by Anne Weale
At her parents’ dinner parties, vintage wines were drunk from elaborately cut crystal glasses. Here Catalina had put out only two glasses apiece, a simple wineglass and a water glass.
Nicolas hadn’t yet finished his Campari and Cressy had a little tonic left. He filled their water glasses from an earthenware jug but ignored the two bottles of wine. The white wine was standing in a clay cooler. The red was labelled ‘Binassalem’.
‘On my first night home, Catalina always starts supper with what, in a restaurant, is called entremeses del país,’ said Nicolas as the housekeeper appeared carrying a tray, on which were many small dishes. These she arranged so that all were within their reach while he described their contents.
‘Cabbage salad with raisins and carrots, chopped olives, quails’ eggs, dried cod pâté, cucumber in sweet and sour sauce, pickled onions, mountain ham from the mainland, butifarra—which is a spicy pork sausage—and the bright coral sausage is chorizo, which you may have had in England. The pink bread is called pa amb oli and the colour comes from tomato pulp. It’s very garlicky but, as all Mallorquins eat garlic every day, the only people who notice it are the foreigners, who refuse to try it.’
‘I like garlic,’ said Cressy. ‘Don’t tell me this huge spread is just for starters?’
‘Normally, yes, but as you need time to get used to Catalina’s peasant cuisine, and I’ve had to tighten my belt on the trip I’ve just finished, tonight she’s only giving us fish.’
At earlier stages of her life, Cressy had eaten too much. She realised now that it had been comfort eating to make up for being tall and clumsy and not as clever as her sisters. Now she had her weight under control and was careful to counterbalance parties and spells of enforced over-indulgence with days of reduced intake and increased exercise.
She would do the food justice now—but early tomorrow morning, while the air was still cool, she would creep out and go for a long run before breakfast.
‘Is there much crime on the island? Can you leave the doors unlocked during the night?’ she asked.
‘Out here, off the beaten track, we can. Felió has two dogs. You may hear them barking in the night if something disturbs them. But the next nearest house is too far away for their pack of hunting dogs to bother us.’
‘Oh, I always sleep like a log. Nothing disturbs me,’ said Cressy.
Then it crossed her mind that she might not sleep well tonight if she went to bed agitated by having had a pass made at her. But surely he wouldn’t just pounce, taking her consent for granted? Surely a man of his sophistication would, so to speak, test the water before he plunged in?
Watching Cressy peeling the freckled shell from a quail’s egg, a task which drew his attention to the long, silky sweep of her eyelashes, Nicolas noticed the sudden soft flush of colour suffusing her petal-fine skin and deduced that it had to do with her last remark.
Obviously she was aware that she wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight, and was shy and nervous about it.
Everything about her made it equally clear that she wasn’t a girl who had slept with whoever took her fancy. Not going to a university or poly would have reduced her opportunities to experiment, It might be that none of her partners had known enough to make it equally enjoyable for her.
He found himself oddly annoyed at the thought that her first time might have been botched, and subsequent experiences not a lot better. He had always felt sorry for girls, because often their pleasure wasn’t guaranteed in the way it was for most men. However inexpert a girl was, her partner would normally enjoy himself. It wasn’t true in reverse. A woman could spend her whole life wondering what all the fuss was about, and many of them did.
He said, ‘Let’s reverse the usual order and have some red wine with this and white wine with the fish and the cheese, shall we? Or would you prefer to stay with one colour all through?’
She said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll wait till the fish and have some white with that. I don’t drink a lot.’
‘Sure... whatever suits you,’ Nicolas said, reaching for the bottle to fill his own glass.
Before he took his first mouthful of one of the island’s best reds, he lifted his glass to her. ‘Happy days,’ he said, smiling.
And happy nights...for both of us, was his unspoken addendum.
Chance had brought them together and, for all kinds of reasons, it couldn’t be more than a brief encounter. But, while it lasted, he’d make sure it was as good for her as it was for him.
