Andalucian Nights. Indiscretion ebook

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

A Letter from Hannah

About the Author

Q and A With Hannah Fielding

Also by Hannah Fielding: Burning Embers and The Echoes of Love

Praise for Burning Embers, The Echoes of Love and Hannah Fielding

INDISCRETION

HANNAH FIELDING

First published in hardback, paperback and eBook in the UK in 2015

by London Wall Publishing Ltd (LWP)

24 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4YX

Digital edition converted in 2015 by eBook Partnership and distributed in 2015 by FaberFactory

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This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Copyright © Hannah Fielding 2015

EB ISBN 978-0-9926718-9-1

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatestpunishment we can bring on ourselves.

FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA

En la sangre hierve España sin fuego.In Spain, blood boils without fire.

SPANISH PROVERB

PROLOGUE

London, 1950

The shrill summons of the doorbell echoed through Newton Place, a grand old mansion house by the river in Cheyne Walk.

Alexandra de Falla glanced at the clock on her bedroom mantelpiece. It was just past eight in the morning but she had been sitting at her desk since dawn, chewing over the outline of a new story, one that had nagged her out of an already fitful sleep.

Who on earth could it be at this hour?

Putting down her pen, she closed her notebook and tucked it next to her typewriter. Outside the wide bay window, the gloomy morning hugged pavements wet with overnight rain and a chilly January wind stirred the bare branches of the tall trees lining the elegant Chelsea street, whining against the window panes like a dog left out in the cold. The only other sounds were the clink of bottles in their crates as the milkman finished his morning deliveries and the clip-clop of his horse as the cart moved off in the direction of Albert Bridge. From Alexandra’s bedroom, the view of the Thames, London’s glittering main street, was magnificent. It swept upstream to the trees of Battersea Park on the opposite bank and downstream past the dark mystery of warehouses and wharves. She imagined it flowing past the Tower of the capital, standing formidable against a pale sky smudged with pewter-white clouds and which, this morning, must seem especially solemn in its stark and gloomy solitude. There was still a frosty mist in the air. Alexandra loved the city but longed for the warmth and colour of spring to burst through this grey dampness. The relentless silence of the morning made her even more restless than usual.

She sighed. Today was her twenty-fifth birthday, shouldn’t her life be turning a corner by now?

Sometimes Alexandra felt like she was waiting for something — anything — to happen. Somewhere inside she could taste it, the immense potential of her passions and dreams. Where did it come from, the feeling that she didn’t quite belong? Was this burning desire to know more of the world something she had inherited from her mother? But that was a question, like so many others, she would never be able to ask her.

Once more the doorbell resonated rudely through the house. As Mrs Jeffrey, the housekeeper, had gone out, Alexandra pulled on her dressing gown and descended the stairs to the large oak-panelled hall.

‘Yes, I’m coming,’ she called out, drawing the brass bolts back and opening the door.

The man standing on the doorstep had his back to her, staring up at the sky. Short and dark, he was holding an enormous bunch of pink roses. He turned, looking both embarrassed and anxious.

‘Hello, Alexandra, querida.’

For a moment she could hardly breathe. His face was so familiar to her and yet he was almost a stranger.

‘Papá? Papá … is it really you?’

‘Sí, soy yo. Fifteen years is a long time, I know.’ Don Alonso de Falla paused and then his mouth broke into a most disarming smile. ‘I’m glad you still recognize me.’

Her face frozen in shock, she didn’t return his smile. ‘What are you doing here, Papá? You didn’t write to say you were coming to London, I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I wanted to surprise you on your birthday. Here, these are for you. May I come in?’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Thank you. They’re lovely.’ Alexandra took the flowers from him and placed them on the hall table.

‘I see the house hasn’t changed at all,’ noted Don Alonso as he stepped into the hall. ‘Oh, but enough of that. Mi querida Alexandra, deja que te mire, let me look at you,’ he declared, holding his daughter at arm’s length. ‘You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman … so like your mother.’ Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her warmly on both cheeks. ‘I know you must have a lot of questions, niña. Is there somewhere we can talk comfortably?’

Trying valiantly to regain her composure, Alexandra led him into the drawing room, to the two wing-backed chairs facing each other in front of the fire, which was already lit. Stunned, she sat down, looking across at the man she hadn’t seen since she was ten years old.

The one photograph she had of him, standing with her mother, depicted him as a much younger man, the way he was in her childhood memories. Now, although still handsome, his black hair and goatee were peppered with silver and his face was narrower and slightly worn-looking.

So he was back, after fifteen years, looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time, no longer the vulnerable ten-year-old he had left behind in the charge of her protective but rather austere English aunt.

Don Alonso settled himself in the chair and gazed at her. ‘You have your mother’s pearly complexion and her beautiful dark copper hair,’ he told her wistfully.

Alexandra’s eyes momentarily clouded with tears. She had no real recollection of her mother and the few black-and-white photographs that Aunt Geraldine possessed were faded. Still, years of suppressed anger and resentment at her father’s absence made her reluctant to talk about her mother in front of him. She decided to be blunt.

‘So why have you waited until my twenty-fifth birthday to come back to London, Papá? Are you here on business for the family estate? When are you going back to El Pavón?’

‘Of course, I wanted to come back sooner.’ Don Alonso raised his hands defensively at her barrage of questions. ‘You know from my letters how difficult things have been. The uprising at home … then the war in Europe. And it wouldn’t have been easy to leave the country these past five years either.’

Knowing that wasn’t quite true, she stared at him defiantly. ‘But not impossible.’

‘No, not impossible.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Thankfully, the government seems to be steering us out of isolation, which is good for business.’ Noting her arched brow, he added hastily, ‘and of course, it made it easier to arrange this trip to see you. I’ve been out of your life far too long. You know, I’ve always regretted not being here, leaving your Aunt Geraldine to bring you up but, as your mother was gone, I thought you needed a female substitute. A girl needs a woman to guide her.’

‘They also need their fathers,’ Alexandra replied softly.

