My Grape Year: (The Grape Series #1)

by Laura Bradbury

  “I’ll make dessert for lunch today,” I announced the next morning. We were finishing off a lazy breakfast under the wisteria at the back of the courtyard.

  Mémé was staying over for a week while Jean and Jacqueline were on the Côte d’Azur. She clapped her hands. “Lovely! Do you need anything from the store?”

  “No,” I said. “I have everything I need.”

  “What are you going to make?” Franck asked.

  “A surprise.”

  Franck’s forehead creased. “Do you need help?”

  “Nope. I just need about ten minutes by myself in the kitchen this morning.”

  Franck looked more dubious. Stéphanie, who was procrastinating before going to study for her French bac exams the next week, laughed at his expression.

  “Relax,” I said. “I’m not going to poison you. At least not intentionally.”

  His brow still didn’t relax.

  Mémé gave him a slap on his shoulder. “Stop being so naughty, Franck. Of course Laura is not going to poison us!” She turned to me. “I can’t wait to taste your dessert Laura.”

  “Merci, Mémé,” I said, trying to retain my dignity but suddenly assailed with doubts. Jell-O was certainly original, but it was hardly the stuff of gourmet cooking. Come to think of it, I had never loved it—it was just another one of those things that I sucked down when I was a child without really thinking about it, like bologna and Velveeta cheese. My taste buds had changed that past year though. Evolved was how I liked to think about it. Would I find Jell-O disgusting now?

  Later that morning, I shooed everyone out of the kitchen, including Franck’s mother, Michèle, who I think was a little concerned about what I was going to do in her house. I went upstairs and retrieved my boxes of Jell-O from the depth of my suitcase. They were squashed, but the sachets inside remained intact.

  I thought back to the Ursus meeting a couple of weeks earlier, and the Beaupre’s concern about Franck. If they only knew how wonderful he was to me…if I could only make them understand. Of all of my host parents, the Beaupres still felt like my de facto French parents. The fact that they disapproved of Franck was a problem I needed to resolve.

  I took the Jell-O boxes downstairs, still ruminating over this conundrum. Luckily, preparing Jell-O, according to the instructions on the back of the box, did not require much brainpower. I couldn’t remember the precise amount of a cup of boiling water but made my best attempt at estimating using a kitchen glass. I doubled the “recipe” and put in two sachets of Jell-O, then covered it with a tight layer of saran wrap and then a layer of aluminum foil. I shoved one of the boxes in the back pocket of my shorts before going back outside.

  Franck’s parents were pruning the plants and flowers that had sprung up in a wild fashion around the courtyard, and Mémé was sitting at the table coloring with Emmanuel-Marie.

  Stéphanie had grudgingly opened up her books, but I didn’t blame her for not being motivated to study chemistry, which was her first exam. The sunshine and blue sky did not invite hours of memorizing the periodic table. I had been exactly where she was a year earlier, cramming for my Grade 12 provincial exams. The French Bac was far worse though. The marks counted for 100 percent of Stéph’s grade, so those ten days of Bac exams would decide whether she graduated or not. I had been so right to tell the head nun at Saint Coeur that I was not going to be taking the Baccalaureat.

  Franck and I were giddy with freedom. Franck whispered in my ear when I joined him on a lawn lounge. “Qu’il est doux de ne rien faire quand tout s’agite autour de nous.” How agreeable it is to do nothing when everyone is working around you?

  “Do you need something that you can’t find? Michèle asked, coming over to me with her secateurs, her face perplexed.

  “No,” I said, “it’s done.”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me.

  “But you haven’t even been in there five minutes,” Franck said. “What could you possibly make in five minutes?”

  “You’ll see.” I tried to maintain an exterior of cool confidence, but inside I started to entertain grave doubts. Meals in Burgundy usually took more than an hour to prepare, often more, and pretty much everything was prepared lovingly from scratch. I had never made the connection, but that was probably why almost everything I put in my mouth there was so sublime. Throwing a few glasses of boiling water over two packages of powder, it struck me only then, couldn’t even be considered cooking according to Burgundian standards.

