‘Well, if you can’t or won’t forgive, can’t put aside what’s on your mind, what you’ve found out, you’d better go, forget us, leave us all with our crosses to bear.’
Jane was sipping the tea, too hot but sweet and calming. ‘You’re asking me to simply forget, to forgive? Not to judge Luc for keeping such a secret from me?’
‘I suspect he thought you couldn’t handle it, Jane. Your relationship with Clarisse has always been so … delicate, shall we say? Your role here never committed. I’m not saying Luc discussed any of this with Claude or me, by the way. He didn’t, not in any direct fashion, but I expect his thinking was that what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you.’
‘But, Matty, how could it not hurt me? I’m astonished. You’re a practising Catholic, a God-fearing woman who goes to church every Sunday. Could you forgive Claude such a lie? Could you just look to the future and pretend all this had never happened?’
‘Things die and things grow, Jane. Life turns. We can’t change what’s done. We cannot undo the past. And Luc has gone now.’
‘If only I could bring him back, to help me –’
Matty laid her hand over Jane’s. ‘But you can’t, girl, and that’s a fact. No one foresaw his accident, losing his life so young, least of all Clarisse, who’s suffering bad from it, from the emptiness, but his death is a fact and there is no point in wasting your energies, or whatever time remains to any of us, on the past. Build a future, that’s my advice. You think all this hasn’t pained me too? It has. Deeply. I did what I believed was right by Annie.’ She paused, reflecting, rubbing her fingers together, brushing aside a tear from her cheek. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to discuss it further. It cuts deep, and I don’t want to be churning it all up again. I’m going upstairs to see to Arnaud. Stay and finish your tea and I’ll see you up at the manor tomorrow. We hope you’ll decide to stay.’
‘Matty, wait, please –’
‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Jane sat in the failing light, staring out at the darkening landscape. The cries of children, released from school, playing football on the beach, rose up into the evening. Doves cooed and crickets chirped. She was listening to the distant barking of dogs in the valley and thinking about Walnut. The air smelt sweet, of falling blossoms, of wild lavender, but her heart was raw.
She was numbed by all that Matty had said to her, by the chiding and the intransigence. For a short while back there, Jane had thought, prayed, that Patrick might have been the son of Raymond, Annie’s ex-husband, but always her mind returned to Luc’s letter to his mother: Patrick is your flesh and blood, your grandson … She could not brush the facts under the carpet. And she wasn’t capable of laying them to one side, as Matty advised.
Her mind was running in circles. She was exhausted, too befuddled to untangle her options. She could walk away from this estate, this weight of misery, this evening or tomorrow morning, but where was she to go? Withdrawing her flat from sale was not an option. In fact, advancing its completion would be her smartest move.
She hastened to the table in the breakfast room and tapped out an email to Robert Piper, confirming that he should push for the soonest available completion date. If, as he had suggested, it could take place within a week, she would stay on here at the manor house. Whatever funds remained after the mortgage debt had been settled would be transferred to her account. Then she would be free to do as she pleased. In the meantime, she would work with Claude on the land and bury herself in the effort. Later she would address the torment and suffering of Luc’s betrayal that were throttling her love for him. For the time being she would force herself to set aside her emotions. She would operate on automatic pilot. She would log Luc’s material in the cellars as she had prepared to do all along; anything she found that was personal, she would burn without reading it. Claude and Matty, who had always been Luc’s loyal supporters, allies, were now accomplices in an act of duplicity, but she was determined not to allow herself to become the victim. As for Clarisse, Jane would not let on that she had uncovered Luc’s hidden life and his child or mention her visit to Paris. Luc’s letter addressed to Clarisse still lay in the file along with the rental agreement. No one knew of its existence except her. She should hand it over to her mother-in-law, but not yet. The old woman mocked her with the words There seems to be quite a bit he never shared with you.
In the days that followed, Jane worked furiously. She emailed the rather dull medical text she had translated, along with her invoice, and began on the next guide book. It was the fourth in a series written by a Frenchman on cities of Europe. She rather enjoyed the armchair travelling they offered, a respite from her melancholia.
