The Island Villa_The perfect feel good summer read

by Lily Graham

‘Like at a dump?’ he said, and then laughed. It completely transformed his sombre face and I couldn’t help joining in. Mostly due to shock.

  ‘Every time I come inside I see it and think, you know, there’s not enough Prozac in the world to make that all right.’

  Which was when I really did laugh. ‘You’re right, it’s horrible, but what can I do?’

  He took a bite of his sandwich and his eye fell on the rest of the furniture in the room. He said, ‘You like old stuff… old furniture. Like that wardrobe in your room?’

  I nodded. ‘I suppose so – I like furniture that has a story to tell.’

  I’d always preferred a room to look like it had been assembled over time, and not as if it all came as part of some set from a catalogue. I called it eclectic. James called it flea market. It was a bit of both.

  ‘Well, I know of a place where they sell good second-hand furniture. It’s not too far from here. I could take you tomorrow if you like?’

  I nodded, surprised. ‘That would be great.’

  It had been a few days since he’d told me that he was divorced, and I’d got the feeling that he’d regretted opening up to me, but perhaps this wasn’t the case. Maybe he was the sort of person who just needed a bit of time to get used to change. Well, I could understand that. All I had now was time.

  We left early the next morning, driving past the low walls that crossed the countryside. Emmanuel’s old Range Rover had seen better days, clearly left to rust in the hot sun, but I supposed that it suited his needs as a local handyman. He told me as we were driving that he was going to get a sign painted on it soon as he had a few other clients on the island, and his small business was growing.

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’ I asked, meaning his business, and he shrugged.

  ‘Just over a year.’

  ‘What did you do before that?’ I asked, curious. He was close to my own age, so I wondered what he used to do – especially living out here. It wasn’t like there was that much opportunity, unless you worked in hospitality.

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, you know, this and that.’

  I frowned, but let it go. Clearly he was only willing to open up when it suited him.

  As we drove, I switched on the radio. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked as folksy indie music filled the car. It was a local station that I’d found a few days before, when I’d discovered an old transistor radio in the spare bedroom.

  He shrugged. ‘Fine by me.’

  With the sun filtering through the window, and the views of the ocean flashing past us, we drove on in companionable silence.

  The market, in a trendy part of the island, was full of a jumble of old furniture and there were many skimpily clad, tanned people walking about, chatting and laughing. Emmanuel and I trawled through rows of second-hand brocantes till I found the perfect table. It was in need of a paint and didn’t have any chairs, but when I saw a set of four mismatching ones in a similar size, I thought that I could make them work with it. ‘Eclectic,’ he said, with a grin and a nod of approval. ‘That could look very nice. You could paint them in similar colours maybe?’

  I nodded. ‘That’s a nice idea.’

  After I paid, he loaded the table into his Range Rover and I turned back for the chairs, only to find a strange woman waiting for me, an anxious look on her face. She had long ash-brown hair and honey-coloured skin, with trim, athletic limbs in a pair of impossibly short denims.

  As soon as she saw me she started to speak in rapid Spanish, I frowned and apologised, saying that I didn’t speak the language that well.

  ‘English?’ she guessed. I nodded.

  ‘Are you with Emmanuel?’

  ‘We came here together if that’s what you mean?’

  She looked away, her eyes nervous, watching out for him, I realised. ‘Just be careful, okay?’ she said, touching my shoulder.

  I blinked. ‘What?’

  She chewed her bottom lip, as if she were deciding whether to say something more, then took a step back in fright when she saw Emmanuel walking towards us.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, reaching out to stop her from leaving.

  She looked at me, then blinked.

  ‘He’s not the kind of man you want to get involved with, is all I need to say – I just—’ She broke off, shook her head and hurried away, and I was left staring after her retreating back and wondering what she meant.

  As we drove home, there was none of the easy silence we’d shared on the way to the market. Though this time it was me who was being reticent. I couldn’t help thinking about what that woman had said to me. The warning she had given me.

