Sounds - a short love story.

The sound reached her over the babble of voices and the background drone of traffic.

Funny, isn't it?  The way certain sounds can bring back poignant memories ... in just a split second, something buried deep in one's mind, springs forth vividly, triggered by a sound ... The way, even years later, we can recognize somebody's voice?  Even though we haven't seen them, and barely even thought of them for several years, their voice is unique.

She'd have known his anywhere.

Hers was not a love story with a dramatic start, nor a dramatic ending.  There was not a eureka moment, no crash of thunder, nothing of any note to it really.  Not really.  Hers was an ordinary love story, without guile or guilt.  Oh, there was passion - of course! - and there were tears - that was inevitable.  But it wasn't a story you'd think you could tell, nor one you'd think would stay in anybody's mind, let alone hers.

She barely reacted when she heard his voice.  But she knew it instantly.  She didn't raise her head.  She didn't glance round.  And if she had done so, it would have been out of simple curiosity.  What does he look like now, that man ?  Would he know me ?  Would he care ?  And anyway, what do I care ?  What do I care ?

She bent her head down to her son's shoe and tried to be interested.  He was past the age when she could choose for him.  In fact, he wasn't even interested in her opinion, in typical teenage fashion, as though she was some ancient creature from a different world who knew nothing.

Funny how they all go through that phase, isn't it?

"Ready, Ben ?" she asked.

She went over to the till and paid and, as she turned, she permitted herself a glance at the man.  She was conscious that her heart missed a beat, just momentarily.  There was the slightest hint of a tightening in her throat.  Well, she hadn't expected him to have not changed at all, she comforted herself.  Of course it was a bit of a shock.  Rick - that same thick brown hair that tumbled lazily over his forehead.  She could even see those piercingly blue eyes.  Not tall, but undeniably good-looking, he had not changed one iota.  As though he somehow made time stand still.  She could ... just for a split second ... recall his body odour, feel the warmth of him.  She recognized that posture he always adopted when standing still, one hand in his pocket, more weight on one leg than the other.  He was looking down at a small boy of about three or four.

The child, struggling with a sock, looked up and Rick then crouched down to help.  He was saying something about socks and toes, and she heard the child call him daddy.

Ben had sat down again and was replacing his old shoes with the new ones, grubby socked feet up on the bench.

"Thanks mum, these are great!" he exclaimed.

"That's OK, Ben," she replied, perhaps slightly loudly, "they look good.  Sure you want to put them on now?"

But Rick didn't react.  No, he wouldn't, would he ?  Although she would always remember him, he probably didn't remember her at all.  She calculated.  Do you know, that is twelve years ago now ?!

That was him through and through, wasn't it ?  It wasn't that he was selfish, it was more that  he just didn't register things.  He made decisions and acted on those decisions. He had forgotten her very quickly, and that was that.

She had been one of his decisions.  So had Ben.

Ben was two at the time.  The first time she saw Rick one frozen January day by the pier in Brighton.  The wind whipped in over the Channel and it was not pleasant to be out.  The sun was hidden behind thick rainless cloud, and had been for several days, and huge seagulls dipped and cried on the air streams.  For a long time afterwards she hated the sound of seagulls.  Some men were working on a steel structure of some kind just off the beach, and she stopped, thinking it might entertain Ben.  But the child was not interested and sat woodenly in his buggy, thoroughly huddled and almost immobile in anorak with yellow lambs, and several wooly things.  I'll get him home, it's too cold, she thought, and she swung the buggy round.

She didn't see the man, or him her.  Head down against the cold, the man was dashing by.  She was never certain whether he tripped over the edge of the buggy or whether she ran the buggy in to his legs ... but the buggy tipped over and the man went with it.  Later he told friends he was spread-eagled like a human sacrifice - splat! - on the pavement, but that wasn't true.  He sort-of stumbled, could have fallen, righted himself and instantly bent to right the buggy.

"You idiot!" she screeched, checking Ben for injury, worriedly looking in to the bewildered little face, "why don't you look where you are going?!!"

"I'm sorry," replied the man, "but I don't think he is hurt.  I am so sorry about that."

She saw that he held Ben's hat in his hand and she snatched it away from him and pulled it back over Ben's ears.   She calmed herself.

"Sorry," she said, "I am sorry too.  I didn't mean to yell.  I was frightened, that's all."

That was all.  There was no thunderbolt.  He apologized again and they went their separate ways.

It may have been that he had followed her.  He always denied it emphatically.  Said it was coincidence.  But such a coincidence in a city like Brighton didn't seem plausible.  But it may have been coincidence.  Who could say ?

He was standing outside her block of flats, just behind The Lanes, leaning against the door frame and reading The Times.  It was about three days later.

Their love affair was ... well, just like a love affair.  Sometimes intense and passionate, but also about getting to work on time and getting some food in.  There was Ben to take to the childminder and the dustbins to put out.  Life, with love or without it, goes on.

And she was so in love.  Total and complete love.  I love you, I love you, I love you she told him.  And he laughed and kissed the end of her nose, her nipples, her feet.  He never told her he loved her but he didn't have to - it was written all over his face.

He was remarkably good with Ben.  Said he liked kiddies.  He had a car seat installed in the back of his car and, as his flat was considerably larger, bought a rocking horse and rigged up a small bed that could be folded away.   Once she asked him if he already had a child, for he seemed such a natural - would even absently jiggle the buggy if Ben was fractious, or pick up a dropped toy.

Winter limped greyly in to spring.  The huge waves that had crashed icily on the Brighton pebbles calmed a little and scudding clouds heralded the approach of warmer days.  There was a faint smell of grass in the air and the purple shadows of winter faded in to blue.   Together they attached window boxes to the balcony windows of both their flats and planted primroses and violets.  They hung up bird feeders and Rick tried - oh, totally unsuccesfully! - to take photos of the wrens and tits as they hovered to peck out the seeds.  Starlings built their nests under the eaves of Rick's building and made such a lot of noise once the eggs were hatched.  Such a lot of noise.  That was another sound that stayed with her for a long time.