‘Yes, querida, so they do.’ He smiled sadly at her now and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair as if deliberating what to say next. She almost felt sorry for him. At least he had taken the trouble to surprise her on her birthday and he had remembered the date, after all. She smiled at him for the first time.

‘I’m pleased to see you, Papá, truly I am. It’s just that it’s a bit of shock, seeing you after all these years with no warning at all.’

‘Are you still writing?’

‘Yes, Papá. I sent you my two novels, did you read them?’

‘Ah si, mi hija del novelista! My daughter the novelist!’ Don Alonso ignored her question but smiled at her indulgently. ‘Always, your nose in a book. And even when you were small, scribbling away … all those little stories … wanting to go on adventures. So like Vanessa …’ He broke off, as if lost in his own memories.

‘I hope Mamá would have approved then, if we are so alike.’

He looked up at her. ‘Mmm? Sí, por supuesto. Yes, of course.’ She thought he was going to tell her more about her mother and suddenly wanted so very much to hear about her but Don Alonso clapped his knee and leaned forward.

‘Come, I’ll wait while you dress and then let me take you out to breakfast, we can talk while we eat. I haven’t had an English breakfast with sausages, bacon, eggs and all the trimmings in years and, God knows why, I miss it.’

* * *

Don Alonso took Alexandra to Hazlitt’s, the fashionable eighteenth-century hotel just down from Piccadilly Circus, a place redolent with atmosphere, with its oak-panelled walls, tall windows draped with luxurious gold velvet, and marble fireplaces. It was Alexandra’s favourite because it had been the haunt of so many writers in the past. Her father led her to a table in the corner of the dining room, which hummed with the murmurings of polite conversation and the tinkling of silver. Don Alonso took great delight in ordering almost everything on the menu.

Alexandra and her father spent hours talking, making up for lost time, and he made her laugh with stories of her childhood antics. Her resentment towards him began to soften. Their conversation was so easy and he was so charming, it was almost as if she had rediscovered an old friend.

‘So, niña, have you thought much about us over the years?’ Don Alonso poured them both another cup of coffee.

She smiled. Her fascination for her roots exerted a pull she couldn’t understand. ‘Yes, I have. Often. My memories of the family are minimal, given I was only three when you and Mamá brought me over to England, but I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like, had we stayed in Spain.’

‘Yes, life would have been different indeed. For all of us.’

‘I remember you telling me stories about the family on your visits when I was a child but, of course, I’ve forgotten much of it now. I do remember that Grandmother very much ruled the roost — I suppose she had to after your father died. You were young when it happened, weren’t you? A riding accident.’ Alexandra said quietly.

Don Alonso’s eyes clouded momentarily. ‘Yes, I’m afraid the story of the de Falla family has often been governed by the winds of capricious fate. Your uncle Armando, myself and our cousin Luis María were only boys when my father, Duque Juan Raphael de Falla, died, though Luis María was a few years older than my brother and me.’ Don Alonso’s face brightened. ‘But we were inseparable growing up, despite the difference in age. We got into some fine old scrapes. As we say in Spain, “El que de joven corre de viejo trota, he who runs in youth, trots in old age,” and I suppose that explains why your old Papá has slowed down so much now.’ He grinned.

‘What happened to Luis María?’

‘He married a real aristocratic beauty, Cecilia de Bermudez. She was a distant relative of the Duquesa but a young widow, and Mamá did not approve. Cecilia had been left with two children, Esmeralda and Salvador: a situation totally unacceptable to the Duquesa, of course. Luis María adopted the children, giving them his name.’

‘Why did Grandmother not approve?’ Alexandra shook her head, then added, coolly. ‘I suppose she thought that Cecilia wasn’t good enough for him because she had been married before. Knowing the Duquesa, she regarded her as second-hand goods.’

Don Alonso sighed. ‘You have to understand my mother had single-handedly run El Pavón after my father died. One has to respect that. I know she’s somewhat formidable but it’s just that she has a particular vision for the family dynasty. Protecting the de Falla bloodline has always been uppermost in her mind. It wasn’t only Luis: neither Armando nor I married as she would’ve wished.’

‘Nothing excuses Grandmother’s treatment of Mamá.’ Alexandra’s eyes flared with barely suppressed emotion.

Don Alonso, suddenly uncomfortable, fiddled with the napkin on his lap. ‘That’s as may be, but you still have to respect her for managing to steer both the family and the business through the most harrowing period in the de Fallas’ history. We barely survived the Civil War.’

Alexandra burned with desire to know more about her family, despite her antipathy towards the Duquesa, but thoughts of her mother haunted her even more. She sipped her coffee, feeling anything but calm. ‘When Mamá went off to the South of France, I thought she would come back for me, but then … the car accident … and then, to make matters worse, you returned to Spain. I presume you made it back into Grandmother’s good books. I hope it was worth it.’

There was a moment’s silence that hung between them, full of so many unspoken things. She realized now how heavy was the weight of sadness, bitterness even, that she’d carried for the past decade.

‘Mamá would like to meet you,’ Don Alonso said suddenly.

Alexandra’s face shut down. She shook her head, saying, ‘She’s too late.’ True, her grandmother, the Duquesa, had started to write her the odd letter when she was a teenager, asking about her life in England, but Alexandra had shoved them in a drawer and never replied.

‘Your grandmother is getting old, niña. She doesn’t want to die before seeing her granddaughter. She talks about you often. I believe she sent you a family heirloom of great value that had belonged to your great-grandmother?’

‘Yes,’ Alexandra conceded, ‘after the success of my first book.’ It was a charming medallion made of chased gold, encrusted with diamonds and rubies. The Duquesa herself had worn it as a young girl, she explained in the accompanying note, in which she had also expressed the strong desire to meet her granddaughter. Alexandra had accepted the gift reluctantly and had briefly thanked the old lady in a short letter, but remained deaf to further attempts at reconciliation made by the dowager.

‘So, as you can see, your grandmother has always taken a great interest in you and doesn’t understand your reluctance to take up her invitations to go to Spain …’

‘If she is so concerned about me now after all these years, I wonder why she didn’t bother taking more trouble to find out about me when I was a child. What’s more, if she had made my mother’s life happier when she was in Spain, rather than driving her away, perhaps Mamá might still be with us now.’ She picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee distractedly, even though she hadn’t added sugar to it. ‘Besides, England is where I belong, not Spain.’

