Encarnita's Journey

by Joan Lingard

  ENCARNITA’S JOURNEY

  JOAN LINGARD

  For Rob, Elspeth and Drew, amigos de Nerja.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  EDINBURGH

  CHILDHOOD: YEGEN

  YEGEN, 1920

  1920

  1923

  1929

  1930

  1932

  1935

  WOMANHOOD: ALMUÑECAR

  SUMMER, 1935

  1935

  1936

  EASTER SUNDAY, 1939

  1939

  1939

  1939

  MOTHERHOOD: NERJA

  NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1940

  MAY 1945

  MAY, 1955

  1970

  1985

  2002

  THE LAST STAGE: EDINBURGH

  2002

  TWENTY-TWO

  JOURNEY’S END

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By Joan Lingard

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  EDINBURGH

  Celia Marjoribanks is beginning to think she may have made a mistake by allowing these two unknown Spanish women to come into her house. She hovers, tidying a few magazines, pretending to be occupied, while keeping an eye on the older woman, the mother, whose name is Encarnita. Encarnita pauses in her dusting of the bookcase and turns, then jabbing the spine of a book with a blunt forefinger she says, ‘I know that woman.’

  Celia Marjoribanks goes over to look. She frowns as she peers to read the title. To the Lighthouse. ‘Really? You know her? Virginia Woolf? I mean, you knew her? She’s dead.’

  Encarnita nods. ‘Dead. She must be dead. She older than me.’

  Celia has been wondering what age Encarnita is ever since she presented herself at her door with her daughter. At least eighty, she thinks, if not more. Her face looks weathered and it is scored by many lines but her eyes are dark and arresting.

  ‘Yes, I knowed her,’ says Encarnita.

  ‘That is interesting,’ says Celia, who is finding this difficult to believe, though perhaps Encarnita might have worked for Virginia Woolf. She tries to calculate how long ago that might have been to see if it could have been possible. Didn’t Virginia Woolf die not long after the beginning of the Second World War? Wasn’t she depressed by the war, amongst other things? She seems to remember that she was but then her memory is not as good as it used to be. And she’s not much over fifty. But aren’t the brain cells supposed to start dwindling early? Cuthbert is eight years older than her yet he appears not to have a diminished memory. Not that he would not admit to it if he had.

  ‘I have this book,’ says Encarnita, stabbing To the Lighthouse again.

  ‘You have it?’ But could she have actually read it? Celia does not like to ask. Surely not. The woman’s command of English can hardly be good enough to cope with Virginia Woolf.

  ‘She wear nice shoes with buttons. Nice leather shoes. Soft. I feel them.’

  Celia gives Encarnita an uncertain smile, then she trawls along the shelves looking for a biography of Virginia Woolf. Ah, yes, she thought that they would have one. It’s by Quentin Bell. She pulls it out and blows dust off the cover.

  ‘I dust,’ says Encarnita, holding out her hand.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ says Celia, drawing the book away. This woman is proving much too invasive. She cannot understand how she did let the two of them enter the house. Cuthbert won’t understand it either. She flicks through the pages until she finds Chronology, then, with Encarnita squinting over her shoulder, obviously not taking the hint, she finds that Virginia Woolf died on the 28th of March, 1941. More than sixty years ago. It might just have been possible for Encarnita to work for her.

  ‘Did you work for her?’ Celia asks. She is conscious of speaking slowly and clearly as if to a child, the way one tends to do to someone whose native language is not English.

  ‘Work?’ Encarnita shakes her head. ‘No, not work.’

  ‘How then……?’

  ‘She come to my village.’

  ‘In Spain?’ Celia is beginning to see a glimmer of light. ‘Did she by any chance come to visit the writer Gerald Brenan?’

  ‘Don Geraldo, we call him. He teach me English.’

  ‘How very fascinating. My husband will be most interested. He teaches English literature.’

  ‘He teach this woman?’

  ‘Yes. Not her herself, you understand. Her work. Her books.’

  ‘I knowed this man too.’ Encarnita points now at Eminent Victorians. She had seen it in Don Geraldo’s house.

