by Anne Weale
Then he saw her fumbling for a tissue and, when she couldn’t find one, wiping her cheeks with her fingers.
‘Liz…darling…what’s wrong?’
He produced a man-sized tissue and gave it to her, his expression concerned. Even in her dismay at being caught having a foolish weep, she registered the ‘darling’. He had never called her that before.
Cam noticed what she was holding and took it from her. ‘Who’s this? Need I ask? Duncan.’
As he studied his predecessor, she saw a range of reactions reflected in his face, the first unwilling curiosity being quickly replaced by a look of disdain, as if he could see at a glance what had taken her a long time to recognise.
Then, as he tossed the photograph on top of the pile of others, his face became a mask of anger she had never seen him wear before.
‘For God’s sake,’ he blazed at her, ‘are you going to spend the rest of your life in mourning? He’s been dead for four years. Whatever you shared with him is over and done with. You’re my wife now. It’s not right to be down here, mooning over the past.’
‘I wasn’t mooning,’ she protested. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘No, I bloody well don’t! It’s time you snapped out of it. Life moves on and, if we have any sense, we move with it. We may not have married for the conventional reasons, but now that’s all changed. I love you…and you could love me if you tried…if you put your mind to it…if you stopped mourning him.’
She sprang to her feet. ‘What do you mean…you love me? You’ve never said so.’
‘Well, I’m saying it now.’ He sounded more enraged than loving. ‘I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, but I have…and I want you to love me…not him—’ with a glare at the topmost photo.
‘I never loved him.’
For the first time she said aloud the truth that for years she had chosen not to acknowledge because facing it had been more painful than living a lie.
‘You never loved him?’ Cam repeated. But now it was a question, not a statement.
‘It was calf love…not the real thing. I realised that on our honeymoon,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘It was so different from ours…you can’t begin to imagine. You are everything that he wasn’t…tender…unselfish…imaginative. That first night at the parador was like being led into paradise after years in purgatory.’ She gave a long uneven sigh. ‘The only remaining torment was not being able to tell you I loved you. Do you really love me? Do you mean it?’
For answer he pulled her into his arms and gripped her so tightly she thought her ribs might crack. But after a moment or two he relaxed and adjusted his hold.
‘I must be as thick as two planks,’ he said, speaking into her hair. ‘I’ve been falling in love with you for months, but I didn’t recognise the symptoms. I knew that you were everything I wanted and needed in a woman, and I knew I was as jealous as hell of your first husband, but I didn’t put two and two together. How stupid can a guy be?’
He drew back slightly and tilted her face up to his. ‘Liz…sweet, lovely Liz…what a dumbo you’ve married.’
And then he kissed her with a tenderness that was both familiar and novel because now, at last, there were no secrets between them.
One kiss led to another and presently Cam picked her up and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom, where they tore off their clothes and made eager love on the unmade bed, their caresses accompanied by many whispers of ‘I love you’ and other passionate endearments.
Afterwards they both slept for a little while, waking at the same time to smile into each other’s eyes, luxuriating in this new and wonderful harmony that flowed between them like an invisible current.
Presently, Liz said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
Cam burst out laughing. ‘A houri and a housewife rolled into one. What more can any man ask for? Yes, I’d love a cup of tea, dearest girl, but let’s go home and have it there.’
Later, when they were sitting in the sun near the fig tree, watching and listening to the bees at work in the lavender bushes, he said, ‘If you were unhappy with Duncan, why didn’t you leave him?’
It took her some moments to answer. Eventually, she said, ‘I had promised to be his wife “for better or worse”. If you make that commitment, I think you should try to stick to it…as long as there is no cruelty or infidelity involved, which there wasn’t in our case. Anyway Duncan was happy. In his way, he loved me. He didn’t deserve to be left in the lurch…and he couldn’t keep up the mortgage without my contribution.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it?’
‘Very much…I want to know everything about you.’
‘Duncan was the boy next door. I had a crush on him from about the age of fourteen. By the time I was seventeen I was fathoms deep in love…or thought I was. What did I know…what does anybody know about love at that age? If he hadn’t been interested in me, or if either of us had left home and seen a bit of the world, it would have worn off—no harm done.’
‘But he was interested in you?’
‘Yes, and our parents encouraged us. Legally, of course, they couldn’t have stopped us marrying when I was nineteen. But they could and should have done more to make us see sense and wait. I’m sure there are people who mature early and marry young and it works out. But we weren’t among them.’
‘You said earlier that you realised that on your honeymoon. You were a virgin, obviously. Was he?’
‘I’m not certain about that. I asked him, but he was evasive. If he had had any previous experience, it hadn’t taught him anything. He was like someone who’s colour blind or has no ear for music. He had no instinctive understanding of what sexual love is about. I knew it might hurt the first time, but it went on hurting for weeks and months.’
‘Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?’
Cam’s query brought a faint smile to her mouth. ‘Exactly. I knew all the theory and I tried to get it across that he…we weren’t going about things the right way.’
