‘Are you OK?’
Is this a genuine question requiring a genuine answer, or is it one of those throwaway ones people use for small talk? Is this what we have become? People who do small talk. ‘What do you reckon, Rob?’
‘Er, I’m not actually sure,’ he says, warily. ‘Which is sort of why I asked you.’
‘Don’t be facetious. It’s not your best quality.’
And this is really not going well. Not that I particularly wanted or expected it to go well. I don’t know how I wanted or expected it to go. I don’t know anything.
I take a deep breath, steady myself, grip the edge of the table. It needs to be sanded, polished, taken care of. So many stains and fissures, dings and dents.
The front door bangs right after Scarlet’s shouted, ‘Bye, Chrissie, see you later!’
Not waiting to hear my ‘Bye, love.’
The house is quiet. Very quiet.
‘We need to talk,’ I tell Rob. ‘You and me.’ I point to him and then myself as if I need to clarify this. ‘I’ll meet you after work at the Greyhound. Tell the girls to make their own way home and that they can have a takeaway while we’re out. Give them some cash.’
He looks like he might protest but pulls himself up short, thinking better of it. Which is wise. A good decision.
I leave him looking slightly flummoxed by the kitchen table (maybe I could shabby-chic it? Distress it? Paint it like a rainbow?), but he’s soon distracted by the beep of his phone so I leave him to it and let myself out into the crisp freshness of the back garden. Once I hear the door bang again and the sound of the engine firing up, I make a phone call of my own.
‘Declan?’
‘Aha!’ Declan exclaims, Alan Partridge style. ‘The wanderer returns. Well, not exactly returned. I’ve got your favourite: a flat white. Only it’s going cold because you’re not in your usual 8.30 spot at the desk opposite me.’
‘I’ll be there. I just need you to hold the fort in the meantime.’
‘No problemo.’
‘And thanks for handling the conference. Your text updates kept me from fretting.’
‘I know you too well, and when you eventually show your face in here, I’ll be wanting some straight talking, which is saying something for a gay man such as myself.’
‘Yes, Declan. Don’t worry. We’ll do lunch.’
‘You never “do” lunch.’
‘Well, today I am. We are. My treat.’
‘I’ll forgive you anything, in that case.’ He laughs. The Declan cackle that never fails to cheer me up, however annoying and in-your-face he can be. ‘All your sins will be absolved.’
‘Sins aren’t the problem here, my friend. Unless they include abandonment, bad wine and a rogue cleaner.’
‘Sounds like the title of an extremely pretentious art-house film. The type my latest beau is so fond of. Last night he took me—’
‘I don’t need to know where he took you, right at this moment in time, thank you very much, Declan. Save it for lunch, if you must.’
‘Yes, ma’am. I must. Though it could be a long lunch.’
‘Goodbye, Declan.’
IT’S ELEVEN O’CLOCK by the time I reach the office, a little flushed and breathless from the last couple of hours.
Declan nabs me before I’ve even had the chance to take off my coat and sit down. ‘Thought you’d been gobbled up by the hound of the Baskervilles.’
‘I came across someone far more hideous.’
‘Bite worse than his bark?’
‘How do you know it was a he?’
‘Isn’t it always?’
‘Hmm. Not sure that’s entirely fair, but you have a point.’
‘Well?’ He looks expectantly at me. If he were a hound, he’d be a Luther type; oversized and gentle and always drooling for more.
‘Wait till lunch. We need to focus on work. I’ve got some stuff to tie up.’
I ignore his ‘I bet you have’ expression and dig in. Two hours till lunchtime.
‘I WASN’T EXPECTING anything this fancy,’ Declan says as we’re shown to our table.
A trendy bistro with an eclectic style and menu. The sort of place usually inhabited by Rob and his ilk. Declan’s more of a McDonald’s/Subway kind of man. I usually have a packed lunch. So this is nice. Though gobbledegook. All quenelles, foam and deconstructed rhubarb cheesecake.
‘Do they do fish and chips?’ Declan turns the menu over to scan it.
