Skinner:  Cold Reality

(A Max Skinner sequel to Thorne: Restoration of the Heart)

By Atonia Walpole

Part 1:

Max picked up his junk mail from the desk and rode the elevator to his floor. He’d just come back from America after helping to deliver Terry Thorne to the House. He’d been amazed at the transformation his brother had undergone overnight but that was the magic of the House of Four Seasons.  He had never needed the magical healing love and counted himself lucky in that regard.

Dumping his bag on the bed, he went to his bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He felt heavy and groggy and his body didn’t know whether it was day or night. He’d set his watch ahead on the plane and it told him it was 9:00PM. Looking out on London through his glass wall, he felt very much alone. It all seemed empty now without Toni. He didn’t know what he had expected there. She was tied to Terry with a bond he couldn’t break, although he’d played with the idea of it. If he’d pushed it…air could put out a flame...but he didn’t. He was still bonded to her but she’d been right. They could never be friends; they were lovers once removed. He was also bonded to Terry and he felt his presence now in his mind. It was a welcome presence after what he’d been through.

He and Terry had a conversation on the terrace at the house before they left and he’d told Terry about being out in reality now. Terry gave him a piece of advice: Don’t dwell in the past; take each day and move forward. That might be easier, he reckoned, if you had someone at your side helping you, if you had Toni.

He poured himself a drink. He had to move on but to where? At least he had a past, the chateau in Provence, but it was empty of any living thing. There wasn’t anybody there that knew him. The village wasn’t the same, but he wondered if he’d really spent all that time growing up in the chateau, there would have to be neighbors, someone in the area who would know who he was, perhaps remember the bespectacled little boy he’d been. He wasn’t sure anybody in London knew him save the doorman downstairs.

His whole life here had been tied up in M&S and it didn’t exist in reality. His friend Charlie wasn’t real. He’d already checked that out. He thought again about Terry. His life had been tied up in a company that didn’t exist in reality either, but he’d found himself employment without a problem. He might do the same but it wouldn’t be the same. He put the drink down, slipping a CD in his player, and sat on the sofa. He’d been at the top of the heap, master of the game. Did he really want to start over?

At least his finances were in order. He wasn’t destitute by a long shot. Getting up, he went to his desk and pulled the envelope from a drawer, the envelope that held the notice of his uncle’s death and his inheritance. He probably should follow up on this. He knew the chateau was there as he’d been there, but what about the notaire who’d sent the letter? There might be funds involved. He had no idea of his uncle’s financial position. He may be in debt and not know it.

Other papers on his desk drew his attention, bills to be paid, one to his tailor. He sat down, drew out his check book and paid his bills, taking the stack to the table in the entryway. Something to do tomorrow.  He doubted he’d need the new suit being made for him but would need something a little more casual for Provence.

Provence? When had he decided that was the direction he was going? Toni told him it suited him and she would know, the only woman who had ever really known him, one he could be totally honest with, one he loved. He ran his hand through his hair, picked up his drink and finished it. Move on! He had to or lose what sanity he had left.

He decided he would begin tomorrow, would find out what was and was not to be a part of his life. He was smart, could figure it out, and this time he wasn’t going to blow it. If Toni thought he was twelve then he had progressed. He may even get to be thirteen one day.  By magic he’d been given a chance at life, a real life, not some movie character, but a flesh and blood man.

He dressed the part, looked like a high powered businessman as he exited his building the next morning in the fashionable Knightsbridge area.  It was a new day and a new life and he began by walking up the street and stopping for breakfast in a little coffee bar. He really should do some shopping. Cooking breakfast at Terry’s flat had made sense. He didn’t have to dress to eat. Next was a stop at his tailors. The suit would be delivered as was customary. He talked with him for a little while, discussing clothes for Provence. Various fabrics were brought out and decisions made. He wouldn’t have to wear his Uncle Henry’s clothes…unless, of course, he wanted to. He felt good when he exited the tailor shop. At least somebody in London knew him aside from Bert, his doorman, and his physician.

He resisted the urge to go to the financial district until after he’d stopped for lunch. Walking the familiar street, he stopped and looked up at the building that wasn’t what it should be. He knew the inside of that building but unfortunately it did not know him and so he passed on by, stopping later for a pint in a pub he used to frequent, but the publican didn’t know him. It would be this way. He knew it now.

