Wild Grapes

by Elizabeth Aston

  “No,” said Gina. “Anyway, I always have shadows under my eyes. Same as my mother. My father used to tease her about them, but he loved her eyes. So he said.”

  “Forget about all that,” Zoe suggested. “It isn’t your father betraying you now, you know.”

  “No, of course not,” said Gina in a flat voice.

  Zoe returned to safer ground. “In any case, why no more parties? Why no dances, no balls? You love them.”

  “Yes, well, one has to grow up sometime. We’re all a bit superannuated in this house, you know. Not Jessica, she’s still an undergraduate, but the rest of us. We’re carrying on as though we were still students, and we aren’t.”

  “Fergus is doing a Ph.D.,” said Zoe, tugging at the champagne cork.

  “He shouldn’t be. He should be getting stuck in somewhere, earning a living.”

  “I suppose so, but he’ll earn a better one with a Ph.D. under his belt. Besides, he likes it here.”

  “So do we all, but it’s cloud-cuckoo-land, pal. This isn’t the real world.”

  “I’ll take Wonderland, or Through the Looking-Glass, against reality any day of the week,” said Zoe, sitting down with a bump on the bed and making the springs rattle. “Goodness, how I hate my work; it’s lovely to have the afternoon off - or it would be, if it weren’t such a doleful occasion. Here you are, drink up.”

  Gina took the proffered glass and held it close to her ear to listen to the bubbles. “What are we celebrating?”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” said Zoe. “There’s nothing to celebrate. I just thought it would cheer us up. Grim business, packing.”

  “Specially when you haven’t a clue where you’re going,” said Gina.

  “Ring your dad,” said Zoe practically. “Never mind what he said or didn’t say to your mum in the year dot. He’s still your father. If he’s there, then you’re okay while you find your feet. If he isn’t, then you can think again. Fergus must have friends in New York.”

  “Fergus has friends everywhere,” agreed Gina.

  Gina’s desk was an old-fashioned, roll-top one. It didn’t fit into any of the other rooms, so Gina, much to her delight, had acquired it together with the shabby rose-patterned carpet and the big, ugly wardrobe when she moved into the house. Now Gina looked at it unenthusiastically; it was going to take hours to sort all the papers out. Where had she put her address book? Not her everyday, Oxford one, a looseleaf notebook which she carried everywhere; that was in her bag. She needed the address book from her Other Life, a smart Liberty one, given to her endless birthdays ago by a mother trying to encourage order in her life.

  She pulled open one of the small flat drawers inside the top of the desk. A few old bills, and a clutch of invitations pinned together. Dances, drinks parties, please speak at a debating society, a Pooh party, a garden party with croquet... pinned together to be brought out and laughed or sighed over, in years now far in the future.

  Centre drawer; no, it won’t be in here, thought Gina, that’s where she’d put her passport and ticket. There had been no address book in it.

  “What is it?” said Zoe, alarmed, as Gina froze, gazing into the little drawer she had just opened. “Is there a beetle in the drawer? Or what?”

  Gina jerked the drawer fully out and snatched at the passport which lay there. She brandished it in Zoe’s face. “Look,” she said. “Look!”

  “Calm down,” said Zoe. “Yes, it’s a passport. What’s so amazing about that?”

  “Don’t you notice anything about it?”

  Zoe lifted her shoulders. “No. It looks exactly like mine .. . Oh! Is it mine? How did it get in your drawer?”

  “It isn’t yours,” said Gina definitely. “It’s a British passport, No. 0294768, belonging to one Georgiana Hartwell.”

  “But you’re Georgiana ... Oh, oh, I see! A British passport. Yours is an American passport, of course. Gina, just what is going on?”

  Gina slumped on to the bed, her head in her hands. “Someone,” she said finally, lifting her head and dragging her hands crossly through her hair, “someone has taken my passport. And also,” she jumped to her feet and rushed to the drawer, “yes, and also my air ticket.”

  “What? Let me see.”

  They ransacked the desk. Every envelope was opened, every piece of paper shaken. There was no doubt about it, Gina’s passport and tickets were gone.

