Late Summer in the Vineyard

by Jo Thomas

  Instinct, I hear Madame Beaumont’s voice say. But right now I want to tell my instinct, which was so clearly wrong, to clear off and never come back again, and to tell Madame Beaumont to stop telling me I can do this when I clearly can’t.

  Just at that moment I spot the long stick with the potato masher on the end. Get air into it, my instinct is shouting. I have to do something. I grab the stick and climb the ladder; juice hitting me in the face, splashing my eyes and soaking me all over again. Despite the beautiful sunny, autumnal morning, I’m shivering. I stand on the concrete ledge, on the edge of the tank, the width of a breeze block. I lift the stick and begin to mash, plunging it in as deep as it will go and pulling it out again, hoping the air will cool it and stop it bubbling over and spilling away at least. As I’m mashing it Isaac’s angry face keeps coming back to haunt me, and the more it does, the more I realise what I’ve lost. It was more than just desire, which I realise now has been growing like the slowly fermenting wine, now out of control and bubbling over; it was his trust, his respect.

  I should never have come here. I should never have started this ridiculous attempt to save this vintage. I should certainly never have let it develop its own character. Look what good that did! I am shoving the stick in and out and my arms ache, my shoulders too. I change hands, straighten my back and then wipe away the tears with my sleeve again, which is wet and cold, like me. I sniff loudly, knowing there’s no one to hear. There’s no one at all. It’s just me and I have never felt so alone in all my life. I feel a little light headed and I wonder if it’s the carbon dioxide the juice is giving off as it ferments.

  I’m furious with myself. I mash harder. Furious for thinking I could do this and furious with Isaac for . . . being furious with me, but mostly for being right.

  I keep mashing for what seems like an age, despite my arms aching and my eyes watering.

  I brush away more tears with one arm and turn to move round the tank, but as I do, I catch the toe of my boot on the other and no matter how hard I try to correct myself, I wobble, left, right, my bum sticks out, I drop the pole and it crashes to the floor, I try and reach for it but my balance throws me backwards and with arms turning huge windmills backwards, I feel myself falling and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  ‘Jeez!’ Isaac rolled his head, hearing the knots crunch, as he drove down the lane back in the direction of Petit Frère in the Featherstone’s van, passing the field of sunflowers, no longer at their best.

  ‘I cannot believe that woman!’ He pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator, the little van whining with exertion. He swung it left and right with the bends in the road, as fast as he could.

  Another car sounded its horn as it shaved past him, brushing the van against the grassy banks.

  ‘What was she thinking?’ He banged the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.

  He looked at the vines in the fields either side of him as he neared town, now stripped bare of their fruit, naked, resting in the sun after the hard work of the summer.

  How could she have let him down like this? He’d trusted her. He’d thought there was something between them; if he wasn’t mistaken it had felt a lot like mutual attraction. Not the usual fast and furious attraction of short-lived relationships he was used to, something more was growing – an understanding . . . a connection. But clearly he had been mistaken. He knew better than this, he knew not to let down his guard. What had he been thinking? He shouldn’t have let himself get too involved. He should have just done as Charlie asked and made the wine himself. The sooner he moved on now, the better. He’d make the calls this afternoon. He’d secure his next gig. He swung into the yard at Featherstone’s, spraying white gravel as he braked hard, making Gloria and Candy jump as they made their way to the sales room, and pulled on the handbrake. The sooner he was out of here, the better, he thought as he stormed into the winery.

  I hit the surface with a splash and then my head is totally submerged in the dark liquid and I’m falling and falling. I try to push open my eyes but I can’t see a thing. It’s dark and I’m disorientated, I can’t tell which way is up. I try to push myself to the surface, my lungs begin to squeeze, searching for air. I don’t know whether to swim up or down, but I’m being dragged downwards so I decide to swim the other way but my limbs won’t work together. My clothes are heavy, making it hard; my lungs are feeling crushed. I need air, now! I push myself to what I can only hope is the surface but I have no idea. There’s no light at all. I need to get out. Suddenly I can see my dad when I was young. We’re on the beach and my sister and Mum are there, too. There’s my sister and her boys in the vineyard and then there’s my mum, driving in the pouring rain, having rowed with Dad, wanting to put it right, going out to buy sausages. Then the wreckage of the car. I have to get out, I have to put this right, I can’t let it happen to me, too.

