The Forgotten Summer

by Carol Drinkwater

  She must still have the card somewhere, packed in a box, stored, slipped inside a book. Moments frozen, in boxes. Why had there been no organ music at Luc’s funeral? She would have included that long-ago rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Luc had loved her, she was sure of it. This other secret life, the betrayal was, well, impossible for Jane to get her head around, to accept, even while it was breaking her heart.

  Claude was still talking. She had lost the thread.

  ‘So, we press the rosé slowly, allowing the tint from the fruit’s skins to seep into the liquid.’ He paused, glancing at her. ‘Each vat when full contains one thousand litres, so sixteen thousand litres, which amounts to close to twenty-two thousand bottles of cru classé rosé. Plus there’s the red, of which there is far less, but it is mighty fine and sells at between twelve and fifteen euros a bottle.’

  Jane was taken aback. ‘And the rosé?’

  ‘Eleven, twelve euros a bottle.’

  ‘Are these vats full?’

  Claude struck the side of one repeatedly, as though he were giving a saucy slap to a woman’s buttocks. It reverberated hollow. ‘The juice is way down this year. And it’s too young to sell yet.’

  Jane had always been aware that Luc’s family landholding operated as a lucrative business, but she had not understood to what extent. Who would want to see all this go under? Clarisse’s negativity was bewildering. Even if the dedication and energy required to keep it all afloat was far more taxing than Jane had envisaged. Too much for anyone approaching eighty.

  ‘A mighty shame to let all this fall into ruin, Jane.’

  Was Claude fighting for Patrick’s future, calibrating his grandson’s inheritance, which would be nothing but walls and unruly hectares if someone did not take the entire proposition in hand? Did he and Matty know that Luc had been intending Patrick to inherit all this? Or was Jane the only living soul who knew of Luc’s designs for his son?

  Might he also have addressed postcards to Annie, his ‘sweet lady’? The thought almost immobilized her. ‘Yes, yes, it’s certainly quite an investment,’ she murmured. How could she even for a moment contemplate remaining here? Luc’s betrayal, the devastation it was causing her, was not going to heal while she remained surrounded by his world.

  ‘These gleaming casks replaced a cellar full of cement storage tanks the two Cambon women inherited when they bought the property. It was before my time, but Madame Isabelle took one look and declared them old-fashioned. Several were cracked. They’d been here since the nineteenth century, she said. She also believed the cement was leaking unacceptable quantities of iron into the wine.

  ‘She organized their replacement with these stainless-steel beauties. They cost a heck of a sum, plus the installation, but the improvement to the wine has been marked and upped our standards no end. We use stainless-steel vats and oak barrels, a different settling system according to the wine. Our top reds are fermenting in wood in the old cellars. The white and our rosé – our biggest crop – are in these, at controlled temperatures. Shorter wait time for them before the wine goes on the market. Hence swifter return.’

  Their voices echoed as they passed along brick and stone corridors, the floors laid with vintage octagonal tiles. This building was as old as any on the entire estate. They were in mid-conversation.

  ‘Yes, we produce and bottle here so we are a domain wine, estate wines.’

  Jane shook herself back into the here and now. ‘It’s really a boutique outfit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Spot on. Clarisse would like that as a sales angle. Les Deux Soeurs boutique wines. You should discuss it with her. I’m surprised no one’s come up with it before.’ Claude was now entering a crushing room, Jane on his heels. The air was potent with the heavy winey odour.

  ‘So, this is where the alchemy gets under way. Once the comportes, the full baskets, arrive here at the vinification plant the grapes undergo another standard control. And this one’s vigorous because it is the last opportunity to discard any fruit that might lower the calibre of the wine. Anything in the crushing tanks that does not meet our quality standards is chucked out. What we are left with are top grapes, those that are the basis of the wine. And bloody good wine it is too.’

  Jane had never visited the settling tanks before, the stainless-steel vats, or the crushing tanks. One day all this would belong to Patrick, Luc’s son. Luc had stated in his letter to Clarisse that he hoped Jane would come to accept Patrick. How could he expect such forgiveness, when her own son had been lost? If she could contact Dan, she would ask him to accept responsibility for the dispersal of Luc’s material. Then her obligations would be at an end.

