Invitation to Provence (28 page)

“Of course, come in,
ma petite,”
Rafaella called and Little Blue slipped into what was to her, her grandmother’s magic kingdom. Her eyes roamed the tall shelves stacked with more books than she had ever known existed, taking in the many paintings, the tables with the photos, the silk shawl
spread across a comfortable chair by the window and the huge four-poster bed where Rafaella lay propped against lacy pillows, watching her.

“Well? Do you like it?” Rafaella smiled at the child’s stunned expression.

“All the books in the world must be here,” she said, amazed.

Rafaella laughed. “Maybe not quite all of them, but there are thousands. Come here,
ma petite,
and kiss your
grand-mère,
and then tell me what you need to discuss.”

Litle Blue climbed into the big bed, where she curled up unself-consciously next to her grandmother. “I am worried about Bao Chu,” she said in a small, trembly voice.

Rafaella sighed. She knew from Jake that Bao Chu was in bad shape, though at least now she was receiving the best medical care. “I can’t tell you not to worry,
ma petite,
because your grandmother has been ill for a long time,” she said gently.

Little Blue lifted her head, fixed her large blue eyes on Rafaella, and said,
“Grandmère,
how do you die?”

Rafaella took a deep breath. She could hardly tell the child that the true answer to that question could only come from personal experience, though sometimes she’d wondered if you did not die little by little from life’s blows. She thought about it, then finally said, “We believe that when you die, you go to sleep. Sometimes it’s sudden, an accident perhaps. Sometimes it takes a long time to get there, like with Bao Chu. And sometimes it’s peaceful and sweet and gentle, and you have time for a long good-bye with a smile in the eyes. My own father died like that, as though he were happy finally to go.”

“Will Bao Chu die like that?”

“I hope so, child.”

“And you too,
grandmère
Rafaella? Will you die with a smile in your eyes?”

Rafaella thought again about dying, as she had many times these last few years. “I will now, Little Blue,” she agreed.

“And then will I see Bao Chu and you again?”

Rafaella thought about that. “It is said that if we believe, we shall all be reunited in heaven.” Little Blue heaved a sigh of relief and said thank-you. Then together they ate Rafaella’s breakfast of boiled eggs and toast, and for the moment the subject was forgotten.

E
VERYONE WAS UP EARLY,
dressed in shorts and T-shirts with their hair tied back, ready to pick grapes—except for Rafaella and Juliette of course, though they promised to come inspect the work at lunchtime and bring some of Haigh’s “refreshments.”

Scott met them at the base of the west hill, which was already crawling with itinerant pickers, their big scissors glinting in the already hot sun as they snipped off the fat bunches of grapes and laid them carefully in large straw baskets. Scott was all business this morning and he barely gave
Clare a glance. He simply took them to a row of vines, demonstrated how to cut a bunch of grapes, and showed them the perfect, round, ready-to-burst fruit that needed to be cut, and the other lesser bunches they should not cut. Then he warned them to be careful of the wasps that were always a scourge at the
vendange,
wished them luck, and left them to get on with it.

Clare looked at Franny. “It’s back to my roots,” she said, tying up her hair, “right where my family started, in the fields, only then I was picking onions not grapes. Doesn’t seem like there’s much difference to me—hard work is hard work.”

And it was. After an hour Franny’s back ached and Clare had been stung twice. Two hours later even Little Blue had slowed down. Three hours and they were sweating under the grilling sun, praying that Haigh and the refreshments would arrive soon. They stopped to gulp sun-hot water from plastic bottles, then hauled their baskets to the trailer, where the grapes were inspected and trundled off to the
chai,
ready to be destemmed and sorted. Then it was back to the hot hill to pick more.

Franny knew she would never feel the same way about a bottle of wine again. She wiped the sweat from her face and thought longingly of quitting and a cold shower. She could see Jake farther up the hill, working methodically along his row. He was already much farther than she was, and she sighed and got on with it.

