Garden of Stars

by Rose Alexander

  “Have some. It’s from my own vines, it’s good.” He seemed eager to share what he had with the blonde stranger who was resting already, after only an hour’s work.

  Sarah smiled. “That’s so kind. Thank you.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Drink! Grape picking is thirsty work.”

  Sarah took the cup, drank the wine. When she had finished, the man refilled the cup and drained it himself, leaving red stains at the corners of his mouth and on his grey moustache. Sarah closed her eyes as the warm liquid infused her veins, feeling the sun warm on her arms and legs. She tried to fix the scene inside her mind, the steep hillsides hazy in the heat, the blue sky, the smell of the grapes and the wine and the dusty, sandy earth beneath her feet.

  Whatever happens, I have had this moment. No one can take it from me now.

  She heard footsteps, and hastily opened her eyes.

  “Enjoying yourself?” Scott came and sat down beside her, letting out a long exhalation of breath. “Oh, my-old-creaking-bones. At least you’ve found some relief from this toil!”

  “I didn’t ask, I was offered,” Sarah protested, laughing and gesturing towards her new friend and the tin cup. “It would have been rude to refuse,” she added in English.

  The old man laughed too, sharing a joke that he didn’t understand. He poured another great glug of wine and handed it to Scott.

  “Drink,” he said again.

  Scott took the cup as it was proffered enthusiastically towards him, drank the wine down in one go, then handed the cup back with a flourish. He flexed his muscles in a mock display of manliness. “That’ll put hairs on my chest!”

  The old man made a gesture that indicated bulging biceps. “Your husband is very strong.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak, to explain that Scott was not her husband, that he was her…her what? What should she say to this man she didn’t know, had never met before and would never see again?

  “Yes, very strong,” she eventually replied, with a forced smile. “Like your wine.”

  The man gave another hearty laugh, and took a long draft straight from the bottle. He burped, put the cork back in, picked up his secateurs and headed back up to his row of vines.

  “Bye, bye,” he called in English as he went, making both Scott and Sarah laugh again.

  Back at work, Sarah contemplated all the years that had passed, and all the years that stretched ahead, snaking through time like the rows of vines along the terrace walls, the twists and turns making it impossible to see either the beginning or the end. Stopping briefly to readjust her hat, she looked down and saw, in the valley far below, the river drifting slowly towards the sea. On its other side, on the opposite hillside, she could faintly make out tiny figures moving through the vines just as they were.

  At lunchtime, they ate with the pickers, who told them that most of them needed two jobs to survive, even in this relatively prosperous part of Portugal. They didn’t seem to be at all curious about why a couple of tourists would want to spend their day in such a back-breaking occupation, for free, when they could be relaxing by the pool at a luxury hotel. When they had finished the meal, Carmen came back to collect them and take them to a wine-tasting at a nearby quinta. Sarah watched as cork after cork was pulled, and thought of João’s montado and Amoral’s factory and wondered if they had come from there, and of how much more each cork represented to her now than just a way to close a bottle, how many livelihoods depended on its present and its future. How much it was intertwined with Inês’s past, how her father’s abandoned plans for the new cork oak forest represented all her devastated dreams.

  “I’ve never been to a wine tasting before,” she confessed to Scott, as the different varieties were discussed and sampled.

  “And you’re the authority that the newspaper chose to write about the subject?” Scott raised his eyebrows at the same time as his glass.

  “Yes!” exclaimed Sarah, indignantly. Then she grinned too, in recognition of the fact that she knew he was winding her up. “Because, as you know, the whole point of this particular holiday is that it’s aimed at complete beginners, it’s about the experience not the expertise.”

  Scott ran his hand down the side of her face, her hair between his fingers and his thumb on her cheekbone. “And what if one has more than a casual interest in the story. In the journalist who’s writing it? Does that require experience, or expertise, or both?”

  Sarah leant her forehead against his chest. “Both. Neither. Just keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll be fine.”

  The tasting over, they went back to the hotel and straight to their room for a siesta.

  In the still, quiet heat of the afternoon, Scott laid her down on the bed and undid the buttons of her dress, one by one, his eyes focused on his task, narrowed in concentration. As he pulled the dress off, he lowered his mouth to her breasts, and gently teased her nipples with his teeth through the thin black lace of her bra. She arched her back and moaned, reaching out to him to pull him closer, to feel his weight upon her, to move in time with him.

  “If that’s your idea of an afternoon nap, I better make sure I get my beauty sleep some other time,” she murmured afterwards, her face tucked in close to the curve of his neck, her chin resting against his shoulder.

  “You’re so good. I can’t restrain myself. Don’t ask me to because it would be impossible.” She could feel his voice rumbling in his chest, deep and low, as his arms tightened possessively around her, as if to indicate that no one else should have her. Just him.

  “The feeling is mutual, I assure you.”

  The finale of the harvest experience was a trip to yet another ancient and beautiful quinta to join in with the treading of the port wine grapes, followed by dinner in the top-class restaurant there.

  “I still can’t really believe that they tread the grapes by foot,” said Sarah, gripping tight hold of the door handle as the car negotiated a particularly tricky hairpin bend. “I thought that everything would be mechanised these days; it seems so old-fashioned.”

