Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
An oenologist has to keep her priorities straight.
'No, it's somewhere on Garrigue in the rinsing water,' I said. John had looked for the miss-
ing bit of finger once it was light enough but it was lost - washed down the road where
we did a final rinse of the trailers, into Upper Garrigue. It brought a new dimension to how
much of himself Sean put into his vineyard and his wines.
'Is Sean all right?'
'I haven't heard from the hospital yet. He was in a lot of pain.'
We talked through what had to happen in the winery over the following few days. Lucille
was losing her school teacher approach and becoming more of a collaborator.
'
Faites très attention à vous
and best wishes to Sean,' she said as she left; better than a rap
over the knuckles.
It was mid afternoon and I hadn't eaten since four that morning. I bit into a baguette
stuffed to bursting with fig jam, then into a large piece of cherry chocolate and called the
hospital. Sean was out of theatre and could be collected. He had lost the top third of his
middle finger on his left hand. To avoid future problems the surgeon had cut away a little
more of the bone than the harvest trailer had done and removed the nail root.
'Come now,' said Sean, 'please, Carolinus.' He sounded so vulnerable. I crammed another
mouthful of fig baguette and a hunk of chocolate into my mouth and grabbed the car keys.
Sean was in reasonable humour considering his
amputation traumatique
as described on
his medical certificate. His hand was bandaged up to the elbow. By the time we reached
Gardonne pharmacy the anaesthetic was wearing off. On the road from Gardonne to Gar-
rigue Sean groaned in agony at each tiny bump. He took the maximum dose of morphine
and went to bed. I had never seen him in such pain.
The doctor decreed that Sean should be off for six weeks and it would take six months for
the finger to heal completely. All I could think was - what the feck am I going to do? I felt
bad that I was worrying about myself; at least I had all my fingers.
The following day John and I tackled Hillside again. I descended into 'Halloween Horror'
cavern, speeding past the spiders despite the drop of several metres and connected up the
pipe. I had already returned to the joyful light before we realised that the pipe was blocked
like the day before. We tried the trick of reversing the pump unsuccessfully. A minute later
Sean ran into the winery, bandaged hand held high.
'What's going on?' he demanded.
I was dispatched down into the cavern. After trying almost everything Sean decided to go
downhimselftocheckthepipe.Weundidthevat-to-pipeconnectionyetagainandchecked
thepipeandthetap.Lodgeddeepinsidethetapspoutwasasolidrubberwasherthatshould
have remained inside the tap cap when I took it off the previous day. I was the weakest link.
Sean glowered at me and stomped back to bed. I felt angry and frustrated; I was out of my
depth and his attitude wasn't helping. I reminded myself that he was running on morphine
and recovering from a traumatic amputation.
