The Summer of the Spanish Woman

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘Clonmara is looking quite lovely, Lady Patricia. Why don’t you come to visit? All your old friends ask about you.’ Elena’s smile was knowing, and contemptuous. My mother, despite our best efforts, looked a ruin. How had her hair tumbled down so quickly? ‒ and how had she managed already to spill wine on her dress?

  But she caught eagerly at the name. ‘Clonmara?’ Then she shook her head, and hairpins showered about her. ‘No ‒ no, I can’t go back again. It isn’t my home any more. Father isn’t there ‒ I can’t go back …’

  She would have gone on. She would have stood before Elena Blodmore rambling on, her haunted, weary face expressing all the moods that surged through her as she relived the past. She didn’t care about the people lining up behind. She didn’t know they were there. She blinked many times, and seemed to see Elena with new eyes.

  ‘You! ‒ you’re the one who came, aren’t you? The one who came and made us go away …’

  I held her arm more firmly and tried to lead her on. She stood rooted, and Luis was nowhere in sight to help me. Then Richard Blodmore laid his own hand over mine on her arm.

  ‘You remember me, Lady Pat? You remember me and Balthasar?’

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him. ‘Yes …’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘But you were beautiful then! A beautiful man. What has happened to you? Did you fall from a horse? Did someone ride over you? Your face is smashed …’

  She was talking about things other people didn’t mention. Suddenly Richard took her other arm, leaving the receiving line, and led her away. She walked between us, her hair falling in wisps about her shoulders, her gown stained, her gaze upturned with horrified concern at Richard. People parted before us. I could hear the talk start as we moved through. ‘Lady Patricia at it again …’

  ‘Let’s go and have something to drink, Lady Pat,’ Richard said. ‘Yes, you’re right. It was a fall ‒ All my own fault. A devil of a big bank it was, and I came at it the wrong way. Do you remember that big devil at the end of Malloy’s Long Field?’

  ‘Yes … yes …’ She nodded eagerly. ‘How well I remember it.’

  He placed a glass in her hand. ‘Well then, you see, I was coming at it, and didn’t have my wits about me …’

  Perhaps unfortunate words, but they served. She was following every detail of a hunt that had never taken place, a fall that had never happened. She had forgotten all about the war, the war in which Richard had served and in which he had lost half his face. She had forgotten about the husband who had been killed, my father who had won the medal. She had remembered the emeralds and now she remembered Malloy’s Long Field. She lived every moment of the chase, she seemed to hear the cry of the hounds again in Richard’s voice.

  The excitement became too much for her. ‘Gone away … gone away!’ she cried, echoing the huntsman’s call. People were gathered around, listening openly. She gripped my hand, and the wine spilled from her glass down on her dress. ‘Oh, Charlie, won’t it be wonderful when we’re back at Clonmara again!’

  My eyes met Richard’s fully for the first time since we had parted at Southampton. The call of the huntsman’s horn echoed in my own heart. ‘Gone away … gone away …’

  IV

  It was the last afternoon of the Blodmores’ visit. Tomorrow they would travel to Gibraltar. This time Juan would go with them as far as London. In a week’s time he would enter his first English school. He put a good face on it, but I could sense just a shade of apprehension in him, a certain stiffness that usually was totally lacking.

  ‘I suppose my English really is good enough?’ he said to Edwin Fletcher. In the last week he had asked that at least once a day.

  ‘Your English is good enough. It’s the slang that will trip you up in the beginning. You’ll get the hang of it soon.’

  Edwin had been quietly against sending Juan to school in England. ‘They’re rather barbaric places, really. They produce bullies and snobs.’

  ‘It is necessary,’ the Marquesa had said. Juan was already one year late in going there. We had held him back in Jerez because Don Paulo’s health was giving concern, and a daily visit from his grandson seemed to help him. But now Juan must go, and in another year Martin, and then Francisco would follow him. It was a pattern long established in Jerez.

