He heard Lili make light conversation and respond to their apologies for the late arrival, attributed to rain and traffic problems leaving Madrid as well as becoming a little lost. Lili pointed to her own not so new Cayenne, making polite comparisons as they headed towards the office.
Enrique stood to greet their guests. Lili introduced the tall slim one first. She was Ana Delarosa. Enrique offered a kiss to both cheeks. She was even prettier than through the window. Lili turned from Ana to the lady in grey.
"Enrique, may I introduce Inmaculada Concepción, Condesa de Arenas de Ávila?"
He couldn't prevent himself. His jaw disconnected from the rest of his face and brain. He was speechless. Lili and Ana almost laughed aloud at his expression. But not the Condesa, who addressed him.
"Have we met before? Your reaction suggests we must have. If so, please forgive me. I do not have a good memory for faces or names, and please forget my long mouthful of a Christian name. I'm Inma."
Her words, and pleasant tone, returned Enrique to reality. He managed to reconnect his jaw and stutter some words before kissing her as he had Ana. Was this real? Was he being courteous to a member of Opus Dei? He couldn't believe himself.
Lili rescued Enrique. She suggested coffee. Inma and Ana accepted. Enrique fled to finish its preparation. On his re-entry he found the three women in full flow. He placed the coffees in the middle of the table and invited everyone to help themselves.
With the social necessities complete, he waited to see who would say what. The Condesa took the initiative, surprising him for a second – or was it a third? – time in under ten minutes.
"Perhaps we met in my previous life as a member of Opus and working for Reaseguros OD, España. I'd the good fortune to meet many people through them. What you should know is I've left Opus behind and, in departing, I resigned from Reaseguros OD, España because of those close links to Opus. I've had nothing to do with either for a couple of years now. Instead I founded my own re-insurance and consulting business. Ana is my associate. We're here to discuss how we might assist you."
Inma halted, as if to search for a specific turn of phrase. She took a deep breath.
"In my past Opus existence I believe I was known for a certain form of dress referred to, including within my own family, as a 'shapeless brown tent'. I hope you see a change?"
As she uttered this, Inma focused on Ana, eyes crinkling in good humour. Ana, in contrast, sat transfixed. She hadn't known for sure whether her cousin had heard of the 'brown tent' epithet. Now she knew for certain. She grimaced. She herself had used it on more than one occasion, yet Inma had never said a thing.
Inma's mini speech, however, bought time for Enrique's overwhelmed brain to catch up. He caught Inma's attention.
"To be honest, Inma, it was your Opus dimension that bothered me. It seems this is no longer relevant. If you have cut your Opus connections we receive you here with much greater enthusiasm."
He held up his hand.
"Please. Those last words were ungracious. They weren't meant to be. Welcome to Olivos Ramos y Tremblay and to a true home of EVOO."
"EVOO?" demanded Inma and Ana. Lili chose to reply.
"Ah. That's my fault," interposed Lili. "EVOO is my shorthand for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Enrique hates the term. It's not an elegant acronym or we would use it for marketing. Can you imagine bottles of olive oil with EVOO plastered all over? Yet it does save oxygen."
The atmosphere, which had tensed when Enrique re-entered with the coffee, calmed. Business began.
Chapter Four
Winter
Monday: Madrid
Ana arrived home, strung out. Unlike the talkative drive down to Úbeda, the trip back to Madrid had passed in silence as she and Inma reflected. Ana had been grateful for the lack of interaction. The weekend had not worked out as expected. She was happy they had only needed to work in the office on Monday afternoon. There was too much to absorb. She required some intense thinking time.
She checked her voicemail. One message requested her to see or make contact with her grandmother. This added further tension.
Pouring a glass of white wine, she picked up her tablet and made herself comfortable on the one sofa in her small apartamento, which she and Davide had shared when sequestered together by the police. It seemed a long time ago and still nothing from him. Had he chosen to forget her? He couldn't have. Could he?
