The windscreen magnified the sunlight into pure heat and Evie pulled in to the side of the road to check her map. She was nearly there; she might even have passed it, she wasn’t sure. The business card said it was called ‘Cave Bonheur’ and it was definitely somewhere along this road. She took a swig of water from the bottle and started the engine again, pulling out after the last car and travelling slowly so that she could look for the place. Several cars overtook her, the roaring acceleration in her ears making her jump. Then she saw it. She almost went past it, but for the sign, an incongruous twenty-foot-tall bottle made of wood that signalled her destination.
She parked next to the giant bottle so that she could get out and stare up at it. A two-dimensional bottle of red wine, with the label ‘Cave Bonheur’, it was made out of plywood. The colours had faded in the sunlight and the grain of the wood was dry and split. Across the bottle label were the words ‘Dégustation gratuite: vente des vins en vrac’. She had no idea what it meant, but she burst out laughing. It was leaning at an angle, to one side, as if struggling to hold up its own weight, as if it could topple at any moment.
‘It must be good, this free wine-tasting. The bottle’s pissed already.’ She chuckled again.
The building comprised a large house with walls that had once been white, overlooking a paved courtyard. There were shady trees to the side, and the sunlight made dappled patterns on the ground. In the distance she could see rows of vines, neatly ordered, rising like little trees towards the hills. On one side were two converted barns, the doors marked ‘Accueil’, ‘Dégustation et vente’ and the other ‘Privé’. She pushed open the first door and peered inside. There was a strong, sweet smell in her nose and she saw the glimmer of huge steel tanks.
On the other side was an open barn containing a large tractor. There was a small office inside the barn with the sign ‘Accueil/Reception’. There was no-one there, although the door was open. She peered in, smelling musty dampness. Her eyes were not used to the dark, but she could see the outlines of tables and the shapes of bottles in racks. Something fluttered in the rafters: a bird, or a bat. She went out into the sunlight and strolled towards the main building, under an archway. The brickwork was crumbling; once painted white, a dull grey of bricks mingled with powdery concrete and sand. Cave Bonheur was deserted. A little wind blew dust from the cracks of the paving stones.
Evie walked further towards the little vines, which spread out into the distance as far as she could see, and she noticed the heavy bunches of grapes and picked one to eat. It was sour and she spat it on the ground. The soil was dry, little grains of gritty brown around the green and purple of the vines, which stretched out row upon row in neat ridges.
She walked further along a dusty path, was surprised that no-one was at work. The sun was high in the sky, so perhaps the workers were having lunch. A figure moved in between the vines. It was a boy, haloed in the sunlight, bending and standing again. He was a thin shadow, a moving ear of corn. Evie found sunglasses in her pocket and put them on. Benji waved and started to run towards her. Evie waved back.
He grinned excitedly, rubbing his palm across his neck, delighted to see her. ‘I know you will come.’ He grasped her hand in both of his and shook it vigorously.
‘Hello, Benji. It’s nice to see you again.’
Benji beamed. ‘Come with me please. I can show you our wine fields.’
He had a natural open face, a good-natured expression, which quickly changed to one of anxiety, a crease between his eyebrows. ‘I forget to ask your name.’
She grinned. ‘Evie.’
‘I take you on a tour of the grapes now.’ He took her hand and led her around the vines, talking in his steady English, telling her the names of different wines he made and urging her along, pointing at row upon row of thriving grapes. He was becoming excited and he insisted on telling her facts about each type of grape, the sort of wine it would make and how long it took to ferment. His language was encyclopaedic and studied, learned by rote, and Evie was becoming weary. Besides, she had other things on her mind.
She stopped. ‘This is all very well, Benji, but do you think we might cut to the wine-tasting? It’s so hot and my legs are tired.’
His face filled with apologies and his forehead creased. He turned back towards the old building. A question was buzzing in Evie’s head. ‘Could I try a nice glass of red, please? I mean, I’ve come for the wine-tasting. Only a small one. I have to drive back to Foix.’
Benji was enthusiastic, linking his arm through hers. ‘We will start now. And if you like it, you buy the bottle.’
Evie smiled. ‘That’s grand.’ They walked into the stone courtyard. ‘I’m quite thirsty after all that.’ She stopped for a moment and listened. She could hear music: a guitar and a plaintive voice singing. She listened again. ‘Is that a record playing? I recognise that song.’ She held her breath and listened. ‘It’s David Bowie – the song about Major Tom.’ She didn’t move, taking in the melancholy tones, the lilting voice, the hypnotic strumming guitar. ‘That’s not him, though, is it, the David Bowie one?’
