‘Only a miser is incapable of enjoying money, Carlota. Luis did it the right way.’
But when Juan returned at Christmas he saw what had developed and he was resentful. ‘You might have waited for me, Mother. I have only another half-year at school. Then I shall be here all the time to help. You could have waited.’
‘I thought you were going to Cambridge. You know Luis wished that.’
‘That was when my stepfather was alive. Now he is dead, you need a man here.’
‘We’ll see, Juan. You would be better prepared for a career here if you had some years at university. I wish I had …’
He gestured impatiently. ‘Well, women don’t need that, do they? England’s quite spoiled since women got the vote. They’re forever sticking their noses into men’s business.’
‘Women have always done that, Juan. But they usually managed to leave the men unaware of it. But England isn’t Spain, and women will be as they’ve always been for quite some time.’
‘Then I shall take care to marry a Spanish girl.’
He was only a year older than Martin, and two years older than Francisco, but beside them he seemed a man. They followed his lead absolutely, as they had always done. When we rode together, my mother among us, it was always Juan who spoke for the three of them. I had to admit that he had an eye for the bulls. He rode among them skilfully, fearlessly. He had developed as a splendid horseman. He was brave, but he had the wisdom not to show off, especially among the men who rode with us, those who spent their lives in the saddle. When we sold bulls he was often there to help select and to cut them out from the herd. He spent a long time studying them, and the cows. ‘We have to know which ones to keep back for breeding, Mother. If you sell off all the brave bulls you leave only poor blood behind. Don Luis had a reputation for breeding brave bulls. We must not let it down.’ Conventional wisdom, but at least he was learning.
He had been admitted to the company of the garrochistas, those who tried the young bulls from horseback to mark their qualities of courage. In this exercise two horsemen rode together with their long limewood bull-fighting spears. The object was to tumble the calf with a blow from the spear; it was a difficult manoeuvre which required not only good horsemanship, but courage and steady nerves. The calf who regained his feet and charged the horse would be a brave bull. The arcoso y derribo was the only test permitted with the young bull calves, and it was the only guide for the bull-breeder before sending the bull to the ring years later. The bull learns quickly, and too much knowledge was dangerous in the ring. I thought it strange that I could enjoy the experience of the breeding of bulls, and yet I still could not attend a bull-fight without the old sickness and revulsion returning. I attended the corrida very seldom, and only on very special occasions, and half the time hid my eyes behind a fan.
When we rode to my mother’s stud, the years that had passed were visibly before me in the form of Balthasar. He was now very old, any part of him that had been cream-coloured was perfectly white; he moved stiffly. And yet, when he heard my mother’s voice call him he would come at a trot across the paddock, his head lifted in eagerness, a whinny of affection to greet her. ‘Wouldn’t it be kinder to put him down?’ Juan whispered to me. ‘He suffers from arthritis. Look how his teeth are.’
It was one of my mother’s days of keen perception. She heard everything. ‘He can still trot. Sometimes I have come out here early of a winter’s morning and seen him roll on the ground. He still enjoys his life. Why should I take it from him?’ She gave him the sugar he craved. ‘He and Half Moon were founders of this stud. She is gone, but look what, between them, they have left behind. I sell my horses all over Spain, to England ‒ even to Ireland. And that’s like selling his own horse to a tinker. No, let Balthasar have the length of his days, whatever they are.’
It wasn’t good business, but in certain terms, it made perfectly good sense.
