Golden Apple Island Page 5

  Gil said surprisingly, ‘In a great many ways I am like Grandfather. Too much like. Meanwhile I’d advise you not to tell the old man how you spent your afternoon.’

  ‘I did not “spend my afternoon” except in taking a driving lesson and accepting an invitation to tea. Anyway, Mother knows all about it and so does Aunt Lucia.’

  ‘Neither of whom will pass it on. They’re both Spanish, and they know the rules for girls of your age, if you don’t.’

  Fran spread her hands bewilderedly. ‘Rules? Who makes them? It’s done all the time in London—at any college, in any group at all where people know each other. You see, in England,’ she added pointedly, ‘we happen to be able to trust our men.’

  ‘And England doesn’t happen to be Canaria and Canaria isn’t England. Here it isn’t done by Spanish girls in your position, and you can take it from me that from now on, you’re not doing it.’

  ‘I see! Gander and goose!’ raged Fran, not caring whether he understood the reference or not. ‘Don’t you ever visit Elena Merced in her apartment —for “tea”?’

  ‘That’s different. I’m a man and I can judge what would compromise her and what wouldn’t. And on her side, she is older and has more experience than you. If a man showed signs of making himself a nuisance, she’d be fully equal to withering him on the spot. You wouldn’t.’

  ‘You’d be surprised!’ mocked Fran, then tried another line of argument. ‘Well, what about us? You take me around without a chaperon and that’s approved. For instance, the night you took me to the Patio de las Munecas to hear Elena sing, you didn’t bring me home until the small hours!’

  ‘And that’s different again. You and I are cousins.’

  ‘Yes ...’ Fran bit her lip.

  ‘And by that token they assume you are safe with me.’

  ‘You mean we’re sort of—insulated? Our being cousins, they think, acts in much the same way as your claim that you and I are too much alike to be attracted?’

  Gil nodded. ‘You could put it like that. Roughly, that’s the argument. On the other hand—But no, I won’t put ideas into your head.’

  ‘What ideas?’

  ‘Just one or two better out of your head than in at this stage, chica,’ Gil sidestepped, accompanying the retort with his sunny, conciliatory smile which, as usual, disarmed her. Suddenly the whole argument looked like a cul-de-sac not worth exploring. If Gil didn’t want her to, and if it wasn’t ‘done’, she needn’t visit Rendle Jervis’s flat again. Though was that a sign, she wondered a little uneasily later, that she was learning too well the Spanish finesse of giving in to a man, just because he was one?

  With every day that passed Raquel’s health was improving. She gained colour and weight and appetite and was so patently happy against the background of her old home that Fran found herself dreading the inevitable uprooting for her at the end of their stay.

  They need not think about it yet and they did not talk about it. El Naranjal was Raquel’s far past and it was again her present. Fran guessed that for her England had always been spelt simply ‘Tom’, and now that she had him no longer England itself had no pull.

  Not so for Fran, who had her living to earn—a necessity which, for want of time to herself, was sadly in danger of neglect. No one at the Quinta seemed to understand her obligations to her employer, and whenever she snatched an hour for work, Lucia always managed to think up some household duty for her, or she felt guilty lest Raquel needed her company on a walk or there were one or other of the numerous, though distant, de Matteor relatives to meet. And Don Diego carried his indifference to her work to the point of obstruction.

  This became clear one morning when he came upon her on the patio where she was feverishly intent on keeping the deadline she had set herself for finishing and delivering her designs for the set of commemorative medals which, unfinished, she had brought with her.

  Don Diego stood behind her shoulder for some minutes, then sat opposite and lit the inevitable cigar.

  Speaking in Spanish as he always had done after her first few days, he said, ‘It seems to me, granddaughter, that you are crouched far too often over this drawing-board of yours. Surely you could find a better use for your time while you are with us? What is it you are doing so busily, and must you continue to do it to the exclusion of more important things while you are here?’

  Fran looked up. ‘I have to get it done,’ she said. ‘It’s a commissioned set of designs that my firm allowed me to bring here to finish and I’ve given myself a time-limit for it.’

  Don Diego’s nod accepted that. ‘I see. But this assignment finished, what then?’

