Encarnita's Journey E-Book

Joan Lingard

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 449

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

It is 1920 and the beautiful village of Yegen, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, awakens to a new year and two events that are to change the pueblo for ever: the birth of Encarnita, a beautiful dark-eyed girl; and the arrival of the British writer Gerald Brenan and his string of artistic and literary visitors, including Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington. Growing up in Yegen, and taught English by Brenan, the beautiful Encarnita longs for the world outside the small pueblo - the stories Brenan and his friends tell her spark her imagination. And so begins her long journey, from the Sierra to Edinburgh, where eighty years after her birth, she will have one last story to tell. Exquisitely written, Encarnita's Journey is a tale as beautiful as its Spanish setting, with touches of true insight into the lives of its literati cast and dark-eyed heroine.

Leseprobe

ENCARNITA’S JOURNEY

JOAN LINGARD

For Rob, Elspeth and Drew, amigos de Nerja.

Contents

Title PageDedicationPROLOGUEEDINBURGHCHILDHOOD: YEGENYEGEN, 1920192019231929193019321935WOMANHOOD: ALMUÑECARSUMMER, 193519351936EASTER SUNDAY, 1939193919391939MOTHERHOOD: NERJANEW YEAR’S DAY, 1940MAY 1945MAY, 1955197019852002THE LAST STAGE: EDINBURGH2002TWENTY-TWOJOURNEY’S ENDAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorBy Joan LingardCopyright

PROLOGUE

EDINBURGH

Celia Marjoribanks is beginning to think she may have made a mistake by allowing these two unknown Spanish women to come into her house. She hovers, tidying a few magazines, pretending to be occupied, while keeping an eye on the older woman, the mother, whose name is Encarnita. Encarnita pauses in her dusting of the bookcase and turns, then jabbing the spine of a book with a blunt forefinger she says, ‘I know that woman.’

Celia Marjoribanks goes over to look. She frowns as she peers to read the title. To the Lighthouse. ‘Really? You know her? Virginia Woolf? I mean, you knew her? She’s dead.’

Encarnita nods. ‘Dead. She must be dead. She older than me.’

Celia has been wondering what age Encarnita is ever since she presented herself at her door with her daughter. At least eighty, she thinks, if not more. Her face looks weathered and it is scored by many lines but her eyes are dark and arresting.

‘Yes, I knowed her,’ says Encarnita.

‘That is interesting,’ says Celia, who is finding this difficult to believe, though perhaps Encarnita might have worked for Virginia Woolf. She tries to calculate how long ago that might have been to see if it could have been possible. Didn’t Virginia Woolf die not long after the beginning of the Second World War? Wasn’t she depressed by the war, amongst other things? She seems to remember that she was but then her memory is not as good as it used to be. And she’s not much over fifty. But aren’t the brain cells supposed to start dwindling early? Cuthbert is eight years older than her yet he appears not to have a diminished memory. Not that he would not admit to it if he had.

‘I have this book,’ says Encarnita, stabbing To the Lighthouse again.

‘You have it?’ But could she have actually read it? Celia does not like to ask. Surely not. The woman’s command of English can hardly be good enough to cope with Virginia Woolf.

‘She wear nice shoes with buttons. Nice leather shoes. Soft. I feel them.’

Celia gives Encarnita an uncertain smile, then she trawls along the shelves looking for a biography of Virginia Woolf. Ah, yes, she thought that they would have one. It’s by Quentin Bell. She pulls it out and blows dust off the cover.

‘I dust,’ says Encarnita, holding out her hand.

‘No, it’s fine,’ says Celia, drawing the book away. This woman is proving much too invasive. She cannot understand how she did let the two of them enter the house. Cuthbert won’t understand it either. She flicks through the pages until she finds Chronology, then, with Encarnita squinting over her shoulder, obviously not taking the hint, she finds that Virginia Woolf died on the 28th of March, 1941. More than sixty years ago. It might just have been possible for Encarnita to work for her.

‘Did you work for her?’ Celia asks. She is conscious of speaking slowly and clearly as if to a child, the way one tends to do to someone whose native language is not English.

‘Work?’ Encarnita shakes her head. ‘No, not work.’

‘How then……?’

‘She come to my village.’

‘In Spain?’ Celia is beginning to see a glimmer of light. ‘Did she by any chance come to visit the writer Gerald Brenan?’

‘Don Geraldo, we call him. He teach me English.’

‘How very fascinating. My husband will be most interested. He teaches English literature.’

‘He teach this woman?’

‘Yes. Not her herself, you understand. Her work. Her books.’

‘I knowed this man too.’ Encarnita points now at Eminent Victorians. She had seen it in Don Geraldo’s house.

‘Lytton Strachey?’

‘Yes, Señor Stratchee.’

‘My goodness, what a good memory you must have! It must be a long time ago?’

‘Yes, very good memory.’ Encarnita taps her forehead. ‘My mother say everything what goes in my head stay in my head from very early age.’

‘Your mother, she’s not alive too, is she?’ Celia feels she would not be surprised by anything now. Perhaps Encarnita’s mother is waiting outside to come in and join them.

‘No, she dead many years. Die young. She have the hard life.’ Encarnita goes back to Eminent Victorians. ‘Señor Stratchee come to my village also, with two friends. He no like to ride mule. He have piles.’

‘How unfortunate.’ Celia stifles a giggle.

‘Yes, not fortunate.’

‘So, remind me, the name of your village is —?’

