The Champagne War

by Fiona McIntosh

  She nodded, corrected. ‘How are you feeling, Charlie?’

  He found a lopsided smile. ‘Pinching myself that I’m here and not in some filthy trench.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘I wonder, could I trouble you to come with me, please? I have something for you.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘It’s . . . er . . . private,’ she said, giving him a small, awkward grin.

  Charlie was intrigued. He followed her onto the landing and then up a short flight of stairs to the top level of the house.

  ‘These rooms I normally reserve for visiting dignitaries. We have none at the moment.’ He frowned as he watched her undo a trap door with the aid of a long-handled hook before she pulled down a ladder. ‘And this is where I stay.’ She laughed at his expression. ‘Can you make it, do you think?’

  Stung by the presumption of his helplessness but privately delighted by the mystery at hand, he gestured towards the ladder. ‘Don’t worry about me – lead on.’ It was harder than he’d imagined, and he was breathing heavily and feeling slightly clammy by the time he’d hauled himself through the opening and accepted her help to clamber up and emerge into the attic.

  Inside her attic space he smiled. In here was Sophie Delancré’s private world away from everyone who needed her. He wondered why she would permit him into this haven. Was he not a reminder of all she needed to escape?

  She obviously could see his bewilderment and explained. ‘I’ve brought you here, Charlie, because what I have I didn’t want to give to you in front of the others because . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter why. Perhaps you’ll indulge me in a little white lie that Commandant de Saint Just sent it for you in honour of your impossible feat breaking through German lines . . . and his thanks to the British who fought so courageously in our region.’ She seemed apprehensive.

  ‘Of course,’ he replied, watching dust motes dance around her like attendants in the soft light of the attic. Charlie wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked today with that glow of optimism suffusing her cheeks, and strands of dark blonde hair escaping her neat chignon. Those escapees were backlit, turning them into golden outlined threads wafting about her. It gave her a girlish appearance and he felt sure he could glimpse the child who had learned from her father about his world of champagne. ‘I’ll gladly lie for you, madame.’

  ‘Sophie, remember?’ she insisted, mimicking him from earlier, and smiled.

  ‘Have you heard the saying a sight for sore eyes?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It goes back a couple of centuries – means your presence can make everything feel safe.’ He knew that his translation skimmed the true meaning, but it conveyed just enough.

  ‘I make you feel safe, Charlie?’

  ‘You do. I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be right now than here in the attic of a beautiful house where champagne is made by an extraordinary woman.’

  She gave a low laugh. ‘It’s nice of you to say so, but surely you’d rather be home?’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘I mean England. No woman pining for you?’

  He shook his head, smiling at her probing.

  ‘Whatever have you been doing with yourself? I would have thought women would be trying to catch your attention.’

  ‘Maybe they do,’ he admitted, trying not to sound in any way arrogant, realising they were flirting. ‘I’m just not very good at noticing.’

  ‘Well, pay attention, Charlie! Handsome, single men shouldn’t go to waste.’

  He laughed properly.

  ‘I like to think any soldier who finds himself here under my roof can find his smile again. It’s lovely to hear you laugh.’ The pause between them was awkward only because he felt the connection locking into place, bonding them to each other. He knew she felt it too, which is why she turned away suddenly, busying herself tidying up papers that didn’t need to be tidied. ‘I hope Épernay will help you to recuperate. You deserve it after all your heroics.’

  He shrugged. ‘All I was trying to do was retreat, find the Allied line.’

  ‘You were very brave. We all think so.’

  A soft silence laid itself around them. He moved to the window and she joined him. ‘You’re looking at my favourite place in the world.’ She pointed out the small villages, picked out the river running behind her property, drew his attention towards the railway station and Paris. And then directed him to where the chardonnay grew. ‘My husband planted a special vineyard for our wedding just over that hill,’ she explained.

  ‘He’s a romantic.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  He blinked and knew she had seen the self-conscious gesture, but the question was too revealing.

