My Grape Escape Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Laura Bradbury
wooden floors. I could completely look past the mustard and green velvet wallpaper, the cross complete with an impaled Jesus over the headboard, and the dried and very dusty bridal bouquet under an even dustier glass dome on the bedside table. Next to the bedroom was a small water closet with a sink but no other bathroom; I wondered where the previous occupants had washed – in the well? Next was a separate living area set off by a massive stone fireplace.
Franck didn’t say a word but from the determined set of his mouth I knew he wasn’t missing a thing.
The first house was slung perpendicular to the main road through the village, whereas , the second house was completely vertical. It was much newer too, according to the realtor, meaning it had been built a mere two centuries ago instead of four.
The second house had four floors. Each floor had one or two rooms, and they were connected by a graceful wooden staircase that spiralled up the middle of the structure and became steeper the higher we climbed. The final room – a bedroom under the eaves of the roof - took up the entire top floor. A perfect spot, I thought, to come and escape from the world with a book on a rainy day…once the dead flies were cleaned up. The carpet and the windowsill were dotted with them.
Once the house tours were done, the realtor showed us through the first of two massive stone outbuildings which had been used as barns for a few hundred years. Inside, we discovered a rusting motor scooter, an old wooden cart that was missing two wheels, and four giant glass bottles used for distilling poire william and other hard alcohols.
“These granges can also be renovated and made into other houses,” the realtor said, caressing the wall. It was true, the stone and massive oak beams provided an amazing canvas for another house altogether.
The farthest outbuilding commanded a view of the entire valley where yellow wheat fields gave way to vineyards and then back to fields again, topped off by a ridge of green trees. Inside, a rickety wooden ladder was propped up against a wooden overhang. Franck squinted up its length, swung his leg over, and began to shimmy up.
The realtor called up to him, “Can’t guarantee that it is safe up there, you know! You could come through the floorboards - probably completely rotten.” Franck had already disappeared from the top of the ladder.
“Laura, come up here!” he called down to me.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the realtor advised.
“What if I fall through the floorboards?” I called up to Franck.
“I’ll catch you.”
While the realtor shook his head I put my foot on the first rung and began to gingerly make my way up. How much scarier could this really be than climbing the stairs of Oxford’s Examination Schools before my first final exam? Whatever waited for me up top, it couldn’t be as bad as the vertiginous feeling of terror and uncertainty I had felt then.
Hope flickered inside me - this splintering old ladder might lead me to a completely different kind of place. Besides, this was perhaps the only chance for Franck and me to whisper our opinions to each other away from the realtor.
I pushed thoughts of rotting floorboards and termites from my mind and scrabbled up the last few rungs. Such worries were slightly unnerving, but in a reassuring, concrete way. They were infinitely preferable to the other kind of doubts that had been running in a continuous loop through my mind in the past two years.
My head poked out just over the level of the wooden beams and Franck, a grin on his face, grabbed my hand and pulled me up beside him. He led me, boards creaking ominously under our feet, to the far end of the mezzanine and a little waist high stone wall. His arm wrapped around my shoulders as we gazed out at an uninterrupted view over the vineyards. He kissed my earlobe.
“You could write here.”
I fingered an ivy leaf from the vine that perfectly framed the view.
“I can’t
Franck didn’t say a word but from the determined set of his mouth I knew he wasn’t missing a thing.
The first house was slung perpendicular to the main road through the village, whereas , the second house was completely vertical. It was much newer too, according to the realtor, meaning it had been built a mere two centuries ago instead of four.
The second house had four floors. Each floor had one or two rooms, and they were connected by a graceful wooden staircase that spiralled up the middle of the structure and became steeper the higher we climbed. The final room – a bedroom under the eaves of the roof - took up the entire top floor. A perfect spot, I thought, to come and escape from the world with a book on a rainy day…once the dead flies were cleaned up. The carpet and the windowsill were dotted with them.
Once the house tours were done, the realtor showed us through the first of two massive stone outbuildings which had been used as barns for a few hundred years. Inside, we discovered a rusting motor scooter, an old wooden cart that was missing two wheels, and four giant glass bottles used for distilling poire william and other hard alcohols.
“These granges can also be renovated and made into other houses,” the realtor said, caressing the wall. It was true, the stone and massive oak beams provided an amazing canvas for another house altogether.
The farthest outbuilding commanded a view of the entire valley where yellow wheat fields gave way to vineyards and then back to fields again, topped off by a ridge of green trees. Inside, a rickety wooden ladder was propped up against a wooden overhang. Franck squinted up its length, swung his leg over, and began to shimmy up.
The realtor called up to him, “Can’t guarantee that it is safe up there, you know! You could come through the floorboards - probably completely rotten.” Franck had already disappeared from the top of the ladder.
“Laura, come up here!” he called down to me.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the realtor advised.
“What if I fall through the floorboards?” I called up to Franck.
“I’ll catch you.”
While the realtor shook his head I put my foot on the first rung and began to gingerly make my way up. How much scarier could this really be than climbing the stairs of Oxford’s Examination Schools before my first final exam? Whatever waited for me up top, it couldn’t be as bad as the vertiginous feeling of terror and uncertainty I had felt then.
Hope flickered inside me - this splintering old ladder might lead me to a completely different kind of place. Besides, this was perhaps the only chance for Franck and me to whisper our opinions to each other away from the realtor.
I pushed thoughts of rotting floorboards and termites from my mind and scrabbled up the last few rungs. Such worries were slightly unnerving, but in a reassuring, concrete way. They were infinitely preferable to the other kind of doubts that had been running in a continuous loop through my mind in the past two years.
My head poked out just over the level of the wooden beams and Franck, a grin on his face, grabbed my hand and pulled me up beside him. He led me, boards creaking ominously under our feet, to the far end of the mezzanine and a little waist high stone wall. His arm wrapped around my shoulders as we gazed out at an uninterrupted view over the vineyards. He kissed my earlobe.
“You could write here.”
I fingered an ivy leaf from the vine that perfectly framed the view.
“I can’t