Vintage (7 page)

When he left the dining-room it was without so much as a glance in Sidonie’s direction. Leaving the château by the stone staircase, he jumped into his car in the sunlit courtyard planted with tropical palms and hung with wistaria. With the wheels of his 1958 Plymouth
Sport-Fury
spinning in a cloud of gravel, he exited beneath the stone arch and set off for Bordeaux to visit his long-time mistress, Beatrice Biancarelli.

‘See that!’ Viola said impatiently. ‘There’s no point at all in deliberately placing the horse at his fence. That’s the horse’s job; it takes years of training and experience…’

Jamie had forgotten to bring a raincoat. With his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched and water dripping from his hair and down his face and neck, he leaned against the perimeter fence while Viola, who wore wellington boots and an anorak and seemed unaware that it was raining, pointed out to him the finer points of show-jumping, in the art of which two riders in long macs – visitors from Holland – were being instructed.

Leaving the jumping paddock, she led him across a mud-swilled path to the stables, where several horses, their faces framed by open wooden shutters, mournfully regarded their approach.

Approaching a Belgian-bred gelding with a quivering black body and a shock of hair which fell over one eye, Viola took his face between her hands. ‘This is Ardargh. I bought him last week at the High Performance Horse Sales. The first horse we’ve bought in a long time. We usually breed our own. Buying at auction is
nerve-racking
. He should make a top three-day-eventer. He found it strange coming here. We had twelve horses in Millstreet at the International Show. This one…’ Moving on, she reassured a feisty-looking black horse. ‘Squire’s Mount, top show horse in England for four years – attaboy! – he’s just been out now for exercise this morning; he’s home bred. I wouldn’t get too close. This is Falstaff. He’s eleven years old. An All-Ireland Yearling Champion. He’s the foundation stallion. Out of the best
line of Irish breeding. All our young horses are by him. He’s done very well for us. So you have. He has three full brothers, leading stallions. We keep the horses until five or six years and then we sell them. Over here’ – Viola led the way to a barn – ‘we have a trekking centre…’

The journey from the airport had taken them past the Ban-Ard Cash & Carry and Mother Kelly’s Beer Garden. Their erratic progress – the Touchstone Tavern (‘Hot Lunches a Speciality’), Terh O’Connor’s Funeral Service – down narrow country lanes and over the Shehy mountains, was impeded every now and then by flagmen on the road, and by slow-moving tractors noisily appropriating half the carriageway. With Viola cursing at the wheel, they finally rounded a bend to come, without warning, upon the Fitzpatrick Equine Centre, a low-built stone house and outbuildings, which had once served as an army barracks, where the appearance of the Range Rover was greeted by the hysterical barking of what seemed to be a great many dogs.

Leading the way through a small garden, its low stone wall restraining a riot of pansies, past a window looking out on to the yard, in which were piled china ornaments, a wicker basket, silver show-jumping cups, and an opened packet of fig-rolls, Viola opened the front door and led the way into the kitchen.

Without bothering to take off her anorak, she removed a misshapen loaf of soda bread from a stone crock and took a slab of yellow butter, a wedge of crumbling cheese and some baked Limerick ham (smoked over juniper berries) from the old-fashioned refrigerator. Pulling two additional wooden chairs, one of which was broken, up to the table, which was covered in a red checked
oilcloth
worn in some places to the backing, she indicated, with a sweep of her hand, that lunch was ready. 

The rudimentary preparations were Viola’s concession to her visitors. Her rough and ready style of housekeeping, in which everyone except the horses was required to fend for himself, and with which from the age of eight Clare had been familiar, contrasted sharply with the welcome of Sidonie’s kitchen, the formality of the Baron’s dining-room and the protocol of her grandmother’s flat.

Helping herself to a piece of the cheese, which she placed between thick slices of bread, Viola held the sandwich in two hands.

‘So the two of you are to be married. Is that your ring?’

Clare held out her hand with the ring from Butler’s Wharf: a wide band of gold in the modern idiom, inset with a circlet of rose diamonds, turquoises, and cabochon garnets.

‘It’s very handsome. I thought it would be the de Cluzac sapphire…’

Clare gave her a warning glance, which encompassed Jamie. Viola had never been one for tact.

‘Your grandmother was keeping the sapphire for you. How is the old lady? I’ve a soft spot for her. I hope she’s well.’