  ‘I hope we all are, given the way of the world right now.’

  He looked back at her but found her direct gaze too intense and sighed, embarrassed. ‘Thank you for inviting me here. I feel privileged.’

  ‘Thank you for talking about my husband as though he’s alive. No one else does.’ Sophie turned and reached for a box. ‘Charlie, it occurs to me now, in this awkward moment, that I may offend you with this.’

  He gave a soft frown.

  ‘I want it to be a gift, but I fear you may take insult.’ She looked up at him helplessly and he saw now only the little girl of her past, unsure and fretful. Yet she had nothing to fear from him; if anything, her composure and courage intimidated him. All he wanted to do in this moment was reach for her and kiss her. It was such an outlandish, rogue thought that he had to clear his throat.

  ‘Nothing you do or say could offend me.’ Standing so close to Sophie, Charlie noticed how the diffuse light glanced off her skin in a way that said it wanted to touch her, gently but swiftly so she didn’t notice the intrusion. He blinked in private annoyance at all this schoolboyish desire.

  ‘That’s kind of you, Charlie,’ she said, and the warmth in her smile brightened him like an awakening. It was a beacon worth following, out of the darkness of his many years of war towards this place of safety. Actually, no, it was her – Sophie was the sanctuary.

  Perhaps she sensed his struggle, which was likely why she hurried to open the box and redirect his attention. Inside, sitting on a bed of navy velvet, was a hand brace. It was fashioned out of polished metal and leather. He stared at it for a long time, well past any period that could be considered polite, but she held his tense silence with one of her own.

  Charlie felt as though he disappeared in this interval, as if he were released from the confines of his flesh, his spirit free to roam, and it took him on a journey over the course of his war. He glimpsed battles he recognised, even trenches he could pinpoint exactly on a map. He knew the landscape of Arras and the bone-freezing winter of Ypres. He saw men he recalled, now dead, and he watched himself being dragged back into the trench, bloody-faced and unconscious after his fateful shot that murdered the killer Topperwein. And now it lifted him free of the fighting to enjoy mild days in eastern France and the gratitude of the people in those towns and villages. He could taste the wines of the region and the warmth against his back from a sun-drenched stone wall outside a café where a wide-hipped woman propositioned him . . . But then he could taste blood, smell it too. He watched himself killing and others dying around him. He was running, he was falling, he was drowning in a few feet of water. He met a German; made a pact of mercy together. He heard Arabic, he knew pain, he listened to a good man, a French officer. He knew kindness, felt tenderness, smelled bandages and disinfectant . . . and then he saw Sophie. She now represented the light he had been running towards these last three years; she didn’t know it, nor had he a day or so ago, but here with Sophie he felt like he wanted to embrace life for the first time in nearly four years. He felt at home here, too . . . home was such an elusive notion for him. He’d never felt he had one, until now. Home was an emotion. Home was a feeling – it was security, a place where he smiled, felt affection and returned it . . . Home was where Sophie Delancré
lived and laughed.

  He had at last found all that he could want . . . and yet he could have none of it. She belonged to another.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you. It’s beautiful,’ he murmured in a scratchy voice.

  ‘Now you can heal faster.’ She put the box aside, and clearly without any thought towards propriety, she pulled him towards her and hugged him as close as any lover might. It was instinctive, her affection spontaneous. ‘I am so happy you like it and will let it help you.’

  He held on . . . held on for dear life, because without this moment, this hug, this woman, it felt as though there was no life for him. Long, slim arms encircled his neck and he dared to lift his good arm and hold her. He could feel her small waist and the ribs that suggested she ate too little and worked too hard. How could he have ever wanted to die when this meeting was around the corner? To hug Sophie Delancré . . . nothing compared to it. Nothing. The softness of her breasts against his thin shirtfront was a sensation worth fighting to live for – and one to wake up desire that had been so lacking for too many years. And still he clung to her, with one good arm, as she whispered fresh congratulations.