  I now started to truly regret the Jell-O, but I was in too far for retreat.

  Mémé checked her watch. “I’d better go start lunch.” She patted my head on her way by. “I’m sure it will be delicious, ma Laura.”

  Franck rescued me from my mental torment by suggesting we go over and visit Olivier at his new house. Just two weeks before, Olivier had shocked everyone in the village by purchasing the house right on the street corner beside the boulangerie and bt moving out of his family home. This meant, though, that he now lived across the street from Franck’s house. Franck was thrilled.

  “What did you make?” he whispered to me, once we were safely outside his parents’ gate.

  “You’ll see, but I’m having second thoughts.”

  Franck opened his mouth to say something else, but Olivier had spotted us and was already hailing us from the top of his stairs.

  “Venez! Venez!” he called. “I was just coming over to get you. Franck, I need your advice on something.”

  Franck took my hand and crossed the street. He smiled up at his longtime friend. “Alors, how are you keeping neighbor?”

  “Neighbor, until you move to Canada, that is,” Olivier corrected Franck.

  “I am going to move to Canada,” Franck said. “If Laura will have me.” I was thrilled, of course, but a little worried about how Franck’s family would take this news when he told them.

  “I’ll have you.”

  We let ourselves in Olivier’s gate and made our way up his stone steps. As we got closer I made out a skeptical look that crinkled Olivier’s sharp brown eyes.

  Franck must have seen it too. “It’s not some crazy plan,” Franck said to his friend, sitting down on the steps in the sunshine to light a cigarette and chat for a bit before we went inside. Olivier sat down beside him, and Franck patted his knee. I settled in Franck’s lap. “There’s no reason I couldn’t go to Canada.”

  “So you say.” Olivier flicked his lighter and lit Franck’s cigarette.

  “You don’t believe me.” Humor and exasperation warred in Franck’s voice.

  “Canada is far away,” Olivier said. “Neither you nor I have ever even been on an airplane let alone traveled half way across the world. You know me, Franck, I’m the type of person who believes things when I see them.”

  “Neither of you has ever been on an airplane?” I asked, dumbfounded.

  Both men shook their heads.

  “That’s incredible.”

  “Why?” Olivier asked. “It’s not that unusual around here. How many times have you been on an airplane?”

  I tried to think of all the times I had been back and forth to Hawaii and California, and then back east to Montreal and Toronto, and all the times I had taken the little puddle jumper over to Vancouver… “I don’t even know. Too many to count. I can’t remember not taking airplanes.”

  Olivier’s eyes opened wide. “How strange,” he said. I was struck by the gulf between what was considered normal in Canada and what was considered normal in rural Burgundy. How were Franck and I ever going to close the gap between them?

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Olivier said, reaching out and patting my shoulder. “I see how you and Franck are when you’re together. It’s just that Canada…well…that is something us Villers-la-Faye boys read about in Jack London books. To actually go from here to there…” He shrugged. “I just can’t help being a realist.”

  “Pessimist.” Franck corrected him.

  “Maybe,”
Olivier admitted. “Or maybe not.” He stubbed out his cigarette on the porch and beckoned us inside. “Now, will you give me your honest opinion of this ruin I have bought?”

  “No I won’t,” Franck said. “Because I am an optimist. I will see what it could be, not what it is.”

  Olivier patted Franck on the back. “That’s precisely why I need your help.”

  We spent the next hour touring the strange little house that Olivier bought. It had been owned for decades before by a recalcitrant village bachelor, a devoted customer of Jacky’s Bistro renowned in Villers-la-Faye for his dubious hygiene. We quickly discovered the reason for that—the house didn’t contain a bathtub or a shower. There was only a Turkish-style toilet in a room off the front porch. And one actually had to go outside in order to use this primitive squat hole. The room didn’t appear to have any heat source either. It certainly wasn’t a place that encouraged lengthy ablutions of any kind during the frigid Burgundian winters.

