Gregory was disappointed to find that the wine appreciation class had been cancelled. There was a note on the door to the classroom they used which said, ‘Cancelled due to the weather’. He had been looking forward to tonight. The tutor had promised to show them a video called ‘Great Cellars of the World’.
Gregory was thinking about converting his own cellar at home into a wine store. The central heating boiler would have to be moved, and a few pipes diverted, but he felt it would be worth it for the pleasure of strolling along the racks before dinner each night, selecting something that went with the food. As he walked along the sixth form college corridors towards the exit, he wondered how many years it took before thick dust settled on a bottle. The tutor wore a brown overall in his own cellar, he’d informed the class. In his mind’s eye Gregory saw himself climbing his own cellar steps whilst wiping the bottle clean.
As he left the warmth of the building and crossed the carpark towards his car, he tried to estimate how much racking he would need. He’d do all the work himself, he thought. No sense in paying a carpenter for such a simple job.
He stopped off at an off-licence on the way home, and spent ten minutes selecting a wine that would go with ham salad and pineapple upside-down cake. After careful deliberation he chose a £4.99 Riesling which he felt would not swamp the flavours of the food.
Gregory let himself in and immediately noticed that the safety chain was broken. His first instinct was to shout Angela’s name, but then he saw a dog, a bull terrier, come out of the kitchen and stand growling at the end of the hall. Gregory had never been that keen on dogs, but he was terrified of bull terriers. Weren’t they the ones that savaged kiddies? He backed off and felt behind him for the handle of the front door. In seconds he was outside on the porch again.
Terrible images filled his mind. A burglar, a rapist. Angela tied up and defiled.
He listened intently but could hear nothing but the traffic passing at the top of the road. He unlocked the garage door and without switching on the light walked through it past the junk stored inside and into the garden.
He couldn’t see at first, such was the glare of the lights on the snow. Then he made out three figures. One was Angela, one was a tall man, and one was a child in a white coat, red scarf and Gregory’s own blue and white football hat. Because Angela and the tall man were embracing, it took Gregory some time before he realised that the small person in the white coat was a snowman.
As he watched the tall man pressing his mouth against Angela’s mouth he felt as though a giant were treading on his chest. When the man undid her coat and stroked her breasts, Gregory retreated back inside the garage. It wasn’t seemly to watch.
He leaned against his wooden workbench and tried to calm himself. He was surprised to find that his whole body was trembling with desire for his wife. He let himself out of the garage, and got into his car and drove to a petrol station, where he picked up a sack of logs from the forecourt. He then drove back home and saw the tall man and the dog crossing the road near his house. He drove around the block several times to give Angela time in which to compose herself, then he revved the engine noisily and parked outside their house.
He wondered how she would explain the snowman to him. He decided not to confront her with what he’d seen. The thought of listening to her lies thrilled him almost as much as the sight of another man desiring his wife’s body. It was an affirmation that Gregory owned a prize.
Gregory smiled when he saw the clumsy repair that had been made to the security chain on the door. He went into the kitchen with the logs and the wine and found Angela stirring custard in a pan on the stove.
“You’re just in time,” she said. The lights were out in the garden, but he could see the shape of the snowman through the reflection on the kitchen window.
She’d set the table for one. A plate of ham salad was ready for him.
“How was the class?” she said.
“Very good. We had a video, ‘Great Cellars of the World’.”
He watched her face carefully as she poured the custard into a glass jug. Her lipstick was freshly applied. He wanted her badly. He took the sack of logs into the living room and lit a fire, using kindling already in the hearth, then cajoled it into life by blowing on the flames. He crouched in front of it until Angela called him through to the kitchen. She had opened the wine and had already drunk half a glass. He knew that she would drink heavily tonight, and he was glad. There were some things he wanted to tell her about himself and he didn’t want her to be entirely sober when he did so. Before he sat down to eat, he filled her glass to the very top, then he ate in silence and watched his wife as she first inverted the Pyrex dish on to a dinner plate, then lifted it, like a conjuror, to reveal a perfect pineapple upside-down cake.