Weeks in Naviras

by Wimpress, Chris

  We’d looked it up and found the only guesthouse in the village, as always there were mixed reviews but the kinder ones praised the breakfast and the ‘eccentric charm’. We’d tried to contact the owner before leaving London but the email bounced back. Still we thought we’d give it a go, a punt in the dark. ‘Hopefully worth the detour,’ I’d said.

  Gail took over the wheel at a toll-booth two hours out of Lisbon. I’d been dropping in and out of consciousness toward the end of the journey, the wind making me drowsy. We both said we felt better once we’d left the motorway and joined the coastal road. On our right sharp cliffs and wide estuaries, the sun bouncing white off the ocean. The countryside on our left green with wild flowers on the hillsides; in subsequent visits I’d discover the land became a baked brown as summer rolled on, but it was the end of the Easter holidays when we first came to Naviras.

  It wasn’t just off the main road, not even off the parallel side-road. It had its own small lane that curved in hairpin bends around some large hills obscuring it from the passing traffic. As we drove into the village the road immediately curved to the left and narrowed so Gail misjudged the gap between the car and the first small white cottage. She wasn’t used to driving on the left-hand side of the road, took the corner too fast and smacked the right-hand wing mirror against the wall of a cottage. The mirror detached with a bang right next to me, making me jump in my seat. Gail screeched to a stop. ‘Oh shit, Ellie,’ she said.

  My heart was pounding. The wing mirror hadn’t come off completely and was still hanging on by some internal cable. We both laughed as two old men sitting at a small bus stop on the other side of the road smiled at us. There didn’t seem to be any damage to the wall and nobody from the cottage came out to shout at us, so we drove on slowly down the narrow before turning right. I’d checked the map and we were on the correct road for the guesthouse. It couldn’t be seen from the road. There was a low white wall with large poplars waving in the strong breeze. On the wall by the entrance white tiles, each one bearing a bright blue serif letter. Casa Amanhã.

  The smell of rosemary hit us as we drove through the entrance, the gates already wide open. There were established bushes running along both sides of the driveway. Behind them more large poplars, covering much of the driveway in shade. We pulled up outside the house and I was surprised at how tall it was; the two large wings on each side looking slightly squat underneath the centre of the building, which rose up three floors like a thin ziggurat. Vines and purple flowers curled around its sides almost to the top, trailing from the slanted terracotta roof of the wings, forming a natural awning.

  ‘It must be a hundred years old, at least,’ I got out of the car and took a look at the wing-mirror. We’d have to take it to the nearest rental office, I said, popping the boot and pulling out my wheelie-case which opened unexpectedly. Clothes, wires and makeup scattered all over the driveway. Gail smirked and helped me bundle my stuff back into the case. We shut it too quickly and a pair of my knickers remained sticking out the side.

  ‘Sod them,’ I said, as we wheeled our cases bumpily across the gravel driveway and through a large wooden door on the left hand side of the building, which was wide open.

  It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the interior. It was a restaurant, all the tables unoccupied. An L-shaped bar with wooden stools in the corner, behind it a large kitchen with wine racks and shelves filled with bottles running from floor to ceiling. Next to the bar a set of wooden steps ascended to a darkened archway. A slim dark-haired young woman was behind the bar, polishing cutlery. An older woman with white hair tied up in a bun at the crown of her head was sitting on a stool, going through a pile of papers.

  I said hello and the older woman looked up. ‘Good afternoon, are you booking in for dinner?’ Her English accent cut-glass.

  I said we were hoping to get a room for a few nights. ‘Oh, you didn’t make a reservation, did you? Let’s have a look.’ She lowered herself from the stool and walked around the bar, began rifling through a separate pile of papers. ‘I’m sorry, we’re having a few admin problems here at the moment. We’ve only just re-opened the restaurant.’

  We walked up to the bar. ‘Re-opened?’ said Gail.

  ‘After the winter, darling.’ The woman was picking up bits of paper and discarding them, one of them fell to the floor. ‘The guest house is open year-round, but I only run the restaurant during the summer months. Did you call ahead?’

  ‘No we didn’t, sorry,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t find any way of getting in touch.’