Still, as Alexandra uttered those last words, she felt the lie on her lips.

CHAPTER 1

Andalucía, a few months later

The hundred-year-old steam locomotive lurched through a parched yellow and brown countryside on worn-out tracks, winding north along Andalucía’s rocky coast. The train was crowded but, amazingly, more people managed to force themselves inside at every stop, causing those who were already packed in into even closer intimacy. Spaniards, Alexandra noticed, seemed to journey with an obligatory stock of food, and that of the passengers was now roped on the luggage racks above their seats. At the last station, a huge barrel of a man had boarded the train with a basket from which protruded the head of a protesting goose.

Alexandra had been determined to experience Franco’s New Spain like a native, and that meant travelling like one. After all, she was half-Spanish, even if this was her first time in the country since her early childhood. Aunt Geraldine had warned that it was madness for a woman to travel unchaperoned in such a conservative country, not to mention a place still broken and impoverished by civil war, but Alexandra had stubbornly dismissed her concerns. It would be just the kind of adventure she had always longed for, she admitted to herself; besides, she was going to see her family so she wouldn’t be with strangers. For the first time since she had left England, she wondered about her compulsion to make such a journey, asking herself why she had accepted this truce with the de Fallas after so many years of stubborn denial.

At La Linea, just outside Gibraltar, where she had arrived by passenger ship, she had found a train heading north, up the coast to Puerto de Santa María, via Cádiz. Coming face to face with the tren mixto, Alexandra had momentarily been tempted to switch to the more civilized and comfortable rápido. The carriages of the passenger and freight train had been full to bursting with baskets of clucking hens, men whistling and shouting to each other, women with luggage and paraphernalia piled high against the windows, and even the odd goat or two; but after taking a deep breath, she struggled with her cases into the hot and stuffy compartment and gamely squeezed herself into an empty seat next to an elderly woman.

The train had high-backed wooden benches, the seating arranged in cubicles on either side of a gangway. Some of the windows were broken and people climbed through them to grab a seat. A chattering, shouting medley of voices had filled the carriage — there was none of the usual reserved and dignified behaviour Alexandra had read about the Spanish in the books that she’d picked up at her local library. The exotic smells of food, sweat and livestock permeated the atmosphere.

Now, looking around at her fellow travellers, Alexandra made a mental note of their various characteristics so that she might, if she wished, use them in her writing. Some were astonishingly ugly, with screwed-up wrinkled faces and flabby mouths gaping open, but there were so many alert and twinkling eyes, animated by one lively expression after another. Knotted, pudgy or skinny hands gesticulated energetically with each conversation. Accompanying their mothers or grandmothers were a few young boys and girls with bright, dark eyes, red lips and olive skins that had been washed in some cases and not in others. Alexandra had seen such familiar scenes and characters in dozens of Spanish paintings and now it seemed these Goyaesque figures had come to life before her. She suddenly felt very English in her impeccably cut, pale-green suit.

‘Where are you going, señorita?’ The old lady next to her, crocheting a lace mantilla, had been eyeing her with open curiosity.

‘Puerto de Santa María, I have family near there.’ Alexandra shifted uncomfortably in her seat but managed a smile.

‘On your own, are you? Where is your husband?’

Alexandra was starting to get used to cheerful Spanish bluntness and the lack of inhibition with strangers: the couple who had looked after her on the boat from Southampton had asked her dozens of questions about herself and had even given her their address in Gibraltar, should she ever need a place to stay. It was difficult to imagine any English person she knew offering the same to a complete stranger.

‘I have no husband. I’m travelling alone, actually, from England.’

‘Your Spanish is good but, ah, your accent! Yes, English.’ The woman smiled but then added: ‘Be careful, señorita, young women don’t go about on their own here.’ She stopped crocheting and nudged Alexandra with her elbow, nodding her head towards a man who had been staring at her from across the carriage. ‘And a pretty, well-dressed girl like you will always attract attention,’ she lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘especialmente de los picaros y gitanos, especially from rogues and gypsies. You stay close to me, señorita.’

The old lady patted Alexandra’s arm, rested her handiwork on the voluminous bag on her lap, which reached as high as her equally voluminous chest, and promptly dozed off, leaving Alexandra to her own thoughts.

She stared out of the window at the countryside as the train climbed up and up across Spain towards Cádiz. Fascinated, she lost herself in her new surroundings as they slipped by.

They were running over gently undulating ground, which rose and sank in larger billows. The murky Guadalquivir followed the train all the way, through a valley that sometimes widened to the Sierras, blue mountains walling the horizon, their bare, sharp peaks and rainbow-coloured spears of rock — yellow, orange and crimson — stabbing the air. In the distance, Alexandra could see towns, extremely white, beyond the wheatlands and olive orchards that divided the landscape. One such town nestled brightly at the base of a hill, topped by a Moorish castle, golden against the azure sky.

They passed wide expanses of pasture, where lordly bulls were being hoarded in anticipation of the season of corridas and ferias. From time to time they passed primitive, winding mule tracks that led up high to a village.

The wildness, the hills, the beautiful images her romantic brain made out of the barren jagged cliffs — the pure foreignness of the place — caught Alexandra by the throat. She still couldn’t believe it — how in the world had Aunt Geraldine been persuaded to let her go on this ‘intrepid’ journey to the ‘outlandish’ place that had been her mother Vanessa’s downfall? And yet it had happened.

At first, Aunt Geraldine was horrified by the whole idea and opposed her fiercely: ‘Nothing good can come out of this escapade. You’re already twenty-five, darling. Some of your friends are mothers by now. It’s high time you settled down, had children and made a home for yourself in your own country, among your own people. This constant soul-searching can only lead to tears. Remember, your mother broke the rules and look how that ended.’

‘I can’t ignore my Spanish blood any longer. It’s part of my identity.’