  Of course, I wasn’t at all ready or willing to enter into any kind of relationship so soon after my husband’s death, but it got me worried nonetheless. Who was this man that I had welcomed into my home? Shared my meals with? Had I been wrong to put my trust in him? Was I so in need of a friend that I had looked for one in the wrong place? Was Emmanuel, with his quiet, sombre ways and his irreverent humour, someone I needed to worry about?

  Because in a way that’s what I had been hoping – that we’d be friends. That’s what today had felt like. Besides, he was the first person I’d met here who seemed to really understand the kind of pain I was in.

  He turned to me as we were driving. ‘Is everything okay, Charlotte?’

  It was always a surprise when he said my name, and I startled. Shook my head. The women’s warning racing through my head. He’s not the kind of man you want to get involved with.

  What had she meant by that? Had she meant that he was some kind of adulterer? Or was it something else? There had been something in the woman’s eyes that had seemed to imply that the warning ran deeper than that.

  I cleared my throat. Forced a smile. ‘Oh nothing. I’m just thinking of what to do with the kitchen,’ I lied.

  He nodded. ‘It’s going to look great,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, twisting James’s ring around my thumb, wondering whether I should just ask him about the woman I’d met, ask him who she was, but deciding at the last minute that that there was someone else I could turn to for answers. The person who’d put Emmanuel in my home in the first place.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Formentera, 1718

  Benito’s favourite time of day was just after he awoke, the sun filtering in through the small window in the kitchen and onto his pallet. In those first few days, he found that whenever he awoke, Cesca was there. Leaning over him, and caring for him. Her green eyes kind, thoughtful. She was an attentive nurse, and seemed to know exactly what he needed before he asked.

  The illness that had struck down his brother was taking its time to leave his own body. It didn’t help that he was so starved and thin. ‘You have to give it time,’ she said when he grew impatient, wanting to recover faster.

  He felt useless, a burden. There was so much he could be helping with on their small farm, yet all he did was sleep, and it was driving him mad.

  Cesca shook her head at his protestations that he needed to get out of bed. ‘The best thing you can do for me is to rest, okay?’

  He nodded. It was hard not to do what she wanted when she looked at him like that with those clear green eyes that seemed to see inside his soul.

  Cesca was always the first to rise. It was she who brought in water from the well, swept the kitchen and lit the fire for breakfast. She had slim pale hands that were always busy, even as they were talking.

  The only thing he enjoyed about being stuck in bed was those early hours just after dawn, the time he spent with her. Those hours felt hushed, and special somehow, because it was just the two of them speaking softly, and it felt like they had the house all to themselves. He had Cesca to himself. Before she was called away to her work with the doctor, or became busy on the farm with her sister.

  Cesca liked to hear about his life in Majorca, and what it had been like. She’d sit on the edge of his bed and listen, her green eyes wide at all he told her, of his home, and
the large island so very different from her own. At times Benito could feel himself staring, and would force himself to look away from those clear eyes that stared so intensely into his own.

  As Benito slowly recovered, the Alvarez women became accustomed to having him in the house. Word soon spread that their cousin Rafael from the main island had come to stay, so that Cesca could look after him while he recovered.

  He met the doctor, Señor Garcia, a thin, small man with an impressive moustache and dark, thoughtful eyes. He asked very few questions and seemed to take Benito’s illness at face value, not enquiring about his injuries. Benito wondered how much Cesca had told him, or if he guessed the truth. It wasn’t just the doctor, however: most of the islanders who came past in the next few days were oddly incurious. Most seemed to just accept the story that he was the girls’ cousin, and that he was there to recover from an illness. Though there were one or two women who came over in the course of that week, bringing with them extra meat or cheese, to help ease some of the pressure of having another mouth to feed – the island way, he came to understand, sharing what they had – who seemed to look at him a little oddly when he spoke.

