ANNE WEALE - The Youngest Sister

‘You’re very supple,’ said Nicolas, sliding behind the wheel. ‘Are you a dancer as well as a rescuer of people in distress?’

‘Oh, no... I was just doing what your cat will probably do when he wakes up.’

‘He’s supposed to be a mouser,’ said Nicolas. ‘But Catalina feeds him. Sometimes he brings in a young bird, but he’s no threat to the mice.’

As they started back down the drive, Cressy said, ‘It’s incredibly good of you to go to these lengths for me. I’m sure you must be longing to have a cold shower and relax. How long have you been in transit?’

‘Around forty-eight hours, but I’m used to it. Jet lag doesn’t affect me any more. I can sleep anywhere.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘I never talk about my trips until they’re in print.’ He took his eyes off the track to smile at her. The smile made his answer less of a snub than it might have sounded otherwise. ‘I find if I talk about places it saps some of my enthusiasm. I’ve heard novelists say the same about their stories.’

The remark made her wonder about his friends, and if they included many fellow writers and other creative people, artists and craftsmen, as well as men like himself who spent their lives doing adventurous things. She had a feeling his circle would be very different from that of her parents and sisters, for whom the twin peaks of achievement were power and money.

Sometimes Cressy felt so much like a changeling that she wondered if there could possibly have been a mixup at the expensive private clinic where she had been born. Not only was she physically unlike her sisters but she lacked their diamond-bright minds and their driving ambition. Nor, except in her size, was she like her father, a leading architect whose buildings she secretly disliked.

‘You look worried,’ said Nicolas. ‘Don’t be. I have nothing to do for the next few days. I’m happy to be your driver and interpreter.’

Cressy hadn’t realised that her face was reflecting her thoughts. Quickly brightening her expression, she said, ‘Is everyone in Majorca as helpful as you are? Is it a Majorcan characteristic?’

‘It’s a human characteristic, unless people have been corrupted by wretched living conditions in overcrowded cities. The islanders who work in the tourist resorts can sometimes be less than friendly, but most of the country people will try to be helpful.’ He had been watching the road as he spoke, but now, with a clear stretch ahead, he gave her a quizzical glance. ‘In any part of the world a girl with your looks doesn’t usually have any trouble drumming up help when she needs it.’

She didn’t know how to handle this. Compliments had come her way, but not often, and never from a man like Nicolas whose own looks were so compelling.

To her relief, he went on. ‘When you’re my size you sometimes feel like Gulliver in Lilliput...a giant in a world of mini people. My father was tall and my mother is tall for a Spanish woman. By the time I was fifteen, I was taller than everyone at Ca’n Llorenc. Teenagers are always self-conscious. For a few years I felt like a freak.’

‘Oh... so did I,’ she agreed, with deep feeling. ‘It’s all right for a boy to be tall, but for a girl it’s a pain. I used to hunch my shoulders, trying to look a bit shorter. But then I would be told off for bad deportment.’

‘Where did you go to school?’

She told him the name of her boarding school, wondering if he knew it was famous for academic excellence and the alma mater of many of Britain’s most brilliant female minds. She had been one of its failures.

‘Were you educated here?’ she asked.

‘No, I went to my father’s school in England.’ He brought the vehicle to a halt, giving way to a large flock of sheep coming in the opposite direction.

As they streamed by on both sides of the Range Rover Nicolas leaned out of the window and called a greeting to the shepherd. When only the back of his head and a quarter of his face could be seen, he looked very foreign. No Englishman ever had hair as black and springy as the thick, lustrous mass tied back at his nape, like the locks of an off-duty rock musician. All she could see of his face was the slanting line of his cheekbone, the forceful thrust of his jaw and his long neck.

It was impossible, now, to imagine him as a lanky adolescent, as unsure of himself as she had been at that age—and to some extent still was. Not with the people she worked with, but with her family and all their high-powered friends.

When the flock had gone past, bleating, Nicolas drove on until they reached a sandy by-way flanked by trees she recognised, from a family holiday in southern France, as olives.

They had travelled at least a mile along this meandering track when a small house came into view. It looked a ramshackle place, as did the various outbuildings. There was no garden around it, only olive trees and bare earth where some hens were scratching.

‘It looks closed up,’ said Cressy as they approached it on foot.

‘The shutters being closed doesn’t mean no one’s at home. The Spanish believe in keeping the sunshine out. The rooms stay cooler that way. But I would expect the door to be ajar, and it isn’t,’ said Nicolas.

A bell, which looked like a goat’s bell, was suspended beside the door. He pulled the string. When no one answered and no sound came from inside, he tried the handle. The door was locked.

‘It seems you were right. It is closed up. But someone’s keeping an eye on the place.’

‘How do you know?’

‘That goat has been milked today.’ He pointed towards a nanny goat standing tethered under a tree, chewing and staring at them with indifferent yellow eyes.

A moment later they heard a distant voice calling something Cressy couldn’t make out.

‘Someone’s coming,’ said Nicolas. ‘They must have seen us arriving from somewhere higher up the hill. This terrain might seem deserted but there’s always someone about. No one comes or goes without being noticed.’

They did not have long to wait before a small portly woman came hurrying round the side of the house. At the sight of Nicolas she broke into a torrent of Mallorquín, at the same time producing a large old-fashioned iron key from the pocket of the pinafore she was wearing over her dress.

When she finally paused for breath, Nicolas said, ‘This is Senora Guillot, who telephoned the bad news. I’ll explain to her who you are.’

When he had done this, the Spanish woman smiled and offered Cressy her hand. But, having observed the niceties, she turned back to him, clearly expressing concern.

‘She thinks, as I did at first, that you’re far too young to deal with the situation. She says Miss Dexter is an obstinate woman who needs someone more authoritative to take control,’ said Nicolas.

‘Please tell her I have a lot of experience in dealing with old and sick people,’ Cressy said firmly. ‘When exactly did the accident happen? Could she tell us as much as she knows? Perhaps while you’re talking I could take a look inside.’ She indicated the key and then touched her chest and pointed at the house.

Instead of handing it over, the Spanish woman mimed that the lock wasn’t easy to open. It took several attempts, accompanied by muttered imprecations, before she got it to work and stepped inside.

Cressy had already noticed that the electricity poles along the side of the minor road didn’t branch off up this lane. If there was no electricity there wouldn’t be mains, drainage or any other modern amenities.

As she followed the Señora inside she noticed that the place had the musty odour of neglect. Even before one pair of shutters was thrown open, the sun coming in through the door showed it was a long time since the floor had been swept. More light revealed more disorder: a wind-blown film of powdered earth lying thickly on all horizontal surfaces and clutter everywhere. Dusty cobwebs, made by long-dead spiders, draped the rafters supporting the upper floor, which was reached by an unrailed staircase in a corner of the living room.