By Wednesday, Rina Stein had a dilemma. She had about eighty hectares of vineyard all coming into the sweet spot, with Easter right round the corner. Immovable object meets irresistible force. Try telling a fruit contractor they might need to work Good Friday or Easter Sunday, and see how far it got you. Then try telling a grape to slow how fast it got ripe.
Adding to Rina’s quandary, one of those vineyards was Remy Roberts’. Usually, grapegrowers made their own arrangements for picking their fruit, but for his own reasons Seth had agreed to pay for the pickers at Remy’s block. So now it was Rina who had to do the work to lock it in. Good old Rina, she grumbled. Rina will fix it.
Seth said he thought Remy’s fruit should be ready Thursday or Friday.
Rina’s mood darkened as she drove along Red Gum Valley Road, slowing because she knew the driveway must be coming up soon and the trees were thick.
Seth said the property wasn’t far after the turn off to Quarry Road, on the left. Rina slowed further, checking her rear-view mirror for traffic, trying to ditch the feeling she was being watched, and she shouldn’t be here. She had every right to be here. Seth was Remy’s viticulture liaison officer but Seth wasn’t here and that meant Rina had to cover. If he wanted the fruit off this week it was up to Rina to check it met specification.
She almost missed the driveway and had to brake hard to make the turn.
Rina picked up speed as she wound alongside a dry winter creek, hoping Remy wasn’t home. She didn’t want to have to make small talk with her. She didn’t want to see her. Remy always looked at her funny, like she knew.
Slowing as she neared Remy’s house, she let out a big sigh of relief. She couldn’t see any other cars or people. She parked under a huge ugly pine tree at one corner of the house, picked out her plastic bags and labelling equipment, and climbed out.
It was a pretty enough property, if a bit wild for her taste. She liked gardens how she liked her pubic hair: all clipped and trimmed, with nice neat edges. Remy’s garden looked like David Attenborough might pop out from behind a bush at any moment with some rare bug clinging to his finger.
A huge block-headed dog trotted out to the front of the property, barked a couple of times like it didn’t trust her being there, but it didn’t come off the verandah and she was glad. If it had, she would have been back in the car and out of this place. Bugger those grapes.
Then she looked more closely at the mutt on the steps.
‘I know you,’ she muttered.
It was Occhilupo, and Occhy being here meant whatever Seth had going on with Remy was more serious than the kiss the newspaper was crowing about. If his bloody dog was strutting around like he owned the place, what did that mean? Was Seth living here too? Already?
How had that all happened so fast? How had she missed it? Ailsa would be furious.
Hurt and disappointment cannoned into the black rock of emotions she thought long buried when it came to Seth. The wave of it sent Rina slumping back in the driver’s seat. She felt sick, cold all over although the sun on her legs was warm, and God she felt stupid. Unbelievably stupid that she’d missed what had been happening right in front of her eyes.
All the signs were there. They were the same as the signs of five years ago: Seth smiling more, frowning less, leaving work early, getting in late. There were times she’d tried to ring him and his number rang engaged for an hour. Then last weekend he hadn’t come to the winery at all.
There were other signs too. Rina had overheard Maggie Castle tell Lewis Carney that Seth seemed more relaxed.
He was relaxed because he was in love. With Remy. Again.
It took several minutes of steady breathing with the driver’s door open and her head on her knees before Rina felt able to move.
On the verandah, Occhilupo yawned. Huge yawn. Lots of teeth.
Her brain started working again. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Seth’s trip back to Lasrey headquarters in WA had been a spur-of-the-moment decision so he could take care of that idiot winemaker at their Great Southern winery—Bainbridge. It was natural Seth wouldn’t take Occhilupo with him, and he knew Remy liked dogs.
For someone supposed to be taking care of the animal, Remy wasn’t doing much of a job at it, Rina thought. Occhilupo could wander. He might get hit by a car on the road. He could bite someone. There were sheep in the neighbour’s paddock. He might chase them.
I should call the ranger.
‘Come on, Occhy,’ you big ugly dog. ‘Come on. Let’s get you back behind the fence.’ She approached the dog and brought him around Remy’s verandah to the back. He licked the back of her hand and she wiped his nuzzle mark distastefully on her uniform pants.
When she reached the gate, she saw another dog in the yard. Smaller, but still a living wall of muscle and teeth. Why couldn’t people get normal dogs? Little fluffy ones that couldn’t take your leg off in a gulp.
Why didn’t this one get out if Occhilupo had?
Not my problem.
When Rina opened the gate, Occhilupo arrowed through the gap—nearly tore the gate out of her hand—and both dogs raced to the back of the garden. There was a fair bit of snapping and snarling and growling. Rina hoped she hadn’t done the wrong thing. What if they killed each other?
