The Healing Stream (26 page)

On that January day they were still living in town with little prospect of the work being completed before spring. It wasn’t the fault of the workmen that the alterations had taken so long, but it hadn’t been a straightforward job. Decorating, fitting new kitchens and bathrooms they could have done months before, but the equipment needed for Deirdre had to be designed by specialists, hence the delays. It had been arranged that she should stay at Finca el Almendros while the newly married couple spent a few days in Valencia and her air of excitement seemed out of all proportion. She had stayed there for more than two months when they’d first come out from England, but then Naomi had been there to help her.

‘This is fun,’ Deirdre said. ‘Aunt Naomi – or should I call her Mother now? – usually helps me into the water then goes away until I ring a bell she leaves by the bath. Will Giles feel neglected if you sit and talk to me while I bathe?’

‘Giles is fine.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ Deirdre observed, casting a quick glance to see Tessa’s reaction. ‘He looks fed up. I expect he’s bored. When’s he off to the bright lights and the scintillating company he looks for in London?’

‘Not at this time of year. He’s not bored; he’s frustrated with his work. Don’t they call it writer’s block?’

But Deirdre’s mind had already moved on. ‘We shall be further from here when we live in the house they’re so excited about,’ she said, her despondent tone telling Tessa more than any words. Of course she imagined herself cut off from all the action of the almond grove and from the Rodriguez family. In her situation it was so hard to break into a new circle.

‘I’ll collect you sometimes and bring you here for the day. You know there’s always plenty to do with the trees – not to mention Millie.’

Deirdre nodded, but her doleful expression didn’t lift.

‘And the new house will give you so much more independence.’ Tessa continued to try to cheer her. Her initial excitement about the house, which Naomi had relayed to Tessa, had clearly evaporated. ‘A year ago you would never have imagined what a slot you’ve made for yourself with your Rodriguez friends; and I bet something like that will happen in the new place.’

From the look on Deirdre’s face, her encouraging words had gone unheard.

But whatever her views, the move went ahead and just before Easter they closed the door for the last time on the rented house in Llaibir.

‘I’m going to walk down to town to collect any mail,’ Giles told Tessa one afternoon the following August when he found her cutting flowers for the house and laying them carefully in her trug: day lilies, delphiniums, African lilies, Pride of Peru and carnations.

‘Shall Millie and I come? Or Maria would keep Millie in with her if you like? Wait while I take these flowers in for Maria; she loves arranging them. Perhaps it’s because she sings to them that they always look better when she does them.’ At the thought of an afternoon with Giles, flower arranging lost its appeal.

Just for a second he hesitated, then, ‘No. I’m going to walk on my own. I need to think. There’s never a second’s peace in that house, if it isn’t Maria singing it’s Millie shouting. Why can’t children speak like normal people?’

‘When you’re her age, life is exciting, full of adventure that what you call “normal people” have forgotten.’

He was surprised by her answer. Had he done that to her? Had he taken away her sense of life being an adventure?

‘I don’t know how I’m expected to get any work done. There’s more chance in the London flat.’

Ignoring the complaining note in his voice, in fact ignoring too the suggestion that London was calling him, she said, ‘But it’s nearly three miles. If you walk in how will you get back? You can’t walk all that way in this heat. Diego Pastor told me yesterday that he had a long job today, taking someone right down to Granada.’ And Diego Pastor with his elderly Renault was the nearest the little town of Llaibir had to a taxi service. Childishly, she felt that she had scored a point. ‘You can borrow my bike if you want to get away from us by yourself.’

He was watching her, his expression telling her nothing. Sometimes he could be so difficult; he made her feel as though she were some sort of possession he could see little use in keeping. But that was stupid. They were happy, they had a perfect marriage, a dozen times a day she told herself so. She knew he got restless with the restrictions of country living, but that was hardly her fault. The finca had been his choice alone; he had bought it for a retreat almost as soon as he was free to travel after the end of the war. Now his sudden smile banished any shadow of criticism from her mind. She found herself laughing with him as he said, ‘Put me on a bike and I’d probably fall off before I got down to the road. Leave Millie with Maria and—’

‘And come with you? Walking together it wouldn’t seem half so far.’

‘No. I told you – I want to be by myself. I was going to suggest you leave Millie with Maria and have an afternoon on the bike yourself.’ Then with the sudden frown she had come to dread, ‘Don’t you ever want to get away from everyone for Christ’s sake?’ Immediately, he could see he had hurt her, but he knew how easy it was to make amends. ‘I’ve gone cold on what I’m doing. I’ve got to clear my head and think myself back into it. Oh, Tessa’ – he held his hand towards her – ‘sweet Tessa, I’m no good to you, no companion for you.’

‘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.

‘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.’