‘Congratulations, querida. I am very proud.’
Lucía, her train trailing down the side of her father’s body, glanced down at her mother.
‘Gracias, Mamá. The duende, it came,’ she whispered as María reached up to hear her.
‘Didn’t I tell you it would?’ María grasped her daughter’s hand as José ignored her and talked to the clamour of people around them.
‘You did, Mamá.’
‘Are you tired, querida? Shall you come home with Mamá now? I can put you to bed next to me.’
‘Of course she is not tired!’ José’s head swung around towards his wife. ‘Are you, Lucía?’
‘No, Papá, but . . .’
‘You must stay and celebrate your coronation!’ José said as someone from the crowd handed him a brandy and he gulped it back. ‘¡Arriba!’
‘¡Arriba!’ repeated the crowd.
‘Lucía, do you wish to come home with me?’ María said gently.
‘I . . . think I must stay with Papá.’
‘You must, yes. There are many people who want to meet you, and want us to perform.’ José shot a warning glance at his wife.
‘Then I will say goodnight, querida. I love you,’ María whispered as she let go of her child’s hand.
‘I love you too,’ Lucía replied as her mother took hold of Eduardo’s arm and walked away.
*
When she woke the following morning, María stirred and instinctively patted the bed beside her. Thankfully there was a warm body lying next to her and it was snoring like a pig as always. Turning over, she glanced down and saw Lucía, still in her dress, curled up on her pallet, fast asleep.
She crossed herself, hardly able to believe she’d slept through her husband and daughter returning, but she’d been so drained from the journey back and the tension of the day. She smiled as she looked down at Lucía. No doubt today there would be an endless procession of visitors to their door, wanting to find out more about ‘La Candela’, as La Macarrona had officially named her last night. They’d want to see her dance of course – and she as Lucía’s mother could bask in the reflected glory of her talented daughter. ‘And I am proud,’ she whispered, almost to reassure herself she was not jealous, but also because she was filled with fear for her little girl. And her marriage . . .
Eventually, María hauled herself out of bed and dressed, smelling the acrid stench of her own sweat, but knowing there was no time to go and collect more water to wash with. She glanced behind the curtain to the boys’ bedroom, and saw that only Eduardo was asleep on the mattress.
María tried not to panic, reckoning that half the families of Sacromonte had relatives who had slept where they’d fallen last night. José’s three Catalan cousins lay on the kitchen floor, their boots still on, one still hugging his guitar to him, another with his arms round a brandy bottle. She picked her way carefully over them and went next door to feed the animals and collect kindling for the fire for cooking.
It was a glorious morning, the valley a verdant green under a cornflower-blue sky. The wild lantanas were in full bloom, their pink, yellow and orange flowers burgeoning above the grass, and the air was filled with the heady scent of wild mint and salvia. It was quiet in the village, most of the residents sleeping off last night’s exertions. There was still another day of the competition to go, so later the procession would once more make its pilgrimage across the valley to the Alhambra.
‘Buenos días, Mamá,’ said Eduardo, appearing in the kitchen as María stirred the thin maize porridge in the iron pot.
‘Buenos días. You have seen that neither of your brothers are here?’
‘I have. I saw them both at the Alhambra last night, but . . .’
‘What, Eduardo?’
‘Nothing, Mamá. I’m sure they’ll be home when they’re hungry.’ He took his bowl of porridge and went to sit on the step outside as the bodies stirred on the kitchen floor.
María spent the morning making endless bowls of porridge to relieve her relations’ hangovers and collecting water from the base of the hill. By lunchtime, there was still no sign of either of her other sons, and as José got ready to leave, she begged him to ask around.
‘Stop your worrying, wife; they are grown men, they can take care of themselves.’
‘Felipe is only thirteen; hardly a man, José.’
‘Will I wear my dress again today?’ Lucía asked as she appeared in the kitchen, and gave her train a triumphant swish. María saw there were smudges of what looked like chocolate all over her daughter’s face, and her feet were the same colour as the earthen floor.
