Sunset over the Cherry Orchard

by Jo Thomas

  And with that he slowed the horse, easing him back to a steady canter, along with his confused thoughts, sitting back in the saddle, taking control of the pace once more.

  With Suerte in his paddock taking a long drink from the water trough, Antonio returned to the restaurant. He was hot and sweaty, running his fingers through his damp hair. Beti and Miguel had finished watering and were sitting on the terrace, clearly waiting to speak to him.

  He strode over towards the steps, not missing a beat. If he faltered he would lose his nerve, he knew that. He was putting all his trust in this woman. But something told him she was worth it. She stood as he approached, looking apologetic, and he hoped she wasn’t going to change her mind. But he couldn’t be distracted. He marched up the steps and stopped in front of her, his heels marking his arrival.

  ‘We start practising tomorrow. After watering. Here. Ten a.m. Don’t be late. Oh, and no one – no one,’ he emphasised, ‘must know a thing about this, or you will put my business, my reputation and my livelihood in jeopardy. Not that you haven’t done that already,’ he added under his breath. ‘Flamenco is still forbidden in this town and no one must find out about this. Understand?’

  She nodded, just once.

  He turned to walk away, and then turned back,

  ‘And wear shoes with a heel,’ he instructed, before marching up to the apartment, where he stood under the shower for a very long time wondering what on earth he’d let himself in for.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  What on earth have I let myself in for? I think, trying to read Antonio’s face and wondering if he’s feeling the same.

  I’m terrified, panicked but excited all at the same time. I can’t believe that he trusts me enough. He wants me to learn flamenco, and everything he owns now depends on me. I can’t let him down. I can’t let Miguel down. He’s just a boy who’s starting to actually have a childhood.

  ‘Now all he has to do is tell Valentina!’ Miguel laughs with relief and excitement.

  ‘Tell Valentina what?’

  We both freeze. Miguel glances at me and Valentina stares at us both.

  ‘Tell Valentina what?’ she repeats slowly, and I wonder where she’s been all this time. She’s wearing sunglasses, maybe to hide her swollen red eyes. But her tongue is no less sharp. ‘This seems to have become a habit with you around, making plans without my knowing!’

  She comes to stand in front of us, as though we are pupils summoned to the head teacher’s office to explain our naughty behaviour. ‘So let me get this straight,’ she says. ‘You . . . not me,’ she points at me with a manicured red fingernail, and I feel like I’ve been Tasered, ‘you are going to dance flamenco with my boyfriend.’

  ‘To win the bet,’ Miguel says. ‘You heard what was said.’

  This is the most excited I’ve seen Miguel since he’s been here. I just wish it wasn’t me holding his expectations in my hands. And it’s the most he and Valentina have spoken since he arrived.

  ‘To win my restaurant,’ she says.

  ‘Antonio’s restaurant and farm,’ Miguel corrects firmly, and I don’t know if it’s brave or stupid of him to correct her. Valentina has a poise about her, like Antonio’s wife, and I just know it’s something I don’t possess. If I did, she wouldn’t be looking at me quite so incredulously right now.

  ‘Look, I know it’s not ideal . . .’ I begin. What am I saying? I don’t have a chance!

  ‘Why did that woman not choose me to dance with him?’ she suddenly asks. ‘I have some flamenco.’

  ‘Because they wanted someone who didn’t have a hope in hell.’ Miguel is still grinning, then he looks at me and realises what he’s said. ‘Sorry, Beti, I didn’t mean . . .’

  ‘No, you’re right. Who am I kidding? Of course I can’t dance flamenco.’ My spirits plummet through the floor. ‘This is madness. It will never work. How did I ever think I could help him hang on to his farm and get his divorce?’

  ‘Wait! Did you say get his divorce? Did I miss that bit?’

  ‘Yes, the winner gets the farm and restaurant. If Antonio loses, he loses it all. If he wins, my mother will walk away, give him a divorce and take nothing,’ Miguel informs her like he’s laying down the rules of a boxing match, which in a way this might as well be. I’m going to be knocked out before I’ve even left my corner.

