The sound of elderly feet descending the massive stone staircase, a residual challenge for her architect, warned of their appearance. Earlier in the day she'd welcomed Señor Delafuente on his arrival in a splendid ancient Mercedes.
She would have mounted it on a library wall, such was its magnificence. But other than showing him to his room, she'd left him closeted with Alfonso.
"So, this is your library? It's very fine. The terrace is new? You have accomplished much in a short time."
"Only with your help, Señor Delafuente, assisted and supported by Alfonso."
"What? You call him Señor Delafuente?" exclaimed an astonished Alfonso.
"But I don't know Señor Delafuente's first name, nor has he invited me to use it," was her cool response.
"You will laugh. It's Cayetano. Have you met another Cayetano? Neither have I. Not used much these days. At University we referred to him as Alf."
"Why?"
"Nobody knows. It may have been because he and I hung around together and people needed to distinguish us... So, Alf, which is it to be? Your full name or your nickname?"
Señor Delafuente groaned as he glared at Alfonso. "You've let the cat out of the bag. She won't be able to take me seriously ever again."
"You mean she used to? How curious the young are."
Ana reddened. In her late thirties, she wasn't accustomed to being discussed like an absent child. She saw where this headed. If she didn't intervene it was clear the two men would spend hours winding up each other as they vivisected her.
"May I offer you some Manzanilla?"
This had the intended effect. As they drank, Alfonso introduced his friend and his client to the day's discoveries. They were interesting, but not sensational – apart from an older work about how to prune olive trees for maximum fruit production. She abstracted that for herself, to read in bed.
Over dinner, Señor Delafuente, for she could not bring herself to use either Cayetano or 'Alf', enquired about her olive groves. Her first impressions, she reported, were that most trees were of the Blanqueta cultivar, the one used to perpetrate the olive fruit fly plague in Andalucía the previous year. It was a hardy tree but the locals possessed little interest in the high-quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil which was her goal.
Her challenge, she told them, was the Valenciana mindset. They grew to cook and eat without considering broader possibilities. She felt like an ant taking on a rock. Worse still, the locals always knew best. She could know nothing as an urban outsider.
She intended to persevere. She would show them. The old books turned up by Alfonso were already a help. To the locals' incredulity, she volunteered advice on olive cultivation practices, ones they'd inherited from their forebears, as if she'd grown up with them. Their faces betrayed disbelief, possibly trepidation, at her ancient knowledge.
"Do you have plans for Super High Density groves, like in Úbeda?"
"You remember well, Señor..."
Alfonso interrupted; a rarity.
"Please call him Alf. It is the easiest. Now, what's a Super High something or other?"
Ana explained about the vine-like system for olive trees her friend Enrique grew outside Úbeda. She sketched out how Enrique'd saved his olive oil business from last year's fly plague; Enrique had sprayed a clay film on his SHD trellises which had prevented the female olive flies from impregnating olives with their ruinous eggs.
"You mean you propose to grow olive trees in trellis rows like they do with vines in France?"
"Exactly. The advantage is the density. When matched to automated picking machines, you can harvest olives faster, which means cheaper, and with less damage than manual picking. My only uncertainty is whether the SHD technique will work with Blanquetas: by reputation they are tough. I am viewed as a crusader."
She recounted how she'd found one large field of failing olive trees, sad in old age. Though it broke her heart to uproot and saw them into a three-year supply of firewood, her action created the opportunity to plant fresh Blanqueta stock.
When she'd outlined her SHD plans, the locals had laughed in near hysteria and to her face. But they hadn't declined her money.
Under her supervision, supported by Enrique, they'd laboured to plant the long, tight rows of future trees with stakes and a micro drip watering system. She admitted she'd overheard one couple discussing whether they should copy her. The disadvantage, as with all new growth, was it would take at least four to five years before she'd discover what she'd sown.
After dinner, they returned to the Library. Alfonso did not last long before he excused himself. As Alfonso's shoes shuffled up the stone stairs, 'Alf' turned to Ana.
