‘Right. So what do I do? How does Ruby get home with her harp? How many people do I have to inconvenience so I can leave early and pick her up? How do I manage without Melina? How do I hold down a full-time job and look after two teenage girls one of whom—?’
I stop myself just in time.
‘One of whom... Isn’t your own? Is a troublemaker? Isn’t Ruby?’
‘That’s not fair, Rob.’ I shudder. Was I going to say that? He shouldn’t put words in my mouth.
‘I don’t mean to be blunt but this isn’t about you. It’s about me.’
‘That is quite blunt, to be honest. And, actually, it’s also a load of old rot. Of course it’s about me. Everything you do, every decision you take, every mid-life crisis you decide to have, has an effect on me and the girls.’
He looks like a chastised little boy. The one staring out from the photograph frame on his mother’s piano. Ingrid spends much of her life chastising people. Disapproving. Judging. I don’t ever want to end up like her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
And somehow, whether intentionally or not, Rob turns this around so that I am suddenly comforting him, holding his sweaty head against my shivering breast.
How did this happen?
Throw your life up in the air and see which way the wind blows.
As I hold him I imagine throwing up our lives: Ruby’s, Scarlet’s and mine. And I imagine them blowing south-west and coming to rest in my Devon home.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ I tell Rob.
I PHONE EVE later that evening, enthusiasm for my blossoming idea fuelled by that heady cocktail of booze, caffeine and adrenalin. But before I have a chance to pitch her my plan, she screeches out her news. ‘Hallelujah! The rest of the grapes have almost been picked!’ A pause for breath, then, ‘It’s nearly dark but they’re determined to stay out until it’s all done and then Nathan’s driving the last crates to the press.’
I can imagine my mother holed up in the cupboard in her woolly socks, long wild hair and a glass of vino in her good hand. Which reminds me of what Declan and I discussed earlier as a possibility for the future.
‘Have you thought about sparkling wine?’
‘Sparkling wine? You want us to get on the Prosecco bandwagon too?’
‘No. Well, yes, sort of. But I was thinking more along the lines of champagne.’
‘But you can only have champagne in, well, Champagne.’
‘Yes, but you can make something bloody similar. You’ve already got two of the grape varieties needed.’
‘I know. The holy trinity is only missing Pinot Minot.’
‘Pinot Meunier. Have you been talking to Nathan?’
‘Only briefly, dear. He’s been working alongside the others all day. He’s suggested the very same thing to Des and me and we’re actually thinking it’s a jolly good idea. Turn half of this year’s crop into bubbly and plant some Pinot Meunier for the future.’
‘That’s quite ambitious.’
‘But you were suggesting it!’
‘It was only an idea.’ Bloody Nathan bloody interfering when I am Eve and Des’s daughter and it is down to me to help them, not him.
‘Well, ideas have to be acted on, don’t they?’
‘Deeds not words?’
‘Exactly, Christabel,’ she says.
‘That’s what I was phoning to tell you. There’s something else I want to ask.’
‘Oh?’ I detect a prickly note in her voice. Wariness or suspicion?
‘I’m thinking about moving in – to Home Farm – with the girls.’
Silence.
‘Just for the year.’
More silence.
‘You know, until Rob gets back.’
‘Moving in here?
‘Of course.’
‘Oh, right, I see.’
‘And?’
‘What about your house?’
‘We can rent it out.’
‘What about the girls? Have you asked them? I remember what you thought about rural life aged fifteen, and that was before the Internet and mobile phones.’
‘It’ll be tough, I know, with their GCSEs coming up. They’ll probably hate the idea, but in practice they love being with you and Des. They could go to the secondary easily enough. There’s a school bus still goes through the village, right?’
‘Yes, it does.’ She sighs. I can almost feel it down the line hitting me in the face. ‘Speak to them.’
‘The school?’
‘The girls. Don’t tell them it’s a fait accompli. Get them on board. Show them the positives.’
‘I think I know how to do that, Eve. I spend my whole life looking after other people, making sure their sandwiches are cut into triangles and their carrots into batons.’