‘No. Come, I will help you take it off – we do not want it spoilt, do we? And then when everyone has gone, I shall put you and it in the barrel and give you both a good scrub.’ María smiled.
‘Wear it, mi princesa, and everyone will know it is you when they see you again today,’ José decreed.
‘She is coming back to the Alhambra with you? Surely you are too weary to make the journey again, querida?’ she added to Lucía.
‘Of course she isn’t!’ José answered on his daughter’s behalf. ‘Last night she was crowned the new queen by La Macarrona herself! Do you expect her not to bask in the glow of her success, but stay at home with you instead, eh, Lucía?’ He turned to the child and winked.
‘Can I go, Mamá? Later tonight they announce the winners, you see.’
‘Of which you cannot be one,’ María muttered. She wiped Lucía’s face quickly with a damp cloth and did her best to smooth down her black hair, although there was no time to oil it and restyle it into a neat coil. As soon as she could, Lucía wriggled out of her mother’s grasp, her wild black curls flying behind her.
‘Come, Lucía, I will saddle the mule and you will ride to the Alhambra to greet your admirers.’ José offered his hand to his daughter and she skipped towards him and took it.
‘Please don’t bring her back too late,’ María called from the cave entrance as the three cousins stumbled past her from the kitchen to follow José.
As she’d expected, María dealt with an influx of visitors throughout the rest of the day. Everyone had heard about the little girl who had the spirit of the duende inside her. Even when María said Lucía wasn’t at home, some of them poked their noses into the rooms at the back just to make sure she wasn’t hiding there. María wanted to die of shame – she had not yet had the time to make the beds, and the sleeping quarters stank of tobacco, sweat and stale alcohol.
‘She will be here tomorrow,’ she assured them all, ‘and yes, she may dance down at the big cave.’
Even Paola ventured up the hill to see her daughter and granddaughter.
‘I hear she put on quite a show,’ Paola said as she sipped water from a tin mug and wiped her brow. The heat of the day was oppressive.
‘She did, yes.’
‘Your great-grandmother, the bruja, always told me a special child was coming. Perhaps it is Lucía?’
‘Perhaps it is.’
‘Well, there is time to see if the prophecy is true, for Lucía cannot legally work until she is older. Not that that stops many families around here. I hope it will stop yours.’ Paola’s brown eyes flared at her daughter.
‘José wishes her to become a star, and Lucía wishes it too,’ sighed María, her usual guard slipping.
‘But you are her mamá! You will say what goes under your own roof. Honestly, María, I sometimes think you have become as timid as a mouse since you married José. He doesn’t beat you, does he?’
‘No,’ María lied, because occasionally, when he’d drunk too much, he had. ‘He is trying to do what he thinks is best for our daughter.’
‘And to line his own rotten pockets too,’ Paola sniffed. ‘Really, I still cannot understand what you saw in him beyond what hung between his thighs. And there was us ready to make you a good match with your father’s cousin. Well, you made your own destiny and as I knew you would, you now live to regret it.’ She paused to let her wor
ds sink in. ‘I am here to tell you that you and the family are to come to us tomorrow with Lucía. We have many relatives from Barcelona here for the festival and they wish to meet my famous granddaughter. I am putting on a spread, so at least you will all get fed,’ she said, casting a glance at the wretchedly small pile of carrots and a single cabbage – all that was left for supper that night.
‘Sí, Mamá,’ María agreed despondently as her mother rose from the stool.
‘One o’clock sharp,’ Paola said as she swept out.
María sat where she was. She wondered how a life that had started off full of expectation had somehow disintegrated into this moment. A moment in which she felt she had failed as both a wife and a mother. Tears filled her eyes, but she wiped them away harshly. She had no one to blame but herself.
‘Hola, María.’
