Aged Like a Fine Wine

If you asked Julia what she’d done with the last 30 years, she’d probably tell you she’d travelled a lot, spent time with family, and seen a few important personal projects through to completion.

In truth, much of it had been spent alone, doing nothing.

At the age of 77, it was time for that to change. Her next 30 years would be spent doing nothing with someone else.

She’d heard of the Smokehouse, but never been before. Now her taxi was pulling up in the car park, she wished she’d been during the day. The driver had told her about a waterfall just a few hundred feet away, and she could hear the water running. But right then, the darkness of the trees was oppressive.

The restaurant, if the wooden cabin could be called that, looked warm and inviting. A handful of couples sat on picnic benches out the front. A girl threw her head back and laughed, letting a plume of purple smoke out into the air.

Julia made her way over to the door, her knee repeating its usual twinge with every step. A small group of people were waiting for a table in a neat queue. She scanned their faces, their heights, their ages; one man fit the bill.

Michael was tall, she knew; still active, and by all accounts looked after himself very well. He was once the chef at Martina’s favourite restaurant, and the two of them had got to know each other through Martina’s loud compliments. After a few over-optimistic dinnertime chats about him with Julia, Martina passed his number on and insisted that she "absolutely must call him."

So here she was, on the first blind date of her life, nearing the age of 80.

“You’d think we were a little too old for this.” Julia said as she approached. She was a little slower on her feet these days, but she found that the people she met were in very little rush, so it mattered none.

“Nonsense, I’m just getting started.” A glint in his eye. Forty years ago, Julia knows it would have given her butterflies. For all her attempts to come across as a stalwart, strong, feisty young woman, she had only ever been human. And men like Michael knew there was power in their looks.

He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips, placed a kiss there, lowered it back down. His attention turned back to the sign above the Smokehouse door, and he scoffed, “never heard of this place before.”

Julia thought she saw his nose wrinkle a little, and a small ball of discomfort began to twist itself into being in her stomach. “I’ve heard great things.” Julia offered, “it’s one of only two genuine smokehouses in the country; did you know that?”

“Perhaps there’s a good reason for that.” Michael chuckled, but behind it she saw the shape of a grimace.

The waitress, a girl perhaps only a quarter of Julia’s age, approached them, two menus in hand. “Your table is ready, if you’d like to follow me?”

Julia smiled and nodded. Michael did the same. The heat inside the restaurant crackled. People sat in camisoles, t-shirts, and short skirts, tucking into dark plates of slow-roasted meat. Julia felt horribly overdressed in her woollen dress. The last thing she would need is the unattractive tinge of sweat on her top lip.

The waitress gestured to a table in a cosy corner of the restaurant. “I’ve got the specials menu just here for you, as well as the wine list.” Michael pulled out Julia’s chair for her, which made her tut and wave a dismissive hand.

“Do you have an a la carte menu too?” Michael spoke loudly over the hubbub of diners, out of a desire to be heard but also a touch of snobbery.

“It’s all specials here! Our menu is designed fresh every morning, using produce from local farms.” The waitress grinned, proud of herself and the Smokehouse. This was an important selling point.

“How wonderful.”

Julia thought it was wonderful, but she doubted the sincerity of Michael’s words. The waitress gave them one last nod and a shaky smile before scurrying back towards the kitchen. Silence settled between the two diners.

“So tell me,” Julia began, “your cheffing days, what were they like?”

Michael’s eyes focused in sharp on hers, the glint returning, a new energy in his smile. “Ah, where to begin?”

Julia suspected he knew exactly where to begin.

“Intense, creative, and fast-paced; in three words. Every day different, even when the menu stayed the same.” He linked his fingers together under his chin and leaned forward, drawing her into his story. “The London hotels were the best. Some very rude customers there that needed their opinions corrected.”

“Ah, I see. You were the Gordon Ramsay of the hotel circuit.” Julia smiled.

“Oh, no; goodness no,” Michael was taken aback, “my work was never a performance like his is. My food was all honesty.”

Julia was unable to imagine what an ‘honest’ Duck à l'Orange might taste like.

“I simply mean that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things,” he glanced around, “and I am interested to see which way this Smokehouse” he hissed the word, “tends to lean.”

The menu, Julia decided, was beautifully laid-out; and, though short, required a good few moments of attention to be fully appreciated. She buried her nose into it and took a few deep breaths to calm her frustration. Michael seemed undeterred by her lack of response, his face a stony mask of smugness.

Some plates clattered in the kitchen.

The waitress welcomed a family party into the restaurant.

