The Poet's Wife (26 page)

‘If we dance for you,’ he says, skinny arms thrust into his pockets as he rocks back and forth, ‘will you give us money?’

Henry laughs, leaning back and crossing his arms. None of us have any money with us and, even if we had, it wouldn’t be possible to give enough to all these boys.

‘No,’ Abuela Aurelia says. ‘Will you dance for us anyway?’

I smile, not imagining for a second he will say yes, but the child expels an inevitable sigh before grinning and beckoning the group over. ‘
Bueno.
’

And as we sit there in the Plaza de San Nicolas overlooking what must surely be the most beautiful view in the world, six small boys fumble their way through a few Sevillanas, laughing and chattering whilst we watch and clap.

I
f you drive
in a southerly direction from Granada through the mountains and then turn west along the coastal road, there is an easily missed track that leads down to the ocean. There’s a tiny village there that has hardly changed over the years. It’s surprising, considering the ugly development that has taken place in so many of the neighbouring coastal towns. Uncle Vicente, my father’s eldest brother, lived just outside this village for a number of years before he left for Argentina during the civil war. He went partly through growing alarm, but Father always said he had a head for business and a nose that could smell a deal a thousand miles off.

I never knew Vicente well. But what I
do
know is that he left Spain in a hurry, so fast in fact that he didn’t even bother selling his house or sorting out the belongings inside it, saying he’d come back for everything one day. I don’t know whether it’s fear or new business opportunities that makes him stay away, but the same year we lay my beloved Abuela Aurelia to rest, scattering her ashes on a westerly wind to carry them towards her cave and birthplace, Henry and I spend our honeymoon in Tío Vicente’s deserted home by the sea. At the time it never occurs to me that an abandoned villa is an unusual place to celebrate; we are far too excited by the fact that we are able to escape together at all to Villa Golondrina.

Both Henry and I would have preferred a civil ceremony but things have changed by then. It is a marriage sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church or no marriage at all. We also have to conform to the new society in ways that go against everything I’ve been brought up to believe in. Yet we must play the game; we know the possible consequences only too well if we don’t. I’ve asked myself so many times why we didn’t follow the example of Tío Vicente or my sister María and move abroad to a safer and more tolerant world when we had the chance. Why
did
we choose to stay in one of the most dangerous places in the country for anyone with left-wing associations after the civil war? A place that has witnessed our family being ripped apart at the seams?

As much as I love Granada and Carmen de las Estrellas, I would still leave. But Mother? I know that the comfort she takes in immersing herself in the memories that our home provides her is too great to forsake. And I know with the same strength that I love Henry and hate fascism that I could never, ever leave her.

Henry and I have a small wedding ceremony in a church near the house. I’ve never held any grandiose ideas for this day, so the modest service and small number of guests doesn’t trouble me. Besides, in light of everything that has happened and the fact that my family are trying to keep a low profile, anything showier would be foolish. Ever since the fascist government has taken control, the status of women in Spain has plummeted to a lower level than before the Second Republic, further dashing my hopes of being able to work. We are expected to quietly submit to the will of our husbands and dutifully bring up children and tend to the home. This is reflected in the words that are read out to us by the priest on our wedding day. I am told that as a new wife, I must agree to be subject to my husband in every aspect. I should keep the home clean and tidy and only leave the house if my husband permits it. Of course Henry believes in none of this, and though I find it galling to have to repeat what the priest says, they are ‘just words, empty words’, as Henry murmurs into my ear later that evening.

The absence of certain people pains me that day. I know that Henry feels his own sorrow. England is at war and there is no possibility of any member of his family taking the journey to Spain at such a time. We could have waited to marry, I know that. We could have waited until the guns have fallen silent and some kind of fragile peace and stability has returned to war-torn Europe. But we have no way of guessing how long we’d have to wait. If history and our own experiences have taught us anything, it is that we must act quickly on what we believe.

