A Good Year (17 page)

On the balls he continued, guided by gentle pressures from his partner, who was now steering him around the perimeter of the floor. And it was at the far edge, where the shadows were at their thickest, that he caught sight of Christie and Charlie: entwined, almost motionless, lost to the world. Madame Passepartout gave a small “aah” of satisfaction, and swept Max back into the light, a feathered earring brushing his chin as she turned.

He delivered Madame Passepartout to the friends at her table, thanking her for the lesson, and saw that Fanny had escaped to the barbecue and was filling two plates. He came up behind her, and felt her flinch as he touched her arm. When she saw it was Max, she smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought he was coming back for more. What an
emmerdeur.
The only way I could get rid of him was to tell him I had to feed you.” She passed him a plate, the slices of lamb black and pink, the crust on the potato
gratin
golden brown. “Although,” she said with an exaggerated pout, “you seemed to be having a good time with Mimi. Do you dance like that with all the girls?”

“Is that her name, Mimi? I didn’t know.” It was, he thought, the perfect name for someone who danced like she did.

Getting back to their table, they found that Christie and Charlie were still off in the shadows; at last, Max felt he had Fanny to himself. “You know,” he said, “this is the first time since we’ve met that we’ve been alone—well, if you don’t count the other hundred and fifty people.”

Fanny looked into his face, her dark eyes open wide. “What other people?”

Max touched her cheek gently with the back of his hand, all thoughts of food forgotten. “Do you know something, I think . . .”

“There is
nothing,
absolutely nothing, like a brisk
paso doble
to give you an appetite.” Charlie had returned, looking rumpled, slightly dazed, and extremely happy. “You should give it a try.” He took his head out of the clouds for long enough to notice Max’s expression. “Oh. Damn. Sorry—I’m interrupting. Bugger.” He stood there, awkward and rueful, his whole body writhing in apology.

Fanny laughed, and Max felt her thigh press gently against his under the table. “What does he say?”

“I think he’s worried our dinner’s getting cold.” Max looked at the almost comical concern on his friend’s face. “Come on, Charlie, sit down. What have you done with Christie?”

The happiness returned to Charlie’s face. “She’s getting us some food. Lovely girl. What a great evening.” He beamed at Fanny. “Bello fiesta—ah, here she comes now.”

Christie put the plates on the table and sat down, shaking her head. “That lawyer woman is here, in case you’re interested. I thought she was going to ask me to dance.” Charlie looked puzzled. “Max, you tell him.”

While they ate, Max explained—in both languages, for Fanny’s benefit—and they looked around to see where Nathalie Auzet was sitting. Fanny saw her first, at a table with the Villeneuve-Loubets and a slim, fashionably dressed middle-aged man whom she described with a sniff as Nathalie’s
accessoire.
In fact, Max was pleased to see her. It was unlikely that she would have come if Roussel had said anything to her about the wine. But the wine could wait until tomorrow.

The accordion band had finished their first set—and a rousing set it was—and were back at the café laying into the pastis while the disc jockey tweaked the sound system. A moment of static, and then the tempo changed abruptly. All at once, the square was filled with the sound of Diana Krall’s slow, smoky, infinitely seductive voice. The language was English, the message universal, more like a murmured mating call than a song:

There may be trouble ahead,
But while there’s moonlight and music
And love and romance,
Let’s face the music and dance.

Max stood up and took Fanny gently by the wrist, feeling the throb of her pulse against his fingertips.

Christie grinned up at them, and winked. “Dance like there’s nobody watching.”

And this they did, under the mostly approving eyes—Gaston being an exception—of
le tout village.

Eighteen

The arrival of Madame Passepartout at the house the following morning was unusually late and unusually muted; even stealthy. One dance too many, one glass too many the night before had led to an overall feeling of fragility, and this led in turn to a more tentative approach to the chores of the day. Shutters were eased open rather than flung wide, and the vacuum cleaner, that splitter of tender heads, was left for the time being in the scullery closet.

The house was still, and apart from an occasional distant groan from the plumbing, silent. Had it been audible, a louder sound by far would have been the furious working of Madame Passepartout’s curiosity. She and her friends, like the rest of the village, had observed with close attention the dancing of Christie and Charlie, of Fanny and Max. Certain conclusions had been reached. Madame Passepartout, in view of the privileged position that gave her access to every corner of the house, had been delegated by her friends to confirm those conclusions—purely out of benevolent interest, naturally.

She stood in the center of the kitchen, thoughtful but irresolute, seeking inspiration. What reason—what plausible reason—could she find for opening bedroom doors and counting heads? She glanced at the kitchen clock and saw that it was nearly ten-thirty. And then the perfect course of action occurred to her, prompted by the memory of an article she had once read in
Télérama
magazine. It was an interview with a well-known English film actor, described as
un vrai Cockney.
According to him, every Englishman’s favorite way to start the day was early-morning tea in bed—proper tea, so strong you could stand a spoon up in it.

