Late Summer in the Vineyard

by Jo Thomas

  ‘A bit,’ I smile, and rub Henri’s nose.

  ‘How does he work?’

  ‘By instinct and trust,’ I say, smiling and relaxing, enjoying the warm evening sun on my skin and the familiarity of the vineyard I have walked up and down for the past few weeks, and strangely, feeling happier and more content than I have in a while.

  I point out the Merlot and the Cabernet Franc, and where the vines run up the other side of the bowl towards the château, bathed in evening sunlight, streaks of blue sky and red sunlight creating a lavender hue across the sky to match the scent filling the warm evening air.

  When we walk back towards the house I’m keen to get back with the wine as quickly as possible, but Madame Beaumont has a bottle on the table.

  ‘Please, join me, by way of an apology.’ She gestures to the rusting wrought-iron table and chairs.

  ‘Maybe we should get the wine back,’ I say quietly.

  ‘No way. That would be very rude,’ Isaac says under his breath and then smiles at me. ‘We’d love to,’ he says loudly, and strides towards Madame Beaumont, taking the bottle that she’s opening with her knobbly hands and expertly opening it for her.

  ‘Merci,’ she nods.

  ‘My pleasure,’ Isaac says, and I can see he’s working his charm already.

  Isaac sits down and then back on the old iron chair, taking in his surroundings whilst Madame Beaumont goes inside, presumably for glasses. It seems strange seeing him out of the office. He’s unusually quiet and seems to be studying the skyline, across the little valley to the château, taking pictures on his phone as Madame Beaumont returns with three mismatched glasses. Then she returns to the kitchen and seems to be gone ages before bringing out little toasted bits of baguette, with something like duck rillettes on them, on a small round plate, which I suspect may have been her supper. Then finally she picks up the bottle and pours. I’m beginning to love the sound of the glug, glug. Not like back home when you open a screw top or pull out a plastic plug. This wine has been made with love and pouring it seems to be part of the pleasure.

  Isaac suddenly sits up as she pours the wine into the first glass, his interest spiked too. He’s watching the ruby-red wine from the bottle as it tumbles into the glass. She passes him a glass, watching him. He lifts it, looking at it. Then he tips the glass on the side.

  ‘Checking the legs?’ I say, showing I have been paying some attention and wasn’t a total waste of space.

  He smiles and nods. It appears the one thing Isaac does take seriously in life is wine. He puts his nose into the glass and breathes in deeply. Then finally, after he’s swilled it round the glass, he sniffs again and then sips and draws in air as he does. Madame Beaumont is standing beside me, holding the back of my chair. She is in a fresh overall, I notice, one of the many that usually hang in a row on the line to the side of the house, next to the ancient peach and fruit-laden plum tree.

  Madame Beaumont and I watch him as, finally, his Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his long neck as he swallows. Then he looks at us, his face breaks into that wide, slightly lazy smile and he nods appreciatively.

  ‘This is good, man,’ he says, swirling, sniffing, sipping and drawing in air again.

  Madame Beaumont then replies, ‘Oui. Je sais,’ and smiles, and just for a moment I forget all my frustrations with Isaac and feel a surge of gratitude to him.

  Suddenly an idea comes to me. If Isaac appreciates Madame Beaumont’s wine, so will others with a good palate. If I’m going to stop Madame Beaumont having to sell out to the château, I’m going to have to make sure that her wine is in that tasting room with the supermarket buyer tomorrow, whatever it takes.

  We bid goodbye to Madame Beaumont, and Isaac reverses down the lane in the van full of wine. I feel excited, nervous, buzzing with adrenalin. Maybe, just maybe, everything is going to turn out right. Isaac speeds up as we reach the gates and then I hear the crunch of my pushbike under the wheels of the van and I put my head in my hands and do actually let out a little scream of frustration.

