by Connie Monk
‘But you are, Giles. We’re good companions, we even share your work. I wish I were older, I wish I had a real, proper career behind me so that you could be proud of having me for your wife. But that doesn’t stop us being right for each other, loving each other I mean.’ When he didn’t answer she drew his hand and rubbed it against her cheek. ‘I love you so much. I’d do anything to make you content but I know I can’t.’
He drew her into his arms holding her tightly and moving his chin against the top of her head.
‘It’s my fault,’ he said softly, ‘I don’t think I know how to be content. When I come back to this place from London and find you waiting I feel I must be the luckiest man living. I want the feeling to last. But it never does; it never has. We’re so cut off here. The world moves on and we’re left behind.’
‘I think that’s why I love it. Look at it, Giles. Look around and see the . . . the . . . industry.’
‘Industry? Stuck here amongst people who don’t see further than their nut trees, scratching about in the land – this year, last year, next year, like their fathers and grandfathers did before them.’
‘That’s what is so wonderful. You can rush off to the bright lights, to the bustle of the city that changes with every generation, to your clever intellectual men friends and the flighty ladies who I expect welcome you with open arms and feel sorry for you being stuck in some wilderness with a wife and child. Well, good luck to you. Your values and mine aren’t the same.’
He tipped her face up to his. ‘And a moment ago you said you loved me.’
‘So I do. So I always will. Can’t seem to help it. You make me so cross, but being cross doesn’t make any difference. Perhaps I don’t want you to feel like I do about this place and the people who toil on the land. If you did it would make you a difference person from the one I love.’ She pulled away from him, her face lighting into an impish smile. ‘Go on, get your walking shoes on. You don’t deserve it, but if you like I’ll drive into town and pick you up.’
He dropped a light kiss on her forehead. ‘Good girl. I was shy of asking.’
‘You? Shy?’ She laughed when she said it, both of them aware that they had negotiated their way off dangerous ground. ‘I’ll give you an hour start and pick you up by the bull ring.’
A minute or two later she watched him stride down the slope to the road. She tried to hang on to the lightness of heart they had both made sure ended their encounter, but there was an underlying feeling she wouldn’t let herself consider. Surely their life together was as idyllic as that glorious holiday in Shropshire – different of course because no relationship can remain unchanged with time and living, but their love was as wonderful, their shared interest in his work as great. And parenthood? Didn’t that bind them? She shied away from the question.
Automatically she was drawn to her precious five acres. Timus had told her that any day now they could start shaking the branches; most of the nuts were ready to fall. She half expected to find him down there, but when she was disappointed she wandered amongst the trees, her imagination carrying her forward to the day she would see her second year orders on their way to London. Could it be as thrilling as last year? Yes, none of the excitement had faded. If only she had more ground, more trees. The Rodriguez had a proper almond farm; hers was little more than a hobby. And, no doubt, her orders were due to her using Giles’ name on the attractive card she attached to each net of nuts. Stooping down she picked up an almond that had already fallen, its outer coat ripe and split so that the nut could be lifted out. How many of these would there be on each tree? How many hundreds – thousands – would have to be eased from the soft outer casing, cleaned and laid to dry in the sun? They had to be perfect, each one ripe but not dry. Almonds from Finca el Almendros would earn a reputation of being for the connoisseur.
‘Hello!’ She was brought out of her dream by the sound of Deirdre calling. And turning she saw her coming at high speed between the rows of trees, the electric chair being bounced as though it would either tip over or take off at any moment. Running behind her was Timus. ‘We saw Giles go striding by,’ Deirdre said. ‘Is something wrong with the car?’
‘No. He’s gone into town. He wanted the exercise,’ Tessa answered, surprised that her remark should make the other two look at each other as if they had a shared secret. Perhaps she imagined it. ‘I mustn’t be long down here. I said I’d give him an hour start and then drive in to collect him.’
‘Good,’ Deirdre said.
‘Not so sure that it’s good,’ Tessa answered with a laugh. ‘I was looking at the nuts on the ground and thinking I ought to start spreading the nets. What do you think, Timus?’
