Under an Amber Sky

by Rose Alexander

  ‘I try to take solace from my surroundings. Whatever ugliness surrounds us, no one can take the beauty from the bay. Watching the water lap so gently against the shore, calm can come in the midst of all the pain. The sun has risen in the sky as I write this, and I can see green on the mountains, the green of the cypress, broom, and fig trees, and higher, the green of the grasses and all of those indomitable plants that cling for dear life to the sides of the precipitous cliffs. The colour softens the mountains’ harsh facades and the sun gleams off the granite as if it were polished.

  ‘The sea is cold again now, and the children have long stopped bathing. That cold, choppy water will be washing against the bare and barren rocks of Mamula island. I wish that I could walk to you there across the steel-grey sky.

  ‘Stay strong, my Dragan, my dearest love.’

  At the letter’s end, Sophie had the strongest feeling of doom she had ever experienced: a clenching in her gut accompanied by a cold sweat on her skin. She had not felt like this when Matt had died, had not experienced what some people report, such as a sharp pain at the moment of their loved one’s death, an inability to breathe, a prescience. But she felt it now and she knew – she was sure she knew – that something terrible had happened to Dragan and that he would never know his baby, nor see his wife again.

  Darko had to hurry home to take a phone call from a client in Los Angeles. Sophie wandered around the house. She wanted to talk to someone about the letter but Frank and Anna were not back and Irene had gone to bed. Of Ton there was no sign. He was not in the living room, nor the kitchen. His bedroom door was open and, peering surreptitiously around it, Sophie could see that he was not in there, either.

  She slipped out of the front door, hoping to find him on the coffee stone, or the pier opposite the house. But he was nowhere to be found and then she noticed that his motorbike was absent also.

  Disconsolately, she went to bed. The room was hot though the windows were wide open; the July nights were barely cooler than the days. She slept fitfully and woke suddenly to some noise that filtered through her fervid dreams. Getting out of bed without thinking why, she went to her window.

  She saw Ton, steering his bike into its parking spot under the juniper bushes. It must have been the engine she had heard, or maybe the absence of sound when he killed it. Once the bike was in place she watched as, still astride the leather seat, Ton fumbled in his pocket for his phone and began typing rapidly into it.

  Sophie glanced at the clock beside her bed: 1.30 a.m. Who could he be communicating with so urgently at this time of night? Then she remembered that he had contacts and business interests all over the globe, including a part-share in a hostel in Bali, so presumably someone he knew was awake somewhere in another time zone.

  He glanced up, as if casting around for what to write next and as he did so, his face was caught in the light of the streetlamp above. Sophie gasped involuntarily; his forehead was drawn over eyes that had a stony cold look she had never seen in them before, and his jaw was set hard. What on earth could have happened to put him in such a bad mood? She wanted to run out to him and comfort him, see if he wanted to talk about it. But something about his dark and stormy countenance made her resist.

  Slowly, Ton put the phone away, got off the bike, and walked towards the house. As he did so, he looked up at Sophie’s window and instinctively she shrank back against the wall, out of sight. Nevertheless, she was sure he must have seen her and she hoped he wouldn’t think she was spying on him. She climbed back into bed but lay awake for a long time. Something seemed to be bothering Ton and she had no idea what it was – and no idea why she cared so much.

  Chapter 22

  Over the next few days, Sophie felt down in the dumps. She hoped the depression of earlier in the year wasn’t resurrecting itself. She remembered her thoughts on the walk to Gornji Stoliv, when she had pondered that the mental journey through grief was like a country walk when you keep getting lost and somehow going back on yourself and retracing old ground, however much you don’t want to.

  She longed for an end to the depression and a reaching of acceptance – but the black dog seemed always there, lying patiently in a corner, waiting to leap up and bound back into her mind. Her worries and fears for Mira and the baby were ever-present, haunting her. One morning, she tried to tell Ton how she felt.