  ‘It’s your accent,’ said Esperanza after she’d come in from collecting the eggs, when her friend and neighbour Riba had left. Flea was half sleeping in the doorway, willing Esperanza with his one eye to come outside, but she was doing her best to ignore him. ‘The way you speak.’

  He turned to her in surprise. ‘The way I speak?’

  ‘You don’t sound like a sailor’s son,’ she explained.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means…’ She sighed as she gathered the breakfast dishes together, ‘I don’t know, maybe you need to stop sounding like you used to work in an office?’

  He stared at her in confusion. ‘But I did.’

  ‘No, you didn’t, remember, Rafael?’

  He sighed. Closed his eyes. He was being stupid. ‘Yes.’

  She nodded and started to scrape cold, congealed cereal out of a wooden bowl, then swept it out of the door as she gave it some thought.

  ‘You could try swearing.’

  He looked shocked. ‘What?’

  She swallowed a giggle at his expression. ‘Rafael was a sailor – don’t they all swear?’

  He shook his head. ‘I think that’s only in novels. And even then, certainly not around ladies.’

  She shrugged, smirked. ‘Well, maybe so, but maybe try to sound less, er, polished, I suppose – and another thing, you can stop reading that novel when people come over. Most men here can’t write their name, let alone read.’

  He looked down at the novel that he still held in his hands.

  ‘But you can!’ he protested. It was her book, after all. She’d lent it to him shortly after he’d first arrived, when he’d complained that he was bed-bound and useless. The novel was Don Quixote and it was nearly falling apart, it had been read so often. Esperanza could recite whole passages from it, not that anyone would have cared to listen to her rambles, not when there was work to do. There wasn’t much time for reading on the island, where skills like Cesca’s were far more prized. But Esperanza liked that Benito read; it wasn’t often that she found something in common with the men on this island, who only ever spoke of salt or fishing and farming. She couldn’t help noting, though, that this only made him stranger still. So he had to be made aware of it, for his own safety.

  ‘Yes, well, try not to advertise it,’ she said, then left, with Flea hot on her heels, before her mother could call her back with more chores for the day.

  For a small island, a lot seemed to happen, Benito couldn’t help noticing.

  Most of the islanders seemed more preoccupied with the other stranger who’d arrived on Formentera than with him. The man from Barcelona. It seemed like everyone was on edge about him, and couldn’t help speculating about what he was doing here – everyone, that was, apart from Cesca, who seemed just too busy to stop and consider the presence of another stranger.

  As the island’s only nurse she seemed to be in perpetual demand. The doctor, Señor Garcia, called for her most days shortly after breakfast, and there were many times that she only came back late at night, when everyone was already asleep. Benito found himself waiting up for her, listening out for her footsteps. Missing their easy chatter.

  ‘Hurry, hurry,’ said a small boy now, running inside without the courtesy of first knocking on the door. He raced to Cesca, pulling on her skirts. It was shortly after dawn early in his second week in their home, ‘It’s Tia Marianna, Señor Doctor is asking for you.’

  Cesca nodded and fetched a small leather satchel from a peg on the wall in the kitchen. Seeing that Benito was watching, she stopped and explained. ‘It’s my friend Marianna’s second child. She lost the last one. I must go, it will destroy her if she loses this one too.’

  ‘Good luck,’ he called as she raced after the boy, wondering at the sudden downturn in his spirits at her departure.

  Later that morning, he heard Esperanza’s curses from his pallet bed in the cellar. She’d been late for her chores as usual, and had to be kicked out of bed by her mother. He made his way outside slowly, still favouring his broken ribs. Walking wasn’t easy, but he wanted to finally see the monster for himself.

  Flea was barking madly as he neared. Benito stifled a laugh as he caught sight of the creature. Grunon, the goat, had soft, wiry hair and what almost looked like a beatific smile, which was belied by the rather fierce expression in its eyes, almost as if it were mocking Esperanza as it stood its ground, refusing to budge or let her come near. Every time she tried it made very loud honking noises.

