Blackberry Wine

‘Come with me,’ she said at last. ‘I have a stings kit in the house. Sometimes there can be a delayed reaction.’

Carefully Jay pulled himself up the banking towards the hedge. Rosa trotted behind, closely followed by the goat. Halfway to the house Jay felt the child’s small cold hand slip into his and, looking down, he saw that she was smiling.

The house was larger than it seemed from the road, a converted barn with low gables and high, narrow windows. Halfway up the front wall, a door stared out in midair from the loft where bales of hay were once kept. An old tractor was parked by one of the outbuildings. There was a neat kitchen garden by the side of the house, a small orchard – twenty well-kept apple trees – at the back and a woodpile at the other side, with cords of carefully stacked wood for the winter. Two or three of the small brown goats wandered skittishly across the vineyard’s small paths. Jay followed Marise along the rutted pathway between the rows of vines, and Marise put out a hand to steady him as they approached the gate, though he sensed this was less out of concern for him than for the vines, which his clumsy approach might have damaged.

‘In here,’ she told him shortly, indicating the kitchen door. ‘Sit down. I’ll get the kit.’

Her kitchen was bright and tidy, with a shelf of stone jugs above a porcelain sink, a long oak table, like the one at his own farm, and a giant black stove. Bunches of herbs hung from low beams above the chimney: rosemary, sage and pennyroyal. Rosa went to the pantry and fetched some lemonade, pouring a glassful and sitting at the table to drink it, watching Jay with curious eyes.

‘Tu as mal?’ she asked.

He looked at her. ‘So you can talk,’ he said.

Rosa smiled mischievously.

‘Can I have some of that?’ Jay gestured at the glass of lemonade, and she pushed it across the table towards him. So, he told himself, she can lipread as well as sign. He wondered whether Mireille knew. Somehow he didn’t think so. Rosa’s voice was childish but steady, without any of the usual fluctuations of tone of the deaf. The lemonade was home-made and good.

‘Thank you.’

Marise flicked him a suspicious look as she came into the kitchen with the stings kit. She had a disposable syringe in one hand.

‘It’s adrenalin. I used to be a nurse.’

After a moment’s hesitation Jay held out his arm and closed his eyes.

‘There.’

He felt a small burning sensation in the crook of his elbow. There was a second’s light-headedness, then nothing. Marise was looking at him in some amusement.

‘You’re very squeamish for a man who plays with wasps.’

‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ said Jay, rubbing his arm.

‘If you behave like that, you can expect to be stung. You got away lightly.’

He supposed that was true, but it didn’t feel that way. His head was still pounding. His left eye was swollen tight and shiny. Marise went to the kitchen cupboard and brought out a shaker of white powder. She shook some into a cup, added a little water and stirred it with a spoon. Handing him the cup: ‘Baking soda,’ she advised. ‘You should put some of this onto the stings.’

She did not offer to help. Jay followed her advice, feeling rather foolish. This wasn’t how he’d envisaged their meeting at all. He said so.

Marise shrugged and turned back to the cupboard. Jay watched as she poured pasta into a pan, added water and salt, placed the pan carefully on the hob.

‘I have to make lunch for Rosa,’ she explained. ‘Take what time you need.’ In spite of her words, Jay got the distinct impression she wanted him out of her kitchen as soon as possible. He struggled with the baking soda, trying to reach the stings on his back. The brown goat poked its head around the door and bleated.

‘Clopette, non! Pas dans la cuisine!’ Rosa jumped from her place and shooed the goat away. Marise shot her a look of fierce warning, and the child put her hand over her mouth, subdued. Jay looked at her, puzzled. Why should Marise not want her child to speak in front of him? She motioned towards the table, asking Rosa to set the plates out. Rosa took out three plates from the cupboard. Marise shook her head again. Reluctantly the child replaced one of the plates.

‘Thanks for the first aid,’ said Jay carefully.

Marise nodded, busy chopping tomatoes for the sauce. There was fresh basil in a window box on the ledge and she added a fistful.

‘You have a lovely farm.

‘Oh?’ He thought he detected an edge in her voice.

‘Not that I was thinking of buying it,’ added Jay quickly. ‘I mean, it’s just a nice farm. Pretty. Unspoilt.’

Marise turned and looked at him.

‘What do you mean?’ Her face was vivid with suspicion. ‘What do you mean, buying it? Have you been talking to someone?’

‘No!’ he protested. ‘I was just trying to make conversation. I swear-’

‘Don’t,’ she said flatly. The fleeting warmth he had glimpsed in her was gone. ‘Don’t say it. I know you’ve been talking to Clairmont. I’ve seen his van parked outside your house. I’m sure he’s been giving you all kinds of ideas.’

‘Ideas?’

She laughed.

‘Oh, I know about you, Monsieur Mackintosh. Sneaking around, asking questions. First, you buy the old Chateau Foudouin, then you show a great curiosity about the land down to the river. What are you planning? Holiday chalets? A sports’ complex, like Le Pinot? Something even more exciting?’

Jay shook his head.

‘You’ve got it wrong. I’m a writer. I came here to finish my book. That’s all.’

She looked at him cynically. Her eyes were lasers.

‘I don’t want to see Lansquenet turned into Le Pinot,’ he insisted. ‘I told Clairmont right from the start. If you’ve seen his van, it’s just that he keeps delivering brocante to the farm; he’s got it into his head that I’m interested in buying junk.’

Marise began to add chopped shallots to the pasta sauce, seemingly unconvinced, but Jay thought the curve of her spine relaxed, just a little.

‘If I ask questions,’ he said, ‘it’s just because I’m a writer; I’m curious. I was blocked for years, but when I came to Lansquenet-’ He was hardly aware of what he was saying now, his eyes fixed on the hollow of her back beneath the man’s shirt. ‘The air’s different here, somehow. I’ve been writing like crazy. I’ve left everything to be here-’

She turned then, a red onion in one hand, the knife in the other.

He persisted: ‘I promise I’m not here to develop anything. For Christ’s sake, I’m sitting in your kitchen soaked to the skin and covered in baking soda. Do I look like an entrepreneur?’

She considered this for a moment. ‘Perhaps not,’ she said at last.

‘I bought the place on impulse. I didn’t even know you were… I didn’t think you… I don’t usually have impulses,’ he finished lamely.

‘I find that hard to believe,’ said Marise, smiling. ‘For a man who deliberately puts his hand into a wasps’ nest, I find it very hard.’

It was a small smile, maybe two on a scale of one to ten, but it was there anyway.

They talked after that. Jay told her about London and Kerry and Jackapple Joe. He talked about the rose garden and the vegetable patch beside the house. Of course he didn’t mention Joe’s mysterious presence and subsequent disappearance, or the six bottles, or the way she herself had infiltrated his new book. He didn’t want her to think he was crazy.

She made lunch – pasta with beans – and invited him to join them. Then they drank coffee and Armagnac. She let him change his wet clothes for a pair of Tony’s overalls while Rosa played outside with Clopette. Jay found it strange that she did not refer to Tony as her husband, but as ‘Rosa’s father’, but the rapport between them was too new, too tenuous, for him to endanger it by asking questions. When – if – she wanted to discuss Tony, she would