Weeks in Naviras (5 page)

By the time I turned 31 I’d become increasingly despairing. The hole my Mum’s death had excavated twelve years before still hadn’t been filled in. Of course nothing could because it was shaped like her. I venerated her, of course, forgot her bolshiness and snobbery and embossed her kindness. After she died I threw myself into law school, topping the class in my final year.

Mum’s absence cut off certain parts in my brain, I think, often when trying to enjoy myself I’d think about the last time I’d seen her alive. On the phone to the bank that morning, annoyed as she disputed some charge they’d imposed.

What do you mean, bear with me? No, I’m not going on hold again, I want to speak to the supervisor.

I was late getting back to London for college, mouthed to her silently that I had to run for the train. She just waved across the kitchen at me, air kissing me goodbye with the phone still pressed to her ear.
If you don’t put me through to someone in charge, I shall close my account forthwith.
She died in her sleep that night, blood in her brain got into the wrong place.

Most people get warnings about these things, a timetable to prepare emotions by. Without one the grief turns into a boomerang; you throw it away as hard as you can, but still it circles back and hits you on the back of the head when you’re not prepared for it. Each time you throw it away again it just takes a little bit longer to come back with amazing precision, returning for an attack as I graduated and nearly broke down in tears during the ceremony. My father watching from the balcony with a random woman sitting next to him, some other student’s mother or aunt; certainly not a new love interest. That I would’ve welcomed, wouldn’t have begrudged my father another chance at happiness for a second.

I didn’t realise at the time that I wasn’t thinking clearly, wasn’t making choices in my own best interests. I should’ve gone straight into Bar exams after law school but instead went into a firm. Mum had left me quite a bit of money; sometimes it felt like that was all I had left of her. Becoming a solicitor was the more obvious and immediate way to earn money so I went straight into work. It took me a couple of years to realise I’d gone down the wrong path, by which point the consensus was I’d left it too late to switch.

I was earning good money that I didn’t particularly need – Mum had come from a well-off family, Dad th
rew himself into his work after her death. I didn’t enjoy the lack of autonomy, wanted to pick and choose cases, maybe take on a few pro bono without having to ask anyone’s permission. By the time I hit my late twenties I realised I was wading through monotony every day. The idea of continuing for a further forty years was far from edifying. When people asked me what I wanted to do with my life I couldn’t answer, not truthfully at any rate. What I secretly fancied was becoming a Judge, maybe in the family courts division, doing something that really changed people’s lives.

My love life always felt equally workaday; my few boyfriends all languishing in extended childhood; they’d never had to fend for themselves, certainly not emotionally. They tended to come via work or friends of colleagues, as such were tedious and uniform. Would Mum have approved of any of this, I’d ask myself?

When I turned 29 I took a gamble and went for the Bar. I knew the chances of getting something weren’t great, I was five years older than anyone else doing the exams. Perhaps it was an attempt to get my father’s attention, after he’d sold our home and moved into London, saying there was no point sitting on a train for an hour a day just to go back to an empty house. I’d get a cab to the City and meet him in one of the pubs he’d stand in after work, doing the crossword. He worked seventy-hour weeks on purpose; taking on too much, starting at seven every morning and spending Sundays poring over things.

The only day he ever really took off was Saturday, when we’d go to the rugby or I’d cook him a roast in his flat, which exactly what I was doing when I told him I was quitting work and starting Bar exams. His little rules concerning alcohol had broken down, whisky had become acceptable after mid-day and by teatime his eyes were misty. Initially he was shocked, warned me how competitive it was, even for those a lot younger than me. But I explained my thinking, how I needed more variety and purpose.

‘Your Mum would be so proud, Eleanor,’ he said, finally. ‘She’d come to watch you in Court every day, given half the chance.’ We both cried, the first time we’d allowed ourselves to weep in each other’s company in years.