  Zoe investigated the British passport. “Georgiana Hartwell,” she said. “She’s the one who made such a noise when she worked on Cherwell. Now she works for another Oxford mag, doesn’t she? A town one, not university. Do you know her?”

  Gina nodded. “Slightly.”

  “It’s up-to-date, this passport. Funny, she looks quite like you. From her passport photo, anyway; of course, people never look like their mug-shots when you meet them. But why is it here? And where’s your passport - and the ticket? Do you suppose Popplewell broke in? Perhaps he’s flipped and decided to play pass the passport.”

  “Broke in!” Gina and Zoe stared at each other, and then made a simultaneous dash for the door. Gina went upstairs to Jessica’s attic room, Zoe flew into her own room. Together they investigated Fergus’s room.

  “They look just as they usually do.”

  “Nothing of mine seems to have been touched, but we’ll have to get Fergus and Jessica to check nothing of theirs is missing.”

  The sitting room looked as it always did. Untidy, but not at all as though a thief had been searching for anything. Besides, there was the TV set, untouched; Fergus’s music and all his expensive black boxes and speakers were sitting where they always did.

  “No ordinary thief.”

  “No ordinary thief would take one passport and leave another,” agreed Gina.

  “No,” said Zoe briskly. “Upstairs, Gina, fetch the bottle and our glasses, then down here. I want to know what you’ve been up to, and more about how G. Hartwell crossed your path. She sounds like very bad news to me.”

  So Gina told her. She’s not going to believe this, thought Gina, as she filled Zoe in on the bare bones of her encounters with Georgie. And what she had discovered at lunchtime.

  “I know Hugh Kirkoswald,” said Zoe unexpectedly. “He’s an ass, but mostly truthful. He wouldn’t make up any wild stories; not enough imagination, for a start. Anyway, it’s all perfectly clear now. She’s taken your passport and ticket, reckoning that with the similarity of names she can use it to fly to New York and become you. I wonder how she got in. No windows broken, or locks wrenched, are there?”

  “I know exactly how she got in,” said Gina. “She was here, she knew I’d be putting the key under the boot scraper. She just helped herself.”

  “Let herself in, nicked your papers and, as a gesture, left you her passport. Not a bad swap, really,” pointed out Zoe.

  Gina looked at her friend in amazement. “Zoe, you aren’t seriously suggesting that I just hang on to this passport and pretend I’m her?”

  “Why not? You’ll have to leave Oxford, at least for the time being, because it’s no good Comrade Popplewell seeing your name on that flight list if he spots you strolling up and down the Broad. No, if you aren’t here, and the flight records show someone of your name and with your passport number has left for New York, then he’ll take himself off. No one else will wonder about it; when you come back to Oxford, you can just say you’ve got a permit. Don’t tell me Alwyn will ask to see it.”

  “No, it would never cross his mind,” said Gina. “I’m just the researcher. Useful, if there; not given a thought if I’m not.”

  Zoe gave Gina a quick look. “Might do you good to get away from Oxford for a while. Why don’t you go and suss out this Harry?”

  “Zoe!”

  “I’m not suggesting you marry him. Just go and stay. Harry Cordovan is Georgie’s cousin, did you say? Then his people live in a fantastic house, I’ve seen pictures of it. Go and be a house guest for a while.”

  “You’re crazy. This Harry guy will just th
row me out, especially when I say nothing doing on the marriage front.”

  Zoe considered the matter. “I don’t think he will,” she said at last.

  “He won’t want his family to know that he was prepared to marry a complete stranger in order to get his hands on whatever it is. So all you have to do is threaten to spill the beans. He’ll have to let you stay.”

  Gina’s mind was off on another tack. “You know, I don’t see what use a wife would be to him without children and so on. If it’s a matter of inheritance. I asked Georgie that, just out of interest, you understand, and she said lots of married couples don’t get round to having kids for ages.”

  “Got an answer for everything, Georgie has,” said Zoe.

