Chapter Thirteen
By the time we pulled into the car park of the Maurizio Brogioni Winery, the second and final stop on our tour, I’d given up all hope of Nick joining us.
The seven (admittedly small, but still!) glasses of wine at the first vineyard had begun to take effect and my confidence had grown – maybe I didn’t need Nick as much as I thought I had.
I hadn’t made a complete fool of myself over my lack of wine knowledge (partly thanks to Aidan, I supposed) and I’d managed to make a smattering of small talk with Rosamund and to hold my own in our conversations.
I was too half-drunk to worry that perhaps we should have moved on from the small talk stage by now, since I was imminently to become her daughter-in-law.
The thing was, I thought that Sophia was probably so entrenched in that role that it would be difficult for anybody else to find their place.
It would take time, probably, that was all.
As we got out of the minibus, a gorgeous tan and white spaniel with the most beautiful big, brown eyes came bounding up to us.
He was on a lead, but it was so long he might as well not have been, given the freedom he had to run and roam.
I greeted him warmly, letting him jump up and place his paws on my thighs.
‘Hello! Hello there. Well, aren’t you gorgeous?’
When he’d had enough of me, he got down and went to greet Rosamund, who instantly recoiled as he stood on two feet with excitement.
‘Oh no. Oh no, no, no!’ she shrieked, shooing the poor dog away.
‘You’re not a dog person then, Rosamund?’ I asked, amused.
How could she not want to stroke this adorable creature?
She brushed imaginary dog hairs off her jeans, which the dog hadn’t so much as touched.
‘I prefer cats,’ she said haughtily. ‘Dogs are too …’
‘Slobbery?’ I suggested.
‘Exactly,’ she said, revolted. ‘And smelly. I can’t stand the way they’re always leaping about.’
I crouched down to give the dog some more attention. He was a little bit slobbery but he wasn’t smelly in the slightest.
‘Come, ladies!’ encouraged Gino, striding off towards a pretty house. ‘Let us go and drink wine.’
He introduced us to Maurizio, a ruddy-cheeked, smiley Italian who had a lovely aura about him. Not that I entirely understood what auras were, and whether they were an actual thing, but I knew when somebody had a good one.
I glanced over at Aidan, who was pumping Maurizio’s hand and attempting to talk in pigeon Italian. At least he was having a go. He had a nice aura, I thought. At least, I’d thought he had when I first met him in Scotland. Then I looked at Rosamund. Not so much.
Just as Maurizio led us down into his beautiful, sloping garden and began to point out the land that was his and explain why he’d chosen that particular area to set up his business (the forest gave the wine a distinct flavour, apparently), Nick and Daisy arrived.
Of course, they couldn’t do anything quietly and Nick completely ignored Maurizio and Gino and swooped straight in with the over-the-top air kisses and the booming voice which seemed to be getting louder the more time he spent with his family.
Maurizio looked bemused by these new, noisy arrivals.
I refused to let myself think about what Aidan must think. Nope, I was not going to go there.
‘Sorry, everyone!’ trilled Nick.
‘Better late than never,’ said Rosamund, wagging her finger at him as though he was a naughty child.
‘Hey,’ I said to Daisy as she skulked up next to me.
‘Hey,’ she grunted back, as though talking took extreme effort.
‘How’s it been, darling?’ asked Nick, who, having done the rounds with everyone else, was finally acknowledging me.
‘I’ve had several glasses of wine and about half a pint of olive oil, so all good,’ I told him.
There was no point having a go at him, not least because I didn’t want to give Sophia and Rosamund the satisfaction of doing it in front them.
I bet they’d just love it if we started bickering, so reassuring themselves that their first impressions had been right and I definitely was not right for Nick.
‘You’re not mad at me, then?’ asked Nick, wincing as though I was about to launch into an angry tirade at him.
I shrugged. I wasn’t mad, exactly. Just resigned to the fact that his priority was and always would be Daisy.
That’s what happened when you had kids and that was how it should be.
Their happiness mattered above all else (not that my parents had got the memo).
Although I didn’t think that that meant you couldn’t say no to them occasionally.
