The Island Villa_The perfect feel good summer read

by Lily Graham

  ‘It’s of the lighthouse at Cap de Barbaria, have you been?’ Isla asked, waving a casual hand to silence my offer to pay more.

  Her voice was soft and soothing. The kind of voice that accompanied the lilt of spa music and healing crystals.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’ve heard it’s a bit of a trek.’

  She nodded. ‘Worth it though. Take some water, that’s my advice if you do go,’ she added, noting my bicycle, laughing at her memory. ‘I got caught out. I was stranded, literally in the middle of nowhere, dying of thirst, and I almost barrelled into the first people I saw, these two romantic hikers, who were having a little moment until I fell upon them, gasping for their water bottle.’

  I couldn’t help laughing at the image. ‘That’s just the kind of thing that would happen to me. Thanks, that’s a great tip.’

  She grinned. She had small, very even teeth. ‘You here for a while, or just a day-tripper?’

  There were a lot of day-trippers from Ibiza, I guessed, probably escaping the noise and getting a bit of calm.

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure really.’

  She cocked her head to the side, and her hair bounced in a shiny wave. ‘How’s that work?’

  I laughed. ‘Well, I’m here for longer than a day, I suppose, but I’m not sure for how much more.’ I explained a little more about booking a one-way ticket and the family house, but didn’t go into any more detail. Somehow, I couldn’t help fearing that blurting out that my husband had just died and bought me a house that had once belonged to my family might not come across as terribly sane or appropriate conversation for someone I’d just met.

  ‘That’s so spontaneous, I love it. My kind of gal, for sure,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Well, if you are going to be here a little longer, you should come to the Blues Bar. It’s just ’round the corner there.’ She pointed to a little street away from the stalls. ‘I sing there with my band.’

  ‘You’re in a band?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s just me and Big Jim, and his wife, Sue. Jim plays bass, and Sue plays keyboard. I play guitar and tambourine.’

  I grinned. Of course, she did.

  ‘Just folksy, indie stuff, you know?’

  ‘I like that. My daughter is into that sort of thing too.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You have a daughter? Cool, how old?’

  ‘Nineteen,’ I said, my heart doing a little lurch for my girl. Isla looked surprised. ‘Wow, you don’t look like you’re old enough to have a nineteen-year-old daughter!’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m forty-five, so it’s not that strange.’

  Perhaps that sounded old to Isla, because she said, ‘That’s some good genes.’

  I shrugged, deciding to take the compliment. Particularly as lately I felt nothing but old.

  ‘Thanks.’

  That night, I debated going to the Blues Bar. It was at the moment that I’d shrugged back into James’s bathrobe with a glass of Francisco’s wine for company that I felt a stab of guilt for doing exactly what James didn’t want me to do. It’s not like I could even pretend any differently after reading his letter. I shrugged off the robe and went in search of jeans and a blouse.

  I figured they had alcohol there and that perhaps something besides home-made wine would at least offer some variety for my liver – and perhaps my head in the morning.

  The bar was little more than a beach shack, with a tin roof, a sandy floor and shabby-chic painted wooden benches. There were string lights and plenty of people swaying to the music supplied by Isla’s three-man band.

  Big Jim, or the person I assumed to be Big Jim, was indeed pretty huge, with a long grey ponytail and a massive tie-dyed shirt straining against his impressive belly as he played the bass guitar. Sue looked a bit like she might run the bake sale in our local village, complete with gran-curls and jumper, except that she played the keyboard with a transformed expression on her round face. I liked them immediately.

  I ordered a beer, then took a seat. Isla stopped mid-song to welcome me. It was that sort of place, and I couldn’t help but grin as a few people waved at me.

  Isla had a lovely tone to her voice. Like expensive cigars, mixed with fine brandy. It was smoky and sweet and silky-smooth, and the songs she sang were haunting, yet somehow a little quirky and funny too.

  There was one about a man who sat in the belly of a bear for the winter to escape his nine-to-five. Another about a girl who lived beneath the sea in a city made of sea glass. Isla was a storyteller I realised, and I was enjoying myself much more than I had imagined when I’d had to convince myself to come.