  ‘He will be free, then,’ Valentina says, sounding as though she’s thinking out loud. ‘Free to marry again. To marry me!’ Her eyes widen with hope and desire.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help it happen.’ I shrug.

  ‘You are going nowhere. We have a dance-off to prepare for. You will practise, hard! I will help you. I insist.’ She points her terrifying talon at me.

  And I’m not sure which is the more frightening thought: losing the dance-off or having Valentina help me!

  That night as I lie in my big bed, arms outstretched like a starfish, listening to the soft breeze in the trees and the gentle rattling of the window shutters, I replay everything that has happened over and over in my head. Esmeralda and Felipe turning up out of the blue. The argument. The fury and the pain. Will and I never fought like that. In fact, we never really argued at all. We laughed at the same things, shared in-jokes. We were the perfect couple, everyone said. We didn’t fall out, just drifted apart. There was no row, nothing that came from the heart; just a text and a mumbled apology, like our time together had never been. Not like the marks and scars left over from Antonio and Esmeralda’s relationship.

  Maybe I had a lucky escape. Will left before we could get married or have children. While Antonio and Esmeralda will always be part of each other’s history in the story of their lives, mine and Will’s chapter seems to have just been rubbed out, like all the life stories I planned before that. Maybe I have been so busy trying to plan my life that I have forgotten how to actually live it, I think before falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  ‘The thing about flamenco is that originally it was just about the voice, a cry, and a rhythm beaten on the floor with a stick. Nowadays flamenco is made up of four elements: the voice, cante; the dance, baile; the guitar, the toque; and the hand-clapping, foot-stomping and shouts of encouragement, the jaleo. Some call this the hell-raising. But it is not just any sort of hand-clapping. The palmas is an art. The palmeros sets the rhythm and the pattern to the song, like percussion. It works with the zapateado, the footwork. The stamping. And then you have the final ingredient – the duende.’ He pauses and looks at my frozen, terrified face as I try to take it all in, palmas, cante and zapateado flying round my head. ‘But the duende we can leave for another day.’

  I can hear the birds on the wires chatting to each other, sounding like they’re laughing at me, waiting for me to fail.

  ‘Flamenco is at the heart of Andalucía. It began in India.’ He starts his history lesson, but I’m having trouble concentrating, the words jumbling up and over each other I’m so nervous. ‘When the gypsies arrived in Andalucía from India in 1425, they brought their music with them, but they were persecuted and forced up into the mountains along with the Moors and the Jews. It is here their music and dances blended to make flamenco. In the eighteenth century, attitudes changed and bands of gypsies arrived in small towns bringing their music. Some called it seductive and mysterious. Their songs told the stories of suffering and were often sung at private gatherings of gypsies.

  ‘As time went on, people became more and more interested. Performers began to be hired for entertainment, and flamenco clubs sprang up. But many gypsies refused to perform, thinking flamenco should be spontaneous. Non-gypsies started to perform and troupes were set up. Traditional flamenco struggled. But in the fifties, it started to come back. There were festivals in small towns where people could go to perform, not as entertainers, just for the enjoyment of their art. There are many who think that flamenco should r
emain pure. Others believe that it was born from a melting pot, and that flamenco fusion, the new way, is the way to keep it alive.’

  He fixes me with his stare, obviously feeling it important to tell me all this before we start. But I am becoming more and more nervous about what flamenco is going to entail. I look around. All the tables have been pushed to the edges of the veranda, just like I imagined when I first suggested flamenco here, not knowing anything about the fact that it was banned.

  Antonio walks over to a small table in the corner of the veranda by the door into the bar. On it is an old grey record player, its electricity cable snaking in through the door. As he walks, his heels make a sound with every step, as if making each one count. I notice he’s wearing different boots from his usual worn brown leather pair. These ones are black suede with a very definite heel and, if I’m not mistaken, metal studs on the bottom. He switches on the record player, lifts the arm and gently places it on the black disc. It crackles and hisses, and then a single, heart-wrenching, gravelly voice floats out: ‘Aiy, aiey.’

