Vintage

by Rosemary Friedman

  The chartrons – the wine merchants of Bordeaux – took their name from the tall grey façades of the warehouses of the Quai des Chartrons where, since the seventeenth century, the aristocratie du bouchon had carried out their trade. The Quai des Chartrons, once the finest suburb in France, now run down and decaying, ran for two kilometres on the wide banks alongside the Garonne.

  Originally, the chartrons, an influential body of merchants, had purchased direct from the growers sur souches (before the grapes were picked), or en primeur (immediately after the wine was fermented). Responsible for bottling it themselves, the merchants had cherished the wine like a new baby and, like foster parents, brought it up. As a result of their efforts there were frequent disputes – like those between opposing schools of child psychology – as to whether it was heredity (the vines, the grapes and the fermentation) or environment, the care lavished upon the wine in the dark of the chartronnais’ cellars, which was responsible for its character.

  When the growers finally decided to nurture their own ‘children’ until they were ready to be sent out into the world, the chartronnais were no longer needed as adoptive parents and were deprived of their former glory. They were forced to undertake a less charismatic role and simply bought and sold wine (usually to the wholesalers), which had already been bottled by the château owners.

  Wines sold under the label of a particular negociant varied from generic blends to high-class bottles from individual châteaux. In some cases, these châteaux were themselves owned by the negociants. Like many Bordeaux wine merchants, such as the Guestiers and Bartons before him, Claude Balard’s overweening ambition, in which he was supported and encouraged both by Marie-Paule and Harry, a partner with his father in Balard et Fils, was to become a classed-growth château proprietor.

  Although he was a member of the Syndicat de Negociants de Bordeaux, Claude Balard, unlike the majority of his colleagues, who were pillars of Bordeaux society, was both corrupt and corruptible. His devious nature had been inherited by Harry, a young man exempt from the common laws of politeness, who had more than once been in trouble with the police. By not only paying less than the market price, but selling twice as much wine falsely labelled ‘Château de Cluzac’ as he had bought from the Baron (to markets such as Japan, cruise ships and the less reputable airlines), Claude Balard was able both to line his own pockets and finance the extravagant habits of his son. His ultimate triumph over the Baron would come when he was himself installed as owner of that much coveted jewel of the Médoc, the Château de Cluzac.

  The Balards occupied an elegant, high-ceilinged appartement in the tree-lined Cours Xavier-Arnozan, which ran at right-angles to the dilapidated Quai des Chartrons, where Balard et Fils had their cellars. They were not the only Bordeaux family who were looking forward to the Fête de la Fleur.

  The turquoise satin gown, a mute reminder of the forthcoming evening, which would begin with a massed band of welcome on the drawbridge of Château Laurent and end with a display of fireworks over the vineyards, hung on Marie-Paule’s armoire. Another dress, neither turquoise nor satin, but fashioned, what there was of it, of café-au-lait lace, provided an equally trenchant cue.

  While Marie-Paul’s creation had come from Beatrice Biancarelli, the fashion guru of Bordeaux, Delphine Lamotte had been shopping in Paris, the city of her birth.

  Delphine, whose husband Alain was pinning his hopes on adding Château de Cluzac to his portfolio, was also waiting anxiously for the Fête de la Fleur. With the aid of the little lace number from Givenchy, she hoped to persuade the Baron, notoriously susceptible to the charms of women, to look favourably on Assurance Mondiale, of which Alain was the Président-directeur Général in Bordeaux. Unlike Marie-Paule Balard, Delphine had been brought up in the Boulevard Courcelles, where her family was ‘trés snob’, and her aspirations were not social but material.

  Shopping, for herself, her individual home, in which there were always fresh flowers, and her two delightful children – the eleven-year-old Amélie and the three-year-old Joséphine – was her north, her south, her east and her west. Her tastes were simple: she liked only the best. Alain, who took pride in his wife’s looks and doted on her bubbly sophistication, liked nothing more than to indulge her.

