Two Tickets to Dubrovnik

By Angus Kennedy

Andrew Johnston, an Australian wine writer, goes to Dubrovnik to prepare an article for his editor on the wines and wineries of southern Rhne. He never realized how this trip will impact his life until an old acquaintance crosses his path bringing new surprises and challenges. In author Angus Kennedys Two Tickets To Dubrovnik, readers will follow Andrew as he composes his editorial piecewhile facing the conflicting challenges between his heart and his head. They will be compelled to take deep breaths, discover insights, and witness a beautiful story of life, a little romance, and the clash of two very different cultures.

The historic walled city of Dubrovnik, the heart of the ancient Republic of Ragusa and now part of Croatia, provides the setting for Australian wine writer, Andrew Johnston, who travels there to prepare an article on the wines and wineries of the southern Rhne region of France. During his stay in Dubrovnik, he meets up with an old Bordelaise wine making acquaintance, Lucien Delasalles, and is introduced to his family connections in the city, including his sister, Niki. Andrew is attracted to Niki but is warned by his landlady about Nikis brother, Jakov, and his unsavoury friends, and against becoming too close to Nikis family. Interested and intrigued by Niki and her family, Andrew devotes more of his time to them and endeavours to discover more about the facts underlying the veiled warning that he has received. In spite of inviting the attentions of the local police, Andrew perseveres with his enquires but control of his life is taken out of his hands as he sees his ordered existence and his developing interest in Niki being blown away by the unfolding events surrounding her family. The time-enduring environment of the ancient town provides a sharp contrast to the rapidly moving events in this modern Balkan world and the outcome reflects the complex relationships that have always existed among people, no matter how apparently stable their environment.

In its unexpected conclusion, readers will find themselves with Andrew back in Australia, reminiscing on his short stay in Dubrovnik and the many things that happened. Two Tickets To Dubrovnik will leave them with questions and a desire for more stories of the same kind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Apr 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469176888

Angus Kennedy

Angus Kennedy is the world’s leading expert on chocolate and has been dubbed by the media as the “real life Willy Wonka.” Kennedy is the owner of Kennedy’s Confection, a chocolate review magazine his family has owned for forty years, and the founder of the World Chocolate Forum, the world’s largest chocolate industry conference. He’s been a guest on a variety of TV and radio programs, including BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Talk to Aljazeera (USA), and Bloomberg TV, and featured in a wealth of print and digital media, such as Huffington Post, the Telegraph, NBC News.com, and the Daily Mail. His most recent video about chocolate, on Business Insider, received 2.4 million views in twenty-four hours, setting a record high. Kennedy’s provocative assertion in 2011 that the world might be running out of chocolate received international media coverage and was a source of much concern by chocolate lovers around the world. He is a father of five and lives with his family in Kent, England. ALSO AVAILABLE FROM ANGUS KENNEDY The Kitchen Baby: Angus Kennedy, 9780957532908, Black Mansion, 01/23/2013.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Angus Kennedy.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2012903858

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4691-7687-1

                Softcover       978-1-4691-7686-4

                Ebook            978-1-4691-7688-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 08/23/2013

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1

It was three weeks before I got round to having a look at the piece of blue paper that was sitting under the base of the bedside lamp.

I was in our house in France for a long visit, around three months, both to enjoy France more than I had previously had the opportunity to do and also to make a planned visit to Spain. I hoped that immersing myself within the French culture for a long period of time would help me with my rather faltering grasp of the French language. It was infuriating that although I had been studying French on and off for around ten years and could read and write the language reasonably well, my oral French was very ordinary. I seemed to have got stuck in the mental translation mode, rather than being able to feel the language. One of the objectives of this extended visit was to try to rectify this shortcoming.

My brother and I had decided to purchase a house in France over Christmas in 1999 as we were both interested in the country and the culture and thought it might be a rewarding idea. I had some knowledge of the area around Languedoc-Roussillon through my involvement with a local winery and liked the region for a number of reasons—it was warm, it was central to southern France and Spain, it was very rural, and house prices had not gone through the roof as they had done in the more trendy areas of Provence. (Certainly, there had been no book yet written about the trials and joys of house renovation in the area.) The idea of having a holiday house some 20,000 kilometres from home in Australia seemed strange to most people, but we hoped that it would work for us.