He stopped and bought some wine, cheese and bread, things for breakfast, and coffee. He supposed he was becoming domestic and was comfortable with that thought. Max from M&S would never have shopped for food.  He stopped, holding a carton of eggs. He wasn’t Max of M&S but Max from the House. That’s who he was really and he should keep that thought. He placed the eggs up on the counter along with his other shopping.

Loaded with carrier bags, he entered his building, receiving a surprised look from the doorman, then took his things to his flat and put them away. Had he never carried foodstuffs into the building before. He tried to think, bottles of booze but food…never. What did the doorman know of him anyway, that he was a maniac trader? Well then, he didn’t know anything, did he? He probably thought he’d been sacked, coming and going in the daylight hours.

Night was coming on and Max had prepared himself a plate of buttered bread and cheese, opened a bottle of wine, turned on the CD player, and got comfortable on a sofa. He amused himself watching lights come on in the city. Some were flats, some were offices where the lights never went off…like M&S.  The thing was he didn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t working or carousing in bars. Had that been all there was to his life in London? How shallow, how empty…how alone he was. It came down on him like a dark curtain surrounding him and he could hardly breathe. He simply could not live like this. It would be different if Terry and Toni were here living in their flat but out there in that city alive and crawling with people, he knew not a soul. He could fall over dead right here in his flat and how long would it be before anyone found him?

“Oh, Skinner come on pull it together! I’m not twelve…I’m five and I’m afraid of the dark,” he said aloud to the empty flat.

The next day was Sunday so Max didn’t bother dressing all day. The newspapers were delivered to his door and after a hearty breakfast he worked the crossword puzzles. That took him through to the afternoon. He kept the CD player going and later the TV to ward off the silence of his flat. Evenings were the worst. He tried watching TV, reading bits of the paper he’d missed, even picking up a book he’d bought somewhere, started and put down. He still couldn’t get into it and by 9:00 he was face down in his bed asleep.

He stood in front of his glass wall on Monday. It was raining. People were going off to work with their headlights on, umbrellas crowding along the sidewalks. He sipped his third cup of coffee, telling himself this was enough.  He would start making plans to move to Provence but he would keep his London flat.

(Bonnieux, Luberon)

Part 2:

The first stop after arriving in the Luberon region of Provence was to see Auzet. He’d made an appointment prior to leaving London but had no idea what to expect...if she would be the same woman in the movie or someone different. Would she know him from the movie? Max was still trying to find his way in reality.

He was shown into the familiar office and, indeed, it was Nathalie Auzet from the movie. She did not know him, which made things easier. There was a modest sum of money and, of course, the harvest.

“Harvest?”

But he should have known and with no Duflot, what was he to do? It would all be explained in the papers, she told him. He left her office with his briefcase weighted down with his inheritance. He was a fish out of water and, being thirsty, he found a local café and a glass of chilled wine to drink while he contemplated what it meant to be an English banker in wine country. He didn’t speak wine language…or did he? It had been taught to him as a young boy. He even spoke it then but that language had been replaced at University and erased at M&S.

He was in Bonnieux, a village visible from the chateau. All villages were uphill. He wondered if he found the right spot, would his home be visible from Bonnieux. Probably it would but he was not familiar enough with his surroundings yet to look in the right direction. Once he'd known the area well but he’d been only a boy, nearly thirty years ago when he was paying attention, before girls.

As he drove from Bonnieux to the chateau he stopped along the road and looked at it from a distance. It really was a large estate and it was his. What the bloody hell was he going to do with it? He stopped again and had a look at the vineyards. The vines were hanging heavy with grape. Had he missed the peak? He hoped not. Back in the Renault he hurried to the house, really needing to look over the papers in his briefcase.

He’d stopped at a market in the village and brought his provisions into the house. As he stood inside the door, it smelled of his childhood layered over with a month’s worth of dust. Closing his eyes, he opened his ears to the silence but it was a different silence than his flat in London. Here you could hear the sounds of birds and insects outside the door, the tick of a clock. There was life here after all.

Taking the food into the old fashioned kitchen, he turned on the fridge. There would probably be no hot water and he would have to find the boiler and turn it on. At least the electricity was still on…for now. Part of the weight in his briefcase were bills, some paid, some not, by Auzet.

Once he’d fired up the gas boiler and unloaded his car of his luggage and his laptop, he cleared out a place on his uncle’s desk. Well, it was his now, he thought as he opened his briefcase. The papers were all in French. He ran his hand through his hair. Spotting a bottle of something on a chest nearby, he got up and had a smell... brandy. He smiled and blew the dust from a snifter, pouring himself a drink. He’d need this to translate the pile of papers on his desk.

