The Lemon Grove

by Helen Walsh

  Sensing she’s being watched, the girl looks up, makes the briefest eye contact with Jenn, and smiles smugly. She drives extra swagger into her walk, her young bum flipping beneath the flimsy fabric of the vest. Jenn watches her go. She drains the last dregs of orange juice and as she sets down the glass, she appraises her own breasts. She has a deep cleavage; too big, she feels, but, nevertheless, her breasts are still firm and shapely for her age. Even the younger care workers are forever complimenting her on her figure – her tits; tits spared the ravages of suckling babies. The older girls never fail to get that one in, whenever the young ones are complimenting her:

  ‘Course, you haven’t had kids, have you?’

  If only they knew how that killed her.

  Across the road, a van pulls up behind her car. A slender man in chef’s fatigues hops out and slides two huge trays from the back of the van, still hot, she judges, from his ginger grip, insulated by chunky towels. Jenn pays up, giggling out loud at the crone’s disdain for the tip she leaves. She follows the man inside the shop.

  The smell hits her in one delirious flush as she crosses the threshold into the little shop: burnt caramel and spice, then a salty, fish-infused aroma. If she could begin each morning with that rather than the choke of half-burnt toast wafting out from the kitchen, then she could withstand whatever trials the day might throw at her.

  The young boy is hefting the pastries off the trays with a plastic spatula and carefully arranging them in the glass cabinet in front of the till. He indicates with a short, sharp glare that the diez minutos has not yet elapsed. Jenn shrugs; prises a copy of the Sunday Times out of the display and bustles to the back of the tiny shop. Absentmindedly, she fills a basket with things they might need for the walk: crisps and nuts and water. She picks up a small bottle of olive oil and snorts at the price. This is the only grocery store in Deià and she wonders how the locals feel about the prices. Maybe they operate a two-tier system, with one price for residents and one for green, middle-class tourists like herself, ineffably beguiled by labels announcing their goods’ ‘artisan provenance’, all proudly – and expensively – ‘cultivada en Mallorca’. She retraces her steps along the aisles, matching the prices on the shelves with the things in her basket. Confounded at each turn, she returns each item until all that remains is the newspaper. She stows her red plastic basket, tucks the paper under her arm and makes her way to the till. A small crowd has now gathered by the glass cabinet, ogling the tartlets and pastries. She chides herself for letting her mind wander. Nathan will be dry and dressed now, no doubt waking Emma with orange juice and coffee, sweet-talking her round from whatever quarrel they had last night.

  Outside, the village has shifted up a gear. Through the open door, Jenn can see the noses of two huge tourist coaches, sizing each other up from opposite ends of the village. Each steadily crawls towards the other. An impasse is inevitable – the buses are already creating a major backlog either way – but neither driver will back down. A man is hanging down from the café terrace where Jenn sat only minutes ago, capturing the face-off on his phone. Shit! Her car is stuck right in the middle of this fiasco. Her plans of zipping up to the village and returning with breakfast are already in tatters – now she’ll be lucky to get back before lunch. She’s about to drop the paper and run when, finally, the kid favours her with the slightest nod of his head. She orders in Spanish – he replies in English. His blank face gives off an aloof insouciance: please don’t bother trying to interact, lady tourist. This is business. Give me money, then go. She’s pleasantly surprised that it all comes to so little, and steps out with a paper bag laden with pastries and breads and tarts, their greasy warmth already soaking the paper with an oily sheen. She scurries back to the car; feels a momentary stab of relief that there’s no parking ticket. The coaches have sorted out their differences and gone their separate ways. The village is busy but calm. She sets the pastry bag down firmly in the footwell of the car and places the newspaper on the passenger seat. Only now does she realise she hasn’t paid for it. It stayed tucked under her arm throughout the transaction and the uppity young lad didn’t deign to enquire; and only now does she acknowledge that she knew exactly what she was doing. If he challenged her, she’d pay; if not – serve them right, the surly bastards! She starts the car, puts it in gear, heads off down the hill before indicating left and doubling back on herself; her heart is still thumping as she passes the little shop again. It’s only as she turns off the main road and dips back down the beach track, back towards the villa, that the pounding gives way to the gentle thrill of having got away with it. There’s a deeper excitement, too. Within the hour, she will be serving Nathan – serving all of them – hot, sticky pastries up on the cliff. She passes the traffic warden, scootering back up the hill after nabbing some early birds at the beach. Jenn throws her a big cheery wave.

  10

  The landscape has shifted. It’s only a year since they last trekked the pine route to Sóller, but the familiar cliff path has been holed by a savage winter. It’s completely blocked in places by fallen trees, some snapped at the waist, others uprooted entirely. Further along, the cliff face has eroded so far into the headland as to take the path with it. The welcome piles of stones that have, for years, mapped out the way for walkers have been scattered, abandoned to the elements. Newly daubed bright red splodges on boulders and tree trunks direct them along a new route, away from the cliff face and high up into the hills through the darkest reaches of the forest. They push on, the mulch of decaying pine needles springy underfoot.