  The acquisition of Château de Cluzac meant not only an additional feather in Alain’s cap, but that he would be rewarded with a considerable bonus and commensurate rise in salary. It would provide the résidence secondaire after which Delphine hankered, and would hopefully cover more than one yearly visit (usually at the time of the soldes, when the previous season’s models were disposed of more cheaply) to the house of Givenchy.

  Of all the young couples in Bordeaux café society, Delphine and Alain Lamotte, together with their impeccable home and their beautiful and talented children, were the most envied. The fact that Alain had graduated from ‘Sciènces Po’ and was clearly destined to rise like a meteor in his chosen field, and Delphine, bored with lessons, had left school at seventeen, after which she scarcely opened a book other than Elle Décoration or Marie-Claire, did not detract from their almost perfect relationship.

  A devoted mother, Delphine chauffeured her daughters to school, to music, and to elocution and dancing lessons, monitored their reading, escorted them to museums to improve their minds, took them on outings, and entertained their friends. Dressed in the latest and most expensive juvenile fashion (much of it brought back from her visits to Paris), looking, even when playing in the garden, as if they had just stepped out of a bandbox, the two girls were clones of their mother.

  Delphine’s dedication to her children did not prevent her from being, to all intents and purposes, an exemplary wife. While she chattered away vivaciously in company, often about nothing at all, the good-natured Alain regarded her with silent admiration. They not only thought alike, and frequently talked alike – as if their opinions had been rehearsed – but had common interests, in bridge, tennis, and sailing on the Gironde. The only arena in which Alain Lamotte experienced the slightest dissatisfaction was the bedroom, where Delphine, so profligate with her energies as far as their home and their children were concerned, seemed unaccountably to lose her enthusiasm.

  When Marie-Paule Balard had returned to Biancarelli to fit the turquoise frock, she had run into Clare de Cluzac, whom she had not seen for more than ten years. She had followed her progress since Clare had been a baby, when she had cherished the romantic notion that when she was grown up she would, despite the fact that she was five years older than her son, be a suitable wife for Harry.

  To date, Harry had shown no signs of marrying. Marie-Paule presumed that he had girlfriends. He spent nights away from home – sometimes several in a row – to which he returned more disagreeable than ever and looking decidedly the worse for wear. The sight of Clare de Cluzac at Biancarelli’s reinforced her determination to persuade Harry to accompany his parents to the Fête de la Fleur, where the girls to whom he would be exposed would at least be from the appropriate drawer.

  Looking at Clare, as she rummaged through the rails of Biancarelli models, Marie-Paule Balard, who had recognised her immediately, was not at all sure that she had grown into the fairytale princess she had once envisaged as her daughter-in-law. Unlike the marriageable young women of her acquaintance, who paid as much attention to their appearance as did their mothers, Clare de Cluzac, in her black vest, her black ankle-length skirt, her hooped earrings and her plimsolls – she looked, Marie-Paule thought, more like some vineyard worker than the daughter of a château owner – seemed to have little regard for protocol.

  Standing before the looking-glass, preening herself in her final fitting for the turquoise dress, Marie-Paule Balard watched Clare from the corner of her eye as Biancarelli knelt at her feet to check the hemline.

  ‘Que pensez-vous de la vente du château, Mademoiselle?’ Marie-Paule addressed the Baron’s daughter.

  ‘Ca m’est indifférent.’ Clare extracted a handful of scarlet crepe from the rail and s
aw that it was liberally adorned with buttons and bows.

  ‘Monsieur Balard has dreamed of becoming a château owner for a very long time…’

  Clare, who knew that Cluzac had already been promised to the South African, met Beatrice Biancarelli’s eyes in the mirror and was aware, although she had no idea how, that the boutique owner knew too.

  ‘A cru classé estate has always been Claude’s ambition… When do you think your father will make his decision?’ Marie-Paule fingered the satin stretched tight across her chest doubtfully.

  Beatrice Biancarelli sighed.

  ‘Madame a une belle poitrine.’

