Wild Grapes

by Elizabeth Aston

  “Have you met this Matilda?”

  “Not met exactly, no, but she’s around. Makes you think about Gina, though, doesn’t it? And how nice it would be to have her back again. Never mind, I’m sure she’s having a great time, making lots of new friends, rediscovering America. Out on dates every night.”

  “Hmm,” said Fergus, without enthusiasm.

  Don was spending his Sunday evening in the way he liked best; relaxed, good wine at hand, and female company. Only one today, a minor drawback, since Don preferred a crowd, but he wasn’t complaining. He was lounging on the verandah of his house; he was naked, slightly pink and curvy, and very happy.

  Nicky was pleased too, but filled with all the doubts and guilts which Don was a stranger to.

  “Love me?” she asked hopefully, trickling cold wine over Don’s tummy.

  “Mmm,” said Don, never one to commit himself.

  “I’ve bought a stunning dress for the ball,” ventured Nicky, lying back against Don.

  He took a grape from the bunches lying beside him on a silver dish and dropped one into her mouth.

  “Aimee’s party, yes, of course. I’d forgotten that.”

  Nicky twisted round to look at him. “Don, you’ve got four people staying overnight. Have you forgotten?”

  “I expect so,” said Don. “Nice people, I do trust.”

  “I expect so,” said Nicky.

  “Luscious young friends of Aimee’s?” asked Don hopefully.

  “You’d like that, would you?”

  “Always,” said Don.

  “What are you thinking about?” said Nicky presently.

  “Vines.”

  “How unusual,” said Nicky with a sigh.

  “They need rain. I’ll have a word with Prim, find out how she sees the summer shaping up.”

  Another pleasurable pause. Nicky was just beginning to feel at ease, when Don passed his hand over the top of his head in a thoughtful way, and shattered her calm.

  “I’ll ask that Tara whatshername, the one staying at Heartwell House, to the ball. You’d better send her a card. Or put her down on mine.”

  Nicky couldn’t believe it. Her eyes stung with tears as she got up violently and abruptly, sending her glass of wine flying.

  “What a waste,” said Don.

  “You are a bastard,” said Nicky, her red hair flaming out like an aureole as the sun fell on it.

  “She amuses me,” said Don, quite unconcerned.

  “Don’t I?”

  “Constantly. But I know you so well, and novelty counts. And you’ll be busy at the ball with this and that; one needs a partner on one’s arm at these affairs, don’t you agree? If you feel you want a partner for yourself, you could ask Roger.”

  “Roger? My husband?”

  “I should think he’d love it. Of course, just to complicate matters, he might like to come but to bring a partner of his own. I do hear rumours about a delectable girl from Corda Episcopi.”

  Nicky picked up Don’s glass and flung the contents in his face. He moved his head gently to one side, and only a few drops touched him.

  “Temper, temper,” he said. “Do you know, life is full of amusement? I never fail to marvel at the rich comedy which is constantly being enacted around us. Going, Nicky? I thought we could drive to Frederico’s and have a delightful dinner together. No, no, don’t say it, or I might decide to dine alone.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Gareth eased his way through the throng at the bar and headed for the small table where Harry was sitting, utterly relaxed, watching the dancers on the floor.

  “Can I join you?” Gareth didn’t wait for a reply, but pulled out the third chair at the table and sat down, putting his spritzer on the table in front of him.

  Harry’s eyebrows rose, giving his face a quizzical expression.

  “I’m Gareth Mowbray. Neighbour of yours, I live at Heartwell House.”

  Harry held out his hand to shake Gareth’s, which rattled Gareth and put him at a disadvantage.

  “Of course. We’ve never met, but I know who you are.” Harry sat back in his seat again, leaving Gareth to do the talking.

  “I’m not trying to pick you up.”

  “I’m sure you’re not,” said Harry politely. “Even if you were, you wouldn’t succeed. Not my type.”

  Gareth followed Harry’s eyes. “Is he your friend?” he asked, gesturing towards Guy. “Incredible looker.”