Relieved that he wasn’t going to press her to drink more wine than she could handle, Cressy determined to enjoy her dinner and not allow it to be spoilt by jitters about what might or might not happen afterwards.
‘What made you decide to walk the Pennine Way?’ Nicolas asked.
‘Fuzzy and I were at school together. She comes from a walking family. Her grandfather’s in his eighties and he still walks for miles. They all do. They lent me all the equipment, except for the boots. I had to buy those.’
‘What sort of boots did you buy?’
She told him the make and he nodded approvingly. ‘A lot of people jib at the cost of good boots, but trainers are useless. Pity you don’t have them with you. I could have shown you some of our walking country. What size shoe do you take?’
‘Six.’ Cressy had grown out of being self-conscious about her feet.
‘My mother’s boots will be too small but there are others here which might fit.’
‘I don’t think I’ll have time for walking,’ said Cressy. ‘It’s going to be quite a big job to put Kate’s house in order for when she comes out of hospital.’
Evidently not much interested in the subject of Miss Dexter’s cottage, Nicolas said, ‘Tell me more about your walk with Fuzzy. Which stretch did you like best?’
They were still discussing the route when Catalina removed the remains of the first course and brought a platter of fresh sole accompanied by a green salad.
While Cressy was eating her fish and enjoying a glass of white wine, she was pleased to find that Nicolas didn’t keep topping it up, a manoeuvre which exasperated her friend Fuzzy—who went out on dates more than she did.
It wasn’t until her glass was almost empty that he said, ‘Would you like some more?’
‘Yes, please.’ Two glasses wouldn’t cloud her judgement. More than that might.
The meal ended with two cheeses. Nicolas explained that the one wrapped in fig leaves was cabrales, a soft goat’s cheese, and the hard one was an extra-mature Manchego, taking its name from La Mancha on the mainland, although this particular cheese had come from Menorca, the neighbouring island.
By this time it was dark and he had lighted candles to illuminate the table.
‘Before we have coffee, shall we go for a stroll as far as the gate?’ he suggested, after draining his glass and discarding his napkin.
Cressy thought it an excellent idea. A full moon was rising. Soon the terrace and the countryside beyond would be as clearly visible as it was by day, except that the moon cast more mysterious shadows than the sun.
Their way round the side of the house took them past the lighted window of a large kitchen where Catalina was loading a dishwasher. Nicolas paused at the window to say something to her, perhaps to compliment her on the meal, as she gave him a satisfied beam.
As they walked down the drive they could see the glitter of lights from resorts on the coast in the opposite direction from the mountains. But, whatever glitzy nightlife might be happening there, here there was only the peace of a scattered rural community where life went on much as it had for hundreds of years.
Remembering the herd of sheep which had passed them that afternoon, she said, ‘We came across a lot of black-faced Swaledale sheep when we were walking the Way. I expect you did too.’
‘I had a close encounter with one,’ said Nicolas. ‘Someone had cut a hole in the side of a plastic drum, for what purpose I’ve no idea. Anyway, this sheep had put its head through the hole, looking for
water or food, and had then got its horns stuck inside. I tried to pull it off the same way you’d pull a sweater over a child’s head. When that didn’t work, I had to get astride the sheep to hold it still and yank the drum off forwards.’
‘I hope it looked suitably grateful.’
‘It looked pretty done in,’ he said dryly. ‘But I expect it recovered. They have to be tough, Pennine sheep. Talking of sheep, I was once staying with friends on the mainland who had a very old Englishwoman living near them. If you’d seen her in the village you’d have taken her for a Spanish widow. She dressed in black, as the oldest widows still do, and she was completely bilingual. My friends didn’t know her, but they’d heard interesting stories so I went and introduced myself. She invited me in for tea and told me tales of her youth. She had been a doctor and travelled in very wild places. Once she’d crossed an unrailed bridge across a ravine by walking between two sheep and holding tight to their fleece. She was a splendid old bird.’
