The Youngest Sister

by Anne Weale

  ‘Do you think so? I hope not,’ said Cressy, although she knew it was true. Maggie had said much the same thing a long time ago.

  ‘Do you have a young man?’ asked Kate.

  ‘No...no, I don’t.’

  ‘That’s a good thing.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It would complicate matters if you had a “steady” at home. Without that complication, you can enjoy falling in love with Nicolas. Falling in love—provided it’s with someone suitable—is one of life’s greatest pleasures, if not the greatest.’

  It seemed pointless to deny the truth of Kate’s statement. Cressy said, ‘But Nicolas isn’t at all suitable. Loving a man who won’t ever love you is a pain.’

  ‘What makes you think he won’t? He seems to me very taken.’

  ‘Wanting to have a love affair with someone isn’t the same as loving them.’

  ‘It’s a step in the right direction. He’s getting to the age when transient affairs begin to lose their appeal and a permanent relationship starts to seem more attractive. I expect he would like a son to inherit his property.’

  Cressy was about to protest that she didn’t want to be married for practical reasons but because she was loved for herself. But just then she recognised the sound of Nicolas’s footsteps returning.

  The supper he brought in was delicious, and, although there had been a glass of wine on the hospital supper tray one glass would not have made Kate as vivacious as three did.

  But perhaps it was having some company, as much as the food and wine, which wrought the transformation from the rather curt person she had been on Cressy’s first visit to the relaxed and cheerful woman who bade them goodnight when they left.

  ‘It’s too early to go home. Shall we walk around town for a while?’ Nicolas suggested, after he had returned the baskets in which the restaurant had packed the bowls of food and the necessary china and cutlery.

  Cressy was happy to join in what Nicolas presently told her was called the paseo, a nightly parade of local people greeting their friends and forming and re-forming chat-groups.

  Depending on age, they showed off new clothes or new babies, sized up potential boyfriends and girlfriends, romped with other small children or, at the extremes of the spectrum, sat on benches or in prams and pushchairs looking at the passing throng with curiosity or indifference.

  Although pleased at the chance to see and be part of this aspect of Spanish nightlife, she was somewhat puzzled that Nicolas should have proposed it. She had thought that as soon as they had eaten he would whisk her back to Ca’n Llorenc to pick up where they had left off that afternoon.

  But if that was what he intended to do later on he seemed in no hurry. They looked in various shop windows and he had one or two brief exchanges with people who knew him, introducing them to her but not conversing for long because they didn’t speak English. Finally they sat in a café, drinking coffee and watching the passers-by.

  He was silent on the drive home and Cressy was tense with indecision. She was thinking about Kate’s admonition to make the most of being young and beautiful. Was she beautiful? Did she really look like a warrior queen? It was an exhilarating thought. But, as Kate had added, she definitely didn’t have the temperament to sweep through life making bold and reckless decisions. It just wasn’t in her nature.

  Glancing at Nicolas’s profile, lit by the glow reflected from the beams of the headlamps, she thought he looked rather stern and wondered what he was thinking about. His book, perhaps. Not her.

  She looked out of the nearside window at the moonlit countryside, a black and silver landscape which seemed a million miles away from the familiar streets of London and yet, in some curious way, more homey than the neighbourhood she had known all her life.

  Her thoughts turned to a piece she had clipped from a newspaper and put in a folder full of miscellaneous oddments. The headline had been—BISHOPS DIVIDED OVER ‘LIVING IN SIN’.

  The paper had interviewed a couple who had lived together before marriage and another who had chosen to remain celibate throughout an eight-month courtship. They had not been a fuddy-duddy pair but a handsome Etonian wine-broker of thirty-one and his equally attractive wife, who had been two years older than Cressy when she’d married him. Cressy had found their determination to stay with their decision not to sleep with each other until their wedding night an encouraging support for her own views. But now she wasn’t so sure.

