Maggie Gee - Where are the Snows

This was before they started building in earnest, remember, before the great towers and ‘aparthotels’. To us it was a kind of paradise.

Alex loved flowers. My darling loved flowers. In many ways she was easy to please. In the Algarve we found an extraordinary peninsula where every inch of turf was carpeted with flowers. She ran down the goat-tracks like a child, crouching to look at the little patches of brightness — some we recognised or thought we did, tiny indigo wild irises, I remember, flowers like a small deep purple sweet pea which smelled drowningly sweet and grew everywhere, white silky things she thought were dog-roses till I pointed out the leaves were wrong. And the trees were straight from Eden; pines, figs, almonds, oranges, mimosa trees so thickly balled with yellow that there was hardly any room for the shiny dark leaves…

No one was there but us and the goats. The air was scented with resin and herbs. We were Adam and Eve in God’s garden. The flowers had sprung up after heavy rains which had washed deep gullies in the green turf; we found a sheltered place for lunch, completely hidden from the path.

‘I love to see oranges and lemons growing,’ I said.

She pulled up her t-shirt, pulled up her bra, gave me her dark-nippled breasts to eat, and I sucked them out so they were shaped like lemons…

I could hear the sea in the distance, a thin goat-bell, an alarmed bird. Her hair was thick and soft in my hands. Life was intolerably delicious. We were in shade, in the red soft earth, but we felt a great heat hanging above us, a dome of blue heat drawing everything in. I came very slowly, wonderfully slowly, luxuriating in her soft damp body, holding her breasts, kissing her forehead, which always felt cool, like marble… and when the last wave of it finally faded I said ‘Thank you’ and rolled over on my back and stared straight up into the amazing blue.

We were completely alive, and completely together.

Another of her passions was sunbathing. This was before we were all afraid of the sun, before we knew about skin cancer. Sunbathing seemed like such innocent pleasure, and Alex enjoyed it even more than me, perhaps because she spent so much time being active; she loved to doze and dream in the sun.

I was her attendant, her devoted masseur. I loved to rub suncream into her skin, it was a game we loved to play together. Innumerable times on those brilliant beaches…

I remember one time in Lagos. I was creaming her arms, which had just started to go pink. ‘Lovely,’ she whispered, and ‘… more… thank you…’, sleepy whispers, she was going to sleep. I laid her on her tummy on the burning sand and spread out her limbs in an elegant X; then I stroked cream into every inch of warm skin, loving every dent, every hollow, every dimple, each sinuous muscle, each delicate bone, oh God, I held it all in my hands; she slept in the sun, entirely mine.

I shaded her with a beach umbrella and ran down to swim in the long lines of surf, maybe half a mile, three-quarters of a mile away. On the whole beach, which extended to right and left almost out of sight, there were only ourselves and two muscular boys leading horses, probably Portuguese. They had kept their shirts on, and looked at me sideways with hard black eyes as I ran past.

The water was gloriously cold, and I struck away from land on my back, the better to rejoice in the cloudless sky. I was a good swimmer. I felt strong and young — I wasn’t forty then, after all — and on the sand she was waiting for me…

Then without warning a cramp seized my calf. I kicked out in agony and it eased, but the water was suddenly too cold for comfort. I was further away from land than I’d thought and I was all at once terribly afraid for Alex, those sturdy boys with their unfriendly eyes, why hadn’t I seen what those boys might do… I struck out for the beach with big splashy strokes and I saw through the spray that they were both in the saddle and the horses had stopped beside her body, tiny black figures on the headachey white.

I ran up the beach, my legs oddly weak, uphill the distance was twice as long, the soft sand sucked at my feet and tripped me, I was shouting but the wind took the words from my lips, I stumbled onwards feeling weak and old…

They were robbing us. They had dismounted now, they had got my jacket, they were bending over her, of course I would have to die defending her… their muscular backs and greasy heads bent over her white unconscious body, short oversized calves like acrobats, what did they mean to do to her? Fifteen feet away I shouted again, and the worst thing was that they saw me coming but didn’t stop, or run away… The horses loomed against the sun. I was the intruder, absurdly out of breath, irrelevant.

They had straightened up, at least. They spoke to me rapidly in Portuguese; they didn’t seem so much guilty as reproachful. I spoke Spanish well, but no Portuguese, and the tide of speech just made me feel more impotent.

Alex woke up, turned over, sat up and stared at us, rubbing her eyes; they took in her beauty as she tried to understand. She had learned Portuguese at college. Within seconds she was smiling at them, with sleepy, dazzled, narrow eyes, she was flirting with them, these sturdy young men, she was nodding her head and they were all smiling. Her body looked terrifyingly naked, her breasts half-bare and dusted with sand, her thighs wide open, cover yourself …

They got on their horses and rode away, with a courteous nod to me.

‘What the hell was going on?’ I asked.

‘They were so sweet. They were covering me with your jacket. They say you can burn even in the shade in this kind of heat. Locals never sunbathe… handsome boys, weren’t they? Good riders.’

I don’t know why I felt like a stupid child: I couldn’t look after her, I was no good, she had stretched out her arms and smiled at them –

I was jealous, that was all, for the briefest moment.

We went back to the hotel and fucked for hours with the radio on to drown the noise and I made her come till my fear was gone, and then at last I came into her, deep inside her, on top for once, her white calves hooked up over my shoulders, her clever fingers tugging my hair, ‘So thick,’ she said, and I wasn’t old, I was marvellously young and vigorous, and I’d been holding back for such a long time that the final orgasm was blinding and deafening and after it was ended everything was quiet, as if a part of my brain was gone.

A red moon had come up outside the window, unnaturally large, low over the sea.

We had a cigarette on our balcony. I wanted to sleep; she wanted to smoke. She wanted to walk, but I was too tired.

‘I’ve got a headache,’ I said. It was an understatement; it was shattering, behind my eyes, in the bones of my temples. ‘You won’t ever leave me, will you, darling?’

‘Too much sun,’ she said.

We half-saw figures far away on the beach; when the wind turned towards us I thought I heard hooves, then we saw them clearly for a second by the rocks, two horsemen dancing in the moonlight like centaurs.

‘Beautiful,’ Alex whispered.

She was talking about our love-making. I know that is what she was talking about.

— You see how completely happy we were.

— You see how insane my jealousy was.

Everything was perfect then. I treasure my memories of life before the fall… Portugal, our Eden.

They were only holidays, though. In those days we always went home to the kids; real life was grey, and somewhere else. Until we made our great escape, until we dedicated life to each other.

The odd thing is, when I really think back, leaving home wasn’t in the least romantic. In fact it was bloody awful. Escaping was marvellous, leaving home was hell.