The West Country Winery

by Lizzie Lovell

  ‘Rob? Are you awake?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I reckon we should go to Devon for the weekend – you know, to help Eve and Des with the harvest.’

  Silence.

  ‘Rob?’

  ‘Ow. What? Can’t we talk about this in the morning?’

  ‘We’re both awake so we might as well talk about it now and then we can get to sleep.’

  ‘I was asleep.’

  ‘No, you weren’t.’ I flick on the light. We need to have this out now. I rearrange my nightie as it’s caught up in my legs and I’m all hot and sweaty. Rob has lost his earlier colour and, if anything, is a little pasty. ‘What’s going on? You’ve been weird for days.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, you have. You were ready to burst earlier.’

  Rob makes as if he’s about to protest but checks himself. He’s usually pretty good at this parenting malarkey, which is why I was surprised at his outburst. I mean, Scarlet and he have an emotional relationship – always have done. When we met I wasn’t long single and Rob wasn’t long widowed. It was the first day of preschool and Rob was watery-eyed as he dropped Scarlet off at the fusty church hall. She, on the other hand, didn’t shed a tear, striding confidently away from him towards the sandpit, plunging in her little hands and ordering the boys about. I noticed the put-out expression on Rob’s face. Much like the one he has now.

  ‘I suppose I did get a bit annoyed,’ he concedes.

  ‘A bit? You were apocalyptic.’

  ‘Don’t you mean apoplectic?’

  ‘That as well.’

  He sits up, moves the pillow behind his head and shuts his eyes. I watch them flicker. He has grey stubble. ‘I’m feeling frustrated right now,’ he admits with a sigh.

  ‘Scarlet’s always frustrated you to some extent.’

  ‘Not just Scarlet.’

  ‘What, Ruby?’

  ‘No, not Ruby.’

  There’s something about his tone I’m not very keen on. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Only that she’s always, well, so... biddable. So compliant.’

  ‘I sense a criticism in there.’ I get out of bed, stretch my legs. Cramp.

  ‘Not a criticism as such,’ he says. ‘You know I love Ruby to bits. It’s just that Scarlet can never live up to her. And maybe that’s why Scarlet’s always pushing the boundaries.’

  I know I should listen to him, but really, comparing our girls, that seems wrong. We’ve parented them together. I flop onto the cocktail chair, near the window so what little breeze there is can help me breathe deeper, think straighter, get this right. ‘Being a vegan is hardly pushing the boundaries. Every other Londoner is going through that fad right now. It’ll be something else next week.’

  ‘You see!’ He sounds exultant, proved right.

  But I don’t see. ‘What?’

  ‘You and Ruby are just the same. You think the same. You act the same. You’re both sorted. And Scarlet... isn’t. Nor am I. We flounder around. We get muddled. We never have it all together like you two.’

  ‘Where’s all this suddenly coming from?’

  ‘It’s not sudden.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s been a long time coming.’

  ‘Right.’ I turn towards the window, pull back the curtains and peer out. Despite the street lights, there’s a harvest moon, big and silver like you get in children’s picture books. ‘You didn’t think to mention it?’

  ‘I’ve been working things through in my mind.’

  ‘What things?’ I turn back to him, examine his face for clues. That face I know so well. ‘Should I be worried?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Well, I really am worried now, so you’d better tell me.’

  I can actually see him working those things through in his mind.

  Do-I-tell-her-or-don’t-I?

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘But hear me out.’

  My heart speeds up a little, beats a tad harder. ‘All right, I’m listening.’

  ‘I want to do something,’ he says, possibly the vaguest response ever. ‘It might sound disloyal but it’s important to me.’

  A moth has slipped through the open window and is currently battering itself against the tasselled shade of my Chianti lamp on the bedside table, one of Eve’s cast-offs I’ve never got around to replacing.

  Focus, Christabel. Focus.

  Disloyal. But important to him. This can only mean one thing and that’s a thing I never thought would be a thing for Rob. ‘Are you on Tinder?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not on Tinder. Why would you think I’m on Tinder?’

