Legacy

by Hannah Fielding

  Ever since her lunchtime talk with Charo and the concert later that evening, Luna had felt as tender and vulnerable as a clam whose shell had been prised open. For the first time in her life, her head had let her defenceless and throbbing heart lead the way, and now she was terrified.

  Luna’s feelings of agitation only intensified as the week passed. She could barely concentrate on her work, though she tried valiantly to do so in the hope of putting Ruy from her mind for just a few hours each day. There was almost no respite: he pulsed through her thoughts during her waking hours, and ravished her body in her dreams at night.

  For once, self-possession failed her. She couldn’t help but glance repeatedly at her mobile phone checking for messages or emails then immediately berated herself for doing so. If only he had called the day after the concert! He could have taken her out to dinner or for a walk along the beach and she wouldn’t have had to go through a week of this insecure fretfulness.

  Yet there was nothing from Ruy. Absolute silence: no texts, no calls, not even an impersonal work email.

  Luna had never considered herself to be a neurotic person but she had to concede, wryly, that she had been wrong about her own weaknesses in all sorts of ways. Every single day over these past weeks had brought with it some sharp new realization about her personality, and she found it more than a little disturbing. Then, these few days since the concert, alone at the beach house in the evenings when she was trying to concentrate on her article, she would gnaw at her thumb, restlessly turning over tormenting questions in her mind. Had Ruy chosen to absent himself from the office in an effort to avoid her? Perhaps he felt the heightened intensity between them and decided to run for cover? Or maybe he’d found that now she was open to his advances, there was little thrill in the chase? Perhaps his parents had rounded on him after the concert, advising him to leave the Herrera girl alone; saying she would be nothing but trouble, like the rest of her reprehensible, scheming family?

  She simply couldn’t get Ruy out of her head.

  Luna felt unnerved, but also on fire. She had always been such a rational and logical person, utterly in control of her feelings; so how was it that her whole being seemed invaded by an emotionally charged, capricious sprite – an alter ego designed to upturn her very existence? It was as though some dual personality had taken hold, forcing her behaviour to swing wildly between passionately headstrong and defensively fearful.

  There was no respite from her enervating and unpredictable emotions – everything she did led her relentlessly to thoughts of Ruy. Her research at the clinic, the article she was working on … all of it concerned him so closely. She had always said only a madwoman would get involved with someone she worked with, and only a simpleton would allow herself to become drawn into an affair with her boss, and now she was having to eat her words. Yet in her heart of hearts, if the same choices had been thrown at her now, she knew she would do it all again.

  The more research she did on the work of her gypsy-doctor, the more her respect for the man grew. The files she’d been asked by Ruy to go through were adding up to a remarkable series of statistics. He was certainly an extraordinary healer; and the figures – as well as endless glowing testimonials from patients – seemed to prove it. As a result, Luna had started to write quite a different piece to the one she’d planned.

  She found she had the greatest clarity late at night, working at the beach house, where she came to her studies with a new open-mindedness that kept surprising her. Determined the piece about the clinic be completely unbiased, just as Ted had stipulated, she also knew that he would be surprised, and quite possibly irked, to see her championing some of the Institute’s more cutting-edge practices. Charo had commented on Luna’s quiet mood and the shadows under her eyes, but she had brushed her friend’s concerns aside, promising to get more rest at the weekend.

  She found herself almost dreading the weekend, as there wouldn’t be any clinical work to take her mind off Ruy. After she had driven away from the Institute on the Friday, she went home to her desk and worked into the small hours. She was so mentally exhausted by the time she collapsed into bed that she fell into a deep sleep, lulled by the ever present sound of the sea, and did not wake until mid-morning the next day.

  For the first time in a week she felt refreshed and relaxed. The sun was high in the sky; gulls were wheeling and calling, seeming to beckon her outside. She raced to get dressed, full of a sudden joy to be alive.

