The West Country Winery

by Lizzie Lovell

  And it turns out that Ruby is still Ruby at heart because she gives me a hug and says, ‘“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well”.’

  ‘Eve?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Julian of Norwich.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘He was a she,’ Ruby informs me, and it rings a bell. ‘One of those nuns from hundreds of years ago. She was put in a cave or cell or something and wasn’t allowed out. They passed her food and drink but I don’t know how she went to the loo or anything.’

  ‘Right.’ I’m not sure where this is going.

  ‘Weird,’ she comments. ‘And gross. But what she meant, this nun, is that she could put up with anything if she believed in God.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But she left all these writings. She was probably the first woman to write stuff in English. And people still read it now.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ I ask her.

  ‘Barney told me,’ she says.

  ‘I must meet Barney. Ask him for tea one day next week.’

  ‘He’s coming over this afternoon. You can ask him then.’

  ‘Oh, good. I will. Meanwhile, can you let Scarlet know about Rob’s blog?’

  She’s about to do this when my own phone rings.

  ‘It’s Rob,’ I tell her.

  Ruby races to the bedroom door and yells out, ‘Scarlet, it’s Rob on the phone!’

  SO THE THREE of us FaceTime Rob and it’s really strange seeing his face – familiar and yet distant, living a life so different to ours. And it reminds me how odd it must be for him, seeing us in Devon, hearing about our latest news.

  The girls speak loud and fast and Rob has to sit back and listen. I can’t work out his expression – possibly a mix of loss and relief? After ten minutes of this barrage, he finally says, ‘Can I have a word with your mum?’

  So after they have said their goodbyes and left the room, I am alone with my husband. Who’s in Africa.

  ‘How are you?’ he asks.

  This isn’t a throwaway question. I know he’s genuinely concerned that I’m all right, managing OK, the girls still alive. And actually I am all right. I am managing OK and the girls are well and truly still alive.

  I give him a résumé of the last few weeks: school, home, vineyard. I describe the autumn here, the changing colours, the leaves turning red, gold and yellow, before dropping to the soggy ground, the vines moving into their dormant phase for winter.

  ‘How’s the wine coming on?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, Des has been up the valley to visit and it’s fermenting nicely in the steel vats there.’

  ‘That’s great,’ he says, ‘knowing all that hard work’s paid off.’

  ‘There’s a way to go yet,’ I remind him. ‘Some of the wine has to be bottled and the rest laid on the lees.’ I feel a flush of pride about all I’ve learned these last few weeks at Home Farm.

  ‘You’re giving the sparkling wine a go, then?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Good for you,’ he says. ‘You’re on the road.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Then of course talk turns to the long road he’s travelling. The punctures. The sore feet. How the dirt tracks are shorter than the roads but so bumpy that his teeth hurt. That some days there’s so little shelter from the sun that he longs to be in rainy Britain. How he met this bloke, Jumbo, from Doncaster. How they help each other out, singing and chatting and telling stupid jokes and playing I spy. And he seems so far away that he might as well be on the moon, and how can I reconcile this person to the man I married over a decade ago?

  ‘Have you heard from my mother?’ he asks.

  ‘No, I’ve not heard from your mother. Why would I hear from your mother?’

  ‘No reason,’ he says. ‘It’s just that I haven’t been able to get hold of her the last couple of times I’ve called.’

  ‘The last couple of times you’ve called?’

  There’s a sudden silence but I’m fairly certain I can make out the faint sound of his brain cogs whirring while he calculates how to get out himself out of this hole he’s just dug for himself. He’s had the time and the opportunity to phone his mother, but not his wife and daughters?

  I’m not helping him out of this grave.

  ‘I’m worried about her,’ he says. ‘You’ve got each other. You’ve got Eve and Des too. And Melina. Mum’s got no one.’

  I want to remind him that if she wasn’t such an old battleaxe she might have some friends to keep an eye out for her but he knows this so there’s no point reiterating it.

  He steers the conversation back to his itinerary. The next leg to Windhoek. Then I hear a northern voice in the background and Rob says he has to go. They still have another sixty kilometres to get through today.

