Martin Walker - The dark vineyard

“You know, you had me worried for a while, when you went off to the lycee,” said Stephane. “I thought you and Max were getting far too serious for your age.”

She smiled, fondly putting a hand on his knee. “It was never like that with Max. He was much more like a brother.”

“So you didn’t mind when Max took up with Jacqueline?” Bruno asked.

“Not like you think. But I can’t say I was happy about it. She was cruel to him, dating that other guy, the American. Max used to confide in me, and I didn’t like what I heard.”

“She seems to be over it now,” Pamela said in a low voice, gesturing to the dome, where Jacqueline was laughing at her table. “But maybe she still is upset. She’s been throwing herself into her work. I took her some coffee earlier today and she was upstairs asleep, but the table was full of work, all her wine books and thick files about vineyards and companies. She has heaps of stuff on that Bondino group, the one with the young American. Since she wants to be in the wine business, I’m surprised she dropped him.”

Bruno looked sharply at Pamela. “When you say she has lots of stuff on the Bondinos, what do you mean?”

“Well, I didn’t really look, but she has annual reports, files of press clippings, lots of loose photos of the family. There were a couple of really thick files as well as the one that was open. I suppose she got it all from the Internet, doing some research when she started dating him.”

“Is that something you ever did, research someone you were seeing?”

“That was before the age of Google,” she said, smiling. “But yes, you ask around, ask your friends, try to find out something about someone who could be important to you. It’s human nature.”

“What you describe sounds like a lot more than that. Family photos, thick files.”

“Yes, I was surprised. It struck me as being like a special research project. They were real photos, glossy prints rather than computer printouts. And there were not just portraits but group shots, like snaps from a family album, some quite old, from what looked like the thirties and forties. But I think you can get real photos made from computer images these days.”

Bruno nodded. It was more than strange for Jacqueline to go to that much trouble for a guy she’d dated briefly and then dropped. But he was rich. Perhaps that was it. Despite her affair with Max, maybe she was thinking of Bondino and his money. Or perhaps she was hoping to make her career in the Bondino firm. That would make sense. But her having all these photos suggested something different, something more personal than just researching a company for a possible job. Even beyond her manipulative ways there was something about Jacqueline that troubled him. He’d have to question her again, maybe get a look at those files.

Dominique was collecting the used paper plates and throwing them into a big black plastic bag. Stephane hauled Pamela to her feet and back to the dance floor, where the music was now Beach Boys surfing songs. Alphonse’s collection seemed to have stopped growing at about the time he started the commune. Dominique gave her hand to Bruno and they went off to join the dancers.

“Max would have loved this,” said Dominique. “It’s just his kind of party.”

The music changed to Francoise Hardy, “Tous les Garcons et les Filles,” and as Alphonse cut in to dance with Dominique, Bruno found Pamela and took her in his arms.

“This is rather more my kind of music,” Pamela said. “I never really enjoyed the bouncy stuff.”

“Just wait,” he said. “I know Alphonse’s music. Next it will be Jean Trenet from the 1940s and then some slow numbers from Juliette Greco and Yves Montand.”

“Better still,” she said, and spun away, still holding his hand, to turn a stately pirouette before coming back into his arms. In the firelight, with her fine skin and clear complexion, she looked impossibly young, and Bruno felt the supple play of a horsewoman’s lithe muscles under the light touch of his hands.

“I never thought of you as a dancer, with all that energetic rugby and tennis,” she said.

She was smiling, her eyes fixed on his. She moved in toward him, her cheek close to his. He shifted his head a fraction to nestle his cheek against hers, and he felt the slightest tremble under his hands. Yves Montand was singing “Feuilles Mortes.” Bruno heard Pamela singing along quietly in English, “The autumn leaves caress my windowpane…” She had a sweet voice, soft and low.

“Did you mean to kiss me, the night after your dinner?” she asked, almost whispering.

“I didn’t mean to,” he answered quickly, almost despite himself. He had to tell the truth. “But then I wanted to, very much. It seemed to come from nowhere.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “It seemed that way to me as well. Then I felt sorry that we stopped.”

He bent his head and kissed her neck, and felt her hands tighten on his back.

“I thought about it all the way back to town,” he said. “And then Bondino took over.”

“Ah, yes, Bondino and Jacqueline. And poor Max. What a mess that girl has made.” She paused, and they swayed together to the music, oblivious to the other dancers. “Do you think we get any more sensible about love as we get older?”

“Not more sensible, no. But it’s more quiet, more subtle, stronger. It loses none of its power,” he said. “Maybe we grow more cautious, because we know what it is to be hurt.”

“Is that what it is?” she whispered. He felt her lips brush his cheek and her fingers play gently with the curls at the nape of his neck. “Or do we just think about it and talk about it more?”

“I think about it far too much,” he said, and kissed her. This time neither of them turned away as the firelight slowly died and the stars became brilliant above.

Because he had been a soldier, Cresseil deserved military honors. Between his paperwork and phone calls, Bruno had spent the morning making the arrangements. Now as the mairie clock chimed the last quarter before three, he went down to the basement and brought out the flags and the ROUTE BARREE signs for the small procession from the church to the war memorial, then to Cresseil’s final resting place beside his wife in the town cemetery.

The church was almost full when Bruno slipped in through the side door. Raoul, who worked part-time as a pallbearer when he wasn’t selling his wines in the market, was taking a final smoke with the other men in black ties from the funeral parlor. The coffin stood on trestles before the altar, on a stool beside it a cushion that bore the campaign and Resistance medals Bruno had found in Cresseil’s house. The mayor and Xavier with their wives were in the front row with the baron, and behind them was a group of strangers who were the cousins. Bruno nodded at Alphonse.

The organ was playing some doleful music that Bruno learned from the program was a choral prelude by Bach. He scanned the crowd for Pamela. After the previous evening’s embrace, she had left him with a lingering kiss and a look of promise in her eyes as she left the wake with Fabiola and Jacqueline. He felt a surge of excitement as he spotted her, her face half shrouded by the dark shawl that covered her head. Jacqueline sat beside her, her head uncovered. As he studied them, the distinction was sharp between the mature and lovely woman and the more conventionally pretty girl. Sensing his gaze, Pamela turned and caught his eye. She smiled and raised a discreet eyebrow, as if to ask how their relationship would now unfold. He nodded to her in return.

Father Sentout, resplendent in full robes, came from the vestry to shake hands with the mayor and Cresseil’s cousins before standing at the head of the coffin and beginning the service. Bruno slipped out again to ensure that Jean-Pierre, Bachelot and Marie-Louise, each almost as old as the man they were burying, were ready with their flags. The small honor guard from the gendarmes was lined up with the school band for the short march to the war memorial.