‘Yegen.’

‘Of course! I should have remembered. In the Alpujarra, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.’

‘You correct.’

‘My husband and I spent a couple of weeks in the Alpujarra a few years ago. Beautiful part of the world.’ She must have photographs somewhere. She’s been meaning to sort out their holiday snaps for years and put them in albums.

‘You went to Alpujarra?’

‘Yes, indeed. Marvellous far away from the world feeling. Wonderful air, so clear and clean.’

‘Not when all the fires in village smoke.’

‘Well, maybe not. We went to Yegen and saw the house Gerald Brenan lived in. We read his book.’

‘Al sur de Granada.’

‘Yes, indeed. Though we read it in English.’

Celia had been rather disappointed in the village and couldn’t understand why Brenan had chosen it to live in when there were much prettier places around in Andalucía, especially the white hill pueblos further west, although, as Cuthbert had pointed out, they might not have been quite so pretty in 1920, before the onset of mass tourism. Yegen was a Berber village and the houses looked rather like boxes with flat roofs stuck together, reminiscent of ones they’d seen on a trip to Morocco. The Yegen houses had been whitewashed when they had seen them but Cuthbert had said that in Brenan’s day most of them would probably have been grey, since whitewash cost money and it was a poor village. The view had been marvellous, for the village stood at twelve hundred metres above sea level; they had looked out across a great sweep of mountains, valleys and villages, edged by the distant sea. It had been siesta time on a humid summer’s day and the silence had been immense.

‘I not live in Yegen now,’ says Encarnita. ‘I move to Nerja, on coast, many years ago.’

‘We went to Nerja, too. We had a wonderful week there, staying in the parador.’

‘You were in Nerja? And I not see you!’

‘Even if you had seen me you wouldn’t have known who I was.’

‘Oh, but I would. I sure I knowed you.’ The woman sounds distressed.

‘I don’t see how,’ says Celia gently.

Encarnita stares back at her with those large dark eyes, unnerving her a little.

At that moment, the telephone rings and Celia goes to answer it in the hall, leaving the drawing room door ajar so that she can still see Encarnita. After all, she doesn’t know the women, she cannot blame herself for being watchful, even if they do seem very open, perhaps even too open. They did bring a reference with them but it was from a woman she had never heard of. Typical of you, Cuthbert would say, though not sharply. He can go back in time to recall instances when she has allowed someone to take advantage of her. He is seldom angry but he can be reproachful, showing it by just a little look over the top of his glasses. Sometimes she thinks she would prefer it if he were angry for then she could respond, and defend herself. If she tries he says, let’s forget it, dear, let’s not make an issue out of it, it’s not that important, which leaves her with a slight feeling of resentment. He is a well balanced, well modulated man, who is never tempted to have that extra drink, whereas she is. It is difficult to argue against a policy of moderation.

‘You are too trusting, you know, love,’ he’d say if he were to come in now, which – fortunately – he is unlikely to do. He has tutorials until lunchtime. ‘One day —’ He would leave the possibilities to hang in the air.

But when she opened the door to the women she had felt as if she had seen them before, somewhere. The daughter, especially.

‘Celia Marjoribanks,’ she says now, watching Encarnita dust To the Lighthouse with a kind of reverence. ‘Ah, Lilias. No, I’m not particularly busy, I can talk. I’m doing my Oxfam stint this afternoon.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Actually I’ve just got a couple of new cleaners in… Yes, I’ll let you know if they’re any good.’

Encarnita has replaced To the Lighthouse and is dusting another book. Possibly Mrs Dalloway. That is one of Cuthbert’s favourites. Celia realises it’s a long time since she has read any Virginia Woolf; she read her at a certain time in her life, with pleasure, she would have to admit, but she is not sure if she would want to go back to her now. The film The Hours, however, has rekindled a new spark of interest.

‘They’re Spanish,’ she informs her friend Lilias. ‘No, they do speak English, well, after a fashion. But I don’t think they’d know it well enough to understand what I’m saying. They’re mother and daughter. Daughter’s called Concepción – yes, Concepción. You know how the Spanish tend to have all these odd Christian names. Ascención and Maria-Jésus, names like that. Concepción must be all of sixty. The mother’s called Encarnita. Short for Encarnación. Wonderful, isn’t it?’

The dusting of the books is continuing at a slow measured pace, each one being scrutinised before it’s replaced in its slot on the shelf. From upstairs comes the growl of the vacuum cleaner and the occasional thud as Concepción shifts a piece of furniture out of the way.

‘How did I get them? A flyer was put through my door, you know the way the odd one comes through about executive housekeeping and so forth. No, this one didn’t offer that. It said: “Mother and Daughter Team. Two for the price of one. Mother will do dusting and cleaning of silver and brasses. Daughter, all other work. Phone Connie.” It gave a number in our area so I thought it would be handy if they lived nearby, no bus fares for a start. I didn’t actually get round to phoning. Then, this morning, they just turned up on the doorstep and asked if I would give them a chance. They had an excellent reference from a woman in St Stephen Street. They actually offered to give me a free trial run, not that I would dream of not paying them.’

The noise has stopped overhead. Concepción’s fuzzy greyish-blond head appears over the top bannister. ‘No find plug for electrics in study,’ she yells down to Celia.

‘Don’t touch study!’ Celia cries in alarm. Cuthbert can’t stand people messing about in his study. She did tell Concepción not to go in there but she must not have understood. ‘It’s my husband’s study. Leave, please, leave!’ Now she is beginning to talk like them. Concepción’s head has withdrawn. Celia goes back to her call.

