Grape Expectations (4 page)

  I felt like I was in a dream and would wake up at any moment. This was not what a normal person like me did. It was far too risky, it was not rational, but it was also intoxicatingly exciting.

  We moved out of our home. The sale had proceeded even faster than the agent forecast. Ellie slept and Sophia watched packing operations while Sean and I cleaned cupboards.

  'Don't take my chair!' yelled Sophia as her high chair disappeared into the back of the van.

  Before I could explain, she spied her polar bear going the same way and shouted: 'They're putting Floppy on the truck!' I promised we would see the chair and Floppy at our new house in France in a few weeks.

  Sophia was a very composed young lady. I explained what we were doing again and she nodded sagely. We had already talked about the move but she had no frame of reference for it. She was only two and had never known anything but that house. It was our first real home, where both our daughters were born, the place where we felt truly settled for the first time in our married lives. She knew something big was up.

  Sean and I tried not to look too far ahead, focusing on moving to our rental house that would be our home for four weeks while we worked out our notice at our respective jobs, participated in numerous planned farewells with work and friends and held Ellie's christening. Although everything was official with the vineyard purchase, we had read that nothing was certain until the final transaction went through, at which point we would be installed in France with no turning back. A few hours later the moving truck, jam-packed with our belongings, pulled away from the driveway and we locked our house for the last time. We were leaving our friends and familiar comforts. We drove to our furnished weekly rental armed with survival rations of clothes, baby equipment and paperwork. I choked back my sobs. I didn't want to upset the girls but a river of sadness flowed over me. I swallowed hard.

  That evening Sophia looked worried.

  'We forgot my sandpit,' she said, large tears forming in her eyes.

  I assured her it would be delivered to us in France. She looked doubtful. Thinking it would give her something concrete about where we were going, I showed her an ancient map that included our vineyard, Château Haut Garrigue. Then we looked up the meaning of
'garrigue'
: herbal scrubland populated with lavender, thyme, rosemary and scrub oak; commonly found in Provence. In old French it also meant chalky hill which must have been the origin of the name since our new home was five hours' drive from Provence.

  The weeks of farewell parties and tying up loose ends flew by. Colleagues and friends were incredulous. Our GP said, 'You're brave… or mad… or both.' An accounting friend said, 'That's risk with a capital "R".' Both were right. The excitement was mounting but so was the stress. On the eve of our move to France, Sean ignored me, drank too much and watched television instead of packing.

  'How can you watch TV when we are making the most important move of our lives?' I yelled. I had been packing and cleaning non-stop for what seemed like days. 'There is still a mountain to pack!'

  'It's my life. If I want to watch this film I will,' he said, turning back to the TV.

  'It's not only your life,' I screamed. 'It's all our lives. We're moving country in a few hours.'

  It ignited one of the severest fights we had ever had. We yelled stinging insults at each other until Sean said dismissively, 'Just go to bed.' I decided to bow out before things turned even more nasty. Sean continued to watch his movie and I stomped upstairs to check on Ellie and Sophia.

  Was this the way Sean would handle our new life? How could we possibly get through our first harvest if we couldn't keep our heads while packing our cases?

  Sean was the love of my life. I had known from the moment we met fifteen years before. Back then, he was a handsome journalist covering the momentous political change in South Africa. Creative and tall, with long, blonde, wavy hair, he was my ideal man. I was besotted. He took me to parts of Johannesburg I had never heard of, to jive to African reggae in colourful rooms thick with marijuana and hope. He helped me to see life through a wider lens. He never accepted the status quo.

  Sean was happier as a journalist than as the financial writer he had been for the last eight years. He had committed himself to it and succeeded, acquiring the coveted and gruelling certified financial analyst title. In the last year, along with a full-time job and a very young family, he held down a second part-time job lecturing to Masters in Finance students in the evenings at a local university. It had meant more pressure and less time at home but it added to our savings and helped realise our dream – that was rapidly turning into a nightmare…

  The girls were sleeping peacefully despite our screaming match. I got into bed exhausted and switched off the light. My mind continued to churn. If this move was going to jeopardise our relationship, I did not want to go through with it. Sean was more important to me than following this dream.

  But it was too late. The high-pitched beep of our alarm clock exploded through my brain and I scrambled to switch it off. In a few hours we would be on French soil.

  Still smarting from our fight I jabbed Sean aggressively in the ribs then went downstairs to brew strong tea. The kitchen was pristine and everything was packed. Sean must have stayed up almost all night after his film ended. I felt contrite.

  Soon we were staring blearily over mountains of luggage at a timid dawn through a taxi window. Sophia and Ellie looked remarkably wide-eyed, despite our best attempts to keep them asleep. As we passed familiar streets filled with memories from almost a decade of our life, tears welled up in my eyes.

  We arrived at the airline counter with our two-storey trolley of luggage. The airline representative looked at us with mild amusement and I muttered something about moving country. Her eyes flicked over the stratospheric total on the scale and she handed us our boarding cards. She hadn't charged a cent for excess. Soon we were in France, navigating our luggage mountain out of Bordeaux airport.

  'I think we should go straight to Haut Garrigue,' said Sean.

  'I want to go to the B&B. We'll see it in a few days,' I replied.

  I had booked a B&B on a local vineyard that was a few kilometres from Haut Garrigue. It looked authentic and clean but most importantly I hoped that staying with winegrowers meant we could learn something.

  'But it's on the route.'

  Sean was naturally desperate to show me our new abode. But I was in denial. I wanted to go home.

