Jessie Burton - The Muse

‘No.’

‘If I had half your skill, I wouldn’t care who loved me.’

She gave a dry laugh. ‘That’s what I thought too. But I’d rather be happy.’

‘Being allowed to paint is what makes you happy. I know that about you at least.’ She smiled. ‘I like you, Olive,’ Isaac went on. ‘You are a very special girl. But you are so young to be thinking of for ever.’

Olive swallowed again, tears pricking at her eyes. ‘I’m not young. You and me — why can’t this be for ever?’

He waved his arm towards the darkness. ‘War or no war, you were never going to stay here.’

‘You don’t see , do you?’

‘What don’t I see?’

‘That I love you.’

‘You love an idea of me.’

‘It’s the same thing.’

They were silent. ‘I have been useful to you,’ he said. ‘That is all.’

‘What is it, Isa? What’s changed?’

He closed his eyes and shivered. ‘Nothing’s changed. It’s always been the same.’

She pounded the veranda rail with her fist. ‘You should want to be with me. You should—’

A muffled explosion from beyond the valley silenced them both. ‘What the hell was that?’ said Isaac, scanning the horizon.

‘Teresa said they’ve started to bomb bridges again. Is it true your father is helping them?’

Isaac’s eyes were so dark with anger, she moved back. ‘I need to go to Malaga,’ he said.

‘At midnight? What use will you be now?’

‘More useful than standing here.’

‘So that’s it, is it? Us?’

‘Our ideas of what this is have always been different. You know that.’

‘What am I supposed to do with that painting?’

‘Give it to your father. I must deal with my own.’

‘What do you mean? I won’t give up on this—’

‘You’re mixing things up, Olive. You’re frustrated you cannot paint—’

She grabbed his arms. ‘I need you. I can’t paint without you.’

‘You painted before me.’

‘Isaac, don’t leave me — please.’

‘Goodbye, Olive.’

‘No!’

Isaac stepped down from the veranda and walked towards the orchard. He turned back to the house, his face half-illuminated by the moon. Behind her, Olive felt a presence at the kitchen door.

‘Where’s he going?’ Sarah said.

‘ Suerte ,’ Isaac called over his shoulder, before slipping between the trees.

‘What does that mean?’ asked Sarah.

Olive could feel her tears coming, but she refused to let her mother see her cry. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Olive, tell me what he said.’

Olive turned to Sarah, struck by the expression of worry on her face. ‘All it means, Mother,’ she said, ‘is good luck.’

A few hours after Isaac slipped away from the Schloss women and into the darkness, Don Alfonso’s finca was attacked with fire and a second salvo was launched upon the church of Santa Rufina in the centre of Arazuelo. Later, people whispered that yes, they’d seen a disrobed Padre Lorenzo, running away from the flames into the village square, with a naked woman fast on his heels. Some said there hadn’t been a woman at all, just the priest in a white smock, the bump of his private part visible under the cotton. Others swore on the Holy Bible there’d been a woman — a vision of Rufina herself, running from the godlessness behind her before she took flight into the air.

The only truth Arazuelo could attest to was that by dawn, the church was a shell and Don Alfonso’s estate a blackened skeleton. Wood smoke hung over the air, smarting the eyes of those trying to go about their business, until the whole village fell into an uneasy stupor, knowing full well that retaliation for something like this would eventually come.

When Teresa came running through the grey dawn light, bashing on the front door of the finca, Olive knew something was very wrong.

‘Isaac has done something stupid—’

‘What’s he done? Where is he?’

Teresa looked stricken. ‘I don’t know. The church is gone.’

‘Gone — what do you mean, gone?’

‘Fire. And my father’s house also.’

‘Dear God, Teresa. Come inside.’

Around two hours later, Don Alfonso appeared, his once-pristine suit now smeared with charcoal. He too banged on the finca door, and upstairs with Olive, Teresa cowered. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ Olive whispered.

Teresa gripped her wrist. ‘No, señorita. You do not understand.’

Harold let Don Alfonso in, and the man moved angrily through the hallway into the front east room. Olive crept down the stairs to peer through the crack in the door.

‘You have heard what happened?’ Don Alfonso said.

‘I have.’

‘News travels fast. It is an outrage. I could have been dead. My wife, my children — it is only because my daughter Clara is an insomniac that any of us are still here. Three of my stable grooms, an under-butler and a pot-washing boy had a part in it. I’ve found these men, Señor Schloss, and they are all in the jail, waiting their punishment. And do you know what they tell me? They tell me that Isaac Robles paid them for their help. Where did Isaac get the money to pay those men? It was certainly not from me. I cannot get the answers, because I cannot find my bastard son. Do you know where he is, señor?’

‘No.’

‘And yet you know my finca was set on fire.’

‘Is he not at his cottage?’

‘I sent Jorge and Gregorio there. All they found was this .’ Don Alfonso held aloft an old copy of Vogue . ‘Your wife’s, I assume?’

A look of surprise passed over Harold’s face, but he adjusted quickly back to an impression of calm. ‘She gives them to Teresa.’

‘My son set loose thirty of my thoroughbred horses, señor. He torched my stables. He burned down Lorenzo’s church.’

‘Sit down, Don Alfonso, please. These are severe accusations.’

‘His own friends have turned him in. He is a devil, señor.’

‘I beg to differ,’ said Harold, clearly irritated now. ‘Don Alfonso, your son does not have time for these games. Your son is a gifted man.’

It was Don Alfonso’s turn to look surprised. ‘Gifted?’

‘Have you never seen his work?’

‘What?’

Before Harold could explain further, Olive pushed into the room. Both men jumped and turned to her. ‘Go upstairs,’ said Harold in a tight voice.

‘No.’

Behind Olive, Sarah appeared. ‘What’s going on?’ she said. Her eye rested on the figure of Don Alfonso, and the colour drained from her face. ‘Is he dead?’ she whispered. ‘Is Mr Robles dead?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sarah,’ said Harold, unable to mask the stress in his voice.

Don Alfonso inclined his head towards Sarah in a curt bow. ‘Is Teresa here?’ he asked her.

‘Upstairs,’ replied Sarah.

‘ Mother ,’ said Olive. ‘No.’

‘Please bring her to me,’ said Alfonso.

‘No,’ said Olive. ‘You can’t have her.’

‘Liv, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Harold. ‘Be civilized.’

‘ Civilized ?’

‘Go and fetch Teresa.’

Olive went upstairs, but Teresa was nowhere to be seen. Olive waited, buying time, pretending to look for her, praying that Teresa had got herself somewhere safe. She moved back down with determined steps and returned to the front east room. Don Alfonso narrowed his eyes when he saw she was alone. ‘Are you hiding her, señorita?’ he said. ‘I know you think you are her friend.’

‘I’m not hiding anyone.’

He turned to Olive’s parents. ‘It won’t be good for you, hiding them. Isaac is wanted for theft, arson, criminal damage, attempted murder—’