Champagne, France, twenty years ago…

Without dirt, there would be no champagne.  As you hold your glass to the light and admire the pale golden fizz inside it, consider this: a perfectly clean flute and your bubbly would not bubble.  There would be no sparkle to your sparkling wine.  Each glittering chain that rises to the surface originates from an imperfection; a minute blemish on the crystal, a fibre from a tea towel or a tiny speck of dust...

One last long string of bubbles escaped the girl’s mouth as she drifted gently to the bottom of the river.  Her silky brown hair shimmered around her face like waterweed, veiling those lips whose last kiss was left in Chanel rouge on the rim of a tulip-shaped glass.  Her eyes were closed.  Her lashes still perfect as they rested upon her smooth white cheeks.  Who would have thought that waterproof mascara would turn out to be such a good idea?  As she settled onto the riverbed, the current moved the girl’s bare arms across her body, covering her beautiful breasts.  Now she was a nymph, lulled to sleep by the waters of the Marne as it flowed on through the night towards Paris, opaque with the famous chalky sediment that made wine critics rave when they tasted it in a glass of champagne from the Cote des Blancs.

Nobody missed her yet.  At the party in the house by the river, the wine was still flowing.  The music was still playing.  Young girls in tight dresses still laughed at jokes they didn’t entirely understand to please older guys who might find them the rent on an apartment in the sixteenth. A waiter opened a bottle of vintage champagne - Salon  - the proper way, turning the bottle and not the cork.  Not a pop.  Just a sigh and a wisp of vapour.  No drop wasted.  With one hand behind his back and the thumb of his other hand in the dimple at the bottom of the bottle - the punt - he poured out two glasses for a pair of expensively dressed revelers.  One glassful barely effervesced.

‘Oh,’ said the woman.  ‘No bubbles. Is there something wrong with it?’

‘Your glass must be too clean,’ her companion informed her. ‘You need dust to trap the tiny pockets of air that catalyse the fizzing action.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ She really did have no idea.  This was her sixth glass of champagne that night and her schoolgirl French was somewhat rusty.  Though her accent improved with alcohol, her comprehension didn’t.

Her handsome companion looked deep into his own glass, examining the liquid inside as though examining the facets of a diamond. 

‘What are you thinking?’ the woman asked him.

She hoped that he was thinking about her naked.  She wanted him to touch her.  She wanted to run her fingers through his silver hair as he made love to her. Violently.

‘I’m thinking that people are like champagne,’ he said eventually.  ‘Our flaws are what make us sparkle.’ 

‘I think I know what you mean,’ she said. 

She touched the rim of her glass to his.  He raised a toast. 

‘A nos imperfections,’ he said.  ‘To our flaws.’