The Island Villa_The perfect feel good summer read

by Lily Graham

  Chapter Fifteen

  Formentera, 1718

  When Cesca got back to the house after seeing Antoni off, the sun was casting a hazy ribbon across the horizon and her mother had started on breakfast. There were anxious worry lines around her almond-shaped green eyes, but she smiled when Cesca entered the cool interior of the dark kitchen, where the small window offered a glimpse of the turquoise sea. Nearby a seagull was making its strange cry.

  It was going to be a fine morning. The storm had passed and she could feel summer on the way.

  Esperanza was still lying in bed, as usual. Her eighteen-year-old little sister was one of life’s late risers, and could only be coaxed out of bed with the threat of losing her breakfast to Grunon the goat.

  Reading her mind, her mother tied a kerchief round her head and threw her long red and grey plait over her shoulder as she stirred the pot.

  ‘I’m giving her another five minutes before Grunon gets it.’

  Cesca chuckled, then got started on a herbal remedy for fever. The night before, she’d given a tisane made of cloves and cinnamon to the man her brother had brought for them to care for; she’d spooned it into his lips. She’d make another today and hopefully it would go some way towards his recovery. He’d been sleeping fitfully, crying out softly in his sleep, but that had stopped now, thankfully.

  He was young, perhaps in his late twenties, thin and battered. One eye was swollen almost completely shut from the blows of his captor’s fists. It was difficult to tell the colour of his hair, she thought – due to the matted dirt and dried blood that had collected in it. His features, beyond the bruises, were even, handsome, she thought. Or perhaps they would be if he hadn’t been so bruised. She’d found herself staring at him, perhaps more than she ordinarily would. Strangers were rare on the island. But she didn’t allow herself any other thoughts besides trying to get him well; she had been promised to the doctor, Señor Garcia, since she was a young girl. Arranged marriages were common on the island, particularly in their secret Jewish community.

  Her mother shook her head. Didn’t share her own thoughts and worries, which mainly centred on what they’d do if the man died – what would they do with his body?

  Cesca’s main worry right then, though, was mostly about kicking her lazy sister out of her bed so that she could help with the morning’s chores. The fact that only ten months in age existed between them was a surprise to most people, who thought that Cesca, with her quiet authority, was many years her sister’s senior.

  She made her way into her sister’s room and pulled back the covers.

  Esperanza groaned, then looked at her with groggy slits for eyes. Her dark hair was a messy waterfall on her pillow. ‘I’m tired, leave me be.’

  Cesca sighed and shook her arm. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Another five minutes, I was having a good dream.’

  Cesca sighed. Shook her again. ‘It’s your turn to collect the eggs and clean the goat pen. Why do I always have to drag your lazy behind out of bed?’

  Esperanza groaned and turned over. ‘Ugh. I hate that goat.’

  Cesca hid a grin.

  Esperanza put her hair up in a kerchief, then stomped her way outside. The kitchen still smelt like the man her brother had brought for them to care for. It smelt like death, and it made her feel uncomfortable, and a little frightened despite her brave talk the day before. She didn’t want to be like him, forced to flee her home.

  The wind was howling, and the ground was cold, and she faced the day with a scowl. She’d been dreaming that her brother and sister hadn’t in fact brought a wanted man to live with them – one they would now have to pretend was Rafael, her cousin. If he lived, that is. From the smell alone, she wasn’t sure of that, and she gritted her teeth at the thought of having to help her sister and mother dig a grave.

  She put Antoni’s old boots on – the ones with the hole by the big toe where the damp crept in. She’d have to stuff some more paper in it later. She sighed again. She was tired of everything always falling apart, everything always being second-hand and half broken already. Most of her clothing was hand-me-downs from her sister.

  Flea came to meet her, his tail seeming to wag him. He was a springy, feather duster of a dog with muddy brown matted fur and only one eye. Cesca had given him the name because she said that he was just a bag for fleas. He was. He was also the love of Esperanza’s life. She patted him and kissed the spot where his other eye used to be, and he followed devotedly after her as she trudged into the hen coop.