I turned back to Maurizio, who was telling us enthusiastically about the different varieties of grape he grew. Nick hadn’t seemed to cotton on to the fact that some of us actually wanted to listen to Maurizio rather than hearing him banging on about his ‘dreadful’ journey.
‘Can you believe it, we had a—’
‘Sssshh,’ I hissed at him. ‘I want to listen to this.’
Nick wasn’t acting like himself, which bothered me.
Was he really so heavily influenced by his family, who seemed to bring out a side of him I wasn’t finding particularly appealing?
He was coming across as a boisterous city boy today, the type of guy I knew that Aidan perennially couldn’t stand and therefore would never in a million years be envious of.
I pinched the top of my nose. God, what was I thinking? It didn’t matter what Aidan thought, did it?
I tried to concentrate on Maurizio, who had the sort of warm, kind face that centred you if you focused on it hard enough.
‘I grow four different grapes here,’ he was saying, his eyes lighting up as he explained. ‘Sauvignon from France, Sangiovese – a red grape from Italy, Shiraz which is Eastern and Merlot from France.’
‘Can you eat the grapes?’ asked Aidan, who seemed as genuinely interested as I was. ‘Do they taste good?’
‘You can,’ replied Maurizio. ‘Some grapes you can eat. But they taste very different from the grapes you would buy, let’s say, at the supermarket.’
I glanced over my shoulder at Nick, who was – quite rudely, I thought – whispering into Sophia’s ear. Daisy was equally disinterested and was taking selfies against a backdrop of fields and trees. At least she was appreciating the countryside, I supposed.
‘Come, let us see where the wine is made,’ said Maurizio, leading us back up the path towards the winery.
Once we’d seen his impressive set-up of huge vats housing four to six thousand bottles of wine each, Maurizio led us to a long, wooden table under a pergoda, where we had panoramic views of the vineyards stretching as far as the eye could see.
I was grateful for the shade the roof allowed us and the temperature was perfect – warm but not sticky-hot.
I ended up sitting with Nick to one side of me and Daisy the other.
Aidan was, perhaps worryingly, opposite Nick, who made a big show of introducing himself.
I was going to have to tell Nick about Aidan at some point, but there never seemed to be a good time and I didn’t want to make Nick feel uncomfortable.
Which anyone would be, wouldn’t they, if they found themselves sitting opposite their fiancée’s ex-boyfriend?
Then again, he’d never even been my ‘boyfriend’.
We’d been seeing each other, that was all, and just because I’d felt myself falling for him, more and more with every passing day, didn’t mean he’d felt the same. He clearly hadn’t, in fact.
‘Hello, mate. I’m Nick,’ he said, shaking Aidan’s hand vigorously.
‘Aidan. Glad you could make it in the end,’ he replied with a smile.
‘Ha! And now I am going to more than make up for it,’ said Nick.
He grabbed the glass of wine that Maurizio had just poured him and downed it in one. Maurizio, good-natured as he was, laughed.
‘You like more?’ offered Maurizio, who I could tell was a generous soul.
‘Oh yes,’ said Nick.
I took a sip of mine. The effects of the previous wine tasting were wearing off and I thought I could just about drink more. Plus Maurizio’s wines sounded delicious.
‘Mmmn,’ I said, enjoying the full-bodied red. ‘Is this the Shiraz?’
‘That is correct,’ smiled Maurizio.
‘I see we’re rubbing off on you, Maddie,’ remarked Rosamund. ‘You’ll be a wine expert at this rate.’
An amused Aidan caught my eye. Briefly, but at least we could look at each other, now.
I wondered whether we’d ever have an actual conversation about what had happened between us.
Whether I’d want to. When and where it would happen, given the situation with Nick and his family.
If my primary aim was to make a good impression on them, sneaking off to meet another man behind their backs was hardly going to do me any favours.
‘So how do you guys all know each other?’ asked Aidan. ‘You’re all family?’
Nick nodded, wiping wine from his lips with the back of his hand.
‘This is my fiancée, Maddie,’ he said, patting my knee.
‘Your fiancée?’ said Aidan, raising his eyebrows.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at him for long enough to work out whether he cared, instead beaming inanely at Nick in a desperate attempt to look happy about the fact our engagement was the topic of possibly the most awkward conversation ever.