‘That is the patron, Monsieur Bonheur. He plays well at guitar.’
Evie agreed. ‘I thought this was your own place, Benji.’
He grinned. ‘Oh no. I am just the assistant. Monsieur teaches me English and he is kind to give me a job. No-one else will give me such a good job. Here I make the wine and sell it.’
‘What does Monsieur do, then?’ asked Evie. ‘Sit on his lazy backside taking the money and playing on his guitar, I don’t doubt.’
Benji looked sad for a moment. ‘We don’t take much money this year,’ he told her. ‘We have many people who come in to work and pick the grapes and after Monsieur pays them, there is nothing left.’ Suddenly, his face brightened and he ran his hands through the corn-silk hair, which was sticking to his head with the heat. ‘Come, Madame. I think, time to taste some good wine now.’
The little office to one side was cluttered with paper and the windows were streaked with grime. In the barn the temperature was much cooler and Benji pressed a switch; fluorescent strips started to hum and flickered with sudden light. There were high rafters and stretching cobwebs and dark brick walls; three tables and benches occupied the space on a cold flagstone floor. The tables were wooden and smeared with filth, mainly soil, red veins of spilled wine and something white and greasy that looked like candle wax, although there was no sign of any candles. The transition from scorching sunlight to the cold barn in which they now sat was a shock. Evie’s skin prickled with goose bumps and she wished she had brought her green leather jacket. Benji was in a vest and shorts and she noted the flip-flops on his feet. He didn’t seem to care about the temperature. He had a bottle of red wine in his fist and was uncorking it. He had begun to talk like an encyclopaedia again, facts about wine temperature and fermentation, so Evie asked, ‘Is this a good wine, Benji?’
‘You like wine is strong, full-bodied?’ he asked.
Evie replied, ‘Like my men,’ although straight away she thought that was a silly thing to have said. Benji wiped a glass clean with a cloth and poured wine halfway up the bowl. She sat down at one of the tables and held it up towards the lights and swished it around; it was a deep blood-red and had a thick syrupy swirl.
‘This is our Cabernet,’ he told her and his face was serious as he watched her sip. She wondered if she should say something about the bouquet of geraniums: she remembered Peggy and Geoff from Marmande and she almost spat her wine out in a sudden laugh.
It tasted warm and tangy on her tongue. She finished it all in a mouthful. ‘Bloody grand stuff. I’ll have a bottle of this. What’s next?’
Benji rubbed his face with his hand. ‘Perhaps you can try some of this red wine? It is our best wine, a type of Grenache.’
Evie looked puzzled. ‘Is it sweet or one of those sharp tangy ones? I like the sweeter ones myself.’
‘Perhaps Madame would prefer to try some of our sparkling wines?’
Evie turned, and saw the patron standing tall in his T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the Rolling Stones, and torn jeans. He was about her age, his skin weathered and dark and his eyes darker, his hair pulled back in a little ponytail. She stared at him. She did not know what to say so she simply said, ‘Mr Grumpy!’
He raised himself to his tallest and she could see the effort it took for him to smile at her. ‘You are a guest. You are welcome to Cave Bonheur. Can I recommend the pétillants? The sparkling wines? They are very refreshing. I have them chilled.’
Evie felt a little irritated with herself for calling him a rude name. She flicked the fringe of blonde hair and considered becoming the pornography character again but, on reflection, Eartha Windass was probably not the best choice of role under the circumstances. However, she would make the effort to be charming and engaging towards this strange man; she’d show her ability to forgive him his rudeness.
She folded her hands together and fluttered her lashes. ‘Thank you so much – you are most kind,’ and she added, ‘Monsieur’, and gave him a half-smile by way of reward.
He said nothing. She saw the broadness of his back as he turned towards a fridge, which may once have been white but was now grey with grease and thumb-prints. A cork popped and Benji was ready with a hastily wiped wine glass, which he gave to his boss, who took it without acknowledgement. Evie smiled at Benji and mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ The patron poured a little wine in a glass for her and Benji passed him another, which he half-filled for himself.
‘Will you be joining us, Benji?’ she asked, showing her best manners.
Benji looked around at Monsieur Bonheur and at the barn. ‘No, I have work to do in the fields.’ The patron grunted assent, a long deep growl in his throat. Benji rubbed at his neck nervously and smiled. ‘Until next time, goodbye, Madame.’
Evie waved and called goodbye and Monsieur Bonheur sat down heavily at the bench opposite her, a glass in each hand. ‘Will Benji not join us for a drink, Monsieur?’
