The Muse

by Jessie Burton

  Olive seemed to awaken. ‘Is that why you’re here today – you want to work for us? What does your brother do?’

  Teresa crossed the veranda and stared out at the skeleton trees in the orchard. ‘Our father is Don Alfonso. He works for the woman who owns the land and this house.’

  ‘Is it really owned by a duchess?’

  ‘Yes. Her family is very old.’

  ‘She can’t have been in this finca for a long time. The dust! Oh – but I’m not saying it’s your fault—­’

  ‘La duquesa is never here,’ said Teresa. ‘She lives in Barcelona and Paris and New York. There is nothing for her to do here.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Olive replied.

  ‘You are English or American?’

  ‘Half English. My father’s from Vienna. He married my mother, who’s English, but thinks she was born on Sunset Boulevard. We’ve lived in London for the last few years.’

  ‘Sunset Boulevard?’

  ‘Never mind . . . so – you’re from Arazuelo?’

  ‘Will you stay long?’ Teresa asked.

  ‘That’s up to my father.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen,’ Olive replied, and when she caught Teresa’s frown she went on, ‘I know. It’s a long story. But my mother’s not well.’

  ‘She looks well.’

  ‘It’s deceptive.’

  Teresa’s skin prickled at the hard edge that had crept into Olive’s tone. She wondered what was wrong with the beautiful, brittle woman in the oversized jacket, who was now inside the house, talking to her half-­brother. She decided to change the subject. ‘You will need someone here, señorita,’ she said. ‘This is not London. You cook?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Clean?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You ride a horse?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I will help.’

  ‘Well, how old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ Teresa lied, for in truth, she was sixteen years old. She had learned that foreigners often had a romantic, infantilizing attitude to age, keeping their children as children much longer. This girl was clearly a case in point. She herself had never had such a luxury; sometimes she felt as old as a stone. ‘My brother—­’ she began, but stopped. She didn’t feel like talking about Isaac any more than was necessary. From her pocket, she brought out three envelopes. ‘Tomate, perejíl, cebolla,’ she said in Spanish.

  ‘Tomato, parsley, onion?’ Olive said.

  Teresa nodded. She had not intended these seeds as a gift. She had in fact brought them to the finca in the hope that she could quietly sow them in the duchess’s more fertile soil, and ultimately harvest them for herself. ‘They are for you,’ she said to the other girl. Teresa had never, in sixteen years, given anyone a present.

  Olive looked over her shoulder into the dark of the house. From deep within could be heard Sarah’s laughter, and the lower bass of the men. ‘Let’s plant them,’ she said.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  From the outhouse at the end of the orchard, Olive found two rusting garden forks and handed one to Teresa. Teresa was struck by the other girl’s readiness to be here with her, turning over hard earth, weeding as she went. She didn’t want to be so happy about it, but she couldn’t help herself. Surely it was rare that a girl like Olive might choose to be here, rather than with those inside? When she protested that Olive should put on some boots over those socks, Olive looked down at her feet in surprise. ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said, wiggling her darned toes. ‘I like the feeling of the ground.’

  Teresa thought that only a rich guiri, with more pairs of socks than sense, would ever say such a thing. Miss Banetti, who’d also come for the rustic life, might have said it and appeared an imbecile. But there was something different about Olive, her thoughtless determination, her acceptance that was so whole-­hearted, that Teresa not only allowed the girl her whim, but was delighted that she had no care for shoes.

  Olive rolled up her sleeves and lugged two huge watering cans of spring water from the well at the end of the garden, and Teresa admired the sinews in her forearms, their pale endurance, the fact that nothing was lost along the way. Up and down the newly furrowed earth they walked with the cans, and as the water fell, Teresa spied a rainbow arching in the drops. If Olive felt the hard soil poking into her soles, she said nothing.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  3

  Harold invited Teresa to start by cleaning the ground-­floor rooms, sweeping away the cobwebs that draped from corner to corner. Using rags that looked ripped from a man’s shirt, dipping them in a bowl of vinegar and some of her lemon juice, she scrubbed the windows where dirt had layered round the frames. From the garden, she burned rosemary and sage on the flagstones. In a cupboard in the pantry Isaac found two electric heaters and set them up in the front east room, warming up the bare chalk walls as the sunlight moved over them. He promised them firewood.

