Blackberry Wine

blackthorn hedge, along which a path ran parallel to the boundary. The hedge was young, three or four years at the most, the new March growth barely sufficient to form a screen. Behind it he could see the broken line where the old hedge had been, an uneven row of stumps and tussocks imperfectly hidden by a new furrow. Mentally Jay calculated the distance. Clairmont had been right. She had moved the boundary by about fifty feet. Probably when the old man first fell ill. He looked more closely through the hedge, faintly curious. The contrast between her side and his was striking. On the Foudouin side the vines were sprawling and untrimmed, their new growth barely showing, except for a few hard brown buds on the ends of the tendrils. Hers had been cut back hard, twelve inches from the ground, in readiness for the summer. There were no weeds on Marise’s side of the hedge; the furrows neat and clean-edged, a path running along each row wide enough to allow easy passage for the tractor. On Jay’s side the rows had run into each other, the uncut vines clinging lasciviously to one another across the paths. Gleeful spikes of ragwort, mint and arnica poked through the tangle. Looking back towards Marise’s land, he found that he could just see the gable-end of her farm at the edge of the field, screened from full view by a stand of poplars. There were fruit trees there, too – the white of apple blossom against bare branches – and what might be a vegetable garden. A woodpile, a tractor, something else which could only be the barn.

She must have heard the shot from the house. She had put the baby in the crib. Gone out. Taken her time. The image was so vivid that Jay could almost see her doing it: pulling on her boots over thick socks, the oversized jacket around her shoulders – it was winter – the frosty soil crunching under her feet. Her face was impassive, as it had been when they met that first morning. The image haunted him. In this guise Marise had already walked more than once across the pages of his new book; he felt as if he knew her, and yet they had barely spoken. But there was something in her which drew him, an irresistible air of secrecy. He wasn’t sure why she made him think of Joe. That coat, perhaps, or the man’s cap jammed too far over her eyes, that confusing half-familiar silhouette just glimpsed behind an angle of brick. Certainly there was no resemblance to Joe in her features. Joe could never have had that bleak, empty face. Half turning to go, Jay caught sight of something – a figure moving quickly along the other side of the hedge a few hundred yards from where he was standing. Shielded by the thin screen of bushes, he saw her before she caught sight of him. It was a warm morning and she had shed her bulky outer clothes in favour of jeans and a striped fisherman’s jumper. The change of clothing made her boyishly slender. Her red hair had been cut off inexpertly at jaw level – Jay guessed she’d probably done it herself. In that unguarded moment her face was vivid, eager. For a moment Jay barely recognized her.

Then her eyes flicked towards him, and it was as if a blind had been slammed down, so fast that he was left wondering if he had only imagined her before.

‘Madame-’

For a second she halted, looked at him with a blankness which was almost insolent. Her eyes were green, a curiously light verdigris colour. In his book he’d coloured them black. Jay smiled and reached out his hand over the hedge in greeting.

‘Madame d’Api. I’m sorry if I startled you. I’m-’

But before he could say anything else she had gone, turning sharply into the rows of vines without a backward glance, moving smoothly and quickly down the path towards the farmhouse.

‘Madame d’Api!’ he called after her. ‘Madame!’

She must have heard, and yet she ignored his call. He watched her for a few minutes more as she moved further and further away, then, shrugging, turned towards the house. He told himself that his disappointment was absurd. There was no reason why she should want to talk to him. He was allowing his imagination too much freedom. In the bland light of day she was nothing like the slate-eyed heroine of his story. He resolved not to think of her again.

When Jay got home, Clairmont was waiting for him with a truckload of junk. He winked as Jay turned into the drive, pushing his blue beret back from his eyes.

‘Hola, Monsieur Jay,’ he called from the cab of his truck. ‘I’ve found you some things for your new house!’

Jay sighed. His instincts had been right. Every few weeks he would be badgered to take off Clairmont’s hands a quantity of overpriced brocante masquerading as country chic. From what he could see of the truck’s contents – broken chairs, sweeping brushes, half-stripped doors, a really hideous papier-mache dragon head left over from some carnival or other – his suspicions hardly began to cover the dreadful reality.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ he began.

Clairmont grinned.

‘You’ll see. You’ll love this,’ he announced, jumping down from his cab. As he did, Jay saw he was carrying a bottle of wine. ‘Something to put you in the mood, heh? Then we can talk business.’

There was no escaping the man’s persistence. Jay wanted a bath and silence. Instead there would be an hour’s haggling in the kitchen, wine he didn’t want to drink, then the problem of how to dispose of Clairmont’s objets d’art without hurting his feelings. He resigned himself.

‘To business,’ said Clairmont, pouring two glasses of wine. ‘Mine and yours.’ He grinned. ‘I’m going into antiques, heh? There’s good money in antiques in Le Pinot and Montauban. Buy cheap now, clean up when the tourists come.’

Jay tried the wine, which was good.

‘You could build twenty holiday chalets on that vineyard of yours,’ continued Clairmont cheerily. ‘Or a hotel. How’d you like the idea of your own hotel, heh?’

Jay shook his head.

‘I like it the way it is,’ he said.

Clairmont sighed.

‘You and La Paienne d’Api,’ he sighed. ‘Got no vision, either of you. That land’s worth a fortune in the right hands. Crazy, to keep it as it is when just a few chalets could-’

Jay struggled with the word and his accent.

‘La Paienne? The godless woman?’ he translated hesitantly.

Clairmont jerked his head in the direction of the other farm.

‘Marise as was. We used to call her La Parisienne. But the other suits her better, heh? Never goes to church. Never had the baby christened. Never talks. Never smiles. Hangs on to that land out of sheer stubborn spite, when anyone else…’ He shrugged. ‘Bof. It’s none of my business, heh? But I’d keep the doors locked if I were you, Monsieur Jay. She’s crazy. She’s had her eye on that land for years. She’d do you an injury if she could.’

Jay frowned, remembering the fox traps around the house.

‘Nearly broke Mireille’s nose once,’ continued Clairmont. ‘Just because she went near the little girl. Never came into the village again after that. Goes into La Percherie on her motorbike. Seen her going into Agen, too.’

‘Who looks after the daughter?’ enquired Jay.

Clairmont shrugged.

‘No-one. I expect she just leaves her.’

‘I’m surprised the social services haven’t-’

‘Bof. In Lansquenet? They’d have to come all the way over from Agen or Montauban, maybe even Toulouse. Who’d bother? Mireille tried. More than once. But she’s clever. Put them off the scent. Mireille would have adopted the child if she’d been allowed. She’s got the money. The family would have stood by her. But at her age, and with a deaf child on top of that, I suppose they thought-’

Jay stared at him. ‘A deaf child?’

Clairmont looked surprised.

‘Oh yes. Didn’t you know? Ever since she was tiny. She’s supposed to know how to look after her.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s what keeps her here, heh? That’s why she can’t go back to Paris.’

‘Why?’ asked Jay curiously.

‘Money,’ said Clairmont shortly, draining his glass.

‘But the farm must be worth something.’

‘Oh, it is,’ said Clairmont. ‘But she doesn’t own it. Why do you think she was so anxious to get the Foudouin place? It’s on a lease. She’ll be out the day it expires – unless she can get it renewed. And there isn’t much chance of that after what’s happened.’

‘Why? Who owns the lease?’