  This is madness. Only four weeks into my time here at Featherstone’s and I’m risking everything. But I have to try. The supermarket buyer will be here this afternoon. I have to get this bottle of Clos Beaumont into that tasting room. I swallow and look both ways. It’s quiet. After a morning in the salesroom, everyone’s at lunch and if I don’t do this now I’ll miss my chance. I know exactly where Madame Beaumont’s wine is because Isaac and I stacked it here in the storeroom last night. I can see it. I rip open a box and stuff a bottle down the front of my shorts. I’m wearing a hoodie to cover it, despite the hot midday sun. My heart is beating so hard, it’s deafening. I go to walk as quietly as I can across the gravel courtyard. I’ve taken the first few steps on tiptoes when Colette pokes her head out of the shop door. I freeze, heart thumping even more. I raise a hand and the bottle slips scarily down inside my waistband. I slam a hand against it, hoping and praying it doesn’t slip out of my trouser leg, and stand still, knees pressed together. She briefly nods back and looks to the road for her lunchtime lift. Another day, another suitor, no doubt. As she turns away, I do lots of very quick steps across the gravel and into the glass-fronted tasting room. The video is playing in there, as it always is, giving guests a chance to get an understanding of the region and the wine-making process here at Featherstone’s. I open the door and shut it quickly behind me, hoping Colette hasn’t seen me. This could be a one-way ticket back to the UK and the dole queue if I get caught, but I have to try to repay Madame Beaumont for her kindness towards me. I can’t just let her go under. I look round and realise my hoodie has caught in the door and the wine nearly slips down my trouser leg again. I pull forward, the door opens and then slams shut behind me and I want to say ‘Ssh!’

  Unhooking myself, I go over to where the other bottles have been lined up and shuffle them around. All of them have Featherstone’s wine sleeves on them and I quickly put my bottle into a wine sleeve and add it to the others. My wildly beating heart starts to slow down to a steady canter. I check and double-check that it doesn’t look as if the bottles have been tampered with. But what if Charlie notices there’s an extra bottle? There’s only one thing I can do. I slip a bottle of their best seller back into my baggy shorts and wrap the hoodie around me again. I have to get out of here, quickly. Clutching the bottle, I turn, just as I hear a voice on a phone coming this way.

  ‘That’s great. We’ll see you then. Yes, just turn left after the fountain in the square. You can’t miss us.’ Charlie is walking across the forecourt with the phone to his ear and stops, just outside the glass door, facing out towards the river. I snatch a breath and hold it. I’ll just wait until he’s gone. As ever, he looks smart and confident. I imagine taking Charlie home and introducing him to Dad. He’d be so happy. Just the sort of boyfriend he’d want me to have, I find myself thinking, and then give myself a little shake, remembering that I’ve only had one coffee with him and I am trying to sneak in a bottle of wine he has specifically said he doesn’t want to stock any more.

  ‘See you then,’ he says, finishing the call, puts the phone in his pocket and walks towards the office. I start to breathe again, just little shallow, life-saving breaths. Then suddenly a phone rings again. He stops, pulls his out of his pocket and looks at it. Only this time it’s not his, it’s mine! I screw up my face and hope it’ll stop. I think I might die. He looks around as my phone still rings . . . and its vibration in my pocket is making the hidden wine bottle jiggle. Charlie turns round and looks straight at me through the glass doors. I smile tightly. There’s only one thing I can do . . . answer the phone.

  ‘Hello, Dad,’ I say tightly, still trying to hide the bottle under my hoodie as the temperature in my world suddenly soars and I’m boiling, desperate to take the hoodie off, but I can’t. Charlie sees me and starts to walk towards the tasting room.

  ‘What do you mean, th
e water tank’s burst?’

  I listen to Dad’s painfully detailed explanation as Charlie opens the tasting-room door, gives me a smile and a nod and starts to double-check that everything is ready for his buyer. I’m a bundle of nerves.

  ‘Dad, I can’t talk. You’ll have to phone a plumber.’ I hate to cut him off again but I just can’t risk getting caught.

  ‘I’m a bit tied up, Dad. I’ll ring you back later to get all the details. I promise.’

  Charlie is looking at the bottles and glasses but giving me sideways glances as he walks around the table. My heart is thundering. ‘Dad, really, I have to go.’ I get more high pitched. ‘Phone a plumber!’ I grip the cold bottle neck against my thigh and start to limp towards the door, pushing the off button on my phone, guilt twisting in my guts. My poor, gentle Dad. I’ll phone him back in a bit. Once I’ve got rid of this bottle. I’ll explain everything. A little surge of annoyance rises in me. If only my sister was there to help him out. I hold the phone and stare at it.