"Any news of your young man?"
"You mean Davide?"
"Yes. You told me he was coming to Madrid?"
"I did. And I turned down his invitation, though he'd supported me while you and I were putting together my improbable inheritance claim."
"It was his uncle who alleged you and he might have a consanguinity problem if you and he--" Alf paused, seeking a neutral expression "--got together. I delighted to disprove that, if in an unpredicted way."
"Yes, but he'd disappeared soon after the Corruption's Price political scandal. He left me hanging. Though, perhaps because, I pined for him for months, when he did make contact, I found I didn't want to awaken future hurts. When he invited me, I declined and ran for the wilds here to investigate the possibilities. I haven't left here since. In one sense, I blame him for my being here. In another I'm grateful. I don't know where he is, nor whether I have made a series of idiot mistakes."
"I doubt it, my dear. Look at what you have achieved. And your cousin? Inma, was it?"
"I offended her with my abrupt resignation from our business partnership and disappearance here. There I must accept I was selfish and unreasonable. We haven't spoken since, though I do know, through my family, that she took on Lili, the ex-partner of Enrique who first introduced me to the SHD growing techniques."
Ana expanded on Enrique's visit. He'd advised and then assisted her with the planting of the SHD groves. According to him, Lili had thrown herself at Inma's feet, begging for a job. Inma had been reluctant.
"I think my bombshell resignation exploded at about the same time as Lili made her request for a job. It must have had an effect. Inma hired Lili. Now they are going gangbusters together, to use one of Lili's expressions. If true, I hope Inma's paying attention to the paperwork."
"Why, if I may ask?"
"Inma is strategic; she's not so good with administration. Lili is a deal maker: I doubt she could find a file unless someone placed it under her nose." Ana stopped herself. "I'm being catty but not inaccurate. I wish them well, but I'm glad to see the back of re-insurance. For a while it was fun. But it palled once the delights of the olive tree and what it can produce caught my imagination."
Alf hesitated.
"Would you like me to find out where Davide is? I do know his uncle."
"Thank you, but no. If he wants, he can find me. Even then I'm not sure I'll see him unless he knocks on my front door or kicks it in. I'll face that if it arises. It won't. He'll be off travelling. As usual."
Nicosia (Cyprus)
Nikos waited for his master's guests, or he hoped it would be guests. Vasilios, the younger brother of Nikolaos, was not his idea of a visionary. Vasilia, his daughter, was the opposite. She brimmed with ideas and suggestions. She had Nikolaos wrapped around her thumb. Almost anything she recommended he accepted, though at times his acceptance wasn't immediate. He always made her wait a little.
The question was: would she attend today? She didn't always accompany her father when they were working together on Church projects. She preferred to be an involved architect, or so she claimed. Her father Vasilios was more of the manager and interface between his firm and its clients.
To complicate everything, Nikos had heard on the Nicosia grapevine, a wondrous source of innuendo and the occasional truth, that Vasilia despaired of her fa
ther. She wanted to be the senior partner. He wouldn't let go, an attitude which Nikos knew Nikolaos supported with vehemence.
Why Nikolaos wouldn't support his niece Nikos couldn't understand. Vasilios looked and acted old. Was it about blood? Yet that made little objective sense. Vasilia was also a blood relative, if one who could bend the Archbishop like a twig in a gale. Was it because she was a woman?
Nikos shrugged. He couldn't explain. Not his concern.
He heard steps down the hallway. His ears hinted at only one person. When his office door opened, Vasilios dismayed him. He welcomed the elderly architect and offered an iced-coffee. Vasilios accepted with a wry glance of appreciation.
"You like them too, Father Spanos?"
"Don't we all, Mr Constantinou? Iced-coffees remain all the rage. Have you seen how many different types of machine you can buy which claim to make only the best?"
"I have, I have. Vasilia bought me one for my birthday. Only she knows how to use it."
"She isn't coming today?"