A couple on the next table clinked their glasses together.

“Which wine tickles your fancy?” It was reckless, Julia saw, and invited yet more of Michael's scathing judgement, but there were two things she needed to do: break the silence and get some wine down her gullet as soon as was reasonably possible. This question addressed both.

Michael snapped up the wine list and took a just a brief moment to survey the options. “Well, it will have to be the Merlot.”

“It will have to?”

“I can’t select anything else on the list. It wouldn’t be right.”

Julia’s smile trembled, as if it were getting tired of pretending. “Merlot works absolutely fine for me.” She would apply a few more layers of gloss to her lips before she begun drinking to avoid those ghastly purple stains. The Merlot was the most expensive wine on the menu, and she knew there was a chance that this was the sole reason Michael had chosen it. In her experience, a higher price tag did not always mean better quality. Michael, with his high-flying history, his posh suits, and pricey opinions, was the perfect human embodiment of that. But, she was here now, and she would blunder her way through a few more poorly-chosen questions to see if she could find some common ground upon which to build a friendship.

By the time the food had arrived (brisket for her, and top-dollar venison for him), she had all but exhausted her list of questions and he had failed to ask a single one back. She knew his life story, from his upbringing in Kent, to his schooling in Westminster and the particular route through culinary school he took to get to his first job (though he turned his nose up at the idea that an instinctive flare for flavour could be taught). But he knew nothing about her.

“I really just feel that they could have done more with this meat.” Michael had chosen to twist the knife just a little further into the poor Smokehouse’s back. “It’s cooked beautifully, don’t get me wrong, but I certainly wasn’t expecting chips and coleslaw.”

“I think that might be the point,” Julia suggested, though she felt her energy dwindling.

“Simplicity?”

“The meat is the star of the show.” She examined the borderline-caramelised beef on her fork, “to pair it with anything too showy would be a crime.”

“You are a woman of simple tastes.”

Julia choked a little, putting a hand lightly to her chest. She wasn’t sure when she’d last had to stifle a laugh; usually she would have just let it escape and damn the consequences. She clearly wasn’t comfortable.

She sipped her wine until the tickle in her throat subsided. “The wine is delicious.”

Michael swirled his glass appreciatively, “on that we can agree, at least.”

“Well, isn’t that a fantastic start.” She leant forward a little, “we only need one point of common interest; and, better still, it’s wine.” She winked. She couldn’t help herself. A breakthrough, at last.

“Julia.” He said her name as if it were statement enough on its own. “You never told me how a beautiful woman such as yourself came to be-," he considered his word choice, "unattached at such an important stage of life.”

It wasn’t quite a question, and it was a cliché; but she took it. “I was married quite young, but unfortunately my husband died some 30 years ago.”

Michael nodded his sympathies.

“We have a family; two daughters, who have kept me focused ever since. But,” and she considered this next part carefully, “out of faithfulness to my dead husband, I have never allowed myself to move on.” She took a sip of her wine. “I think that may have been a mistake now.”

Michael watched her silently, not pressing her to continue, but not interrupting her thoughts either.

“That is not to say I haven’t had a good life. I’ve spent the last 30 years travelling, enjoying time with my family, and pursuing some of my own personal creative projects.” It was a well-rehearsed script.

“Ah,” Michael chuckled, “you’ve been spending a lot of time doing nothing, on your own then.” He raised his glass. “Likewise. And I’ll toast to that.”

She met his glass with hers over the middle of the table as a feeling of warmth and understanding spread through her chest. It made her a little dizzy. Never had another person seen through her script so perfectly.

Once the plates had been cleared and a second glass of wine poured, Michael surprised her by ordering a dessert. Ice cream, no less. No fancy pannacotta or lemon posset, just ice cream. He seemed to savour every bite as if it were the best he’d ever tasted; and, though her skin burned with embarrassment, he even fed her a spoonful across the table. She definitely was too old for that.

When it came to settling the bill, he insisted on covering the cost. And, although Julia was generally against those kind of gender roles, she graciously thanked him and said the next one would be on her.

In the car park, Julia was grateful for her chosen woollen dress. The night had got cold.

“I can’t help but feel we got off to a rocky start, there, Julia; but I’d like to see you again.”

Julia laughed. “Of course, but next time you can pick the restaurant.”

“I shall. Fine-dining it is, seeing as you’re footing the bill,” the glint of humour returned again, and this time Julia allowed herself a small flutter of excitement.

“But we’ll still go for a Merlot?”

“Oh, only if it goes with the food!”

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