Vintage

by Rosemary Friedman

  ‘What does Clare have to say?’ Bernadette dismissed the recurring thought.

  ‘Clare’s not interested in Cluzac.’

  ‘Nonetheless…’

  ‘All in good time.’ Charles-Louis indicated the papers. ‘These must be signed in the presence of a notary. I can arrange it if you wish.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  Charles-Louis picked up his briefcase. There was a young lady in the Place St Georges who was expecting his visit.

  ‘Still up to no good?’ Bernadette said.

  Charles-Louis blushed as his sister divined his thoughts.

  ‘I shall pray for you.’

  Charles-Louis kissed her affectionately. ‘Save your breath.’

  At the same moment as Charles-Louis folded himself into his Aston Martin and drove away from the convent, his daughter, six hundred miles away, was leaving Millington’s in Albemarle Street. Clare had never met Bernadette. Curious about her aunt, she had from time to time tackled Baronne Gertrude on the subject, but Grandmaman had refused to be drawn.

  ‘There are matters best not talked about,’ Baronne Gertrude said. ‘Things better left alone.’

  That Bernadette followed Clare’s progress, that she always enquired fondly from Charles-Louis about her well-being, her niece had no idea. She imagined the Reverend Mother, whose name she was not allowed to mention, as an austere and distant figure of unshakeable faith and devoid of doubts, desires and insecurities; as someone who had found God, rather than someone in constant search of him; as someone who lit up the dark lives of the poor and sick with a self-righteous sense of purpose.

  In the Neal Street Gallery, to which she had hastened with the result of her meeting with Michael Millington, Clare found Nicola, who was about to hang an exhibition of naïf nudes, surrounded by naked women. She had the telephone receiver tucked beneath her chin, and was trying to eat a smoked-salmon bagel from a brown paper bag.

  ‘For you.’ Taking a bite from the bagel, she handed the receiver to Clare. ‘Kettle’s Yard.’

  When Clare had finished reassuring the curator of the Cambridge museum about a tour she was setting up for Moti Aron, an Israeli artist, in the New Year – they always worked at least six months ahead – Nicola crumpled the empty brown paper bag and threw it accurately into the bin.

  ‘Well?’ She was dying to hear the results of the meeting.

  ‘Which do you want first, the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘I’ll take the bad.’

  ‘Millington’s needs completely gutting. I don’t think the old boy has touched it since he took the lease. We’d need a budget for renovation. Rewiring, replumbing, lighting, new loo, new kitchenette, additional staff. I don’t think we’d be able to manage with one part-time student. Then there’s the rent, Eighteen K a year payable quarterly with rent reviews at two and seven years, and rates. The rates will blow your mind, the premium on the lease – fifty thousand pounds is going to go nowhere…’

  ‘Ok. I get the message. What’s the good news?’

  Clare stared at a particularly unattractive nude whose pudendum was displayed in graphic detail and was putting her off her stride. She turned the canvas towards the wall.

  ‘I’ve told Michael Millington we’ll take it.’

  Nicola’s jaw dropped.

  ‘Where are we going to find fifty thousand pounds?’

  ‘Easy. My share of Château de Cluzac.’

  ‘It’s only a rumour, Clare. How can you be sure that your father’s really going to sell?’

  ‘I can’t. I’m going to Bordeaux to find out.’

  Twelve

  On the strength of the (unsubstantiated) news about Château de Cluzac, Clare had agreed to purchase the remainder of Michael Millington’s lease, and had shaken hands on the deal. She had managed to get round Jamie to reschedule what was supposed to be his study leave, and to come with her to Bordeaux.

  Hiring a car at Mérignac, they had headed northwards on the Route des Châteaux, which ran up the eastern side of the triangular peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gironde river, known as the Médoc, the largest and most important red wine district of Bordeaux.

  The laws of Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée which divided the area into eight, concerned the suppression of fraud, and applied to cheese and chickens as well as to wine. Local wine-growers were restricted to certain grape varieties, were required to plant their vines at specified distances, prune according to regulations and pick only when the authorities allowed them to. Any failure to adhere to the AOC system – which was France’s pride and joy – and their wine would be demoted to substandard vin de table.

