Easy to Like (24 page)

“Are you okay?” asked Elliot.

He didn't hear Hazel's response; he was
mesmerized by the aroma of the wine. That this was made from fruit was now
difficult to detect: it was the scent of a world and a time. And it was
transitory. There was something capric at the start, not at all pleasant, which
was soon overwhelmed by truffle nail polish and sweetened
coffee . . . Vietnamese iced coffee. These notes did not
endure. Everything about it was fleeting. Was that curry? Not the genuine
article, but the supermarket powder in his mother's spice rack? No, it was
cinnamon . . . no, fresh gingerbread, and
then . . . sun-baked earth, horses, roses wilting in the
sun, a woman's neck.

“Did you say something, Hazel?”

“Helga! Who called Helga?”

“I got Troy to do it. He was great
there tonight, poised. He kept it together, showed . . .” Elliot
was distracted by the fumes from the glass. “I don't know, what? Grace under
pressure? Never would have expected that.”

“Helga. Poor woman.”

“Yes, it's going to
be . . . for her, difficult, I
guess . . .”

Tentatively, Elliot took a sip. There
were berries, or an extract, raspberries and blackberries squished between your
fingers, there was unmistakably toffee and tamari, there was pan juice of
roasted game, partridge or hare, and something from a hunting trip he'd taken
with his father and his Uncle Bert, in the fall of the year, near Baie d'Espoir
in Newfoundland, the decaying vegetation beneath the
trees . . . and it was gone. The bottle was so old, its
contents so delicate, that the oxygen in the air of the room was burning it
up.

“How do you like the wine, Hazel?”
Elliot thought he would try again.

“The wine?”

“Yes, the wine Rainblatt gave me.”

Hazel sniffed at her cup and then
gulped. “It doesn't have much of a taste, does it?
It's . . . God! It reminds me of
something . . . When I was a kid, we spent part of the
summer in the family cottage in Muskoka and there was a smell of the
woods . . . or no, that's not it.” She inhaled again. “My
grandmother, she was this wild woman. Is it her perfume, or the smell of her
perfume fading on her clothes? When I was fourteen years old, she took me on a
shopping trip to Paris. Or that's what she told my parents. We weren't there two
days before we went on to Italy, to Siena. She had a rendezvous with a lover
there. We stayed at his estate out in the country and in the morning, among the
trees . . . I loved her, my Gran. She's the one who insisted
I be called Hazel.”

“After her?”

“No, everyone called her Mitzy. It was
because I was born at the height of a hurricane, Hurricane Hazel.”

“Wine with notes of ‘love affair in the
country.' I got them too. It's high praise for a drink.”

“More like ‘fading, questionable memory
of love affair in the country.'”

“Higher still. And it is a very old
bottle.”

“And here I thought one drank to
forget.”

“With a good wine, never.”

Elliot looked back at the silent tube
but the news was over. On instead was the premiere of
Benny
Tries Again.
Benny was in a tussle with his first guest, was out from
behind Elwood Glover's old desk and wrestling with Barry Hart. Scoring Barry was
a coup Elliot had organized, asking a favour of their mutual agent Mike. Bennie
was tugging at Barry's jacket. He ripped off a sleeve. Elliot reached for the
remote.

“I have to sleep here,” said Hazel.

“Of course,” said Elliot, laying the
remote back on the coffee table.

“I don't feel I can go home. I'll sleep
on your couch.”

“No, no, I'll take the couch.”

“It's no trouble? You've slept on the
couch before?”

“Not often.”

“Okay, there's going to be all this
awkward and needless back-and-forth now and . . . having
seen poor Victor go over the edge like that . . . I don't
have the patience for ‘We'll sleep in the bed together, no hanky-panky' and then
a comforting hug and next I'm feeling you all hot and hard against my back and
we don't sleep until after we've had a fuck but by then it's four thirty in the
morning. You know what I saying, Elliot.”

“I hope so.”

Hazel held out the mug. Perhaps stress,
the sight of her boss falling off a building, had aggravated her arthritis, for
her hand was knotted cordage.