‘I suppose it was a bit of a risk but, to tell the truth, I felt rather sorry for the two of them, at their ages, having to trail round houses looking for work. Can you imagine if you had to do that? So I thought, what do I have to lose?’ Encarnita is still engrossed in the bookcase. ‘Well, of course I suppose I could lose something but I rather think they’re honest.’

The vacuum has roared into life again overhead. Celia hopes it is not in Cuthbert’s study. She wonders if the women in Yegen have vacuum cleaners. Lilias is reminding her of the amethyst necklace she had once had stolen by a former ‘cleaning operative’, as thus she had described herself.

‘These two women don’t have a shifty look to them the way that one did. They both look you in the eye, very directly, though I have to admit that there is something a little unsettling about them, I can’t explain it.’ Celia, catching sight of herself in the hall mirror, sees that she is frowning and makes a conscious effort to relax her forehead. She says in a more decided voice, ‘I am sure they are absolutely fine. They’ll have finished, anyway, before Cuthbert gets back.’

In the heart of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town, in a warm, elegant drawing room, scented with yellow freesias, delicately arranged in a shallow orange-coloured bowl, Encarnita continues with her work. The sun streaming in through the three, almost floor-length windows warms her back. She moves from the bookcase to the grand piano on top of which stand a series of photographs in silver frames. Family photographs. Groups of various kinds on days of celebration. There is Celia on her wedding day with her husband. That must be her husband Cuthbert. She is wearing a white silky-looking dress with a long train that has been arranged in a swirl around her feet like a big comma. She holds a sheath of red roses against the white dress and she is smiling. The man is wearing a kilt with knee socks and a black jacket with silver buttons. He has a straight back and a small, neat moustache. He looks proud to have such a lovely bride on his arm. It is not possible from this picture to know what kind of a man he is but Encarnita will find out when she meets him for she is certain that she will. The next photograph is of three small children, a boy and two girls. She has seen none of these people before but here is a young man whom she once knew and recognises still even though he had wild tangled hair and a beard when she knew him and in this picture he is clean-shaven. He is sitting under a silver birch tree on a summer’s day, with a book on his lap. The leaves above his head are shimmering in the sunshine lighting up his golden-red hair. He is smiling directly at the camera. He is smiling directly at her. She gently slides the duster over the glass and replaces the frame on top of the shiny piano.

Out in the hall, Celia Marjoribanks carries on talking to her friend in a soft, low voice, too soft and low for Encarnita to make out what she is saying. But she is content. She has completed her journey and when Celia has finished talking to her friend and comes back into the room then she, Encarnita, will tell her story.

CHILDHOOD: YEGEN

YEGEN, 1920

Encarnita was born only minutes into the new year of the new decade. Her birth took place in the lower barrio of the pueblo in one of its poorest dwellings. The upper floor of the house having long since fallen into disrepair, Pilar, Encarnita’s mother, lived on the lower one which formerly had been a stable and still served partly as such. Births in stables were not unknown. In the corner, tied to a stake, stood their goat, Gabriella, restless witness to the birth along with a neighbour, Isabel, who had borne many children herself.

The confinement went well in the end in spite of Pilar’s exhaustion at having laboured for twelve hours and more. Isabel encouraged her, holding apart her knees, crying out, ‘It comes! It comes! I see the head. Push one more time!’ With that Pilar grunted and willed her body to eject the child within her. She had made no noise throughout except to utter a small groan or whimper. She was a quiet, unassuming woman who never wished to attract attention. After Isabel had helped ease out the dark matted head the baby slithered quickly and easily onto the bloodied straw between her mother’s legs. Isabel seized her by the ankles and holding her aloft delivered a hearty to slap to her shrivelled bottom. Encarnita responded with an angry roar and opening wide her dark, soot-black eyes she glared at her assailant. Isabel laughed and said this child would have a will of her own, like her youngest, Juliana.

Once the afterbirth had come cleanly away she wrapped the baby in a piece of new cloth purchased from the pedlar and placed her in her mother’s arms. Pilar gazed with wonder into the shadowy face of her child. The candles had sunk low and soon their flames would gutter and die but they had served their purpose and in a few hours dawn would come.

‘My little dove,’ murmured Pilar, though the baby looked little like one for even in that poor light it could be seen that her skin was dusky and her hair, curling in soft fronds around her face, was as black as pitch. Pilar had not revealed the identity of the father but it was rumoured that he was a gypsy from Guadix, which was more than possible. Gypsies came regularly about the village and Pilar had a weakness for their men, especially those who sang haunting love songs. The women in the village said it was a pity she had not paid more attention to the songs that spoke mostly of ill-fated love which ends in grief. Especially for the woman.

A more surprising event than the birth of a new child in the village was the coming of a tall, fair-haired young Englishman to live in their midst. His name was Gerald Brenan and he soon became known as Don Geraldo. He rented the largest house in the barrio and began to make changes. One of the first things that he did was to whitewash the outside walls while his housekeeper Maria dodged to and fro underneath mopping up the drips. This said a great deal in itself. Only a small handful of villagers could afford whitewash and, even less, a servant to mop up drips. He then had two thousand books brought up by wagon from the coast down in Almería nearly a hundred kilometers away. Two thousand! Could anyone ever read so many books? The neighbours stood and gaped as they were unloaded, Pilar among them, with her newborn child in her arms. Few were able to read though there was a school which some children attended when they were not needed to help in the fields. There they learnt to recognise and write a few letters, count up to a hundred, recite the names of the continents and sing hymns and prayers. Not all parents could see the value of it though Pilar knew that when the time came she would make sure her child learned to read and write. It was something she had always yearned to do herself.