She looked up and saw Ramón, her neighbour, hovering by the door. The two of them had been friends as children – he’d been a sweet boy, quiet and thoughtful, with a personality that had perhaps evolved from being the youngest of nine far noisier siblings. He’d married a cousin from Seville and the two of them had built their cave home next door. Juliana had died giving birth to her third child two years ago, leaving Ramón a widower with hungry young mouths to feed.
‘Come in,’ María gestured with a smile.
‘I brought you some oranges.’ He proffered the basket and María salivated at the sight of the fragrant, gleaming spheres.
‘Gracias, but how did you get them?’ She looked at him with a frown.
‘That was what the payos paid us in this week,’ he mumbled, tipping the fruit into her own basket. ‘They said the profits from the harvest were too small for pesetas.’ He shrugged. ‘But I will not complain. At least the farmer offers me steady and honest work all year round. Although I am a little tired of eating oranges.’
‘Then thank you.’ She reached into the basket and pulled out the plumpest one. Peeling it open, the bright scent burst from it and she took a bite, the fresh juice exploding in her mouth and dribbling down her chin. ‘It seems so unfair that they grow everywhere around here and yet we cannot afford to buy them for ourselves.’
‘As we have both learnt, life can be unfair.’
‘May I offer you some water? Presently, it is all I have.’
‘Sí, María, gracias.’
‘Where are your girls?’ she asked him as she handed him a tin mug.
‘Off at the competition with their Seville grandparents. It seems everyone has come to Granada. And your family?’
‘José and Lucía are there already—’
‘I heard from a friend she danced last night,’ said Ramón. ‘And that she was a sensation.’
‘Yes, she was. Eduardo has gone for water, and as for Carlos and Felipe, I haven’t seen them.’
‘Well, at least we both have a few minutes to sit together and be calm. You look tired, María.’
‘Everyone in Sacromonte is tired today, Ramón.’
‘No, María, you look tired to your soul.’
She felt his gentle gaze upon her and the look of genuine concern and sympathy brought a lump to her throat.
‘What troubles you?’
‘I would like to know where my sons are, that they are safe.’ She lifted her eyes to meet his. ‘When your children are older, you will understand.’
‘Even then, I hope they will listen to their papá.’
‘For your sake, I hope so too. Well now, I must get on.’
As María made to rise, Ramón reached out a hand to her. ‘If there’s ever any moment you need my help, please tell me. We have always been friends, sí?’
‘Sí. Gracias, but all is well. And thanks to you, I have freshly pressed orange juice to offer any more visitors who come in search of Lucía.’
‘And thanks to you, María, I was able to go out to work after my wife died, knowing my children were in safe hands.’
‘We are neighbours, Ramón, we help each other.’
María watched him wander out of her cave and cast her memory back to the little boy he’d once been. He’d seemed to appear wherever she was in the village, and had often asked to accompany her on his guitar when she danced. She’d always refused, because he’d never been very good.
As she began to prepare the oranges, unable to stop herself from taking an occasional bite into a juicy segment, she pondered whether Ramón had once been in love with her.
‘María Amaya Albaycín,’ she taunted herself. ‘You’re a sad old woman clutching onto the past!’
12
‘José, wake up! We must be at my parents’ for lunchtime, and where are the boys? Did you see them up at the Alhambra last night? José!’ María raised her hand instinctively, wanting to slap him out of his drunken slumber. The sun showed her it was nearing noon, and she was in a frenzy of concern about Carlos and Felipe. Lowering her hand, she instead shook him, gently at first, but when he did not stir, with more force.
‘What is it, woman?!’ José grumbled as he came to. ‘Can a man not have a decent night’s sleep after the greatest triumph of his life?’
‘He can, when he tells his wife if he has seen their children in the past two days.’
‘Does Lucía not lie safe and sound beside you?’ he murmured, holding out a limp arm to indicate the huddled form on the pallet beside the bed.
‘I am not talking about Lucía, as you well know,’ María continued, taking courage from her mother’s words yesterday. ‘Where are Carlos and Felipe?’
‘I don’t know, all right? You are their mamá, it’s your job to keep track of them, isn’t it?’
