Late Summer in the Vineyard

by Jo Thomas

I nod. He places a long kiss on my forehead that seems to give me strength, and then puts his hands in his pockets and starts walking through the vines, silhouetted in the early morning mist. Cecil follows him and he leans over and gives him a reassuring pat on the head. I watch the two of them go, then I turn towards the chai.

  The padlock’s swinging free on the barn lock. I must have forgotten to lock it up last night, what with . . . well, everything that happened, and I realise that at some point I’m going to have to explain myself to Charlie, tell him why I did what I did and hope that it doesn’t affect my job at Cadwallader’s. He won’t promote me now, but I do still need my job. And it’s not like I don’t know about wine now.

  I can smell the fruit really strongly now I’m by the door. It’s never smelled like this before. I go to pull the door back. Oh God, what if one of the barrels has popped a cork? I can hear it, smell it. It sounds like a waterfall. I yank open the door and flick on the light. It crackles, spits and fuses with a bang. I grab the big torch but I don’t need it to know what’s happened. The chai is awash, like a lake of deep red blood. I run the torch along the barrels. Every single one of them is spewing out its juice. It’s like a car crash that’s already happened.

  ‘Noooooo!’ I run to turn off the taps but there’s so much liquid I can’t get to them. I grab at the first ones I can see, turning them but it’s too late: the barrels are practically empty. I slosh through the wine until I get to the double doors at the back of the chai and pull back the stiff bolt. I push open the double doors and watch as the wine spills, tumbles, pours over the stones like a river making its way back to the sea where it belongs.

  ‘Isaac!’ I scream, but Isaac is too far away to hear me.

  I try to run to each of the barrels, slipping and sliding, but it’s too late, most of the barrels are all but empty now. It’s all gone . . . all the wine is gone. How can this have happened? The floor is now ankle-deep in rich, fabulous-smelling red wine. None of it ever going to be drunk.

  I hold my head and fall to my knees. ‘It’s gone, gone,’ I say quietly, and tears pour down my face. I couldn’t save it. I feel utterly, utterly drained. As empty as one of the barrels. I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  ‘You’ll catch your death down there.’ I snap my head up. My racking sobs slow to hiccups. Charlie is standing in the doorway, holding a bag.

  ‘Oh God, Charlie! Thank goodness! Look what’s happened. It can’t have been an accident. Every single one of the barrels has had its taps opened. I can’t believe someone would do this. It’s all gone.’ I stagger to my feet, grateful for the help.

  ‘So I see.’ He looks around. ‘A shame . . . it smells,’ he takes a deep breath, ‘really good.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do! Madame Beaumont will be home any time now.’

  ‘Good,’ he nods.

  ‘Good? What’s good about any of this?’ I turn around holding my hands open to indicate the devastation surrounding me, like Noah in the flood.

  ‘Well, let’s be honest, the wine couldn’t be sold now. It’s got a dodgy grape in it.’

  ‘But that’s what made it special, don’t you see?’ I start to frown.

  ‘Not if you want to run a business.’ He looks round idly.

  I stare at him. His eyes are dark now, like stormy waters. The cogs in my mind are slowly whirring and then picking up speed.

  ‘I brought the rest of your things from the gîte. Suits, shoes, that kind of thing.’ He looks in the carrier bag and then holds it out to me. ‘Oh, and I’ve booked you a flight home. No need for you to stay on now. Featherstone’s doesn’t require your services.’ He holds out an envelope with the other hand. I stare at it and then slowly back at him. He’s sending me home.

  ‘You’re sacking me?’ I say, stunned, and then I begin to panic. Dad will lose the house for sure now. What am I going to do? ‘I did what I thought was best . . . for everyone. You can’t sack me for that! I need this job. My dad will lose his home.’

  ‘Sacking? Call it what you like, I think it’s best you go. Don’t want this causing too much of a fuss with the others. The flight’s for this afternoon. I’ve told Trevor back at Cadwallader’s.’

  ‘This was my last chance. My last chance to get something right,’ I manage to croak.

