Wild Grapes

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Wild Grapes Page 10

by Elizabeth Aston


  “He mind-reads,” said Gina crossly. “He simply seemed to turn up wherever I was.”

  “Sinister,” said Zoe, peering out of Waterstones. “I can’t see him; come on, we’ll make a dash for it.”

  “You look tired,” said Harry as he opened the car door for Gina. “Did you meet your friend? Did you have a good day?”

  “No,” said Gina shortly.

  Harry slid the car into gear, wondering what had happened to make Gina look so tense.

  “There was a tedious man hanging about, so we went to Bradford-on-Avon on a bus.”

  “Very pretty, I hear, Bradford-on-Avon.”

  “Maybe, if you happen to want to be there.”

  “Who was this tedious guy? An admirer?”

  Gina was about to explain about the awfulness of Popplewell, but then restrained herself. Better if Harry didn’t know how desperate her case was. “He follows my friend about,” she said.

  “Is your friend worth following about?” asked Harry idly, increasing speed as the traffic thinned out.

  “Yes,” said Gina, and, sitting back, closed her eyes.

  “I see,” said Harry, switching on the radio. “A little Bach, to soothe your fretful spirits?”

  “I am not fretful,” said Gina.

  “My mistake,” said Harry.

  Zoe, just as fed up as Gina, tore into the station as the Oxford train was announced. She had left her book somewhere on the day’s irritating roundaboutations; no way was she sitting on the train all the way to Oxford without anything to read. So she flew to the bookstall and only just made it on to the train, ending up in a crowded, hot and stuffy carriage, squashed tightly against all too many end-of-day, needing-a-shower commuters.

  All I need, she thought, wrenching open the copy of The Lady. An article about Victorian maidservants. Who cared? Recipes for greengage jam. Greengages! Where were these people living? She flicked through several pages of neat clothes, which she dismissed out of hand as dowdy, and read the ads for school matrons, care wardens; nanny wanted for adorable four-year-old. Bet he’s a baby Popplewell, thought Zoe viciously, as she ended up in the Houses-to-let section.

  “Heartset,” she read. “Cottage in peaceful village near famous Heart Gorge, 6 miles from sea. 2 beds, 2 recep, available until September. Reasonable terms. 01888 039 6007.”

  I never knew a family so keen on afternoon tea, thought Gina in an exhausted way as Harry drove at top speed towards Heartsease. “We’ll just be in time,” he said confidently, swearing at a pair on a tandem and blowing his horn furiously at a man driving a tractor.

  “You’re very rude,” observed Gina.

  Harry gave a snort of laughter. “That’s Jack Lychen, he does it deliberately, loves to hold cars up. Needs a kick up his backside from time to time, teach him to share the road with the rest of us.”

  Ruthless, thought Gina. I hate ruthless men. Popplewell, Victor, Harry. My father. Oh, hell. And she shut her eyes, trying to blot out an unsatisfactory day.

  “This will revive you, Gina,” said Hester, passing her tea and a slice of cake. “You look quite worn out. Was Bath very hot and tiring? It always gives me a headache on hot summer days, so close and heavy.”

  Gina sank back into her chair and let the soothing words flow over her. The clink of fine china, the faint chocolatey smell from a delicious cake, birdsong outside the windows... She relaxed. Maybe life wasn’t quite so unsatisfactory after all.

  “Here’s Nicky coming across the lawn,” said Hester. “How hot she looks.”

  Gina turned her head to see a woman with an aureole of red hair come flying into the room. “My dears,” she said dramatically. “The heat! I’m prostrate with exhaustion. Guy, as you love me, pour me some tea.”

  “You shouldn’t be in the sun at all in this weather,” said Guy earnestly, pouring her a cup of weak tea and adding a slice of lemon, “with your complexion the sun is so dangerous.”

  “I walked up from the quay,” said Nicky. “What a mistake on a day like this.”

  “You can go back along the top,” said Harry without much sympathy.

  “Jarvis will drive you,” said Hester. “I’m glad you’re here, Nicky, because there are one or two points which have come up.”

