Vintage (15 page)

“Just look at the figures. I’ve had the contract drawn up. You would have enough money to do whatever you wanted. You could get a bigger place in London. You could go to the States.”

Neither of the options he mentioned included the possibility that Madeleine might have wanted to remain near him. Or that he wanted to keep her nearby. That was what finally brought the truth of the situation home to her. Madeleine couldn’t even pretend that Axel had wanted what was best for her. This was a business deal.

“Get out.”

“Madeleine, think about it properly.”

“I have thought about it. I have thought about it every day since I was born. And I am telling you one more time that Champagne Arsenault will never be for sale.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Axel flatly. “You’ve told me what a mess this place is in. What use is all this family pride you talk about when you can’t even afford to harvest your grapes?”

“If I have to pick every bunch myself, I will do it.”

“Madeleine, you might be able to organize a dinner for a few bankers but you don’t have a clue when it comes to making champagne.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

“You better be.”

“Just go.”

Axel was already looking around for his car keys. Madeleine pulled her robe more tightly around her. She was suddenly very, very cold.

“In a year’s time you will be begging me to take this wreck of a maison off your hands. I promise you. And I will buy it from you. But at half the price I am offering you today. And I will plough up your father’s precious vines and turn your home into a bed-and-breakfast. In ten years’ time, no one will have heard of Champagne Arsenault.”

“Fuck you,” said Madeleine. “Fuck you, Axel Delaflote.”

Axel blew her a kiss. There was nothing affectionate about it.

He slammed the door as he left the room. And as if on cue, a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and landed on the tiles in the hallway, smashing into dust.

E
arly mornings were not Christina’s thing, but you didn’t become a successful supermodel by demanding to sleep in on a commercial shoot and so she had forced herself to get used to it. Besides, in this case, the pain of being up at five to catch a flight from Buenos Aires, where she was shooting a spread for
Elle,
to New York was offset by the warm feeling inside that Christina got when she thought about what she was flying there for. The final list of participants for the ISACL campaign was stunning. To be in their company would really put Christina on the map.

Rocky Neel was true to his word. As soon as he got back to the States, he had the team at ISACL call Christina’s agent and make arrangements for the filming of her infomercial on the charity’s behalf.

One of Rocky’s assistants had drafted the short speech Christina would deliver to camera and faxed it through to the hotel in Argentina. Christina read the speech on the plane, made a couple of minor adjustments, and was word perfect by the time her flight touched down twelve hours later. A car met her at the airport and whisked her straight to the studio, where two dozen assorted supermodels, rock stars and actors were all waiting to do their bit.

“This must be what it was like to do
Live 8,”
Christina commented to Rocky.

Rocky nodded, though the words “Live 8” always
made his hackles rise. He hadn’t been invited to join that particular bandwagon.

Christina was gratified to learn that, of all the people present, she had clocked up the most air miles to be there. It gave her instant status in the celebrity generosity stakes. And made the whinings of some other models, just flown in from London or Paris, seem rather pathetic.

Thankfully, Rocky had hired one of the best makeup artists in the United States to knock everyone into shape before filming started. The makeup guru quickly put the rose back into Christina’s flight-dehydrated cheeks. Meanwhile, the set hairdresser gave Christina a fabulous blowout that made her look like she had twice as much hair. And she was extremely pleased to discover that the T-shirts the stars would be wearing had been printed up in hot pink. Christina looked fabulous in hot pink. Unlike some of the other girls.

“Rocky? Do I have to wear this?” asked Koko, a hot new model from Finland. “Pink just makes me look sick.”

“You could go nude,” Rocky suggested.

“Rocky, you are as awful as you ever were,” said Christina, sticking up for Koko while simultaneously reminding the younger girl that Christina had known Rocky for years.

“My name is Christina Morgan,” she began. “I’m a model. You probably know my face. You probably know I’m from lowa. You probably know that I’m married to Bill Tarrant, the movie star. But what you probably don’t know about me is that I’m absolutely passionate about the rights of children worldwide.”

Significant pause. Eyes to camera. Lids slightly lowered. “Think Princess Di,” the director had suggested.

“As people born in the West, you and I have already won first prize in the lottery of life. For most of us, a roof over our heads and enough food to fill our bellies can be taken as a given. For children in the Third World, however, the reality is very different. No wonder so many of them are tempted to abandon their education—if they ever had access to education in the first place—and get to work as soon as they are able. But we’re not talking about the kind of jobs our children have here in America. These aren’t newspaper delivery rounds or weekend jobs at the local supermarket. Children in the Third World are forced to do the kind of dangerous work we’ve outlawed in the United States.”

There followed a segment of film showing children working in a textile factory, sad-eyed and skinny, like little ghosts. Then a close-up on a small girl, probably less than seven years old, who had lost an eye in an accident at that same factory. She was, nonetheless—the voice-over explained—back at work just a few days later because her family needed any financial contribution she could make.

“It’s a sad picture, isn’t it?” said Christina as the film cut back to her.

Serious face. She thought about her childhood pet dog being hit by a tractor, until her eyes glittered with tears.

