The Swallow and the Hummingbird (35 page)

Then, just as she was beginning to wish she had followed that lone gull to heaven after all, Max telephoned her from London. She was so happy to hear his voice that her misery lifted and was replaced by a tender feeling of being loved.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ she replied, but her voice betrayed her sorrow.

‘No you’re not. I know what you’re going through. This wedding should have been yours.’

‘Oh, Max, you understand.’

‘I care about you, Rita. I hate to think of you there without anyone to talk to. Is the whole village going mad over the wedding?’

‘Yes.’

‘It must be horrid for you.’

‘It is. No one notices though. Not even Mummy. Suddenly, everyone’s attention is on Maddie. Mummy’s even invited Faye and Trees to the wedding. I think they’re calling a truce. It’ll never be the same, but at least they’re talking again.’

‘Does that bother you?’

‘Yes, it does,’ she replied, debating whether she should have admitted it.

‘But Rita, Faye and Trees are guilty of nothing. You can’t blame them for what George has done to you.’ She said nothing. He endeavoured to fill the pause, for every minute cost money. ‘I think it’s terrible that the families should suffer because he let you down. They can all wring his neck when he comes back.’

‘Max, if I tell you a secret, do you promise not to tell anyone?’

‘I promise,’ he replied, wondering what on earth could be so bad that her voice should lower in tone and turn so grave.

‘I discovered Faye in the arms of Thadeus Walizhewski.’

‘What? That old man in the village?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Certain. She had her hair down. She looked beautiful. Now I can’t look her in the face without despising her. Do you think infidelity is in the blood?’

He chuckled. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘Are you shocked?’

‘Surprised but not shocked,’ he said truthfully. ‘It’s none of my business and it shouldn’t be any of yours, either. You can’t let Faye’s infidelity destroy your belief in love, Rita. Everyone’s different.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever love again.’ This time he hesitated and she filled the pause that followed. ‘I don’t trust it any more.’

‘Someone will come along one day and love you so intensely you won’t have any room for doubt,’ he said after a while.

‘Do you think so?’

‘I know. Trust me.’

‘When?’ Max’s heart at once ignited with a spark of hope.

‘When you want him to,’ he replied and shuddered at the realization that he had just come very close to declaring himself. But Rita knew she would always love George and for as long as she did, there would be no room in her heart to love another.

Chapter 22

It was a perfect, sunny day for the wedding. An autumnal breeze swept gently across the countryside, but the sun was still hot as if reluctant to yield to the inevitable changing of the seasons. Agatha had enjoyed every moment of organizing the event, ordering her army of staff around like a hearty general on parade. Rows of white chairs had been set out in front of the house forming pews, and a canopy of flowers had been erected under which George and Susan would exchange their vows. Father O’Bridie, an old Irish priest from Dublin who had been preaching in Buenos Aires for fifty-eight years, had agreed to perform the service of marriage even though neither the bride nor groom were Catholic. Fuelled by the promise of alcohol he would have agreed to marry anything so long as it professed belief in the one God. Agatha had arranged a morning wedding, in the hope that he wouldn’t have time to get drunk. Dolores and Agustina had spent weeks planning desserts for the lunch, which was beginning to look more like a banquet, and the gauchos had slain three cows for the barbecue. Agatha had sent out invitations to all their friends, of which there were many, but she knew guests would bring their own friends and people she hadn’t invited would turn up, such was the custom in the Argentine. Susan had given her a few names but George knew no one.

Agatha and Jose Antonio had been struck dumb when George and Susan had told them of their plans. Agatha hadn’t expected him to return to England to marry Rita but she hadn’t predicted he would fall in love with Susan. George was such a devilishly handsome young man and Susan was, well, so unfortunately disfigured. She would have understood him better had he lost his heart to a beautiful Argentine girl. Jose Antonio patted George so firmly on the back he nearly winded him. He now understood the young man’s unwillingness to visit the whores of Jesús Maria and was relieved that his nephew was a normal red-blooded male. Susan was spirited and intelligent. She had an icy allure and was as mysterious to him now as she had been the day he had met her. He still didn’t know the secret behind her scar and neither did his wife. He wasn’t attracted by her blonde northern looks and slim, boyish figure, preferring more generous curves, but he understood the attraction of an older woman, and Susan was obviously as capable as Agatha, although she wisely left Agatha to organize the wedding. He had arranged to let them a pretty white house with stunning views of the plains and mountains which suited them both. George wanted to farm and Susan didn’t want to live in the city. She had grown to love the languid life of the countryside and the gentle people who inhabited it.