  ‘You have to hand it to them. Les deux Madames Cambons put this property and, along with it, our tiny quartier back on the agricultural map. Madame Isabelle managed the wine and olive-oil production – all extra virgin – while Clarisse took the reins of the marketing and sales operations. Together, they founded a profitable and highly regarded business. Your father was their outlet to Britain and he proved himself a sharp and persuasive salesman. Madame Clarisse had been hoping he’d extend their reach into Germany and the Netherlands. But, as you know, more exciting opportunities came your father’s way.’

  Jane wondered silently whether Claude and Matty had ever known about her father’s liaison with Clarisse. Clarisse must have excused his abrupt disappearance with some fabricated story: an offer of better-paid employment elsewhere. Or some such.

  They took a break for lunch, perching side by side on a stone wall facing an overgrown but rather attractive meadow, wild with lipstick-red poppies, blue borage, white daisies, and beyond to soft-fruit orchards. Matty had prepared them a basket. Chunks of her own dark bread, cloves of garlic, which Claude peeled and ate raw between slices of sausage he shaved off with his pocket knife, cracked olives, dried figs, hard cheese. He took his food seriously, washing the mouthfuls down with gulps of the estate’s cheaper wine. A chilled, slightly sharp white today.

  They spoke infrequently or not at all, passing morsels to and fro. Casual conversation did not come easily to the gardener, and Jane’s heart was too heavy, her appetite less robust. Claude’s sole comment, aside from grunts about the merits of his wife’s kitchen, was to reiterate his concerns regarding the excessive growth on the land.

  When they strode back to the pressing unit, there was still no sign of Clarisse. The two men working in the crushing plant said there had been no news from their patron and that it was most unusual for her not to put in an appearance. Claude remarked as an aside to Jane that Clarisse had been skipping the odd day here and there since Luc’s death. Matty had said she believed she was suffering. Jane suggested that Claude continue with whatever chores he needed to be getting on with – they could pick up their tour another time – while she whizzed over to Cherry Tree Lodge to call in on her mother-in-law.

  She drove along the rutted paths under a silky blue sky, bumping through jungly vineyards and orchards in the vehicle, which was now coated across its dashboard and seats with red dust. Wilderness was sweeping over the great wide spaces. The bright colours from the wild flowers and the rich yellow sunlight were almost blinding. She hurtled by a tractor standing idle, abandoned. Who knew that it was out here? Shouldn’t it be in a barn somewhere? High-investment agricultural equipment going to rot. From beyond a wooden fence, Clarisse’s chestnut mare stared at her with startled eyes, as though she had forgotten there was life beyond the lonely paddock. Who was caring for her, feeding her? Jane made a mental note to ask Claude.

  Upon arrival, Jane’s knock received no response. ‘Clarisse!’ she called, and called again, then waited. It was chillingly silent. A pair of cream butterflies fluttered by the window where the curtains were drawn. Swallowtails. Wherever they were, Jane fancied the spirit of Luc was too. Jane rapped on the glass. Eventually, she lifted the latch and let herself in. The air in the room was dank and close. Acrid. Every window shut. Flies buzzed and circled, caged within the stifling interior.
The ashtray was overflowing with butts. Clarisse was on the flagstone floor at the foot of the stairs, crumpled as though she had tumbled and rolled down them. Jane ran to her and lifted her up, leaning her against her own crouched body. The old woman’s pale face was cut and bruised, motionless, mask-like, but she was breathing – Jane caught faint sour whiffs.

  Upstairs by the bed, Jane had found an almost empty bottle of Gordon’s. Dr Beauchene diagnosed Clarisse’s condition as alcohol poisoning, which had precipitated the fall. If Jane had not stopped by when she had, Clarisse’s life would have been in danger. Clarisse was ferried in Beauchene’s car to the bastide and from there by ambulance to the hospital in Saint-Raphaël. Jane accompanied her and stayed at her bedside, listening to the incessant overhead fans whirring hot air from one place to another, breathing in the less than pleasant odours of the hospital: old flesh, deodorant, air-freshener, eau de Javel. Every one of them reminded her of the loss of Luc and those weeks in Paris.

