“Tomorrow,” he declared confidently, “I’ll take you straight to the high spot of your stay.”
“What’s that?”
“You can meet Leo. He lives up at Camacha, in the hills north-east of here. When he heard you were visiting me, he insisted I take you up to have dinner with him. And believe me – it’s not to be missed. He’s a generous host and his quinta’s a lovely place.”
“Quinta?”
“Estate, if you like. But you’ll remember quinta from port bottles at Cambridge. We got through a fair amount of Quinta do Noval together, I remember.”
“Our concession to conservatism.”
“And out of my price range here. So have another glass of this stuff, which isn’t.”
So I did, and the evening dissolved in drink and debate about British and Portuguese politics, students then and now, journalism and Madeira. Already, I was enjoying myself. An old friend and a new setting were taking effect.
Madeira was a different place when I woke next morning. There was a deep blue sky visible through the open window of my room, a chatter of birdsong from the garden, warm sweet air to fill my lungs as I rose and gazed out at sun-drenched Funchal, its rooftops already shimmering in a heat haze. Walls that had been grey when we drove in the day before were glaringly white, tiled roofs that had been brown were bright orange, the city clustering on a verdant green hillside above a broad blue ocean. My head was thick but the air was clear, the prospect bright.
Alec went out after breakfast and returned with some bread, cooked chicken and mangoes. “A picnic lunch,” he announced. “We’ll need it later. Are you ready to start?”
“What’s the hurry? I thought we were going out to dinner?”
“We are – on foot. But it’s a six hour walk to Camacha, so get your boots on.”
“I didn’t know we’d be doing any hiking.”
“I told you – I’m a reformed character. And you look as if some exercise would do you good. Besides, it’s a beautiful walk.”
Alec started cutting sandwiches. “We’ll take my rucksack,” he said. “Pack anything you want for an overnight stay. We won’t come back tonight.”
Well, Alec had said Leo Sellick was a generous host. As for the beauty of the walk, I took his word for it. And at least there was dinner at the end of it.
We walked down to the harbour and boarded a battered old red and grey bus to carry us out of Funchal. It lurched and juddered up steep-cobbled, high-walled roads, engine protesting as we climbed ever upwards.
“We’re going up to Monte‚” Alec shouted into my ear above the diesel roar. “It’s a route taken by lots of English settlers in the past, up into the hills where the air’s cooler and supposed to have healing qualities. Monte’s full of rest homes for wealthy pulmonary patients.” Fumes wafted through the window as the bus strained round a hairpin bend. “Of course, they didn’t travel by bus.” I could understand why.
The bus wound up into the hills until the air became fresher and the streets broader. We were at Monte, cooler and more peaceful than Funchal and, yes, more English as well. We left the bus and walked down a cobbled street past steps leading up to a large, white-fronted church with two rounded belfries and a statue of the Virgin Mary prominent in a niche in the centre of the facing wall.
“Our Lady of the Mount Church,” said Alec. “Emperor Charles of Austria is buried there.”
“Did he come here for his health?”
“If so, it didn’t do him much good. He died young.”
We pressed on through Monte to the Hotel Belmont and turned along a cobbled road past banks of blue and white agapanthus into the settlement of Babosas. Here a railed lookout gave us views over the whole sweep of Funchal and the harbour, the hills above the city quilted with terraces and changing hue constantly as we looked, the shadows of clouds chasing each other across the corrugated slopes. I took pleasure just in looking, for the greens and blues were so much more vivid than they would have been in England, like acrylic paint after watercolour for one who’d just emerged from a winter in London.
We took a grassy path through a sunshot pine and mimosa forest heavy with scent and emerged into a narrow valley with crumbling, basalt cliffs either side. Climbing uphill, we reached the ramparts of a miniature canal where it emerged from the blackness of a tunnel. We headed east along a narrow walkway behind the watercourse.
