The Affair (18 page)

‘I’m not going anywhere, my love.’ As her tears fell into his hair she continued to rock him, telling him she loved him. ‘We’re in this together. For better or worse. I don’t care where we live or what we do as long as I’m with you.’

Nina telephoned her office to say she wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week. She was tempted to tell them that she would never be back and what they
could do with their lousy job but held herself in check. She and James may need that income. Lots of things were suddenly very uncertain.

James telephoned Felix to say he would be out of town for a while too. He explained that his mother had suffered a sudden stroke. Felix was shocked – Patty seemed such a healthy, fit woman. As James talked, Felix found himself worrying about his own mother and deciding it was far too long since he had spoken with her.

‘That’s terrible news, James. Please give my best to your mother and father.’

Felix wondered if James had spoken to Frederick yet about the vineyard. He assumed he would not have had a chance. Patty’s stroke would have pushed any such conversations aside.

‘James, I’m sure this isn’t the time to talk to you about Lloyd’s but you should at least know that I think I may have a solution for you. I may have found a way to stop Lloyd’s selling the winery out from under you.’

‘I’m listening, Felix …’

For weeks Felix had been working on negotiating a final settlement with the Lloyd’s lawyers for himself and each of his clients. He considered the sum was reasonable under the circumstances. If each client accepted the final figure, that would be the end of it for them. They could pay the sum and move on. If they chose not to, preferring to fight it out in the British courts, their unlimited liability clause would leave them susceptible to claims by Lloyd’s for many more years to come.

To sort out the best deal for each of his clients, Felix had spent many late nights poring over their individual portfolios. Immersed in piles of paperwork, he had come up with some clever ideas. The best of them involved Wilde Wines.

‘I may be able to form a consortium of investors or I may have a client in a position to buy out your debt. I just need a few days.’

James felt the faint stirrings of hope. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes. I have a few clients that it may appeal to. Wineries are seen as glamorous and exciting and sophisticated. A lot more interesting than pig-farming or building cement factories, let me tell you. I have a couple of people who may be interested, which could mean setting up a new business structure for the winery, or perhaps it would suit an individual investor. I need to look into it further.’

Felix had a couple of questions for James. They were specific and private but James didn’t mind revealing such things to his friend. He lowered his voice to respond, unsure where in the house Frederick may be.

‘Okay, James, leave it with me. Wilde Wines is in good shape and there just may be a way to keep it away from Lloyd’s. I need to make some calls, see some people and then I’ll come back to you.’

‘Oh, Felix, we could do with some good news up here right now.’

‘Have you told your father about Lloyd’s?’ asked Felix.

James looked through the kitchen window, across the vineyards. He spoke very quietly. ‘I told them all. Last night. I told them, then Mum …’ James stopped, remembering the sight of his mother lying in a heap by his father’s feet.

‘Oh God, James. I’m so sorry. You poor bastard.’

‘Yeah. It couldn’t be worse. Please do what you can.’

Felix was determined. He cancelled all his appointments for the day, then took a pile of files from his briefcase and his filing cabinet and lay them on his desk. He loosened his tie, and lined up his calculator, a couple of freshly sharpened pencils and a foolscap pad. Then he set about methodically working through the files.

The rest of the day he stayed hunched over his desk. He checked through his latest batch of correspondence from Lloyd’s. He made lots of phone calls, speaking to a couple of colleagues, the agents for Lloyd’s who he was getting to know quite well, their lawyers, his own lawyers, a judge of the Industrial Commission who was a member of his club and finally a wine journalist he once dated to chat about the current state of the Australian wine industry, and one label in particular.

Felix wanted to help the Wilde family but he was a completely honourable man. He wouldn’t do anything illegal nor would he help them at the expense of another client. Before he would even put the proposal forward he needed to assure
himself that Wilde Wines would be a smart and profitable investment.

Finally, at 4.14 pm, he was satisfied.

