by Helen Fripp
His delight in her knowledge of the wine business still made her feel like the sun had come out after over a year of marriage. This was the perfect moment to tell him her news.
‘I have a surprise.’ She took him to sit on the millstone, away from the workers and prying ears. ‘Another blend, more important than anything in that room.’
François pulled her close. ‘More important than our first vintage?’
‘I’m pregnant,’ said Nicole.
François buried his head in his hands. Was he hiding tears?
‘I could taste everything so clearly and I just knew. I’ve known for a week, but I wanted to be sure. You have given me two gifts. A palate that can discern any grape, even its position on the Montagne, just by tasting. But best of all – a baby, François. We’re going to be a family.’
François jumped up to face her, his jaw set. He had that wild animal look in his eye again, like the time at the well, as though she wasn’t there. Her heart lurched.
‘Jesus Christ, Nicole, why do you think I’d want to bring an innocent baby into this world? The poor child will be half me. There’s a war on, no end of evil. How can you sit there smiling like you’ve turned lead to gold?’
He disappeared into the vines. It was the same as before. She waited, but he didn’t return.
She couldn’t breathe and nausea overcame her as the carriage sped her home in a blur, bumping through the vineyards, jolting her fragile bones. She ached for his arms around her and her baby, but he didn’t come home.
Evening came, then night. Still no François. She fantasised about the knock on the door, the sorry, it was such a shock, please forgive me, Babouchette. At dawn, the bed was freezing and she was sick. She heaved herself up to clean the bowl. Josette would suspect and she couldn’t tell anyone without him there. A knock at the door, a horse passing, sent her flying to the window for his return, only to be disappointed over and over again. Everything tasted false and she could barely eat without wanting to retch.
She and François had chosen to live mainly at their simple house at Bouzy, in the middle of the vineyards outside Reims, instead of their fashionable house in town. It was a mellow stone house, like a child’s drawing, with a path leading to the front door, four symmetrical windows and an inviting glow at the hearth. A rough kitchen table where Josette prepared the food, wooden chairs and threadbare cushions in front of the fire, bookshelves overflowing with their favourite authors and wine manuals, always flooded with light, and until now, happiness. It was their hideaway, a far cry from the grand mansion she had grown up in at the rue de la Vache and it was easy to hide her grief here amongst the vines.
After a week passed, she told Josette that François had been called away unexpectedly on a sales trip. Her secret pregnancy created a wall between her and the people she loved. How could she talk to her mother without telling her? How could she face Natasha’s piercing eyes without her just knowing? She buried her head in her wine manuals to distract herself from thinking about him every second. Between these pages, life was straightforward, one simple action of planting leading to an inevitable flowering, fruiting and yield, as long as you followed the rules.
November brought gloom and driving rain and misery, and finally François. He appeared, bedraggled from the storm, looking like a ghost, almost hidden by the biggest bunch of purple irises she had ever seen.
She tore them off him and flung them at the wind and they scattered over the garden like confetti.
‘You abandoned me when I needed you,’ she raged. ‘Coward!’
‘I’m worse than that, Babouchette. I’m that and everything that could be bad about a human being.’ He looked haunted and gaunt.
‘I’m sick, I’m weak and tired and pregnant and you just walked away. You’re not the man I thought I married.’ Everything was so mixed up. She was angry and hurt, yet so relieved to see him.
‘Let me come in, Babouchette. It’s still me, but there’s a part of me I need to tell you about. The part who disappears when you need me most.’
She drew him inside, afraid.
‘I need you here, all of you.’ She moved the piled-up wine manuals off his chair and stoked the fire. ‘Don’t leave anything out. I’ll try to understand.’
He held his hands to the flames.
‘The well was so deep, you couldn’t see the bottom of it the day you threw the coin. When the black descends, that’s how I feel, like it’s so deep it will never end and I have to get away before it overwhelms me. It comes when I’m happiest.’
‘Happiness makes you unhappy?’ she asked, trying to understand.
‘You remember when we visited Calais? The beach glittered and the sea was flinty grey, like your eyes. The waves rolled in with such force, it was exhilarating and frightening to watch. The undertow, the very thing that creates the energy and excitement, could drag you under and drown you. That’s how it is.’
‘You’re scaring me, François.’
‘It is frightening. A winter sunrise is so beautiful and intense it hurts. A summer’s evening in the vineyards turns a thousand different colours and the birdsong at dusk is deafening and I want to dance and sing and shout. Then I know I’ll have to pay and it will turn to dust.’
‘All those times we danced?’ Something inside her turned cold with dread.
‘I go to the river, you know the part where it’s so wide you can’t see to the other side?’
She nodded, turned away so he couldn’t see the tears.
‘Sometimes something bigger and more powerful like the river sweeps the despair away.’
How could she not have known this about the man she had married?
‘I’m not strong enough for three. I need you here, with me,’ she said.
‘You have the whole of me, the dark and the light. You think I’m weak, I can see it in your eyes, but I can fight this. You just need to let me be alone sometimes. I promise I’ll never leave again without telling you.’
