Because Charles could not bear to admit to his friend that he was penniless, he went to the rolling red slopes of Burgundy to view the land. He was deeply impressed.
René Duchamps said, ‘We’ll each put in two million francs. In a year we’ll each have four million.’
Four million francs! It would mean freedom, escape. He could go away to some place where Hélène could never find him.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Charles promised his friend.
And he did. Day and night. It was the chance of a life-time. But how? Charles knew that it would be impossible for him to try to borrow money without Hélène immediately learning about it. Everything was in her name, the houses, the paintings, the cars, the jewellery. The jewellery … those beautiful, useless ornaments she kept locked up in the safe in the bedroom. Gradually, the idea was born. If he could get hold of her jewellery, a little at a time, he could replace the pieces with copies and borrow money on the real jewellery. After he had made his killing in the vineyard, he would simply return the jewels. And have enough money to disappear for ever.
Charles telephoned René Duchamps and said, his heart pounding with excitement, ‘I’ve decided to go in with you.’
The first part of the plan filled Charles with terror. He had to get into the safe and steal Hélène’s jewellery.
The anticipation of the terrible thing he was about to do made Charles so nervous that he was barely able to function. He went through each day like an automaton, neither seeing nor hearing what was happening around him. Every time Charles saw Hélène he began to sweat. His hands would tremble at odd times. Hélène was concerned about him, as she would have been concerned about any pet. She had the doctor examine Charles, but the doctor could find nothing wrong. ‘He seems a bit tense. A day or two in bed, perhaps.’
Hélène looked long at Charles, lying in bed, naked, and smiled. ‘Thank you, doctor.’
The moment the doctor left, Hélène began getting undressed. ‘I – I’m not feeling very strong,’ Charles protested.
‘I am,’ Hélène replied.
He had never hated her more.
Charles’s opportunity came the following week. Hélène was going to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to ski with some friends. She decided to leave Charles in Paris.
‘I want you home every night,’ Hélène told him. ‘I’ll telephone you.’
Charles watched her speed away, at the wheel of her red Jensen, and the moment she was out of sight he hurried to the wall safe. He had watched her open it often, and he knew most of the combination. It took him an hour to figure out the rest of it. With trembling fingers he pulled the safe open. There, in velvet-lined boxes, sparkling like miniature stars, lay his freedom. He had already located a jeweller, one Pierre Richaud, who was a master at duplicating jewellery. Charles had begun a long, nervous explanation about why he wanted the jewels copied, but Richaud said, matter-of-factly, ‘Monsieur, I am making copies for everyone. No-one with any sense wears real jewellery on the streets these days.’
Charles gave him one piece at a time to work on, and when the copy was ready, he substituted it for the real piece. He borrowed money on the real jewellery from the Crédit Municipal, the state-owned pawnshop.
The operation took longer than Charles had anticipated. He could only get into the safe when Hélène was out of the house, and there were unforeseen delays in copying the pieces. But finally the day came when Charles was able to say to René Duchamps, ‘I’ll have all the money for you tomorrow.’
He had accomplished it. He was half-owner of a great vineyard. And Hélène had not the slightest suspicion of what he had done.
Charles had secretly begun to read up on the growing of vines. And why not? Was he not a vintner now? He learned about the different vines: cabernet sauvignon was the principal vine used, but others were planted alongside it: gros cabernet, merlot, malbec, petit verdot. The desk drawers of Charles’s office were filled with pamphlets on soil and wine pressing. He learned about fermentation and pruning and grafting. And that the worldwide demand for wine kept growing.
He met regularly with his partner. ‘It’s going to be even better than I thought,’ René told Charles. ‘Prices for wine are sky-rocketing. We should get three hundred thousand francs a tonneau for the first pressings.’
More than Charles had dreamed! The grapes were red gold. Charles began to buy travel pamphlets on the South Sea Islands and Venezuela and Brazil. The very names had a magic about them. The only problem was that there were few places in the world where Roffe and Sons did not have offices, where Hélène could not find him. And if she found him, she would kill him. He knew that, with an absolute certainty. Unless he killed her first. It was one of his favourite fantasies. He murdered Hélène over and over again, in a thousand delicious ways.
Perversely, Charles now began to enjoy Hélène’s abuse. All the time she was forcing him to do unspeakable things to her, he was thinking, I’ll be gone soon, you convasse. I’ll be rich on your money and there’s nothing you can do about it.
And she would command, ‘Faster now,’ or ‘Harder,’ or ‘Don’t stop!’ and he would meekly obey her.
And smile inside.
In vine-growing, Charles knew the crucial months were in the spring and summer, for the grapes were picked in September and they had to have a carefully balanced season of sun and rain. Too much sun would burn the flavour, just as too much rain would drown it. The month of June began splendidly. Charles checked the weather in Burgundy once, then twice a day. He was in a fever of impatience, only weeks away from the fulfilment of his dream. He had decided on Montego Bay. Roffe and Sons had no office in Jamaica. It would be easy to lose himself there. He would not go near Round Hill or Ocho Rios, where any of Hélène’s friends might see him. He would buy a small house in the hills. Life was cheap on the island. He could afford servants, and fine food, and in his own small way live in luxury.
And so in those first days of June, Charles Martel was a very happy man. His present life was an ignominy, but he was not living in the present: he was living in the future, on a tropical, sunbathed, wind-caressed island in the Caribbean.
The June weather seemed to get better each day. There was sun, and there was rain. Perfect for the tender little grapes. And as the grapes grew, so did Charles’s fortune.
On the fifteenth day of June it began to drizzle in the Burgundy region. Then it began to rain harder. It rained day after day, and week after week, until Charles could no longer bring himself to check the weather reports.
René Duchamps telephoned. ‘If it stops by the middle of July, the crop can still be saved.’
July turned out to be the rainiest month in the history of the French weather bureau. By the first of August, Charles Martel had lost every centime of the money he had stolen. He was filled with a fear such as he had never known.
‘We’re flying to Argentina next month,’ Hélène had informed Charles. ‘I’ve entered a car race there.’
He had watched her speeding round the track in the Ferrari, and he could not help thinking: If she crashes, I’m free.
But she was Hélène Roffe-Martel. Life had cast her in the role of a winner, just as it had cast him in the role of a loser.
Winning the race had excited Hélène even more than usual. They had returned to their hotel suite in Buenos Aires, and she had made Charles get undressed and lie on the rug, on his stomach. When he saw what she had in her hand as she straddled him, he said, ‘Please, no!’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Merde!’ Hélène said. She waited, silent, but the knocking was repeated.