  After a bracing swim in the sea, Luna came back to the beach house ravenous and wishing she had been shopping earlier. As if a kindly genie had read her mind, there was a casserole dish sitting on the table of the veranda. Next to it was a plate of magdalenas and a note beside them: ‘… porque es necesario engorde!, because you need fattening up!’ It was signed by Señora Sanchez.

  Delighted, Luna laughed out loud and lifted the casserole lid, which revealed a delicious-looking paella de marisco, still warm and fragrant with brightly coloured orange prawns, red peppers and pink calamares nestling like edible jewels in the creamy rice. Her new neighbour had taken to stopping by with little gastronomic offerings on her way to walk her dog or visit the town, and Luna had basked in the older woman’s breezy presence and welcome banter. With the endless parade of thoughts about Ruy marching through her head and plaguing her body, Luna found that Señora Sanchez’s solid matronly wisdom was about the only thing that had kept her sane.

  As Luna tucked into the mouthwatering food she made a mental note to buy her friend some delicacy from the covered market the next time she was there. She would pay a visit to the señora’s cottage and return the compliment. Food and friendship, those time-honoured partners, were so prevalent here in Cádiz and Luna loved that about the city.

  Rejuvenated by her lunch, she decided to go exploring parts of Cádiz that she had not yet visited, away from the walled city. Apparently there were interesting Moorish ruins to be seen inland. It would make a nice change from the beach and the bay.

  Equipped with a bottle of water, a compass and a map, she drove to the outskirts of Cádiz and across the isthmus, parking at a small harbour. The sun beat down on her as she stepped out of the car, and Luna was thankful she’d exchanged her jeans and shirt for a mini-skirt, spaghetti-strap top and hat before going out.

  The streets of the town that nestled around the bay climbed steeply towards the hills. Soon the rise was gentler, eventually plateauing out at the top. She paused to catch her breath and take a drink from her water bottle, looking out to sea and down on the glittering bay as she did so. In the other direction stretched a fertile plain with cornfields, rich green vineyards and olive groves. She put away her water and set out along the track that bordered the fields, while skylarks fluttered high above, trilling their liquid waterfall of song. Now she was passing a large hacienda with its enormous orchard of laden orange trees, making a striking contrast of colour against the prevailing olives. At the end of the stone wall that bounded the property she finally came to a small hamlet of cottages, their gardens filled with brightly hued bougainvillea that fringed the walls or hung in long trails from little flat rooftops.

  As Luna walked further from the coast and its luxuriant vegetation, pretty whitewashed cottages and lobster-pink haciendas, the countryside grew parched in a uniform umber. There was little sign of life now, other than the odd lizard that skittered away into a crack in the dry stone wall. Occasional patches of wild shrubs dotted the parched earth, with a few scattered fig trees and carobs with their long green pods. There was precious little shade and Luna was glad she had brought her hat.

  The afternoon sun was still beating down hard, and she paused to sit under an olive tree and drink some water. She had reached a crossroads of sorts, with several paths, all of which climbed upwards again; she took out her map to get her bearings. One of the rutted tracks must lead to the ruins of the Moorish mosque – but which one? After a while, she resumed her walk. This time her path climbed steeply, with a low bank on either si
de, clad with various kinds of native laurel.

  Luna was so absorbed in her expedition that she had successfully avoided all thoughts of Ruy since she left home. Besides, thinking straight under such a baking sun was a challenge in itself. It was lovely to look back at the valley lying below, filled with a shimmering light haze, and see how far she had walked. She could just make out the white villages bathed in the afternoon light, tinting them rose and brown in the distance. Above, the clear sky blazed like a furnace.

  Then suddenly, after having climbed steadily for some time, the path narrowed for a few yards before plunging towards what seemed like a vast quarry of sharp grey rocks and brown earth. It was not the ruin Luna had hoped for but – to her, at least – it was just as interesting. This apparently useless piece of terrain had been made habitable.