  ‘Mid-life crisis?’

  ‘I don’t have crises.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘The odd flare-up. But this is something else.’

  ‘What?’

  He takes a deep breath, looks at me with the sombre eyes of that twelve-year-old boy who stares disconcertingly out of a silver frame on his mother’s piano. ‘I want to go on an adventure.’

  ‘An adventure? What do you mean, an adventure?’ I was right about the twelve-year-old-boy thing. ‘What are you? A member of the Famous Five?’

  ‘This is a solo project.’

  ‘Solo?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Pretty much? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I want to take my bike.’

  ‘Your bike?’

  ‘Yes. My bike.’

  ‘Right. And where exactly do you want to take your bike? Dulwich Park? The London Orbital? Cheam?’

  ‘Slightly further afield.’

  ‘Staines?’

  He looks away, fiddles with the duvet with his oil-stained fingers. He’s sodding obsessed with that bike. All that Lycra. All that kit. All that expense. Now he probably wants to go to France or somewhere abroad. The Pyrenees or Paris.

  He mutters a word. A place name. Something that sounds very much like—

  ‘AFRICA?’

  ‘Africa,’ he confirms, very quietly but I can hear him loud and clear.

  ‘What, all of it?’

  ‘A lot of it.’

  ‘How much of it?’

  He reaches down to the pile of books beside the bed, picks up the Times Atlas – the one I gave him for our first Christmas together, thinking of all the places we’d go as a family, all the world out there for us to explore. We’ve never got any further than Devon. He opens it up and points to that massive continent. Africa. ‘From the south to the north,’ he says. ‘South Africa to Egypt, to be more precise.’

  He’s pencilled in a route and there are scribbled notes.

  ‘How long’s that going to take?’

  ‘A while.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A year.’

  ‘A year?’

  ‘Give or take a few weeks.’

  So many thoughts flash and beep and collide. Work. Kids. Me.

  ‘And what about work?’

  ‘They’ve given me a sabbatical. In theory. Nothing’s definite. Obviously, I wanted to talk to you first.’

  ‘Obviously.’ Not obviously at all. ‘And will this sabbatical be unpaid?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve got enough to cover the bills, if you can cover the mortgage.’

  ‘You’ve saved all that?’ I’m trying not to think of that longed-for holiday to Tenerife I wanted us to go on this summer, the one that Rob said we couldn’t afford.

  ‘Not exactly saved.’

  ‘Borrowed?’

  ‘Not exactly borrowed either.’

  ‘Stolen? A win on the horses?’ I see the blush on his little-boy cheeks and realization dawns. ‘Your mother. You asked your mother.’

  ‘I didn’t ask her,’ he says, all defensive now when he should be more placatory in tone. ‘I told her what I was thinking and she said I deserved to have this time.’

  ‘You deserved it? Or I don’t deserve you?’

  ‘This isn’t about my mother. This is about me.’

>   ‘And what about the kids? What about me?’

  ‘You’ll be fine. You have it all under control.’

  An image of the harp floats into view. How am I going to lug that around? How am I going to manage Scarlet’s moods and fads? I don’t have it all under control. And what about my mother?

  In all this confusion I realize I am pacing the room. I need to get out and clear my head. I shrug on my dressing gown, ignoring Rob’s pleas to stay and listen, and tiptoe downstairs. I walk barefoot through the kitchen and out of the back door into the garden.

  It’s cooler out here. Autumn is heading our way. I love autumn. Colours and crispness. Halloween and bonfires. New beginnings. New chances.

  Moonlight spills over the paving stones and I sit on the bench and examine the sky as if it holds all the answers, which it possibly does. A plane blinks its way slowly across it.

  Africa.

  For a year.

  And it hits me. He’s been planning this for some time.

  I hear a movement. A fox or a cat. But it’s Rob, sitting down beside me and taking my hand in his. He twiddles my ring.

  ‘Why?’ I ask him. ‘And don’t say because it’s there.’

  ‘Well, it is there.’