  ‘Well, maybe then you should have done as you were told. Maybe you’re not in the right line of work. Maybe you should look for a change of direction.’

  ‘Oh, I was in exactly the right line of work. I had finally found something I was really good at. Not sitting at a desk, reading and learning scripts or pushing up sales figures. But I was good at this. This is real.’ I hold my hands out to the wine. ‘This was a really good vintage. A classic, unique. It didn’t just stand in line with the other supermarket wines. It stood out. It said, “Look at me I’m special.”’

  ‘Well, maybe it should have just stood in line with the others and it might still have had a job.’ He’s holding out the bag and envelope again when reality hits me like a surfer being swept off her feet by a massive wave, suddenly everything going fuzzy like the drowning feeling I felt in the tank. And then all becomes clear.

  ‘You . . . did . . . this . . .’ I say really slowly, my eyes widening with each syllable.

  ‘I didn’t exactly do it,’ Charlie smiles. ‘Just between you and me. But I did get someone to do it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My staff are very loyal and well rewarded for their efforts.’

  ‘Was it Isaac?’ My head spins and dips.

  Charlie throws his head back and laughs. ‘Now, that would be a turn-up for the books, if your boyfriend had been the one. He doesn’t have a loyal bone in his body. He’ll do whatever he’s paid to do, go wherever he’s paid to go. That’s a soul up for hire, if ever I saw one.’

  Suddenly, Isaac appears behind Charlie.

  ‘Say that again,’ he growls.

  Charlie turns to look at him. ‘I said you’re a soul for hire. You’re not interested in how the wine tastes, you just want your cheque. You want the next gig, the bigger wine house. You’re as mercenary as I am.’

  Isaac looks around horrified at the wine lake in the chai and I know in my heart it wasn’t his work. It came to mean as much to him as it did to me.

  ‘Why? Why would you do this?’ I shake my head, incredulously.

  Charlie shrugs. ‘Well, if I can’t run the vineyard my way, Madame Beaumont will have no choice but to sell it to me now. She won’t want the château taking it over, so really, I’m her guardian angel. At least this way, I may still have a job for you next season, and Selina is still happy for us to get into bed together,’ he says to Isaac.

  ‘From what I’ve heard, that happened a long time ago.’ Isaac’s face darkens further.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t very well wait for Miss Prim-and-Proper here, could I? Although by the looks of it you’ve succeeded where I’ve failed.’ Charlie grins grotesquely and I have no idea what I ever found attractive about him.

  Blood rages through my body but before I have time to wade over to Charlie and put my knee exactly where it will hurt, Isaac pulls back his arm as far as it will go, makes a fist and thrusts it right on to Charlie’s cheek, sending him, the bag of my possessions and the envelope with the flight details in it flying backwards into the calf-deep wine. Charlie lands with an almighty splash and an ‘oomph’. The suits and shoes scatter and the envelope floats off towards the door with the wasted wine.

  ‘And while you’re at it, have this.’ Isaac pulls out his own envelope from his jacket pocket and drops it on top of Charlie, writhing about in the wine to right himself.

  Charlie staggers to his feet, grabbing the envelope with the bonus in it, pulls back his big arm and throws a punch back at Isaac, landing it on Isaac’s cheek.

  ‘Never underestimate a rugby boy,�
� Charlie smiles, panting for breath, as Isaac staggers back.

  ‘Isaac!’ I scream.

  ‘And never underestimate how much I hate you and what you’ve done here!’ Isaac launches himself at Charlie, grabbing him round the neck. They both fall back into the wine, flaying and throwing punches.

  ‘Stop it, both of you!’ I shout. Cecil starts to bark. ‘Stop it!’ But the two are wrestling around in what looks like a blood bath, gasping for air, throwing punches that barely come close to their target. They stagger to stand and then send each other flying all over again.

  ‘Stop!’ I shout.

  Suddenly a shadow appears beside me and I turn, desperately hoping help is at hand, but my mouth just waggles open and shut.

  ‘Madame Beaumont?’ I finally manage to say.

  She is leaning heavily on a crutch. She’s smaller and paler than when she last stood here. But when she was last here, she had a vineyard, a harvest to come in and a vintage to sell.