  Gina laughed; the first real laugh that Zoe had heard from her for days. “She said she’d check it out for me. Hey, that woman really has got a nerve, do you know that?”

  Zoe’s mind was on practicalities. “You won’t need that big suitcase. I’ll lend you my bag, the squidgy one.” She thought for a moment. “We won’t tell the others about this.”

  “Not Fergus?” said Gina, worried.

  “No, not Fergus. He’s too upright and scrupulous, he’ll try to dissuade you, get you to report the missing passport to the police.”

  “Popplewell would never believe it if I said someone had just come in and taken my passport. ‘Oh, and by the way, they left this one in its place’.”

  “No, he’d probably get you put behind bars. So, if you value your freedom, then don’t say anything to Fergus. And not Jessica, either, might as well announce it on Radio Oxford.”

  “If you really think there’s any point. . .” began Gina, still doubtful.

  “You tell me what else you can do,” said Zoe. “You’ve got no money, no right to be in this country and you’re in possession of someone else’s passport. You’re in trouble. What you need is sanctuary, and in a place where no one knows you, where you’ve never been, and where not even the most zealous Popplewell could possibly find you.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Gina heard the train coming long before she saw it. It gave a final, cheerful whistle as it rattled round the curve of the line and pulled into the station.

  The man in the uniform reappeared, chanting, “Heartley Junction, change here for London, Platform 1, Reading, Oxford and Birmingham, cross the line by the footbridge to Platform 2. Mind the step now, mind the step. This train will now call at Long Ease, Little Ease, Corda Episcopi, Heartsease, Upper Heartsfield and Heartsbury.”

  Gina clambered up on to the train, which was much higher than the platform. Another passenger stretched out her hand to take Gina’s big bag. “Terrible these trains, there’s ever such a to-do when there’s old people or someone in a wheelchair. Special steps and ramps, holds the train up every time. Don’t know why they don’t raise the platforms on this line, I don’t really.”

  Gina thanked her helper and sank into a corner seat. The train gave a loud shriek and a series of wild lurches, and then started to trundle back the way it had come.

  Gina stood up and pulled the window down. “We’re going the wrong way.”

  “No, no, don’t worry,” the helper said good-humouredly. “‘Tis only shunting yards up that way. We go back on to the other line and then down under the bridge.”

  Gina stayed hanging out of the window as the train performed its ritual shuffle. It reversed on to the curved line, waited for the points to change with a satisfying clang, and then chugged forward in a straight line. The signal clunked up into its STOP position and the train began to gather speed as it rumbled under the dark bridge.

  They emerged into a green world. The train was running through a cutting, and the banks were like green walls on either side. Further up the slopes, trees and shrubs grew, making a canopy of branchy green.

  “Heaven,” said Gina.

  “‘Tis pretty,” the helper agreed. “All the visitors, they do like this line.”

  She showed her own appreciation of the natural beauty all around by settling her ample form into a comfortable position for a good snooze.

  “Watch out for the Heart Gorge,” she said before closing her eyes. “They all ooh and aah over that, and take pictures. Not to worry if you haven’t brought your camera, you can buy a postcard.”

  Postcard, thought Gina. Her life had been reduced to a few words on a postcard. She’d had enough of postcards. Good thing Fergus hadn’t got to the post first, and found her instructions from Georgie. He’d have been suspicious at once, but fortunately Zoe had been up first, the postman had come early, and so she had escaped interrogation.

  The train was pulling up a steady incline, still enclosed by banks and trees. Then it levelled off and burst triumphantly out of the green tunnel, and Gina looked out over a far-reaching greeny-grey landscape, with hills undulating into the distance. Far below, a river gleamed in the sunlight.

  This is beautiful, thought Gina. Why did no one tell me it was so beautiful? Why have I never come here before? Scotland and Wales and the Lake District had been awe-inspiring, damp and striking in turn... but this! This was magical.

  Little stations came and went, little stations with such strange names. Gina looked at her map. Heartsease was the next station, and there, clearly marked on the map, was the house itself, Heartsease Hall. Had it given its name to the village and therefore to the station? Or had the house taken its name from a village already there when it was built?

