‘Father, bless me for I have sinned. Will you hear my confession?’
‘I don’t think…’
She raised her eyes. ‘Are you not a priest?’
He thought about getting on his bicycle and riding away. But he couldn’t. She was challenging him to stay and do his priestly duties no matter how difficult.
He nodded. ‘Yes, my child.’
She bowed her head again and sank to her knees.
Father Umberto looked down on the top of her head. Her hair smelled of lavender. His blood raced. Worse still, his knees were now only inches from her breasts. Holding his breath for a moment, he gathered as much self-control as he still possessed and carried on.
‘You don’t need to be on your knees…’
‘Yes, I do.’
He couldn’t find the strength to contradict her.
Closing her eyes, Catherine recited the details of her affair with Francisco. There wasn’t much to tell really, so she invented some.
‘We went swimming naked in the river, and when we got out… we lay naked on the bank. The grass was cool against my back. The sky was so bright. I was dazzled, but Francisco protected me from the worst of the glare, holding his naked body over me, shielding me from the sun…’
He felt himself reddening and lowered his hand. He saw the laughter in her eyes and the smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. Bitch! His look hardened. ‘You’re lying. You’re doing this on purpose!’
Face contorted with fury, he stormed off in the direction of his bicycle. It was leaning against the goat pen. One of the goats was standing on its hind legs nibbling at the bicycle’s torn leather seat.
Father Umberto lashed out. ‘Get away, you stupid goat!’
Without tying up his robe, he mounted his bicycle. Just for this once, he didn’t look back.
Catherine’s amusement melted away as she watched him go. She’d been cruel to him, almost wicked, and she regretted it. He’d shown her and her aunt nothing but kindness. She asked herself why she’d done it. The answers came in an irregular order. The Church was taking Francisco and Father Umberto represented the Church. On top of that, she was lonely, not that she wanted to walk down to the village every day and swap gossip with the local women. So, if you’re lonely go to Porto as your father has ordered, she said to herself.
But she couldn’t do that. Her father figured too prominently in the deaths of the two people she’d loved the most.
Another reason swirled around in her head and her blood, its heat more fiery than the setting sun. She’d seen the priest without his cassock. Aunt Lopa’s measured words came tumbling back. He was kind, he was considerate, but he was also a man. The unguarded moments; a look, a brushing of hands that had been quickly retrieved, had increased along with the deepening of their relationship.
She told herself to put aside these strange feelings, that they could only lead to trouble, but it wasn’t easy. Like an underground stream filling up with freshly fallen rain, their attraction was only just beneath the surface. Eventually, unless he stopped coming, it would burst through.
‘I’ll tell him not to come any more,’ she said when he was no more than a speck at the end of the road. Yes, she decided. That was exactly what she had to do; that, or leave for Porto.
Twenty-One
Another letter arrived.
‘Nothing for years and then one letter after another,’ she muttered.
She opened it, read it and did the same with it as she’d done with the others. The old iron stove sucked the pieces of paper into its glowing embers. Her father’s lawyers – not her father directly – was ordering her to use the money to travel to Porto. They were threatening to send an agent to collect her if she did not conform to his wishes.
‘We would respectfully remind you that you are still a minor and therefore subject to your father’s wishes…’
After all this time! The nerve of the man. He made her blood boil. In order to cool down she poured herself lemonade, took it out on to the porch and waited for Father Umberto.
He waved to her when he came, propping his old bicycle against the fence before joining her.
The evening was drawing in, the last of the summer swallows swooping from the eaves to head skywards for Egypt. The shadows thrown by an early October sun were bluish black; like blobs of paint across the green and brown landscape.
Twilight was turning the old walls from pink to pale mauve. The sound of crickets was replacing the sound of bees and the air was thick with myriad scents. ‘I never want to leave here,’ she said wistfully.
Father Umberto regarded her silently. He’d been thoughtful ever since he’d arrived, his eyes carefully avoiding hers each time she looked at him.
They were sitting outside on rickety old chairs set beside a table with log legs. Two rough planks formed the tabletop.
Catherine poured freshly made lemonade into clay beakers. She handed one to Father Umberto and caught the look in his eyes. She recalled him wearing that same look on the day he’d come to tell her about Francisco’s mother objecting to their marriage.
‘Bad news. You’ve brought me bad news.’
Sighing, he rested his elbows on the table and took hold of the beaker with both hands. Seemingly making a sudden decision, he set his drink down on the table. ‘José Nicklau has asked me to give you notice. You have to be out of here within the month. He has a new tenant for this place.’
It felt as though her whole world had come tumbling down. This place was her last link with the past and the familiar. Being evicted was not something she had contemplated. ‘But I could be his tenant,’ she blurted. ‘I have money. My father sent money. And then there’s my cheese money and Aunt Lopa’s chest…’
She could tell by the way the priest was shaking his head that this wasn’t just about money.
The silky cowlick fell forward as he frowned. He pushed it back impatiently, his eyes darting from her to the freshly made lemonade she had squeezed especially for him that morning, to the house and beyond. She sensed his unease.
