Garden of Stars

by Rose Alexander

  Surfacing momentarily, I choked up the sickly, salty water in my mouth and then forced my body to relax, to stop struggling, so that I could regain some energy. Dragged repeatedly back and forth I could just make out, between the rise and fall of the waves, John on the distant beach. The tiny pinprick of light from the cigarette in his hand was like a beacon reaching out to me as I battled with the sea.

  I knew then that I could not give up.

  Eventually, after strenuous minutes that seemed like hours of gargantuan effort, I managed to reach the point where the waves broke, but this just presented another challenge. The force of each one picked me up and dragged me under, rolling me over and over and filling my eyes, ears and mouth with sand which ground grittily against my teeth. The taste of the slimy salt water, thick and unctuous, was utterly nauseating but I fought on because I had to.

  In between each wave’s ebb and flow, I continued to snatch glimpses of John silhouetted against the moonlight, his shoulders hunched with anxiety, his body tense as he stared intently at me, nothing but black sea between us. I saw him raise a cigarette to his lips, then toss it disgustedly into the bushes when he found it burnt out and finished. As the next wave subsided, he lit another one, hands trembling as he protected the match from the wind, and took a long, deep drag, before turning his eyes back towards me.

  I could sense him willing me back to the shore, and I mustered all my strength and vocal power to call out, “I’m fine, John! Tudo bem! Don’t worry.”

  But my words were gathered up and snatched away by the wind and I knew that he didn’t hear them.

  Then, as if by some miracle, I found myself far enough in for the tips of my toes to make contact with the sandy bottom of the sea, and I managed to move forward a few paces before being sent flying by the next breaker. Slowly, gradually, I crept on, inch by inch until finally I crawled out of the water on all fours and collapsed onto the beach, exhausted. The air was cold now and the sky seemed to press down on me, suffocating me. Lying on the hard, wet sand, I could feel the vibration of the waves as they continued to thud hypnotically onto the shore.

  Almost at once, John was there, lifting me up by my shoulders and throwing the towel around me, kissing me and rubbing my back vigorously. “You were amazing,” he said. “But I shouldn’t have let you go. It’s far too rough here.”

  He hugged me; he is so tall and broad, and I so much smaller than him, that he can encompass all of me within his embrace. He took a corner of the towel and tenderly wiped the globules of wet sand from around my eyes and nose. “I thought you might not make it.” I heard how his voice was granular with fear, the muscles in his neck tense and thick with it. I let him pummel me dry, gradually feeling my body begin to warm up.

  “I was fine,” I lied. I had some strange sense of the need to save him – from what or from whom I wasn’t sure. From himself, perhaps? “I was never in real danger.”

  We both found ourselves looking towards the sea that had so nearly swallowed me. The waves seemed to be getting rougher, and more chaotic, crashing angrily onto the beach in contrast to the utter stillness of the night sky. I couldn’t believe, now, that I had gone into that broiling broth. I saw how foolish I had been.

  “Never do that again, Inês. I couldn’t bear to lose you. I need you too much.”

  I found myself unable to answer or respond to this plea. I went back behind the rock to retrieve my dress, stockings and cardigan. “You’ll never lose me,” I called to him. I wouldn’t make the mistake of swimming in such a sea again. =

  I watched his eyes follow me as I returned to where he sat, the way he seemed transfixed, unable to wrest his gaze away. My wet hair had fallen down around my shoulders and I could see from the strands around my face that its intense black glistened even darker than normal in the pale moonlight.

  “You look so beautiful like that,” John murmured softly. “Don’t put your hair up again. Just tonight, let me look at it as it is now.”

  “Soaking wet, thick with salt, bedraggled…but if that’s what you want…” I was dedicated to pleasing him after making him suffer so deeply so I gave my hair another quick rub and left it down.

  We walked back up the beach, hand in hand, to the restaurant where it was warm, and there was hot onion soup and red wine waiting. We ate quickly and then went back to the hotel, where John laid me on the bed and devoured me, hungrily, ravenously. And I put to the back of my mind my lingering puzzlement over why my strong, fearless, gallant husband had not dived heroically into the ocean to rescue me, but had stood, watching and waiting, upon the shore.