Tonito and Pia adored her, and she loved them too and spent hours with them riding across the fields or at home inventing games for them and their small band of friends. They had asked her on her first day why one side of her face was ‘broken’ and she had replied with a smile that she had been clawed by a lion in Africa. Their eyes had widened and more questions had tumbled out as their curiosity increased with the thought of such delicious violence. Had he wanted to eat her? How had she got away? Had she been afraid? And she had answered each one with patience and humour, wishing that adults were as easy to deflect as children. Sometimes George would catch her watching them wistfully, a sad smile softening her face with tenderness and he would take her hand and squeeze it. He didn’t have to speak and she didn’t have to explain for they understood each other perfectly. Her longing for her own children would stir inside her breast like a small, caged humming-bird, its wings tiny and quivering. She would place her hand there to calm it and will herself to be patient. Then she would look at George and hope would glimmer in her eyes that seemed so cold to everyone but him.

Now she sat in a simple ivory dress, while the hairdresser pinned her hair onto the top of her head, wondering whether she had been foolish to choose a dress rather than a suit that would have perhaps been more appropriate for a woman of her age. She felt a fraud playing the young bride. She believed herself tainted in some way, having been engaged and pregnant before, or too much of a woman for such a girlish wedding. The civil ceremony had been more comfortable. No confetti and a simple bouquet of flowers. They were already married by law, but George had insisted that they marry before God. To him that was almost more important. She heard voices downstairs and knew that Father O’Bridie had arrived.

‘Praised be the Lord for bestowing on this young couple a morning of such splendour to bless their nuptials with sunshine!’ he exclaimed in an exuberant Irish lilt. In spite of having lived in the Argentine for the best part of his adult life he spoke Spanish badly, preferring to speak English wherever possible. ‘God’s language is universal,’ he was often heard explaining to people who asked him how come, after so many years, he hadn’t managed to learn more than the odd phrase. ‘Love is the same in all tongues,’ he would say piously. But love didn’t buy meat at the butchers or write his correspondence and there were many times he had to rely on a friend to translate for him. But today was different. He had been invited to conduct the service in English, as he did in the small Irish church of All Saints in Buenos Aires, and most of the congregation were well educated in English, if not English by birth. He would knock back a little tipple and give them an address they wouldn’t forget. Like most good men of the clergy, he loved the sound of his own voice.

George mingled outside with the arriving guests. Dressed in a light summer suit he was relieved the breeze was cool and fresh for he was already hot with nerves. He knew very few people, but everyone made a great fuss of him for weddings tend to bring out the genial in most people. He hadn’t thought of Rita in weeks, but now his attention turned to her. Frognal Point seemed so far away, so distant, no longer a real place at all. He was happy he wasn’t marrying Susan there; he could imagine the fuss had he married Rita. The stifling attention, the overpowering excitement, the Reverend’s pompous address and the simpering faces of the villagers who had all known him since he was a boy. He was glad he was in the middle of the Argentine, he was glad that none of his family had travelled out for the wedding, and he was glad that it was Susan who was preparing herself in the house to make her vows before God to love him until death parted them. He watched Aunt Agatha, resplendent in blue, meet and greet her friends and people she had never met before, and he was grateful to her for giving him a refuge from the war and from that small coastal village that had suffocated him so. If it hadn’t been for her he might have lost his sanity staring out to sea, and perhaps he would never have seen Susan again. He would remember to thank her in his speech.

