Late Summer in the Vineyard

by Jo Thomas

  Finally she says, ‘There’s no need. It’s done.’

  ‘Do you have someone who works the winery for you? I’d like to apologise.’

  ‘No, it’s just me.’ She looks guarded again.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I say, mortified to have left this lady with the mess.

  ‘It’s no problem. I’m nearly done.’

  ‘I’d like to help.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  Then she looks at me.

  ‘So, how are you finding working at Featherstone’s? Have you been here long?’

  ‘About twenty-four hours,’ I say, and I think that may have been a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘And you are working in his wine business?’ she asks, putting down her basket on the small table by the back door and removing the scarf from around her neck.

  ‘I will be.’ I nod, trying to look more confident than I feel.

  ‘So, he has brought you here because you know all about wine?’

  I bite my bottom lip and shake my head. Madame Beaumont raises her eyebrow but says nothing.

  ‘I don’t know anything about wine,’ I say flatly. ‘We’re here to learn, so we can sell it back in the UK. You see, his son, Charlie, has taken over and wants to expand and sell more in the UK. But he needs a team leader . . .’ All of a sudden I realise quite how ridiculous I am, thinking I could take on Candy for the job. My shoulders drop and I sigh and then explain, ‘He has to pick a team leader. It’s a good job. A good salary and a starting bonus . . .’ I trail off. Madame Beaumont doesn’t need to know all this.

  Now I feel very silly standing there in my holiday shorts and Nelson Mandela T-shirt, telling this lady I’ve come to work in the wine business and I want a job I have no hope of getting. I look down at the dusty floor and wonder how to just excuse myself and leave.

  Then, as if reading my mind she says, ‘You cannot sell what you don’t understand.’

  I look up at her slowly.

  ‘Exactly,’ I shrug, and I can feel a wave of despair starting to wash over me, thinking about the tome we have to learn. ‘We have to learn about each of the wines and how to answer questions,’ I reply. ‘We’ve got this book, we’re supposed to memorise it . . .’

  ‘Do you know what these are?’ She points to the vines.

  ‘Grapes?’ I say, stating the obvious.

  She laughs, a deep, throaty laugh.

  ‘I like your honesty,’ she says. ‘I wish more people said what they meant,’ and I’m not sure what she means.

  ‘Your mother brought you up well. She would be proud of you.’

  I move my head from side to side. My mouth seems to be running away with me when my brain is shouting, Shut up, time to go!

  ‘It’s just my father . . . and me. He . . . I look after him. And my sister, I have a sister, too.’ I swallow, not sure why I’m telling a stranger about my home life. ‘She’s doing well. Her husband, he was a footballer. He’s, um, in business now. Something to do with investments . . .’ I trail off.

  Madame Beaumont looks at me and tilts her head again. ‘You brought up your sister?’

  I bite my top lip and then nod and shrug. Maybe it’s homesickness that’s making me talk. ‘It’s just how it was . . .’ I feel the familiar lump in my throat start to rise and I’m sure it’s just homesickness.

  Neither of us says anything for a moment. A cockerel shouts loudly from the field next door. A flock of birds noisily circles overhead. Madame Beaumont looks up as they start to land on the telephone wire.

  ‘Cecil,’ she calls, and the big old dog lumbers up and begins barking and howling at the gathering birds, who fly away at his noise. He chases up and down, lifting his front feet off the ground.

  I smile.

  ‘What is Cecil? I mean, what breed?’

  ‘He’s a mix, like me.’

  I’m not sure what she means again.

  ‘He is half Dogue de Bordeaux, a mastiff, and half . . .’ she shrugs, ‘. . . something else. His mother was a proud Dogue de Bordeaux, from this region. His father belonged to a traveller passing through. He is just Cecil.’

  The tears that threatened to spill a moment ago as I nearly let my concerns about being here get the better of me, abate. I must be tired. Tiredness always makes things worse. But I feel a long way from home and wonder what on earth I’m doing here. Of course I’m not going to get the team leader’s job. I don’t know anything about wine. The closest I’ve come to buying wine recently was the Lambrini on offer for Layla’s leaving do, and I’m not even sure that’s wine at all. Not like the glorious wine we were drinking last night. That was soft and fruity and smooth, and didn’t even give me a hint of headache this morning.

