Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

a quick
“Bonjour.”
Bruno assumed he was still nervous about being under suspicion until Max moved on quickly to Jacqueline, only to be taken aback by her frosty response. Max looked hesitant, furious and baffled, all at the same time. He had a lot to learn about women, Bruno thought.
But then so do I
, Bruno told himself as he checked his phone yet again and wondered if Isabelle was ever going to call. And how would he respond if she did appear? Could he possibly assume that all would be as it was, that they would fall into bed and make passionate love? More likely he’d be tongue-tied and nervous but would try to conceal it with some light bravado. And what of Isabelle? Would she too be uncertain at meeting again,a little reserved, suggesting that she was not prepared to jump into bed at the sight of him?
    Time would tell. She had made the approach, saying she was coming again to Saint-Denis, to Bruno’s turf. She would decide the way things would develop. He would have to take his cue from her, and try to fathom Isabelle’s intentions behind whatever mask she’d be wearing for the delicate moment of reunion. Snipping away at Joe’s grapes, Bruno wondered whether it was the policeman in him that made him so interested in how other people presented themselves to others. In his experience, and indeed in his own case, what the public saw was often very different from the real person, but it was full of useful clues about the way the person would truly like to be. Bruno would love to be as calm and self-confident as he had taught himself to seem, and to be even a fraction as wise and patient as he sought to appear.
    The reality, Bruno knew, was that he tended to be lazy and self-indulgent and required the imposition of a clear routine and self-discipline to function even tolerably well. He assumed that it was the same with others, and that one’s own faults loomed much larger than they usually appeared to the outside world. The superficially poised and self-assured Jacqueline was probably far less sure of herself than she appeared as she played off her two admirers against each other. Bruno watched as she chatted happily to Bondino in English, and gave curt replies in French to the crestfallen Max.
    Jacqueline lifted some vine leaves and peered through at Bruno. “Does your friend ever trim these vines? I can’t imagine what kind of wine he produces.”
    “It’s an acquired taste,” Bruno said. “But I doubt that you’ll acquire it. I never have.”
    “Nor I,” said Max, working alongside Bondino at the next row of vines. “It’s probably the worst wine I’ve ever tasted.” Helooked sourly at Bondino. “Except for some of that mass-produced
merde
from the New World, sugary grape juice with added alcohol.”
    Aha
, thought Bruno.
The young bulls are starting to face off
.
    “So why do you all do this? He pays you?” asked Bondino. Bruno wasn’t sure whether he was ignoring Max’s last comment or simply didn’t understand.
    “Not in money, but in food and fellowship,” Bruno replied. “Joe has been a good friend to me. He did my job for years before I came to Saint-Denis, and he’s helped me enormously. All the people here are his friends and family, and they come every year for the
vendange.”
    “But why bother when he takes no care of his vines and the wine is no good? I don’t get it,” asked Jacqueline.
    “You missed that bunch,” Bruno said, thinking it was rather the point that she was missing. “And that one back there.”
    “No, I didn’t,” she said primly. “I left them on purpose. Some of them were already rotten.”
    “So cut those off the bunch and put the good ones in the plastic bin with the rest. Joe is not particular.”
    She shook her head, ignoring him. Bruno went back and cut the bunches she had left. A few of the grapes had burst, and some were shriveled. Bruno shrugged, cut off the worst and tossed the bunch into the bin.
    “If we were in California, I’d fire you,” she said when he returned, her voice rising in pitch at the end of the phrase. That was often the case with her, Bruno noted.
    “If we were in California she’d probably shoot you,” said Max, grinning.
    “If we were in California I would not be working in a vineyard,” Bruno said. “Unless a friend asked me to help. And then I would follow his rules, or hers, for cutting the grapes. Here, I follow Joe’s rules. So should we all.”

17
    Still conscious of Joe’s cassoulet lying