When the château’s car finally wound its way slowly up the hill, Scott called a lunch break. The workers scattered into the shade to eat their cold potato omelettes and sandwiches with a good slug of red to wash it all down, and the
party from the château straggled wearily back to the courtyard, where trestle tables covered with a red-and-white-check oilcloth were set up under the stone arches. Hands and faces washed, wasp stings taken care of, the new workers dropped thankfully into their chairs, watching hungrily as Haigh laid out his offerings: a crisp
salade niçoise,
the same cold potato omelette the migrant workers were eating, long baguettes, and huge platters of ham and cheeses.

“So how do you like manual labor?” Scott said to Clare.

She grinned and bit into a slice of the potato omelette. “I like the reward,” she said. “This is wonderful. I’ll ask Jarré to show me how to make it.”

“Jarré?” He looked at her, surprised.

“He’s giving me cooking lessons. I start tomorrow. Maybe when I go back to California, I’ll get a job as a chef.”

“You’re going back then?”

The thought of leaving made Clare suddenly sad. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“Okay. But you know I’m getting used to having you around. I wouldn’t want to have to move that into the I’m-missing-you category.”

“You wouldn’t, huh?” She was doing that flirty thing with her lashes again.

“Look,” he said, “the harvest and the crush are my busiest time. I never know when I’ll be able to break free, but when I do, will you have dinner with me? Please?”

“You mean you and me? Alone?” She was laughing at him.

“Alone,” he said firmly and she nodded and said okay. After lunch, it was back to picking. Franny found it hard going, but Little Blue, fueled by the food, had found new energy. Jake was on his third row and Franny still hadn’t finished her
first. She thought her arms would break from lugging the heavy basket that the itinerant North African pickers, who roamed the south each year for the grape harvest, carried so easily on their heads. Soaked with sweat, her hands stained purple with juice, her hair a tangled, sticky mess from constantly sweeping it back under her hat, filthy and tired, she was glad when Scott said the château workers could call it a day, though the rest of them would keep on until the hillside was finished.

Back at the château, a shower had never felt so welcome, and the thought of a quiet night spent with her man never more inviting. Franny just wanted to curl up in Jake’s arms. She wanted to feel the heat of his body, to smell his skin and run her purple-stained hands all over him. She wanted to sleep with him, spooned around his body, loving him.

L
ATER, AFTER
a simple dinner, Rafaella and Juliette settled down to play Monopoly with Little Blue and Haigh. Explaining that she had to be up early because she was going to help Jarré prepare the special lunch tomorrow, Clare went off to bed, while Franny and Jake went for a walk.

His arm was around her waist as they strolled back to the lake in the blue half-light. Criminal snuffled in the reeds, yelping when he slid into the water and got his paws wet, scaring a squadron of ducks who took off squawking. They sat on the grass to watch the returning ducks dunking their heads in the water and waving their silly yellow feet in the air as they scoured for whatever it was ducks ate. A swan patrolled the far shore, aware of the dog and on guard for its
mate and her young. The same wind that had sprung up the night before suddenly raked through the treetops. Jake said it was the mistral blowing all the way from Siberia, down through northern Europe, then channeling through the mountain ranges to end up in Provence. “Scott had better get his grapes in quickly,” he added, “or he’s in trouble.”

They lay together on the soft grass, kissing occasionally and talking about nothing and everything. Then, tired, they made their way back to the quiet house. At the top of the stairs, Jake took Franny’s hands in his. His eyes asked a question, and she smiled as she nodded and walked with him, through the now silent house, to his room. There, curled up next to him, she fell asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. It had been another of the happiest days of her life. How many more could life offer her? she wondered.

C
LARE WAS UP
with the sun, dressed for work. She jogged down the lane to the village and arrived at the café just as Jarré was opening his shutters.

“Bonjour,
Jarré,” she called. He turned to look at her, surprised.

“I’m here to start work,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”

“But I didn’t think you meant it,” he said, astonished.

“Well, here I am, ready for action, sir,” she said, snapping to attention.

Jarré looked doubtfully at her, still not quite believing. He decided he’d put her to the test, see if she was just bored and playing around, maybe showing off for him.

