A Good Year (6 page)

But the interior of the house was delightfully cool, and the endless scratchy serenade of the
cigales
was delightfully soothing. Max went to the library and picked a book from the shelves. He would read for half an hour before attacking the rest of the afternoon. He settled into one of the old leather club chairs and opened the book, a threadbare copy of E. I. Robson’s
A Wayfarer in Provence,
first published in 1926. On the very first page, Max was fascinated to discover that Provence had been invaded by “cruel ravishers.” Alas, despite this promising beginning, he never reached page two.

He was jolted awake by what he thought at first was thunder, then realized it was merely someone trying to break down the front door. Shaking his head to clear away the cobwebs of sleep, he pulled open the door to find, staring at him with undisguised curiosity, a man with a deep red face and a dog with a pale blue head.

Six

The two men stood examining one another for a moment before Roussel put on the smile he’d been practicing on the way over and stuck out a meaty paw.

“Roussel, Claude.”

“Skinner, Max.”

Roussel pointed downward with a jerk of his chin. “My dog, Tonto.”

“Ah. Roussel, Tonto.” Max bent down and patted him, raising a puff of blue dust. “Is he always this color? Most unusual. I’ve never seen a blue terrier before.”

“I was spraying the vines, the wind changed . . .” Roussel shrugged as Tonto slipped past Max and into the kitchen.

“Please,” said Max. “Come in.” Roussel took off his flat cap and followed Max through the door.

They reached the kitchen in time to see Tonto, in the way of small and self-assured dogs, christening a leg of the kitchen table. Roussel shouted at him and apologized profusely, but then added: “It’s a sure sign he likes you.”

Max put down an old newspaper to blot up the puddle. “What does he do if he doesn’t like you?”

Roussel’s smile barely faltered. “Oho,” he said, “
le sens de l’humour anglais.
My tailor is rich, eh?”

Max had never understood how that particular phrase had become embedded in the French language, nor why the French seemed to find it so amusing, but he smiled dutifully. There was something about Roussel that he warmed to; besides, the man was so obviously doing his best to be agreeable.

And even helpful. “Now, as to the plumbing,” Roussel was saying, “there can sometimes be complications when the level in the well is low. The pump is old, and needs encouragement. Also, there is the
histoire
of the septic tank, which can be capricious when the mistral blows.” He lowered his head, peering up at Max from beneath an overgrown tangle of sun-bleached eyebrows, and tapping his nose. The
histoire
was clearly not a pleasant one.

“These things I attended to for your uncle Skinner during his last few years, when his sight was failing.” Roussel assumed a pious expression and crossed himself at the mention of the old man’s name. “
Un vrai
gentleman. We became very close, you know. Almost like father and son.”

“I’m happy that you were here to take care of him,” said Max, shaking his left leg free from Tonto’s amorous clasp.

“
Beh oui.
Almost like father and son.” Emerging from his memories, Roussel bent down and ran a finger across the surface of the table. He seemed surprised at the result, as though dust were a rarity in empty, uncared-for houses.
“Putaing,”
he said. “Look at that. This place could do with a good
femme de ménage
to give it a spring-cleaning.”

Roussel displayed the dusty fingertip for inspection, and then clapped a hand to his forehead. “But of course! Madame Passepartout, the sister of my wife.” He slapped his palm on the table for emphasis, displacing more dust.

Max and Tonto looked at him, both heads cocked.

“A veritable tornado in the house. Not a speck escapes her, she is
maniaque
about her work. She sees dirt, she destroys it.
Tak tak!
”

“Sounds like the answer to a young man’s prayer. But I imagine she’s . . .”

“
Mais non!
She is resting between engagements at the moment. She could start tomorrow.” And not a moment too soon as far as I’m concerned, thought Roussel. Fond as he was of his sister-in-law, she could be something of a trial when at a loose end, always at his house scrubbing anything that didn’t move, rearranging the furniture, polishing and titivating. He always had the feeling that she wanted to dust him.

Max could see that there was to be no denying Madame Passepartout if he wanted to establish a good relationship with Roussel. He nodded his agreement. “That would be great. Just what I need.”

Roussel beamed, a man who had successfully completed a ticklish negotiation. Madame his wife would be delighted. “We must celebrate our meeting,” he said, heading out of the kitchen. “Wait here.”