“This is a levada,” Alec explained. “Madeira’s crisscrossed by them. They bring the rain down from the mountaintops to irrigate the land and drive power stations. And they’re perfect for scenic walks.” Almost immediately a sheer drop down basalt cliffs yawned to our right.
“Don’t look down,” said Alec. “Walk straight ahead and you’ll be perfectly safe.”
I followed Alec carefully along the path until it led away from the dizzy drops, to where pine groves and carpets of lilies flanked our route. Apart from diverting round the boundary walls of a private quinta, we stuck to the levada and its path of ochre-red earth for the next couple of hours until we came to a dusty main road crossing our path.
From the other side of the road, beside a pink-walled cottage – its garden awash with orange and purple lily blossoms – we looked down wooded slopes towards the sea, the coastline – and the humps of the off-shore islands, the Desertas, beyond it – misty in the heat.
“Immediately below us is Palheiro Ferreiro,” Alec announced. “See the mansion down in the trees?” – I could make out its orange rooftops amid the greenery – “That’s the Blandy quinta. They’re about the wealthiest of the English families established on Madeira – a name to reckon with. They’ve dominated the wine trade for three hundred years. So you see, the English have always had a big say on the island.”
“Friends of Leo Sellick?”
“Leo’s a friend of everybody – especially people like the Blandys. And, of course, they don’t live far apart.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“What’s wrong? Feet playing up?”
“Let’s just say I reckon I’ll have earned dinner.”
“We’ll stop for lunch soon.”
Lunch was, in fact, twenty minutes away and the other side of a short levada tunnel which we scrambled through, bent double, by the light of an ailing torch. Beyond, we sat down in a cool pine grove and devoured the picnic.
“We’ll soon be in Camacha,” said Alec. “Quinta do Porto Novo lies a couple of miles the other side of the village.”
“And that’s where Leo lives?”
“Yes. It’s a lovely place at the head of the Porto Novo valley. The scenery round Camacha reminds me of England – all mist and mellow fruitfulness.”
He was right. The levada soon entered another tunnel – this one impassable – and we diverted up a path to the scattered settlement of Ribeirinha, then on up a dusty road between banked verges overrun by blue hydrangeas towards Camacha. The landscape was indeed becoming English in character – apple orchards, with snowy drifts of blossom, stood between holts of willow. We passed gardens and patios where stacks of slender branches stood drying in the sun. “Wickerwork is the local cottage industry‚” Alec explained, “and the Camachans are masters of the craft.”
We left the centre of the village by a cobbled path beside the walls of a private quinta and followed it up to where it crossed another, smaller, drier levada. We followed this as it snaked away from Camacha round the western slopes of the Porto Novo valley. More hydrangeas were in bloom here and the valley fell away beneath us in a tumble of greenery towards the sea. Cloud drifted and played round the hilltops, filtering the sun as the afternoon wore on. Once again, we were in paradise.
After about half an hour, the levada entered a tunnel and we took a cobbled track down to join the dusty red main road leading north from Camacha. We were at the head of the valley, where the road bridged the Porto Novo river and swung round to the eastern slope.
Ahead of us, round the curve, set in a peeling stucco wall that ran along
the roadside, wrought iron gates stood open, with the name QUINTA DO PORTO NOVO inscribed on one of the flanking pillars. The estate within was terraced and wooded and a cobbled drive zig-zagged up the hillside towards the house, its orange roofs and white walls gleaming in the sunlight above the trees.
“This is it,” said Alec. “Quite a hideaway.”
We walked slowly up the drive as the still quiet of early evening settled on the quinta. There was a vineyard on the sunny slope curving away to our right, but we climbed through banks of apple trees, their blossom scattered in our path, to the house itself.
At the top of the drive, an archway led into a courtyard. A fountain, supported by stone cherubim, played in the centre. A half-walled and colonnaded gallery ran round three sides, with hanging baskets in the arches and plaster urns at the foot of each pillar, all overflowing with red hibiscus; their colour and scent filled the yard. Within the gallery, I could see carved and decorated doors leading into the body of the house and, in the middle of the side facing the arch we’d entered by, balustraded stone steps breaking the wall of the gallery and leading up to heavy wooden doors that stood open to the sweet evening air. All here was peace and silence, broken only – or rather perfectly complemented – by the water of the fountain, the buzz of a late bee, the scratch of an early cicada.