Because she could no longer bear to hang out in the cellars, she decided to vacate them, to move Luc’s film material into the smallest of the drawing rooms, known as le petit salon. It would be a more convivial atmosphere to work in. She hated spending time underground. More so now than ever. So she began to box up books, manuscripts, scripts, notebooks and then, in spite of dust and tiredness, she lugged them up the stairs. She noted everything in a solid, old-fashioned accounts ledger she had come across. The Colt and the Bible were also removed from their drawer and placed on the sideboard in the salon, which she kept locked.
The daylight hours she spent outside, digging and weeding the vegetable beds. The days were sunny and the outdoor chores were restorative. If not yet a path to healing – that was beyond sight in the distance – the physical exertion kept her trauma and isolation under cover. From the stable block she carried a ladder to the walled kitchen gardens, where she fastened and resecured the espaliered apple trees against the east-facing stone wall. She made a fair job of it, alone with the nails and a hammer. She rested in the sun on a bench beneath one of the fig trees, munching two nectarines, while she watched a pair of golden orioles in a cherry tree, both males, screeching and squabbling as they filched the remaining fruit. Then she set to clipping and weeding around the lemon verbena bushes, the chamomile and bergamot plants: the Tea Garden. It would always be the last on Claude’s list: he had little interest in tisanes, herbal remedies or natural healing.
She slept from sheer exhaustion, rose early and, after her morning swim in the sea, she unfurled hosepipes, crunched her way across the stone paths and irrigated all the newly planted vegetables and the areas she was clearing and preparing. Would she be here to see the results of her labours? It didn’t matter. The tidying of the land was a spiritual exercise as much as physical.
Claude found her on her knees, sweating and exhausted, covered in dirt, digging with a trowel and sowing frenziedly. He offered to help, but she shook her head, adamant that these were chores she preferred to achieve singlehandedly.
‘Let me know when you’re ready to continue with our land tour,’ he said, watching uncertainly while she pummelled the earth. Without a glance upwards, Jane nodded that she would. Robert Piper had set the date for completion on the flat’s sale, and freedom was round the corner. She could be on her way as soon as she wished, but where to? Walk away, leave Luc and his family to the ‘crosses they must bear’?
Leave Luc.
She drew an invisible boundary between Claude, Matty, Clarisse and herself, but from time to time she bumped into Matty in the kitchen. At every opportunity, the housekeeper asked after her health and on one occasion remarked that she was pleased Jane had decided to stay on. ‘You seem to be keeping yourself well occupied.’
Jane always responded calmly that she was taking each day at a time and would do so until the answers became clear to her. This seemed to satisfy Matty, or at least quelled her curiosity.
‘Oh, and, Matty, I’m working in the petit salon on the west side of the house, so please don’t bother to clean in there. In fact, the door is locked.’
Matty frowned, keeping her opinion to herself. But late one morning, Jane found a freshly baked cherry tart on the dresser in the kitchen, and one afternoon, a pork casserole.
It hurt Jane to dissemble, to deceive Matty, who in bygone summers had been almost a surrogate mother to her and who was clearly attempting to make amends. Still, the fact was, Matty and Claude had masked truths from her, leaving her, once again, the outsider.
14
Early one morning while Jane was drinking her breakfast tea and quietly reading in the shade of the fig trees, Claude came looking for her. ‘We’re due a visit to the coastal vineyards,’ he announced.
‘Not this morning, thank you, Claude.’ She did not lift her eyes from the page.
‘Let’s get going.’ His tone was firm, determined. She stared up at him in surprise. He stood, waiting. His broad outline cast a shadow over the table and her Kindle. He was not budging.
‘Give me five minutes then.’ She slipped on her sneakers, collected her phone and followed him to the van.
They passed orchards of soft fruits: apricots, peaches, nectarines. Most were not yet ripe, not quite blushed, but their plenitude weighed down the thick-trunked trees. The sky was cobalt, the light clear and dry. A perfect early-summer morning. As they approached the coastal fields, Claude began to talk through the pre-harvest considerations. She wound down the window and inhaled the briny air. The springs of the old Renault creaked and bounced as they drove over furrowed, rutted paths leading to pastures and groves. Even so close to the water’s edge, the earth was rich and blood-red. It pulsated with goodness. Its warmth rose up to greet her.
