by Anne Weale
Francisco Benitez—known to everyone as Paco—lived with his family in a flat in the Calle Ramiro de Maeztu in a part of the city, north of the river and near the docks, which ordinarily a girl like Antonia would never have visited.
It was a respectable neighbourhood, inhabited by honest working people who kept their apartments neat and clean, and their balconies gay with pot plants. The children who played in the street were sometimes grubby, but it was the superficial grubbiness of young, lively children the world over. First thing in the morning, on schooldays, with their round cheeks, well-brushed dark hair and clean jerseys or tee-shirts, according to the time of year, the children of Paco’s neighbourhood were distinguishable from children of wealthy families only because they went to school on foot or by bus, and not in cars driven by chauffeurs or foreign au pairs. In the same way there was nothing in Paco’s appearance to set him apart from the sons of Dona Elena’s friends.
On her nineteenth birthday, a few months before John Marlowe’s untimely death and in spite of Tia Angela’s objections, he had given his daughter a snappy little grass green sports car in which to drive herself about. One day, in a line of cars waiting at traffic lights, Antonia’s car refused to start, immediately causing a cacophony of impatient hooting by the drivers in the queue behind her. She had no idea what to do, and to add to her confusion a small gypsy boy who was passing began to pester her for money which she would have given him willingly had she not been flustered by the shouts and hoots from behind.
She had passed her driving test after a minimum of lessons, but she had been on the road for only a year and besides, like nearly all women, she suffered from an irrational but inbred sense of incompetence in relation to all male drivers, even though her intellect told her she was as good as most of them, and much better and safer than some.
Because she was a beautiful girl, it wasn’t long before her car was surrounded by men telling her what to do, admiring the car, admiring her, or complaining about the delay and the absence of a policeman to sort out the situation. It seemed to Antonia that, instead of all talking at once, it would be more to the point if they pushed her close to the pavement, out of the way of the other cars. But although she suggested this to them, nobody listened to her.
The person who came to her rescue was a boy of about her own age who pushed between two other men and, speaking close to her ear, told her quietly to release the catch which fastened the bonnet. A few minutes later he slammed the bonnet into place and came to open the driver’s door.
‘Move over,’ he said to her.
When she obeyed him, he slid behind the wheel and switched on the engine, which purred into life as instantly as it had always done.
In all her life Antonia could not remember feeling a greater sense of relief than when he nudged the car forward, dispersing the crowd of onlookers and freeing the traffic jam behind.
‘What was wrong with it?’ she asked him, when they had left the scene of her embarrassment behind and were crossing one of the many bridges which spanned the river.
‘Nothing much—a loose lead, that’s all. Where were you going when it happened?’
He took his eyes off the road for an instant to smile at her, and in that fraction of time Antonia knew that this was the man for whom she had been waiting all her life.
‘I—I was going home,’ she stammered.
‘Where do you live?’
She told him, and saw him give a slight grimace which she took to mean that her house was inconveniently far from where he had been going.
‘But I don’t want to take you out of your way when you’ve been so kind,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Where were you going?’
‘Nowhere special. Only to have lunch in a bar.’
Normally she would never have spoken so boldly, but now, impelled by the conviction that this was her destiny, she said, ‘Why not have lunch at my house? My mother isn’t at home today, but I know she would want to thank you for helping me.’
The young man hesitated. Then he glanced at her again, and said, ‘Yes, all right, thank you, I will.’
The house was in an old part of the city where the narrow streets and even narrower pavements made it necessary to give all his attention to his driving, and allowed Antonia to study him in detail.
His dark hair was cut very short, suggesting either that he was in the ‘mili’, but on leave, or that he had only very recently been discharged from compulsory service in the forces. But even the convict-short crop, so unbecoming to plain young men, could not make this one less than handsome.
The facade of Antonia’s home gave no clue to the uninitiated that within that forbidding exterior with its great studded door and shuttered windows lay one of the city’s most luxurious mansions.
‘Pip the horn, and Federico will open the door for us,’ she said, having told her companion to stop a few metres short of the door originally built to admit carriages.
Inside was a large courtyard flanked by stables used now as garages. Beyond was a spacious hall with staircases rising from either side, and beyond the hall, seen through windows and tall glass doors, was a large and beautiful patio with a round raised pool in the centre, and a fountain playing in the sunlight.
‘I don’t know your name,’ said Antonia, and she led him into the green tranquillity of this garden in the heart of the city.
‘Paco ... Paco Benitez, senorita.’
‘I’m Antonia Marlowe. My father was English,’ she explained.
With the formal manners of even young people in Spain, they shook hands as they introduced themselves.
It happened that Tia Angela was also out to lunch that day, so the two young people ate a deux without her inhibiting presence to restrain them from making friends as quickly and easily as their mutual attraction dictated.
Nevertheless from the outset Paco was aware of the intangible barrier between them. Before he left to go back to the office where he worked as a clerk, he said, ‘I’d like to see you again, but I don’t think your mother would approve.’