“It’s a beautiful place, Alec‚” I said. “So warm and peaceful.”
“Thought you’d like it,” said Alec. “Let’s see if we can find Leo.” He strolled towards the steps.
I lingered by the fountain, savouring the atmosphere. My eye was taken by the ridge tiles on the roof, which had been extended beyond the eaves and crafted in the likeness of dragons’ heads. I was gazing up at them, admiring the handiwork, when a voice came from behind me.
“Tile embellishment is a Madeiran speciality.”
The clipped vowels rendered an introduction superfluous. This was Leo Sellick, a short, wiry man, looking older than I’d expected, with a tanned and lined face, hair as white as his shirt, a thin grey moustache, keen blue eyes and a flashing smile that carried a glint of gold. We shook hands, Sellick with a grip that belied his years.
“There you are, Leo,” said Alec from over my shoulder, retracing his steps. “This is Martin Radford.”
“Of course, of course,” the old man said, still shaking my hand. “You are most welcome, Mr Radford. Alec’s told me all about you and I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. I trust you like the dragons. I’m especially fond of them myself.”
I assured him that I admired them and everything else I’d seen of the house and glanced quizzically at Alec, wondering what he’d found to say of me. But he was already grinning at Sellick and enquiring how the Quinta had fared in the storm, just a little too deferentially for my liking.
“Mr. Radford doesn’t want to know how my vines are growing, Alec, and nor do you‚” Sellick said with disarming accuracy. “Come inside and let me offer you a sundowner. You look as if you need one.”
We strolled up the steps and into the cool entrance hall of the house, then turned into a large, airy drawing room, opulently furnished in rich maroon leather and dark mahogany, with deep-piled rugs beneath our feet. One was a complete leopardskin, laid out on the hearth in front of a wide, brick-breasted fireplace, with logs unkindled in the grate. Likewise, the large fan in the centre of the ceiling was not in service. There were paintings and photographs all round the walls, flowers in vases and pots, several well-stacked bookcases, an air of tranquillity and repose. French windows set in the middle of the wall facing us led out onto a verandah and beyond that a garden. Sellick crossed to a cabinet and poured our drinks.
“There you are, Mr. Radford,” he said, handing me a large cool gin.
“Thanks,” I said. “And please, won’t you call me Martin?”
“I’d be delighted to, if, that is, you will return the compliment by addressing this toothless old lion as Leo.” I smiled: neither actually nor metaphorically was he toothless, but there was something vaguely leonine about this proud and courteous old man. He was shorter than me but stood more erect, with a set to his head and a look in his eye that spoke of scrutiny and command. He had all the English graces but a steely South African edge to them that left me in no doubt who’d shot the leopard.
He suggested we take our drinks onto the verandah while the light held – Madeira’s brief twilight was now setting in – and we followed him out happily, seating ourselves in low wicker chairs and looking down the length of a well-trimmed and tended garden. Winding stone steps led down from the verandah through oleander bushes in blossom to a terraced lawn where a bench stood by a sundial. Beyond that was a low fence overgrown with bougainvillea, a wicket gate and more steps leading to a lower terrace and what looked like a kitchen garden. A figure with a hoe could be seen among the distant vegetable rows. The ground fell away rapidly from that point towards the road and the valley floor. The opposite wall of the valley faced us, the yellow gorse scattered across it turning a dusty gold as evening fell. In the greater distance, a hazy line marked the horizon, where the darkening blue sky met the still darker sea.
“You have a beautiful home, Leo‚” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied. “Madeira is justly called the floating garden of the Atlantic and amongst all the beauties of my homeland, I never found any of the serenity of this place.” He smiled. “Here, one can truly forget the world and tend one’s vegetables.”
