A Vintage Affair

by Isabel Wolff

  Miles indicated the four vast red tanks that lined the far wall. ‘Those are the fermentation vats. The grape juice is pumped straight into them from the cylinder with that hose there. Now we go through here …’ I followed him into the next shed, which was cooler, and where there were a number of steel containers with dates chalked on them. ‘This is where the fermented grape juice is aged. We also age it in these oak casks over here, then, after a year or so, it’s ready to be bottled.’

  ‘And when can it be drunk?’

  ‘The table wine after eighteen months, the decent stuff after two to three years, and the vintage wines are kept for up to fifteen years. Most of what’s produced here is red.’

  To one side was a table with some half-empty bottles, sealed with grey stoppers; there were also glasses, a couple of corkscrews and a number of wine reference books. The walls were studded with various framed diplômes d’honneur that Château de Bosquet wines had garnered at international wine festivals.

  I noticed that one bottle had a pretty label, with a blackbird on it holding a bunch of grapes in its beak. I looked at it more closely. ‘Chante le Merle,’ I said. I turned to Miles. ‘I had this wine only last week – at the Greenwich Picturehouse.’

  ‘The Picturehouse chain do buy our wines. Did you like it?’

  ‘It was delicious. It had a … seductive bouquet, I seem to remember.’

  ‘And what film were you seeing?’

  ‘Anna Karenina.’

  ‘With …?’

  ‘Greta Garbo.’

  ‘No – I mean … who did you see the film with? I … was just wondering,’ he added, diffidently.

  I found Miles’ insecurity touching – especially as he’d seemed so smooth and suave when I’d first met him. ‘I went with this friend of mine, Dan. He’s a bit of a film buff.’

  Miles nodded. ‘Well …’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s almost six. We’d better get ready. We’ll have dinner in the village. Roxy will probably stay with Pascal and Cecile. She can practise her French,’ he added. ‘Now, I imagine you’d like to wash …’

  I held up my purple-stained hands.

  As we walked round to the house I saw that Roxy had vacated her seat, leaving her empty Coke bottle, the neck of which was being probed by wasps. Miles pushed on the enormous front door and we stepped into the cool interior. The hall was huge with vaulted ceilings, exposed beams and a cavernous fireplace with a stack of logs to one side. Against one wall was a long settle made of old casks. At the foot of the staircase a stuffed bear stood guard, its teeth and claws bared.

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Miles said as we passed it. ‘He’s never bitten anyone. Up we go. Now …’ We crossed the landing and Miles pushed on a panelled door revealing a vast limestone bath, shaped like a sarcophagus. He took a towel from the rail. ‘I’m going to have a soak.’

  ‘Elsewhere presumably,’ I joked, wondering if Miles was going to strip off in front of me. I suddenly realised that I wouldn’t mind if he did.

  ‘I’ve got an en-suite,’ I heard him explain as he left the room. ‘I’m at the end of the landing there. I’ll see you downstairs in what … twenty minutes? Roxy …’ he called as he went out, shutting the door. ‘Ro-xy – I need to speak to you …’

  I untied the apron, which had protected my dress perfectly, and wiped the dust off my shoes. I showered with the ancient-looking brass attachment, twisting my wet hair into a knot, then I dressed again and put on a little make-up.

  As I stepped out on to the landing I could hear Miles’ whispered voice floating up, then Roxy’s plaintive tones.

  – ‘I won’t be out for long, sweetie …’

  – ‘Why’s she here?’

  – ‘She has work to do in the area …’

  – ‘… don’t want you to go out …’

  – ‘Then come with us.’

  – ‘Don’t feel like it …’

  The top step creaked beneath my feet.

  Miles seemed slightly startled as he looked up. ‘There you are, Phoebe,’ he said. ‘So you’re ready to go then?’ I nodded. ‘I was just seeing if Roxy wanted to come,’ he added as I came down the stairs.

  ‘I hope you will,’ I said to Roxy, determined to try and charm her. ‘We could talk about clothes: your dad says you’re interested in a career in fashion.’

  She gave me a sullen glance. ‘That’s what I’m going to do, yeah.’

  ‘Why don’t you join us then?’ her dad asked warmly.

  ‘I don’t want to go out.’

  ‘In that case, have supper with the grape-pickers.’