  It hits me right in the solar plexus, an emotional punch taking my breath away. It is someone singing about their life, their hurt, their heartbreak, and my own heart twists. There is sorrow, but excitement too, pulling my emotions this way and that. I don’t understand the words he’s singing, but I can feel the pain in them.

  Neither of us moves. Antonio stands next to the record player, one arm across his chest, the other hand pulling gently and rhythmically at the little goatee beard below his lip, his unruly hair pushed back off his face. I am transfixed. I’ve heard Spanish music before, but never anything like this. I feel as if my insides have shifted and this music has reached right into my soul. It knows how I feel; it feels my pain. My eyes are filled with unshed tears when finally the song finishes.

  ‘This is the music of flamenco,’ Antonio says evenly. ‘Of my people. My father and mother and my grandparents before that.’

  ‘So you were all flamenco dancers?’ I state more than ask.

  He nods. ‘My grandparents moved around a lot, until they had a family and then settled here. They were well known throughout Andalucía, my grandmother mostly, Ana. When they stopped travelling, the dancers came here to see her, in the barn by the finca. They would come for miles, for the peña. Not shows for the tourists. More informal affairs, for the people who loved the art. A small poster would go up and word would get out. People who wanted to see my grandmother perform, other dancers. The club would be bursting at the seams. She was a very talented woman, but she liked to push the boundaries too. Not sticking to true traditional forms, mixing it up a bit. She had quite a reputation!’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘My father was a dancer too. He came here for the peña and met my mother. She left with him. They travelled around. But I stayed here more and more. I was happy here. That’s why I wanted this for Miguel.’ He looks out from the veranda, clearly remembering the place when it was his family home.

  ‘And which are you? Traditionalist or part of flamenco fusion? Were you as renowned as your grandmother?’ I ask, fascinated.

  He doesn’t respond, but I’m sure I see a twinkle in his eye before the door that has been eased open on his past is slammed tightly shut again.

  ‘Now! I have chosen a dance for you to learn. The sevillana. It is danced at family occasions. It is a type of folk dance. Some argue it is not true flamenco. But it is danced by many flamenco dancers today. It is a good choice for our purposes, I think. It has a story, in three parts. We’ll start with the first and hope to make it to the last. Let’s begin with some basic warm-ups.’

  All of a sudden, my mouth is dry. I’m terrified.

  ‘Stand with your weight on the balls of your feet. Your knees slightly bent so that when you stamp, they take the impact rather than your back.’ He stamps his foot on the terracotta-tiled floor and my heart leaps. I never expected it to be so loud!

  Valentina arrives clutching a cup of coffee and stands in the dark-wood doorway, scrutiny written all over her face.

  ‘Keep your elbows high at all times. Lift them.’ Antonio nudges them higher with his own and I feel like I’m about to do the birdy song.

  ‘There are two types of clap in flamenco: the soft one like this, with air cupped into it; or like this.’ He claps loudly.

  ‘Keep the elbows high,’ he repeats as they droop. I try to lift them again, but my God, this is going to hurt. As if the watering alone wasn’t making me ache. I bet you don’t see many flamenco dancers with bingo wings! ‘And when you stamp, kick back and up, towards your bottom. Up and back, as high as you can.’ He stamps again. ‘Now you!’

  I Iift my foot and stamp. It lands with a soft thud. Slowly, his eyes move from my face and down to my feet. I look around, feeling like the class idiot already.

  ‘What are those?’ he asks slowly, pointing.

  ‘Um . . . well, you said to wear shoes with a heel. This was all I had.’ And it’s true. I’ve lived in espadrilles since I’ve been here. These wedge flip-flops are the closest thing I’ve got to a heel.