From what he had told her of his circumstances, Antonia knew it was true. Her mother would not welcome the son of a bus-driver as a companion for her daughter. By being clever, working hard at school, and obtaining a white-collar job, Paco had climbed several rungs higher than his father, but not high enough to be admitted to the Marlowes’ circle.
Had it been left to him, their acquaintance would have begun and ended on the first day. But Antonia who, since she was sixteen, had attracted many young men in her own milieu, none of whom had meant anything to her, now was in love as determinedly as, twenty-two years earlier, despite the opposition of her grandparents, her father had fallen in love with her mother.
It was not to be supposed that, pursued by so lovely a girl, Paco would hold out indefinitely. Soon his common sense was overwhelmed by an infatuation as strong as hers.
To Antonia’s surprise, on the only occasion when she persuaded him to take her to his home, his mother’s manner was as chilly as Tia Angela’s would have been towards him. Clearly Senora Benitez disapproved of their association.
It took Antonia many weeks to convince Paco that the only way they could overcome parental opposition was by going away together. Afterwards, she felt sure, her mother would have no option but to sanction their engagement, and her uncle could help Paco to improve his position still further.
It was she who stage-managed all the arrangements for their illicit idyll; she who booked the room for Senor and Senora Francisco Benitez in the Parador del Marques de Villena, a mediaeval castle on a rocky crag above the river Jucar, about a hundred and sixty kilometres inland of Valencia.
Afterwards, she had no memory of the accident in which she was knocked unconscious and Paco was killed. After two days under observation in the nearest hospital she was moved by ambulance to a private clinic in Valencia.
Her mother was sitting beside her when her mind cleared sufficiently for her to remember that, before waking up in a be
d which was not her own, she had been driving somewhere with Paco.
When she murmured his name, Dona Elena clasped her hands, and her eyes filled with pity and sorrow.
‘He has gone, pobrecita. You must try not to pine for him. Be thankful he wasn’t injured, as so many fine young men are injured on the roads nowadays. If you loved him, you would rather lose him than see him crippled, his young life ruined.’
The next time her mother came to her bedside, Antonia asked, in a voice hoarse from weeping, ‘Are you very angry?’
‘No, only thankful you were spared to me.’
It was days before she was able to accept that Paco was dead. She left the clinic still stupefied by shock and grief.
One day, having lunch with her mother and aunt, she roused from her listlessness to say, ‘His mother ... I should go to see her.’
Her elders exchanged a glance.
‘No, my dear, that would not do at all. It would only renew her distress,’ her aunt replied firmly. Since the accident Tia Angela had been kinder than ever before, never uttering a word of censure.
Antonia turned to her mother. ‘What do you think, Mama?’
Dona Elena hesitated. ‘I believe your aunt is right. Senora Benitez is bound to feel that, but for your friendship with him, her son would still be with her.’
Between them they convinced Antonia that, at least for the present, it would be wiser to keep away from the bereaved family in the Calle Ramiro de Maeztu.
However, about a month later, she was passing the flower stalls in the Plaza del Caudillo, the heart of the city, when she saw Senora Benitez coming towards her. She was dressed in black from head to foot, with a black chiffon scarf pinned over her grey hair.
Antonia was not on her own. She was shopping with Amparo Vidal, a girl she had known all her life. Mindful of her aunt’s warning that if any whisper of what had happened became known her reputation would be ruined, she said, ‘You go on to the shoe shop, Amparo. I’ll join you there in a few minutes when I’ve had a word with this person coming towards us.’
She saw that Senora Benitez had seen and recognised her, and her eyes filled with tears of compassion for the equally piercing anguish which this poor little woman must be feeling at the loss of her youngest son.
‘Oh, senora, forgive me...’ she begun huskily.
‘Forgive you? Never!’ the woman exclaimed, in a loud voice. ‘How dare you speak to me, you wicked girl! It’s your fault my son was taken from me. I warned him no good would come of your friendship with him. He would have left you alone, but you gave him no peace. You were shameless the way you chased after him. They say Spain is a democracy now, but it seems to me that rich people still have the best of it. They can buy their way out of their difficulties, but the rest of us have to bear our troubles as best we may. Oh, there’s my bus!’
She scuttled away to a crossing, leaving Antonia scarlet with mortification. Not only had several bystanders overheard the Senora’s accusatory outburst, but so had Amparo.
‘My goodness, what was all that about?’ the other girl asked, her black eyes bright with curiosity.
There was no way for Antonia to smooth over the incident. She said, ‘I—I’m sorry, Amparo, I’m not feeling well. I must go home,’ and she waved to a passing taxi, hoping her friend would have the charity to forget the incident.
But Amparo had always been a chatterbox who loved to spread snippets of gossip, and it was not many days later that Tia Angela stalked into Antonia’s room with the acrimonious expression to which, until recently, her niece had become accustomed.
‘Your mother and I did our best to stifle the scandal of your escapade with that good-for-nothing but, just as I feared, it is impossible to keep such a thing secret for long. Everyone in our circle is talking about you,’ she announced.
‘Oh, really? What are they saying?’ Antonia asked, with assumed indifference.