He’d made a little progress, had the bills separated from the actual papers pertaining to the estate. The bills he would pay right away with his own check book. He still hadn’t found a bank statement. He’d opened the windows over the desk and his eyes kept moving upward. He had to get outside in that sunshine. It was cold and wet in London that morning when he’d left and here it was perfect. Leaving the papers, he went outside to walk around, breathe the fresh scented air, and let it all sink in.

He walked by the table where he and Toni had shared a bottle of wine and ran his hand over the back of the chair where she’d sat. This all could have been hers, too. What a different homecoming it would have been with her on his arm. What a different life…but it wasn’t to be. He’d been trying not to think about her but all of a sudden it came down on him and he sat down at the table, resting his head in his hands. A moment later he sat back in the chair. “You can’t have her so think about what you do have and get on with it!” he said aloud and got up, continuing his walk around the chateau.

He was going to have to have some help. He looked down into the debris filled empty pool then back toward the chateau at that warren of rooms off the main part of the house, knowing they were filled with years’ worth of junk. “Oh, Duflot, where are you?”

Part 3:

Max continued his survey of his holdings, walking through the vineyards, testing the grapes here and there. He stopped and looked toward the closed-shuttered house that would have been Duflot’s. There were pots of herbs and flowers about on the terrace and he wondered who might have lived there when his uncle was alive. It really had been ten years since he’d been out here but he could not remember anyone else ever having lived in that old farmhouse except Francis Duflot and his wife Ludivine. Of course, he thought, he also remembered working for M&S and that wasn’t real, either.

It was getting late in the evening and he went about turning on lamps and made himself an omelet for his dinner. Later he unpacked his bags, clearing out room in the wardrobe for his own things. For better or worse, he was here. One day at a time, one foot forward.

It was nearly 10:00 the next morning when he opened the door and nearly stumbled over a basket of tomatoes. He picked them up, no note or anything, and looked around the courtyard, nothing to be seen except his car. He took the basket inside. There were other things in there, too, pot of jam, croissants wrapped in a blue and white cloth. “Thank you to whoever,” he said and had the croissants for his breakfast.

He made himself sit down and pay the bills, get that out of the way. Later he would take them to the post office, no mail delivery here.  He turned and looked around the study. So many layers of things in here, he thought. He sat down at the larger desk, the one his Uncle had used. The drawers were stuffed with papers, account books, a check book. He pulled it out, no balance written in, of course. Looking up at the stack of papers on the writing desk, he knew he had to translate them. Perhaps some answers might be there.

The will had been explained to him by the notaire. Everything was his so he skipped over that and went directly to the other papers. One in particular he wanted to translate had to do with the harvest. It seems his Uncle sold the grapes to Chambord, a local winery. Was he not bottling anymore? Further translations revealed that he did keep a house wine but the grapes were processed by Chambord. He supposed he should contact Chambord and find out what was to be done with the present harvest.

He sat back in his chair, thinking. Chambord? It rang a bell somewhere in his memory. Perhaps a trip to the post office would reveal where it was located? He found his keys and the stack of bills and drove to Goult.

It was a sad Max who parked his car and looked around the village center. This is where Fanny’s Bistro would have been had it been real. He felt he knew the place well but he did not know it at all. Walking over to the fountain, he looked toward the space where a bustling Bistro had been in the movie.

There was a café there and he walked over and ordered a coffee, sitting outside at one of the metal tables. He thought about Fanny and wished again she had been real. Loneliness threatened to weigh him down again, so he quickly finished his coffee and found the post office.

As near as he could tell from the postmaster, Chambord was the winery next to his. The lands joined and it had been bought by a rich American, who was very nice but he was an American. Max left the postmaster realizing his ear for the French language was sadly lacking, especially here in Provence. With somewhat iffy directions he drove back toward Bonnieux

He was hopelessly lost with no Jemma to call for directions and sat in his stopped car at an intersection, staring at signposts, trying to find them on the tourist map he’d picked up in the post office.

The motorbike came barreling down the road and slowed at the intersection, the rider glancing across at Max bent over his map. “Are you lost?”

Max looked up at the American voice. “Yes, I’m looking for Chambord.” He wasn’t about to admit he was actually looking for La Siroque, his own chateau.

