Besides, there is one thought that is so invasive, I keep returning to rest on it. James likes me.A lot.
I push open the door of my bedroom and see my suitcase, still unpacked, in the corner. The bottle of whisky is gone – I presume Bill has taken it back. I sit on the edge of the bed and can feel the stinging that has threatened for the last hour to burst into fully formed tears, which now begin to roll down my cheeks. I pick up my phone and scroll through the contacts list to find Heather – but then remember, for what feels like the millionth time, that I can’t call her. I think about messaging Tim, but he doesn’t really docomforting. Besides, our last chat made me realize this is no longer Project Birdy and Tim. He likes the egging-me-on bit of the misadventure, but now that I’m actually here doing it, he’s lost interest.
Gasping through my tears as snot drips out of my nose, I look back across to my suitcase and imagine chucking everything in, maxing out my credit card to get back to London. Maybe I could call my cousin again? He might take me in? But this option leaves Heather open to a damaged reputation. I still haven’t thought of an excuse that will save it. And now poor Bill and Irene are relying on me. Christ, this reallyisthe worst thing I’ve ever done.
I pick up the wine list again and remind myself of my plan.Learn the list. One hundred and twenty-four wines, I scoff. As if they even sell that many.
Could I really learn a hundred and twenty-four wines? If not to taste, but enough about them to fake it? I managed the Periodic Table at high school; even if I had no idea what to do with beryllium or boron, I did know they were numbers four and five on the Table. I have a good memory, although I’ve never been dedicated enough to anything to put it to use.
Can I climb this mountain? I flick through page after page of what might as well be Chinese. Or at least French. A lot of it actuallyisFrench.
It’s a mountain with only one hundred and twenty-four steps, I think as I turn to page one: champagne. While my laptop boots up, I sneak to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, happily noting that the mark from the cork is receding.
You can fucking do this, Birdy.
I jump on my bed with renewed vigour, open Google and type in the very first entry I find under ‘champagne’:2010 Louis Roederer Brut, Reims.
Smells of citrus, flowers, light minerals and white pulp fruits. And tastes of bread. Juicy, balanced, elegant, with a minty topnote.
Tastes of bread. Wankers!
I read the descriptor on the hotel wine list.Bright and balanced; 20 per cent oaked, perfect with fish. And next to it I add the notes: citrus, flowers, white fruit, juicy with a minty topnote.
Then I close my eyes and practise repeating it back. It takes about fifteen minutes and I’ve got it committed to memory.
Forty-eight hours until I’m back on the floor for reduced service. Including sleep and breaks, that’s probably about twenty hours of hard study time. I do the maths: one or two wines an hour is reasonable, if I include distraction time and sleep and revisions. So I could be about one-third of the way through the list by the time I have to go back on the floor.
I can do this.
For Heather. For Irene. And for Bill and James, and everyone who is counting on me. I can do this.
One down, a hundred and twenty-three to go.
13.
My plan has given me a huge boost. That night I spent one hour and thirty-four straight minutes revising champagne and crémant (which is basically champagne made outside the region of Champagne) and then I curled up into bed and fell asleep. Properly asleep.
And for the last two days I have left my bedroom only to pick up food from the kitchen and use the bathroom. I have politely declined all invitations to go hiking, to get a to-die-for cream bun at a croft up the way, to go for a lobster lunch and even to go clubbing in Inverness with Roxy.
And I am starting to make some headway. I’ve made it through the French champagnes and the Italian sparkling wines, and am currently working my way through the confusing ‘white Burgundies’. I’m at number forty-two.
I’m so dedicated, in fact, that this morning I woke at 6.15 a.m. and studied until James knocked on my door at 7.02 a.m. for our trip to Skye.
Leaving the estate has allowed me to exhale for the first time since I arrived. My wine-cramming stress has been replaced with a fleeting feeling of freedom as the car rolls alongside the water towards the Skye bridge.
We’re in a big SUV, and I find that all I can do is stare out the window, stunned by the beauty of this place. At first it’s all empty, green rolling hills and another loch. This one wider and longer than Loch Dorn. Then we get to the coast and head south. The road runs alongside it, and even at this speed I can see the tide lapping lazily at the tangle of fishing nets, boulders and seaweed by the water’s edge. Across the ocean, green hills roll out of the dark-blue water in a spray of birch trees.
‘What happened to your eye?’ James breaks the peaceful silence.
‘Champagne cork.’
‘Oh, that actuallydidhappen?’
‘Yes.’
James had been in the kitchen when the incident occurred, but of course it wouldn’t take long for rumours to start flying. It makes me feel grim to know that James’s good opinion of me could be lost.
But then I catch him suppressing a giggle and, after a moment, I join in.
