The West Country Winery

by Lizzie Lovell

  ‘We must protect Chardonnay especially,’ she goes on. ‘It is more innocent.’

  ‘Innocent? Oh, do you mean vulnerable?’

  ‘Yes, I mean vulnerable. We concentrate on vines further down hill’ – she points them out to me, the specific ones she’s concerned about – ‘the ones closest to valley, where cold air gathers. We put bins here and there, enough to rise temperature by two maybe three degrees. The smoke also stops morning sun burning buds that are covered in frost. Like all those big trees on Nathan’s land. And all the thick hedges that you people of Devon like so much.’

  I think maybe Melina also likes the thick hedges of Devon, the big trees next door, the landscape she is getting to know so well. The river that cuts through this valley towards the English Channel. The rambling cob farmhouse with its thatched roof. The sloping vineyard. Would she bulldoze the outbuildings given half a chance? Maybe. But she understands that we are very attached to them and that they are part of the heritage of this area, along with the red earth and soft rain. I think she’s coming round to life here.

  Once inside the milking parlour, I spot the store of vine cuttings. It’s a great idea to use what we have already. And this building has such potential I can almost see how a press and tanks would fit in here. We’d have to consider where to store the bottles after, so they can age. It’s not like we have the natural caves of Champagne.

  As if Melina can read my mind, she says, matter-offactly, ‘Babcia left me money. She would want me to use money for something good. I want to put money into your business. I could buy new press so we can make wine here, on site. Good wine.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Melina,’ I gush. And I start blubbing and hugging her.

  ‘Maybe just say yes?’ She laughs out loud, a burst of joy.

  ‘Yes, Melina. Yes! Let’s do this!’

  MELINA AND I have a hastily convened meeting with Des and Eve around the kitchen table over a sandwich and a cuppa. Melina repeats her proposal and it is grabbed lustily by their very open arms. By the time the rest of the crew return, having walked six miles and nearly seen off the dog, and Declan for that matter, we have great plans ahead of us. Though our weekend’s mission to keep this year’s crop as safe as we possibly can is foremost in our minds.

  ‘CHRISSIE!’ SCARLET HISSES, shaking me awake. ‘You’ve got to get up and help us. The Ice Saints have come.’

  It is dark and feels like the middle of the night but her words have shocked me into action. I hastily scramble out of bed and reach for the folded jumper I’d left on my grandmother’s cocktail chair, ready for this moment. I’m already wearing my thermals, jogging bottoms and socks so all I have to do is slip the jumper over my pyjama top and go downstairs to add my coat, hat and boots.

  Des and Eve are already out there with Melina and Tomasz. Ruby, Scarlet, Declan and I rush to join them, alert for instructions from our self-appointed leader. Melina tells us which fires to light, what to fetch and do, and we rush around in the half-dark to beat these Ice Saints into submission.

  Poor Des is conflicted by the need to create fire for our task while also keeping said fire under control. Thankfully, we seem to tread this tightrope of risk and safety just fine – and it looks like the frost has largely kept off anyway. By the time the sun rises and warms up, we are in the clear.

  ‘Who wants a Buck’s Fizz to celebrate?’ Declan suggests.

  ‘Now that’s what I call magic,’ Des says, giving Melina a hug. ‘Tomasz, you have a very fine woman there,’ he says to her beau.

  If Des wasn’t Des, then he would be getting a Polish clip round the ear, if not from Tomasz, then definitely from Melina. But instead she smiles sweetly and agrees with him.

  ‘I am lucky woman,’ she says, ‘to have Tomasz to be my husband. And we wonder, Tomasz and I...’ – she appears shy for a moment, a most un-Melina-like state, looks to Eve, to Des and to me – ‘... we ask if we can use barn for wedding in summer maybe?’

  ‘This summer?!’ I exclaim, caught by surprise. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Melina? We have no roof!’

  ‘Yes, but, Chrissie, we will have roof because Nathan, Tomasz, Aleksy, Julia and Piotr will make roof.’

  The council finally approved our application – hurrah! – for holding weddings in our barn, provided we use roof tiles in place of thatch.