  Then suddenly he’s gone and it’s as if he was never there at all.

  AFTER LUNCH, a teenage boy, small in stature, lagged in winter clothes, appears from nowhere at the kitchen door. This must be Ruby’s Barney. Before I can ask him, Ruby’s stampeded down the stairs and hurled herself into the kitchen. She must’ve been watching out for him from her bedroom window, which overlooks the yard.

  ‘Come in,’ she says, out of breath. ‘Mum, this is Barney.’

  We do the intros and I try to do some small talk but Barney’s hard work. Ruby rescues me and they disappear upstairs.

  Melina, hands in the sink, looks at me, an unspoken question hanging between us – Why are you allowing a boy in your daughter’s bedroom? – but I ignore it. Something tells me I don’t have to worry about Barney. My Ruby will be safe with him.

  She moves on to Scarlet. ‘Your other daughter is walking dog,’ she says. ‘She is always walking dog.’

  ‘She loves walking the dog and I’m very happy to encourage this.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Melina says.

  I ignore this too and go in search of Eve.

  IT TURNS OUT Barney only lives on the other side of the village. A big house on its own set back from the road to Chudston. He walked to Home Farm, which is why I didn’t hear his arrival.

  ‘His mother’s on the PCC and organizing the carol service this year,’ Eve says. ‘They’re a musical family.’ She’s in the study, searching for paperwork.

  ‘You really ought to try filing, Eve. It would save you so much time and aggro.’

  ‘I shall get round to it eventually.’

  Subject dismissed.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘There’s a log of Des’s work somewhere. An old exercise book. It says who he sold his paintings to and how much he got for them.’ She’s going through the contents of an old pine trunk now. Heaps of paper that have been chucked in there over the years. It’s like excavating an archaeological dig. I’m half expecting her to get out a chisel and brush. ‘I know the old fogies could well have snuffed it by now but they might have offspring with a passing interest in art. What was it you called it? Retro kitsch?’

  ‘It was meant to be a compliment, you know. Was Des upset?’

  She waves away the thought with a flick of a hand like I’m an annoying bluebottle and she couldn’t give two hoots about whether Des was upset or not. She’s a woman on a mission. Now her passion – her beloved wine – is in jeopardy, she will raise the funds to save it, come what may. All talk of money being vulgar has been buried.

  ‘Where is Des, anyway?’

  ‘Painting,’ she says. When she notices the look of concern on my face she says: ‘Don’t worry. He’s working on his commission, not his own stuff. There’ll be time for that after he’s done this painting.’

  I feel bad for Des now. I really hope he’ll still have the urge to follow his passion.

  A LITTLE WHILE later, as I’m sorting out the laundry – so many smalls! – there’s a knock at the door. A half-hearted woof from Luther and my heart goes; it might be Nathan. I don’t know why I think it
might be Nathan. Or why I’m so worried. But anyway, it’s not. It’s a woman.

  ‘I’m looking for my son,’ she says.

  ‘You must be Barney’s mum?’

  ‘Is he here?’

  And like her son, she doesn’t appear to be one for small talk either because, when I ask her inside for a cup of tea, she declines and says she’ll wait in her car. I watch her stride away towards a hulk of a four-wheel drive. It’s actually acceptable to own one of those here, where there’s potentially the need to go off-road – unlike in London, where I used to get so annoyed at the Chelsea tractors. This Land Rover is genuinely scruffy. As is Barney’s mum. It looks like she’s dressed herself in the dark, having rummaged around in the contents of a lost-property bin, but hey, that’s the country way. I’ve let my own standards slip and have been gadding about in one of Eve’s old Laura Ashley skirts from the eighties, paired with a Fair Isle jumper cast-off from Des, which more than amply covers my bottom.

  ‘Retro,’ Scarlet always says.

  Which is good enough for me.

  ‘I’ll go and fetch him for you,’ I call out after her, but she’s shut her door and has the radio on at full blast – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5? – so I doubt she can even hear me.

