Sunset over the Cherry Orchard

by Jo Thomas

‘Antonio!’ I shout up at the apartment. I’ve run through the orchard barefoot, not bothering to take the stony path; my hair is plastered to my head, and my dress is clinging to me as the rain belts down. The sky lights up once more, and there’s another crash of thunder. ‘Antonio!’ I shout again. But he doesn’t respond. Where is he? Has he stormed off, cross that I organised the peña without telling him? Has he run out on me? Why did his face darken like that when Will arrived? What if this has all been for nothing?

  Just then, there is a thundering of hooves from the path through the cherry trees behind the horses’ enclosure and Antonio appears at the side of the cortijo on horseback. His dark hair is a mass of springy curls, soaked from the rain, with droplets like crystals hanging from strands around his face.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I ask. I know it’s none of my business really, but I can’t help myself. ‘I thought you’d walked out. I thought you were cross about the peña.’

  ‘I just needed to clear my head. Get my thoughts together. Work out what to do for the best. The mayor and the others are back. They’ve heard the music. They’ve heard rumours, so Miguel says. I’ve sent him back to tell them I’m on my way. What’s the matter? Why are you down here?’ He looks at my feet. ‘Where are your shoes?’

  ‘They’ve gone,’ I say, throwing my hands up.

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. I think . . . well I think someone must have stolen them. Someone who didn’t want me to dance,’ I finish.

  He says nothing. His face darkens. ‘You’d better climb on,’ he says, riding towards me on Suerte.

  ‘Oh, I can’t . . .’

  ‘Don’t be scared.’ He reaches out a hand to me. ‘Miguel is right. Some things are worth overcoming your fears for. Like you said, he has more sense than anyone. Let’s fight on.’ He reaches down and I stretch up. He takes hold of my elbow and I grab his. ‘I want to save my farm and home, yes. But I also want to make you happy, Beti. Are you with me?’

  Shaking from the rain as it pounds against my face, I nod.

  ‘Put your foot on mine,’ he says, and I do what he tells me.

  ‘Let’s go!’ In one swift movement he pulls me up and on to the horse’s back in front of him. His big, strong arms around me. Then he makes a clicking noise to Suerte in the corner of his mouth. The stallion needs very little encouragement to power up the hill towards the fairy-lit barn, and we duck and dip through the branches of the stripped cherry trees. I can feel the rhythm of the horse’s hooves beneath us, and it’s as if my heart is finally beating its own natural rhythm too.

  When we reach the brow of the hill, I hear raised voices. There, standing in the doorway, are Esmeralda and Felipe. She has her hands on her hips and is in heated conversation with the mayor. Will is there too, trying to get into the barn but being prevented by the locals gathered there. As we approach, the conversation stops and everyone turns to look at us.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ says Uncle Paul, pushing through the crowd at the doorway.

  Will turns to see me sitting on the stallion’s back with the ruffles of my dress draped over the horse’s shoulders, and his jaw drops, practically hitting the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t let you in,’ says the mayor. He steps forward and holds up a hand in front of the horse. ‘I can’t let this dance go ahead. We have heard that there is a peña here tonight. I can’t allow it! I cannot allow any flamenco.’

  ‘Flamenco has been a part of this place for generations. It is time we heard its song again,’ Antonio says from up high on the horse’s back.

  ‘Olé!’ A shout of appreciation comes from inside the barn, and the crowd clap and shout in anticipation. I can see my mum and dad and Olivia beaming in expectation. Will can’t take his eyes off me.

  Antonio dismounts and then takes my hand, helping me down from the horse.

  ‘I didn’t even know you could ride.’ Will steps forward into the rain, still looking at me in complete wonder.

  ‘Neither did I,’ I say. ‘You don’t know what you can do until you want it badly enough.’

  ‘You look amazing!’ he says, his eyes dancing. ‘Really amazing, Beti. So this is where you’ve been hiding out. I’ve been trying to find you. I went back to the bar but the couple there wouldn’t tell me where you were. I wanted to find you, tell you . . . well, everything that’s been going on in my head. How stupid I was. How much I love you.’

  My heart is thundering, my head giddy with all the words I’ve hoped to hear. He came looking for me! Antonio, on the other hand, is scowling.

  ‘Beti, you go on in,’ he instructs, pointing past Will.