  Fran said, ‘There will be others, I hope. I did explain once, Grandfather—I’m to be paid for any designs I care to submit, freelance, and I’m to continue on salary for any commissions they ask me to do. And you do see, don’t you, that it’s important I shouldn’t lose all touch with my own work while I’m here?’

  ‘I see that you regard it as important. Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Fran’s echo was blank. ‘Well, surely— Because it is my work. I think I’m reasonably good at it, and I need a job to go back to, don’t I?’

  ‘When you go back—But is anyone hurrying you to do that?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Then you could leave it to me, as head of my household, to give you your conge, couldn’t you? Meanwhile, your mother is benefiting and is content, and while that’s so, I hope you won’t over-concern yourself with work that can’t be immediately urgent or with interests outside those which we can offer you here. You should not forget, you know, that, with your father dead, you are your mother’s daughter and my grandchild, and that being so, you could please us both by adapting yourself to our ways with as good and willing a grace as you can and no less profitably than you are already mastering our language.’

  With which scant sugaring of the pill he went on his way, leaving Fran to wonder just how much more of her alleged leisure time was going to be filled according to his decree and not by her own needs or inclinations. She felt irked too by the absurdity of having to be almost furtive about her work, and again she had the impression that she was being schooled to some preconceived pattern which had been laid down for her from her very first day on the island ... even, possibly, before that.

  But whatever the plan, it signally lacked cooperation from Gil. If he were going about the estate by car or down to the docks to sign out some shipment he might ask Fran to go with him. But Don Diego’s promise that he would have leisure to spare for her proved empty in practice. He attended or missed meals as it pleased him, and even when he was in for dinner in the evening he usually absented himself soon after it and Fran might or might not hear his car return to the Quinta around midnight or later.

  Since the night he had kept his promise to show Fran the night-life of the town he hadn’t invited her again. Until the evening when he said to the dinner- table at large,

  ‘Talking of local colour—not that we were, but let it pass—oughtn’t Fran to see a Marriage Fair in action? I hear there’s one laid on for Sunday night, and if she’d care to go, I’d take her along.’

  Fran herself said, ‘A Marriage Fair? What is it?’ then waited for the reaction round the table.

  Raquel fluttered, ‘Of course, she wouldn’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever told her—’ Lucia said sharply, ‘The Marriage Fair? Oh, Gil, that’s only for peasants!’—only to be rebuked by Don Diego’s crisp, ‘Nonsense, Lucia! For peasants or not, it’s a custom that’s half as old as time. Yes, certainly Francisca should attend a Fair as part of her education in island ways.’ Having said which, he rather spoiled his agreement with Gil by adding a sarcastic, ‘I take it that, from your inviting Francisca, you find yourself unexpectedly free for the evening of Sunday?’

  Momentarily Gil’s dark eyes sparked. ‘Take what you please, Abuelo.’ He turned to Fran. ‘Will you come?’

  ‘As long as I know what I’m going to. It sounds a bit—commer
cial.’

  ‘So no doubt it was once. Not any longer.’ She had spoken to Gil, but it was Don Diego who replied. ‘Now it’s a gaiety for young people, a partida which gives the girls some licence to elude their elders and to partner with the boys. There are dancing and singing and refreshments and some escapades about which the girls will giggle and the boys will boast of and to which the duennas will turn a blind eye while the evening lasts.’

  ‘But why a “Fair”?’ persisted Fran.

  ‘That dates from the time when a father could ask a price, in cash or in kind, for his daughter’s hand in marriage. He would invite all the eligible bachelors he could muster, wine them and dine them well, and the “wares” would go to the highest bidder. Later it became a joint venture of several families, attracting a great many more customers, and from there it became a betrothal party, with the commercial aspect dropped, though still with a certain pattern which Gil will explain to you. For instance, though there may be as many as twenty girls in the market, only one father plays host—the one with the most daughters on show.’ Don Diego turned to Gil. ‘Who is to be Sunday’s host?’

  ‘Enrico Bolero.’

  ‘Ah, of the Pizzeria Faisan on the plaza. And he has—?’

