Hannah had spent a restless night and now the day of parting had dawned. The house, its gardens and swimming pool that made the family’s holiday home overlooking the Bay of Biscay so special, would again be quiet, only the housekeeper and her husband to be encountered, better still their son, Manolo, who was on army leave. She had never met the young man before she had arrived for her ten-day break How disconcerting to have that vigorous young man capture her attention, to have the sight of his toned physique as he worked, helping his father in the orchard, arouse such wayward thoughts. But why not? She had lived through her months of bereavement and could begin to rebuild her life. ‘Quinta Virgia’ was hers and she could do as she pleased and that its seclusion, and a livid conscience, allowed.
Hannah waved them all, her sons and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, a tearful farewell, her resolve not to concede soon broken as she heard her two of her grand-children’s softly spoken words of goodbye. She had already wiped away Phoebe and Chloe’s tears.
‘Call me when you get back home…no matter how late it is, won’t you?’ she asked of them.
‘You’ll have all the time you need for your art!’ Melanie laughed out as she waved her goodbye. We’ll be thinking of you! The weather’s set to be a lot warmer!’
Hannah stood on the gravelled parking area in front of the house, the warm sea breeze tugging at her hair and flattening her skirt against her thighs. Yes, she would draw and paint, had already decided, during a restless night, to find a sheltered place in the orchards and to finish a small landscape of the distant bay, and its rocky promontories, that she could look down on. Her artist’s tools were set against the table in the hallway. An uncommon silence would now descend on the place, the hours of the day would have to be filled and company sought, if that were decently possible.
Resolved on the way to proceed, she walked in purposeful steps back into the cool of the house.
Silence had descended on the place, but she heard the twittering of the birds in the trees not so far away, possible now that the children had gone.
‘One phase ends and now another is set to begin…’
She kicked off her sandals and proceeded to run up the stairs to change, to throw caution to the winds and dress for sunbathing as she painted and sketched, chose to wantonly catch a young man’s eye, should Manolo chance upon her. Pedro had said that he was in town, running errands as a dutiful son would do for his folks.
How would he know where to find her?
2
Hannah had watched the two men working in the garden earlier in the day and had not thought much of it, Pedro, the older of the two a dutiful servant to the household, the younger, Manolo, an only too willing assistant while he spent his Army leave here with them.
Now, as the afternoon heat was beginning to lessen she carried her easel and paint box into the orchard, heard the runabout, that Pedro used, drive down the driveway and out of view, its progress hidden by the shrubbery that was now neatly shaped and the debris all cleared away, some of it burned in a clearing. She had seen the lazy drift of smoke spiralling into the sky, had done that in the days following her arrival.
The secluded, and sheltered, orchard was now quiet.
She had the place to herself and chose to set up under an almond tree and to gaze out over the rooftops of the town, the red pantiles stark against the whitewashed walls, the tower of the church a focal point for the picture she had in mind to completing, if she could bear the afternoon heat and the lifelessness of the air.
The straw hat, and the colourful scarf, that accompanied and fastened it, was in stark contrast with her short white skirt, with its ruffled hem, and matching V-necked blouse. She had decided on tying its ends at her waist and leaving some skin of her belly exposed to the sun. She had had the foresight to smear suntan oil, liberally, over her face and arms, also onto the exposed skin of her stomach, and over her fleshy legs, too. Her sandals revealed large feet, the toenails varnished a soft pink. She was a sturdy woman, ‘well made’ as her husband used to tell her, and not sylph-like. She have no illusions about her appearance, hence her dismay that Manolo should have paid her some discreet attention.
‘If I can’t dress this way in my own home, then where can I…when I’m painting?’ she muttered as she began to work, her eyes darting to the scene being captured and also, almost by second nature, to the dogs. They lay panting, but obediently stilled, in the deepest shade cast by a nearby tree. A bowl of water was not so far from her. She had had the foresight to bring that along with her too.
‘Hola, señora!’ she heard called out, unthreateningly and in an only too familiar voice.
Startled, she turned to where the young man now stood.
Manolo had appeared from the direction of the lane. He must have taken the steps that he, and his father, had cleared and that were set into the embankment close to the property’s driveway gates. The family had taken to using this route through the orchard often, in the days before they had left her.
