Rose's Vintage (4 page)

After Leo had done his homework and the kids had eaten some fish fingers that Rose had discovered, rimed with frost, in the depths of the freezer, she walked back to the barn to sluice off the dust from the day's efforts. She was filthy and couldn't wait a moment longer to get clean; she just hoped there would be some hot water.

Making her way across the yard, she stopped abruptly as she spied an upright silhouette frozen against the skyline. It was a kangaroo. As Rose's eyes adjusted to the dusk light, she saw another – and another. Rose chuckled gleefully to herself. She couldn't believe her eyes. She'd seen the yellow road sign with the image of Skippy on it on her drive into the valley, but she hadn't thought she'd actually see any.
Real kangaroos! Bloody Nora!
Wait till she told Henry. She stayed and watched as they became used to her presence and returned to nibbling the sweet grass, but she didn't linger long. It was freaking freezing outside, kangaroos or no kangaroos.

Inside the barn it was barely a degree warmer than outside, though at least there was hot water. Showering and towelling off quickly, she then piled on every one of the four t-shirts she'd brought with her, plus a musty pullover that she'd found in one of the drawers in the chest. The wool was scratchy, and the colour – Coleman's mustard yellow – made her skin look sallow, but she wasn't exactly in a position to be fussy. At least it covered her bum. She was grateful that the thick sheepskin of her new ugg boots was keeping her toes toasty.

Back at the house, all was quiet. Rose followed the sound of voices and came upon Luisa and Leo in a small living room off the kitchen, sitting on a faded burgundy sofa, its velvet completely bald on the rolled arms. Astrid was reading to Luisa. Rose nearly cracked up, hearing her asking, ‘But vere is de green sheep?', but kept silent, not wanting Astrid to think she was making fun of her.

Rose got her chance to find out more about Mark and the absent Isabella over a late dinner with Astrid after the kids were in bed. There wasn't much in the way of supplies, but thanks to Maggie, Stephanie and Nigella, and an overgrown herb garden she'd discovered at the side of the house, she was able to throw together a potato and parsley frittata. As it finished cooking, Astrid appeared in the kitchen, holding up an unlabelled bottle.

‘The house wine,' Astrid said, reaching for a couple of glasses.

‘Yes, please,' said Rose. The exhaustion of the day's cleaning, her early morning drive from Sydney and lingering jet lag was hitting her badly now. ‘That'll go down nicely.'

‘You really can cook. This is good,' mumbled Astrid through a mouthful of frittata.

‘So I said,' said Rose, bristling slightly, though inwardly pleased at the compliment. ‘I trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London. But my last job was in a cafe,' she admitted. ‘And I've flipped more burgers than I've plated up
haute cuisine
meals so far.' She told Astrid the story that she and Henry had agreed on: that she was here to take a bit of a break and experience the country, perhaps do some more travelling eventually.

‘Me too.' Astrid nodded. ‘I've been in Oz for about eight months. I spent a couple of months up in Queensland working at a kids' club in a resort, then found this job in March. Leo and Luisa are a bit of a handful though. But then, who wouldn't be if their mother walked out on them?'

Rose looked up from her plate. Isabella had walked out? She hadn't been expecting to hear that. Though it did perhaps explain why the house was in such a state and Leo's clothes were too small for him.

‘She left at the end of summer,' Astrid continued. ‘She went back to Spain, with a Spanish winemaker who was here to help with vintage. Mark had no idea. She was the complete nightmare, so Mrs B tells me. Señora Demanda, she calls her. The cleaning, the cooking: nothing was good enough. I think that's half the reason Mrs B got sick: Isabella made her work so hard. Luisa still asks where her mama is, but Leo won't talk about it, won't talk much at all in fact. When he met you today, that is the best I've seen him; he was so excited to talk to you about the football.'

‘Oh, that's so sad.' From what she'd seen that day, they were perfectly nice children. ‘The poor things. And how long is Mark away for?'

‘He'll be back at the end of the week. Mark has the black moods sometimes. It's not always easy.' She didn't elaborate further and Rose didn't press the subject. She needed to tread carefully and not arouse any suspicions. She was sure she'd find out more soon enough.

The conversation moved on to Astrid and where she'd grown up – Rose had been close in her assumption of Germany: Austria, in fact – and before they knew it, the bottle was empty and the remains of the frittata had grown cold on the plate. Rising to clear the dishes, Rose was surprised at the stiffness that had invaded her body. She'd spent a few days seeing the sights of Sydney before she'd arrived in the Shingle Valley, without so much as a twinge, but clearly a day of vigorous cleaning was another matter entirely. Her spirits sank a little as she realised there was probably plenty more cleaning in store tomorrow, if the state of the kitchen was anything to go by. She said goodnight to Astrid and prepared to head back to the barn.

As she opened the back door, an icy draft of air hit her in the face like a slap, instantly sobering her up. ‘Christ, it's cold.'

