I turn around to check on the others and see Declan and Mark lingering behind us, hand in hand in the light of the moon.
AT FIVE MINUTES to midnight, I am sitting in the living room in front of a roaring log burner looking at the faded empty pink patch on the wall above, where Eve used to recline in all her glory. I have my girls with me, one on each side, on the sofa. Luther lies across us, a jumble of long limbs. Barney and Morley are sprawled on cushions on the threadbare Persian carpet that as a child I used to pretend was magic and could whisk me away to far-off places.
And thinking of magic, Declan and Mark are squished up together on Des’s big armchair, looking so loved-up you can almost hear the cherubs singing. I’ve never seen Declan like this and I really hope it means they have worked out their issues.
And now, as the chimes ring out for midnight, we watch Big Ben and the fireworks over the Thames. All that money going up in smoke, as Eve likes to say. And then we hear the other fireworks. Real live ones being set off next door. Rockets and bangers. Scarlet pulls Luther closer to her as he begins to tremble.
‘Nathan is such a jerk,’ she growls on the dog’s behalf.
‘Don’t say that.’ Ruby is suddenly protective. Which is a shock. She gets up and goes to the window, pokes her head under the faded velvet curtains that have hung there all my life. Barney joins her. They kneel down, mesmerized.
The fireworks go on for ten minutes or so and I think of Des, somewhere outside and doubtless fire-watching. Finally the booms and cracks stop and there is a blissful silence.
‘Look!’ Ruby exclaims to Barney. ‘There’s one of those Chinese lanterns.’
‘And another,’ Barney says.
‘There’s a whole load of them.’
Ruby and Barney start counting.
‘Pull back the curtains,’ Declan says. ‘So we can all see.’
We get up and watch and gasp at the pretty lights floating in the clear night sky, like the candles on All Saints’ Night in the graveyard.
Only Scarlet refuses to be impressed. ‘They’re an environmental nightmare,’ she says. ‘They fall back to earth as litter. They cause damage to wildlife. Lots of countries ban them. But then, I shouldn’t be surprised at anything Nathan allows on his land.’
‘It might not be him, to be fair,’ says Morley.
‘It wasn’t,’ says Barney. ‘I heard that woman with the eyebrows telling her mates she had a load.’
‘You never said!’ berates Scarlet.
‘I didn’t know they were dangerous.’
‘Honestly!’ She shakes her head, as if Barney – who is actually only a few months younger than her – is a silly little boy. ‘Nathan could’ve put a stop to it. It’s his land.’
We stand and watch, and I wonder where the burning lanterns will fall. Miles away, most probably. But one hovers overhead, floating slowly downwards. Towards Home Farm. Towards the barn.
The barn.
With its thatched roof.
Des would be having kittens if he were here.
But he isn’t. There’s just us.
‘We should—’
But before I can say what we should do, Scarlet has legged it from the room, barking orders for us all to follow.
By the time we’ve caught up with her outside in the yard, she’s screaming: ‘CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE!’
For, there above us, sparks fly across the thatched roof. Sparks that catch alight.
Suddenly there’s chaos. The flames are taking hold. Ruby’s calling 999.
‘What shall we do?’ Scarlet shouts.
‘Keep back,’ I yell at her, waving my arms frantically.
‘The fire brigade are on their way,’ Ruby says. ‘Reckon they’ll be ten minutes yet.’
‘Ten minutes! Oh my God! What are we going to do?’ Scarlet repeats, her teen bravado faltering.
‘Go and check on Luther,’ Ruby urges her.
‘Stand right back!’ Mark orders. He’s brandishing a fire extinguisher.
Of course, a fire extinguisher. Why didn’t I think of that?
Declan looks on in wonder as Mark confidently aims the nozzle at the roof, but as the jet of water falls short of its target, panics. ‘It won’t reach!’ he yells.
‘Get the garden hose over there,’ Mark shouts back.
‘That won’t reach either.’
