A Woman of Seville (7 page)

The wind is swaying; the skies are full of loose feathers and distraught birds. Perched on my roof, I see flying geese juddering in the gusty tumult. On the streets below quill-makers are running about, attempting to catch the multitude of feathers wafting down.

The sky is jam-packed tonight, that’s for sure. With their wings stretched sail-taut behind them, witches loft skyward, away from the dry tinder of papal judgement. Gunpowder sneezes: the sky fills with white puffballs and fizzy red flares. Across the river in cathedral quarter, Carlos Zamorana, with a loaded arquebus, will be trying to shoot the creepy black women out of the sky. Carlos Zamorana,
who, I imagine, loathes nothing more intensely than the thought of a witch’s sagging breasts and wizened paps.

But only the little birds fall. Plop, plop, plop, onto the bare-breasted balconies of Seville. Blood-spattered birds, frightening children and disturbing cats. (Maio the Fraught is hiding under my skirt.)

While the wind is having its say, sandblasting Seville like a run-amok orator, I force my way (the wind flaying my hair) over to the ladder-man’s shelter. My nutcracker man has something important to show me tonight. Inside his tin shed he’s holding a sheet of thick paper under a lantern. Moths stick to the honey-coloured parchment and I brush them away. I lean closer to the paper and moths land on my face. The ladder-man is pressing close and I can see that he actually does shave that youthful skin (this man could even grow a beard if he wanted to). This thought arouses me no end. As I sound out the words on the paper the ladder-man is nodding instructively. What I’m reading is an invitation from the so-called ‘ladder-men’s guild’ to a so-called ‘ladder-men’s ball’. All the ladder-men in Seville will be there. They can each take one ladder and one guest along, but not more than one of each. Have I read it right? Yes, I have. Oh la-di-da. A ladder-man ball! I had been to nothing so fanciful since I was seven. And only one day to wait.

To get to the gala ball we have to cross the river because
the event is to be held on one of the biggest galleries of Seville, the magnificent upper deck of the Casa de Pilatos. My ladder-man’s agitated about having to go down onto the streets to passage over there. He writes on his slate that he hasn’t stepped on land for years. He’s not comfortable around streets and horses, I remember. He must have got his hand caught in a drain when he was a little boy, or maybe his mother carried him around on her hip for far too long and he needs to be airborne to feel content. I hire a carriage to make it easier for him, and he jumps from my house onto the roof of the carriage then climbs into the vehicle through the window. His skinniness helps with this. I tie both our ladders onto the roof with Violeta’s and Prospera’s assistance. The ladder-man crouches inside the carriage biting his nails.

As soon as we cross the river we seize our ladders and climb back up onto the rooftops again, proceeding to our destination by an up-and-down-slow-and-circuitous route, as though we are scaling a mountain. Normally I’d protest, but I like being with the ladder-man and the more time I get to spend with him the better. We’re not known on the proper side of town, and we get quite a barrage of insults and even soft fruit thrown at us for our trespasses. ‘We’re on our way to the ladder-men’s ball,’ I proudly explain to the balcony residents and they say, ‘Well what do you
think the roads are made for?’ or ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.’

We meet lots of other ladder-men going the same way, all fountain fresh with wet hair, nicely spruced up and wearing white linen shirts rather than their customary drab shepherd tunics. Their tailored legs and hips are on display as a consequence, but I only have eyes for my svelte ladder-man.

As I’ve already told you, the ladder-man’s ball will take place on the upper gallery of the Casa de Pilatos, not in the great hall. People think that a ladder-man would only want to relax on a rooftop at night. That is a very patronising assumption. It’s like offering to take a Turkish guest to the Arabic baths to relax.

‘Why aren’t we going into the grand hall?’ I ask, for that room is magnificent and has a painting of myself ‘playing’ Susannah on the wall which I’d like to show the ladder-man. I’ve been in the great hall before, on the arms of many grandées.

But the usher welcoming us onto the gallery says that the Duque de Alcalá—currently sojourning in Madrid—has granted permission for only the gallery to be used for the ladder-men’s exploits. And, while the revellers are having fun, the Duke wants all his plants watered too.

