Solomon’s Vineyard: Book Ii

By Roger Dixon and Sophie Woollven

Andrew Solomon, a young London bank clerk, is “let go” by the bank in the course of reorganization, whereupon his wife leaves him for a wealthy lover. But these are almost immediately killed in a car crash and with the compensation from the bank, and his wife’s insurance he suddenly finds himself a wealthy man.

He takes a Mediterranean cruise to get away from it all but falls off the boat one night and is rescued by some French fishermen. He buys a small car and on the drive home stops at a small town in the Avergne and finds himself looking in an Estate Agent’s window:

For sale- established riverside B&B, with small vineyard.

He is hugely attracted to the idea-also to Sabine, then young Estate Agent, and with the help of her uncle Gabriel, puts his considerable funds into developing the Vineyard, and making their own wine instead of just sending their grapes to the local co-operative- which incurs the growing hostility of some of their neighbors-George Cortou, President of the Co-op in particular. Despite this, the reputation of the vineyard continues to grow until some decide they have to get rid of “The English” at all costs…

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728392677

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

Maurice Henderson, the Mayor of Les Deux Demoiselles looked up from the papers on his desk to nod at the young woman who came into the office after a brief knock and put his first coffee of the day in front of him.

‘Thank you Madeline.’

She smiled brief ly and turned for the door.

‘Has the post come yet?

The girl paused and turned back.

‘Yes Monsieur. We are just sorting it. I will bring yours in just a few minutes.’

‘Anything from England?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Her boss pulled a face.

‘Damn. My wife will be irritated!’

Madeline suppressed a smile. The Mayor’s Wife’s irritation was easily aroused, and her husband usually bore the brunt of it.

‘Yes, all right. Bring in the rest.’

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

Madeline went out closing the door behind her. Only then did she allow herself a grin.

The Mayor took a sip of his coffee then sighed and stared out of the window at the small town square below. It was April, already pleasantly warm. Who would have thought that he, an Englishman, having decided to retire here with his wife Esther five years ago would find himself in charge of a provincial French town and with inf luence far in excess of that enjoyed by his British counterparts back home. Of course, the other side of the coin was that far more responsibility rested on his shoulders, but in that he enjoyed the support of a small but loyal and competent staff who, after only a few momentary doubts as to how he would manage, had come to enjoy the novelty of the situation and being only the second town in France to be run by a foreigner.

As it happened, Esther was largely responsible. They had lived in Exton in Devon, a small town of similar size to Les Deux Damoiselle, from which Maurice had commuted daily to Exeter to attend his practice as a civil engineer.

Esther had been a school teacher and assistant Head of the local Secondary Modern, and when her daughter Denise left home to live in London, she became a town councillor and shortly afterwards assumed responsibility for the almost moribund Twinning Association - supposedly promoting good relations with a town in the Auvergne. Esther discovered that no visits or exchanges of any kind had taken place for three years; not in fact since the last Chairman had given up the job in frustration at trying to keep interest alive after some initial enthusiasm, and the Committee had not met since. Few people she had spoken to had known anything about Les Deux Demoiselles and most had never even heard of it.

Esther herself was a gifted linguist who had taught French amongst other things and spoke it f luently. She quickly recognised a challenge worthy of all her energy and enthusiasm and it was not long before a delegation from their French ‘Twin’ was welcomed to Exton and the ideals on which the Twinning Agreement had been founded reaffirmed. Esther and the Committee of the French Association agreed that the reason the relationship had died a death was because the people of each town as a whole had never become involved. Those attracted to the idea in principal had enjoyed exchange visits, but except in one or two instances where personal friendships had been formed, most tired after a while of just going to stay in each other’s homes and moved on to other interests.

The key it was agreed was in encouraging relationships between the schools of the two towns and between sports clubs as well as artistic and professional associations of all kinds -firemen, police etc - limiting more ambitious visits, including members of the foregoing as well has the respective Mayors and Councillors to every three years. One of these was due in the French Twin in the autumn - only four months away.

When they made the decision to retire to France, the obvious place was where they already had many friends through Twinning. They had not been there for more than a year when Maurice was invited to fill a vacancy on the Town Council, and he proved so knowledgeable, the idea of him standing for Mayor seemed almost inevitable.

