The Summer of the Spanish Woman

by Catherine Gaskin

  He drew in a deep breath, and for a while did not speak. He laid his head against the neck of the great horse. ‘I did not know I could actually love a horse until this one was gone. Or perhaps … perhaps I don’t really love, but I am like my father. What is mine, is mine. To possess, to hold, to give away. As I choose …

  ‘Some day, I shall make a decision which is my own, not my father’s. I will act as he has always acted ‒ for himself.’ His hand went up to stroke Balthasar’s neck; the stallion responded by nuzzling his shoulder in a rare gesture of affection.

  Suddenly the restlessness that had simmered in me for weeks boiled up so that it could not be checked. I longed to be free of all of this ‒ this house, whatever enmity bound my grandfather and Don Paulo together, even past death, the vain longing that bound me to Richard Blodmore. All of it seemed to find expression in the sight of the dark head of this young man laid against the head of the white horse. I sought the only respite I knew, the form of escape that had always been my way.

  ‘Carlos, will you ride Balthasar again? Will we ride out ‒ out beyond the town, while it is still cool? Before the sun is up?’ His head came around sharply, a look of incredulity on his face. ‘Carlota ‒ would you? Would you do that with me?’

  ‘Saddle up Balthasar and Half Moon. I’ll get dressed. We must be very quiet. Andy sleeps over the kitchen. But the front doors are now oiled, and open very easily …’

  He moved like a shadow towards the tack room. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  * *

  The horses’ hooves made a great clatter in the courtyard, and I expected to be challenged by Andy or Paco, but no one appeared. The doors opened as easily as I had predicted ‒ we left them slightly ajar against our return. Pepita followed at our heels. I had put on only the skirt of my riding habit and an old cotton shirt left over from the Clonmara days. My hair hung freely down my back. I felt light-hearted, almost like a child again, released from all the weight of these past months, happy in a way I had not been since my grandfather died. The gloomy oppressiveness of the house was left behind, and with it most of my caution, the last grains of good sense running like sand from an hour-glass. The streak of recklessness which was in all the Blodmores was uppermost in me now. I did not recognise at that time that I was being truly the child of my mother, as she was the child of her father. That knowledge would come later. For these magical moments of first light the strictures of such people as Maria Luisa did not exist. I was not born of a race of people who had ever been careful.

  Carlos knew all the twisting back alleys of the town, and we were soon beyond it. We set out on a road I had never been on before, away from the vineyards. Here the country rolled to grassy hills. There was no one about. Not even the hard-toiling peasants were astir at this hour. ‘The road to Arcos,’ Carlos said. The walking stride of the horses was lengthening as they felt the freedom of the empty, open road. Together we urged them into a trot. It was brightening rapidly. We passed a place where, behind a well-made fence surmounted by barbed wire, a number of black cattle grouped together in a grove of eucalyptus trees. I could make them out only vaguely in that light. ‘One of my father’s bull ranches,’ Carlos said. ‘Those are the cows – the mothers of the brave bulls.’ He turned and flashed a smile at me, the engaging smile he used so often, but never before had I seen it without its veneer of politeness.

  ‘Do you know that we have trials with the female calves to test their courage before breeding them with a bull of a proven line? The mothers are often fiercer than the sons. If the mother is brave, there is an excellent chance she will bear a brave bull.’ His smile came again. ‘The female, you see, is always the most important, even if we men never admit it.’

  I laughed, delighted with the idea. And then suddenly the restlessness I had fought these last weeks would not tolerate even the fast trot of the horses. It demanded expression, total release. I urged Half Moon on, and she responded with the eagerness that all this time of sedate walking through the thoroughfares of Jerez had stored in her. She was as tired as I was of the restrictions, the politeness, the small gestures. Her stride lengthened, and broke to a canter. I felt the wind of movement in my face. It had a sweet freshness to it, something longed for. I let her out finally into a full gallop.

  Carlos held Balthasar only a little longer. Then with a cry he let the stallion have his head. Very soon he was level, and then past us.

