Peter May - Extraordinary People

The town was crammed with tourists and with paysannes who had come in from the country for the morning market in the Cathedral square. The market was over now, the square once more fulfilling its regular function of car park. But people had stayed on to eat in the restaurants and shop in La Halle, and to idle the day away in pavement cafés, drinking coffee and watching the world go by. This week, the town was filled to bursting point for the annual blues festival. Enzo pushed through the crowds and into La Halle, and made his way to the wine merchant’s stand.

Michel was a ruddy-faced man with a fuzz of wiry, steel-coloured hair. He smoked Voltigeur cigars, and his silver moustache was tinted nicotine yellow. But he knew his wines. He shook Enzo’s hand warmly.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve finished that Gaillac already?’

Enzo laughed. ‘My God, Michel, if I’d drunk it that fast I’d have drowned in it. I’ve still got two cases left.’ Enzo preferred the softer, rounder tones of the Gaillac wines to the sharp tannins of the Cahors vintages. ‘It’s champagne I’m looking for today.’

Michel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Champagne?’ He issued some staccato nasal farts that Enzo supposed indicated mirth. ‘Something to celebrate?’

‘Just life.’

‘What would you like? I can offer you a toasty little Veuve Clicquot. Yellow Label. Not too expensive.’

‘I’m looking for a Moët et Chandon, Dom Perignon 1990.’

Michel’s jaw fell. ‘ Merde alors ! You’re kidding!’

‘You don’t have any?’

Michel laughed. ‘I certainly do not.’ He held up a finger. ‘But wait.’ He turned to his computer, flickering behind the counter, and tapped away at the keyboard, staring intently at the screen. ‘Here we are. Dom Perignon. 1990.’ He made a moue with his lips and blew a jet of air through them. ‘A rare wine these days, my friend. Robert Parker described the 1990 vintage as “brilliant.”’ He grinned at Enzo. ‘It’s a sad state of affairs when it takes an American to tell us how good or bad our wines are.’ He tapped some more. ‘Ah-ha! Got you!’ He looked up triumphantly. ‘I can get you a bottle.’

‘Today?’

Michel gave a very gallic shrug of the shoulders and pouted pensively. ‘About two hours?’

‘Ideal.’

‘Come and get it before we close up.’

‘Thanks, Michel.’ Enzo turned away.

‘Don’t you want to know how much it is?’

Enzo stopped in the arched gateway leading to the street. ‘I suppose I should. How much is it?’

‘Well, normally, it would be a hundred and fifty.’

Enzo nearly choked. ‘Euros?’

Michel nodded and smiled. ‘But, well, given the special circumstances….’ He thought for a minute, and Enzo reflected warmly on just how much he loved it here. People knew you. People did you favours. ‘I’m going to have to charge a hundred and ninety.’

After two hours and several beers at Le Forum, Enzo returned to the apartment clutching his bottle of Moët et Chandon. He was in mellower mood, in spite of his wallet being nearly two hundred euros lighter. All the windows were wide open, and Sophie was on her hands and knees in the bathroom scrubbing the bath with disinfectant. There was no sign of either Nicole or the ducklings. The smell had all but gone.

‘Where’s Nicole?’

‘Gone.’ Sophie kept her head down, still scrubbing.

‘Gone where?’

‘Home.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I told her the ducks couldn’t stay here and that she would have to take them back to her father.’

Enzo flapped his arms in exasperation. ‘Sophie, they were a gift. I don’t want to offend him.’

Sophie looked up and shook her head. ‘There are times I think I’ll never understand you, Papa. We’re talking about a man who broke into our apartment and beat you up. And you’re worried about offending him?’

Enzo shrugged. ‘That was a misunderstanding.’

Sophie spotted the bottle of champagne. ‘What’s the occasion?’

‘There isn’t one.’

She followed him through to the séjour , peeling off her rubber gloves. ‘Well, you don’t just go buying champagne for no reason.’

‘I got it for the label.’

‘What?’

He placed the bottle on the table and searched through the drawers of his writing bureau until he found what he was looking for. A large magnifying glass. ‘This is the make and year of champagne they found in the trunk in Toulouse.’ He started examining the label through the magnifying glass. ‘I can’t figure out why they chose this particular marque or vintage. There has to be something on the label.’

It was a classically shaped sloping-shouldered bottle in dark green glass. There was a gold stamp on the black foil around the cage and cork. It said, simply, Cuvée Dom Perignon . The label was in the shape of a three-pointed shield, greenish ochre in colour Across the top of the label was the legend Moët et Chandon à Épernay — Fondée en 1745 . Beneath it, Champagne — Cuvée Dom Perignon — Vintage 1990 . Beneath that was a five-pointed star, and the alcoholic content. 12.5 % VOL. At the very foot of the label, Enzo’s glass magnified 75cl and Brut . He hissed his exasperation.

‘Well? What revelations on the label?’

Enzo flicked a look of annoyance over the top of his magnifying glass, and then peered through it again. ‘Wait a minute. There’s something written around the edge of it.’ He read out, ‘ Élaboré par Moët & Chandon à Épernay, France — Muselet ÉPARNIX .’

‘Illuminating.’

Enzo turned the bottle around to look at the label on the back. There was nothing but the Cuvée Dom Perignon logo, a couple of recycling symbols, and a bar code. He banged the bottle down on the table. ‘ Putain !’ A complete waste of money.

‘Papa!’ Sophie was mock shocked. ‘That’s terrible language.’

Enzo picked up his satchel and his jacket. ‘I’m going to get drunk.’

He hadn’t really meant to get drunk. It had been more an expression of his disgust than a statement of intent. But after a pizza at the Lampara, he had fallen into bad company at the Forum, and his words had taken on more prescience than he intended. It was one in the morning by the time he made his way unsteadily back to the apartment. His meal and a night’s drinking had cost a fraction of what he’d wasted on the bottle of Moët et Chandon. But that was of little comfort.

The apartment was in darkness when he opened the door into the hall, confident that tonight he would not trip over Bertrand’s metal detector. He did, however, manage to stumble over a pile of books in the séjour and almost went sprawling. He banged into the table and knocked over his bottle of Dom Perignon. It rolled away across the tabletop with a strangely hollow ring. He grabbed the bottle, and although the glass was heavy, it was not as heavy as it should have been. He carried it across the room and switched on the light. The foil wrapping had been torn off, the wire cage unwound and the cork removed. The bottle was empty. Enzo stared at it in disbelief. He looked across the room and saw the discarded cage and cork on the table, and two empty glasses. Anger fizzed up inside him. ‘Sophie!’ His voice resounded through the silence of the apartment. He stood breathing hard, listening for a response. But there was none. Perhaps she was still out. ‘Sophie!’ He stamped through the hall and threw open her bedroom door. Moonlight spilled through the window across the bed, and two frightened faces peered back at him from beneath the sheets. A night’s drinking at Le Forum left him momentarily confused, and briefly he thought he was seeing double. Until a diamond nose-stud twinkled in the moonlight. ‘Bertrand!’ The boy was in bed with his daughter. In his own house. He couldn’t believe it. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he spluttered.