  When they first started coming here, Jenn was able to convince Emma that the Path Pixies had laid down the stones especially for her and that, if followed diligently, they would lead her to treasure. They would hold hands, chattering all the way, Emma’s excited eyes scoping the forest for a pair of oval eyes or pointed ears peeping out from behind a trunk. Jenn smiles at the recollection of her diminutive, gap-toothed girl, grinning as she reaches into a hollow to retrieve another treat, wrapped in coloured foil; a coin, a sweetie, sometimes a little book. Even when she was nine or ten, old enough to know otherwise, Emma still serviced the make-believe, affecting the same doe-eyed excitement each time they set off along the cliff path. And Jenn continued to set her alarm for the crack of dawn so that she could sneak down to the woods in advance and lay out the trail of goodies. Now they hardly speak; now Emma walks on ahead with her arms folded tightly. The sight of it brings a sting to Jenn’s eyes. Not quite nostalgia, nor even regret in this instance, but sadness at the passing of time. How wonderful those moments were. How quickly they moved on. Just like the weather; the cliff path.

  Whatever the teenagers argued over last night still lingers in the air. Jenn thinks she’s worked it out, and it’s nothing more serious than opposed positions. The boy wants what the girl won’t give; the girl won’t give until the boy threatens to find it elsewhere – that’s what yesterday’s charade with the hippy girl was about. He was letting Emma know: if she won’t, there’s plenty that will. All the other girls do it, he’ll be telling her. Jenn should tell her, too. Tell her how she was once that girl, holding out, holding it all in, hanging on to her virtue. How clever she’d thought herself, back then. While her mates were upstairs chasing cheap thrills and cashing in their assets, she was downstairs, saving for the future. When the time was right, she’d have her pick of the crop – and she’d have that option because she’d boxed clever. What she may have lacked in nubility she could more than make up for in nobility. Her boy would be able to hold his head high. No flies on Jenny O’Brien; she wasn’t one of those girls. If only someone older and wiser had told her. Told her that, after a certain point in a woman’s life, her past becomes open to re-evaluation. Once her flesh grows soft; once she gets married and has kids; once her allure dims; once that woman ceases to be a proposition, nobody cares what you were, anyway. Nobody remembers. You exist to others only in relation to what you became – your husband, your kids, your job. All those mis
sed opportunities. All those electrifying teenage encounters she’d denied herself, when her body was still young and firm. If she could have her time again, she wouldn’t be so cautious; so damn clever. If she had her time again, Jenn O’Brien would bound up those stairs and unquestionably be one of those girls.

  Nathan walks ahead with Gregory. They’ve bonded over football, it seems, discussing the pros and cons of Moyes as Manchester United’s new manager. It still takes her by surprise to hear her husband pontificate on such laddish matters but even there, he can’t quite shake off his cap and gown. His didactic approach to what should be an easy, enjoyable conversation gives every impression that football – like modern art or Japanese film – is an educational topic rather than a life’s passion.

  Emma’s eyes do not leave Nathan’s back for one moment; his athletic shoulders packed into an emerald-green polo shirt. He only has to turn his head a fraction and look in her general direction and Emma stands to attention, willing a smile from his lips; a look, a wave – any kind of peace offering. Jenn places a hand on Emma’s shoulder, gives her a sympathetic squeeze.

  ‘Everything OK there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  The curt monosyllable is emphatic, a caveat. The matter is not open for discussion. Jenn is not giving up – not yet. She stops for full effect.

  ‘The thing with boys, Em …’ She sighs – she already knows how this will end up, but she soldiers on. ‘What you should know about them is that they like to play—’

  Emma spins round, exasperated. ‘Don’t. You know nothing about him.’

  As well-prepared as she thought she was, Jenn is taken aback by the venom of Emma’s delivery; the anger in her eyes. She holds up her hands in surrender, smiles, tries not to reveal her shock, her hurt. Only the day before yesterday Emma was squeezing her fingers and thanking her for making this happen. Emma shakes her head, marches on in front. The gap between her teeth is still there.

  Suddenly, the path just drops away. There is no indication in the landscape, no gradual descent or loosening of soil, nothing to suggest that the sudden splash of light and space is a sheer and deadly drop. They have walked this path many times before; they are respectful of the seasonal shifts of landscape, attentive to its ruses and hidden perils, yet it’s Nathan, the novice, who spots it. Without warning, he shoots an arm across Gregory’s chest.

  ‘Whoa!’

  Emma screams. There’s a collective gasp followed by a prolonged silence. Perhaps, if Emma hadn’t snapped at her, Jenn might have realised they were climbing over a purposely erected barrier, not detritus; she might have noticed the daub of red some distance back, directing them upwards and away from the ledge. But none of them would have seen the warning sign that blew down in last week’s gale. With both his trekking poles set firmly in the soil, Gregory inches towards the edge. He cranes his head and shoulders forward to peer down; Jenn does the same. She swoons and quickly steps back. Just below the precipice, a tiny stone hut clings miserably to the clod of earth and rock that has simply plunged straight down into the gorge, carrying the little outhouse with it. The whole thing, edifice and the clump it stands on, is wedged halfway down the cliff. Below it, there is nothing: no sea to break your fall, just boulders and fallen pines whose branches stand erect like rapiers.

