Page 1 of The Missing Sister
June 2008
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I saw my father die. I was standing pretty much where I was now, leaning over the wooden veranda that surrounded our house and staring out at the grape pickers working their way along the neat rows of vines, heavily pregnant with this year’s yield. I was just about to walk down the steps to join them when out of the corner of my eye I saw the man-mountain that was my father suddenly disappear from sight. At first I thought he had knelt down to collect a stray cluster of grapes – he detested waste of any kind, which he put down to the Presbyterian mindset of his Scottish parents – but then I saw the pickers from the rows nearby dash towards him. It was a good hundred-metre run from the veranda to reach him, and by the time I got there, someone had ripped open his shirt and was trying to resuscitate him, pumping his chest and giving mouth-to-mouth, while another had called 111. It took twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
Even as he was lifted onto the stretcher, I could see from his already waxy complexion that I would never again hear his deep powerful voice that held so much gravitas, yet could turn to a throaty chuckle in a second. As tears streamed down my cheeks, I kissed him gently on his own ruddy, weatherbeaten one, told him I loved him and said goodbye. Looking back, the whole dreadful experience had been surreal – the transition from being so full of life to, well... nothing but an empty, lifeless body, was impossible to take in.
After months of suffering pains in his chest, but pretending they were indigestion, Dad had finally been persuaded to go to the doctor. He’d been told that he had high cholesterol, and that he must stick to a strict diet. My mother and I had despaired as he’d continued to eat what he wantedanddrink a bottle of his own red wine at dinner every night. So it should hardly have been a shock when the worst eventually happened. Perhaps we had believed him indestructible, his large personality and bonhomie aiding the illusion, but as my mother had rather darkly pointed out, we’re all simply flesh and bone at the end of the day. At least he’d lived the way he wished to until the very end. He’d also been seventy-three, a fact I simply couldn’t compute, given his physical strength and zest for life.
The upshot was that I felt cheated. After all, I was only twenty-two, and even though I’d always known I’d arrived late in my parents’ lives, the significance of it only hit me when Dad died. In the few months since we’d lost him, I’d felt anger at the injustice:whyhadn’t I come into their lives sooner? My big brother Jack, who was thirty-two, had enjoyed a whole ten years more with Dad.
Mum could obviously sense my anger, even if I’d never said anything outright to her. And then I’d felt guilty, because it wasn’t her fault in any way. I loved her so much – we’d always been very close, and I could see that she was grieving too. We’d done our best to comfort each other, and somehow, we’d got through it together.
Jack had been wonderful too, spending most of his time sorting through the dreadful bureaucratic aftermath of death. He’d also had to take sole charge of The Vinery, the business Mum and Dad had started from scratch, but at least he’d already been well prepared by Dad to run it.
Since Jack was a toddler, Dad had taken him along as he went about the yearly cycle of caring for his precious vines that would, sometime between February and April, depending on the weather, bring forth the grapes that would then be harvested and ultimately result in the delicious – and recently, prize-winning – bottles of pinot noir that lay stacked in the warehouse, ready to be exported across New Zealand and Australia. He’d taken Jack through each step of the process, and by the time he was twelve, he could have probably directed the staff, such was the knowledge Dad had given him.
Jack had officially announced at sixteen that he wanted to join Dad and run The Vinery one day, which had pleased Dad enormously. He’d gone to uni to study business, and afterwards had begun working full-time in the vineyard.
‘There’s nothing better than passing on a healthy legacy,’ Dad had toasted him a few years ago, after Jack had been on a six-month visit to a vineyard in the Adelaide Hills in Australia, and Dad had pronounced him ready.
‘Maybe you’ll come in with us too one day, Mary-Kate. Here’s to there being McDougal winegrowers on this land for hundreds of years to come!’
While Jack had bought into Dad’s dream, the opposite had happened to me. Maybe it was the fact that Jack was genuinely so enthralled by making beautiful wines; as well as having a nose that could spot a rogue grape a mile off, he was an excellent businessman. On the other hand, I had grown from a child to a young woman watching Dad and Jack patrolling the vines and working in what was affectionately known as the ‘The Lab’ (in fact, it was nothing more than a large shed with a tin roof atop it), but other things had caught my interest. Now I regarded The Vinery as a separate entity to me and my future. That hadn’t stopped me working in our little shop during school and uni holidays, or helping out wherever I was needed, but wine just wasn’t my passion. Even though Dad had looked disappointed when I’d said that I wanted to study music, he’d had the grace to understand.
‘Good for you,’ he’d said as he hugged me. ‘Music is a big subject, Mary-Kate. Which bit of it do you actually see as your future career?’
I’d told him shyly that one day I would like to be a singer and write my own songs.
