Golden Apple Island

by Jane Arbor

  Fran said coldly, ‘Let’s get the record straight, may we? One—“this hour” is well before midnight. Two—I wanted to see the shore project as much as Rendle wanted to show it to me. Three—tonight was possibly au revoir for us, as I may not see him again before I go. And four—if you’d done sentry-go on any other night as you did tonight, you might have seen that we quite often kiss when we part.’

  ‘And you’re “just good friends”, I suppose?’

  ‘Very good friends,’ Fran corrected.

  ‘Which hard-worked phrase one seems to have heard somewhere before. Meanwhile this for the record too—I wasn’t spying on you. I’d just got home myself.’

  ‘At this hour? Tch, tch!’ mocked Fran.

  ‘I had garaged my car and was on my way in when I heard you drive up. You staged the rest.’

  ‘And you—correct me if I’m wrong—stayed to watch. Do you know what Rendle called you when you stood there glowering? “There’s your duenna,” he said.’

  ‘You surprise me that he’s with it enough to know what a duenna is for. However, if you don’t mind being wooed by remote control, I daresay when he fetches up in England too, you can look forward to a honeymoon at, say, Bognor Regis, and then a bungalow-ette within an arm’s throw of a suburban golf club and a supermarket just around the corner!’

  It was so tartly shrewd a comment on Rendle’s actual ambitions that, less outraged than she was by Gil’s prejudice, Fran might have laughed. Instead she retorted hotly,

  ‘That’s not funny. What’s so wrong with a bungalow in an English suburb? Thousands of people are happy there, and so were Mother and I. After all, your precious orange-grove of an island hasn’t a monopoly of all the charms, you know!’

  ‘It has, to anyone who belongs here.’

  ‘Which I don’t. I’ve got roots in England. I was born there and my—father was English.’

  ‘What of it? You’re a hybrid, and they’re supposed to transplant well. But not you. Oh no. You’ve never even tried to fit in—’

  ‘Perhaps because it was made so clear that I was expected to.’

  Gil conceded, ‘You’ve got a point there. But you’ve never taken anything but a tourist’s eye view when you could help it. “Yes, very pretty, very quaint”, you’ve said. But also, almost from the very moment you first set foot, “When do we go home?” Deny it if you can!’

  Fran spread her hands in despair. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I work for my living. In England. And when Mother needed to winter and convalesce here, I meant to go on doing just that. But you must know why I had to shelve my job and come too?’

  ‘Of course. Because Grandfather made a royal command of asking you.’

  ‘Because he refused to welcome Mother without me. That forced my hand, so I came.’

  ‘Not wanting to in the least?’

  Fran hesitated. ‘Not really sure whether I wanted to or not.’

  ‘But decidedly not, if you’d had an inkling of the plans the old man had up his sleeve for us? Though, as I’ve pointed out before, it takes two to make a match. I told him in no mean fashion that I wasn’t marrying you at pistol-point. So if he had ever put it to you, couldn’t you have done the same?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then why are you running away now, leaving Aunt Raquel behind? Is it really because you’re afraid the job won’t keep warm for you? If not—why?’

  This was the showdown he had so far allowed her to escape. Fran wondered, What if I told him I was being blackmailed into leaving the field open for Elena Merced? Aloud she said,

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s because of my job.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’ He studied her face. ‘At a guess, you’re putting distance between yourself and that promise I forced you to give Grandfather when I thought he was dying. Just in case he ever remembers you made it, you mean to be among those absent when he does. Easier, you think, to tell him by letter that you’ve had second thoughts or, better still, that you’re already bespoken elsewhere. Well, not that it cuts any ice with you, but I could remind you that I made the same promise, without any more idea than you had of ever being held to it, and I’m not running away.’

  ‘Neither am I—from that.’ At least that was the truth.

  ‘Then from what, Fran?’

