Under an Amber Sky

by Rose Alexander

  ‘Two for the price of one,’ remarked Sophie, on reading the inscription.

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Ton, ‘there have been centuries of warfare in these parts, against the Turks, the Albanians, and countless others. It’s said that the greatest insult you can give a Montenegrin is to suggest that his ancestors died in their beds.’

  Sophie ran her fingertips across the elemental, untamed rock surface. ‘I so want to know what happened to Dragan.’

  ‘We’ll find out.’

  The bike was parked nearby; they walked towards it.

  Sophie nodded. ‘Darko’s on the case – he hasn’t let me down yet.’

  As Ton pulled his helmet forcefully over his head she just caught that strange, thunderous, look again, and then it was gone and all she could see, framed by the helmet, were his intense blue eyes, straight nose, purposeful mouth. He clicked the visor down and straddled the bike. Climbing on behind him, Sophie was conscious of a change in the atmosphere that she couldn’t put a reason to but found profoundly disturbing.

  The ride home was smooth and swift. Sophie never failed to relish the speed, alongside admiring Ton’s skill in handling the bike. The day lingered with them after their return.

  ‘Let’s go out for a drink, Sophie,’ Ton suggested, ‘round off our expedition with a glass of something. There’s something I want to talk about.’

  ‘I can’t.’ What did he want to say? She had angered him somehow but she didn’t know what she had done. Just knew, passionately and desperately, that she wanted to make it right. ‘I’m … a bit busy this evening.’ It was too late to cancel her arrangements, however much she wanted to.

  ‘There’s nothing you need to do here,’ he coaxed. ‘The others can look after themselves for once; you don’t always need to provide for them.’

  Was he hinting that she fussed too much, was some kind of mother hen supplementing her lack of a family by making more of her manufactured one than was wise? Sophie felt suddenly overwhelmed. But anyway, he was wrong – she wasn’t planning on cooking that night.

  ‘No – I mean I can’t go out for a drink. I’m going to dinner with Darko.’

  A loud crash made Sophie jump. Ton had let fall his water glass and it lay on the stone floor that she and Frank had so lovingly re-laid, shattered into a thousand tiny crystals. Why do the pieces always look like twice as many as could possibly have made up that one small glass? She had never understood that.

  Ton was already bending down to pick up the shards.

  ‘We better get it cleared up before Tomasz gets home,’ muttered Sophie vaguely, trying to bring herself to her senses.

  ‘That’s why I’m doing it.’ The sharpness of Ton’s voice was something Sophie hadn’t heard before. ‘I’m sorry I’ve damaged your property.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about the glass, Ton.’ Perhaps he was worried she’d be upset about the breakage. ‘They’re only cheap ones from the supermarket.’

  He looked up at her and shrugged. ‘Still – I’m sorry.’ There seemed to be more in his words than apologies for a broken glass but Sophie couldn’t fathom what it might be.

  ‘No worries.’ She went to get the vacuum cleaner to make sure even the smallest sliver was gone.

  ***

  When she left that evening, Anna, Frank, Irene, and Tomasz were all in the kitchen. She was wearing a new outfit Anna had made her; her sewing machine and a huge box of stockpiled fabric were installed in her studio and, needing a break from painting, Anna had been busily cutting and stitching for days.

  The dress, in a soft, floaty, pewter-grey, pleated through the waist, was beautiful and Sophie felt a million dollars in it. It had made her remember that it felt good to dress up once in a while, to put some make-up on and let one’s hair down. She hadn’t done it for so long, had been living in denim jeans or denim shorts since she arrived here. She dismissed the slight twinge of disappointment that Ton wasn’t there to see her.

  A shadow crossed the door and she thought it must be Ton coming in and, eagerly, she turned to greet him. But there was no one there. She went to the door and looked outside. She thought she could see a man of Ton’s build and height disappearing at a rapid pace around the bend of the road. But it couldn’t be him. Why would he be marching off without telling anyone?