  When I glance over again, I’m pretty sure there’s something familiar about this woman. I know her from somewhere.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, and I have no idea where either Barney or my daughter are. Ruby’s bedroom is abandoned, the only evidence of them having been there a pack of playing cards spread across the carpet.

  They’re not in the living room either.

  I check the study. Eve says she hasn’t seen them for a while.

  Then the studio. Des says: ‘Who’s Barney?’

  Finally, I have to ask Melina. She’s in her bedroom on her laptop.

  ‘I haven’t seen,’ she says. ‘Maybe you call police?’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘He could be drug dealer.’

  ‘Barney?’

  ‘They use children these days. As drug donkeys.’

  ‘Barney isn’t a drugs mule. He plays the trombone, for goodness’ sake.’

  She shrugs. Then she smiles. ‘I stick you into a bottle,’ she says before laughing out loud.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I pull your leg,’ she translates. ‘They went for a walk. To see Nathan.’

  ‘Nathan?’

  ‘Yes. Nathan. About an hour ago. I told her to be back for dinner. I make her favourite: sausages, peas and plaki.’

  Ruby does like plaki. Greasy fried-potato pancakes that Melina swears by for a hangover cure – more effective than Eve’s (green hemlock in your socks). But why am I comparing hangover cures when Ruby and Barney are next door? What am I going to tell Barney’s mother? There is no time to decide; I have to hurry up and find the pair of them.

  Back in the yard, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is reaching its rousing climax. I knock on the window of the Land Rover and Barney’s mother – seemingly lost in a trance – screams with surprise.

  She winds down the window, switches off the stereo, glares at me. ‘Where is he?’ she asks again.

  ‘Next door with Ruby,’ I tell her.

  ‘The big house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What on earth are they doing at the big house?’ she barks. Before waiting for an answer she follows up with an order: ‘Get in. I’ll drive there. He’s got choir practice.’

  ‘He sings?’

  ‘Of course he sings,’ she says, as if it’s common knowledge. Or I’m a total no-brain. ‘Soprano.’

  ‘Oh.’ I try to be gracious. ‘How lovely.’

  ‘Till his balls break.’ She shrieks with laughter.

  I think she might have a screw loose.

  ‘Right.’ What else can I say to this?

  I scramble into the passenger seat as she revs the engine, trying to find a space for my feet amongst the scrunched-up crisp packets, parking-ticket stubs, stray banana skins and other detritus.

  She skids out of the yard, almost giving me whiplash, and shunts into the lane with barely a glance to see if there’s oncoming traffic, despite it being dusk. What have I let myself in for?

  ‘Why are they up at the house anyway?’ she asks.

  ‘They went to see Nathan, the owner. He’s a... family friend.’

  ‘Family friend?’ she asks as if she doesn’t ‘do’ such a thing.

  ‘Sort of,’ I add.

  A few minutes later and we’ve swerved through the gates and past the lodge, racing up the long tree-lined drive that leads to the big house, past oak and beech trees, ornamental shrubberies and rhododendrons. The grounds are vast; we head through acres of parkland with views of grazing meadows to the east, towards the formal gardens, which are bordered by woodland to the west that slopes along the river valley towards the distant sea.

  ‘It’s been ages since I’ve been here,’ I announce, for something to say and because my memory has been stirred. ‘We used to come to the Christmas fair and carol concert here when I was a kid. When Old Joe’s wife was still alive.’

  ‘I used to come to hunt balls back in the day,’ she says.

  ‘You hunted?’

  ‘Of course I hunted,’ she says. ‘Not any more. I haven’t the time.’

  ‘Do you work?’

  ‘Of course I bloody work! I run an online company selling baby equipment.’

  I try not to snigger at the incongruity of this filthy, rude woman having a job that revolves around babies, but I manage to keep it in. ‘Lovely.’

  She practically does a handbrake turn on the gravel of the carriage driveway in front of a monumental fountain.

  And there it is, looming above us. Just as I remember it. A fine country house in the Gothic Revival style, designed by none other than John Nash. Soft Portland stone, like London Bridge. Castellated parapets and turrets with clusters of chimneypots so the place has the feel of a castle.