  After their first set, the band took a break and Isla, followed by Big Jim and Sue, came to join me. I bought them a round of drinks.

  ‘You’re all incredible,’ I said, meaning it. ‘Your voice, Isla – wow.’

  She smiled at me. ‘Thanks. It’s just some fun, you know?’

  ‘But you don’t want to take it professional? You’ve definitely got the talent.’

  She shrugged, took a sip of her beer. ‘Yeah, thanks, but not really…’ she hedged.

  Big Jim shook his head at me. ‘You don’t recognise her?’

  Isla looked at him imploringly. ‘Big Jim, don’t…’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  Big Jim looked at me with his round blue eyes. ‘She already did.’

  ‘What?’

  She sighed. ‘It was a long time ago. A lifetime ago now, actually. In fact, I was trying my best to forget it…’ she said with a pointed look at Big Jim.

  He rolled his eyes, ignored her protests and not-so-subtle hint to keep quiet. ‘Kids. They think a decade is a lifetime. And why should you forget it? You should be proud. Hell, I’m proud just knowing you!’

  At my blank look, he explained further. ‘Have you heard of the Riddles?’

  I paused. They did sound familiar.

  ‘They had a hit song, “The Muse”.’ He hummed a few bars and I turned to Isla in shock, my mouth falling open slightly as I exclaimed, ‘That was you?’

  I thought I had recognised that voice! That song had been a pretty big deal a few years ago. You couldn’t listen to the radio without hearing it. They’d played it non-stop for months.

  ‘Yeah, well. It was me and my best friend Jules, and my boyfriend, Sebastian. We went from playing low-key gigs, mostly practising in my parents’ garage, to touring most days of the year. Then, I dunno – we were all just burnt out, I guess. And our lives centred on everything but the music. The recording studio wanted a certain kind of song, and then they wanted us to go the more commercial, more pop route, and I just couldn’t do it any more. I just liked writing music and singing, you know? I didn’t want the other stuff.’

  ‘But couldn’t you do a bit of both?’ I asked, thinking it was a shame if no one else got to hear her but the customers at the Blues Bar.

  ‘Yeah, I’m not sure, maybe one day. I’m happy for the first time in years. I don’t mind not having it figured out for a while.’

  I looked at her and nodded. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I still need to work on that. I’m at the “trying to be okay with not having everything figured out” stage,’ I admitted.

  Actually, I was very firmly at the ‘trying really hard not to completely fall apart’ stage but I kept that to myself.

  Big Jim looked at me, and for a moment I could have sworn that those big blue eyes saw straight into my heart, because he touched my shoulder and said, ‘Well, that’s a road worth driving, hon. Mind you pay attention to the signs, it’ll get you there.’

  I half laughed, half swallowed back the tears. I was getting life advice from a real ageing hippie. James would have loved that.

  I listened to their next set, and tried a cocktail called Pineapple Lady, and another called Ring a Rosé, knowing I’d probably regret it in the morning. It was after 2 a.m. when I got home, driven by Big Jim in a beat-up Nissan Micra, my rental bicycle in the boot. He gave my arm a punch and said, ‘You’re gonna be just fine, kiddo,’ before
I stumbled out into the night.

  When I got into bed, though, I thought of what Big Jim had said, about not ignoring the signs on the road.

  I sighed, and picked up James’s letter again. It wasn’t just a sign, it was a roadmap. ‘I’ll go and try to find her tomorrow,’ I told the urn. ‘And I’m working on the other part too, okay? Tonight was fun.’

  Just in case he was listening.

  Chapter Seven

  I twisted James’s ring on my thumb as I walked. My fingers grazed the interlocking pattern of shiny and smooth zigzags that I’d designed with a tiny diamond in the centre, over twenty years ago now. I had got into the habit of twisting it whenever I was feeling particularly nervous.

  For all my promises to James last night, it was midday before I went in search of my grandmother Alba’s sister, Maria de Palma.