  When the old woman came to, a tube was in her arm, her skin was sallow and greasy, her eyes drugged and milky. No longer nettle green, more a bleached mint. Her voice was reedy and slurred, as though she had suffered a mild stroke, and she had difficulty recognizing who was at her side. She tossed her head back and forth against the white pillows, her hair sweaty and matted, hanging like lengths of red-brown seaweed.

  ‘Annabelle? Is it you at last?’ she muttered.

  Jane was roused from her reading. ‘Clarisse, Clarisse, it’s … You want Annabelle?’ Jane was deliberating. Could she play the imposter?

  Clarisse murmured incomprehensible nothings, then drifted back to sleep or semi-consciousness.

  Why was she asking for Annabelle? Jane had understood from Luc’s letter to his mother that the women were estranged. She must have disapproved of Luc’s adulterous involvement with her. Surely Clarisse hadn’t been fighting Jane’s corner. That would be ironic.

  All the while as Jane sat reading, watching over her mother-in-law, the woman’s features lacked peace, her mind troubled. When Clarisse was capable of speech, of coherence, she was disgruntled, aggravated, vexed to find herself where she was. She demanded to be transported back to her home instantly. The doctor on duty vacillated, warning Jane, out of his patient’s earshot, that Clarisse’s blood alcohol level had read troublingly high. She had been drinking for some time, possibly on an empty stomach, and the anti-inflammatory tablets she had been taking to ease the arthritis in her hands and hip had caused a mild stomach ulcer. Spirits and smoking had exacerbated her problems. ‘Who is her next of kin? You?’

  Jane was flummoxed. Was she Clarisse’s next of kin? Who else was there to claim the role, besides her grandson, Patrick?

  ‘She needs rest and nourishment or her system will cave in and she’ll suffer more serious consequences. It was fortunate you found her. I would prefer she stays here for another day or two.’

  Clarisse growled, beating her fists against the sheets, insisting on being released ‘this minute’.

  The doctor, who had more urgent matters to deal with than one difficult patient, acquiesced and prescribed medication to protect the lining of Clarisse’s stomach, strenuously warning her against alcohol. Jane collected the drugs from the pharmacie on their way out.

  Was Clarisse safe to be on her own in the lodge, at such a distance from others? Logically not, but she wouldn’t hear of being moved to the manor house, not even for a brief recuperation period. She became angry and threatening: a spark of her former self.

  Jane managed to haul her up the narrow stairs and into her own bed, promising to call in again later with provisions. Before she left, she checked the cupboards for alcohol. They were pathetically depleted of all foodstuffs. The bottles of estate wine Jane found, she discreetly removed. As far as she was aware, there were no spirits stashed away, or at least she found none.

  When she returned later in the afternoon with a bag of shopping, Clarisse was downstairs in her living room in a pale turquoise dressing-gown with a grey wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders, smoking. Jane had entered without knocking, expecting her to be asleep.

  Clarisse was spoiling for a fight. ‘Have you been through my cupboards?’ she barked.

  Jane went into the small kitchen and began to deposit the purchases. ‘I thought I’d make you some vegetable soup.’ She was attempting a breezy air. ‘There’s nothing much growing in the garden yet, but I –’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘How about a bowl of pasta?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  The unloading of the shopping continued in silence.

  ‘You were asking for Annabelle.’

  No reply.

  ‘I think you mistook me for her in the hospital, when I was at your bedside.’

  A stubborn lack of response ensued. The unwrapping of plastic packaging and the gentle whoosh of the fridge door closing were the only sounds.

  Jane folded the bags, left them in a drawer and returned to where Clarisse was seated with her feet up, bare legs blue with veins. She was lighting a cigarette from the tip of the dying one.

  ‘Aside from the level of gin detected in your system, you smoke too much.’

  ‘Yes, well, maybe I’m trying to get the hell out of here. What business is it of yours and do you give a shit either way?’

  Jane sat down and studied Luc’s mother. Without make-up and her habitually well-cared-for presentation, she looked drawn, as old as the limestone hills behind her property. Her facial skin was marbled, hair greying at the roots. She had grown frail, as though she might disintegrate at the first touch; she was a desiccated, vulnerable shadow of her former self and it was hard to hate her. ‘Will you tell me about Annabelle?’

