Page 10 of Vine

CHAPTER 4

CASPIAN

If I was a good boy, Emma promised she’d let me loose with the pruning knife, a lethal-looking thing, to be honest, but damned manly. Until then, I had to make do with the blunted pruningshearsaccompanied by a lecture on how to identify a vine’s principle branch. Surely it was the biggest, wasn’t it?

Leigh and Jonas graced us with their presence, and a sickening sensation in the pit of my stomach like something bad might happen returned. I had that feeling constantly whenever they were around, without ever finding out what the bad thing was. Leigh’s skin was a couple of shades darker than the last time I saw him. There was a fine line between a healthy spray tan and rolling in a bowl of Dorito’s, and he skated perilously close to it. In contrast, my own skin had taken on the pale grey tinge of a rock washed clean. The temporary bags under my eyes, attributed to my messy divorce, had been with me two years now; I guessed they were here to stay.

Anyhow, our first afternoon of filming was fun. Not. We didn’t follow an exact script—we knew the drill and each other well enough to improvise on a rough outline. But bloody hell, ouron-set truce very soon descended into one well-timed snip with the shears away from on-set bloodshed.

Leigh started it. “I’ll do the introductory spiel about the history of this place,” he announced. “As it’s a bit dull, it needs a perky delivery.”

Fucker. From his unnaturally orange face, his teeth flashed unnaturally white. To be fair, he always presented those segments better than me, not that I would ever admit to it. And my throat was scratchy, as if I had a cold coming on. “Thanks,” I replied sourly. “In that case, I’ll just sit over here and carry on being unperky, shall I?”

He chuckled. “If the cap fits, babe.”

I gritted my teeth. Only eight months and three-and-a-half weeks to go. Not that I was counting. “Shall I interject with something amusing about the shite weather?”

He hummed and hawed. “Mmm, maybe. Or perhaps we could save that segment for a day or so. Until you’ve been here forty-eight hours and have a stinking cold sore for me to tease you about. You usually develop one when we travel.”

Now the wanker mentioned it, my lip had started to tingle. And my nose was stuffy. “About the same time your bowels usually turn to concrete—do we mention that, too?”

Leigh lobbed me another too-sweet gleaming smile. “We could. But then we’d also have to bring up that time you got the shits from those dodgy mussels in Paris, and I had to…”

“Jeez, why are you being so unpleasant? And for fuck's sake, Jonas, why are the camera crew recording this?”

“Um… because it’s funny?”

“No it isn’t!”

Removing his new spectacles, Jonas waved them around. I knew they were an affectation. “Caspian, shush. Everyone enjoys the outtakes; they’re the best bit. Don’t be so cranky,” he goaded. “We’re only filming to get the lighting right.”

“Loosen up, Caspy,” piled on Leigh, still with that annoying smirk. “Let Jonas worry about what’s funny, shall we? God knows it’s not your speciality.”

So that’s how it was going to be, was it? Patronising git.

Not all of the most memorable reality TV fights involved physical violence. Some were simply so brilliantly passive-aggressive you had to watch through your fingers. Preferably while wearing really thick woollen gloves. I desperately needed a pair working in this freezing hellscape.

“It had better not appear in the final edits. And stop being such a bitch, Leigh. Get on with the history segment and I’ll whinge about the cold.”

“Fine.” Leigh folded his arms. “But for the record, I agree with Jonas. We should include stuff like this—despite our very happy marriage, we’re tense and stressed due to the size of the task ahead of us, blah blah blah.”

“Well, I don’t want to,” I said stubbornly. “And my current stress levels have nothing to do with the bloody vineyard, as you damn well know.”

Of course, after that, I stood next to him as he recorded the history segment looking like I’d been slapped round the face with a wet fish, and said my piece about the weather through a blocked nose. Ensuring it was totally destined for the cutting room floor. Jonas, however, was unexpectedly relaxed. “It’s early days, Caspy. I’m sure we’ll get plenty of decent footage by the time we’re through.”

“Well done for not backing down,” said Emma kindly as we resumed hacking away at a fresh row of unruly vines. “Hopefully, things might settle.”

“Thanks.” Gotta love an optimist.

After that little contretemps, yanking out the dead wood was rather therapeutic. The camera crew had followed our progress along the previous row, but had now disappeared inside to warm up, letting us finish this one by ourselves.

I sniffed, searching for a tissue. Yes, a head cold was brewing. “I’m cross I let him rile me.”

“We’ll all relax into it in a week or so,” she promised. Yeah, right. We snipped some more.

“Who owns this place?” I’d not cut my arms for over a week. My last wound was now hardened to a leathery crust. But if I wasn’t going to pick that old scab to crumbs in the next five minutes, my brain desperately needed a diversion. She’d mentioned an elderly tenant whose bed and room I now occupied, after first clarifying he hadn’t died in it.

“Oh, one of the local families.” She snipped with alacrity and at twice my speed. “When I came to check it out back in November, I dealt with the estate agent, not the owner. But it’s been passed down through generations of the same family, like all the agricultural land here. The landlord probably doesn’t even live on the island anymore. Just spends the rent.”

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