Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Oh God, you’ve been listening to my raving mother. Are you going to kiss your crucifix now?’ Maria laughed as Sofia pulled her face into an expression of piety and crossed herself irreverently.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wish, Santi? Go on, it’s tradition!’ she insisted.

  ‘No, it’s girl’s stuff,’ he replied.

  ‘Please yourself,’ said Sofia, throwing herself back against the trunk. ‘Mmm. Can you smell the eucalyptus?’ A satin breeze brushed softly over her hot cheeks, carrying with it the unmistakable medicinal scent of eucalyptus. ‘You know, of all the smells in the campo, this is the one I love best. If I were lost at sea and smelt this smell I would cry for home.’ And she sighed melodramatically.

  Santi inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out of his mouth in rings.

  ‘I agree, it always reminds me of summer.’

  ‘I can’t smell eucalyptus. The only scent coming my way is Santi’s Marlboro,’ complained Maria, waving her hand in the air.

  ‘Bueno, don’t sit downwind then,’ he retorted.

  ‘No, Santi, don’t you sit upwind from me!’

  ‘Mujeres!’ he sighed, his sandy blond hair falling about his head like one of those mysterious auras that La Vieja Bruja raved on about in the village. Apparently everyone had one, everyone except the very wicked. The three of them draped themselves like cats over the branches, searching in silence for the first stars through the dusk.

  The ponies snorted and stamped wearily under the ombu, changing their weight every now and then to rest their feet. Tossing their heads they patiently fought off the cloud of flies and mosquitoes that gathered about them. Finally

  Maria suggested they begin to make their way back.

  ‘It’ll be totally dark soon,’ she said anxiously, mounting her pony.

  ‘Mama is going to murder me,’ Sofia sighed, already envisaging Anna’s fury.

  ‘I’ll get the blame again, I suppose,’ groaned Santi.

  ‘Well, Santiago, you’re the adult - you’re meant to be looking after us.’

  ‘With your mother on the warpath, Chofi, I don't think I want the responsibility.’ Anna was well-known for her temper.

  Sofia jumped onto her pony and with an experienced hand guided it through the darkness.

  Back on the ranch they gave their ponies to old Jose, the most senior gaucho, who had been leaning against the fence sipping Mate through an ornate silver bombilla, waiting with the patience of someone to whom time means very little. He shook his grey head with gentle disapproval.

  ‘Señorita Sofia, your mother has been calling us all night,’ he chided. ‘This is a dangerous time, niha, you must be careful.’

  ‘Oh, dear Jose, you shouldn’t worry so much, you know I’ll get away with it!’ And laughing she ran after Maria and Santi who were already walking off towards the lights.

  As predicted, Anna was outraged. Like a jack-in-the-box, the moment she saw her daughter she sprang up, her arms waving about as if she had no way of controlling them.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ she demanded, her red face clashing horribly with her hair.

  ‘We went for a ride and just forgot the time, I’m sorry.’

  Agustin and Rafael, her older brothers, both stretched out on the sofas, smirked ironically.

  ‘What are they grinning about? Agustin, don’t eavesdrop! This has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Sofia, you’re a lying toad,’ he said from the sofa.

  ‘Rafael, Agustin, this is not a joke,’ their mother snapped in exasperation.

  ‘ “Off to your room, Señorita Sofia”,’ added Agustin under his breath. Anna wasn’t in the mood for his jokes and looked to her husband for support but Paco returned to his sons and the Copa Santa Catalina. Grandpa O’Dwyer, who wouldn’t have been any help at all, was snoring loudly in the armchair in the corner. So Anna, as usual, was left to play the autocrat. She turned to her daughter and with the sigh of a well-practised martyr, sent her to her room

  without any supper.

  Sofia left the sitting room unfazed and wandered into the kitchen. As she had hoped, Soledad was prepared, ready with empanadas and a bowl of steaming zapallo soup.

  ‘Paco, why don’t you support me?’ Anna asked her husband wearily. ‘Why do you take her part every time? I can’t do this on my own.’