  Teresa made the Schlosses lunch from the chicken, refusing to eat it with them, although Isaac accepted the offer. By the time the chicken was out of the stove, it was clear to Olive that they had a new servant. But what of Isaac – under what pretence could they keep him near?

  The clock in the hall dragged its pendulum four times. ‘God!’ Sarah said, as they sat at the dining-­room table. Her mood was excitable, a great improvement on the day before, but not without its dangers. ‘Where’s the day gone? It’s so cold – I thought the south of Spain was supposed to be hot?’ She’d changed into a long-­sleeved cream house jacket covering new red woollen trousers, and a blouse in matching scarlet polka dots. At some point she’d painted her toenails, and Olive saw ten small squares of vermilion on the terracotta floor.

  ‘It will get hotter,’ Harold said.

  In the kitchen, Teresa clanged the tin plates on the draining board, a noise like an armoury.

  ‘Oh well then, I shall fetch my bathing suit,’ said Sarah. ‘Have you ever been to London, Mr Robles?’ she asked, turning to where he sat on her left, pouring coffee into his small white cup. ‘Do you smoke? Would you like an almond?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And no – thank you.’

  ‘Please, have one of mine. Harold snaffled some in Malaga. He’ll only smoke German ones, so that’s all we’ve got.’ Sarah fiddled with the box on the table and pulled out a cigarette; her wrists were burdened with bangles, and they clinked together noisily. Isaac removed the cigarette from Sarah’s proffered fingers and lit it himself.

  ‘I have not been to London,’ he said, weighing the city’s name with something like awe. London in calligraphic letters, Henry VIII, the Tower, Middle Temple. Olive’s London was not like that – it was a lonely walk through St James’s and along the Mall to the National Portrait Gallery to see her favourite Holbein; a penny bun at Lyon’s on Craven Street after, or a stroll through Embankment Gardens. That was what she missed – certainly not the other London, the stifling cocktail chit-­chat, women’s over-­rosied flesh, the lemon tang of Trumper’s wet shaves fresh on older men; red acne rashes of boys down from Oxford, with nothing much to say.

  ‘London’s all right, I suppose,’ Olive said, intending to sound jokily arch. ‘The ­people can be ghastly.’ Her mother flashed her a look.

  ‘I have been to Barcelona many times,’ Isaac said. ‘And Madrid.’

  Olive thought of their travelling trunks upstairs, the wooden brackets shiny from handling by so many porters, labels from Paris and Buenos Aires, Marseilles, New York; peeling like old skins the Schlosses had shed. She could barely remember any of it now, and nineteen felt like ninety.

  ‘But you have you always lived in Arazuelo?’ Harold asked him.

  ‘Yes. I am a teacher in Malaga.’<
br />
  ‘What do you teach?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Lithography,’ he said. ‘At the San Telmo School of Art.’ Olive stared hard at her plate.

  ‘Harold’s an art dealer,’ Sarah went on. ‘Kokoschka, Kirchner, Klimt, Klee – all his. I swear he only sells artists whose surnames start with a K.’

  ‘I admire Kokoschka,’ Isaac said, and Olive sensed her father become alert.

  ‘Herr Kokoschka painted blue fir trees in Olive’s nursery in Vienna,’ Sarah said. ‘Mr Robles, your English is excellent.’

  ‘Thank you, señora. I taught myself,’ he said. ‘I have English acquaintances in Malaga, and I practise with Teresa.’

  ‘Do you paint, or only print?’ asked Harold.

  Robles hesitated. ‘I paint a little, señor.’

  ‘You should bring me some of your work.’