The Marquesa came from Sanlucar and took up residence with Don Paulo at Las Fuentes for the Christmas period. It was an unusual concession for her, who usually preferred to be alone at Sanlucar. We all attended Midnight Mass, and we were all bidden to Don Paulo’s house the next day ‒ all of us, even Edwin Fletcher. Ignacio’s family and Pedro’s family were there. There was a great distribution of presents, and twenty-five were seated around the great long table. The Marquesa had brought her own chefs; the food and wine were superb. But a slight air of constraint lay on the party. The presence of the Marquesa tended to do that always, but on this occasion there was a distinct sense of competition for the notice of both her and Don Paulo. Like Balthasar, they revealed their ages in so many ways. The Marquesa was years younger than Don Paulo, but even with her one noticed a slowing of the movements, the deeper lines on her face. But the minds of both of them seemed only honed sharper by the passage of the years. They sat there and listened to Martin play his guitar after the dinner, sat and watched the dancing that followed; their eyes seemed to be summing up all of us, these second cousins, these half-brothers and sisters. We were a motley mix. I sat quietly, and Edwin Fletcher kept away from me, dutifully going the rounds of all the daughters of Ignacio and Pedro, and their wives. My mother, careless after so much good wine, danced with wonderful grace with Juan. Ignacio came to offer me his hand. We danced decorously, and almost without a word. I had very little, ever, to say to Ignacio and Pedro. And then Juan silenced the musicians Don Paulo had hired, and produced a gramophone he had brought from England, and some jazz records. The Marquesa sat listening, as if it were her duty to be informed of everything that was happening in the world, even something so alien as this. And Juan tried to teach my mother the Charleston. One of Ignacio’s girls went to the piano and produced her own version of jazz. She was quite good, Juan conceded. Luisa had slipped into the big chair with the Marquesa as if it were her rightful place. Her face was flushed with the dancing. She was tired. I saw that the Marquesa held her hand, and, in the only maternal gesture I had ever witnessed in her, smoothed the dark hair back from her hot forehead.
Then the Marquesa went to the piano; her fingers were stiffening, but she still could find the notes. Together we sang some Christmas hymns. Don Paulo’s eyes glistened beneath his heavy lids, and I could not tell whether it was pride or tears that made them shine.
* *
That winter Don Paulo was confined to bed with a chill that held on stubbornly. He did not appear at the bodega for many weeks. I missed him. The lofty buildings now were cold, especially when the Levanter blew, and I was muffled up as I walked the aisles. I felt oddly alone, and although I seldom encountered them, the presence of Ignacio and Pedro pressed on me. I felt I had to hold on for my children’s sake, and did not know quite how to.
I went frequently to visit Don Paulo. He was up, and sat before the fire in his room, or when the sun was strong, by the window. He was thinner, and rather feeble, but his head came up like a snapping turtle’s when anyone suggested that he should take his time about coming back to the bodega. ‘Think they’ll get rid of me, do they? Tell them there’s a lot of life in the old man yet.’
The Marquesa had come again from Sanlucar to stay with him during his illness. This was so contrary to her custom that I wondered if he were not worse than anyone else knew. But one day when the first warm sun of April was touching the bodega’s walls he appeared there again, only slightly slower in his walk. We paced the bodega again, went from one building to another, a long walk for anyone, a tiring one for an old man. He insisted on talking with the capataz of each bodega, and began to make plans for visiting the outlying ones in Puerto. He smelled a few samples of the must from the previous vintage, discussed their grading with the catador, called for some samples from the various scales of the solera. It was a virtuoso display as he insisted on handling the venencia himself, and not a drop was spilled.
We went to the sala de degustación together and took our places at our accustomed table. Everyone there came to pay their respects. The faces around him were p
leased, or not, according to how they regarded Don Paulo. It looked as if the old man would be there forever.
Easter came, and unexpectedly Juan returned home. He had only a few days to spend with us. Martin and Francisco had gone to Clonmara. The Marquesa had stayed on in Don Paulo’s house, which surprised me. She did not care for the processions of Holy Week, and liked to save her energy for the Fair in Seville. There were arguments between her and Juan about his going to Cambridge. ‘Your education hasn’t begun,’ she said.
‘I want to stay in Jerez,’ he said, rather sullenly for him.
‘You can stay in Jerez after you’ve learned the world outside it.’ I found myself in a strange alliance with the Marquesa. I needed Juan’s support here in Jerez, and yet I needed the support of a man, not a boy. The Marquesa seemed to know it. ‘Do not,’ she said, ‘make your father’s mistake of thinking he knew everything, when he knew only half of it. Take a year at Cambridge. Take a year or two in Madrid. Then you may be able to take Jerez.’