‘To my thinking, they are ready. We have been harvesting all the days this week. And in Deirdre we have a helper of great quality. I did speak with my father and he say it is well for Deirdre and me to work here with you. If we get the nets to the ground this evening, when we come tomorrow the first work will be to stand Deirdre’s table – and then’ – with a sweeping movement of his arm encompassing the five acres and a voice full of drama – ‘el Almendros, we will shake you and you will give us your fruits.’
‘Wonderful! Are you sure you can be spared?’
‘My father, he wants this land to be of the standard that is high. And we are well in the work of his ground. Tomorrow we will all work, the three of us together – and Millie will have her pen and be happy to be with us. We start at the lower end, so that is where we spread the net this afternoon.’
How could Giles not feel the magic of this never-changing lifestyle? Tessa was determined to persuade him to come and watch the work as his very own trees were shaken to give up their harvest of nuts. The man who wrote with such understanding of the folk of Burghton couldn’t fail to fall under the spell of the country work that had been done generation after generation.
Instead of remaining in her wheelchair to be pushed aboard the hybrid for the journey back to Casa Landera, Deirdre put her arms around Timus’ neck as he lifted her from the chair and carefully eased her into the passenger seat before stowing the chair aboard. Over recent days this had been the usual way she had travelled. That, and the feeling of being part of the team of workers, had a strange effect on her, although it would have been impossible to put it into words. There in the car with Timus she could almost believe in the pretence of being the same as other young girls; she would feel elated and for the time it took them to reach Llaibir she revelled in an inner excitement. But when he parked in the driveway of the house and brought her wheelchair down the ramp to the narrow pavement, misery would swamp her, misery all the worse because of the illusion that had gone before. No wonder Naomi and Julian found her moody.
On that late afternoon her balloon of happiness burst sooner than usual, for as they drove towards the little town they recognized Giles’ car approaching. Giles was at the wheel with Tessa by his side. The sight of them brought home to Deirdre the hopelessness of her own situation and in that moment she believed – or imagined she believed – she wished she had never met the Rodriguez family. In their house she had been accepted as a welcome visitor, not a person who had to be treated differently because she couldn’t leave her chair. Beyond that she was frightened to look. She wished she had never met Timus – no, that was a lie; meeting him had changed her life.
As he drove along the empty road, he sensed a change in her mood. Perhaps she was tired; she had worked as hard as anyone. Her work may have been different from theirs, but it was just as necessary. Two or three times during the afternoon he had come to the table where she sat easing the almonds from their outer casing. She hadn’t wasted a minute and it was all work that had to be done so she was as necessary as anyone.
Saying nothing, he slowed the car and then stopped at the edge of the road.
‘What’s up?’ she asked. Feeling as low as she did at that moment nothing would have surprised her.
‘Up?’ he queried, looking to the sky.
&nbs
p; ‘You stopped. Is something wrong with the car?’
‘No. We have stopped because there is something I have to talk about, something I have been trying to say for many weeks of summer.’
She turned her head away, peering out of the window as if she had seen something of importance, but was in fact frightened to let him see her face. Her mouth was dry, her throat seemed closed. The moment she had dreaded had come, just as she had always known it must. He had been kind to her; he had made the months of summer the most wonderful she had known. Even though her days revolved around just him, she had always tried not to let it show. He must have guessed and now he was going to tell her – kindly, for he was the kindest person she knew – that she mustn’t let herself fall in love with him. Perhaps he had a girlfriend already, a girl who worked in the day and spent the evenings with him, a girl who was pretty and who could dance and run and be like everyone else, a girl who didn’t have to be lifted like a sack of potatoes or pushed like something in a handcart. ‘Look at me, Deirdre. I need to look at your face as I say this to you. The back of your head will tell me nothing.’
With her chin high, she turned and faced him, schooling her expression not to give her away. ‘What is it you have to tell me? Is it some excitement happening in your life?’
‘I hope that it may be so. I have never said anything like this to anyone and I do not know the right words. But my heart is so full that I beg you to hear me and – oh but I am saying it wrong. Help me, Deirdre, surely you must understand what it is I am trying to tell you.’