  ‘Oh my gosh, it’ll be amazing for you two to marry here!’ I exclaim.

  How romantic; in the place where they met and fell in love. This wonderful place. And yes, all right, it might not have a roof yet and the inside has an awful lot of work to do but if we pull together we can make it happen. We have got ten weeks, after all.

  Summer

  WE HAVE SURVIVED fire and we have survived ice. We have seen rapid shoot growth and then an early flowering, over before Wimbledon even began.

  It’s hard to believe that we’ve lived here for nine months. Before we know it, harvest time will be upon us and that is supposed to bring the return of Rob. He survived Ethiopia. In fact he was completely moved by it. ‘The first humans came from the Rift Valley here,’ he told me in one of our less and less frequent phone calls, ‘and it’s one of only two African countries not to be colonized. Plus the coffee is off the scale. And cycling is very popular in Addis.’

  He’s been all the way through Sudan and Egypt, passing through the lands of the Pharaohs to the Valleys of the Kings and Queens at Luxor and heading north along the coastal route of the Red Sea, through the Eastern Desert to Cairo and the Pyramids and the enigmatic, aloof, solitary Sphinx of Giza.

  And now Europe.

  A world away from our journey here at Home Farm. But although these last three months might not have involved us going very far in miles, we have also achieved considerable progress.

  TODAY IS ST Swithin’s Day and if it rains then it will be set to rain for the next forty days. But if it is fine, then we are in for forty days of good weather.

  I leap out of bed on waking and open the curtains in order to inspect the world outside my window. One of those early-morning mists rises from the river, the kind that typically burn off by midday, leaving behind clear blue skies. We should be in for a scorcher! And if the legend of St Swithin’s Day holds true, then the weather could hold for Saturday – and Melina and Tomasz’s wedding.

  ST SWITHIN DOESN’T let us down, because Saturday dawns bright and sunny. By eleven o’clock, Melina is ready. She is in her room – what used to be my room – and she has the women of the house helping her, though for the most part we’ve just chatted and sipped Buck’s Fizz. She has done her own hair – long curly tresses piled up on her head and threaded with violets so she resembles a princess in a fairy tale. She has also done her own make-up, a little heavy on the kohl under the eyes which gives her the doleful look of Princess Diana, but stunning all the same, her Slavic cheekbones highlighted with peach blusher. Her talents know no limits as she stands in the dress she made herself – simple, satin, cut on the bias in the style of a star of the silver screen.

  I have a sudden jolt of realization that this woman, this incredible woman who has so many sides to her and such a lot to offer, and who I have known casually for so long, has become over the past nine months something like a best friend to me. I choke back the tears that threaten to spill.

  ‘Let me help you with the veil,’ Eve suggests, catching my emotional response.

  There’s a moment when tears prick Melina’s eyes, too, as she thinks of her grandmother who should be here, attending to her, of her own mother who she can barely remember.

  But Eve gently steps in, delicately and lovingly helping her with her veil – Babcia’s, of course – securing it in place with a wreath of greenery and more fragrant violets.

  ‘They’re close enough to blue,’ she tells a confused Melina.

  ‘Blue?’

  ‘“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe”. You have an old veil, a new dress, blu
e flowers. Here’s a silver sixpence...’ She removes the small coin from her handbag and holds it up to the light. Wherever did she find that? I wonder. ‘You just need something borrowed.’

  Melina reaches down to put the coin in her unbelievably high heels.

  ‘Oh, I have something borrowed,’ she says, remembering. ‘Chrissie lent me her push-up bra.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Eve says, while the girls snigger. ‘Are you ready, my dear?’

  BY CONTRAST WITH the English wedding tradition, Melina and Tomasz meet before the service, here in our kitchen. Tomasz’s eyes light up like a child’s when he sees her. He kisses his bride-to-be in front of the Aga, whose idiosyncrasies Melina has finally mastered. He looks handsome, in a royal-blue suit that shows off his broad chest and wide shoulders.

  In front of his parents and Melina’s uncle and aunt, all of whom have come over to England especially for this momentous occasion, Tomasz hands Melina her gromnica, last lit at her confirmation. In return, she puts a spray of violets into his buttonhole.