‘I can continue studying with Mr Fletcher.’
‘I was not talking of scholarship.’ She tapped her long fingers on the arm of the chair. ‘I shall be very disappointed in you, Juan, if you decide against this.’
That was the final word on the matter from her. She did not hold out a bribe, or make any promises. She offered nothing except the certainty of her displeasure if her wishes were not obeyed. Juan raged and fumed, but now he did it in private. ‘Tío Ignacio’s sons, and Tío Pedro’s two are not hounded and bullied this way,’ he complained to me. ‘She doesn’t tell them what they must do. They’ll be years ahead of me here at the bodega, sucking up to Grandfather ‒’
‘Perhaps she doesn’t care what they do. And as for sucking up to their grandfather … don’t you do rather a lot of that yourself, Juan? Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. Try it, Juan.’
He lingered on after Easter, when he should have returned to school. ‘What does it matter,’ he said, ‘so long as you write to them? I’ve passed all the exams I need. I have a place at Cambridge. You can’t say my reports haven’t been good … All I’ll be doing this term will be a bit of extra reading and Mr Fletcher’s a better tutor than any at school. He’s given me a reading list to get through before I go up to Cambridge.’
It was true he had been an excellent scholar, which had rather surprised me. It did not surprise Edwin. ‘He’s always had a good brain, but not a deep one. He doesn’t love his work for its own sake, but for where it’s going to take him. Ambition and a bright mind … If he were an Englishman he might make a good politician. But I’m not sure if that isn’t insulting him.’ We laughed together, but perhaps the description was apt. I suspected, though, that Juan’s hard work at school, his determination to get good reports, was to show his superiority to the sons of Ignacio and Pedro, who, with Don Paulo’s help, had also been sent to school in England. They were all younger than Juan, and Juan seemed determined to be the pace-setter. When Ignacio had started to talk of sending his older son to an English university for at least a year when the time came, I knew that Juan’s acceptance of Cambridge was guaranteed.
Was it, I wondered then, the politician in Juan which caused him, with the extra week he was taking off school, to decide to remain in Jerez when, after Easter, the rest of the family, headed by the Marquesa, set off for the Fair in Seville? It was an occasion that young men like Juan gloried in ‒ the chance to show off their beautiful horses, to size up the suitable girls, to be admired, and applauded, to get a little drunk and to flirt, all under the eyes of the girl’s family, which made it respectable. There was so much gossip traded back and forth at Seville each year, the new faces examined and appraised, and matched to the possible dowries. Yes, it was Juan’s natural place, and yet he did not go.
‘My grandfather is not well,’ he said. ‘You are staying to be with him. I have only a few more days before I have to go back to England. I might as well stay here. Seville will keep for another year.’
Jerez and the bodega seemed very quiet when everyone of any social pretensions had left for Seville. It was a week of wonderful weather, warm but not hot. Don Paulo was strong. He walked the aisles of the bodega with more pace and confidence. He took Juan for several sessions alone in the cuarto de muestras. Here he could range through all the samples of sherry either shipped abroad or sold in Spain, and the way the customer’s requirements were met as to the degree of dryness or sweetness. Here also the samples of must, at harvest time were brought so that the bodega could decide on the quality, and make their offer to the vineyard owners. When they joined me later in the strange quiet of the sala de degustación, Juan’s eyes were alive with excitement and pleasure.
‘Grandfather says that if the harvest comes early in September, and I’ve not already left for England, he’ll let me in there when the samples of must are brought in, and try to grade them myself.’
‘Well, we’ve had the right amount of rain. The vines look good. It promises a good harvest. But you are going back to England in September, then … to Cambridge.’ I wanted to hear it from his own lips.
He lowered his eyes, those greenish Blodmore eyes that ran through the family ‒ he was looking unnaturally diffident. ‘Grandfather has persuaded me that it is the best thing to do. I’m doing it for him.’
Politician ‒ but glancing over at Don Paulo and seeing those dark eyes as sceptical as ever, I knew that Juan had a long way to go before he could match his grandfather in this sort of game.
