Vintage (9 page)

‘The alteration will be completed in good time?’

‘But of course…’ Biancarelli moved to the desk. ‘You will bring your shoes to the fitting.’

Madame Balard tottered towards the cubicle.

‘You won’t tell anyone what I’m wearing? You’ll keep it to yourself?’

Biancarelli was making out the bill.

‘Rest assured, Madame!’

The fact that Madame Balard was wearing turquoise satin for the Fête de la Fleur was not the most
earth-shattering
of her secrets.

Helping her client out of the dress, so that she would not scratch herself on the pins, she averted her gaze
from the salmon-pink corselet from which the pallid flesh bulged both above and below.

Suddenly aware of the silence, Biancarelli realised that outside in the street the rain had stopped. Holding the turquoise dress over her arm, she turned off the lights in the shop, which was filled with light so bright that she would have to wind down the blinds to protect the display in the window.

‘The rain has stopped,’ she trilled to Madame Balard, smiling and lifting her face to the sun, her life’s blood, which streamed in through the window. In the café opposite, the waiters, napkins beneath their arms, were mopping the wet tables.

‘“Après la pluie le beau temps!”’

After a tedious morning spent in the company of tax inspectors Monsieur Huchez and Monsieur Combe, who over the past few years had been hounding him regularly, Baron de Cluzac was glad to take his red Aston Martin DB6 MK1 sports coupé from the garage, and set out for the Convent of Notre Dame de Consolation in Toulouse to visit his sister Bernadette.

It was the custom of the fisc to assume, unless convinced otherwise, that in any industry profits were being made. Aware of the fact that during the eighties Bordeaux wine sales had practically doubled (one estate had earned pre-tax profits of 62 million francs), and informed of the Baron’s turnover by his negociant, Claude Balard, Monsieur Huchez and Monsieur Combe had come to enquire, for the umpteenth time, after the French government’s substantial slice of the cake.

The amount which, according to them, the Baron now owed the government in back-taxes was both ludicrous and astronomical. It had been an extremely irksome morning and, having seen the two fonctionnaires off (until their next visit), he was relieved to get out on to the open road. Having informed Bernadette of the forthcoming sale of Château de Cluzac to Philip Van
Gelder, he would, in the fullness of time, get in touch with Clare.

Although his sister Bernadette, who had taken the vow of poverty, was not permitted to possess so much as a pin or a piece of paper, he had no doubt that the convent, always in need of funds, would put her share of the proceeds to good use. He wished he had similar faith in his daughter.

Thinking about her, an exercise that never failed to jack up his blood pressure, he allowed a BMW driven by a woman to overtake him, which irritated him even further. Putting his foot on the accelerator in order to regain his superior position on the road, he recalled his last meeting with Clare.

He had gone to London to attend a car auction at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, where he had his eye on a chocolate brown Buick Riviera Custom Stretch with an unusual quarter vinyl roof. Having visited his tailor in Savile Row, ordered some shirts in Jermyn Street and, to his chagrin, been out-bid for the Buick, he had diplomatically left the wife of the cabinet minister (with whom he was having an affair) to attend a soirée at Number 10 with her husband, and taken his daughter for dinner at Claridge’s.

The fact that Clare had marched into the foyer, where he was on his third whisky, half an hour late, wearing a duster round her head, a cheesecloth dress which had seen better days, and sneakers, and carried several iridescent green Marks and Spencer’s bags, did nothing to improve his mood.

Had Charles-Louis produced a son, as big and powerful as himself, he might possibly have respected him.
Contemptuous
of women, whom he lusted after but regarded as sexual conveniences, he had never paid any attention his daughter’s needs and feelings, never actually listened
to what she had to say, and never regarded her as anything but permanently inferior.

Having categorically refused to try for a place at Oxford, all she could manage to do with the education he had bestowed upon her was to waste several years at drama school. This had resulted in a stint as stage manager, followed by several TV commercials, a couple of appearances at the Edinburgh Festival (in fringe theatres), and a spell as a flamenco dancer. After this she had set herself up in a London street market as a brocanteuse. The truth of the matter was that Clare was indolent. She underestimated herself. Born into the French nobility – an advantage which she had no hesitation in throwing away – the best she had been able to produce by way of a boyfriend, at least on the last occasion they had met, was a percussionist in a band.

Sitting opposite her at his habitual table in the restaurant, where both his title and his presence ensured the most attentive of service, Charles-Louis had almost choked over his terrine of quail.

