Vintage

by Olivia Darling

  Madeleine went back to Champagne and joined Henri in anxiously watching the weather. Throughout the village—as happened every year as harvesttime approached—there was talk of nothing else. Véraison—that moment when the grapes changed color from green to red—had taken place a little earlier than expected. Would this year’s harvest beat the previous year’s record for early ripeness? Madeleine found herself out in the Clos several times a day, checking the sugar levels of her grapes in degrees Baume with her refractometer. She couldn’t help but be reminded of the days she had spent watching the fluctuating price of some stock or other with similar obsessive attention. The two things had a lot in common. If Madeleine and her banking friends miscalculated the sale price then heads would roll. Likewise in the vineyards grapes picked too early or too late would be worthless.

  The harvest in Champagne is a closely regulated affair. The dates upon which harvesting may start are not set by the individual vigneron but by the CIVC—the body that regulates the making of champagne in the region. As the earliest possible date for that year’s harvest drew closer, Madeleine swung into action. The big champagne house that was going to buy the grapes from the hill vineyards had agreed to provide its own team of pickers to ensure the harvest was done to its particular requirements. For the Clos Des Larmes, however, Madeleine had to call in some favors.

  She e-mailed all her friends back in London.

  “A week in Champagne,” she suggested to each of them. “All expenses paid.”

  The offer was greeted with plenty of initial excitement but unfortunately the unusually early harvest fell right at the end of the British school holidays. Madeleine had forgotten how many of her friends were now the parents of school-age children, all of whom were just a little bit too young to roll up their sleeves and join in with the picking. No one was available to help out, except for Lizzy, Jane and Helena, who jumped at the chance to be doing something, anything, other than sitting in London.

  For the first time in almost ninety years, it looked as though the Clos Des Larmes at Arsenault was to be harvested solely by women.

  CHAPTER 30

  Mapa Valley was beautiful in the summer. The vines were resplendent with bright green foliage. The grapes were ripening. Birds were singing. It was blissfully warm. All of nature seemed to be rejoicing. But Christina Morgan shivered on the veranda of Villa Bacchante wrapped in an enormous dressing gown. One of the few things Bill had left behind.

  How had it gone so wrong? They’d been married for only slightly more than a year and now they were getting divorced? They were the Hollywood couple of the century! This wasn’t meant to happen.

  Christina worried at a cuticle as she stared sightlessly out over the vineyards. In her head ran a continuous feed of headlines relating to the end of her marriage. The public speculation as to why it had imploded was unbearable. Bill was the one who had slept with a slut and yet somehow the blame had been laid firmly at Christina’s feet. “Christina’s beauty is only skin deep,” claimed one magazine writer. “Bill’s co-stars on Kings of the Stone Age, twins Misty and Lisa Legrand, claim that Bill felt lonely in his marriage. Christina was more interested in promoting her own brand image than supporting her man. While Bill was sick with pneumonia on set in New Mexico, Christina was cavorting in Baja with Rocky Neel.”

  All lies! Pneumonia? Bill had had a cold.

  Christina saw the hand of Bill’s manager in all this bad press. Christina had never liked Justin. She knew that Justin thought Bill should have stayed single for longer, like Clooney. The fans preferred it that way. And so Christina fought back, saying that Bill had refused to work on their marriage. She had been willing to forgive him, she told a weekly gossip magazine. When she flew to New York the day she got the news about the Parisian prostitute, she had been ready to listen to his explanation, accept an apology and try to move forward. She was prepared to let it go. But he’d been so unapologetic! He’d made it her fault! And all because she’d tried to do the right thing. Because she had stood up for her beliefs and supported ISACL. He called her stupid for choosing the moral high ground over Maison Randon. She couldn’t sit there and take that. He was her husband. He was supposed to stand by her.

  She may have flown back to California without saying good-bye but she told him where she would be. He knew how to get hold of her.

  Bill was supposed to follow her back to the West Coast. He was supposed to call Teak, his personal assistant, and ask him to book a ticket to Oakland or Sacramento, whichever was quicker, and have a car waiting at the airport. Bill was supposed to drive up to the villa in Napa and hammer on the locked door until Christina relented and let him inside to talk. He was supposed to prove that their marriage meant at least that much.

  Instead, while Christina held her breath in Napa Valley, Bill hit the town in New York. He moved out of Marisa’s sister’s apartment and into the best suite at the new Ian Schrager Hotel. That very night he was pictured enjoying a cozy dinner à deux with his co-star from his last action movie. And later he was photographed again, lurching out of a nightclub with two girls who apparently accompanied him back to his room “to console him.” Bill was the battered bad boy; Christina was a cold-hearted witch. And that despite her charity work! Marisa reminded all the journalists she spoke to that Christina was still very much involved in fighting for the rights of child workers.

  But for whatever reason, the media didn’t seem to care about Christina’s point of view. They swung behind Bill. Even Vanity Fair called to say they weren’t going to be running their piece on ISACL after all. They would be printing a hot new exposé about Bobby Kennedy instead.