Tonto resumed his courtship of Max’s leg. What was it about small dogs that made them leg-molesters? Was there a link, however unlikely and distant, between that and the preference that very short men have for very tall women? Or perhaps the enthusiasm was because Tonto had never been exposed to a young English leg before. Max shook him free for a second time and gave him the end of a baguette to distract him.

When Roussel returned, he was carrying a bottle that he presented to Max.
“Marc de Provence,”
he said. “I made it myself.”

The bottle was unlabeled, and contained a pale brown liquid that had a thick, oily look about it. Max hoped it traveled well. He filled two glasses, and the two men toasted one another.

Wiping his watering eyes after the first explosive swallow, Max was reminded of the equally foul-tasting wine in the cellar. “Tell me,” he asked Roussel, “what do you think of our wine, Le Griffon?”

Roussel wiped the back of his hand across his mouth to remove any residue of
marc
before it could cause blisters to form on his lips.
“Une triste histoire,”
he said. “I have to admit that the wine is perhaps a little naive, a little unfinished around the edges.” He paused, shook his head, and smiled. “No, I must be honest. It’s worse than that. Unkind people have called it
jus de chaussette.
At any rate, it leaves something to be desired.” He took another nip of
marc,
and sighed. “It is not for lack of care. Take a look at the vines. Not a weed to be seen. Not a sign of
oidium
—you know, the vine mildew. I cherish those vines as if they were my children. No, it’s not lack of care that’s the problem.” He raised his hand, rubbing the tips of his first two fingers against his thumb. “It’s lack of money. Many of the vines are old and tired. They should have been replaced years ago, but your uncle Skinner was not in a position to invest.
Hélas,
the wine has suffered.” He stared into his glass, shaking his head. “I can’t work miracles. I can’t make an omelette if I have no eggs.”

Max overcame his faint surprise at the sudden evocation of an omelette in the vineyard, and turned the conversation back to grapes. “Well, you’ll be pleased to hear I’m getting someone in to look at the vines, the grapes, everything. An
oenologue.
”

Roussel’s head snapped up from its contemplation of the glass. “What for?”

Max made calming motions with his hands, stroking the air in front of him. “Now, this is no criticism of you, none at all. You’ve done all you can. But if we get some professional advice about making improvements, I’m sure I can get hold of the money to pay for them. Then we’ll make better wine, and that will be good for both of us. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

From Roussel’s expression, he was far from convinced as he reached for the bottle of
marc.

“I talked to Maître Auzet about it. She thinks it’s a great idea,” Max said. “In fact, she’s going to find somebody. She told me she has friends in the wine business.”

That seemed to meet with Roussel’s approval. A swig of
marc
found its target, and he grunted like a boxer taking a punch to the stomach. “Maybe it’s not a bad idea. You took me by surprise,
c’est tout.
” He looked over at Max, his face the color of old ocher, with a strip of white across the part of his forehead normally covered by his cap. “So you want to keep the vines. That’s good. Can you cook?”

Max shook his head. “Eggs and bacon, the English breakfast. That’s about it.”

“You must come to the house next week for dinner. My wife makes a
civet
of wild boar—a
civet
made in the correct fashion, with blood and red wine. Not like English food.” He grinned as he put his cap on. “You know what they say? The English murder their meat twice: once when they shoot it and once when they cook it.
Drôle, n’est-ce pas?
”

“Very comical,” said Max. “Almost as funny as my tailor is rich.”

This set Roussel off, and his shoulders were still quaking with laughter when Max showed him out. Both men felt that it had been an unexpectedly pleasant start to their relationship.

Roussel waited until he was some distance from the house before making the call. “He says he’s going to bring in an
oenologue,
someone that you’re finding. Is that true?”

Nathalie Auzet looked at her watch, her fingers tapping the desk. The one day she was hoping to leave the office early, and now Roussel wanted to have his hand held. “That’s right. Don’t worry about it. You’re quite safe. He’s not going to throw you out.”

“Well, I don’t know. Do you think . . .”

She cut him off. “Roussel, trust me. I will arrange someone sympathetic.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Quite sure. I must go.”

The phone went dead. Roussel looked at it and shrugged. He hoped she knew what she was doing.

Max rinsed the
marc
glasses, the harsh, pungent smell reminding him of the harsh, pungent taste. An evening on that stuff would give him brain damage. He thought of emptying the bottle down the sink, then decided to keep it for Roussel. He’d be back. Max liked what he had seen of the man so far, which was fortunate. In cities, neighbors were people with whom you occasionally shared an elevator. In the country, they could affect every day of your life, and it was important to be on good terms with them.

