Page 2 of Vine (Island Love #3)
CHAPTER 1
MAX
Everyone has a price, and everything is for sale.
Hidden in my quiet corner of L’Escale, I overheard a lot of trash talk. From tourists, mostly, the rich, confident ones—usually middle-aged and male— braying in voices loud enough to knock the froth off my pint. They spoke in such certain tones that not only did their voices carry, but people halfway digested their throwaway opinions as the gospel truth before even parsing them.
This little homily, however, was my least favourite, principally because it wasn’t true. Not in my world, anyhow. I supposed that in Paris, where people compared their cars, their apartments, their jobs and their wives to those belonging to the similarly suited man reading Le Monde on the metro opposite, measuring happiness by material possessions was a perfectly acceptable way to judge success.
Or perhaps I was talking out my arse too.
Everyone has a price, and everything is for sale.
Well, not me. And not my dog.
I liked dogs. And cats. Most animals, in fact. You could always tell what dogs were thinking because they only had four moods: sad, happy, cross, and concentrating. They never lied, either, or made fun of me. When I was a child and my mind constantly whirred, playing with our mongrel, Keegan, was the only way to block out the clashing of my family all talking at the same time. Dogs became my favourite topic of conversation; I could list every breed and their average weight in kilos, from the English Mastiff (68 to 113 kilos) down to the smallest chihuahua (1.3 to 2.8 kilos). When I acquired my black lab, Noir, currently weighing in at 29.1 kilos (below average weight on account of only having three legs), my dad worried I’d become obsessed afresh. I won’t. Sometimes they all forget I’m now an adult.
I took a long draught of my beer, nodding at a couple of familiar faces. The baker was having a quick drink after an early shift. He wasn’t for sale either. Just like his dad before him. Come to think of it, L’Escale itself would never be up for auction; the same family had passed the bar down the line, in some form of watering hole or another, since my grandfather was a boy.
I supped a little more.
These capitalist go-getters didn’t grasp the truth. They could visit our island for a few months, throw their money about our pretty restaurants, and even buy up a few of our pretty houses, but they’d never own the island. Not really, because the island wasn’t for sale either. Every blade of grass, every salt marsh, every oyster bed, and each acre of vineyard belonged to one local family or another. Cash poor maybe, but most of us sat on a patch of something solid that God wasn’t making any more of.
My dad, for instance, owned half of nine hectares of oyster beds, inherited from his uncle thirty years ago. My older brother, Nico, owned the other half, as well as the goldmine oyster-tasting shack tagged onto it. Nico’s best mate, Florian, was the boss of a couple of salt flats his grandfather passed on to him when I was still a boy. The weary baker at the bar, sharing paté en cro?te and a carafe of local red with the mayor while putting the world to rights, rented out a pony manège and twelve acres of donkey-grazing land over at Ars, although you’d never know from how hard he grafted.
And, courtesy of my mother dying five years ago, just before my twentieth birthday, I was gifted the deed to a small vineyard. Just over two hectares, with a decent-sized property lording over it and a pair of tiny gatehouses.
Given the choice, I’d have preferred keeping my mother. I missed her constancy. I missed regular touch from another human being, even if the sensation of their skin against mine, especially when uninvited, sometimes felt like the brush of a thousand stinging nettles.
My dad wandered into the bar, just as I contemplated heading for home. Checking I was in my usual spot, he threw me a wave, then stood at the bar too, where a couple of his mates had already split a jug of Warsteiner. I didn’t expect more acknowledgement—we’d spent all day working together. Recognising my dad’s voice, Noir thumped his tail on the floor. With a grunt of permission, I let him trot over to say hello.
Generally, I nursed my beer alone. Since moving out of my dad’s place and into one of the gatehouses at the entrance to my vineyard, I lived alone too, except for Noir. I ate alone, showered alone, listened to the radio alone, and slept alone. Because I didn’t talk much, and my brain worked differently to most, folk assumed I was simple and gave me a wide berth. Nico and his mate Florian, one of the best-looking blokes I’d ever clapped eyes on, did not fall into that category.
Sometimes—like now, as they waltzed into the bar—I wished they would.
“Evening.”
“Evening.”
My brother’s effusiveness matched my own. Nonetheless, we were solid.
Florian, on the other hand, treated me to the usual warm hug and kiss he bestowed on most of his friends, which I enjoyed more than he’d ever know. Not a stinging nettle in sight. Another sign I was an adult; I no longer fixated on Florian. He had a very nice long-term partner, and, more to the point, obsessive crushes on random men were unhealthy. I didn’t do that anymore.
As Florian pulled back, a half-smirk played about Nico’s lips. “I hear you’re going into showbiz,” he commented. “And there was me thinking you only had a face for radio.”
And a voice for silent movies, but I got by. Giving him the finger, I drained my pint and contemplated another, seeing as Nico was buying.
News travelled fast in our village, especially in January when fuck-all else was happening. Nico hadn’t expected a response. When I said I didn’t talk much, that extended to family.
Florian’s hypnotic green eyes absorbed me thoughtfully; I almost met his gaze with my own ordinary brown ones. “How long has it been since old Edouard retired?”
I pulled a face. “A year? Maybe eighteen months.”
“I thought you were going to see if the vineyard owner next door wanted to rent the vines from you? And let his son lease the house?”
“Changed my mind.”
Patiently, Florian waited for more. His smile was sweet enough to draw blood from a stone.
“The television crew want to turn it around. Then I’ll rent it to him afterwards, when it’s back up and running again. In time for the vendage. Everyone’s a winner.”
On this island, we looked after our own. The vineyard owner next door was more than happy with the arrangement. As was my aunt, who had negotiated a good price on a couple of caravans the television people would rent. L’Escale and the boulangerie would do okay out of it, too. And, as I said, not much happened here out of season. With a bit of luck, the British film crew would provide us with some much-needed entertainment.