The guests took their seats and the small quartet Agatha had hired from Jesús Maria began to play. Father O’Bridie’s ruddy face took on a grave expression of the utmost piety as he led George down the aisle to wait for his bride. Ernesto, one of the gauchos, stood as his best man in the front row, grinning at him crookedly as he approached. ‘Good luck, gringo!’ he hissed as George joined him. ‘When I married Marta she was as thin as a pencil, how could I have predicted she’d grow into a cow?’ He shrugged and turned to watch Father O’Bridie, who raised his eyes at the appearance of Susan, crossing the lawn, followed by Pia and Tonito.

George’s heart stumbled when he saw her. She looked fragile next to the ursine Jose Antonio who had agreed to give her away, like an elegant arum lily beside a bulrush. She seemed to float towards him, the sunlight dancing off her simple dress and the flowers that were pinned into her hair fluttering in the breeze. She walked slowly, with her shoulders straight and her chin high, although her smile was shy and almost bashful. She held her bouquet tightly and looked directly ahead of her, while Jose Antonio grinned broadly at his friends as he passed them. The music rose in a melodramatic climax and George and Susan locked eyes in mutual understanding while they did all they could to contain their amusement. Hand in hand they stood together facing Father O’Bridie until the music finished. George could smell lily of the valley on her skin and that unique scent that was hers alone, and was reminded of the first time he had kissed her on the deck of the
Fortuna
.

The music stopped and the congregation fell silent. Father O’Bridie raised his bloodshot eyes and began to speak in a very slow brogue. Agatha sighed with relief that he hadn’t had more than a shot of whisky, although beneath his eyes the bags looked as heavy as wineskins. ‘We are gathered here today, in the sight of God, to witness the marriage of this man and this woman. I stress the word witness, for that is what you good people are here for. Oh yes, you’re here for the wine and the desserts and believe me there’s a fair banquet out there for I’ve been into the kitchen and the work that’s going on is quite spectacular!’ He licked his lips. ‘There’s
dulce de leche
mousse and ice cream and meringues.’ Susan squeezed George’s hand again. They could both feel Agatha’s fury rising behind them. ‘But let’s get back to the matter at hand. Yes, you are here to witness George and Susan make their vows, to love and honour each other until death does them part.’ He opened the old, saggy, prayer book he carried in his unsteady hands and began to read. Agatha’s relief was visible.

In spite of the melodramatic music, the kitsch nature of the garden ‘church’ with its floral canopy and white pews, and Father O’Bridie’s questionable enthusiasm, George and Susan were moved by the service and made their vows solemnly. It didn’t matter that they knew few people – for the witnesses were mostly strangers, for when they stood before God and promised to love one another for ever they were very much alone.

Agatha was reluctant to give Father O’Bridie anything more to drink, and could barely contain her annoyance: not only had he swayed from side to side as if on the deck of a galleon in a rough sea but his address had gone on and on without any recognizable point. She had softened, however, when she saw Susan and George’s obvious happiness as they mingled with the guests and crouched down to praise Pia and Tonito who had both played their parts to perfection. She reminded herself that the day wasn’t about Father O’Bridie; he had now served his purpose and could drink himself into a stupor if he so wished.

When she saw Dolores appear on the lawn with a tray of
empanadas
she forgot the inebriated priest, the bride and groom, even her own children, for the flimsy pink chiffon dress that Dolores had chosen looked like something one of the whores from Jesús Maria might wear to please a kinky client. It was completely transparent, crudely exposing her large white pants beneath. Agatha feared Dolores, too, had succumbed to the bottle.

‘Dolores, where is your uniform?’ she asked, recoiling at the maid’s extravagant makeup. Dolores smiled coyly and looked up from under congealed black eyelashes.

‘I thought it would be nice to dress up for Señor George’s wedding,’ she replied with pride.

‘Do you know that we can see your knickers?’ Agatha retorted bluntly.

‘Can you?’ the old woman replied, a small smile tickling the corners of her pink mouth. Agatha was horrified that an employee could speak to her with such little respect.

‘I think it’s most inappropriate, Dolores. I would be very grateful if you could go and change into your uniform.’ Before Dolores could reply Father O’Bridie staggered over, his lustful eyes doing their best to focus on the apparition before him. In his drunken state Dolores looked like a Botticelli Venus.