His thoughts turned to Madame Passepartout, who would be arriving in the morning, and he walked through the succession of rooms, trying to decide where to tell her to start cleaning. Or was she as sensitive about housework as Roussel was about vines? Perhaps it would be more diplomatic to let her decide for herself. God knows she had plenty of choice. He came to a stop by the grand piano, with its impressive layer of dust and dead insects. The silver frame with its old photograph of him and Uncle Henry, caught in a slant of evening sunlight, looked particularly tarnished and dingy. As Max picked it up for a closer look, the worn velvet back of the frame came away in his hand. Another photograph, tucked behind the first, was revealed, and with it a previously hidden chapter in Uncle Henry’s life.

The second photograph also featured Uncle Henry, but this time a younger version. He was standing next to some kind of truck with his arm around the shoulders of a good-looking blond woman. They appeared to be joined at the hip, both smiling at the camera, and the woman had one hand resting on Uncle Henry’s chest, a gesture at the same time casual and possessive. There could be little doubt about the intimacy of their relationship.

Max looked more closely at the photograph. Judging by the clothes, it was obviously taken in the summer. But judging by the truck, probably not in France. He took the photograph over to the window where the light was better, and was able to distinguish more detail: the glint of a wedding ring on the woman’s hand, the Chevrolet emblem above the truck’s radiator, and, blurred but just legible, the California license plate. What was Uncle Henry doing running around with blondes in California? The old devil.

Seven

Another glittering morning, another run, another slippery session of acrobatics in the shower. Max pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and was hoping that yesterday’s bread would still be edible when he heard the sound of a car pulling up outside the house, then three imperious toots on the horn.

He went downstairs and opened the door to see a brightly colored bottom and two sturdy legs protruding from the back of an old but highly polished Renault 5. The bottom’s owner withdrew from the car and straightened up, clutching a vacuum cleaner and a plastic bucket, which she placed on the ground next to an array of mops and brushes and cleaning products. Madame Passepartout had arrived.

“I haven’t deranged you?” she asked, pumping Max’s hand up and down as though she were trying to detach it from the rest of his body. “But I wanted to get here before you had breakfast.” She plunged back into her car and reappeared with a paper bag. “
Voilà.
They’re still warm.”

Max thanked her, and stood nursing his croissants while Madame Passepartout brought him up-to-date on the current state of French bread (not what it used to be), and the morals of the baker’s daughter (not what they should be). A reply clearly wasn’t expected, and while Max helped Madame Passepartout carry her equipment into the kitchen he had time to study this voluble new addition to his life and household.

At a guess, she was in her early fifties, but despite her age and her substantial build she was not yet ready to abandon the clothing of youth. Tight and bright was the Passepartout style, with an orange tank top and turquoise leggings, stretched to the maximum, relieved by a pair of sparkling white tennis shoes on surprisingly dainty feet. Her black hair was cut almost as short as a man’s, her dark eyes bright with curiosity as she now looked around the kitchen.

There was a sharp intake of breath. “
Ho la la! Mais c’est un bordel.
An old man living alone. One can always tell.” She stood with her hands on her hips, her lips clenched in disapproval. “This won’t do for a nice boy like yourself. Dust everywhere! Mice, no doubt! Probably scorpions!
Quelle horreur.
” She filled the kettle to make coffee and took a cup and saucer and a plate from the dresser, looking at them with deep suspicion before rinsing them in the sink. Shaking her head and clicking her tongue, she wiped the table free of dust and told Max to sit down.

Breakfast was served, a novelty for Max that he found very enjoyable. And while he ate his croissants and drank his coffee, Madame Passepartout’s stream of chatter continued without a break. She would arrange everything, she told him, from lavender essence (a sure protection against scorpions) to furniture polish to toilet paper—doubtless Monsieur Max preferred the refinement of white to the more common pink—and while she chattered she prepared her weapons for an assault on the stove, which in her professional opinion hadn’t been cleaned since the Revolution.

“Bon,”
she said finally, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves that matched her leggings. “By lunchtime, you will see a difference here. Now you must go. I cannot clean around you.
Allez!
”

Feeling as though he were back at school under the thumb of a benign but domineering matron, Max was more than happy to do as he was told. His instincts told him that Madame Passepartout might prove to be a treasure once he had found a way of turning down her volume.

