Late Summer in the Vineyard

by Jo Thomas

  ‘I wonder if I have to do anything different with them.’ I look back up at him. He’s smiling at me and I feel a whoosh of excitement through my stomach and round my head again, making me feel a little light headed. I have to stop this. I have to stop thinking about him. I have to put every spare thought I have into making this wine. Bringing in the grapes was one thing. I never expected to actually be making it.

  Isaac shrugs. ‘No idea. Never worked with this grape, but wine is wine essentially. Picked fruit, fermented, blended, bottled. Let’s just keep going with how you’ve been doing it.’

  I nod and start to tread up and down.

  Isaac watches me for a while and I feel my breath quickening, like his eyes are on me and they shouldn’t be. Then after a while I can tell he’s frustrated as I load more grapes into the barrel and, like a child with nothing to do, he starts to wander to relieve his boredom. He inspects the juice in the tanks and the barrels waiting to be filled. He fiddles with the pump, checking it’s in working order.

  ‘When you’re done, we need to get this wine into the barrels. We need to free up the tanks for this juice.’ He points and I nod, puffing a little as I march up and down.

  ‘Sure.’

  Silence falls between us again, other than my breathing. Stomp, stomp. This is the best workout I’ve ever had. I can see why there’s no need for gyms around here.

  ‘You could go, if you like?’ I suggest.

  ‘Not likely, and leave you to cock up like you did with the yeast!’ he half jokes.

  Ouch. Point taken.

  Stomp, stomp, squelch, squelch. My thigh muscles groan and my stomping slows.

  ‘Sure you don’t want me to take over?’ he offers.

  ‘No, I’m fine, honestly.’

  Then he comes back to the barrel, reaches in and grabs a bunch.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Did you know that in Spain on New Year’s Eve you have to put twelve grapes into your mouth on the stroke of midnight without crushing them? It’s not easy.’

  He starts putting grapes into his mouth, and I start to count, laughing.

  ‘. . . ten, eleven . . .’

  His cheeks are bulging and finally he cracks and he chews.

  ‘Where did you learn that one? Have you worked in Spain?’ I’m still crushing.

  ‘Spanish girlfriend, years ago,’ he grins, grape juice wetting his lips.

  Spanish girlfriend, of course! ‘You probably have a custom for New Year all over the world,’ I blurt out. He looks at me and then slowly smiles, but with a hint of thoughtfulness.

  ‘Actually I had a Spanish mother . . . hence the name Isaac, apparently.’

  ‘Oh.’ I feel my joke fall flat and then ask, ‘Have you never wanted to settle anywhere?’

  ‘Never found the right place.’ He tosses another grape into his mouth.

  ‘Or the right person, by the sounds of it.’ I’ve spoken again without engaging my brain first. Shut up, Emmy, for God’s sake!

  ‘No, or the right person,’ he surprises me by agreeing.

  ‘What about your family? Brothers, sisters? Don’t they wish you’d settle? I know I’d like to see more of my nephews.’

  Oh good God, woman, what is wrong with you? I think crossly.

  ‘Put it like this,’ Isaac says, ‘my name was about the only thing my mother ever did for me. She and my dad broke up when I was seven. I used to spend Wednesday nights with him, and every other weekend. Then he went to gaol and Mum took an overdose. I went into foster care and moved around. Different families, different bedrooms.’

  ‘Oh God, how awful!’ I think about my bedroom back home, the house I have lived in all my life, and can’t imagine what it would have been like never knowing where my home really was. Just look at Jody now – even through all of this crisis she knew where home was when she needed it.

  ‘But you didn’t stay in foster care?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head, still tossing grapes in his mouth and wandering round like a kid who’s been told he can’t touch the bowl of sweets he’s dying to get his hands on.

  ‘I was a bit wayward at school. But my sports teacher and his wife adopted me. Like I said, they were older, but they bought me my first surf board and gave me an appreciation of wine. They encouraged me to go out and see the world, so that’s what I did. I finished school and college, trained up and moved in with my girlfriend, set up home with her and started working as a travelling wine man, moving with the seasons and returning home in between jobs. What I didn’t know was that my best friend at the time, a surfing buddy, was going to move in on my patch when I was away.’

