Chapter 28 #2
Eventually, we left the coach and our driver at the bottom of a hill, where he promptly got out a newspaper and his cigarettes.
Bernardo led us up through a maze of little streets and showed us through a tiny door into a surprisingly large stone-lined room where there were benches and tables set out with platters of finger food and several wine glasses.
The far wall was filled floor to ceiling with wine racks and bottles, all of which were very dusty.
I might not have known much about wine but that was exciting.
It spoke of years of work and probably a thousand times more knowledge than I had.
I was prepared to be impressed. Apart from anything else, the very air in the place was scented with wine and old, slightly damp stone, which also reinforced my opinion that we were in safe hands and going to have a great time.
I squeezed into one of the benches between Jack and Harriet, with Craig and, rather surprisingly, Dawn opposite us. Considering she had spent the entire trip commenting on how people drank too much and she preferred the refreshing bottled water on the boat, I did wonder why she had come along.
‘I leave you with my very simple friend, Tomislav,’ Bernardo said with a cheerful grin.
A charming, rather rotund man came forward and started to deposit bottles on our tables. A lot of bottles with three different labels.
‘Welcome to you all. All wines from local vineyards,’ Tomislav said with an encouraging smile, and then he waved his hands at us. ‘Please to be helping yourselves.’
We didn’t need asking twice.
‘?lahtina is a lovely local white wine. It has scents of apple and citrus. And I think it goes with everything. The one with the dark grey label is Zaberdi, which is my wife’s favourite.
It’s red but not too heavy. And the last one is Novi Poret, which is a sweet red wine, just like communion wine.
Taste and find out what you think. Enjoy the food.
And then we have a surprise for you afterwards.
’ Tomislav beamed with pleasure and went off behind the counter to sort out some other bottles.
‘Well, this is nice,’ Jack said as he poured me some white wine, ‘and that prosciutto looks good.’
‘And try the olives,’ Harriet said, ‘they are fantastic. Not like the ones I get from the supermarket which just taste like lumps of putty in salty water. I always put one in my martini after church on a Sunday, and really I don’t know why because they don’t add anything.’
We spent the next few minutes tasting the three wines and comparing our thoughts.
The consensus of opinion was that they all tasted very much like wine.
And we liked the sweet red wine the least. All the same, the bottles seemed to be emptying and the noise of all of us in the low-ceilinged room grew.
There was a lot of laughter and the group were interacting in a way they hadn’t before. Don was talking with some animation to Evelyn, and at one point stopped and looked at her with new respect, breathing, Omar Shariff? Really? So it seemed her secret was out.
The honeymooners Peter and Paige, who had hardly been seen at all during the trip, were nestled together at one end of a bench, giggling and clinking their glasses together.
Considering how much younger they were than the rest of us, I did wonder how much they had enjoyed themselves, but then as newlyweds they probably still saw the world through a different more innocent lens.
Roy was talking quite intently with Craig about changing his car in the near future, and as the self-appointed expert, Craig was enjoying himself talking about aerodynamic drag and brake horsepower.
‘Grey is the most popular colour these days, and don’t ask me why because most of the time they just look like the road.
White cars are the safest,’ he said, knocking back his Zaberdi with relish, ‘but then they get stopped more often. Pink is the least popular. I had a neighbour once who had a pink VW beetle. It looked like a blancmange rabbit driving down the road.’
Roy found this hilarious and the two of them roared with laughter.
‘I think I’ll buy some of this white wine,’ Anna said from further down the table.
‘How would you get it home?’ I asked. ‘You’d have to put it in your big suitcase and that’s going to be full of your new clothes, isn’t it?’
She pulled a face. ‘I suppose so. What a pity.’
At that point Tomislav reappeared carrying a tray of little shot glasses which he dumped on the table in front of us.
‘A surprise!’ he said. ‘A happy surprise! Croatian schnapps! This is Slivovitz which is plum and this is Travarica which is – what would you say – herbal. Almost a medicine.’
There was a scattered cheer from some of our number and the glasses were passed along the long table.
‘The plum one is okay, but I wouldn’t want to have the illness that the medicinal one cures,’ I said, pulling a face at the taste. ‘I don’t think I can drink that.’
‘It’s very bracing,’ Marjorie agreed, taking a tiny sip. ‘Rather bitter.’