Occasionally his work took him away for a few days.  He was in banking - something complicated no doubt.  She worked in a clothes' shop.  Sometimes she feared she seemed a little daft by comparison, but if it was so he didn't show it.

"Shall we go to Corfu?" he asked suddenly one evening.

"Corfu?" she asked, "how d'you mean shall we go?"

"A holiday?"

"Oh!" she laughed, "I can't possibly afford it!"

"Well, I can," he said, and she realized then that he had already booked it.

Lovely surprise jarred against irritation at not even being consulted.  Surprise won.

Ben loved the beach.  They spent evenings on their hotel balcony, often having food delivered to the room so that Ben could sleep safely.  They strolled through the little streets.  They held hands, kissed, made love.  He bought her way too many presents.  He bought Ben way too many presents.  He was fun, laughing, indulgent.

Happiness is so huge when you are happy.  It is wide.  It covers the sky.  It encompasses you.

She told her parents about him.  She told everybody about him.

"Is he Mr Right?" asked her mother, delightfully old-fashioned.

"Yes, he is.  He is The One.  We get along brilliantly and he adores Ben.  He hasn't said anything ... I think he just assumes that we are together now and that one day we'll move in together, get a bigger place ... We just haven't started talking about it."

"It must be getting on for a year now?" her mother then said.  "Early days still!"

Summer faded off in to the faraway places and leaves trembled and started to fall.  The warmth in the sun decreased and a thin wind scuttled through The Lanes, bringing with it chilly mornings and darker evenings.   They spent more and more time together in his flat where there was an open fire.  Cosy evenings with wine and nuts and a good movie while the toddler slept.  The Christmas lights came on in the streets, and dipped and twinkled against the dark sky.  They got a tree and decorated it together.  They all went to her parents' house in Hove for Christmas lunch.  On Boxing Day they lolled by the fire in his flat.

"I'm being transferred to Tokyo," he said suddenly one evening.

It was just over a year since the buggy incident.  Rain beat against the window panes of her flat - they were in her flat.  They had popped into fetch spare clothes for Ben.  She didn't understand.  Was this another holiday coming up ?

"Tokyo?" she asked.  Sounded interesting!

"Yep, it's a great opportunity!" he grinned.

"Yes, sounds it!  Tell me more!"  Even then she didn't twig.  Well, why would she ?

"I've been waiting some time for a transfer to somewhere exciting.  They proposed Brussels to me a few months ago but I turned it down.  Pay was no better and the transfer not for another year anyway."

You know how you can think whole paragraphs in a split second ?  The way you can recall twenty conversations and forty scenarios in the blink of an eye ?  Various scenes and possibilites fled through her mind as she tried to assess what he was saying.  She needed to pack things, sell things - when were they off?  She couldn't handle this so suddenly ...  Then she looked at him.

"You mean you are going to work in Tokyo?" she asked quietly.

"Yep!"  he was pleased.

"When?"

"Within the month!"

It didn't seem to occur to him that perhaps she wasn't pleased.  But it occurred to her, with a dry creeping sensation, that she wasn't included in his plans.

"Rick," she said, "tell me this is a joke."

"A joke?  No.  Why a joke?"  A look of mild irritation crossed his face fleetingly.

"Where do I fit in to this?" she asked quietly, "where does Ben fit in?"

They stared at each other in silence.

"I'm sorry ..." he said at length, "I am ... truly ..."

"I thought we meant something to you, me and Ben?"

"You do!  Of course you do!  I shall never forget you ..."

The sound of the silence in the room.  Full, heavy silence.  The sound of the rain against the window.  Somewhere a car hooted out in the street and a man called out after a dog.  And the silence.

"Of course you've meant something to me ... you've meant a lot ... and it has been great. Really."

More silence.

"It's just that I am going to Tokyo.  That is all."

And that was all.

She had cried for months.

She looked over to where he was with his little boy.  They seemed to have chosen a pair of trainers and were heading for the till.  She didn't turn around but got out her mobile phone.  From the periphery of her vision she could see him stop suddenly as he recognized her.  He stepped forwards towards her, his arm rising to shake hands.  She allowed her eyes to glide over him as she raised the phone to her ear and simultaneously nodded to Ben to head for the door.  Rick's eyes were fixed to her.  She looked straight through him as she said something in to the phone, and then let her eyes glide off to something beyond him.  She saw him hesitate as he realized she hadn't recognized him.  He turned away.

Out on the street the sounds of the day filled her.  Cars, buses, people, seagulls.  She walked briskly as Ben got out his MP3, up the street to Costa's where Phil and Daisy were waiting.  Oddly enough, Daisy was wearing that same old anorak with the yellow lambs.

The End.

Extract from 'French Sand'

Maurice du Chazand was attracted, in his own dispassionate way, to the English woman, Melanie Hodges. He had heard that she was separated from her husband – also English, it appeared – probably for a native woman – some of these natives were very lovely – but he kept his distance for unless she was seriously separated and getting a divorce there was no point in becoming involved. He was, albeit in a passive sort of way, on the look-out for a wife. He had done six years in Africa, two in the Gilbert Islands and now had three years’ work in Noumea. After that his wish was to retire early – he would be forty-four next year – to his vineyards in the Medoc, preferably with a wife. Back in his little town of Lesparre he assumed Francine le Grand was still waiting and hoping he would marry her – and if the worst came to the worst, he would – ( but he had never really fancied those huge child-bearing hips or her jam-making mother) – for she would make a good faithful wife who would doubtless produce a couple of children, who was of good local stock (her father was Monsieur le Maire) and whom he had known since school days. In the meantime if he could meet a pretty young woman like Melanie Hodges, that would be so much better. He took it all very seriously. He most certainly didn’t want to grow old alone and – even though old age was still a long way off – all this needed careful consideration.

I am accustomed, he wrote to his brother, to an active social life, to an international entourage, to not only mixing with people from all over the world and all walks of life but also with all sorts of tastes and aspirations. I dread the thought of settling down with a woman who has no conversation and who knows nothing beyond cooking and coffee mornings. I would not be happy. Our dear Francine le Grand is most charming, very kind, but I would rather find something a little more exotic – or at least a little different.