Again. Not my problem.
Shutting the gate, she trudged away from the house and up into the vineyard to take her fruit samples, cursing Remy as she walked, feeling twitchy as hell the entire way, as if the vines had eyes.
No matter what happened to Remy, the girl had the knack of bouncing back. She was like a fucking spring. Boing. Boing. Boing.
Rina passed a pump shed near the dam. It wasn’t a big shed. Not big enough for vineyard equipment or chemicals. She wondered where Remy kept stuff like that and decided they must be in sheds closer to the house.
Moving quickly, Rina expertly collected grapes for her maturity sample, putting the berries into plastic bags and labelling them for measuring in the lab at the winery later. Some she sampled, using her tongue and her winemaking skill as her only instruments. Remy’s fruit burst with flavour. As sauvignon blanc went, this was damn good. If it wasn’t perfect now, it would be very soon. The fruit was right in that so-called sweet pocket winemakers loved.
There’d been talk of big rains coming—an early break to autumn. The news was full of it because of fears it might ruin the horseracing picnic carnival they held near here every Easter. Apparently it made the racetrack heavy, or dead.
Rina thought about that for a while as she stood in Remy’s vineyard with sunshine all around and clouds of frustration and jealousy in her head.
It would be a shame if a rainstorm caused Remy’s fruit to split … but, if it rained, it rained. Rina had been blamed for a lot of things in her time, some right, some wrong.
She couldn’t be blamed for the weather.
She made a note in her diary: ‘slight acid on tasting. Test again Saturday.’ When she got back to the winery, she’d calibrate the refractometer ever so slightly wrong. It would give the sample she’d taken a false read. If she got her measurements right, the readings would show Remy’s fruit as being not quite ready. If a storm came at the weekend, this fruit would still be on the vines.
Remy wouldn’t have any fruit worth selling. ‘Petty, but poetic,’ Rina said to herself.
Glad to be done with Remy’s place, Rina hurried down the hill. She put the fruit samples in the coolbox. The snapping and snarling from the rear of Remy’s cottage showed no sign of abating. Again, Rina hoped she’d done the right thing. Maybe she should ring the ranger anyway?
Who cared if it got Remy in trouble? She should take better care of Seth’s dog.
***
Remy spent Wednesday morning working on a garden for a lady who lived in Birdwood—a paid job this time—and on the way home she’d called into Mulberry Mews to check the seedlings she and Seth planted. Call her sentimental, but she had a vested interest in the garden they’d created together, thriving.
Lucy and Madge offered her tea, and Ernie decided he should do a spot of watering. They were in the garden keeping Ernie company when Remy’s phone rang.
‘This is Brian Stratton from the Mount Barker ranger service. I’m looking for Remy Roberts?’
‘This is Remy,’ she said, with the kind of sinking feeling you get when you expect to hear bad news. Why else would a ranger ring? ‘What’s happened?’
‘Remy we have a dog registered to you, it’s an American Staffordshire Terrier, tan and white bitch called Breeze?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ What’s she done now?
‘We’ve had a report of a brindle male dog loose on your property.’
‘I’m looking after that dog. He wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ and then she added: ‘Who reported it?’
Madge’s and Lucy’s ears pricked. Ernie missed it. He was too busy watering.
‘I can’t tell you that, sorry. I assume it must have been a delivery person, or a meter reader, or a neighbour—although usually a neighbour calls the dog’s owner directly. Anyway, apparently the dog wasn’t aggressive but the caller didn’t like that it was running loose. They were concerned about it getting hit if it wandered onto the road, or that it might chase sheep, so the caller said they shut the dog in your backyard.’
Remy’s heart sank. ‘Oh no.’
‘Is that problem?’
‘Normally both dogs would be in behind my fence, Brian. But my bitch is on heat and I’ve had to separate them. That’s the whole reason the male was outside the gate. If he’s inside now …’ She left the sentence unfinished.
‘Leaving the male untethered is probably not the smartest thing to do anyway. If the female is on heat, other male dogs could come from miles around. If they run into an untethered male you could have all kinds of trouble on your hands. Maybe I better take a drive out there.’
‘I’m on my way home now, Brian. I’m twenty minutes away.’
‘Okay. Because someone rang it in, I’ll still have to come out there, so I’ll be there soon.’
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks for your cooperation. If you’re looking after that male dog for any length of time, he should get registered here too, okay?’
Remy had no idea if Occhy was registered in Western Australia. She assumed he was. ‘I’ll check with the dog’s owner. Thanks, Brian.’