‘He says he has a tenant willing to work the vineyard and pay him twice as much as your aunt was paying.’
‘But I could…’
Father Umberto held up his hand, palm outwards. ‘Stop there, Catherine. This man has three sons all willing to work in the vineyard. Good, experienced help is hard to come by.’
‘And they have no daughter likely to steal Donna Nicklau’s precious son,’ snarled Catherine.
‘Don’t!’ Soft fingertips touched her face. ‘You look ugly when you do that.’ His voice was soft and full of restrained emotion.
She shook his hand away and covered her face with both hands. ‘Where will I go?’
‘To your father? Perhaps it would be better for everyone.’
The words were like an arrow. Catherine opened her hands like shutters and fixed him with wide, angry eyes. ‘Including you, I suppose. It would be better for you too because you wouldn’t feel obliged to come here. Don’t you understand? My father killed my mother! I won’t go to him. Not ever.’
Catherine covered her face again, not wanting to see him or the world around her. She’d wanted to marry Francisco, but had settled for staying on here in the hope that their day would eventually come. That’s what she told herself, though the truth was that Umberto had been like balm to her emotional wounds – and more besides.
One solitary sob broke from her throat, a sob that changed everything. Father Umberto took hold of her hands. His look was intense, full of emotion – and something else.
‘Catherine, we must face life head-on. Everything changes, but God stays the same.’
She smelled the dampness of his woollen cassock and turned herself so that her forehead touched his chest. ‘All the people I ever loved have been taken from me. And now I’m to leave this place where I’ve been happy. I’m so afraid.’
The distance between them closed. If the priest noticed, he did nothing to stop it closing. The s
light hint of fresh masculine sweat took precedence over the damp wool, reaching out to her, pulling her closer. Warm fingers stroked the nape of her neck.
‘Catherine,’ he said simply, his other arm lying heavy around her waist.
Laying her cheek against his chest, she closed her eyes and listened to the beating of his heart. It was racing, drumming against her ear.
‘Catherine,’ he said again, his voice hushed and trembling.
She could have helped him fight his conscience; drawn back and become flustered. She could have acted embarrassed that she’d been party to him stepping through the barrier presented by the long dark robe. But she didn’t. She was caught by the tide and nothing would stop it throwing her up on to an unknown shore. This was her solace for all that had happened, one tender moment she would not be denied.
They stayed there like that in the gathering darkness; he stroking her hair and she with her eyes closed. The rhythm of his racing heart steadied. Hers did not. She wanted to drown in his smell and his warmth. And she dared not look up at him. Judging by his present stance his expression would either be one of sympathy for her predicament or surrender to his own physical need. Either way she felt guilty. She had leaned on him following her great-aunt’s death.
The moon appeared from behind a rip in the clouds. A silver mist flowed over the landscape. The only sound was of the wind stirring the trees. There were no more wolves. The hunters had seen to that.
Umberto cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away imagined tears. He’d thought she was crying, though she hadn’t been.
The light of the moon touched her face. She saw its effect in the priest’s eyes and the way his lips parted as he fought his inner battle.
‘I must go,’ he said, tearing his gaze from her and turning swiftly away. ‘But I will pray for you,’ he added, grabbing his hat before retying his robe between his legs and throwing his leg over his bicycle.
He paused for an instant, looked at her and then up at the stars. ‘It’s a golden night,’ he said. ‘And you are golden.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m devastated. Just like my mother was. I can understand why she killed herself. It’s not such a bad thing. I could do it. I might. I don’t think it’s that much of a sin. Do you?’
His expression froze. ‘You must not think that way!’
Catherine stuck out her chin. She wanted to be argumentative. ‘I’ll think as I like! When you’ve no one left in the world, what are you to think?’
‘I have to go,’ he said, pulling the brim of his hat over his eyes, his hands trembling as he reached for the handlebars.
Nodding a last goodbye, he mounted his bicycle. She caught the expression in his eyes. He wanted to stay just in case she meant what she’d said. But if he stayed he was lost.
Twenty-Two
The next night a fine drizzle was falling. The goats had got out and devoured a whole row of late-ripening tomatoes. Freedom had made them skittish and disinclined to be caught. Catherine had spent three hours rounding them up, then another two hours mending the fence and saving what she could of her vegetables.
After eating a bowl of soup, cheese and a slab of dark bread, she drank water and wine, then clambered up to her bed meaning merely to change the sheets. She did exactly that, but after doing so couldn’t resist taking off her clothes and lying down, enjoying the freshness of newly laundered bedding against her skin.
She dozed for a while but awoke abruptly. Something had disturbed her. The wind, she thought, or the rain pattering on the window. The light spilling on to the bedclothes told her otherwise. The rain had cleared. She looked out on a star-spangled heaven.
The noise she’d heard was merely the wind rattling the old shutters. She lay back, closed her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, each hand resting on the opposite shoulder. Her eyes flicked open briefly, staring at the ceiling. The last time she’d seen her mother she was lying just like this; cold and white and wearing a wreath of bloodstained lilies.