María ignored him and turned her attention to Lucía, who was obviously as deeply asleep as her father had been. She lifted the child from the pallet and carried her into the kitchen.
‘Come, Lucía, you must wake up. Your grandparents are expecting all of us in an hour.’
‘Mamá?’ Lucía hovered between sleep and wakefulness as María sat her on her knee and took a cloth from the basin to clean her filthy face.
‘People feeding you chocolate again last night, were they?’ she commented as she wiped the cloth briskly over her daughter’s cheeks and mouth.
‘¡Ay! Yes.’ Lucía smiled as her mother proceeded to strip off the flamenco dress, the train of which was now caked in brown dirt. ‘All I had to do was dance for them and they gave me coins and chocolate.’
‘And today you must dance again for your grandparents. But not in this,’ she said as she set her naked daughter on the floor, then rolled up the dress and stuffed it into the wooden chest that she used for dirty laundry. ‘Here.’ She proffered a clean shift dress, which at least had some delicate embroidery at the neck and hem to distract the eye from the cheapness of the fabric. ‘Wear this instead.’
‘But, Mamá, I wore that when I was six! It is a baby dress!’
‘And see, it still fits you!’ María soothed, determined that her daughter, who was almost certainly going to be centre stage after lunch, would not disgrace her. Even if her husband already had, and her sons were nowhere to be found . . .
‘Now, I will brush and plait your hair. Sit still whilst I do it, and I will give you a glass of fresh orange juice.’
‘Orange juice? Where did you get that from, Mamá?’
‘Never you mind.’
Once she had fixed Lucía’s hair and sent her outside with her orange juice, María attended to her own toilette, which consisted of a brief wash in the barrel of water Eduardo had refilled, and donning a fresh white blouse. She rubbed precious almond oil into her long black hair and with no mirror to guide her, she coiled her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck, then carefully slicked down the baby hairs on the sides of her face into two gleaming curls that caressed her cheeks.
‘We must talk about what happened last night.’ José strode into the kitchen.
‘Later, after we have visited my parents for lunch. Here, I have brushed your best waistcoat.’ She held it out
to him.
‘I must tell you that Lucía and I have received . . . offers of work.’
‘Which I’m sure you refused because she is underage.’
‘Do you really think anyone cares about that? If Lucía can dance in their bars and can bring in the customers, they will find ways around it.’
‘And where have these offers come from?’
‘Seville, Madrid and Barcelona. They want her, María, and we would be fools to turn them down.’
As José took the waistcoat, putting it over his filthy, smelly shirt, María stopped in her tracks.
‘You haven’t accepted any of these offers, have you?’
‘I . . . we will discuss it later. Where’s breakfast?’
María bit her tongue and offered him a bowl of porridge, having hidden the rest of the orange juice away as she knew he’d drink the whole lot down in one. While her husband went to sit on the step outside and smoke a cheroot whilst eating his porridge, María went in search of Eduardo, who was getting dressed.
‘Did you see your brothers last night?’
‘Early on in the evening, yes.’
‘They were watching the competition?’
‘They were in the crowd, sí.’ Eduardo avoided her gaze nervously.
‘Then where are they now?’
‘I do not know, Mamá. Shall I go and see what I can find out?’
‘What is it you’re not telling me?’ María studied her son.
‘Nothing . . .’ Eduardo tied a red polka-dot scarf around his neck. ‘I will go and make enquiries.’
‘Don’t be too long, we must be at your grandparents’ very soon,’ she called after him as he left the cave.
Her mother and father’s cave was at the bottom of the hill, which in terms of social position in Sacromonte, meant they had reached the top. It had a wooden front door, small shuttered windows and a concrete floor over which her mother had laid brightly coloured rugs. There was a proper sink in the kitchen, which they could fill from the well nearby, and a separate fire, just for cooking on. The furniture had been made out of local pine by her father, and when María stepped inside, she saw the table was heaving under pans filled with food.
The Moon Sister Page 15