  It seemed unlikely that, even if Nicolas was starting to think about marrying, he would choose her from all the women who would be eager to marry him. It looked like a now-or-never situation. Could she face growing old without ever knowing what it was like to lie in his arms and experience the ecstasy of which she had had a foretaste this afternoon?

  Nicolas still hadn’t broken his silence when they passed through his gates. As he had the night before, he stopped the car and got out to close them.

  The headlamps were on full-beam but they didn’t reach as far as the house, which she saw as a dark silhouette in the middle distance with the dim outlines of the mountains in the background.

  She knew that the sight of Ca’n Llorenc from its gateway would be imprinted on her memory for ever—the palms, the uneven ridges and irregular angles of the roofs built at different times by different generations, the dark thickets of oleander, their white flowers luminous in the moonlight.

  ‘Tomorrow, if you like, I’ll ask my builder to come and look at the cottage,’ said Nicolas, fitting his tall frame back behind the wheel. ‘But first perhaps you’d like to talk to your father. Why don’t you call him in the morning? Don’t be shy about using the telephone.’

  ‘Thank you... and thank you again for organising the supper. It did wonders for Kate, and I enjoyed it too.’

  ‘She’s an interesting woman...far removed from the icon of militant feminism which is how the Press still depicts her. I found her very good value.’

  As they reached the courtyard he added, ‘I’m going to work tonight, so I may not see you at breakfast. Go ahead and call your father at whatever seems. the best time to catch him.’

  Moments later, having unlocked the door and switched on the interior lights, he bade her a brisk goodnight and disappeared upstairs.

  In the early hours of the morning Cressy awoke, feeling cold. She realised a wind was blowing, and got up to close the windows and to unfold the blanket on the ottoman and spread it across the bed.

  Before she got back into bed, she opened her door very quietly and looked down the corridor to see if a light was still showing under Nicolas’s door at the far end of the corridor.

  She had stayed downstairs for ten minutes after he had gone up, looking for something to read because she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. When she had passed his room she had heard the rapid clicking of a keyboard.

  Now the corridor was dark, but perhaps it wasn’t long since he had finished working and had gone to lie down on the bed where she had half-expected to be sleeping with him tonight.

  She looked at her watch. It would soon be dawn.

  When she rang her father at home, she said, ‘Dad, can you ring me back? I need to talk to you, but it’s a private phone which someone is letting me use.’

  After Paul Vale had rung back, and they had talked for some time, Cressy went for a swim. The night wind had dropped. A few cotton wool clouds were drifting across an ocean of pale blue sky. It was going to be another perfect day.

  As she ate her breakfast she debated ringing Frances and asking her to call back too. But there was always the risk that Nicolas would come down in the middle of their conversation, or even pick up the extension in his room and overhear them discussing him.

  Nevertheless, she felt that if she were going to stay in Majorca until Kate was fit to look after herself, she must know what lay behind Frances’s allegations.

  After breakfast she drove to the hospital where, on her way to Kate’s room, she was intercepted by the doctor.


  Nicolas was on the terrace when she got back for lunch. He was sitting under the vine in an old rocking chair, with Juanito curled on his lap and Star lying nearby in the shade of a large clay pot overflowing with pink pelargoniums.

  Rising to greet her, to the annoyance of the cat, who resented being disturbed, he said, ‘Juanito has decided to keep the peace. I don’t think they’ll ever be best buddies, but at least it’s live and let live. How’s Kate today?’

  ‘Improving all the time. She’s even beginning to wonder if she has one last book in her. An American leaving the hospital after an accident on a yacht has left her a copy of Betty Friedan’s last book, The Fountain of Age. Years ago Friedan, as Kate calls her, wrote The Feminine Mystique. She inspired one of Kate’s early books. Now, it seems, she’s inspired her again.’

  ‘That’s good...just what she needs. There’s nothing like working on a book for taking one’s mind off other problems,’ said Nicolas.

  As he fixed Cressy a drink and replenished his own glass he thought that it might help Kate to forget about her physical infirmities but it wasn’t proving too helpful in subduing his physical urges.