Enough of this, she chided herself. She selected Skype to connect to her grandmother, who responded without delay. This was unusual. Their short exchange produced Ana's agreement to visit on Friday. Her grandmother had news but wouldn't expand. Ana tingled in anticipation. Such deliberate indirection meant one subject for discussion, namely whether she and Davide were blood-related.
For the better part of a year uncertainty had hung over her. She and Davide had become close through their involvement in uncovering a business and political scandal, now referred to as 'Corruption's Price'. Along the way, this had brought down politicians and a government as well as exposing business people and the ways in which the few lined their pockets at the expense of the many.
It had been an exciting time when the investigating judge had obliged Davide and herself to live together with no contact with colleagues or friends until certain decisions were made and legal actions taken. She'd found herself happy in a man's continuous company for the first time in years. Davide was like that. She could talk to him even as he challenged her. For good or ill he pierced her inner thoughts and emotions.
But Davide's uncle, tio Toño, blew everything apart just as success seemed imminent. He'd intimated the two of them possessed a degree of consanguinity sufficient to dissuade them from further involvement.
Davide left Madrid, which in fairness he had been planning, with minimal goodbyes and subsequently no contact at all. The last time she'd seen him was at the infamous celebratory dinner when the 'four Amazons', using Davide's acid description, were dressed to kill – and had almost succeeded with Davide and his uncle. It had been an evening to remember, particularly Davide's unfettered admiration.
His leaving had flattened her. Unexpectedly, Cousin Inma stepped in. Inma invited Ana to join her business and insisted she talk with her grandmother, their family's know-all, to see whether La Abuela could throw any light on the past.
The hard work with Inma, albeit with a much improved income, had distracted Ana for the past months. That was welcome. Yet, as Inma had guessed last week, the 'Davide wound' remained fresh. Now she needed to visit her grandmother who might announce the impossibility of any future. Or she might find a 'Get-out-of-Gaol-Free' card (unlikely). Or there might be some middle ground that was unsatisfactory for all (probable).
Ana finished her wine. After a brief hesitation, she poured more. She shouldn't. Too much would make her weepy. She'd had more than enough of that. She forced herself to change subjects and reflect on the visit to Úbeda. Inma would demand a post-mortem before long, most likely tomorrow, and Ana liked being prepared. Her mind slid back to Friday.
Once the embarrassment caused by their late arrival and Enrique's hostile reaction to Inma had been overcome, the discussions centred on what insurance or re-insurance she and Inma could offer Enrique and Lili's business. Soon it emerged that Olivos Ramos y Tremblay was not one business but a collection that not only produced the highest quality olive oil plus lesser grades, but also an olive oil by-products business including soaps, perfumes and the like, a milling operation, an experimental village and more. They'd enjoyed a simple lunch and continued talking well into Friday afternoon.
All of a sudden Inma stopped everything. She explained she was becoming confused. Without a sound understanding there was no prospect of mutual business.
Ana reimagined Enrique's shock. Again he'd been upset, this time at Inma's bluntness. Ana had sensed his earlier resentments re-assembling, in marked contrast to the openness and depth of knowledge he'd been displaying.
Lili, in contrast, was smoothness
incarnate. Without pause she'd intervened to enquire what would satisfy Inma. Inma had needed to reflect before asking if it might be possible to inspect the physical aspects of their operations. Lili clearly thought Inma's interest was for some time in the future – or never. Even to Ana Inma had sounded like she was communicating polite disinterest as a precursor to their departure.
Inma sprang her next surprise by revealing how she and Ana had booked to stay at the Úbeda Parador until Monday. Their intention had been to have a weekend break, taking advantage of the location, sauna and a local gym. Although it was short notice, was there any way to make use of their time in Úbeda?
Ana summoned her image of Lili and Enrique. Even to outsiders they were close enough to enjoy unspoken communication, though it was Lili who replied. She'd explained she and Enrique lived quite close to the Parador and, if it suited Inma and Ana, why not join Enrique and her on Saturday to inspect all? They could have dinner.
