to see? He would come and see the painting and reply, This is extraordinary, you are extraordinary. How did I not see? And then they would kiss, him taking her face in his hands, bending down to brush his lips on hers, full of astonishment at how good she was. She so desperately wanted him to see how good she was.
But Isaac did not notice her fingers, and so Olive turned instead to the anomalous polar bear in her mind’s eye, a piece of the Arctic, a grotesquery in the Spanish heat, the barbarity and expense of it, the chill in the heart of the home. ‘Why did you tell me about that priest?’ she asked, trying to assert herself. ‘Were you trying to frighten me?’
‘No. I want you to see what’s happening here. So when you go home, you will tell other people.’
‘I’m not going home, Isaac.’
She waited for him to express his pleasure, but he did not. ‘Isaac, you do know I’m not like my parents, don’t you?’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’re frightened of things. I’m not.’
Olive wanted to communicate that whatever Isaac thought they were, she was the opposite. She didn’t see things in black and white, like they did. She was nothing like them at all. It felt very important that he should know this.
‘There’s a gypsy camp, out in the hills,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘They lost one of their boys. Not lost,’ he corrected himself. ‘They didn’t lose him. He was beaten by a gang of men. He was twelve. He died.’
‘How awful.’
Isaac put down the axe and walked towards a slope at the end of the orchard. ‘Ven aquí,’ he said. Come here. Together, they surveyed the land before them. A couple of far-off buzzards wheeled in the sky in search of prey along the ground. The skies were so large, the mountains beyond so solid; it seemed the only violence possible here was the violence of the natural world.
‘It’ll be all right,’ Olive whispered. She imagined slipping her hand into his, the two of them, standing here for ever.
His face was hard. ‘The people hold this soil in their blood. That is why the landlords fear them.’ He paused. ‘I worry for my sister.’
Olive was surprised by this. ‘Teresa? She’ll be fine.’
At the beginning, Teresa had come every other day to clean and cook. Now she was coming daily. The house still had its dark corners, and its sense of absent occupancy, but it had benefited from her quiet and watchful presence. She never said much, just going about her business through the rooms, taking the weekly envelope of pesetas from Harold with a nod.
‘Teresa is not married,’ said Isaac. ‘She is not rich. She is nothing that fits.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s the daughter of a gypsy—’
‘A gypsy? How romantic.’
He raised his eyebrow. ‘And the sister of a socialist. I do not know which is worse for her.’
‘Why?’
‘The police, the mayor, the caciques. My own father. They do not like me. I’ve been in fights. And she is too close—’
‘Isaac, don’t worry,’ Olive said, attempting a tone of mature assurance. ‘We’ll look after her.’
Isaac laughed. ‘Until you leave.’
‘I told you. I’m never going to leave.’
‘What do you want from this life, señorita?’
‘I – I don’t know exactly. I know I’d like to stay here.’
Isaac looked as if he was going to say something, and her whole body willed him to say how glad he was to hear this – but he was interrupted by the sound of crunching leaves. Teresa appeared at the bottom of the slope, her satchel strapped across her body, a flat expression in her eyes. ‘La señora te necesita,’ she said to Isaac.
‘Why?’ said Olive. ‘Why does my mother want him?’
Teresa and her brother stared at each other, until eventually Isaac capitulated, sighing as he moved back down the slope, not saying another word.
As Isaac moved through the trees, Teresa imagined for a moment that she and Olive were hunters together, watching their prey before deciding to let it go, preferring instead to stand side by side in the cold air. It was not the thrill of the kill they wanted, but simply the companionship that came from sharing a mutual target.
Isaac was fond of saying that Teresa was the kind of girl who’d sell her grandmother if she had to, not that she’d ever had a grandmother to sell. The worst thing was, Teresa sometimes did feel a sort of icy indifference