We really should be better at this menu malarkey. All those events and conferences we put on. But to be honest, the undertakers, the accountants, the Rotary clubs; they’re usually happy with ham-and-mustard sandwiches as long as they’re cut into triangles and sprinkled with mustard cress.
‘I fancy sausage and mash.’
We eventually find a responsibly sourced salt-crusted John Dory draped over heritage baby turnips tossed with a whisper of samphire. And a macerated artisan chorizo on a bed of foraged chervil, chard and chicory with a cloud of crushed potato.
‘Wine?’ He’s always hopeful.
‘Oh, I think so.’
‘Fizz?’
‘Why not?’
He calls over the waiter, points randomly at a bottle on the menu.
‘Good choice, sir,’ the waiter says and swans off.
‘So how was the harvest?’ Declan asks, not entirely focused on me.
‘Bumper.’
‘That’s good. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It is good. But it would be much better if they knew how to make a decent wine.’
‘Apparently it’s a watershed moment in English winemaking.’ He’s back in the room, attention restored.
‘Not you as well.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve heard that statement once this week already.’
‘Must be true then. Especially as I heard it on Radio 4.’
‘Radio 4? What happened to Radio 1?’
‘I decided to grow up.’
‘You mean you wanted to impress your “beau”?’
‘Maybe. Yes. Obvs. But they did really say it was a watershed moment for English and Welsh wine.’
‘So I hear. That cold winter we had killed off all the diseases and bugs. Then there was all the rain. Followed by a long, hot growing season. Turns out these were perfect conditions.’
Then I tell him about Melina’s revelation regarding the grape press. I tell him about the Polish pickers and the local volunteers. About the contracting-out of the winemaking. I repeat the gist of Nathan’s lecture yesterday, the holy trinity of grape varieties, two of which we have at home, and that even if Devon is cooler than other wine-growing countries, this means naturally high acidity and low sugar levels. Making for tart table wines – but ideal for sparkling wine.
‘You’re beginning to sound like an expert, Chrissie,’ Declan teases.
‘Hardly. But I would like to be able to help out where I can. To learn more about the business – you know, the path from grape to bottle.’
‘Vine to wine?’ He looks coy for a moment. An unusual expression for Declan. ‘I actually know a bit about that,’ he admits.
‘You mean you like to drink it?’
‘I mean I spent a couple of months on my gap year working in a vineyard and winery in Tuscany.’
‘Tuscany?’
‘I was Interrailing, stopped off at a vineyard. Fell in love. With a farmhand. And the grapes.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘It was the best time ever,’ he says, going into a trance of reminiscence, only interrupted by the waiter who appears with a bottle, popping the mushroom cork with a flourish, pouring a splash for me to taste on Declan’s insistence. You’re paying for it, his eyes tell me.
So I try it. I sniff it and get a hint of English countryside, orchards and hedgerows, fresh-cut grass and honey. Then I take a sip.
‘Oh!’ The bubbles hit my nose as my taste buds explode with the crisp, fresh flavour of the wine that fizzes under my
tongue. ‘This. Is. Nice.’
The waiter pours us a glass each and leaves the bottle on ice. We chink flutes. Say our usual chin-chin-bottoms-up-cheers-m’dear.
But the wine.
The wine is a revelation.
‘Here is wine, / Alive with sparkles,’ he says, using a lofty, poetic voice. ‘Keats,’ he confirms when he sees confusion on my face. ‘You think I’m a philistine, don’t you, Chrissie?’
‘No, of course I don’t.’ Maybe I do. A bit. If I’m honest. But, like everyone else I know, he’s full of surprises. ‘What exactly is this we’re drinking, Declan?’
The wine menu has been whisked away and so he reaches for the bottle and holds it like a sommelier for me to inspect.
‘I chose this particular wine on purpose,’ he says. His eyes are as sparkling as the bubbles in our glasses.
‘You did?’ I take out my reading specs and feel my mouth break into an almighty smile. It almost hurts because it’s been so long since I did that. It’s been nothing but frowns, tears and mopes and right now I am relishing this fizz of expectation.
‘Yes, I did,’ Declan says, returning my smile with his delighted beam. ‘Because it’s English.’