The tall man shook his head. ‘He has work to do. Plenty to keep him busy.’
‘He’s very good,’ Evie prompted. ‘He knows everything about the wine. All sorts of interesting facts.’
Monsieur Bonheur nodded curtly. ‘Benji is autistic. He’s very intelligent.’
‘Oh. He’s a very nice young man. I met him at the market. Very charming.’
‘Excellent worker, reliable, methodical.’ Evie stared at him, waited for him to make the first move. He pushed her glass across the table and offered a toast. ‘To life.’
She looked straight at him. ‘To good health and good times,’ she said, suddenly alarmed at being on her own with a changeable man whose eyes scowled at her.
They took a sip and neither of them spoke. Evie contemplated saying, ‘Nice place you have here,’ but the barn was clearly in disrepair, almost falling down, so instead she said, ‘Does this place make you a good living, Monsieur?’
He stared at her and took another swig. ‘You’re asking me about my profits?’ She was conscious again of the way he spoke English, the American lilt. Evie’s temper was rising and she tried to hold it back.
‘I wouldn’t be so presumptuous. I was simply commenting on how you manage to make a living here when the place is such a fecking mess.’
His face was serious for a moment, then suddenly a smile filled his face and laughter bubbled from his lips.
‘You are too honest, Madame. It is very unusual to find someone who speaks their thoughts as you do. It is not a trait I have seen before in the English, and especially not in a woman.’
‘OK,’ she huffed and brought her drink down on the table with a bang. ‘First of all, I am Irish; I don’t give a shite for what you think about the English, but you shouldn’t be so sexist about women. Your Simone de Beauvoir would turn in her grave.’
He swallowed his sparkling wine. His eyes developed a steady glow. ‘You amaze me, Madame, with your speech, but I find myself agreeing with you.’
‘Well, good,’ she said and thought for a moment. ‘My name is Evie Gallagher.’
He held out his hand. ‘Jean-Luc Bonheur.’
She took his hand and wondered if he would kiss it, being French and a gentleman, but he gave it a squeeze in his huge paw and then took it away and filled her glass and his own. She drank another mouthful. ‘This sparkling stuff is grand. I will buy a bottle. Maybe two.’
‘You are on holiday here.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Evie took another gulp. ‘I am staying at O’Driscoll’s, but then you know that. I have a campervan,’ she added proudly. ‘I can go where I like and stay as long as I like.’
She scrutinised his face, waiting for him to say something about her being a woman of a certain age, that it was foolish for her to be travelling alone.
He thought for a moment. ‘Travelling is good for the soul, good therapy, good to spend one’s time meeting new people and visiting new places. A person can only grow spiritually from such an experience. I congratulate you.’
Evie closed her mouth and took another swig. ‘Have you travelled much, Jean-Luc?’
‘I was born with the need to travel. Always.’
She frowned. ‘How do you mean?’
‘My father was an Algerian sailor. I never met him. But I have inherited his hunger to see the world and enjoy nature and experience life.’
‘How can you not have met your own father?’
Jean-Luc was thoughtful. ‘My mother knew him only once. I was born in Marseilles. It was 1941. I left home at fourteen to travel and by the age of twenty-three I was living in California.’
Evie leaned forward. ‘What made you come back to France?’
He shrugged. ‘What makes us do anything at all in our life? Love. Or the lack of love.’ He drained his glass and refilled both glasses again.
‘You must have had an exciting life,’ she said, swallowing the wine, which fizzed on her tongue; it felt refreshingly cool, and new warmth enveloped her. ‘Mine has been boring.’
‘I doubt that.’ He raised his glass. ‘You are a woman who is anything but ordinary. Tell me about your life in Ireland.’
‘Not much to say.’ Evie paused for a moment and then began to tell him about Jim and Brendan and Sheldon Lodge, Anaconda Man and the betting shop, Liverpool and Brittany. She talked about the luck of the Irish, her lucky number four; how she had been so fortunate to get a lift from two lovely girls in Roscoff when the wheel fell off her case, and how she had drunk brandy with a charming German student to escape the chilly atmosphere of Oradour.
He listened, his dark eyes alert to her story, filling her glass again, sipping the wine to moisten his lips and lifting the bottle to replenish their glasses. She was relaxed, feeling warm and happy in his company. She drank again, the wine fizzing against the back of her throat, and she closed her eyes for a moment. The wine was sweet and Mr Grumpy was talking to her in his soft, gravelly voice, waving his hands and telling her about his passion for music.