  ‘Well you’re in luck, we’re not too busy. We’ve got a boisterous stag party on the second floor, they’re horrendously messy. Apart from that we’re all-clear. I’m Lottie. Welcome to Casa Amanhã.’ She smiled at us. ‘Are you a couple?’ Gail and I looked at each other. Gail sniggered and shook her head.

  ‘Fine, fine. Now, pen, pen, pen.’ Lottie began rifling through the heap of paperwork behind the bar, before Gail pointed out the pen was stuck through the bun in her hair and she giggled, pulling it out. ‘You have to ask these days, you know.’ She stopped searching and looked up at us, beaming. ‘Had one or two embarrassments in the past!’

  Rarely did I ever take an instant liking to someone, but that’s how it was with Lottie St. Paul. She projected something, the old hippies would’ve called it an aura. She was scribbling on a pad. ‘Will you be wanting a twin room or two singles?’

  ‘How much are they?’ asked Gail.

  ‘Oh it’s all the same, twenty euro, per person, per night. Entirely up to you, darling.’

  I looked at Gail, thinking twenty a night was hazardously cheap. ‘What do you want to do, Gail?’

  She frowned. ‘What’s the bathroom situation?’

  Lottie let out an affected gasp. ‘Yes we have bathrooms! And toilets. We’re still in civilisation, just about.’

  Gail laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. ‘I just meant are the bathrooms en- suite?’

  ‘Oh en-suiiiiite, how lovely!’ Her voice often became very high and thin. ‘Yes, all my rooms have their own bathrooms. Piping hot water as well. Any idea how many nights? It doesn’t matter if you can’t say now. Is it your first time in Naviras?’ We nodded. ‘Do you have a plane to catch? Well, let’s just leave it open-ended for the time being.’

  I was opening up my purse but Lottie stopped me. ‘No need for that now, darling. Much better to put it all on one bill at the end. Less paper. Singles or twin?’

  Gail said it would be nice to have her own bathroom. ‘Excellent, singles it is,’ said Lottie. ‘Loo-eesh!’

  ‘Coming,’ called a Portuguese man’s voice from somewhere beyond the archway at the top of the wooden stairs.

  ‘Oh, I’m so, so, sorry I haven’t even asked your names,’ said Lottie. We gave them and she wrote them down, ‘Gail, Ellie, two singles, done.’ She stabbed the pen down onto the paper, marking a full stop before sticking the pen back in her hair. ‘Go upstairs with Luis and make yourselves at home.’

  A man appeared through the archway and immediately Lottie started talking to him rapidly in Portuguese, something about ‘cinco e seis’ was all I got.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said Luis, walking down the steps into the restaurant and not smiling. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it really wasn’t his job to show guests to their rooms. He was meant to manage Casa Amanhã, not serve as its bell-boy, but because it was so early in the summer Lottie hadn’t recruited any of her usual seasonal staff. He didn’t offer to take our bags, he merely gestured we should follow him up the creaky steps from the restaurant to the main guest-house, emerging in a small vestibule next to a larger stone staircase. It was a bit chilly in the rest of the house and not just because it was only April, Casa Amanhã was always surprisingly cool even in the height of summer. Despite the odd complaint from visitors Lottie never saw the point of installing air-con. ‘The ceiling fans work perfectly well, without all that ridiculous noise,’ she’d say.

  The vestibule was rath
er chaotic, with beach toys propped up against a black metal fireplace. To our right a low bookshelf, but it was hard to tell where it began and ended because it was festooned with paperbacks. They formed precarious towers on the top shelf, well-read, dog-eared and yellow.

  ‘You can help yourself to any of this stuff,’ said Luis absently, gesturing for us to follow him up the main staircase which ascended at right-angles. As I took my first steps up I noticed the stairs also went down another floor, but it was too gloomy to see where they led. At the second floor we stepped out onto the small landing. There were only two doors and Luis opened them both.

  ‘Here you go, ladies, you can just come down and ask Lottie if you need anything. Your towels are at the end of the bed. Did Lottie tell you about breakfast and stuff?’ We shook our heads and he tutted. ‘Of course, you know Lottie forgets to tell people all the simple things, like that breakfast is between nine and eleven.’ He said it lovingly. ‘Your keys are in the locks on the inside of the doors. You should leave the keys with Lottie if you’re going to the beach, because if you lose them she’ll charge you a hundred euro, okay? Have a fantastic stay.’