I met Gail while taking Bar exams. Four years younger than me and going straight to the top. She was far more convinced by me than I was; constantly talking me up, saying my previous work experience would stand me in good stead when competing for pupillages. She was with me the first ever time I arrived in Naviras. We were both shattered from driving all afternoon, both of us hungover from a raucous night in Lisbon. Well into the morning men had been buying us drinks and offering us drugs, especially to Gail who accepted them happily. As her self-appointed wingwoman I declined the drugs, the drinks had been strong enough. I’d been surprised by Gail that holiday; once out of Britain she took on a wildness, an echo from her past, maybe.

‘You need to lighten up, Ellie,’ she’d yelled at me above the thumping music as more shots were being poured by the barman. ‘You’re going to be a barrister, make the most of the free time you’ve got.’

We took turns driving, the other one semi-comatose in the passenger seat. Gail had been far more hungover than me, as I drove us out of Lisbon I had to pull over twice so she could open the door and retch into the kerbside. Then we crossed the enormous, endless red suspension bridge, both of us battling intense nausea but it was impossible to stop. I focused on the giant statue of Cristo-Rei perched on the hill on the other side, felt like he was guiding me out of Lisbon away from the debauchery.

Even on the Almada side of the bridge the motorway remained busy. Men tailgated me before overtaking us slowly, jeering and pointing at us and making comments about our boobs.

‘What is it with the fucking Portuguese?’ Gail was giving them violent hand gestures. ‘The calmest people in the world, till you put them behind a wheel. Piss off!’

The sun was hot on the leather seats and I’d been sweating, the steering wheel became slippery and uncomfortable. I was skittish from hangover, the wind making it hard to hear the stereo or each other, not that either of us were talking much.

The convertible had been an ostentatious act of celebration, both of us had just passed our Bar exams. Unsurprisingly, Gail had been instantly offered a pupillage and had broken up with her boyfriend on the same day. Equally unsurprisingly I’d been rejected three times and was starting to wonder if it’d been a mistake going for the Bar relatively late, but I was still determined to let my hair down for a month. A drive around the Iberian peninsula which had started ten days before in Barcelona, passing quickly through San Sebastián and Bilbao before making a protracted stop in Lisbon. Spain I knew fairly well but I’d not been to Portugal before and had been looking forward to it.

We’d been told to visit Sines and some of the other villages down the west coast but were behind schedule, mostly because we’d often found ourselves too hungover to drive after nights in Lisbon. We’d agreed to skip some of the west coast and head straight to Naviras, which had been recommended to us by Gail’s mother.

‘It’s just a nice place to stop for lunch, breaks up the journey between Sines and Aljezur,’ she’d said. ‘Very peaceful, and fantastic seafood.’

We’d looked it up and found the only guesthouse in the village, as always there were mixed reviews but the kinder ones praised the breakfast and the ‘eccentric charm’. We’d tried to contact the owner before leaving London but the email bounced back. Still we thought we’d give it a go, a punt in the dark. ‘Hopefully worth the detour,’ I’d said.

Gail took over the wheel at a toll-booth two hours out of Lisbon. I’d been dropping in and out of consciousness toward the end of the journey, the wind making me drowsy. We both said we felt better once we’d left the motorway and joined the coastal road. On our right sharp cliffs and wide estuaries, the sun bouncing white off the ocean. The countryside on our left green with wild flowers on the hillsides; in subsequent visits I’d discover the land became a baked brown as summer rolled on, but it was the end of the Easter holidays when we first came to Naviras.

It wasn’t just off the main road, not even off the parallel side-road. It had its own small lane that curved in hairpin bends around some large hills obscuring it from the passing traffic. As we drove into the village the road immediately curved to the left and narrowed so Gail misjudged the gap between the car and the first small white cottage. She wasn’t used to driving on the left-hand side of the road, took the corner too fast and smacked the right-hand wing mirror against the wall of a cottage. The mirror detached with a bang right next to me, making me jump in my seat. Gail screeched to a stop. ‘Oh shit, Ellie,’ she said.

