Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

Bruno, and I don’t know what I’ll do without her. I just want to make her comfortable, to try everything, even if the doctors tell me there’s no hope.”
    “There’s always hope, Julien, but the living have their own needs. Mirabelle wouldn’t want to see you let yourself go. You have to be strong for her, and for your business, for all the people here at the Domaine who depend on you.”
    “I’m thinking of giving it all up.”
    “That’s why I dropped by, to talk about that,” said Bruno. “Come over here by the wall where we can talk quietly without disturbing her.” He led the way to two metal chairs, painted green with wooden slats for seats. They looked flimsy, but chairs like them had taken the weight of generations of customers on the terraces of French cafés.
    “I’m kind of surprised that you heard something. I thought it was a very discreet negotiation.”
    “I’m sure it was, until the guy who bought your optioncame to see the mayor and talked about a big expansion. That’s how we heard.”
    “Dupuy? An expansion? He’s just a Paris businessman, a property dealer, I assumed,” said Julien.
    “Maybe he is. But he’s acting for a very big fish indeed. Bondino Wines of California. They’re the ones talking about expansion and buying up more land here.”
    “You’d need a lot of money to do it right. I thought of doing it myself, got a bank loan I couldn’t really afford, but it would take deeper pockets than mine. The potential is there, the land and the climate. Did you know we used to produce more wine than all of Bordeaux before the phylloxera epidemic? Those riverboats you see, the flat-bottomed
gabares
they build for tourist trips? They used to take the wine barrels along the Vézère and the Dordogne in the old days, down to Bordeaux, where they’d sell the wine and then sell the wood from the boats and walk back up here.”
    “Really?” Bruno knew the old story well, but he was pleased that Julien sounded like his old alert and talkative self.
    “I always planned on making wine here, and we made a good business from selling it at the restaurant. But then I started expanding and things became tight. The loan is guaranteed by the hotel, so the bank isn’t worried, but the interest payments have been killing me, and then Mirabelle got her diagnosis and it all became too much. So when Dupuy came along with fifty thousand euros for the option, it seemed like the right solution. That pays all the bills, and when I sell the place there will be more than enough left over for me to retire on. There’s not much point carrying on here without Mirabelle.”
    “Don’t be a fool, Julien” came a small but firm voice from the chaise longue. “You’re not even sixty yet; you’ve got a goodten years to build up something to be proud of. My life insurance will give you the working capital. If you just waste away when I’m gone, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you.”
    There was a twinkle in Julien’s eye as he looked at Bruno and then rose and moved across to his wife, kneeling on the grass at her side and taking her hand.
    “Don’t throw your life away, Julien. One thing I know from this damn cancer is that life’s far too precious to waste while you’ve got it. You need a goal in life, Julien. And you’ll probably need another wife as well, just to liven you up!”
    Bruno rose, half smiling, and went across to kiss her and pat Julien on the shoulder. “She talks a lot of sense, your Mirabelle,” he said.
    “She always did,” Julien replied, gazing at his wife with a smile on his face. He rose as Bruno said he had to leave. “I’ll walk out with you.”
    When they got to the salon, Julien stopped. “It’s not possible, you know,” he said to Bruno. “That option I signed is very clear. If they want to proceed by the end of the year, I have no choice; I have to sell.”
    “What? Even if you paid back the fifty thousand euros?”
    “Well, no. That would cancel the deal. But I’ve already spent a lot of it. And I’d probably be liable for legal fees. I can’t do anything about it now, Bruno. The Domaine is going to be sold by the end of the year. They want it as a going concern, with the furniture and everything, including the wine in the cellars and this year’s wine as well. That’s probably why I’ve been putting off harvesting the grapes. It won’t be my wine by next year.”
    “Maybe, maybe not. But whatever happens, Mirabelle’s right.