Now, it seemed to be a favoured route of her housekeeper’s son too.
Hannah stood before him, the palette with her chosen paints in one hand, and a fine tipped brush in the other. She hoped that the shaking of one hand was not to be noticed. Hopes, or wayward dreams, of knowing him might now become a tempestuous reality.
‘Hello, Manolo. As you can see, I am painting…something to take home with me…a reminder of my stay here.’
‘I have seen some of your work in the house…’ he smiled, glancing at the picture she was working and standing close to her in order to do so. ‘You English are always out in the sun and when it is still hot…’
She could just about understand the way he said it. What she could not mistake was his look upon her, an only too blatant and appraising stare that took in what she was now wearing and that revealed, and shaped, what she would bring to his gaze. She knew that it left little for the young man to imagine of her.
‘I intend to make the most of my time here,’ she observed evenly, provoked into saying it. ‘Now, I must get on with my work…’
‘Si, of course you must. I am sorry to intrude upon that…’
Hannah saw him look around the orchard floor, even as he drew a small knife from its sheath and that he had covered with his T-shirt. It hung loose over his shorts, his strong, tanned, legs clearly to be seen and with his feet in sturdy, fashionable, walking shoes. Manolo seemed oblivious to the looks she cast his way.
He was seen to pick up a two-metre length of branch, thin and all but stripped of leaves and off-shoots. ‘I carve a top to this…make a walking stick…while you work. Is that okay?’
Hannah was unsure that he would accept her refusal of his company, were she to ask it of him. ‘Yes, it’s okay…but don’t talk to me. I want to concentrate on this picture.’
‘We both do that,’ he grinned at her, the whiteness of his teeth, against his tanned skin, like a beacon. It drew her attention upon him all over again. ‘I make a walking stick that you can keep…for you or your guests when they come to see you.’
She resumed in her painting, yet glanced his way whenever the opportunity arose, noted the dexterity in how Manolo worked, saw the frown of concentration that belied the confidence, and skill, in all that he did.
‘Did you learn that in the army?’ she was provoked into asking, the silence between them not to be endured for long.
‘No…I do this since I was young. My father…he started me off and then I go out on my own…do this.’ She saw him rise from where he had been seated at the foot of a tree and walk over to where she worked Manolo held out his handiwork, the top of the still green branch carved to imitate the weave of a rope into an end splice. He saw Hannah’s look of wonder upon it, saw how her impossibly blonde hair tumbled around her face, how that blouse of hers shaped the swell of her heavy breasts. The woman brought so much to hold his gaze upon her. ‘Como los marineros…’
‘Si…I can recognise that only too well…and you have skill, Manolo.’
‘Gracias…’
She was disconcerted to meet met his wondering look upon her and then his smile, Manolo’s self-assurance. ‘I must get on…while there’s time and good light…for me to paint.’
Manolo heard the distraction in her voice.
He chose to lean on the stick that he had carved, his hands over one another and covering his work. He looked at her for a moment with stilled eyes, as if considering whether to speak his mind. The woman before him, and what she now wore, really did inflame the senses. His reaction, or response to seeing her, would be thought only too predictable. He would have to flatter her and see where their meeting took them.
‘Mis padres…they tell me how it is or has been. But you are a fine woman, señora, to keep on suffering for the loss of your husband. You must try to live on…’
‘That’s my business…I think!’ she snapped dismayed by his directness of speaking.
‘Don’t concern yourself with that! I am over the worst…if you really need to know!’
Hannah gave him a challenging stare.
‘Perhaps so, but I wonder…I cannot help speaking about it…since I meet you like this,’ he answered only too assuredly. ‘You should not be alone…live your life alone, señora.
‘Is that so?’
‘Si, it is so…’
3
Hannah had wondered on it too, just how she would know if the circumstances were again right and to satisfy the rediscovery of longing for another, who that person was to be or could turn out to be. To know of it with Manolo, or a man so certain in his ways and unafraid to speak out, had not been reckoned on, not at all, flattering and bewildering as the situation between them was now becoming.
She moved out from under the shade of the tree. ‘Perhaps I should paint you, or make a drawing of you…if only to silence you and to stop your chatter?’
‘To keep or to sell?’ he grinned.