The Poet's Wife (3 page)

The old woman pushes the remains of the pan towards me. I protest, but she merely grunts.

‘You’ve been traipsing all over the countryside,’ she growls. ‘You need to eat well, for you and your child.’ Isabel’s eyes are starting to droop and the old lady picks her up and, with surprising strength and agility, carries her over to the far side of the cave where she lays her onto a pile of blankets. Returning to me, she points her chin towards the pan, motioning once again that I should eat. She is silent for a long time and just as I think I shall hear nothing more from her, she says ‘
Me llamo Aurelia
.’

‘Aurelia,’ I repeat. ‘
Encantada
. My name is Luisa. I am terribly grateful to you.’

‘These little ones are my grandchildren,’ she continues. ‘Each and every one of them.’ She has a peculiar expression of pride and sadness in her eyes that I cannot quite fathom. ‘Their mother’s gone on a trip,’ she adds. As she says this, Aurelia fixes me with an intense stare, almost as though she is searching my face for a reaction of some kind. Remembering the effect the old
gitana
’s gaze had on Isabel, I stare defiantly back. I soon realise, however, that I am in the presence of a greater obstinacy of spirit than my own and feel myself blushing under Aurelia’s scrutiny.

The children flit around us like moths, sweeping the floor, clearing away the dishes and laying out blankets, and as I watch their slight figures, entranced, Aurelia walks over to the stove, pours something into a cup and then returns to the table.

‘
Té de menta
.’ She points to the cup. ‘Drink.’

‘
No, gracias
, Aurelia.’

‘Drink!’ she rasps and watches as I pick up the cup and sip at the tea. ‘Every meal should end with
té de menta
. It helps digestion.’ She nods. ‘And increases sexual potency,’ she adds, laughing so suddenly and loudly that I splutter into my cup, only making her laugh even more. I cannot help but be amused.

‘And now,’ Aurelia continues, once she has composed herself. ‘I am going to read your palm.’

I feel the smile fade from my lips as the same clutch that drew me into the cave pulls my hand into her lap with one swift movement. Out of nowhere she produces a tiny wooden ruler and for a long while she takes measurements between one line and another, grunting occasionally. While she is doing this, I have the opportunity to look around the room that serves as kitchen, main living and eating area, as well as bedroom for the children, who are starting to sprawl out in front of the fire on rugs. Red peppers, dried corn on the cob, chillies and garlic are strung up from hooks and all kinds of copper pots and pans and ladles hang from every section of the fossilised walls moulded from rocks and mud. Several geckos scurry around, their tails flicking behind them and I watch as one relishes a meal of spider followed by moth, expertly reeling the creatures in with whips of its tongue.

Aurelia breathes out deeply and heavily, a sigh that seems to reach the very roots of the earth. She proceeds to tell my fortune, whilst I sit listening, scarcely breathing. She describes my past, reaching into the deepest caverns of my mind and extracting memories that I myself have forgotten. Then she dwells on my life at present and how fortunate I am to have the love of a good man. Finally she talks about the future: how many children I shall bear, the changes the course of my life shall take, the joy I shall feel and the great suffering I shall endure. Finally, Aurelia tells me the age I shall live to.

As she draws to an abrupt end, I feel more alarmed than I ever have done in my life. As a young girl I read tea leaves with my friends, inventing all kinds of wild fancies. But never has my palm been read like this, and most certainly not in such an authoritative manner which leaves no room whatsoever for the speaker to be challenged. Aurelia sighs deeply, the spell of her flow broken.

‘I am tired, we should go,’ I say weakly. Aurelia’s face breaks into a broad smile. Picking up the hand she has drawn so much information from, she strokes it gently.

‘You must not be afraid of your future,
mi querida
,’ she says. ‘And don’t ever try to change it. It simply won’t work.’

I swallow and stare into Aurelia’s impossibly deep, black eyes. She heaves herself up from the table and fetches warm woollen blankets, motioning for me to follow. ‘It’s still raining outside, child. You must stay here.’

The prospect of sleeping in a
gitano
cave unnerves me, but the truth of it is I am deeply exhausted, more so after my fortune has been told. Gratefully, I stretch out with Isabel snuggled contentedly at my side. Minutes later, I feel the pull of sleep tugging at my eyelids and in a gentle delirium I think of Eduardo, remembering how anxious he shall be. My Eduardo, the poet, I think. How I love him. I watch Aurelia at the table reaching into her mouth and yanking around. Pulling out her perfect set of teeth, she cleans them thoroughly with a brush and drops them into a liquid-filled glass. The last thing I remember before falling into a deep sleep is the old
gitana
turning around and smiling a gummy grin whilst the false teeth smirk at me from their glass.

