A Good Year

surroundings.

He was turning to go back to the house when he felt the electronic tickle of his phone vibrating in his pocket. He took the call sitting on top of the wall, the heat from the stone coming up through the cotton of his shorts.

“What’s the weather like down there?” There was a wistful tone to Charlie’s voice as he asked the question that so often begins a conversation between someone in the north and someone in the south.

“Oh, the normal. I was going to send you a postcard. You know, the old chestnut: ‘The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.’ Let’s see. It’s about eighty-five and sunny. How is it in London?”

“Don’t ask me. I think I’m getting webbed feet. Listen, I think I’ll be able to slope off for a day or two at the end of the month. There’s an international real estate symposium in Monte Carlo on the future of luxury properties.” There was a dismissive snort from Charlie. “A bunch of wide boys seeing what they can unload on the Russians, I expect. Anyway, I’ve been delegated to represent Bingham & Trout, and I thought I could drive over afterwards and take a look at the chateau.”

“Great, Charlie. That’s terrific. You’ll love it here. I’ll alert the staff.”

“You do that. What’s happening with the grapes? Any joy on the wine doctor?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m seeing someone on Sunday who has contacts in the business. Could be promising.”

“Hmm. What are you up to today?”

“Well, I’m in the vines at the moment, getting to know the grapes. Then I’ve got some tidying up to do in the courtyard. And then I’ll probably go down to the village for lunch. Not exactly hectic.”

“Max?” Charlie’s voice sounded almost serious. “Tell me the worst. Is it really wonderful down there?”

Max looked across the vines toward the Luberon and the great sweep of blue sky, and thought of life without suits or meetings or office politics, without traffic jams or polluted air. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

“Lucky bastard.”

Max spent the rest of the morning starting to sort through the contents of the barns, clearing a blocked drain in the stone bassin, making a list of supplies that he was going to need to restore the courtyard to its previous respectability: weed killer, a truckload of the fine gravel that he remembered were called grains de riz, pruning shears, a rake. He’d never had a house before, let alone a large country house, and he found himself enjoying the simple, unfamiliar chores. His hands, now smelling of ancient pond life, were filthy from clearing the drain and beginning to blister from dragging fallen branches into the barn for firewood. He added a saw to his list.

“Peuchere! How can you support the sun without a hat?” asked Madame Passepartout as she emerged from the kitchen, finger wagging. “Do you want grilled brains?”

For the second time that morning, he felt like a guilty schoolboy. He added a hat to his list.

It was noon, and Madame Passepartout was leaving for lunch. But before she left, Max was summoned to come inside and inspect the results of her efforts. He made admiring and grateful noises as he was shown the gleaming stove, the burnished copper saucepans, the scrubbed and spotless stone floor. It was, as far as he could see, a total transformation.

“You’ve done a huge amount in one morning,” he said. “It’s brilliant.”

Madame Passepartout allowed herself to preen for a moment before modesty took over. “Bof. It’s a start. At least you could eat in here without poisoning yourself.” She gave him a sideways look, stern and accusing. “That is, if you had any food. There is not enough here to feed a rat. A crust of bread, and that’s stale. What are you going to do about lunch?”

“Oh, I thought I’d go to the cafe in the village. Steak frites, something like that.”

Again the warning finger. “Attention. The steak is announced as beef, but it is not. It is horse. You are better with the omelette.” With that, and a promise to be back in the afternoon, Madame Passepartout drove off.

Max cleaned himself up, left the front-door key under a pot of geraniums in the courtyard, and drove down to the village. En route, thoughts of a cafe omelette gave way to a desire for something a little more substantial-he was finding that Provence made him permanently hungry-and he decided to eat at Fanny’s.

But it was not to be. Fanny was desolee, desolee, squeezing his arm and gazing into his eyes to emphasize her regret, but it was Saturday, and, as so often at this time of year, the entire restaurant had been booked by a wedding party. Max took his disappointment to the cafe.

As it turned out, the omelette was excellent, plump and runny, the salad fresh and well dressed, and the pichet of pink wine cool and crisp. From his seat outside the cafe, Max had a clear view of the celebration that was taking place across the square.

The provincial French at play are often a surprise to visitors who have been brought up with the myth that Parisians, with their reserve and their chilly good manners, are representative of the way the rest of France behaves. The crowd on Fanny’s terrace was mostly young, with a scattering of children and older adults-all of them, from the sound of it, well supplied with wine. Bursts of laughter came rolling across the square, as did fragments of speeches, complete with interruptions and applause, and a quavering rendition of “ La Vie en Rose.” This started as a solo by an elderly man, standing with one hand on the shoulder of the bride and the other conducting the other guests, as they joined in, with a glass of champagne.

Max sat over an espresso and a Calvados, a sense of well-being spreading through him like a soothing drug. He hadn’t yet had a chance to feel lonely; that would probably come in time. But for the moment, with the sun high in a blue sky, a full stomach, and the thought of tomorrow’s excursion with Nathalie Auzet, he was at peace with the world. He tilted his face up to the sun, closed his eyes against the glare, and gave in to the impulse to doze.

He was shocked into consciousness by a pandemonium of car horns. The square had filled up with cars, each decorated for the occasion, according to tradition. Strips of chiffon, white, blue, or pink, were tied to radio antennae, wing mirrors, or, in one case, the driver’s sunglasses, and the obligatory sound effects had turned the peace of the afternoon into bedlam. After a triumphal tour of the square, the blaring cavalcade swept off for what promised to be an ear-splitting start to the honeymoon.

Max rubbed his eyes, and felt a slight tenderness on his eyelids where they had caught the sun. Silence and emptiness were returning to the square as the village closed its shutters and prepared to take its siesta.

When he got back to the house, it was to find that Madame Passepartout and her vacuum cleaner were in full cry. He left her to it and spent the rest of the afternoon in the barns, trying to restore a semblance of order to the chaos of fertilizer sacks, oil drums, and old tractor tires that littered the beaten mud floor. It was heavy, dirty work, and by seven o’clock he was more tired than he’d been in years, his muscles aching pleasantly from the exercise. He took a glass of wine and sat on the parapet of the bassin, watching the sun dip slowly toward the western horizon as it turned the sky into a lurid bonfire of pink and lavender.

Too weary even to consider eating, he took a long hot bath, and then dropped almost instantly into the welcome oblivion of sleep.

Eight

Sunday morning felt different from weekday mornings; even quieter than normal, as though