Everyone else was eating breakfast but Maura was still in the bathroom. Evie left her coffee and hurried to the stairs; she could hear Maura retching from the depths of her throat. Evie went upstairs, wondering why Brendan was still downstairs at the table spreading butter and jam on a baguette.
She put a hand on Maura’s back, feeling the violence of her gagging, rubbing gently between each heave. Maura was almost vomiting, her face was wet and she was clearly unwell. Evie turned on the tap as the bouts subsided. Maura was trying to apologise between swallowing and sobbing.
‘Don’t even think about it, Maura. Was it the drink last night? I mean, we drank quite a lot between us …’
Maura turned to Evie and her face was washed out. Her eyes glistened and were hollow. She put a hand on Evie’s shoulder. ‘This is the fourth time this week I have felt so bad. I might be ill. I think it’s my nerves. I’m in tatters. Brendan and I – things are not going well between us at the minute.’
Evie stared at Maura’s face and was thinking about something else, a memory, a sensation in her stomach, shreds of her own past. She clutched Maura’s arm.
‘Come downstairs and we’ll get you a cup of tea. You and I need to have a chat, I think.’
There was a long conversation in which Maura and Evie had their heads close together, talking in hushed voices, then Jean-Luc was given his instructions. Brendan stood alone haplessly and followed Evie into the garden, watching Jean-Luc slide into the red sports car. Maura was trembling as she sat in the passenger seat and clicked the seatbelt. Evie gave her a conspiratorial wink and said she would see them in an hour and asked Jean-Luc to pick up some eggs for her so that she could make omelettes for lunch. She waved until they passed the crooked sign, then she turned to Brendan, who was standing next to her quietly. ‘You and I need to talk.’
‘Is that why you’ve sent the pair of them off to the shops, Mammy? So we could have a chit-chat?’
She linked her arm through his and turned him away from the house, walking past the barn and the tractor to where the vines grew like little trees. They walked along the path, and she hugged his arm.
‘I thought it would be nice for you and me to spend some time, just the two of us, yes?’ Brendan smiled weakly and she held his gaze. ‘But it’s clear you’re unhappy and Maura is looking like a wet weekend herself. You hardly said a word last night, and you’re just like your father was, with his moods – I can read you like a book. So, how can I help?’
He took a deep breath. ‘You can’t, Mammy. It’s such a mess. When you left the home in Dublin, I was really worried about you. You just took off. Then I found out you were in Liverpool and the next thing I knew you were in France. You never said goodbye or anything. So I came out here to bring you back. I thought you’d need me to look after you. And now things are different. You’ve changed so much.’
For a second she was angry. ‘I was wasting away in Sheldon Lodge, Brendan. Is that what you wanted? I was a little old lady waiting to die in a place that was sucking the soul out of me.’
‘No, but—’
‘And you say I’ve changed, but haven’t I changed for the better? Haven’t I come here and found out who I am and made my own new life? I like it better here, Brendan. I’m stronger and fitter and happier. I’m busy and I have friends and a lovely man who loves me. Don’t you think that is a good thing?’
He agreed.
She turned them around and they walked silently back to the house. Inside, Evie went over to the range, heating water, putting tea-bags in the pot, opening a tin of biscuits. Brendan stood behind her, hesitant.
‘Mammy, so much has changed in my life too. I came here to find you and then I followed your texts—’
‘Why the hell couldn’t you just ring up?’ Her hands were on her hips.
His face crumpled and she went over to him. ‘I wanted to bring you back. I wanted you to need me, to look after you. I wanted to see the look on your face, the joy of it, when I turned up to take you home. And I missed you, Mammy. And I wanted to get away but Maura was always there and it’s going badly between us and I wanted to see you. I thought you weren’t safe. I mean, you’d gone abroad. I thought … I sort of wanted to rescue you, but, but now I’m here and you don’t need me and you won’t come back home and my own life is such a mess—’
She put a mug of tea in his hands and clasped them around the soothing heat. He took a mouthful and breathed out.
Her gaze was intense. ‘Don’t you love Maura?’
‘I think I do. But I’m not sure I can make her happy.’ Brendan shrugged and he looked like he would cry.
‘Does she love you?’
He shrugged again and Evie sighed.
‘It’s a fecking mess, I’m sure, but these things have a way of sorting themselves out.’
‘I don’t know how to sort it out any more, Mammy. I don’t know what to do next.’
She put her hand on his shoulder and her cheek was next to his. He could smell the warmth of a perfume, a gentle smell of something sweet and woody, and he inhaled. Her hands found his curls and she wound her fingers into them as she had done when he was a child.
‘Things will get better with time, Brendan. Stay here. Can you stay for a week?’
He closed his eyes. ‘I think so. I need to be at an interview in Dublin in nine days so maybe we can stay for five or six more.’
‘Stay, have some time to relax, enjoy yourself, get to know Jean-Luc.’ She saw the expression on his face. ‘He’s not going to replace your dad, Brendan, but he is such a good man. Get to know him a bit. Give him a chance.’
Brendan drank the tea, and stared into the depths of the liquid. Evie went over to the range and started to select vegetables.
Jean-Luc came in followed by Maura, who said she needed to go to the toilet and made a quick exit past the table without looking at Brendan. He sighed. His mother was hugging Jean-Luc, who was mumbling about looking at the equipment and taking the tractor around the vineyard; he had work to do. Evie kissed him, laughing and telling him to be back in three hours as she would have lunch ready.
‘Brendan, go with Jean-Luc, will you? I’d love him to show you the wine-making equipment. We have six five-hundred-litre stainless steel tanks in the other barn and all sorts of interesting devices for filtering and bottling and what-not.’ She made a small movement with her head, twice. ‘Go on with you. You’ll enjoy it.’ Brendan looked puzzled. Jean-Luc put on his cap and his jacket and Brendan followed him sheepishly, while his mother beamed away at him.
Brendan stared at huge vats and racks upon racks of bottles. The barn was dark and full of cobwebs in the corners but the machinery was pristine. There was even a little ladder that led up to the tap at the top of the vats. Jean-Luc explained the process and Brendan was trying to listen, rubbing his forehead.
Jean-Luc stopped speaking and took off his cap. ‘You have no need to worry about your mother, Brendan.’
Brendan did not know what to say. Jean-Luc put a hand on his shoulder.
Brendan began to stammer. ‘Please … please don’t think I was being …’ He looked at the huge hand, at Jean-Luc, whose gaze was steady.
‘Evie is a wonderful woman. She is special.’
Brendan agreed, wondering if he should escape, run away, or stand and listen to a man he hardly knew talking to him about his own mother.
‘Evie is my life now, she is everything to me, and I will make sure she is cared for.’
Brendan agreed quickly.
‘You can trust me with that, Brendan. With your mother.’
He agreed again and looked anxiously at the door. Jean-Luc positioned himself in front of Brendan and grasped his hand in his fist. Brendan’s colour faded.
‘We can be friends, perhaps? I know you must miss your father and, well, I can see you are not happy, but I hope at least you will trust me.’
Jean-Luc was shaking his hand vigorously. Brendan looked at his trapped hand and back to the big man and he swallowed hard.
‘Ah, yes, Jean-Luc, all right, so … so tell me, tell me all about the fermentation process.’