6. Cabernet Sauvignon
Intense flavours with surprising bursts of fruit.

There was a queue at the gift shop entrance outside Bleak House. Women fanned themselves, children grizzled, a couple of red-faced men in shorts guffawed loudly. It was hot! The beach was packed. Gaynor had walked along the jetty, looked at the screaming kids and hordes of summer Saturday chip and ice-cream eaters and dived into the relative calm and coolness of the wine bar. It was quiet in here – a couple sat in the window eating Greek salads, two or three more sat around the bar. Including, Gaynor noticed, Richard, who was reading his paper and studiously ignoring Sarah who stood behind the bar with a tea towel in her hand. “I didn’t expect to see you till tomorrow,” Sarah said, surprised.

“Just passing. Victor’s still away.” Gaynor shrugged. “Where is everyone?”

“Enjoying the sunshine, where I should be.” Sarah sighed and looked at her watch. “I’m going to take Bel and Charlie to the beach as soon as we close. You OK?”

“Sure.”

Down in the kitchen, Claire was instructing Benjamin on the art of portion control. “About this much,” she said, wielding a large knife above the cheeseboard. “Fully booked for food tonight!” she said to Gaynor over her shoulder.

“That’s good.” Gaynor waited until Benjamin was artfully arranging grapes on the wooden platter. “It’s all going well, then?”

She felt a bit guilty at how hard Claire and Sarah were working. The hours were endless and though the deal had been that they would run everything and Gaynor need only help out when she wanted to, she felt she should be doing more.

“Shall I come down and help this evening?”

Claire flashed her a sudden smile. “That would be great, actually. I didn’t realise quite how many staff we would need. Really – anything you can do…”

“I’d love to.”

She might as well. It was either that or another night alone in front of the TV. For a brief moment she thought of offering her services right now but the washing up loomed over Benjamin’s shoulder and, knowing Claire, she’d have her in Marigolds in no time. Gaynor went back upstairs. “Can I do anything?” she asked Sarah.

Sarah looked around. “Not really,” she said.

Gaynor thought of the children waiting upstairs. “I’ll finish off if you like,” she said. “You can take the kids to the beach now.”

Sarah held out her arms. “You’re a life-saver.”

Gaynor kissed the top of Bel’s head as she came through the back of the bar, carrying a bucket. Charlie puckered his own lips.

“I’m going to dive off the end of the jetty,” he told Gaynor proudly.

“Goodness,” she said. “Don’t bang your head on a rock.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Don’t say that or he probably will. We’ve practically got our own chair at A & E as it is.” She smiled at Gaynor. “Thanks again for this.”

“No problem.” Gaynor waved them goodbye and bent to stack more glasses into the washer. And it really wasn’t, she thought, straightening again as the Greek salad couple approached to pay their bill. In here, working behind the bar, she felt as though she had a role and a purpose. She was useful and wanted. Neither of which seemed true at home.

“Thank you,” she said as she handed back a credit card and acknowledged the tip with a smile. “Thank you very much.”

She said goodbye to Claire, crossed the road and wandered up the path towards the clifftop. As she reached the top and the two white cottages just past Bleak House, she slowed and looked. The garden of the nearest one was fantastic. Usually she walked straight past, but today Gaynor stopped. She didn’t know the names of all the flowers but it was the sort of garden she loved best: banks of hollyhocks and delphiniums, a hotchpotch of lavender bushes and lupins, sweet peas, and a tangle of honeysuckle and ivy growing up the wall. The sort of garden that looked as if it just happened and which probably took three times the work of the tulipsin-rows creations. She remembered going to the Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley and seeing the meadow with its long grasses and wild flowers. “Can’t we do that at the bottom of the garden?” she’d asked Victor. “Get some wild flower seeds and just sort of scatter them?” He’d looked at her pityingly.

A large grey cat leapt up on to the wall beside her making her jump. She felt a jolt of recognition. She reached out a hand to stroke him and he arched his back, lifting his head for her to caress his throat as he purred deeply. “You’re beautiful,” she said.

“He’s a rascal.”

She hadn’t heard the speaker come up and this time the feeling of recognition was far less pleasant. Sam the sign-writer was standing a yard or two away, wearing faded shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, bare brown feet in worn leather sandals. Oh God. Gaynor’s insides shrivelled into an immediate cringe. She’d had no idea he lived here – she’d have walked round the roads behind if she’d known.

Her toes curled as she remembered draping an arm around him. How bloody embarrassing. What could she say? I don’t usually behave like that? (Even if patently untrue) Sorry to have brought my revolting self into your line of

vision again so soon? (His look of horror the other night would stay with her forever.) Thank you, my ego is suitably wilted so excuse me while I sprint home and put a Tesco bag on my head? (My husband would no doubt approve.)

Or what?

In the end, she heard herself say, in a high, false voice sounding like the wife of the Chairman of the Rotary Club when Victor had been called upon to give an after-dinner talk on the power of advertising, “He’s lovely. Burmese isn’t he?”

Sam nodded. “He is.”

“My God-mother had one when I was a child.” Gaynor gave a silly little laugh. “Exactly the same colour. Blue, is it? He was called Sidney,” she added, feeling stupid.

“This is Brutus,” said Sam. Brutus rubbed himself against Gaynor’s arm. They both looked at him in silence.

“Your garden’s lovely, too.” Well done, Gaynor, Oh Queen of the adjectives. Why didn’t she just say goodbye and walk off?

