibly the only young, successful and sexy film star to find LA a lonely place. I have to love him for that.

  Rule 23

  The hours cinq à sept are the most easily hidden

  The French Art of Having Affairs

  At 6am in the morning two weeks after the call from Johnny, Kamal knocks on my door with a cup of tea. There are worse sights to be greeted with first thing, though maybe not for him.

  Today we start the harvest; weeks of frenetic picking, sorting and squashing grapes. Sarah and Lucy are coming to help, as are Peter and Phil, Calypso, Audrey, Jean-Claude and Colette, of course, who is full-time at the moment thanks to the income from the wine bonds and the Cabernet Sauvignon. Even Carla is leaving her various tennis coaches behind for a few days and coming over. So is my mother, who says she will take charge of the food. Quite what she has in store I dread to think – I remember Nick once said that eating my mother’s home-cooked fare had made him appreciate in-flight meals.

  With the money from the sales of the vat of Cabernet Sauvignon I have hired an additional two workers who will stay in the barn with Kamal. I have decided I’d better keep both Carla and Sarah (who is still a liability, even if Mr Enormous is her priority) in the house with me if Kamal is going to have any hope of sleeping through the night, although a lot of the nights we will spend picking grapes as the white ones need to be picked in the cool of the night air to avoid oxidation.

  Lucy is less of a worry, but you never know with the stress of less-than-Perfect Patrick and her new-found libido. Especially now that Joshua has gone back home to his job and, we can only assume, a woman his own age.

  I am nervous but also very excited about it; this is the most important time of the year for the vineyard – if the harvest is a success we go on for another year. If not, who knows what will happen to us and our life in France?

  “Rise and shine, Madame Winemaker,” says Kamal, opening the shutters. “It’s the first day of your first harvest. You need to be among the vines, secateurs in hand, by half six. We’ll give everyone a breakfast break around half nine.”

  “What did your last slave die of?” I moan, sitting up and taking the tea.

  “Fancy a few sun salutations to get the blood flowing?”

  “Very sweet of you, no thanks. How come you’re so perky?”

  “I love harvest time, it’s just the best time of the year. Loads of hard work but great fun and the sense of achievement after weeks of labouring when you’ve got all the wine in the vats; it’s just magical. See you out there.”

  I sip my tea and think about the day ahead. Today we have the new workers pitching up to work with Colette, Audrey and Calypso picking the syrah. The contingent from England arrive later on for two weeks, and friends from here will come and help as and when they can. The whole harvest will take around three weeks in total, at the end of which we will have a big party to celebrate – assuming there have been no major disasters.

  I estimate I have around seven hundred vines, and each vine has maybe an average of five bunches of grapes that need to be picked. That means bending down around 3,500 times. Even if I divide that by the total number of pickers (ten), it is still a lot of bending over.

  “Best get on with it then, gal,” Johnny would say. He is back in LA but usually texts me during our night. I love waking up to his messages. I can see there’s one on my mobile, which makes me leap out of bed and get dressed. I have told him I will think about his Californian plan, but right now, my mind is on the job in hand here.

  “Good luck today, Cunningham,” it reads. “Love you. Hi to the kids”. The Frenchman is going to have to come up with more than a bottle of old vinegar to beat that.

  Kamal is already in the vineyard when I get there. He hands me a large white plastic tub.

  “This is to put the grapes in,” he explains slowly. “And I mean put. You need to handle them gently; we’ve decided to start picking the Syrah today because it is on the cusp, as sweet as it is going to get on the vine before it starts to deteriorate. Also, the joy of handpicking is that you can manually sort the grapes. Don’t put any that are not ripe enough or any rotten ones in the bucket. Tomorrow morning at 4am we start on the whites.”

  “Why so early?” A 6am start was bad enough.

  “You’ll thank me for making you pick when it’s cooler. Not only will you be more comfortable but the wine will be better too. The grapes lose quality rapidly in the heat, so we will need to get as much picked by 9am as possible. As you know, some of the picking, especially of the whites, will happen at night. It’s going to be a busy few weeks. We will be like soldiers on duty, sleeping as and when we can.”