  “He is a friend, but not exactly my friend, no. And yes, he is a looker, as you put it.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Interested? I don’t think you’d be his type either.”

  Gareth was watching Guy intently. “I’m not gay,” he remarked. “Good face, he’d be great on camera.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a film director, out looking for talent? Rather an old line, don’t you think?”

  Gareth took no notice of the contempt in Harry’s voice. “TV producer,” he said. “Not film. Do you know what that young man does?”

  “For a living? He works for us.”

  “Us? You run a courier service, don’t you? Or is it modems and things?”

  “Both.”

  Gareth seemed disappointed. “So he’s a computer kid, is he? Or is he a bike-rider?”

  “Neither. When I say he works for us, I mean for my family. At the Hall.”

  “Cooking? Does he cook?”

  “Why the interest? Are you looking for a cook? I don’t think Guy would leave the Hall for a similar position anywhere else. He’s planning to run his own hotel in due course.”

  “So he’s trained, knows his way about the kitchen?”

  “That’s part of what he does, yes.”

  Gaareth drained his glass and eyed the bottle of champagne longingly.

  “What are you drinking?” asked Harry. “A glass of champagne?”

  “Love to,” said Gareth, “but I can’t risk it. Points on my licence already, I’ve got to be ultra careful. I’ll stick with wine and water.”

  He heaved himself up and edged his way to the bar to get a refill.

  “Busy here tonight,” he said when he came back. “Is it usually like this on a Sunday night?”

  “It’s fairly brisk most nights, I believe. Haven’t you been before?”

  “No. Not altogether my scene, although I must say, I like the atmosphere. We’re looking at a series on the provincial club scene. This won’t do. Too civilized, and people are enjoying themselves. No conflict that I can see, nothing outrageous, wouldn’t pull the viewers.”

  “Here comes Guy.”

  Guy slid into his place, looking at Gareth with a certain wariness. “Not one of us,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  “Gareth’s a TV producer,” said Harry. “Out looking for talent.”

  Gareth waited for the quickening of interest, the gleam in the eye, the flare of hope. Me? On television perhaps? The self-consciousness, the slight showing off.

  Nothing.

  Nothing?

  “Oh,” said Guy, with no interest at all. “What kind of programmes do you make?”

  “They’ve just finished broadcasting my most recent one, Animals under the Skin. Very well received. Bestiality.”

  Guy looked revolted. “Tacky programmes,” he said.

  Tacky? Nobody called his programmes tacky.

  “Strong stuff,” Gareth said sulkily. “Lot of complaints from the provinces.”

  “More fool them for watching,” said Guy with a fastidious sniff. “I wouldn’t dream of turning on for that kind of rubbish.”

  “I suppose you like comedy and sweet documentaries about animals in the wild?”

  “I don’t like programmes designed to make me feel uncomfortable and miserable about human beings. Okay?” Guy turned his attention back to the dancers.

  Gareth tried another gambit. “You may be more in tune with public taste than you think. There is some evidence that people aren’t so keen now on downbeat, realistic programmes.�
�

  “Were they ever?” asked Harry. “Are there people who deliberately choose to be bored or disgusted?”

  “We aim to inform.”

  “No, you aim to make money,” said Harry breezily. “So now it’s some new angle on gay clubs, is it?”

  Gareth frowned. “That’s in the pipeline, yes. But I feel - I keep a finger on the public pulse, you understand - I feel that there’s a change of mood. I’m seriously considering an intellectual slot.” He leant forward confidentially, as though imparting state secrets. “I’m looking for an historian, actually. To front a series. An academic, we need a name, but it’s got to be someone who comes across on screen. Someone a bit aggressive. Viewers like some aggro, bit of venom, some spit on the lens.”

  “I see,” said Harry.

  “And we’ve got a brilliant cookery series. One of the top angry young chefs is going to front for us. Really rip the guts out of cooking programmes, none of your usual sweetness and light and I have here a dish I prepared earlier. We’re going for a whole new approach.”

  “Really?”