Clare looked at her mother’s handsome, unmade-up face – she swore by Nivea cream and used it by the gallon – which a network of fine lines was just beginning to traverse, at her rain-softened, still-dark hair, with the single grey streak which had appeared in her twenties. It flopped unrestrained over the dark brown eyes with their deep lids, which she had herself inherited. She realised that, although it rarely occurred to either of them to pick up the telephone, and that when they did speak they were rarely on the same wavelength, she had missed her mother.

Viola was one of the very few people, Clare thought, who were – to use the French idiom for which there seemed no satisfactory translation – bien dans sa peau. She said what she meant and meant what she said. She was totally unselfconscious either about her own appearance or the impression she made on others, and followed her own instincts rather than the dictates of society. It was little wonder that she had not lasted long in the Médoc.

‘You’re looking well now.’ Viola let go of Clare’s hand. ‘A bit on the pale side but that’s the smog for you. So I’m to have a son-in-law at last. Tell me about yourself Jamie.’

‘I love your daughter, Mrs Fitzpatrick.’

‘That much is obvious. “Viola” will do. Clare tells me you’re a medical man. You’ll be at home in Ireland. Doctors and poets. You must let me know when’s the wedding.’

‘July.’

‘That’s the middle of the show-jumping! And where’s it to be held?’

There was silence as Jamie and Clare looked at each other.

‘We’re still arguing about it,’ Clare said.

‘I’ll tell you one thing, Jamie – I’ll make a pot of tea, not that poor stuff they have on the other side – Clare always gets her own way. Since she was a child. She makes up her mind and it’s hard to dissuade her. There
are horses the same. You’ll find common sense will do much, kindness more, and coercion very little.’

Accustomed to a mug and a tea-bag, Jamie watched fascinated as Viola brought freshly drawn water to a brisk boil before warming the teapot ceremoniously, putting in four teaspoonfuls of Darjeeling leaves, and setting it on the table to brew.

‘I can be a bit bloody-minded myself,’ he said.

‘Then there’s trouble ahead. I remember once, she must have been about six…’

‘Mother!’ Clare said.

‘He’ll want to know what kind of woman he’s taking on.’

‘He’s not “taking me on”. I’m in charge of my own life.’

Viola sat down again at the table. She was not to be deterred.

‘Her father bought her a three-wheeler. He forbade her anywhere but in the grounds. She’d been gone for two hours before we realised. We thought she was riding round the courtyard. Albert Rochas brought her home on the back of the tractor. She was half-way to Kilmartin to visit her cousins and toppled over into a ditch. Show Jamie your hand, Clare. She bears the mark to this day.’

Obediently holding out her palm, Clare pointed to the long white line which snaked from the base of the thumb to the wrist bone where the skin had been lacerated by the gravel. It was not by the cicatrice that she remembered the incident however, but by the indelible scar which the aftermath of the accident had left on her mind.

It had been the first occasion on which her father had raised his hand to her. It was certainly not the last. Not only was the sharp slap delivered by Charles-Louis in ‘her best interests’, but, as if the humiliation were not
enough, he actually expected her to be grateful to him for the punishment meted out to ensure her future compliance with his edicts.

His paternalism, his need to be in control, was that of the political demagogue, the omnipotent physician: do as I say and you will live; go your own way and you will die.

When Charles-Louis, beside himself with anger, assured his six-year-old daughter that the blow to the side of the head, which caught her ear and left her deaf for days, hurt him more than it hurt her, she believed him. It was several years before she had realised that her father had been lying.

Viola, who had herself been on the receiving end of his temper, did not concur with her daughter’s punishment. She could see no real difference between a young child and a colt, both of whom were impulsive and ready for mischief. She never blamed a horse for its shortcomings, the responsibility for which lay with its teacher. If any punishment were necessary it should be explanatory and at the moment of misbehaviour. It should certainly never be brutal.

That Clare, unable at the age of six to cope with the pain of his betrayal, idolised her father – whom, from the perspective of childhood, she regarded as strong, handsome, and charismatic – was due to the silent bargain struck by the tyrannised with the tyrant: if she obeyed her papa, if she tried very hard to live up to his expectations of her and to do as he said, he would tell no one about her wickedness, he would keep her worthlessness to himself. It was many years after the tricycle incident before the realisation came to her that the frequent punishments she attracted were not ‘in her own interests’ at all, but that her father had in fact been abusing his parental position of power and treating her
with contempt. It looked very much as if he was doing so again.