  “I’m sure they’ll run your piece next year,” said Marisa. Christina knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  And then there was the divorce itself…

  Christina had hired a hotshot lawyer but the things he discovered as soon as he started digging offered her little hope of walking away with a decent settlement. Christina was absolutely stunned to learn that her husband, Bill Tarrant, the man once hailed by Variety as “box-office gold” had barely a nickel to his name. The apartment in Manhattan, the beach house, the fabulous home in Beverly Hills, all were heavily mortgaged on behalf of Bill’s production company. He’d been hemorrhaging money as he tried to set up his stupid western.

  “I would help you take your husband for everything,” said Christina’s lawyer, Todd, “but alas there is nothing to take him for.”

  Having expected to walk away with at least two of their four properties, Christina found herself negotiating to keep just one: the Villa Bacchante.

  Christina’s life was falling apart.

  Two months after Bill’s indiscretion, she forced herself to show up for a fitting for the Guilty Secrets lingerie fashion show, hoping that hanging out with so many familiar faces from the industry would help her break out of her funk. But once there she was shocked to find that her famous breasts no longer filled out the show-stopping diamond-encrusted bra she was supposed to model. She’d been neglecting to watch her diet. The bejeweled brassiere was given instead to Viviane Caine, a model from Texas who had been hailed as a Jerry Hall for the noughties. Caine got top billing in the show. Christina stalked down the catwalk ahead of her in a black basque made of fake leather and was rewarded with articles in all the gossip rags speculating about whether she had anorexia. The crisis deepened when Guilty Secrets regretfully informed Marisa that they would not be renewing Christina’s contract for their catalog. They were going in a fresh direction, they said. With Viviane Caine.

  After the humiliation of the lingerie show and being dropped as the face of Guilty Secrets, Christina became a hermit. While Bill was photographed out and about on a daily basis, “rebuilding his life,” Christina all but disappeared. She holed up in Napa. She sat alone on the patio at Villa Bacchante for hours, just staring out over the vineyard. The only person she saw was Ernestina, the housekeeper.

  She felt cold all the time. It was as though she had be
en kept warm only by the glow of public approval and now that the public had turned away from her, the sun no longer shone.

  Christina cried herself to sleep night after night. It was all over. Her marriage was over. Her modeling career was over. There was nothing left. No family. No future. Nothing.

  Marisa understood up to a point but after a month during which Christina had barely changed out of that horrible dressing gown (Marisa recognized the lapels of the hideous thing whenever she talked with Christina over Skype), she decided that it was time for some tough talk. She flew from New York to Napa for the weekend. She arrived at the villa with a basket full of bagels. Christina pushed them aside.

  “Now, this isn’t something I tell many of my girls,” said Marisa, “but you really have to put on some weight. You have to eat. And not just because you’ve completely lost your tits and I couldn’t get you a job modeling incontinence pants. I can’t let you kill yourself slowly like this.”

  Christina looked up at her agent and friend with watery eyes.

  “I feel like someone died,” she said.

  “You certainly look like someone died,” said Marisa. “In fact, you look like you’re going to follow suit. You’re a walking skeleton.”

  “I’m grieving.”

  “What are you grieving, Christina?”

  “My marriage, of course!” Christina looked at Marisa incredulously.

  “Really?” Marisa paused significantly. “Only I didn’t see that you were all that excited while you were in it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think it’s Bill you miss at all.”

  Christina’s mouth dropped open. She started to say something but Marisa interrupted her.

  “You weren’t in love with him. You were in love with being one half of the world’s most recognizable couple. It was all about image. For both of you.”

  “How can you say that? We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We were going to have a family. We had everything planned.” Christina continued, “I’d been reading about adopting in Africa.”

  “Too much bother to have sex, eh?”

  “I … ” Now Christina was really upset. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked Marisa. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “And I am,” said Marisa. “I’m just pointing out that you’re pining away for something that didn’t exist. This perfect marriage.”

  “We had a good marriage.”

  “You had an agreement. You don’t love Bill. You never did. He was only supposed to be a quick fuck to help you get over that finance guy. I should never have let you two tie the knot. You’re hiding out here like a kicked dog because you’re worried about what people think of you. Well, let me tell you something. If you’re going to carry on hiding, people will just carry on saying that you’re finished.”

  “I am finished,” said Christina, feeling suddenly even smaller and more insignificant. “You see the way everyone has turned against me over this. You haven’t had a call asking for me in weeks, right? It’s like I lost my future. That’s the truth. I mean, I always knew I couldn’t be a model forever, but after that? What? What’s next for me, Marisa? I can’t act. I have never had a proper job in my life. I couldn’t even be an agent.”

  Marisa smiled tightly.

  “I didn’t mean that to sound so bad.”

  “I understand,” said Marisa.

  “But it’s true. I’m not actually qualified to do anything. I started modeling before I left high school. My mother told me it was a mistake. And maybe she was right. I’ve got nothing to fall back on. I couldn’t even hang on to a husband.”

  “Stop thinking like that really matters. I’m doing perfectly fine without one. Don’t you think?”

  Marisa had never been married. Never had a boyfriend for longer than six months. In truth, Christina felt rather sorry for her. It never occurred to her that Marisa might be happy with her life the way it was.