  Luna took in the unexpected, vivid picture of the gypsy camp, excitement coursing through her veins. The asymmetrical ground harmonized into a mass of large inhabited barren knolls. A few caves had been cut from the side of the quarry to make irregular dwellings; some had shacks appended, made from wood and corrugated iron. A small number of garish-looking barrel-topped wagons, the odd car or motorcycle, and a handful of horses populated the area, which was otherwise dotted with junk. Here and there, clothes were hanging from windows and branches to dry, adding a splash of colour to the scene.

  On one side of the quarry, evergreen beeches marched up brown slopes. Further away, a tidier corner of the camp had been planted out with plane trees, many decades ago, under the precious shade of which men were dozing, their mouths wide open, while mangy dogs sniffed the dust around their feet for morsels of food. Half-naked brown urchins swarmed in the area outside the wagons, shrieking at the top of their lungs. Gitanas sat at their doors chatting in groups: some plaiting baskets, others sweeping the earth in front of their dwellings, keeping a vigilant eye on the group of young girls playing hopscotch and blind man’s buff under a gnarled fig tree.

  Despite the heat, a number of old-fashioned braziers were smoking at the entrance to most of the dens, with huge black pots hanging above them. At the centre of this hidden community was a flat area of old tiles and stones pressed into the earth, which formed a kind of courtyard, where a large covered well had pride of place. Around it, chickens pecked the dusty earth and a few goats rummaged in the small heaps of rubbish nearby.

  Greatly entertained, Luna stood fascinated, her eyes fixed on this amazing sight. She was so engrossed that she failed to hear a gypsy woman approach her from behind.

  ‘Buenas tardes, señorita. Encontrastes la cañada de los gitanos, ey? So you’ve found the gypsies’ glen, hey?’

  Luna spun round to stare straight into the laughing black eyes of Morena, the gitana who had sold her the beautiful costume for the masked ball. She felt all at once guilty and ashamed at being caught like a gawping tourist, an interloper on territory that was private and should have been kept sequestered from prying eyes.

  ‘I didn’t mean to be intrusive. I was actually looking for the ruin of an ancient mosque which is supposed to be somewhere around here,’ she said with an embarrassed smile.

  Far from looking offended, Morena smiled broadly. ‘It is a good omen, Señorita Luna, that you have come here this afternoon. Yes, I remember you from Mascaradas. The lovely but guarded Queen of the Night.’

  Her eyes seemed to take in everything about Luna with a hawklike sharpness that she found somewhat unnerving but then the smile split her face in two again, and Luna was charmed.

  ‘You’ve arrived just as my sister is having her baby. Any moment now, the first child of Carmencita and her husband Juan will come into this world and then he’ll be baptized.’

  ‘What? Right now, this afternoon?’

  ‘Sí, sí. I have read in the stars that it will be a boy. Then we’ll celebrate with a zambra, a revelry. There will be food and wine – una fiesta maravillosa, a wonderful feast. Come, you must join us too. Your timing is perfect!’

  Luna was admittedly curious and, anyhow, she could hardly refuse an invitation that was clearly regarded as an honour. ‘I’d be delighted to join your celebration, thank you,’ she told her.

  They picked their way down an awkward bumpy footpath, paved with chunky cobbles, and Luna felt she had entered a strange new world, so remote from anything she had known. There were many more caves than she had at first thought; they were grotesquely shaped and eroded by the years, in stark contrast to the more modern gear stationed beside them. She smiled to herself. Primitive versus contemporary: even in a place like this – seemingly forgotten by time – one could not get away from the modern world.

  No sooner had they descended to the camp than the gang of children running wild gathered from the four corners of the site and clustered around them, shouting all at once, jostling and nudging each other to get to the front. Morena gently pushed them back, swearing at them in a language that sounded to Luna like Spanish, yet was indecipherable. The men who had been lying out on the slopes were now sitting up, scratching their heads, their sharp dark eyes alert and instinctively distrustful. Meanwhile the women had stopped chatting and, motionless, maintained their position in front of their dwellings like the Vestal Virgins of the hearth, guarding the safety and wellbeing of their homes and eyeing the newcomer suspiciously. The silence was ominous.

