A Good Year

“Oh- Shanghai, Lima, Saudi Arabia, all over the place. My father was a kind of minor diplomat. Every four years he’d be sent somewhere they didn’t play cricket and where it was considered generally unsuitable for little English schoolboys.”

Evening had given way to night, and the terrace was lit only by the flicker of candles on each table and the line of colored bulbs that had been strung along the front of the restaurant. Most people had finished eating, and were sitting over coffee, smoking, chatting quietly, and listening to the Edith Piaf album that Fanny had put on-hymns to heartbreak, a sob in every song.

Max could see that Christie was getting drowsy, ducking her head as she tried to stifle a yawn. The wine, the food, and her long day were catching up with her, and he signaled for the check, which Fanny brought over with a glass of Calvados.

She pulled up a chair and sat down. “Your petite amie,” she said, nodding at Christie, who seemed to be two seconds away from sleep. “I think you’ve worn her out.” Fanny’s expression was amused and curious, her eyes almost as black as her hair in the glow of candlelight.

Max tasted the Calvados, like apples on fire, and shook his head. First Madame Passepartout, now Fanny, both leaping to the same conclusion. Perhaps he should feel flattered. “It’s not like that,” he said. “She’s come all the way from California. Long flight.”

Fanny smiled, and leaned across to ruffle Max’s hair. “Better luck tomorrow then, hein?” Her hand dropped to his shoulder and rested there, warm and light. Without thinking, he ran his fingertips along the inside of her bare, caramel-colored arm, tracing the fine line of the vein that led from wrist to elbow. Their heads were close enough for him to feel her breath on his cheek.

“Am I interrupting something?” Christie had roused herself, and was watching them with half-open eyes.

Max cleared his throat and sat back. “Just paying the check.”

Driving back to the house, Max could still feel the touch of Fanny’s skin, as if his fingers had their own memory. Christie yawned again. “Sorry I pooped out. But thanks a lot. It was a nice evening. And you were right about the rabbit.” Max smiled in the darkness. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

Although neither of them knew it at the time, this was the high point of their relationship for several days to come.

The enforced proximity of two strangers is frequently awkward, because having a guest in your life demands a certain consideration that may not come naturally. And sometimes, if old habits are sufficiently entrenched, it may not come at all. That is how it was between Christie and Max.

By its nature, it was a strange and slightly uneasy arrangement for both of them, and one that wasn’t helped by what Christie later described as a clash of lifestyles. Max was an early riser; Christie liked to sleep in. She would come down to the kitchen to find that Max had eaten the last of the croissants and finished off the orange juice. Christie was tidy by nature; Max was not. He liked Mozart; she preferred Springsteen. Neither one of them could cook, a daily problem. Christie found Madame Passepartout nosy and intrusive; Max considered her a jewel beyond price.

There were also the minor inconveniences common to many old houses in rural France: the erratic water supply, by turns scalding, freezing, or almost nonexistent; the unpredictable quirks of electricity that falters and dims and, for no apparent reason, extinguishes itself; the racket of a tractor under the bedroom window at six a.m.; the odd taste of the milk; invasion by insects-all of these quickly began to chafe at the nerves of a girl used to the comfort and efficiency of life in the more modern, cushioned, and opulent surroundings of the Napa Valley. And then there were the French: formal one minute, familiar the next, talking like machine guns, obsessed with their stomachs, perfumed with garlic, and, in Christie’s opinion, suffering from a permanent attack of arrogance.

Max found himself taking a perverse pleasure in disagreeing with her, defending France and the French, occasionally fanning the flames of argument with mild criticisms of America. These were never well received. Although Christie was too intelligent to swallow the doctrine of “either for us or against us,” she was puzzled and sometimes angered by what she thought of as the Europeans’ tendency to bite the hand that had fed them so generously after World War Two. And she was angered still further when Max, talking about the shelf life of gratitude, reminded her of Lafayette, and America ’s debt to the French. And so the atmosphere in the house became increasingly strained. Madame Passepartout sensed the tension, and even she was uncharacteristically subdued. It was inevitable that the constant bickering would have to come to a head.

It started in public. Driven by hunger, Christie and Max had declared a hostile truce and were having dinner in the village. Fanny, it has to be said, behaved in a way that did nothing to improve a delicate situation, fussing over Max while ignoring Christie, who watched with an ever more baleful eye. The final straw came with the arrival of dessert.

Christie speared her poached pear with a murderous jab of her fork. “Does she have to give you a massage every time she comes to the table?”

“Just being friendly.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Listen, that’s the way she is. You don’t have to watch.”

“Fine.” Christie pushed back her chair and stood up. “Then I won’t.” And she marched off into the night, her back stiff with anger.

Max caught up with her a few minutes later on the road outside the village. Slowing the car down to walking speed, he leaned over and opened the passenger door. Christie ignored him, looking straight ahead as she quickened her pace. After a hundred yards of crawling along beside her, Max gave up, slammed the door shut, and accelerated.

Back at the house, he tossed the car keys onto the kitchen table and searched for something to take the edge off his temper. Roussel’s evil-tasting marc matched his mood, and he was on his second glass by the time Christie came through the door.

He looked up at her set face, hesitated, and should have thought better of it. But in his irritation he said it anyway. “Nice walk?”

Those two words opened a floodgate. Christie’s complaints, after a passing swipe at Fanny, moved on to the real focus of her dissatisfaction: Max, or rather, his attitude-unsympathetic, self-centered, smug, a twisted sense of humor. Typically English. She paced back and forth in front of the stove, glaring at him while she waited for him to erupt, or at least react. But he had already wrapped himself inside that cocoon of chilly condescension which the Englishman will often assume in the face of emotional outbursts, particularly those coming from women and foreigners. Nothing could have been more infuriating to a girl spoiling for a fight.

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Max said, “however offensively you express it.” He pointed to the bottle on the table. “Care for a drink?”

No, she wouldn’t care for a goddamn drink. But she would care for the basic consideration that should be given to someone in her position-someone far away from home, not speaking the language, surrounded by strangers, living with a stranger.

Max swirled the last mouthful of oily liquid around in his glass before tossing it back with a shudder and getting to his feet. “I’m off to bed,” he said. “Why don’t you grow up? I didn’t ask you to come.”

He never made it to the kitchen door. Christie snapped, seized the nearest weapon to hand, and let fly. It was unfortunate that the weapon was a six-inch cast-iron skillet, even more unfortunate that her aim was true. The skillet caught Max full on the temple. There was an explosion in his head, a burst of pain, then blackness. His legs buckled and he collapsed, unconscious, on the floor.

Christie stood in shock, looking down at the prone figure. Blood was beginning to seep from Max’s head, leaving a thin red line as it dribbled down the side of his face. He made no sound, and lay still; ominously still.

Remorse and panic took over. Christie got down on the floor and cradled Max’s head in her lap while she tried to stop the flow of blood with a wad of paper towel torn from a kitchen roll. She felt his neck and thought she detected his pulse, a moment of relief quickly canceled out by thoughts of possible consequences: trauma, brain damage, multimillion-dollar lawsuits, arrest for causing grievous bodily harm, years spent rotting in