  She waved goodbye to the group, blowing a kiss to Tomasz. The night was serene and silky-soft, and she caught a few of the admiring gazes she received from passers-by. She was vain enough for that to be a nice feeling. But despite the satisfaction she could not dispel the disquiet that was churning inside her. Something was amiss at the house on the bay and uncertainty about what it was filled her with anxiety.

  Chapter 24

  At the bar, Darko was waiting.

  ‘You look a million dollars,’ he said, his dark eyes full of appreciation.

  ‘Thank you.’ She could accept the compliment, now Darko and she both knew where they stood.

  ‘What’s wrong, Sophie?’ he asked, as soon as he’d ordered her a drink. They took turns to pay now rather than going Dutch, a concept Darko hadn’t quite got on with.

  She pulled a face and gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Nothing.’ She handed Darko the letter. Thinking about Mira would take her mind off other difficulties. ‘Let’s read.’

  ‘Dearest Dragan,

  ‘I am writing now with the news that you are a father! The baby came finally, two weeks after she was due, on a cold December day. It is a little girl, as Grandma Ilic predicted. I suppose she had a fifty per cent chance of being right.

  ‘In your absence I have called her Jelena. I mentioned it before as a favourite and though I know we have not had the opportunity to discuss it, I hope you like it. It suits her, I think. She is tiny and perfect, with a shock of black hair and a funny, pretty, scrunched-up face that reminds me so much of you that it brings tears to my eyes every time I look at her. If you could see her tiny hands and miniature fingernails, her rosebud mouth and little, elf-like ears, you would fall head over heels in love with her, just as I have done.

  ‘We are lucky, though, that she is here and healthy. The birth was difficult, as anticipated with her breech position, and it was long. Hours and hours, Dragan, and the pain is something I never imagined. But that is all unimportant now, over and done with. And anyway – whatever pain I have suffered can be nothing to what you are enduring, both mental and physical.

  ‘The doctor says it’s unusual to have another breech so we can look forward to all our future children without this to worry about. Now that she’s come, Grandma Ilic has felt free to unleash all the direst stories of breeches she has ever heard and the terrible consequences they have had. I shut my ears and pull my baby to me, cradling her in my arms and whispering in her ear, “Do not listen.”

  ‘Your mother is amazing, as always. She has a magic way with Jelena, swaddling her tight and rocking her to sleep in an instant, when she is so wakeful with me. She says it’s because the babies smell the milk on their mothers and want it, so maybe that is the answer.

  ‘It’s been hard to get out and about as I haven’t been feeling so good – no one tells you about the aftermath, how terrible you feel. But today I managed to push the pram along the road as far as the bakery. We went in for coffee and cake and everyone admired Jelena, though in all honesty she was wrapped up so tight and had a hat pulled down so far over her forehead there wasn’t much to see.

  ‘I have written nothing of the war and its progress for so long. I’m sure you can understand why I say little. Let’s just say that there is reason to be optimistic. Perhaps the new year will bring what we all are desperate for.

  ‘Now I must go as Jelena has woken and needs to be fed. She drinks so desperately and frantically. I was going to write “as if her life depended on it” and then realized how ridiculous that would be as of course it does. I love to watch her little mouth as she sucks, never taking her eyes off me. Apparently, at this age their eyes can focus
on exactly the distance between them and their mother when feeding. Nature is a wonderful thing.

  ‘Hurry home, my Dragan. Your girls are waiting for you – me, your mother, and Jelena. We are so desperate for your return. Your daughter needs a father.

  ‘Your most loving Mira’

  As Darko had been reading, all Sophie could think about was the story from Mamula island of the mother who’d had to feed her tiny baby with watered-down milk from a can during her imprisonment. Dragan was still absent, incarcerated, but at least Jelena and Mira were not living in that hellhole.

  ‘She had her baby, Sophie,’ whispered Darko, wiping his own eyes with a napkin. Sophie had never seen so much emotion on his face. ‘At least what we feared didn’t come to pass – she didn’t lose the child.’