  “Did you think Bill would have supported you in his old age?” Marisa continued. “He wasn’t your guarantee of security. You know what a mess he made of his finances.”

  “He can at least build them up again.”

  “I’m telling you, darling, the shelf life of an action movie hero is almost as short as a model’s.”

  “I wish I could take more comfort from that.”

  “Indulging in schadenfreude is not such a good trait. Leave that nasty habit to me.”

  “What else do I have?”

  “What else do you have?” Marisa parroted, sarcastically. “You know, you’re never going to be destitute, you silly girl. In real terms, you’ve got plenty of money in the bank. And when you get something approaching boobs again, I’ll be happy to keep sending you out on modeling jobs for as long as they come in. Which will be for years,” she added. “And after that? Bill’s pretty much agreed you can have this place, right?”

  Christina nodded. Bill had been remarkably conciliatory in an effort to keep down his legal costs.

  “Well, I think it’s a pretty wonderful spot to hole up in while you’re deciding your next move.” Marisa took a thoughtful sip from her glass. “You could even become a winemaker for real. You like wine, don’t you? You’ve got a great palate. I think you’d be a natural.”

  “Well, yes, but … so I know a bit about the finished product. I don’t know anything much about making the stuff.”

  “You’re living in Carneros, darling. This is great land. You can’t go wrong. Get involved. Throw yourself into learning about viticulture. It will take your mind off things.”

  Christina automatically shook her head. “What’s the point?”

  Marisa leaned forward and took her former star model by the shoulders.

  “It’s time to get a grip, Christina. Of all the models I have ever represented, you were always the most driven. No one works like you did; no one takes more care of his or her image. And now you’re really going to let it go because your sham of a marriage didn’t work out? Yes, you’re getting older. Everybody does. But you’re not over yet. You will turn this terrible time to your advantage. One of the biggest difficulties some advertisers had with your image is that you were always too perfect. You had that wall of glitter around you at all times. The tide always turns in the media. Bill’s little-boy-lost act will get old and then people will want to know what’s happening with you. If you just get on with your life, quietly and with dignity, it will stand you in good stead for when that moment comes. Show people the humility and humanity I know you have inside.”

  Christina sniffed.

  “There’s a market for real,” said Marisa with a wry smile. “I could get loads of work for an ice queen turned nice.”

  “Do you think I’m a nice person?” Christina asked Marisa suddenly.

  “I know you are. Come here, you idiot.”

  And Christina practically threw herself into her agent’s arms.

  By the time Marisa left, Christina had to admit that she was feeling better than she had in a while.

  During the time that she’d been living like an exile in the Villa Bacchante, life had been going on. The world had continued to turn. June became July became August. The grapevines didn’t know that Villa Bacchante was a house in mourning for a shattered image. An hour after Marisa got in her hired car for the drive back to San Francisco, Christina finally took off the dressing gown, put on her boots and took a walk to the vineyard.

  If the vineyard was all that she had, then Christina was going to make the most of it. She remembered her maternal grandmother uttering that famous saying “If God gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Well, God had given Christina something better than lemons to play with at the Villa Bacchante.

  She held a bunch of pinot noir grapes in her hand and marveled at their ripeness. She pulled off a single berry and crushed it, letting the juice ooze between her fingers. She licked them clean.

  “Enrique!” she called to her vineyard manager, who was tinkering
with the irrigation system. “Will you come over here and explain to me exactly what needs to be done to turn these grapes into wine?”

  CHAPTER 31

  Madeleine’s dear girlfriends, Lizzy, Jane and Helena, arrived in Champagne two days before the official start of the vendange. They drove down from London together in Jane’s enormous Porsche Cayenne.

  And so the all-female team to pick Clos Des Larmes was assembled. Not widows this time, but certainly all heartbroken. Lizzy was still pining for the physics teacher; Jane was desperate for something to do while her ex-husband took their children to Tuscany with his new girlfriend—“She’s just two years older than our daughter!” Jane wailed; Helena was also in the throes of a horrible separation. From a divorce lawyer.

  “Why the hell did I marry a divorce lawyer? I am stuffed,” she admitted as she considered the fight to come.

  “Do you think our bitterness will affect the taste of the grapes?” Lizzy asked, remembering Madeleine’s father’s theory that the 1914 Clos Des Larmes was magnificent because every grape was harvested with love and pride for the men who couldn’t be there.

  “In that case it’s a shame you’re not making vinegar,” said Jane.

  “Girls,” said Madeleine, brushing aside their fears. “Let’s put some happy faces on. I promise this is going to be fun.”

  To be honest, it wasn’t that much fun at all for the first two days that the women were holed up in Madeleine’s house. There was nothing to do but wait for the CIVC’s chosen date, smoke cigarettes and moan. Madeleine, meanwhile, spent all her time dashing in and out to the vines with Henri, taking measurements of the sugar levels in her grapes like a nurse tending her patients in intensive care.

  “This must be what it’s like waiting for a baby to be born,” said Lizzy as she watched Madeleine take yet another reading. “Are we nearly there yet?”