  I swallow. I have no idea what to say. I want to hug him tightly and tell him I know how it hurts to feel your world has disappeared from under your feet. But I can’t. I can’t touch him because if I do, I realise, I may not ever want it to stop.

  ‘I think they’re ready,’ is all I can think of saying, and he turns sharply, tossing a final grape into the air, catching it in his mouth and bowing as if to imaginary applause. His humour and his teasing are obviously the tools by which he’s got by in life. Mine, I suppose, was to look out for others; that way I didn’t have to think about myself.

  Suddenly my phone rings on the side.

  ‘Oh . . . er . . .’ I go to climb out of the barrel, bare footed, red stain to my calves and jeans rolled up with a hint of red grape juice around the bottoms where they’ve slipped down a few times.

  ‘’S OK, I’ll get it,’ Isaac says, looking pleased he can be useful.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I hold out my hand to take it from him and then watch as he swipes the screen, puts the phone to ear and says, ‘Hello, Emmy Bridges’ phone, who can I say is calling?’ with a wicked grin and a wink. Honestly!

  ‘Yes, she’s just stomping the last of the grapes. Yes, then it goes into the tanks and we’ll worry about them until we can finally barrel it. Yes, she’s here now, I’ll hand you over, no worries.’

  I hold out my hand and cock my head on one side like I’m confiscating his ball.

  He smiles, handing it over. ‘It’s your dad. I was just telling him where we were up to,’ he smiles.

  ‘Hi, Dad. Yes, that was Isaac. Yes, the one Candy has a crush on. Yes, they’re going on a date soon, to the château for the wine-medal ceremony. I’m going with Charlie.’ Although I’ve only heard that through Isaac. ‘Yes, Isaac’s the one with long hair and the necklaces. Yes, in the bandana with the earring.’ I roll my eyes and smile as Isaac waggles his hair. Then I listen . . . ‘Really . . . ?’ I’m still mulling over everything he’s just told me as he goes on to tell me about what he’s done since I saw him, and about Jody arranging to rent a small house down the road on the new estate, and about his new friends down the pub where he’s been going for pensioner’s dinner on a Friday. Reassured he’s OK, I put down the phone. Isaac puts his hand out. I hand him the phone, staring at him, still replaying Dad’s words.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ I finally say.

  ‘What?’ He feigns innocence and turns away.

  ‘It wasn’t Charlie at all.’ The information is slowly processing in my brain, turning it over. Everything in my head – and my heart – is shifting, like my whole world has just slipped on its axis. I don’t know whether to be angry or ecstatic. I look at Isaac and say slowly, ‘You spoke to my dad.’ I swallow. ‘You told him how much I’d like to see him and Jody. You even looked up the flights online for him,’ I say to his back. He’s tapping the phone in his hand and then puts it down on the side. ‘You told them to come out and help me out with the harvest.’ Tears prickle and sting my eyes as I stand up to my calves in cold grape juice. ‘You did all that for me – not Charlie,’ I say as the quiet realisation wraps itself around me. Isaac turns and looks, if I’m not mistaken, shy. He doesn’
t look me in the eye.

  ‘Thought it would help . . . get the harvest in . . . thought you missed them. I know what it can feel like to be alone, without your family. I could see you were feeling it. He rang the office, couldn’t get hold of you on your mobile . . . you were harvesting,’ he says, still not looking at me. And finally when he does, slowly lifting his head and staring at me with his chocolate-brown eyes, I think my heart actually might burst, like a dam bursting, and I know I’m done for, there’s no hope: I am seriously falling for this man, no matter how hard I try to stop myself.

  ‘Come on, that juice can stay there happily for a while.’ He points to the big stomping barrel and holds out a hand for me to get out of it. ‘You need to get inside and have an early night and I have to be on my way.’

  I take his hand as he steadies me getting out of the barrel.

  ‘I’ll just check the temperatures,’ I say, pointing to the tanks.

  ‘All done, now come on. Trust me, I’m the expert. You need to get in and get something to eat and go to bed.’

  ‘Will you stay . . . I mean, eat with me.’