Abuela Aurelia has been gone for only three months and I miss her terribly, yet I am grateful that at least she had the opportunity to meet Henry. I thought that perhaps, since she had told us her end was near, I might share that with her, particularly as I’d told her about my unusual experiences of nursing. But Abuela Aurelia needs no help, slipping away painlessly one night. I think of her each and every day and imagine I always shall.

A girl needs her family around her on such an important day – it’s natural, of course. I suppose it eases the opening of such an important new chapter in her life. A girl needs her parents there. Particularly her father. As Joaquín walks me down the aisle, I feel him grasp my arm in a way that isn’t only to help steady
me
, it is also because he needs support and strength to deal with his own emotions. It must be difficult for him too, for he knows that it should have been Father’s role to give me away. I feel his presence on the other side of me, an invisible strength gently holding my arm and whispering in my ear ‘
Go to him; go to your husband, Isabel. He’s waiting for you.
’ I probably imagine it, but it is as real as the image of Henry at the end of the aisle. Without it, I don’t know how I should have got through the day.

The day we arrive in the village is swelteringly hot and as the motorcar leaves us at the side of the road, it covers us in a thick layer of scorched dust before zooming off. We peer towards the sea in the distance, shimmering like a mirage. Since returning to Carmen de las Estrellas from the north, this is the first time I’ve left Granada and, although the pounding heat makes me feel faint, I’ll never forget this feeling of exhilaration. Here I am at the coast, standing next to the man I’ve just pledged to spend the rest of my life with. We are young. We are in love. And even more importantly, we are alive.

After finding the
dueño
of the village bar who has the key to the villa, we make our way down the narrow track beneath the blistering sun before collapsing in the low-roofed shade of the house. That night, neither of us can sleep. We lie with our faces a hair’s breadth from one another, talking about our childhoods and my dreams of a hospice before eventually deciding to go for a walk. A half moon hangs in the sky, lighting the steep path that leads to the sea. The further down we walk, the breeze picks up, cooling my damp, mosquito-bitten skin. As we approach the end of the track that leads into a curved bay, I spot a ramshackle old fisherman’s hut and suggest we take a look. I don’t imagine the door will be open, but after barely touching it, it falls right off its hinges and clatters noisily to the ground. Henry takes my hand and we step over the rotten piece of wood into the humid interior. We’ve brought a candle with us and Henry lights it and slowly moves it from one side of the hut to the other, our eyes taking in everything around us. There are some out-dated fishing contraptions, a box of decaying newspapers and a cracked tin mug. The wooden boards that serve as walls are slowly being eaten away with the passage of time and neglect, and although it is claustrophobic and musty in here, something about the hut makes me want to linger. I can almost conjure up a solitary old fisherman who spends hours in silence at the ocean’s edge before making his way back to the hut, flicking through a newspaper and drinking a steaming brew to warm his chilled bones.

Henry’s face is very close and as I feel his warm breath against my skin I marvel for the hundredth time how this man with kind blue eyes and hair the colour of sand loves me so openly and generously. He gently presses his lips to mine and then pulls away.

‘Señora Stevens.’ His eyes glint and crease into a smile. ‘I can’t believe you’re my wife! Señora Stevens! I’m sorry, it doesn’t sound quite as glamorous as Isabel Torres Ramirez, does it?’

I squeeze him tightly. ‘
Sí
, it does. I love it.’

He pulls me to him and kisses me deeply before we step over the battered door and walk down towards the sea.

L
ate one evening
, not long after Henry and I are married, Mar, Pablo, Beatriz, Inés and Graciana come to the conservatory together to talk to us and mother. I know within an instant that they are going to tell us something important as they have never trooped in like this with such serious faces.

Mother stares inquisitively at them, patting the seat beside her. Mar looks nervous and remains standing, shifting from one foot to the other whilst Pablo leans back against the door, black hat pulled down and his arms crossed.

‘Luisa,’ Mar says. ‘We have come to tell you something.’

At that moment, it’s clear what she is going to say, but I wish and hope I’m wrong. Mother, of course, knows as well and I can almost feel her preparing herself emotionally. After a while, she nods for Mar to continue.

‘We have to leave now. We’ve stayed here for such a long time…we never imagined it could be this long. We…’ Mar gulps as she looks down, her fingers interlacing and twisting.