  Now there is just devastation all around her.

  Charlie and Isaac stagger to their feet, dripping red wine from their hair, hands and faces. Isaac pushes his hair back and a slick of wine flies off it. His shirt and T-shirt are clinging to his chest and flat stomach. He catches his breath.

  Charlie, on the other hand, is panting. But he attempts one of his killer smiles, and sticks out his hand.

  ‘Madame Beaumont, Charlie Featherstone, Featherstone’s Wines. Just . . . um,’ he barely misses a beat, ‘just finding out what’s gone on here. Terrible, just terrible.’ He shakes his head and extends his hand further towards Madame Beaumont. Madame Beaumont does not shake his hand or respond.

  She turns slowly to me.

  ‘Walk with me,’ she instructs and, leaning heavily on a stick, starts to limp towards the vines and to Henri’s gate where he is neighing and stomping. I follow, feeling like a child trailing off to the headmaster’s office.

  When we reach Henri’s gate and he has sniffed her hands and pushed at her and nudged her and greeted her like a soldier returning from war, I try to steady him but she seems unfazed.

  ‘Madame Beaumont. I’m so sorry. I really . . . you see, last night, the wine won a medal and then I saw the tractor in the vines and well . . .’

  She puts up her free hand, the other still holding tightly to the stick she’s leaning on.

  ‘Get me a chair,’ she says, and I run to get the deckchair Dad sat in. I put it down in Dad’s spot, overlooking the vines and she lets me help her into it and put her crutch down by her side.

  ‘Now, start from the beginning.’

  And I take a deep breath and do just that.

  In the yard behind me, an ambulance and its driver wait, as do Charlie and Isaac.

  ‘. . . The pickers didn’t show up. Had been paid more to go to the château . . . And then Candy stood on a bee and had an allergic reaction.’

  She listens and nods as I pour out the events of the last few weeks.

  ‘. . . And then I didn’t use the yeast, I went with the wild yeast . . .’

  I turn and see the Featherstone’s van pull into the yard, and Gloria, Nick and Candy get out, carrying flowers and wine. I turn back to Madame Beaumont.

  ‘. . . And if he hadn’t come back I’d have drowned . . .’

  She says nothing. Just listens. When I finish telling her what just happened in the chai, she nods slowly.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I drop my head and she puts her hand on it.

  ‘You did your best and no one can ask for more. Merci, Emmy.’

  I look up at her, but can’t smile.

  ‘Now, it looks like you’ve been working hard on the house too. Show me . . .’

  I help her with her stick, just hoping she’s going to be able to manage the steps.

  I show her the log pile, ready so that she’ll have plenty of wood. The meals in the freezer, the living room – or salon, she corrects me – and the bedroom. She declines to go upstairs but instead comes and sits in her chair and the cat jumps on to her lap.

  ‘And Isaac, your good friend, he helped with all this?’

  I nod.

  ‘He was repairing the vines when Charlie arrived.’

  ‘My father planted those vines. He grafted them from a few surviving plants. Told my mother to look after them until he returned to be with her. But . . . he never came. He was killed on his return to Germany, a stray unexploded bomb. The village, of course, shunned my mother once they discovered she was pregnant, out of wedlock and by a German soldier. But my family were determined I would always be proud of who I was. Individual. Just like the vines have survived and thrived, so have I.’ She turns to me. ‘Please, thank your friend for saving them.’

  ‘About that . . . see . . .’ I look out to the yard. Charlie’s car has gone and Isaac is nowhere to be seen. The ambulance men have finished their glasses of wine that Candy has offered them and are beginning to look at their watches. I see her offer to top them up, pacifying them, working her charm.

  Madame Beaumont raises her eyebrows and looks at me.

  ‘He’s not my friend. Never was. Well, not then, anyway. He was working for Charlie, they wanted . . . well . . . an in with you.’

  ‘I see. Not your close friend?’ She nods sagely, looking down at her hands in her lap.

  I shake my head then she looks straight back at me.

  ‘But you love him now, non?’