  “He looks a nice boy,” said Guy, who hadn’t been listening to a word Gareth was saying, but was eyeing one of the dancers. “Good style.”

  “How are you affected by the Aids threat?” Gareth asked.

  Guy was affronted. “I don’t usually get personal with straight men who’ve just walked in and sat at my table. My sexuality and my sex life is my own business.”

  “You see?” Gareth said to Harry. “That look on the screen, it’d be a knockout. We’d have Sigismund - he’s the chef - bitching away at Guy-here, and Guy looking like that...”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Guy.

  “New programme. Look, pop over and see me. I think we could be on to something here. Of course I can’t promise, there are a lot of other people involved, and of course, dozens of people in the chef business dying to get on to the series. But I think you might be it, yes, I really do.”

  Guy stared at him for a moment. “Are you saying you might want me to be on television?”

  Wait for it: disbelief; gratitude; rapture.

  “On this cooking programme you’ve just been talking about?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Well, really!” Guy was extremely put out. “That’s the most vulgar thing I ever heard. What do you take me for?”

  He rose from his seat.

  “Where are you going?” asked Gareth, perplexed.

  “To dance,” said Guy.

  “Are you coming back? We need to talk some more.”

  “I’ll come back,” said Guy pointedly, “after you’ve left.”

  The shopkeeper watched Sybil walking across the green, a frown on his face. He was so busy watching her that the vicar, trying to pay for his paper, had to touch his arm.

  “Sorry, I was miles away.”

  “It’s nice to have Sybil back, don’t you think?” said the vicar, quite genuinely pleased.

  “Nice is not the word I would choose to use, no, vicar,” said the shopkeeper, slamming the till drawer shut with a defiant clang. “Dangerous is what that lady is, and it’s a bad day for the village when she comes a-traipsing back. I won’t say poking of her nose into other people’s affairs that are best left undisturbed, because she don’t do no poking, she just seems to know.”

  “She does keep her ears to the ground,” the vicar admitted. “But all the women in the village like a gossip. It’s human nature.”

  “There’s gossip and gossip, and then there’s what she knows about, which is something quite other. I’m surprised you so much as pass the time of day with her; in olden times she’d have been burnt at the stake.” And a good thing, too, he added under his breath.

  “Well, well, you know as well as I do that those witches of days gone by were no more than village women who’d made themselves unpopular. We live in more enlightened times, I’m glad to say, and one has to remember that even when one watches all the appalling items on the news every day. We don’t behead people, we don’t hang children, and we don’t burn witches.”

  The shopkeeper was unconvinced; the vicar could see from his expression that he probably thought a bit of beheading and burning wouldn’t come at all amiss.

  Sybil went on her way, passing a group of three silly teenage girls who stopped their giggling and looked at Sybil with wary, doubtful expressions.

  “Beautiful morning,” said Sybil. “And it was a beautiful night last night, was it, Jackie?”

  “It were a storm,” said the boldest of the three.

  “Jackie was enjoying a different kind of storm, weren’t you, Jackie? Snug away from the wind in the haystack. Naughty, though, with your Bob’s dad. He must be forty if he’s a day.”

  Jackie had gone scarlet. “I never... How do you know what I was doing, bloody peeping Tom, that’s what you are.”

  “No peeping, I assure you,” said Sybil. “But what a mistake it was, Jackie, that’s a roll in the hay you’re going to regret. What are you going to do if you’ve fallen pregnant, pretend to Bob that the baby’s his? Go and live with him and his dad at the farm and hop from bed to bed?”

  “I hates you.”

  “No, you don’t, you just hate facing up to what’s what. You run along to Dr Cordovan at her clinic, tell her I sent you, ask for a morning-after pill.”

  Jackie gave a horrified squeal. “I’m not taking any of they pills.”

  The bold girl was looking at her with contempt. “You better, Jackie, if what the lady says is true. I don’t know how you could do that, Bob’s a lovely boy, and his dad’s a right dirty old man.”

  “It’s all right for you, but Bob won’t do nothing with me.”