Inés, now a striking young woman, clears her throat. ‘You are our family, and you always will be, but it’s time to go.’

‘
Donde?
’ Mother asks quietly. ‘Where will you go?’

‘They are building new
pueblos
outside the city,’ Inés says. ‘The rent is cheap, we’ve heard.’

‘But how do you know you shall be safe?’

‘We’ll be safe, Luisa,’ Mar says simply. ‘I will make sure of this. But…as Inés says, you will always be our family.’

I feel tears stinging my eyes as one by one they approach us and put their arms around us for a long time. Mother dabs the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘Is there nothing I can say to make you change your mind?’

Mar shakes her head, her black curls dancing. She is still so beautiful, Mar, but so tortured. I feel as though I have never really understood her, not in the way Mother does.

‘I hope you realise that if you ever need anything, or if you should need to come back for any reason, Carmen de las Estrellas is your home as well.’

Now it is Mar’s turn to wipe a tear away from her eye. She turns to me and strokes my cheek. ‘You must take care of your
madre
, Isabel. And this one.’ And suddenly, she lays a hand against my belly. My eyes widen. It has never occurred to me that Abuela Aurelia might have passed her gift as soothsayer onto her daughter. Sure enough, I realise the following week that I have missed my period. Henry and I stand in the bedroom, his hands spread out over my belly, and both of us laugh in disbelief and joy.

The timing couldn’t be better. Mother is too proud to say as much, but I know she is distraught that Mar and the others have decided to leave and I must confess the house seems quiet and empty without them. Fernando bangs around the house moodily and often disappears. Nobody asks him where he is going and he never offers an explanation but he is a grown man now with stubble on his chin and a confident swagger and we can hardly make demands of him.

As for me, I’m unsure what to make of being pregnant – I swing from being deliriously happy, thinking it the most precious gift imaginable, to feeling horrified by the nausea and the shock of the little punches from inside me, so powerful that I sometimes double over.

‘If it’s a boy, shall we call him Eduardo?’ I whisper to Henry one night.

Henry swivels round to face me. ‘Eduardo? How do you think your mother would feel about that?’

‘
No sé
. Perhaps it’s too soon.’

‘Perhaps. Let’s see how we feel when the baby arrives.’ He reaches out and gently pushes hair away from my eyes. ‘Isabel, do you think your mother’s alright?’

I pause. She isn’t alright of course, but I am no good at admitting it to myself, let alone anyone else. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I know I didn’t know her when…when your father was still around, but I wish there was some way I could help her, that
we
could help her.’

I sigh. Mother’s moods are completely unpredictable. Like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, occasionally a glimpse of the old Mother returns. During these times, she talks about Father openly and lovingly, almost as though he is in another room and we can practically feel his presence. When she looks beyond Franco and shares her hopes for a freer, more liberal Spain, she also regains that glimmer in her eye I remember so well from my childhood, that glimmer of playfulness and energy and optimism. I love it when she talks like that and I am taken back to those days of the Republic when I hid behind a pillar and listened to Mother and her friends’ animated discussions, attempting to unravel the impossibly grown-up but delicious web of words unfurling around the courtyard. But then her eyes cloud again and, once more, we are all left to play guessing games.

‘What kind of things did she use to like doing for herself?’ Henry continues.

‘Spending time with friends. Making fortune cookies. Walking…but she still does all these things, sometimes. Henry, it can take years and years to grieve. You know that.’

He brings my hand up to his mouth and kisses my fingertips. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Perhaps having a new baby in the house will help,’ I say.

I wrap an arm around Henry and pull him in tight and a memory suddenly comes back to me of the last time I saw my parents together. I had just told them I would be leaving for Barcelona and Father had begged me not to go. I don’t remember exactly what he said to me, but what I do remember is Mother reaching her arm up as Father left the room and squeezing his hand. And the effect of that small gesture was instantaneous; he was calmer and stronger. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand the depth and breadth of Mother’s loss but Henry is right: we must help her in any way we know how.