  ‘I’ve nearly read them all – there’s only one left now. But still – I don’t know who she is, whether she had her daughter despite the difficulty of the pregnancy, and if the child is still alive. Above all, I have no idea what happened to Dragan and I have a feeling that the letters will end without a conclusion – although I fear the worst. They were real people who lived in this house just like us – but they’re ghosts. I’m surrounded by phantoms.’

  They were in Sophie’s bedroom and the photograph of Matt on her dressing table seemed to be staring straight at her. Did he worry that she would forget him, that she was too taken up in the lives of others these days? The eyes in the picture followed her everywhere.

  Ton was sitting in an old dark-wood armchair, one of Mira’s that Sophie had had restored and reupholstered. It was amazing how much cheaper skills and services like that were here and the finished result was beautiful. Ton nodded and smiled sympathetically.

  ‘They’ve really got to you, haven’t they, the inhabitants of those letters?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sophie sat on the bed, facing Ton. ‘And then I think – well, Mira has a future with her baby, even if she loses Dragan. But I lost Matt and I haven’t got a baby. What’s my future?’

  She was conscious that her voice had become something of a wail, and at the same time of how selfish she probably sounded, how self-centred and self-absorbed.

  Instinctively, Ton rose up out of the chair and came over to her. She could feel his warmth, not unpleasant despite the heat of the day, and had an urge to grab on to him, to bury herself in him, to lose herself in his masculine scent and manly embrace. Ton was still sitting himself down beside her when, horrified she leapt up. She was Matt’s, and always would be. She rushed towards the door, banging past his arm that was outstretched to hold her back.

  In the kitchen, she put her head in her hands. She wondered if she were going mad. Ton appeared beside her, his presence overwhelming.

  ‘I think you need a change of scene. We’re going out for the day.’ His voice was firm, brooking no argument. ‘I’ll take you to somewhere else Mira has talked about in her letters.’

  Suddenly interested in a way she hadn’t been two minutes before, Sophie looked up. Ton’s eyes, so blue and unwavering, were fixed on hers.

  ‘How do you fancy getting to know Lake Skadar?’ He went to the tap, poured water, drank it, all while she absorbed the idea. She recalled Mira’s description of her visit: the lake and the fish and the long, hot afternoon of picking the leaves for the immortelle. At least she and Ton wouldn’t have to brave flanks of Italian soldiers in order to get there. It was just the barriers of her mind that obstructed her.

  ‘I can recommend it,’ Ton added, encouragingly.

  Sophie smiled in mock resignation. ‘I suppose I have to say yes then,’ she said, wondering how Ton always managed to lift her spirits, always knew what her soul was yearning for.

  ***

  The lake shimmered under the midday sun, its silver sheen reflected in the blue sky and the green reeds. Far away across the vastness of the water, the karst mountains of Albania that had arranged themselves so prettily, and dramatically, around the lakeside rose and fell in numerous undulations. They were soft and smudgy as if out of focus, softened by distance and the heat haze.

  Ton hired a boat and they rowed through densely growing water lilies, flowers glossy in shades of white, cream, and yellow, and colonies of caltrop that caught at the oars and sent water droplets flying, dappling Sophie and Ton as if a light rain were falling. He steered the boat far out into the lake where the silence was absolu
te, apart from the calls of the birds – the herons, egrets, storks, and ibis – and the rhythmic splash of the oars.

  Turning to look in another direction, wanting to see it all, to absorb every part of the scene that lay like the most perfect painter’s canvas before her, Sophie jumped and almost fell overboard. For drawing past them with easy, practised strokes and no sign of a sweat breaking was a monk, in full Orthodox garb, the back of his boat loaded with bags and boxes.

  ‘Dobar dan,’ the monk called to them, not missing a beat in his propulsion of the boat across the water, serenely rowing on as they returned his greetings.

  ‘There’s a monastery on one of the islands,’ explained Ton, in response to Sophie’s mystified expression. ‘Maybe more than one, I’m not entirely sure. And a hermit lives on another. You can go there but you mustn’t talk to him.’

  Sophie gave a brief smile of recognition, immediately understanding the hermit, imagining his isolation, his wish to be alone. She could identify so deeply with such a desire, had experienced it herself for so many months after Matt’s death, and every now and again did so still, even a year later.