  Collecting the eggs was the only chore she enjoyed, so she did it first. She liked the hens. Their soft, warm, cuddly bodies. Her mother told her not to get too close, but she never learned.

  ‘Hello, girls,’ she said, greeting the matriarch, Gertrudis, and running a hand over her soft downy feathers. Soon Dolores came over for a cuddle, too.

  Afterwards, with her shoulders squared, she went to find Grunon, the goat.

  Cesca had brought the demon goat home from the market two months ago, amazed at the deal she’d got. Esperanza wasn’t that amazed. Grunon gave new meaning to the word stubborn.

  She wouldn’t come when Esperanza called, refused to budge, and whenever she tried to milk her she kicked her legs and the milk pail went flying across the pen. Most days they were lucky if they got even half the milk they should have. It hardly seemed worth the hassle. Esperanza had said time and again that they should trade the goat for something else. But Cesca was sure Grunon just needed time to settle into her new home. Besides, they wanted to make their own cheese and butter, not to trade for it – that was the plan anyway. ‘But if you keep this up,’ she said, whispering into the grumpy goat’s white, straggly-haired ear, ‘maybe they’ll just put you on a spit on the next saint’s day. Maybe I’ll help.’

  Grunon knew a threat when she heard it, and lashed out, kicking over the bucket and ensuring that the precious milk spilled all over the floor.

  ‘Gah! You horrible creature,’ Esperanza moaned, picking up the pail and trying to drag the goat back into her stall. Forty-five minutes later she came inside the kitchen with her milk-slopped dress, hair a tangled dark mess and her face red and shiny with sweat. And the man who had been fast asleep in the kitchen cried out for water.

  Esperanza set the pail down in the corner with a thud, and came forward despite her annoyance.

  The man was covered in bruises, one eye purple and swollen. His hair, a filthy, matted mess. He smelt of sickness, and sweat, and he was muttering in a mix of Spanish and French. They heard the word water again a few times. Cesca rushed forward with a glass and Esperanza stopped.

  Her mother looked at her, then Cesca, shook her head and pointed at the stranger lying in the corner. ‘What was your brother thinking? What if he can’t speak our dialect – how are we going to pass him off as your cousin then?’

  ‘I’m sure he can speak Eivissenc,’ said Cesca.

  She was trying to allay her mother’s fears, though she had been worrying about the same thing. How was this man meant to pass for one of them? Especially if he didn’t sound like a local? Besides, he didn’t look like Rafael, their real cousin, either. Rafael had been pale and thin, with fair hair. This man was dark and muscular. Though, she thought, maybe not many people on the island would remember what the real Rafael looked like. It had been years since she’d seen her cousin last, and he’d been young then – people changed.

  Rafael had died of fever. It had happened suddenly and with no real warning. It had been a shock to find out. It seemed odd, prophetic in a way, that this man here now, who was meant to be passing as Rafael, was suffering from a similar illness.

  Cesca spooned small dribbles of water into his dry, parched lips, slowly, so as to make sure that he swallowed and didn’t choke, and soon he drifted off back into a deep, soundless sleep.

  But there was something else that couldn’t be avoided.

  She heated water in a pot over the fire. ‘I think it’s time that he had a wash,’ she
said, squaring her shoulders, ignoring her mother’s look of horror.

  Esperanza nodded. ‘I agree.’ Then she got some dried lavender and fetched the bar of home-made rosemary-scented soap and handed it to Cesca. Afterwards she announced that she was going out for the rest of the day.

  Cesca sighed. She supposed that was about as much help from Esperanza as she could hope for.

  Cesca worked up a lather with the bar of herbal soap and scrubbed the man’s face and neck, as gently but firmly as she dared. Then she pulled up his filthy shirt, which looked like it had dried with a mixture of dirt and blood, asking for her mother’s help to support his weight while she pulled it off him. She could see dark bruises around his ribs and she felt them for damage. ‘Broken,’ she said with a wince.

