Euro Tripped

by Sally Bryan

  That was yet one more thing to stress Alberto. All the other vineyards were welcoming tourists and taking their money but the Giordano Vineyard had never bothered with it. “We just make wine here.” Alberto always said but now that his daughter was involved, they’d taken on more and more and now this formerly peaceful part of Chianti was a constant grinding of saws, banging of hammers and bickering of men and women. He’d wanted none of it but had foolishly allowed himself to be persuaded because, let’s face it, men did not say no to his daughter.

  “How long until the squatters arrive?” Alberto asked during a rare lull in the din.

  “Ten days and they’re tourists, not squatters.”

  “Same thing, just ask any Florentine. Will we be ready?”

  Alessia hesitated and groaned when the tiler’s pickup broke down halfway up the path, obstructing both the builder and the carpenter. “We’ll be ready.”

  Alberto doubted it as much as he doubted the regional government’s ability to make good use of his taxes and then what of their reputation when hundreds of obnoxious Americans, camera-happy Chinese and impudent French arrived to find the place amidst typical Italian chaos.

  “We need to modernise,” Alessia repeated, “we need to widen that path.”

  “And add a road gang to the madness already around here? And what of the expense?” He tugged again at his hair. “Sometimes I wish you’d have gone to England with your woman, it would have been better than having you both around here, making my life a living hell. At least then I’d have peace. Where is she and what is she doing?”

  “My English is abysmal, Pappa,” Alessia began jogging down the track towards the broken down vehicle and shouted over her shoulder, “and you know what she’s doing.”

  Alberto puffed out his chest. Yes, he knew and he watched with pride as the angry workmen fell silent and began to swarm around his remarkable daughter as she popped the front of the pickup and began probing around inside. There was the distant sound of an engine firing, Alessia wiped her hands on a rag but long before she could see her father admiring from a distance, he’d turned around and gone.

  * * *

  Dayna closed her eyes for a few brief moments of solace, the fan’s rhythmical whirs gifting calming relief from the stifling Tuscan heat as she thought of her village in Dorset that was never anything like this. Would she ever get used to the heat? When she opened her eyes it was still there, the countdown on the screen in large black type - Ten days.

  There were emails to deal with. Enquiries from people as far away as Australia, Canada, Russia and even one from Djibouti, wherever that was. Was it really a traditional Italian vineyard? How much for a ticket? Are there discounts at the shop for taking the tour? Are there wheelchair facilities? Is there a meal that comes with the price? Then there were receipts from local tour operators who’d sold five tickets, eight tickets, another for twelve tickets and they’d deposited the money minus their commission.

  There was indeed a meal that came with the price, at least, Dayna hoped. The intention was to serve traditional Tuscan fare but Dayna was having problems with the suppliers, indeed, they’d yet to find a catering manager the whole lot could be dumped on. Yet another thing that needed doing.

  Then there were other staff members. The girl they’d hired for the shop had since met a man from Venice and without notice, gone to live there and two of the vine hands were constantly creating problems over various disputes long built up over time.

  Ten days.

  Then the boy growing inside of her kicked, Dayna caressed her belly and again closed her eyes to allow the fan’s soothing whirs to bring peace as she gently blew out air through her mouth.

  The familiar patter of footsteps increased in volume and then Alessia’s arms were enveloping Dayna from behind to rest upon her swollen belly.

  “You don’t have to check on me all the time, what could have happened since an hour ago?” Dayna pressed her cheek against Alessia’s and held her hand atop of hers.

  “On the hour every hour for two fleeting minutes. You know I can’t stay away. How’s our boy? Wait! Don’t answer yet.” Alessia angled her head around so she could kiss Dayna and as always, what was intended as something short became drawn out and intense. “Ok, speak.”

  Dayna was still whirring but not from the fan. “He kicked again and you missed it, again.”