‘I know that! But we need to contain the fire. Drench everything you can.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Morley springs into action while the rest of us grab the buckets stacked beside the water butts and take turns to fill them.
But the flames are still spreading.
The smell of it. The sound. The gut-wrenching horror of our dreams burning before our eyes – Oh my God! My parents! All Des’s fears are coming true!
Just as I’m losing my grip on the situation, here they are, Des and Eve, with Nathan in tow.
‘The river!’ Eve’s shouting, moving determinedly at speed towards it, gesticulating like a commander in battle. ‘We need to use the river!’
So we follow, all of us, running back and forth, fetching water, chucking as much as we can on the walls of the barn. On the ground. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anything to save what we can of the barn. Anything to protect the house.
And then the wonderful noise of the fire siren. The wonderful sight of the truck pulling into the yard, and the firefighters leaping into action.
MUCH, MUCH LATER, with dawn cracking, while the teens sprawl, comatose, on sofas in the living room, and while the rest of us – Eve, Des, Ingrid, Mark, Declan and me – wait, exhausted, in the kitchen – the chief officer knocks on the door and I let him in.
He looks tired and dirty but there’s a faint smile playing around his dry lips.
‘It’s out,’ he says.
And the relief is palpable. From all of us.
‘Thank God,’ Eve says.
‘We’ll assess the damage once it’s light,’ he goes on.
I’m about to ask some more questions, when Nathan turns up.
‘Charlotte’s mortified,’ he announces, looking somewhat contrite himself.
‘So she should be,’ Des says hotly. ‘To think I was almost prepared to give her a chance!’ He shakes his head wearily.
Eve hugs him.
‘My great thanks to you, Mark,’ he says. ‘You made a terrible situation slightly better. Hopefully it’s just the roof that’s gone.’ He turns then to the fire officer. ‘And you and your colleagues, sir, you’ve done a sterling job. I can never thank you enough.’
Poor old Des has tears in his eyes and it’s impossible to tell if this is from the smoke or relief or memories of the house fire in his childhood. I give him a kiss and Eve takes him to bed.
A few minutes later, as everyone troops off to a well-deserved sleep, just Nathan and I remain, sitting opposite each other at the table.
He rubs his face. ‘I should’ve stopped her.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Helping Jackie. She was so pissed, I couldn’t leave her. Your mum and Des were there too. It took three of us to get her home. We missed all the fireworks and by the time we left her house, we realized something was wrong – we could see the smoke. We could smell it. For a moment there I thought it was the house and God, I was relieved when I saw you all fannying about in the yard.’
‘Excuse me? “Fannying about”?’
‘Well, you’re hardly firefighter material, are you? Apart from Mark. He’s a bit of a hero, isn’t he? And not just in Declan’s eyes, either...’
He’s smiling that smile that used to work its charm on me, so glad the fire’s out that he’s resorted to teasing. And I can’t help but smile back. Until I think of Charlotte and the anger bubbles back up.
‘Where’s Charlotte now?’
‘Still at the house. She’d like a word before she heads back to London.’
‘A word?’
‘She wants to apologize for cocking up.’
‘For cocking up our marr
iage?
He sighs. ‘Look, I know that was down to me as much as her. And I have tried apologizing. And I’ll keep on trying until you accept I mean it.’
I don’t say anything. I’m going to make him work for every morsel.
‘So can she?’ he asks again. ‘Can she have a word with you?’
‘She can try.’
TODAY IS A late start. I sleep till eleven and by the time I make it downstairs to the kitchen, the place is abuzz with activity.
‘They’ve checked the barn and given us the all-clear, darling, so it’s all hands on deck,’ Eve tells me, on noticing my entrance. She hands over a broom so I can join in with the clear-up.
‘How could they just release a bunch of those lanterns like that?’ I rant to Des outside in the yard, assessing the damage. ‘I know we were lucky it was just the barn. And that we managed to hold it back until the fire crew arrived – but only thanks to all of us pitching in – and the weather! What would have happened if it had been summer?’