We begin our eating journey or narrative or whatever nonsense it is. The food is actually very nice. Why couldn’t they just list the ingredients and tell us if they are poached, mashed, grilled or fried? Anyway, we dawdle over lunch while I tell him about Rob. And about Nathan.
Unusually, he’s surprisingly contained, listening intently. No expletives or exclamations fly out of his mouth. He just holds back.
‘What shall I do, Declan?’ I’m not really expecting an answer but he sort of gives me one nonetheless. He can’t stay quiet after all.
‘If there’s one thing I know about you, Chrissie,’ he says, ‘it’s that you always try your hardest to seek out the answer to a problem. You don’t rush in. You take your time. You play the long game.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes, Christabel. You do.’
‘Do not call me that. My name is Chrissie, as you well know, and I’d chuck the last of this wine in your face if it wasn’t so good.’ I’m only half joking.
‘Soz,’ he says, puppy-dog eyes. ‘Couldn’t help myself. I mean you’re not in the least like your namesake.’ He gives me that cheeky grin that I’ve come to love from all these years working with him. He’s always been so much more than a colleague.
‘You mean I’m a conformist, not a radical?’
‘I do.’
‘Oh.’
‘You sound disappointed.’ He reaches across the table to squeeze my hand.
‘Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no.’ I squeeze his hand back. ‘I know Ruby and I are two of life’s plodders. We get things done, but through routine and good old keeping calm and carrying on. Scarlet – and Rob, I suppose – they’re more... maverick.’
‘Rob? Maverick? Hardly. Feckless, maybe.’
‘Feckless? You’re not the first to say that.’
‘Anyway,’ he carries on, ‘we can’t all be the same, Chrissie.’
‘I know that. Horses for courses and all that. But...’
‘But what?
‘Well, without wanting to sound too dramatic, right now, I actually sort of don’t want to really be... me.’
He grabs my other hand now, grips me in a deadlock stare. ‘Who do you want to be, Chrissie?’
‘I want to be someone more like my namesake.’
‘More radical?’
‘Yes, you could say that.’
Deeds not words.
He rubs my hands with his own manicured ones. ‘Then you know what you have to do.’
Yes, I suppose I do know what I have to do. I manage a nod.
‘Don’t look so glum, my lovely. What else is keeping you here?’
‘In this restaurant? The wine?’
‘No, you numpty! In London. In this life.’
A rare moment of hush while I listen to the hum of the other diners, the chink of cutlery on crockery. Bubbles of laughter. But I don’t answer Declan. I don’t know what to say.
But he does. ‘Chrissie, I would really, really miss your daily presence in my life but you could have a fantastic new challenge in Devon. Don’t let Rob be the only one to have a mid-life crisis. You could actually do something worthwhile, like help your parents. Show your daughters that if a thing needs doing, you do it. Even if it means throwing your life up in the air and seeing which way the wind blows.’
I imagine my life – my house, my job, my family – chucked into the air, like some kind of Wizard of Oz twister. Would it crash down in a land of Munchkins and flying monkeys?
This is what I’m thinking.
But this is what I say: ‘Shall we get another bottle?’
I don’t wait for an answer. Instead, I catch the waiter’s eye. Mime the international sign language for Another bottle please and he’s back in a blink and Declan and I are on our way to putting the wine world – the whole of the big fat world – to rights.
‘Here’s to Brit Pop,’ Declan says as the bubbles go up his nose and fill his mouth with fizzy delight.
‘To Brit Pop.’
Throw your life up in the air and see which way the wind blows.
BY THE TIME I reach the Greyhound, I have to admit to being half-cut, which isn’t the best way to enter peace talks with Rob. He’s there before me, leaning on the bar, bottle of cold lager in hand. He’s come on his bike so he’s sweaty, in Lycra, and asks if it’s all right if we sit outside till he cools off. I’m feeling quite flushed myself so I say yes, that’s fine, and ask for a black coffee.