  ‘No!’ says the mayor.

  ‘Let her pass!’ Antonio’s eyes flash, and Suerte swings his rear end left, then right. The men scatter, reluctantly making a pathway for me.

  I glance at Will. He’s looking at me again with . . . well, frankly, admiration and desire in his eyes. I can’t remember ever seeing him look at me like that. It takes all my willpower to lift my head, like Antonio has taught me, pick up my skirt, open my shoulders and walk into the barn.

  With shaking knees, I stand in the middle of the space with my skirt ruffles in my hands, showing my bare ankles and feet. Everyone looks down and a whisper goes around the room: ‘She’s dancing barefoot!’ I wish I had my shoes. I know I’d be able to do this if I had them. As Antonio has taught me, I lift one hand to rest on my hip so the skirt lifts above my knee. The room falls quiet, watching me. I get a sudden buzz of terror and excitement.

  I lift my head a little higher and feel the power it gives me. The tiled floor is cold under my feet. I really don’t know if I can do this without my shoes. I keep my eyes on Antonio, who has handed Suerte’s reins to Miguel and is walking into the barn towards me. He is taller than any of the other men in the barn, and very broad in the shoulders – even more so, it seems, in the tight-fitting black shirt and trousers he’s wearing. There is a ripple of excitement from the audience who are crowded into the barn, sharing chairs, standing, some sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with small children in their laps. The place is absolutely rammed to the rafters. They are all sipping cherry liqueur or sangria, but there are so many people here, Sophia’s friends can barely get round to top everyone up. Olivia and my family look awe-struck. Uncle Paul is taking photographs. The atmosphere is electric.

  Not to be outdone, Esmeralda lifts her skirts and slowly walks on to the floor beside me, Felipe following. She doesn’t take her eyes off me. Her dark hair is pulled back and tied up with a turquoise feather to match her dress.

  ‘That’s my girl!’ I hear my dad choke, and I briefly glance round. Will is still looking as if, for once, he’s lost for words. Freya digs him hard in the ribs and then storms off with a furious glare to sit with the band. She plonks herself on the bass guitarist’s lap, occasionally checking to see if Will has noticed. Will, though, hasn’t taken his eyes off me, and I feel my nerves rush back in. But as I look back at Antonio, trying to find my focus and my centre again, the group of local men, led by the mayor, step in front of him.

  ‘Let me pass. I’m warning you,’ Antonio says in a low growl. The room is so hushed, we can all hear every word and every raindrop falling on the roof.

  ‘No, Antonio! I cannot let this happen. You know the rules. No flamenco. It is banned. This place was closed down years ago,’ the mayor chides.

  Antonio looks at him. ‘You’re right. It was. And now its doors are open again.’ He glances at me and my heart gives a little stamp, stamp. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, you are on my land. Either stay for the peña and feel the flamenco again, or please leave.’

  ‘No! I won’t allow it! Flamenco is forbidden in the town.’

  ‘By a priest who is long since dead. That was the past. This is now. Things are different.’

  ‘Nothing has changed,’ one of the other men in the group
pipes up.

  ‘Everything changes.’ Antonio sighs, as if weary of the conversation. ‘Now let me pass.’ But the men are standing like a wall in front of him, refusing to move.

  ‘You know the rules. We don’t want trouble like last time. The harvest nearly didn’t happen.’

  ‘But the harvest is in! It’s safe! No one’s livelihood is at stake here, except mine.’

  ‘It’s time this farm was sold off and someone new bought it. Someone who doesn’t want any trouble,’ Esmeralda calls out, butting in.

  ‘I don’t want trouble!’ Antonio’s eyes flash with anger and the crowd of men shuffle back slightly.

  ‘What does she mean, “sold off”?’ the mayor asks, confused.

  Antonio’s eyes are still flashing. ‘I am dancing for my life here. Fighting for it. As someone wise said recently’ – he looks at Miguel, who has returned to the barn again – ‘some things are worth getting over your fears for. This place belonged to my grandparents. They brought the passion of flamenco here because they loved it. They loved what it stood for. It is called the fire dance for a reason. It is about people’s lives, their passion, their pain and their expression of love!’ He looks straight at me, and my heart bangs out a response to his words.

  ‘Bloody hell! What a show! You can forget the Pink Flamingo, this place has got it all,’ Brenda says to Harold.

