Spilt Wine

12. Etienne Guigal

Saturday 22 March 1986

After booking a haul-out on the slipway for 3 April and trying to get an idea of when the dry dock could take the barge for the bottom re-plating, I spent the night in Hôtel la Marine in Losne. It would be into May, holidays and all, before Vrouwe Catharina could be slotted in, but trying to get a commitment to a specific date was as hopeless as bailing water with a fishnet.

Though I prefer the smaller roads, this morning I took the Autoroute to Lyon to cut an hour off the drive before turning off onto the N-86 to Ampuis. The Rhône was in flood, and I paused above Givors to watch a lock-sized down-bound laden barge sweeping at what seemed the limit of control under the bridges around the sharp bend. It had fifteen more kilometres of this near free-fall before a respite at Écluse Vaugris, the next lock.

At every opportunity, I watch the barges along the rivers and canals during my buying travels. I often do this at a driving pause, with a baguette and a piece of cheese on a roadside wall-top or other vantage point. This morning, it was with a croissant and a chocolat from a table in the street market and my cup charged with a double espresso in the brasserie. With these, I sat on the retaining wall above the quai to be entertained by the passing scene while I thought.

I was disappointed that Jean-Luc couldn't reach Henc by phone last night. The deal was still at loose ends. The fax had gone through and been acknowledged, so at least the process is underway, but there was no way of knowing whether Henc had received it or when he would. I arrived with an hour in hand before my appointment in Ampuis, so I relaxed and enjoyed the early spring sun, allowing my mind to ramble.

Now just above the forty-fifth parallel, and with the vernal equinox, the sun had crossed the equator into the northern hemisphere on its path along its ecliptic. It's getting warmer, and this will quicken as I head south. I chuckled to myself. My Navy training is showing. But I've always thought in a broader view. The position of the sun, the stars and the moon, and my place on the surface of the globe in relationship to these have never been far from the top of my mind. Celestial navigation and planning ocean passages refined this, but it has always been this way with me. The naval training simply gave me new techniques and names to use.

I finished my coffee and wiped out the cup with the cloth I keep with it in the small bag. The staff in the brasseries and cafés are always amused by the notion of bringing my own cup, and it usually sparks a little conversation. And they frequently add an extra pull of espresso in the process. Back at my car, I continued south, wanting to watch the laden barge enter Écluse Vaugris.

The lock at Vaugris is just a kilometre above Ampuis, so I filled the last bit of time before my meeting by watching the barge approach and enter the lock. Fully laden and deep in the water, there was very little clearance beneath it as it passed over the cill. It was nearly full lock width, close to twelve metres, so it had to pump its way into the chamber, almost like a piston being drawn into a hydraulic cylinder.

It was a slow process, and through it, I planned my approach to an increasingly famous producer I hoped to bring into my stable. I pulled into the courtyard, my usual ten minutes early, and after a rather stiff and formal beginning, Etienne and I began to relax. "You still have not told me which you prefer, Monsieur Michaels, the brunette or the blonde."

"Please, call me David. Both are beautiful, sensuous and voluptuous. Maybe the brunette has a little more depth and complexity than the blonde, a slightly tighter bottom, trimmer and more elegant. But the blonde's fuller body and fleshier and rounder structure are captivating, a bit dumber at the moment, but that will change. They're both still so young, and I look forward to watching them as they mature. I'll take both. What is their price?"