Nikos admired his voice's neutrality. Inside a spark of disappointment had flared before he quelled it.
"No. She insisted she inspect the first examples of her wretched CLT walls. Her idea is crazy for such a large building. But she's sold my brother hook, line and wooden sinker. So that is what we have... By the way, we see each other often enough: please call me Vasilios or Mr Vasilios if you insist, though better not in my brother's hearing. He's become pompous and self-important now he's the Archbishop. I don't care for it."
"You're most kind, Mr Vasilios. In turn, please use Nikos for me."
They exchanged smiles of conspiratorial appreciation. Here was a different understanding. Vasilia and Nikolaos might be one power arc. In two simple sentences Vasilios and Nikos formalised a counter-balancing one, one which might have to restrain the excesses of Archbishop and his niece.
"You finish your coffee. I'll check if His Beatitude is ready."
Nikos rose from his desk and tapped on the door to the Archbishop's study. There was a second door around the corner, out of sight with a separate exit corridor. The purpose was simple. Those who arrived did not have to see those leaving. In a place as febrile as Cyprus, where the Church was more powerful than most politicians, discretion was mandatory. It had taken internal rebuilding to ensure success.
Nikos beckoned to Vasilios. He ushered the younger brother into the older one's presence and took his normal station by the table at the rear of the study. Being the Archbishop's ears and eyes meant he attended all encounters.
This time, the Archbishop shocked him.
"Thank you, Nikos. You can leave Vasilios and us together."
Offence coursed through Nikos. What could they discuss that did not require him? He had no choice. He exited and closed the door.
At his desk his mind raced. He could only think of one subject where he might not be appropriate: Vasilia. She was none of his business. But could it be about her rumoured divorce? Matrons' tongues had wagged for weeks, as if they plotted to extract advantage from Vasilia's misfortune. Who would not want a divorced son associated with a power source such as that Vasilia exercised over her uncle?
More steps. Nikos glanced at the wall clock. If it was Tassos Christodoulou he was far too early. That was improbable in Cyprus. The steps did not sound like a man's, or a woman's. They were sharp and emphatic. Who could it be?
There was no knock. Instead, Vasilia strode in with a face like Poseidon on a bad day. Nikos quailed. He'd heard her described as imperious. Now he understood why.
"Is my father with my uncle?"
Nikos nodded, his tongue moored to his palate. He didn't know how to react.
She solved that by heading for the door to His Beatitude's study. She didn't pause. She flung it open. All that Nikos heard, before the door bounced shut, was: "Don't think you two can arrange my..."
An hour later Nikos heard more steps. After a discreet knock Tassos Christodoulou approached Nikos. He was well-dressed, in a smart, well-cut blazer and pressed slacks with bright, polished brogues. His one concession to a relaxed look was a white polo shirt.
He was the epitome of the successful politician and property developer, a man who looked as though he had his fingers in many pies. If his own commercial interests were insufficient, he was the local chairman of a small Russian private bank.
Nikos wondered in which capacity His Beatitude wanted to see this reptile. However much Nikos resisted the temptation he couldn't sidestep the association. Christodoulou leaked a slipperiness which defied clarity.
"Father, I believe I have an appointment with His Beatitude in about ten minutes. I came early. In part out of respect but also to find out if you could advise me why His Beatitude wishes to see me? We've only met a couple of times, and always in social settings."
"I don't know either, Mr Christodoulou. His Beatitude did not share with me his reason, or reasons, when he asked me to set up your meeting... While you wait, may I offer an iced coffee?"
As he spoke a discreet green light gleamed on his desk. Only he could see it, his indicator that the exit door had opened in Ioannis's study. He glanced at his laptop's screen and, from the camera installed in the other corridor, he saw father and daughter leave.
"His Beatitude is free. Let me double check he is ready. If so, you can go straight in."
Nikos hadn't met Christodoulou in person before. He wished he hadn't now. His reputation lacked probity. In the flesh, he was as expected. Slimy.