  He turned around and went back down the staircase. Gail said she fancied going down to the beach, maybe swimming in the sea? Hopefully that would sort out our hangovers, she said. We agreed to head back downstairs in ten minutes.

  I only stayed in that room once. Every other time I’d been right at the top, on the fourth floor. The view from Room Five wasn’t so impressive because the trees in the garden obscured the village. All I could see through the open French windows were the gardens and our car. But it was a nice room, even though I’d end up spending almost no time in it.

  I changed into my bikini, put a T-shirt and sarong over it and found my sandals. Gail was waiting for me outside my door when I opened it, saying she was keen to get into the sea. We thought we should hand in our keys before leaving, though, and headed back into the restaurant rather than straight out the front door of the guesthouse.

  Lottie wasn’t there, nor the other girl I’d seen earlier. Looking again at the dimly lit room I noticed an old piano by the front door and I walked over to it. The lid was closed but couldn’t be opened easily due to a large landscape photo in a wooden frame propped on the top, where the sheet music would normally sit. The photo, yellowed and weathered, was of a woman with straight, shiny black hair, standing in front of a map of the British Isles. She was pointing to the Mull of Kintyre with a small, coquettish grin.

  Gail squinted. ‘Do you think that’s her?’

  ‘Maybe, the eyes are the same.’ We walked out through the large door we’d first come through and stepped onto the driveway. It was late afternoon but still warm. We were nearing the main the road when two young men came around the corner of the low wall and strolled into the garden.

  ‘Aye aye,’ said Gail, the moment she saw them.

  Memories of that event that I salvaged later; certainly I wasn’t aware they’d be significant at the time so I always resisted notions of destiny when remembering how we walked towards each other, James and Rav dressed similarly in creamy knee-length shorts, both of them wearing crumpled short-sleeved shirts; Rav’s white, James’s powder blue. Rav walked slightly ahead of James and spoke first.

  ‘Afternoon ladies, you just got here?’ His reassuring airline captain voice there from the start.

  ‘Yeah, just now, from Lisbon,’ said Gail. ‘You guys with the stag party?’

  ‘Yep, certainly are,’ said James, quite well-spoken but with a distinct estuary twang on his vowels. ‘Although the stag’s still in bed, sleeping it off.’ He smiled at me.

  ‘I’m Ellie, nice to meet you,’ I offered my hand which James shook a little too firmly. His hand felt damp.

  ‘I’m Jamie,’ he said, eyes blue and red. ‘We’ve just been down to the café in the square, it’s the only place in the whole sodding village where there’s a phone signal.’

  Gail introduced herself, giving one of her little cackles as she took Rav’s hand. There was a slightly uncomfortable silence as the four of us stood for a moment, all blearily hungover.

  ‘Well, we’re just going to explore a bit. Maybe go to the beach,’ I said, finally.

  ‘Great,’ said James. ‘Hopefully we’ll see you later for dinner?’

  Room Seven

  I know exactly where we’d stood that afternoon a decade ago on the driveway of Casa Amanhã, and feel like I’m disturbing ghosts as I cross the same spot. As I make my way down the empty driveway and into the silent garden I think about Gail and wonder how she’s reacted to my death. I wish I’d made more of an effort to keep in touch with her, after James’s career really took off and I quit work. We never fell out or anything, but it became difficult to see people like Gail because there were things I just couldn’t tell her. It’s disastrous, now, to think I could talk more candidly to Liz Brickman than my supposed best friend.

  Casa Amanhã’s just the same, slightly dilapidated but still proud in its own way. The stationary sun’s filtered through the trees, the light making dappled patterns on the gravel. There’s no wind, the branches of the poplars seem frozen. I cross the turning circle in front of the house and walk through the left-hand door, wide open as usual.