‘Congratulations,’ said Aidan quietly.
This time I looked at him; this time he caught my eye.
‘And this is my mother and father, Rosamund and Peter,’ went on Nick, who was oblivious to the shifting dynamics around the table. Obviously it was just me with the leaden feeling in my stomach; I felt so hot, suddenly, that I had to fan myself frantically with a wine menu.
‘And then there’s my daughter, Daisy and my, um … Daisy’s mother. Sophia.’
Aidan looked confused. ‘You’ve brought your ex and your new fiancée on the same trip?’
He was never one to hold back … Except when it mattered.
Rosamund and Sophia guffawed loudly, as though this was the funniest thing in the world.
Except it wasn’t, for me, and it felt insensitive of them to minimise it like that.
I was sick of people not taking my feelings seriously, as though I was some silly woman with ridiculous ideas.
Lots of people did it and I just let them, which I was also sick of – the fact that I put up with it.
It was fine to be hurt by stuff other people did, and fine to call them out on it – and it wasn’t fine that most of the time they took absolutely no responsibility for it.
Not that Aidan’s opinion mattered to me, particularly, but there was some comfort in knowing it wasn’t just me who thought this whole situation was weird.
‘We all get along surprisingly well, don’t we?’ said Nick jovially.
‘Absolutely,’ gushed Sophia. ‘We’re like one, big extended family.’
‘Well, to be fair, I didn’t know Sophia was going to be here,’ I said.
It was out of my mouth before I’d worked out how to word it less abrasively or, more usefully, refrain from saying anything at all.
Everyone stared at me in shock. Nick squirmed.
‘I’m sure I told you,’ said Nick, trying to laugh it off.
‘You didn’t,’ I replied. ‘But anyway. We’re here now, aren’t we?’
Nick seemed stunned into silence. He wasn’t used to me speaking up for myself and especially not on this trip – so far, it felt as though I’d lost my voice completely.
I thought I was coming across as very quiet, very shy, not particularly dynamic.
It was a side of myself I fell back into very easily – I’d sort of taxi along unseen, in the same way I’d done when my parents had split up and my whole world went a bit haywire.
I’d decided pretty early on that the best thing, when I went to visit either Mum or Dad and their new partners and my half-siblings, was to not draw attention to myself.
To not stand out, to be a nice, easy person, to not cause a fuss about anything.
In case they decided they didn’t want me around anymore because now they had these shiny new families to love instead.
And I sort of dulled down my personality, I supposed, and blended into the background, going along with what everyone else wanted.
In the end, it became second nature. I mean, just look at my job for starters: I was good at it, and yet I was being overlooked for promotion and Tim treated me like an intern.
I thought briefly of the research I’d been doing on how to create my own travel content business: a website, reviews, videos of places I’d been, hotels I recommended.
I’d got a bit carried away at the time, imagining sponsorship and partnerships with hotel chains and YouTube channels.
I thought I had all the skills I’d need, but in order to do it properly, I’d have to leave Holiday Shop.
Which felt terrifying, of course, even though I’d saved enough to cover six months’ salary already.
It was something I needed to speak to Nick about, I supposed.
Not that what I earned really had an effect on his huge salary, but the prospect of leaving my job felt like the kind of thing I should be sharing with my husband-to-be.
An oblivious Maurizio was still talking passionately about his wine. ‘A Shiraz must ferment in the barrel for one year. It is a violet colour. It has high flavour and high spice. You can taste black pepper?’
I nodded, taking another mouthful and remembering to hold it in my mouth for two seconds before swallowing, like they’d told us at the other winery – two for red, five for white.
I could feel Nick’s eyes boring into me, but I didn’t feel like explaining why I’d said what I had.
I was already on the defensive, presuming that conflict – the very thing I went to great lengths to avoid – was about to ensue.
And if Aidan thought he could worm his way back into my mind by doing nice things like drawing bananas on his tasting notes, he had another thing coming.
I hated him, I reminded myself, and unless he had a very, very good excuse as to why he’d been AWOL for the last two years, it would likely be staying that way.