  ‘It’s not like I’m happy about this either,’ she told the goat. She tried again to step closer and the goat lowered its head, making her slap her legs in frustration.

  ‘Let me try something,’ he told her. He’d read about a trick for snakes and decided to try it on the goat… it was worth a try. He stared at the goat, who stared back, making more of the honking noises. Benito kept at it, not breaking eye contact, not blinking. Esperanza said something, but he raised a hand and she fell quiet. After five full minutes of this the honking stopped. Benito took a step forward and the goat took an involuntary step back, closer to Esperanza, whose eyes widened in shock. Benito carried on staring until the goat lowered its head, keeping an eye on Benito. Esperanza approached the goat cautiously, and then let out a small whoop when the animal allowed herself to be milked. When Esperanza finished the goat raised a leg, about to step it inside the pail, but stopped when Benito came forward again, seeming to decide against it.

  Esperanza looked at him in awe. ‘How did you do that?’

  He shrugged. ‘The trick is to not break eye contact. I read about it in one of those novels I’m not supposed to read.’

  She grinned. It was hard not to like him after that.

  When they went into the kitchen and she had put the goat’s milk into a jug that she covered with muslin cloth, for the cheese she would make, he asked her about how Cesca had become the doctor’s assistant.

  ‘Señor Garcia was a friend of my father’s. His wife passed away a few years ago. He and the señora didn’t have any children, and as our closest neighbours over the years we became close with him. He taught us to read, and when Cesca took an interest in medicine he taught her. I think he enjoys having someone to discuss his cases with. When she becomes of age, they will marry,’ she said.

  He stared at her in shock. A part of him grew cold at the thought. She’d said it so matter-of-factly. Benito thought that the doctor seemed nice enough, but he was fifty if he was a day.

  ‘But isn’t he like an uncle to her?’

  She shrugged. ‘Yes. But that just means he will be kind. Maybe it’s different in Majorca, but here he’s one of the wealthier men on the island. He’ll make a good husband. She is happy at the arrangement.’

  He blinked at her. How could anyone be happy with that?

  Privately, Esper
anza felt the same horror as he did at the thought of her sister marrying Señor Garcia, but she was in the minority with her views. Not that he was particularly unattractive as far as older men went, but he had always been a father figure in their lives. She herself couldn’t have contemplated sharing a marriage bed with him. But Cesca was resigned to her fate; she’d spoken a few times of the benefits of learning more from him once they were married, and taking on more responsibility. That was all there was to hope for really in an arranged marriage, and at least in her own way Cesca was looking forward to it. That was more than many of the women she knew. Though some did look forward to having children of their own – it was one of the consolations.

  ‘Señor Garcia wants to announce their engagement soon, now that she will be coming of age in a few months,’ she told him. As in mainland Spain, women on the island married a little older than many girls in Europe and were generally only wed when they’d reached the age of twenty. Cesca had just six months before she came of age.

  Benito didn’t say anything more. It wasn’t his place to question the way they lived their lives here. It wasn’t unusual to marry second or even first cousins, particularly in a secretive Jewish community where many feared what marriage with a stranger might do to them. They almost never married someone outside of their community; it was too much of a risk. So why was it that strange to think of Cesca marrying the doctor? Was it about the age gap? But that wasn’t all that unusual either. So why did it make him feel sad? Why should he feel that way when Cesca didn’t?

  ‘Are you engaged?’ he asked. He was simply curious, nothing more. She looked at him with a strange expression on her face that was gone so fast he thought he’d imagined it. ‘No – well, not any more.’

  ‘Why not any more? Was it cancelled?’

  ‘No. Marriages don’t get cancelled here, not unless something happens to one of the parties, generally. I was promised to my cousin at the age of six. It was to take place just after Cesca’s wedding, actually. We are ten months apart, you see, so it was important that she went first.’