  Portugal, 2010

  Outside, the day was glorious, the sun already burning through the light scattering of cloud, the gardens soaked in iridescent summer green. Sarah walked slowly across the lawn towards the dining room. All around her, massive palms stretched towards the sky, their trunks encircled by thick creepers that wrapped around them in a constricting embrace. The gentle rustling of the branches of monkey puzzles, limes and pinus pineas filled the air. There was no one else around at this time on a Sunday morning, which Sarah was grateful for. She needed some quiet time before meeting Scott to absorb what she had read in Inês’s journal. Was this what her great-aunt had wanted her to know, but not been able to express? That valiant John, mythologised throughout the family for his audacious heroism in wartime and his indomitable spirit in peacetime, had not tried to save her from a greedy, savage sea but had left her to fend for herself? That he was not such a hero, after all? And if Inês had wanted her to know this, what did she want her to do with the knowledge?

  A tall plant, whose bright orange blooms were the shape of five-pointed stars, caught Sarah’s eye and she stepped off the grass and into the shadow of the trees to get a closer look, shivering a little as she left the sun’s warmth. Inês, who she had always thought she knew so well, clearly had a past that was more complex than Sarah had ever appreciated. She gazed thoughtfully down at the flower’s petals. They appeared so delicate, but were firm and stiff to the touch as she rubbed them between her fingers. She thought the flower might be scented, but when she moved her face closer to it she could smell nothing but damp earth. She ran her fingertips down the delicately spiky stem and the fern-like leaves. Tears came to her eyes as confusion overwhelmed her. If Inês, who always seemed so wise, so sorted, had in fact been prey to doubt and uncertainty, it was hardly surprising that Sarah was, too.

  Absorbed in her contemplation of this fact, she jumped when she sensed that someone was behind her. Slowly, she looked around to find that the silent onlooker was the concierge who she was sure had noted her odd behaviour the day she arrived, when she saw Scott’s name on the conference board. She adjusted the expression on her face into one which she hoped displayed calm serenity.

  “The flower is pretty,” she smiled warmly.

  “E bonita, sim,” replied the concierge. “But it has no scent.”

  Sarah felt a rush of irritation, wanted to retaliate, well I didn’t know that, did I, do you think flowers like this grow in England? Instead she smiled again.

  “Com licença,” she said, as she moved past the man, out of the shade and into the light. “Excuse me. I’m going to have breakfast.”

  He nodded, stepped aside, inclined his head forward in a semi bow, “Bom dia, senhora.”

  Nothing is private, is it? thought Sarah. Whatever we do, we’re always being watched, appraised, judged. As she walked away, trying to preserve an aura of dignity, she looked down at her hands and saw that the flower she had touched had stained her fingers a hue of flaming orange.

  Scott was already at a table in the dining room when she got there. He had got her a plate of fruit and placed it at her seat. Two circular pieces of dragon fruit formed her china blue eyes, a slice of watermelon her mouth. He’d given her a grape nose and two strips of mango for her blonde hair. As soon as she saw it, she felt the waves of laughter rise up and clapped her hand to her mouth so as not to disturb the background of polite
murmuring.

  Scott’s lazy smile was tinged with an animation that revealed his pleasure in her reaction.

  “Thank you.” Sarah sat down, still chuckling. “I never knew you were such an artist!” She rearranged one of the slices of mango. “And I’m sorry I kept you waiting – I went for a walk in the gardens and needed to wash my hands before eating.”

  “That’s OK. I’ve waited for you for so long, another few minutes doesn’t make any difference.”

  Sarah found herself staring at her plate as if she were glued in position. He was teasing, obviously. She casually picked up one of her eyes and put it into her mouth, crunching its firm skin between her teeth.

  Scott dropped a sugar lump deliberately into his coffee and watched as the ripples it created spread and widened before beginning to subside.