  Gregory turns to them, smirking. ‘So this is how the municipality of Deià is keeping tourist saturation in check.’

  But there’s fear in his eyes. He is thinking the same as everyone else: that could have been them. He backs away from the ledge, takes Emma’s hand and squeezes it tight. Only Nathan seems indifferent; he is already retracing their steps, trying to figure out where they went wrong.

  ‘Here!’ he shouts. ‘Eureka!’ The splash of red paint on a rotted stump is inconclusive, they could veer left, or right. Nathan points up to a further flash of colour in the trees above. ‘There we go. Problem solved.’

  Gregory doesn’t move. ‘I don’t know, guys … could be another bum steer.’

  Jenn cannot see that far up; Emma is not yet ready to take Nathan’s side. He shrugs.

  ‘Shouldn’t we at least check it out?’

  Emma bunches close to her father, still prodding the ground beneath his feet. Jenn shoots Nathan a sympathetic look; shrugs her approval. He smiles back, and takes off into the woods. They follow his progress via splintered glimpses of emerald, darting through the forest. The gradient is steep. He is right above the ravine, now. It’s a straight slide down to the precipice – loose soil all the way, with little to grab hold of. If he were to slip, he could die.

  ‘He’s really high up,’ Emma says. She shuffles over, her grudge forgotten for a moment, and she leans into Jenn’s hip in search of reassurance. Jenn pulls her close.

  ‘He’s okay, Em. He knows what he’s doing.’

  Greg tightens his lips, lets out a hiss. Jenn silences him with a look. Her bronchial passages are starting to tighten again. Her breathing drags, it feels woollen in her lungs. She casts her gaze out over the sea. The low clouds are lifting; patches of blue starting to break through. Yet she can feel it, is sure of it; a storm is on its way.

  Nathan emerges in a clearing at the highest point of the forest. Here, the trees thin out to meet the weather-bashed terraces of an olive grove. They can just about make him out as he squats and rests his flat hands on his thighs. Then he’s back up and off and out of sight again. Seconds later, he’s up in a clearing. He makes a beckoning flourish with his hand.

  ‘Found it!’ he shouts. ‘Come on!’

  Gregory’s face twitches. He mops a veil of sweat from his brow.

  ‘We can’t just cut through somebody’s back garden,’ he says in a low voice. Nathan – fifty odd metres above – calls back as though he’s right there.

  ‘It’s not a garden – it’s just an old olive grove.’

  He disappears from sight briefly, then reappears on the other side of the ravine, trotting down the slope like a goat. He’s enjoying himself, smiling at them as he skips down to the cliff’s edge as though it’s all in a day’s gentle work. Gregory’s face tightens. He narrows his eyes and begins scanning around for an alternative way across the chasm. Jenn leans back on a tree trunk as he plots his own route. His lips move silently before, eventually, he reveals his master-plan.

  ‘Right. See back there where the mudslide leads down to the cove? Okay – follow it back. See the steps cut into the cliff face? That’s the old path leading down to that little beach. Remember?’

  She mentally traces his route down the side of the cliff. That little tier of footholds may well have functioned as steps once, but, like the rest of the landscape, they have crumbled beyond all recognition; no way are they stable.

  ‘I don’t know, Greg. You’re the only one with proper walking shoes on. Why not scope out the other route?’

  She is careful not to say his route. The roll of thunder turns their heads towards the sea. It’s dense and guttural, as though coming from the very bowels of the ocean. Greg looks anxious for a moment; Jenn, vindicated.

  ‘Did you bring your inhaler?’

  ‘No. You predicted clear skies.’

  She lets him fret for a moment, then fishes the pink one from her pocket, takes a precautionary blast. Greg shouts across to Nathan:

  ‘You’ll have to come back, Nathan! We’re taking a different route. We need to press on.’

  Jenn tries to control her irritation. Once, she might have found Greg’s obstinacy endearing; now she just sees it as folly. Nathan is standing there on safe, solid ground, shaking his head, and Jenn realises, in one furious flash, that she’s not embarrassed for her husband; she’s embarrassed of him. This bearded man with his hiking boots and collapsible trekking poles is a bad reflection on her. He drives the poles into the ground as he marches off, aloof. Emma scurries to catch him; grabs him by the wrist. With a stifled groan, Jenn pushes back against the tree with both palms, forcing herself forward.

  ‘Greg! Don’t you think we should
at least try the other route? I mean, he’s there, after all. He’s on the other side!’

  ‘The other side of where though? This is the path!’ he shouts back.

  Jenn dawdles, unsure who to follow. The sky creaks and groans. Greg waves his stick at her.

  ‘Jenn! Will you come on?’

  She watches him scuff and slip his way up the slope, Emma almost dragging them both back down. She watches them until they’re gone.

  11

  The flea-bitten donkeys cease chewing as she comes sliding into the olive grove on her bottom. Cautiously, she gets to her feet and skirts the curious beasts. She scans around for Nathan. He’s straddling a fallen tree, making like he’s looking out to sea but furtively he’s observing her. He gets up, walks towards her, eases the rucksack from her shoulders and swings it effortlessly over his own.