  Colette joins us. I smell her cigarette long before I actually see her. Calypso is not far behind. Funny that.

  “We’ll rotate the jobs so we’re not all bending down all day long,” Kamal continues. “Someone needs to empty the filled tubs into the trailer and drive them to the cave ready for crushing. While there are just the four of us though we’ll just focus on filling the first tubs.”

  The sun is already warm and my tummy is rumbling. Oh well, only another three hours until breakfast. But the vines are beautiful. I look down the edge of the vineyard. The outer vines bend in towards the line rather like the neck of a graceful giraffe.

  “We’ll work in pairs on either side of the vine,” continues Kamal. “Calypso you work with Colette and I’ll work with Sophie. I hope you’ve all got plenty of sunscreen on, and Sophie, you’ll need a hat.”

  I nip back to the house for a hat and some sunscreen; it never occurred to me to put any on at half past six this morning. I notice that Colette and Calypso are well kitted out; they are clearly old hands at this harvesting game. The postman stops me just as I am on my way back to the vineyard. Among the usual junk mail and bank statements (what a waste of paper) is an official-looking large brown envelope. I know what it is before I even open it. The decree absolute. But of course I open it just to make sure. There it is in black and white; the marriage between Nicholas Reed and Sophie Reed (née Cunningham) is hereby declared null and void. I am no longer Mrs Reed. What the hell do I call myself? Cunningham I suppose, and single.

  Once back in the vineyard I stand opposite Kamal, secateurs at the ready. I’m glad I have the harvest to focus on instead of my new single status. This is it; the first bunch of grapes of my first harvest of my first vintage. I take a deep breath and bend down.

  ‘Snip’. The bunch falls into my hand. It feels heavier than I imagined it would. It sits in my palm like a beautiful statue, moist from the dew.

  “Okay, Sophie, meditation time over,” smiles Kamal. “Try to keep up with me so we reach the end of the row at the same time.”

  Kamal works more quickly than me. I find my normal efficiency is lost among the vines. I am clumsy and badly coordinated. I guess my body is getting used to the unfamiliar movements. Colette and Calypso are doing well. They seem to be able to talk as well as harvest, something I can’t do – all my powers of concentration are focused on the task in hand, keeping up with Kamal without cutting my fingers, or dropping the grapes, or missing a bunch, or letting a rotten grape end up in the bucket for crushing.

  At nine our workers show up. They are two Spanish boys called Rafael and Juan-Carlos from Barcelona, who are studying wine-making at university. Kamal shows them their accommodation, leaving me to overtake him for the first, and possibly only, time.

  I am ashamed to admit that rather than worrying about the fact that I am a divorcee, I am more concerned with counting the seconds to breakfast, and not quite sure how I am going to keep this up for up to several weeks when three hours feels like a lifetime. My back is already aching and my fingers are clammy with grape juice and tired. It feels like the sun is focusing all its strength on one particular spot just between my left shoulder-blade and my neck. Soon it will bore a hole right through me.

  I sneak a look at Calypso and Colette to see if they look in as
much pain as I am. No, they are working away, happily chatting as if they were on an early-morning stroll. I have to stop being such a lightweight. After all, these are my vines and so if anyone should be enjoying the process of harvesting them it should be me.

  “Breakfast!” calls Kamal after what seems like a hundred years. We lay down our secateurs, stretch our backs and walk towards the terrace, where he has coffee and croissants laid out on the marble table. Never has a croissant tasted so good. I wonder if eating two croissants is a deportable offence in France?

  We sip our coffee and survey the vines.

  “In three hours we have picked six rows,” says Kamal. “There are 48 in total.”

  It seems an insurmountable number and that’s just one of the vineyards – three hectares out of a total of sixteen.

  “Don’t worry, Sophie,” Kamal continues. “The first few days are always the toughest. Think of it as exercise, exercise that will make you money. Come on now, back to work.”

