The Critic

III

The road curved up around the edge of the hill, the land falling away to the left, a dramatic sweep of empty vines straddling the slope. Beyond, the vast flood plains of the Tarn shimmered away into a distant haze, the river snaking lazily through it, towns and villages in red brick dotted along its banks.

Enzo’s 2CV strained against the gradient and then picked up speed as it reached the top of the hill. Suspension rocked and rolled through the narrow streets of a tiny stone village, before the road swooped down again towards the church on its distant promontory.

A chalk-white track left the road to curl around the hillside, past the towering apse of the twelfth century Eglise de Verdal, depositing Enzo finally in the shade of the oaks that clustered around its ancient forecourt. He got out of the car and felt the wind whip warm in his face. The three bells in the church tower swayed in gentle acknowledgement of its rising strength. Vines dropped away on all sides, and from here the view to the south was an unbroken panorama. You could almost believe that on a clear day you might see all the way to the Mediterranean.

He found himself looking down on the cluster of buildings that was Domaine de la Croix Blanche, perhaps a kilometre away, in the valley below. He could make out the chai, and the salle de degustation, a group of red-roofed barns, and the Marre’s house on the far side of the yard.

He turned away to look at the old church. The stained glass in tiny arched windows high up on the wall had somehow survived intact. Windows at ground level were all boarded up, wooden shutters bleached and rotten. Concrete rendering was crumbling to reveal golden stone walls beneath it. A sign on the door told randonneurs that the eglise was a stop on an historic walk, and that Lisle sur Tarn was ten kilometres away.

Enzo had come here to escape from people, to breathe and to think, to try to focus on the myriad morceaux d’informations he had accumulated in the last two weeks. To see where they fit and how they related, to visualise in his mind’s eye the picture they might create if only he could make sense of them.

But he was finding it hard to get Michelle out of his mind. The pain she felt at her perceived rejection, the lies she had told, her seemingly endless capacity for self-deception. And always that tinge of regret that he had not, in the end, slept with her, even if it would have left him with a bitter aftertaste of guilt. For a fleeting moment, he wondered what it was she had been going to tell him at Chateau de Salettes before he confronted her about her lies. But he knew he would never know.

He walked down to the highest edge of the vineyard, closed his eyes and let the wind fill his mouth. It tugged at his shirt and his cargos, carrying to him the distant sound of a motor car. He opened his eyes and saw it following the road up from the river towards La Croix Blanche. Even from here he could tell that it was an old vehicle, a muted grey-green. One of those old French cars that just seem to go on forever. Like the Citroen 2CV, or the Renault 4L. And he felt a sudden stab of apprehension. He ran back to his car to retrieve a pair of binoculars from the parcel shelf, and returned to his vantage point on the edge of the hill. As he brought the vehicle into focus, it pulled up in the yard at La Croix Blanche and a familiar figure stepped out.

‘Shit!’ Enzo lowered his binoculars. What the hell was Nicole doing there?