  She swore in Italian and swore again. “This fucking workload. I miss everything. You’d better not be stressing! Leave that all to me.” And Alessia was stressing, even if she tried and failed to hide it from Dayna.

  “I’m all right, no need to worry. How’s progress?”

  “A joke.” Alessia repositioned and perched on the desk, her browned thighs in those damned shorts that always fizzed Dayna’s mind so temptingly close. If only there was time to take her upstairs, to undress her, to lay her on their bed, to spread her legs and lose herself in her essence, to come back up only after she’d exhausted herself and her tongue. It had been a while and Dayna missed it, craved it.

  Dayna suppressed a shiver. “And Alberto?”

  Alessia’s jaw clenched, not because of her father but because of her mother. “Same. He is who he is. Puts a brave face on for me. Wouldn’t know anything was wrong.”

  It had been the job of Alessia’s mother Maria to travel Italy in search of new outlets for Vino di Giordano, a responsibility that had always kept her away from home for long periods, most of the week, every week, often weeks without returning, to visit restaurants, to cultivate new relationships, so to speak, a task she’d evidently been better at than anybody knew, though if the amount of new business she’d procured had dwindled then there was a very good reason for it. Maria had only been caught because the wife of the Milanese restaurant owner she’d been sleeping with for so many years had followed her all the way back to the Giordano Vineyard, all three hundred and thirty six kilometres, which had to be a record of some sort, and presented the video evidence to both Alberto and Maria, a day that Dayna would forever remember.

  Thirty-five years of marriage. And now the divorce settlement was about due, Maria would see out her years in a large house overlooking Lake Como whilst the vineyard was on its knees and everybody left behind was on the verge of breaking. If the tours and wine shop failed then nobody who remained had a future.

  Ten days.

  And the entire vineyard was a cacophony of deafening madness in the hottest summer Dayna had known, where new workers could not be found and those that existed were disappearing, when they were almost a million Euros in debt and the bankers were sending letters and the vineyard patriarch was losing the will to carry on and a baby was only a few weeks away.

  It was just another year at the Giordano Vineyard.

  But at least nothing else could go wrong.

  * * *

  “It’s because there is sin living under your roof,” Goro insisted as he fanned his face with his hat, “all the delays, terrible workers, rotten grapes, lost business, your wife and now your impending bankruptcy.”

  Alberto had been occupied with the grape press, turning the lever attached to the great wheel that crushed the fruit and allowed the juice to pour out into the cask. It was labour intensive and exhausting but, as Alberto had argued with his daughter, traditional, which was why her beloved tourists would come in the first place. She’d nodded and succumbed to his point, which was a first for humanity and perhaps a miracle to rival that of Christ’s resurrection.

  Now, Alberto let go of the handle, wiped the sweat from his forehead and took a moment to catch his breath. It was a job for younger men but they were short of staff and so Salvo was needed in the vines. Alberto restrained his rage at the impudence. “So you keep telling me, Goro, but what would you have me do, kick my daughter from her home? She’s all I have in this world.”

  “Not your daughter but her trollop and then there will be no more sin on this vineyard.”

  Alberto rubbed at the coarse flesh on his face
and considered his options. But what could he do? He couldn’t lose Goro because he’d take his two brothers with him and then what? The man might be the son of a goat but, for whatever reason, was well liked amongst the hands and Alberto could not risk open rebellion by having him turfed from the grounds. As for Dayna, Goro could find one of those goats and do as he pleased because she was staying. And neither was Alberto convinced enough by the fool’s superstition to do anything irreparably rash. It was always the problem with hiring folk from Calabria, they always brought with them their extreme version of Catholicism and Alberto worried about the extent to which the man had been preaching his poison to the others.

  Alberto managed to remain composed. “You’d have me remove a pregnant girl from her home?”