  ‘M.' amor, you’re tired. Why don’t you get an early night?’ Paco looked up at her grim face. He searched her features for the soft young girl he had married and wondered why she was afraid to come out and show herself. Somewhere along the line she had retreated and he wondered whether he would ever get her back again.

  Dinner was awkward. Anna wore a pinched expression on her face in an act of defiance. Rafael and Agustin continued to talk with their father about the polo match the following day as if she wasn’t there. They forgot that Sofia was absent. Her empty place at the dinner table was fast becoming a regular occurrence.

  ‘Roberto and Francisco Lobito are the ones we’ve got to watch out for,' said Rafael, talking with his mouth full. Anna watched him warily, but at twenty-three years old he was too grown-up to be told what to do by his mother.

  ‘They’ll be marking Santi heavily,’ said Paco, looking up from under his serious brow. ‘He’s the best player on our team - that means you boys will have more responsibility. Do you understand? Agustin, you’re going to have to concentrate. Really concentrate.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Papa,’ replied Agustin, shifting his small brown eyes from his father to his brother in a bid to show his sincerity. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  ‘You’d better not, or that sister of yours will be playing in your place,’ said Paco and watched Agustin scowl into his veal. Anna sighed loudly and shook her head, but Paco didn’t notice her. She pursed her lips and continued to eat in silence. She had accepted that Sofia played polo with her cousins, but that was a private thing within the family. Over my dead body will she play in a match in front of the Lobito family from La Paz, she thought angrily to herself.

  Sofia meanwhile lolled in a warm bath filled with glittering white bubbles. She lay back and allowed her mind to focus on Santi. She knew she shouldn’t think of her cousin in that way. Padre Julio would give her twenty Hail Marys if he knew what lascivious thoughts gripped her loins with longing. Her mother

  would cross herself and say that an infatuation of that sort wasn’t natural. To Sofia it was the most natural thing in the world.

  She imagined him kissing her, and wondered what it would feel like. She had never kissed anyone. Well, she had kissed Nacho Estrada in the school playground because she had lost a bet, but that hadn’t been a proper kiss. Not the way two people who really loved each other kissed. She closed her eyes and pictured his hot honey face an inch away from hers, his full, smiling lips opening slightly before resting on her lips. She imagined his tourmaline-green eyes gazing into hers lovingly. When she couldn’t go any further than that because she wasn’t really sure what would happen next, she rewound the tape and started again until the bathwater had turned cold and the pads of her fingers resembled a wrinkled old iguana.

  Chapter 3

  Sofia awoke to the soft glimmer of dawn flickering through the gap in the curtains. She lay there a while listening to the first sounds of morning. The singing gorriones and tordos were a cheerful prelude to the day, hopping from branch to branch in the tall plane trees and poplars. She didn’t need to look at her watch to know that it was six o’clock; she always rose at six in the summer. Her favourite time of the day was early morning when the rest of the household were still asleep in their beds. She pulled on her jeans and T-shirt, tied her long dark plait with a red ribbon and slipped into her alpargatas.

  Outside, the sun was a hazy glow, emerging softly through the dawn mist. She skipped with a buoyant heart through the trees towards the puesto and polo field. Her feet barely touched the ground. Jose was already up and expecting her, traditionally clad in baggy bombachas, rich brown leather boo
ts and his heavy rastra, decorated with large silver coins. Together with his son Pablo she would practise hitting the ball about, called stick and balling, for a couple of hours before breakfast under the experienced guidance of the old gaucho. Sofia was happiest on a pony; there she felt a freedom unmatched anywhere else in

  her life, charging up and down the field while the rest of her family were far away and unaware.

  At eight she gave the mare to Jose and made her way back through the trees towards home. As she went by, she glanced over at Santi’s house, half hidden behind an oak tree. Rosa and Encarnacion, their maids, in pristine white and pastel blue uniforms, were quietly laying out the breakfast table on the terrace but Santi was nowhere to be seen. He liked his sleep and rarely rose before eleven. Chiquita’s house was not like Anna’s; it was weathered pink with dusty-coloured roof tiles, bleached from the sun, and only had one floor. But Sofia loved her own house the best, with its gleaming bleached walls, dark green shutters somewhat obscured behind Virginia creeper and large round terracotta pots of geraniums and plumbago.