  Now, on this last afternoon we sat together in the garden and I thought, except for our clothes, we might have posed for one of those Edwardian photographs, with the table laid formally for English tea, a butler and a footman in attendance. The touch of Edwardian atmosphere was made stronger by the presence of the Marquesa, who still wore her black dresses to the ground, and out of doors, a large black, tulle-draped hat. A black lace parasol was propped against the side of her chair. As always she dominated the group, even though, because it was an exceptional occasion, Don Paulo was also present.

  Richard and Elena were there, and their sons, Edward and Paul. My mother had come, with Maria Luisa. Maria Luisa’s dress, like the Marquesa’s, was unchanging. My mother’s skirts were a little shorter, but she still clung to the old styles, although her slim body would easily have carried off the loose, shapeless form that fashion now favoured. Elena wore her skirts shorter than anyone in Jerez had dared think of, and her still-golden hair was bobbed. She wore lipstick frankly, had long painted nails, and smoked her cigarettes through a holder. She was the epitome of the new woman who had emerged through the war years. I thought the time she had spent in Spain must have been a severe strain. She had completely broken from the old Spanish mould in which we were still confined. That she did not like this man-dominated society was clear. She talked of driving cars, and how fast they could go, as well as riding hunters. She talked of visits to London when Richard did not accompany her. She crossed and re-crossed her legs restlessly as we sat in the late-summer garden, obviously bored with the obligations of this family gathering, obviously looking forward to the release that the next day would bring.

  Luis had stayed away from the bodega that afternoon to be present. I thought for him also tomorrow would bring relief. The presence of Richard Blodmore must have been almost as hard on him as it had been on me. He had been so considerate with me, so understanding of the stress the visit laid on me. He had never once asked me about Richard, about my feelings. But he knew them; he was there, at my side, at the very worst moments when Richard and I had to be part of the same gathering. Sometimes the pressure of his hand on mine had been all that had signalled his understanding; sometimes he had leaned to me and said softly, ‘All right, querida?’ He knew that I had never lied to him. He knew that I had never allowed myself to be alone with Richard Blodmore, and Richard himself had not sought me out. No words were necessary.

  All our children were there, Nanny in the background in case Luisa needed something, or Tomás had to be restrained. They were a handsome lot, these children of mine. It must have given both joy and pain to Don Paulo to see Juan’s extraordinary resemblance to Carlos. Except for the Blodmore eyes, Carlos would have looked exactly as Juan did at his age. Tomorrow’s parting would hurt the old man perhaps even more than one could guess. Juan himself was strutting a little, possibly to hide his apprehension. He wore white flannels and a striped blazer. All of us, except the Marquesa and Maria Luisa, were dressed in white. Small Luisa, our baby, seemed the most immaculate of all. She sipped her lemonade, put it carefully on the table before daintily eating her thin sandwich. She selected her cake with care, ate it without seeming to drop a crumb.

  Elena’s eyes had been on her, ‘That child,’ she observed, ‘is too good to be true.’ She stubbed her half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray which one of the white-gloved servants rushed to replace with a clean one. ‘Myself, I don’t think it’s natural. Not quite healthy.’

  The Marquesa turned her cold, glittering eyes on her. ‘The child is a delight to be with. She is more than healthy. It’s apparent she has inherited Carlota’s constitution.’ It was as if the Marquesa had flung a challenge at Elena.

  E
lena shrugged. ‘Oh, well …’ And her eyes deliberately went to my mother, as if indicating there might be some of the Blodmore inheritance which was wholly undesirable.

  They had spent too much time together, these people. For two months they had been with the Marquesa in Galicia. It had been more of a command than an invitation. It had been an invitation which even Elena had not dared to refuse. Our children had been with them, and it was the first year Luis had consented to Luisa going with them. Only the thought of the cool green rain-washed shores of that far northern coast had persuaded him; summer in Andalucia was a test of endurance for anyone, let alone a child as delicate as Luisa. So she had gone, and I thought to myself that it could have been a crucial time of testing and weighing for the Marquesa. Briefly, she had also invited Ignacio and Pedro, Don Paulo’s sons, with their wives and children. Luis and I had begged off, and she had accepted our excuses. Perhaps she thought she already knew us well enough. But those weeks of a closely-confined family life must have been a trial to the restless Elena.