‘Did Papa tell you about Cluzac?’

‘He was too busy trying to get round me for the divorce. I shouldn’t wonder he wants to get married again. I feel sorry for the poor soul, whoever she is… What about Cluzac?’

‘The château is on the market.’

‘But that’s impossible. Where did you hear it?’

‘From Big Mick Bly. The American wine writer. I met him in Bond Street.’

‘Your father’s crazy. What does he want to sell it for?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You should have been consulted. Twenty-four per cent is down to you. What income have you been getting?’

‘I haven’t been getting an income at all.’

‘Nothing?’

‘A few cases of wine.’

‘He can’t dispose of the estate without you.’

‘He seems to be having a good try.’

‘You have to sign a paper. What exactly is he up to, I wonder?’

‘Nicola and I want to buy the lease of a new gallery and Jamie and I are going to renovate his cottage…’

‘Watch out he doesn’t screw you. Milk and sugar?’ Viola addressed Jamie.

‘Both,’ Clare said.

‘Talk to the butcher and the block answers.’

Viola took an apple pie in a foil plate and a bowl of yellow cream from the fridge.

‘It’s not exactly tarte tatin. I bought it at Dunne’s. Will you pass your plate, Jamie? I was born and bred in Ireland. My great-grandfather was Flemish. As a young boy he was involved in the Belgian war of Independence. Served with a battery of field artillery. His job was to
capture the riderless Dutch horses. He was thrown from his horse under a gun carriage and injured. Afterwards he was unable to ride. He married a girl from Galway. That was my great-grandmother, Dymphna; I’ll show you the album. He spent his time buying strings of Irish horses for the Belgian remount. My mother’s people were foreigners, Normans, Cromwellians. They managed to remain Catholic… Are you a Catholic Jamie?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘There’s too much fuss made over religion. People died every day in Ulster because they worshipped in the wrong church or lived in the wrong street. When’s the last time Clare’s been inside a church I don’t know. What about the children?’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t got that far.’

‘They’ll be on you before you know it. Even today. I was never much good at it. Mothering. My line’s more horses, Clare’ll tell you. It’s always been horses, something to do with my great-grandfather. Did I tell you Declan was coming for supper? There’s a stew in the pantry. Declan’s my fella. Lectures at the university. Jurisprudence. You’ll get on fine. Beef in Guinness. Eileen made it. She comes in to do breakfasts. I’ve only the two staying. They’re from Neimegen. I’ve told Declan about you. He’s dying to meet you.’

After lunch Clare had gone up to the bedroom they had been allotted. It looked out on to the lawn, rough with daisies, and the jumping paddock. From the window, breathing the sweet air through the rain, which was now coming down in stair rods, she watched her mother now, more at ease with strangers than with her own flesh and blood, talking to Jamie.

‘There’s no such thing as a genius in riding,’ Viola was saying as her assistant patiently put the Dutch riders through their paces. ‘Prodigies in mathematics, in
music, in chess, yes. Riding must be learned the hard way. The correct way. I don’t take on anyone who’s not learned to ride properly. Who can’t trot and gallop without stirrups and reins. No diver in his right mind would jump from the top board without first knowing how to swim. It’s the same with riding. We use the cavalry school method. Two thousand years of experience. There are no short cuts. Tell me, what kind of a doctor are you?’

‘An orthopaedic surgeon.’

‘We could use you here for the horses if you’re ever out of a job. Clare’s very fond of you. You’ve only to look at her. She’s not had a happy childhood. Her father wanted a boy. The two of them were always fighting. He’s a difficult man. Very autocratic. He tried to break her spirit. He didn’t succeed. She’s bold and hardy, like the Irish horses. Are you getting wet, Jamie?’

Later, over supper, when Jamie started to sneeze, Viola plied him with whiskey and countered Clare’s accusation that she had kept her beloved standing in the rain with the remark that Irish rain, unlike the stuff they went in for in England, never did anyone any harm.

Not only had the kitchen been transformed, but Viola herself. Clare presumed it was in honour of Declan Bailey rather than herself and Jamie. Her mother, taking no time at all over the exercise, had changed from her jodhpurs into a flattering red trouser-suit, piled her hair on top of her head, and put long ruby earrings, a present from Charles-Louis, in her ears. Although her face still bore no sign of make-up, her skin glowed and there was a softness to her which Clare had not seen before.