  My phone rings. I quickly mumble, ‘Excuse me,’ and answer it.

  ‘Hi, Dad, yes, I’m fine. You? Yes, yes. It’s all going really well. Yes, I had a lovely meal last night.’

  He wants to know everything, how it’s all going. Madame Beaumont has turned to inspect her roses.

  Then he says, ‘The thing is, love, there’s been another letter. We’ve missed another mortgage payment.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I sigh, and my shoulders slump, despite me trying to sound upbeat. ‘The boss, Charlie, has said the best-selling agent out here will be made team leader.’ Why am I telling him this? I have no hope of getting it. Still my mouth motors on. ‘Yes, that means we could sort out the arrears, no problem. It could sort it all out.’

  ‘You’ll do it, I know it. I’m so proud of you, Emmy,’ Dad says, and then I really do want to cry. I tell him I love him and we end the call.

  Madame Beaumont looks at me. I rub my itching nose.

  ‘Your papa?’ she asks, and I nod. She studies me, tilting her head to one side. ‘He has great faith in you, non?’

  ‘He just doesn’t cope well on his own. He doesn’t work any more. He got . . . ill.’ The truth is, he gave up. He couldn’t go on after Mum . . . after the accident. He just sat down in his chair in shock and has been there ever since. Work kept him on for a while. He was a salesman for a confectionery company. He loved his job. But all the joy went after Mum went. He couldn’t look after himself, let alone me or my younger sister . . . So I did.

  ‘He thinks I can do anything.’ I give a little hiccup. ‘I wish he was right. Me getting this team leader’s job would sort out, well, all our problems.’ I sigh. ‘I don’t know how to tell him I don’t have a chance of getting it.’ I realise I’ve said this out loud. ‘I’m so sorry. Look, once again I’m sorry about the mess I caused yesterday.’ I hand over the bunch of flowers I’m clutching. They’re wilting a bit. I try to hold them straight as I hand them over. ‘I should go now. Merci.’

  ‘Merci,’ says Madame Beaumont as the flowers bend over in her hands.

  I turn and walk quickly away, down the drive. I’m just about out of the gate.

  ‘Attendez! Wait!’ Her sharp voice stops me as I reach out for the old bike. I turn back at her. The heat is starting to make my pale skin prickle and my flushing cheeks burn even more.

  ‘How can you sell what you do not know?’ she lifts her head, juts out her chin and asks again sternly.

  I shake my head and shrug. ‘I’ll just need to learn the script . . .’ I trail off.

  She looks at me and then turns. ‘Viens. Come,’ she beckons for me to follow her. At first I’m not sure I’ve heard her right. Leaving the bike, I start to walk back towards her. She stands and waits until I’m beside her. Then she calls to someone and to my surprise a large, heavy feathered-hoofed horse comes to the gate of the adjoining field.

  ‘Viens.’ She beckons with her head again and I follow her to the gate. There are still sheep wandering around in the vines and I wonder if she wants help to round them up.

 
; ‘The sheep, Madame? Would you like help catching them?’ I have no idea how to catch a sheep but I’d be willing to give it a try.

  ‘No,’ she shakes her head again. ‘They are my gardeners.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Keeping down the weeds,’ she tells me as she opens the gate and pats the horse’s huge neck. I stand back. I’m not used to such big animals. Apart from dogs I’m not used to animals at all really.

  ‘Voilà Henri,’ she introduces me to the horse, although I have no idea why. ‘My assistant,’ she tells me, and takes hold of my wrist with her bony hand and holds out my hand for him to sniff, which he does, a lot. His whiskers tickle my palm and make me smile, but she holds my hand firmly in place. I look up at his long face.

  ‘He can’t see so well. He is blind in one eye and the other is fading,’ she tells me, and I look up at his milky blue eye.

  ‘Viens,’ she instructs Henri, and with that he walks out of the gate and into the yard. I step back very quickly. I wouldn’t like to get my foot trodden on by one of those massive feathered hoofs.