Inma had beamed, claiming it was just what she'd hoped for. Later Ana had wanted to find out if this was another classic Inma set-up. Within, Ana had been less enthusiastic. She'd been looking forward to some time off. That it wasn't going to happen had been obvious on that Friday afternoon. And it hadn't.
Not just Saturday but Sunday was consumed in walking the olive groves, from the highest quality oil-producing ones to those that produced inferior grades. Next came the olive oil mills plus the bottling and branding operations. After that came oil waste processing and the cosmetics, which included some perfumes as well as soap and lighting oil. She and Inma received samples.
On top of all this was what, to Ana, remained the most astonishing aspect. How Enrique and Lili had taken a deserted and decrepit hamlet close to the Guadalquivir and started rebuilding, but with a difference. Their initial objective was to develop inexpensive premises for first the milling, bottling and warehousing of their olive oil, followed by the cosmetics and soaps and a small shop.
According to Enrique a couple of their workers approached them with the idea they might, at their own cost, redevelop two of the pretty much collapsed village houses as places to live close to work. These succeeded so well that others begged to join in.
After a fierce, brief fight with the local Ayuntamiento's planning people, Enrique (here Lili gave him all the credit) had managed to convince its councillors that this ecological regeneration of an old, depopulated, pueblo was not only a good idea in itself but should be expanded by authorising would-be home developers to acquire the decrepit walls and structures from other disused pueblos in the greater area. They would bring these back to the reborn pueblo so that its external walls would be constructed from traditional materials. With the necessary permits issued, Enrique had opened up the opportunity further, though only to those who worked for them.
To Ana, Enrique and Lili had been farsighted. They established a master plan for the expansion of the pueblo and allocated land for the replacement 'new' houses to be created from the recycled ruins. The plots cost their employees nothing. They were Enrique's contribution to the 'new' houses.
Yet the land ownership remained Enrique's, though the concept must have come from Lili. By retaining the land rights Enrique and Lili had created a miniature property investment vehicle and this extraordinary tale was not yet complete. They were even now assessing requests from outsiders to establish a café/restaurante, a couple of speciality shops, a bar with rooms to stay above, and more.
What was so incredible to Ana was how all this had been created from nothing. The abiding impression she had been left with was that Enrique was a natural agronomist and olive producer while Lili was the financial and business brains. Over the weekend she'd come to like Enrique more than Lili. Could she fancy him? That must be put aside. With Inma it appeared the reverse. She connected with Lili. Their meals, for they had shared lunch and dinner on Saturday and on Sunday, had brought all of them closer together, but as two pairs rather than a business foursome.
At least this was how they left it. Ana doubted if there was anything of sufficient substance in practice to warrant Inma's prolonged interest. Using her tablet she made some notes in preparation for when Inma wanted to deconstruct the time in Úbeda. Such deconstruction was inevitable. It was Inma's way.
Tuesday: Úbeda
On Tuesday morning Enrique avoided Lili. More often it was the other way round, though sometimes he took the initiative if it could be called that. His technique today was to rise before her, skip showering, grab a swift coffee and head out to the olive groves before she could intercept him. He knew she would want to rehash the weekend. He was already a little surprised she hadn't started yesterday, which meant it was a certainty for today. He wasn't sure he wanted to, at least not in the exhaustive detail she would demand.
Trained as an agronomist with specialist courses in viticulture, his first interest had been vines and wine. From childhood, his father had rabbited on about the good living available to those who waved their agricultural degrees at grapes to produce wine. His father, in retrospect, had expected his son to turn vinous magic from the dry, dusty soil of northern Andalucía, even if much of their land lay close by the Guadalquivir River.
Enrique had never convinced his father of the realities of their land. Frustrated by unsustainable expectations he'd taken himself off to Tuscany for a change of scenery. That was why he'd met Lili. She had changed his life by redirecting him from wine to olive trees and the fruit of their fruits.