“If, like me, you’re asking how you can help these children to a more dignified way of life, the International Society for the Abolition of Child Labor can offer you some pointers. You can give money, of course. You can find details of how to contribute tax-efficiently on our website. Or you could give your time. But even if you have neither time nor money to spare, there is a very simple way you can make a difference. You can help these poor children by showing those Western companies who
are prepared to profit from child labor that you aren’t buying it.
I Don’t Buy It.
That’s the name of the ISACL’s new campaign. Boycott the big names who are prepared to exploit the small workers.”

Behind Christina was a montage of the labels on the hit list.

“Refuse to fund these dreadful conditions. Force these companies”—she gestured to the names scrolling down the screen behind her—“to examine their business practices and add ethics into the mix. I’ve already made a stand. I’ve told my agent I won’t be modeling for any company that can’t show a completely clean record where child labor is concerned. I may not be a mother but I’ve decided that these children are my responsibility. They’re your responsibility too. Don’t shut your eyes to their plight. And when you see injustice, don’t buy into it. Say ‘I don’t buy it’ to the results of exploitation. It’s as simple as that.”

Christina finished her final, perfect take to applause from the production team.

Rocky raced onto the set and enfolded her in his arms.

“You were magnificent, my darling.”

Then he opened his arms and whirled around as if to embrace everyone in the room. “You’ve all been magnificent. I can’t thank you enough. The children of the Third World can’t thank you enough!”

Everyone whooped and cheered in an orgy of self-congratulation.

The day ended with a magnificent dinner at a fabulous new Japanese restaurant in the meatpacking district. All evening long the great and the good discussed the fabulous, glittering fund-raising events they could stage for ISACL’s cause. Meanwhile, in the kitchen downstairs, two
new illegal immigrants on less than the minimum wage struggled to keep the sushi coming.

The high-profile supporters of ISACL meant that every newspaper in the States and many in Europe picked up news of the campaign too. It was shocking. Fortunately the professional team at ISACL had plenty of evidence to back up their claims, so there were no libel suits. Instead, one by one, the companies on the blacklist began issuing carefully worded statements, claiming they had been unaware of the conditions in their overseas suppliers’ factories and would implement changes at once. The infomercial ran all over the world. Christina did several interviews on TV and in the papers regarding her involvement. Oprah ran a special item on supermodel philanthropists in which Christina featured heavily.

As she was a model, no one particularly expected Christina Morgan to have a firm grasp on all the facts she spouted as spokesperson for the “I Don’t Buy It” campaign. But as a spokesmodel for Maison Randon champagne, Christina might have hoped that someone, somewhere in the vast entourage of people who made a pretty decent living around the fringes of her life would have noticed that one of the labels to be boycotted was Fast Life. And further, to have noticed that the high-end sports gear line was the most recent addition to the Domaine Randon luxury goods empire.

Mathieu Randon watched an extract from Christina’s interview with Oprah while flicking through the channels in his suite at a London hotel. He was unimpressed.

Randon called Bill Tarrant right away. He knew the actor was currently filming in Romania and was probably still awake.

“Do you have no control over that wife of yours?” he demanded as soon as Tarrant came on the line.

“Hey, Randon. What are you talking about now? Tell me you haven’t seen a photo in some tabloid of that pretty wife of mine going wild with my credit card? Again.”

“I’ve just seen her on
Oprah,”
said Randon flatly.

“You did? Plugging that ISACL campaign? It’s quite something, eh? My wife the activist? Standing up to all those evil designer brands. Who would have thought it?”

“Indeed. Who would have thought it? You obviously didn’t think about it, did you, Bill?”

“I’m sorry?” Randon was obviously disgruntled but Bill didn’t understand.

“This ‘I Don’t Buy It’ campaign. Claiming that Western brands are profiteering from child labor. Specifically, claiming that one of
my
brands, a Domaine Randon brand, Fast Life, is involved!”

Bill cleared his throat.

“Fast Life is one of your brands?”

“As of last month. You might have noticed the name at the bottom of the headed notepaper that accompanied the new contracts you and your wife received last week.”

“Our agents look our contracts,” Bill said by way of an excuse.

“Then you need a new agent.”

“But I wasn’t involved in the ISACL thing,” said Bill. “Christina did that all on her own.”

“Silly girl. “What we have here,” said Randon, “is a conflict of interests.”

J
une was a busy time in the vineyard at Froggy Bottom. Not that anyone would have known that by peeking behind the curtains of the main farmhouse.

The curtains of the farmhouse had been perpetually drawn since Kelly moved in. They were closed when Guy left his tidy flat above the shed at six in the morning to get some work done before the sun came up. They were closed when he headed back to his flat to grab something to eat at nine o’clock. And they were still closed when Guy came back from a second morning shift in the vineyard for his lunch.

In fairness, Kelly hadn’t actually been asleep for the whole of that time. She’d had to get up to use the bathroom and then she made herself a cup of coffee and smoked a couple of cigarettes. Then she got back into bed. It was cold in the bedroom and she needed to warm up again to give herself the energy to get dressed. The farmhouse had such thick stone walls, Kelly had no idea whether it was four or twenty-four degrees outside. And, of course, while she was warming up beneath the duvet, she couldn’t help drifting back to sleep. She was finally awoken by a call at five in the afternoon.