  It might be partly because of the monastic life he had been leading recently, but it seemed to him that his need to take Cressy to bed was the most powerful hunger he could ever remember feeling since he had grown out of that phase, in his middle teens, when every half-passable girl had had him pawing the ground like a young bull.

  To exacerbate matters, the longer she spent in this climate, the more golden and luscious she looked—the female equivalent of a ripe nectarine. At the same time, the better he knew her the more compunction he felt about using his knowledge of women to persuade her to go against her convictions, even though he thought them irrational.

  ‘I’ve made a decision,’ said Cressy as they sat down at the lunch table.

  ‘Expound,’ said Nicolas.

  She thought he looked faintly amused by her resolute tone.

  ‘I’ve talked it over with Kate and decided to stay with her until she’s completely recovered, which won’t be until the autumn. Then we’ll review the situation.’

  ‘I think that’s an excellent idea.’

  Her conviction that he was sincere made Cressy very happy.

  She said, ‘So I’m going back to London. I have to explain to my boss at Distress Signal why I need three months’ leave of absence, and I have to sort out some things that I’ll need while I’m here...and I have to say goodbye to Maggie.’

  ‘Who is Maggie?’

  ‘Officially she’s our housekeeper, but she’s more like a surrogate granny. She came to us as my nanny when I was small, and every time we had a domestic crisis she stepped into the breach. When I was eight, and about to go off to boarding school, there was a major crisis—the cook gave notice and the daily woman had to have a hysterectomy. Maggie took over the whole running of the house and she’s done it ever since. With outside help, of course. She’s a darling person, but she’s getting on. She keeps talking about retiring.’ Cressy paused for a moment. ‘I’m worried she may overdo it and make herself ill.’

  Nicolas put his hand on her wrist and gave it a bracing squeeze. ‘She sounds far too sensible to neglect herself. Perhaps when you’ve seen Kate through her present difficulties it might suit Maggie to come and spend her old age here in the sun. There’s a book of my mother’s somewhere about. It’s called Two Middle-aged Ladies in Andalucia and it was written by Penelope Chetwode, the wife of the poet John Betjeman. She was one of the middle-aged ladies, and the other was the horse she rode through the mountains of southern Spain. Perhaps Kate and Maggie might work well together as two elderly ladies in Mallorca.’

  Cressy looked at him in astonishment. ‘How extraordinary! The very same thought had struck me.’

  ‘It could solve problems for both of them. Maggie could run the cottage with one hand tied behind her, I should imagine, and Kate would have someone to see that she ate properly, and so on. But would Maggie drive her mad by wanting to chat all the time?’

  ‘No, no...Maggie’s rather taciturn. She reads a lot. Not books Kate would approve of—Maggie likes who-dunnits.’

  They were having lunch in the barn today, eating pate on pieces of crusty bread while Catalina cooked spare-ribs on the barbecue. When these had been served, with a green salad in a big olive-wood bowl, Cressy said, ‘My ticket’s an open return. If I can get a seat, I’d like to fly back tonight. I can take the car back to the people who lent it to me and get from there to the airport by taxi.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll run you to the airport.’

  ‘Oh, please...there’s no need for that. You’re busy with your book. I don’t want to waste any more of your time.’

  Nicolas was helping himself to salad. ‘Don’t argue, Cressy. I insist. It’s not good to spend all day, every day glued to a PC. I need to take regular breaks. Running you to the airport will be a pleasure.’

  Cressy had never much liked barbecued spare-ribs, but these were unusually delicious.

  When she said so, Nicolas said, ‘Catalina marinades them in some secret concoction. A lot of our guests have tried to prise the ingredients out of her, but she’s not telling.’