  ‘Everything all right, erm . . . Elle?’ I sigh. Not much chance of Charlie ever being boyfriend material; he can’t even remember my name. I just don’t feature in his world.

  ‘Emmy,’ I tell him, not turning round, fighting back the stinging in my eyes. ‘Yes, fine. Just checking the glasses were clean in here,’ I lie, not looking.

  ‘All OK at home?’ he asks, and still I can’t turn round. The bottle will definitely slip if I do.

  ‘Just, y’know . . . dads!’ I say, screwing up my eyes, worrying just how much damage the burst water tank has done. From the sounds of it, it burst and was leaking all through the ceiling and into Dad’s bedroom.

  ‘Right, well, get yourself some lunch. The buyer will be here just after two.’

  I throw open the double doors, not bothering to shut them behind me as I go as fast as I can to the gîte and shove the bottle into the bottom of my holdall and under my bed. Letting out a huge sigh of relief I fling the hoodie off and gasp for air, sitting on the floor against my bed. I can’t actually believe I’ve just done that. I’m going to have to get a story straight for when Charlie finds out. Say it was a mistake when I was setting up the tasting room – that I mixed up the bottles. He’ll think I can’t tell one bottle of wine from the other. My heart is still racing.

  I try to ring Dad back but it’s permanently engaged. I give up for the time being and head off into town. I need a new wheel for that bike if I’m to get back to Madame Beaumont’s this evening.

  I rub my oily hands down my shorts as I try to fix a new wheel to the bike I bought from the supermarket heading out of town on the other side from Featherstone’s. I’m exhausted and frankly my nerves are in shreds.

  ‘Let me do that,’ Isaac offers when he sees me arriving back.

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I say, propping the bike up against the gîte wall and starting work, determined to keep busy.

  ‘Well, let me help, at least,’ he says, standing up from the outdoor table and chairs, his hands held out after dusting off the crumbs from a final piece of bread, and finishing what looks to be a large salade niçoise.

  The others have gone into the town for the twelve-euro lunch at Le Papillon, including wine. I passed them all sitting outside. Jeff was there, looking jollier than usual, chatting away, telling his jokes. And tonight, he told us in his ‘franglais’, he would be dancing down by the river, he pointed further along.

  ‘Dansant!’ he proclaimed, holding an imaginary woman in his arms and swaying, puckering up his lips. He pointed again, past the abandoned café by the river, towards the campsite on the outskirts of town, at the bar there. It’s the end of the season and they’re having a disco, Gloria translated. They are also doing a tea dance on a Sunday. Jeff looks at Gloria, asking if she’d like to join him, but she shakes her head shyly and puts her fan on to full speed, holding it close to her flushing face.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t join us?’ Gloria asked me as I passed them having lunch. But I shook my head, still not sure that Candy or Nick would want me there, and went in search of a new bicycle wheel instead.

  As I walked back with my wheel over my shoulder I could hear Candy hooting with laughter, and I’m guessing that was at my expense.

  ‘Shit!’ I say as the bike slips as I try to unscrew the nut on the front wheel, remembering that Dad would give me that look for bad language. Just thinking of Dad gives me a pang.

  Isaac doesn’t take telling twice and steps in, swinging his leg over the front wheel. I briefly look up and see his thighs either side of the wheel, at eye level, as I try to unscrew the nut on the front axle. For a moment the strength leaves my hands and I wonder if he’s going to just step in there too, but he doesn’t. I turn the nut harder and watch his smooth tanned thighs flex, taking the strain beneath knee-length patterned shorts. I look away from his muscular limbs and up at him. His dark neck-length hair is hanging down round his olive-skinned face and he smiles at me, and suddenly my insides jolt, leaving me feeling flustered. This is ridiculous. This man makes me tongue-tied. Why on earth would the sight of his shining, flexing thighs make me react like that? There is no way I could find this man attractive. Must be the sun.

  I ignore my spinning insides and give the spanner and nut an extra hard twist.