  I am rather reluctantly reunited with my secateurs that are sticky with grape juice. I rinse them off with some water from my water bottle.

  “Mummy, can I have a go?” The children have woken up and Emily is keen to get involved. “We did this at school, I know how it works, and I didn’t even cut myself.”

  Kamal beckons for her to join him and he shows her what to do. Maybe I could get all three of them working? I bet they could do a row per hour. Or would I be arrested for using child labour? Mind you, Rafael and Juan-Carlos don’t look much older than my kids, even if their CVs say they are eighteen.

  Emily though soon tires of the task and goes back to the house. It is late August and the last week of the school holidays. Next week is what the French call going back to school: la rentrée. This is an event that has just about the same significance as Christmas. Or possibly even more. Audrey has told me all about it. People spend weeks preparing for it, buying new school bags, organising themselves and discussing what their little ones will eat for their goûter or snack this school year. Needless to say, I have been preparing for the harvest so am not remotely organised, but maybe my mother can help when she arrives. And I am dreading trying to put them to bed at seven o’clock, when it is still sunny outside until 10 o’clock at night.

  My picking is interrupted by a text message from Sarah: “Boarding now, sweetpea,” it reads. “Have terrible hangover so look dreadful, Lucy of course looks radiant.”

  “No change there then,” I text back sneakily, so Kamal won’t notice, hoping I won’t make my phone sticky with the grape juice. “See you this afternoon. Can’t wait.” This is a great day for them to get here; between them and the harvest I won’t have any time to dwell on anything.

  I get back to my picking. I am looking forward to seeing them all so much. It will be great to talk about everything that has happened; especially now we’re divorced, Nick is getting married and I have to make a decision between two very eligible suitors and two very different lives. This is the kind of decision only your girlfriends can help you with.

  Maybe Johnny will surprise me with a visit while they’re here? I would love for them all to meet my famous film-star suitor. But I think he is filming in LA until the end of September.

  They will be impressed with Jean-Claude, though. I have seen less of him recently as he’s been in Aix a lot. Whenever I do see him, it is lovely, and since that first kiss we have repeated the experience about ten times. It’s beginning to feel like the world’s longest courtship. He says he wants to wait until my divorce is finalised. Maybe I should let him know about today’s post.

  I am young-ish, free and single for the first time in more than ten years. And actually I am ready to leap into bed with the frog, or Johnny, or even both. But I’m not sure I’m quite ready to commit to another full-on relationship, which is why Johnny’s idea of the Californian vineyard rather worries me. I have asked him to wait until the harvest is over; it’s not a decision I want to rush into.

  “And if I you’re going to end up with Johnny, then you might like to try a little piece of French side salad before you do,” as Sarah helpfully pointed out on the phone the other day.

  Talking of Sarah, she and Carla will probably be more impressed by Kamal than Jean-Claude. He is looking very sexy pruning opposite me, his brown arms toned and fit from all the work and yoga he does. For some reason he doesn’t really appeal to me in that way – maybe because I already have my hands full with the others, or because he is around fifteen years younger than me. I am obviously far too young to have a toy-boy!

  At lunch there is a feeling of wellbeing, almost bliss, as we all sit down to eat. We eat with the appetite one has after toiling outside all morning. The food is: Parma ham with melon and mountains of rustic bread courtesy of the baker, who I have found out is Colette’s cousin (is there anyone in the village she isn’t either related to or sleeping with?). We drink red wine.

  “Not too much,” warns Kamal. “We have an afternoon’s work to get through.”

  I can see he was the eldest of five children. Bossy-boots.

  “Surely we can have a little, tiny siesta?” I ask. “Even just a power-nap?”

  “We go back to work at 2pm. How you spend your time is up to you,” he replies.

  I daren’t even look at Calypso and Colette; I suppose they will be spending the time in some Sapphic love tryst. I can’t say I’m jealous, I think I’d rather have a kip.

  I can’t wait for the girls to get here so I can tell them all about everything that is going on in this village. It’s a wonder anyone in France ever gets any work done with all the sex they have to have and all the personal grooming they have to go through. I suppose one leads to another.