  ‘I, er . . . I can’t. I said I’d meet Candy, at the Le Papillon.’ He looks away quickly, swallowing hard, and I wonder if he feels like I do but knows it can’t happen. I may want him, but I can’t have him. We could never be together. He’ll be gone soon. This will just be another stamp in his passport. He’s having fun with Candy, nothing serious, and that is all I think he’ll ever want.

  ‘Oh, of course, yes, I didn’t think,’ I say quickly, and we’re back to being strangers, not sure how to be with each other. I finish up the chai, then quickly wish him a good evening and practically run into the house, feeling like a fool. But I find myself pulling on the sweatshirt, drenched in his aftershave, breathing him in and wishing his lips were on mine again, when what I really want, more than anything, is to never have to see him ever again, because that way it will be far less painful.

  ‘That’s it. Last one!’ he calls.

  Isaac has been here every day for the last ten days, whilst I have been pumping the wine into barrels from the tanks as it finishes its first fermentation.

  ‘Once it stops bubbling and fermenting you have to get it into barrels, away from oxygen. This is when it’s at risk. We don’t want it turning to vinegar,’ Isaac tells me.

  ‘I thought it was at risk when it was fermenting?’

  He laughs. ‘There’s always a risk with wine-making. Now for the second fermentation, the malo.’

  And no matter how hard I’ve tried on my own, getting the wine into the barrels is a two-person job, with Isaac holding one end of the pipe and me the other. I have to shout when the barrel is full and he turns off the tap. Sometimes he doesn’t do it quick enough and I am regularly soaked, which I’ve come to realise is a hazard of the job.

  And, even more infuriatingly, Isaac seems to find it funny most of the time. At least we both know where we stand now. He tells me about his dates with Candy. I tell him about my text messages from Charlie, but the truth is I’ve barely seen or heard from him in the past few weeks. I suppose the harvest is a busy time for everyone. Hang on in there, you’ll be home soon, Dad texts me, and he senses how much I want that now. I’m so proud of you.

  Once the juice is pumped into the barrels we press the skins. Isaac instructs me as we work the wooden press between us. My shoulders ache, as does my back, but it keeps my mind focused on the wine.

  ‘Here, try it now . . .’ Isaac encourages me to keep tasting the juice coming out of press. ‘Stop when you think it’s there. You don’t want it to taste too green.’ And I do, to his approval again.

  I am washing clothes every day and hanging them out to dry on the line that is strung from the side of the house to Henri’s field when the low autumn sun is out, and then in front of the log burner in the evenings. Cecil sits by the chai doors, occasionally barking to scare off the birds gathering on the overhead wires, this time preparing to leave for winter.

  Henri seems content now that the harvest is over, although he still sometimes lifts his head to the air as if listening for the sound of Madame Beaumont’s voice, ‘Allez, allez!’ and I swear I hear it too.

  For the next three weeks, as autumn rolls through into November, we fall into a pattern of Isaac coming up to check the wine on a daily basis, topping up the barrels and racking them with me, moving the wine from one barrel to another, separating it from the sediment. Each barrel is a little celebration for Isaac and me.

  Then December rolls in, bringing winter with it. It’s much colder – I’m wrapped up in a scarf and woolly hat from the market – and my cold breath forms smoke curls in the air in front of me in the early evening. It’s the day before the wine-medal ceremony at the château, where Selina and her team from Morgan’s Supermarkets will choose their winning wine from the infant wines in the area, and I have to submit a blend of Clos Beaumont’s wine for the judges to try. I’m so nervous, my stomach is a tight knot.

  ‘Relax,’ Isaac repeats. ‘How does it taste now?’ he asks, looking me in the eyes, then at my lips, and back to my eyes again. Our deadline is looming.

  ‘Well . . .’ I think, then say, rolling in my bottom lip, ‘like ripe blackcurrants.’

  ‘OK, what about if you add some of that now.’ He points to another jug with wine from another barrel and I pour in a small measure. ‘Too much or not enough?’ he asks, and I taste it again.