Alec grinned. “Leo’s speaking metaphorically, Martin. He has a band of men to tend his vegetables.”
“That is true, but I take an active interest in them, especially when they’re on my plate, as I hope they shortly will be. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and check on that.” He turned to me as he rose. “If you wish to freshen up before dinner, Martin, Alec will show you the way.” He bowed slightly and walked away through the lounge.
“What do you think?” Alec asked after a pause.
“The perfect host,” I said. “And probably the perfect patron.”
“It’s a little ironic, though, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, that I end up writing for English colonials and in debt to a wealthy South African – people I once wouldn’t have been seen dead with.” I had the impression Alec was getting his irony in first – before his friend from left-wing student days could point it out to him.
“It wouldn’t worry me in your shoes, Alec. We’ve all changed and learned to accept life. Why not just make the most of it?” This was gin and fatigue talking – the recommendation would have been better directed at me than Alec. But at least it suppressed any hint of jealousy.
“Well, at least we can make the most of dinner,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”
When I’d washed, I rejoined Alec in the drawing room, where I found him closing the french windows against the night; it was now quite dark outside. “Let’s go through,” he said and led me back into the hall and through a door facing us into the dining room.
A large, oval table stood laid for three. The shutters had been closed and the only illumination came from a candelabrum in the centre of the table. Its light sparkled in silver cutlery and the tracery of tall, narrow-stemmed wine glasses. Orchids stood, freshly cut, in vases at either end, their brilliant red and yellow petals highlighted by the white damask tablecloth.
“Leo’s gone to a lot of trouble,” said Alec. “You should feel honoured.”
I did and, to give some little assistance, lit a taper and went over to three candles that stood on a cabinet by the wall facing the window. As the light splashed up from them onto the wall, it caught a faded sepia photograph, sombrely framed but prominently placed among several much larger paintings. Something struck me as familiar about it, so I took a closer look. Sure enough, it was what I thought: a conventional portrait photograph of a group of about twenty men, some seated, the others standing behind. It was familiar because I’d seen it before,
reproduced in a history text book dealing with Edwardian politics. It was not a period I’d specialized in as a student, but in my history-teaching spell I’d become acquainted with it, and I easily identified this as a group study of Asquith’s Cabinet, circa 1910. The Prime Minister sat in the centre of the front row, flanked by the assembled pride of the Liberal party in its pre-war heyday. Lloyd George, projecting alertness and dynamism beside Asquith’s vague avuncularity, was close enough to the centre to have been Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. Standing a little pensively at the back was the young Churchill, with that bulldog set to his chin even then. Without a caption, I could not put names to the rest of these frock-coated grandees, but it was an historic picture that I peered at with growing curiosity. It seemed strange to see it there, of all times and places, and I said as much to Alec.
Before I could press the point, Sellick reappeared wearing a velvet smoking jacket and urged us to take our seats. An old, stooping Madeiran brought a carafe of white wine, then wheeled in a trolley bearing our first course.
Alec and I were hungry after our walk: we ate and drank with relish, while Sellick nibbled and sipped, savouring our enjoyment as much as the food itself. It was all delicious: deep-sea scabbard fish, sliced and swimming in a tantalizing cucumber sauce; skewered beef, flavoured with laurel and accompanied by the pick of those famous vegetable rows; rich, golden pudim; white, creamy goat’s cheese. We progressed through a smooth, ruby red dão to coffee and a potent liqueur.
“Macia,” explained Sellick, “is a Camachan speciality: fiery aguardente mellowed by honey from local hives.”
“Talking of local specialities,” I said, “I was looking at Alec’s article on 1792 madeira. Is there really any left?”
“Who knows?” said Sellick with a smile. “It is recorded that Dr. Grabham, a local English resident, had some – and drank it – as recently as 1933. He married a member of the Blandy family, thus acquiring a dowry of the 1792 vintage. In all probability the last of it went with his passing.”
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