‘Well, let’s drink to it then,’ the old man said. The servant came forward and poured the fino. We all held our glasses to the light, as we had grown used to doing, the colour and purity of the wine as much a pleasure as its taste. ‘La penultima,’ Don Paulo said. In Jerez we never thought of drinking our last glass of sherry, it was always the last but one, the one for the road, and we called it ‘la penultima’. It was a going-away salute to Juan.
We smelled, and sipped and tasted the wine against our tongue. The first was always the best of the day. I was feeling almost happy. The quiet of the bodega had soothed me, the news that, for whatever reasons, Juan would have at least a little time at university, the sparkling April sunshine that came through the windows of the sala, the glimpse of the green shoots which the old vines trained between this building and the next bodega had put out, all these things raised a spirit of hopefulness and renewal in me. It was like the flor appearing once again on the wine, the promise of a renewal of life. I thought of Luis and Richard Blodmore, but not with sadness. I looked at the colour of the wine in my hand. It was a wonderful thing to have loved, to have been loved. It was a good thing to sit here in the spring sun in peace with the old man and the young man, and feel that I was the instrument of life that bound them. I smiled.
‘Grandfather!’
I looked at Don Paulo. For an instant he had seemed to smile, but Juan’s instinct was quicker than mine. He sprang to his feet and leaned over the old man. The thin lips twisted now, upward, as if he held them set against the pain. Then he whispered something. Only because the sala was deserted did we hear the words. ‘La penultima …’
He died there in that sturdy oak chair only moments later. He had placed his glass carefully upon the table, and the wine was not even spilled.
‘Grandfather …!’ The cry of anguish from Juan was unheard, the dark eyes stared unseeingly at the green shoots on the vines.
* *
The shock of his death was carried on to the will. He had left a third of his estate to the Marquesa, a third was divided between his sons, Ignacio and Pedro, and Carlos’s sons, Juan, Martin and Francisco, and a third, which by law he was entitled to leave as he chose, was left to me. The one portion of his estate which was singled out from the total was Las Ventanas Verdes, which he also bequeathed to me.
A soft gasp went around the room when this was read out. I had been invited to attend the reading, but I had assumed that it was only a courtesy, as Carlos’s sons, in wha
tever proportion, would inherit a share of the estate. Now I felt all the eyes turned on me, mostly with hostility, some with outright anger. Only the Marquesa remained unmoved. It was probable she had already known.
We made the barest formality of drinking a token copita together, for the sake of giving the appearance of family solidarity. Pedro avoided me completely. Ignacio was already counting up how many shares ‒ those left me by Luis, those I voted by proxy for my mother, those I voted for Tomás and Luisa until they came of age, those now left to me by Don Paulo ‒ how many shares in all I controlled.
I said good-bye to the Marquesa. ‘Will you be going now to Sanlucar? You will be going to Galicia as usual for the summer months?’
‘I shall go to Galicia, certainly. But I do not think I shall now go back to Sanlucar. It is too far to come in here to Jerez every day. I shall be attending the bodega regularly. Don Paulo always expected people to take their responsibilities seriously.’ She was moving closer into our lives. Her words had carried through the room. We had been shocked by the reality of mortality. We had expected Don Paulo to go on forever, but he was dead. The prospect of the death of the Marquesa moved inexorably nearer. The power that her wealth would bestow, and the question of how she would choose to bestow it, hung like a tangible presence in the room. Now this knowledge that she would involve herself in the affairs of the bodega made everyone uneasy. This was no submissive spirit, but a formidable will. A sense of fear edged in, and the knowledge of a battle joined. But no one could see the forces on the other side. No one knew this capricious woman well enough to know where she would decide, finally, to place the strength of her power.
* *
Juan, who accompanied me to hear the will read, kept his outrage to himself until we were alone. ‘How could Grandfather do that? Leave it to you! I am the oldest grandchild. I am a man now. He could have trusted me. That third should have been divided between me and Martin and Francisco, with the biggest share going to me.’
The Summer of the Spanish Woman Page 48