  His tone was less edged, but she dared not give an inch. ‘I’m not running, I tell you,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve been here far longer than I meant to be, and now I’m going back. Just going, not escaping. Believe it or not, as you like, but it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘I see. In other words, you’re just shaking the dust?’ Suddenly he turned on her, his dark eyes blazing. ‘So that’s all we mean to you? All the island means? We, your own family—merely so many people to leave when it suits you? And the island, your mother’s home, yours—just a place where you’ve been unavoidably detained and couldn’t care less if you never saw again?’

  He paused and his scathing glance raked her from head to foot. ‘And you’re right, at that,’ he went on. ‘You don’t belong. You are a de Matteor. You and I share the same blood. We’re cousins—and for all you care about any of us, we might be a different species of—of fish, swimming in a separate tank!’

  Hurt beyond measure, Fran protested, ‘That’s not true, Gil. It’s not fair!’

  ‘Then prove it isn’t.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You should know. By staying, of course. Giving us a chance—’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘You mean you won’t. More fool me for asking. What did I expect you to say?’

  As he flung about, turning his back on her, Fran’s temptation to buy back his regard by telling him the truth of her leaving was an agony of mind that was almost a physical pain. It passed and she let him go, blessedly ignorant then that before the day came for her to leave El Naranjal, the price of her loyalty to Raquel’s pitiful little secret was to be asked of her, equally cruelly, a second time.

  The new pattern of Don Diego’s day was that he rose late after taking coffee in his room. Then, in consultation with Gil, he dealt with his correspondence and took a short walk, either Lucia or Raquel or Fran going with him. He rested before luncheon and again after it, and in the late afternoon he looked again for company. Lucia would play chess with him, or he would chat to Raquel or, having found that Fran could play piquet, they would have a daily game, keeping a running score for stakes—cigars for him, candied fruits for Fran—donated by Gil.

  But three days before she was due to leave for England, when she was alone with him on the patio and she produced the cards as usual, he waved them aside.

  ‘Not today, Francisca. While we are alone there is something I wish to say to you.’

  ‘Yes, Grandfather?’ Fran reboxed the cards with fingers which shook a little.

  ‘Something,’ he went on, ‘which you may not find agreeable, though I hope you will hear me out. I am afraid I have found it necessary to cancel your return flight to England on Thursday.’

  Fran’s jaw dropped. ‘You have cancelled it? But that’s not possible! They—they wouldn’t accept a cancellation from anyone but me!’

  ‘True. The cancellation awaits your confirmation. You have twenty-four hours to decide either way.’

  ‘But there’s no question of my not leaving! I must!’

  Don Diego’s brow puckered. ‘Must? I do not bow easily to “must”, nieta mia. Nor need you, unconditionally. When it comes to a decision you will go or stay by your own will, not mine. I can’t forbid you to go. But I should not have attempted to interfere with your plans without imperative reasons, nor, I trust, without a certain degree of power to persuade you to stay.’

  ‘Power?’ echoed Fran faintly.

  ‘Of appeal to your goodwill, to the sense of justice I hope you have. Towards Gil, on whom your decision to leave will recoil not at all to his liking.’

  Fran gestured bewilderedly. ‘I don’t understand! How on earth can my going back to England react
against Gil?’

  ‘Because I have the liberty of action to see that it does. But let me explain. No doubt you know—it is common talk, I think—that Gil is, so to speak, my heir-apparent? Well, to be brief, nieta, it is so important to me that you stay here, where your mother wants to stay, where you should make your home, where our family has its roots, that if you elect to leave us, I shall disinherit Gil.’

  ‘But that’s monstrous!’ It’s inhuman! You have no right—’

  ‘No right to dispose of my own estate as I see fit? Come, come, Francisca!’

  ‘No right to make whatever you do with it dependent on me. And yes’—her temper took fire—‘I’d say no right either to deprive Gil of it for a—a whim, when he is so identified with it and when you surely can’t be in any doubt since your illness that he is equal to any demands it makes on him? He is worthy of it. He deserves it. And if you do disinherit him, what other heir could you choose who would carry on after your death as well as he must have proved to you that he could?’