She hung up.
The ranger was right. She hadn’t thought of the problems that Occhy might pose if other dogs came to her property. The Williams had working kelpies. They’d be no match for a dog like Occhilupo if it came down to a fight. Not that Occhy was a fighter.
She’d have to tell Rina to make sure the picking contractors knew not to bring dogs on to her property when they came to pick her grapes. Not while Breeze was on heat.
‘Always stuff to think about,’ she muttered.
‘Dog trouble, Remy dear?’ Madge said.
‘You can say that again.’
‘I knew a couple who used to breed dogs in Strathalbyn. When their little girl was in season, every dog in town would hang outside their front gate,’ Lucy said.
‘Is that right, Lucy?’ Remy said, wondering what age oldies got before their hearing wasn’t so sharp.
Ernie, bless him, just kept watering.
***
Remy drove on the speed limit from the Mews. A couple of times she passed semi-trailers carrying crates of grapes and had to pull over to the side of the road. Because she was in a rush, the delays chafed, and it felt like the journey took longer than normal.
At the front of her house, she parked and turned off the engine. The second she climbed out of the car she heard a shrill, choked-off sound that made her wince in sympathy.
Maybe Breeze cornered a possum, or a cat? But it didn’t quite sound like that.
Remy sprinted toward the nightmare now billowing out of control in her imagination. Breeze caught by the collar somehow, slowly strangling; Breeze with her paw impaled on a rose bush. Unlatching the gate, rushing through, calling as she ran—she burst through the middle part of the garden, passed the stable, and stopped in her tracks.
Both dogs were near the silver birch trees, Occhy with his front legs up on Breeze’s back, humping like his life depended on it.
‘You horny bugger,’ Remy said, dropping to her knees in the thick mulch by Breeze. She didn’t growl. She didn’t want to startle either animal into any false move.
The fright and pain in Breeze’s brown eyes and the panic in her squeals cut at Remy’s heart. She stroked Breeze’s tan and white head, held her collar and tried to offer comfort, knowing how important it was to keep her still. She could hurt Occhy if she tried to pull away. Remy put a hand on Occhy’s collar too.
There was a book on Am Staffs in her bookshelf. It had a chapter on the whole breeding thing, but it was a while now since she’d read it. Occhy was heavy and Breeze wouldn’t stand still, and her shrill cries never stopped.
‘Well, that looks like fun.’
Remy spun around. Coming fast out of the shade near the stable strode a man in a fawn-coloured uniform.
My hero. ‘You must be the ranger. I’m Remy.’
‘Yep. I’m Brian. You look like you’ve got your hands full.’
Remy was being pulled in two, trying to hold the animals from where she sat. ‘Can you help me? I have no idea what to do.’
The ranger squatted near the two dogs. ‘Let’s try this.’
He took Occhy’s hind leg and raised it over Breeze’s back. It left the two dogs standing, still linked, back to back. Or arse to arse, for want of a more technically correct term.
‘That doesn’t look like it should be anatomically possible,’ Remy said, but she could see Breeze calm immediately. The awful squealing stopped.
‘Success,’ Remy said to Brian.
‘Yeah, maybe. You never know with dogs. The whole thing’s pretty hit or miss.’ He was quite serious.
‘I just meant I was glad she’s calmer now. I don’t really want her to have puppies.’
He looked at her like she was a parent of a wayward teenager, caught with his pants around his ankles and his girlfriend on the bed.
So, this is awkward.
‘I guess this is all in a day’s work for you, hey?’ she asked him, because surely conversation was better than silence at a time like this. Perhaps he saw this sort of thing all the time. Perhaps he sat on the grass beside two dogs fucking, trying to un-see what was happening, every second day of the year.
‘This is a bit out of the usual. We see some very strange things.’
I can only imagine. ‘How long is this supposed to take? They’ve already been at it ten minutes.’
‘It could take twenty. It can take half an hour. It’s over when it’s over. Then he’ll have a cigarette.’
Remy laughed out loud and they settled in to wait.
***
Later, she called Seth. Infuriatingly, he thought the whole thing was funny. ‘Love was always going to find a way, Rem.’
‘Love didn’t have anything to do with it. Just some nosey meter-reader do-gooder who would be better off keeping their nose out of it, and your bloody horny dog taking advantage of mine when she’s vulnerable.’
He chuckled. ‘It’s too late to worry about it now.’
Remy gave up. Seth was right. No harm was done.
‘I’ll call my vet tomorrow and see what he says I should do. I really don’t want puppies.’
‘I think mini Occhy and Breeze would be kind of cute.’
‘For a tycoon, you’re such a softie.’