This stumps her for a second. ‘Right,’ she says, hesitant, then inhales what sounds like a deep breath of optimism. ‘If anyone can do it, it’s you, Christabel.’
I don’t think she’s being facetious but before I can confirm she says she must go and check on the pickers. So we hang up, and I’m not sure why but Eve didn’t seem as thrilled as I thought she’d be. It’s the conversation I need to have tomorrow that I’m more concerned about now, though. How’s that going to pan out?
THE NEXT DAY after school, Rob and I sit down with Ruby and Scarlet at the kitchen table, scene of much squabbling and laughter and celebrations and moods. And the thing is with fifteen-year-old girls, you never quite know how they are going to react.
There are two surprises. One from each of them.
Scarlet says: ‘Really? We can really move in with Eve and Des and live in their house and help run a vineyard?’
And Ruby says: ‘Over my dead body.’
FORTUNATELY, RUBY’S DRAMATIC mood swings are relatively short-lived, downgrading to a general stroppiness that we more usually associate with Scarlet. I suspect Rob is secretly chuffed about this. Though maybe I’m being unfair.
Ruby has spent the last four weeks in tears – for her school friends, for her harp teacher, for her swing band, for her house, for Rob, for her life which is not worth living any more. Scarlet, on the other hand, has kept up the enthusiasm she first showed when a move was discussed. I say discussed; Eve, I’m sure, would say we presented it as a fait accompli – though I made Rob do most of the work and let it be known quite categorically that this ‘trip’ was nothing to do with me. That I was in fact very happy with our London life but that if he was buggering off to Africa (I didn’t actually use this phrase out loud, though I definitely did in my head) then we should have our own adventure, especially one with a purpose – to help Eve and Des turn around the business.
There’s no going back now. School has been left with much crying and shirts Sharpie-scribbled with names and hashtags. Friends and neighbours have been farewelled. The house is packed up, the contents put into storage and the rest sent off in removal vans to Devon. From next week our home will be rented out to a lovely family from Syria, whose story puts ours into perspective. My resignation at work has been handed in and my notice worked out. So apart from saying a teary goodbye to Declan, I don’t feel too sad to be going. If anything, there’s a sort of relief. A freedom.
I do sort of wish they’d done a proper farewell party at work, though – something a bit more meaningful than the box of doughnuts and the Buck’s Fizz that Declan bought for the office at lunchtime. And yes, I know I’d made him swear not to spring any surprises, but I suppose I was secretly disappointed there wasn’t champagne and three cheers and much hearty singing of ‘For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow’, and that I had to spend the rest of the afternoon stocktaking.
And then there’s my husband.
Finally, a few days ago, we waved off Rob and his bike at Heathrow. It was a difficult day. The girls were very down, I was doing my best to hold it together – as, to be fair, was Rob – but the problem was his mother. Ingrid insisted on meeting us there and so we never had our own private family goodbye. It was sort
of like the end of Brief Encounter, when that chatty woman ruins the special moment between Laura and her lover.
And then he was gone.
Now we – Ruby, Scarlet and I – are on our way to Devon early on a sunny autumn Monday morning, the week ahead of us free as it’s half-term.
‘Climate change is a bad thing for the world,’ Scarlet says as we head back down the A303. She’s sitting up front with me. Ruby is in the back. ‘But it could be a good thing for English winemaking.’
‘Obviously you’d never mention that to Nana Eve.’
‘Obviously. I’m not a dumb-ass.’
Ruby snorts at this. We ignore her.
Scarlet continues. ‘More sun means more sugar which means more alcohol which means you don’t have to add sugar before fermentation.’
Since finding a book on winemaking in Oxfam last month, she has been googling away, preferring to stay indoors and help at home rather than going out with her friends – who are all ‘saddos’. Her friends have always been important to her so I’m not sure if this is her building up walls for self-protection or if she is genuinely pleased to be leaving. She hasn’t so much as put a brush of mascara on her eyelashes. And her hair is permanently shoved up in a bun-type thing, which is quite different from her usual just-woke-up-but-spent-three-hours-doing-my-hairthis-morning look.