  We debated the mystery of how the previous owner had washed himself. Franck was of the opinion that he never had and had just relied on being caught in a downpour from time to time on his way to or from Jacky’s. Olivier, despite being a realist, gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided that he must have used a facecloth every once in a while. I was so stunned by the rustic conditions that still existed in this century that I wasn’t at all sure what to think.

  The house stank of tobacco and several other questionable and unpleasant odors that slunk around and seemed to jump out at me from dark corners. Franck went over to the windows, wrenched open the shutters, and flung them aside. Sweet summer air flooded the room.

  “That’s a start,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I doubt that has been done for decades. I don’t recall ever seeing the windows of this house open. Do you?”

  Olivier shook his head. “Now that I think about it, no.”

  The room was not only sweeter smelling now, but brighter. Unfortunately, this allowed us all to get a good look at the wallpaper, which was a horrific floral brown that had been darkened over the decades with layers of smoke and grime.

  “You have work ahead of you.” Franck inspected the wallpaper with his lips curled into an involuntary grimace. “I hope you have good friends.”

  “I’m counting on that,” Olivier said, giving Franck a pointed look. “Come look at this though.

  Olivier instructed us up a ladder, to climb through a small hole in the rocks that was about a meter and a half above the floor level.

  “There’s a barn in there,” Olivier said, holding my hand to steady me as I went up the ladder. Franck had already hopped down on the other side, and I heard his voice call out. “I can catch you, Laura. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  I climbed through the hole and saw that there was a rickety ladder on the other side as well. There seemed to be a lot of old hay everywhere, and I coughed after breathing in a few bits.

  “Best to keep your mouth closed in old attics,” Franck advised as I made my way down the second ladder.

  I looked down at the floor at the bottom of the ladder, which in the dim light seemed to consist of rotting wooden boards with large gaps in random spots. “Is that safe to step on?”

  “Not really,” Franck said. “But I’ll make sure you stay on the rafters. They’re nice and wide, but if you step off them you might go right through.”

  “Oh,” I answered faintly.

  “I won’t let that happen though,” he assured me, as Olivier popped through the window and hopped down, as sprightly as a monkey.

  Franck trapped me in his arms, even though I was in no immediate danger.

  “Maybe I’ll just stay here near the wall.” I moved to let Olivier pass and peered up above me. A few of the terra-cotta tiles had slid out of their places on the roof far above, giving enough light to make out the cavernous space and its stunning structure of crisscrossed oak beams that rivaled those in the attic of Jean and Jacqueline’s country house.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “It’s huge,” Franck said, more to Olivier than me.

  “I know.” Olivier nodded. “This is why I bought the house. I’m thinking of putting the kitchen in the room we were just in, then opening up the wall here and making this the main living area with a TV room, a few bedrooms, and a full bathroom.

  “It’s going to be a massive job,” Franck said. “We’re going to need to pour the floor first.” Franck gnawed his lip. I was fairly certain he was already planning out the work in his mind.

  I could make out the flash of Olivier’s teeth as he grinned.

  As we hurried back across the road to Franck’s gate, we could smell wafts of the delicious lunch Mémé had prepared.

  She had made a blanquette de veau, which she had begun marinating the day before. I thought of my three-minute Jell-O recipe, and was tempted to turn back to seek refuge in Olivier’s grungy new home.

  Franck’s family had taken me in and treated me like one of their own. I realized only now what an insult it was for me to have spent so little time cooking for them, especially since staying at Franck’s house I’d enjoyed meal after lovingly prepared meal.