‘Listen, my dear, Franco has brought Spain to its knees. It’s completely backward in its development,’ her aunt protested. ‘They may have a little more freedom and tolerance now but apparently they still lack decent roads. Their telephone system is poor, non-existent in most places. Besides, their ways are totally different to ours,’ she went on relentlessly. ‘Believe me, they’re narrow-minded and bigoted. You certainly wouldn’t have the freedom to gallivant around the place the way you do here. They smothered your mother with all sorts of “dos” and “don’ts”. I really think this is a bad idea, Alexandra. You’ll live to regret it one day.’

But Alexandra had persevered and, like the little drop of water that made a hole in the rock, the young woman’s persistent pushing had forced her aunt to acquiesce.

She planned to write a third novel on the trip. Already Alexandra María de Falla was a popular name in romantic fiction. When she’d first submitted her short stories to the editor of Modern Ladies’ Romance magazine he’d found them colourful but unpretentious, and had been surprised by their popularity. After that, with his encouragement, she had published her first two novels. Both were selling well and now she found herself in the lucky position of being financially independent.

Certainly, she had no shortage of ideas for new books, ones that would not involve her travelling to another country to meet a family she hadn’t seen since childhood. Still, she’d chosen to go … Curiosity had certainly played its part in her decision-making but, more than anything, the growing need to find her roots had finally made up her mind.

For years, Alexandra had tried to ignore the emptiness that often haunted her, the feeling that there was a whole part of her left undiscovered. Despite the persistent sense that it was her Spanish blood calling to her, she had remained deaf to all attempts made by her grandmother, the Duquesa, at reconciliation. She hadn’t even answered the letters the dowager sent after Don Alonso’s visit to London. Then, a few weeks ago, when early intimations of spring had stirred her restless soul, and while reading Thomas Hardy’s ‘Heredity’, she came across a verse that made her pause:

I am the family face;

Flesh perishes, I live on.

For days afterwards she had pondered Hardy’s profound words. Perhaps it was time to listen to the quiet voice inside urging her on, time to acquaint herself with her own ‘heredity’. The exotic allure of her homeland had always been undeniably potent. Would she discover the missing piece of herself there?

Suddenly, a flood of memories assailed her, bringing with them that sense of loss, crashing back against her heart. Alexandra was five again and Aunt Geraldine was explaining that her mother would not be coming back, that a wicked gentleman had taken her far away. She remembered crying for weeks, hiding her face in her bedclothes, trying to stifle the sobs. Her only consolation had been the countless fairy stories her aunt read her at bedtime. She’d listened avidly as beautiful princesses went on great adventures and fell in love with handsome princes, or lost children were reunited with their mothers and fathers, stories in which everyone lived happily ever after. Soon she began to make up stories of her own, escaping into the world of her vivid romantic imagination.

Later, she was told that her mother had met a flamboyant French artist and, weary of a husband who was never around and his family who had never accepted her, hadn’t hesitated to exchange a life that brought her so little for a love that promised so much. But her newfound happiness had been short lived: a year after running away with her lover, Vanessa had died in a car accident while holidaying on the French Riviera.

‘You mustn’t hold it against her,’ Aunt Geraldine had told Alexandra years later. ‘I know she would’ve come back for you when she was settled, but things were difficult for her. Your mother suffered tremendously, you know. She didn’t belong in the same world as Alonso, being neither Spanish nor Catholic born. It was almost impossible for the de Falla family to accept such a marriage. In those days, the rules of the Catholic Church were much more rigid. Even if your mother had not left, your parents would have eventually parted. Their marriage was doomed from the start.’

And it was true that while her mother was still alive and they were all together in London, her father had often been away in Spain, helping to run the family wine business.

Three years after Vanessa had died, Don Alonso had announced that he had a new wife, Eugenia, in Spain, and that Alexandra now had a baby sister, Mercedes. He wrote to tell her that she could visit El Pavón and meet them whenever she wanted, if her aunt would bring her. He might have known Aunt Geraldine would never agree to that, Alexandra thought bitterly.

Over the next couple of years, her father’s visits to London became rarer and, by the time she was ten, he had ceased coming at all. Once Franco’s military uprising had isolated Spain and war swept through Europe, there was no news of him and Aunt Geraldine now occupied her parents’ double bed in the London house in Cheyne Walk.

She had tried not to miss him but it was difficult. Over time, even though after the war Don Alonso sent her extravagant presents every now and then with the briefest of notes, he had become a stranger. Her grief channelled itself into anger against his family — they had shunned her mother and then they had taken her father away.

Alexandra was jolted out of her reverie as they reached another station. Bundles were loaded and unloaded, new seats negotiated and, after another interminable halt, the whistle finally blew. She noticed that the bulky silhouette of a Guardia Civil had entered the train. On his arrival, the carriage had miraculously emptied, except for the lady beside her, who was asleep, and a few others, who all stopped talking. She glanced up at the man who was the cause of the sudden silence. So it was true what newspapers in Britain intimated about the Spanish Civil Guard — they really were feared. The guard remained standing, leaning affably on his rifle, looking down at the travellers for a few moments, before moving on to the next carriage.

The old woman next to her was now awake and rummaging in her large bag, an elbow scissoring up and down uncomfortably in Alexandra’s side. Seeing the window seat opposite was now vacant, Alexandra moved across to face her. She had produced some large slices of bread and chorizo, and a bag of boiled eggs.

‘You hungry, señorita?’ The woman jabbed a sandwich in the young woman’s direction. Alexandra smiled back, shaking her head.

‘That’s very kind, but no thank you.’

Now that Alexandra could see the woman more clearly, she noted a fierce and rather ruthless look; there was nothing particularly kindly in her features. Her face was sun-shrivelled, with high cheekbones and an almost male strength of jaw. She wore a black cotton dress and a kerchief covered her grey hair. The only colourful thing she had was a purple crocheted shawl draped around her bulky shoulders.

‘So, you say your family live near Puerto de Santa María, señorita. Where exactly?’ She regarded Alexandra expectantly.

Alexandra could see that this was to be the start of a typical Spanish interrogation and suppressed a sigh.

‘Jerez.’