  On either side of the road, eye-catching signs – Château Gloria’s in the form of a mammoth wine bottle – invited visitors to tour the cellars of such celebrated châteaux as Giscours, Prieuré-Lichine and Palmer, as well as to taste their wines.

  Driving through the neat vineyards in which the vines, arms extended, straddled support wires stretched taut between wooden pickets, Clare heard the sound of hammer upon wood as they were knocked into the ground, which had heralded the spring in her childhood.

  ‘According to Grandmaman, there’s no better sight than a well-kept Bordeaux vineyard.’

  ‘I must say they’re pretty impressive. What are those things for?’

  Taking her eyes momentarily off the road, Clare followed Jamie’s pointing finger.

  ‘The blue tags mark the young vines. Bunches from vines less than five years old aren’t allowed to be included in the grand vin…’

  ‘Look out!’

  Clare slammed on the brakes, stopping short of a flock of sheep which, beneath the watchful eye of the shepherd, were making their bleating way towards them.

  ‘“L’agneau de Pauillac revient tous les ans à la saison du renouveau.” They come back to graze every year.’

  ‘No wonder Grandmaman is so fond of her gigot.’

  ‘Wait till you taste the Pauillac lamb, fed on their mother’s milk and cooked on a salamander.’

  Jamie stroked the coarse grey wool of a friendly sheep which had put its inquisitive nose through the open window.

  ‘I’ve decided to become a vegetarian.’

  Setting off again, they passed through the sleepy villages, Arsac, Arcins, Cussac, and the now dull flatlands of mostly mediocre wine which lay between Margaux and Beychevelle. Keeping to the road, which wound its way north until it reached St Julien, which boasted more crus classés than any other commune in the Médoc, Clare, who was nodding off in the heat of the midday sun, almost missed her narrow turning.

  Pulling up sharply, she swung the car into a minor road, narrowly missing a large Citroën in which sat two black-clad figures, which was coming towards them.

  ‘Château de Cluzac!’ Clare put an excited arm round Jamie’s shoulders.

  ‘Where’s the sign?’

  ‘There isn’t one. Papa wouldn’t dream of putting up a pancarte. There’s no way he would allow the public – not a category in which he includes himself, incidentally – anywhere near his patch.’

  As they followed the bumpy track for half a mile, she experienced a sinking feeling, like Alice falling down the rabbit-hole. She swung the car round again, this time into a long drive bordered on either side by birch trees. The naked trunks faced each other, like chorus girls about to burst into song.

  Overcome by jumbled recollections of things long past, she idled beneath the ramparts and brought the hired Peugeot to a halt, next to the Baron’s Aston Martin, in the shadows of a forbidding castle of crenellated walls and octagonal towers circumvented by a neglected moat.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ Unfolding his lanky frame from the car, his shirt stuck to his back with perspiration, Jamie, his hands on his hips, looked round him with amazement.

  A large red setter bounded across the sunlit courtyard, closely followed, down the steps of the château, by his master, Charles-Louis, Baron de Cluzac.

  ‘V
iens ici!’

  At the sound of the Baron’s imperious voice, the dog, his bushy tail waving, stopped dead in his tracks.

  ‘Rougemont,’ Clare said. ‘He follows Papa everywhere.’

  Approaching her father, Clare kissed him dutifully.

  ‘This is Jamie Spence-Jones, Papa…’

  ‘How do you do, Sir?’ Meeting the Baron’s appraising eyes, which were level with his own, Jamie held out his hand.

  ‘Enchanté!’ The Baron’s frigid tone belied his greeting.

  ‘Jamie and I are engaged to be married…’

  The Baron was saved from further comment by the appearance on the steps of an emaciated blonde whom Clare took at first to be the same age as herself. She sported an immaculate linen trouser-suit – the cream jacket of which was draped with apparent nonchalance around her shoulders – and had expensively streaked hair, which was tied into a ponytail secured with a black ruffle more suited to a teenager.

  As the Baron escorted his elegant companion down the steps, Clare, who had been about to open the boot of the car, realised that although the woman had obviously been extensively nipped and tucked, closer inspection of her neck proclaimed her to be considerably older than she looked.