  Was I, for a few instants of time, back on the shore beside Clonmara? Was it Richard who passed me on the great white horse? I wasn’t conscious that I thought at all of him in those moments. The sense of freedom was intoxicating, both sharp and sweet. I kicked Half Moon to greater effort, and she pursued her stable-mate as if there was a chance that she might catch him. But it was Balthasar’s country, the place of his breeding. He suited the firm going of the dirt road, as the mare had suited the wet sand beside Clonmara. He was a long way ahead before Carlos began to slow him. In Balthasar too the restlessness of these long dull weeks had been brewing.

  He was standing still, sweat on his white coat, when I finally reached them. Pepita came panting behind. Carlos had slipped from the saddle, and was waiting for us. Wordlessly, he helped me dismount, and there were no questions to ask as we drew aside from the road, and entered an unfenced grove of eucalyptus trees like the one where the black cows had grouped.

  The horses had had their longed-for gallop, and were satisfied. We walked them for a time through the trees. The strangely pungent scent of eucalyptus in the early morning hung about us; the white trunks were like wraiths in these last moments before the sun rose. Still without saying anything, I surrendered Half Moon’s reins to Carlos. He tied both horses, and then he took me in his arms.

  I had always supposed the first time I loved there would be confusion and bewilderment, because I did not know quite the way it all should go. Too often I had seen animals mate and had thought that with me also it might be something hasty, over and done with quickly. But it was different. Carlos made it different. We had no wide, soft bed. The ground beneath us was hard, and the dried edges of the fallen eucalyptus leaves were sharp. But Carlos was in no hurry, and at any moment I could have stopped it; but I did not. I wanted his love ‒ I was desperate to have the loneliness driven from my own soul and I believed he could do it with his body. I accepted the first terrible pain as the price of our unity, the oneness that would end all my longings. I felt the thrust of him within me, and through the pain, its beauty. For a time I was lost in him, all of me submerged, giving and taking in equal measure.

  At last he lay spent beside me, his hand brushed the long hair away from my face. ‘Carlota … my little brave one. Your first time and you are already a woman, a wonderful woman.’ He kissed me with great tenderness. ‘You are like the mothers of the brave bulls back there, those beautiful, strong, wonderful creatures. When you have sons, they will be brave bulls, my Carlota.’

  * *

  Later, before Carlos untied the horses, he took from his belt a thin, leather-sheathed knife. ‘Look, Carlota …’ He was carving something on the tree. ‘With the finest Toledo blade I sign our names.’ The black and gold handle of the knife flashed in the sun, the thin steel blade cut readily into the white bark. I watched, fascinated, as the symbol took shape. ‘Two Cs intertwined,’ he said. ‘Whoever owned this land does not know that now it belongs to us. Our brand is here as long as this tree stands.’

  * *

  Andy was waiting for us by the open doors when we returned, his face sharp with concern. He held the note I had left; it would have been madness to have taken the two horses without a sign to him, because like all grooms, he rose early. I had dashed off the words: ‘Andy ‒ back soon ‒ Charlie.’

  Typically, Carlos didn’t attempt any explanations. His father’s son, he seemed to ignore Andy’s presence. He slipped off Balthasar’s back, and handed the reins to the groom. He kissed my hand. ‘A miraculous morning, Carlota.’ And then he walked across the plaza and into
a side street.

  ‘Miss Charlie …’ Andy began. There was a tremor in his voice which could have been anger.

  ‘It’s all right, Andy. We were very careful with the horses.’

  ‘And I’m wondering if it’s very careful with yourself you’ve been, Miss Charlie. Lord Blodmore charged me to take care of you, and this young …’

  I almost flung myself down from the saddle, and threw the reins to him. ‘Oh, damn Lord Blodmore! Damn him!’

  The tears slid down my cheeks as I sped back to my room. Richard Blodmore was back with me. My morning of wonder was gone, destroyed by him. And I had to ask myself, after I had washed and put on a nightgown, and lay weeping between the sheets, if it had indeed been Richard Blodmore, and not Carlos, I had pursued as I had urged Half Moon to catch up with the white stallion.