So it’s just the two of us outside on a bench with that familiar view across the gentrified road up to the common, where we’ve lived for the past ten years. We’ve seen the area evolve from slightly edgy to rather chi-chi. It used to be working-class Londoners, school teachers and nurses. Now it’s all media types, yummy mummies and marketing men. Exhibit one. My husband. Designer lager and a thousand-pound bike chained up beside us.
‘Are you a tad drunk?’ he asks.
It’s hard to say no because I’ve just managed to trip over my own shoes and slop some very expensive Fairtrade organic Columbian coffee over my dishevelled dress. I take a cardie out of my bag in an act of distraction.
‘It’s getting chilly,’ I add by way of explanation.
‘Shall we go back indoors?’ he suggests.
‘No. I like it.’
‘Right. You actually OK? I mean I realize I’ve dropped a bombshell on you.’ He waits for me to agree, as disagreement on this point is highly unlikely. ‘I also realize I’m being a completely selfish arse.’ He smiles that smile that won me over back in the day when he asked me out on a date to a preschool parents’ meeting.
‘Sort of and yes and yes.’
‘So what do you want to talk about? You know – specifically.’
‘Right. Well.’ I pull myself together, slurp a big mouthful of bitter, strong coffee. I’ll never sleep again, but I need to sober up because this is important. As important as it gets. You plod along for so long and then something changes. This is my moment of change, the point where my life stumbles upon a fork in the road, and I have to make a decision. A decision for me. And for the girls. Ruby and Scarlet. I’m mother to both of them. How can this man, who I thought was the best father in the world, think it’s OK to go off for a year? A whole year on his own. With his bike. Across Africa. And, OK, it’s not forever. Hopefully. Nothing’s certain. And it’s also really not OK. The girls are fifteen. On the cusp of womanhood, and I am being left alone to deal with any fallout. And the question hangs there: what if I say no?
Do I ask this? Do I throw it up in the air and see which way the wind blows?
‘What is it, Chrissie?’
His tone is soft, gentle – like that of the old Rob who has been absent for, well, quite some time, only I hadn’t realized. I’ve let things slip. Taken my eye off the ball.
/> ‘Tell me,’ he urges. ‘Anything. You know you can tell me anything.’
‘I thought I could, but now I’m not so sure.’
‘Tell me.’ He holds my hand.
‘I was wondering what you would say if I said no? You can’t go?’
‘Then I’d say fine.’ He squeezes my hand, differently from the squeeze Declan gave it earlier but a squeeze all the same, and I don’t know if this is voluntary or a spasm of despair.
‘But it wouldn’t be fine. Would it.’ This is a fact, not a question.
‘No.’ That squeeze again. ‘I don’t think it would be.’
A breeze billows up the road and I pull my cardie tighter around me. ‘And what if I said I wanted to have a gap year?’
‘I’d say, can it wait till I’ve had mine and then you can have yours?’ He bites his lip, trying not to snigger – one of his bad habits, laughing when he’s nervous. ‘That’s not a euphemism, by the way,’ he adds. ‘Just to be clear.’
I ignore this. Now is not the time to be aggravated by my husband’s silly habits. Don’t sweat the small stuff, as Declan would say.
We both take a moment. He finishes his beer. I finish my coffee.
‘Shall I get us another drink?’ he suggests.
‘Do I need another drink?’
‘Dutch courage?’
‘For you or for me?’
‘For both of us.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘This is daft. Just tell me. I know there’s something you want to say.’
‘OK.’ He takes a very big breath of chilling air, dramatic and noisy, his sniggers all at bay. ‘I’ve booked my plane ticket for three weeks’ time.’
‘Three weeks? You never said you were booking them.’
‘I decided to go for it. Before I changed my mind.’
Deeds not words.
‘Right.’ I have to try and let this sink in. Three weeks. Twenty-one days. Africa for a year. But I have to ask: ‘Why didn’t you tell me how you were feeling before? We should’ve been able to talk about it. I didn’t realize that you were 100 per cent definitely going. That you were so unhappy with your life. Our life.’ An uncomfortable pause that he waits for me to fill. ‘I suppose I thought there was a chance you might change your mind.’
‘I’m sorry, Chrissie,’ he says. ‘I haven’t changed my mind.’
The West Country Winery Page 7