O
n our return
to Carmen de Las Estrellas, I find Eduardo in his musty study in the exact spot I left him the previous day. His elbows are on the desk and his palms pressed deeply into both sides of his head. One of his braces has slipped down over his shoulder and I notice his straw boater carelessly flung beneath the desk. In front of him lies a blank sheet and strewn around the floor are dozens of crumpled pieces of paper. It is not a promising sight.

‘
¡Dios mio!
’
I cry and fling open the window. ‘
Esposo,
you must shave that stubble from your chin at once.’

The fresh air hits Eduardo with a start and he looks at me, stunned. He squints through the shaft of bright sunlight pouring in through the window, exposing the myriad dust mites that dance around him.

‘Eduardo!’ I say sharply. ‘Will you please get up and put on a clean shirt? You look dreadful.’

‘Where have you been, Luisa?’

‘Never mind about that now. Eduardo,
por favor
,’ I implore, ‘do this for me.’

It is a cheap trick and we both know it, but it is for my husband’s own good and it works every time. I have become well accustomed to Eduardo’s bouts of unproductive melancholia. He is simply unable to reconcile the recent image he held of himself – of a man bursting with pride and success – with the stale inertia he experiences when he starts to write. During such spells, he forgets to wash or change his clothes or even run a little brilliantine through his hair. I know he would even forget to eat were it not for my insistence we sit down together for three meals each day. It is only when Eduardo actually forgets to sleep, which has clearly been the case in our absence, that I insist upon a change of scenery.

The following day, we lock up Carmen de las Estrellas and travel south to spend a week with Vicente, one of Eduardo’s brothers, who has moved from Granada down to the coast. Vicente’s wife is of a nervous disposition and cannot abide the noise and clamour of the city, preferring the gentle murmur of waves. Of all the Torres Ortegas, Vicente showers the least scorn upon his youngest brother’s sensitive shoulders and Eduardo concedes that the sea air may do him some good.

On the train journey down, I look at Eduardo who stares out of the window, hunched and distracted. A boy passes along the carriage selling cigarettes and I shake my head at him and turn to face my husband.

‘Do you not want to know,
cariño
, where Isabel and I spent our night away?’ I ask.

He frowns. ‘Were you not with your parents?’

‘No. Why should you assume such a thing?’

He stares from me to Isabel, who is pressing her nose against the window and blowing hot round clouds on the glass.

‘Well?’

I cannot keep the smile from my face, so excited am I about our adventure and, as the landscape outside changes from rolling hills to gentle slopes and olive groves, I recount the events of the previous day down to the smallest detail. Eduardo listens in silence, lips parted and his green-grey eyes wide.

‘
¡Por Dios!
’ is all he can think to remark after my story has ended.

I clap my hands together. ‘Is it not marvellous? To have actually been inside a
gitano
cave!’

‘
¡Por Dios!
’ he repeats. ‘I have been neglecting you and Isabel, Luisa.’

‘Well—’

‘No.’ He puts a hand firmly out to stop me from speaking. ‘No, I have. I see that quite clearly now. Whilst I have been wasting precious time, attempting to recreate
Granadino Musings
which,’ he winces, ‘I shall probably never be able, I have failed to notice what the two people closest to my heart have been doing. I knew that you had been walking a bit here and there but not in a hundred years did I imagine you were gallivanting around the countryside quite so…quite so
widely
.’ He scratches beneath his chin.

‘It’s been splendid, Edu,
really
—’

‘And what’s more,’ he cries, pulling Isabel down from the window pane and rubbing vigorously on the marks she has made with his sleeve, ‘being entertained by all kinds of insalubrious characters.
¡Dios!
I forbid you to return to those caves, Luisa!’

‘That is absurd, Edu,’ I reply, and that is the end of that. I know Eduardo feels it his duty to utter such words, but I have little doubt he thinks me quite plucky for venturing into a gypsy’s lair.

‘I shall be more attentive from now on,
cariño
,’ Eduardo says quietly and he reaches out and takes my hand.

