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I came inside and waited while she went to fetch the list.
The gallery’s interior was bright and white and spotless, meant to show off every sculpture, sketch and painting to advantage. Martine had a clever eye for art, I thought. I didn’t see a single work that I would not have wanted to own myself. Still, I fancied most of it was well outside my price range, and when Martine finally found the list and ran her finger down it, I braced myself for the inevitable. Not that it mattered, I consoled myself. I hadn’t come to buy a painting, anyway. I’d only come to ask Martine some subtle questions about her ex-husband, Didier Muret.
“Painting number 88,” she said at last. “Yes, here it is.” The sum she quoted was almost twice what I earned in a month.
I heard a quiet footstep on the polished floor behind me. “Perhaps Christian will reduce his prices, for a friend.” A man’s voice, but the accent was distinctly French, not German. I hadn’t seen Armand Valcourt come in. Martine had, though; she didn’t bat an eyelid as she shook her head, a smile softening her sigh.
“Christian,” she said, “would give them all away, I think, these paintings. He has too generous a nature. Always I must watch him and remind him painters, too, must eat.”
I glanced round at Armand, and said good morning. “I saw your daughter earlier, by the river.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “This is her morning with François. The ducks, I think, and then the ice cream… such a simple way to happiness. She likes her Wednesdays, my Lucie.”
His eyes were quite unhurried as they roamed the quiet gallery, and he didn’t seem in any rush to move. So much, I thought, for my chance of a private chat with Martine. I tried to hide my disappointment by asking him how old his daughter was, exactly.
“Lucie? She has nearly seven years.”
“And already she has genius,” said her slightly biased aunt. “She can tell you every step of how the wine is made, that little one.”
“She is a Valcourt,” Armand said, as if that explained everything. “It will be hers one day, the Clos des Cloches, and so I pass traditions down, as I learned from my father.”
Martine smiled. “But she is half her mother’s child, remember. She likes the vine but also likes the art. Perhaps one day she will begin the home for artists that Brigitte so often talked about.”
“God help us.” Armand shuddered. “The artist by himself, he can be interesting. A few of them at dinner, when they are not fighting, that also can be interesting. But a house of artists,” his eyes rolled heavenward at the thought. “They would drive me mad.”
“You will forgive my brother-in-law,” Martine said, her dark eyes teasing. “He likes only the art on his wine labels.”
Armand looked offended. “That is not true. I like this painting very much.” He nodded at a watercolor hung behind the cash register, a sweeping vista of a vineyard with a mellow-walled château nestled in the distance. “This shows great talent.”
“This shows grapes.” Martine’s voice was dry. “But no matter. I’m sorry, Armand, was there something that you needed?”
“No, not really.”
“Oh.” Surprise flashed momentarily across her lovely fragile face, from which I gathered that Armand Valcourt didn’t often visit the gallery without a reason.
“No, I was just passing, and I thought I would come and see what you have done. Lucie says there are sculptures, somewhere, that are new.”
Martine considered; shook her head. “Not new ones, no. I do not think…”
“Ah, well. You know Lucie, she sometimes gets her story wrong.” He didn’t seem concerned. Hands in his pockets, he leaned closer to me, his breath feathering my neck as he studied a smaller pen-and-ink drawing on the counter. “And this is also nice, Martine. It is by Christian, yes?”
She looked, and nodded. “Yes.”
“It looks like Victor’s place.” He reached to pick the drawing up, his arm brushing casually against my shoulder. “Yes, so it is. I wonder sometimes what Victor does with himself, these days. Do you ever hear from him?”
Martine shook her head. “Christian sees him, now and then. They have a drink and talk.” She smiled at me, in vague apology. “This is a friend of ours we speak of, an old friend.”
Victor Belliveau, I nearly said. Of course, they all would know each other from the days when Brigitte Valcourt had held her magnificent parties up at the Clos des Cloches. A poet would have been included on the guest list, I decided, alongside musical Neil and clever Christian. I longed to ask Martine about those parties, just as I longed to ask her if her former husband ever talked of history, or of Englishmen named Harry. But even as I tried to summon up the nerve, a telephone rang shrilly in the gallery’s back room, and Martine excused herself to answer it, her heels clicking on the hard tile floor as she walked away.
Armand shifted at my shoulder, looking down at me. After a moment’s silence, he cleared his throat and spoke. “I have a confession.”
“Oh, yes?” I glanced up.
“I have not much interest in art. And sculpture bores me.” He moved around to lean against the counter, facing me, and raised one hand in an automatic gesture before remembering he shouldn’t smoke here. The hand went back inside his pocket. “When I said that I was passing, that was true. But I only stopped because I saw you here.” He grinned. “It is no easy matter, in a town this size, to find someone.”
Harry always said I had a talent for deducing the obvious, and I displayed it now. “You were looking for me?”
He shrugged. “I thought, if you had not made plans already, you might let me buy you lunch.”