Nowadays it was olive trees, with their ability to deliver year in and year out, which motivated him. Whenever he needed to escape he vanished into his groves to walk and labour among the trees, seeking pests, pulling up weeds or joining in the efforts of those he paid to do the maintenance. Among straightforward people, and sheltered by his unargumentative trees, he could achieve a mental peace along with a renewal of his never ceasing amazement at plants that could require so little attention and provide so much, so often.
Today nobody was working in his favourite grove, a special one that sat on a well-drained rise about 300 metres from the lazy, sludgy-green waters of the Guadalquivir. This grove was a mix. The Arbequina cultivar, once rare in Andalucía, was now more common because its olives made a light but delicious olive oil. Most other trees were Picual, much more common to the area and noted for their fiercer taste as well as an oil with a longer shelf life.
Where the delicate Arbequina oil, even if sheltered from light and heat, lasted at best eighteen to twenty-four months from harvesting before losing its taste and value, the Picual doubled this when kept in the right conditions. This encapsulated one of the contrasts between wine and olive oil. The growing of the fruit for each had much in common. Yet, where wine improves with age and over many years, olive oil quality begins to decline almost from the moment it is produced. Slowly at first, but accelerating. Enrique caught himself. He was oversimplifying.
The bigger truth was that an olive on the branch deteriorated from the moment it was picked. Bruise it and it would fester. Leave unbruised olives more than a few hours before crushing and they would oxidise, begin fermentation or develop mould. Any of these ruined their taste.
This was why the best producers insisted on pressing their picked olives not in the same week, or even on the same day but within two or three hours of the fruits leaving the tree. It was the justification he'd made to Lili about placing their first mill within the disused pueblo in a rehabilitated building. By doing this, he argued, they reduced the distance and time from grove to mill, thereby lengthening the lifespan of their best oils.
He bent to pull out some weeds. He glowered. More unharvested fruit was apparent on the branches or fallen on the ground than he liked to find. Olive trees did not need much attention. He turned or strimmed the dry soil around each tree a couple of times a year. He pruned every couple of years. Watering came by drip feeding, when needed, accomplished through an expensive network of buried piping that paid for itself in water saved as well by accurate delivery
. The only other activities were occasional pest control and the harvesting. Of these the clearing and picking were the most labour intensive.
These days mechanisation removed the weeds. Efficient olive picking, on the other hand, was a challenge. The three distinct methods were tree-shaking by machine, branch-beating and picking-by-hand. The first two shook the olives off the tree onto mantas, or nets, which lay on the ground. Their disadvantage was they damaged the trees. Worse, when the olives fell, they could bruise, though this could be ameliorated with costly nets held up by stakes driven into the ground. Such elevated nets provided a 'dampener' for the olives to drop with less damage. Bruised olives accelerated oxidisation and sour tastes.
Hand-picking was best but horrific in its expense, as well as being tedious and long-winded. You picked only what you could mill within two to three hours.
In practice, he and Lili used all three methods, depending on what quality of oil they sought. He was even experimenting on a small scale with what its proponents called Super High Density olive tree planting. This took young plants and cultivated them on a trellis system, much like for some grape varieties. When the olive 'vines' matured massive, expensive harvesters, adapted from grape picking, would trundle above and alongside each trellis removing the olives from their branches in hours, not people-intensive days.
That at least was the idea. It was, perhaps, workable for a decent number of hectares, with some 1,600-1,800 trees per hectare, compared to the accepted 500 or so in conventional high production planting.
The jury was still out concerning the economics for his Super High Density approach. Buying or leasing one of those harvesters alone kept Lili awake. There was no guarantee the quality or quantity would justify the expense or the effort taken to maintain the trellises that still took the same five years before they became productive. This year's harvest would reveal if his Super High Density initiative was worthwhile – if they were still in business.
Virginity Despoiled Page 6