  I’d got a map book from Francisco at the shop, and had decided to see where Maria lived. What was the harm in introducing myself? She would either welcome me or she wouldn’t. I could deal with that. What else did I have to do besides clean and think of James?

  I rode my rental bicycle for forty minutes, pausing often to sip water as I passed through untouched countryside dotted here and there with small white houses alongside sandy roads, basking in the warm Spanish sun. The scent of wild rosemary was strong in the air, along with the briny scent of the ocean, today a calm clear turquoise that was dazzling against the ribbons of soft, white beaches as I pedalled, a cool breeze for company.

  It took me the better part of an hour to find where she lived.

  It was a villa with faded blue shutters, much like my own, surrounded by dry farmland. The house was in the familiar cubic design of many of the houses here, one that allowed for the dwelling to spread out over the years as the family grew. In front of the old house, a wooden pergola was strung with vines. The grapes, a rich plum colour, glinted in the sun. I could see beneath their purple haze that the house was cool and dark. Houses like these were designed for the heat and the wind, and I knew that, just as with Marisal, this one’s thick stone would keep the house cool even on a hot day like this.

  A boy with dark tousled hair, nut-brown eyes and an impish grin was playing in the front garden. He was chasing toy cars in the red-brown sand, making a ‘vroom’ noise that made me grin. When he saw me he started speaking in rapid Catalan, and when I responded in a muttered mix of broken, beginner’s Spanish and English that I didn’t understand, he only shrugged and carried on playing.

  A noise made me look up. I saw an old, wizened wisp of a woman, with dark, amber-like skin and greying brown hair, wearing a dress that looked like a faded black tent. Her bent hands were knotty with arthritis, and they hugged her arms beneath her shelf-like bosom.

  She stared at me for some time, her head to the side, waiting for me to speak.

  I stood next to my bike and smoothed my hair nervously, clearing my throat, not knowing how to introduce myself now that I was here. I’d brought no proof, and it seemed somewhat presumptuous of me to have just turned up on her door, now that I thought about it properly. Perhaps I should have tried calling first? All of this ran through my head in a matter of seconds while I stood there, my mouth slightly open, no words coming out, my hands twisting and turning James’s wedding ring.

  A group of children ran past, about six or seven years old, and called out to the boy, who chased after them. They laughed and screamed and created a tangle of tanned limbs, leaving behind a cloud of reddish dust in their wake.

  When the dust began to settle I moved nearer to the woman, and she uncrossed her arms and frowned, saying something in Catalan.

  I apologised. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak the language,’ I said, wincing.

  She nodded, her eyes dark and appraising. Few could speak the local dialect here, and most of the locals were used to the tourists.

  I hesitated. ‘Are you Maria? Maria de Palma?’

  She nodded, and then frowned, her eyes wary. ‘I am.’ Though it sounded more like ‘I yam’. Then she gave me an expectant look that caught me a little off guard.

  ‘I’m Charlotte, Charlotte Woolf, though, um, my maiden name was Alvarez.’

  She stared at me for some time, then she snorted and looked up at the sky, then back at me, as if she was berating God for playing some bad joke on her. Her eyes though warmed considerably. ‘You’re Alba’s child?’

  I shook my head, no. ‘Her granddaughter.’

  She hit her forehead, nodding her grey head. ‘Too young, of course, to be the child.’ Her dark eyes were appraising me. Noting perhaps my red-brown Alvarez hair, my dark green eyes. ‘I was wondering when you’d come.’

  Then she turned round and walked back inside. I stood, rooted to the spot. Did she want me to follow? Or had I been, somehow, summarily dismissed? Was she perhaps enacting some grievance upon me that she’d harboured for my grandmother? Had I come all this way only to have the door slammed in my face?

  ‘Uh, Maria?’ I called after her, hoping that the latter wasn’t the case.

  She turned back, pausing in the doorway.

  ‘You coming in? Or do you want to stand there all day in the hot sun trying to decide?’