‘Ah, you’re travelling to Jerez. What a coincidence, my family are from Jerez. I used to work at a hacienda near there for a short time. I was a maid for one of the noblest families in Andalucía, the de Fallas.’

Alexandra’s eyes widened at the mention of the family name but her curiosity about the de Fallas had now grown to such proportions that she kept quiet. Although she felt guilty about doing so, she knew that she might learn a great deal more by remaining so.

‘How very fortunate to have such a position.’

‘Oh yes, very fortunate indeed.’ The woman bit into her sandwich and kept talking as crumbs scattered on to her shawl. ‘To work at El Pavón was to have one of the best jobs in Andalucía, make no mistake. The Duquesa, Doña María Dolores de Falla, ruled that place with a rod of iron but a better employer you couldn’t hope to find. She was good to all her workers, even through the war. That’s when I was working for them, during the uprising and after. And I can tell you, other aristocratic families weren’t treating their employees half as well at the time. The Duquesa was always respected by the locals,’ she leaned forward and lowered her voice, ‘even though she did put up with gypsies on her land. As far as I know, they’re still there.’

‘And were they a large family? Were the other members of the family as kind to you?’ Alexandra enquired innocently.

‘Well, of course, I was a valued member of the household,’ the old woman replied proudly, not really listening to Alexandra’s questions now that she had embarked on her story, ‘and so I saw a lot of the comings and goings in that family. The three young men all married badly one way or another, particularly the two sons … mujeres que eran de un origen social más baja, the women were from a lower social background and even the cousin’s aristocratic wife was a widow with children. Muy mala, muy mala, not good … and the Duquesa never approved. Madre de Dios, who could blame her? Take the middle one, Armando. His wife was one of those trapeze people and she’d lived her whole life in a circus when he met her. Imagine! But their son, poor Ramón, he was the one who bore the brunt of it. When the father died and the mother left, it was he who felt the edge of the Duquesa’s tongue.’

Alexandra pondered whether she should be telling this woman that the people she was talking about with such candour were her own family. She felt a fraud, betraying the de Fallas somehow in listening to such indiscreet gossip but, equally, she felt compelled to hear more when it was so freely given.

‘And what of the others?’

‘Well, the youngest, Alonso, was a widow and remarried.’ The old woman finished her sandwich and started peeling an egg, warming to her story, ‘to a lady from one of the richest families in Castille, Eugenia de Juni. Dios mio! Esta es manipuladora, sin un corazón convenida, entremetido, she is manipulative, without a heart, a real meddler.

‘Le juro a Dios, I swear to God, that woman wanted to get her hands on the estate the minute she stepped through the door. When their only child was still in the cradle, she was planning how the girl would marry young Salvador, of course. I once heard her say as much … not that I’m the sort to listen at keyholes, you understand, may all the demons in hell swallow me up if I lie, but it was plain as day, what she was up to.’

‘Her daughter?’ Alexandra knew this must be Mercedes.

‘Yes, the daughter … Mercedes, that’s right. Moody, spoilt little thing she was, even when I knew her. She’ll be a teenager now, ready for marriage, if her mother has anything to do with it. Probably already married to Salvador de Rueda.’

Alexandra suddenly remembered something her father had said at Hazlitt’s: ‘Young Salvador Cervantes de Rueda, the new heir to the estate, grew into an indispensable member of the family. And I must say, took on his duties with more gravitas than any of us, including the Duquesa, could have imagined. In all fairness, he’s earned his right to El Pavón and now couldn’t be higher in her favour. Again, how fate twists itself. Though, at times, Mamá can be rather … indulgent of his flaws, his … entanglements. But that’s all in the past.’ Don Alonso had waved this comment away with a flourish of the hand and before Alexandra could ask him any more about her cousin, the waiter had arrived with coffee.

‘The de Fallas sound like a complicated family,’ said Alexandra pensively, as much to herself as to the old woman. She was intensely regretting the dishonest role she was playing in their conversation. The woman’s indiscretion had probably been caused by Alexandra being a foreigner and, therefore, of little importance. True, curiosity to know more about her family had prompted an encouragement of the old woman’s gossiping. Still, the former retainer ought not to have been quite so indiscreetly personal before strangers, even if she was no longer in the service of the family.

Her talk was not only embarrassing now, as she continued to prattle on, it was faintly alarming. The only person she had a good word for was the Duquesa; everyone else in the de Falla household sounded positively terrifying. Having heartily maligned the women of El Pavón, she was now attacking the men. At the top of her list was Salvador. She seemed hell-bent on destroying the young man’s character.

‘Weird, that’s what I’d call Salvador de Rueda. Weird and sinister, in an attractive way, of course. You know, the sort that que parece santa looks saintly, when the man could hardly be more worldly. Keeps strange company … the likes of gypsies and other personas extrañas, strange individuals. You know the type I’m talking about, or maybe a nice lady like you wouldn’t. There’s that air of power about him … gets what he wants without bothering too much about the way he gets it … you know, the manipulative kind, especially with the Duquesa. And proud too. I never knew a prouder man for all his cool politeness. He was supposed to become engaged to the daughter of a friend of the family but she preferred a Marqués … I think she’s a widow now. Anyway, I’ve seen them together in town unchaperoned … what the world is coming to, I just don’t know.’

Just then, the train slowed down and the woman peered out of the window.

‘Ah, Cádiz. This is my stop.’ Stuffing the remains of her food together with her crocheting into her bag, the woman held on to the bench as she stood up, bracing herself against the rocking of the carriage as the train hissed into the station. ‘Adios, señorita. Enjoy your stay in Jerez. And be careful of the gitanos, they’ll rob you as quick as look at you.’ With that, she shuffled off down the gangway.

Alexandra was alone once more, looking out of the window at the hustle and bustle on the platform. She was reminded of the old woman’s conversation about chaperones when she noticed a boy and a girl, obviously novios from the way they were gazing at each other, walking together on the platform, not arm in arm as they would in England but with a modest air of submission on the part of the girl and a manly proprietorship on his. They were followed by a rotund matron, who was keeping a close eye on them.