  ‘He works now for me for a handsome salary. He would be free to do the same for such other heir or heirs as I might appoint. And I should hardly want for a choice—you have seen the extent of the de Matteor connections for yourself. I should not need to look beyond the family, even if, for instance, I chose you. But I think it will not come to such an issue. You will do as I ask, and stay.’

  ‘No, Grandfather! No!’

  ‘No? You will beat the drum on Gil’s behalf, but you will do nothing practical for him? I ask you to stay, and you will not, even though I have made ample provision for your mother to stay and would do the same for you. What then, may I ask, were your plans for your future on a night, not so long since, when you told me at my bedside that you loved Gil? Tell me, nieta, didn’t the marriage you promised each other and me that night entail your staying here as Gil’s wife, which is more than I am asking of you now?’

  ‘Grandfather! You ... know ... about ... that?’ Fran could scarcely frame the words.

  ‘Could I remind you of it if I did not?’ he countered. ‘Well, child, what have you to say?’

  ‘Only that—I’m so very sorry, Grandfather. Only that—it wasn’t true—’

  ‘Not true that you love Gil?’

  ‘Not true that we meant to marry,’ Fran evaded. ‘You were very, very ill at the time and we—that is, Gil knew how much you hoped we would, and what it would mean to you to have our promise, and—’

  ‘And so you both gave your word to a dying man who, inconveniently, lived? However, let it pass. Since it was a false promise on both sides, I can’t hold you to it. But do you still feel you have no moral obligation to do for me this much lesser thing that I ask?’

  ‘I can’t, Grandfather. Especially now—I couldn’t bear to stay. And now you know what you do of me, how I helped Gil to deceive you, I can’t think why you should want me to.’

  ‘I had hoped you would accept that I had my own good reasons. But as I have failed to persuade you, there is nothing more to be said. Will you telephone the airport that your travel arrangements for Thursday stand, or shall I?’

  ‘I will.’ Wretched and uncertain, Fran stood, feeling dismissed. ‘Grandfather, please! I—’

  But he stood too. ‘Nothing more, nieta,’ he repeated and, reaching for his stick, turned away, confirming that he had done with her.

  She stayed where she was, looking out over the garden but not seeing it, hearing the summer sounds about her without heeding them. Thursday—and escape. Thursday—and the ruling of a fine beneath all the bitter-sweet, all the turmoil of spirit which the island had spelt for her. Meanwhile, where could she hide—from Don Diego, from Gil, from her own conscience? There was nowhere, of course. The hours between now and Thursday had to be faced and lived through. But briefly, just for what was left of today, was there no one to whom she could run for shelter, for a breathing-space? No one whose very ignorance of her dilemma might diminish it for a while to something less than the monstrous weight of guilt and heartache it was now?

  There was someone. There was sober, both-feet-on-the-ground Rendle Jervis, and if ever she needed the foil of his English composure, she craved it now. He had said she could ring him at any time. She looked at her watch. He should still be at his office in the town and Aunt Lucia’s car was free—

  But there was a setback when she telephoned. Senor Jervis, said his secretary, was out on the site, she did not know where nor whether she could reach him by calling around. But if Senorita Page wished, she would try.

  Fran said no to that. ‘I’ll ring again. He’ll be coming back to the office some time, I suppose?’

  ‘Not again today, I’m afraid. Some English friends of his have taken a holiday villa out at Las Rocas, and he is going out there for the evening, I know. Supposing I could locate him, would you like him to ring you?’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No trouble. If you will put down your receiver, I will try.’

  Fran waited, and presently Rendle rang. He had thought she might leave without getting in touch with him again, he said. But now she had, he must see her. There was this Las Rocas thing. He couldn’t get out of that, nor would he be free to go out there for some time yet. But if she would drive out to the villa his friends were renting, he would ring them to expect her and she would be sure of a welcome.