  He was holding the spare-rib in his fingers, biting the meat off the bone with his beautiful, sexy teeth. Cressy wanted to sit back and watch him. She had often been repelled by the way some people ate—she had never been turned on before. The thought of leaving him suddenly filled her with dread. In only a few days this man had become the centre of the world for her. She wanted him in every possible way...sexually, emotionally, companionably. As a lover and a friend, and also as someone to look after if he were ever ill, injured or upset in some way. For even a man like this—strong, self-sufficient, decisive—must have times when he needed comforting, needed to turn to someone who would hold him in loving arms and speak tenderly to him.

  To her horror her eyes filled with tears, and Nicolas saw them.

  ‘Cressy...what is it?’

  He dropped his spare-rib and rapidly wiped his hands on his napkin, his expression concerned.

  It was the most embarrassing moment of her life—for not only did her eyes brim, they overflowed. As if she were four years old, two big tears plopped onto her cheeks.

  Mercifully it didn’t occur to Nicolas—it wouldn’t to any sane person—that she was reduced to tears by the thought of some horrible thing which might happen to him. He assumed she had turned bright red because she was choking.

  He was on his feet, ready to deal with the situation, when Cressy gulped and said hoarsely, ‘It’s all right...I’m fine...it’s nothing.’

  ‘Have some water.’ He put a tumbler into her hand.

  She drank from it, relieved that the sudden blaze of hot colour suffusing her face and neck was beginning to subside.

  ‘I—I swallowed the wrong way,’ she said.

  ‘So I gathered. Not nice.’ He patted her shoulder before sitting down.

  The spare-ribs were followed by fruit. While he was pouring out coffee Nicolas suggested she should go to her room and fetch her flight ticket. Then he would ring the airport to find out if a seat was available.

  ‘It’s unlikely you’ll be delayed on a scheduled flight,’ said Nicolas, when they were nearing the airport on the road lined with oleanders which had given Cressy such a favourable first impression of the island. ‘People travelling on charter flights often have to hang around for hours and some of those flights are bad times to fly in the first place.’

  ‘You’d think people would refuse to be treated like cattle,’ said Cressy. ‘I’ve been in airports during those long delays. Mothers with very young children have looked at the end of their tether. One wonders why they do it. But I guess keeping up with the Joneses is one of the reasons. Some people really worry if they aren’t doing the things everyone else is doing.’

  He gave her a sideways glance. ‘But you go your own way, regardless.’

  It was a
statement, not a question, and only a birdbrain could have missed what he meant.

  ‘I try to,’ she said.

  His response surprised her. ‘Good for you. I might not agree with your way in some of the specifics, but I applaud your independence of thought. Too many people are brainwashed by fashionable ideas.’

  At the airport he parked the car and carried her baggage, both rollbag and backpack, to the departures section of the large modern terminal.

  ‘Please don’t hang around,’ she said as they walked to the check-in.

  ‘I’ll just see you checked in, then I’ll leave you to it.’

  The formalities completed, they moved away from the desk. Cressy put her boarding card and passport in the pocket of her shirt and stowed her flight ticket in the back pocket of her jeans. Nicolas still had her backpack slung over one shoulder.

  ‘I’ve been trying to find words to thank you, but I can’t think of anything adequate,’ she said, looking up at him.

  And then, on impulse, she thrust her arms round him and hugged him, her cheek pressed against his chest. ‘Please take it as read that I’m hugely, massively grateful.’

  He returned her embrace with a bear hug. But when she felt his arms slacken, and would have stepped back, he kept one arm round her while his hand tipped up her chin.

  The next moment, regardless of the travellers milling around them, she was being kissed.

  While she was still in a daze he let her go, turned her round and put her arms through the straps of the backpack as if she were a little girl having her schoolbag put on. Then he turned her to face him, shook her hand and leaned down to kiss her, Spanish-fashion, on both cheeks.

  ‘Goodbye, Cressy. Take care of yourself.’

  Driving back to Ca’n Llorenc, Nicolas was aware of being relieved that now he could give his full attention to his work, yet feeling sorry to see her go. He had known a lot of girls in his time, but never one quite like Cressy. She was such an extraordinary mixture of shyness and practicality, diffidence and obstinacy.