His opponent was a Georges Courtou, an older man who had been the President of the local wine Cooperative for many years until it had gone bankrupt. This was blamed by him and some like him on the highly successful Winery, Poussin le Bas, and the thought that the town also should pass into the hands of yet another ‘Rosbif ’ was the last straw. Courtou thus became the focus of all who mistrusted foreigners - the British in particular - but most were grateful for the prosperity and job opportunities the Estate provided, and the hard work for the town, not only by Maurice himself since becoming a councillor, but his wife, who was soon invited to become Chair of the Twinning Association.

Maurice knew he did not have the mercurial intelligence of his wife, but he was a wise and patient man. He loved and admired Esther, and gave her the breathing space to be who she was.

‘You let me f ly, Maurice’ she once said to him. People admired Esther, but she made some feel uncomfortable. Maurice’s talent was to make them feel important and needed, no matter how low their own self esteem.

Despite this, she could make him nervous, particularly when she was getting frustrated by things not moving along as fast as she had hoped, and this seemed to be the situation now with their English Counterparts back in England.

One of those Esther knew she could rely on to host a popular day out for the visitors was the now prestigious Wine Estate of Poussin le Bas. Created from a run down farm bought forty years ago by Andrew Solomon, an assistant bank manager from London who had been eased out of his job for being too accommodating to Customers, largely with the compensation received after his high f lying wife was killed in a motor accident with her lover.

The Estate was now run by his daughter Ellie. Although now in her fifty-first year, Ellie Solomon was still a beautiful woman who gently discouraged any suggestion from friends and family that she might remarry after her divorce. She and husband Marcus had parted amicably, the marriage having slowly evaporated - its passing almost unnoticed over the years as each pursued their respective careers, and their mutual realisation of its passing came almost as a surprise - that mutual respect had taken the place of passion, like the haunting trace of a once loved perfume.

Her father Andrew had passed away two years ago - softly one evening, with a glass of the wine he had made famous in his hand and sitting in his favourite place on the terrace at the back of the house. It had already been in shadow, but the sun was still on the long rows of vines he could admire from where he was sitting and which ran down to the edge of the river Truyer, on the other side of which were woods which stretched away from the river until giving way to open country beyond which rose steadily to the distant ridge until crowned by the Pic du Midi more than twenty miles away.

It had also been the place where Ellie’s mother Isobel had loved to sit in the evening when she was recovering from almost drowning, but Andrew had only started to use it after Isobel died in the fire which had destroyed the house and almost put them out of business. That had been more than thirty years ago, since which Poussin le Bas had grown out of all recognition both in extent and reputation and Ellie herself had played no small part in this.

In contrast, Ellie’s son Billy, who had been virtually kidnapped by his grandmother, Sabine, as a child and taken to live in America after her own son, Billy’s father, was killed in a fight with Marcus, although long reconciled with the rest of the family, had shown no interest in leaving the law firm in Boston where he was now a junior partner to follow in his mother’s footsteps, while Holly, her daughter by Marcus, and Billy’s half-sister, had qualified as a doctor and had taken a job in Paris after two years working in Uganda.

Ellie was proud of both of them, and in no way disappointed by their choice of careers, but it did leave the question of succession a headache if the Vineyard was not to pass out of the control of the family. In the circumstances, the obvious way forward was with her Estate manage Phillip Meuse who lived with his wife Lorraine and their son Stéphane in the house on the adjacent land next door. She and her father had acquired this when the owner had died and it had enabled them to almost double the area under vines. Stéphane had followed Ellie’s own footstep in gaining a place in the course of viticulture at Montpellier University, and in another year would be returning to Poussin le Bas permanently. Ellie had already had a preliminary meeting with her accountant to see how she could best give Philippe a legal interest in the Estate compatible with the interests of her own family

Georges Jaurre looked gloomily out of the window of Immobilier Cevant at the central square of Les Deux Demoiselles which it over looked. He had been persuaded to take it on when his mother Marie, sister of Sabine, retired. But it had not taken long to realise that selling property was not for him, but by then his job in the office of the winery at Poussin le Bas had been filled by a young graduate in Montpellier. He knew that Ellie had been on the verge of asking him to look for another job anyway, and Philippe Leroi did the job far better than he had ever done, so there was no chance at all that she would want him back in any capacity whatsoever. Going back to his old job as bar man at the Bridge Hotel was also not an option, so when his mother pointed out that if he did not take on the Agency when she retired, he would have no job at all and she had no intention of keeping him or having him hanging round the house all day doing nothing, he had little choice.