  They rowed on, a band of moorhens accompanying them on the journey, swimming along in the boat’s wake, dipping and ducking for tasty morsels as they went. Sophie watched them, entranced by their funny little jerking movements, bobbing heads, and darting eyes.

  Eventually, out of the blue-green water of the lake rose a rocky outcrop upon which stood a ruined building, possibly a church, Sophie thought, spotting what might have been the remains of a steeple at the end nearest to their approach. As she was striving to make out more details, a flash of black in the corner of her eye made her turn and she saw, descending to the water, a pelican on the hunt. Crystal drops of water bubbled up around its legs, and its dark wings were held upwards, like a half-formed heart or a calligraphic ‘V’.

  Sophie watched, spellbound, and only when it had taken flight, catch comically hanging in huge orange beak, did she turn back to Ton. He had stopped rowing to observe the bird and seemed similarly awed.

  ‘They’re enormous.’ Sophie couldn’t think of anything else to say. The sight had been bewitching.

  ‘Their wingspan can be up to three metres,’ agreed Ton. ‘That one must have been getting on for that.’

  He resumed rowing, slowly and carefully bringing the boat to the island’s shore, waiting for the scrunch of the wood on the gravelly, sandy bottom before nimbly jumping out and securing the mooring line to a convenient post. Sophie – rather less nimbly, she couldn’t help noticing of herself – also clambered out and followed Ton to the shade of a grove of wild pomegranate trees.

  Once they’d drunk enough water to feel refreshed, they explored the island, devoid of signs of habitation apart from the tiny, ruined church, a victim of earthquakes and neglect and the ravages of time. Lichen grew on every stone, laurels poked branches through gaps between blocks and, only steps away from the building, the reeds and sedges crowded the water’s edge.

  ‘It’s pretty hot,’ said Ton, once back on the tiny beach. ‘Swim?’

  ‘I’d love to, but …’ Sophie still hadn’t quite got out of UK health and safety mode, of ideas of polluted waterways and the diseases they could bear. ‘Is it clean?’

  Ton laughed. ‘It’s pristine. Cleaner than clean.’

  Sophie pulled a contemplative face. ‘Well – I don’t know – um, maybe,’ she said, feigning uncertainty. And then pulled off her shorts and T-shirt – under which she was already wearing a bikini – and ran laughing to the water, turning back to Ton to throw armfuls of spray over him as he followed her. Diving beneath the lake’s surface the water, smooth and soft, caressed the skin of her sun-warmed cheeks with a silk-satin touch.

  When she surfaced, she found Ton right next to her. They bobbed up and down in companionable silence for a bit. Sophie couldn’t remember the last time she had swum in a freshwater lake. Had she ever, in fact? It just wasn’t something one did in the normal run of events.

  ‘According to legend, a young bride was so excited by the prospect of her husband’s return that she forgot to turn off the tap on the local fountain and so caused the lake to be created.’ Ton’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘That’s why the water is so velvety.’ He grinned at Sophie. ‘So they say, anyway.’

  ‘You are the fount of all knowledge today,’ joked Sophie. ‘Pardon the pun.’

  Ton flicked an arrow of water at her in response and then set off across the lake, cutting through its gleaming shimmer with an athletic front crawl. Sophie went back to shore and lay on the white-blond beach, letting the sun dry her body and the heat lull her mind to sleepiness.

  A shuffling of the sand beside her roused her.

  ‘Matt?’ Instinctively, she reached her hand out towards the source of the sound and then, immediately on touching the body beside her withdrew it as if electrocuted. It was not Matt; she could tell from such fleeting contact alone that the skin she had felt was not his. In an instant, she remembered it was Ton she was with, who was standing above her now, towelling his hair, spraying diamond droplets of light all around him.

  Ton plumped down onto the beach beside her. They looked out at the green-blue water and the remnants of a wooden pier that had once stood over it, now a collection of gaunt posts bleached pale grey by the unforgiving sun.