Over the next few days life settled into a strange kind of routine for the Wilde family. Someone was always by Patty’s side while the rest of the family came and went from the vineyard, trying to go about their usual duties, all the while under a dreadful unspoken cloud. It was up to Frederick to broach the conversation with James and, until he did, the others were helpless.

Nina drove back to the Elizabeth Bay apartment and collected clean clothes for herself and James. It took her two hours to reach the apartment. She stayed twenty minutes, piling things into a suitcase, then drove the two hours back again. She was at the hospital in time to collect James just as Frederick came to take over with Patty.

Frederick had managed to avoid being alone with his younger son, though they were living under the same roof. Every ounce of everybody’s attention was directed towards Patty.

On the afternoon of the first day after her stroke, Patty’s speech had started to become recognisable, if a little slurred, and she was responding well to all the tasks the staff gave her – squeezing a ball, answering their simple questions about who she was and what year it was, and having her pulse and blood pressure taken every hour. By the next day she was explaining to the doctor about the
woolly feeling in her head. Her blood pressure showed every sign of dropping. She was able to express herself, and articulate her emotions. All good signs, Dr Wilson assured the family on his next visit to the hospital a few days later.

She still had trouble articulating certain sounds. Dr Wilson said that may or may not improve. Only time would tell. And she appeared to have no recollection of the events leading up to her collapse. She was surprised to see James and Nina. She had no idea they were in the Hunter Valley.

‘How lovely of you to come all the way to see me. What a shame I am in here or I could cook you my roast lamb. I know how you miss that, James. And baked turnip for you, Nina. I remember.’

She smiled at them both, pleased with herself. James looked away.

‘Next time, Patty. When you’re feeling better,’ said Nina.

On the morning of the third day everyone fell into a schedule. James was due to sit with Patty. Mark and Frederick were having the new osmosis filtration unit installed. Nina would drop off James and then do the shopping.

James waved goodbye to Nina and walked down the corridor, smiling his greetings to the nurses on duty. He was expecting Patty to be asleep so he was surprised to find the bed empty and Amanda sitting in the armchair.

‘Where is she?’

‘Having a CAT scan,’ replied Amanda, flicking through a magazine.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m her daughter-in-law, a member of the family. I care about what happens to her.’

There was an edge to Amanda’s voice that James did not like. He wondered if he could find where his mother was having tests and go to her there.

‘She’ll be back soon. Sit down, I won’t bite,’ said Amanda.

She sounded perfectly friendly, even giving a little smile. James didn’t believe it for a minute. He did not want to be alone with Amanda and tried to keep as far away from her as possible. But he had been cornered. James was supposed to be here. She wasn’t. He sat on a plastic stackable chair that had been brought in from the reception area. Amanda continued to read the magazine. James could think of nothing to say. Her presence made the room seem stuffy.

She turned another page and, looking up at James, said sweetly, ‘You are an arsehole.’

She turned back to her magazine.

James sighed. He didn’t want to have this conversation. ‘Don’t, Amanda,’ he replied. ‘Just don’t.’ James was emotionally exhausted. It was the worst possible reply.

Amanda snapped shut her magazine. ‘You were an arsehole then and you are an arsehole now. I can’t understand what I ever saw in you.’

The veneer of civility was gone. Their loathing of each other was instantly at the fore.

‘What exactly are you angry about, Amanda?
Huh? A fling we had when we were both pissed? Or are you angry that you may not get the Wilde money after all? Which is it? Your bruised ego or your greed?’

Amanda looked as if she had been slapped. Her eyes glittered dangerously. ‘How dare you!’ She spat out the words. ‘First you walk out on me –’

James cut her off in mid-sentence. ‘I did not walk out on you. We had a drunken fling. I’m not exactly proud of it but I’m not ashamed either. We were both consenting adults. Now let it be.’

‘Easy for you to say. You treated me like a tart. Had your way then took off, without so much as a goodbye. I deserved better than that.’ Amanda paused for breath.

All was silent in the little hospital room.

When James finally spoke he sounded weary, resigned. ‘I am sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. You do deserve better than that.’