  Generally, Harold was allergic to ­people who said they painted. Whenever a hopeful artist got wind that Harold was a dealer, they always misjudged it. Sometimes, they displayed aggression, as if Harold was withholding something which they were specifically entitled to – or they offered a simpering humility that fooled no one. But here was Herr Schloss, asking this young man for his work. Olive was used to how it was when his attention was caught – how he would dog, cajole, flatter, act the father, act the pal – whatever it took, hoping he would be the one to uncover next year’s genius. It always hurt.

  ‘What I paint would not interest you, señor,’ said Isaac, smiling.

  Harold tipped up the pitcher and poured himself a glass of water. ‘Let me be the judge of that.’

  Isaac looked serious. ‘If I have the time, I will show you. Thank you, señor.’

  ‘The time?’ said Harold. Olive’s skin tingled.

  ‘When I am not at San Telmo, I am occupied with the workers’ union in Malaga. I teach them how to read and write,’ said Isaac.

  There was a pause. ‘Does your father know you’re a red?’ Sarah asked.

  Isaac smiled again. ‘I am twenty-­six, señora. I do as I must. I supported the workers’ strikes. I travelled to Asturias to help the miners. But I am not a red.’

  ‘Shame. That would have been exciting.’

  Olive sat on her hands, staring at her mother. Sarah’s entire life was predicated on the docility of the workers who propped up her family’s famous condiment business. She pretended to be a free spirit, but it was the work of her great-­grandfather – starting with his barrel of oranges in Covent Garden and ending up an industrialist with a seat in the Lords – that paid for their travel, the flat in Curzon Street, the cottage in Sussex, the house off the Ringstrasse, the Schiaparelli dresses. Harold’s business was certainly successful, but Sarah’s inheritance underwrote the lot.

  She had once overheard an argument between her parents. ‘You are who you are because of the very ­people you would never deign to consort with,’ Harold had shouted at Sarah, after an evening when she hadn’t come home and he’d had to call the police. Sarah, who had in fact passed out on her host’s chaise longue and couldn’t be roused till the morning, had shouted back that he didn’t have a leg to stand on, because he too benefited directly from the family’s Finest Cut Marmalade, so he could shut his mouth, unless he fancied finding himself a proper job and a flat in Camden.

  ‘My father and I do not often agree,’ Isaac was saying. ‘He works for the duchess. All this land around you is hers. She is eighty-­five years old and she won’t die.’

  ‘I’m going to be like that,’ said Sarah, and they all laughed.

  ‘The ­people who work her land – how do you say in English? – tienen un gran hambre—­’

  ‘They’re starving,’ said Olive.

  Isaac looked at her in surprise, and again Olive felt the current that ran through her, the thrill of his attention. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Thousands. Across the region.’

  ‘How terrible,’ Sarah said.

  Olive willed Isaac to look at her again, but he leaned forward and spoke to her mother. ‘La duquesa’s men will give you a job, if you promise to vote for her family and keep her powerful. The poor beg to work her land, for almost nothing, because that is all the work. But she does not remember them if their wife dies, or if their mother is sick. If they are sick. She only shows her face during the time of election.’

  Teresa appeared at the door of the dining room, and stood with her arms crossed. Her hair had frizzed everywhere from the kitchen’s steam, her apron covered in bloodied smears. Isaac looked up, seeming to hesitate. Olive noticed Teresa almost imperceptibly shake her head, as Isaac blinked away her warning and barrelled on.

  ‘My father finds her men to work her land,’ he said, ‘but he only picks the young men, the strong men, not the older ones with families. So more ­people are starving. And there is no rule on the price for your work here, so la duquesa pays you nearly nothing. We tried to change that in the last election, but it has been changed again. And if you complain about how little you get of the harvest – or how bad condition is your house – la duquesa and her ­people will hear. You will not work.’

  ‘But the church must help them,’ said Harold.

  ‘Shall I tell you a secret? They say that our Padre Lorenzo has a lover in the village of Esquinas.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘It’s always the priest what done it.’

  Isaac shrugged. ‘Everyone knows Padre Lorenzo wants to make private the fields between the church and the house of his lover, so no one can see him when he makes the journey.’