  ‘Laura, this is my daughter, Clare and…’ his voice trailed insolently off.

  ‘Jamie Spence-Jones,’ Clare said clearly.

  ‘Mrs Laura Spray, from Florida.’

  ‘Welcome to Château de Cluzac.’ Laura held out her hand.

  Clare barely touched the extended fingers with their red tapered nails. Noticing a lemon marquise diamond of at least twenty carats on Laura Spray’s other hand Clare had no difficulty guessing why her father had been pestering Viola for a divorce.

  ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’ Laura took charge of the situation.

  ‘I’ll bet you have,’ Clare muttered beneath her breath as she reached for her duffle bag.

  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us, your father was about to show me his new hunter. Sidonie will look after you. Luncheon…’ She squinted at the tiny face of her watch. ‘Is sharp at one.’

  Arm in arm, watched by an open-mouthed Clare, and followed by an obedient Rougemont, the couple disappeared, without a backward glance, in the direction of the stables.

  In the cool entrance hall of the château, to the contrasting gloom of which their eyes, slow to accommodate, gradually became accustomed, Clare’s real welcome was waiting. Standing on the black-and-white tiles, all of them worn and some of them badly chipped, like the faithful servant in a Flemish painting, Sidonie held out her arms to greet her wayward child. Her pleasure at seeing her erstwhile charge, who had not set foot in Château de Cluzac since she was an adolescent, could be gauged by the unbidden tears that sprung to her eyes and by the suffocating warmth of her embrace.

  When Sidonie had released her, Clare introduced Jamie.

  ‘C’est mon fiancé!’

  Sidonie dropped a little curtsey.

  ‘Monsieur.’

  ‘You can call him Jamie.’ Clare knew that Sidonie would do no such thing.

  ‘Monsieur Jamie.’ Sidonie took Clare’s bag from her. She looked doubtfully at Jamie. ‘Les chambres sont déjà prêtes…’

  ‘One room will do.’ Clare laughed. ‘I want to show Jamie my old bedroom before lunch. I want to show him everything… Good grief, what’s that?’ She stopped at the grotesque sight of an enormous urn of formally arranged, oversize flowers, such as usually graced the foyer of a grand hotel. It stood at the foot of the stone staircase, with its iron balustrade, which was lined with oil paintings of her ancestors.

  ‘Il y a eu beaucoup de changements, ici,’ Sidonie muttered, trying unsuccessfully to wrest Jamie’s bag from him. ‘Quels changements, Mademoiselle Clare!’

  Sidonie insisted on unpacking for her as if she were still seven years old. Leaving her in the first-floor bedroom she had prepared – with its walnut armoire, damp patches on the ceiling, old-fashioned wash-stand, and four-poster bed – Clare, unable to wait, climbed the narrow steps of the tower with Jamie in her wake.

  Opening the door to a dusty octagonal room with the peeling and faded remains of fleur-de-lys wallpaper, in which a collection of broken chairs that would have fetched a small fortune in Portobello Road seemed to have been abandoned, she crossed the threadbare carpet and flung open the windows.

  The sea of vines which greeted her and which sloped down to the river – vines, in order to thrive, should be able to look at the water – brought an unexpected lump to her throat.

  ‘Not exactly your Notting Hill.’ She leaned back against Jamie who, putting his arms round her breasts, slipped her vest-top from her shoulder.

  ‘Jamie! It’s almost lunchtime.’

  ‘Qu’est ce que tu préfères, manger ou faire l’amour?’

  She was torn between the Scylla of her father’s wrath and the Charybdis of Jamie’s manifest desire. As her long sack-cloth skirt fell to the floor together with Jamie’s chinos, his damp shirt, the gilt clock on the marble chimney-piece, flanked by its garniture, chimed the three-quarter hour. Clouds of dust rose from the narrow bed – which was covered with a hand-worked quilt – as Clare’s view of the ceiling, with its plaster rose from which hung a drunken lampshade and the fabric-covered screen behind which she had washed as a child and the crucifix above the bed where she had offered up her prayers, revolved.