  Her mother helped her, muttering the whole time, ‘It’s not right, not appropriate for you to be doing this…’

  Cesca sighed. ‘What does that matter, Mare? Must we leave him to suffer in this filth because I am unmarried, promised to the doctor? Or would you like to try washing him by yourself?’

  Her mother shot her a look of reprimand, and Cesca felt a stab of regret at her sharp tone. She knew that her mother felt bad enough that her daughter was in this situation.

  She looked at her kindly and joked, ‘I’ll close my eyes before I see anything I shouldn’t.’

  Her mother’s lips twitched. ‘You’d have to look to know.’

  She grinned, then carried on scrubbing the man’s arms. She washed his hair in a mixture of lavender and rosemary, both gathered from the plants that grew wild on the island. They would help with the lacerations on his head, and would clear the matted tendrils of any dirt and debris.

  She’d learned about natural remedies from Señor Garcia. He was the only doctor who lived on the island and, after his wife passed away, Cesca had become his assistant. It was because of him that she and Esperanza had learned how to read – he liked to read medical studies, and he thought it would be a good idea if she knew how to read them as well, so that he could share his findings with her and have someone to talk to about it. He’d taught her (and Esperanza, because she refused to be left out when he offered) how to read and their father hadn’t objected.

  In fact, it was something her father had taken pride in, when Señor Garcia had asked for his permission to teach the girls. ‘Imagine having two daughters smarter than most of the men on this island,’ he used to boast. Most people couldn’t read or write beyond their first name here, some not even that.

  ‘Pare!’ Cesca had reprimanded when she was a child. The men here would not take too kindly to that idea and, after all, she would most likely have to marry one of them.

  He’d simply shrugged. ‘Don’t lower your standards for others, child, always make sure that the people around you raise theirs.’

  Her father had often said things like that. Before he died, he’d spoken to the doctor about taking on Cesca as a wife. It was a good match, though he was much older than her. Most marriages on the island were arranged by parents long before their children reached adulthood. Esperanza had also been betrothed to a cousin, since the age of six. It was just how things were done. For Cesca, the fact that her future husband had so much to teach made her proud. Señor Garcia was a trusted friend, and she looked forward to learning more from him. Esperanza, of course, had often threatened to run away before she could be married off, but she was the exception – most young women on the island just accepted it as their fate.

  It was Esperanza’s turn to make the bread and she preferred to do it without her sister’s sighs. She was forever telling her how to do things right. Her way, she meant. Unfortunately, when it came to Esperanza, Cesca often had a point. She had an unfortunate tendency to burn things because she liked to gossip too much with her friend, Riba, or she got distracted by her dog, Flea. Who, despite his small stature, was a champion walker, and cove explorer, and swimmer, keeping up with her long strides and never taking his one eye off her.

  Flea wasn’t allowed indoors, to Esperanza’s deep, abiding regret. It was Cesca and her mother’s hard and fast rule. Which is why she often spent as much time as she could out of the house.

  They didn’t mind the dog that much at the communal bread oven, which served a few of the neighbours. Esperanza went there every few days to make bread with the other women, but mostly she liked to catch up on all the news with Riba, her best friend, and get out of the rest of the chores for the afternoon.

  Riba used to live, many years ago, on the main island, Ibiza, and Esperanza liked hearing her stories about it. The wealthy traders, and merchants, the officials, some of the bigger estates. She longed to live there herself one day, and would have, as the cousin she’d been engaged to had made his home there. It was the only thing about her marriage that she had looked forward to – the idea of getting off this tiny slip of an island and having a big house and a servant! It would be bliss to have someone else worry about the goat for once. When she used to speak like that to her mother or her sister, they would just shake their heads. ‘It doesn’t do to fill your head with dreams, ’Spranza. It only makes life harder.’