You write, his brother replied, almost as though you are choosing a new car!

This was a coincidence for du Chazan had just had a car shipped over from France. It had cost him a small fortune for it was a new Citroen, pale beige in colour with good cream-coloured leather upholstery. It was smooth and stream-lined and after all those years in the Congo, where he drove only landrovers, and sometimes pretty rough ones at that, made a more than welcome change. On arrival in Noumea he had been disappointed to find that most cars on the island were imported from Australia, usually Holdens or sometimes big old American cars. Not that he was a car man, he told himself, but it was most satisfying to seat himself in the comfortable Citroen with its hydraulic suspension and clean lines.

So du Chazan watched the Hodges woman discreetly. He didn’t mind about the little boy – he was of no particular interest and seemed healthy and intelligent. Du Chazan made a few casual and polite enquiries here and there from the other employees of the Commission. The Hodges woman had been abandoned, which was better than an agreed separation for it put her in the “right” somehow, and there was a rumour that another child was involved, not hers.

Sitting with his coffee on the Commission verandah, du Chazan often saw Melanie flit back and forth out of Hurst’s office. Fairly small (which suited him for he was not a big man) with long dark hair back-combed in to a chignon as was the fashion, she had pretty legs and occasionally he could glimpse a centimetre or two of lace petticoat under the full starched skirt. Something about her attracted him more than any other available woman in Noumea – and there were not many – and du Chazan settled back patiently to await the outcome.

His wait was brought to an abrupt end when the Hodges man was killed.

French Sand is a novel set in the South Pacific in the 1960s.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are on Kindle and Amazon, or can be ordered from most big book stores and libraries. More about Catherine Broughton, to include her sketches and stories from all over the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk 

Extract from 'A Call from France'

“A Call from France” by Catherine Broughton.

“How do you say un bouc in English?” asked Debbie.

“A ram,” I replied.

“And the moutons ?” chimed in Bernie

“Sheeps,” Max told him.

“Sheep,” I corrected him, “it is sheep, whether one or several of them.”

We looked over the domaine several times, wandering through the huge, dark, empty rooms and round the dilapidated gardens. An ancient stone wall, some two metres in height, surrounded the entire plot of land – three or four acres – crumbling away in places. Ivy grew in dark green leafy strands through the broken stones and in parts the stinging nettles and brambles were so high you couldn’t see the wall at all.

“The garden was once lovely,” Euan commented.

He indicated an old stone bench hidden by overgrown shrubbery.

“Somebody once loved this place,” he said.

Here and there were the wild remains of trimmed and shaped hedges, roses, flower beds, stone urns, decorative trees and shrubs of all sorts. Lilac and forsythia spread haphazardly across what used to be lawn, and there were huge clusters of irises and even some agapanthus – which I hadn’t seen growing wild since South Africa – and all the while the sheep wandered lazily around, chumping at the grass. Most of the shutters had fallen off, or were hanging dubiously. The sturdy iron gates had rusted. The entire place was heaped with fascinating ancient features, from the wells and iron hand-pumps in the grounds, to the weedy remains of a vineyard. There were a couple of massive ancient stone sinks, dating back to the 1600s, lying in the bushes, clearly flung out during a “modernization” period before World War Two. The entire place was hugely romantic and we liked the idea of being near the sea – barely three miles away – and nearer Royan and Oleron, places that were lively if only in the summer. We both longed and longed for company and action of some kind.

“You really want to go back home,” Euan said, putting an arm over my shoulders.

“Yes, I do. I want to go home. But I don’t mind giving it one last shot. We’ve been here …” I counted, “ six years. I’d rather just pack up and go home, but if we can’t afford a house in England, this will do.”

“You could put up with a chateau in France, could you?” he asked, grinning.

I looked up at the crumbling building. The Chateau des Cypres. There was something about it that attracted us both. Only people like us could possibly take it on. There were several big old stone barns in varying forms of dereliction. Euan could turn his hand to any kind of DIY, anything at all.

Funnily enough I read an article at the hairdresser’s this morning about a house that had been renovated in Yorkshire and the writer (a woman) said “our friends thought we were mad to take it on”. Yet, by our standards, that house in Yorkshire was in perfect order.

The babes seemed happy with the move and it would also mean that they wouldn’t have to board at school because we were relatively close to Clion. We tried hard to not talk about “going home” in front of the babes, fearing it might upset them at some level. All three were so French in many ways.

“Come on, then!” Euan called out to the children, “time to go!”

“Ice-kweeem!” volunteered Bernie ..

“I expect so,” said Euan and helped him to strap himself in to the car. Debbie and Max turned away from the ram and sauntered towards us. I heard afterwards that you must never turn your back on a ram or a billy goat. He just calmly walked up behind Debbie and butted her in the back. With a cry of astonishment and alarm she fell forwards onto both knees, straight on to the stone path. I rushed forward.

“C’mon! Quick!” I grabbed her under the arms, frightened the ram was going to somehow attack. But he sauntered off back to the sheep almost as though he had his nose in the air. Debbie wailed and wailed.

“Max! Get in to the car!” I yelled, still frightened.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Euan, ever calm, came over and helped Debbie onto her feet.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

She wailed and wailed.

“Debbie!” I said more sternly, “we need to know if you are hurt.”

“My back! My knees!”

I turned to Euan.

“She went down with quite a whack,” I said.

Debbie hobbled between us to the car where she eased herself in to her seat, still crying loudly. We looked at her knees. She had been able to get up and move with no problem so we judged there was nothing broken. The knees weren’t even scratched.

“She’s shocked,” I said.

“C’mon Baby,” Euan cajoled her, “it’s not as bad as all that. I expect that was a nasty fright, but you’re not hurt.”

The wailing continued.

“Cry quietly,” I said to her in desperation.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist.  Her books are available from Amazon or Kindle or can be ordered from most big stores and libraries.  For more of Catherine’s work, to include her sketches and entertaining blogs, go to http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Extract from 'Saying Nothing'

Then an overwhelming anger consumed him.