‘Oh, you shouldn’t be bitter,’ Dawn called across at her, ‘it’s very ageing. My mother always said don’t be bitter, be better.’
Craig snorted. ‘Good at giving advice, your mother, not so good at taking it.’
Dawn flared her nostrils. ‘My mother was a saint; a martyr in fact.’
‘Yes, we know, she kept telling us,’ Craig fired back.
‘Well, I don’t know what’s got into you. Really I don’t,’ Dawn said, standing up and adopting an uncomfortable half crouch because the wooden bench was still tucked under the table, preventing her escape.
The table rocked a little and Craig reached out to steady the bottles. And then he picked up the nearly empty bottle of Novi Poret and looked at it.
‘Good grief, Dawnie. I know what’s got into you. This is nearly empty!’
‘It’s communion wine,’ Dawn screeched, ‘it doesn’t count!’
‘It’s 13 per cent proof! Of course it counts,’ Craig said, wrestling the bottle away from her.
Dawn narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you know about anything? My mother was right about you. She always said you had a stick up your—’
‘Dawn! Really! Everyone can hear you,’ Craig said, the tips of his ears bright red with embarrassment.
‘Shall we go to the little girls’ room, Dawn?’ Belinda said encouragingly. ‘I’ll go with. And then I think we could do with some fresh air, don’t you?’
Dawn pulled a face. ‘I don’t need you to mind me. You’re always so bossy, Belinda. No wonder your husband behaves like that.’
‘Like what?’ Belinda said, outraged.
‘If you don’t know then I’m not telling you.’
Everyone looked at Don, who was sitting placidly nursing his shot glass.
‘Don’t look at me,’ he said, ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on. But someone perhaps needs to calm down and have a little walk outside. Someone’s plastered.’
‘Don’t speak about my wife like that,’ Craig spluttered.
‘Yes,’ Dawn said, ‘don’t speak about his wife like that.’
‘He’s talking about you, Dawn,’ Craig muttered.
‘Is he? Well, you talk about his wife then,’ Dawn said, hiccupping gently. ‘Who’s his wife? Have I met her?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Come on, let’s get you outside, we need to find the bus soon anyway,’ Craig said.
‘I think he’s very rude,’ Dawn said, wriggling her way out from behind the table. In the process she knocked over several bottles and people made frantic grabs for their plates and glasses before there was complete chaos.
Dawn drew herself up to her full height, which was only about five feet two inches, and she mustered as much dignity as she could.
‘He,’ she said, pointing at Don, ‘he. Is a man.’
Don roared with laughter and after a moment Dawn made a grab for a handful of leftover prosciutto and threw it at Don, who rather neatly ducked. This meant it hit Belinda in the middle of her chest and it slithered down her cleavage into the front of her dress.
Belinda screamed and began fishing it out with a lot of squeaks and squarks, while Don laughed so hard he fell off the bench and slid under the table.
‘You’re the one who should go outside,’ Dawn said. ‘You should go and touch yourself.’
‘Dawn!’ Craig shouted.
Dawn looked confused and shook her head. ‘You should go outside and get in touch with yourself.’
‘That’s enough, Dawnie, love,’ Craig said in a mollifying tone. ‘Let’s go and find the bus, shall we?’
‘Yes,’ she said, picking up her handbag and clutching it under one arm, ‘I’ve had enough of this. I didn’t come here to be insulated. Insulted.’
Don grabbed hold of the edge of the table and stuck his head out from underneath it. Belinda hurriedly removed a slice of salami from his forehead.
‘Why, where do you usually go?’ Don said.
Dawn flared her nostrils at him. ‘That’s it. Give me the keys, Craig. I’ll drive.’
* * *
The next few minutes were taken up with getting Dawn into the cool of the early evening where she could be heard shouting at her husband and listing her mother’s many virtues, which included the tidiness of her airing cupboard, her ability to iron a shirt in three minutes and her kitchen drawer filled with bits of string which she never threw away.
‘Don’t laugh,’ Evelyn said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t laugh.’
‘I thought she didn’t drink?’ Harriet said.
‘But that was like communion wine so she said it didn’t count,’ Anna said.
‘I remember something like that when I was a kid, people buying something called tonic wine and taking it as though it was medicine, and in fact it was 15 per cent proof. I hope she doesn’t throw up on the bus.
Perhaps we should let her sit at the front? ’