‘It’s really only the roof, Chrissie,’ he says, always one to be positive. ‘And poor Ruby’s harp, of course. Nobody was hurt.’
‘No, I know that.’ I turn to look at my daughter, sweeping nearby. ‘Hey, Ruby? Why was your harp in the barn anyway?’
‘I was practising there after I had an argument with Scarlet,’ she says, like this makes perfect sense to her. ‘But don’t worry, Mum. I’m going to switch to the Celtic harp like Malcolm. He told me I can join the Chud Valley Stompers, Barney too. We’ll get paid!’
I have had only a moment to reflect on how readily my daughter has accepted the loss of her beloved instrument when Charlotte turns up.
‘I’LL PAY FOR the new roof,’ Charlotte announces, once I’ve taken her aside, back into the kitchen away from everyone, fearful of giving her a right old ear-bashing in front of Ruby and Scarlet. ‘Whatever it takes to put this right,’ she adds, looking genuinely remorseful.
And while I know she’s referring to the fire, she might as well be talking about my life, but quite frankly, I don’t have the energy to revisit the past right at this moment. I want to get this mess sorted. So I resist the urge to say stuff your money and focus on Eve’s thoughts about gift horses.
‘Thank you, Charlotte,’ I manage to say.
She has tears in her eyes and I feel like slapping her when I should be the one with tears in my eyes, but I will more than happily take her money. That way we don’t have to make it an insurance job; our premiums won’t go up and a whole lot of paperwork can be passed over.
Though first thing tomorrow I’ll have to inform the local building officer. Ironically, I have an appointment booked for tomorrow anyway at the council offices to discuss the licence application and so I’ll also ask the building officer about the possibility of using the barn in the future – once the repairs are done. I will not let this set us back any more than can be helped.
ROB HAS FALLEN in love with Tanzania, which he’s now criss-crossing because he can’t bear to miss any of it. According to his blog. Which means this trip is getting longer by the day. Zanzibar. The Masai Steppe. The Ngorogoro Crater. Arusha. The foothills of Kilimanjaro. Then on to Kenya.
I sigh. It all sounds like quite a contrast to damp, dark January in Devon with its relentless dull-grey skies. I sigh again, try to push aside my husband’s adventures, focus my thoughts on all we have to do: declare our wine production plans to the Food Standards Agency, complete the licence applications, calculate our finances, recover from the shock of the fire. Two weeks later and I’m still reeling from it. No one was hurt, I remind myself. I must focus on the here and now.
THERE’S ALSO MUCH work to be done in the vineyard. The vines have been in hibernation since December. The sap has descended into the root systems and now is the time for winter pruning to limit the growth of the plant and the quantity of grapes produced, whilst also improving their quality. Having been delayed by the fire and also by lack of help, we now need to crack on. It’s a lengthy job, pruning each vine, clearing out the old wood and then carefully bending the new fruiting canes to encourage the sap to flow before the budburst of spring.
Some viniculturists say pruning’s an art form, that good pruners know each vine as an individual. To me, the vines look sad and bare right now, lengths of naked wire waiting for the branches to spurt into life and stretch along them.
So we wait. We prune. And we wait some more.
Snowdrops are cropping up in the garden and down in the churchyard amongst the gravestones. Early signs of life pushing through the hardened earth of bleak midwinter. We’re still a long way from safe. Listening to the forecast, I hear there’s a threat of frost this coming weekend. Frost right now is all right. It will kill off the bugs. But as soon as those buds appear, a frost can see them drop off. A frost can wipe out an entire crop. It is the winegrowers’ greatest fear.
After another day’s hard toil, we all troop into the kitchen, fuelled with excitement that Melina’s due to return tonight. Declan and Mark will miss this reunion because they are long gone, reluctantly, home to London, very much loved-up and with promises to return soon, although they did have a chaperone for the journey in the form of my mother-in-law, the passion-killer.