  ‘No,’ sniffed Sophie, aware of how her tears had made damp patches all down the beautiful dress Anna had made. ‘That’s why I’m crying. I’m so happy for her.’ These were cathartic tears, tears of relief as much as of grief. She blew her nose, loudly and inelegantly. ‘But they need Dragan back. They need to be a family.’

  She knew that she would have found it unbearable to have a child with no hope of that infant being part of a proper loving family, all members present and correct – however much she understood that that was naïve and idealistic, however much she knew that countless children grew up successfully without such structures around them. After all, she’d taught many of them. And then, look at dear, adorable Tomasz. But she was allowed to want something different for her own flesh and blood.

  Darko gave Sophie the letter.

  ‘Put it away. Try not to think about it for a bit. The story – at least the bit we know – has a happy ending.’ He topped up Sophie’s wine from the bottle on the table. ‘And there’s still hope for Dragan. I’m trying to find out if there are records anywhere from Mamula. We’ll trace him, Sophie, and we’ll find out what happened. It just might take some time.’

  Sophie nodded and took a restorative gulp of wine. Darko was right. She should find something else to occupy herself and stop brooding on a past she couldn’t alter.

  Now that they had cleared the garden and sorted out the good plants from those that were weeds or past their best, she and Ton had drawn up plans, dividing each terrace into zones so that there were spaces for relaxing, for sunbathing, for dining, and for enjoying the flowers, bees, and butterflies that proliferated so joyfully and profusely in the sun-drenched space. Ton had made a long list of plants that she should buy and some could be planted now, as long as she kept them well watered. Her property was blessed with a well, which meant she could irrigate without fear of enormous water bills. She would set to work the very next day – with Ton’s help.

  ***

  But over the next few days, there was no sign of Ton. In his bedroom a few of his possessions remained – some clothes and books, his razor. But his motorbike was gone from under the juniper bushes, leaving just the legacy of a few broken branches to testify that it had ever been there.

  No one but Sophie seemed particularly to notice Ton’s absence. Frank had taken on a small building project for a neighbour – out of kindness more than anything else, as there was still plenty to do on the stone house – and so he was out a lot, and Anna was wrapped up in her painting. Irene had become Tomasz’s unofficial but devoted childminder and the rooms echoed to his shrieks and giggles and her words of encouragement and admonishment. Just as silence had engulfed the house when she had first moved in, now the sounds of family life did. It just wasn’t Sophie’s family.

  One day, about a fortnight after Ton had disappeared, Sophie went into his room. She would strip the bed and make it fresh so that when he did return, everything was ready for him. It wasn’t because she wanted to catch the scent of him on his sheets, to feel close to him, even though he might be hundreds or thousands of miles away. No, it wasn’t that, Sophie told herself, repeatedly.

  As she was carrying out her chore, Irene came in to join her and began to help.

  ‘I met a man once,’ Irene began, apropos of nothing, as she pulled a pillow out of its case. ‘He was very similar to Ton, actually. The strong and silent type; he didn’t talk much, like Ton.’ Irene always gave the impression that she heard more than what was said, that she understood beyond what was on the surface.

  ‘What happened to him?’ enquired Sophie, cautiously. It seemed obvious that the story wasn’t a happy one.

  ‘He was in the army. An explosives expert – he got sent to Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles. He was killed by a car bomb. Ironic, no? He’d saved the lives of countless others by defusing the bombs planted to kill them – but he didn’t look after himself carefully enough. One day, rushing to a call, he jumped into his car without checking – and that was it. Curtains.’ Irene snorted a harrumph of resigned laughter. ‘Such is life. Or death, depending on how you look at it.’

  Ironic? Sophie couldn’t get her head around that concept.

  ‘I think it’s terribly sad. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I could have married. There were others,’ continued Irene, lost in her dreams of the past. ‘In fact, I went through a phase when there was someone different every night. I thought it would cure the loneliness but it doesn’t. It just makes it worse. So I stopped looking and devoted my time to my work and my hobbies. I’ve had a great life, all told. Cheated death a few times, too, myself. Not much fun when you’ve a two-engine plane and one cuts out whilst the other’s on the blink.’