  She gave a moue of distaste. ‘No thanks.’

  Miles shook his head. ‘Roxy – there are some lovely young people here. That Polish girl Beata is training to be an opera singer. She speaks wonderful English, you could chat to her.’ Roxy shrugged her slender shoulders. ‘Then eat with Pascal and Cecile.’ The girl groaned then folded her arms. ‘Don’t be awkward,’ said her father. ‘Please, Roxanne, I’d just like you to –’ But she was already halfway across the hall.

  Miles turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, Phoebe.’ He sighed. ‘Roxy’s at that difficult age.’ I nodded politely then suddenly remembered the French expression for the teenage years – l’âge ingrat. ‘She’ll be fine here for a couple of hours. Now …’ He jingled his car keys. ‘Let’s go.’

  Miles drove down to the village then parked his hired Renault in the main street. As we got out, he nodded at a restaurant with tables outside, the white cloths flapping in the breeze. We crossed over to it, then Miles pushed on the door.

  ‘Ah … Monsieur Archant,’ said an unctuous-looking maître d’ as he held open the door. ‘C’est un plaisir de vous revoir. Un grand plaisir.’ Suddenly the man’s face cracked into a smile and the two men slapped each other on the back, laughing uproariously.

  ‘Good to see you, Pierre,’ said Miles. ‘I’d like to introduce you to the fair Phoebe.’

  Pierre lifted my hand to his lips. ‘Enchanté.’

  ‘Pierre and Pascal were at school together,’ Miles explained as Pierre showed us to a corner table. ‘We all used to hang out together in the summer holidays, what, thirty-five years ago, Pierre?’

  Pierre blew out his lips. ‘Oui – il y a trente cinq ans. Before you were born,’ he added to me with a chuckle. I had a sudden vision of a fifteen-year-old Miles holding me, as a baby.

  ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ Miles asked me as he opened the carte au vin.

  ‘I would,’ I replied carefully. ‘But I probably shouldn’t as I’ll be driving back to Avignon.’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ Miles said as he put on his reading glasses. He peered at the list. ‘You’re having dinner, after all.’

  ‘I’ll just have one then – but no more.’

  ‘And if you decide to get hammered, you can always stay at the house,’ he added casually. ‘There’s a spare room – with a big trunk!’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be needing that – I mean the room,’ I corrected myself, blushing. ‘I mean, I won’t be staying, thanks.’ Miles was smiling at my embarrassment. ‘So … you said you help with the harvest every year?’

  He nodded. ‘I do it to keep the family connection alive – the estate was founded by my great-grandfather, Philippe, who was also Pascal’s great-grandfather. And I come because I was left a small share in the business so I like to feel involved.’

  ‘So Château de Bosquet is your “village vintage”.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ Miles smiled. ‘But I love the whole wine-making process. I love the machinery and the noise and the scent of the grapes and the connection with the land. I love the fact that viticulture involves so many things – geography, chemistry, meteorology – and history. I love the fact that wine is one of those few things that time improves.’

  ‘Like you?’ I suggested playfully.

  He smiled. ‘Now what are you going to drink?’ I chose the Châteauneuf-du-Pape Fines Roches. ‘And I’ll have a glass of the Cuv
ée Reine,’ Miles said to Pierre. ‘I drink non-Bosquet wines when I’m out,’ he told me as I picked up the menu. ‘It’s good to know what the competition’s like.’

  Pierre placed our glasses of wine in front of us with a plate of fat green olives. Miles raised his glass. ‘How lovely to see you again, Phoebe. When I was having dinner with you last week I hoped to see you again, but I never imagined that we’d be… oh.’ He reached into his pocket for his BlackBerry. ‘Look, Roxy,’ he whispered as I studied the menu, ‘I did tell you where I was going – I did – we’re at the Mirabelle.’ He stood up. ‘You were invited.’ I heard him sigh as he headed for the door. ‘You know you were, darling. What’s the point of saying that now?’

  Miles stood outside chatting to Roxy then he returned, looking exasperated. ‘Sorry about that,’ he sighed as he pocketed his phone. ‘Now she’s cross because she didn’t come! I have to say, Roxy can be rather awkward sometimes – but at heart she’s a very good girl.’

  ‘Of course,’ I murmured.