‘But he resented any suggestion that he wasn’t the world’s best lover?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘The world is full of guys who can’t take any criticism of their driving let alone their technique in bed. Did you try giving him a book on the subject?’
‘Yes, but it didn’t work. Duncan was strangely prudish in lots of ways…I think he got it from his mother. We always had sex on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and always in the dark.’ For the first time she was able to laugh about it with genuine amusement and no tightening of the throat.
‘Dios mio!’ said Cam. ‘What an idiot.’ They had been sitting close but not actually touching. Now he put his arm round her and pulled her against him. ‘I’m amazed you could stand it.’
‘Sometimes I wondered that. It wasn’t just our disastrous sex life…we had nothing in common. Different senses of humour. Different views about life. But I don’t think that’s so unusual. Every time you go to a restaurant you see couples with nothing to say to each other, lost in their separate thoughts instead of chatting and laughing.’
‘So it wasn’t grief you were feeling when I saw that look in your eyes that I took to be sadness?’
‘I expect it was guilt because I wasn’t able to grieve for him. Or it may have been worry because, for a long time, I thought I was in the grip of another infatuation—for you. I was worried that I was falling into the same trap again.’ She snuggled against him, leaning her head on his shoulder. ‘I had got it into my head that a man with such powerful sexual magnetism had to be a worthless person—or at least rather second-rate.’
‘It was unfortunate that we met when I had a girlfriend in tow,’ he said dryly. ‘I could tell that put you off. There were strong vibes of disapproval.’
‘The night you arrived I saw you kissing her through that window,’ she said, pointing to it. ‘I wasn’t sure who you were then and I remember envying her because no one was ever going to hold me and kiss me like that.’
/>
‘You were wrong there. Someone is going to hold you and kiss you every day for the next forty years…longer with any luck. Shall I open a bottle of wine?’
‘Why not?’ she said happily.
‘Sit tight. I won’t be long.’ He rose from the seat, then bent to drop a kiss on her forehead. Going up the steps to the upper terrace, he blew her some more kisses.
Liz returned them, wondering how long the impasse between them might have continued if he hadn’t found her in tears and thought she was weeping for Duncan rather than over her own youthful folly.
How difficult it was to see into people’s hearts if they had reasons for concealing their innermost feelings, she thought.
When he came back with glasses and an opened bottle of white wine in a plastic cooler, she said, ‘When did you know you loved me?’
‘I’d have to think about that. Men aren’t continually analysing their emotions the way women seem to,’ he said teasingly. Then, more seriously, ‘Perhaps I knew from the beginning that you were someone special but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. When you’ve been independent for years, it’s hard to adjust to the fact that you’ve lost that autonomy…that someone else is in charge of your happiness.’
After a pause he added, ‘After the first time I made love to you, you cried. You thought I was dozing, but I could feel your chest heaving. That worried me a lot.’
Remembering the tears she had fought to control, she said, ‘If I’d had any sense I’d have had a big boo-hoo, and you’d have asked why, and I would have told you. It was only relief and happiness because, at long last, I’d felt all the things women are supposed to feel.’
‘I thought you were probably crying from some kind of guilt about experiencing pleasure without any deep emotional engagement, or from a feeling that you had betrayed the memory of the man you had loved,’ said Cam. ‘I took it as read that your first marriage had been happy, and from that basic misconception drew a lot of other false conclusions.’
‘What I didn’t…still don’t understand is why you held off from trying me out, bedwise, before taking me on as a wife,’ said Liz. ‘If you had been a shy man, awkward with women, it might have made sense. But for Valdecarrasca’s notorious womaniser to hold back seemed very peculiar.’
‘I guess the answer to that is that Valdecarrasca’s notorious womaniser had found the woman he wanted for the rest of his life and was nervous of putting a foot wrong. I hadn’t recognised my own condition. I thought you’d agreed to our marriage mainly to have some babies. Since getting it right in bed can sometimes take time, it seemed wise to postpone it until we were past the point of no return.’
A few days later, Liz returned from accompanying Leonora to choose a frame for the portrait to see, from the kitchen window, Cam sitting in the garden reading a letter, more mail on the seat beside him.
After filling two tall glasses with spring water they had collected from one of the many fontanales to be found in the countryside, she went out to join him.
‘Anything for me?’
‘Not today, babe.’ He stood up to kiss her, then moved the pile of shrink-wrapped magazines and manila envelopes to make room for her to sit next to him. ‘How did the session with the framer go?’
‘Fine. We found something we both like and I’m sure you will too.’ She could see that his thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Anything exciting in your post?’
Cam gave her a look she found hard to interpret. For a moment it took her back to the time when neither of them had understood the other. But that was over: now they understood every nuance of each other’s tones and expressions. Or so she had thought.
He said slowly, ‘I’ve been asked to step into the shoes of one of Britain’s top journalists in Washington DC. He died a couple of weeks ago after working there for twenty years. He was a giant among journalists. It’s a huge compliment to be invited to take his place.’
Something his mother had said at the pre-wedding party echoed in her mind. I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for…You will never enjoy any sense of permanence.