Don Geraldo settled into his house like one who intended to stay for a long time. He had furniture made by local tradesmen and bought up all the best pots and pans he could lay hands on. He stocked his larder with bags of almonds and raisins, as well as fourteen kilograms of honey, forty of figs, and three huge hams. As the villagers watched the food being carried in they sensed that life in their pueblo would never be the same again.

In the spring, the first of Don Geraldo’s many visitors from England were awaited. These were important people who were coming, stressed Maria, who seemed to draw importance from that herself. The arrival of the group, consisting of two men and one woman, was overdue, which was heightening the suspense. There had been a buzz of excitement in the upper barrio all day. Women appeared in their doorways at intervals to peer down the street and speculate on possible reasons for the travellers’ lateness. They might have missed Don Geraldo who had set out to meet them on the road. Or they might have fallen into the hands of bandits though that seemed less probable. More likely was that Don Geraldo himself had fallen by the wayside for he had not been well when he set out and Maria had been worried.

‘These travellers will have come over land and sea, Encarnita,’ said Pilar, shifting her daughter higher onto her shoulder so that she could have a better view. For three months, the baby had an amazingly strong neck and could hold her head up. ‘It would be fine to make such a journey, would it not?’ It was thus that the idea of making a journey first entered Encarnita’s head.

Encarnita always listened intently to her mother’s voice. Sweet and low, with a special timbre of its own, it came over more like song than speech at times and had an almost hypnotic effect on her. Later, when she is grown, she thinks that is why she has remembered so much of what her mother told her. Its resonance remains with her throughout her life.

They moved closer to Don Geraldo’s door when a pedlar came cantering up the hill on mule-back. Steam rose from the animal’s flanks. The pedlar had brought news of the travellers, which was a relief to Maria. He had come across them when they’d stopped to rest and eat. They had set out the day before from Órgiva but on reaching the Rio Grande they had found it swollen to a dangerous height. They had decided, nevertheless, to attempt the crossing, but when the mules had plunged in the elder of Don Geraldo’s two male friends had been thrown into a panic and they’d had to withdraw and return to Órgiva to spend another night in the posada.

‘They might all have drowned,’ said Maria and a neighbour who’d come to listen crossed herself.

‘The man who panicked was in a foul mood,’ said the pedlar. ‘He rides ill on mule-back and so he walks much of the time, except, of course, when they have to cross water.’

‘He will be walking because of his piles,’ announced Maria. ‘He is sorely troubled by them, poor man. He is a writer of books, so Don Geraldo says.’

‘Perhaps he sits too long,’ suggested Pilar.

‘It is possible. Don Geraldo asked me to find a soft pillow for him.’

‘He is a long thin sort of man with a high, squeaky voice,’ went on the pedlar. ‘And he has a beard and spectacles and a large red nose.’ He mimed each attribute, enjoying being the centre of attention. Encarnita, too, was smiling, as if she were following every word and her mother would not have been surprised if she were. ‘I think if his nose had not been so large his spectacles might have fallen off when his mule was bucking. He was riding side-saddle.’ The pedlar had a poor opinion of that.

‘Look, that is the man.’ Maria pointed to the top name of three written on a slip of paper and Pilar craned her head to look even though she could not read. Encarnita turned her head, also. ‘Señor Lytton Strachey,’ said Maria, pronouncing the surname as ‘Stratchee’. Don Geraldo had gone over the names with her so that she would know how to address the visitors. The other man was Señor Partridge but Don Geraldo had told her she could change his name to the Spanish, Señor Perdiz. He’d said that would amuse his friend though Maria had not been able to see why. They liked jokes, Don Geraldo had explained.

The third traveller was an unmarried lady called Señorita Dora Carrington. Don Geraldo had been quick to reassure Maria that by travelling with two men unrelated to her, the señorita would not ruin her reputation. Early on in her acquaintance with the Englishman Maria had come to realise that life in England was in many ways different to life in the Alpujarra. No well-bred unmarried woman in Spain from a good family – which this señorita must be – would travel with two men, for that would compromise her. Mothers liked to keep a strict eye on their unmarried daughters. A boy and a girl might glance at each other during the paseo but no more than a slight touching of the hands should take place. Once a girl allowed her reputation to be called into question no decent man would marry her. There were village girls who did not follow these rules, but then it could not be said that they came from good families.

Don Geraldo had told Maria that the differences were what he enjoyed though it remained a mystery to her and most of the other villagers as to why he would want to live in their poor village without electricity when he might have a fine house with bright lights and a flushing toilet in his own country. When he said he was poor and could not afford such a house in England he was not believed.

‘Today, the travellers took the longer route,’ said the pedlar, ‘so that they could cross the river by the bridge.’

‘It’s a long walk from Órgiva to Yegen,’ said Maria. ‘It takes most of a day.’

And the last part from Cádiar would be hard going, especially if the travellers were to decide to come straight up the mountainside, which they might be forced to do if the light was beginning to fail. It would mean a climb of about six hundred metres up a steep path, with the ground plunging away sharply on either side. The terrain was wild and rugged.

‘I think the big-nosed man might not have the nerve for it,’ said the pedlar with relish.