  Melina and Tomasz are to be driven to the Catholic church in Chudston by Nathan, the rest of us following in my seven-seater. As we drive through the lanes, hedgerows high and trees thick with their summer show, the locals are out in force, waving at us and shouting good wishes.

  I’VE NEVER BEEN to a Catholic wedding, though I’ve heard the services go on for a while. As dictated by another Polish tradition, one I particularly like, the couple to be married walk together down the aisle. We watch wise, beautiful Melina, her serious face hidden behind Babcia’s veil, hand in hand with her beefy-armed Tomasz, as they make their way to the altar, accompanied by Malcolm’s rendition of ‘Ave Maria’ on the organ. Not that Malcolm is the slightest bit Polish. I believe he is Anglo-Saxon through and through and hails from Banbury.

  Melina’s uncle and aunt sit solemnly in the front row, clearly wishing that Babcia was here, so much so that they leave a space for her. Tomasz’s parents, Maria and Izaak, sit alongside them, with two of the groom’s younger brothers, Jakub and Daniel.

  The church is quite different from St Mary Magdalene. There are candles and incense, statues of Mary and other saints. The priest is very jolly in his bright garments and high cheek colour and the altar boys look angelic in their gear, nudging one another and giggling when the priest’s back is turned.

  As the ceremony goes ahead I think about how important, how sacred a time this is in the lives of these two people. From this moment onwards, Melina and Tomasz will be a couple. I feel a touch of jealousy, seeing how in love they are, how he looks at her with joy in his eyes. I remember my weddings; the church ceremony with Nathan feels like a lifetime ago. Another life entirely. And then in London, Rob and me with the girls at the register office in Camberwell. And now I might just as well be single.

  Eve hands me a verbena-drenched handkerchief. ‘Weddings always make me cry too, Christabel,’ she whispers. ‘All those vows and promises and the hope of love.’

  I don’t tell her I’m crying for myself.

  Afterwards, there is a special blessing at St Mary Magdalene church, offered by its rector, Isabella. Melina and Tomasz were touched by the gesture, seeing it as a step towards being properly a part of this community and less like newcomers. And me? I somehow find it cathartic. As the happy couple make their way down the aisle, past a full congregation, my precious Ruby accompanies them with her harp rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat major opus 9, no. 2 – the one that’s played in all the films.

  THEN BACK TO the barn for the reception. It looks beautifully rustic, with garlands and bowers of greenery and flowers made by Eve and Scarlet. The table decorations are simple jam jars holding tea lights, and glass pots of delicate violets, which will no doubt later wilt in the heat. The party will go on. And on. Until tomorrow morning, I’ve been warned.

  The barn is all ready to receive the sixty or so guests – some of their family and friends who have been able to come, all the pickers, the locals, even Ingrid and Major Carter and Jackie and her brood.

  The Chud Valley Stompers and some members of the school swing band are set up on pallets and hay bales and have learnt the Polish wedding polka, which they are starting up now. The latest recruits join in with gusto, Ruby strumming Malcolm’s Celtic harp, Barney on his trombone that’s nearly as big as him.

  And as the newlyweds enter, the wedding guests, primed by Melina’s aunt, throw coins in their pathway.

  ‘Why are we doing this?’ Scarlet asks.

  ‘It’s for their honeymoon, apparently,’ I tell her.

  ‘Are they having a honeymoon?’

  ‘A few days in Wales. On a vineyard.’

  Scarlet grins. She looks stunning today. In a red dress, though still with her trademark Docs. Morley is here as her guest, helping Melina’s aunt collect the coins for safekeeping.

  ‘What are the aunt and uncle doing now?’ Scarlet asks.

  We watch on, as they give the bride and groom some bread sprinkled with salt, and a glass of wine.

  ‘The bread is so they never go hungry, the salt to remind them that there will be tough times and they must stick at it.’

  ‘And the wine?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just because?’

  She laughs but a swear word is released when Melina and Tomasz drain their glasses before lobbing them to the floor where they smash for good luck.