The guests at the funeral had all gone and Prisca and one of the maids were quietly tidying things away.  Marie-Carmen lay on her bed in the darkness, too tired to cry.  Ignacio went into the garden where it was cool.  As he walked away from the house, down the path towards the little lake, as he passed the peacocks and the tall stately trees, he filled up with a fury that made him clench his fists and grind his teeth.

He had tried so hard.  He knew right from wrong; he had fought to keep a balance.  He had protected Miguel and his daughter yet had never compromised the police.  He was clever and quick, yet Miguel was dead.

The feeling of anger remained with him throughout the night, and, for the first time ever, he had no wish to make love to his wife.  The anger was still there in the morning.  It remained with him for months on end until el Mdrino’s son died.  For a few hours he had felt the euphoric satisfaction of revenge. Then he felt nothing.

But like him, Marie-Carmen didn’t want to talk about the past.  She watched the shadows flit over her husband’s face and he, in turn, saw the memories of pain and loss through her dark eyes.  He would never let her know the truth.   An involuntary shudder ran down his spine and he was for a few seconds completely unable to shake away the vision of the murder, the blood, the scream.

Marie-Carmen squeezed his hand again.

“Come on, eat!” she said with urgency in her voice.

The giant prawns were succulent and Ignacio forced the conversation onto other matters.  Marie-Carmen wanted to go shopping in Madrid; Malaga was useless, she said.  She’d got no clothes –  why do women always say they have no clothes?  And suddenly he wanted to see her without any clothes, as she was last night, dark hair spread out over the pillow, white thighs, legs open to receive him, laughing up at him.

“Watch me come!” she had said, “watch me die!”

*****

 Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle (and other e-book formats) or can be ordered from most libraries and book shops.  More about Catherine Broughton, to include her entertaining blogs and short stories from around the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

An extract from my novel - 'Saying Nothing'

Instinctively she knew that she must say nothing.

Seconds passed.  She smelled sweat, wine, coarse tobacco.   The pavement seemed to move.  A man was pushing her, a rough-skinned hand over her mouth.  She lashed out, stiffened, flailed her arms uselessly, tried to scream, tried to defend herself against something that was totally alien .… she had no idea who or what …. or where, or why …… there was something horribly wrong here.  Somebody, something, was horribly wrong  ……..   she tried bite the hand that was over her mouth.

She felt herself pushed in to a vehicle, landed heavily on her knees, attempted again to to cry out, and she sensed the hot night air, the stars, and heard – foolishly – a bird in a tree, making song in the Spanish night.  

“Cierra la puerta!”

Movements.  A car door.  Men shuffling.  Terror was like a cold cloth around her neck and mouth.

She realized she must be in the back of a van. She heard the engine, she felt the gear change and the picking up of speed.  Had she gone mad ?  She couldn’t think.   Shock made her stupid.   She searched around frantically in her mind, convinced she had got something wrong somewhere, this was a joke ……….. and yet she knew that it wasn’t.

What the ………. ?!

As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw that there were two other occupants.  They sat silently opposite her, watching her.   Two men, obscure in the darkness and smelling of the wine and tobacco she’s been aware of on the pavement.  They hung on to the side of the van as it heaved and rattled on the uneven road, their faces non-committal, black eyes, unshaven jaws, an odor of sweat about them, expressionless.

She realized she was neither bound nor gagged.

“ What d’you want with me ?”

Her voice shook as she spoke.  The brown eyes looked at her, lips closed.

Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available on Amazon and Kindle, or can be ordered from most big book stores.  ”The Man with Green Fingers”, a novel set in Cyprus is her best seller.  More about Catherine, to include her entertaining blogs from around the world, on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk

Wine in the Medoc

Wine Festival in the Medoc
By Catherine Broughton
written for “Food and Drink” magazine 1997.

On a swelteringly hot August day Bruce and I, accompanied by George, our Great Dane, left the cool refuge of our campsite under the tall seaside pines, and made our way to a wine festival at Lesparre.
We have been in France nearly nine years, we said, and we still don’t know anything about wine except that we like to drink it.

Lesparre is a fairly uninteresting little town situated in the central Medoc, north of Bordeaux. The countryside in generally flat and uneventful and there are no architectural features of any note. For many hundreds of years this area was accessible only for those travelling north out of Bordeaux, or by boat from Blaye, for the east of the Medoc is separated from the rest of France by the Gironde estuary and is cut off at its northernmost tip near the Pointe de Grave at Royan. To the west lies the Atlantic Ocean.

In the sixties a ferry service was installed from Blaye, and another from the Pointe de Grave started soon afterwards. This opened the area up and it is now a successful and accessible tourist location, boasting mile upon mile of golden beaches and some of Europe’s biggest dunes.

The elite holiday resort of Cap Ferret lies at the southernmost tip, and the coast meanders up through sweet-smelling pine forests, dotted with naturist beaches, fanned by the Atlantic and drenched in an unbroken sun.
The Medoc is essentially a plain which extends some 80kms (50 miles), yet despite its isolated position it has for centuries produced some of the best Bordeaux red wines. The grapes are grown especially along a strip of gravely soil and the most famous wines are the Chateau Latour, the Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, also Chateau Lafitte and Chateau Margaux.

The word “chateau” has nothing to do with the building, for it can often be a simple farmhouse or even an ugly warehouse, with no resemblance at all to our romantic idea of a chateau. It is frequently an old monastery, or on the site of an old monastery or similar. This is because in medieval days monks tended the vines due to the need for wine during mass. It was not until fairly recently, during the early 1700s when bottles and corks started to be used, that wine could be kept for long periods. And with the keeping of it evolved the connoisseur.

The heat was such that we walked on the shady side of the street. George hung his head, uncomfortable in his black coat, and lolloped along beside us. There was almost nobody about and the grey stone buildings sweltered under the blasting light. A few rows of limp flags hung across the streets and a dozen or so signs indicating that there was a wine festival on stood propped at the side of the pavement. Even the usually essential (and undeniably dreadful) voice on the loudspeaker was missing…it was so hot that this crucial aspect of French festivity had gone off for a doze.