Because I often travelled to France for my work, it was left to me to find a house and to make the purchase. We had agreed that the area in the general locale of the winery, more or less the central part of the Hérault Département, would be the place to look, and I decided to enlist the services of a local Frenchwoman who lived in St Thibéry, a small village around 20 kilometres east of Béziers, about 80 kilometres down the A9 auto route from Montpellier. I knew a little of her because she operated gites in her village, and Australians visiting the winery during vintage had lodged there at different times. She also ran a small real estate firm in the village and might have been prepared to advise or even act for me in the purchase. She had the extra advantage of speaking quite good English, and, with my French being mediocre at best, this would be a significant plus for her. She had married an American and lived in the United States for many years before returning to France with her husband to re-establish in St Thibéry, and, although I had only met her a couple of times, she appeared to be a pleasant, outgoing sort of person who could well be very helpful.

As it turned out, when I made contact with Monique in June 2000, she had recently separated from her husband and, after showing me a number of houses in which I might have been interested, proposed, over the ubiquitous French lunch, that I purchase her own house in St Thibéry, fully furnished, and with the current tenants in the apartments. This proposal came as something of a surprise to me, but she assured me that she wanted a change and to leave the house and its memories behind her. We went over the house together, and it suited my brother and me admirably—it was on four levels, with a garage and rez-de-chausée on the ground floor, two self-contained apartments on one side of the house, on the second and third levels, the main house (for our living) on the second and third levels on the other side, and a large kitchen and living area for the main house, stretching across the entire width of the house on the top level. It even had a tiled terrace outside the top living area with a small barbecue. Monique said that it had been renovated by the previous owner and, although some of the work showed true DIY (or true French) handiwork, it looked sound enough.

The house was in Grand Rue, a street somewhat narrower than its name would imply, in the centre of the village, with Grand Rue leading on to the local square, Place du Marché, on the western end and up to the Mairie going the other way. One of the local boulangeries was next door, and the other houses in the street were all occupied, either permanently or as second residences. From the terrace, we looked south across Grand Rue, over the row of terraced houses that abutted the eastern wall of the abbey to the abbey itself, with its tower and spire, and then across to the countryside beyond. The village was small, probably around 2,000 people, but was conveniently located and with basic local stores (albeit with operating hours that in no way fitted with those advertised in their windows and that appeared, as we later discovered, to vary on a random basis). It was also quiet, and extremely peaceful, and so suited us. We made the purchase, and our involvement with French property ownership began.

§

The piece of blue paper that I had neglected for three weeks turned out to be two pieces of blue paper. They were entry tickets to the ancient, walled town of Dubrovnik, in Croatia, on the Adriatic Sea. Two rectangular tickets, each priced at 30 Kuna, each with a plan of the town printed on it and each with its tear-off entry validation still attached. Two tickets to Dubrovnik—both stamped 18-07-2005. I was pretty sure that neither my brother nor I had been at Dubrovnik at that time, so, presumably, they had been left behind by some of our friends who had been staying in the house for a time. That they were under the lamp on this visit, and had not been there on my visit the previous year, suggested that they had been found by the cleaner and placed there for some form of safekeeping. Whatever, they were there, and their presence brought back many memories, very much tinged with regret.

Chapter 2

It was a clear autumn day as the bus brought me along the winding hill road on the coastal hinterland of Croatia that led down to the Adriatic Sea and the city of Dubrovnik, where I planned to spend some weeks completing the text for the article on southern Rhone wines that I was putting together for a magazine in the United Kingdom. I had spent a couple of months in that area of France, looking at new and previous vintage wines, and thought that somewhere different would be in order in which to convert my copious notes into something readable. I had chosen Dubrovnik because it was different, because it sounded interesting, and because I had been able to find on the internet some reasonably priced accommodation at the closing stages of the season. The fact that I spoke no Croatian at all seemed more an advantage than a disadvantage, because it meant that I would be less tempted to go out and about and would so spend more time on my work. I had been able to find a pension where the patron spoke some English, and so I was confident that I would be able to survive, albeit in a rather isolated existence. I was looking forward to the experience and just hoped that I would be able to finish my work within the four weeks that I had allotted to it.

From the winding heights of the road that led down from the surrounding hills to Dubrovnik, the city looked just as it did in all the postcards and pictures that I had seen—a small, walled, stylised picture of a town, with its bedraggled-looking suburbs stretching out the short distance to the mountains to the north and to the sea on the western side. With its two parapeted harbour arms jutting out into the bay on the eastern side and its extended rump rudely backing towards the blue Adriatic to the west, it resembled a large manta ray. The city proper was a relief map of orange-brown roofs and cream, off-white walls, pockmarked by the occasional square or place, and its port entrance seemed to embrace the sea in its possessive grasp. I could see the crenulated ramparts that surrounded the city and, almost, the visitors doing their dutiful rounds along them. In the mid-morning light, the sea was a brilliant blue, almost completely calm, with its surface like an azure billiard table nap, except for the occasional cruise boat moored outside the city and the fading white trails of motorboats that flitted, noiselessly from this distance, to the various villages and islands on and in the Adriatic. It was certainly a beautiful sight, a fairytale town beckoning visitors to its fairytale existence.