  Then I stand aside and watch as the horse, with a little help from Madame Beaumont, backs himself with precision in between the two side runners of an old wooden cart that’s standing there.

  ‘How does he know where to go?’ I ask, watching in wonder.

  ‘Instinct,’ she tells me simply. ‘Now, in the barn you will find a big white drum and a sprayer. Fetch it, please.’

  I’m happy to do as I’m told. The black and white cat is there, narrowing its eyes at me.

  By the time I come out of the barn, the horse is harnessed up. I watch in awe as Madame Beaumont leads him towards the vines.

  ‘Walk with me,’ she calls to me, directing me to put the plastic barrel on the trailer. Then she looks down at my feet and tuts.

  ‘You cannot work the fields like . . . that.’

  I look down at her feet. She’s wearing clogs. I, on the other hand, am in flip-flops and I wobble and flip and flap over the uneven land behind her.

  ‘Bring boots next time.’

  She instructs the horse on slowly in between the first two rows of vines.

  ‘So, these are my “grapes”.’

  I can tell she’s teasing me and I find myself smiling. I mean, she’s right. I know nothing about them.

  ‘This is my Cabernet Sauvignon parcelle – a type of grape that grows well in these parts. Over there is my Merlot, and down the lane back towards the town I have a parcelle of Cabernet Franc.’

  ‘And what about there?’ I point to the vines running up towards the château. ‘That’s Saint Enrique over there, isn’t it?’

  Madame Beaumont looks at me sideways again, owl like, quickly moving her head and then staying very still. She gives a slight nod.

  ‘Those are mine,’ she confirms, and carries on walking, inspecting the grapes on one row of vines, occasionally stopping and lifting the leaves. Then she stops, pulls out a small pair of secateurs from her pocket and snips off a large leaf, tossing it on the back of the trailer. And I feel as if our tentative new friendship has taken a step back and she, for some reason, still mistrusts me.

  ‘The grapes must have sunlight or they will not ripen.’ She says nothing more about the other parcelle of grapes I’ve pointed out on the other side of the hill. She walks slowly on, as does the horse, stopping occasionally. She inspects each bunch, or so it seems. ‘Right now, these grapes need to fatten and fill out. We get rid of leaves that will shield them from the sun.’ She cuts off another leaf and tosses it on the back of the trailer. ‘You must nurture them if they are to grow up and do well. Even the naughtiest ones eventually learn what they must do,’ she chuckles, and then says, ‘so, you know nothing of wine and grapes?’

  ‘No,’ I confirm.

  ‘Then, why do you want to sell it?’

  We walk slowly on between the vines as I tell her about the call centre, life there, with 150 agents. I tell her how I came to be here, not by merit, but frankly luck, and about the team leader’s job, and how mine and Dad’s home now rests on my success, but that I have really no chance at all of getting it. I tell her about Candy, Cadwallader’s best-selling agent and her fiancé, Dean; Nick, in advertising, and Gloria, on catalogue knitwear. And me, on toilet rolls and cleaning fluids for restaurants, bars, care homes.

  ‘So, this could change your life, being here,’ Madame Beaumont says, walking behind the trailer as the horse moves slowly forwards.

  ‘It could,’ I sigh resignedly, ‘if I could prove myself.’

  ‘And Candy?’

  ‘Oh, she wants it. She wants a new car and the wedding of the century. She has a picture of it by her desk. We all have to put a picture of what we want most as our screen saver . . . a photo, on our computers,’ I explain when I realise she doesn’t understand screen savers.

  ‘And you? What is your . . . screen saver?’

  I swallow.

  ‘It’s a house . . . my house, with my own front door.’ Actually, it’s the cottage from The Holiday, you know, the one where Cameron Diaz moves to Kate Winslet’s gorgeous little cottage in Surrey. I just want to own my own home, put down my own roots. Have a family of my own. I love my dad and I’d always want to be close to him, but when I moved back in after Mum died, I didn’t realise I’d still be there now. Of course, he’d never sell the house. It’s where his memories are. His roots . . . and mine, too. Mum’s favourite mug is still on the rack in the kitchen, her dressing gown still hangs behind the door and there’s still a bald patch in the lawn where she burned the gravy one Sunday and threw the pan out of the window. But I would love to buy a small house nearby, just feel I was on life’s ladder, moving up like all the other agents in the office. I don’t tell her the ridiculous screen saver shots I have in my head at night. I want that big happy family, round the table at Christmas. Instead, these days, it’s just me and Dad.