  “And what is that she’s carrying but the spawn of the devil?” Goro came closer and sniffed at the air above the juice. “It’s rancid and there’s talk amongst the hands … talk that perhaps your rancid luck will be visited upon them. Last week, Bartolomeo’s daughter was narrowly missed by a car and Matteo’s wife grows senile.”

  “You blame old age on this vineyard?”

  Goro seemed not to hear Alberto’s scepticism and raised his hands to the sky. “Thank the Lord that the car missed and that sweet Dorotea still has her wits, for now at least, but it’s a warning … a warning from God about the sin in this place. You must purge the vineyard of the sinner so that our harvest might not be rancid, that our livelihoods might not be lost, so that our children are not mown down in the streets, so that our women do not lose their minds and,” he looked down from the ceiling to Alberto, “so that our wives are not taken by other men.”

  Alberto removed his hat and threw it to the ground. “Get off my property before I turf you out myself.” He shouted and moved towards him, wheezing, the broken vessels in his face flaring. “Take your brothers and whoever else wants to go, take them all, we’re better off without your poison.” He shoved the man who backed away.

  “Think about what you’re doing Alberto, where else will you find good hands in high summer? Who else will pick your grapes?”

  “I don’t care, now get out.” Alberto pushed the man all the way to the large opened doors of the building from where the sun roasted down upon them. “Take your things, go, and never return.”

  Goro spat into the dirt, donned his hat, turned and strolled down into the vines.

  Alberto watched until the man was out of sight, caught his breath and returned to the grape press. The first few turns were always the hardest but the rage burning within was so palpable it was as though there was nothing in the barrel and the juice flowed from the spout like water from the bathroom tap.

  The sweat poured from Alberto’s face. “How dare you mention my wife … my wife … loved her the moment we first…” a sharp pain shot through his body…

  And then he twisted from the machine, his withered hand clutching at his chest, his face reddening before finally, his legs buckled beneath him and the stone ground hit hard.

  Chapter Eight

  Algarve

  Nervous.

  How else could I describe how I felt?

  I’d not seen or heard from Lizzie in eight years and today I would spring a surprise.

  Would she recognise me? Yes, of course, she would. But would she be happy to see me? Logically, there was no reason why she wouldn’t but I was still nervous. Fate had dropped this one opportunity into my lap and so I could not tempt providence by ignoring it, I had to go and whatever happened happened.

  How would she take being surprised? What would she think of Gabe? After what she’d experienced at the hands of our father, would she feel justified in taking an instant disliking to him or would she hold no malice towards me for being favoured?

  And who was the man she’d married? I’d been so preoccupied with how she’d take me showing up that my own concerns, fears and questions had taken secondary preference.

  Gabe wiped at his eye and yawned from behind the wheel and I placed my hand on his knee.

  “You’re exhausted, why don’t you let me drive?”

  He waved it away. “I’m fine, it’s only a short drive.” Which was true compared to some of the mammoth runs we’d done this trip, a mere two hours, though it was only two days before he’d specifically requested I did more driving, yet here I was offering and being turned down.

  We were both exhausted. After all, I’d accepted his marriage proposal only the night before though, despite what Dan thought, it was not due to fireworks or the wearing out of bedsprings that we were both yawning like newborns and it was probably the only time in history an acceptance of an offer of marriage had resulted in nightlong bickering. I hoped it wasn’t an omen.

  Gabe had been unable to drop the idea of a snap wedding and try as I did to convince him it was completely unnecessary, he wouldn’t listen. No, he’d only doubled down and listed his reasons that ranged from the logical to the absurd and we’d finally gone to bed and two hours later were still awake, him seething with frustration, me shifting from sunburn, which only exacerbated his frustration, which in turn fed the terrible soars that kept me awake and then we arrived for breakfast to find Dan had somehow managed to blag and bluster his way into the five star buffet on our ticket and wasn’t there just a five star smile upon his face when we dragged ourselves in looking like death. And then he’d regretted slapping me on the shoulder.