My heart was pounding. The wing mi
rror hadn’t come off completely and was still hanging on by some internal cable. We both laughed as two old men sitting at a small bus stop on the other side of the road smiled at us. There didn’t seem to be any damage to the wall and nobody from the cottage came out to shout at us, so we drove on slowly down the narrow before turning right. I’d checked the map and we were on the correct road for the guesthouse. It couldn’t be seen from the road. There was a low white wall with large poplars waving in the strong breeze. On the wall by the entrance white tiles, each one bearing a bright blue serif letter.
Casa Amanhã.

The smell of rosemary hit us as we drove through the entrance, the gates already wide open. There were established bushes running along both sides of the driveway. Behind them more large poplars, covering much of the driveway in shade. We pulled up outside the house and I was surprised at how tall it was; the two large wings on each side looking slightly squat underneath the centre of the building, which rose up three floors like a thin ziggurat. Vines and purple flowers curled around its sides almost to the top, trailing from the slanted terracotta roof of the wings, forming a natural awning.

‘It must be a hundred years old, at least,’ I got out of the car and took a look at the wing-mirror. We’d have to take it to the nearest rental office, I said, popping the boot and pulling out my wheelie-case which opened unexpectedly. Clothes, wires and makeup scattered all over the driveway. Gail smirked and helped me bundle my stuff back into the case. We shut it too quickly and a pair of my knickers remained sticking out the side.

‘Sod them,’ I said, as we wheeled our cases bumpily across the gravel driveway and through a large wooden door on the left hand side of the building, which was wide open.

It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the interior. It was a restaurant, all the tables unoccupied. An L-shaped bar with wooden stools in the corner, behind it a large kitchen with wine racks and shelves filled with bottles running from floor to ceiling. Next to the bar a set of wooden steps ascended to a darkened archway. A slim dark-haired young woman was behind the bar, polishing cutlery. An older woman with white hair tied up in a bun at the crown of her head was sitting on a stool, going through a pile of papers.

I said hello and the older woman looked up. ‘Good afternoon, are you booking in for dinner?’ Her English accent cut-glass.

I said we were hoping to get a room for a few nights. ‘Oh, you didn’t make a reservation, did you? Let’s have a look.’ She lowered herself from the stool and walked around the bar, began rifling through a separate pile of papers. ‘I’m sorry, we’re having a few admin problems here at the moment. We’ve only just re-opened the restaurant.’

We walked up to the bar. ‘Re-opened?’ said Gail.

‘After the winter, darling.’ The woman was picking up bits of paper and discarding them, one of them fell to the floor. ‘The guest house is open year-round, but I only run the restaurant during the summer months. Did you call ahead?’

‘No we didn’t, sorry,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t find any way of getting in touch.’

‘Well you’re in luck, we’re not too busy. We’ve got a boisterous stag party on the second floor, they’re horrendously messy. Apart from that we’re all-clear. I’m Lottie. Welcome to Casa Amanhã.’ She smiled at us. ‘Are you a couple?’ Gail and I looked at each other. Gail sniggered and shook her head.

‘Fine, fine. Now, pen, pen, pen.’ Lottie began rifling through the heap of paperwork behind the bar, before Gail pointed out the pen was stuck through the bun in her hair and she giggled, pulling it out. ‘You have to ask these days, you know.’ She stopped searching and looked up at us, beaming. ‘Had one or two embarrassments in the past!’

Rarely did I ever take an instant liking to someone, but that’s how it was with Lottie St. Paul. She projected something, the old hippies would’ve called it an aura. She was scribbling on a pad. ‘Will you be wanting a twin room or two singles?’

‘How much are they?’ asked Gail.

‘Oh it’s all the same, twenty euro, per person, per night. Entirely up to you, darling.’

I looked at Gail, thinking twenty a night was hazardously cheap. ‘What do you want to do, Gail?’

She frowned. ‘What’s the bathroom situation?’

Lottie let out an affected gasp. ‘Yes we have bathrooms! And toilets. We’re still in civilisation, just about.’

Gail laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. ‘I just meant are the bathrooms en- suite?’