“Really? Well, follow me.” She took off and Max fumbled for the ignition.  He sped along, trying to keep the bike in sight around the narrow, winding road. The bright blue Suzuki slowed and turned up a narrow lane which spilled out onto a cobbled courtyard. He sat in his car while the bike rider swung her leg over the bike and pulled off her helmet.  She walked over.

“You’re here. Who did you want to see?”

She was a young woman not much more than twenty, eyes golden like a cat and hair like a new penny. “Um, I’m not really sure. It’s about the harvest at La Siroque.”

“Are you the nephew?”

“Sorry?”

“The nephew that’s come from England?”

“Yes, I’m Max Skinner.”

“Good. We were hoping you’d come soon. I’ll get my Dad.” She was off at a run toward a narrow door in the walled courtyard.

Max got out of his car and looked around at the view.

“Mr. Skinner?”

Max turned to see a tall, slender man with white hair blowing in the breeze, khaki pants and a blue denim shirt. “Max Skinner.” He shook the proffered hand.

“Aubrey Duncan. I’m glad you’ve come by. Please follow me inside. Sorry my daughter left you out here. She’s forgotten her manners.”

“That’s quite all right. I think I just spotted my roof.”

“Yes, we’re neighbors. Come inside.” Aubrey led him into a shaded, cool room set about with leather furniture, clearly a man’s room. “Have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

“Um, no thanks. I’ve been through my Uncle’s papers, well, some of them, and came upon Chambord.”

“Yes, we’ve been harvesting and pressing Henry’s grapes for the last five years. His health began deteriorating and he was unable to take care of it himself. I’d talked to him about purchasing La Siroque last year and he seemed agreeable but wanted to see you first. Unfortunately he passed away before anything could be decided. So have you come about the sale?”

“Sale? No, I was quite unaware of any pending sale. I’m not looking to sell the place. I intend to live there. I came about the harvest.”

“The harvest? Well, we can do that. Not going to sell…you haven’t brought your family over as yet?”

“Family? I don’t have any family, Mr. Duncan. I’m not married.”

“Call me Aubrey since we’re going to be neighbors. Well, that changes things. I’d hoped to merge the two estates. Your uncle produces some fine grapes and mixed with mine we come up with an excellent wine. What are your plans for the vineyard?”

“Honestly, Mr…Aubrey, I have no idea yet. I only arrived yesterday and saw the notaire about my inheritance. I’m still trying to get my bearings.”

Aubrey smiled, “I can understand that, Max. You need some time to find your feet. We can go ahead as usual and harvest for you this year and next year you may have a different idea. Too bad about old Henry. I liked him, played a good game of chess.”

“Yes, he did. What do I need to do with you about the harvest?”

“With me, nothing. Your vigneron, Duflot and my Margan will take care of it.”

“Excuse me, did you say Duflot?”

“Oh, I forgot he and Mme. Duflot moved to Bonnieux with her sister after Henry died. They didn’t know how to contact you and since the estate was left to you they cleared out, unsure of what was to take place.”

“He’s here? He’s real?” Max was elated.

Aubrey chuckled at Max’s questions. “Oh, he’s real enough. You’ll find him at the Petit Lapin Café. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, hates his sister-in-law.”

“Dad? Oh, sorry, I didn’t know he was still here.”

“My daughter, Penny. This is Max Skinner.”

Her “Hi” was accompanied by a brilliant, toothy smile.

“Hello, nice to meet you,” Max smiled.

“I have another daughter somewhere about.” Aubrey eyed Max for a moment and moved some things around on his desk. “She came a couple of years ago, divorced now.”

Max was still thinking about Duflot.

“Did you get the basket?” Penny asked.

“Basket? Oh, yes. Did you bring it? That was very thoughtful.”

“No, not me. That was Connie.”

“My other daughter.”

“Tell her thank you. Well, I must be off. It was very nice meeting you, Aubrey. I look forward to having a glass of that excellent wine with you.”

“Sure thing, Max. I’ll be in touch.”

“Now what was it you wanted, Penny?” Max heard him ask his daughter as he saw himself out. Duflot…his prayers had been answered.

He drove back toward Bonnieux a different man. Duflot knew the estate, knew what to do. He knew the grapes, knew everything Max had forgotten. He was no longer alone in Provence.

ON TO SKINNER: FINDING SOLID GROUND

BACK TO THORNE: RESTORATION OF THE HEART

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