“Et bien,
first the vegetables need to be scrubbed,” he said, showing her into the tiny kitchen that was just barely big enough to accommodate both of them at the same time. “Then the salad will need to be prepped, tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers. The red peppers must be toasted and blackened, cooled, and their skins pulled off, then diced small. And the mussels must be scrubbed clean.”

He showed her her workstation—a wooden chopping block next to a deep porcelain sink, with a stack of metal bowls and an array of lethally honed knives. “Take care with the knives,” he said brusquely, and left her to it.

Clare stared anxiously after him. This wasn’t quite what she’d expected. She’d thought she’d be busy at the stove, sprinkling some delicious fish with fresh herbs, arranging it on a pretty dish. She picked up a knife and inspected it warily. She thought, you could easily kill a person with this knife. Next she looked around for rubber gloves, but there were none. Apparently Jarré didn’t worry too much about his hands. Anyway, after the grape picking her own were already covered in nicks, plus a couple of wasp stings and a few broken nails, and were past worrying about. She picked up a brush and started scrubbing the tiny vegetables. She grinned—she was back to her poor-kid sharecropping roots all right.

When Jarré returned half an hour later, the vegetables were clean and in bowls, the greens were washed and spun dry, and the red peppers were toasting on the grill. Clare
glanced up from the chopping board where she was carefully dicing tomatoes. She gave him a smile, missed with the knife, and neatly sliced open her finger. “Oh, hell,” she said as the blood spurted. “Now, I’ve ruined the tomatoes.”

With an alarmed cry, Jarré leaped to her side, examining the finger, stanching the blood. His face was agonized as he ran cold water over the wound. Clare smiled. She thought it wasn’t all that bad, but she was enjoying the attention.

“It’s all my fault,” Jarré groaned, “I should not have let you, an amateur, use those knives. I should have known there would be an accident.”

“It’s okay,” Clare said gently, watching his face as he bent over her finger. “It’s really not that bad and it doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Ah, but you are just being brave,” he said, meeting her eyes. Their faces were so close, just inches away, and Clare couldn’t resist. She moved an inch or two closer and kissed him on the lips.

“There, now I’m all kissed better,” she said, giving him her flirty under-the-lashes look as he blushed. It was amazing, she thought, smiling, a man who actually blushed instead of grabbing a girl when she kissed him. She really was in the land of milk and honey. She wondered if he’d liked that kiss as much as she had. She’d liked the way his bristly mustache tickled her face and she’d liked the firmness of his lips, the musky scent of his aftershave, and the clean smell of his skin.

Flustered, Jarré hurried to fetch a Band-Aid. He came back and wrapped it round her wounded finger. Then they sat in the bar together, silently sipping hot coffee. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said finally.

“Done what?” she asked innocently.

“The
… er …
the kiss,” he said, avoiding her gaze and sipping his coffee instead.

“Oh? And why not?”

Jarré sighed. “I think you are a woman who always does exactly what she wants, are you not?”

“I am,” Clare agreed, nibbling on a hunk of buttered baguette because Jarré had no croissants again.

He was serious as he said, “But then how does a man cope with you? How can he know what you will do next?”

“He doesn’t,” Clare said. “That’s half the fun.” And this time Jarré laughed, showing strong white teeth that made her want to find out who his dentist was. But the kitchen helpers were arriving to prepare lunch and it was time for work again.

Back in the kitchen, Clare watched Jarré prepare sauces for fish and for duck breast. He let her taste his homemade peach ice cream and explained how it was made. Then he had her clean the baskets of wild strawberries, fresh from that morning’s market, and together they set up the big table on the terrace for the château party. After that, Clare had to hurry back to the château to change not only her clothes but her persona, from kitchen helper to honored guest.

Promptly at 12:30 Haigh drove Rafaella and Juliette to the village in the Bentley while the younger people walked. Little Blue skipped ahead in her comfortable new sneakers. She stopped to stare at the dogs lying in the shade by the fountain.

“Look, Jake,” she called, pointing. “There’s Criminal.”

He was sprawled with the other dogs, tongue lolling, making like a genuine French street dog. When he saw them, he lifted his head, wagged his tail languidly, then settled down again, making them laugh.