§

The bus let me off just outside the Pile Gate, on the western side of the old town, and I headed off into the historic city with my few possessions, my local plan de ville, and much confidence. My apartment was a few streets into the pedestrian-only city, in Ulica Nikole Božidarevića, so I strolled down the Placa Stradun and soon turned right, following the building numbers until I found what was to be my home for the next few weeks. I knocked at the door fronting on the street and waited. In due course, a late middle-aged woman opened the door with a questioning look and a half smile and said, "Halo. Good afternoon, Mr Johnston?" Her English was very passable, certainly very much better than my Croatian, and I introduced myself fully. She introduced herself as Mme Gradić, bade me welcome, and invited me in. We passed by some rooms on the ground floor and climbed the flight of stairs to two doors on the first floor landing, one of which she unlocked and opened for me to enter. The apartment was more or less what I had envisaged and certainly looked comfortable enough for my few weeks there.

Mme Gradić led me into the main living area that looked out on the narrow street below, with its adequate kitchenette in the rear corner, to the single bedroom, and to the small but clean bathroom and asked whether everything was satisfactory. I replied that it was and asked about places for grocery and other shopping. She gave me detailed instructions about the best places to go and how to get there and then explained that she lived in the apartment on the ground floor with her younger daughter, Filipa, and that the other two apartments in the building were empty at the time, but that she was expecting some guests in one of them the following week. She confirmed that I would be staying the four weeks for which I had taken the apartment and that I should feel free to ask her should I have any difficulties with anything. I thanked her again, and she left me alone to settle in.

The place was very comfortable. While the two shuttered windows in the living area opening out on to the street faced west, against the line of opposing buildings, there was still plenty of light reflecting in for me to work easily at the small table that I shifted a little to be in a better place and next to the power point in the wall. There was quite enough cupboard space for me to unpack my things and preserve as much of the bedroom space as possible, and the gas cook top in the kitchenette would service my cooking needs, especially as I would probably dine out fairly frequently. In short, the apartment was fine for what I needed.

Having organised things as well as they needed, I decided to take a stroll to the recommended mini-market and buy some basic foodstuffs, as well as do a bit of a reconnaissance of the general area. It was approaching late afternoon by this time and I would need something to eat that night, as I had decided that I would take my main meal for the day at lunch at one of the local restaurants, after two to three hours of work in the morning, nap in the afternoon, and then do another couple of hours work at night after a light supper. The small television in the corner of the living area seemed unlikely to be much of a distraction, with the only channels available being local ones in Croatian. I thought I could probably buy an English newspaper every few days to avoid losing complete touch with the outside world, and this should suffice for entertainment. I had also brought other books to read, including an historical tome on Dubrovnik itself, which I hoped to read during my stay. My schedule was therefore laid out, and I was confident that I would finish my work in good time and may even be able to do a little sightseeing within and without the old town before the time came to leave.

§

My schedule worked pretty well and I was well into my project by the early part of the second week and enjoying lunch at my regular restaurant on Ulica Zamanjina, just a block down the Stradun towards the harbour, reading the second English newspaper of my stay, when I was unexpectedly interrupted.

"Andrew! Ça va! What are you doing here?"

I looked up rather startled and saw Lucien Delasalles standing over me with a beam on his face.

"Bonjour, Lucien! I am just having lunch, I replied. Sit down and join me."

Lucien was a slightly more than passing acquaintance from the wine industry whom I had first met several years before in Bordeaux and whom I had since seen several times in France. His family owned a small winery near St Emilion, just over the Dordogne from Bordeaux city, and we had lunched together a few of times when I was writing a piece on smaller family wines from the region. He was of the typical Gallic build, small and spare of stature and thin faced, but his smile always broke through his slightly swarthy features to light up his whole appearance. He had always been a likeable and welcoming Frenchman, who took an enviably optimistic view of life under the rigours of the French wine regulatory system—in fact, he seemed to enjoy the constraints it placed on him and his family business, as though the difficulties and challenges of them all added zest to his existence and helped make it all worthwhile. The fact that the winery struggled to survive from vintage to vintage seemed not to worry him at all—they had always had to struggle with the crops and the seasons, and the gods of nature would ensure that they always would have