“Give me another glass of that wine,
will you?” she said. Elliot was retrieving the bottle from the kitchen when
Hazel called from the living room, “Benny's show! He's got some woman on.”

“That's his second guest,” said Elliot.
“I forget her name. She's the oldest gal on the LPGA tour. She's from
Victoria.”

“CanCon, anyway,” said Hazel. “Is Barry
Hart coming on later?”

“I believe he was the first guest,”
said Elliot, returning with the wine. “Cheers.”

WESLEY JOHNSTON
was being truthful
when he informed the Customs official that his trip to the United States was for
pleasure. He was beaming in anticipation when Walt picked him up at San
Francisco Airport. He'd called Walt two days earlier to ask for the lift. No
sense confusing matters at a car rental agency with a Wes Johnston Canadian
passport and an Elliot Jonson California driver's licence. Jihadists had seen to
it there was less habeas corpus than there once was in the Republic, and one
wanted to act judiciously. Walt was happy to oblige, saying he and Elliot had at
least three hours of vineyard and cellar issues to discuss.

The fifth floor of the parkade, where
Walt had left his truck, was open to the elements, and the blast of air that met
Elliot there was cooler and moister than that he'd last breathed in Toronto.

Walt took the 280 to the 101 just south
of San Jose. It got warmer and drier as they went. At Gilroy you could tell you
were heading south. At Salinas you could finally feel the heat they used for
California's Chia Pet agribiz, the land a dead, porous medium into which seeds
and their feed could be injected. He was watching dust devils dancing on the
broiling flats when his cellphone rang. It was Hazel.

“Where are you?”

“I'm driving through a place called
Gonzales.”

“You went to California?”

“Yeah.”

“You should have woken me when you
left,” she said. “Your cleaning lady arrived just as I was leaving.”

“I envy that kind of sleep. I'd never
mess with it.”

“I haven't been that out of it in
years. I was like a teenager, I didn't open an eye until ten o'clock.”

“It's a reaction to the stress, to the
shock.”

“Thinking about it this morning I was
almost sick. I assumed, Elliot, that you would have changed your travel
plans.”

“Anything in the papers?”

“Morbid fascination with how he died is
overshadowing his accomplishments.”

“Anybody call you about it?”

“Nobody yet. It's a local story about a
guy falling off a building. The entire executive of the CBC could drown in Lake
Ontario and nobody would notice. Is it beautiful where you are?”

“It's featureless. I can see a
McDonald's.”

“If there are questions, can I give out
your cell number?”

“I would prefer if you could field
stuff. You can call, but don't give them my number. I'm gonna be busy.” Walter
nodded at Elliot's assessment.

“People are going to be shocked you
didn't cancel your trip, that you're not going to be here for the funeral.”

“I can't choose when the grapes ripen.”

“Your immediate superior fell to his
death in a freak accident, the national public broadcaster is without a
president, and you are taking a vacation at your hobby farm?”

“It's not a hobby, it's a business
concern into which I have sunk considerable resources. Take the opportunity to
mention the new season when you're speaking to the press.”

“You are kidding me.”

“Nothing crass, just slip it in. Let's
not forget he was at the event to celebrate the new schedule. Mentioning that
isn't a lie.”

“Wow.”

“Promoting the new season is the best
way to honour Victor's life.”

The cellphone reception seemed to break
up; Elliot could hear nothing.

“Hello?”

“Eat a grape for me.”

“I will.”

Walter took Elliot's closing up the
phone as his cue to start talking business. Various plots of the different
varieties were becoming ripe at different times. There was much to calculate. He
confessed to having been deeply pessimistic at the beginning of the year. The
plants had flowered adequately but it never seemed to get warm enough, and he'd
feared that some of the grapes would never ripen. He'd abandoned all hope for
the heat-craving Mourvèdre.