  Breathtaking.

  I can’t quite believe it belongs to Nathan these days. Or that Ruby is inside it with this crazy woman’s son.

  Dusk is falling fast now, and lights have been switched on within. Barney’s mum – Jacqueline, it turns out she’s called – is already out of the vehicle and striding towards the pillared coach gate – or porte cochère, as it feels more appropriate to call it.

  Jacqueline’s about to knock when the door opens and out rush Barney and Ruby in a state of great agitation. What has Nathan done?

  Ruby spots me as I emerge from the tip of the Land Rover and rushes over.

  ‘We’ve had such a brilliant time, Mum.’ She’s flushed with excitement. The sort of excitement that often ends in tears. ‘Nathan showed us around and it’s the biggest place you’ve ever seen. There are ten toilets and a swimming pool. He says we can come whenever we want.’

  Does he now.

  I want to interrogate Ruby as to why she has apparently got over his lengthy absence from her life so quickly. But now is not the time. Later will have to do. ‘Where is Nathan?’ I ask.

  ‘He said to come in for a glass of wine. And Barney’s mum. We saw you come up the drive from the library upstairs. You should see the amount of books he’s got – more than our new school and old school put together.’

  At the mention of wine, Jacqueline has visibly brightened, all thoughts of choir practice banished, and is already making her way towards the door.

  ‘Come on!’ she shouts back at me, like we’re best friends all of a sudden.

  And so this is how I find myself inside the circular hall and being ushered into the drawing room, where an enormous fire rages beneath an imposing marble mantelpiece – with Nathan shoving a glass of champagne into my hand, having already seen to Jacqueline. Ruby and Barney have disappeared again. Maybe to use one of the ten loos.

  ‘This could be your fizz we’re drinking in a couple of years’ time,’ the lord of the manor says. ‘Forget champagne! English sparkling wine is sm
ashing all the awards right now.’

  ‘You should stop comparing it to champagne,’ I remonstrate. ‘English wine should be about its individuality. Its very Englishness.’

  ‘I love a glass or two of Moët,’ Jacqueline says. ‘Not sure about British wine. Isn’t it all vinegary and bitter?’

  ‘British wine is actually imported grape juice made into wine. English wine – and Welsh – is made from grapes grown here, in this country, in vineyards like ours down the road.’ I’m becoming quite a wine buff, even if I say so myself. ‘We’re thinking about doing sparkling wine, but we’ve had some problems.’

  ‘I’ve tried your mother’s wine,’ Jacqueline says, knocking back the rest of her glass and putting an end to this conversation with a look that says, You’re living a pipe dream. ‘Shame I can’t stay for another tipple, Nathan,’ she adds, fiddling with her wiry salt-and-pepper hair that doesn’t look as though it’s seen a hairdresser since the eighties. ‘I’ve got to chauffeur Barney to choir practice before his balls drop.’

  I do wish she’d stop referencing her son’s downstairs bits. It really isn’t appropriate. What kind of mother is she?

  ‘How about you, Chrissie?’ Nathan asks, all sweetness and light, knowing full well I’m getting worked up, having already gulped down my drink. ‘Time for another?’

  ‘Must get back,’ I tell him. ‘Though I’d like a chat another time.’

  ‘What about?’

  He knows what about so I’m not going to spell it out in front of Jacqueline, who’s now prowling the room like a curious cat, examining probably priceless pieces of porcelain.

  ‘Could you get Ruby and Barney please?’ I ask him, rather forcefully.

  ‘Of course,’ he says, performing a little bow before withdrawing from the room.

  I stand in front of the fire and feel the heat of it over my face and right to the roots of my hair so I wish I could plunge into that fountain outside.

  ‘He’s a bit of all right,’ Jacqueline says, repeating that cackle of hers. ‘Got better with age.’

  And that’s when I remember. This is Jackie. From school. The quiet, shy one with the braces and frizzy hair who played the piano and rode ponies. Whatever’s happened to her?