Madame Passepartout filled the kettle and prepared a tray: teapot, cups and saucers, bowl of sugar, small jug of milk (a bizarre addition, but apparently loved by the English). She found a packet of Earl Grey teabags that probably dated from the days of Uncle Henry, and brewed tea in what she hoped was the English fashion, leaving two bags to steep until the liquid in the pot attained the color of creosote.

Climbing the stairs, she hesitated for a moment on the landing before turning left, toward the bedroom that had been prepared for Charlie. She knocked on the door, her head cocked. There was no sound, no response of any kind. She knocked again, then pushed the door open.

She saw the usual bachelor’s muddle of discarded clothes tossed onto an armchair in the corner. But of Charlie himself, not a sign. The bed had not been slept in, the cognac left untouched. The queen smiled her royal smile from the framed photograph, and Madame Passepartout found herself smiling back. The young couple were doubtless elsewhere. It is as I thought, she said to herself.

It seemed to her a pity to waste a freshly made pot of tea, and so she decided that a visit to Max’s bedroom was called for. But it was the same there. All she saw was another empty room, another bed that hadn’t been slept in. As she returned to the landing, considering her next step—would it be indelicate to try the American girl’s room? No, of course not—she heard the sound of a car pulling up outside the house. She went down the stairs as quickly as the tray would allow, and was barely back in the kitchen when Max came through the door—tousled, unshaven, carrying a baguette and a bag of croissants, his face shining with happiness.

“What a morning!” he said, and, much to Madame Passepartout’s surprise, kissed her soundly on both cheeks. “How are you today, dear madame? I’ve just been down to the village—beautiful, beautiful day. Have you recovered from all your dancing?” He put the bread and croissants on the table, and saw the tray of tea for two. “What’s this? Room service?”

“It was for Monsieur Charles, but he was not in his room.”

“
No!
Really? Maybe he got lost on the way home.”

“But his car is outside.” Madame Passepartout assumed her most innocent expression. “Where could he be?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, madame.” In fact, he said to himself, your guess is probably exactly the same as mine. “Did you by any chance try the young lady’s room?”

“Of course not. The very idea!” An eloquent sniff at the very idea, and a swift change of subject. “And you, Monsieur Max. How was the evening for you? If I may say so, you show considerable promise at the
paso doble.
”

“Ah, but I was in the arms of an expert.” And, remembering the other arms he had been in until half an hour ago, he had the grace to blush.

Madame Passepartout was by now more or less satisfied with her investigations; she could report back to her friends not one but two empty bedrooms. She started to prepare coffee, and as the glorious smell of freshly ground beans filled the kitchen, she passed on to Max her personal souvenirs and impressions of the evening. There had been an incident—perhaps Monsieur Max had not noticed—when Gaston the meat supplier, whom everyone agreed was prodigiously drunk, had attempted to fondle Maître Auzet’s
derrière,
only to have his face slapped with such force that one could see the imprint of her hand on his cheek. The Americans had ended the evening on a wave of wine and popularity, having donated their baseball caps to the members of the accordion band by way of applause. The baker’s daughter—well, the less said about the baker’s daughter and that young Gypsy the better. And the mayor had at last plucked up the courage to dance with the widow Gonnet. Altogether, a most satisfying fête.

Max was only half-listening, his thoughts still with Fanny, when Charlie—also tousled, also beaming—shuffled into the kitchen clad only in a pair of boxer shorts striped in the salmon and cucumber colors of the Garrick Club. “Ah, there you are,” he said to Max. “Looked for you everywhere last night.”

“Unavoidably detained, Charlie. You know how it is. Have a bun.”

The two friends sat at the table with their coffee and croissants, grinning at one another like men who had won the national lottery—but, being English, not about to exchange any intimate details. It wasn’t necessary; their expressions said everything. Eventually Madame Passepartout threatened them with the vacuum cleaner and expelled them from the kitchen.

“God, it’s good to feel the sun on your back,” said Charlie. They were finishing their coffee in the courtyard, the pigeons strutting back and forth with the self-important air of politicians at a party convention, the sound of the fountain cool and refreshing in the warm morning air. Charlie nodded at the
bassin.
“Got any fish in there?”

Max looked at the dark, impenetrable green surface and shook his head. “For all I know, there could be half a dozen sharks, but the water’s so mucky you’d never see them. I’m going to drain it in the autumn and give it a clean; maybe put some carp in, and a few water lilies.”

There was a thoughtful look in Charlie’s eye. “So you’ve made up your mind. You’re going to stay on.”

“I’m going to give it a try, yes.”