The stands lined either side of the little Place du Marche, the wine growers talking quietly among themselves, a couple of dogs stretching in the shade, Lesparre church standing imposingly at the far end. A handful of hot spectators commented on the size of George and asked if it was okay to touch him; a few tasted the wine.
The first stand was the Chateau Hourbanon which boasted thirteen hectares of prime vine country just south of the town. The grapes, the sign told us, are carefully picked, still done by hand during the vendange, from fine old plants and then transformed into wine in the good old way in oak caskets in dark cellars.

“It’s too hot,” said the young Hughes Delayet, owner of the Chateau Hourbanon, “nobody wants to taste wine. Everybody is on the beach.”

Well, we want to taste some, we told him.

Hughes poured out a couple of glasses.

“This is a Chateau Hourbanon ’95,” he told us, “which was a very good year. The climate was excellent, plenty of sun and adequate rain. A ’95 wine will be at it’s best in five years’ time, though it is also very good to drink now.”

Indeed it was.
He then poured another.

“This one is a ’93,” he explained, “and you will see the difference. It is a good wine but it will not keep more than a year or two and it is best drunk now.”

“Was 1993 a bad year then?” I asked.

Hughes threw up his hands in horror.

“Madame!” he exclaimed, “in this business we never say a bad year! We say a small year- une petite annee.”

I stood corrected and sipped the wine. Following his example we swilled the wine round the glass, grasping the glass by the stem as he did. We had learnt that holding the glass by the bowl is the first sign of a person who knows nothing about wine, for the heat from ones fingers can alter the delicate balance in the temperature of the liquid. Holding his glass up to the light Hughes explained about the robe as the wine swept round the sides of the glass. True enough, the ’95 wine left a hue of deep scarlet and the ’93 did not.
Ah-ha! We said.

We did not seem to be expected to spit the wine out though we noticed to our consternation that a couple of others were doing so at a nearby stand. With a little “ttch” sound the spit landed neatly into a large copper bowl.

“Are you going to be all right?” Bruce whispered to me, “this heat and this wine-?”

“I’ll cope,” I replied, ready to taste a drop more.

“How does the Medoc wine compare to the Californian,” I asked, “or Australian?”

“Those are good wines,” replied Hughes earnestly, though we all know that no true Frenchman ever thinks that anything other than French wine (or French food for that matter) is any good. “They are designed, however, to correspond with the tastes of the clients, which will vary from country to country and also as fashion dictates. The Medoc is less technical; it has a quality which it keeps at all costs regardless of fashion or of the country to which it is being sent.”

I listened with interest. He explained the growing process and I was surprised to learn that vines are often forty or fifty years old, and can last up to eighty years or more. The quality of the wine improves each year as the vine grows older. Although the manufacture of each individual wine may vary slightly it follows a fairly standard pattern: the grapes are crushed and this produces “grape must” which then ferments in vats usually with additives to prevent the wrong kind of yeast growing. The temperature has to be carefully controlled, which is why wine is usually in cellars where the temperature remains constantly cool. Fermentation takes some time with the “free-run” wine drawn off during the process and before it is “racked” which is when it is separated from the yeast sediment. It is stored on its side to keep the cork moist and must be protected from light, vibrations and extremes in temperature.

“How about extremes in temperature if the grapes are still on the plant?” I asked.

Hughes explained that a bad frost can ruin a crop for many years. Conversely an excessively hot summer will only improve things providing the plants have enough water. In the old days straw used to be stacked up around the plants to keep the frost off, and some vineyards would even light small fires at odd intervals to keep the plants from freezing.

“I can remember as a small child hearing the alarm bell ringing in the night to warn the chateau that there was a frost,” Hughes told us.

One last thing fascinated me.

“Why do we often see rose bushes in with the vines?” I asked.

“In the days of the Crusades,” he told me, “a man returned from the Holy Land to find his wife in bed with his best friend. The man was so angry that he killed both his wife and his friend and threw their bodies out of the window into the vineyard below. In the morning the bodies had gone but two rose bushes grew there instead. That is why we plant roses.”
“And the real reason?” I asked, smiling at his quaint story.

Hughes poured a little more ’95.

“It is because rose bushes and vines suffer from the same diseases but the rose manifests the disease much sooner. This way we can tell when a vine is likely to need treatment.”

Less romantic but logical.

“Would your dog like some water?” asked Hughes suddenly.

“Well, yes, thanks – you would wouldn’t you George?”

“George? An excellent name! It was my father’s name.”

“Ah – and was he a wine producer too?”

“Oh no,” said the owner of the Chateau Hourbanon, “he was a dentist.”

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Hospital Conversation

I was in hospital with a broken leg after a skiing accident in Austria. These things happen. Ho hum.

Glancing around the ward at the listless bodies lying or sitting in various states of boredom, my eyes met those of another woman, aged something around seventy. She was in the bed opposite me, a big pink nightie rucked up to display swollen legs. She was horribly overweight, and she half-heartedly raised her hand in greeting to me. She smiled cheerily and despite her weight I could see the remnants of the pretty woman she had once been. Her name was Gwen.

“I broke my leg,” I said, eager for conversation, “how about you ?”

She was crippled with rheumatism, she explained, and had been bed-bound for several years, slowly eeking out her life in and out of hospitals. Her great weight had taken its toll on her heart and she was breathless as she spoke, not that it seemed to deterr her.

“Course,” she said, “it was the barges what done it.”

“The barges?” I asked.

“Yeh. That’s how it all begun, see. Now me heart’s bad. Them barges was very damp.”

“Barges?” I asked again.

“Oooooh yes, duck, lived all my life on barges I did. Right up till when my Frank died.”

“Frank ?”

“My husband, Frank. Died on our last barge. Hadn’t the heart to stay on. Nah …. got given a council flat. Aw, it’s all a long time ago now. Haven’t talked about it in years.”

She looked out of the window where a grey January rain drizzled down against the window pane. A dismal view of a leafless tree and a brick wall looked back in at her.

“Cor, yes, it were damp. And that’s a fact. Didn’t think nothing about it at the time; it was only later I realized how damp it was and how it was going to do me in. But when you’re young you don’t do you ? You just don’t worry about stuff.” A short coughing spell interrupted her, but when she had got her breath back she continued.