Nikos's antennae fluttered in apprehension. He felt sure Christodoulou was about to involve his master, and himself, in matters best avoided. Was there an escape?
Chapter Three
Yuste (Spain)
The second night Inma slept better. The exertions of cleaning followed by the physicality to maintain her body shape ensured exhaustion. Except her mind cycled on in overdrive. While mentally anxious, her constitution demanded rest. Its insistence won.
Inma breakfasted on tostadas con aceite, ajo y tomate. The bread was local, frozen by her housekeeper and wonderful when toasted. She'd assembled a mix of olive oil, garlic and tomato while she'd made dinner the previous night. Chopped and combined, then spun in a food mixer before chilling, it possessed a thick richness which slithered across the toast's surface before absorption. Her recurring plight was deciding whether to wait, so that all but the tomato soaked in, or to eat as soon as she spread it. The latter was messier but somehow fresher and more suited to her natural impatience.
She cleared the kitchen before she headed to her chapel. To prevent disturbance by Almudena if she passed by, she locked the door and took her place in the chapel's chair. It caressed her.
Yet something felt false. She missed the support it had once rendered. What was absent? She reflected. Her self-discipline, honed by Opus Dei, permitted no further prevarication, though escape was by far her simplest choice.
She replayed history.
Three years earlier, she'd been a devout, obsessive, senior member of Opus Dei in whose arms she'd rejoiced since her late teens. Opus had nurtured and reassured her as she climbed its ranks. While it had provided a not-always downy comfort, it had promoted her recovery after her summer camp rape in the United States.
From a powerful Mexican family, her molester had presumed all girls at the summer camp existed to satisfy male teenage lust. In this he was not exceptional, even though the camp operated under Opus Dei auspices.
In theory, she'd attended the camp because her parents insisted she refine her English, which she'd accomplished. The reality, which Inma had recognised before she flew out, was they wanted rid of their over-serious eldest daughter so they could indulge her younger sisters who had yet to plunge into teenage petulance.
She'd agonised through a tortured fortnight, fearing her period wouldn't come, terrified of the implications and consequences. Three days late, it had. She was safe.
But she'd been unable to hide her distress. The camp organisers had under
stood something was amiss. They'd asked, in vain. She couldn't overcome her self-loathing and self-blame.
Meanwhile, to her everlasting shame, the Mexican had continued to thrust his malevolent charms on others. It was true, contrary to the Opus camp rules, most of the other girls hadn't objected.
This camp experience had mortified her. It had eroded an already diminished self-esteem. The one compensation had been that, back home, she had introductions from her camp minders to Opus colleagues in Spain. Over time she'd become religious. Under the tutelage of sympathetic Opus teachers, she had adopted the Opus ethos and found joy in Escrivá's teachings.
Happy to accept the burden which a commitment to Opus Dei demanded, she'd embraced the cilice, the jagged hidden chain. She'd wrapped it around her right thigh to induce discomfort and pain as a reminder of sin and the need to seek atonement. It represented her symbol of that commitment to Opus.
The sudden deaths of both her brothers, demolished in their car by a drunken truck driver, set in train the rapid decline first of her father and then her mother. In her early twenties, Inma found herself a proxy-mother to two teenage sisters with an urgent need to sort out the financial mess bequeathed by her parents.
Opus had, again, provided. Under the guidance of Mariano, who'd appointed himself her mentor, she'd ironed out the inheritance, paid off all the family's copious debts and seen both sisters married. If it had been a seven-year marathon, this had entrenched her faith in Opus Dei's people and its righteousness.
Her next step, now in her late twenties, was to become an Opus Numerary. This brought an involuntary celibacy. Her adoption of shapeless brown dresses which fell well below the knee added an impenetrable layer of protection from any risk of secular seduction. All this provided comfort. As a Numerary she was unavailable, like a laical nun. She could avoid physical intimacy, preferring her personal intimacy with Christ. It was why she'd built this secret chapel, her means to expand her communion with her Lord.
Resurrection (The Corruption Series Book 4) Page 6