Page 37 of The Lucky Escape

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‘So, apparently the cabernet sauvignons and chardonnays are consistently rated amongst the region’s best, and we get a private tasting in Eric’s Room, named after the estate founded by Eric Smith.’

I’d woken up to find Patrick sprawled out in his boxers and an open dressing gown on the sofa, sunlight streaming in where he’d unpeeled the patio doors so that the rustle of the breeze in the trees and soft birdsong was our soundtrack. I thought I was good at getting up early, but apparently he was even better.

‘Hmmmm,’ I said, a plate of creamy eggs and smoked salmon in my lap. I reached for the jug of orange juice. ‘Do you think Eric will mind that I’m an ABC girl?’

‘ABC?’

‘Anything But Chardonnay.’

‘Ha! Let’s wait to see the look on his face, then. Well. Maybe nothis. But it does say sommelier-led tastings featuring limited-release wines, so it’s going to be somebody who knows what’s up.’

I spooned the last of the eggs royale into my mouth.

‘I wear a nice dress to a winery, right? That’s a thing people do?’ I had visions of flouncing through vineyards in something cotton and floral.

‘Personally, I couldn’t give a hoot what you wear – I do know you’re not supposed to wear perfume or cologne for wine tasting though. Something about interfering smells. Oh, and pack your bathing suit because fifteen minutes away is Surfers Point, and this says we can admire the deep-blue might and majesty of the Indian Ocean.’ He did a posh voice to say that, like a butler announcing dinner.

‘I still can’t believe we’re here,’ I said, for what must have been an annoying millionth time.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it? They must have really liked you to make sure you still came all this way.’

I’d texted Fernanda as we’d waited for breakfast, sending a photo of the beach yesterday and telling her ‘thank you’ didn’t seem enough. I almost couldn’t think about it too much, that they’d insisted I come, because the kindness of it was overwhelming.

Patrick stood up and stretched dramatically, and my eyes automatically fell to his waistband and the tiny tuft of hair running from his belly button down to …

He saw me looking and wrapped his gown around him, hurriedly. I forced my eyes back up to his face as if my gaze had lingered there purely by chance, which … it had, hadn’t it? He was a man, standing in front of me in his underwear. I’d forgotten myself for a second, that was all.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘They did like me. Do? I don’t know if I have to talk about them in the past tense because they’re no longer my in-laws, or if I get to stay in touch forever, which, obviously I’d like. Especially after all this.’

‘You don’t have to figure that all out just now,’ he soothed. He put the pamphlet he’d been reading on the coffee table and began to head for his room.

‘I really liked his mum,’ I said, getting up myself. ‘People joke about hating their mothers-in-law, don’t they, but I liked her. I liked spending time with her. His dad was a bit iffy, but mostly because he was just really old. Eighty-something. Second marriage for him. She dotes on him though, even if she is more of a carer than a wife, I think.’

He stopped and turned. ‘I guess that’s what you sign up for in marriage.’

‘’Til death do us part can feel a long time when you’re with somebody like that though,’ I said, before a hand flew up to my mouth. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ I explained. ‘Oh, that was an awful thing to say. Especially after they’ve been so wonderful! God, please don’t think I really think that. I don’t know where that came from!’

‘It’s okay,’ Patrick insisted. ‘I knew what you meant.’ He looked at me, taking in what was surely a look of horror. ‘Seriously.’

‘It’s not. I need to think before I speak.’

He walked over and put a hand on my arm. ‘Annie, don’t police yourself for me. You shouldn’t police yourself for anyone.’ His touch was sturdy and earnest. I felt horrible.

I wanted to make a joke about my mother and how I was raised to police myself for her, but stopped myself. When I pushed myself at school, teachers would note in my reports how hard I could be on myself, and on the way back from parents’ evening once Mum had said, plainly, ‘I wish the results of her being so hard on herself were a little better.’ I wasn’t supposed to hear. She thought I was too far ahead of her and Dad to eavesdrop, but I wasn’t. I heard Dad try topacify her, saying something about letting me grow in my own time, but I could tell by the sharp hushed tone of her reply that she didn’t like that idea. I was raised to constantly monitor myself, so that I could continue striving to be better than I was.

‘Let’s get ready,’ I said, switching up my voice to a Julie Andrews-esque song. ‘Leave in say, half an hour?’

‘I’ll call down to reception to let Bianca know,’ he replied. ‘And seriously, don’t give what you just said another thought. I won’t.’

The wine tasting was exactly as the movie in my head had played it: huge, cavernous rooms underground with oak barrels and special rooms where the wine had to lie at a specific angle, at a specific temperature. I’d worn a calf-length floral cotton dress that tied at the waist and puffed out at the sleeves, which were short because Bianca had advised us that wearing long sleeves could get in the way of the tastings. My make-up was natural-looking with tinted pink lips, and I’d pulled my hair back at Bianca’s behest, too – she said I’d be thankful of that advice when it came to spitting. I felt cute. It was fun to be dressed up.

Patrick spoke to everyone, asking questions and making friends, and it was true that we must have looked as though we were together as we giggled and made jokes and pointed out cool things to each other, but I didn’t care. Out touring the expansive vineyards, Australian spring sun warming my bones, there was only right now, and right now was lovely, as it happened. If Patrick worried that everyone else on the tour thought we were a couple he didn’t show it, steering me from tasting station to tasting station with a light hand on the small of my back or making faces across the room tomake me grin impishly when we were apart. In the ebb and flow of getting to know each other, today we were flowing.

The vineyard was just as sumptuous as the hotel. I understood, now, why people raved about their honeymoon for years after it happened. Everything was premium, an upgraded version of what you might normally allow yourself. Whatever packages my non-in-laws had signed us up for, the clear truth was that it was the best, or the top, the most superlative version of any one thing. We sat outside on a private terrace, several wooden boards of charcuterie and cheese in front of us, and a row of glasses and bottles as we continued to sample more of what the winery had to offer. Back in the cave they’d taught us how to swirl our glasses, take a sniff, swish and then spit. The trick was, apparently, to use quite a bit of force when spitting so that it didn’t dribble down your chin – but now we were alone we didn’t bother with that part, and instead tucked in, swallowing in big, unabashed gulps.

‘I could ogle this view all day,’ I said, as Patrick topped up my glass with an SSB – a sauvignon and semillon blend.

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