She said, ‘That’s wonderful news. When do you have to start? If they want you immediately, I can close up the house and follow you later.’
He was visibly astonished. ‘You can’t be serious? You love it here. You don’t want to leave.’
‘I wouldn’t want to go back where I came from, but the chance to live in America—that’s different. Valdecarrasca won’t go away. It will always be here for us.’
Cam swallowed the rest of the water and then sprang to his feet and started pacing back and forth. ‘I don’t know…it’s not what we planned. Washington is a big city and I’d need to live in the centre.’
‘If it’s one of the pinnacles of a career in journalism, I think you should at least try it. If you don’t, you’ll always regret it.’
He came back to where she was sitting and crouched down in front of her, putting his hands over her knees. ‘But what about you, darling girl? We’re a partnership now. We have to consider what’s right for us both. If, in a few months’ time, you find that you’re pregnant, wouldn’t you rather be here in the village than in a capital city on the other side of the Atlantic?’
Liz was beginning to think that she might be pregnant already. Her period, normally punctual to the day, was three days overdue and none of her usual mild PM symptoms had materialised.
‘I think for someone of my age, having a first baby, Washington might have advantages over provincial Spain. Medical care in the US is said to be second to none—as long as people can afford it. Here…I’m not really sure. I’ve heard some excellent reports and I’ve also heard horror stories. Anyway, that’s not the crux of the matter. The crux is…if you want to go, I’ll be happy to come with you.’ Leaning forward, she rested her forearms on his broad shoulders. ‘There are thousands of places in the world where I could enjoy living. But only one man I want to live with…and who wants to live with me.’
The most important decision was not the only one. There were many lesser decisions to make.
Later that day, Cam said, ‘I don’t much like the idea of other people living at La Higuera, but it doesn’t make sense to leave it empty for several years, particularly as, under Spanish law, tax is payable on the theoretical letting value.’
‘What about storing all your most personal possessions next door?’ Liz suggested. ‘It would be awful to come back and find that a tenant’s obnoxious child had thrown a dart at the portrait of Captain Fielding, or ruined one of your rugs.’ Throughout the house the floors were spread with rugs he had bought on his travels.
‘Our rugs,’ he corrected her. ‘Hopefully the letting agency will make sure nobody with obnoxious children is allowed near the place. But that’s a good idea. We can use your little house as a store.’
‘Our little house,’ she teased him.
He pulled her into his arms. ‘Houses…possessions…they’re all expendable,’ he said, hugging her. ‘That you are mine and I am yours is the only thing that really matters.’
On their last morning in Spain, Liz went to the bakery for bread. On the way home she made a detour, climbing the path that led up to the cemetery and passed behind it to join a flight of rough stone steps leading downwards.
At the top of the steps she paused to look down on the clustered rooftops of Valdecarrasca and, beyond them, the vineyards spreading across the floor of the valley. Between some of the rows of vines the coppery soil had been rotavated. Some were still green with the foliage of low-growing plants. Either way, from this height, the vines themselves looked like rows of cross-stitch worked with varying degrees of skill.
I am going to miss it, she thought. I wonder how long it will be before we come back?
She was certain now that she had started a baby. But she hadn’t mentioned it to Cam yet and, observant as he was, he had been too preoccupied with the preparations for departure to register that they had been making love without any marked inte
rruption since they were married.
Perhaps she would tell him on the flight from Madrid to Washington. Or perhaps she would wait until her instinctive feeling that there was a new life beginning inside her body had been confirmed by a doctor.
She began to descend the steps, wondering if Valdecarrasca would have changed by the time they saw it again. She hoped not. To her, it was perfect as it was, a backwater set apart from the turbulent mainstream of modern life.
Part of her longed to stay, to see the young leaves starting to sprout on the vines and, as the nights grew warmer, to have candlelit suppers for friends in the courtyard. There were also small improvements she wanted to make to the house and garden.
But she hadn’t forgotten that on the day he had proposed to her Cam had said that a successful marriage was an intimate friendship between people prepared to make trade-offs.
For the amazing difference he had made to her life, she was more than willing to make this particular trade-off.
Cam must have seen her coming down the steps from the kitchen window. He was at the door to meet her. ‘I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.’
‘What could happen to me here?’ she said, smiling.
‘Nothing, I guess.’ He drew her into the house, took the bread bag from her and hung it from the curlicue at the end of the staircase handrail in order to have both hands free to draw her to him. ‘I get a little jumpy when you’re gone for longer than I expected. Hopefully it will wear off after we’ve been together twenty or thirty years.’
She wrapped her arms round him. ‘I was saying goodbye to the village.’
He tipped up her chin. ‘You’re sad to be leaving it, aren’t you?’
‘Only a little…aren’t you?’
‘There’ll be times when I’ll miss it. We both will. But the village will always be here for us, and you’re going to like America.’
His kiss dispelled her regret for all they were leaving. Since the beginning of history women had been following men to the ends of the earth, saying goodbye to the safe and familiar and setting out on adventures in faraway places.