As the train jerked into motion once more, Alexandra pondered everything the old lady had said about the de Fallas, the family she was soon to meet. Perhaps the Duquesa was not so hard as she had always imagined. Still, she was slightly apprehensive at the prospect of meeting her grandmother, the matriarch, not to mention her stepmother, Doña Eugenia, or her ‘spoilt’ younger half-sister, if the picture the old woman had painted of them were true. Was this the reason for the growing sense of disquiet that murmured indistinctly beneath her thoughts?

What had Vanessa de Falla’s life really been like among those who had made her so unhappy? ‘It wasn’t easy for her, I suppose, being English and trying to fit into a close-knit noble Spanish family,’ her father had admitted over that same breakfast at Hazlitt’s.

‘Impossible, by all accounts,’ Alexandra had noted bitterly.

‘You mustn’t believe everything your Aunt Geraldine says. She doesn’t understand the ways of our family.’

The ways of our family. Their ways had made Vanessa de Falla so wretched that she had taken her only child back to London after just three years at El Pavón.

Although her mother was English, she was ‘as fiery and passionate as any Spaniard’ her father used to say. Perhaps that was what had first attracted Vanessa to Don Alonso de Falla, making her dream of an exotic life in Andalucía — at least that was what Alexandra had always imagined. And now, she was following her mother’s footsteps into the dream of another life, not knowing where it would lead her. But one thing she did know: she was embracing a longed-for freedom, the chance to throw off the stuffy atmosphere of England, and of that she was glad.

* * *

The train shuddered to a halt with a great screeching of brakes. Alexandra opened the door. A breath of fresh air, overlaid with the faint tang of iodine, greeted her. She ventured hesitantly on to the platform and stood there motionless, holding a suitcase in one hand; with the other, she shielded her eyes against the blinding glare of the Spanish sun. There were no porters in sight, nor were there any trolleys. With difficulty, and a mounting sense of irritation, she carried the rest of her luggage from the carriage. This is ridiculous, she thought; she should have listened to Aunt Geraldine and travelled by plane from England. Maybe coming to Andalucía alone was not such a good idea after all.

The station at the small port town of Puerto de Santa María swarmed with the oddest characters. Water sellers with huge earthenware pitchers and merchants selling wine, sweetmeats and shellfish bustled about next to the train. Brown urchins pushing barrows heaped with mountains of luscious fruit called out their offerings. ‘Que vengan todas las Marías, que traigo sandias y melones dulces como el caramel! Come all you Marías, I bring watermelons and melons sweet as caramel!’ Crippled beggars squatted in corners, palms outstretched. There were peddlers hawking their cheap wares of soap, matches, lace and miniature bottles of cologne, plus gypsy knife-sellers with trays of hand-crafted navajas, shouting ‘Afilo cuchillos y Tijeras! Vamos! Barato! I sharpen knives and scissors! Come! It’s cheap!’, plus lottery ticket touts and a host of others.

Presumably, Alexandra thought, in this part of the world, the arrival of the train was the only event of the day to break the monotony of provincial life; and the railway station would be, she supposed, the obvious meeting place for everyone. Her gaze searched the crowd for a familiar face. Travellers hurried along. Newcomers and locals jostled each other as they came and went. A few spectators, leaning idly against the wall or seated on small benches in the sun, looked on as others passed by. She was surrounded by a babble of shouts, exclamations and laughter, but no one seemed to be waiting for her on the platform.

As she stood there, with the sun on her face, taking in the sights and smells that seemed strange, yet curiously familiar, Alexandra felt she had stepped out from the shadows of her old life into the dazzling light of a new world. The momentary annoyance at being left alone with her luggage suddenly vanished. England was never further away than at this moment — a dull moth to the colourful butterfly of Spain — and she ached to unfurl her own wings and discover it all. This was the stuff of novels, and yet here she was. The thought made her stomach tense with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

It was then that a gypsy woman, dressed in bright colours and bearing fans and red roses, accosted her. ‘Hermosa joven, beautiful young lady, buy one of my roses, fresh-picked this morning. It will bring you luck.’

Alexandra met the falcon-dark orbs that were watching her slyly. The gypsy was of an uncertain age with a nest of coal-black hair hanging untidily at her shoulders, her features regular but coarse in a sun-scorched and wind-beaten oval face. Alexandra shook her head and tried to smile politely. ‘Thank you, not today.’

The gitana grabbed her arm, clasping it tightly in long bony fingers. ‘Give me your palm. I can read the heavens and I will tell you the secrets the stars hold for you in the future.’

But that was the last thing Alexandra needed or wanted, remembering the woman on the train and her warning. She knew there was only one way she would rid herself of the old witch. ‘Here …’ She took a few pesetas from her pocket, ‘I’ll buy one of your beautiful roses.’

At this, the penetrating jet-black eyes lit up greedily. The gypsy took the money and handed Alexandra the crimson flower. ‘Que Dios los bendiga, God bless you, kind and generous lady. Que los ángeles te miran, may the angels look upon you,’ she squawked before turning to cast her designs on her next victim. ‘Bella dama … Apuesto caballero …’

Somewhere a bell rang. Doors slammed. The train began to move, its ancient frame creaking. Motionless, Alexandra watched it pull out of the station. As it disappeared she could hear its piercing whistle in the distance, one moment raucous, the next strident, and then there was nothing: a kind of stillness she would have found oppressive had the sun not been shining.

She glanced quickly around her in the hope of finding a porter. Most probably she would be met outside the station. Like actors after the curtain has fallen, travellers and tradespeople had vanished to leave a deserted stage. The platform was empty, the waiting room dark and damp-looking. Alexandra moved briskly towards the exit in search of help.

‘Buenas tardes, señorita,’ beamed the man behind the ticket office window. ‘What can I do for you today?’

‘Buenas tardes,’ she said, smiling back at him, continuing in impeccable Spanish, ‘can you tell me where I can find a porter. I’ve left quite a bit of luggage on the platform.’

‘I’ll come and help you. Manuel, our porter, is usually here but his mother-in-law died and he had to go to the funeral.’