  ‘Here, take mine.’ Valentina makes me jump. She whips off her high heels. ‘We’re roughly the same size,’ she says.

  I put them on. They’re too tight, of course, but I buckle them loosely. We might be roughly the same size, but we are totally different shapes. Valentina leans back against the door frame in bare, tanned and beautifully manicured feet. Nothing is going to stand in the way of her getting Antonio’s divorce signed and sealed, it seems. Certainly not me. With her eyes fixed firmly on me, I try the stamp again.

  ‘OK . . .’ says Antonio with a deep breath, and I think he may be realising that this is going to be an even harder task than he originally thought. His patience is already looking as if it’s wearing thin from the way he’s rolling his bottom lip in and chewing it. ‘Now, lift your elbows. You need to learn to count.’

  ‘Well, at least that’s something I can do!’ I try and lighten the mood, but neither of them laughs. Valentina is positively glowering.

  ‘Flamenco is all about the rhythm. So,’ he starts to clap, ‘doce, un, dos . . .’ Twelve, one, two . . .

  I try to repeat the rhythm, staring at his hands. They are big, strong and marked, hands that work with horses and cherry trees. So unlike Will’s I think, which are soft and smooth. Will has never done any outside work. His fingers are long and slender and often moisturised.

  ‘And again,’ Antonio orders, and starts the rhythm once more.

  Clap, clap, clap and . . . bugger it! I try again.

  ‘And never,’ he says without stopping clapping, ‘never join in clapping if you don’t know the pattern of the song. The rhythm comes first, then the dance and song. Like in life, we have to listen to the rhythm to be able to work with it. You have to go with what it dictates.’ He is staring right into my eyes and I can feel a fire starting to burn in the pit of my stomach. It sends my head spinning and my hands clapping like I’m catching flies. Bugger it! Messed it up again. I focus back on his hands, count all over again, trying to burn it into my brain. I have to get this.

  ‘Oh, and Beti, one last thing . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ I look up slowly from his hands, terrified in case that fire starts blazing and I lose coordination again.

  ‘You have to stand like this.’ He lifts his chin and his chest and his elbows. ‘You have to say to the world: come and have a look!’ He waves a hand at his chest. ‘Look but don’t touch! Look at me! Be proud!’ His eyes are on me and my insides feel like they’ve been microwaved again. My limbs turn to porridge, my elbows droop and my knees sag. I’ve only been doing this for a few minutes and I’m a mess already. ‘You have to lose this Britishness. Don’t be apologetic. You have to learn to be proud of who you are.’

  I have a sinking feeling I am never going to be the person he needs me to be . . . or the person I’d lik
e to be, for that matter.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  ‘One and two . . .’ I count over and over, spraying the roots of each tree in rhythm, beating it out with the hose in my hand, the sun getting hotter and hotter on the back of my neck. My arms ache from practising holding up my elbows, but Miguel keeps me smiling, and when I get lost, he joins in with the counting, putting me back on track, encouraging me to repeat and repeat the palmas, the hand-clapping of the dance, as he pulls the bowser through the trees, which are now full of what look like tiny cherries.

  Every morning and every evening I count my way through the watering, and then Antonio begins to add ‘the feet’, as he calls them, the footwork and steps of the dance.

  ‘The first part of this dance is like two strangers meeting. The second verse is getting to know each other, sussing each other out. And the third verse . . . the third verse is when they are passionate and close. You will learn the basics, the palmas, and then we will add our own interpretation of the moves. We will only move on a verse when you are truly ready.’

  Valentina is there again, watching me like a hawk, leaning against the door frame every morning after watering. Miguel has seized the opportunity to disappear, off to meet Sophia no doubt. But I know that by the time I’ve finished my morning class, he and Sophia will be waiting for me in the barn, ready to help clean it.

  A week into my new regime and I’m aching from head to toe. I’m not sure I can do this again, I think, as I lift my legs painfully up the steps, through the pillars and archway on the left of the veranda.