  I nod and tears start to slide down my face. And I wish with all my heart I could go with him, wherever that may be, although it sure as hell won’t be the big wine house in Australia now, for which Charlie was giving him a reference.

  ‘Then you should follow your heart. Be with him.’

  ‘I can’t. I have to go home. I have to look after my dad. He just hasn’t coped since Mum died.’ It’s my turn to look down.

  ‘Maybe . . . maybe now, it is you who can’t move on,’ she says quietly.

  My head snaps up again and I wipe my nose.

  ‘I’ll tell the ambulance men to go,’ I say, distracting myself from what may well be the painful truth, and start towards the door. Of course I miss my mum, but perhaps Madame Beaumont is right – perhaps it’s me that hasn’t been able to move on. ‘I’ll tell them that you’re happy.’

  ‘You have done wonders here. The loss of the wine wasn’t your fault. That was just malicious. There will be next year. It looks like new life has been breathed into the place.’

  I smile, pleased that I’ve at least managed to make her home nice for her.

  ‘But actually, I’m afraid I don’t feel too well. I would like to be taken back to the rehabilitation unit now,’ Madame Beaumont announces, and attempts to rise from her chair.

  ‘You can’t go. Who will look after this place? The vines?’

  ‘I will have to sell it. I cannot run it on my own. And without this year’s vintage I cannot afford to pay for help.’ She dips her head.

  ‘But there must be something we can do! Madame Beaumont, you are the strongest person I have ever met. You can’t walk away now.’

  ‘We cannot stop time. I’m getting old. My bones are brittle. I don’t have the same . . . confidence. We can only make the most of the time we have here. Take opportunities when they come and don’t let the good ones get away.’ I see a glimmer of the old twinkle in her eyes. ‘In life there is a time to arrive and a time to leave, chérie.’ She puts a bony hand to my cheek and I feel finally defeated, beaten.

  ‘Now then, please tell the ambulance driver I would like to leave. Please, stay until the sale is agreed, for Henri and Cecil.’

  ‘It’s the very least I can do.’

  ‘I will talk to Monsieur Lavigne at the château,’ she says, resigned.

  ‘I’ll come and see you, tomorrow,’ I shout after
the ambulance, and realise I’ll have to catch the train from town now that the van will be out of bounds to me.

  ‘I can’t believe she went back,’ Candy wails.

  ‘Come on, let’s all have a drink,’ I say, and guide them all into the kitchen.

  Isaac appears from the chai where he’s been sweeping and hosing out the spilled wine. He props the broom against the door frame, and just for a moment I allow myself the little fantasy that he and I really could work together.

  My phone rings.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’ I know I sound weary, though when he phoned a few hours ago I was the happiest woman on the planet.

  ‘So, how did it go, love?’ he asks expectantly. ‘Did you win? Did you get the job?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘No. Dad, I didn’t, I didn’t get it. I messed up, I’m afraid, Dad. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You didn’t get it?’ he pauses. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, love.’ He pauses again. Then, putting in huge amounts of effort to be positive, he says, ‘Well, no worries. Something’ll turn up.’ There’s a tiny crack in his voice.

  ‘No, Dad, I just don’t think it will. I’m so sorry. We’re going to lose the house, aren’t we?’

  ‘Really, love, don’t worry. We’ll just carry on as we always have. Getting by. Don’t you worry. Your home is here with me, as long as we can keep it. We’ll be fine, especially now I’ll be working at the DIY superstore,’ he tries to say brightly.

  ‘I feel I’ve let you down,’ I say. ‘There’s no way we can pay off the arrears. We’re going to lose it, Dad!’

  ‘You haven’t let me down, love. I’m gutted for you not getting the job. But if anything, these weeks with you away have done me a favour. It was about time I got off my backside and out into the world again. We’ll cope,’ he says. ‘In fact, love, I do have an idea . . .’

  When he’s told me I end the call, dropping my hand with the phone in it by my side.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Isaac comes to join me and slides an arm around my shoulders.

  ‘My dad. He wants to put the house on the market, move on,’ I say stunned. ‘Downsize.’