‘Do you meet many women on your travels? Women travellers, I mean?’
‘Hardly any. They do exist, of course. A handful have written books about their journeys. There’ve always been women adventurers... as distinct from adventuresses. To your great-aunt’s generation, adventuresses were women who traded sex for self-advantage.’
‘You must think me terribly dim to need that explained.’
The riposte came out more sharply than Cressy had intended. It was partly a reaction to years of being patronised by her sisters. But he wasn’t to know that.
‘Not at all,’ said Nicolas. ‘I’m just used to people these days having some gaps in their vocabularies because they watch more TV instead of reading. Haven’t you noticed how people who write TV dialogue often have no sense of period? They write a play set in the Twenties and the characters use Nineties’ idioms.’
‘Perhaps they assume, as you did, that the viewer won’t understand terms which have gone out of use.’
His reaction to that was to reach for her hand and thread his fingers through hers.
‘Don’t be cross. I wasn’t putting you down. Did your last boyfriend do a lot of that?’
The gesture, the statement and the question were all so unexpected and disturbing that Cressy took what seemed like a minute, but was probably only a few seconds, to collect her scattered wits.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound tetchy.’ She turned her face up to his, smiling an apology, hoping he wouldn’t see she wasn’t at ease holding hands with him. Which was not the same as disliking it. The worry was what it did to her—the effect it had on her pulse rate.
By now they had reached the point where the drive met the minor road. He released her hand and turned round. He had been holding her right hand. Now he found and captured the other, and she let him. What else could she do? Keep it out of his reach? Pull it free? To do either would have looked foolish. At the same time she knew that by allowing him to hold it she was implying consent to whatever his next move might be. A kiss in the shadow of the palms? Her insides clenched with excitement and apprehension.
‘You haven’t answered the question,’ said Nicolas.
‘The answer is no, that wasn’t the reason I stopped seeing him. His company sent him abroad and it wasn’t the kind of friendship which survives separation.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘About six months.’
‘And there’s been no one else since he left?’
‘No one important,’ said Cressy. Actually, the man she was talking about hadn’t been important either. None of her relationships had. She had tried hard to fall in love, but up to now it hadn’t happened. Up to now.
‘So we’re in the same boat,’ he said quietly. ‘Two lonely people in need of some TLC.’
She said, ‘I would have thought you were a loner by nature... and need to be for the life you lead.’
‘I don’t mind being on my own for long periods if necessary—that doesn’t make me a loner. Human beings need to pair...although not always for life.’
Cressy registered the unequivocal warning. He could hardly have made it plainer. If they paired, it was at her own risk.
‘Hardly ever for life these days,’ she answered dryly. ‘At school, I was the only one in my form whose parents weren’t divorced. And none of the girls who were in my year has a stable relationship with a man now.’
‘But your parents have one.’
‘Yes, but most of their friends don’t. They change partners as if they were doing the Paul Jones... if you know what that was?’
She had heard about this dance from Maggie, who, in her youth, had been a keen ballroom dancer and had met some of her boyfriends by changing partners when the sexes formed moving circles on the dance floor until the music stopped.
She saw the gleam of his teeth as he grinned before saying, ‘Touché!’
Then he let the conversation lapse and walked in silence, his thumb moving gently over the back of her hand in a way that could have been absent-minded but she thought was deliberate.
It felt as if some strange energy was flowing between their clasped hands, making her body feel more alive than before, making every nerve tingle, making her insides melt.
Before he had even kissed her she was in a state of surrender. Unless she pulled herself together she would be putty in his hands.
Ahead of them, near the house, a figure emerged from the shadows into the moonlight. It was Catalina. She waved to them.
‘Where is she going?’ asked Cressy.
‘She and Felió have their own place. It’s not far from mine but you can’t see it from here. Their roof is hidden by the barn. When I’m not at home they close up the big house and only go in to give it an airing now and then.’