“Moored up mostly in Whistable. I was born there on that first barge. Had six kids she did, my mum. You imagine that! Raising six kids on a barge ! Humph ! Young people these days they don’t know nothing.”

There was an acquiescing grunt from another bed as somebody agreed.

“The barge was eighty foot long,” continued Gwen, warming to the subject, “and there was timber holds where the grain was stored, almost always corn or wheat. That was my dad’s job, you see, lovely man my dad. Only fifty when he died. Lung cancer. Used to roll his own fags, he did, said it was good for him. Didn’t know no better then, did we? Thought it truly was good for us. Cor! I remember me dad rolling an extra fag to ease his sore throat!” She laughed a little, and looked at the bed next to her.

” He had to load up the wheat in Whitstable and then set off along the Medway to wherever ….. always a full day’s journey, never less. To Chatham and Dartford mostly. Loading and unloading. Sometimes we had to wait for the lorries to come and unload the grain – sometimes we’d wait all night. Sometimes the lorries was already there. They’d take the grain off to the farmer, see. That was how my dad got paid. Then we’d turn around and come all the way back again, over and over, day in and day out, rain or shine. We never thought nothing of it. To us kids, that’s just the way it was.

We lived in the stern. That’s the back end, see. It was so cosy. On the left was a kitchen range – a coal fire with a little chimney and a tiny oven with a sorta hot plate ontop. Imagine ! My mum she’d cook for all of us on that! On the left was a recess with a bed in it, just enough for two adults, just barely. Then there was a seat which opened out in to a bed where four of us kids slept. On the right there was another recess with a pair of bunk beds. The table was fixed to the wall and got folded up out the way when it wasn’t in use. Handy, see ? Everything had to be handy.

There weren’t no privacy. By the time I could think things out I knew all about the facts of life I did, what with mum and dad being that close. Ooh, I can remember her shoving him off, I can, saying to him “you leave me alone, we don’t want no more babies”. Don’t think he took no notice. Poor old mum. And the toilet, well that was just a bucket, wasn’t it ? A bucket with a lid. We’d do almost all our doings, big and small if you get my drift, in the bushes as we went along. A barge is slow, you see, so it was never no problem. And then if we needed to do more in the night – well, we used the bucket. Mum and dad too. Never bothered any of us. ‘Course there was another bucket for the rags, see. That’s what we used in them days, when us females had our monthlies. That’s what my mum called them. The monthlies. Soak the rags in cold water, then rinse them out in the river, dry them as best we could, and use them again. Never thought nothing of it. It was just the way it was. Never threw out old clothes. If they couldn’t be mended – cor we was always mending, always mending! – then we’d use them as rags. Anything would do, wouldn’t it ? None of them posh things girls have these days.

My baby brother was born there on that barge. He come out quick. Funny thing to say but I didn’t know my mum was expecting, see. I’d of been about …. lemme think …. about ten I s’pose. He only lived four or five days. I remember my poor mum, dear oh dear, another mouth to feed, but when that baby died she cried and cried. She shouted at my dad “don’t you never touch me again!” I didn’t know what she meant, well not exactly, but afterwards – years later – I learnt that there’s been two others what had died after a few days. Very hard. Life was very hard. No wonder my mum didn’t want no more babies. We wrapped the little body up in some canvas sacking, normally for the wheat. I went with my dad to take it to the morgue. He had to fill in a form and I had to help him, see, seeing as he couldn’t read or write. No questions was asked, not that I know of. It was the first time I was properly aware that my dad loved me. He patted my head, see, patted my head, and said to the man at the morgue that he’d still got me, his girl. Don’t know where they buried the little corpse, never asked.”

Gwen fell silent for a while as the memory of the dead baby drifted in and out of her mind’s eye.

“I was sixteen when I met my Frank. He was eighteen. He’d got his own barge seeing as his dad had died. Seemed so posh to me, no kids running about, just him and his old mum, no pile of old clothes and food. It was only when I went on to Frank’s barge that I realized how ours stank – oil and deisel and fish and sweat. It always smelt. I noticed it after that. Mum wasn’t a clean woman, nor tidy. Everything was a mess, but I’d never noticed it before. I always kept my own barge nice, as best I could. Only had the once child so it was a lot easier. Kept it tidy. It was not crowded and it didn’t smell.

Me and Frank we got wed in a bit of a rush. In them days – phew – my dad would have taken a strap to Frank if he’d known! – he was already ill, by then, lung cancer got him. I had my Doreen in the hospital. Had to pretend she come early, which was silly because everybody knew the truth. But in them days we kept up appearances in our own way. Now it don’t matter – my grand daughter, Tracey, she’s got two – yes two – and not a husband in sight.

In the summer months my Frank employed a man to help him. Wick and Cabbage. That was his name. Wick and Cabbage. Now that’s a funny name, innit ? He was a bit of a dip – that’s what we used to say – a bit of a dip, not much up top. No talk, just grunts. He often sat in Nelly – that was the little boat we towed behind – with his feet in the water. Said he was washing them. Must of had the cleanest feet in Kent ! Stayed with us for years and years. Must have been twelve years or more, just in the summer. Disappeared one day. Just went off, no fight nor nothing, just wandered off and never come back.

We was happy, me and my Frank, and our Doreen. I didn’t want no more kids and Frank – well, he was dead careful about it, if you get my drift – used one of them rubber things, always. We’d both seen my poor mum and how she worked. Wanted better for ourselves and for our Doreen. Mum died on the barge a few weeks after my dad. Well, she was all worn out, she was. Worn out. Frank sold the old barge and divided the money up between us six kids. Didn’t come to nothing much, but it seemed a lot at the time. The war started then, course. My three brothers went off to war. Killed, all three of them. One died in a Jap camp. Died of hunger as I understand it. The others died at sea. I was glad mum wasn’t around to see it. She’d have grieved something rotten. My two sisters both went to live with an aunt up Birmingham direction. You wasn’t here yesterday, was you ? That was one of my sisters, Margot, come to visit me. The other one is dead. Carol, she was called. Died last year. Cancer. Only sixty-four.