He looked around at it. Leant out and plucked a deadhead from a fuchsia bush.

“I love forget-me-nots,” she said desperately. He nodded.

“We’ve got a gardener but we call him Dig-`em-up. Dig-’em-up Don. He worked for the council for years and that’s all he knows. He used to put in all the plants in rows and then three months later...”

“He dug ’em up again,” Sam finished for her and suddenly smiled. He looked completely different.

“Yes, that’s right.” If Victor could hear her, he would tell her she was twittering. “He put in a load of forget-menots once. They were gorgeous – they’d just started to look really good – you know, spread out – and I came home and found them on the compost heap. He said they always did that in June.”

Sam’s smile had gone. “It’s a mentality,” he said. “There are a lot of people like that.” He nodded at a cloud of blue. “They self-seed if you leave them. Why don’t you do the garden yourself?”

“I’d be no good at it. I’m too impatient. And you have to keep doing it, don’t you? It’s like housework. The moment you’ve finished, it’s time to do it again. Very tedious.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have someone to do that, too?”

“Yes. I’m a spoilt, rich bitch.” She gave another self-conscious laugh.

He didn’t reply – just looked at her.

She felt uncomfortable. “Look,” she said, stroking Brutus, studying the back of his collar, feeling her face heat up. “I’m sorry about the other night. I was drunk and I was… I’m sorry.”

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

“What?”

“Come in – I’ll bring it out.”

He opened the gate for her, not looking at her as she walked through. He indicated the chairs and table on the small patio outside the open door to the cottage. The locals called them the Fishermen’s Cottages but this one was long and low with large picture windows – a sort of chalet bungalow. Inside she could see a leather armchair. A table piled with books.

“Um, no milk, please.”

He stopped. “Darjeeling?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He went inside. Brutus had disappeared too. She wished she could have him on her lap to stroke – to give her something to do. Instead she fiddled with her bracelets. She felt like a child left outside the head’s office, waiting to be reprimanded.

He came back carrying two mugs. Put one on the table in front of her, sat down opposite. She felt them both waiting. She looked into her tea, wishing she’d gone home when she had the chance.

“I’m sorry, too.” He sounded gruff, angry almost. “I behaved badly. I’m not proud of it.”

She felt embarrassed. “No, I’m the one… Throwing myself at someone I’d barely met. I was a bit upset and I hadn’t eaten and…”

“You needed a hug.” His mug had a spoon in it. He began to stir slowly. She sat motionless, stiff with surprise.

“And God knows, I’ve been there. I should have been gentler.” He looked up and met her eyes properly for the first time. “The thing is that it’s so long since I was in that situation, I’ve forgotten what to do.”

She needed to get on safer ground. She laughed, in best coquettish fashion. “I can’t believe that. I’m sure hundreds of women have thrown themselves at you in your time.”

He laughed too, without humour. “Not for a very long time.”

“Well, that just shows it’s never too late.”

“I think it may be.”

“How old are you?” she said without thinking.

“Fifty.”

Bloody hell. He was only two years older than Victor. When she’d first seen him she’d thought him much more. Looking at him now, she saw that while his eyes were bright and young, his face had a lived-in, been-there look, whereas Victor’s always looked smooth and pampered. She faltered. “And your wife?”

“Dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. Some time ago now.”

“Have you got children?” She didn’t know what else to say – she was locked into it now, asking inane questions, making conversation.

“Yes, two. It was hard on them when their mother died. Hard to see someone suffer like that.”

“Was it cancer?”

“Yes.”

She wanted to go. His blue eyes made her uncomfortable. But her mug was still full, she’d only been there a few minutes – she didn’t know how to get up and leave.

“So have you always been a sign-writer?” She took another mouthful of tea and smiled.

“No.”

“Chatty, aren’t you?”

He looked at her hard and she felt herself squirm. “The long answers aren’t very entertaining. What about you? Are you married? Do you have children?”

She made her voice chirpy. “Yes and no. To both parts of the question. I am married but it doesn’t feel like it. I can’t have children but I have a step-daughter. She’s pregnant.” She didn’t know why she’d told him.

“Is that why you needed a hug?”

He showed no inclination to talk about himself but by the third cup of Darjeeling he knew a lot about her. For all his monosyllabic grunting, he had a way of listening, of looking at her as if what she said mattered. A way of asking the one incisive question that would cut to the heart of the matter. She wouldn’t have believed she could tell a stranger so much. Somehow, barely realising it, she told him there were problems between her and Victor, her feelings about Chloe and Oliver and how, although she’d had loads of casual jobs she’d never really found what you’d call a career, and her new and extraordinary pleasure in buying a share in Greens and being part of something. He nodded.

It was as if, she thought, looking at this strange, remote man in his soft faded clothes and two days of stubble, some curious mixture of sympathy and pain etched on his face, it was as if he cared…

She kissed him when she left. It was what she did. She went into automatic – thanked him for the tea, leant up and kissed his cheek. She would have kissed both of them but she was stalled by his rigid face. He didn’t bend towards her to return the gesture. Just held himself very stiff and straight.

Even his skin felt cool. She stepped back, rebuffed, feeling as foolish as when she’d arrived. Then he touched her arm. “It’s me,” he said. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

She looked at him, confused. Strange words, she thought. As she wandered home along the cliff top, oddly unsettled, she realised they were the very opposite of what Victor would say.