“But it was dry,” he continued, “dry
enough to worry, except that this year it seemed the fog always made it just as
far as our vines at night. Because of the dry farming — and I give you credit
for it, Elliot — that's all it took to keep them going. Maybe this year was the
first time some of the vines you planted had roots deep enough to cope with
water stress, I dunno. And with the wind, you got away without spraying.”

Heat had arrived only in August:
temperatures constant and fierce. When the ripening commenced, the vines were
still yielding little fruit, owing to the drought — but they were fully mature,
with complex flavours from the skins to the pips.

“Miguel started a team picking the
first Syrah this morning, you know in that amphitheatre we call ‘the dip'?”

Elliot did know it, a shallow
southwest-facing bowl in the side of a hillock, a location, Elliot thought in
retrospect, better suited to Mourvèdre.

“I'd say we can finish all the Syrah
within the week, just in time for the Grenache,” Walt continued. “Counoise is
well ahead so it won't be long after. There might be a week or even two to wait
for the Mourvèdre. It's all had enough hang time — you can tell by the feel and
look of the berries. There is more acid than most people would be happy with,
but considering what I think you are going for . . . As long
as it doesn't rain.”

“I caught part of a news conference
where the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor were praying for rain. I mean
literally, with their heads bowed as some ding-dong spoke to God on California's
behalf. Jesus.”

“Rain is the only thing that can hurt
us, Elliot. I have rough ideas about the sort of tonnage we can expect. The
Syrah will be less than three tons an acre, so it's probably not too early to
begin thinking about the blend. Every variety is looking terrific, even the old
Cinsault that was part of the field blend is killer, it's a luxury I've never
had before, so you . . .”

Walt's speech was almost frantic by
this point; he leapt from harvesting to fermentation, ahead to the blend and
back again. Elliot wanted to listen. More than anything he wished to dream
possible dreams with long-suffering Walt. But ahead was a large billboard with
the message “It's Happening in Soledad.” “It,” for his son Mark, was another
four years in prison in a town called Loneliness.

He could not even think about
attempting a visit, travelling as a former version of himself. It was as if, up
there in Canada, he was reverting to an earlier draft, one abandoned for a
page-one rewrite. And after all the trouble of reimagining the character,
changing the setting and the storyline, the producer was deciding to go back to
the original script, using some rationalizing hooey like “your first instincts
are usually right.” But Elliot liked his own rewrite.

“. . . and despite what I've said, I
agree with you.” Walt was still going. “If the wine is built like that, you
probably aren't going to know how it turns out until it's been ten years in the
bottle. We won't live long enough to know how we should start, you know?
Sometimes it's a best guess.”

“You know what they say, ‘Nobody knows
anything.'”

“Who said that, Randall Grahm?” Grahm
was a fellow California winemaker.

“No, it was William Goldman. He was
talking about the pictures.”

“Could apply to just about anything,”
said Walt.

Elliot could now see the walls of the
low-slung prison from the highway. Walls and walls and walls, punctuated with
guard towers.

“It does, I'm sure.”

“What's happening with Jasper Crabb?”
Walt asked.

“Huh?”

“The dude from the Department of
Agriculture, the suitcase clones?”

“That's sorted.”

“You're kidding me.”

“I told you, no one wants to open that
can of worms, too many brand names in Napa would be implicated. I told him they
were legit and he was fine.” This was untrue.

They were passing the town of Paso
Robles, taking exit ramp 230 off the 101, when they were overtaken by a short
yellow school bus. Walt was forced to the shoulder by the speeding vehicle.

“What the fuck?” said Elliot.

“Goddamn Bread Heads.”

“That was Farinists?”

“They drive around in those short
buses. They've been coming in from the Bay area and L.A., they're having some
kind of festival, some kind of unholy bake-off.”

“They seem pretty harmless. I mean,
bread shoes . . .”

“That's no cake shop up by the old
mission, Elliot, it's a fortress. And I see them in Paso: they're crazy. It's in
their eyes.”

The tidy rows belonging to Haldeman
Laboratories were an even green, in stark contrast to the leaves of Elliot's
vineyard beyond, with their yellow skirts and rusty veins. A giant circular
sign, cut and painted to look like a medal, stood next to the Haldeman gate. “97
Points,
Wine Advocate
,” it said.