  Mémé hurried us over to the table under the wisteria, admonishing us for being late and ruining her main course. It wasn’t true, of course. She served the veal along with silken new potatoes and a side of frisée salad with a feisty vinaigrette with a strong dose of both shallots and Dijon mustard. Of course, there stood the family ceramic mustard pot on the table with the wooden spoon filled with Dijon mustard. I took too big a dollop with my first bite of veal and found my eyes watering. Burgundians loved their mustard and they loved it strong.

  “Here.” Michèle handed me a slice of fresh baguette. “Breathe this in.”

  I followed her instructions, as strange as they sounded. The smell of warm yeast and flour actually did stop the smarting in my eyes and nose.

  “How does that work?” I asked. “It’s miraculous.”

  “It’s an old Burgundian trick. Something to do with the yeast in the bread. When you live this close to Dijon, it comes in handy.”

  I stored this away, knowing that it would come in handy for the rest of my life, as I had developed an unshakable addiction to Dijon mustard.

  After the veal, came a smelly Munster cheese from Alsace and a fresh twelve-month-old Comté, as well as a glass jar of Concouillotte—a garlicky runny cheese from the Jura that had to be scooped onto a bit of baguette with a spoon.

  This was all washed down with some strong red wine from Provence left over from Mémé’s fête, made by Jean-Marie from the vines Franck helped plant. I was enjoying the mid-day deliciousness so much that I all but forgotten about my “dessert.” The sweet smell of the wisteria above us, the heat of the midday sun and the cool of the shade drew out the perfection of the meal.

  Over the cheese course, we got to discussing Olivier’s new house.

  “It used to be the maison close of Villers-la-Faye,” Mémé said.

  “What’s a maison close?” I asked. “I haven’t heard that expression before.”

  “Where the prostitutes worked,” André said. “You know. Un bordel.”

  A whorehouse? Franck’s family home for as far back as anyone could remember was across the street from the village whorehouse?

  “It was extremely well managed,” Mémé continued. “The girls were clean and well looked after. The Madame in charge was an efficient sort of woman. She managed everything perfectly. I always got along with her.”

  “They were your neighbors when you owned the bakery?” Franck leaned back in his chair.

  “Oh yes. They used to come over after working all night to get fresh croissants straight out of the oven. Some of them ended up getting married to village men; others managed to save up a tidy little sum for themselves and retired. There used to be a red light outside, hanging off Olivier’s front porch. It was lit when they were open for business.

  “They�
��re illegal now, right?” I asked. “Les bordels?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Mémé said. “It’s a terrible shame. If I had a political bone in my body, which I don’t, I would campaign for them to be re-opened. I’m convinced those girls were better off then than they are now, alone on the streets or bullied by some horrible gigolo.”

  “You don’t think it’s wrong for men to go to prostitutes in the first place?” I asked.

  Mémé swatted away this notion like an errant fly. “Men have always had needs and acted on them. We’re all better off recognizing we cannot change human nature and coming up with a well-organized way to manage it rather than sticking our heads in the sand. Les maisons closes were a vital part of village life before those stupid men enacted their silly laws. Honestly, such a shame…”

  “Does Olivier know?” Stéphanie asked us. “That his house was a bordel?”

  “I’m not sure,” Franck said. “I don’t think so. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind though.”

  “Why would he?” Mémé shrugged.

  I was still sitting, digesting this conversation, when Stéphanie nudged me. “When are we going to try your dessert, Laura?”

  My heart sunk. I would far rather continue listening to Mémé reminisce about the village whorehouses, but the moment of truth had arrived.

  “Can you come help me?” I asked Franck, my eyes pleading.

  He got up, and we took some dishes back into the kitchen with us. Franck was busy tidying them up when I removed my bowl of Jell-O from the fridge.

  I peeled back the Saran Wrap and aluminum foil from the top and peered inside. I jiggled the bowl. It seemed very firm. I jiggled it again. Too firm. I guess I hadn’t remembered exactly what a cup of water looked like.

  Franck had come over and was looking over my shoulder. “What is it?” he asked, his voice a mix of horror and fascination.