IT’S LATE IN the evening before we hear a taxi pull into the yard – Luther alerting us with a deep bark.
Scarlet and Ruby are in bed, exhausted from school; Des is back in the studio working on his landscapes. ‘You really must return to your own work, darling, now that the commission is done,’ I heard Eve say to him earlier. He did not argue. He’s making the most of it because there could well be more paid work in the pipeline; it makes me smile to think that he and Eve have discovered for themselves that social media is not always a bad thing.
So Melina has to make do tonight with a two-woman welcoming committee consisting of my mother and me.
‘Welcome home,’ Eve says, enveloping our Polish friend in one of her voluminous hugs.
Of course this is Melina’s home too, and again the dual life of an immigrant is revealed to me. It’s hard enough, the flip from London to Devon, let alone Poland to Britain. And how must Rob be feeling in a continent where he’s largely known as a mzungu?
‘Your barn looks very sad,’ Melina announces once she’s been made camomile tea by Eve and baked beans on toast by me. ‘You must knock it down. Start again.’
‘We can’t,’ I try to explain, patiently. ‘It’s a listed building. We’d get in trouble. Besides, like I said before, Brits like old stuff. They think it’s romantic.’
She tuts. Does that laugh of derision she is so good at, and it hits me how much I’ve missed her.
‘It’s good to have you back, Melina.’
‘I am happy to be back but I am very sleepy. I have spent many hours at my wine course today.’
‘You’ve been there today?’ I ask, surprised.
‘It is Monday. I come to England yesterday and stay with my friend. I have paid much money for this course and do not want to miss it. Babcia would never forgive me.’
‘What did you learn about today?’ Eve asks, the same way she used to ask me after school, the same way I ask Scarlet and Ruby. The normal response to such a question is ‘nothing’, but Melina gives a straight answer.
‘Polyphenolic profile, terpene and volatile compound content,’ she says.
She might as well be talking Polish for all I understand of that. Though I do realize she’s talking about the wine itself and not the terroir.
‘I thought you were interested in the vineyard side of things, not the winemaking?’ I say.
‘I am interested in both,’ she replies. ‘Vine to wine.’ She smiles at this rhyme, though in her accent the words sound the same, so what it loses in sense it gains in comedic effect. Though I really shouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. I know only a handful of words from her mother tongue.
‘How is wine?’ she asks, nudging me because I seem to have drifted off into a semi-trance.
‘Have you tried?’
‘The wine? No, actually. Not yet. But they’ve said we can go along this week. How are you fixed for tomorrow?’
‘I can be fixed for tomorrow. Is good for me.’
‘Great.’
‘Also, I have surprise.’ She shows us her left hand. Waggles the ring finger, showing off a ruby the colour of shiraz.
‘Babcia’s,’ she says.
‘For a moment there I thought you were going to say you’re engaged!’ I laugh at my mistake, then stop abruptly when she gives me that stare and I know what she is going to say.
‘I am engaged.’
‘You are?’
She nods, almost coyly, aware that we have no clue that she even had a boyfriend, and there’s a moment while we wait for her to fill us in until Eve can take it no longer. ‘Such marvellous news,’ she says warmly. ‘But to whom, my dear?’
‘To Tomasz,’ Melina says, as if it’s obvious.
‘You dark horse. I thought you were just friends.’ I beam, surprised but happy for her. So happy.
Eve is still rather confused. ‘Tomasz?’ she asks, searching in her memory for a potential candidate. And then it clicks. ‘The picker Tomasz?’
‘Yes, Tomasz,’ Melina says. ‘Doctor of Philosophy Tomasz.’
Eve’s eyes widen, burning as brightly and mischievously as ever. She’s never able to hide a thing.
‘They are the same and the one,’ Melina confirms.
‘One and the same.’ I don’t mean to be pedantic, but some things I can’t let go.
The West Country Winery Page 21