‘It is beautiful there, though,’ said Pilar, who had walked the route only once in her life, with a man from Cádiar, before she had met Encarnita’s father. ‘Especially now that it is spring.’

It had been spring when she had walked with the man and the wild flowers, yellow, white, purple, had been strewn across the hillsides, with the scarlet poppies adding their own startling splashes of colour, while further down in the valley shreds of pink and white almond blossom had still been clinging to the branches. Spring was Pilar’s favourite season but it would not be Encarnita’s; she would come to prefer the deep heat of summer, the sultry days without a breath of wind, with bees buzzing over the lavender and gorse, and the warm evenings when you could stroll in the streets until midnight and beyond.

The sun had gradually been lowering in the western sky, streaking it with bands of vivid pink and red. The houses, too, were touched with colour. The air was cooling rapidly. The goats were coming home from the campo, as were the mules and donkeys, toiling up the steep, cobbled streets, their bundles of grasses and sacks of oranges and lemons piled high on their backs. By now most of the women had gone indoors to make a meal for their husbands and children. Soon smoke was rising from the chimneys. The scents of burning rosemary, lavender and thyme stole through the narrow, twisting streets and a gauzy film spread over the rooftops. Pilar stayed where she was, for she had no husband and could feed her child where she stood. She was full of milk now. That, at least, was free. She unbuttoned her blouse and Encarnita snatched greedily at the engorged nipple.

The stars, too, were coming out.

‘Where can they be?’ fretted Maria, retying the black kerchief round her head, while pacing restlessly up and down. She was a spry, nervy woman who found it difficult to be still. ‘I hope they have not fallen down a precipice. Let us go inside, Pilar. We shall have something to eat, too, while we wait.’ She felt sorry for Pilar who had to depend on the favours of men to feed her. She was fortunate since, as Don Geraldo’s servant, she was fed and also paid a peseta a day, more than most people in the village could hope to earn. There was little paid work of any kind to be had.

They went into the house, rented by Don Geraldo from the landowner Don Fernando, though his beautiful wife, Doña Clara, was even richer than he, with property in Granada. To own property was every villager’s dream but they were not so ignorant as to think that that in itself would bring good fortune. Doña Clara was a delicate woman who kept giving birth to sickly children, none of whom survived childhood. At eighteen Maria had been taken into their house as a servant and become Don Fernando’s mistress, subsequently bearing him a child, a puny girl, called Angela, who did survive and was now nine years old. Don Fernando had gone to live in Granada with his wife while retaining a room in his old house, in addition to the ground floor where he continued to stable goats, a pig and a cow.

The smell of manure was rank and flies buzzed about the animals but none of this was noticed particularly by the two women as they passed through. Pilar saw that a fly was trying to settle on her child’s milky, half-parted lips and flapped it away. They followed Maria up the stairs to the first floor, which opened out onto a garden and a courtyard at the back. There were nine rooms of various sizes on this level, sparsely furnished, in the Englishman’s eyes, if not in Pilar’s. Some families in the village had little or no furniture and ate sitting on the floor. As Maria said, the foreigner was used to different ways.

‘It is just as well we have so many rooms,’ she said, as she trimmed a paraffin lamp and set it on the table, ‘since Don Geraldo has so many friends who are willing to travel long distances to visit him.’

The kitchen was not overly large but it boasted a stone sink, cupboards of dark walnut, a row of charcoal stoves and an open fireplace, with a bakehouse and a water closet off it. Maria had shown the latter to Pilar before and she had marvelled at its seat of fine-veined marble. She had peered down into the depths of the closet to the chicken run six or seven metres below. Flushing toilets such as Don Geraldo spoke of were not known in Yegen. He had come to accept that.

The room smelt of chicken stewing with garlic and herbs, making Pilar feel giddy with hunger. Saliva ran in her mouth. But the chicken was for the visitors, she understood that. Maria set out a heel of bread, some shrivelled green olives and a small plate of cold fried sardines glazed with yellow oil. With the food, they drank a cup of the rough local wine, which Don Geraldo had said would be too sour for his guests. For their coming, he had bought some special wine down in Cádiar.

As they were finishing eating, they heard voices below.

‘They’ve arrived!’ cried Maria, leaping up and darting off down the stairs.

Pilar cleared their dishes into the sink, holding the baby, who was now sleeping, against her shoulder. She waited, too shy to go down and meet the new people. Don Geraldo would not be annoyed to find her there; he mixed freely with the villagers and invited them into his house. He gave them anis and wine and encouraged them to tell their tales.

When Maria returned she was accompanied by Don Geraldo and the woman traveller. The others were following on behind. The señorita did not look so very young and Pilar wondered that she would not have a husband. She was brushing herself down with her hand and wriggling her shoulders to ease the stiffness out of them.

‘What a journey!’ she exclaimed, though her eyes were dancing, as if she had not minded it at all. She had very blue eyes, a fine skin and a thatch of hay-coloured hair cut short round her ears. She glanced around the room. ‘So this is your hideaway, Gerald. What fun!’

Don Geraldo introduced her as Señorita Carrington and she came forward to shake Pilar’s hand. Pilar felt embarrassed at the sight of her own rough brown hand with its broken fingernails nestling in the Englishwoman’s smooth white one. Encarnita had wakened and was also taking an interest in the stranger. The lady came up to her and chucking her under the chin, said, ‘What knowing eyes you’ve got, little one!’ Don Geraldo translated for Pilar, who had often thought this herself. When she talked to Encarnita she felt as if the child understood every word.