  Which, Esperanza knew, was probably true, but the trouble was, the dreams felt so good when she was imagining them. Wanting more than a life here was unfathomable to Cesca and her mother. Esperanza sometimes cursed her own overactive imagination, and Riba’s glamorous tales about the parties, the dresses, the jewellery and the well-heeled men…

  It was a world away, she knew, and now it was all gone anyway. Things had changed, almost overnight. The man she’d been promised to was dead, which meant leaving this island was probably never going to happen now anyway, and all that she’d done was get her hopes up about a life that was never going to be hers. She’d be stuck here with that goat for ever.

  Still, maybe she had more say in her future now, after all. Perhaps with her brother away and her father gone, she could choose a husband for herself. She liked that thought, although she had no idea where to start. Most of the boys she’d grown up with felt more like brothers than potential suitors and if she swapped her house for one of theirs it would still just be more of the same in the end. Perhaps just a different goat, she thought with a humourless chuckle.

  As she kneaded the dough and shaped it into a loaf, waiting her turn to put it into the big fiery oven, she heard one of the other women mention again the stranger from mainland Spain, and all thoughts of her future were dashed out of her mind. This new stranger from Barcelona who had recently arrived on the island had all the residents worried. The rumour went that he’d said he was doing a study of the surrounding flora and fauna, but few believed that tale. Most people assumed he was some kind of an official, that he was checking in on them somehow. Perhaps he even had ties to the Holy Office, or was an Inquisitor. That was the big fear, of course. With their secret community, they had learned to always err on the side of caution; it was what kept them safe, and alive.

  The fear the presence of this man, this Barcelona stranger, had caused had ensured that there were now crosses nailed to every door and no one went near the secret synagogue except under cover of darkness.

  It made Esperanza even more nervous as she considered their own stranger, hiding in their kitchen. What would happen to them all if the man from Barcelona found out about him?

  ‘I saw him,’ said Riba now, and Esperanza started. It was as if the woman had been reading her thoughts. She looked up, her dark eyes wide.

  There were five women in the small room they used to make their bread, and they all turned now to Riba, who nodded her own dark head.

  ‘You did?’ said Esperanza, swallowing nervously, pushing the strands of hair that had fallen out of her plait away from her face.

  Riba nodded. ‘Yes. He’s staying in one of the governor’s houses.’

  Esperanza let out a small, relieved sigh. Riba was talking about the stranger from Barcelona. The governor had a few houses on the island, which were mainly used by people i
n the salt trade, but they were people like them, long connected with the area.

  There were more than a few nervous stammers from the women.

  ‘What’s he really doing here, do you know?’ asked a woman with pale, reddish-brown hair and wide cornflower-blue eyes.

  Riba stoked the fire in the oven and turned back to look at the woman who’d asked. Seeing the fear in her eyes, she shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m just hoping that it’s not what we fear – that he’s working for the Holy Office. He’s been asking a lot of questions about the salt trade, so he might be connected with that. But he didn’t say.’

  They shared anxious looks. ‘But it’s not like he would admit that he was from the Holy Office – not if he were here trying to detect any secret practices,’ said one of the older women.

  They all nodded.

  None of them would dare to call them Jewish practices here, not aloud. It just wasn’t done, not in public, and hardly ever in private either. You never knew who could be listening. Even now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Formentera, present day

  The air stirred with the gentle lap of the ocean, the tantalising aroma of sun-ripened tomatoes, butter, saffron and the sound of laughter and music.

  My first impromptu dinner party was on one of those languid evenings that make for the perfect summer’s night.

  I’d made paella de mariscos, using a recipe that Maria taught me that afternoon when I’d asked. She’d taken me to a local market that smelt of fish and hard work. It was crammed with shouting men and women, all intent on getting the best deal of the day, and with Maria as my guide, I walked away with a good deal from a local fisherman for two bulging bags full of freshly caught lobster and prawns. The dish Maria taught me how to make was the Ibiza version; the paella was a golden colour from the saffron, with a crunchy base. It was rich, and deliciously spicy, with diced squid, mussels, prawns, rice and lobster.