  Clarisse made a show of inhaling the smoke from her cigarette and fussed with her dressing-gown. ‘I don’t have a clue who you’re talking about.’

  ‘I really would like to know.’

  Pause.

  ‘You mentioned her name several times.’

  ‘I must’ve been dreaming.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Some things are best left alone, best not spoken about.’

  ‘What things? What do you mean?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Silence, but for Clarisse inhaling and exhaling smoke, wheezing. Her eyes were screwed closed.

  ‘Clarisse?’

  ‘She’s your sister.’

  ‘Clarisse, I’m serious.’

  ‘So am I. Your father’s other daughter. His second girl.’

  15

  Jane sucked in her breath as though someone had just kicked her in the stomach.

  Clarisse roared, triumphantly or bitterly, ‘Ha! Happy? That’s shut you up, hasn’t it? Did you remove my gin and the wine bottles from this house? I want a drink and I don’t remember signing over my power of attorney or decision-making to you.’

  ‘My father’s other daughter? Are you telling me that you and Dad –’

  ‘Oh, don’t sound so fucking self-righteous. I really don’t know how my son tolerated you.’

  ‘Shut up, Clarisse! Shut up.’ Jane was on her feet. ‘I’ve had it with your opinions about Luc and me. TELL ME ABOUT ANNABELLE.’

  ‘You’ve just told me to shut up.’

  ‘Who is Annabelle? Where is she?’ Jane was screaming now. Her eyes a cauldron of fury.

  Clarisse shrugged. ‘Annabelle is your sister.’

  ‘That’s not possible. What are you talking about? Does my father know of her existence?’ Anger spewed out of her, like oil from a geyser. A plume of hot savagery. ‘I can’t believe this.’ Jane was pacing, trying to gain control, to rearrange her thoughts, to make sense of what had been thrown at her.

  ‘Peter never knew.’ A deflated delivery.

  ‘You had a child with my father and he never knew?’

  ‘You got it. Where’s my gin?’

  But Annabelle was Annie, wasn’t she? Or so Jane had sup
posed when she’d seen her in Paris. Matty’s daughter, not Clarisse’s. This made no sense. Had Luc known that he had a half-sister? In the letter Jane had found, he spoke of Annabelle, not Annie. He never referred to her as his sister. Did Luc know that Annabelle was his half-sister? He’d had a child with his half-sister? Was Clarisse concocting nonsense, confusing facts? Losing her mind? Or was she playing a macabre game?

  Jane swung back towards her mother-in-law, who had heaved herself from her seat and was hobbling towards a sideboard set in a shadowed corner in a rear recess of the room. She yanked open a lower door and dragged out a full bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin.

  ‘Leave it!’ bellowed Jane.

  ‘Who are you to give me orders? If you don’t like what you see or hear, then get out of here.’

  ‘Give me that bottle.’ Jane lunged towards Clarisse, almost toppling the woman, attempting to confiscate the liquor, but somehow Clarisse deftly out-manoeuvred her and shuffled to the hatch that separated kitchen and living quarters where wine glasses hung on stalks from overhead hooks. She clambered, stretching, reaching, bucking Jane off her back and shoulders. They tussled. The bottle fell and smashed on the flagstones, spilling the clear liquid everywhere. Clarisse crumpled onto her hands and knees, splayed like an injured lizard.

  ‘Get up – get up. Mind your arms!’ Jane leaned in to her, attempting to lift her, to protect her from the glistening shards of blue glass. Clarisse shrugged her off. Both women were wild, demented, out of control. Decades of hatred, of mistrust had broken loose. Jane was insane with half-formed information. The pungent vapours of juniper rose into the air about them, burning into their nostrils. Jane was the taller, the stronger, the fitter and younger, but Clarisse fought with a trapped vixen’s fury, tearing into the fleshy topside of Jane’s hand, drawing blood. Jane let out a howl and recoiled, leaving Clarisse free to crawl to her chair, spent. Blood trailed after. The underside of her arm from wrist to elbow had been lacerated on the broken glass.