  ‘Lytton Strachey?’

  ‘Yes, Señor Stratchee.’

  ‘My goodness, what a good memory you must have! It must be a long time ago?’

  ‘Yes, very good memory.’ Encarnita taps her forehead. ‘My mother say everything what goes in my head stay in my head from very early age.’

  ‘Your mother, she’s not alive too, is she?’ Celia feels she would not be surprised by anything now. Perhaps Encarnita’s mother is waiting outside to come in and join them.

  ‘No, she dead many years. Die young. She have the hard life.’ Encarnita goes back to Eminent Victorians. ‘Señor Stratchee come to my village also, with two friends. He no like to ride mule. He have piles.’

  ‘How unfortunate.’ Celia stifles a giggle.

  ‘Yes, not fortunate.’

  ‘So, remind me, the name of your village is —?’

  ‘Yegen.’

  ‘Of course! I should have remembered. In the Alpujarra, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.’

  ‘You correct.’

  ‘My husband and I spent a couple of weeks in the Alpujarra a few years ago. Beautiful part of the world.’ She must have photographs somewhere. She’s been meaning to sort out their holiday snaps for years and put them in albums.

  ‘You went to Alpujarra?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Marvellous far away from the world feeling. Wonderful air, so clear and clean.’

  ‘Not when all the fires in village smoke.’

  ‘Well, maybe not. We went to Yegen and saw the house Gerald Brenan lived in. We read his book.’

  ‘Al sur de Granada.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Though we read it in English.’

  Celia had been rather disappointed in the village and couldn’t understand why Brenan had chosen it to live in when there were much prettier places around in Andalucía, especially the white hill pueblos further west, although, as Cuthbert had pointed out, they might not have been quite so pretty in 1920, before the onset of mass tourism. Yegen was a Berber village and the houses looked rather like boxes with flat roofs stuck together, reminiscent of ones they’d seen on a trip to Morocco. The Yegen houses had been whitewashed when they had seen them but Cuthbert had said that in Brenan’s day most of them would probably have been grey, since whitewash cost money and it was a poor village. The view had been marvellous, for the village stood at twelve hundred metres above sea level; they had looked out across a great sweep of mountains, valleys and villages, edged by the distant sea. It had been siesta time on a humid summer’s day and the silence had been immense.

  ‘I not live in Yegen now,’ says Encarnita. ‘I move to Nerja, on coast, many years ago.’

  ‘We went to Nerja, too. We had a wonderful week there, staying in the parador.’

  ‘You were in Nerja? And I not see you!’

  ‘Even if you had seen me you wouldn’t have known who I was.’

  ‘Oh, but I would. I sure I knowed you.’ The woman sounds distressed.

  ‘I don’t see how,’ says Celia gently.

  Encarnita stares back at her with those large dark eyes, unnerving he
r a little.

  At that moment, the telephone rings and Celia goes to answer it in the hall, leaving the drawing room door ajar so that she can still see Encarnita. After all, she doesn’t know the women, she cannot blame herself for being watchful, even if they do seem very open, perhaps even too open. They did bring a reference with them but it was from a woman she had never heard of. Typical of you, Cuthbert would say, though not sharply. He can go back in time to recall instances when she has allowed someone to take advantage of her. He is seldom angry but he can be reproachful, showing it by just a little look over the top of his glasses. Sometimes she thinks she would prefer it if he were angry for then she could respond, and defend herself. If she tries he says, let’s forget it, dear, let’s not make an issue out of it, it’s not that important, which leaves her with a slight feeling of resentment. He is a well balanced, well modulated man, who is never tempted to have that extra drink, whereas she is. It is difficult to argue against a policy of moderation.

  ‘You are too trusting, you know, love,’ he’d say if he were to come in now, which – fortunately – he is unlikely to do. He has tutorials until lunchtime. ‘One day —’ He would leave the possibilities to hang in the air.

  But when she opened the door to the women she had felt as if she had seen them before, somewhere. The daughter, especially.