‘I know you shall.’ I run a finger down his cheek. ‘And do
not
give up on the poetry, Eduardo Torres Ortega, you have a talent for words.’

He smiles gratefully at me, nods slightly and turns to look out of the window.

So attentive does my husband become following our conversation on the train that the heady smell of bougainvillea, combined with glasses of chilled
vino de la costa
we drink each night, lead to a few romantic evening walks down to the ocean. One night, we come across a deserted old fisherman’s shack on a cliff top and make it our own, rediscovering one another’s bodies whilst listening to the crash and heave of the waves below us. I am overjoyed to see that not only is some colour reappearing in my husband’s pale cheeks, but a spring has returned to his step.

One evening following
cena
, Vicente suggests to Eduardo that they leave their wives alone to tittle-tattle (which makes my blood boil; should I feel inclined to indulge in so-called ‘tittle tattle’, Vicente’s dreary wife is the last person I should choose to spend time with). I have already retired by the time they return a few hours later, but I am aware of my husband tossing and turning in the bed and his occasional sighs.

I stretch out an arm and rub his back. ‘What is it?’ I murmur.

‘Can’t sleep,’ he mumbles.

‘Shall we open the window more?’

‘No, it’s not that. I’ve just had an unsettling conversation with Vicente.’

I wait. ‘Do you want to tell me?’

‘No,’ he replies. ‘In the morning.’ Eduardo turns round to face me and squeezes his eyes shut, willing sleep to come. But moments later, his eyes are open again and in the dim light of the bedroom, I see a frown draw lines across his forehead.

‘
Bueno
, here it is,’ he sighs, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘First of all, Miguel has become entangled in a messy new love affair.’ Miguel is Eduardo’s eldest brother, an unkind, hard bully of a man with a fast, spiteful tongue and an eye for the ladies. To find two more different brothers would be impossible. Miguel married a local beauty ten years previously then set about destroying her by barely allowing her to leave the house, and treating her as his personal slave whilst he gads about town, openly taking mistresses whenever he fancies. His long-suffering wife accepts all his indiscretions because she has no alternative. The law
never
falls in favour of mistreated women.

I do not know how he does it, but Miguel always manages to emerge unscathed and with that steadfast, arrogant smirk painted upon his lips. He is a wealthy and successful lawyer, covering up his tracks and ensuring his trousers are firmly buttoned up when propriety calls for it. Eduardo can scarcely bear to be in the same room as him, and I cannot blame him. Miguel was his greatest childhood tormentor, burning a stack of his poetry books when he was still a small boy and forcing his arm into a lock so tight one time that he almost broke it. Though we live in the same city, we see mercifully little of him.

‘There is no novelty there, Edu,’ I reply.

‘Except it’s a little more complicated this time. This new girl is with child.’

I raise an eyebrow but I am hardly surprised. His love affairs are so prolific, I am amazed this has not happened already.

‘His poor, poor wife,’ I murmur.

‘Poor wife, and poor stupid girl he’s got pregnant,’ Eduardo mutters. ‘And what’s more, Miguel’s not owning up to it and he’s in danger of causing a scandal because this girl keeps appearing at his house, demanding to see him. Apparently she’s of the lower classes, so the poor damned girl probably has next to no money to raise this child.’

I sigh. ‘Edu, of course it is quite dreadful what Miguel has done. But this is not our problem,
cariño
.’

Eduardo smiles tightly and nods, a lock of dark hair falling over one eye.

‘You’re right, Luisa. Somehow that brother of mine still manages to torment me whilst having nothing to do with me.’

‘We must sleep,’ I whisper. ‘It is late.’

A
t the end
of the week we return to Granada and life resumes its gentle course. If the weather permits, when the sun is high overhead we take our
almuerzo
on the patio under the overhanging wisteria, and these meals sometimes stretch for hours, particularly over the course of the weekend, as we enjoy food from the fertile
campo
of Andalucía and fruit from our own garden. When we finish eating, Eduardo often carries Isabel through to the inner courtyard to the orange tree sapling and the two of them inspect its growth, water it and even talk to it, imploring it to grow. We spend long evenings in the conservatory as Eduardo writes, I read and Isabel sleeps. I meet with friends who are also starting families, comparing first smiles, first steps, first words, and I continue to walk into the open fields
beneath the relentless sun until my boots are positively threadbare. It is on one of these walks I feel faint and sit down hurriedly under the shade of a
mimbre.
Little Isabel peers at me with concern.