The next morning, Johnny breakfasted early, then hung around in the chateau foyer to wait for the others. He’d always enjoyed the beginning of a new day. There was a sense of promise in the air, a feeling that anything was possible. It was starkly contrasted to how Johnny viewed much of the rest of life, the dull repetitiveness of his work as each day progressed and the aching void of the personal life he’d had and subsequently lost catching up to him as time spooled past.
But in a hotel setting, the vibrant early-morning feeling was heightened. Everyone seemed to move with purpose and fresh enthusiasm. People wished one another a good morning with gusto – faked or not, it went some way towards raising his spirits.
There was another reason for his standing in the foyer, looking like a spare wheel in the well-oiled machinations of a large clock. When he’d woken, he’d come to with the urge to find the waitress from the previous evening and apologise to her. For Noel’s behaviour, for starters. But also, for his own. He might have done his best to deflect his brother’s clumsy actions, but it didn’t excuse his own rudeness to her way before dinner, when all she was trying to do was deliver towels.
A quick check of his watch and Johnny knew he was running out of time, that the others would be assembling at any moment. He revised that thought. Ricky and Ed would appear at any moment, whereas Noel was a rather looser cannon in terms of timekeeping.
About to turn to the front desk, to ask if he could leave her a message that way, he realised he had no idea of her name.She hadn’t been wearing a name badge, unlike all the other members of staff he’d seen so far. Had that been a conscious decision on her part, a way of maintaining a bit of privacy?
Whatever the reason, his opportunity evaporated as Ricky and Ed hailed him from the curving staircase. Apparently, Noel was on a videocall with someone back in the UK and they weren’t to wait for him. He’d catch them up at the winery.
‘Just as well we got two hire cars,’ Ed said.
Gravel scrunched underfoot as they headed across the driveway to the parking area and Johnny unlocked the grey S-Class. A streak of furry orange shot out from underneath the car and Johnny watched a cat with an impressively bushy tail scoot over a fence and away. At least, he presumed it was a cat, but he supposed it could conceivably have been a small fox. Hard to tell at the speed with which it disappeared.
His daughter wanted a cat. A white one like the kitten fromTheAristocats. Before their lives had imploded, Johnny had bought Estelle a nightlight shaped like the character, complete with a pink bow between its ears and a nameplate printed with the character’s name ‘Marie’ in gold letters. It seemed to have placated her, but not long afterwards, Estelle had climbed onto Johnny’s lap, pulling his hand until it lay over her heart.
‘Can you feel it beating, Daddy? I think it’s slowing down. It might stop unless I get a real Marie. That’s how much I want a kitten.’
As it turned out, discussions about getting a real kitten had been what pushed Johnny’s precarious relationship with his wife over the edge. What had seemed an innocuous enough question on his part about the possibility of getting a real cat escalated when Natalie assumed she’d be the one who would end up looking after it and had flown off the handle.
Johnny still couldn’t work out if he’d take back that conversation if he could. Whether he’d rather go back to that moment and never enter into the row which followed, in which Natalie inadvertently alluded to her affair. If he’d never pushed her about the cat, perhaps everything could have stayed as it was. And even though he would have been living a lie, perhaps he wouldn’t ever have found out. Perhaps he’d still have his family.
Hiding a sigh on his slide into the driving seat, Johnny adjusted the rear-view mirror and started the engine. Too late to worry about all of that, now. What was done was done. He just wished she could have been completely honest with him, rather than hiding the other man’s identity. He’d never understood why she chose to do that. Hadn’t realised how little Natalie respected him, that even after all they’d been through, she couldn’t be totally transparent. She’d told him it didn’t matter who he was. And on one level, Johnny supposed she was right. But on another, it did matter. It mattered a great deal – especially if the prick ended up spending time around Estelle.