Charlie clapped him on the back. “Good for you. I’d do the same myself. Now, what’s the plan for today? I thought I might take Christie down to the village for a spot of lunch.”

Max looked out across the vines, for once deserted. Roussel must have overdone the
paso dobles
last night and danced himself into a state of exhaustion. “Do you think you could call your friend Billy?” he said. “See if you can get any joy on that wine?”

Nearly two hours passed before Charlie reappeared, this time with Christie, both of them glowing, fresh from the shower and looking a little sheepish. They found Max finishing a phone call. “I’ve booked a table for you,” he said. “Well, for us, actually. Fanny doesn’t speak any English. I thought you might need a bit of help with the menu.”

“Oh, I’m sure we could”—Charlie was cut short by Christie’s elbow in his ribs, but recovered himself admirably—“that would be great. Do you know, I was down in Cannes once—this was years ago, before my French had improved—and I ordered the only thing I thought I recognized on the menu, something called an
omelette norvégienne.
And I asked for some French fries to go with it. The buggers gave it to me, too. They never told me it was a pudding.”

Jean-Marie Fitzgerald added up the figures for a second time, taking a moment to enjoy them before closing the small, now rather worn notebook in which he had recorded details of his wine sales over the past several years; details that were best kept well away from official eyes. He swiveled round in his chair and, from the bookshelves behind his desk, selected a cracked, leather-bound volume of Molière’s
L’Avare,
its pages hollowed out in the middle to provide a convenient but discreet hiding place for the notebook.

It was all most satisfactory. The euros had accumulated in the account in Luxembourg to the point where Fitzgerald was a wealthy man. Another year or two like this one, and he would be sitting on a cushion of money for the rest of his life, with more than enough for a pied-à-terre on Park Avenue and a house and a boat in the sunny, delightfully tax-free Bahamas. The sooner the better, he thought. He was tired of Bordeaux and its incessant preoccupation with wine—although, as he had to admit, wine had served him well. Wine, and the more gullible side of human nature.

He could see only one problem that might interfere with his otherwise well-ordered and prosperous future: the Englishman, who had showed a little too much interest in the vines for Fitzgerald’s liking. This year’s vintage would be safe; tests and investigations would delay an
oenologue
’s report until well after the
vendange.
But after that? If only the Englishman could be persuaded to sell.

Fitzgerald made a note to talk to Nathalie. As he well knew, she could be extremely persuasive.

When Christie, Charlie, and Max reached the village, they saw very little trace of the previous evening’s festivities. The strings of colored lights were still there, hanging like tropical fruit among the leaves of the plane trees, but the trestle tables, the benches, and the stage were all gone, dismantled and loaded up overnight on the truck that would take them to the next fête. A sprinkling of tourists lounged on the café terrace, and from inside came the slap of cards that punctuated the never-ending game played by four ancient gentlemen at a table in the back. The square was empty except for one or two hurrying figures, clutching bread and late for lunch. Normality had returned to Saint-Pons.

It would have taken a keen observer to notice any difference in the way Fanny treated Max from any other well-liked client. She might have nuzzled his cheek for a second or two longer than usual when they were exchanging kisses, and her thigh was touching his shoulder while she was standing by the table taking their order. The same keen observer might also have detected an extra twitch to her hips as she walked away. But on the whole she was, as Charlie remarked, a model of discretion, and a girl you could very definitely take home to meet your mother. “Now then,” he said, taking a creased envelope from his pocket and smoothing it on the table, “this mystery wine.” He held his empty glass out to Max to be filled as he looked down at his notes. “Billy had a job getting the details, but he knows his stuff. I’m sure he’s got his facts straight, even if they’re a bit hard to believe.

“First of all, we can’t afford it. It’s not at all widely known, except to hard-core connoisseurs with what Billy calls ample funds. It’s part of a fairly recent phenomenon in the business—garage wines, Max, remember?—tiny vineyards with very limited production. Well, they’ve taken off like mad in the past few years, and they’re fetching prices that would make your eyes water; just the thing for wine snobs with more loot than sense.” He paused to sip his wine and look at Max. “Actually, it’s exactly what I was talking about when we had dinner in London. Pity Uncle Henry didn’t leave you a bit of land in Bordeaux.

“Anyway, the wine from this particular vineyard is selling for serious money: thirty or forty thousand dollars a case—that’s wholesale, if you can get any. And you’d be lucky to get any because the production is never more than a few hundred cases each year. Almost all of it goes to Asia, a dribble to the States, a dribble to Germany, but none to France. Don’t ask me why. And they’re keeping it very close to the chest. Tasting is strictly by invitation only, and you have to deal with the sole representative. Let’s see now”—Charlie turned over the envelope and squinted at the scribbles on the back—“yes, here we are. I suppose it’s a bloke, but you never can tell with French names. Someone called Jean-Marie Fitzgerald.”