  The restaurant seems brighter than I remember, even though the candles aren’t lit. Two couples are sitting at tables nearest me, behind them a larger table of three middle-aged women. They’re a mixture of nationalities but again nobody I recognise. A woman’s sitting at the bar, looking straight at me. It’s Lottie, but then again it’s not. Her straight hair’s dark brown and ear-length, she’s wearing a long, floaty peacock-blue dress which clings to her thin waist. It’s how she’d looked in the old photo on the piano, stunningly beautiful. She doesn’t say a word, just beckons me to come over.

  ‘Lottie, it’s Ellie. Do you remember me?’

  She smiles. ‘Of course I do, darling, why wouldn’t I?’ She seems more subdued here, her voice lower than before. ‘Would you like a brandy mel, darling?’

  I tell Lottie I’d very much like a brandy mel. She pats her hand twice on a barstool, before sliding off her own effortlessly and walking around the counter. She’s wearing yellow velvet heels; I just know they’ll never get dirty. She chooses a bottle from one of the shelves, picks up two dessert wine glasses. ‘I’m surprised to see you here so soon,’ she says calmly, her eyes on the glasses as she pours. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers, Lottie,’ I take a sip. The taste of honey but not alcohol. But I think to myself; why drink brandy mel if you can’t get drunk?

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Lottie takes a step back away from the bar, gestures at herself and does a half twirl.

  ‘You look incredible, Lottie.’ It’s all I can say.

  ‘You know when I look like, from my life?’

  ‘When you first got this place, Lottie, I know. I can see it in your face.’

  She beams and immediately I want to kiss her, sort of dissolve into her. Everyone must do when she smiles like that, I think. She walks back around the bar slowly, sits down on the stool next to me, crossing her legs over.

  ‘Do you feel like you did then?’ I ask.

  She thinks for a moment. ‘No, I feel the same person inside as when…’ She doesn’t finish. ‘There’s lots about this place I keep remembering. You came out of the ocean, too? That was quite a surprise, I’d not been in the sea for years.’ She chuckles and it’s the same one I remember, the same scrunching of the eyes but no longer wrinkles. Endless Lottie, forever. Why would anyone want to leave?

  ‘What’s wrong darling?’ She’s eyeing me. ‘You’re not smiling.’

  ‘It’s just odd. I know you, but then I don’t.’ I’m struggling for the right words, knowing full-well Lottie can’t stand rudeness. I can tell she’s the same person I knew inside, at least. She looks away from me, over to the piano in the corner, smiles and nods at nothing. I follow her gaze; the old photo of the weather map isn’t there.
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  ‘I think you get another go at things, if you want,’ she says.

  ‘Have you seen James.’

  ‘No, darling. Should I have?’

  ‘He died at the same time as me, Lottie,’ I wonder if she can read my face.

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t be here, would he, darling? He never really cared much for the village, that was patently obvious.’

  I put my hand on hers. It’s not warm, like I expect it to be. ‘I’m so happy to see you. The only other person I’ve met here who I know is Luis.’

  ‘Ah yes, lovely, lovely Luis. Interesting how he’s staying down at the beach bar, don’t you think? I must say I was surprised he didn’t find himself here.’

  ‘Did Luis not say?’

  She’s still looking at me directly. ‘I don’t think Luis is quite ready to be here, somehow. That’s why he won’t leave the beach.’

  ‘But he died on the beach. Well, in the sea.’

  Lottie nods. ‘After I’d been here for a while I went down to the slipway. It’s lovely in the village, have you noticed? That part of the day when it’s still sunny but not too hot?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘When I got back down to the beach bar Luis walked in from the terrace, we said hello and it was all very nice, I told him what it was like up here at the house, and I said he should come with me. But he said he’d just stay for a bit longer and come up later. When I heard footsteps on the gravel outside I thought it would be him coming through that door, instead it was you.’

  ‘But Luis seems happy,’ I say. It didn’t quite sound like a question.

  ‘Of course he is! You’ll be too, once you get used to it. And after all, Luis has plenty of time to come up when he feels like it.’

  I take another sip, wondering whether to mention Luis’s odd detachment from me. ‘I guess there’s a few things we need to talk about,’ I say.

  Lottie shakes her head, looks at me intently. ‘No, darling, who we were, what we did, it doesn’t matter.’ Her eyes scan the room. ‘I do hope that’s what Luis thinks, too.’