  I give one final push and suddenly I can see light. I push my face towards it, my mouth before my eyes. I push up and open my mouth gasping for air, but taking in liquid, and I start to cough. I try throwing out an arm to the side but I don’t make it and my hand slaps back down on the surface, disappearing into the liquid again, and my body follows. I’m not sure I have the energy to drag myself up again, against the pull of gravity. I try but the more I do, the more tired I’m getting and my head dips back down below the surface once more and darkness follows.

  This is it, I’m drowning. Just like my mother who was trying to get back to her family and being ripped from them. One stupid mistake. I’m never going to see my family again . . . or Isaac, I realise, and my last thought is of Isaac before darkness draws me in once more, but deeper.

  Just as consciousness is slipping from me I feel myself being dragged up through the surface. When I finally come round, Isaac’s lips are on mine, filling me with life. He pulls away and with one almighty great cough I expel the fluid sitting on my lungs and drag in a huge mouthful of air. I realise I’m on the cold, wet floor and Isaac is kneeling over me. His shoulders droop. He blows out through his lips in what looks like relief. I’m gasping like a guppy and coughing so much I can’t catch my breath.

  ‘Sit up, gently,’ he says, and helps me, one hand behind my back and the other on my shoulder as I wipe at my mouth, tasting of rich, ripe fruit, my lips tingling as if they’ve been brought back to life, which is quite possibly what just happened. There’s a rasping noise that I realise is my breathing. I’m coughing and then the waves of dizziness come again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I manage to croak.

  ‘No problem. I knew my lifeguard skills would come in useful one day, I just hadn’t imagined it would be quite like this.’ His smile pulls at one side of his mouth and my heart, despite nearly having all the life sucked out of it, still manages a somersault with pompom shakers.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks, looking back at the tank. ‘What were you doing back up there?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘I was mashing down the cap. I thought it would cool the juice down,’ I say, looking back up at the fluid still trickling over the top and down the wall.

  Isaac is soaked through, his open shirt and T-shirt underneath clinging to his body, his slim but toned shoulders and chest. Red juice is running from his long wet hair over his shoulders, down his neck, separating at his Adam’s apple before meeting again and sliding down the middle of his chest. He runs a hand over his dark hair, a handful of juice flying off it. I’m breathing heavily, my chest rising up and down, and it could be my lungs rejoicing in the air they can breathe easily or it could be that I’m watching Isaac’s chest rise and fall too and he still hasn’t moved away from me. He leans in and rests his forehead on the top of my head in relief and I can feel the heat of his breath on my cheek.

  Slowly, I turn my face to his, his lips are up close to mine. I can hear him give a laugh, relief and desire making it low and guttural, and despite the cold, s
hivering floor a heat travels up through me and into my lips, burning and begging to be kissed.

  ‘You came back,’ I breathe heavily, and the sound of whooshing is no longer the fermenting juice filling my ears but the sound of blood rushing to my head.

  He nods, his head still against mine, drips of juice mingling and dripping from our foreheads as one. I lean forward and then, unable to help myself, I lean a little more and then my eyes close, my instincts take over and I kiss him; gently and softly on the lips. It feels like I’m drowning all over again, only this time it’s heavenly and I don’t want to be saved, and my insides explode like I’ve tasted the forbidden fruit. Then, slowly, and reluctantly, I draw back, opening my eyes. He doesn’t move.