‘Yep. In the Tyrol, it is very cold; that's why I came to Australia. I thought those two extra letters would make a difference. Pah! They do not!' Astrid shivered theatrically. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, we get up at about seven. I have to get Leo to school by half of the eight.'

‘Right. I'll be in the kitchen before seven-thirty and get breakfast on,' said Rose. ‘It's good to be here,' she added. She wasn't sure why she'd said that; the words came out before she had a chance to think about them. They were hardly true.

‘Yes, I am happy too,' replied Astrid. It seemed that their shared dinner had thawed her initial frostiness.

‘Night then,' Rose called.

It was so cold in the barn that Rose could see her breath and the wind whistled through huge gaps under the door and window frames. Not having thought to pack warm pyjamas and knowing that the flimsy sleeping tee and old pair of Giles's boxers she had with her wouldn't cut it, she wriggled out of her jeans and pulled on a pair of leggings she'd thrown into her pack at the last minute. She kept her t-shirts and socks on and shivered under the covers, glad that she'd found a couple of heavy blankets in the wardrobe earlier. She resolved to ask about heaters, or at the very least a hot water bottle, tomorrow.

For a fleeting moment her mind turned to Giles. She had vowed to keep her thoughts on a tight rein where he was concerned, but he snuck into them whenever her guard was down. Before she knew it, she was reliving their last few days together. It was like prodding an open wound: although she knew no good would come of it, she couldn't help herself. She shivered again, and not just with cold, as she remembered the day her life had begun to go completely tits up.

Friday the thirteenth. Of course. And Mercury had been retrograde. She really should have known better.

It had turned out to be a day of endings: it was also the last day of her job at The Pine Box, the cafe where she'd worked for the previous five years. Although most of the time there she'd felt like she was ready for a pine box herself by the end of a shift, being dismissed without notice stung more than she cared to admit. And all over something as stupid as a steak.

The red-faced, puffed-up tosser with the bad haircut had complained so loudly that Arthur, the other cook, and the one who was responsible for the steak, had come out of the kitchen to investigate. ‘It's as tasteless as an Axminster carpet,' the customer had bawled. Hearing the man going off at Arthur, Rose came out from behind the swing doors. If there was anything that made her blood boil, it was people who thought they were powerful picking on those they considered beneath them. She'd been the target of her fair share of bullies at school and after she'd left, had vowed never to stand by and let it happen to anyone else. Seeing red, she'd tipped the jug of gravy she'd been carrying over the ignorant bugger's plate, sloshing it onto his lap, soaking his trousers and scalding his nether regions. ‘That'll add some flavour to it, you rude sod,' she'd said.

Needless to say it hadn't ended well. She was out on her ear before her shift had even finished.

With her twenties very nearly over, Rose's life hadn't exactly panned out the way she'd thought it would when she was nineteen, the ink barely dry on her culinary diploma, ready to take on the world. Two of her classmates from Le Cordon Bleu had recently opened a restaurant that was London's darling, another had her own line of gourmet produce – available at Fortnum's no less – and her best friend was sous chef at Le Du, Bangkok's hottest restaurant
du jour
. If Facebook was to be believed, most of her old school friends were happily married; heavens, two had just had babies and Nancy, who she'd known since primary school and always the one most likely to breed – had three under five. All Rose had was a set of expensive chef 's knives, and ten years' experience, mostly working a deep-fryer.

Then, just to reinforce the fact that the entire planetary system had decided to conspire against her, Giles, the man she'd thought she would end up married to, the one she was going to share the dream house in the country and a khaki-green Landrover with and make two or maybe even three apple-cheeked children with, announced that he was moving to Brussels. Without her.

Never mind that they shared custody of a poo-brown (‘toffee', the Habitat sales assistant had convinced them) leather sofa and five years of memories: apparently she was supposed to have known that it wasn't a ‘forever thing'. After dropping his bombshell that evening, he'd buggered off out before she'd even had the chance to tell him about being fired from The Pine Box. The prospect of a double episode of
The Great British Bake Off
– which she'd really been looking forward to – and the fact that there was a bowl of salted-caramel cookie dough in the fridge failed to make her feel even the slightest bit better. Even she couldn't think about food at a time like that.

Rose wriggled further into the blankets, trying to keep out the frigid air and wondered again why on earth she'd gone along with Henry's suggestion. Giles had no idea where she was – in a stronger moment, she'd deleted him from Facebook and his number from her phone. What if things in Brussels didn't work out? What if he changed his mind and realised he'd made a big mistake and came back and found her gone? What if she'd made a big mistake in coming here? She suddenly felt very far away and very alone.

CHAPTER 3

W
aking up, Rose reluctantly poked her nose over the blankets and lowered them to her chin. For a minute she couldn't work out where she was. Then the events of the previous day came flooding back. Ah yes. The Shingle Valley. Arse-end of nowhere.