House in the Hills Read online

  She was making purchases from a man who brought in supplies from Pinhao for sale at the local market. Everyone who knew her and everyone she knew visited his stall at some point.

  ‘Donna Nicklau is determined that her son will be a priest,’ said the robust woman who was delighting in telling her the unwelcome news. ‘And knowing Donna Nicklau that is exactly what he will be, whether he likes it or not.’

  Catherine kept her eyes fixed on the brown paper bag into which the stallholder was tipping scoopfuls of sugar.

  ‘I’ll take another,’ she said, her face reddening. She didn’t really need another bag of sugar, but pretending to be preoccupied helped her cope. Without meeting the woman’s expression, she placed the last of her purchases into her basket. As much as she tried to keep it in, the obvious question popped out. ‘And if he does not wish to become a priest?’

  The woman, a widow judging by the black she wore from head to toe, frowned as though Catherine’s question was an outright blasphemy. ‘In my day a young man thought himself privileged to be called to God.’

  Catherine couldn’t hold back what was in her mind. ‘He’s not being called. He’s being pushed!’

  The woman’s frown deepened. ‘But he’ll be a priest.’ She emphasized the last word as though it were sacred within its own right.

  Catherine retaliated. ‘And beneath the black he will still be a man!’

  Eyes wide with shock, the woman crossed herself. ‘Holy Mother of God! What a terrible thing to say.’

  One or two of the other women followed suit. Others stayed their hands, winsome and secretive smiles twitching at the corners of their mouths.

  ‘It’s not so terrible at all. They’re all men before they become priests! A priest is a man for all that!’ Catherine pushed away from them, her eyes brilliant with defiance. A chorus of condemning chatter broke out behind her.

  She became aware of footsteps. Her heart skipped a beat. Were they following her intent on punishing her blasphemy? Were people already gossiping about Father Umberto’s frequent visits?

  She glanced over her shoulder. An old woman, the very oldest of the group gathered back there, did her best to keep pace with her.

  She attempted to lengthen her stride, but the small woman, her back hunched with years, interspersed her scurry with a series of half-skips, half-runs.

  ‘Dear lady,’ she cried between gasps of scrappy breath. ‘I hear your aunt’s influence in what you said back there.’

  At mention of Aunt Lopa, Catherine came to a halt and looked at the woman.

  Bright eyes that might have been dark grey, the colour of dulled pewter, looked out at her from a face burrowed and furrowed with a profusion of such deep lines and folds, that it was hard to discern their true colour. Her skin was parchment brown, not so much tanned by the sun but stained by age and hard work. The wrinkles reminded her of the convolutions of a walnut; deeply gouged and as though cut with a knife.

  Catherine recognized her as Rosa. Although she tried, she failed to remember her other name. She’d only met her once or twice before and that was many years ago when she’d first come here. In latter years, her great-aunt used to visit the woman rather than the other way round. Rosa could not heave herself up into a cart or on to the back of a donkey, and long journeys tired her.

  ‘I knew a priest once,’ said Rosa. Pinpoints of nostalgia misted her deep-set eyes. ‘He was beautiful. We were both young and we became lovers.’

  Catherine’s jaw dropped and she only barely stopped herself from blushing. Had she said something she shouldn’t? Had she betrayed her thoughts in some way? She shook the silliness away. Of course she hadn’t. This was Rosa and she was old. Perhaps her mind was wandering. Perhaps Catherine herself had misheard.

  ‘You’re Rosa,’ she said, looking down into the aged face and smiling. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.’

  Rosa grinned, exposing a series of infrequent, loose and very small teeth. ‘I can understand that you did not. We only met once or twice, and anyway, I was taller then. My bones are now shrinking inside my flesh.’ She laughed and took hold of a fold of her wrinkled face, pulling it outward. ‘See? My skin is too big for my body.’

  The effect was unattractive but effective. Catherine smiled. ‘My aunt thought well of you.’