  ‘So it is a mid-life crisis?’

  He thinks about this. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Is it me?’

  He thinks about this too. ‘Maybe.’

  The mid-life crisis I can deal with, sort of, but this? Twelve years ago, it was just me and Ruby, after Nathan left us, his home and his job, for a colleague in the City. They went travelling too. It was only supposed to be for a year but that was a big fat lie. They never came back. Then Rob and Scarlet burst into our lives and we’ve been a family for a long time. Now he wants to leave us too. To go travelling. For a year. So why should I believe anything that comes out of his mouth?

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘Not definitely,’ he adds. He takes my hand in his, that familiar hand, realizing that my lip is wobbling and tears are pooling in my eyes. ‘To be honest, Chrissie, I just want to be on my own for a bit.’

  ‘Don’t we all? It’s normal to feel like that with two fifteen-year-old girls in the house. It doesn’t mean you can bugger off for a year, for God’s sake!’

  ‘No, Chrissie,’ he says quietly. Firmly. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘Try me.’ I make a really big effort to look at him through my tears but he’s all blurry like a ghost.

  ‘I don’t think it’s normal to feel like this,’ he goes on. ‘I mean, you don’t feel like this. You love being around people, helping them sort things out, problem-solving.’ He squeezes my hand. ‘That’s why you want to go to Eve’s. To swoop in and save her. And no, before you ask, that isn’t a criticism. It’s who you are.’

  He knew that when he asked me and Ruby to move in with him and Scarlet. He knew that when we got married, our two girls bridesmaids, our mothers like sparring boxers. How can he be throwing this at me now?

  ‘Do you still love me?’

  ‘Yes, I still love you.’ He grips my hand tighter. ‘I definitely do.’ A pause. Then: ‘But I don’t really like myself much right now.’

  ‘I’m finding it hard to like you much right now too. I’m beginning to wish you were on Tinder. Then it might all be over and done with and I need never know.’

  ‘But you want to know everything. And I’m not saying that’s wrong. And I’m a rubbish liar. And I don’t want anyone else. And—’

  ‘Really? You don’t want anyone else?’

  ‘No. Really. No one else.’

  ‘Just your bike.’

  ‘Just my bike.’

  And I rest my head on his shoulder and feel his body next to mine and wonder if I know him at all.

  TUESDAY IS MELINA’S day at our house. She cleans, she irons, she does odd jobs. We really couldn’t live without her; she’s a miracle. Though a tad brusque. Some might say rude.

  I’ve taken the executive decision to work from home this morning, despite her imminent arrival. I can’t face going into the office and seeing everyone, with this bombshell hanging over me. Melina will let me get on with it and do her own thing.

  But when she turns up at her usual 9.30, dragging several bulging bin bags with her into the kitchen, unfazed, as if this is perfectly normal, I realize my assumption might have been mistaken.

  ‘I am evicted,’ she announces.

  ‘Evicted?’

  ‘Yes. Landlord tells me I must leave. So I leave.’

  ‘That’s terrible. He can’t just do that. And – wait a minute, you live with Jason. Jason owns the flat.’

  ‘Yes. He dump me.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry to hear that.’

  She shrugs, doesn’t appear to be all that bothered. ‘He is plonker,’ she says. She fills the kettle. ‘I leave belongings with you. In your house. I hope is OK?’

  I’m tempted to say, You can leave as many belongings as you want, seeing as Rob’s buggering off with his bike and gear – and I’ll be chucking out the exercise bike and all the rest of his stuff, the way I’m feeling right now – so there’ll be plenty of space. I’m tempted. But of course I don’t say this.

  ‘No problem,’ I tell her. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

  Melina has lived in this country for five years. Surely she’s accumulated more than a few bin bags?

  ‘Is everything.’

  ‘Right. And have you got somewhere to stay?’

  ‘I stay with friend, Anna. She has nice sofa from IKEA but tiny apartment. I find somewhere else soon. Or I go back to Poland. To my grandmother’s farm.’