  No one knew what it had been for Richard Blodmore. That shattered face and the upward twisted mouth defied reading. He smoked his cigarette and stared off into the distance, as if the movement of the swans on the lake was all that interested him.

  ‘Well,’ the Marquesa said, ‘I hope it has been a peaceful time for you. Things have been very bad in Ireland.’

  Elena shrugged. ‘Oh, we haven’t come through it at all badly. Richard is such a stick-in-the-mud. He just gets on with his farming and lets politics alone. I’ve often said he’s too easygoing. He could have been leading the country if he’d put any effort into it. He should have been elected ‒’

  Suddenly, out of a seeming torpor, Don Paulo raised his voice. ‘There is nothing wrong with a man tending his land, and minding his own business. And since when could a member of the British House of Lords be elected to anything?’

  ‘A member of the House of Lords doesn’t even have a vote,’ my mother said. Everyone turned to look at her. It was one of her lucid days, days when her mind seemed to sharpen, when she seemed to know more than she should have known. There was no confusion this day. She knew exactly who Elena was, who Richard was, and why they were there. She had not spoken of Clonmara at all. She had appeared to be watching her grandchildren and paying little attention to the conversation. All at once we knew she had missed nothing.

  ‘And women can vote now, can’t they?’ she added. ‘Strange to remember we used not to think it mattered. Perhaps one day we’ll vote here. But poor Ireland ‒ what troubles she’s had. It must be hard to see the state of the people now.’

  ‘The state of the people is no worse than it was. And no better,’ Elena retorted. ‘What good have they done themselves with all this strife? Oh, yes, we have an Irish Free State now, and little Ireland is a member of the League of Nations ‒ much good that will do them. But what we have paid for it! There’s been nothing but bloodshed since the Easter Rising. They’ve got their Free State and their own Parliament, but they’ve had civil war. Those Sinn Feiners and the Republicans between them are dragging the country down … people assassinated, people ruined. Estates going to ruin. The best people leaving ‒’

  ‘We have not left, Elena.’ Richard seemed to come out of his reflective trance. ‘Nor will we. We have a duty to stay. These are not times when you leave an estate to be managed by an agent …’

  Suddenly I noticed the Marquesa nodding her head, though I think it was a movement she had intended no one to see. Then she rose. ‘Come, children. We will take a stroll. Bring some sandwiches and we will feed the swans …’

  They rose eagerly, too long confined to their chairs by the ritual of tea. They were used to obeying the Marquesa, as everyone was. The tall, black-clad figure moved off with her graceful, swaying walk; as always, when one did not see her closely she appeared still a young woman. My four sons, and the sons of Richard and Elena crowded about her. Luisa ran ahead. Even though the young ones did not yet understand the power of her money and influence, they felt the power of her personality. We watched as she spread her hands. ‘Come, Luisa. Come, Tomás. Take Tía Isabel’s hands.’

  The two young ones were joined with her. It made a striking composition, the solitary black figure in the midst of the summer-white children. The black and white swans drifted towards them, in anticipation of the food.

  ‘Damn!’ Elena said.

  We turned to look at her. ‘Is there something wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she snapped. ‘Just a run in my stocking.’ But it wasn’t that which troubled her. She feared that her sons had been excluded. She knew she had expressed the wrong sentiments when she had talked about Ireland. To people like the Marquesa and Don Paulo, land was sacred, as was any inheritance. Something to be guarded and watched over. Like children. She stubbed out another cigarette.

  ‘Would you care for a copita?’ I asked.

  For a moment she hesitated. ‘What I’d really like is a cocktail. That is, if your servants have ever heard of such a thing. You know, you make it with gin.’

  I called over the manservant, and gave the necessary instructions. The bottles and ice were brought, and Elena mixed her own drink. Don Paulo’s eyes followed every movement. He viewed the bottle of gin with distaste.

  ‘And what is this, the “cocktail”?’