‘Towards the third week of August and into early September, tension mounts and Madame Clarisse starts getting edgy. Well, we all do, if I’m honest. It’s understandable. Our year’s work hangs in the balance as we prepare to sample the grapes. From here on, we’re keeping a daily eye on the plants, deciding precisely when to harvest. There’s no outsider called in to measure the grapes’ sugar levels. We select the right moment ourselves. In the past, Madame Isabelle always had the last say-so. After she passed on, it was down to Luc …’
Jane stared out of the window and listened in silence. Her heart was hurt and hard, but even the mention of Luc’s name stung sharply. She hadn’t been to his grave for several days.
‘At this stage while we’re waiting for the sugar level in the fruit to be just how we want it, we’re also keeping a hawk’s eye on the weather patterns. Our prayer is that we’ll have a marriage of a clear run of fine weather – unlike last year when you were out with us – and good healthy fruit, ripe and mature, ready to be clipped from the stocks. As you know, we pick each vine by hand, one after another, bunch by bunch, fingers and secateurs. We use no machinery. Commencing with the varieties up behind the main house, we work solidly until those hectares have been picked clean and then we hit these fields, these lower lands, the seaside crops, where the salt that blows in off the water gives a special personality to the vines. You will know, Jane, that our first culling takes place while the bunches are on the bushes. We leave the bunches we can’t use as food for the birds. For example, if the fruit is damaged or under-nourished. Well, you know all this. You’ve learned that bit.’
They parked and stepped out, feet against dust. The brittle stillness inland was broken by a breeze coming in off the Mediterranean. The air was hot and salted. It dragged and drew against her flesh. A pleasing sensation. The incessant cicadas and drifting cries from tourists on the beaches cut through the heat. They picked their way through forests of weeds. It was tough going. The vines were choked. Out on the water, a small flotilla of sailing ships was ploughing a path towards St Tropez. A local regatta, perhaps. Once upon a time an adolescent Luc had dreamed of building his own boat and sailing back to Algeria in search of his past. Who would complete that film now? Did Dan still have the rushes he and Luc had shot in Marseille? If only she had the aptitude. She wondered again, fleetingly, why Luc had changed tack and given up on his family story in favour of exposing the OAS. Would he be alive now if he hadn’t? Had his life really been at risk?
All Luc’s energies gone to waste.
Like this estate.
She couldn’t wrap up his film for him, but she could assist with the land.
If I go first, I would like to think that she will step into my shoes …
Her world had been smashed apart. She had to gather threads of optimism from somewhere, cling to them.
‘If you brought the men in now and cleared all these fields, might they agree to work for a share of the crop?’
Claude frowned.
‘In other words, take the risk along with the estate.’
‘We’ve never worked that way in the past.’
‘What about with the olive crop?’
He nodded. ‘In bygone days, when I was a boy, the farms brought in les journaliers, day workers. Some were paysans, others travelling bands, who moved between one fruit crop and the next, often working in Spain as well as along this Occitanian coast, living in tents or stables. If the farmers didn’t have the cash to pay them, yes, the families, groups, individuals were given a roof over their heads, fed three square meals a day and a percentage of what they’d gathered. The accumulated francs were doled out to them as they packed up and moved on.’
‘So it’s not unknown in these parts?’
‘It’s totally out of date, Jane. I’m talking forty and more years ago. You’re trying to turn back the clock.’
‘But we’re not the only estate in crisis. Even if our situation is more critical. If it were the only way to clear these vineyards and preserve some of the wine harvest, would your compatriots consider it?’
Claude shrugged. His personal opinion was that the notion was preposterous.
‘Will you mull it over and see what you can propose to the men? If we’re starting afresh, we have to begin somewhere and, as you know, the estate lacks funds, according to Clarisse.’