  “Yep and now my arm’s bruised, you violent fiend,” he again cursed me from the back, to which I tiredly and wordlessly responded by showing him my shoulder and that shut him up.

  We were travelling southwest along the AP-7, a fast toll road sufficiently far from Spain’s southern coast to provide any view of the Mediterranean. Instead, the land was mostly barren with mountains covering the horizon until we approached those mountains and then tunnels that seemed to stretch forever would send us beneath them, which explained why the tolls cost so much. Still, the road was busy in comparison to some of the other toll roads we’d experienced, bypassing Marbella and other British strongholds, which possibly explained it. And here we were heading for Gibraltar, an actual British possession the Spanish would forever object to.

  We passed the exit for Marbella and, as the sun dazzled me from the left, a sudden increase in the morning temperature prompted me to open the window a crack and I leaned against the glass and shielded my eyes to stare into the middle distance of bland brown hills as the rhythmical noise from the road was peaceful and soothing. I closed my eyes…

  …to wake and find those bland brown hills had morphed to a greener shade and, wiping the crust from my eye, I checked on Gabe to my right, his face expressionless as Dan slept in the back.

  “You fancy stopping for coffee? Looks like we could all do with some.”

  He shook his head, “I reckon I’m ok but we can stop if you fancy some?”

  “Meh, I was thinking mainly for you, I’ll survive.” I turned away and read up on the history of Gibraltar, how we could occupy ourselves there, these mythical monkeys and whether we could expect problems crossing the border and, just so long as we didn’t leave our British registered vehicle unattended on the Spanish side, we could envisage few. But naturally, the proximity brought my thoughts back to Lizzie and I experienced an odd combination of exhilaration and trepidation.

  I stared at the green hills to my left, the sun no longer dazzling my vision then checked into the back, Dan still asleep on the bench and the bright sun that cast its beam into our camper from behind. My mind went into spasm, like something wasn’t right but I couldn’t think what it was and I glanced over at Gabe who was staring straight ahead with the same expression he always had when giving something his full concentration.

  An overhead motorway sign stated we were now on the A-381 and although that meant nothing to me, I knew it was a different road to what we’d been on before I’d closed my eyes and fallen asleep, a road looked like a road, after all.

  For how long was I sleeping
?

  I sat in silence as my fogged mind tried to work things out and after five minutes a big blue sign approached in the distance. As it neared and the text became readable, I saw what it said - Cadiz, 40km.

  I scratched my head and wondered why Gibraltar wasn’t yet signposted. And where was Cadiz anyway?

  I pinched my bottom lip and then the three lanes split into twelve as the toll booths approached, and that was when it finally hit because the six leftmost booths were signposted for Cadiz, the three in the centre going straight to the nearby town of Jerez de la Frontera, a place I’d never heard of, whilst the three booths on the right headed for Seville.

  Mucus built in my mouth and my hand began to tremble because Seville was on my list and I knew it to be located considerably further north and west of Gibraltar. I’d had no reason to suspect Gabe had intentionally missed Gibraltar, after all, why would he have done such a thing and even now, I still couldn’t believe it was possible and needing physical confirmation, I pulled out my phone and checked our location on Google Maps.

  The blue dot pulsed outside the town of Jerez de la Frontera, seventy miles or ninety minutes past Gibraltar and then a fog passed over my vision. For how long was I asleep? It had to have been two hours at least and I was angry at myself, as well as circumstances but most of all I was incensed at the bastard sitting to my right.

  “You couldn’t pay the machine, could you?” Gabe dropped the card into my lap as the camper slowed to a stop.

  I was too enraged to even object as I unconsciously took the card, pushed it into the machine’s slot and the barrier lifted.

  “The card’s still in the machine,” he said after I left it, “don’t leave that or we’re fucked.”

  I leaned out again, reclaimed the card and his palm was held out ready to take it back. I handed it over and finally found myself able to speak, “why are we here?” My voice came out as a deep grate.