Amanda was having none of it. The more reasonable James sounded the more irate she became. ‘Mark is worth a thousand of you and it has taken me this long to realise it. I used to want an apology, some kind of explanation. You behaved like a pig. Now I want nothing more to do with you. You have ruined this family. It’s all your fault.’

The small white-walled room started to close in on James. The antiseptic hospital smells filled his nostrils and added to the feeling of claustrophobia. James had to get out of there.

He stumbled out into the hospital carpark, his mind filled with loathing for his sister-in-law. She
brought back such unhappy memories. He preferred to forget his years working for his father on the vineyard. It had seemed to him then that everything he had done in his life he had failed at. He had returned from the Olympics a few years earlier feeling like a failure and tried to stay out of sight of the media and his team mates, as far from the skiing world as he could flee, living quietly at the vineyard. But the farm had seemed impossibly small and irrelevant after he’d had a taste of overseas travel. His friends had moved on in their careers and he felt like he had nothing. Frederick had given him a job on cellar door sales. He hated the drunken holidaymakers that came through. He hated the small-town focus of the family. He hated everything about the winery. Then his father had stamped on the only opportunity he felt he had to achieve something and regain some self-respect, becoming a Lloyd’s name. He had decided it was time to go. He didn’t fit in here.

James hadn’t told his family of his plans to leave. He hadn’t known himself. It was an idea he had been toying with for a few days then, that final Saturday, the others had taken off to promote their wines at a jazz festival at Pokolbin, leaving James with Amanda to look after cellar door sales. It had been so hot, the flies had fried on the windowsill. The coolest place on the property was the tasting barn, the huge vaulted sandstone building with stone floors. The relentless heat could addle a man’s brain. James had heard somewhere that human beings couldn’t cope at temperatures above 48
degrees Celsius. Their thinking became muddled. That’s how he felt.

Amanda and James had no way of knowing whether it would be a busy day or not. In this heat probably not. But they put the ‘open’ sign out on the road in case.

They were soon bored. It was too hot to go out and there was nothing to do inside the tasting barn but drink and banter. James had been glad Amanda was there. He had always considered her to be good fun. She made James laugh, through a combination of flirty innuendo and ribald humour. Men found her attractive and she knew it, revelled in it. James had been happy to spend the afternoon in her company.

They decided to test each other with blind tastings. James couldn’t remember whose idea that was. Probably Amanda’s. She had a formidable reputation for having one of the keenest palates in the Hunter. Amanda made James sit on the customer’s side, then she lined up six wine tasting glasses in front of him. She had brought out four bottles of white from the fridge. They were their current stock used for tastings.

‘Too easy,’ James said when he saw them.

‘Oh, you think so, huh,’ she said, disappearing into the back room.

She returned with two unopened bottles from the neighbouring vineyard. Same varieties, same years.

She lined up the six bottles for James to study the labels. Two Wilde semillons from different
years, and a semillon from the winery next-door, an unwooded Wilde chardonnay and the same from next-door, and a Wilde verdelho, the current vintage.

‘Are you ready?’

James studied the labels. Satisfied, he gave the thumbs up sign. Amanda untied the red silk scarf from around her neck and moved behind him to blindfold him. The scarf smelled of her perfume, sweet and light. He was immediately suspicious. Ninety per cent of tasting involved the sense of smell.

‘Nice try, Amanda. I’m onto you. Trying to give me a handicap with the perfumed scarf. It won’t work, you know.’

Amanda sniggered. ‘Just concentrate on your palate, buddy boy.’

James sat in the darkness and waited. He listened to a bottle being opened and the wine being poured. He felt Amanda’s hands place the glass in his hands. He swirled the liquid about the glass, releasing its aroma, and inhaled deeply.

Quite pungent. An overlay of tropical fruit. The Wilde verdelho. He took a sip and swirled the liquid about his mouth. Honeyed. Silky. Definitely the verdelho. It was cool and refreshing. He downed the rest of the glass.

‘Wildes’Verdelho 1986. Next.’