  Carmen smiled and nodded. “This particular family has actually invented a system of mechanical lagares, or treaders, that is the best replication yet of the gentle pressure of human feet. What’s crucial, you see, is that the grape skins are crushed but not the pips, because that would make the wine bitter. But they’ve only done it because it’s so difficult to find labour to do the job the traditional way.”

  Scott grimaced exaggeratedly. “So that’s where us unsuspecting tourists come in, is it? We pay to do something that the locals won’t do for any money!”

  They all laughed, and then Carmen and Scott began to chat about the particular qualities of the schist, vital for growing grapes for port. Sarah fell quiet, her mind wandering to home, to her girls and her husband.

  “Sarah! I asked you what you thought.”

  “I’m sorry,” she apologised. “I was day-dreaming…what’s the question?”

  Scott laughed affectionately. “It doesn’t matter. The moment’s gone now – and we’re here, aren’t we?”

  As they walked towards the big stone pillars and iron gates that stood in front of them, Scott pulled Sarah close to him. “I’m sure the girls are fine. Try not to worry about them too much. You’ll be seeing them very soon.”

  Sarah rested her head against his shoulder, breathing in the freshly laundered smell of him. She closed her eyes, in part to shut out the world and make the moment just about the two of them, and in part to squeeze back the tears.

  “Yes, I know,” she muttered into the blue striped cotton. Was it right that he was encouraging her to betray her family? What did that say about him? About her? About either of them?

  They could hear the music as soon as they walked through the gateway and into the grounds of the quinta. The sounds of concertina, banjo and tambourine filled the night sky, accompanied by clapping, singing and shouting.

  “Então, so it’s a good time for us to arrive as they are just about to start
a new lagar,” explained Carmen. “Here are some clothes for you to change into, and then you wash your feet right over there.”

  Sarah and Scott took the clothes she held out to them, trying not to giggle. Ten minutes later, wearing the blue shorts and red check shirts that comprised the lagares uniform, feet cleaned to the required standard and checked to be healthy, they were ready. Carmen led them to a large, open-sided structure inside which lay what looked like a series of giant cement paddling pools.

  “So we have to get in there, do we?” Sarah asked, pointing at the lagar directly in front of them.

  “That’s right,” replied Carmen.

  Scott climbed in first, wincing slightly as he did so. “It’s goddamn cold in here!” he exclaimed, turning to help Sarah join him. Gingerly, she rested her hands on his broad shoulders and climbed in.

  “Whoa, sure is!” Sarah gasped, as one after the other her feet made contact with the lagrima. It was moist and full of gentle texture, pips and skins and tiny stalks, and seemed to suck them both into its depths, deeper and deeper. Scott took her hand and together they sank down to the very bottom of the thick purple liquid.

  The concertina started up at top volume. The thirty or so lagares standing thigh deep in grape juice jumped to action, pulling Sarah and Scott into formation alongside them. The music amplified, almost drowning out the voice of the team leader as he shouted instructions to the rows of treaders. Arms locked around each other’s shoulders, they moved forwards and backwards, again and again, and then regrouped into a circle to make a long necklace of silent marchers.

  After a while, Sarah started to appreciate what incredibly hard and monotonous work it was. At first, the skin-and-stem laden soup was in some strange way supportive but it soon transformed into steely resistance that was extremely hard to push against. She looked at her fellow workers with ever-increasing admiration.

  “I think I understand why it’s so hard to find people to do this job!” she shouted in Scott’s ear, fighting to be heard above the concertina, the clapping and the singing. He grimaced in response, miming an aching back.

  At that moment, the music changed tempo, and a fresh wind of energy seemed to blow over them all. There were two or three women, as well as Sarah, amongst the mainly male group. They were grabbed by the hand and whirled around the lagar in waltzes that struggled to keep to the beat, fighting as they were against the grape soup. Scott seized Sarah in a sticky embrace and they joined the throng; being a bad dancer here was no disadvantage as any attempt at rhythm was utterly impossible. Together they swayed and twirled in a routine with no more choreography beyond that of abandonment to the moment. Sarah’s head was spinning, her legs aching, her arms slippery with juice, and still they danced as if together they could pirouette into another world.

  The music stopped and they collapsed in a heap on the grey cement side, dizzy, pulp-spattered, overcome by hysteria and exhaustion, just as Carmen reappeared.

  “It seems that you two have certainly got into the spirit of it!” she exclaimed, her tone somehow managing to convey amusement and bemusement in equal measure. “But I’m sure you’ve had enough by now, and I would like to invite you to the terrace for an aperitif. Come with me and I’ll show you where you can take a shower.”

  Scott took Sarah’s hand to help her as they clambered out of the lagar and followed Carmen towards the main building, retrieving the bags containing their clothes on the way.

  “Here we are,” said Carmen. “The bathrooms are there, men on the left, women on the right. Please come to the terrace when you’re ready.”