‘Oh dear, poor man.’ She paused, not wishing to seem unsympathetic. ‘Can you please tell me where to go for the bus to Jerez? My guidebook says it leaves from this station.’

‘You’ve just missed it, I’m afraid. The two o’clock bus left ten minutes ago. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.’

‘But there’s supposed to be three a day, and I have to be in Jerez by this evening,’ Alexandra exclaimed. ‘Is there no other way to get there before dark?’

The man eyed her quizzically. ‘You’re not from these parts, that’s for sure,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘You could always try this evening. There’s usually a bus that leaves after seven but there have been works on those roads. Access is sometimes difficult, especially after dark, as most of the main roads have no lights. It can be dangerous, so on some days the evening bus is cancelled. Of course, there’s no way of knowing in advance …’ He caught sight of Alexandra’s impatient look. ‘Muy inconveniente, estoy de acuerdo, very inconvenient, I agree.’ He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

Alexandra was puzzled. Her father had assured her that she would be met at the station, but it looked like she was stranded here for the moment.

‘Do you have a telephone I can use?’

The stationmaster shook his head again. ‘Lo siento! I’m sorry! The lines are down in Puerto de Santa María due to the storm we had two days ago. You’d do better to visit our town,’ he went on in his slurred Andalucían brogue. ‘Puerto de Santa María is the most beautiful port in Andalucía,’ he proudly announced. Then, as Alexandra hesitated, he surveyed her Titian waves of shoulder-length hair, her long legs and lithe slenderness shown off by her elegant suit. With a mixture of curiosity and logic so typically Spanish, he added: ‘Anyway, what’s a nice young lady like you doing on the roads alone, and what do you want in Jerez when you’re already in our excellent town? If you ask me, there’s nothing worth seeing there except its bodegas.’ He grinned enthusiastically. ‘Though if you want to sample a little of our Andalucían wine, señorita, it’s a fine place to start.’

But Alexandra wasn’t listening. Maybe she should hire a car and drive to Jerez, asking the way to her family’s hacienda, El Pavón, when she got there, or she could take a taxi. Still, she did not relish travelling any further on her own; after all, she had no idea what the roads were like. For the time being, the only reasonable course of action was to wait patiently; someone was bound to turn up.

‘Is there a parador close by where I could spend the night?’ she asked.

‘There is one just down the road. Why don’t you take a look around and I’ll look after your baggage?’

Alexandra was tempted. It was a glorious afternoon. If, by next morning, nobody had come for her, she could take the early bus to Jerez. It was rather annoying that the telephone lines were down. Still, in the meantime, she was determined not to let the present circumstances spoil such a lovely day.

‘Muchas Gracias,’ she said when he had helped her with the cases. ‘Voy a seguir tu consejo y visitar el Puerto, I think I’ll follow your advice and visit the port.’

She set out, pensively turning into one of the winding narrow streets that led down to the harbour.

Like most young women growing up during the war, Alexandra had not travelled much outside England. Although she had been slightly perturbed that things had not gone according to plan at the station, now a sense of excitement suddenly took hold of her. She began to thrill to the unpredictability of her new adventure and had the strange sense of being a fictional character in a novel, one of those heroines she knew so well.

Again, thoughts of the past infiltrated her mind as she picked her way through the cobbled streets lined with tall, whitewashed houses with their protruding casement windows. Bright purple bougainvillea cascaded down walls and honey-scented jasmine spilled out of windowboxes, their aroma mingling with the distinctive salty tang of the sea, invading Alexandra’s senses. They took her back to a half-forgotten childhood full of sun, earthy smells and music; memories imprinted on her mind and body like a persistent dream.

She found herself following the bank of the peaceful Guadalete. Gangs of naked brown children ran about, laughing and splashing in the shallow, murky waters of the slow-moving, wide river. On the flat swampy bank, flocks of pink flamingos rested languidly in the sun. She walked a long time through the old quarter — the barrio of fishermen and gypsies — lined with wine and tobacco shops, some with whitewashed walls, others painted in bright colours. The sun was scorching and, although hungry, she was reluctant to buy food or refreshments from any of the streetsellers.

Soon she came to the harbour. It teemed with a picturesque populace, so very foreign to her but so very intriguing. Men in wide-brimmed hats strolled with women in brightly coloured dresses and mantillas, while old men played draughts at quayside café tables. The clamour of fishermen and fishmongers was everywhere. Sea air mingled with the acrid smell of tar and the reek of fishing nets.

In front of her, the ocean disappeared into infinity. Lines of huts, their mouldy wood gracefully draped with white nets drying in the sun, stretched as far as the eye could see on the shore’s expanse of golden sand. In the far-off backdrop of hills loomed the sombre green shadow of pinewoods and, on the opposite side of the harbour, Cádiz, the bright pearl of the Costa de la Luz, lay shining under a scorching sun.

To the north, she could see the vast terrace of a public beach, framed by palm trees, and the parasols and tables of cafés. Out in the turbulent bay, multi-coloured fishing boats and pleasurecraft, sailing boats, small tugs and an enormous liner swayed and bobbed on the phosphorescent waves of the Atlantic Ocean like tipsy dancers in a carnival.

Alexandra joined the bustle on the jetty where the trawlers were moored. She made her way through the unsavoury, eager crowd gathered there to watch the unloading of the big fishing boats. Never before had she seen so many fish. They were of all sorts and all sizes; some grey and silvery, others blue and pink; big fish with thick scales, others thinner and daintier, wriggling and jumping about like quicksilver; crabs, prawns, lobsters, shrimps … all spread out in a slippery, crawling mass of pincers, shells and scales.

Men in shirtsleeves, out of breath and sweating, were piling this abundance into big, flat baskets; then, bent double under their heavy burdens, they loaded them into carts for delivery to the various markets. Fishermen close to the shore were bringing in their nets. Alexandra watched them carry out this endless task, seemingly ill-rewarded, for their catch appeared meagre. It was hard to say how long she spent daydreaming, admiring the strange landscape of light and colour, but she was brought back to earth by the chimes of the town clock. Six o’clock already, it was time to return.

