Joanne Harris - Blackberry Wine

‘Oh, back to that again, are we?’

Joe settled against the apple tree and lit a Player’s. The radio lying in the long grass began to play ‘I Feel Love’, that August’s Number One.

‘Cut that out,’ Jay told him crossly.

Joe shrugged. The radio whined briefly and went off. ‘If only you’d planted them rosifeas , like I meant you to,’ said Joe.

‘I needed a bit more than a few poxy seeds,’ retorted Jay.

‘You allus was hard work.’ Joe flipped his cigarette butt neatly over the hedge. ‘I couldn’t tell you I was going because I didn’t know mesself. I needed to get on the move again, breathe a bit of sea air, see a bit of road. And besides, I thought I’d left you provided for. I telled yer, if only you’d planted them seeds. If only you’d had some faith.’

Jay had had enough. He turned to face him. For a hallucination Joe was very real, even down to the grime under his fingernails. For some reason that enraged him all the more.

‘I never asked you to come!’ He was shouting. He felt fifteen again, alone in Joe’s cellar, with broken bottles and jars all around. ‘I never asked for your help! I never wanted you here! Why are you here, anyway? Why don’t you just leave me alone!’

Joe waited patiently for him to finish. ‘Ave you done?’ he said when Jay fell silent. ‘Ave you bloody done?’

Jay began to cut away at the rose bushes again, not looking at him. ‘Get lost, Joe,’ he said, almost inaudibly.

‘I bloody might, anall,’ said Joe. ‘Think I’ve not got better things to be doing? Better places to travel to? Think I’ve got allt time int bloody world, do yer?’ His accent was thickening, as it always did on the rare occasions Jay saw him annoyed. Jay turned his back.

‘Reight.’ There was a heavy finality in the word, which made him want to turn back, but he did not. ‘Please thyssen. I’ll sithee.’

Jay forced himself to work at the bushes for several minutes. He could hear nothing behind him but the singing of birds and the shlush of the freshening wind across the fields. Joe had gone. And this time, Jay wasn’t sure whether he ever would see him again.

GOING INTO AGEN THE NEXT MORNING, JAY FOUND A NOTE FROM his agent. In it Nick sounded plaintive and excited, the words underscored heavily to emphasize their importance. ‘ Get in touch with me. It’s urgent.’ Jay phoned him from Joséphine’s café. There was no phone at the farm, and he had no plans to install one. Nick sounded very faint, like a distant radio station. In the foreground Jay could hear café sounds, the chinking of glasses, the shuffle of draughts pieces, laughter, raised voices.

‘Jay! Jay, I’m so glad to hear you. It’s going crazy here. The new book’s great. I’ve sent it to half a dozen publishers already. It’s-’

‘It isn’t finished,’ Jay pointed out.

‘That doesn’t matter. It’s going to be terrific. Obviously the foreign climate is doing you good. Now what I urgently need is a-’

‘Wait.’ Jay was beginning to feel disorientated. ‘I’m not ready.’

Nick must have heard something in his voice, because he slowed down then. ‘Hey, take it easy. No-one’s going to pressure you. No-one even knows where you are.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ Jay told him. ‘I need some more time on my own. I’m happy here, pottering around the garden, thinking about my book.’

He could hear Nick’s mind clicking over the possibilities. ‘O?. If that’s what you want, I’ll keep people away. I’ll slow things down. What do I tell Kerry? She’s been on the phone to me every other day, demanding to know what-’

‘You definitely don’t tell Kerry,’ Jay told him urgently. ‘She’s the last person I want over here.’

‘Oho,’ said Nick.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Been doing a bit of cherchez la femme , have you?’ He sounded amused. ‘Checking out the talent?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive.’

It was true, he thought. He had hardly thought about Marise in weeks. Besides, the woman who first strode out across the pages of his book was a far cry from the recluse across the fields. It was her story he was interested in.

At Nick’s insistence, he gave him Joséphine’s number in case he needed to pass on an urgent message. Again, Nick asked when he would be able to see the rest of the manuscript. Jay couldn’t tell him. He didn’t even want to think about it. He already felt uncomfortable that Nick had shown it unfinished without his permission, even though he was only doing his job. He put down the phone to find that Joséphine had already brought over a fresh pot of coffee to his table. Roux and Poitou were sitting there with Popotte, the postwoman. Jay knew a moment’s complete disorientation. London had never seemed so far away before.

He came home as usual, across the fields. It had rained during the night and the path was slippery, the hedges dripping. He skirted the road and followed the river to the border of Marise’s land, enjoying the silence and the rain-heavy trees. There was no sign of Marise in the vineyard. Jay could see a small blur of smoke above the chimney of the other farm, but that was the only movement. Even the birds were silent. He was planning to cross the river at its narrowest, shallowest point, where Marise’s land joined his. On either side there was a swell of banking topped by trees; a screen of fruit trees on her side and a messy tangle of hawthorn and elder on his. He noticed, as he passed, that the red ribbons he had tied to the branches had gone – blown away by the wind again, most likely. He would have to find a better way of securing them. The river flattened and shallowed out at that point, and when it rained the water spread out, making islands of the clumps of reeds and digging the red soil of the riverbank to make extravagant shapes, which the sun baked hard as clay. There were stepping stones at this crossing place, worn shiny by the river and the passage of many feet, though only he passed here now. At least, so he thought.

But when he reached the crossing place there was a girl squatting precariously by the riverbank, poking a stick at the silent water. At her side a small brown goat stared placidly. The movement he made alerted the child, and she stiffened. Eyes as bright and curious as the goat’s fixed on him.

For a moment they stared at each other, she frozen to the spot, eyes wide; Jay transfixed with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu .

It was Gilly.

She was wearing an orange pullover and green trousers rolled up to her knees. Her discarded shoes lay a short distance away in the grass. To her side lay a red rucksack, its mouth gaping. The necklace of knotted red ribbons around her neck solved the mystery of what had been happening to Jay’s talismans.

Looking at her more closely he could see now that she wasn’t Gilly after all. The curly hair was more chestnut than red, and she was young, surely no more than eight or nine, but all the same, the resemblance was more than striking. She had the same vivid, freckled face, wide mouth, suspicious green eyes. She had the same way of looking, the same knee cocked out at an angle. Not Gilly, no, but so like her that it caught at the heart. Jay understood that this must be Rosa.

She fixed him with a long unsmiling stare, then grabbed for her shoes and fled. The goat shied nervously and danced across towards Jay, stopping briefly to chew at the straps of the abandoned rucksack. The girl moved as quickly as the goat, using her hands to pull herself up the slippery banking towards the fence.

‘Wait!’ Jay called after her. She ignored him. Quick as a weasel she was up the banking, only turning then to poke out her tongue at him in mute challenge.