‘Oh...I see.’
‘If you were as young as I first thought, I would have asked Catalina to sleep in the house tonight, to chaperon you. I can still do that...if you wish?’
He had made it clear where he stood. Now he was asking where she stood. She knew she had only to say yes and he would do as he’d offered—call the housekeeper back and, tomorrow, look for a girl who would find his terms acceptable and give him the physical pleasure which was all he required of a woman.
The moments of indecision while her mind and her body were in conflict seemed to Cressy the longest of her life.
Then, before she was fully conscious of arriving at a decision, she heard herself saying, ‘I’m sure she’d prefer to sleep in her regular bed. Does the duenna still exist? I thought Spain was very much part of the modern world now—that duennas had died out, like governesses.’
‘They have,’ said Nicolas. ‘Spanish girls are as free as all other liberated women.’
A light, pleasant breeze had sprung up. As they came near the palms she could hear the rustle of their fronds brushing together overhead.
‘Does coffee keep you awake?’ he asked. ‘It doesn’t affect me that way, but I know a lot of people who don’t drink it after dinner.’
‘So do I, but I drink it myself.’
Now, although she had given him tacit permission to make his move, Cressy wanted to stave off the actual moment when he would take her in his arms. There was still a part of her mind which wasn’t happy with the vote given by her senses, her curiosity, her awareness of hope deferred.
To borrow a phrase from Fuzzy, Cressy had ‘fancied him rotten’ from the moment she’d seen his back-view. He fancied her. All the circumstances were propitious. So why did she have lingering doubts about doing something they both wanted? Other people jumped into bed on first dates. Other people followed their impulses without ruinous results. Why shouldn’t she?
As she preceded him into the lamplit living room Cressy’s eyes went to the painting over the fireplace. Somehow it reassured her. Where, if not in this beautiful house full of beautiful things, would she find a beautiful experience to remember when she was old? It was their sins of omission, all the chances they hadn’t taken, that people
regretted later.
While Nicolas was filling coffee-cups from a glass jug left on a hot plate by Catalina, Cressy looked at some of the other paintings.
One was a portrait of a woman in a low-necked dress with bunches of ringlets hiding her ears and a gold ferronniére across the top of her forehead in the fashion of the time when Queen Victoria had come to the throne. Cressy’s grandmother had collected Victorian jewellery and had left her one or two pieces she never had an opportunity to wear. But they had aroused her interest, and she was able to date the portrait to the period between 1835 and 1845.
‘Who is this?’ she asked as Nicolas straightened from bending to place two cups on the table in front of a large, comfortable sofa.
‘That’s. a copy of the Stieler portrait of Jane Digby,’ he said, coming to stand beside her. ‘That rather soulful expression was put on for the portrait. She was a lusty lady who got through a lot of husbands and sundry lovers before she finally found true love in an improbable marriage to a Bedouin sheikh.’
‘Really? How extraordinary,’ said Cressy. ‘Is she an ancestor on your English side?’
‘No, I just liked the portrait when I saw it in a country saleroom while I was up at Cambridge. I bought it for twenty pounds, very dirty and damaged, and had it cleaned up and restored. Then I did some research and found out who the sitter was. She was a real wild child until she went to Syria and met her Bedouin. Then she settled down and became a reformed character.’
After a pause, he added, ‘You’re rather like her. Given that spaniel’s ears hairdo and with your eyes raised to heaven, you’d be remarkably like her, except for this plumpness here.’ He touched the curve of the painted jaw, lit by a reflected glow from the pearly skin of the sitter’s neck and shoulder. ‘Your jaw is more clear-cut, and your irises are larger. But in looking at portraits one has to allow for the conventions of the day. The rosebud lips and devout expressions of most portraits of this period could be as unlike real women as the sulky pouts one sees in the pictures in Vogue.’