  The latest from the bakery is that the wife has come back and seen off the best friend (now sans culottes after she burned all her clothes). The baker is apparently very happy, because the wife was always much handier around the bakery, if not the bedroom. I have to say the bread has improved since she came back. I guess he is now focusing on his job too, instead of working out how to organise the old cinq à sept with the mistress.

  Trust the French to come up with a phrase to describe the time you spend with your lover. And it’s such a perfect amount of time: two hours, neither too little nor too much. This truly is a country of seducers. And the funny thing is that they have such respect for the whole concept of seduction here; they treat it with the same reverence they approach a good wine or a Brie de Meaux, the best of bries.

  It is true that since I got in touch with my inner French woman I have had a lot more offers of sex. The question is: which, if any, of those offers do I want to accept? I suppose I can accept them both. It doesn’t tie me down to anything.

  As if on cue, Jean-Claude appears. “Bonjour mes amis,” he says jovially and bows, taking off his Panama hat.

  “Bonjour,” we chorus back.

  “Ah, Jean-Claude,” says Kamal, standing up, “this is perfect timing. I propose a toast, on this, the first day of the harvest.”

  “A toast to what?” asks Calypso.

  “I think it’s time you shared our little secret with the rest of the class,” says Kamal to Jean-Claude, who looks furious.

  “What little secret is this Jean-Claude?” I ask.

  He doesn’t respond but just glares at Kamal, who answers on his behalf.

  “I think you should know, now that the harvest is upon us, that Jean-Claude is the generous but anonymous benefactor who has been paying me to help you.”

  “Jean-Claude?” I leap up and throw my arms around him. “I can’t believe it, I am so grateful. You saved my life, thank you, thank you.”

  Jean-Claude is dismissive. “It was nothing,” he says, patting me on the arm rather like you would a pet dog, “really nothing. Just some neighbourly amitié, think nothing of it.”

  I look at him. How could I never even have suspected that he would be the one behind Kamal? I mean, he was my knight in shining green tractor when the mild
ew almost hit, and he has been supportive all the way through. I can’t believe how I underestimated him.

  “Jean-Claude, I am truly touched,” I say, taking his hands. “Thank you again, really.”

  Before he has a chance to respond we hear the sound of a car horn beeping. A dark blue Citroen is making its way towards the house. It stops and Sarah jumps out. I run to her from the lunch-table to greet them.

  “Hey scrawny, what the hell happened to you?” she laughs. “Don’t they let you eat in France?”

  “Ciao bella,” Carla gets out of the car. “What a place, che meraviglia. It is wonderful.”

  “Hey darling.” Two long limbs ease their way out of the hire car followed by a figure in a floaty dress. Lucy hugs me.

  “It’s so good to see you all,” I say, almost crying with happiness.

  My mother gets out and gives me a big hug.

  “Sophie,” she says beaming. “What a perfectly gorgeous place you have here. And you’re so thin! What have you been doing? Running after Frenchmen?”

  “Granny, granny!” we are interrupted by the children running to greet my mother.

  Kamal and the other helpers follow. I notice with some disappointment that Jean-Claude has slunk off. I was looking forward to introducing them and finding out what the girls think of him. After the Kamal revelation I am more keen than ever. Especially now Johnny wants us to move to California. California or Boujan? For most people the choice would not be a tricky one, but then most people would probably not fall in love as deeply as I have with this place.

  “This is Kamal, Calypso, Colette, Rafael and Juan-Carlos,” I say as they approach. “This is my mother and Sarah, Carla and Lucy, my oldest and dearest friends.”

  “Less of the oldest,” says Carla, holding her hand out towards Kamal and practically eating him up with her eyes. “Do you play tennis?” she purrs.

  “Embarrassing,” says Sarah to me under her breath. “She just gets worse.”

  Kamal smiles his best namaste smile and says hello to the rest of the guests, who manage to be a little less obvious about how gorgeous they think he is.