  ‘Celia Marjoribanks,’ she says now, watching Encarnita dust To the Lighthouse with a kind of reverence. ‘Ah, Lilias. No, I’m not particularly busy, I can talk. I’m doing my Oxfam stint this afternoon.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Actually I’ve just got a couple of new cleaners in… Yes, I’ll let you know if they’re any good.’

  Encarnita has replaced To the Lighthouse and is dusting another book. Possibly Mrs Dalloway. That is one of Cuthbert’s favourites. Celia realises it’s a long time since she has read any Virginia Woolf; she read her at a certain time in her life, with pleasure, she would have to admit, but she is not sure if she would want to go back to her now. The film The Hours, however, has rekindled a new spark of interest.

  ‘They’re Spanish,’ she informs her friend Lilias. ‘No, they do speak English, well, after a fashion. But I don’t think they’d know it well enough to understand what I’m saying. They’re mother and daughter. Daughter’s called Concepción – yes, Concepción. You know how the Spanish tend to have all these odd Christian names. Ascención and Maria-Jésus, names like that. Concepción must be all of sixty. The mother’s called Encarnita. Short for Encarnación. Wonderful, isn’t it?’

  The dusting of the books is continuing at a slow measured pace, each one being scrutinised before it’s replaced in its slot on the shelf. From upstairs comes the growl of the vacuum cleaner and the occasional thud as Concepción shifts a piece of furniture out of the way.

  ‘How did I get them? A flyer was put through my door, you know the way the odd one comes through about executive housekeeping and so forth. No, this one didn’t offer that. It said: “Mother and Daughter Team. Two for the price of one. Mother will do dusting and cleaning of silver and brasses. Daughter, all other work. Phone Connie.” It gave a number in our area so I thought it would be handy if they lived nearby, no bus fares for a start. I didn’t actually get round to phoning. Then, this morning, they just turned up on the doorstep and asked if I would give them a chance. They had an excellent reference from a woman in St Stephen Street. They actually offered to give me a free trial run, not that I would dream of not paying them.’

  The noise has stopped overhead. Concepción’s fuzzy greyish-blond head appears over the top bannister. ‘No find plug for electrics in study,’ she yells down to Celia.

  ‘Don’t touch study!’ Celia cries in alarm. Cuthbert can’t stand people messing about in his study. She did tell Concepción not to go in there but she must not have understood. ‘It’s my husband’s study. Leave, please, leave!’ Now she is beginning to talk like them. Concepción’s head has withdrawn. Celia goes back to her call.

  ‘I suppose it was a bit of a risk but, to tell the truth, I felt rather sorry for the two of them, at their ages, having to trail round houses looking for work. Can you imagine if you had to do that? So I thought, what do I have to lose?’ Encarnita is still engrossed in the bookcase. ‘Well, of course I suppose I could lose something but I rather think they’re honest.’

  The vacuum has roared into life again overhead. Celia hopes it is not in Cuthbert’s study. She wonders if the women in Yegen have vacuum cleaners. Lilias is reminding her of the amethyst necklace she had once had stolen by a former ‘cleaning operative’, as thus she had described herself.

  ‘These two women don’t have a shifty look to them the way that one did. They both look you in the eye, very directly, though I have to admit that there is something a little unsettling about them, I can’t explain it.’ Celia, catching sight of herself in the hall mirror, sees that she is frowning and makes a conscious effort to relax her forehead. She says in a more decided voice, ‘I am sure they are absolutely fine. They’ll have finished, anyway, before Cuthbert gets back.’