  ‘Three—Carmencita, Pilar and Isabella. Also an eye to business for the Pizzeria. As it is a bar, he can’t turn away gatecrashers and wouldn’t want to. He can stuff the place to the doors with guests and still have the whole plaza for the overflow.’

  ‘And what should we be—guests or gatecrashers?’ asked Fran.

  Gil spun the stem of his wineglass and surveyed her from beneath his lashes. ‘You could offer yourself as one of the “wares” if you liked,’ he said.

  She felt her colour rise. ‘No—seriously? Are we invited?’

  ‘We don’t have to be invited. We are de Matteors,’ said Gil as if the question need not have been asked.

  On Sunday Senor Bolero had certainly gone to town with his preparations. The everyday facade of his cafe-bar was invisible behind draped flags, bunting and bunched balloons. The pavement terrace was set out with long tables laid for supper and there was a curious self-conscious-looking assemblage on three benches flanking the roadway.

  On one sat a line of women, some wearing black mantillas, others with huge satin bows which served equally with the mantilla as a smart Sunday headdress. On another were ranged as many girls as could crowd the bench. They all wore white mantillas and white dresses, their hands rested demurely in their laps and the chatter that went up from them was like the dawn chorus of birds. Opposite them, on the third bench, straddled on it or with a foot on it, were at least twice as many young men in hipster pants of all shades from black through purple to green, and every man-jack wearing a red rosette on his lapel.

  ‘The mamas, the goods on show and the customers,’ Gil commented. ‘At present they are looking each other over and later some of the customers may decide to drop out. The rosette is to show they’re still “on” and they can’t approach a girl without it. Meanwhile they’re all hoping someone will soon bring them a drink, when they’ll relax enough to look the mamas straight in the eye and take their pick of the girls.’

  ‘There are a lot more of them than of the girls. Supposing they don’t get one?’

  ‘They don’t give up hope. A girl can change her mind or her beau during the evening. And anyway there’ll always be another Fair some time.’

  ‘It sounds an awfully elaborate method of “boy-meets-girl”,’ said Fran.

  Gil shrugged. ‘It’s the island way. It’s stood the test of time pretty well,’ he said.

  If he was right about the boys they were now getting their wish. Wine was being poured and plates of cakes and sweetmeats were handed out from the bar. For a time everyone was more occupied with the refreshments than with the real purpose of the evening. Then some dancing began to dance music that was as swinging as the Pizzeria Faisan’s blaring juke-box could make it, and soon afterwards, as at some invisible signal, there was a concerted movement from the boys’ bench to the girls’.

  ‘What happened?’ Fran asked Gil. ‘Did someone give them the word?’

  ‘No. It’s always like that. There’s a psychological moment that one takes and the rest follow suit.’ Gil sat forward, peering. ‘Yes, that’s to form—Ramon Quitta and Maria Jimenez. And Pablo del Val and Inez—what’s the child’s name?—that’s to be expected too. H’m—a surprise there, though. The Croje boy has picked the Lopez girl instead of—’

  Fran broke in with a laugh. ‘You sound like a matchmaker, totting up successes and failures! Do you really know them all by name and who will pair with whom?’

  A nod. ‘One hears the gossip of the bars and at any Fair a good proportion of the boys work on the estate. Now who is that left sitting? The middle Bolero girl, Pilar, I think. Come, we can’t have that—’ Gil rose to look about him, then beckoned to a rosetted youth in the crowd.

  ‘Pilar Bolero is alone,’ Gil told him simply.

  The boy glanced across at the girl, wearing the bright glassy look of a ballroom wallflower. ‘Si, senor,’ he agreed.

  ‘And you allow that? Now I’ve heard you would like to be her novio, Was that wrong?’

  At first the boy’s only reply was to shuffle his feet. Then he spoke rapidly in a mumble Fran could not catch. To which Gil answered, ‘That’s nonsense. Have you no courage, man? No spirit? She can only refuse you, and more often than not a woman’s “No” really means “Yes”.’ And as the boy shook his head woodenly, he added crisply, ‘Well, if you won’t, someone else must. Here—’ he snatched the rosette from the boy’s lapel and put it in his own—‘I declare I’ll give you a lead myself to Pilar. What about that?’