  Finally, she pulled away and he turned, clearing his throat, and Sophie made a sudden fuss of fiddling with the leather arm in the box. She spoke to cover her sudden awareness of the physical embarrassment she had caused him. ‘Forgive me, that was inappropriate of me.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I think every soldier should be hugged daily.’

  He heard her soft chuckle. ‘I saw this aid just before the war began in a shop in Paris that sold curios. I was attracted to it because of the workmanship, and the owner told me its story. It was made for a wealthy officer from the war in the Crimea who had lost his hand to cannon fire. There is another whole box of magnificently crafted tools that he could attach to this brace, although you don’t need them. I was in luck when I sent the telegram – not only did he still have it in his shop, but the owner was kind enough to send it immediately to Épernay on a train with some returning officers from our army. I’ll show you the tools in a minute because the shop owner couldn’t bear for all the parts to be separated, even though he understood that I only needed the brace. I think it might fit you very well, Charlie.’

  He looked at the dangling leather laces, feeling a fleeting moment of sadness that this was what he’d been reduced to, but then he saw her eager expression and grasped that it was time to accept his lot.

  He nodded with another smile. ‘The kindness behind this is a little overwhelming.’

  ‘The British army is helping to save France . . . your company has been obliterated, I gather, to save Reims and Épernay from being overrun again. This gift barely touches my gratitude to you and your fellow soldiers.’

  He didn’t know what to say to that. She was right, though, when he thought of all the British lives lost in just this region of France alone.

  ‘May I try it on you?’ she offered.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll have to be gentle so soon after surgery.’

  He grinned. ‘My hand is numb anyway.’

  She led him to a small chair. ‘Please have a seat.’ He did as he was asked, embarrassed to crunch over a newspaper cast aside on the floor, as she made herself comfy sitting on the window ledge.

  ‘Put your arm here, Charlie,’ she said, gesturing to her lap.

  ‘I’m afraid that would —’

  ‘You should not worry about my sensibilities. I am not embarrassed if you are not?’ She waited.

  He gave a lopsided shrug and then grinned. He placed his arm onto her lap, still bandaged. Charlie felt a momentary relief that his hand lacked its normal ability to sense touch, certain if it weren’t he would be unable to resist allowing the sensitive nerves of his fingers to send all sorts of messages back to his hungry mind: the warmth of her body through her skirt and the curve of her thighs. He dared not ponder anything more or another awakening would embarrass them both.

  He tried conversation to quell all the new feelings charging around. ‘Er . . . you read the gazettes?’ he said, glancing towards the publication.

  She nodded. ‘The German jails take delight in publishing lists of their prisoners, which is re-published faithfully in our gazettes. I search for Jerome in every edition.’

  ‘I should read them too. Look for any news of members of my company.’ He wondered if she would ever become resigned to not finding her husband. He shifted his attention back to where Sophie was gently easing the glove over his bandaged arm. He watched her long, slim fingers at work. ‘I have noticed that your hands are suntanned.’ It was something to say in a discomfiting moment.

  She nodded, didn’t seem perturbed. ‘Before I was married, I was pale because I was in my cellars so much. These days I spend as much time in his fields as I can.’

  ‘Tell me about the vineyards.’

  Sophie began to thread the laces through the metal eyes that drew the two flaps of the glove together, encasing his arm in metal so polished he could see himself reflected. He could already feel that it was giving his arm more strength.

  A smile danced across her face and he sensed this was a subject she never tired of talking about. ‘Well, over March and April as the winter is beginning to thaw, the vineyards are waking up too and beginning to show signs of new life. It used to be my husband’s job but now it’s my responsibility in this period to shape the canes of our vines in a way that controls both the quality and quantity of grapes they are capable of producing. We call this les travaux en verts.’

  ‘The green work,’ he translated. ‘Sounds odd in English, doesn’t it?’