  “Knows where you’ve been. Come on, Jackie, it’s the clinic for you.” She threw Sybil an unappreciative look and, together with the third girl, dragged Jackie off towards the bus stop.

  Wilf at the Bunch of Grapes in Heartsbane saw Sybil’s familiar figure come into sight along the lane. He put down the glass he was polishing and called to Madge to get out the good Italian coffee.

  Madge appeared beside him at the bar, ready to switch the coffee machine on.

  Wilf and Madge took Sybil as they found her. What if she did seem to know that Wilf hadn’t been entirely accurate on his VAT returns? It didn’t worry Wilf, and Sybil wasn’t about to call round at the Customs and Excise Office, was she?

  Sybil had laughed at the idea. “None of my business, Wilf, you carry on, I’ve no time for bureaucrats.”

  “I wouldn’t like to be the taxman trying to get money out of her, either,” Wilf had observed at the time. “Must be a mort of tax due, too. Wonder how she manages to live as high as she do, though. Don’t see writing can pay so well, and she’s not one of the famous crime ladies, always on the telly.”

  “Phil at the shop do say that she live on blackmail. She know too much, and people pay her to keep quiet.”

  “Phil got his own problems,” said Wilf cryptically. “Maybe she do get a cut off the estate agents, because there’s no denying, when she say this or that, folks do move away.”

  “No matter,” said Madge comfortably. "Tis mostly the folks we don’t want. I’ll be pleased to see the back of that Godfrey, him and his dirty ways.”

  Wilf went to the door and loomed over Sybil as she came in. “Good morning, and very nice to have you back again. Coffee? Inside? Or there’s a nice shady spot in the garden, lovely day again.”

  “I’m meeting a young friend,” said Sybil. “Is he out there?”

  “Tall, dark young man? Yes, he is, and I’ll bring your coffee right away.”

  Fergus was enjoying his coffee in the warm, shady garden. He leapt to his feet as Sybil approached, pulling out a chair for her. Then he resumed his own seat, folded up his paper and smiled at Sybil. He liked her, no nonsense about her and a keen wit to go with her brains.

  “You’ve got your grandfather’s nose,” observed Sybil unexpectedly. “Striking, but you’l
l never make a male model.”

  Wilf came out of the pub, carrying a tray laden with Sybil’s coffee and some biscuits.

  This is Fergus McEttrick, Wilf,” said Sybil. “Staying at Kingfisher Cottage.”

  Wilf extended a muscular hand.

  “Friend, is he?” he said.

  “I was at school with his mother, but I haven’t seen him since he was a baby. Last time I saw him he was standing up in his cot,” said Sybil. “Stark naked, and peeing over his nurse.”

  Fergus was astonished. “You didn’t tell me you knew my mother.”

  “There’s a lot I don’t tell people,” said Sybil cryptically. “You used to have tantrums,” she went on, pouring out her coffee.

  “How very embarrassing,” said Fergus, reddening.

  Sybil looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, despite the nose, you’re very like your mother,” she said.

  “Most people think I take after my father,” Fergus ventured.

  “I’m not talking about looks,” said Sybil. “Although it’s no bad thing to take after your father in looks, he was a very handsome man. No, you’re like your mother in spirit. She’s a woman of great spirit.”

  Fergus was fond of his mother, but he wouldn’t have described her in those terms. To him she seemed very conventional, busy about her duties, careful with money, a hard-working, affectionate and firm mother.

  Sybil dunked a biscuit in her coffee. “I remember when she went off to Peru because a young man she met at a dance was posted there. And then, when she got there, she decided he wasn’t such a fine young man as she’d thought.”

  Fergus began to look alarmed. “Look here,” he said.

  “But she found lots who were,” went on Sybil.

  “My mother?” said Fergus. “You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “Doesn’t she talk about those days?” said Sybil. “Well, well, you want to ask her. Remind her of Raimondo.”

  Fergus was feeling more and more bewildered.

  “I know my mother was in South America when she was young,” he said stiffly. “She went to stay with some relations on a ranch, I believe.”