  Harry wandered over to the window, and Gina pulled herself upright.

  “Who’s that?” she said, sotto voce. “More family? Should I know her?”

  “Nicky? No, she isn’t family, she’s a neighbour. Organizes things. Helps Don with the vineyard, on the admin side. Worships him, which is very yawn-making. At the moment she’s organizing this ball for Aimee.”

  “Is it going to be a very big affair?”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “Everything to do with Aimee is larger than life. I expect Hester and Nicky will rope you in if you give them half a chance.”

  “I’d like that,” said Gina. “If I can be of any use.”

  Harry was amused. “I thought you were a scholar, sorting dates and poring over Tudor household accounts. A ball is hardly in your line, is it?”

  “As it happens,” said Gina with dignity, “I was on the committee for my college ball when I was doing my M.Litt., so I know a little about it.”

  “I’ll tell Hester,” said Harry. He glanced at Gina. “Good time to announce a marriage, at a ball.”

  “An engagement, perhaps.”

  “Ah, but your circumstances won’t allow all the formal doings, will they? It’s going to have to be hotfoot to the registrar, everything signed and sealed.”

  Yes, thought Gina gloomily, and Popplewell under the bed to make sure the marriage is consummated.

  “Don’t nag,” she said irritably.

  Harry raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Was I? I didn’t mean to. Just reminding you that time is not on your side.”

  Time never is, thought Gina.

  Tea over, Gina felt that half an hour stretched out on the terrace would be a good idea.

  No such luck. She had no sooner chosen a chair than there was the scrunching of feet on the gravel and Prim’s voice rang out. “Gina,” she said. “Find a bicycle. I’m off to the vineyard; you can come too.”

  It was more an order than a request; Prim had an inbuilt air of authority. Even so, as she headed for the stableyard, Gina wondered why she didn’t just say no. The Cordovans have a way of taking it for granted that people will fall in with their plans, that’s why, she told herself, as she wheeled the bicycle out of the stable.

  She mounted and wobbled dangerously across the cobbled court and through the archway. Prim was waiting for her, resting on her bike. She led the way along one of the lower terraces and then plunged precipitously into the wood, bumping down a path made uneven by the roots of the many trees which towered above them.

  “Beech,” shouted Prim. “And larch and spruce. And holly, and oak.”

  Wonderful trees, acknowledged Gina, as she fought her twisting bike; it was a relief when they turned through a gate and continued along a dusty track.

  Prim braked abruptly, the tyres throwing up a jet of bone-dry earth. “Better walk from here. Too rutted; you might fall off, Gina.”

  Gina sensed that if Prim had been by herself, she would have ridden on quite happily. She didn’t argue; but walked on, dabbing at her sweat-filled eyes with the corner of her T-shirt and wishing she was anywhere except in this baking heat.

  “Sorry, am I going too fast?” said Prim considerately, slowing her pace.

  Hate you, thought Gina. “I’m all right,” she said untruthfully.

  “Nearly there,” said Prim in bracing tones as they passed through a tall and well-worn stone archway into the central courtyard of what looked like an old church.

  “This was a mediaeval priory,” Prim explained, as she balanced her bike against a sign with No Bikes printed on it in large white letters. “It has all the original monkish cells which Don uses for storing his wine. The monks used to make wine here, you know, a few centuries back.” She waved at one side of the bu
ilding. “Offices there, and a half-hearted shop.”

  “Shop?”

  “Don mostly sells to wholesalers and restaurants, but quite a lot of people these days like to buy direct. Nicky was going to run it, but she got into such a state over Don that he had to shelve the idea.”

  “Nicky,” said Gina. “The redhead.”

  “Tiresome woman,” said Prim. “It’s ridiculous to get het up about a man like that. Any man, doesn’t matter who it is; he won’t be worth it. I’ve never got into a state over any man, I’m thankful to say. Enjoy them while you’re with them, then leave well alone.”

  Gina was intrigued by this glimpse into Prim’s private life, and would like to have heard more, but Prim was on the move again. “We’ll go and see the vines,” she said, heading off to a wooden door in one corner of the courtyard. “Do you know anything about wine, Gina?”