  Fran demurred, ‘I shouldn’t care to do that. They don’t know me.’

  ‘So what? They’re a young matey couple from Gerrard’s Cross. You’ll like them and any friend of mine is theirs too. Well, now, the villa is called La Palma. It’s in a cul-de-sac of villas just above the bay, and there’s an enormous date-palm in the garden. My friends’ name is Cash. But if you had to ask the way of any of the locals, the owner’s name is Hunfredo. You can’t miss. Right? Looking forward—’

  Committed, Fran decided to go by the mountain road, the tortuous, challenging way she had once travelled with a sober Tomas on the way out, with a very drunk Tomas on the way back. Before she left the Quinta she scribbled a note for Raquel, who was still resting.

  ‘Dear, I’ve taken Aunt Lucia’s car and gone over to Las Rocas to meet Rendle Jervis at a villa some English friends of his have rented there. Back in time for dinner. Love.’

  It was a lovely early evening, with a hint of breeze from the east. The road—the trees in full, lush foliage now—was like a shadowed cathedral nave, but one which climbed and climbed, demanding all the little car’s power and enough of Fran’s concentration to dull the pain of her thoughts.

  At last the summit. Down there to the right, still the waft of smoke from Tomas’s unseen cabin; ahead, the magnificent view of the bay and the far islands, and steeply below, the shelf of villas for which she was bound.

  Up here the breeze had stiffened, was a wind, and the sun had hazed over, though it was still warm. She braked and sat for a while, smoking a cigarette. The spiral and hairpin turns of the downward road were going to be as difficult in their way as the climb had been. But there was time to pause and to take the road easily. She did not want to arrive at the villa too soon before Rendle did.

  Later she could not have told at just what point in her idling she suddenly knew for certain that she could not, must not, arrive at all. There was, she supposed, one moment when she was only putting in time before going on her way. But, just as surely, there was another which shocked her into awareness of just what she was doing in trying to take refuge with Rendle.

  She had suspected herself of it before, and now she was deliberately making use of him, taking advantage of his feeling for her. And she hadn’t the right! For her his stolidity had never been more than an antidote to the hurt she suffered at Gil’s hands and for Raquel’s protection. Since she could not confide in him, he would think tonight that she had wanted to see him again for his own sake, and that was a false position into which she must not entice him. Then she was worrying lest he had already misread the signs of her anxiety to see him, and from
there it was only a step to the practical worry of how to avoid doing so.

  She couldn’t just fail to turn up at the villa, putting him and his friends to the anxiety of wondering what had happened to her. His town office would be closed by now, his secretary gone home. He might still be unreachable on the site or already on his way, though he would probably come by the shorter shore road, not over the mountain, as she had done.

  So to telephone the villa, making her excuses to him by way of his friends, had to be the answer. A telephone call need give no clue to where it was being made from, and she hoped she could give the impression she had not set out.

  Supposing the villa had no telephone? Oh, surely? Meanwhile she must find one to use herself. No roadside booth, no bodegon for kilometres back on the road behind her. She would have to drop down into the hamlet of fishermen’s cabins on the shore. But once down there she could drive back by the coast road, hoping fervently she would not meet Rendle on the way.

  It took some time to negotiate the descent and the huddle of roughcast houses that was Old Las Rocas boasted no public telephone. She had to drive a kilometre along the shore road before she came to a bodegon which had one.

  The proprietor, lounging in the open doorway, pointed to the instrument which stood publicly on the bar counter. While she hunted through a well-thumbed phone book for the Hunfredos’ number and found it, he closely inspected the car and when she had got her connection, he came back inside to eavesdrop with interest on the conversation, in English though it was.

  The voice which answered Fran was a woman’s.

  ‘Elsie Cash here,’ she announced herself, firm in the conviction that whoever was ringing her in a foreign country must be persuaded to speak English—or else.