Course by the time Doreen was six she had to have some schooling, and it made everything dead complicated sometimes, Frank and Wick and Cabbage off in the barge and, if they wasn’t back by nightfal Doreen and me we’d have to kip on somebody else’s barge.
We all had to muck in as best we could, there was a war on.

Then, just a few days after the end of the war, my Frank died. Survived the bombings, then died. Seemed so wrong, all wrong. He got caught up, see, caught up between the barge and the jetty. Don’t know what happened. One of them stupid accidents you can’t believe. Snapped his neck anyhow. Lord, did I grieve. I can still picture him now, hanging there, off the edge. Took me a good long while to recover. Thought I never would. Sold the barge and got given a council flat, me and my Doreen. ”

Gwen stretched her huge frame and took a sip of water from the glass at her side.

“Life moves on, dunnit ?” she said. “You got to just get on with it, no point in mopeing. But I do feel bitter about my Frank. That wasn’t fair, it truly wasn’t. But life’s not about fair, is it ……….?”

After I was discharged from the hospital I went to visit Gwen two or three times. She was not alone. Sometimes her grand daughter and two off-spring had just been in, or were due to arrive, or Doreen, or Margot. Then one day I went in and saw that Gwen’s bed was empty and had been stripped. I stood staring at it for a while, but I didn’t ask.

The End

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The Gun

The Gun.

Afterwards I felt I should have noticed the men who had lowered the coffin. I didn’t take any notice of them at all, yet they must have been there, done it. I couldn’t say if they were young or old, or something in between, yet they had come along and done their job and somebody somewhere had paid them for it. I should have noticed.

They stood around the grave, looking down at the frozen earth. Their breath made white puffs in the air and nobody stayed long. My black dress and coat were inadequate against the cold and, with the crowd, all his clients, almost the whole little town, I retreated with the surge and within twelve hours I was home.

The centre of France is so cold in the winter. Bitterly cold. In the summer the heat gets trapped on to that central plateau, like a furnace of thick, stifling air, so that all effort is too much effort …….. but in the winter the wind whips up off the Atlantic on one side and off far away Siberia on the other …… and the frozen temperature is sanwiched there, almost tangible, till some trickle of sunlight filters through, and some bird shiveringly emits its tiny song …… and the cold fades out and recedes, like spilt ink blotted up on an old school desk.

Years ago now. God knows, it’s all years ago now.

When I was first there I used to say that there was a kind of Bronte beauty to that central plateau. I was lying. Even then, I lied. There is nothing beautiful about it. Black and icy, brown and ragged, the countrside unfolds like a dark old cloak, so sombre that the very loneliness is to die from.

Well, of course, the local people don’t say that. Pierre should have known better. You have to have been born there, and your fathers before you, to be local. Lord knows, you have to have died there.

I met him at a “brocante” one sunny spring Sunday in the village of Clion-sur-Indre. The main road from Chateauroux up to Tours, and thence to Paris, blasts through that little town and the big “brocante” sign invited people to stop and browse, as indeed it did me. In those days the French didn’t realize what a wealth of bric-a-brac and antiques their “brocantes” harboured, and it was ideal hunting ground for me. I had been in the business no more than three or four years at that time. I specialized in antique porcelaine, but anything unusual interested me. At the end of each trip my aim was to have filled my van ready for the market in Portobello and the Lanes in Brighton. I did quite well out of it. I took no more than five days on each trip, doing my round from as far inland as Bourges, but no further east, west as far as Chateauroux, then back up the main road to Tours, Orleans, Paris and home. Periodically, and depending entirely on time and weather, I would travel north-east via Chatellerault to Poitiers, and this was also an excellent route, dotted with down-at-heel little “brocantes” of one sort or another, small flea markets and second hand shops. Limoges, La Rochelle, Saintes ……. I knew all those places before the tourists discovered them …..

He was standing at a stall, the sun shining on to the back of his head, his hands in his pockets, a woolen scarf flung casually around his neck, his jacket open. He bent forwards slightly as he examined the gun. He didn’t touch it. There was a small frown between his eyes and I realized he had no idea what he was looking at.

It was a beautiful old flintlock, circa 1630. The beech wood handle was inlaid with intricately carved ivory depicting a ship on one side and a floral design on the other. It was in excellent condition. It was very cheap, ridiculously cheap, exactly what I liked.

“Is it real?” I heard him ask.

“Mais oui!” exclaimed the owner, an elderly man with an unshaven jaw, and he then launched in to a long story about how his grandfather came to own it. Pierre listened politely.

I waited, holding my breath, for the right moment. My hand ready, I watched Pierre’s face and, the second his gaze moved off to another object (a ghastly orange vase – art deco has since become popular, but it wasn’t then) I leant forwards and picked up the gun. It was a beauty.

“Not only is it real,” continued the old man, “but there is gunpowder in it too!”

This made Pierre look round. He smiled at me. He inclined his head slightly. Aged in his early thirties, his face was handsome, clean-shaven, strong-boned. He had the poise and expression of an educated man. His hands, now out of his pockets, were fine and white, the hands of ……. I wondered ….. a doctor, a lawyer. No taller than I, Pierre oozed a sexuality that stuck me forcibly and it was the first – and the last – time I immediately felt a powerful sexual attraction to a man.

Later, after we had made love, in the sleepy fog of post-orgasm exhaustion, he told me that he had felt the same.

Pierre lived and worked in Loches. He was a notaire and, as was the way in those old backwater French towns, he had the social status of a god. I only twice ever went to the room that was his office, situated on the ground floor of a huge old stone pile of a building, once when I met him and once when I left him.

The property was what he called a “Maison de Maitre” – the master’s house. A huge entrance hall with a fleur-de-lys tiled floor, a few notice boards and several leather arm chairs were dotted about. This was his waiting room. Off one side was his secretary’s office and to the other his own, modern and bright. On the mantelpeice was a large photo of a house and another of a young woman with very short blond hair. He saw me looking.

“That is my home,” he said, pointing to the ivy-covered walls in the picture. It was magnificent. “And this was my girl-friend. She died in a car crash a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry …..”