  ‘I brought a cooler,’ he says, breathing heavily. ‘I went back to Featherstone’s for it.’ And we both look from each other’s lips to our eyes and I know that if our lips meet again, I’m not sure it would stop at kissing. ‘Thought it might help cool things down.’ There’s another splosh as more wine tumbles over the edge of the vat and splashes to the floor, making us both turn to look at it tumbling and splashing around us.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I manage to say. I take another look back at Isaac and his lips, and drag myself to my feet and away from what might really have been the kiss of my life.

  Isaac follows me, grabs the cooler to drop into the vat of wine and, despite our breathing still being out of time and still light headed, I know he’s right, we absolutely need to cool things down.

  There is an awkwardness between us as we walk towards the furthest parcelle. I’m holding lightly on to Henri’s head collar, using him as a shield between me and Isaac on the other side. With the cooler working wonders on the juice, I’ve showered and changed, as has Isaac. He’s now wearing one of my T-shirts – my Take That one, to be precise – and a pair of overalls that were in the van, tied at the waist, and that may belong to Jeff. He’s rolled back the sleeves on the T-shirt, which shows off his biceps and the thick veins that run down them. The blue overalls keep slipping down his hips and he has to keep pulling them up and retying the sleeves. I look away every time he yanks the overalls up and find, infuriatingly, that I’m blushing each time. I can’t believe what happened back there. I kissed him! It must have been the madness of the moment, gratitude, too, but still I’m finding it hard to make conversation, even bicker with him. Maybe if I just thank him for what he did it might explain it all away. I run my hands over the vine leaves as we walk.

  ‘Um . . .’

  He looks at me over Henri’s neck.

  ‘About back there,’ I clear my throat and try to carry on. I can feel him looking at me, and again I reach out for the vines as we pick our way over the uneven path heading towards the château on the other side of the little valley where the Lavigne estate sits.

  ‘Thank you for what you did, y’know, pulling me out.’

  ‘No worries. Anyone would have done the same thing.’

  Of course they would!

  ‘You, um, probably saved my life.’ I realise I’m shaking at the thought of what might have happened if Isaac hadn’t come back with the cooler and rescued me.

  ‘Like I say, anyone would have done the same.’ He picks a vine leaf and is shredding it in his hands as we walk.

  ‘But if you hadn’t come back—’

  He cuts across me and looks at me, dropping the remnants of the vine leaf.

  ‘Let’s not think about the “what ifs”.’

  We fall back into silence and suddenly a creature darts across our path, followed by another.

  ‘A hare!’ he points out with delight, and I watch it go.

  ‘They’re always here,’ I say, and we both look up at the call of a buzzard in the clear blue sky, with its mate, circling in the breeze, signalling it’s going to be a glorious day. And I can’t believe how very soon I’ll be back home, catching the bus to work and spending all day in the office. The only mating couples I’ll see will be those in the stationery cupboard after the Christmas party.

  ‘About what happened back there . . .’ I focus on the buzzards as I stumble over the rises and dips in the track, occasionally talking to Henri by making click, click sounds in the side of my cheek. ‘En avant,’ I tell him. ‘Walk on.’

  ‘Back where?’ And I know he’s now making this hard for me, teasing me. He must be really laughing at me. The one man I said I’d never fall for, never be taken in by his charms, and there I go kissing him in a moment of madness and realising it never felt like that when I kissed Charlie. In fact, I’ve never felt like that before ever and maybe won’t again. A little shiver runs up and down my spine.

  ‘Oh, you mean when you kissed me?’ He looks straight ahead, but there’s a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘I think you’ll find it was you who kissed me,’ I try to bluff.

  ‘Me? I think your memory’s playing tricks on you. Mind you, I can’t say I blame you,’ and he’s back to his usual joking, flirtatious self.

  ‘Well, whatever it was,’ I say quickly, flustered, ‘I was confused, nearly drowned, probably drunk from the fermenting juice.’

  ‘Ah, that old chestnut . . . “I didn’t mean it, it was the wine I nearly drowned in.”’