  ‘It’s me, Sophie,’ he said, staring straight ahead of him. ‘It’s Ton.’

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured in response, still groggy from drowsiness, forcing herself fully awake, ‘I’m sorry. Sometimes, when I’m sleeping or my mind has drifted away, I forget.’

  She picked up the bottle of water and drank, long and desperately, as if the liquid flowing through her would wash out her longing and enable her to start afresh.

  ***

  On the way back, Ton taught her how to row. Instructing her where to sit and how to hold the oars, he placed his strong, firm hands on hers. His breath was warm on her neck, the scent of him suffusing her nostrils, his sweat and heat and hair. Sophie could feel the blueness of his eyes burning into her shoulders as he guided her movements, adjusting her technique. Her stomach turned over and she felt a tingling in her belly and down her thighs.

  She had a sensation of wanting nothing more in life than to be here, with Ton, and nature, and harmony, with not the smallest hint that there was a world just a few miles away, a world that was busy and loud and demanding and that didn’t have Matt in it any more.

  Ton’s grip tightened on hers as he had to readjust her course, gone awry as her thoughts distracted her. She moved her head and found it was against his shoulder, and then found that she was leaning back on it and that she felt supported and protected so that, for the first time since his death, the fear of being without Matt for ever and ever, that was always present deep inside her, momentarily disappeared, evaporating like the lake’s sweet water under the broiling summer sun. In her reverie, she forgot to row, her arms suspended in mid-stroke, a steady plash of water droplets falling from the oars onto the lake’s dead-flat surface.

  They floated aimlessly, the expanse of the lake theirs alone, no other boats anywhere in sight, just swallows skimming the water then wheeling on high and them underneath, small in the world, and drifting.

  A fish jumping startled Sophie to her senses. Hurriedly, she sat bolt upright.

  ‘This is far too much like hard work,’ she cried, laughing overly brightly. ‘I’ll retire gracefully and let the expert take over.’ Subtly, she shook her hands free of the oars, and Ton’s grip.

  Moving to sit facing him, she caught a glimpse of a strange look passing like a thundercloud across his face before he took up a position at the centre of the boat, pulling the oars so fast and firm that they flew through the water as if on wings.

  Chapter 23

  In the village of Virpazar, everything burgeoned. The gardens and fields between houses overflowed with what was natural and good, a bounty of fruits a
nd flowers and vegetables. It was still July, srpanj, harvest month: the time to gather in the provisions for the lean weeks and months to come. Sophie wondered if a larder full of pickles and bottles and jams and chutneys could see her through another winter without Matt.

  She had arrived at the very end of October, listopad, the month of leaves falling, and lived, somehow, through November, studeni, or cold, into December, prosinac, the time of gathering, though she remembered gathering nothing but ever-deepening desolation. January was supposed to be the month of cutting wood, sjecani, and she had fallen upon the stock of logs in the konoba like a starving person falls on food.

  And then February, veljaca, big winter, when the snow had come and, with the white purity of hope, brought her back to life. March had followed, ozujak, blowing in spring and Frank with it, and everything had changed again, setting in motion the chain of events that had brought all the people who had hijacked her solitude and shown her that life, after all, did have some purpose.

  Now, all around her and Ton, trees dripped voluptuously with mandarins, plums, cherries, figs, walnuts, and pomegranates. A lady in one of the gardens saw her looking and picked a ripe peach, which she handed to Sophie over the fence, itself buckling under the weight of runner beans and peppers. It was rich and delicious, the orange-coloured juice welling out and dribbling down her chin, then dropping to the ground and staining the dusty tarmac with its viscous brightness. Sophie had a sudden feeling that, though the fruit was glorious, she needed more to sustain her than this, that she had spiritual and emotional needs as well as the physical ones for food and drink and shelter.

  Wandering on through the village, they came across an incongruous mound of lichen-and-grass-strewn rock. It was topped by a bronze statue of a warrior bearing weapons and flags, a memorial to an ancient battle against the Turks as well as the people of the region who lost their lives in World War Two.