  ‘She would never do anything …’ Miles hesitated ‘… wrong.’ Pierre came to the table again and we placed our orders. ‘But I’d like to talk about you, Phoebe,’ Miles went on. ‘When we had dinner last week you fended off all my questions – I’d love to know a bit more.’

  I shrugged. ‘About what?’

  ‘Well … personal things. Tell me about your family.’ So I told Miles about my parents, and about Louis.

  Miles shook his head. ‘That’s a tough one. And it must give you a conflict,’ he added as Pierre brought our starters.

  I spread my napkin on my lap. ‘It does. I wish I’d seen more of Louis, but it was all so awkward. I’ve decided I’m going to visit him more often and just say nothing to my mother. In the normal way, she adores babies,’ I added, ‘but how could she ever adore this one?’

  ‘Well …’ Miles shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She feels very vulnerable now,’ I went on as I broke a bread roll in half. ‘She says she never thought my father would leave her; but if I think about it they didn’t really do anything together – or hadn’t done for years; not that I can remember, anyway.’

  ‘It must still be hard for her though.’

  ‘It is – but at least she has her work.’ Now I told Miles about Mum’s job.

  He picked up his soup spoon. ‘So she’s worked for this chap for twenty-two years?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s like a professional marriage. When John retires, she will too – but as he says he wants to work until he’s seventy, that’s some way off, thankfully. She needs the distraction of work and the money’s useful, especially as my dad’s having a … career break,’ I concluded carefully.

  ‘And there’s no chance that your mum and her boss …?’

  ‘Oh no.’ I laughed. ‘John adores her, but he’s not really into women.’

  ‘I see.’

  I sipped my wine. ‘Did your parents stay together?’

  ‘For fifty-three years –’ til death did them part – they died within a few months of each other. Has what happened to your parents shaken your belief in marriage?’

  I lowered my fork. ‘You’re assuming that I have one.’

  ‘As you told me that you’d been engaged, I am.’ Miles sipped his wine then he nodded at my right hand. ‘Was that your engagement ring?’

  ‘Oh. No.’ I glanced at the lozenge-cut emerald flanked by two little diamonds. ‘This belonged to my grandmother. I’m very fond it, not least because I have so many memories of her wearing it.’

  ‘So was your engagement long ago?’

  I shook my head. ‘It was earlier this year.’ Surprise flickered across Miles’ face. ‘In fact…’ I looked out of the window. ‘I was due to get married today.’

  ‘Today?’ Miles lowered his glass.

  ‘Yes. I was due to get married today at Greenwich Register Office at 3 p.m. followed by a sit-down dinner and dance for eighty people at the Clarendon Hotel in Blackheath. Instead of which I’ve been grape-picking in Provence with a man I hardly know.’

  Miles looked bemused. ‘You don’t seem … too upset about it.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s odd, but I feel almost … nothing.’

  ‘Which means that you must have been the one to end it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But … why did you?’

  ‘Because … I had to. That had become clear.’

  ‘Didn’t you love your fiancé?’

  I sipped my wine. ‘I did. Or rather I had loved him – very much. But then something happened that profoundly changed the way I felt about him, so I called it off.’ I looked at Miles. ‘Does that make me seem callous?’

  ‘A … little,’ he said, frowning slightly. ‘But without knowing anything about it I’m not going to judge. I’m assuming that he was unfaithful to you, or that there was a betrayal of that kind.’

  ‘No. He just did something that I couldn’t forgive.’ I looked at Miles’ puzzled face. ‘I’ll tell you – if you like. Or we could change the subject.’

  Miles hesitated. ‘Okay,’ he said after a moment. ‘I can’t deny that I’m curious now.’ So I briefly told him about Emma, and about Guy. Miles snapped a bread-stick in half. ‘That must have been awkward.’

  ‘It was.’ I sipped my wine again. ‘I wish I’d never met Guy.’

  ‘But … what did the poor man do?’

  I drained my glass, and as I felt the warmth of the wine seep through my veins I told Miles about my engagement, then about Valentine’s Day and Emma’s phone call. Then I told him about going to her house.

  Miles was shaking his head. ‘What a trauma, Phoebe.’

  ‘Trauma?’ I echoed. Träumerei. ‘Yes. It comes back to me all the time. I often dream that I’m in Emma’s room, pulling back the duvet …’

  Miles’ face was clouded with sadness. ‘So she’d taken all the paracetamol?’

