Blackberry Wine

The label was smeared, and in the dimness he did not try to read it. He carried it up the stairs and into the kitchen, opened, poured. A tiny chuckle emerged from the bottle’s throat as the wine filled the glass.

36

‘MY FATHER USED TO MAKE THE BEST WINE IN THE REGION,’ SAID Mireille. ‘When he died his brother Emile took over the land. After that it should have been Tony’s.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

She shrugged.

‘At least when he died it passed back to the male line,’ she said. ‘I would have hated to think it went to her, heh?’

Jay smiled, embarrassed. There seemed to be something in her which went far beyond grief. Her eyes were flaming with it. Her face was stone. He tried to imagine what it must be like to lose an only son.

‘I’m surprised she stayed,’ he told her. ‘Afterwards.’

Mireille gave a short laugh.

‘Of course she stayed,’ she said harshly. ‘You don’t know her, heh? Stayed out of sheer spite and stubbornness. Knew it was only a matter of time till my uncle died, then she’d have the estate to herself, just as she’d always wanted. But he knew what he was doing, heh. Kept her hanging on, the old dog. Made her think she could have it cheap.’ She laughed again.

‘But why should she want it? Why not leave the farm and move back to Paris?’

Mireille shrugged.

‘Who knows, heh? Maybe to spite me.’ She sipped curiously at her wine.

‘What is this?’

‘Sauternes. Oh. Damn!’

Jay couldn’t understand how he had mistaken it. The smudgy handwritten label. The yellow cord tied round the neck. Rosehip, ’74.

‘Oh damn. I’m sorry. I must have picked up the wrong bottle.’

He tried his own glass. The taste was incredibly sweet, the texture syrupy and flecked with particles of sediment. He turned to Mireille in dismay.

‘I’ll open another. I do apologize. I never meant to give you this. I don’t know how I could have mistaken the bottles-’

‘It’s quite all right.’ Mireille held on to her glass. ‘I like it. It reminds me of something. I’m not sure what. A medicine Tony had as a child, perhaps.’ She drank again, and he caught the honeyed scent of the wine from her glass.

‘Please, madame. I really-’

Firmly: ‘I like it.’

Behind her, through the window, he could still see Joe under the apple trees, the sun bright on his orange overalls. Joe waved as he saw him watching and gave him the thumbs up. Jay corked the bottle of rosehip wine again and took another mouthful from his glass, reluctant somehow to throw it away. It still tasted terrible, but the scent was pungent and wonderful – waxy red berries bursting with seeds, splitting their sides with juice into the pan by the bucketful and Joe in his kitchen with the radio playing full volume – ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ at Number One all that month – pausing occasionally to demonstrate some specious atemi learned on his travels through the Orient, and the October sunlight dazzling through the cracked panes…

It seemed to have a similar effect on Mireille, though her palate was clearly more receptive to the wine’s peculiar flavour. She took the drink in small, curious sips, each time pausing to savour the taste.

Dreamily: ‘Heh, it tastes like… rosewater. No, roses. Red roses.’

So he was not the only one to experience the special effect of Joe’s home-brewed wine. Jay watched the old woman closely as she finished the glass, anxiously scanning her expression for possible ill effects. There were none. On the contrary, her face seemed to lose some of its habitual fixed look, and she smiled.

‘Heh, fancy that. Roses. I had my own rose garden once, you know. Down there by the apple orchard. Don’t know what happened to it. Everything went to ruin when my father died. Red roses, they were, with a scent, heh! I left when I married Hugues, but I used to go there and pick my roses every Sunday while they were in bloom. Then Hugues and my father died in the same year – but that was the year my Tony was born. A terrible year. But for my dear Tony. The best summer for roses I ever remember. The house was filled with them. Right to the eaves. Heh, but this is strong wine. Makes me feel quite dizzy.’

Jay looked at her, concerned.

‘I’ll drive you home. You mustn’t walk back all that way. Not in this sun.’ Mireille shook her head.

‘I want to walk. I’m not so old that I’m afraid of a few kilometres of road. Besides’ – she jerked her head in the direction of the other farm – ‘I like to see my son’s house across the river. If I’m lucky I might catch sight of his daughter. From a distance.’

Of course. Jay had almost forgotten there was a child. Certainly he had never seen her, either in the fields or on the way to school.

‘My little Rosa. Seven years old. Haven’t been close to her since my son died. Not once.’ Her mouth was beginning to regain its customary sour tuck. Against her skirt her big misshapen hands moved furiously. ‘She knows what that’s done to me. She knows. I’d have done anything for my son’s child. I could have bought back the farm, heh, I could have given them money – God knows I’ve no-one else to give it to.’ She struggled to stand up, using her hands on the table top to hoist her bulk upwards.

‘But she knows that for that she’d have to let me see the child,’ continued Mireille. ‘I’d find out what’s happening. If they knew how she treated my Rosa; if I could only prove what she’s doing-’

‘Please.’ Jay steadied her with a hand under her elbow. ‘Don’t upset yourself. I’m sure Marise looks after Rosa as well as she can.’

Mireille snapped him a contemptuous look. ‘What do you know about it, heh? Were you there? Were you perhaps hiding behind the barn door when my son died?’ Her voice was brittle. Her arm felt like hot brick beneath his fingers.

‘I’m sorry. I was only-’

Mireille shook her head effortfully. ‘No, it is I who should apologize. The sun and the strong wine, heh? It makes my tongue run wild. And when I think of her my blood boils – heh!’ She smiled suddenly, and Jay caught an unexpected glimpse of the charm and intelligence beneath the rough exterior. ‘Forget what I said, Monsieur Jay. And let me invite you next time. Anyone can point you to my house.’

Her tone allowed no refusal.

‘I’d be pleased to. You can’t imagine how happy I am to find someone who can bear my dreadful French.’

Mireille looked at him closely for a second, then smiled. ‘You may be a foreigner, but you have the heart of a Frenchman. My father’s house is in good hands.’

Jay watched her go, picking her way stiffly along the overgrown path towards the boundary, until she finally vanished behind the screen of trees at the end of the orchard. He wondered whether her roses still grew there.

He poured his glass of wine back into the bottle and stoppered it once more. He washed the glasses and put away the gardening tools in the shed. It was only then that he realized. After days of inactivity, struggling to put together the fugitive pieces of his unfinished novel, he could see it again, bright as ever, like a lost coin shining in the dust.

He ran for the typewriter.

* * *