Pilar left soon afterwards, going first to the fountain beside the plaza to take a drink. Feeding her child gave her a fearsome thirst. She would fetch water for the house in the lower barrio later. The water was good in Yegen, and plentiful. Sometimes, in spring, when the snows were melting, it would cascade down the street. Another woman was at the fountain drawing water, Maxima, one of the two acknowledged prostitutes in the village. Pilar, although she received men in her house at times, did not consider herself to be a part of them for she made love only with men that she liked. However, if they did offer her a few centimos or some food from their cortijo she was not too proud to accept it. She was too poor not to accept it. The other prostitute, known as La Prisca, an old name for a peach, was a clever woman who could read and write. She had written a letter for Pilar to the man from Cádiar but he had not replied, although he had claimed to be able to read and write. The muleteers favoured La Prisca, so tonight, once Don Geraldo’s visitors had all arrived, she might have business. She had two children whereas Maxima had half a dozen and needed to fill two pitchers and come often to the fountain. She was tired, always.

Lulled by the rise and fall of the women’s voices, Encarnita dropped off to sleep again. In the nearby Bar Fuente men were arguing. About politics, of course. A new government, led by the Conservative politician Eduardo Dato, had just taken over, following on from a bloody year throughout Spain, rife with strikes and unrest and assassinations on all sides of the political divide. Martial law had been declared in Andalucía and troops had been sent to crush the strikers on the big estates though Yegen itself had remained calm. ‘Listen to them!’ said Maxima, as shouting erupted. ‘They’ll be at each other’s throats before long.’ Grumbling about men and children and the hardness of her life, she stumbled off down the street, with water slopping from her cans. Pilar had resolved to have no other child but Encarnita and had decided that if she were to fall pregnant again she would go to a woman in her barrio who would help her. She shifted the baby onto her other shoulder and then she, too, set off for home.

The village was quiet. Most people would have gone to bed. The only sign of life was the odd blink of light at a window where the shutters remained open. Few houses in the village had glass in their windows. When Pilar reached the church in the broad stretch of land that separated the upper and lower barrios she stopped, hearing hoof-beats approaching. She waited in the shadows until the mules and their riders came into view. She could not make out their faces but she was able to identify the man with the piles, for, indeed, he did look to be very long and thin and he was hanging onto his mule as if his life depended on it. None of the travellers saw her. They passed on by and went labouring up the hill on the last lap of their journey, the muleteers spurring them on with their cries. Both beasts and riders must be tired. Pilar filled the pitcher she had left at the fountain earlier and made for her home in the lower barrio.

The people of the two barrios did not mix much, not because of any great dispute; it was just that traditionally they had always tended to keep to their own areas. The barrios were small, tight communities, the total population of Yegen being only a thousand. Pilar was one of the few who went between the upper and lower village, mainly because Maria had befriended her and had known her mother.

She pushed open the door of her dwelling, redolent of goat. Gabriella was braying, her teats heavy with milk, as Pilar’s had been earlier. Shortly, after Encarnita was settled, she would milk her. She had walked her during the day so she had been well fed. Although thin-flanked, the goat produced enough milk for their needs.

Pilar laid the sleeping baby gently on the blanket spread over their bed of lavender and thyme and then she lit a candle, which she placed on the earth floor, taking care to keep it well away from the straw. Shadows danced across the rough walls. One day she would whitewash them, just as one day she would buy furniture and make her house pretty. She went now to attend to Gabriella. Once the milk was in the pail, Pilar scooped out a cupful and drank, then she went outside to relieve herself in the yard. When she returned she extinguished the candle and lay down beside her daughter. There was an opening high up in the wall that let in the moonlight. She bent her head close to Encarnita’s. The child’s breathing was deep and regular. It was a sound that stirred her heart.

Pilar herself was on the edge of sleep when she heard a footfall. She lifted her head. A man’s dark shape filled the doorway.

‘Jaime,’ she said. She was fond of the lad, she would not turn him away, and he always brought her eggs fresh from his father’s cortijo.

Encarnita, too, wakened, and as she stirred her limbs, she became aware of the heaving bodies on the blanket beside her. She gave a little startled cry but they did not hear her; they were making too many noises of their own, noises that she had heard before. Someone seemed to be hurting her mother but she knew that she could do nothing about it. She quietened and closed her eyes though she did not go back to sleep until the turmoil stopped and the man got up and stumbled out into the night. Her mother relit the candle and went to look in the little bag Jaime had left by the door. ‘Two large speckled eggs,’ she murmured. She seemed content.

1920

Señor Strachey was giving Maria a great deal of bother. When Pilar and Encarnita called she was ready with a string of grumbles to pour into their ears.

He made such a fuss about his food! He hated Spanish cooking, his stomach was delicate, his nerves were delicate. She struggled to please him and was offended when he peered at his food as if he suspected her of trying to poison him and then he would mess it around on his plate and leave most of it untouched. He hated beans, tortilla and salt dry cod. What was she to do?

Pilar had no advice to offer. She had no experience of such eating habits, either. ‘No wonder he is so thin and looks so unhealthy.’ She smoothed Encarnita’s cheek with her finger and the child’s face broke into a smile. ‘Don’t you think she has a good colour, Maria? And the whites of her eyes are always clear.’