  I was scared. I didn't want to be disappointed. By the time we reached the Bergerac exit on the Bordeaux ring road, thanks to Sean's persuasion and my own curiosity I capitulated. Before long we were climbing the hill into Saussignac. It was a postcard-perfect French village with a magnificent château looking onto the main
place
, or square, with a restaurant on the opposite side and a second square with a small park, post office, bread shop and church. A few houses later we passed the school and a few vineyards and took a well-worn road past the cemetery and three new-looking houses. Then Château Haut Garrigue was in front of us. No warning, no avenue of trees, no signs, just a bunch of dishevelled buildings at the end of a short, bumpy dirt road.

  The owners' dogs thrashed around the car. There was broken equipment lying around the yard. The house looked worse than the photos had promised. The shutters were eaten away by rot and termites.

  We got out of the car and were offered a tour of the property. The fence around the 3-metre-high terrace was rusted away, making it a deathtrap for children. The place was thoroughly rundown. I looked at the date, 1737, etched above the cellar and thought 'Oh my God, what have we done?' then swallowed back a wave of tears and tried to concentrate on the view. The natural splendour of the valley sprawling below, decked out in the bright greens of summer, was breathtaking.

  The owner continued the tour inside. It was beyond a nightmare. The main house was filthy. The renovation required was terrifying. The potential of the place, with its views and deep history, was clear, but the prospect of living in it with Ellie a mere five months old filled me with horror. After the visit we sat at the outdoor table to talk through the final details for the property transaction that was due to take place the following week. The dogs rollicked over to Ellie's buggy and slavered on her tiny hands. I grabbed a wipe and cleaned them before she could put them into her mouth. On my way into the kitchen to throw away the wipe, I saw a pack of gastroenteritis dog medicine on the table. I sprinted back out and lifted Ellie from her pram well out of the dogs' reach, wiping her hands frantically. We couldn't risk Ellie's health another second.

  I made an excuse about needing to feed the kids and strapped Ellie into her car seat, motioning to Sean to leave urgently. 'Sweet divine, it's much more rundown and dirty than I recall from my visit,' said Sean as we took off.

  'I liked the doggies,' said Sophia.

  I filled Sean in on the gastroenteritis tablets I had seen, a small ball of angst for Ellie forming in my stomach. It was clear to both of us that the first priority once we moved in was cleaning and disinfecting the house.

  As we drove to the B&B that would be our home for ten days as we waited for the property transaction to complete we discussed plans for the coming weeks. Despite the horrors we'd seen we were remarkably upbeat. While the filth and renovation were more daunting than I imagined, the natural beauty, views and history of the property created magic that far exceeded my expectations. We were embarking on the adventure of our lives and we were both excited.

  The B&B was run by a family who had a vineyard the same size as the one we were about to purchase. We arrived at our apartment on their farm and found it to be the perfect antidote: spotless and with everything we needed including delightful toys for Sophia. She was developing a nurturing instinct and took great pleasure in looking after the baby dolls complete with accessories – cots, pushchairs, baby bath and clothes.

  When we sat down to dinner that night with our hosts, Bernard and Myriam Barse and their teenage daughter Élodie, I explained in halting French why we were there.

  'We are buying Château Haut Garrigue in Saussignac. The purchase goes through next week so we are staying here while we wait for that to happen. We left our city jobs and moved country today. We saw on the website that you have twenty-five acres like we will have so we thought it would be useful to stay with you to hear what it is like.'

  Their eyes popped out on stilts.

  
'C'est très dur,'
(It's very hard) said Bernard.

  Myriam could not believe that we had chosen to swap the comforts of city life for the tough life of winegrowing. She explained that they both had day jobs off the vineyard, Bernard as an electrician and she as a teacher's aide at the local
école
maternelle
, to make ends meet.

  Bernard, a quiet, compact man, considered our story a little longer then added: 'Prudence. You must be very careful. Costs are high and sales are difficult.'

  He was a man of few words and not given to offering advice lightly. Perhaps our financial plan wasn't a reflection of reality.

  Four delicious courses ensued, helping to remind us why we were here: baguette and
rillettes de canard
, a local delicacy of cold shredded duck in its fat, matched with the Barses' Saussignac dessert wine; lamb chops from their own herd of sheep, cooked to perfection with rosemary and matched with their red; then home-grown green salad with a selection of fine
fromage
, finished off with a home-made fruit compote. It was a local feast
extraordinaire
.

  'Would you like anything else?' asked Myriam as we finished.

  'No thank you, that was delicious,
je suis pleine
,' I replied, using the only French words for 'I have had enough' that I could think of.

  Élodie, the Barses' teenage daughter, almost fell off her chair laughing.

  Myriam giggled politely. 'Used like this,
"Je suis pleine"
means "I am drunk",' she explained.

  That evening Sean and I sat outside our apartment enjoying the warm evening air once the girls had fallen asleep. The first major step had been taken: we had moved country. The fight we had the night before was a result of stress and fatigue and while we were still raw from it we had begun to forgive each other. If we were going to take on the challenges that the Barses had indicated were to come, our relationship had to be strong.

  This move was a chance to put down roots and to pursue our passion together. Since meeting in Johannesburg we had lived in Vancouver, Cape Town and Dublin and worked even further afield. Our longest sojourn so far had been Dublin and with our ancestry – we grew up in South Africa but Sean's grandparents were Irish and my great grandmother too – we had felt very at home there… but there were no vineyards.

  I made a list of what we needed to do over the next few days. We drifted onto our dreams for our new life and our vineyard, our fight almost erased from our memories. I would have stayed up later had I not known I would be woken to breastfeed Ellie within a few hours.