  In the heart of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town, in a warm, elegant drawing room, scented with yellow freesias, delicately arranged in a shallow orange-coloured bowl, Encarnita continues with her work. The sun streaming in through the three, almost floor-length windows warms her back. She moves from the bookcase to the grand piano on top of which stand a series of photographs in silver frames. Family photographs. Groups of various kinds on days of celebration. There is Celia on her wedding day with her husband. That must be her husband Cuthbert. She is wearing a white silky-looking dress with a long train that has been arranged in a swirl around her feet like a big comma. She holds a sheath of red roses against the white dress and she is smiling. The man is wearing a kilt with knee socks and a black jacket with silver buttons. He has a straight back and a small, neat moustache. He looks proud to have such a lovely bride on his arm. It is not possible from this picture to know what kind of a man he is but Encarnita will find out when she meets him for she is certain that she will. The next photograph is of three small children, a boy and two girls. She has seen none of these people before but here is a young man whom she once knew and recognises still even though he had wild tangled hair and a beard when she knew him and in this picture he is clean-shaven. He is sitting under a silver birch tree on a summer’s day, with a book on his lap. The leaves above his head are shimmering in the sunshine lighting up his golden-red hair. He is smiling directly at the camera. He is smiling directly at her. She gently slides the duster over the glass and replaces the frame on top of the shiny piano.

  Out in the hall, Celia Marjoribanks carries on talking to her friend in a soft, low voice, too soft and low for Encarnita to make out what she is saying. But she is content. She has completed her journey and when Celia has finished talking to her friend and comes back into the room then she, Encarnita, will tell her story.

  CHILDHOOD: YEGEN

  YEGEN, 1920

  Encarnita was born only minutes into the new year of the new decade. Her birth took place in the lower barrio of the pueblo in one of its poorest dwellings. The upper floor of the house having long since fallen into disrepair, Pilar, Encarnita’s mother, lived on the lower one which formerly had been a stable and still served partly as such. Births in stables were not unknown. In the corner, tied to a stake, stood their goat, Gabriella, restless witness to the birth along with a neighbour, Isabel, who had borne many children herself.

  The confinement went well in the end in spite of Pilar’s exhaustion at having laboured for twelve hours and more. Isabel encouraged her, holding apart her knees, crying out, ‘It comes! It comes! I see the head. Push one more time!’ With that Pilar grunted and willed her body to eject the child within her. She had made no noise throughout except to utter a small groan or whimper. She was a quiet, unassuming woman who never wished to attract attention. After Isabel had helped ease out the dark matted head the baby slithered quickly and easily onto the bloodied straw between her mother�
��s legs. Isabel seized her by the ankles and holding her aloft delivered a hearty to slap to her shrivelled bottom. Encarnita responded with an angry roar and opening wide her dark, soot-black eyes she glared at her assailant. Isabel laughed and said this child would have a will of her own, like her youngest, Juliana.

  Once the afterbirth had come cleanly away she wrapped the baby in a piece of new cloth purchased from the pedlar and placed her in her mother’s arms. Pilar gazed with wonder into the shadowy face of her child. The candles had sunk low and soon their flames would gutter and die but they had served their purpose and in a few hours dawn would come.

  ‘My little dove,’ murmured Pilar, though the baby looked little like one for even in that poor light it could be seen that her skin was dusky and her hair, curling in soft fronds around her face, was as black as pitch. Pilar had not revealed the identity of the father but it was rumoured that he was a gypsy from Guadix, which was more than possible. Gypsies came regularly about the village and Pilar had a weakness for their men, especially those who sang haunting love songs. The women in the village said it was a pity she had not paid more attention to the songs that spoke mostly of ill-fated love which ends in grief. Especially for the woman.

  A more surprising event than the birth of a new child in the village was the coming of a tall, fair-haired young Englishman to live in their midst. His name was Gerald Brenan and he soon became known as Don Geraldo. He rented the largest house in the barrio and began to make changes. One of the first things that he did was to whitewash the outside walls while his housekeeper Maria dodged to and fro underneath mopping up the drips. This said a great deal in itself. Only a small handful of villagers could afford whitewash and, even less, a servant to mop up drips. He then had two thousand books brought up by wagon from the coast down in Almería nearly a hundred kilometers away. Two thousand! Could anyone ever read so many books? The neighbours stood and gaped as they were unloaded, Pilar among them, with her newborn child in her arms. Few were able to read though there was a school which some children attended when they were not needed to help in the fields. There they learnt to recognise and write a few letters, count up to a hundred, recite the names of the continents and sing hymns and prayers. Not all parents could see the value of it though Pilar knew that when the time came she would make sure her child learned to read and write. It was something she had always yearned to do herself.