  Chapter Four

  I

  The rain held off through those next weeks. ‘Any day now they will begin to harvest,’ Maria Luisa said when September arrived. Preparations were made for the celebration of the harvest, la vendimia, under the patronage of San Gines de la Jara. A special Mass was said at the Collegiate church, and a lagar, a shallow, square wooden box, was set up on the steps of the church for the ceremonial treading of the grapes, and the blessing of the first must which ran from the lagar. I was with my mother and Maria Luisa on the steps of the church when the four solemn, burly men, called pisadores, wearing very short trousers and their special nail-studded leather boots, the zapatos de pisar, trod the first grapes, leaning on their wooden shovels. After a while the must began to flow from the lagar, the skins, pips and stems held back by mesh strainers. Jugs of the must were passed around; it smelled rather unpleasant, tasted green and sharp. ‘Not drinkable, of course,’ Maria Luisa said. ‘But one must take a token sip. It is not yet wine, but they are saying the must this year is a good quality, and the harvest will be plentiful.’

  All of Jerez seemed to be there. For the first time for more than a month I saw Carlos in the crowd which eddied and moved and spilled over into the plaza before the church. He did not make his way towards us, and I told myself that he had not seen us. I told myself that, and only half believed it. For these weeks there had been no word from him, no note, no gesture. The only time I had been to the stable-yard in the hour before the dawn it had been Andy who waited beside Balthasar’s box. ‘Good morning, Miss Charlie. Will you be riding out this morning? If you are, I’ll just saddle up and go along with you ‒ just to see that everything’s all right, you know.’

  ‘No, I’m not going out, Andy. Just can’t sleep, that’s all.’ But I wore the skirt of my habit, and carried my riding crop. I never knew if Carlos had come again, and Andy’s presence had deterred him. I had waited, day by day, for some message from him, and as the days passed, and none came, I tried to tell myself that it was as well. What we had done was madness. I had taken a young man and tried to use him to assuage the loneliness in the centre of my being. For a time, a very short time, he had done this, but now the loneliness was greater than before. I hoped Carlos would not come, would not send a message to meet him, and yet I prayed he would. It was like a blow to see him across the packed steps of the church, to see his face which seemed to be turned deliberately, steadily away from mine. For him, I told myself, I had been a girl to enjoy for only one mad moment in the dawn. That was all. I did not love Carlos ‒ how could I when I loved Richard Blodmore? But I desperately needed the reassurance of a sign from him, a gesture.

  It was Sunday, and we went that afternoon to the corrida, my mother and I protesting, and Maria Luisa insisting. She had found places for us in one of the boxes in the top tier. ‘It belongs to a cousin ‒ there are seats to spare. You must appear.’ She hustled us up the long flights of stone steps. ‘Sit at the back if you don’t want to see, but say nothing.’ She greeted effusively all the various cousins, introduced us to those we hadn’t met. Two of her sisters were there, and they patronised her. For a time my mother was happy. The whole bull-ring was wild with the mood of the feria. We and all the gentry of Jerez were on the shady side, la sombra; on the other side, el sol, the workers and peasants sat unshielded in the merciless hammer-blow of the three o’clock sun. We gossiped with those in the box, and witnessed the blossoming of the beautiful, many-coloured silk shawls, with their delicate fringes, on the rails of the boxes all around the arena. ‘It is like a garden suddenly growing in front of one’s eyes,’ my mother said. She had had several copitas, and the dread of what she might see had been blunted. ‘Charlie, aren’t the mantillas charming …?’ The ladies had brought out their high combs, and draped their lace mantillas from them. Some of the younger ones wore a carnation behind one ear. It seemed as if in an instant everything that was English about the town had been submerged in its essential Spanishness. They might bear English, Irish and Scottish names, but these were Spaniards about me.

  The old joke that the bull-fight was the only thing in Spain to start on time was repeated, and we laughed. We witnessed the full ceremonial of the occasion, the march of the toreros, their suits of light flashing in the sun. From the height of the box it was colourful and romantic, and one did not think of the bull. The band played, the crowd applauded their favourites. It was nothing but a game, I thought. It would soon be over. The black hats of the fighters were raised to the president in his box. The men and the horses retreated to their places behind the barrera. The bugle sounded, gates were opened, and the mighty power of a great black bull was unleashed into the ring. The men who played him first with the stiff pink capes seemed puny and insignificant. The thundering might of the animal would defeat them. It could be no other way, I told myself.