  ‘Absolutely fabulous! I’m putting this on Facebook Live!’ says one of Olivia’s friends, despite being squeezed in between a large man holding a child on one side and a crowded table on the other. ‘Beats any of the other thirtieths I’ve been to, and Lula Hamilton had waterskiing acrobats. Plus this cherry liqueur is amazing!’

  ‘Sold off? Who is selling up? Why? Who to? Will it be someone who wants to carry on the cherry orchard? Not developers!’ the mayor splutters, his voice thick with panic.

  ‘Gonzalo here is a cherry farmer,’ Antonio says, pointing to the man in question. ‘He would like to buy the farm but rip up the trees and put in new, early-harvesting cherries for a bigger profit.’

  There is a collective intake of breath.

  ‘So unless I can take part in this dance competition right now, my farm will be sold off to the highest bidder. To Gonzalo.’

  ‘I’d like to buy it,’ pipes up one of the local worthies, and Antonio practically bares his teeth at him, causing him to step back into the shadows.

  ‘Hang on! This is Beti’s place,’ I hear my mum say, and my heart sinks. How do I explain this?

  ‘Yeah, her and that Will bloke. Are you telling me she doesn’t own this place after all? That it was all a pack of lies?’

  ‘Oh shut up, Paul!’ my mum and dad say in unison, taking me by complete surprise. That’s the first time I’ve heard them stand up to him, and I feel a rush of pride. I know what courage that takes.

  Antonio pushes through the line of men and walks over to Uncle Paul, towering above him. Paul suddenly looks like a very small man, very small indeed.

  ‘Everything I have right now is because of Beti.’ He glances at Miguel, who has followed him. ‘She is the richest and most generous woman I know.’

  ‘Do you hear that, Rita? She’s earned a fortune! All off the back of that china cow my mother left her, I bet!’ he hisses.

  Antonio silences him with a dark look, and my uncle shrinks back into his seat.

  ‘Enough!’ Esmeralda announces. ‘No one cares about the British woman. Let us get on with this. Let us see if you have made her into a flamenco dancer, or just dressed her up to look like a cheap souvenir doll.’

  ‘Is she talking about Beti?’ I hear my mum say. ‘Don’t you speak about my daughter like that! She’s got more guts than you’ve had hot dinners, by the look of it!’ Mum has spent so many years feeling guilty for the happiness she and Dad managed to find with each other. She has been quietly content, never wanting to rub Uncle Paul’s nose in it, letting him reassert himself by boasting loudly about his achievements. And now here she is, like a lioness protecting what she cares about the most: her family.

  Esmeralda sneers at her.

  ‘Don’t you ever, ever look at my mother like that again,’ I say coldly. ‘Don’t look at her, don’t speak to her. Do you understand?’

  Then I turn slowly to Uncle Paul and lift my chin.

  ‘No, I don’t own this place.’

  He gives me a ‘told you so’ smirk.

  ‘But life isn’t about what you own, it’s about who you are,’ I continue, and his smirk slips as all eyes turn to him. ‘You may own a house twice the size of theirs, a car bigger than their front room, but my mum and dad are twice the people you’ll ever be. Think about whose house you always want to spend Christmas at. Not because it’s filled with expensive furniture, but because it’s filled with love. They found what we all spend our lives looking for: happiness. It’s not in the buildings we own, the parties we attend or the holidays we go on; it’s about what’s in here!’ I hold my hand on my heart. ‘Like I say, it’s about who you are. And I finally know exactly who I am.’

  ‘God! She’s amazing!’ I hear Maxine say to Craig. I didn’t even see them arrive, and I feel a warm glow at the fact that they’ve turned up.

  ‘Thought you said your cousin was really drippy?’ one of Olivia’s friend’s says.

  ‘She looks pretty incredible to me,’ chips in another.

  ‘Wish I was more like her,’ says the third, and Olivia smiles uncomfortably.

  ‘That’s my girl!’ My dad stands up, clapping, tears in his eyes.

  Antonio looks right at me with pride and a glint of his passion in his eyes. I can hear my heart banging out a loud familiar beat. He gives one deep nod.

  I hesitate.

  ‘You’re scared?’ he whispers into my ear. I feel his hot breath on my skin, making me shiver in anticipation.