  It must be some two miles from the station, thought Gina. Who would come and meet her? If no one did, would there be a taxi? How could she arrive at the house and announce herself; what if Georgie in a callous mood had played another practical joke on her?

  The kitchen at Heartsease Hall would have gladdened the heart of any National Trust official. Huge, stone-flagged, and inconvenient, it looked much the same as it would have done three hundred years before. True, the cavernous fireplace was empty now, with no spits and toiling dogs or cooks. A modern range and a series of hobs and ovens had taken over the role of the fire, but a long oak table, black with age, still ran down the centre of the room. Outside, numerous sculleries and offices led off a cobbled yard, and hummed with freezers and large American fridges. A commercial dishwasher had long since taken over from a bevy of scullery maids and their deep sinks, and, in the laundry beyond, German hi-tech white goods were much in evidence.

  Guy was in the pantry, shaking the last drops of water off a pile of lettuce leaves before depositing them in a plastic bag in the fridge. He looked round as Hester appeared at the door.

  “Guy, Harry wanted us to pick up Cousin Georgiana at the station. I would have asked Jarvis, but he’s nowhere to be found. Are you busy? Can you go?”

  Guy shut the fridge door and followed Hester into the main kitchen, untying his immaculate white apron as he went. He didn’t need to say yes; of course he would go. Everyone who worked in the kitchen always did what Hester asked them. So did most of the family, although anyone could see that Victor sometimes fretted and chafed under his sister’s kind authority in all household matters. “You run your business, Victor,” she would say in that quiet, peaceful voice, “and I’ll run the house.”

  Whatever Gina had expected, it wasn’t this lovely youth, who moved so gracefully and had such a warm smile on his perfect features. “Are you Georgiana?” he said.

  She stared at him for several seconds before she came to her senses and mumbled that, yes, she was Georgiana. She was about to ask if he was Harry when he introduced himself.

  “I’m Guy,” he said. “I work for the Cordovan family. Harry was so sorry he couldn’t collect you himself, but he was called away to London, and won’t be back until later.”

  His voice was that of an actor; in fact, thought Gina, trailing after him, feeling more crumpled than ever, he looked as though he had just wandered out of a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

  He helped her up into the passenger seat of the high-wheelbase car. Delicate, thought
Gina, when a good shove from behind is what he should have done, for I feel exactly like a hot animal being transported by its farmer. “A pig, perhaps,” she said out loud without thinking.

  Guy’s face lit up with a beautiful smile as he settled into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Did you say pig? Do you like pigs? Do you know about them? Of course, I suppose you would, Hartwell Hams and all that. I adore pigs, and we have some wonderful pigs here. Gloucester Old Spots in the orchards, and a herd of Berkshires. Of course, Berkshires are a problem, they’re so reluctant to breed.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about pigs,” said Gina quickly. It would be bad enough pretending to be the Ham heiress from the Highlands without having to appear knowledgeable about pigs. “I just felt rather like a pig. Hot and bothered and being heaved in and out of transport.”

  “Naturally, I can understand that,” said Guy, vowels impeccable. “And the pigs your family business would deal with, well, they must be rather common pigs.”

  “Very common,” agreed Gina.

  That settled, Guy became the perfect escort, pointing out features as they went past, warning Gina when a jolting was coming. “We’ve come the back way, across the estate. It’s much quicker, although you do miss the approach and the famous view of the house. But of course, you’ve been here before.”

  “Not since I was little,” said Gina firmly. “I’m afraid I don’t remember anything about it.”

  “Then you have a treat to come,” said Guy enthusiastically. “Heartsease Hall is the most fabulous house. It’s a privilege just to be allowed to work here.”

  Gina didn’t think it would be appropriate to ask if the family were as fabulous as the house. Zoe had dug out some fat book of landed families and had recited names to her. “You must know at least the names of some of your cousins and other close family. Now, you think that Harry’s grandmother and Georgie’s grandmother were sisters?”