  ‘Ooff,’ he says, and his smile drops as the wheel spins violently to one side.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ I say, not knowing my own strength but realising that all my frustrations and worries about the burst water tank and my dad, and worries over my job, and, if I’m honest, a flash of annoyance at the effect Isaac’s suddenly had on me, were all behind that thrust, as the rusty nut spins off and across the gravel, losing itself amongst the little stones.

  The crunching on gravel makes us both turn. Charlie is marching towards us.

  ‘Have you seen Colette?’ he asks.

  ‘Colette’s gone to lunch. The others are in Le Papillon,’ I tell him.

  Charlie lets out an exasperated sigh. ‘The buyer’s on her way. She’ll be here any minute.’ He bites his bottom lip. I look for the rusty nut.

  ‘Actually, you couldn’t come and give me a hand, could you . . . ?’

  ‘Emmy,’ I help him out.

  ‘Emmy, of course. I need someone to help out at the tasting. Perhaps you’d like to?’ He smiles straight at me with those damn eyes.

  ‘Really?’ I put my hand up against my eyes as if shielding them from the sun.

  ‘Yes, please. Come and join me,’ he says, and my heart quickens with panic. I’ll just have to remember to say it’s a genuine mistake.

  ‘Yes, um, of course.’

  I wipe an oily hand across my forehead as I straighten up, put down the spanner, Isaac swings his leg off the bike wheel and it slowly falls out of its axle.

  I quickly lift up the bike and lean it against the wall, happy to be away from Isaac and his flexing tanned thighs.

  ‘Where do you want me?’ I stand next to him, and push my hair behind my ear. It’s got longer since I’ve been here, a little more free spirited. I stand as far away from Isaac as possible, his arms folded lazily across him, and close to Charlie. My nerves are jangling.

  ‘Actually,’ says Charlie with a slightly apologetic pull of his mouth, ‘could you erm . . . clean yourself up?’ He flashes me a big smile.

  ‘Of course!’ I say quickly. I’m all over the place, nerves getting the better of me, making me behave like a silly schoolgirl. ‘Big buyer and all that.’

  Charlie turns to Isaac. ‘And you, perhaps you could put a shirt on and join us?’

  ‘Sure, man.’ Isaac picks up the runaway wheel and props it against the wall with the bike. Charlie marches off to the office, my eyes following him. Now what? What will he think of me when he discovers I’ve switched the bottles? I do know I’ve blown any chance I might have had of ever having that
second cup of coffee with him, that’s for sure.

  ‘I’ll put a shirt on,’ Isaac breaks my thoughts and I turn to see him grinning and following my gaze with interest with his head on one side, ‘but he didn’t say anything about me changing out of my shorts.’

  I reappear wearing one of the dresses I bought in the market, still trying to wipe the last traces of oil from my hands. I make my way to the tasting room where Isaac is standing, holding up a glass of red and looking at the ‘legs’ on it. He’s wearing a fitted shirt, no tie and the same Caribbean-patterned surf shorts he had on earlier. He gives me a tiny sideways glance and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and I give a little nervous laugh. Charlie, on the other hand, is looking smart, expensive and in control. He even smells expensive. But all my thoughts are on that bottle and I eye it nervously. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. I’m going to be found out. I’ll get sacked. But it’s too late now with both Isaac and Charlie here.

  A smart Renault pulls into the courtyard and Charlie marches over to meet it.

  ‘Selina,’ I hear him greet an attractive dark-haired woman, in a fitted red dress, with high heels. She smiles, picks up her briefcase from the passenger seat and gets out. Charlie kisses her on both cheeks and I wonder if she’s British or French. I have no idea. I try to keep my nerves at bay, wishing I had never started this. Had I known I would be standing here serving the wine there’s no way I would have done.

  ‘This is Isaac, our wine-maker.’ Charlie holds out a hand to Isaac as he shows the buyer in.

  ‘Hi,’ Isaac says, not bothering with the French way of saying hello, and the buyer looks a little disappointed; her red lips, the exact colour of her dress, pout just a little.

  ‘Hi,’ she says in a crisp Home Counties accent, making a note on her tablet.

  ‘And this is . . .’

  ‘Emmy.’ I stick out a hand and step forward.

  ‘Right.’ Charlie rubs his hands together. This is a very big deal for him. ‘Let’s try some wines.’