She crossed the road, then turned to get a last glimpse of the flaming sunset. The sea was turning gold, the sky streaked with rose and orange and angry red; a canvas where the supreme artist used colours unknown to any earthly palette. Wanting to imprint this painting on her soul to use it as the opening of the first chapter to her new book, Alexandra stood there breathless and, lifting her face to the sky, she stepped back, inadvertently bumping into someone. Jerked out of her contemplation, she turned apologetically.

‘Lo siento…’ she breathed as she looked straight into the striking grey-blue eyes of a man, a man very different to those she had glimpsed since she had arrived in Spain.

Tall, slim and well built, he was gazing at her intently, the greyness of his wintry eyes emphasized by a tanned complexion.

Alexandra felt the rush of heat burn her cheeks and gave him an embarrassed smile. ‘I was admiring your dazzling sunset, I’ve never seen such amazing colours.’

‘One can just as much be dazzled by a lovely sunset as by the unexpected encounter of a stunningly beautiful woman,’ the stranger murmured almost imperceptibly.

Alexandra knew that these words, spoken by a Spaniard, were just an ordinary compliment that one should not take seriously, a compulsory courtesy that was part of the Latin charm. Besides, as he pronounced them, the stranger’s face had kept its inscrutability and she had seen nothing she could easily interpret in his pale eyes. So why did she feel a secret stirring inside her?

She had no time to answer him. The dark hidalgo had taken Alexandra’s hand and, bringing it to his lips, brushed it with the whisper of a kiss.

‘Adios, señorita,’ she heard him say softly. Turning, he disappeared into the crowd still milling about on the pavement, leaving the young woman in a daze.

Alexandra began to walk and then almost immediately stopped to ask the way. Going back through the same crowded streets did not seem a pleasant option and she was relieved to learn there was a shortcut to the station.

Turning into the Calle de la Iglesia, she was immediately struck by the contrast between the quarter she had just walked through and this one. Here, the street was immersed in the shade of giant flame trees and life suddenly slowed to a more leisurely pace. She passed white houses tucked away between clumps of pomegranate trees; orchards hemmed in by dry stone walls; hedges of aloe; secret, leafy patios, the domain of women and their families, where the warbling of birds and the smothered laughter of young girls mingled with the soft murmur of fountains.

She had almost reached the end of the street when bells began ringing the Angelus, calling worshippers to Evensong. To her right was a small chapel. It seemed so welcoming, the garden planted out with roses and mimosas, front doors open, inviting passersby to enter.

On impulse, she went in. Inside, it was dark, quiet and cool. The organ was playing softly and the scent of orange blossom and roses filled the place. Alexandra was overcome by a feeling of great serenity and slowly moved towards the altar.

Her eyes took a few minutes to grow accustomed to the relative gloom. On each side of the main aisle, ten or so rows of oak benches stood in perfect orderly fashion. There were flowers everywhere: in garlands, in dainty crystal vases on the altar, in bunches of various sizes, placed as offerings at the feet of the statues of saints that filled the church. Several candles burned in thanks for prayers that had been answered; all were witness to the faith and gratitude of the devout worshipers who had carefully placed them there.

At first, Alexandra thought she was alone but she soon noticed a man, a few paces away, kneeling on a prayer stool at the foot of Saint Mary of Mercy’s statue. His broad shoulders were hunched beneath a shock of jet-black hair, his face hidden in slender, suntanned hands. It was dark, so why she should think that this was the stranger she had already encountered on the seafront and why her heart was beating so hard against her ribs, she couldn’t say, but she had no doubt at all that it was the same man.

Footsteps and whispering made her turn around. A man began to speak in a nasal singsong voice that echoed strangely from the walls of the little church, disturbing the peace and tranquillity: ‘This is the Church of Santa María. As in most of our Spanish towns, Our Lady of Mercy is its all-powerful and well-loved patron saint, a friend who protects all, be they lords or paupers.’ It was a tour guide who had appeared in the doorway, ushering his party of tourists into the church.

‘Our land is rich in legends about the Virgin Mary. The most moving is the one about the young Jewish girl who fell in love with a Christian knight. Despairing of ever attracting his attention, the beautiful maiden turned to our Virgin here, on whom everyone called. Humbly, she gave all she possessed: a pin decorated with a tiny glass bead. The miracle happened: the knight passed by at that very moment, saw her, and his heart was forever linked to hers by the pin she had given as an offering.’

The group of sightseers passed Alexandra and disappeared through a low door at the back of the church leading to the crypt. Peace returned.

All the while, the man on the prayer stool had not moved.Alexandra went up to the statue of Our Lady of Mercy to light a candle but a priest had just gone by to clear up the melted wax from the previous batch of devotees’ offerings, and she neither had matches nor a lighter handy. A faint tch of annoyance escaped her lips.

‘Permita me señorita.’

Alexandra had scarcely time to register the quiet words spoken unexpectedly, close to her ear, before the stranger’s brown hand had flicked a gold lighter in front of her, bringing to life a tiny blue flame and at the same time brushing against her arm.

The spark that went through her at the Spaniard’s touch made Alexandra shudder and, emitting a slight gasp, she instinctively drew back in the first instance. But then, as she realized he was only trying to be helpful, she raised her face, smiling as readily and uninhibitedly as she always did.

‘Gracias, muchas gracias.’

There was utter silence in the church. The man did not smile but merely inclined his head, leaving Alexandra, as he had earlier on, with the impression that inbred courtesy had prompted him to lend his assistance, rather than the more usual reasons men found for helping her. Still, her green gaze met his. She was struck by the expression of sadness reflected in his arresting grey irises and the sternness of his hard, regular features.

An almost visible current leapt between them. For a split second, the determined line of his jaw stiffened, his well-defined lips parted and she thought he might speak. Her heart missed a beat, but someone was coming. The interlude was over; the spell had been broken.

A beautiful young woman with a mane of flame-red hair cascading down her back was making her way towards him, holding two large candles.

With a tightening in her heart that she couldn’t explain Alexandra nodded her thanks again and withdrew to take a seat in one of the pews at the back of the church.