  Proud of her bosom – the de Cluzac girl did not seem to have one worth mentioning at all – Marie-Paule ran her hands over the bolster of turquoise satin.

  ‘That Assurance Mondiale is after the estate is common knowledge,’ she said. ‘Alain Lamotte wants Cluzac for his company, but to run a château properly you have to live the life. My husband would take a personal interest…’

  That Madame Balard was spitting in the wind was not Clare’s business. She let her rattle on about how advantageous the move would be for Harry, and how satisfying for herself to move from the Cours Xavier-Arnozan to an even more prestigious address.

  Looking through the garments on the rails, not one of which she would be seen dead in, Clare was not all that interested. She wondered how Beatrice Biancarelli knew about Van Gelder, and let the negociant’s wife rattle on.

  When Marie-Paule had left the shop, Beatrice Biancarelli apologised for keeping Clare waiting. Madame Balard and her ilk were her bread-and-butter; she had a duty to her regular clientele. Reaching above Clare’s head she drew the curtain, on its rattling brass rings, over the rails of garments.

  ‘J’ai beaucoup mieux pour vous.’

  Vanishing into the back room, Biancarelli reappeared with a narrow black sheath, supported by shoulder straps, with a side split to the knee. Draping it against herself and adopting a model’s pose, she put her head on one side and regarded her mirror image.

  ‘I was keeping it for myself.’

  Clare noticed the keyhole bodice, which would expose her breasts.

  ‘Papa is not going to like it.’

  Indicating the changing-cubicle and holding out the dress, Beatrice Biancarelli shrugged. She would deal with the Baron.

  ‘Tant pis!’

  Fifteen

  Halliday Baines, his athlete’s body finely tuned, kneeled on the beach on the Marlin Coast of Queensland, a few kilometres along the Cook Highway north of Cairns. He was building a castle for his five-year-old son Billy, well away from the cream foam of the breakers.

  Filling his bucket with sand, the little boy, his narrow chest as brown as his father’s, looked longingly at the deceptively inviting ocean, which he knew very well he was forbidden to enter, even to cool off, except from the safety of the netted area farther down the beach.

  ‘Tell me about the stingers, Dad.’

  ‘Chironex fleckeri.’ Halliday gave the stingers their Latin name as he had many times in the past. The little boy loved to hear the story of the box jellyfish that infested the waters, on the edge of which stood the neat house, its wide verandahs overlooking the eucalyptus trees and the deserted shore, in which he had been born.

  ‘Why “box” jellyfish, Dad?’

  Billy waited for the answer, which he knew by heart.

  ‘Because they have a four-sided bell…’

  ‘“A kind of box…”’ Billy patted the sand in his bucket.

  Halliday smiled.

  ‘A kind of box.’ He raised his arms and advanced menacingly towards Billy.

  ‘With tentacles three metres long hanging from each corner,’ they said in unison.

  ‘With enough poison in them to kill hundreds and hundreds of prawns, not to mention three or four human beings!’ Halliday put his arms threateningly round his delighted son.

  ‘“Takes three minutes to die…”’ Billy had not the least idea what he was talking about but he liked the sound of the words. ‘The pain’s terrible. The venom… The venom… What does the venom do, Dad?’

  ‘Arrests your heart, nukes the red blood cells, and destroys the skin tissue. Upend your bucket, lad. We’ll just finish this castle then it’ll be time for tucker’

  ‘Mum said we could have a barbecue.’

  ‘Coral trout or barramundi?’ Halliday had been fishing earlier in the day.

  ‘Barramundi.’

  ‘Get your togs on then, son.’ Halliday stood up and flexed his muscles.

  ‘Mum says you’re going away.’

  ‘I’m always going away, Boy-oh!’

  ‘Mum says you’re not coming back.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘She says we’re going to live in Katoomba.’

  ‘Katoomba’s a great place. Fantastic scenery, gum trees. You’ll have your Uncle Chris…’

  ‘Where will you be, Dad?’