  Life seems to have stood still for me and unless I can get this job, it will never move on.

  ‘And the job?’

  ‘I’d like this job, make Dad proud and be able to afford to get the bailiffs off my back. But I’m not the one who’ll get it. In fact, I’d say there are three other very suitable candidates before they’d look at me.’

  ‘Sometimes a vintage that we were least expecting to do well turns out to be very exciting indeed,’ Madame Beaumont says. She’s silent for a moment and I try to take in what she’s saying.

  Then she starts to talk me through her daily routine of checking on the vineyard.

  ‘Have you always been a wine-maker?’ I ask.

  ‘A vintner? Yes,’ she replies simply. ‘And my family before me grew vines here. Some of these vines are eighty years old, some maybe older.’

  We walk back up the next row of vines. She’s talking to the vines as if greeting a classroom full of children.

  She stops, tuts, takes the long spray attached to the barrel of liquid and sprays at a bunch of grapes.

  ‘Do you spray all the grapes?’ I remember the tractors with the long spraying arms in the fields coming up here. She tuts again.

  ‘I believe in as little intervention as possible. Let Mother Nature do her thing. These vines know what they have to do. All that spraying, it’s like giving morphine for a headache. We help, we don’t interfere.’ She bends and pulls out a weed. ‘Soon all spraying must stop, two weeks before we harvest. And then I will bottle last year’s vintage. It must be finished and the barrels cleaned ready for the new vintage to come. I think it will be an interesting one.’ Her eyes sparkle.

  As the sun sets that evening, she brings out a bottle of wine. Putting in the corkscrew she wrestles with it and I’m about to offer to do it, when, pop, out it comes, followed by a very welcome glug as she pours us each a glass of wine and we sit by her back door on an old veranda a
nd watch the sun start to set over the vines.

  ‘Thank you for showing me around today,’ I tell her, sipping the wine.

  ‘Thank you for bringing me back my purse yesterday and for helping me today.’ She sips the wine. I cannot understand why this lady has the reputation she does in the town. They clearly haven’t seen the Madame Beaumont that I have. ‘There is a lot to learn about wine,’ she tells me. ‘Not all the stuff in books but understanding the vines, the terroir.’

  I just know I’ll never learn enough.

  Then, to my surprise, she says, ‘There is much I could teach you.’

  She’s looking at me, studying my face. I shake my head. I’d never be able to learn enough. I mean, Nick seems to know about wine already, Candy is a top-selling agent, and Gloria . . . Gloria seems to speak French like a native. ‘I just don’t think I could ever be in the running.’

  ‘Lesson one. Know your enemy. See that château over there. It’s owned by a local man who has bought up vineyards all over the world. It’s what he does. He sees it and buys it. He has been trying to buy up my land for years.’ She gives a shrug. ‘They try every method but I won’t sell. While I’m alive, I will make my wine my way.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. There is so much more to learning about wine than what you’ll learn from your guidebooks. I can help teach you about wine, but you have to want to learn. If you want the job badly enough, you’ll make it happen.’

  I look at her sceptically. Trevor only sent me to make up the numbers and, in his words, to stop me causing chaos with the cleaning fluid orders. I would give anything to be like the others, like Candy, working towards their goals. Instead I just seem to be treading water, and only just stopping myself from sinking. But a little bit of me would still love to try to go for it.

  ‘Over there in Château Lavigne. They make a sparkling wine. It is said to be hand turned thousands of times, and that the men have arthritic hands from the work.’ She raises a sceptical eyebrow. ‘It’s good wine . . . if overpriced.’

  We sip our wine and I wonder how you know when a wine is overpriced. When a good wine becomes an excellent one.