The Harvest Tractor – Part 2: Long Table

"I would like that very much," said Nomsa.

The kiss was soft and tasted of coffee and early sun. Claire's hand rose to her cheek, calloused and gentle, stained purple at the fingertips. Nomsa laughed, delighted, and kissed her back, and the tractor engine ticked as it cooled. Below them the valley glowed.

"I should say," said Claire, "I have never kissed a sommelier."

"I have never kissed a tractor driver."

"It's a surprisingly good combination."

That evening, the whole estate gathered for the harvest supper, a long table under the old oak trees strung with lights, groaning with food: lamb on the coals, roasted vegetables, fresh bread, salads, jugs of the first pressed juice. Wine flowed. Someone brought out a guitar. The sky turned lilac, then star-spangled.

Nomsa sat opposite Claire, who had washed the purple from her hands and put on a clean white shirt. Their eyes met across the lanterns and neither looked away.

"Do you want to leave?" asked Claire, quietly, when the dessert came out.

"Yes."

"Before the pudding?"

"Before anything."

They slipped away from the table and walked up the path to Claire's cottage at the edge of the vines, a small whitewashed house with a stoep and a lamp over the door. Inside, it was warm and plain, with a wide bed and a window open to the night. They undressed slowly, laughing at tight buttons and straw in hair, and under a patchwork quilt their love-making was gentle, unhurried and full of soft laughter, with the muffled music of the supper drifting up the hill.

Morning came pink and gold. Nomsa woke to the smell of coffee and found Claire on the stoep with two mugs and her bare feet on the rail.

"The harvest's over," said Claire. "The pruning starts in June."

"I could come for the pruning."

"It's cold. Wet. Terrible work."

"With you on the tractor?" Nomsa smiled. "Sounds perfect."

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