“I was talking to the General the other
day,” said Walter.

“About?”

“He wants your Zin. It's deadly this
year. His . . . not so much.”

“Let's sell it to him.”

“I'll mention it. He also wanted to
talk to Miguel about pickers.”

“Haldeman is getting none of our
team.”

“We'll be done two weeks before he
starts.”

“Then by all
means . . . Two weeks? Really?”

“Yep.”

“You really think we can go for
it?”

“The grapes are mature, Elliot. Most of
the stems are lignified. The phenolics there . . . and it
puts armour on the juice. Maybe the wine will only come in at twelve percent
alcohol, maybe people won't know what to make of it,
but . . .”

Walt turned the truck through the gates
of 303 Locura Canyon Road. Elliot could see Miguel's team coming up the hills
toward the winery for lunch. Harvest was done for the day. The afternoon would
see the grapes picked over, the busted, rotten, and raisined berries discarded
along with the leaves and twigs and dirt. A select portion of the prize grapes
that remained would be destemmed before they were placed into vats to commence
their transition to wine. Already wild yeasts were beginning to consume the
sugar in the berries. The end of the season was the beginning.

The midday meal was served under a long
canopy, jerry-rigged from various flies and tarps. Every harvest, Bonnie put
down her pen and cooked for the crews. Elliot needed her at her desk, but the
seasonal KP detail was one of the few joys Bonnie found at Locura Canyon. And
she was a terrific cook. She worked from a bounty of fresh veg from her organic
farm. Today there were plates best described as heaps of sliced tomatoes and
fresh goat cheese over which was poured herbed olive oil, and there were salads
in infinite permutations of the green things she grew. There were at least three
pork roasts, their heat lifting aromas of cumin and chile and garlic into the
autumn air. There were pots of beans and rice.

Freed from the tractor beam of the
computer screen, Bonnie was, every year, a new and better woman. Seeing Elliot,
she hugged him.

“Prodigal boss.”

“Don't think the fatted calf was killed
on my account, but I'll take it.”

“How long you here for?”

“Going to try to stay until the
Mourvèdre is in.”

“Business in L.A.?”

“Nope. Staying here the whole time.
Gonna pull out the camp cot.”

“I need to talk to you. Can we have a
walk, or do you want to eat?”

“No, let's walk.”

They headed out to the vines. At a
judicious distance Bonnie produced a joint and lit it.

“I'm giving you notice.”

“No.”

“Not going anywhere soon. I knew you
would need time to find someone else . . . so three
months.”

“Please,
Bonnie . . .”

“You aren't going to be able to do this
from up in Canada. You are going to have to stay, live the dream — or at least
attend to it.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. This is shaping up to be your
first decent vintage, so it's not going to be so hard getting another
manager.”

“That's bullshit, Bonnie, you run the
operation.”

“And that's not what I signed on for.
Frankly I'm exhausted from fighting off the bank and the creditors.”

“I'm devastated, Bonnie. Naturally,
there's nothing I can do to make you stay . . . I'm
just . . .”

“Elliot . . . have
you ever thought that it doesn't matter what's in the bottle?”

“I don't understand.”

“Something is always the new thing,
right? Like Californian wines were the thing for a while and the French were in
the shitter.”

“Yeah.”

“But those were fashions,” said
Bonnie.

“No, they were tastes.”

“See . . .” She couldn't
find the words. “For the first few people, the ones who were looking for
something new, or at least claiming they'd found something new, it might have
been about taste. But for everybody else . . . they were
just following.”

“I really don't see what point you're
trying to make.”

“I understand your desire to make
something special, but I don't think you realize that most people don't
care.”

“You're wrong,” said Elliot.

“Someone comes home from a long day at
the office, fires up the barbecue, kicks off their shoes, puts up their feet,
looks out over the backyard at all the other backyards, and enjoys a nice,
freezing cold glass of blush Zin from the fridge.”