  ‘That’s right, let it sit on your tongue. Are you getting any after-notes?’ he asks as I spit. ‘Think about which parcelle this wine has come from, decide which are your best parcelles, for sun and ripeness.’

  I think about the ones near the boundary with the château and decide not to use them. I want this wine to tell us exactly where it came from.

  For the next few hours I taste, point to the barrels I want more of or less of, taste again, write down which percentages I’m using from which parcelle and work out which blend works best.

  Finally, I look up from the wine at Isaac, who bites at his bottom lip as I hold up the pipette and drip in a few drops of Madame Beaumont’s secret grape juice. Isaac’s eyes are wide and bright, as are mine. I’m feeling wild with excitement as I stir the blend gently with a long glass stick.

  ‘Now,’ he practically whispers, ‘try it,’ and he holds up the glass jar for me to try, moving it closer to my lips.

  I hold my hand over his. The smell of the wine is full of ripe fruit and I breathe it in deeply and then slowly, sip the wine, pulling it back into my mouth and letting it sit on my tongue before finally swallowing.

  ‘Well?’ Delight is dancing across his face and I’m beginning to see why he loves this job so much. I think I do too . . . at least, I hope it’s just the wine that’s making me this excited.

  ‘There’s a full ripeness of the fruit and a hint of earthiness. It tastes of rolling hillsides, sunshine and a constant summer breeze,’ I beam. It’s like I’ve been transported back to the vineyard on a flying carpet on a hot summer’s day. Nodding, Isaac grabs the notebook from the old wooden work bench and is writing it down.

  ‘Good, good.’ He’s a scientist excited by the results of an experiment. ‘Anything you think it needs more of, or less?’

  I look at his dark head as he’s writing by the light of the small lamp we’ve brought in from the house. He looks up at me, those dark eyes, the smudges under them. Oh God, I wish he didn’t have this effect on me. Who’d’ve thought a few weeks ago we’d have rather done anything than spend time together. And now, well, I don’t want this time to end. But he’ll be gone in a week and so will I. This will all be just a distant dream, because however much I’d like to go with Isaac to the next job, I can’t.

  ‘It’s just . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Perfect,’ I say quietly.

  He smiles and
then goes to take the tasting jug from me. I don’t know if he’s going to taste the wine or kiss me but: ‘No,’ I shake my head, pulling the tasting jug back towards me. He mustn’t do either. ‘You can’t. This is my mistake to make. We agreed. It’s too risky.’ And, as he drops his hand, the bubble of excitement bursts.

  ‘Now we have the blend just right, write it up, ready for Madame Beaumont when she comes out of hospital,’ he says matter-of-factly, looking at the notebook and not at me, even though every bit of my body is shouting, look at me! It’s hopeless.

  ‘But who’s going to make it for her? She needs help around her. She can’t manage on her own.’

  ‘You could . . .’

  Just then my phone rings, heralding a message. Grateful for the interruption I fall on the phone.

  ‘It’s her!’ I run to Isaac, forgetting about the professional boundaries we’ve set ourselves. ‘They’ve said she can come out for a visit from the rehabilitation unit on Sunday. Oh my God! The day after tomorrow. She’s coming home. We have to get everything ready.’

  ‘The wine is ready, Emmy. You’ve done it. Now it just needs to make you proud tomorrow at the château,’ he says, and adds, ‘I know I am.’

  And before I do something else I regret I tell him it’s late, I need to sleep, and I run off into the house again where I wrap my sweatshirt smelling of his aftershave around me and curl up in bed for what may be the last time and listen to the big doors of the chai being closed and the van driving off into the night, wishing it wasn’t.

  The following morning, I’m up and at it early, dressed in hat, gloves, scarf and wellies. Cecil is barking for all he’s worth, heralding someone arriving in the yard, as I’m busy trying to tidy up the chai, ready for Madame Beaumont’s return. I stick my head out, hoping it isn’t more tourists hoping for another degustation, a tasting session like last time. I just don’t have time, especially not without Candy’s help.

  It’s the Featherstone’s van and my stomach makes an infuriating lurch. The door opens but instead of Isaac, it’s Gloria getting out of the driver’s seat, followed by Candy from the passenger seat and Nick from the back.