  ‘Is that a joke?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘Who knows, señora? Padre Lorenzo is the cousin of the duchess. He’s more interested in territory maps than prayer books.’ He sighed and tapped the ash of his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘We had a vision. Land, church, army, education, labour – all to change. But we are – how do you say it? Cogidos?’

  ‘Caught,’ said Olive, and Isaac looked at her again. She blushed. ‘You’re – caught.’ She turned away, unable any longer to meet his eye.

  ‘Mr Robles isn’t caught,’ Sarah said. ‘He speaks English. He’s been to Madrid.’

  Isaac inhaled sharply on his cigarette. ‘Action may be the only answer, señora. We need the tyranny gone.’

  ‘Tyranny?’ said Sarah. ‘What tyranny?’

  ‘Most ­people here are just trying to plant their cabbages and eat them in peace,’ said Isaac. ‘But many of the children in Arazuelo do not even go to school because they are working in the fields. They need to know who’s pulling the sheep over their eyes.’

  ‘Wool,’ said Harold. He’d barely spoken, and they all looked at him as he reached into his pocket for his lighter and dipped his head to ignite his cigarette. ‘The word you mean is wool.’ Being Viennese, he pronounced it voohl.

  ‘Are you planning a revolution, Mr Robles?’ asked Sarah. ‘Perhaps we should call you Lenin.’

  He held up his hands in surrender, laughing as he glanced at Olive once again. She could barely cope; he was looking at her this time because he wanted to, and she felt as if her head might be on fire. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. ‘You will see, señores,’ Isaac said. ‘You are new here, but you will see.’

  ‘Are you a communist?’ Harold asked.

  ‘No. I am a member of the Republican Union party. And the poverty in our region is visible, it is not in my imagination. Mud huts, ten or eleven children inside them, men asleep on the fields.’

  ‘Isaac—­’ said Teresa, but he interrupted her.

  ‘It is not just the poor – small farmers, they live on the land, they improve it for the owners – and then they are charged such a high rent because they have made the land so productive, that they can no longer afford it. Our own labour counts for nothing—­’

  ‘You should be careful when you talk about “tyranny”, Mr Robles,’ Harold said. ‘If you insist on being a
revolutionary, you will make the ­people with means to support you fly to the arms of a fascist.’

  Isaac lowered his eyes. ‘But the ­people with the means to support us will never support us. I believe there is a way to universal happiness.’

  ‘The coercive redistribution of wealth,’ said Harold, looking grim.

  ‘Yes, that will do it. The ­people—­’

  ‘Nothing destroys a country’s sense of balance more than the word coercive, Mr Robles. But look,’ he beamed, ‘we are destroying your sister’s lunch.’

  Teresa stared at her brother. Olive thought of the thin wraiths they’d seen in the fields on their way here, stopping their work to stare at the car like it was a vehicle from a land of fantasy. ‘Mr Robles is right,’ she said. ‘I saw it.’

  ‘Oh, not you too, Liv,’ said Harold. ‘Not after all those bloody school fees.’

  Olive looked to Isaac, and he smiled.

  •

  Late that night, after Isaac and Teresa had left, with promises to return in a ­couple of days with firewood, Olive went up to her bedroom in the attic and locked the door. Union, onion; this brother and sister had come with their words and their seeds and Olive had never seen their like. Had she and her parents let them in, or had they simply entered, sensing a weakness in the fortifications? No one was like this in Mayfair, or Vienna; you left calling cards, not chicken carcasses. You spoke of the poor with pity, not anger. You did not plough your own land.

  Blood alive, head singing from the way Isaac had looked at her, Olive grasped her easel, pulling open its three legs and fastening them tight. She found the wooden panel she had taken from the outhouse, and placed it on the easel. She opened her window to let in the moon, lit the oil lanterns and switched on the electric light beside her bed. She knelt before her travelling trunk like a pilgrim at an altar, and ran her fingers over the paint tubes hidden under the cottons. As she pulled them out, Olive felt a familiar connection, as if her heart was slotting into place, a moment to breathe. Not one of her colours had burst in transit, all her powders intact, the sticks of pastels not cracked in half. They had always been loyal to her, when everything else was falling out of place.