  The old head nodded on a skinny, wrinkled neck and the deep-set eyes sparkled like water at the bottom of a well. ‘Aye.’ She nodded and the intensity of her thoughts was reflected in those storm-grey eyes. ‘We’d both lived a long time – me longer than her. In fact, I remember when your queen came to the throne. She was eighteen years old.’ She paused.

  Catherine realized she meant Queen Victoria who’d ascended the throne in 1837. She herself had forgotten about one half of her antecedents being English, even though she did speak the language. The locals had not forgotten. What struck her even more than that was that if Rosa was telling the truth about her age she was now well over ninety!

  ‘Back then, we were all young,’ Rosa added, hanging her head and lowering her eyes as though overcome by memories.

  Catherine looked to where the road wound up from the village towards home. It was three miles hence and although she wanted to be back before dark, it would be discourteous to hurry away.

  ‘Was there something you wanted to tell me?’ she asked Rosa.

  The nut-brown face creased into a different pattern of lines and furrows as she smiled. Her skin shone as she turned it to the light flowing from the west. ‘I knew a priest once. And what you said back there is true,’ she said, jerking her head in the direction of the market stall. ‘A man’s a man regardless of what he’s dressed in. My priest was most definitely a man,’ she said softly, a gentle gleam in her eyes. ‘He was passionate about Christ, but his passion didn’t end there. Your Francisco may indeed end up as a priest, but his manly desires will still be intact.’

  Catherine tried to think of something suitable to say, but her mouth was too dry. She recalled an English saying of not judging a book by its cover. This saying certainly applied to Rosa, she thought as she scrutinized the old face, the bent limbs and the hunched back.

  ‘I see you’re surprised,’ remarked Rosa. ‘That’s because I shocked you.’ She sighed deeply. ‘You see before you an old woman, crabbed with age.’ That smile again. ‘But I wasn’t born old. And there will be other men for you just as there were for me. Enjoy the passion. Enjoy the moment, and remember it’s only the Church that makes the rules, not the men they make them for.’

  * * *

  The three miles back up to the quinta flew by, simply because Catherine was simmering with anger. It wasn’t just Donna Nicklau who was taking Francisco away from her; so was the Church. Added to that, the women at the market who had made her feel dirty and incredibly rebellious.

  The hurt and the anger stayed with her. Only once she set eyes on the long, white quinta nestled among stone pens and fruit trees, did she begin to calm down.

  Blasted with the sun and rain of a hundred summers and just as many winters, the dried-out door was smooth to the touch as she pushed it open. The old house was silent except for a few cicadas singing in the rafters and the scurrying of a lizard in response to her footfall. Life is unkind, she thought as she placed her basket of purchases on the kitchen table. Only in those formative years at the Castile Villanova had she been really happy and sure of her place in life and now that was gone. It was only a matter of time before this place too, this place where she had also been happy, would fade into her past.

  Hiding was what she felt like doing. There was no future for her with Francisco and she did not want to face her father. On the other hand, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to stay here.

  Being jilted would be the subject of gossip every time she was seen in the village. She could almost hear their comments. Most of them true. She was the girl rejected by the respectable family of the man she loved – or thought she loved. Being illegitimate was bad enough, but being als
o the great-niece of Lopa Rodriguez didn’t help. Some people viewed Aunt Lopa feeding wolves and going from door to door selling her homemade goods as merely eccentric. Others considered her mad.

  What worried her more was her growing relationship with Umberto. In her mind she no longer referred to him as Father Umberto. His title, his vocation no longer mattered to her. What was happening between them was far stronger, and far older than any church. It was as though the years in between, including his ordination as a priest, had never happened. She tried to counsel herself that it was unwise to continue what could only end in tears – or more gossip.

  She sighed and opened the shutters, flakes of green paint fluttering like snow as they slammed against the outside walls.

