Vintage by Rosemary Friedman Page A

the last. Not only was the sharp slap delivered by Charles-Louis in ‘her best interests’, but, as if the humiliation were notenough, he actually expected her to be grateful to him for the punishment meted out to ensure her future compliance with his edicts.
    His paternalism, his need to be in control, was that of the political demagogue, the omnipotent physician: do as I say and you will live; go your own way and you will die.
    When Charles-Louis, beside himself with anger, assured his six-year-old daughter that the blow to the side of the head, which caught her ear and left her deaf for days, hurt him more than it hurt her, she believed him. It was several years before she had realised that her father had been lying.
    Viola, who had herself been on the receiving end of his temper, did not concur with her daughter’s punishment. She could see no real difference between a young child and a colt, both of whom were impulsive and ready for mischief. She never blamed a horse for its shortcomings, the responsibility for which lay with its teacher. If any punishment were necessary it should be explanatory and at the moment of misbehaviour. It should certainly never be brutal.
    That Clare, unable at the age of six to cope with the pain of his betrayal, idolised her father – whom, from the perspective of childhood, she regarded as strong, handsome, and charismatic – was due to the silent bargain struck by the tyrannised with the tyrant: if she obeyed her papa, if she tried very hard to live up to his expectations of her and to do as he said, he would tell no one about her wickedness, he would keep her worthlessness to himself. It was many years after the tricycle incident before the realisation came to her that the frequent punishments she attracted were not ‘in her own interests’ at all, but that her father had in fact been abusing his parental position of power and treating herwith contempt. It looked very much as if he was doing so again.
    ‘Did Papa tell you about Cluzac?’
    ‘He was too busy trying to get round me for the divorce. I shouldn’t wonder he wants to get married again. I feel sorry for the poor soul, whoever she is… What about Cluzac?’
    ‘The château is on the market.’
    ‘But that’s impossible. Where did you hear it?’
    ‘From Big Mick Bly. The American wine writer. I met him in Bond Street.’
    ‘Your father’s crazy. What does he want to sell it for?’
    ‘I’ve no idea.’
    ‘You should have been consulted. Twenty-four per cent is down to you. What income have you been getting?’
    ‘I haven’t been getting an income at all.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    ‘A few cases of wine.’
    ‘He can’t dispose of the estate without you.’
    ‘He seems to be having a good try.’
    ‘You have to sign a paper. What exactly is he up to, I wonder?’
    ‘Nicola and I want to buy the lease of a new gallery and Jamie and I are going to renovate his cottage…’
    ‘Watch out he doesn’t screw you. Milk and sugar?’ Viola addressed Jamie.
    ‘Both,’ Clare said.
    ‘Talk to the butcher and the block answers.’
    Viola took an apple pie in a foil plate and a bowl of yellow cream from the fridge.
    ‘It’s not exactly tarte tatin. I bought it at Dunne’s. Will you pass your plate, Jamie? I was born and bred in Ireland. My great-grandfather was Flemish. As a young boy he was involved in the Belgian war of Independence. Served with a battery of field artillery. His job was tocapture the riderless Dutch horses. He was thrown from his horse under a gun carriage and injured. Afterwards he was unable to ride. He married a girl from Galway. That was my great-grandmother, Dymphna; I’ll show you the album. He spent his time buying strings of Irish horses for the Belgian remount. My mother’s people were foreigners, Normans, Cromwellians. They managed to remain Catholic… Are you a Catholic Jamie?’
    ‘I’m afraid not.’
    ‘There’s too much fuss made over religion. People died every day in Ulster