Maria was more interested in Señor Strachey’s colour. ‘He’s afraid of the fresh air. He doesn’t want to go out. I can’t understand why he has come at all. He says the smell of the stable makes him feel ill. He opened the bottom door a crack yesterday and squinted into the street as if he was about to be attacked by a wild beast. Then he shut it again.’

‘Perhaps we would do the same if we went to his country.’

‘Us? Of course we would not, Pilar!’

Pilar had to agree; she had only been trying to think kindly of the man and his fears, for he must be fearful if the idea of walking about their village terrified him. Little harm could befall him here. She knew that if she and Encarnita had the chance to journey to the señor’s country they would spend every moment of daylight outside, making sure they missed nothing.

Señor Strachey, whether he was outside or inside, would appear to be a man who encountered misfortune at every turn. ‘He says he’s been bitten by bedbugs,’ said Maria, scratching her waist at the thought of it, though it was possible she did have some bites herself. Few in Yegen escaped them. ‘Here! In my house! He must have got them in Granada before he ever came to Yegen.’ Everything had happened to him in Granada! He had caught flu, almost trod on a snake, suffered a bad stomach upset, injured his knee and mislaid his pyjamas. A man who attracted misfortune, that was obvious. And not, therefore, a good guest to have in the house.

‘The nights are still cool for him to sleep without pyjamas,’ said Pilar, who had never owned nightwear of any kind. ‘He needs a woman to keep him warm. And to look after him.’

‘He has the señorita,’ said Maria slyly.

‘She is his woman? I can’t imagine it. He is an old man.’

‘Forty, Don Geraldo says. But he looks fifty.’

‘Or more. The other man is much younger and much more handsome. I would prefer him.’

‘Señor Perdiz. You would be lucky to have a man like that! I can’t make them out, the three of them. Half the time they’re squabbling; the rest, cooing like doves at each other. Sometimes I think that she is the woman of one and then the other.’ Maria lowered her voice. ‘She fusses over Señor Stratchee like a clucking hen. Is he too hot or too cold? He needs a rug. She runs to get one. He needs a window opened because he is almost fainting from the heat. She runs to open it.’

‘She has a kind heart, perhaps.’

Maria shrugged. ‘Yesterday morning, I saw her kissing Señor Perdiz. And, in the evening, would you believe, Don Geraldo! I think he is in love with her.’

‘I’m surprised he would want a woman of her age.’ It was already known in the village that Don Geraldo liked young girls. And prostitutes. They’d heard he’d been in the brothels of Almería and Granada. ‘She’s not all that young, is she?’

‘She is not! I asked Don Geraldo for he doesn’t mind if I ask questions about his life. He says that most of the villagers are not interested in what he is doing but I don’t think that’s true. But I would be, wouldn’t I, when I work for him? He asks me about my life too. “We can study each other, Maria,” he says and he writes down some of the things that I tell him.’

‘So what age is she?’

‘Twenty-six, the same as himself. Nearly as old as me!’ Maria had passed her thirtieth birthday but whereas her body was supple and firm her face, which she washed only with aniseed spirit, made her look more than her years. The spirit dried it to the texture of leather. She had a phobia about letting water touch it. Pilar wondered if it had something to do with her belief in witches.

‘That isn’t young,’ assented Pilar, who herself was twenty years old.

‘It seems to me that she has an attachment to all three of the men.’

‘I suppose that could be possible.’

‘But tiring,’ said Maria, who had found Don Fernando sufficient. ‘They are a strange lot.’

Pilar nodded. ‘Quite strange.’

‘I hope all that kissing won’t have harmed Don Geraldo for she has a dreadful cold and he is just recovering from another bout of flu. They seem to be ill quite often, these people.’ Maria lifted a bottle from the table and, uncorking it, invited Pilar to smell. ‘This is her medicine. It smells like an old barn. And what a fuss she makes when she drinks it! You’d think she was being poisoned.’

‘So where are they now?’ Pilar glanced around as if they might be lurking.

‘Señor Stratchee is still in bed – he spends half the day there – and the others have gone for a walk. They like walking, for no particular purpose. Like Don Geraldo himself.’ Sometimes he walked for as much as twelve hours at a stretch, another of his habits they could not understand.

‘Perhaps they enjoy the flowers,’ suggested Pilar.

Maria sniffed.

The door opened at their backs, and the tall thin one put his head round. He was scratching his midriff and they could sense his irritability even from across the room. Maria jumped up and Encarnita lifted her head to see what was happening.

‘Señor Stratchee. Desayuno?’ Maria held out a loaf of bread and pointed to a bowl of black olives sitting in a bowl in a puddle of yellow olive oil.

He shuddered and shook his head. ‘Café,’ he said and left abruptly.

‘He doesn’t care much for our coffee, either,’ said Maria as she set water on the stove to boil. ‘He says it tastes of barley.’

Pilar had no opinion on the taste of coffee; it was only occasionally that she had the chance to drink it. The smell of it was making her nostrils twitch and after Maria had taken a cup to Señor Strachey she poured a small amount into two cups for themselves.

‘You would think he might be hungry,’ said Pilar.

‘Don Geraldo says he is a brilliant man.’

‘In what way?’

‘He writes books. And he thinks a lot.’ Maria tapped her forehead. ‘Don Geraldo seems much in awe of that. And the señorita is a brilliant artist. She draws and paints.’

They reflected on such brilliance, uncertain as to whether Don Geraldo could be considered to have it himself since he spent much of his time reading books or walking on the hills.