‘Oh, will you just give it a rest,’ Ruby says.
‘Are you premenstrual or something?’ her sister asks, some of her former combativeness still bubbling away below the newly calm surface.
‘None of your business,’ Ruby snaps.
And this is what I’ve been most worried about. That one of them will have such a hard time that I won’t be able to manage without Rob. That Eve will think I’m capitulating to teenage whims when I only want to be supportive. But I never thought the one having a hard time would be Ruby.
Meanwhile, Scarlet will not be put off. ‘We have a cooler climate but this is balanced by a long ripening period which allows time for the flavour of the grapes to develop more. So the taste is bright and fresh, crunchier and crisper.’
‘Shut up, Gordon Ramsay.’
‘Gordon Ramsay’s a chef,’ Scarlet says, quick as a whippet. Haughty. Deadly once more. ‘He makes food. Not wine.’
‘Well, I don’t know any wine people.’
‘Jancis Robinson,’ I shout out, like I’m at a quiz. ‘She’s a wine critic.’
‘Never heard of her,’ Ruby says.
‘Because she’s a woman,’ Scarlet says.
‘Actually I think it’s because English wine’s had a bad press,’ I offer.
‘I’m not surprised, if it’s anything like Nana Eve and Des’s.’ The voice of doom from the back.
‘Well, that’s changing,’ Scarlet says. ‘It’s the new thing now and we need to ride this wave.’ She is passion personified.
‘But their wine is still crap.’
‘Ruby. Come on, love.’
‘What? You told me it was crap, Mum. And I’ve seen your expression when you drink it, remember?’
‘Only the first few sips. Till my face goes numb.’
She sputters out a laugh then. Scarlet and I join in. The car fills with bubbles of joy. But bubbles go flat. Bubbles get popped. And before we reach the Somerset border the girls are back to arguing over who is sleeping where.
‘Isn’t it enough that for the first time in your lives you can each have your own room?’
‘Not when it’s in Devon,’ Ruby says. ‘And if Nana Eve insists on keeping that embarrassing naked painting of her in the living room, I’m going to sneak down one night and burn it on the fire.’
What was I thinking the other week? That Ruby should have more passion? I really should be more careful what I wish for.
By the time we reach Devon, they are both asleep and I have the headspace to ponder the enigma that is my husband.
He whispered into my ear as we left him at Departures, Sorry, Chrissie. I’ll never forget you letting me do this. And he held me tight, looked me dead in the eye. Will you be OK?
How I’d have loved to have said, And now you’re asking. Don’t be laying guilt at my feet. But the girls were both there, not to mention his mother, and it was going to be a long time before we would see him again. Did I really want the last words of mine that echoed in his ears to be full of nags?
We’ll be fine, I told him. And while saying those words I felt a surge of power, like electricity or some deep force from within the earth – though it could have been the rumbling of aircraft taking off. But right in that moment I knew those words were true. We would be fine. I’d done it before when Ruby was little and I could do it again now with the two of them; both capable, strong young women. Most of the time. When they want to be.
By the time we approach the village, I am slightly less sure on this point because Ruby and Scarlet are awake again, arguing back and forth over the bedrooms. And just as we hit the brow of the hill, a ping tells me I have a Facebook message, so I pull over before we lose reception and there it is: a photo of Rob in one of the Cape vineyards, a view of Table Mountain behind him. He’s in his Lycra, sunglasses on, windswept, smiling, a glass of bubbly in his hand. With a message.
Wine tourism is big biz here. Been growing grapes since 1600s. Lots of new winemakers making great stuff, including what locals call a really ‘quaffable’ fizz.
I’m not sure how to react to this. We’ve been growing grapes in Britain since Roman times? We also have a new generation of winemakers? We have some brilliantly ‘quaffable’ wine? (I use the term ‘we’ in the broadest sense.) Is this a competition? It’s certainly needling me. I was expecting him to be roughing it but there he is, with a glass of wine. Relaxed, tanned, but most of all, happy.
