I’ve always loved the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition that takes place on the Sydney eastern suburbs’ coastline. Jane was in town and so we headed to Bondi to walk the astonishingly beautiful track along the cliffs past Tamarama and towards Clovelly, admiring the large-scale sculptures and installations scattered along the way.
There was a breeze and a decent swell, so the waves crashed beneath us as we came down the path into Bronte, hot from walking in the sun, and stopped for a coffee at one of the cafes that overlooked that narrow beach. Life felt pretty good.
‘Can I ask you something, Johnny?’ Jane asked, taking my hand across the table.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘How are you feeling about the Georgian bottles? Are you comfortable with letting them go?’
It had been almost a month since Pyotr’s unexpected visit. I’d told Jane all of it over the phone the night it happened but she was right, I had spent a lot of the intervening weeks mulling on the conversation, turning it over in my head and trying to reconcile the fact that all our work and expense and anticipation relating to Stalin’s wine were lost.
Now, I could only say, ‘Yes, it is what it is. There’s no point wasting any more thought on it. It’s done.’
‘Would you put your safety at risk to go and get all those century-old Yquems?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Definitely not. You know how I feel: a bottle of wine is a bottle of wine. Even if it’s historic and has that amazing heritage and is worth a lot of money, it’s still a bottle of wine. Am I going to risk being “disappeared” for it? No way.’
‘Still, it’s hard to contemplate,’ she said, serious eyes watching my face. ‘Those thousands of bottles. Was it 217 Yquems? Just gathering dust.’
I laughed. ‘Dust that lies under potentially armed, ruthless mafia figures or, at best, rogue businessmen. They can lie there. It’s over.’
‘It’s good that you can be so definite in walking away,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I could let it go so readily, if it was me.’
‘As I said, what choice do I have?’ I took her hand. ‘You know I’m not one to get mushy but I have a lot to live for, right here in Sydney. There’s you, there’s my business, my friends. I’ve still got the remaining bottles from Tbilisi in my cellar and I still have all the stories that I’ll be telling at dinner parties forever. It’s been a wildly entertaining and fun adventure, and that doesn’t change.’
‘I guess not,’ she said. ‘So, you’re done with it?’
‘I’m done with it,’ I said. ‘And to prove it: earlier this week out of nowhere, I even had a call from a friend in New York, a singer who I had told the story to one time, and he called to say he knows a guy who is a documentary maker and is also connected to a super-rich American businessman and wine lover who has connections in Russia. This doco maker and the businessman heard the story and got all fired up, ready to come up with one or two million dollars, no problem, and film the whole thing as they do the deal and grab the wine. I said, well, good luck, if you fellas want to try.’
‘Do you think they will?’ she asked.
‘I have no idea. I wasn’t about to give them a lot of the details they’d need and I’m not about to wade back in to find out.’
She smiled. ‘My smart, sensitive, pragmatic man,’ she said.
‘And alive,’ I grinned.
We finished our coffees. Jane adjusted her baseball cap. I watched as she tucked stray strands of hair under the cap and reapplied sunscreen. Kevin had said, after Pyotr left, that he was fond of breathing. I was fond of lots of things about life.
It was worth keeping it that way.
I took a deep breath, exhaled and then stood up.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s keep walking. There’s so much more to go and see.’