Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

doing some research when she started dating him.”
    “Is that something you ever did, research someone you were seeing?”
    “That was before the age of Google,” she said, smiling. “But yes, you ask around, ask your friends, try to find out something about someone who could be important to you. It’s human nature.”
    “What you describe sounds like a lot more than that. Family photos, thick files.”
    “Yes, I was surprised. It struck me as being like a special research project. They were real photos, glossy prints rather than computer printouts. And there were not just portraits butgroup shots, like snaps from a family album, some quite old, from what looked like the thirties and forties. But I think you can get real photos made from computer images these days.”
    Bruno nodded. It was more than strange for Jacqueline to go to that much trouble for a guy she’d dated briefly and then dropped. But he was rich. Perhaps that was it. Despite her affair with Max, maybe she was thinking of Bondino and his money. Or perhaps she was hoping to make her career in the Bondino firm. That would make sense. But her having all these photos suggested something different, something more personal than just researching a company for a possible job. Even beyond her manipulative ways there was something about Jacqueline that troubled him. He’d have to question her again, maybe get a look at those files.
    Dominique was collecting the used paper plates and throwing them into a big black plastic bag. Stéphane hauled Pamela to her feet and back to the dance floor, where the music was now Beach Boys surfing songs. Alphonse’s collection seemed to have stopped growing at about the time he started the commune. Dominique gave her hand to Bruno and they went off to join the dancers.
    “Max would have loved this,” said Dominique. “It’s just his kind of party.”
    The music changed to Françoise Hardy, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles,” and as Alphonse cut in to dance with Dominique, Bruno found Pamela and took her in his arms.
    “This is rather more my kind of music,” Pamela said. “I never really enjoyed the bouncy stuff.”
    “Just wait,” he said. “I know Alphonse’s music. Next it will be Jean Trenet from the 1940s and then some slow numbers from Juliette Gréco and Yves Montand.”
    “Better still,” she said, and spun away, still holding hishand, to turn a stately pirouette before coming back into his arms. In the firelight, with her fine skin and clear complexion, she looked impossibly young, and Bruno felt the supple play of a horsewoman’s lithe muscles under the light touch of his hands.
    “I never thought of you as a dancer, with all that energetic rugby and tennis,” she said.
    She was smiling, her eyes fixed on his. She moved in toward him, her cheek close to his. He shifted his head a fraction to nestle his cheek against hers, and he felt the slightest tremble under his hands. Yves Montand was singing “Feuilles Mortes.” Bruno heard Pamela singing along quietly in English, “The autumn leaves caress my windowpane …” She had a sweet voice, soft and low.
    “Did you mean to kiss me, the night after your dinner?” she asked, almost whispering.
    “I didn’t mean to,” he answered quickly, almost despite himself. He had to tell the truth. “But then I wanted to, very much. It seemed to come from nowhere.”
    “Yes, I know,” she said. “It seemed that way to me as well. Then I felt sorry that we stopped.”
    He bent his head and kissed her neck, and felt her hands tighten on his back.
    “I thought about it all the way back to town,” he said. “And then Bondino took over.”
    “Ah, yes, Bondino and Jacqueline. And poor Max. What a mess that girl has made.” She paused, and they swayed together to the music, oblivious to the other dancers. “Do you think we get any more sensible about love as we get older?”
    “Not more sensible, no. But it’s more quiet, more subtle, stronger. It loses none of its power,” he said. “Maybe we grow more cautious, because we know what it is to be hurt.”
    “Is that what it is?” she whispered. He felt her lips brush hischeek and her fingers play gently with the curls at the nape of his neck. “Or do we just think about it and talk about it more?”
    “I think about it far too much,” he said, and kissed her. This time neither of them turned away as the firelight slowly died and the stars became brilliant above.

39
    Because he had