‘A drummer!’

Accustomed to the ill-temper and impatience with which her father had always put her down, unless of course she happened to fit in with his plans, Clare applied herself equably to her smoked salmon mousseline.

‘Graham plays with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment…’

‘Never heard of it!’

Charles-Louis was saved from further comment by the arrival of wine which he had ordered from the list on which Château de Cluzac – thanks, he presumed, to Claude Balard – was not included. Taking his recently acquired half-glasses from his top pocket, he checked the
label, which, to the tutored eye, revealed the calibre of the contents.

By reading the information clockwise, it was possible to deduce the name of the growth, the appellation, the volume, the degree of alcohol, the vintage, the exporter, the name of the bottler, and whether the wine had been bottled at the château – in this case the nearby Château Talbot – where it had been produced. When he had satisfied himself, the Baron indicated to the sommelier that he might remove the cork from the bottle.

They sat in uncomfortable silence while Clare thought of, and immediately rejected, things to say. Her father didn’t like gossip, was not an intellectual, never read books, had few political views other than a conventional affiliation with the right, was embarrassed by personal contact, and was not terribly bright. She knew that it was useless trying to recount to him anything interesting or amusing which had happened in her life, because, judging by past form, if he actually managed to let her get to the end of the story without interruption, he would insist on careful rephrasing until all the joy and spontaneity had gone out of the account.

While they waited, her father’s fingers tapped
impatiently
on the white tablecloth in a familiar gesture. Managing to make the apparently innocent question sound like an insult, he asked Clare how old she was.

Decoding the enquiry, Clare understood that the
information
her father was seeking concerned not so much her age, but what she intended doing with her life.

‘You know perfectly well how old I am, Papa. I shall be twenty-eight next birthday.’

‘Isn’t it time you settled down?’

‘I have settled down…’

‘When are you going to get married? Find yourself a decent job?’

‘I’ve got a job, Papa. Two jobs.’

‘You know very well what I mean, Clare. Not as a market trader…’

‘Managing the Nicola Wade Gallery is not exactly a jobette! Have you any idea of the work that’s involved? Dealing with the artists, with museums, with collectors, with corporate buyers, entertaining foreign clients? I do all the marketing and exhibitions, we have to work several months in advance, the printing and production – brochures, catalogues, press releases, literature, you name it – take care of the insurance, plan the advertising and artwork, cold-call the clients, tap into business from a totally different point of view. Take last night. I put on an event at just about the biggest firm of corporate lawyers in the City. I managed to persuade them that, if the retinas of their staff were stimulated by hanging art on their walls, increased brain activity would mean increased productivity…’

‘A door-to-door salesman! Look at you.’

Charles-Louis mentally compared his daughter’s appearance with that of young Olympe d’Hautebarque – with whom he had had a brief liaison – whose father’s estate, Château le Maréchal, abutted his own. Thinking of Olympe’s suits in pastel colours, her elegant shoes, her fashionably dressed hair and her discreet jewellery, he managed, on this occasion, to prevent himself from giving voice to his thoughts. He was, as usual, more concerned about his own gratification than with any right Clare might have to please herself. She was saved from the familiar lecture about her appearance and lifestyle, which she knew by heart, by the arrival of the main course.

The sommelier poured a little of the claret into the Baron’s glass and waited anxiously until the Baron
signified his approval. As soon as he had withdrawn, Clare tasted the Talbot.

‘Leave it a while,’ Charles-Louis ordered, indicating that she should put down her glass.

‘Why?’

‘You know perfectly well why.’

‘I’m not bothered. Robert Browning used to put ice in his red wine.’

‘Are you trying to provoke me?’

‘Not at all. Did you know that Thackeray drank Burgundy with his bouillabaisse? And Keats liked his claret “cool out of a cellar a mile deep”.’

‘Where did you hear that rubbish?’

‘Grandmaman…’

Charles-Louis refrained from commenting.

‘…People have been drinking wine for thousands of years, Papa. There are no rules about it. Nothing written in stone. You can’t even say one wine is “better” than another, any more than you can say your lamb is better than my beef. Taste is purely subjective…’

‘There is such a thing as accumulated wisdom.’

‘Grandmaman says that all that is needed is a perception of smell, a sense of taste and an eye for colour,’ Clare said loftily. ‘She says that for this reason, and because they’re used to buying scent and soap, women are better at tasting than men. Grandmaman says I have a photographic palate.’