  At home, Paco and Anna were already up and sipping coffee on the terrace, shaded from the sun under a large parasol. Grandpa O’Dwyer was practising card tricks on one of the skinny dogs who, hopeful for a scrap from the table, was unusually compliant. Paco, in a pink polo shirt and jeans, was sitting back in his chair reading the papers through the pair of glasses perched on the end of his hooked nose. As Sofia approached he put down the paper and poured

  himself some more coffee.

  ‘Papa ...’ she began.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What? I haven’t even asked you yet,’ she laughed, bending down to kiss him.

  ‘I know what you’re going to ask me, Sofia, and the answer is no.’

  She sat down and grabbed an apple, then noticing his mouth curve into a small smile she fixed him with her chestnut eyes and grinned back with a smile she reserved for him or her grandfather, childish and mischievous, but utterly charming.

  ‘Dale Papa, I never get the chance to play, it’s so unfair! After all, Papito, you taught me how to play.’

  ‘Sofia, enough is enough!’ scolded her mother in exasperation. She couldn’t understand why her husband fell for it every time. ‘Papa has said no, now leave him alone and eat your breakfast decently - with a knife!’

  Irritated, Sofia stabbed sulkily at her apple. Anna ignored her and leafed through a magazine. She could feel her daughter watching her out of the corner of her eye and her expression hardened with resolve.

  ‘Why don’t you let me play polo, Mama?’ she asked in English.

  ‘It’s just not ladylike, Sofia. You are a young woman, not a tomboy,’ she replied steadily.

  ‘Just because you don’t like horses ...’ Sofia mumbled petulantly.

  ‘That’s has got nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Yes it has. You want me to be like you, but I’m not like you - I’m like Papa. No es cierto, Papa?1

  ‘What were you talking about?’ asked Paco, who hadn’t been listening to their conversation. He tended to lose interest when they spoke English. At that moment Rafael and Agustin staggered out into the light like a couple of vampires, squinting uncomfortably into the sunshine. They had spent the best part of the dawn at the small nightclub in town. Anna put down the magazine and watched tenderly as they approached.

  ‘Definitely too bright,’ groaned Agustin. ‘My head is killing me.’

  ‘What time did you two get back last night?’ she asked sympathetically.

  ‘About five a.m. Mama. I could have slept all morning,’ replied Rafael, kissing her unsteadily. ‘What’s up, Sofia?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she snapped, narrowing her eyes. ‘I’m going to the pool.’ And off she flounced. Once she had gone, Anna picked up her magazine again and smiled wearily at her sons in a manner they were both familiar with.

  Today is going to be a bad day,’ she sighed. ‘Sofia is very upset that she isn’t allowed to play in the match.’

  lPor Dios, Papa - no way is she going to play!’

  ‘Papa, you’re not seriously considering it, are you?’ choked Agustin.

  Anna was thrilled that for once her capricious daughter hadn’t managed to manipulate her father and she smiled at him gratefully, placing her hand briefly on his.

  ‘For the moment I’m only thinking about whether to have butter on my media luna, to have toast with membrillo or to have nothing but coffee. That is the only decision I feel like making this morning,’ he replied and picking up the paper disappeared behind it once more.

  ‘What was all that about, Anna Melody?’ asked Grandpa O’Dwyer who didn’t understand a word of Spanish. He belonged to the generation that expected everyone to speak English. Having lived in Argentina for sixteen years he had never even attempted to learn the language. Instead of picking up the essential phrases, the staff at Santa Catalina had found themselves having to interpret

  his gestures or the few words of Spanish that he would attempt in a very slow, very loud voice. When they raised their hands and shrugged in despair he would mutter irritably, ‘You’d have thought they’d have picked it up by now!’ and shuffle off to find someone who could translate for him.

  ‘She wants to play in the polo match,’ replied Anna, humouring him.

  ‘Bloody good idea. Show those boys a thing or two.’

  The water was cold against her skin as Sofia cut through the surface. Furiously she carved her way up and down the pool until she sensed she was being watched. Rising to the surface she noticed Maria.

  ‘Hold.' ’ she spluttered, catching her breath.

  ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘Don’t ask, I’m completely loca with irritation!’

  ‘The match? Your father won’t let you play?’ she said, stepping out of her white cotton shorts and stretching out on the sunbed.

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Call it intuition - you’re easy to read, Sofia.’

  ‘Sometimes, Maria, I could quite happily throttle my mother.’

  ‘Couldn’t we all,’ replied Maria, pulling her lotions out of her tidy floral bag. ‘Oh no, you have no idea, your mother is a saint - a goddess from heaven. Chiquita is the sweetest person alive - I wish she were my mother.’

  ‘I know, I’m very lucky,’ conceded Maria who was the first to appreciate the good relationship she had with her mother.

  ‘I just wish Mama would leave me alone. It’s because I’m the youngest and the only girl,’ Sofia complained, climbing up the steps and taking her place alongside her cousin on one of the other sunbeds.

  ‘I suppose having Panchito takes up most of Mama’s attention.’

  ‘Wish I had a younger brother instead of those two oafs. Agustin is such a nightmare, he’s always getting at me. It’s the way he looks at me with that superior expression of his.’

  ‘Rafa’s kind to you.’

  ‘Rafa’s okay. No, Agustin’s got to go. I wish he’d leave and study abroad. I’d love to see the back of him, I really would.’

  ‘You never know, your wish might be granted.’

  ‘If you mean the tree, I’ve got more important wishes to ask for,’ Sofia told her, and smiled to herself. She didn’t want to waste one on Agustin.

  ‘So, what are you going to do about the match?’ Maria asked, smoothing oil onto her voluptuous thighs. lQuemada, no?1

  ‘Yes, you’re black, you look like one of the Indians! Hey, give me some. Thank God I haven’t inherited Mama’s red hair and pale skin - poor Rafa, he just goes as pink as a monkey’s bottom.’

  ‘So, come on, what are you going to do?’

  Sofia sighed deeply. ‘I surrender,’ she said dramatically, raising her arms in the air.

  ‘Sofia, that’s not like you.’ Maria was a little disappointed.

  ‘Well, I haven’t devised a plan yet - anyway, I don’t know if I can really be bothered. Though it would be worth it just to see Mama and Agustin’s faces.’

&nbs
p; Just then she was swept up from the sunbed by two very strong arms and before she could work out what was happening, found herself at once in the air and then in the water, sunglasses and all, struggling to free herself.

  ‘Santi!’ she gasped happily, coming up for air. ‘Boludo!’ Lunging at him, she pushed his grinning head under the water. To her delight he grabbed her in a bear hug around her hips and pulled her down with him where they wrestled together until they were forced to shoot up to the surface to breathe. Sofia wished they could fight some more but found herself reluctantly following him to the edge.

  Thanks a bunch. I was just beginning to cook.' she said at last when she had regained her breath.

  ‘You looked far too hot to me, like one of Jose’s sausages. I was doing you a favour.' he replied.

  ‘Some favour.’

  ‘So, Chofi, you’re not playing this afternoon?’ he goaded. ‘You’ve really wound your brothers up like two clockwork mice.’

  ‘Good, they needed their cages rattling a bit.'

  ‘You didn’t really think Paco would let you, did you?’

  ‘If you have to know - yes, I thought I could get around Papa.’

  Santi smirked in amusement, the lines around his eyes and mouth creasing in a way that was particular only to him. He looks so handsome when he smiles, thought Sofia to herself.

  ‘If anyone can get around old Paco, then you can - what went wrong?’

  ‘Let me spell it for you: M-A-M-A.’

  ‘Oh, I see. No hope then?’

  ‘None.’

  Santi climbed out and sat on the hot paving stones; his chest and arms were already covered in soft, sandy-coloured hair that the young Sofia found curiously intriguing.

  ‘Chofi, you have to prove to your father that you can play as well as Agustin,’ he suggested, pushing his dripping blond hair away from his eyes.

  ‘You know I can play as well as Agustin. Jose knows I can - ask him.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think, or what Jose thinks - the only person you have to impress is your father... or mine.’

  Sofia squinted thoughtfully for a moment.

  ‘What are you plotting now?’ he asked, amused.