  ‘What if I make a mess of it?’ I say, turning towards him.

  ‘Remember to always listen to this,’ he tells me, and places his hand on mine over my heart. ‘Listen to it and you won’t go wrong.’

  ‘But my shoes,’ I say to him quietly.

  ‘Remember when we danced in the cherry orchard. Remember how it felt. It’s not the shoes that make you dance. It’s you. Remember the feeling.’

  I shut my eyes and I’m there, right back in the cherry orchard. Oh, I’m ready to dance! I really am. The fire in my belly is raging. I let my nan down when Will took off with my money. There is no way I can let Antonio down. I can’t let him lose this place. I can’t let him lose Miguel. I open my eyes and look down at the dress. I’m doing this for Antonio, for Miguel and for Nan, who always believed in me. All around me camera flashes from phones are going off.

  ‘Esmeralda, why don’t you go first, show us the fine dancer that you are?’ Antonio says graciously, taking me by the hand and leading me to the edge of the dance space.

  ‘No!’ says the mayor.

  ‘I have told you,’ says Antonio, ‘either you let the flamenco in, or you leave. We have spent too many years in this town shutting out the past. Scared of how it will affect the future. We have denied the young people their heritage. They are leaving, moving to the coast, where people come to see our culture in nightclubs showing cheap tablaos. We have fought to keep our cherries alive, to keep the variety alive, because it is part of our landscape, but so too is flamenco! Now do you want to remember what it felt like, or do you want to go?’

  ‘I want to feel it!’ says the mayor’s dumpy daughter.

  ‘Me too!’ says her sister, and they sit down on the edge of the dance floor.

  ‘And me!’ says his wife.

  ‘Sí!’ says his eighty-year-old mother, who attempts to sit on the floor but has to be helped on to a nearby chair.

  ‘You are a good farmer, Antonio. I do not want to see this place sold off to someone who doesn’t care,’ the may
or says, relenting.

  ‘Then let me save my farm and my home.’

  ‘Any other farmer could do what you do,’ says Esmeralda. ‘Miguel has had a taste of country life now; he will be ready to leave with me. He will realise that his life will be better on the road, rather than as a mere cherry farmer.’

  ‘Miguel, of course, has the right to choose.’ Antonio turns to look at his son, who stares straight back at him. They hold each other’s gaze as if forming a bond that won’t be broken, whatever the outcome of the dance. Antonio finally turns back to Esmeralda. ‘But I will let him have that choice. You won’t take my farm! Now, let’s dance!’

  He nods to Pedro, who is sitting by the fireplace surrounded by heart-shaped fairy lights. The drummer next to him begins to beat out the rhythm on the square box between his legs. Boom-boom. Boom-boom.

  The crowd falls silent.

  Esmeralda raises her head, stepping up to take centre stage, and my heart is thudding so loudly I can hardly hear the drummer as he begins to sing, telling the story of a life, a struggle, a dream, a longing and a passion. I feel every word and note as Esmeralda lifts her elbows and rolls her hands over and over each other. This may be the beginning, but I have no idea how it’s going to end.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  The audience cheer and applaud the fancy footwork and complicated clapping of the dance, far more involved than ours. Esmeralda and Felipe finish with a flourish, then nod and smile as they soak up the plaudits from the appreciative crowd. But the expectation is growing in the room. The Horse Whisperer hasn’t danced since this place closed down. The tension and excitement is palpable. I tremble.

  ‘Feel the fire in your heart and in your soul and use it,’ Antonio whispers in my ear. I close my eyes, blocking out the faces around me. ‘Remember the cherry orchard,’ he tells me quietly. ‘Feel the energy beneath your feet. Feel the energy here, between us.’

  I’m aware of his body right next to mine, and it’s like there’s a rocket inside me waiting to go off and light up the night sky.

  Antonio nods to Pedro and the music begins. He looks straight at me, drawing me into his dark eyes, transporting me back to the cherry orchard, and I begin to dance. I’m not counting any more; I’m dancing and feeling the music and I don’t think I want it ever to stop. I hold Antonio’s deep gaze, knowing he won’t let me fall, and by the time we get to the third verse, I feel alive, I feel like me. I feel more like me than I ever have before, and I realise that I’m happiest here next to him. My heart is thumping in my chest and filling my head. I feel elated, like I’m flying, and I never want to come down.