She shook her head, torn between a wild and wonderful hope, an unbearable dread that he knew she was in love with him and didn’t want to hurt her, and the anguish of knowing no man would ever see her as anything more than someone to be kind to. Misery overwhelmed her. It took all her courage to speak firmly.
‘Is it that you are telling me there is a girl you are in love with?’ There! She’d said it! She’d made it easy for him to tell her.
‘Yes there is a girl, the most beautiful, precious girl. Deirdre, darling Deirdre, I am speaking this so badly. Do you not see how much I care for you? I did not know I could feel as I do for any girl, even one as lovely as you. But why are there tears? If you cannot feel for me as I want, then it is for me to weep.’
‘. . . so happy. Timus, I do love you. I think of you all the time. But how can you love me like men love women – I can’t even walk.’
‘I have two good legs and two strong arms. Always I will carry you with pride. There is more to living than walking. Say again as you did just now, tell me again that you love me too and that you will take me for husband.’
‘I love you more than any words can say.’ She made a valiant effort to speak without choking on her words then, feeling in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief she blew her nose and mopped away her tears. ‘When we are together I forget that I’m not the me I used to be. No, that’s not right. I’m not the me I used to be before the accident. Then, I was just playing at being a proper grown-up person with grown-up emotions. But it’s not just me, Timus; what will your family say if you tell them you want to marry a girl who can’t run a home or look after children? That’s what family life is about; you only have to look at your mother. She is wonderful.’
‘And you are wonderful. Children! Just picture it, Deirdre, our children. You ask about my family. Yes, they know I want you to be my wife and they are more pleased than I know words. They are most fond of you. They look forward most eagerly to the time you become part of our family. That is the way we live when we take a wife.’ Then with the wide smile she loved, ‘My parents have a most large house so that their sons and their wives and children are all one family. Will you mind that? Will you think that as a married person you should have a home just for your own?’ She shook her head, her mind filled with images of the Rodriguez house, the bustle of activity, the laughter. And seeing her expression he went on, ‘If you agree for you and me to become a married two, the thing I want – want more than I know in your language to tell – then they make . . . make . . .’ And here he was lost for the right word so he held his hands apart, first one way and then the other, as if he were making a square and then moving them wider while he looked at her helplessly. ‘So that we have a place to be. They will give us what you name to be the drawing room – I do not know why, for it is not for drawing – to be our bedroom so that we do not have to go up the stairs each night. Easily I could carry you, but my mother is a wise woman and it was she who say we should stay below so that you could do it for yourself.’
A new spirit of confidence flooded over Deirdre. The future had no clouds. She was going to be part of that caring and carefree family; she was going to be Mrs Timus Rodriguez.
‘Marry Timus?’ Tessa looked at Naomi in astonishment when they met by chance in Llaibir the next morning. ‘I know she spends a lot of time with his family, but I never guessed. I’m so pleased for her – and for Timus too. So will Giles be when I tell him.’ She made sure there was excitement in the way she spoke; Naomi was perceptive and she mustn’t have the chance to suspect the nagging uncertainty that Tessa couldn’t escape. Just thinking about it gave her a sick feeling of fear. Was he bored with her, just as he was bored with life at el Almendros? For weeks he had been different – ever since his last trip to London. Sometimes he would sit with the paper in front of him, yet she knew he wasn’t reading; his solitary walks were becoming more frequent; he shut himself in his study for hours and yet when evening came there were never many pages to be typed. She pulled her thoughts back on to track and set a smile of interest on her face. She would drive Deirdre in the hybrid to look for clothes. They would share the excitement and fun just like they used to on their outings from Fiddlers’ Green – or so she tried to make herself believe. But in those days their joy in the moment had been forced, for in both their minds had been the knowledge that, whatever Deirdre bought to wear, nothing could alter her wheelchair-bound life. Yet now, wheelchair or not, she was the girl handsome, kindly, charming Timus wanted for his wife.
‘It’s marvellous,’ Tessa said, unable to keep her face from smiling. ‘All the times I’ve seen them together and I didn’t guess! Imagine all the work that’s been done on Landera and now she won’t be living there. Or will she? Are they going to move in with you and Julian?’ She still felt uncomfortable calling him by his Christian name but Mr Masters was too formal and Uncle seemed ridiculous.