  I managed to stay in my seat all through the time when the bull and the mounted horsemen, the picadors, fought it out, the men with their long pics seeming to have the advantage as they strove to wound the animal to bring down the neck muscles, to lower the great head. But then I saw the wicked horns pierce the padded blankets which covered the horse’s side. The horse and man went down. There was a wild scramble to distract the bull away from the horse, and the fallen man. It succeeded, but not before the sand was red with the mingled blood from the horse’s side and the blood that streamed from the bull’s neck. The man and the horse were taken away, the president signalled again, the bugles blew, and the banderilleros came on, each taunting the bull, enraging him with their cries of ‘Toro! ‒ toro!’ The barbed shafts, so prettily decorated and so cruel, penetrated and stayed. They waved sickeningly as the bull moved, more slowly now, but still a great black menacing mass. The head was down, at an angle, Maria Luisa whispered to me, where the matador might hope to pass his thin sword straight through the neck and cleanly to the heart. But first, to show his courage and skill, he must play the bull alone in that suddenly emptied space, his helpers gone, safe behind the barrera, the man and the bull facing each other, with the chance that the man as well as the bull, might die.

  There was too much blood; I had seen enough. As quietly as I could, but with urgency, I pushed past the chairs of those around me, blindly seeking the entrance to the box. Out in the deserted corridor behind the boxes, I listened to the waves of sound that came … ‘Ole …! ole …! ole …!’ And then the waves of nausea could be held back no longer. I found myself vomiting repeatedly, almost uncontrollably.

  It was Maria Luisa who came. I felt her arm about my shoulder, her handkerchief wiped my fouled lips. ‘It is too much for you? I would not have thought you so weak-stomached.’ She fanned my face, and produced another clean handkerchief, this time wiping the tears of shame and weakness. Then she stopped, and the fanning stopped. ‘What is it, querida? You are too pale …’ She left me, and in a minute was back with a glass of wine. She stood with me as I sipped it. The cheers of the crowd still deafened me, but she leaned in close, and I heard her quietly spoken words.

  ‘But it is not just the bull, is it, querida?’

  ‘Not just the bull? It was the blood …’

 
‘You have seen blood before. It is not just the bull-fight at all, is it? Is it?’ she insisted.

  All her years of watching young girls, young women, were in that question. And yet it was gently said. The thing that had troubled me most in the last two weeks was also in the question.

  ‘Perhaps it is not the bull, Maria Luisa.’

  For only a moment she leaned back against the wall and her shoulders sagged. Briefly she closed her eyes, then they snapped open, black, resolute. ‘We have a saying here in Jerez ‒ “The girls and the vines are difficult to guard.” I have been remiss. However, we will say, for the moment, that it is the bull. We will go home, you and I. Your mother will find plenty to escort her. We must think. We must make sure. Yes … I will make some arrangements.’

  * *

  The next day Andy drove us to the office of Dr Miguel Ramírez. ‘Do not be afraid,’ Maria Luisa said. ‘He is discreet. An old friend. He never talks. A good man …’

  She remained in the room while he made his examination. She was silent most of the way home. ‘Now you must tell me, querida. Who is it?’

  I could not lie to her. I had no defences. She had not raised her voice in anger, or disgust. She might have been speaking as if I had broken something valuable, something prized, which could not be replaced, but for which act I did not merit scorn or punishment. And then it occurred to me that that was precisely what I had done.

  ‘Carlos,’ I said. ‘It was not his fault. I did not resist him. I wanted him.’

  ‘I did not speak of fault, querida. So … it is Carlos. You see now why, although the world laughs, we watch our young girls so carefully. The blood runs hot. So … Carlos …’ Then she sighed. ‘Child, you do not make things easy for me. You might have chosen other than the best-loved son of Don Paulo.’ She let out a sharp, harsh little laugh. ‘Well, now I must really set out to earn that money Lord Blodmore sends to me. We must have you married.’