  ‘Sounds awful! Terrifying.’ Such equanimity in the face of danger was foreign to Sophie. She’d never been in such a situation, but she knew she’d be a panicker if she were.

  ‘But there’s no substitute for love, my dear.’ Irene turned to look Sophie in the eye. ‘Remember that.’

  Sophie bit her lip. ‘I know.’ She put a clean pillowcase on the pillow Irene had handed to her and arranged it carefully on the bed.

  ‘I’m so worried about Ton,’ she blurted out, unplanned. ‘He – he’s had some bad experiences, things that he saw when he was a war reporter. I’m concerned that he’s not coping with the memories.’

  Irene straightened herself up from tucking in a corner of the sheet.

  ‘I don’t think Ton would do anything stupid, Sophie, if that’s what you’re frightened of.’

  Both knew what Irene was referring to.

  ‘I think he’s the type who just has to work through things in his own way.’

  ‘But do you reckon he’ll come back?’ Sophie had intended the question to be a casual one, but it shot out as explosive as an Exocet missile. ‘I mean, you’ve had so much life experience, Irene; you are so wise. What do you think?’

  ‘Well, he was only ever visiting.’ Irene picked up the pillow and plumped it up a bit more. ‘I suppose it depends on whether he thinks there’s anything worth coming back for.’

  Sophie’s mouth fell open in horror. In those few words, the bottom fell out of her world – the world she had, without even realizing it – reconstructed around her as she recovered from Matt’s death. A world that included Ton, to do the garden with her and share his love of motorbikes and to teach her about photography. And perhaps, though she had never admitted it, there were other things that Ton promised, that he offered her, that she wanted, needed, desired. Things that were not fully formed, that hovered on the edge of her sensibility, niggling at it. Perhaps her feelings for Ton were more than just friendship. But she had never given him any indication of that.

  Sophie almost shouted at Irene for clarification and explanation but stopped herself just in time. She couldn’t take out her disappointment on an old lady who was just telling the truth.

  Irene was right; Ton had no reason to return. And the fault for that lay with Sophie.

  Chapter 25

  Sophie worked day and night on the garden over the next week, barely stopping to eat, only sleeping when she was literally ready to drop. Irene plied her wi
th copious quantities of homemade lemonade and Anna occasionally stood over her and forced her to finish an omelette or a sandwich. But other than that she was like a thing possessed.

  Gradually, before her eyes, the terraces of the garden transformed from wild, overgrown jungles to the artfully designed patches of beauty, burgeoning with flowers and shrubs in shades of white, purple, and pink that she had envisaged. That she and Ton had envisaged.

  ‘A green thought in a green shade,’ she said to herself one day, surveying her handiwork. And then sank down onto the grass and buried her face in her knees. She didn’t want to think; that was the whole point of this frenzied and excessive activity. But now, in a few brief seconds, all energy deserted her. She thought she might retire to her room and go to bed for the rest of the year. No one would miss her; the school had long been closed for the summer holidays so she was neither teaching English nor learning Montenegrin and the house functioned perfectly well without her input.

  It’s possible that she might have done just that if Anna hadn’t come up with an alternative plan and refused to allow Sophie to duck out of it.

  ‘Whilst you’ve been messing around with your bucolic idyll out there,’ she announced one day, ‘I’ve been busy sorting out a holiday for us. Katie and Sue are coming over – snap decision when they saw the price of the flights from Gatwick to Tivat – and we’re going on a road trip.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sophie’s frenetic manual labour had left her so tired she could no longer speak coherently.

  ‘I’ve hired a car and devised the itinerary,’ Anna continued, her face flushing with excitement. She always loved a plan. Sitting down next to an exhausted Sophie at the kitchen table, she slid a map in front of her and with her index finger traced the route they would take.

  ‘We’ll start off with Lovcen because I’m getting embarrassed about telling people we haven’t been there yet,’ she explained, her enthusiasm making her words spill out. ‘Then we’ll go to Biogradska Gora park …’ She paused, frowning, clearly having momentarily forgotten what she had put next on the agenda.