‘They will live with his family. The idea seems to appeal to Deirdre. Well, she spends time a’plenty with them. It seems they are to have the largest downstairs room for their bedroom and Mr Rodriguez is having it partitioned to make an en suite bathroom. I can see now why she has been so difficult to live with, moody, ready to find fault. Poor little soul, she must have been frightened even to let herself dream.’ For a moment she gazed speculatively at Tessa. ‘Tell me to mind my own business, but I ask because I care, not because I’m playing the interfering aunt. Tessa, are things all right with you and Giles? Is he quite well? Tell me it’s not my business, but I met him at the post office the other day and he didn’t seem himself. He can’t still be suffering from writer’s block or whatever you called it.’ And was it her imagination or did Tessa look scared, trapped? Just for a second before she had control of the situation.
‘Poor Giles,’ she answered, careful to sound cheerfully casual, ‘he really doesn’t seem able to settle here for any length of time. Until we married he used to escape here when he’d had enough of the high life, but he’ll never make a countryman. He stays because he knows I love it, and he knows too that nowhere would be right for him for too long at a time. The truth is, he is a rolling stone. Sometimes I can feel he’s champing at the bit for pastures new. But as for his health, I’m sure he’s fine.’
‘If that’s all it is, that’s OK. He just seems to have lost his sparkle.’
‘He’ll go trotting off again soon I expect and the sparkle will be there for the London crowd. It’s lik
e a drug to him. But it soon wears off. It sounds silly, but I’m glad when he goes away because I know how quickly it palls; I know he’ll soon be back with all his batteries charged. That’s the way he is, Auntie. And I wouldn’t change a thing about him.’ Was that the truth? She’d been wildly infatuated by him from the first, believing what she’d felt had been love. From that infatuation had become love, love that filled her heart and mind even more fully than had the original hero worship. And now she had her own challenge. Each week she became more deeply immersed in the work. She knew it didn’t interest Giles, but surely he must be proud of what she was accomplishing.
With the first day of her second nut harvest ahead of her, Tessa was anxious to get on. ‘I promised to pick up the mail,’ she told Naomi, ‘Are you coming the same way?’
At the post office they parted company and five minutes later Tessa was driving home, her thoughts ahead of her as she envisaged the trees giving up what looked like a splendid crop. There was no post for her, and she had expected none. But there was an envelope for Giles that she recognized as coming from his publisher. It might be important, so she decided to break the rules and take it to his study where she imagined he was dictating what tonight she would type. Instead he was gazing into space, his mind a million miles away and with something in his expression that frightened her.
‘Giles! Sorry to burst in on you, but this was in the post. I’m off to start harvesting. Bye.’ And with that she closed the door on him and looked in on Maria to collect Millie.
‘Leave her with me, Señora. We are happy.’
‘Thanks, Maria. If she’s a problem bring her down to me.’
‘She could never be a problem. I sing as I work; she dances. We are partners.’
Their brief exchange was in Spanish but, speaking English, Tessa told Millie to be good and do as Maria told her. Her instructions were met with a puzzled look. There were moments when Millie wanted nothing more than to help her mother; but there were other times when the atmosphere of the large kitchen, the sound of Maria singing, her ever-ready laugh and words of encouragement, were the only world the child asked. Before Tessa crossed the hall to the front door the singing had started again and from the thuds she heard she knew that Millie was leaping into dancing mode. Tessa smiled, imagining the scene: Maria was cleaning the windows, her movements in time with the music she made and, no doubt, as Millie leaped and thumped she too thought she was in time. No one would ever make a dancer of her, nor yet give her any natural grace. A silent voice suggested to Tessa that it was the lack of it that held Giles away from her, but she wouldn’t let herself dwell on the thought. Instead her mind moved back to what Naomi had asked: was anything wrong with Giles? She had been certain there was nothing more than that he was bored and probably resented the happiness she found in the simple life they led. But it hadn’t looked like boredom on his expression when she had caught him unawares in his study.