George had reached forty without actually doing any harm and he had finally acquiesced to his Mother’s demand, but he was not over endowed with physical energy and found the change of pace; the daily requirement to drive potential purchasers all over the place to show them property for sale exhausting.

His Mother had stayed on for six months to show him the ropes, but as soon as she left him to it, he employed a young woman of some experience in property at a salary that left very little profit for himself, but that did not matter too much as he was still living at home and his actual cash needs were modest.

Sara Cortou was a god-send - at least as far as Georges was concerned. About ten years younger than himself, she was attractive - without being particularly pretty - but she was slim and dressed smartly; best of all, was good with the Clients and did not object to doing the lion’s share of showings leaving Georges to dabble with their administration and any inquirers who came in while she was out. Having spent two years in London in her early twenties - largely to escape her morose father - she spoke perfect English.

Georges was not fond of those who came in and disturbed whatever task he had allotted himself that particular day, and worst of all were English visitors who more often than not simply wanted to be driven around looking at properties they had no intention of buying as part of their holiday.

The cloud that hung over him this particular morning had been a conversation over breakfast between his parents who had received a letter from the mayor’s wife asking if they were prepared to receive two couples from Exton over the coming Twinning week-end, as before. Both Marie and her husband, a retired school teacher were enthusiastic supporters of Twinning and had paid two visits to Exton; both spoke passable English and they had agreed with little discussion and without consulting him at all, to agree to Madame Henderson’s request.

Georges spoke few words of any foreign tongue, which would have required him to pay more attention during lessons when at school than he had been prepared to give. He was therefore facing the prospect of the house crowded with people in whom he had at best no interest, and worst, not being able to understood a word said by anybody, including his parents during the visitors stay, who evidently thought it beneficial to speak English without exception, not only to hone their own linguistic skills but to try and stimulate their son into making an effort.

Georges sighed and turned from the window. He was a reasonably good looking man in a comfortable fashion, and had enjoyed a number of relationships over the years, but the women concerned had all drifted away eventually in the hope of meeting somebody more exciting.

One of the reasons he had hired Sara immediately was not only her professional skills but the quiet hope that maybe in time she might look favourably on a personal relationship as well. But when he eventually plucked up enough courage to broach the subject, she had responded by saying that she did not believe in mixing business with pleasure, and that if he preferred the latter, she would be compelled to leave. Faced with such choice - if choice it had really been, Georges had hurriedly assured her that he would not raise the subject again; but that did not stop him from thinking wistfully from time to time of what might have happened if the thought of managing the office without her had not immediately brought him down to earth with such a thud, and wondering if perhaps, one day, she would change her mind.

He was not familiar with her father, who bore the same first name as himself, but he knew from his mother, who was a close friend of Ellie Solomon, despite her elder sister’s animosity, that having been president of the local wine co-operative before it collapsed, he had done everything he could to undermine Poussin le Bas since. He rarely came into town and had never visited where his daughter worked, but those who ran in to him occasionally reported that time had done nothing to diminish the old man’s bitterness towards those who ran the English owned Estate.

Sara fortunately took after her mother, who was a strong minded woman - had needed to be to survive living with her husband all these years - and she had come into the office to see Sara a few months after starting work with Georges, which was when he realised the chances of her daughter changing her attitude to him were slim indeed. Sara was, moreover, a virgin, but this was a factor Georges did not know about and wouldn’t have had a clue how to deal with, if he had.

Unlike his counterpart in Les Deux Demoiselles, Mr Sidney Bowker, ironmonger and Mayor of Exton - known to his friends as ‘Sidney’ at the insistence of his Mother who had not believed in diminutives - had less help with Twinning; none at all from his wife Margery who, although she did not mind in participating in the social events involved with being Lady Mayor, had made it clear to her husband when he told her he was going to stand for election, that having brought up two children, she was happy to give more time to helping him in the shop but she did not want to become involved in politics; she had not voted in the last three general elections and did not trust any of them.

Her husband had sighed at this but knew better than to argue.

The funds made available from the Council for Twinning activities were a pittance compared to his opposite number so he was reliant on his own efforts and the Secretary of the Association, a Mrs Joyce Baker, a pleasant looking woman in her mid-forties for any help; and although anxious to do so, the time even she had available was limited by having recently taken over full responsibility for the management of the hairdressing salon where she and her husband had worked together when he died suddenly in the salon’s toilet as a result of over exertion.

Both Sidney and Joyce were aware of a mounting frustration on the part of those in their twin town responsible