  Twenty-four hours seemed more like forty-eight living alone with little human contact. The time was spent looking after the goats, tending the vegetable patch and tidying up the house. All these things kept her hands busy, though her mind was with Umberto. Each day she looked out at the track expectantly, narrowing her eyes against the glare of a metallic-blue sky, seeing his figure in the twisted shadows of a tree, a flash of birds against the horizon, the shape of a scudding cloud. With each passing day that he didn’t show up, her bitterness increased. Why did life give her such happiness only to snatch it away? There is only the moment, she decided. Only the here and now to enjoy, and there was only herself to rely on.

  Twenty

  Via a lawyer in Pinhao, Catherine received a letter from her father referring to the previous letter he’d sent to her great-aunt and demanding she travel to Porto by the end of October. The letter came with a handful of money: Enough for your transport requirements. She fancied it was a lot more than she’d need to get there. A note at the bottom of the letter suggested she purchase some suitable travelling clothes.

  She thought of the shabby items, lengthened and let out over the years, now folded in a box in her bedroom.

  ‘Any reply?’ asked the courier who had brought it, an elderly man from Pinhao who just happened to own a horse and liked riding. Delivering letters suited his lifestyle.

  ‘No,’ she replied once she’d read it, her lips tight with defiance. ‘None at all.’ Once he’d gone, she tore it into shreds, opened the door of the bread oven and watched it turn to ash.

  The storms that had flattened the vines were long gone, and the air now smelled of fruit and dark earth and was warm again, though slightly oppressive due to the gradual evaporation of moisture from waterlogged plants and ground.

  The road that had been a muddy track leading to the quinta was now brick-hard after days of baking heat, though like a piecrust a rich gravy of mud sloughed just beneath the surface.

  Father Umberto visited of an evening when the air was heavy with the smell of ripe fruit. She made no mention of the day she’d sewn the hem of his robe.

  Catherine had still not unlocked the padlocks of the iron-bound chest. The contents were to have been her dowry; there no longer seemed much point in opening it.

  ‘I’ll open it when I’m ready.’

  The priest did not seem to accept her decision as final, but continued to visit, offering arguments as to why she should.

  ‘If there is money in the box, you can use it to fund your own lifestyle and not need to follow your father’s wishes.’

  The suggestion was appealing; all the same she was strangely reluctant. ‘Are you not curious about its contents?’ he asked.

  She thought about it, her eyelids and the fall of her hair masking her thoughts. She narrowed her eyes, taking pleasure in watching the clouds scudding across the sky. The wind was coming from the west, bringing the smell of rain and the salty freshness of the Atlantic Ocean.

  It was difficult to put into words how she felt about opening the wormy, iron-bound coffer, but she made a stab at it anyway.

  ‘Do you know of the legend of Pandora’s box?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. I do. Pandora was told not to open the box entrusted to her care, but curiosity overwhelmed her. She opened the box and vented evil on to the world.’

  ‘Yes. All the ills of the world were set free. I don’t want to do that with my box. I want to be sure that I’m opening it at the right time and that I’m not allowing any troubles to escape – or to enter.’

  ‘You’re worried,’ he observed one sunset as they sat outside sipping port.

  He was right about that. Yet she’d said nothing. His ability to read her face and the look in her eyes was born of a growing familiarity. She wondered how long it would be before the old wives in the village noticed the frequency of his visits and began to gossip. She shivered at the thought of their condemnation – especially of him.

  ‘I’ve had a letter from my father. He demands that I travel to Porto.’

  ‘Have you written back to him?’

  She shook her head and raised her wary eyes to his face. ‘No. I hate him.’

  ‘Perhaps you should reconsider. He is your father. Perhaps he is seeking your forgiveness.’

  ‘Your father beat you. Have you forgiven him?’

  Umberto heaved a deep sigh and set his glass steadfastly down on the table. ‘I do not wish to talk about that. We’re talking about you. How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  He nodded sagely, his eyes darting between her and his drink. He adopted a serious, professional expression, the sort he used when counselling people who were older – though not necessarily wiser than he was.