  Afterwards, the silence in the room wrapped them in its somnolent pall. The clock chimed fussily. Une heure et quart.

  Reaching for his trousers, Jamie kissed her naked shoulder.

  ‘I don’t think your father likes me. What am I going to talk to him about?’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not possible to have a conversation with him, unless you happen to be an aristocrat or a gillie…’ Clare scrambled into her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘He can’t seem to get to grips with the middle classes.’

  Charles-Louis and Laura Spray were waiting for them in the library. There had obviously been words. The Baron looked pointedly at the clock.

  In the salle-à-manger, at the table set with its antique couverts, monogrammed glasses, and silver salt cellars garnished with miniature clusters of grapes, Clare made for her usual place opposite her father, to be pipped at the post, as in a silent game of musical chairs, by Laura Spray. Meeting her father’s eye she moved away grudgingly and sat down facing Jamie.

  ‘Qu’est ce que vous faites dans la vie, Jones?’ Attempting to discomfort him, the Baron, who never spoke other than in English when English speakers were around, addressed Jamie in French.

  ‘I’m a surgeon, Sir. At the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford…’

  ‘I know where the John Radcliffe is.’

  ‘My brother’s a paediatrician at the Cedars of Lebanon.’ Laura unfolded her napkin and nodded to Sidonie to serve the hors d’oeuvres, a dish of avocado fans, tomato with basil leaves, and slivers of poached fresh salmon.

  ‘Jamie specialises in orthopaedics.’

  ‘Un charpentier!’ A carpenter.

  Clare ignored the insult. ‘He’s an accredited Senior Registrar and is applying for consultant posts…’

  ‘Madame d’abord!’ Interrupting her, the Baron frowned at Sidonie as she approached Clare with the hors d’oeuvre dish.

  Tight-lipped, Sidonie backtracked and offered the dish first to Laura Spray. Laura made the servant wait while she pushed aside the fish and helped herself to a sparrow’s portion of tomato and a few leaves of what she referred to as ‘baysil’.

  ‘I had stones in my gall bladder’ She put a confidential hand on Jamie’s arm. ‘They showed them to me on the ultrasound.’

  ‘Did you have them removed?’ Jamie asked politely.

  ‘Keyhole surgery. You can hardly see the scar. I was out of the hospital in four days…’ Laura broke off in horror as Charles-Louis reached for the bread.

  ‘Charles!’ she removed the bread-basket and smiled sweetly at Clare. ‘I’ve p
ut your father on a diet. No bread with main meals. French beans, tomato, Swiss chard, eggplant, celery, cauliflower, side salad… Bread means nothing but trouble.’

  Remembering the oppressive meals of her childhood at which she had been afraid to speak, Viola had curbed her ready tongue and the servants had trembled, Clare could not believe that anyone at her father’s table was actually telling him what to do.

  She wondered at the hold that Laura Spray – who had passed on the Cluzac wine with its facsimile of the medieval château on its label, and was sticking to water – seemed to have over him.

  Looking round the dining-room, which had once been the armoury of the fortress, she noticed that the familiar faded curtains, which had been at the deeply recessed windows ever since she could remember, had been replaced with stiff floral chintz, vibrant with poppies, which trailed on the floor and was tied back with co-ordinating braid. She addressed Laura Spray.

  ‘What have you done with the Toile de Jouy?’

  ‘Threw them in the garbage. They were in rags.’

  ‘Is it true that you’re selling Cluzac, Papa?’

  Laura and Charles-Louis exchanged glances. Sidonie’s face, as she waited to clear the plates, was impassive.

  ‘What gave you that idea?’

  ‘I met Big Mick Bly in Bond Street…’

  The Baron glanced at Jamie.

  ‘I suggest we discuss it later’

  ‘Jamie and I are getting married, Papa.’

  ‘And you, Clare, are a de Cluzac. A fact you seem to have forgotten.’

  Thirteen

  ‘What do you think of the French intervention in Rwanda?’ the Baron asked Jamie over the roast duck from which under the eagle eye of Laura Spray he removed every morsel of skin, feeding them to Rougemont who, judging by the way he licked his lips, must have thought that it was Christmas.