  “I used to... I’ve stayed with some friends who owned a vineyard in California,” said Gina.

  Prim turned her head and looked at her with interest. “A brief visit?” she asked.

  I don’t think living there for ten years counts as brief, thought Gina. “I went most summers for a while,” she said.

  “Excellent,” said Prim. “You’ll have a good idea what’s going on here. Can you see Don?”

  “I don’t know what he looks like,” said Gina.

  “Don’t you remember him? No, I don’t suppose you would; both children last time you saw each other.” Prim shaded her eyes and looked down over the terraced vines which stretched right across the hill and down nearly to the river. “He’ll be down here somewhere,” she said confidently.

  He wasn’t. At that moment, Don was in the shop, or what passed for a shop, serving a pair of customers who had bought a bottle of the best sparkling wine, and then discovered they had no money to pay for it.

  The wife knew instantly who was to blame. “Idiot,” she spat at her husband. “To come all this way, in the heat, and then discover you have left the cheque-book and your wallet at home.”

  “I thought you had the cheque-book, in your bag,” he said.

  Unwise.

  “And where is this bag? You drag me out on this impossible day, saying we must choose this special wine together, and expect me to carry a huge, heavy bag?”

  “It isn’t huge,” protested the man.

  His wife was just beginning to enjoy herself. “And in any case, I don’t want to have this nasty English wine, made from turnips or nettles, and done up in fancy bottles. Why not champagne, and bought from a proper shop, not this shed with no proper facilities? You make such a song and dance about our wedding anniversary, but do you care so very much? Not enough to buy good wine in a good shop!”

  The man, thin, dark and worried, with a clever face, looked appalled.

  “Nadia, this is proper wine, the best. I wanted us to have this tonight to celebrate being here in Heartset and because it’s our anniversary.”

  “That for so-called English wine,” said Nadia with a snap of her fingers.

  Don was enjoying the scene. Nadia, with her black hair, high cheek-bones and dark eyes sparkling with temper was well worth looking at.

  “The wine is good,” he assured her.

  “It doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, we have nothing to pay for it with. And I tell you, my husband has no money to pay for luxuries such as good wine even when he remembers his wallet, because he is one useless man, in every way useless. And I don’t believe you in any case, you work here, of course you say the wine is good. Otherwise you’d lose your job.”

  “Madam, I own the vineyard,” Don said gravely.

  “Then I feel sorry for you,” she came back instantly. “To pretend to make good wine; to grow grapes here in England is stupid.”

  She folded her arms and swung round to turn her back on them.

  Don’s mouth twitched. “Are you staying near here?” he asked.

  The man sighed. “Not staying, exactly. We’ve just moved here; we’ve bought Oracle Cottage.”

  Don came out from behind the rudimentary counter and held out his hand. “Don Cordovan,” he said.

  “Wintersett,” the dark man said. “Byron Wintersett.”

  Don raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, unfortunate, but true,” said the man. “He was an ancestor, you see, and my mother’s favourite poet.”

  “You could always call yourself Ronnie, I suppose,” said Don.

  “Yes, I could, couldn’t I?”

  Don laughed. “My real name is Dennis,” he said. “More unfortunate than Byron, in my opinion. Look, take the bottle, drop in and settle up at any time.”

  Nadia spun round. “Ha, now you start living on tick.”

  “Hardly tick,” Byron protested mildly.

  “Tick. I don’t want to drink wine that hasn’t been paid for.”

  “In that case,” said Don, “please accept the bottle as a house-warming present from me. If Oracle Cottage is still the way I remember it, you’re going to need some cheering up.”

  Gina stood uncertainly at the threshold of the shop, wondering at the wild words hurling past her as Nadia worked herself up for a fullblown tantrum. A dark man was looking helplessly at her, and another, shorter man, youngish, with a good-humoured face had retreated behind the counter.

  Which is Don? thought Gina. The tall dark one, or the other one with the delightful twinkle and the big nose and the early signs of baldness? Neither looked at all like the other Cordovans; perhaps Don was elsewhere.