  As she turned away, Scott put his hand on Sarah’s elbow, guiding her firmly in the direction Carmen had indicated, their two pairs of feet leaving purple stains on the cobbles. In the women’s shower cubicle, door firmly locked behind them, Scott undressed her and then himself. He turned the water on full so that it thundered forcefully onto the floor and picked up the thick bar of green olive soap, working it up to a smooth, creamy lather. Sarah watched in silence as the foam developed. Her head fell backwards as he ran his palms over her, her body relishing his sliding caress. Every nerve ending registered how the feeling of his supple hands contrasted so enticingly with that of the hard jets of water from the shower head.

  The soap dropped to the floor where it slowly dissolved in the pounding water.

  A waiter brought port, blanched almonds and olives to where they sat in a swing chair that overlooked the starlit valley beneath. Sarah thought of the bar in the hotel in Lisbon where they had had a drink only four months before and all this had started. It felt like a lifetime away.

  She took a sip from her glass, feeling the immediate hot rush of the alcohol as she swallowed. Scott took her hand and held it, loosely, in his.

  “I love you. I love you so much.”

  His words hung in the air, suspended like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight.

  There was a long pause before Sarah replied. “I love you, too.”

  The seconds ticked by. Then he smiled, and bent to kiss her.

  28

  The certainty of love changed everything. In bed that night he held her close.

  “There are so many layers of you to uncover,” he murmured, as he cradled her face in his palms and kissed her, again and again.

  “Isn’t that the same for everyone?” she replied.

  He carried on kissing her throat, her lips, her breasts.

  “No. No, it isn’t.”

  She let her neck extend and her head hang backwards as his kisses smothered her.

  “What has been the best bit of this trip so far?”

  She expected the answer to be around sex, or maybe getting to know her all over again, or finding that they still had so much in common, perhaps even more than before, now they were both older and more mature, wiser.

  “The best bit was the moment I first saw you.” His answer was quick and sure. “A shadow crossed the light and caught my attention; I looked up. And it was you. I could hardly believe that you were really there.”

  Sarah remembered how she had been waiting in the covered porch of the hotel. How the sunlight had glinted off the car’s windscreen as she stepped out into the glare to greet him. How blinding that sunshine had seemed, for a moment obscuring everything. Every day she wrote emails to the family, spoke to them on the phone, then went back to his side, making love, sleeping in his arms, talking, not talking, loving him more every minute. She was aware that every moment they spent together put her own family, her girls, into more jeopardy. There was no justification for what she was doing. Just the possibility of a second chance at happiness, which may, or may not, come at the expense of everyone else’s.

  On the final day, Scott’s phone rang late in the afternoon. As soon as he answered it, Sarah knew it was Celina. He walked, his easy pace a touch more urgent than usual, to the far end of the pool and sat on the low wall that edged the terrace. Beneath was a steep drop down to a vineyard. The conversation went on for what seemed like a long time to Sarah. Fifteen minutes in reality; five hours in her perception. When Scott came back, he looked worried.

  “What’s up?” asked Sarah. She didn’t really want to know, didn’t want to hear anything about his wife, his family, wanted them to disappear in a puff of smoke from the genie’s bottle before her dreams went the same way. But she tried to be polite, to sound concerned, interested. “Is everything OK?”

  “It’s all fine, honey. No problems, just the kids, you know, stressing out my wife. She gets a bit uptight with them sometimes. My daughter’s saying she doesn’t want to go to Harvard because she doesn’t want to leave her boyfriend.”

  “Oh dear,” said Sarah. Her mind flashed back to her own dilemma, when she had been so very young, about whether going back home to uni was the right thing to do or not.

  But about Scott’s daughter, his child with another woman, the life that woman stole from me. I can hardly bear to know.

  Tiny birds were skimming low over the swimmi
ng pool, scooping up beakfuls of water as they went. Did they like the chlorine? Or maybe they didn’t notice it? Sarah thought she had read somewhere that birds had no taste buds.

  “So what are you going to do?” She turned over onto her front on the lounger and scrutinised the tiled floor, then picked up a loose pebble from the decorative edging of the terrace and began to carelessly toss it from one hand to the other. Her stomach was tight with knots.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, addressing his reply to the phone that still rested in the palm of his hand. “I’ll be back home in a few days’ time, so I’ll be able to get a better idea of what’s going down. I’m sure she will have calmed down by then.”

  Back home… He said it so easily, so casually. As if it were no big deal.

  He sighed, and took a long drink of water, and then put the glass gently down on the table. “Enjoy your girls while you can, Sarah. Now is the easy bit.”

  “But yours are as good as off your hands,” she replied. “You’ll be an empty-nester and still so young. You’re free! That’s your reward for practically being a teenage dad, changing nappies while the rest of us were out on the razz.”

  As she spoke she pushed herself up from the lounger and turned to sit on it, throwing her arms out wide in an all-encompassing gesture that indicated the world at his disposal. She hoped it would hide her petty meanness, the jealousy she hated herself for harbouring. What business was it of hers how quickly his kids were conceived?

  Scott stared at the horizon for a while, eyes scrunched up tight against the light. In the far distance, black rain clouds gathered, but right there where they were, the sun was as strong as ever.

  “The twins weren’t planned, you know. It wasn’t my choice. All sorts of things might have been different if they hadn’t come along unexpectedly.”