  ‘She had, but according to the pathologist she’d only had four – the last four evidently, because the bottle was empty.’

  Miles looked bewildered. ‘Then why did she …?’

  ‘We didn’t at first realise what had happened to Emma. It looked like an overdose.’ I clenched my napkin. ‘But ironically it was an underdose that caused her to …’

  Miles was staring at me. ‘You said that you thought she had ’flu.’

  ‘Yes – that’s what it seemed to be when she first phoned me.’

  ‘And she’d recently been to South Africa?’

  I nodded. ‘She’d been back for three weeks.’

  ‘Was it malaria?’ he asked gently. ‘Undiagnosed malaria?’

  I felt the familiar sliding sensation, as though I was hurtling downhill. ‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘It was.’ I closed my eyes. ‘If only I’d been as quick off the mark as you’ve just been.’

  ‘My sister Trish got malaria some years ago,’ Miles said quietly. ‘It was after a trip to Ghana. She was lucky to survive, because it was the deadly kind –’

  ‘Plasmodium falciparum,’ I interjected. ‘Transmitted by an infected anopheles mosquito – but only the female. I’m an expert on it now – sadly.’

  ‘Trish hadn’t finished her anti-malarial pills. Is that what happened with Emma? I assume that’s what you meant when you used the word “underdose”?’

  I nodded. ‘A few days after she’d died, her mother found the anti-malarial medication in Emma’s washbag. From the blister packs, she could see that Emma had taken them for only ten days instead of eight weeks. Plus she started the course too late – she should have been taking them from a week before she travelled.’

  ‘Had she been to South Africa before?’

  ‘Many times – she used to live there.’

  ‘So she’d have known the score.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ I paused as Pierre took away our plates.

  ‘And even though the risk of malaria is low there, Emma always gave me the impression that she’d been careful to take the pills. But this ti
me she seems to have been reckless.’

  ‘Why do you think that was?’

  I fiddled with the stem of my wine glass. ‘There’s a part of me that thinks it could have been deliberate…’

  ‘You mean – self-inflicted?’

  ‘Perhaps. She was feeling very low – I think that’s why she’d suddenly decided to go there. Or perhaps she simply forgot to take them, or was happy to play Russian roulette with her health. I only know that I should have gone to see her when she first phoned me.’ I looked away.

  Miles reached for my hand. ‘You had no idea how ill she was.’

  ‘No,’ I said bleakly. ‘It simply didn’t occur to me that she might have …’ I shook my head. ‘Emma’s parents would have realised, but they were on a walking holiday in Spain and couldn’t be reached – she’d tried to call her mother twice, apparently.’

  ‘So that’s a regret they have to live with.’

  ‘Yes. Plus the way it happened … the fact that Emma was alone … It’s very hard for them – and for me. I had to tell them …’ I felt my eyes fill. ‘I had to tell them …’

  Miles reached for my hand. ‘What an ordeal.’

  My throat ached with a suppressed sob. ‘Yes. But her parents still don’t know that Emma was upset with me in the weeks before she died. And if she hadn’t been so upset then perhaps she wouldn’t have gone to South Africa and wouldn’t have fallen ill.’ My heart lurched as I thought of Emma’s diary. ‘I hope they never find out… Miles, could I have another glass of wine?’

  ‘Of course.’ He waved at Pierre. ‘But if you have any more, I think it might be better if you stayed at the house – okay?’

  ‘Yes – but that won’t happen.’

  Miles looked at me. ‘I still don’t understand why you felt you had to end your engagement.’

  I fiddled with the stem of my wine glass. ‘I couldn’t cope with the fact that Guy had persuaded me not to go and see Emma. He said that she was attention seeking.’ I felt a sudden rush of anger at the memory. ‘He said that it was probably just a bad cold.’

  ‘But… do you actually blame him for her death?’

  I waited while Pierre poured my wine. ‘I blame myself, first and foremost, because I was the one person who might have prevented it. I blame Emma, for not taking her pills. But yes, I blame Guy too, because if it weren’t for him … I’d have gone round to her house straight away … if it weren’t for him I would have seen how ill she was, and I’d have called the ambulance and she might have survived. Instead of which Guy persuaded me to wait, so I didn’t go until the next morning, by which time …’ I closed my eyes.