‘Perhaps he can be called a brilliant walker,’ suggested Pilar, getting up and hoisting Encarnita onto her hip. They must fetch Gabriella and walk her on the hill.

The goat came willingly. Pilar looped her rope around her neck and led her up through the two barrios. The fish vendor was lugging his baskets from door to door, followed by a squad of mewling village cats. His fish, mostly sardines, clams and calamares, would have been brought up from the coast by mule the night before. Pilar loved fish and would buy whenever she had a few centimos to spare. She shook her head at him today. Mañana. Perhaps tomorrow.

The hill up to the top of the village was winding and steep but Pilar’s legs were sturdy and the slope did not trouble her, even with Encarnita to carry. The baby jogged along on her hip enjoying the ride. Pilar sang softly to her, a copla about a young girl and her true love, who, in the end, is killed by a rival.

Gabriella was happy when they reached open country. Pickings were good for her at this time of year. The fresh grass shoots were green and sweet and in amongst them lurked tender spring flowers and even some thin stalks of wild asparagus. Once she was tethered to the trunk of an old olive tree Pilar sat down with Encarnita. A soft breeze grazed their cheeks. Pilar plucked a sprig of lavender and rubbed it between her fingers to release the bouquet before holding it to her child’s nose. ‘Smell that, Encarnita. It’s lavender, my favourite smell in the world.’ The baby’s nostrils twitched and for a moment her eyes looked serious as if she were trying to decide. And then she smiled and her mother laughed and hugged her close.

‘Buenosdias, Pilar!’

She looked round to see Don Geraldo standing further up the hill with Señor Partridge and his woman friend. She felt flustered. They were coming down to join her, running, galloping almost, throwing their arms up in the air. They were in high spirits.

‘No, don’t get up, Pilar! Stay where you are. My friend would like to draw you and your baby. And your goat.’

‘My goat? But she’s just an ordinary goat.’

‘That doesn’t matter. In fact, it does matter, for that is what the señorita likes about it. So, would that be all right?’

Pilar did not know what to say. Why should the señorita, who was a brilliant artist, want to draw them?

‘You just have to relax, that’s all. Don’t pay any attention to her. Don’t even look at her. You talk to us.’

Don Geraldo dropped onto the ground where he lounged, leaning back on his elbows. Señor Partridge joined him. Pilar thought he should have had the name of a more splendid bird than a partridge, an eagle or a falcon perhaps. Partridges were rather dowdy and meant for the pot, if you could be lucky enough to trap one. The men’s long legs were sprawled across the grass. If she moved her foot she might touch one of theirs. She was conscious that her feet did not look very clean in their rope sandals. Tomorrow, she would go and bathe in one of the irrigation ponds up on the mountainside. Or else she might go down the path that led to Yátor, to a small pond reputed to have been used for bathing by women back in the times of the Moors and which was usually referred to as the women’s bath. The water, there, was shallower and, therefore, warmer. She visited the baths more often than most of the villagers, sometimes going every other week. Some of them bathed themselves properly only two or three times a year. Maria had said that her guests were forever sluicing themselves with water and asking for it to be hot.

Pilar’s cheeks were warm and her armpits felt damp. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Did they really expect her to talk to them? What could she say that they would want to hear? She knew so little of the world. She knew about the plants that grew on the mountain and the birds that flew high above it, but that was all. Meanwhile, the señorita was sitting on a rock a short distance away and drawing feverishly on a large white sheet of paper, whilst lifting her head every other second to stare directly at them with her astonishingly blue eyes. Pilar felt as if she could see right through her, into her soul.

‘My friend asks if your goat has a name, Pilar?’ said Don Geraldo.

‘Gabriella,’ she mumbled, keeping her eyes lowered.

The friend said something else and Don Geraldo translated. ‘He says that is an angelic name. Is your goat an angel? A gift from God?’

What was she to say to that? Gabriella an angel? Given to her by God? Was he making fun of her? The man then wanted to know the baby’s name. She said she had been christened Encarnación, which seemed to amuse Don Geraldo’s friends. Pilar wondered what they might be saying. She felt uneasy, not knowing. She wished she could learn their language so that she could teach it to Encarnita for then her child would be able to go out into the world and travel.

‘I shorten it to Encarnita,’ she added.

‘It is a fine name!’ declared Don Geraldo. ‘As fine a name as any child could wish for. Look at the funny name my friend has! Who would want to be a perdiz?’

The three English people laughed again. They laughed a great deal while they bandied words to and fro.

Gabriella was getting restless and making it clear that she wanted to move on to new pastures, but the men told Pilar that she was not to move; they would go and gather fodder for the goat themselves. They sprang up before she could protest and came back with armfuls of grasses and even some corn shoots taken from someone’s plot. Gabriella was happy, though Pilar was beginning to feel restless herself.

Finally, the señorita was finished. She got up and came across to show her drawing.

‘Excellent!’ said Don Geraldo. ‘You’ve caught all three of them. What do you think, Pilar?’

Pilar was surprised to see how real the drawings of Encarnita and Gabriella looked. About herself, she could not be so sure. She had no mirror so seldom saw herself, except as a wavery reflection in the river when she bent over to wash her clothes. The woman in the picture had heavy black eyebrows and thin cheeks. ‘Do I look like that?’

‘It is a good likeness. My friend asks if you would like to have it?’

‘To keep?’

‘Yes. Would you?’

Pilar nodded. Of course she would! No one had ever offered her a picture before. The señorita