  More foot-shuffling. ‘If you claim her, senor, that’s my chance gone. She won’t look at me after you.’

  ‘Pfft, man! Leave it to me—’ Gil turned to Fran. ‘Do you mind if I desert you for a while on this proxy job? I’ll be back.’

  She watched as he strode over to Pilar, touched his rosette in dumb show, kissed her hand and swept her into the dancing crowds. The boy drifted away and Fran sat alone until she heard her name spoken by Rendle Jervis’s voice and saw his hand on the back of Gil’s empty chair. ‘May I?’ he asked.

  ‘Do,’ Fran welcomed him. She had been feeling slightly conspicuous on her own and was glad of his company. She told him about the boy’s dilemma and Gil’s errand, but, as she had begun to suspect, he had no feeling for the local tradition of spectacle and she soon found herself on the defensive for the Fair.

  ‘Trust these people to go all gala at the drop of a hat,’ he scoffed. ‘I ask you, can you see this kind of thing laid on in England or any of our teenagers playing along with it if it were?’

  Fran said, ‘Oh, I don’t know. At home our set often has to think up an excuse for throwing a party, and I rather envy them here all their fiestas and ferias that save them the trouble.’

  ‘But take the basic idea of this Fair! It’s positively barbaric!’

  ‘What of it? It’s picturesque, it’s got style, people enjoy it, and they tell me its roots go back to a time when marriage was rather a barbaric affair.’

  ‘Which it still is in these parts,’ claimed Jervis. ‘Jockeyed engagements, marriages of convenience, dowries, settlements—I don’t suppose you’ve any idea of how many young people on the island have no say at all in the marriages that are arranged for them?’

  Fran shook her head. ‘No. Have you?’

  ‘I can make a fair guess. She has property or he has prospects; she’s well in the money and he has a name that her family covets for her; he’s playing around, so must be found a more suitable partner—my dear girl, it’s routine for them. We wouldn’t stand for it, but they do. Even in your own family it’s at work. So far your cousin seems to have dug in his heels over La Merced, but as I told you, I doubt if he can win. Not with Don Diego holding all the cards as he does—’

  Fran felt suddenly cold. Des
pising herself for putting the question, she asked, ‘What do you mean? What cards?’

  ‘Well, for the moment, denying Elena Merced any but the merest token recognition that she exists. Withholding from Gil the kind of authority he ought to be handling. In the long run, making someone else his heir. Which wouldn’t be difficult, considering all the de Matteor relatives there are.’ Jervis paused to slant a glance at Fran. ‘Could be you might find the estate left to you!’

  ‘To me? That’s not funny. Why, I’m not even—’ She checked, veering away from danger. In order to change the subject she challenged lightly, ‘We seem to have lost the thread of our pro-con argument about the Fair. Tell me, if you don’t approve of it, why are you joining in?’

  ‘I’m not.’ He laughed. ‘That is, I’d forgotten it was on when I strolled down for a drink on the plaza. Then I spotted you—’ He broke off as Gil’s shadow struck across them. Standing, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve got your place.’

  ‘Making no bones about it—yes,’ said Gil baldly, and the other man laughed. Rather pointedly he addressed Fran. ‘Seems I’m being handed my cards,’ he said, and moved away, out of earshot of Gil’s imperious, ‘And what did he want? Why was he prowling round you?’

  ‘He wasn’t prowling round me. He’d come out for a drink, found he wasn’t going to get one here and stopped by when he saw me alone,’ Fran quoted Jervis, adding, ‘What about Pilar Bolero? Is it all right?’

  ‘Who’s matchmaking now?’ Gil pointed. ‘Over there, dancing with her Manuel and telling him how much better a dancer he is than I am.’

  ‘And is he?’

  ‘By comparison, I hope so. I steered her into a tree-trunk and tripped over her feet and confessed I couldn’t do the Bossa Nova. Then I parked her with a large limonada, gave Manuel back his red badge of courage’—Gil touched his own empty lapel—‘and advised him to go to it. Which, it would seem, he has.’

  Fran laughed. ‘And now what for them?’