AFTER THE USUAL shrieks and woofs, we arrive at our new home at lunchtime.
Eve is at the Aga, stirring a cauldron of broth with her good hand while the other is still strapped up in a sling. The kitchen smells of cabbages and farmyards but I’m assured the soup is vegan.
‘Made from actual vegans?’ Des asks. He is laying the table whilst glugging a glass of red.
Ruby cracks a smile and Scarlet rolls her eyes, but with more irony than usual.
Eve studiously ignores him and carries on stirring the pot.
Stirring the pot is something she is making a habit of lately.
Take Melina: her feet well and truly under the kitchen table and the rest of her well and truly in my bed.
‘She replastered the ceiling, so I thought it was the least I could do.’
‘Offer her my room?’
‘She said it had a nice view.’
‘It does have a nice view. My view.’
‘I thought you’d be better down the other end so you can be more self-contained, what with it being by the girls’ rooms and the other bathroom.’
‘Right.’
‘By the way,’ she says, casually offhand, ‘Nathan’s coming round tomorrow morning. He says he has a proposal.’
And Nathan makes two.
LUNCH DONE, AND Melina is washing up as if she has stood at this sink for all time.
‘I like very much living here,’ she tells me when I grab a tea towel from the Aga rail. ‘My room has beautiful view of fields and sheep and I imagine being at home with my babcia who is now very old.’
The girls, with Melina’s calm and patient help, have finally decided on their bedrooms. Scarlet actually is the one to say Ruby can choose. And Ruby strangely goes for the smaller one.
‘What about your harp?’ I ask her when she and I are standing in there, surrounded by her half-unpacked belongings.
‘Des says I can have the study to practise in. He says he likes the sound of it. And he’s spending more time back in the studio anyway.’
‘Really? Have you seen his paintings?’
‘Yeah, they’re really good. He’s stopped with the naked women and he’s doing landscapes.’
This is the best conversatio
n I’ve had with Ruby in a while. I’m helping her make the bed and once she’s got her duvet cover on, she smiles for the first time in ages. But she notices me notice her smile and turns it quickly into a scowl.
‘You’d better help Scarlet with her bed,’ she says, dismissing me. ‘She gets all stressed out doing her cover.’
I don’t know if this is an olive branch of any sort but I only push my luck a little by lunging in for a half-hug and then doing as I’m told. Though when I get to Scarlet’s room I find Melina already helping her.
LATER, WHEN THE girls have gone to bed, exhausted, I put on my pyjamas and dressing gown and head downstairs for a ginger tea. I’m so wired I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep, though my bones are telling me I ought to give it a try.
Eve is there at the kitchen table. Her arm is now out of its sling but she’s wearing one of those foam straps to support it.
‘Is it sore still?’ I ask her.
‘Not too bad. Just stiff, really. From lack of use.’ She wiggles her fingers to demonstrate then goes back to sorting out her pills into one of those weekly containers.
‘I didn’t know you took tablets?’
‘They’re supplements, mainly. And I still take the herbs, of course.’
‘Right.’
‘Don’t have ginger, my darling. Camomile is much better this time of night.’
‘Camomile tastes of grass.’
‘It’s very relaxing.’
‘It makes me retch.’
‘Oh, Christabel,’ she says. ‘Always so stubborn. That’s where Ruby gets it from.’
I’m about to protest. I’m about to say Ruby’s not stubborn when I have to admit to myself that maybe there’s an element of truth here. And as for me, I want to ask her why I’d let Rob go away for a year if I was stubborn. But Eve cuts me short.
‘It turns out I do have osteoporosis,’ she says as if she can’t quite understand it, like it’s some kind of conspiracy between the NHS and ‘big pharma’.
I’m sitting back at the table now with my ginger tea. I’ve made her a camomile. It stinks.
The West Country Winery Page 8