“Not at all.” He put the photo in a drawer. “It is high time I moved on.”

From the hall a wide stone staircase led upstairs. We made our way slowly up, looking at the portraits that hung there, mostly very dusty.

“My forefathers,” said Pierre. “This house was built in 1680 and has always belonged to us. We have not lived in it since I was a boy – it is too big and requires too much maintenance.”

It was beautiful. A small mullioned window on the stair looked out onto an overgrown garden, and the landing boasted huge oak floorboards, now slightly musty for lack of care. There was very little in the way of furniture.

“So you use this building just for your office?”

“Yes. We maintain the roof and walls and perhaps one day we will restore it. But for now it is just my office.”

We made love amid the eiderdowns in a big old four-poster bed which had probably seen the births and deaths of Peirre’s gransfathers. I had never done such an impetuous thing before and I doubted Pierre, careful and organized, had either. There was no candlelit dinner, I didn’t even know his full name. Our love-making was total. We had been together for a thousand years. We were brand new to each other. We couldn’t get enough of our very passion, or of its very sating. I loved his body. lean and firm, he lay back on the tousled bed in the darkening room and we listened to the sound of passing traffic in the street below, and watched our reflections in the grey mirror over the fireplace opposite.

I was soon to know that mirror off by heart. Every blemish, every fissure in the ornate frame, every black age spot, every angle of the marble fireplace. I was soon to know every crevice in that room, each piece of furniture. Even the dust was sacred, a witness to our love and our love-making. I loved him.

Thus it was that my trips to France became more frequent and the route took on a solid sameness that soon grew comfortable in its familiarity. Usually, however, I stayed in Tours where – Pierre explained – there were plenty of restaurants to go to and museums and galleries to enjoy. My hotel was on the park, overlooking children on swings in the background, and framed by magnificent trees that brooded quietly as summer came and then turned imperceptibly in to autumn, and then winter was back.

Pierre never stayed all night with me. People were old-fashioned back then. He worked long hours. He took the French two-hour lunch breaks and we would sit up on that huge old bed above his office, like naughty school children, eating baguette and cheese and drinking red wine. Our sex was frantic, frenetic, as though we were trying to top-up before I went away again.

Pierre was totally against my moving permantently in to the area. After it was all over I could see why, of course. But at the time I was hurt. He kissed me. He said he wanted me to get to know France much better before I took such a big step. I had yet to meet his family. His family would expect us to marry. I shall buy you a big ring, he said, and kissed my ring finger. More importantly, not only his family but the whole little town would be aghast at their notaire marrying an English girl. We must take it very slowly, he said. Very slowly. Very carefully.

Odd that. My family were not perturbed about me marrying a Frenchman. Sure, they’d have preferred a nice local boy, but a French notaire was fine. I showed them photos of Pierre. My mother said he looked nice. I wanted to bring him to England to meet them. I had a photograph of myself professionally taken.

“Put it on your desk,” I told him.

“But of course!” he said. “Then I can see you every day!”

I loved his old-fashioned charm. He still lived with his parents somewhere on the other side of Loches. He often devoted Sundays to them, sometimes Saturdays too. During the winter he liked to go hunting with his father. I understood and respected that. I spent my time looking round premises in Tours – somewhere suitable for my antiques shop, I thought, with perhaps a large flat over it. For Pierre was right about that – Loches would stifle me, once we were married, and a flat over my shop would be excellent for me during the week. Perhaps I’d be able to persuade him to buy a house somewhere half way between Loches and Tours. That would be ideal. I dreamt on. I made plans. There are few things as wonderful as being in love with a man who is in love with you.

For his birthday I decided to give him the gun.

I drove down to Loches early afternoon even though we had arranged to meet there the next day. I love surprises. Nice ones. I picked up a cake en route. We’d eat it on that big old bed. We’d take off all our clothes and sit naked and eat the cake. I wished I had a thermos. I could have made tea. That would be so English, I though. English tea and cake in the big old French bed. I smiled to myself. Even though he didn’t understand antiques, he’d be pleased with the gun. I parked. It was raining. I went up those three first steps and opened the huge heavy door. I listened. I could hear his secretary on the phone. I looked at my watch. I’d never met her. Usually I came later, when I knew she had gone off to lunch. I listened more. I listened at his door too. Silence. I knocked on the secretary’s door and went in. She sat at her desk.

“Where is Maitre Rullier?” I then asked the secretary. She was startled. Had not heard me come in. She was in her fifties. I was inordinately glad about this. Silly. She wore a cheap top with a hideous brooch. There was a smell of cigarettes.

“Monsieur will not be in till this evening after we have closed,” she told me primly. “Did you have an appointment ?”

“Yes,” I lied. “But I am early – he is not expecting to see me till this evening.”

“You will have a long wait, I’m afraid. He is very rarely out, but today is not only his birthday but it is also Madame’s birthday and their fifth wedding anniversary – all on the same day! They always spend the day together and go somewhere nice”.

“I’ll wait for a while ……” I went back in to the hall and sat down on the nearest chair.

I waited. I flicked through magazines. I combed my hair. I studied the wall opposite. I rubbed a bit of mud off a shoe. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere. I thought about what she’d just said, that secretary with the hideous blouse and the cigarettes. It took an eternity to sink in. These things do, you know. I rose slowly. I went in to his office.

On the mantlepeice was the photo of the blond girl with very short hair. I picked it up. I carried it in to the secretary.

“Is this Pierre’s wife?” I asked her.

“Why, yes – did you go in to his office ?! Madame, you must not! It is private!” She snatched the photo from me and scuttled over in to Pierre’s desk. “Please do not go in there again, Madame,” she said sternly, “this is the waiting room here. You must wait here.”

So I did. That’s where I waited. At around five-thirty the woman left, flicking on the light as she did so. She said she had telephoned Monsieur who had confirmed that I could wait. I went up to the bedroom. I waited. I wrapped in gun in the eiderdown. And waited.

The wind whips in off the Atlantic, far away now. The graveyard must be frozen in winters like this. I only ever think of it in winter. Frost on the stone. No, there is no Bronte beauty to it. As I said, it was a lie.

THE END

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