  ‘Oh, it’s something the Americans thought, of. You should try one, Don Paulo. It’s all the rage in London. Will I mix it?’

  He shook his head. ‘All my life I have lived for sherry-wine.’

  I handed him the glass of fino. Luis had filled the glasses for my mother, Maria Luisa, Richard, Edwin and myself. Elena had lighted another cigarette, and was already sipping her Martini cocktail. Then Don Paulo raised his glass.

  ‘To the children.’

  We watched them walking back across the lawn. Luisa still held the Marquesa’s hand. There was a late afternoon hush on the garden, and those white-clad figures seemed, for a second, frozen in time. Young and beautiful, they all were, but Juan and small Tomás seemed somehow set apart, as if something burned in them which the others had missed. It happened that the two walked side by side, though not as comrades. It also happened that at that moment I turned and caught the gaze of Richard. He stared at me for a moment, and then looked back at the two. But as they came nearer I saw that he really looked at Tomás alone. I knew what he was wondering. He must often, through that summer, have stared at the typically Blodmore face, have counted the weeks since that April in London and Tomás’s birth. And he was wondering still.

  And I promised myself again, as I had once vowed to Luis, that he would never know.

  Chapter Two

  I

  Almost imperceptibly, after Juan left for school in England, Don Paulo and I grew closer together. I knew that part of him would always hate the Blodmores, and yet the Blodmore strain was in his grandchildren, whom he loved. He was ageing visibly, growing weary rather than feeble, though his mind was as sharp as ever, and his authority at the bodega, whether it was in settling matters of business, or in the art he had developed his whole life, that of blending and ensuring the quality of the sherry, was unchallenged.

  Perhaps our closeness grew because not only the vineyards, but the bodega itself had now become one of the strong influences of my life. Almost daily now I went to fetch Luis home for our late lunch, and almost daily I found time for that walk through the bodega, where the dim light, the smell of the dampness and the smell of the wine, had a strangely calming effect on me. The children used to laugh at this habit. ‘Mother’s going to church,’ they used to say.

  By design or accident, almost every day I encountered Don Paulo. We often would pass with just a nod and a murmured greeting to each other, particularly if he had other men with him, customers or visitors to the bodega. But sometimes he would fall into step with me; we might wordlessly pace the long aisles between the butts. Our silent companionship was no longer uncomfortable. We did no
t feel a need to talk always. Because he knew my interest, sometimes he would call for the venencia and the old expertise of hand and eye and ‘nose’ would be displayed.

  Whereas before I had known only the growing and tending of the vines, now, from Don Paulo, I began to learn of the wine itself. I learned only a very little, compared with his vast knowledge, and I remained humble about what I did know. I learned from him as he sampled the wine, and graded it, though most often this was done in the cuarto de muestras, the sampling room, and there my presence as a woman and a distraction, was not welcomed. Don Paulo was one of a number of men at the bodega with the title, catador, taster. These men were said to have la nariz del vino, the ‘nose’. Pedro had this ability, and was proud of it. To these men fell the responsibility, once the wine had fallen bright after its fermentation, and had been racked off the lees, of classifying it for its eventual place in the solera. A young wine does not immediately declare its character. For its first classification they used the symbol called the raya. After examining the young wine for appearance, bouquet and sometimes, taste, they would mark the casks with chalk. One oblique stroke, /, una raya, meant the wine had a clean nose and a reasonable body; two strokes, //, dos rayas, was a wine not altogether clean on the nose, or with some minor defect; three strokes, ///, tres rayas, was a wine that was not clean, or slightly acid, or very thin, and so was marked for distillation, and called mostos de quema, musts for burning. I had also seen these casks marked with a stroke through the three rayas, ///, which indicated the gridiron of a hearth. The other grade, vinegar, was quickly taken away, lest it infect its neighbours. Later came the classification for type ‒ the finos and the olorosos, and eventually the different types of sherries which fell within these two broad types. The finos would be stacked inside the bodegas to keep their temperatures down; sometimes the butts of olorosos were placed outside so that the sun would increase the sweetness of the wine. All were fortified with alcohol.