But why is the Duke giving up his stately home to
such riff-raff as us? The ladder-men’s guild is not even an officially recognised guild, I’ve been told. It has no legal status. The Duke, the usher tells us, owes a debt to a ladder-man who saved his young son’s life. Just in the nick of time, so the story goes, the ladder-man appeared from nowhere and stopped the little boy flying off the roof like the bird he imagined himself to be.

‘I will give you anything you want, but not money or furniture,’ the Duke promised the swift-footed hero.

‘I would have a party for all the long-suffering, blighted ladder-men of Seville,’ said the rescuer.

‘You will have your party and the best musicians, food and drink on offer,’ replied the Duke. The clause about watering the plants came later.

The usher parts a festive sash and we are welcomed onto the spacious upper gallery, already thick with munching, swilling ladder-folk. Some hold goblets, others chicken drumsticks, others watering cans, but I don’t see any ladders in their midst. We are invited to leave our ladders standing upright against a wall. I put my ladder next to my ladder-man’s. There are dozens of ladders already stacked up here, one in front of the other. They will get mixed up surely, I say to my ladder-man, who answers me by writing on the back of the invitation with a goose-quill, ‘A ladder-man always knows his own ladder.’ Well, no doubt that’s true,
but what’s to stop a ladder-man coveting another man’s property?

The ladder-man smiles and shows me a ticket with the number 629 on it which he puts in a pocket of his beautiful breeches that are just like the ones that Harmen Weddesteeg wears. In fact, I may have borrowed these from Harmen for the night, I can’t remember. I borrowed them from somewhere, but all the edges of things are a bit blurry in the ladder-man’s world.

Ladder-men are loners; few have brought guests with them and few know each other, except by distant sight, from their time spent on the rooftops. I guess they see each other as competition. This hardly matters tonight though, as they are here in large numbers to eat and drink. But this party is quiet as far as parties go. After a while the guests loosen up and begin to converse with each other and to dance to the little orchestra of viols and clavichord hiding in the wings. Because they have no partners some of the ladder-men go fetch their ladders and dance holding onto these. They do look funny whisking their ladders around as though they are skeletal wives. They may very well have wives at home that they’re dreaming of. It’d be nice to think they do.

I look at my ladder-man to see if he wants to dance with me, but he seems contented watching the frivolities
and sipping cider. Does he miss his ladder? Every now and then I see him keeping an eye on it. ‘I hope
my
ladder doesn’t go for a wander,’ I say to him in sympathy. The ladder-man puts his arm around me, but I can feel he’s not comfortable doing this. He’s searching for a grip or a rung, but there’s just my spongy body and his hand keeps slipping off my shoulder. Eventually he gives up and goes and fetches his ladder. He seems to be much more content holding onto his ladder than he was holding onto me. I fight back disappointment, but then everything fixes up pretty quickly and he’s leaning the ladder against me and we’ve both got our arms looped through the rungs and my hand is pressing against his sweaty palm. Soon his arms are about my waist and even slipping inside my clothes; as long as we have the ladder propped between us my ladder-man’s prepared to be quite adventurous.

The guild leader, a ladder-man called Alonso, is organising a series of contests for us guests. First there will be a race across the adjoining rooftops. Ten men opt to take part. Guild leader Alonso whistles ‘Go!’ and off the men leap, clutching their ladders. While I stand watching and laughing and eventually clapping the winner, I notice that a couple of ladder-men in the chase are missing limbs. Maybe this is why they have had to become ladder-men. The ladder is like having an extra arm or leg, isn’t it? These
men are plucky, I admit, to be dashing about the rooftops with parts missing.

The winner gets a bronze statuette of a man hanging upside down on a ladder. Half his luck. Next there’s a competition to see who can balance on a ladder for the longest time. I nudge my ladder-man forward. He should try this one. Someone behind me pushes past and drags my ladder-man off to join the line-up of hopefuls. My ladder-man’s snared for the competition against his will, and the chosen six climb onto their ladders and we’re standing around getting bored as we wait and wait for one of them to fall. These men have attained the art of perfect balance. Not even a tornado would knock one down. Alonso, the guild leader, gets impatient and orders his helpers to apply the under-arm tickles and the balancing men go wobbly and tip over in hysterics. My ladder-man is the last man standing because tickles can’t make him laugh. His lips are stuck fast in a purse. He wins a short sharp knife, but he looks horrified when he opens the leather sheath and he passes the knife straight over to me. (My ladder-man is too gentle to own a knife.) But Violeta will be pleased to receive this for her kitchen armoury. I may even keep it for myself.