He glanced round at her, following him through the fields. Walking abreast was impossible. Weeds had choked most of the alley space. The landscape would be a jungle if something wasn’t done soon. Harvest or none, the estate needed rescuing, but Claude wouldn’t beg favours of his boyhood chums. They already despised Clarisse, for her airs and graces and where her money had come from. They might have reconsidered their position for Luc, but for another woman, another foreigner … Fat chance.
Jane pulled off her sneakers and socks. Sand scattered on the kitchen floor. The cool tiles against her swollen feet were a comfort after the swelter and dust. She was about to climb the stairs to take a shower before she began the daily late-afternoon task of sorting Luc’s material. Hand on banister, she changed her mind, swung about and made for the breakfast room. There, she picked up the telephone. The call was on the off-chance. Once again there was an answer-machine. ‘Dan, it’s Jane Cambon. Maybe you’re still away on location. I’m at Les Cigales, going through Luc’s papers, his film documents. I was wondering whether there are files, rushes or stock here that you can use. Or maybe you could help me place it. And what happened to the material for the Algerian film? I can’t find it. Too many questions! It would be great to catch up. Give me a ring at the estate.’
Too many questions …
The following morning, when Jane and Claude arrived at the wine-pressing plant, Clarisse was not in her office. One of the two permanent labourers, who was unloading a consignment of barrels, said she hadn’t phoned in or mentioned anything about arriving later. He hadn’t seen her since the previous lunchtime.
Claude frowned.
‘I’m signing this load in myself,’ the hired hand explained to the gardener, who glanced at the delivery note, counted the barrels and nodded his approval.
‘Usually everything that takes places here comes under Clarisse’s supervision,’ Claude said, ‘sales, marketing, stock orders. Much of it was handled by the estate manager but as we haven’t had one since soon after Isabelle died, Clarisse takes charge, after a fashion.’ He smiled. ‘Let me show you around. Curious she hasn’t shown her face, though I hadn’t told her we’d be dropping by. These are hewn f
rom young oak,’ he explained to Jane, as they stood watching the barrels being eased down from the lorry. ‘They’re delivered from a cooperage in Toulouse. We’ve been purchasing from the same company for years now. Isabelle did a deal with them and we’ve used their supplies ever since. The quality is top.’
‘It had never occurred to me that you would need to change the barrels, not unless they were rotten or leaking.’
‘The wood flavours the wine. This young oak gives a specific tang to our red. Let’s go inside. If we don’t have a harvest, though, we won’t need the order. I don’t know why it wasn’t cancelled. Clarisse must’ve overlooked it.’ He shook his head. ‘The old lady’s losing her grip, good and proper.’
Jane was beginning to get a fuller picture of the lack of direction. Luc had remarked almost a year earlier that Clarisse had no perspective on stock levels. Since his death, her grasp seemed to have slipped entirely. ‘Let’s go inside.’
They began their tour of the interior block.
She followed the gardener into a chilly, windowless space, a temperature-controlled wine cellar. ‘Eighteen degrees,’ confirmed Claude, as he checked a thermometer and nodded. Two rows of eight gleaming stainless-steel tanks were standing vertical on tiny legs.
‘Sixteen cylindrical tanks made and shipped in from Italy. Each vat containing … Well, any idea, Jane, how much rosé is here in front of you?’
She shook her head. This was impressive. The austere tranquillity and the spotless environment were a surprising and, yes, impressive sight, reminding her of a pipe organ in a cathedral. And then, out of the blue, an evening of long ago crept back. She and Luc had been leaving the Louvre. He had led her by the hand to the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois to listen to an early-evening recital, a low-key public performance. What was remarkable was the programme on offer: Queen’s A Night at the Opera performed on the organ. Luc and Jane had sat close, shoulders touching, in the packed pew, absorbing the hard rock compositions rising like dulcet poetry from the pipes of the church instrument. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ floated high above the religious icons. Incongruous, and yet entirely in harmony with its surroundings. Amazing. Who else but Luc would have ferreted out such an unlikely recital? At a later date, when she was at university in London and writing to him regularly, he had replied with a postcard of Claude Monet’s painting of the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. He had scribbled only three words on the back: My Sweet Lady x.
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