  I can’t help but burst out laughing, which I really didn’t want to. Maybe I am drunk? I try to straighten my face. I snatch a quick sideways glance at him. He’s smiling, not so much teasing, but kindly. I look away quickly and down at the fawn-brown earth.

  ‘Look, I just want you to know that I’m really grateful for what you did, and I promise that won’t ever happen again.’

  ‘What? The drowning or the kissing?’ He pauses and stops. ‘Or the lying to me about the yeast?’

  I smart and stop too. ‘Both, I mean, all of it. Isaac, I am sorry about the yeast. I was just trying to do what I thought was best for the wine – I thought I was doing the right thing.’

  He says nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry. I promise, no more lies and no more kissing.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise. I’ve learned my lesson.’ And I don’t know if we’re talking about the lying or the kissing now, because what I’ve learned about the kissing is that it was a kiss like no other and if I ever did it again there would be no way back from falling for this man. We start walking again, Henri moving slowly but steadily beside me.

  ‘So, the wine seems stable again,’ he says as if distancing himself from the conversation.

  ‘Are you going to tell Charlie?’ I have to know.

  He stops and looks at me. I stop, too, and Henri snorts. Then Isaac shakes his head.

  ‘About the wine or the kissing?’ He raises an eyebrow and I blush. ‘No, I’m not sure Charlie would be very pleased to hear about either. We’ll have to keep going now and just hope that he doesn’t realise.’

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘I really am sorry, you know.’

  We walk on in silence, just the sound of the buzzard and the slow pounding of Henri’s hoofs, and the rattle of the crates in the trailer.

  ‘If it’s any consolation,’ Isaac says quietly, ‘the wine tastes fantastic. Much more complex than if it had had the yeast added. Full of character.’

  ‘Really?’ I’m suddenly pleased as Punch. ‘I mean I know it’s not what you were hoping for but, oh God . . . that’s amazing.’

  ‘Quit while you’re ahead. Let me take it from here.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I agree, and stop talking. But then, I have to ask, ‘And it won’t affect it? Y’know, with me having actually been in it?’

  He laughs. ‘No, it’ll be fine,’ he assures me. We walk on a little further in silence. He holds his face to the sun. Then he says, ‘We need to get in the last of these grapes, get them into the tanks and start putting the fermented
stuff into the barrels. That way the next fermentation can happen.’

  ‘A second fermentation?’

  ‘Uh-huh. The malolactic. It makes it . . . sort of creamier, smoother. After that we’ll start tasting it and working out the blend, what percentage we want from each grape. When the malolactic is finished it’s ready for its premier blending and tasting. All the wines at the competition will be infant wines, early blends, evolving. It’s when the wine-makers see their toddlers take their first steps on the road to becoming fully formed wines. They will mature, of course, but it’s their potential that’s being assessed now.’

  ‘I’m not sure Madame Beaumont is that scientific. She just goes with what works.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he says a little disapprovingly. ‘And I still can’t quite nail her blend. It’s driving me nuts. There’s a note in there I can’t place,’ he says, clearly frustrated.

  I shrug. ‘Maybe it’s just down to Mother Nature.’

  We’re nearly at the final parcelle.

  ‘And then once we settle on the blend we like, we can submit a sample to the judges for the wine medal.’

  ‘Although I’m not sure what they’ll make of it, seeing as it’s not really what they’re looking for.’

  He looks at me and frowns.

  ‘But it might win,’ I say optimistically. Henri stops by the vines.

  ‘Let’s hope for all our sakes it does.’ He follows me round to the back of the trailer where I get a bucket and pair of secateurs.

  ‘And what will you do then?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve just had an email.’ His eyes light up. ‘A big Australian wine-maker I wrote to has been in touch. I’ve told them I’m making a blend for Featherstone’s and if this comes off they want me to go over and do the same for them, only on a much bigger scale. It’s massive.’