  ‘I’ll be in France. All over. I’ll be back to visit. Don’t you worry. I’ll tell you about the jellyfish.’ Halliday raised his arms. ‘With the long tentacles…’

  Billy did not smile.

  ‘Mum says you’re not going to live with us any more.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Who’s going to fix the barbecues?’

  Halliday looked out at the ocean. It was a good question. The question from the standpoint of a five-year-old.

  The split had been coming for a long time. Halliday could not entirely blame Maureen. The fact was that he was never at home.

  He had met Maureen at Sydney University, where she was reading for an arts degree and he for a degree in agricultural science. Not long after their graduation and marriage he had reluctantly left Maureen – who not only hated to travel but had a flying phobia and had never been out of the country – to spend six months in France examining the country’s wine regions. It was there that he developed an interest not only in wine but in climate, and in particular the effects of temperature and humidity on wine styles, which he brought back with him to Australia.

  His pragmatism, unfettered by tradition, led to his rapid grasp of methods and technology, which were now doing for the wine trade what the Japanese had once done for the motor industry. By flouting the most hallowed convention of French wine, that of terroir – the belief that a vineyard’s soil is unique, and capable of shaping a wine’s flavour – together with that of the Appellation Contrôlée system which supported it, he demonstrated that competent wine farming, combined with the closest attention to high-tech detail in the cave, was all that was required.

  A maverick who believed that a good machine was better than a bad team of harvesters, Halliday Baines preferred to gather his grapes with giant tractors which straddled the vines and beat them with rubber arms which shook off the bunches. He was the doyen of a growing band of itinerant oenologists who were reshaping winemaking methods all over the globe. With a technique all of his own – le style Baines – he was widely acclaimed by wine writers in both the northern and southern hemispheres, by whom he was recognised as a star winemaker with a big reputation.

  Halliday worked not only in Australia, where the grapes had sometimes to be shipped distances the equivalent of that between southern Turkey and Bordeaux, but in vineyards all over the world, some of which were twenty hours’ flying time away.

  The initial reaction of the Bordelais to the presence of the pugnacious Australian was resentment. His technical expertise, plus his natural affinity for the soil, which they could ill afford to dismiss, eventually won them over. Halliday Baines now acted as consultant oenologist to half a dozen classed growth Médoc châteaux, where from August to October – his lack of French notwithstanding – he advised the château owners about fermentation temperature gradients, clone numbers, yeast strains, and the exact proportions of free-run juice versus what came out of the press.

  His long absences from home, plus the fact that his sensitivity was more often than not res
erved for his vines rather than the needs of his wife and family, had – not surprisingly – had a deleterious effect on his marriage.

  Maureen, a schoolteacher, had, he supposed, been patient. Although Halliday had, since his university days, loved her for her quiet good nature, her efficiency as homemaker and the fact that she was a wonderful mother to Billy, they had actually spent very little time in each other’s company. It had never occurred to him, because of her full-time teaching job (she was now Head Teacher of a Cairns primary school) and the demands of their son, that Maureen might be bored.

  When he had arrived home from Argentina on their wedding anniversary, with a gold bangle he had grabbed from the Duty Free shop in Buenos Aires, to find her with her metaphorical bags packed, he was totally unprepared.

  ‘You’re not going to like my anniversary present,’ Maureen, who had never beaten about the bush, said as he embraced her on the verandah where she had been awaiting his arrival. ‘I’m leaving you, Halliday.’

  Although there was a strange feeling of trepidation in his entrails, he had tried to make light of her pronouncement.

  ‘You’ve been watching too many movies.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ Maureen pulled away. ‘I thought it better to give it to you straight.’

  Halliday couldn’t believe that he was hearing what he was hearing.

  ‘You’ve never said anything.’

  ‘You were never here.’

  ‘I thought you liked it that way. I thought you didn’t mind.’

  ‘You never thought.’

  ‘Look, Maureen, I’m sorry, I’ll try to spend more time at home. We’ll take a trip…’ He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken Maureen away.