  She considered it, smiling. ‘I would like to learn this language even better, because I would like to sell my champagne more easily into England.’

  ‘Tell me more.’

  She gave a knowing sigh and moved back into French. ‘The most important task was taking place just before the recent battle. It’s a debudding procedure.’ At his puzzlement of unfamiliar French terms, she tried to reword it. ‘Er, we take of some of the new growth to prevent the goodness from the soil being devoured.’ He smiled his understanding. ‘And precious water. This is hard work, done by hand with deep concentration, as a decision has to be made on each bud.’

  ‘Exacting work.’

  ‘Yes, and tiring.’ Satisfied that the brace was sitting neatly on his hand, she began gently tightening the laces.

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Relevage. The branches of the vines will have begun to grow by the beginning of June and they’ll grow in all directions. It is time to raise them off the ground, and in my husband’s vineyards we use two wires for the branches to wrap around, which allows air to circulate. This creates space for people to move through the rows freely to work and keep track of maturity. We might do this several times to keep the vineyard orderly and give the grapes their best chance to thrive.’

  ‘Relevage,’ he repeated, as if committing it to memory.

  Sophie was tying a neat knot now at the top of his brace and had to hold his arm in place using her thighs. He could tell she was being careful, and he tried not to add any extra pressure, but he suspected they were both acutely aware of how intimate this moment had just become.

  ‘And then?’ he asked, desperate for something to puncture the quiet.

  ‘And then through these next weeks, something called palissage will occur. Because of the anarchic way the vines choose to grow . . .’ She saw him struggle to understand again. ‘Er, let me see,’ she said, straightening the small, neat bow at the top of the brace, ‘let me think of another word . . .’ She tapped her lips with a finger, and he wanted to kiss those lips so much he had to look down at his newly braced arm instead. ‘Wild!’ she said suddenly. ‘Do you understand my meaning?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So, in this period we are separating those branches to get as much sunshine and fresh air to all the buds but in a way that they’re shaded by leaves that ar
e not twisted against each other. It’s all about improving that ordered architecture, and when we do all this labour, we can get the very best result from that year’s growth. It’s very hard work for the small hands of the women and children and the weaker hands of the few older men who help me. But we do it because Épernay must survive – the champagne must keep flowing.’

  He knew the fitting of the brace was complete and he would be expected to remove his arm from her lap, but he didn’t want this private moment to end. Besides, he liked listening to her and hearing the wistful tone in her voice when she spoke about the vines. ‘So, you can leave them through the summer to grow?’

  ‘Well, there is another stage during their growth called rognage.’

  ‘Rognage,’ he repeated.

  She grinned. ‘It’s a trim . . . like a haircut – something you need, Charlie.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘I shall organise it for you.’ She touched the hair around his ears to demonstrate its unruliness but all it did was send a fresh thrill through him. ‘I think this newly braced arm is going to work. Maybe not the hand yet but this will give rigidity.’ She raised her gaze to his. Eyes the colour of the grass right before meadow turned to forest were now shining with delight. He wanted to run around that forest, lie down in that meadow. ‘I suggest you do not wear it for too many hours. Your hand is too weak still. Maybe try keeping it on for a few hours at night to keep the muscles strong, straight. At other times a sling might help. Even so, this does look very handsome.’

  He barely heard her words; instead he watched the way her mouth moved with economy, always a smile ready to broaden across it. It was obvious she was excited for him, but he dared not wonder aloud about why she was so thrilled, given that the addition simply amounted to a more elegantly clad piece of useless flesh.

  ‘How fortunate that the owner of the curio shop happened to have a left-handed one of these things,’ he remarked, his voice gritty, finally lifting his hand to turn it so they could admire the fit.

  ‘Coincidental, I agree, but your good fortune, no? I hope it doesn’t feel, um —’ she moved her head from side to side, searching for the right word — ‘sinister?’