After negotiating narrow lanes leading away from the chateau, the roads opened out and Johnny got to put his foot down, to enjoy some of the car’s punchy acceleration, before they were leaving decent roads behind again in favour of smaller, narrower, twisting tracks. With the satnav indicating they were six minutes out from the winery, a ‘for sale’ sign caught Johnny’s eye. Behind it, set back some way from the road but down a driveway nowhere near as impressive as that of Chateau les Champs d’Or, was a dilapidated chateau building.
Johnny only caught a glimpse, and the building was a fraction of the size of the imposing grandeur of their hotel, but with the sun glinting from its windows, and a gorgeous curving staircase up to a set of double front doors visible amidst the overgrown vegetation, something about it pulled at a place deep inside him.
‘Always amazes me how the French allow stuff like that to decay,’ Ricky said from the back seat.
A glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed Ricky was referring to the chateau, his thumb gesticulating in its direction as their car travelled on.
‘What would a place like that be worth back home? Couple of mill?’ Ed said from the front passenger seat.
‘Not in that state,’ Ricky said. ‘If you tarted it up, then yeah. Easy. But here, and in that state, they’ll be lucky to get anyone interested. Looks like the roof might have gone. Have to pay someone to take it on, I should think.’
Johnny felt the tug again as he twisted in his seat to get a final glimpse at the place. It looked as though the overgrown gardens ran parallel to the road, with a patch of woodland behind. Unspoilt and untouched, for some years by the looks of it.
A little piece of heaven.
‘Are we waiting for Noel when we get to this winery, or are we going to get going on the tasting straightaway?’ Ed asked, and the moment was gone, the bubble of magic burst as reality crowded back in.
‘Why don’t we do a tour of the place, that’ll give Noel a chance to catch us up before we taste anything,’ Johnny said.
Noel was never particularly interested in the places they visited, however keen the grower or producer might be to show them the hard work and dedication that went into the production of the wine. Sometimes it was easier to indulge the owner without Noel being present, allowing them to show off the aged oak barrels in their cellar, or talk freely about the different terroirs of their vineyard slopes. Noel only ever wanted to talk bottom line, didn’t seem to understand any of the artistry which went with the creation of, well, anything.
Apart from the bleating from the satnav, an unassuming open gate was the only clue they’d reached their destination; nailed to it was a small sign which simply read ‘Vin de Beaufoy’.Beaufoy’s Wine. Johnny turned and eased the car up the potholed track, towards the low building flanked by row upon row of vines.
By mid-morning, Fran was having difficulty remembering she’d been at Chateau les Champs d’Or for less than twenty-four hours. She’d had a poor night’s sleep – to be fair, Fran never slept well on the first night in a new place, something she hadn’t even realised until she began her nomadic lifestyle working for Wilding Holdings – but she thought she’d been tired enough the previous evening to zonk out without much trouble. Even though the bed was perfectly comfortable, and her tiny room in the staff quarters was equipped with everything she needed, Fran should have realised it would take a night or two to adjust to the midnight music of a new place. As it was, owls had hooted, floorboards had creaked, and at one point something outside had screeched with enough force to have Fran fiercely awake, eyes wide in the dark, hoping it had been the calling of a fox, and not something horrible happening to Red.
There had been no sign of the cat this morning, and Fran made a promise to herself to use her breaks to sneak some food from the kitchen and go in search of him. For now, she and Penny were housekeeping the rooms on the western side of the chateau.
With a plastic box full of cleaning liquids and cloths, Penny knocked loudly at the door to the honeymoon turret room. Having waited for a few moments, she unlocked the door with her master keycard and shouted up the stairs for good measure, announcing their arrival.
Fran followed her up the staircase, with an armful of fresh towels. The room was empty and, unlike some of the otherrooms they’d already serviced, everything was neat and tidy. Even the used towels had been replaced on the heating rack. In a matter of minutes, the rooms were done.
‘That has to go down as the tidiest honeymoon suite I’ve ever seen,’ Penny said. ‘Usually there’s stuff everywhere. You’ve got no idea what I’ve had to clear up before.’