  Then Eve and I, along with the aunt and mother-inlaw, help unveil Melina so she can show she is now a married woman. And, more to the point, so that she can eat and drink.

  Now the feast will begin!

  Along the three long rows of trestle tables, we all sit down on benches to eat the first of many dishes and courses. I have my girls, one on each side of me, and opposite me, Eve and Des. I look around and see such happy faces, it makes me smile inside. Relief. Accomplishment. Contentment. Even seeing Nathan across the room isn’t enough to stir any bad feeling.

  In between, there is much traditional dancing, the amalgamated band doing a proper job. We even have games such as Mr and Mrs and the throwing of the bouquet (which Declan catches) and the throwing of Tomasz’s tie (which Mark catches, to the whoops of the crowd).

  Several hours in, and I’m feeling extremely full. The food has mostly been stodgy and fatty – stews and potatoes and dumplings. Even a pig – a whole pig, head and all – is on full display

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ Scarlet said, when she saw it earlier. ‘Whose idea was that?’

  Nathan happened to be passing with a pint of cider in hand. ‘It’s a Polish tradition,’ he said. ‘My wedding gift to Melina and Tomasz. I wanted to make them feel at home.’

  ‘It’s still disgusting.’

  ‘It was free-range,’ he added, a cheeky grin on his face. Then he made a swift getaway, trying not to spill his pint, winking over his shoulder so that even Scarlet had to laugh.

  ‘I’ll get you back,’ she shouted, and when he pretended to hide under a table I thought, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, having him as a next-door neighbour. And when I looked at Ruby, she was laughing and it confirmed that Nathan could maybe find a part to play in her life. And Scarlet’s too.

  EVENING HAS COME and the candles are lit. And the food is still coming. The advantage of all this stodge is that it helps absorb the vodka which the Polish men have lavishly supplied, adding to Declan and Mark’s contribution of kegs of cider and beer. There is also sparkling wine courtesy of Ruth at Chudston Winery, who is sitting with Malcolm at the table, laughing and smiling while he’s on a break from calling and playing the fiddle.

  So although the guests are looking somewhat dishevelled, fascinators askew, ties undone, hair messed up and make-up smeared, the barn looks beautiful. But most importantly, Melina is radiant.

  And then there’s the other star of the show. Our very own wine. Everyone has enjoyed a glass or two but now Melina has something to say. She is standing on the stage, microphone in hand.

  ‘I give toas
t,’ she says, nodding at the glass in her hand, the one that has a gold band on its ring finger. ‘“The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne”.’ She raises her glass. ‘That is from your Samuel Johnson and here’s to our very own sparkling wine in the future. For now, sto lat! To you English, this means one hundred years. May I love my Tomasz for one hundred years.’

  ‘Sto lat.’ Tomasz leaps up on the stage and chinks her glass with his own and reaches for the microphone. ‘May I love you forever, Melina.’

  She grabs the microphone back and says: ‘Człowiek nie wielbłąd, pić musi! Man is not camel, he must drink!’

  Then Tomasz shouts something to his father in Polish and in a trice he is handed two vodka shots. He gives one to his wife and keeps the other before they down them together to much cheering and clapping.

  And yet again I find myself with tears in my eye, but this time, I think, for the right reasons. Eve notices and puts her arms around me, bringing me in for a hug, her arms wrapped around me so I’m enveloped in jasmine and love.

  ‘None of this would have happened without you,’ she says. ‘I’m so very proud of you. You’re the best thing I’ve ever done.’

  My heart is filled with bubbles of joy and this moment is as glorious as the best wine in the world.

  The party is in full swing. Raucous, riotous, rural. A true country wedding where everyone has contributed. Even Ingrid seems to have shed some of her burden of misery. Not only has she given Melina and Tomasz a set of bed linen, but she has also paid for the waiting staff Eve has hired – basically the other four of Jackie’s children. I can’t for the life of me understand this sudden generosity, but I’m accepting it with two open arms of gratefulness, just as Eve has urged me to do. I think it might have something to do with Major Carter who is whisking Ingrid around the barn in a dervish polka, and I suspect that the rumours I have heard, that he has been meeting her at his club in Piccadilly, are in fact true.