Distracted by Roussel’s visit the previous evening, Max had put off his intended tour of the property. Now, like any new landowner, he wanted to explore his land, and his exile from the kitchen provided the impetus he needed. In the dossier he’d been given by Maître Auzet was a copy of the
plan cadastral,
a detailed map showing the various parcels of land, each meticulously numbered, that made up the twenty hectares surrounding the house. Taking the plan with him, he stepped outside and stood in the courtyard for a moment, listening to the
cigales
and the muttering of pigeons, the heat of the day coming down on him like a blanket.

For once, there was no sign of Roussel and his tractor, and the vines—
his
vines, he reminded himself with a sudden prickle of excitement—extended in an unbroken sea of green in every direction. Behind the house, an alley of cypress trees, untrimmed and shaggy, led down to the tennis court. All those years ago, it had seemed so big, and the net so high. Now it had shrunk to a scruffy patch, the net sagging on its posts, the whitewashed lines on the balding court faded to near invisibility.

He moved on into the rows of vines, his feet kicking up puffs of dust. The soil was thin and dry, marked by a network of fissures, but the vines looked healthy enough, with bunches of grapes beginning to form in pale clusters. Bending down, he picked a couple of grapes and tasted them: bitter, and filled with pits. It would be weeks before they would be juicy and swollen with sunshine, and probably years before they would become drinkable wine. He began to get a sense of the patience required to be a winemaker; patience, and luck with the weather. And an
oenologue.
He wondered if Nathalie Auzet was having any luck finding someone.

By now, he was several hundred meters from the house, and had come to a low stone wall that separated one parcel from the rest. He checked with the plan and found that the land beyond the wall formed the limit of his property. In contrast to the other level parcels, this one sloped away gently down to the east before ending at the road.

Hopping over the wall, Max found a noticeable difference in the soil—or, rather, the lack of it. The texture of the land had changed abruptly, from sand and clay to rock, and the surface appeared to consist entirely of jagged limestone pebbles, blinding white in the sun, warm to the touch, an immense natural radiator. It seemed unlikely that even the most undemanding of weeds could find sufficient nourishment to grow here. And yet the vines appeared to be healthy, the leaves a bright green, the tiny grapes coming along nicely. He made a mental note to ask the
oenologue
how the vines could flourish in such inhospitable surroundings.

He was turning to go back to the house when he felt the electronic tickle of his phone vibrating in his pocket. He took the call sitting on top of the wall, the heat from the stone coming up through the cotton of his shorts.

“What’s the weather like down there?” There was a wistful tone to Charlie’s voice as he asked the question that so often begins a conversation between someone in the north and someone in the south.

“Oh, the normal. I was going to send you a postcard. You know, the old chestnut: ‘The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.’ Let’s see. It’s about eighty-five and sunny. How is it in London?”

“Don’t ask me. I think I’m getting webbed feet. Listen, I think I’ll be able to slope off for a day or two at the end of the month. There’s an international real estate symposium in Monte Carlo on the future of luxury properties.” There was a dismissive snort from Charlie. “A bunch of wide boys seeing what they can unload on the Russians, I expect. Anyway, I’ve been delegated to represent Bingham & Trout, and I thought I could drive over afterwards and take a look at the chateau.”

“Great, Charlie. That’s terrific. You’ll love it here. I’ll alert the staff.”

“You do that. What’s happening with the grapes? Any joy on the wine doctor?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m seeing someone on Sunday who has contacts in the business. Could be promising.”

“Hmm. What are you up to today?”

“Well, I’m in the vines at the moment, getting to know the grapes. Then I’ve got some tidying up to do in the courtyard. And then I’ll probably go down to the village for lunch. Not exactly hectic.”

“Max?” Charlie’s voice sounded almost serious. “Tell me the worst. Is it really wonderful down there?”

Max looked across the vines toward the Luberon and the great sweep of blue sky, and thought of life without suits or meetings or office politics, without traffic jams or polluted air. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

“Lucky bastard.”