  Et tu, Brute? is what I’m thinking. ‘We’d be very sorry to see you go, Melina,’ is what I say. ‘I’m sure you’ll find somewhere else to live.’

  She tuts one of her tuts that contain so much more than I could ever guess at. So I press on with my work and let Melina crack on with hers.

  HALF AN HOUR later, she passes behind my seat at the kitchen table, where I have been battering away at my laptop and have just taken a five-minute break to do some googling. I feel her pause and read over my shoulder.

  ‘Why you googling about bad wine?’

  I tell her about Des and Eve. She’s met them, whenever a visit of theirs has coincided with her day here. She’s always shown an interest in their work. She’s even been the recipient of some of their bottles.

  ‘Is very bad wine,’ she says.

  ‘I know. I’m trying to work out why. They have the best position. Fantastic soil. They prune the vines properly. Treat for bugs. Why is it so horrid?’

  This is a rhetorical question; I don’t expect Melina to have the answers.

  ‘If it’s not vineyard, then must be winemaking process.’

  But, as ever, I underestimate her. ‘Of course, it must be. So—’

  ‘Do they press own grapes?’

  ‘Yes, they have a wonderful old press.’

  ‘Wood rots. Metal rusts. Maybe has much copper? Some copper is OK, but too much is very bad. Also, old presses are too harsh. They squash grapes too much. This makes bitter wine. Do you have bottle?’

  ‘Yes, I have bottle. I mean, a bottle.’

  ‘We can taste now?’

  ‘Now?’ I check the clock on the wall above the door into the hallway. A wedding present from Rob’s mother. I’ve never liked it. ‘A bit early, isn’t it?’

  ‘I need to taste.’

  ‘All right. Let me find one.’

  I know exactly where the bottles are stored. In the cellar, along with the old stair-gate and various DIY bits acquired over the years whenever Rob has begun a project never to be finished. I keep the bottles down there for emergencies. In case I decide to make a boeuf bourguignon or we’ve run out of every other type of alcohol and the corner shop is shut. Or we need to start a fire.

  I traipse down there and choose a white, as this is slightly less bad. But still bad enough. Within minutes of retrieving it for Melina, she has uncorked it, s
ampled it, and given her verdict.

  ‘They need new press. Modern presses are more gentle. They make more better wine.’

  ‘So what should my parents do?’

  ‘They can send grapes to another winery? Are there more in Devon? Somewhere close to their vineyard so they can move grapes quickly?’

  ‘Right. Wow. Thank you, Melina. That’s really helpful. I’ll look into it.’

  She shrugs. Gets out the hoover and charges off with it, into battle.

  I PHONE EVE. Tell her we’ll be down on Friday.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she gushes. ‘Thank you so much. I knew you wouldn’t let us down.’

  I feel her whoosh of relief.

  ‘This year looks all set to be vintage of the century.’

  Well, it could be vintage of the century if they got the next bit right. Do I tell her this? Yes. I have to.

  ‘Eve...?’

  ‘Yes? What is it? I know you want to say something. Spit it out.’

  ‘Spit it out? Nice pun from a winemaker.’ My pathetic attempt at levity before I wade in with the steel-tipped boots.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Quite. But... What is it?’

  ‘You know how you’re supposed to spit out wine when tasting it?’

  ‘Always seems like a waste to me, but yes, of course I know.’

  ‘Well, Eve...’ Here goes. ‘I want to spit out your wine quite a lot.’

  Silence. Apart from crackles on the telephone line. Must be windy down there. They really need to call out an engineer. Still silence.

  I carry on. I’ve come this far. ‘Do you think now’s the time, possibly, you know, maybe, to... check on your winemaking process?’

  The line goes so quiet for a beat that I wonder if we’ve been cut off, but no. Eve can keep her mouth shut no longer.

  ‘Whatever do you mean, Christabel?’

  ‘This isn’t a criticism, but—’

  ‘This is definitely going to be a criticism.’

  ‘Hear me out.’

  A sigh. I can hear her tiredness quite clearly above the crackles. But I must persevere.