The Critic

V

The dusty track shone silver in the moonlight, as did the strips of chalky, stony soil between the rows of vines that stretched away into the darkness on either side. The track was raised a metre or more above the vines, and Enzo had a fine moonlit view across the floodplain of the Tarn. Away to his right, he saw the lights of the vendangeurs hand-picking the mauzac grapes for the vin mousseux, a wine produced in almost identical fashion to champagne, except that in Gaillac there was no final addition of sugar before the bottle was sealed. It was known as methode gaillacoise, and had most of the attributes of champagne at a fraction of the price. Enzo had discovered it many years before. He could hear the voices of the grape-pickers in the distance, the lamps on their helmets dancing in the dark like demented fireflies.

The air was still balmy and soft, redolent with the heady scent of ripe fruit. Fresh from having consumed several glasses of it, Enzo reflected on what a fine creation wine really was. He was wondering how on earth man had first stumbled upon the secret processes of fermentation, when he was startled by the sudden roar of an engine off to his left. Lights from a massive mechanical harvester flooded the vineyard, and Enzo stopped for a moment to watch as it began its steady progress along the first row towards him. He felt the ground shaking beneath his feet, and thought that he preferred the gentler sounds of the vendangeurs picking by hand.

He carried on along the track and had covered less than twenty metres when a dark shadow loomed unexpectedly out of his peripheral vision. He had no time to turn before something struck him hard on the side of his head. The pain was intense, but short-lived as the night burned out in a glare of bright light before plunging to black.

It was like struggling up through a sea of treacle, fighting to break the surface. And when, finally, he did, it brought only pain. And light. And noise. And confusion.

Enzo had no idea where he was. His head hurt like hell. Like the worst migraine he’d ever had. He smelled earth and leaves. And something sweet. Something rich and dark and seductive. Grapes. He tried to focus. But still he was blinded by the light. He blinked furiously to try to clear his vision without success. The roaring in his ears, he thought, must be the blood pulsing through his head. He put his hand to his face and felt something sticky and warm, and he could smell it, even above the scent of grapes. The blood wasn’t in his head, it was coming out of it. He started to panic and tried to get to his feet, but his legs wouldn’t support him. He found himself clutching vine leaves, searching for support. Grapes burst in his grasping hand, and he felt the juice running down his arm. And still the noise got louder.

He looked down and realised that he could see perfectly well. Blood and grape juice mixed together in his hands. He looked up again only to be blinded once more by the light. But this time, something was emerging from its glare. The dark, ridged tread of a tyre that stood a metre high and was turning relentlessly towards him. Somehow the light had risen above him now, and with a suddenly clarity, he realised he was about to be crushed by the giant mechanical harvester he had been watching earlier. A machine probably driven by Bonneval’s son, oblivious to the fact that he was about to kill the man he had been introduced to less than an hour before.

It was almost on top him, the thrum of its motor unbearably loud. The ground shook as if gripped by a seismic event of Richter Scale magnitude. The vine was being rattled and shredded as interlocking bars on either side of it ripped the grapes from their stems. Some powerful suction drew them up into the body of the beast. And still Enzo’s legs would not support him. He shouted at the thing in futile desperation, but there was nothing he could do to stop it from running over him. Then, at the very last moment, with a great effort, he rolled himself to one side, into the narrowest of gaps between the wheel and the adjoining row of vines. The rubber of the tyre grazed his face as it went past, and he was struck by a huge blast of hot air that carried in it stinging fragments of stalk and leaf and grape skin, and a fine mist of grape juice.

It left him sticky-wet and gasping for breath. The noise and the lights receded as the machine carried on towards the far end of the field, Charles de Bonneval unaware that he had very nearly crushed a man to death.

Enzo managed to get to his knees and started crawling back towards the path where he had been walking, some twenty or thirty metres away. He found his shoulder bag lying discarded to one side, and clutching a wire strung between posts to support the vines, finally succeeded in getting to his feet. For several minutes, he stood there, unsteady, gasping for breath, fighting the nausea that accompanied the pain in his head and realised that someone had just tried to murder him.

Peter May

The Critic