  “So,” he said, pushing the sugar bowl forcefully back into the centre of the table. “What are your plans for the day?” His voice was casual, his demeanour relaxed. But Sarah could sense an urgency that hung expectantly in the air like the swirling steam from the coffee cup.

  “Check out time from here is midday, isn’t it,” she replied, brightly. “I’ll probably go for a swim, then get my stuff together and head off.”

  “Have you got any meetings planned for this afternoon?” Scott began to vigorously stir his coffee, paying no attention to what he was doing, sending the creamy brown liquid slopping over the rim of the cup.

  “No, but I’ve never been to Porto before so I’d like to take a look around,” Sarah replied. “I’ll probably start work on writing the article, as well, or at least drafting what I’ve got so far.”

  The teaspoon rattled noisily in the saucer as Scott let it go. He reached out across the table and rested his hand on hers. “Look, my flight to Canada is leaving on Monday, too. There are a few things I should be doing between now and then, but I can cancel them, or rearrange.” He squeezed her fingers tightly. “Can I come to Porto with you? So we have one more day together? I don’t know when I’ll be back in Portugal.”

  Alarm subsumed Sarah, causing her cheeks to burn and her palms to perspire. She wasn’t sure if it was caused by Scott’s proposition or his final statement, which seemed to cement a future in which he was firmly out of reach, far from European soil.

  “Scott, I, I just don’t know,” she stuttered. Her eyes wandered around the room, seeking out the reassuring shapes of the ornate frescos, the gilded cornices, the plasterwork mouldings in the shape of ripe grapes, pears, peaches. They came to rest on his, and he smiled, releasing her hand at the same time.

  “Go on. For old times’ sake.”

  Sarah remembered that she had put forward to Hugo the same excuse for their evening out. How much ‘old times’ sake’ could she justify, how many trips down memory lane were too many for a married woman who was precariously close to slipping up on the well-worn cobbles?

  “It’s way too much trouble, going all the way to Porto and back just for lil’ ol’ me.” She tried to turn her response into a joke, sensed that it fell flat, realised it was too late to backtrack.

  Scott reached for another lump of sugar from the bowl and let it fall into his cup.

  His coffee is going to taste like caramel at this rate, thought Sarah, distractedly.

  “That’s my decision, isn’t it?” Scott’s voice cut across her agitation.

  There was a long pause. Sarah looked down at the table on which lay her hands; working hands, hands that were rarely still but always busy, typing and texting, cooking and cleaning, or carrying, cuddling, comforting her girls. She looked at them and wished they were a magician’s and could conjure away the feelings creeping stealthily up on her that she knew she should banish without hesitation.

  “I’m not sure.” The words blurted out, too loud and too harsh. “What I mean is, it would be lovely to spend some more time with you, but – it’s not really appropriate, is it?”

  She pulled the sleeves of her jersey top down over her hands and clenched her fingers around them, an anxious habit she retained from childhood. “Look, I just don’t know. I’ve got responsibilities – my husband, my children. I need to think about it.”

  She pushed her chair back from the table and leapt up, almost bumping into a waiter carrying a silver pot of scalding coffee as she scurried out of the room.

  10

  Porto, 1936

  Our life in Porto is, in some ways, exactly as I had imagined it, and in others completely different. John and I have been married for a year now and we do live in an apartment with tall windows, but it is in a street and not a square and does not look out onto a fountain. The neighbourhood is smart and fashionable but, far in the distance and if I strain my eyes, I can just make out the tiny, one-storey houses of the poorest inhabitants of the city, tumbling down the hillsides like a child’s fallen building blocks. The small gardens are full of onions, fig trees and vine-covered trellises, with hutches where rabbits are kept for eating, and washing that flaps endlessly in the breeze. I like to stand at the window and look at these houses and imagine the lives that are lived there, the babies born and raised, the baptisms and weddings celebrated and the funerals wept over.

  It seems to me, though of course I may be wrong, that there is less concern about propriety in such neighbourhoods. Now we are ensconced in Porto, it is important to John that I fit in with all the other society ladies. It would not be good for his career for him to be associated with someone too wayward. In Portuguese, such women are called ‘brave’, which means wild and is not a compliment – not at all like the English ‘brave’. So I have to curb my impulsive nature and fit in. For my husband, because it is expected of me, I do it gladly, but not without effort.