‘Give me some time to think, I need to try to understand. I will try, I promise.’
He put his hand on her stomach. ‘How’s our baby?’
‘Missing his papa,’ said Nicole. But she couldn’t forgive him. It was her turn to leave.
Natasha narrowed her eyes.
‘There is more than one thing,’ she guessed. She was making dough, ready for the next day. She slapped it on the block and flour flew up in a cloud, waiting for Nicole to answer, kneading rhythmically.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she blurted and promptly burst into tears.
‘Milaya, don’t cry, it’s a happy thing, no?’
Natasha gave her a floury hug, handed her a big napkin and held her tight until the tears subsided. She sat her down gently. There was flour everywhere – on her face, her dress, on Natasha’s apron and hands. They both looked at each other and laughed.
‘That’s better,’ said Natasha. ‘Now, tell me everything.’
Natasha listened without interrupting. It was such a relief to tell her.
Natasha thought for a while. ‘The Tsar’s second cousin suffered in the same way. We heard about it in the palace kitchens when I was the pastry cook there. He was the most charming man I have ever met, apart from François.’
‘Not so charming now.’
‘Yes, charming. Yes, the right man for you. No one is perfect, my young friend, including you.’
How could she be on François’ side?
‘You want me to rail and shout and roll my eyes with you at how men are? Well I won’t,’ said Natasha. ‘Look at yourself. You have a child inside you, something I was never blessed with, and God knows I have lain awake at night filled with regret and longing. Your husband is the most charming, intelligent man in Reims and he is yours. There is a saying in Russia. With the brighter light comes the darker shadow. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. No one else could make you so happy. When he’s fragile, cherish him. Enjoy each other when he’s well. Things can never stay the same. You knew in y
our heart how he was, and you married him anyway.’
Yes, she had seen it and buried it inside her. The fizzing, heightened gaiety, the days of deep despair she had mistaken for worry about the wine. She forged a straight path. Sharp-eyed, efficient, fair, astute, like her father. She got things done. François dreamed.
‘How do you see so clearly, Natasha?’
‘I’ve lived longer than you, that’s all.’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something since my wedding day.’
‘Yes?’
‘How did you know to decorate our wedding cake with crimson grapes? Did you know that François and I found a bunch the first day we met?’
A shadow flew across Natasha’s face. ‘You found bright red grapes? What was the first thing you thought of?’
‘Blood. Fresh blood. The colour when you cut your knee and it’s really red.’
‘A strange coincidence, that’s all, I suppose. I thought of them in a dream, with the red to symbolise love and of course to represent both of your love of the vines.’ She opened the door for Nicole to leave. ‘It’s late. I need to finish my bread, milaya. Go back to him and be happy.’
When Nicole went into the night, back to their house in town, relieved, happy and scared all at once, she could see Natasha silhouetted, spinning her salt bag in furious figures of eight.
At their grand Reims house, the hall was filled with irises. Extravagant, fluffy, purple-scented bunches stood on the hall tables and in the vases next to the sweeping stairs, covered the marble mantelpiece, reflected a million times in the mirror-lined drawing room, lined up in jugs on the long dining room table.
‘I got more than you could destroy,’ said François. ‘Where have you been? I was worried about you both.’
The both was the best part. She threw her arms around him. It was impossible to stay angry with him now he was back home, standing in front of her. She adored the way his dark eyebrows arched upwards in the middle when he smiled, opening up his angular, intelligent face into such an expression of delight at seeing her. He held her tight.
A man came marching into the hallway. He fished one of the irises out of a vase and put it in his buttonhole.
‘Widow Joubert can surely take the rest of the year off, my friend. You must have bought the entire greenhouse.’
François shook his hand, beaming at Nicole. ‘Let me introduce my oldest friend, Louis Bohne.’
A shock of russet hair, a ridiculously large wolfskin coat and a smile as warm as brandy. He bowed and kissed her hand. ‘At last, François has done something sensible.’
‘He’s just back from Russia. You don’t mind if he stays a few nights?’ asked François.
‘I have tales from ballrooms lined with amber, descriptions of fashions beyond your wildest dreams and dark deeds from bearded Cossacks to pay you with.’
‘Just the dark deeds will do,’ said Nicole, disappointed not to have François to herself, but charmed by this new friend.
Louis was the Clicquots’ star travelling salesman and no sale, no village or town was too far. He would travel a hundred miles into the wilds of Norway for the prospect of selling a ten-year-old vintage for a week’s wages, or brave the furthest-flung Russian steppe to reach a rich landowner’s summer dacha to lay out a Clicquot champagne, blended by Monsieur Olivier himself at the most sophisticated, sun-kissed grand cru vineyards of Reims. Indeed, he was indispensable, and was a shareholder in François’ fledgling business.
François poured a glass of their sweetest champagne.
Louis took an exaggerated slurp. ‘A triumph of terroir and skills passed down for hundreds of years, from Dom Perignon and beyond.’
‘Is this the puff you give your clients? It’s more like going to the circus than buying a fine wine,’ laughed Nicole.