The evening, as the Baron recalled, had, as usual, ended decidedly coolly. Having kissed his daughter formally, he had put on his felt trilby and set out for Pall Mall and his club, while Clare, clutching her plastic carriers (which had been handed over with great ceremony by the hall porter in exchange for the Baron’s pourboire), made for Oxford Street and her bus.

Apart from the statutory exchange of cards at Christmas – the Baron’s, with its etching of Château de Cluzac, sent by his secretary – Charles-Louis had neither seen nor heard from his daughter since. Dismissing her from his mind as he approached the outskirts of Toulouse, he concentrated on his forthcoming meeting with ‘Bernadette’ whom he had known as a boy, as his fun-loving sister Sylvie.

He had been ten years old when the incident that had led to Sylvie’s withdrawal from the world, and the
abandonment
of her earthly name, had taken place. Although the repercussions had shaken not only Château de Cluzac but the entire Médoc, he had had, at the time, only the vaguest of ideas what it was all about. Later he had managed to fit together the various hints and innuendoes like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and come up with Sylvie’s story which was never directly referred to.

Headstrong as her brother was timid – which as a child, in awe of his father, Baron Thibault,
Charles-Louis
had once been – Sylvie’s exuberant presence had breathed life into the château. It was Sylvie who had organised treasure hunts, who had dared him to steal apples from the neighbouring orchards, who had frightened geese and chickens, and made lifelike effigies out of snow. The fun, much of which had taken place in the vineyards, where the children spent a great deal of time, ended abruptly when Sylvie was fifteen.

Charles-Louis had been confined to his room with la rougeole, and Sylvie, for whom the gloomy house had little interest but who loved to roam the shady woodlands, to follow the paths that wound between the trees and to clamber over walls, had taken out her bicycle to ride to the nearby Château de Marianne to visit her friend, Charlotte.

Cycling through a deserted field, she had been stopped by one of the vineyard workers, a well-built lad of eighteen who had lagged behind his fellows and had asked her if she had the time.

Getting off her bicycle, Sylvie had consulted her new watch, a birthday present from her father, which the vigneron had duly admired. Taking her white hand in his own earthy one the better to examine the enamel face, he had been overcome by the girl’s proximity and was unable to resist pulling Sylvie into his arms. Sylvie – or so the story went, and Charles-Louis could well believe it, for even in adolescence his sister had been both extremely well-developed and curious about sex – had not objected when their lips had met in a kiss. Pulling away from Lucien, for that was the boy’s name, she had bent over to retrieve her bicycle, which was lying on the ground. Her body, clearly outlined beneath her flimsy summer skirt, had inflamed Lucien, whose intelligence was decidedly limited. Grabbing Sylvie, he had flung her roughly to the ground, and, stopping only to unbutton his trousers, hurled himself on top of her.

He was, according to the story, which had, very much later and little by little, been extracted from Sylvie, extremely drunk. His breath, at any rate, reeked of alcohol. Be that as it may, he had ripped off Sylvie’s clothes and subjected her to a rape so vicious, so violent and so protracted that after the alarm had been sounded and Sylvie was found by the chef de culture, unconscious and bleeding, she had been unable to speak for several days. When she did finally manage to communicate it was no longer Sylvie who spoke. The ordeal had robbed Charles-Louis of his sister and replaced her with a stranger from whom the joie de vivre had been extinguished and the will to live doused.

That Sylvie had not given in without a struggle was evident from the tattered state of the shirt with which Lucien had returned home. It had been exhibited in the court, which had found him guilty and sentenced him to ten years in prison, together with a report of injuries which included lacerations to his face and back, inflicted by Sylvie’s desperate nails, and a broken nose. This last had been caused by her shoe, which she had managed to slip off and with which she had succeeded in hitting him repeatedly with all her not inconsiderable strength. It was a Pyrrhic victory.

Sylvie, putting her head round the door of his
sick-room
to say she was going for a cycle ride, was the last Charles-Louis had seen of his erstwhile playmate. The Sylvie who survived, to haunt the château like a shadow of her former self, was another Sylvie.

By the time she was eighteen, Sylvie had recovered, or so they all thought. Her engagement to the young Comte de Fustel de St Médard was announced. On the day of the wedding she left her beloved standing at the altar to become the bride of Christ.

Parking his red Aston Martin in the forecourt of the convent, alongside the 2CV driven by the nuns,
Charles-Louis
put on his jacket and tugged at the iron bell-pull which hung at the side of the oak door beneath the outsize bronze replica of the Virgin Mary.