  ‘I believe the age of majority in England is twenty-one.’

  ‘I don’t have to go, do I?’

  She knew by the way his eyes flickered that she wasn’t going to like the answer.

  For his part, Umberto had considered his response very carefully. He had to remind himself that she was not his and could not be his, though these visits and being her only source of support made it seem otherwise. His blood raced, so he had to do something. Counting how many clouds were presently crossing the sky helped fill the pause before he could properly respond.

  ‘Your father has legal rights over you. You are not yet of age to be your own woman.’

  ‘You said I should use the contents of Aunt Lopa’s old box to run away.’

  Umberto hung his head, wished he could cut off his tongue, and shook his head.

  ‘I should not have said that. It was wrong of me.’

  ‘I will stay here. I can manage quite well by myself,’ she said hotly.

  He looked away and, smiling, said, ‘You are not entirely alone. I visit you.’

  She glowered at him as though she hated his smug expression when the opposite was true. He looked vulnerable at such times, like a nervous suitor rather than a kindly priest. They’d both become amazed at how much they had in common; they could talk about history, literature or politics for hours, or merely sit in silence admiring the view. In silence is true friendship.

  The saying was certainly apt. They experienced long periods when neither of them spoke, both gazing at the setting sun and drinking in the scenery.

  When they did speak again, the conversation always went back to her father and his sudden reappearance in her life.

  She sipped port and shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the trails of salmon pink dissecting the evening sky. ‘He didn’t want me before. Why now?’

  Father Umberto took another sip of port and smacked his lips before attempting to explain. It was at times like these, times when he preferred to keep his true feelings to himself, that he used the well-tried platitudes of generations of tempted priests. He was telling her it was her duty to honour her father, and by the same token her father was attempting to honour her, to plan for her future, to ensure that she was happy.

  She pretended to listen, but he could see by the faint dents above her eyebrows that she was seeing through his act. He felt himself blushing.

  ‘I hear Francisco’s mother wants him to be a priest,’ she said to him.

  He tried not to fidget. To fidget would further pro
claim just how uncomfortable she made him feel.

  ‘I had heard that,’ he answered.

  She nodded slowly, her eyes not once dropping from his.

  ‘Do you think a man can be too passionate to be a priest? After all, celibacy is required, and for some men—’

  He cut in quickly, not wanting her to finish the sentence. ‘Well, it is a matter of discipline.’

  He clasped his hands together, his gaze dropping downwards, seeking something inconsequential to look at; anything but her features, her body.

  His eyes scrutinized the rough planks from which the floor of the veranda was made, but alighted instead on her knee. Its firm curve was only inches away from his. He could feel her warmth diffusing through the thin fabric of her cotton skirt. The skirt was mauve scattered with purple and green flowers. It was faded where the hem had been taken down to cover her lengthening legs.

  But he wasn’t really seeing the material or the neat needlework hemming the faded alteration. He was seeing the shape of her knees, her calves, her thighs, and every fibre in his body was screaming.

  He went on to answer her questioning of a man’s role in the priesthood.

  ‘If a man is commit… committed…’ he went on, hiding his stuttering words behind a mild clearing of his throat, ‘then he will do everything to bury his natural urges, to dedicate himself to the life he has chosen, despite everything.’

  He looked up at her face again. Her eyes were still fixed on his face, more intently now. It was then that he knew she hated the Church for taking Francisco. A sense of panic came over him. He did not want her to hate him.

  ‘At the end of the day, Francisco will make up his own mind,’ he blurted out.

  ‘Father, if I make you nervous, you shouldn’t come here.’

  He looked shocked that she’d seen through him so easily. ‘I…’ He tried to find the right words, but the pot of platitudes was completely empty.

  Catherine smiled. Her expression changed. A minute ago she had adopted the expression of a temptress. Now she clasped her hands in prayer, lowered her eyes and bowed her head.