Max spent the rest of the morning starting to sort through the contents of the barns, clearing a blocked drain in the stone
bassin,
making a list of supplies that he was going to need to restore the courtyard to its previous respectability: weed killer, a truckload of the fine gravel that he remembered were called
grains de riz,
pruning shears, a rake. He’d never had a house before, let alone a large country house, and he found himself enjoying the simple, unfamiliar chores. His hands, now smelling of ancient pond life, were filthy from clearing the drain and beginning to blister from dragging fallen branches into the barn for firewood. He added a saw to his list.

“
Peuchère!
How can you support the sun without a hat?” asked Madame Passepartout as she emerged from the kitchen, finger wagging. “Do you want grilled brains?”

For the second time that morning, he felt like a guilty schoolboy. He added a hat to his list.

It was noon, and Madame Passepartout was leaving for lunch. But before she left, Max was summoned to come inside and inspect the results of her efforts. He made admiring and grateful noises as he was shown the gleaming stove, the burnished copper saucepans, the scrubbed and spotless stone floor. It was, as far as he could see, a total transformation.

“You’ve done a huge amount in one morning,” he said. “It’s brilliant.”

Madame Passepartout allowed herself to preen for a moment before modesty took over. “
Bof.
It’s a start. At least you could eat in here without poisoning yourself.” She gave him a sideways look, stern and accusing. “That is, if you had any food. There is not enough here to feed a rat. A crust of bread, and that’s stale. What are you going to do about lunch?”

“Oh, I thought I’d go to the café in the village.
Steak frites,
something like that.”

Again the warning finger. “
Attention.
The steak is announced as beef, but it is not. It is horse. You are better with the omelette.” With that, and a promise to be back in the afternoon, Madame Passepartout drove off.

Max cleaned himself up, left the front-door key under a pot of geraniums in the courtyard, and drove down to the village. En route, thoughts of a café omelette gave way to a desire for something a little more substantial—he was finding that Provence made him permanently hungry—and he decided to eat at Fanny’s.

But it was not to be. Fanny was
désolée, désolée,
squeezing his arm and gazing into his eyes to emphasize her regret, but it was Saturday, and, as so often at this time of year, the entire restaurant had been booked by a wedding party. Max took his disappointment to the café.

As it turned out, the omelette was excellent, plump and runny, the salad fresh and well dressed, and the
pichet
of pink wine cool and crisp. From his seat outside the café, Max had a clear view of the celebration that was taking place across the square.

The provincial French at play are often a surprise to visitors who have been brought up with the myth that Parisians, with their reserve and their chilly good manners, are representative of the way the rest of France behaves. The crowd on Fanny’s terrace was mostly young, with a scattering of children and older adults—all of them, from the sound of it, well supplied with wine. Bursts of laughter came rolling across the square, as did fragments of speeches, complete with interruptions and applause, and a quavering rendition of “La Vie en Rose.” This started as a solo by an elderly man, standing with one hand on the shoulder of the bride and the other conducting the other guests, as they joined in, with a glass of champagne.

Max sat over an espresso and a Calvados, a sense of well-being spreading through him like a soothing drug. He hadn’t yet had a chance to feel lonely; that would probably come in time. But for the moment, with the sun high in a blue sky, a full stomach, and the thought of tomorrow’s excursion with Nathalie Auzet, he was at peace with the world. He tilted his face up to the sun, closed his eyes against the glare, and gave in to the impulse to doze.

He was shocked into consciousness by a pandemonium of car horns. The square had filled up with cars, each decorated for the occasion, according to tradition. Strips of chiffon, white, blue, or pink, were tied to radio antennae, wing mirrors, or, in one case, the driver’s sunglasses, and the obligatory sound effects had turned the peace of the afternoon into bedlam. After a triumphal tour of the square, the blaring cavalcade swept off for what promised to be an ear-splitting start to the honeymoon.

Max rubbed his eyes, and felt a slight tenderness on his eyelids where they had caught the sun. Silence and emptiness were returning to the square as the village closed its shutters and prepared to take its siesta.

When he got back to the house, it was to find that Madame Passepartout and her vacuum cleaner were in full cry. He left her to it and spent the rest of the afternoon in the barns, trying to restore a semblance of order to the chaos of fertilizer sacks, oil drums, and old tractor tires that littered the beaten mud floor. It was heavy, dirty work, and by seven o’clock he was more tired than he’d been in years, his muscles aching pleasantly from the exercise. He took a glass of wine and sat on the parapet of the
bassin,
watching the sun dip slowly toward the western horizon as it turned the sky into a lurid bonfire of pink and lavender.