Then there is ‘the best ladder’ award and all the ladders are spread out and admired. We vote on a winner. A man
with a miraculously extending ladder wins the prize. His ladder pulls in two but my favourite is actually a stripy painted ladder that glows in the dark. Now for the best women’s ladder. I discover that there are just three females in the crowd. I hope my ladder will win because I’d love the prize. I would get my ladder engraved by a wood artist for free. But alas, a ladder-woman with a ladder in the shape of a curvaceous female torso wins the prize. This ladder-woman looks a lot like her ladder. She receives smutty jokes and hooting from the crowd when she collects her award.

I go up to congratulate her and we stare at each other as we clasp hands.

‘Paula?’

‘Hortense!’

It is my friend from the village whom I’ve not seen for ten years since the day she told me she’d been snared for the brothel. How she has grown. We have a lot to catch up on. After seven years, she tells me, she escaped the brothel with the help of a ladder-man, would you believe. It is a familiar story then, for we women of soiled cloth.

‘And you?’ she says. ‘Look at your beautiful gown, the jewels in your hair. Did you hire these things? Are you truly a ladder-woman?’

I can see she will hate me if I admit that I am not one of the mock-up guild, so I pretend that I am, but she says she’s
heard tales of my soaring courtesan career, and she lunges forward and scoops up my skirt to denounce me.

‘Look at that pitiful, undeveloped calf muscle,’ she almost spits.

Just as expected, exposed as a fraud. Well I’ve certainly got bigger calf muscles than I used to have. I didn’t think they were really that pathetic.

‘You’re an imposter,’ she proclaims, and then I wonder if jealousy isn’t at the core of all relationships between women.

I run back to my ladder-man sobbing and tell him I’m ready to go home. But I don’t want a protracted climb over the roofs of Seville to Triana. I tell my ladder-man I’ll just slip downstairs and find my own way out a door onto the street. I’ll walk home alone if he doesn’t mind; I know my way out of this Casa.

But my ladder-man has other plans for me tonight. He may be mute but he’s very directive in his own way. Besides, we’re not allowed to exit through the lower quarters of the palace. We have to go back the way we’ve come in, up and over. I follow him as he climbs from the gallery onto the mansion roof, and together we make our way slowly across the stables and farm buildings to where the Duque de Alcalá’s ample orchard begins. Our ladders help us cross from an acorn tree to an almond tree and then we swing
into the embrace of a plum tree that has a wooden tree-house nesting among its foliage. An unlocked wooden door hangs on a broken hinge. Once I’m inside the house the ladder-man shifts the door back into its frame.

‘You’ve stayed here before?’ I ask.

I imagine him nodding.

‘Insects,’ I say, looking at the rug on the floor warily.

He throws his handsome doublet (also belonging to Harmen Weddesteeg, I think) across the rug.

‘I’m hot,’ I say, while I’m really thinking, ‘Take my dress off.’

Instinctively, he does. Unwinds my laces. Hook after hook after hook. The swamp of my dress stretches out across the dank rug.

I lie down on my back and he pulls his shirt off and lies down on top of me and puts his hands on my breasts and kisses me, his lips soft but compressed. I kiss him back and try to stick my tongue in his mouth but he keeps his lips firmly closed. Then he moves his mouth away from mine and kisses my neck and pulls my chemise down so he can kiss my breasts. I can feel the heat coming out of his body; he smells of yeast and sugar egg. God loves me, I think, as I open my legs and press my crotch hard up against his groin, wanting to feel his arousal and relieved when I do. He isn’t missing anything in that regard.

When I thrust against him, taking such liberties, he presses himself harder too, and then reaches down and pulls my underclothing and stockings away from my body so that I’m completely naked down there.

He doesn’t touch me between the legs. Not yet. With one hand he caresses my breasts. The other he runs up and down my legs, then along the inside of my thighs. He’s done this to women before, I can tell. He’s not as chaste as I imagined. It hardly matters. Maybe it’s better he knows a thing or two about women’s bodies. He strokes my belly, reaching down to the place where my pubic hair encroaches. His fingers are in my pubic hair now, delving lower and lower.