“Like crazy driving and weird plumbing.”
“Exactly. But listen-you should think about the house. It’s a big decision.”
“Max? Don’t push your luck. Remember what happened the last time you argued with me?” Christie yawned and stretched out on her back, resting her head on the canvas bag that had held their lunch, and Max looked out across the haze of afternoon heat toward the sea.
“I hope you like old Charlie,” he said. “He’s been such a good friend to me. If we can work out something with this wine that Roussel’s been making on the side, he’d love it. Chateau Charlie. I can see him now, gargling away and coming out with all that overblown language-promising, promising, do I detect a soupçon of autumn leaves, of pencil lead, of truffle, of toasted apricots? You haven’t really got anything against Englishmen, I know. It’s just me. Charlie’s different. You’ll like him.”
But there was no reply. The sun, the wine, and the fresh air had done their work. Christie was fast asleep.
Max contemplated his future, suddenly much more rosy, and felt his spirits lift. In the space of a few days, he had inherited a house-now, thanks to Christie, free of any uncertainties about ownership-and a vineyard producing good wine. Good enough, at any rate, to attract the interest of Nathalie Auzet and her partners in crime, and possibly good enough to pay the costs of running the property. Liking Roussel as he did, he was glad that the old scoundrel knew nothing about the wine once it had left his cave.
Or appeared to know nothing.
He heard a very faint, almost equine snuffle at his side. Christie had changed position and was now curled up, with an ant making its way across the smooth honey-colored skin of her cheek. Very softly, he brushed the ant away and looked down at her sleeping face with a mixture of gratitude and, somewhat to his surprise, faint stirrings of affection. She’d been a good sport in a strange and difficult situation. He might even miss her.
Sixteen
“I borrowed this from an acquaintance in the village who is très anglophile,” said Madame Passepartout, who was showing Max the wonders she had achieved in what was to be Charlie’s bedroom. “It will make your friend feel instantly at home. Regard the dogs.” She pointed to the bedside table.
There, next to the decanter of cognac and a small vase of freesias, was a framed photograph, in full color, of a smiling Queen Elizabeth. She was perched on a couch, possibly in her private sitting room at Windsor, with an entourage of Corgis spread out on the carpet like a living fan at her feet.
Max considered the photograph, feeling sure that Charlie would think he’d gone mad. “Such attention to detail, madame,” he said. “My friend will undoubtedly be ravished.”
It was the morning of Charlie’s arrival, and Max had spent the past quarter of an hour dutifully admiring the bedroom’s high state of polish and perfection. He had to admit that Madame Passepartout had done wonders: the down-at-the-heel cushions and the maroon curtains with their rather sinister blotches had been flogged until not a speck of dust remained on them, every hard surface had been buffed and made to shine, the tiled floor rejuvenated with an application of water and linseed oil and elbow grease. A small rug had been placed by the side of the bed to protect Charlie’s delicate feet from direct contact with the floor. And there was the royal portrait. What more could a guest want?
Madame Passepartout interrupted Max’s flow of praise with an upraised finger. “Does he like to dance, your friend?”
Max had seen Charlie in action on the dance floor dozens of times. His feet seldom moved beyond a shuffle, but his hands were always busy; a form of slow-motion body search. Curiously, the girls never seemed to mind. “Yes,” said Max, “although he prefers music that is not too fast. It’s his arthritis.”
“Ah bon? Well, tonight there will be music of every speed. It is the village fête, un repas dansant. There will be an accordion band, and a diji from Avignon who will play the more modern tunes. With records,” she added, in case Max was not fully up to date with contemporary developments in the world of music, “as in a discotheque.”
Max nodded. “I hope you’ll be going, madame.”
“Of course. Everyone in the village will be there.” She raised herself up on tiptoe and executed a surprisingly accomplished pirouette. “Everyone will dance.”
For a brief moment, Max thought of Fanny, of dancing with Fanny under the stars. He looked at his watch. “I’d better go. He’s supposed to be arriving in the village quite soon, and he won’t know how to find the house.”
In fact, Charlie had been so anxious to get away from everything and everyone connected with luxury real estate that he had made an early start from Monte Carlo, and had already reached the village. Pulling up in front of the café, he stepped out of his large rented Mercedes and looked around the square with cheerful interest.
There was no mistaking him for a native of Saint-Pons. He was dressed very much à l’anglais: a double-breasted blazer with a multitude of brass buttons, pale gray flannels, a glaringly new Panama hat-all in all, an apparition from another world, and one the locals were studying with sidelong glances of discreet curiosity. Catching the eye of one of them, an elderly woman, Charlie raised his hat. “Bonjour, my dear, bonjour.”
Alas, that was very nearly the full extent of his French vocabulary. He had progressed a step beyond the traditional English method of communicating with foreigners-that is, to speak English very slowly and at maximum volume-but it was only a short step, and frequently unintelligible. Indeed, it was a language that had never been heard before in Saint-Pons, or anywhere else, for that matter: basically English, but with an “o” or an “a” or sometimes an “oo” added to the end of a word to give it that authentic continental flavor, with the occasional Spanish or Italian flourish thrown in for added confusion.
Leaving the car in front of the café, Charlie went inside to attend to what had suddenly become a pressing need. “Por favor, madame,” he said to the woman behind the bar, “toilettoes?” She looked up from her paper and jerked her head toward the back of the café. Charlie hurried off with a thankful sigh.
When Max got down to the village, he found the square teeming with activity in preparation for the evening’s revels. Half a dozen men were on ladders, stringing colored lights through the branches of the plane trees; others were arranging the rows of trestle tables and benches that took up much of the square; and a third group, scowling, unshaven, noisy, and irritated, had just jumped out of a huge truck that was loaded with scaffolding and wooden planks. These were to be transformed into a stage for the band, but unfortunately-and this was the cause of the scowls and the irritation-the truck was unable to reach or even get close to the area reserved for the stage. The way was blocked because some cretin had parked his Mercedes in front of the café. The driver of the truck leaned into the cabin, put his hand on the horn, and left it there.