‘Precisely what I knew they would say if word of your disgraceful behaviour leaked out—that you have lost any chance of making a good marriage.’
‘I don’t want to make a good marriage. Now that Paco is dead I shall never marry anyone.’
‘Nonsense! How are you to occupy yourself without a husband and children?’
You are out of date, Tia. Women have careers now. If you remember, I wanted to go to university after Papa died, but you persuaded Mama against it.’
‘You’re not sufficiently clever to have a career, and the universities are full of undesirable people and political agitators,’ her aunt said coldly.
She swept out of the room, leaving Antonia to think how different everything would have been if her father had lived. Then there would have been no need to meet Paco furtively. Papa would have welcomed him. It would not have mattered to him that Paco was neither rich nor well-bred as long as he was kind and good.
‘Don Juan is a saint,’ the servants had murmured to each other, when John Marlowe was dying but still outwardly cheerful, still with his irrepressible sense of humour.
Only in retrospect did Antonia realise the extraordinary effort of will by which, until the last few days of his life, Papa had refused to succumb to the symptoms of his incurable illness, re-reading some of his favourite books and looking up with a smile on his haggard face whenever the door had opened to admit his wife and daughter.
‘Even a long life is short. Try not to waste yours, my darling,’ he had said to Antonia. ‘Make every day count. Listen to music. Go and enjoy the paintings in the Bellas Artes. Enjoy your food. Smile at people. Don’t wait for them to smile at you. When someone falls in love with you, and you with him, don’t expect him to be perfect. You won’t be perfect and neither will he. As long as you understand that, you’ll be very happy.’
Afterwards, she had felt that when her father had given her this last piece of advice he had been thinking that his wife’s one imperfection was her inability to stand up to her elder sister. Antonia’s parents had never quarrelled with each other in her hearing, but she had always known that Tia Angela’s presence in their household was a matter of contention, the more so perhaps because, being the only child of two only children, John Marlowe had found it hard to share in the closeness of Spanish family relationships where the ties between sisters often were almost as strong as those between husband and wife.
Only at the finca had he been free of his sister-in-law’s interference. In Valencia, always it had been and still was Tia Angela who was mistress of the household, opposing all his attempts to change or modify the customs of her parents’ time.
It had been Tia Angela who had insisted that Antonia should be educated at home with one of her cousins who had been born with a malformed hip and was considered too delicate to go to school. Not that this had prevented Antonia from making friends with other children, but they had all been from within the Marlowes’ somewhat restricted social circle where new and up-to-date ideas took root more slowly than in State schools and at universities.
The day after dining with Cal at the Rey Don Jaime, Antonia sat beside him as he drove to the finca. They were followed by her mother in Tio Joaquin’s car, but Cal had asked Dona Elena if she would allow Antonia to ride with him and she, more percipient than her daughter, had smiled. ‘By all means, senor.’
For much of the way he was silent, but as they came within sight of the towering mountain which sheltered his future holiday home, he said suddenly, ‘You know you can keep the finca and everything in it, if you wish.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, mystified.
‘I want to marry you. I would have asked you last time, but you wouldn’t have believed I meant it. I always make quick decisions. I knew within an hour that the finca was the house I wanted, and I knew in a day that you were the girl I’d been looking for. Since then I’ve had a month to change my mind. I haven’t done so.’
He turned the car into a layby, switched off the engine and shifted to face her. ‘It would mean living in England, but we’d come to Spain
several times a year and, speaking perfect English as you do, you’d have no problems adjusting to life in your father’s country.’ He reached for her hands which were loosely clasped in her lap, and held them between his larger hands. ‘How does the idea strike you?’
‘I don’t know. It’s so unexpected. I—I had no idea that you had fallen in love with me.’
‘I haven’t,’ he told her, smiling. ‘I’ve always felt that’s an expression which implies a blind step into the unknown with possibly painful results. I’d rather grow into love because we like the same things and find each other attractive.’
Leaning forward, he kissed her lightly on the mouth. When he resumed his former position, his blue eyes were amused. ‘You didn’t find that unpleasant, did you?’
‘N-no,’ she agreed.
‘I found it very enjoyable. In a more private spot, I’d repeat it,’ he said, with a teasing gleam. ‘But this is rather too public, so we’d better move on. Actually it wasn’t my intention to propose to you until tonight, but I’m an impatient man and, having made up my mind, I like to act on a decision as quickly as possible. But I don’t expect you to give me your answer today. Think about it.’
He put the car in motion and for the rest of the way relapsed into his earlier silence, leaving her free to start thinking.
By the time they reached the entrance to the finca, a high white arch capped with Roman tiles of russet clay, and the name of the house written on a ceramic panel with a border of blue and green leaves, set flush in the lime-washed wall, the first shock had begun to wear off.
As she unpacked her weekend case in her bedroom with its lovely view of the peaceful green valley in the foreground and the distant sierras in the background, and she thought of all he was offering her, the sad mood in which she had woken began to give place to hope. Perhaps the future might not be as cheerless as she had feared.