It got so late that Josette made the fire twice, but still the tales flowed. Louis could barely sit still and told his stories pacing the room. He loved the open road, he said, the parties and the kitchen gossip.
François was on sparkling form and she took Natasha’s advice to heart. Enjoy today.
The next morning, she woke before dawn. François was gone again. Her heart somersaulted at the note on the pillow.
Vine roots never die. They turn black in winter, but spring brings tender leaves to risk icy winds and thunderstorms and soak up the May sun. They see the sun rise, draw the mist to themselves in the early morning, take their food from the pale land, listen to the lark rise and fall in the summer. They catch the moon on their leaves, see stars leap, leaving trails of shattered light. I can taste each vineyard and so can you. We were meant to be together, but happiness has turned to dust for now.
I don’t ask forgiveness, but trust I will be back.
François
Slipping the note under her pillow with shaking hands, Nicole choked back the tears, and her fear. Stay strong for him, and for our baby, she told herself. He always comes back. But she couldn’t just do nothing. The dawn turned vermilion, the same as their wedding morning, and with it a familiar determination. She dressed quickly, slipped out while the house was still asleep, and jumped on Pinot, her favourite colt, tying cloth on his hooves so no one would hear.
When she reached the Montagne, the vines were suspended in a cloud, above them a minted, clear sky. Further on, cold wind disturbed the surface of the pale lake where they had swum countless times. She pulled her cloak around her. Another mile downstream was where she prayed she’d find him.
Owls hooted and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. Royalist rebels were known to terrorise the French countryside with their uprisings, and they communicated using owl calls. Innocent people, even women, were mistaken for republicans and were beaten in revenge. France was not a safe place to bring a child into. François was right about that.
She spurred on through the dawn light. The further she galloped, the wider the river, until she heard its roar. As she rounded the bend, there he was, boots in the furious torrent, the river so wide and fast here that its roar was shattering.
She edged closer, soothed her horse to be still so as not to startle him.
‘François, I’m here,’ she whispered.
He bellowed at the river, arms outstretched, shirt flying open in the wind.
‘François!’ she yelled.
He roared to the river and it roared back. One step forward and it would sweep him whirling down the raging tide.
Pinot understood. He didn’t make a sound when she lashed him to a tree and rushed to François at the edge of the torrent. She barely felt the shock of cold as she waded in to reach him. The river pulled at her as she grabbed his shoulders and fell back with him, away from the current, using all her strength. She had him flat on dry ground before he could resist, snaring him with legs and arms outstretched. He rolled onto his back and pulled her to him.
‘I’m here,’ she whispered.
An eternity passed. He opened his eyes and focused on her, bewildered as a drunk.
‘I knew where to find you, it’s me, and I understand.’
He blinked. ‘Talk to me.’
She counted to ten, then back down again.
‘Louder.’
She named the grapes she knew, listed her school friends, the sums she could remember, anything, clinging to him, too afraid to move, the wet grass freezing them both as she screwed up her eyes and willed her François back to himself.
Heavy footsteps snapped her eyes open. Louis had come.
‘How did you know?’
‘This is how it is with him, I’ve known him all my life, it’s best to let him be,’ he said quietly. ‘Take my hand.’
He helped her up and put his jacket round her shoulders. François was soaked and shivering and Louis showed them both into the waiting carriage, promising to walk back later for Pinot.
Louis knew what to do. The three of them spent long days around François’ bed, playing cards, telling stories, staring into the fire. They took turns to kee
p watch and, after a week, François began to join in with the stories. When it was Nicole’s turn and Louis was busy, François and she made plans for their baby. Their child would learn to ride as naturally as walking, memorise a poem every week and if they had a girl, she would be everything and anything she wanted to be, with curls like François’ and grey eyes like Nicole’s.
When it was time for Louis to leave for his next sales trip, Nicole kissed him.
‘I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for us. Ever,’ she smiled.
‘It’s the worst I’ve seen him,’ he said as he loaded the cart with crates of wine to travel to Paris. ‘He must love you very much.’
Chapter 5
Firefly
August 1805
Republican date: Thermidor, year XIII
Clémentine ran, skirting the sunlit roses, sousing the air with sharp lavender as she skimmed the silver bushes. Jelly-legged with giggles, she staggered and collapsed in a heap of muslin and curls. Nicole caught her, scooped her up and spun her around, laughing at the sky.
She buried her face in her daughter’s hair, breathing in the childish smell. Her blonde curls were so like her sister’s. Two Clémentines in her life, sister and daughter, carbon copies of each other. Her little daughter was a delight, and she never imagined she could love anyone as completely and fiercely as she did her darling Mentine. François looked on from the terrace, waving a letter. She picked a piece of lavender, remembered the day Moët had proposed, and luxuriated in her choices.
‘Let’s go and see what Papa is doing.’ They set off, holding hands. ‘You can ask him all about our trip to Russia.’
‘Are we going now?’
‘Not now, but soon, Mentine. Can you remember how old you are?’