‘That’s a helluva dream to have, and I can only wish you luck and say that your mum and I are with you all the way, eh?’
‘I think it’s wonderful, Mary-Kate, I really do,’ Mum had said. ‘Expressing yourself through song is a magical thing.’
And study music I had, deciding on the University of Wellington, which offered a world-class degree, and I’d loved every minute of it. Having a state-of-the-art studio in which to record my songs, and being surrounded by other students who lived and breathed my passion, had been amazing. I’d formed a duo with Fletch, a great friend who played rhythm guitar and had a singing voice that harmonised well with mine. With me at the keyboard, we’d managed to get the odd gig in Wellington and had performed at our graduation concert last year, which was the first time my family had seen me sing and play live.
‘I’m so proud of you, MK,’ Dad had said, enveloping me in a hug. It had been one of the best moments of my life.
‘Now here I am, a year on, chucked out the other end of my degree and still surrounded by vines,’ I muttered. ‘Honestly, MK, did you really think that Sony would come begging you to sign a record deal with them?’
Since leaving uni a year ago, I’d slowly become more and more depressed about my future career, and Dad’s death had been a huge blow to my creativity. It felt like I’d lost two loves of my life at once, especially as one had been inextricably linked to the other. It had been Dad’s love of female singer-songwriters that had first ignited my musical passion. I’d been brought up listening to Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Alanis Morissette.
My time in Wellington had also brought home to me just how protected and idyllic my childhood had been, living here in the glorious Garden of Eden that was the Gibbston Valley. The mountains that rose up around us provided a comforting physical barrier, while the fertile earth magically grew an abundance of succulent fruit.
I remembered a teenage Jack tricking me into eating the wild gooseberries that grew in prickly brambles behind our house, and his laughter as I’d spat out the sour fruit. I’d roamed free back then, my parents unconcerned; they’d known I was perfectly safe in the gorgeous countryside that surrounded us, playing in the cool, clear streams, and chasing rabbits across the coarse grass. While my parents had laboured in the vineyard, doing everything from planting the vines and protecting them from hungry wildlife, to picking and pressing the grapes, I’d lived in my own world.
The bright morning sun was suddenly eclipsed by a cloud, turning the valley a darker grey-green. It was a warning that winter was coming and, not for the first time, I wondered if I’d made the right decision to see it out here. A couple of months back, Mum had first mentioned her idea of taking off on what she called a ‘Grand Tour’ of the world to visit friends she hadn’t seen for years. She had asked if I wanted to join her. At the time, I was still hoping that the demo tape I’d made with Fletch, which had gone out to record companies around the world just before Dad died, would produce some interest. Yet the replies that told us our music wasn’t what the producer was ‘looking for just now’ were piling up on a shelf in my bedroom.
‘Sweetheart, I don’t need to tell you that the music business is one of the toughest to break into,’ Mum had said.
‘That’s why I think I should stay here,’ I’d replied. ‘Fletch and I are working on some new stuff. I can’t just abandon ship.’
‘No, of course you can’t. At least you have The Vinery to fall back on if it all goes wrong,’ she’d added.
I knew that she was only being kind and I should be grateful for the fact I could earn money working in the shop and helping with the accounts. But as I looked out now on my Garden of Eden, I heaved a great big sigh, because the thought of staying here for the rest of my life was not a good one, however safe and beautiful it was. Everything had changed since I’d gone away to uni and even more so after Dad’s death. It felt like the heart of this place had stopped beating with his passing. It didn’t help that Jack – who, before Dad had died, had agreed to spend the summer in a Rhône Valley vineyard in France – had decided with Mum that he should still make the trip.
‘The future of the business is in Jack’s hands now and he needs to learn as much as he can,’ Mum had told me. ‘We have Doug on site to run the vineyard and besides, it’s the quiet season and the perfect time for Jack to go.’
But since Mum had left on her Grand Tour yesterday, and with Jack away too, there was no doubt I was feeling very alone and in danger of sinking into further gloom. ‘I miss you, Dad,’ I murmured as I walked inside to get some brekkie, even though I wasn’t hungry. The silent house did nothing to help my mood; all through my childhood, it had been buzzing with people – if it wasn’t suppliers or pickers, it was visitors to the vineyard that Dad had got chatting to. As well as handing out samples of his wines, he’d often invite them to stay for a meal. Being hospitable and friendly was simply the Kiwi way and I was used to joining total strangers at our big pine table overlooking the valley. I had no idea how my mother was able to provide vats of tasty, plentiful food at a moment’s notice, but she did, and with Dad providing the bonhomie, there had been a lot of fun and laughter.
I missed Jack too and the calm, positive energy he always exuded. He loved to tease me, but equally, I knew that he was always in my corner, my protector.