  Prim came briskly into the shop and answered her unspoken question. She took one look around the shop, and pounced on her nephew. “Don,” she said. “What is going on? Why are you cowering there?”

  “I’m not cowering, Prim,” said Don, recovering his dignity.

  Not at all like the others, thought Gina, but what a nice man! She felt surprisingly drawn to him; given what the Cordovans she had met so far were like, Don was definitely a surprise on the right side of the ledger.

  “And who is this shrieking foreigner?” went on Prim, looking at Nadia with such disapproval that Gina wanted to laugh.

  “A new neighbour,” began Don, but he was interrupted by a new torrent from Nadia.

  “I am not a foreigner. I am English, I have a passport to prove it, there is no question of it, here is my husband, English to the tip of his…”

  “That’s enough,” said Prim in quelling tones. “Of course you’re not English, English people don’t behave like this. What are you, Russian? Polish?”

  “Now she calls me Polish.”

  “Bother you, Prim,” said Don. “You’ve set her off again.”

  “Nonsense,” said Prim. “That’s enough, wherever you come from. I can’t believe that any nation would put up with scenes like that, quite unnecessary.”

  Nadia, momentarily silenced, stared resentfully at Prim.

  “Neighbours, did Don say?” Prim addressed Byron, ignoring Nadia’s flashing eyes. “Where do you live?”

  “We’ve just bought Oracle Cottage,” said Byron.

  “It’s a wreck,” said Prim matter-of-factly.

  Byron smiled for the first time, a slightly crooked smile that lit up his dark face in a most attractive way, thought Gina.

  “A wreck indeed,” he said. “We’re more or less camping out there at the moment, but I hope to restore it quite quickly. I’m an architect, you see.”

  “Ha,” said Nadia. “An unemployed architect, tell them that,” she said.

  “Stop breathing so hard and heaving like that,” said Prim. “You’ll hyperventilate, it’s very bad for the system. An architect? New houses or old?”

  “I mostly do restoration and conservation work,” said Byron. “Nadia’s right, though, the firm I worked for in London has just gone under; there isn’t a lot of work around at the moment.”

  “You’ll have plenty to do with Oracle Cottage,” said Prim. “What does your wife do?”

  Gina thought that it must be very
annoying to have someone ask your husband what you did instead of applying directly to you, but on the other hand, it didn’t seem likely that Nadia would answer sensibly at present.

  “She’s a linguist,” said Byron, with some pride.

  “Not much call for linguists in this part of the world,” said Prim. “Better find yourself something else to do, help your husband through a difficult time.”

  Nadia curled her lip scornfully at Prim. “I can tell you what I wouldn’t do, and that’s have a crummy shop like this. You say this wine is good, which I certainly don’t believe, and nor would anyone else, if they came here to buy it. It isn’t old-fashioned or rustic or charming in here, just shabby and depressing-looking. And, if you sell fine wine, then where are other fine things to go with it? Delicacies, for instance. Hopeless!”

  Don gave Nadia a warm smile. “I dare say you’re right, Mrs Wintersett, but I’m busy on the growing and production side, and I don’t have time for a shop.”

  “Then find someone who does.”

  “I did, and she... um, found she couldn’t manage it.”

  “Give me that wine,” said Nadia, snatching the bottle out of Don’s hand. “Also some of that, what do you say it is? Chardonnay? We shall see. And we’ll take a bottle of that, too.”

  Byron was looking uncomfortable. “Nadia, you’re forgetting that we left our money behind. And besides...”

  “...And besides, we can’t afford bottles of wine. I know. But we are buying this; yes,” she said as she whirled round at Don, “we will buy it with our hard-earned cash, not being a plutocrat like you. I will bring the money tomorrow. Then I will see if it’s any good, and if it is, then I will come and make a shop here for you, full of such things that people will come for miles around to buy wine and food here.”

  She swept up the wine and her husband, and sailed out of the shop, giving Prim a look of loathing as she went.

  “Foreigners,” said Prim.

 

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