  Chapter Eight

  I made my way inside the cool interior, where the scents of furniture polish, lemon and the tart tang of tomatoes meeting a buttered pan greeted me. I was inside a large old-fashioned, farm-style kitchen. There were heavy wooden shelves where cups and plates sat in a colourful helter-skelter of a display. Herbs were drying on the windowsill and there was a rotund grey cat asleep on the flagstone floor, in a hazy ribbon of sunshine.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Maria, pulling out a slim-backed wooden chair and giving it a pat with her brown paw.

  Her English was impeccable. Somehow, looking at her I wouldn’t have expected that. She seemed so traditional. I supposed that looks could be deceptive.

  I hesitated, but then she smiled. It was the kind of smile that did wonders, transforming lines that had settled around the eyes and the mouth, till you saw the person underneath. I couldn’t help feeling a little relieved.

  She shook her head as she looked at me in wonder. ‘You look a little like her, you know that?’

  I nodded. People had been telling me that I looked like my grandmother all my life. Same hair, same eyes. Same freckles across the nose and, despite my Catalan roots, same pale, prone-to-burning skin.

  ‘You thought that I’d come?’

  She nodded. ‘After that man came round, I suspected.’

  I frowned. ‘A man?’

  ‘Snooping… asking questions about me, the family. Soon after he came I heard that the old house had been bought and, well, I wondered… I suppose I hoped, really.’ She shook her head, and muttered, ‘Ai carai, after all these years. You can’t kill hope, eh?’

  I smiled. ‘No, you can’t.’

  Maria took a seat next to me. In front of her was a bowl of potatoes, and she pulled it towards her and started peeling them.

  ‘You stay for lunch.’

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway, hiding a grin. My grandmother had been the same.

  ‘Good. That’s good.’

  I watched her as she peeled the potatoes, noting the black streaks threading through her grey hair, remembering what my grandmother had said – that there had been an Alvarez woman with dark hair – but she’d made out like this was many years ago… was her sister the woman she’d been referring to?

  There was something in the way she held herself, though, an expression in her eyes, the tilt of her head and the shape of her mouth, that reminded me of my grandmother. It was at once strange, sweet and sad, this connection I had never known existed.

  Maria looked at me now, and seemed to steel herself. ‘She’s dead, yes?’

  I swallowed and nodded. She bit her lip and I saw her eyes fill. She took the corner of her apron and dabbed her eyes. Her shoulders shook, and she drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Then she looked up at the ceili
ng.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She nodded, a tear slipping fast down her old, worn cheek. I felt terrible to have been the cause.

  ‘I thought maybe… but yes, when I stopped hearing from her, I suppose I knew.’

  I blinked. ‘She kept in contact with you?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, though not as often as I would have liked… but yes, sometimes over the years. After she arrived in England and met your grandfather, she sent a few letters.’

  ‘She – well, she didn’t say much about her life here,’ I said, hesitating, not wanting to tell this woman that she’d never mentioned the existence of a sister to me at all. Had my father known? He’d died when I was in my late teens, so it wasn’t like I could ask him. Perhaps he’d told my mother. I’d have to ask her – phone her. Though I didn’t relish the idea. I hadn’t told her where I was going – just that I was going away to Spain for a break, somewhere in the sun. I’d simply texted her, not wanting the third degree. She’d loved her mother-in-law deeply, so I wasn’t sure if she’d approve of me digging up her old ghosts. Still, didn’t we have a right to know our own family? Know where we’d come from?

  Maria sighed, putting down her knife temporarily. ‘I didn’t think so. I think after what happened, well, she just wanted to forget about everything.’

  ‘You mean after the war?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, but not just that – she made a choice when she left, to leave it all behind. Something she said once makes me think of that now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was about faith. A lot of the others gave up their faith, too, on the island, it wasn’t just her – many of the other families did, too, you know? It’s ironic, because we kept it secret for so long – some of the children today don’t even know… some people, when you ask them why they are doing a certain thing, like why they pray the way they do, why they sweep the floor away from the house, or why they always light candles on a Friday night, they just say, “Well, it’s what my family always did”, they don’t know, which is to me the saddest part because in the end, when you forget, when you give up on being who you are – well, that’s when they win, you see.’