  Heading towards one of the larger caves, Morena shouted something in Caló. A tall old man with a long wispy beard and a beaten-up flat cap nodded and grinned, shouting something back. The very next moment the atmosphere lightened and the whole camp relaxed again. Many of the gypsies leapt up in a single bound to welcome Luna, and Morena turned to her with a chuckle. ‘Les dije que usted es una vija amiga, I told our chief you’re an old friend.’

  While the men stood in a semicircle, a little apart, gaping at Luna speculatively, the women stood at a distance, whispering among themselves, while the children surrounded her, half giggling and half begging impudently. A little dazed – appalled by their poverty, though amused by their cheek – Luna spontaneously opened her bag and distributed the few euros and the bar of chocolate she had with her.

  Suddenly a great deal of noise was emitted from one of the caves and a matronly woman appeared on the threshold. ‘Es un niño, it’s a boy,’ she cried out. ‘Un oscuro muchacho como la noche con los ojos azules como el cielo de Andalucía, a boy dark as the night, with eyes blue as the sky of Andalucía.’

  Luna stared in disbelief, the smile frozen on her face. Behind the matron, a man in jeans and T-shirt had appeared, holding the naked newborn. In her shock, Luna’s mind refused to function at first; then it started careering between questions.

  What in God’s name is Ruy doing here? Surely he can’t be the father?

  Morena had told her the baby was her brother-in-law’s. How was it that she kept bumping into Ruy like this?

  She flushed indignantly, amber eyes sparking fire. This man had the affront of the devil. First, the wild passion that had seized him at the gallery, with no thought of her feelings or how the public nature of it might embarrass her, followed by the jealousy that overtook him at the merest hint of a rival. To then be incommunicado for the past few days, making her life an utter misery, was outrageous.

  Now, here he was, holding a baby, as if he had no other care in the world – as if he had quite forgotten her and moved on to pastures new.

  The anxiety and frustration of the past week finally caught up with Luna, fuelling the righteous anger steadily building in her breast. She prickled with resentment: he hadn’t had the simple courtesy to get in touch, if only to put her mind at ease, so she didn’t feel like a fool for letting her own passions run riot. Yet her anger was tinged with embarrassment. She feared it could look as though she was following him, haunting his footsteps like a plaintive spirit – and the idea that Ruy might think so irritated her even more.

  ‘El Mèdico is going to be el padrino, the godfather of our little Luis,’ Morena whispered proudly to Luna. ‘He�
��s a gajo who is not only one of us by birth, but also el hermano de sangre, the blood brother of Chico, Juan’s brother. Luis es un niño muy afortunado, Luis is a very lucky boy.’

  But Luna was not listening. She had just caught Ruy’s eye. Dark brows knitted together, and she saw his jaw tense as he stared at her. In that look, she read the attitude of a man who liked his private life to remain private. Maybe he was the kind of man who preferred to keep his girlfriend apart from his friends. She felt herself colour under his gaze then, quick as a flash, she saw him regain his composure and his mouth twisted quizzically before he turned away again to look down at the indignantly squalling child as he followed the gitana out of the dwelling.

  There was a large hollow in the ground next to the cave and a small fire had been lit alongside it. The matron poured water into it and Ruy immersed the child twice in the hole. He then held little Luis over the flame while enunciating a few words in Caló before giving him to his mother.

  ‘He is bestowing upon him the gift of immortality,’ Morena whispered, ‘an old tradition that some of us follow and that will bring much luck to the child.’

  Bestowing the gift of disease, more like, thought Luna. For God’s sake, Ruy! You’re a doctor, you should know better.

  She could understand superstitious gypsies abiding by such archaic customs, but a qualified medic? What was he thinking? She recalled her Aunt Isabel’s words: ‘The mixed gajo and Caló blood that runs in Ruy’s veins pulls him in different directions.’

  A cradle made of bamboo was brought out. The matron handed Ruy three sprigs of garlic and three pieces of bread, which he placed underneath the mattress. Then, dipping his finger in the hot cinders, he marked the child’s forehead with a semi-circular sign illustrating the moon.