  The pattern of our daily life mirrors that of all those of our class in Porto. Once the chores are done and the meals organised, I might go shopping in the city centre or meet a friend for coffee and an ice cream at the Café Majestic. This is a truly magnificent place; it is always packed and the waiters always immaculate in their white jackets beneath the malevolent plaster angels that grin maniacally down from the lofty walls as if they are surveying the fun. In the evenings, John and I sometimes go to the Cinema High Life to watch a film, or to the Avenida das Tílias to join the after dinner promenade. There, in the formal gardens by the Palácio de Cristal, with their sweeping views of the river Douro far below, the women show off their dresses in the latest fashions, children play beneath the cypress trees and men smoke and talk business as the cool of evening descends on the city. It is a calm and comfortable life that many would envy. But as I write that, I realise that it is also, frequently, a rather dull one. How ungrateful I am to say such a thing! But here in my diary I can tell the truth.

  Occasionally, at the weekends, we go to a nightclub, the Clube do Porto or the Primavera, where bands play and the drinking and dancing carries on long into the night. I have had my long hair cut into the bob style that is à la mode, as they would say in France. It is sleek and black as a raven’s wing and I love it. I have also taken to lining my eyes with kohl – not every day, just for evenings out. Secretly, I imagine that I am Queen Cleopatra, untouchable and aloof, marvelling at how my subjects bow to me. Such a silly pretence and anyway, I got my comeuppance and a fitting reward for such overweening pride. I went to the Primavera with friends as John was too tired and fell into conversation with a pair of delightful young men. When they propositioned me, I didn’t understand what they meant at first. Then it dawned on me that the nightclubs are full of prostitutes and their pimps. Perhaps I am not so worldly-wise as I like to believe myself, after all!

  Sometimes, in bed at night, I hear the hooves of the night guards’ horses on the cobbles in the street below, listen to the howls of the cats as they fight in the gutters, watch the patterns of the moonlight playing on the walls - and wonder if this is what happiness feels like.

  Portugal, 2010

  The little hire car bowled up the auto-estrada, bound for Porto, the kilo
metres speeding by as the sun climbed steadily higher. Sarah glanced to her side, to the passenger seat where Scott sat, lounging against the grey upholstery, long legs pulled up because the space in the seat well was so limited; the car was not really big enough for someone over six foot tall. He resembled a hunched-up spider and she couldn’t help but smile, even whilst the dull weight of guilt sat in her stomach.

  It’s one day and one night, twenty-four hours, and then it will be over. He’ll go back to his life and I’ll go back to mine, she had reasoned to herself as she struggled with whether to go along with Scott’s suggestion or not. And in the end, she had rung him in his room to say ‘yes’, because to say ‘no’ seemed churlish and inexplicable, as if she were accusing him in advance of some motive or agenda other than just wishing to enjoy the company of an old friend for a bit longer.

  And then she had read some more of the journal, and found Inês’s confessions of ennui, and what it had led to, and wondered if she were guilty of falling into a similar trap, boredom taking her down a wrong path, although what had happened to Inês could be put down to youthful innocence and Sarah had no such defence.

  Thinking this, she looked briefly again at Scott, his spiderish pose unchanged, and then immediately indicated, sped up and pulled out into the outside lane. Somehow getting to Porto quickly seemed to be synonymous with ending whatever it was that was going on, as if by driving at high speed she could fast forward time and make it all be over sooner with no damage done.

  Twenty minutes or so later, by which time she had calmed down a bit and was not only back to the nearside lane but also convinced of the fact that there was nothing wrong in her and Scott visiting Porto together, a loud ringing jolted her to attention. She looked down at where her phone lay underneath the handbrake and saw that it was Hugo. Hastily, she shoved her earphones into her ears one by one and answered.

  “What’s up,” she demanded, urgently. “Are the girls OK? Has something happened?”