Tired out by fretful emotions and working around the farmhouse, she dozed. In her dreams she and Francisco were running barefoot through the vineyards. Aunt Lopa was cheering them on, her hands resting on the heads of two wolves standing by her side.
‘No! Please God, no!’
The voice was not in her dream.
Catherine’s eyes flashed open.
Father Umberto stood on the ladder at the entrance to her room. While asleep, she’d pushed the bedclothes down to her midriff. Her breasts were exposed, white as alabaster in the moonlight. He stared at her, his mouth open like a man gasping for a last breath of air before drowning. ‘Mother of God! I thought you were dead.’ His expression changed to relief and then something else. She read what was there. Her heart skipped a beat. He looked entranced.
She made no attempt to cover herself. Their eyes locked. The moment had come and neither was moving away from it.
It happened quickly. He was at the side of the bed where he fell to his knees, stroking her hair back from her face. His breath was warm. As usual his cassock smelled of damp wool.
She didn’t want him to go. She wanted him closer. She closed her eyes and swallowed. Could she lie? Yes, if it meant he would stay here.
‘I wanted to end it all. I’ve no one left in the world.’ Her eyes flashed open. ‘Only you. You’re all that’s left.’
He stared, his breathing erratic as he fought the age-old battle between the spiritual and the physical. The physical, the man he was, won the battle.
Francisco’s kiss was like that of a child compared to Umberto’s. His hand, large, square and rough as a peasant’s caressed her breast. He broke his kiss for a moment to gaze into her eyes, his fingers stroking the line of her jaw, her eyebrows, her nose and her mouth.
Catherine stayed silent, closed her eyes and let the inevitable happen, convinced that to do otherwise would break the spell. Yes, she had coerced, she’d lied, but was it so bad? Hadn’t he come to her aid? And surely what was happening could only help heal the hurt.
* * *
She told herself afterwards that she should have felt ashamed. The truth was that she didn’t. There would be no confession to cleanse her wicked soul because she didn’t think she had been wicked. What had happened had happened spontaneously, naturally. The lie didn’t matter either, although it was indeed the reason why he’d come.
Umberto had been concerned that she’d mentioned feeling as her mother had done. He’d brooded and prayed in turn that night; wanting to go back to make sure she was all right, but not daring to. ‘I wouldn’t have left until morning if I had.’
Her eyes asked the question. And now?
‘I couldn’t help it,’ he whispered.
She tried to work out how she was feeling. Deep down she was glad this had happened. She’d got under that dull black robe and found a man, a man who was even closer to her now than he had been. She’d also found the crusted ridges across his back. He winced as she touched them.
‘For my sins,’ he said.
She didn’t ask what sins he was referring to. She already knew.
With a sense of wonder she stroked his strong body, the line of his jaw, the misalignment of his collarbone which he’d broken as a child.
‘Did you fall off a bicycle?’ she asked him.
He shook his head. ‘No. My father did it.’
He went on to tell her about his parents, his violent father, his six brothers and sisters.
Catherine was impressed. ‘You have such a big family!’
‘Yes. Though not perfect.’
Catherine immediately envied him. ‘But you have a family,’ she repeated. ‘It must be wonderful…’
‘Not so. We were always fighting. There was always shouting and hitting. I sought solace. I found it in the Church. Unfortunately I did not leave all earthly pleasures at the door.’
‘Is that what I am?’
He looked at her. She saw the amusement in his eyes, though the re
st of his face was stiffly serious. ‘You are such a typical woman. You seek flattery. You want me to say that you are beautiful and that I love you.’
‘Do you?’
The amusement in his eyes spread to his lips. ‘I give people colours. Favourite people have favourite colours. I couldn’t think which colour I should give you. It was like wrestling with a rainbow. So I decided on gold.’
* * *
Umberto’s visits became more frequent, though he arrived a little later on those evenings when his duty was required elsewhere. One of those duties was to counsel José Nicklau to adopt restraint in the matter of the new tenant. He’d asked him to give Catherine a little time while she finalized her great-aunt’s affairs and made arrangements for her own future.
Catherine was grateful, but that was not the reason she slept with him. He was a good lover, considerate and gentle, consumed by a passion he’d kept bottled up for years. In her heart of hearts she longed for somebody to be close to again. Some kind of family. Any kind of family.
‘What shall we do?’ she asked him as they lay looking out at the stars.
‘Do?’
She could tell by the tone of his voice, the stiffening of his body that he understood what she was saying. But he wouldn’t answer, so she answered for him.
‘Shall we open my aunt’s treasure chest and run away together?’
He didn’t answer and she felt a further stiffening of his body. She answered for him. ‘You won’t stay with me. You’ll continue to be a priest.’
‘Yes.’
Squeezing her eyes shut to hold back the tears, she kissed a dark brown mole on his shoulder blade. ‘Never mind. You’ve healed my soul. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’
It wasn’t true. She wanted him for always, but yet again he was someone who would not stay. Why did she lose all those she loved?
A low deep chuckle sounded at the back of his throat. ‘I’m not sure the bishop would see it that way.’
House in the Hills Page 17