CHAPTER FIVE

The Housekeeper

 

 

WE MOVED IN on the first day of September. I don’t know how to describe those days – even now I only have blurred impressions.

Over and above everything else, there was the light, a wide, high pathway to the heavens. The landscape was a great rock tray tilted to the sun at the kind of angle you’d leave a drying rack. When I first arrived the ground was parched and cracked everywhere except in the garden, which was still watered by the spring that surfaced in a low stone well at the end of the property.

The lawn was an emerald Eden that looked Pixar-fake until I discovered that the spring meandered back and forth beneath it, keeping it lush and fertile. The voluptuous colours were misleading – a lattice of soft orange flowers was interrupted by translucent petals as delicate as dragonfly wings, trailing into the shadows of the cliff’s spine, but the plants beneath were sharp and hardy, armed with twin thorns that dug deep into my flesh when I later tried to tear them out. In the early days Bobbie and I would sit out there listening to the drone of insects and fall into a fugue state, a dream within the dream of life.

I soon stopped thinking of Hyperion House as an architectural absurdity. It had been decorated in an urban style because it was wide and flat and had three floors. A low traditional farmhouse would have looked ridiculous cut into the cliff. The building intrigued me. There was something about it that was just beyond the edge of my understanding, something that didn’t conform to the usual rules of architecture.

Although our voices were always shockingly loud in the house, it was never truly quiet. There were always birds chirruping outside, clocks ticking inside. The only time it ever went silent was just before something bad happened. I got to recognise that silence later, and dreaded it.

On that first day, as we walked from the great iron gates, we disturbed a cloud of saffron butterflies. I stopped to watch them dissipate, entranced. There was a green parrot shrieking in the trees. This wasn’t my life; it was a nature film.

‘The rest of your stuff should be here on Wednesday morning,’ Mateo said, sorting through the keys, ‘and Bobbie won’t arrive until next week, so you’ll have a little while to orient yourself.’ For a fleeting moment I felt less like a new wife than an employee, being given time to settle in before starting my duties. It was a big house. I wondered just how much time it would take to look after it properly.

‘I suppose I should carry you over the threshold,’ he added, taking my hand, but I could see his heart wasn’t in it and anyway, I had already protested the idea. ‘Maybe not,’ he agreed, ‘but Senora Delgadillo might be disappointed. I think she already has an image in her head.’

‘What sort of image?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, the young English bride, very pale skin, diamonds and a veil, something out of the magazines she reads. Not –’ he looked over and indicated my baggy T-shirt, my tan, my faded jeans and scuffed sneakers. ‘Not you.’

‘I could whip into a twinset and pearls if you prefer,’ I said, not without sarcasm. ‘I don’t want her to get the idea that I’m something I’m not. I want to be able to say “fuck” in my own house.’

‘You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t swear a lot,’ he agreed, stopping in front of the house. The front door was surrounded by purple bougainvillea and scarlet hibiscus. ‘Although I’d rather you didn’t in front of Bobbie. I’d like to make a rule about that.’

It was the first of the new rules in my life. ‘I just have to get used to the quiet,’ I said again. ‘I could always hear police sirens in Vauxhall.’

‘You won’t find any police around here. Senora Delgadillo says there are two in Gaucia, but they won’t drive out this far because they don’t like to waste the gas.’ In the weeks before the sale was completed, Mateo had been able to come up to the house several times while I was back in London, getting ready for the move. He already had a head-start on the village gossip.

‘There are some locals around who keep an eye on things – I’m sure you’ll soon get to meet them. They’ll probably seem very private at first, but they’ll come to love you. How couldn’t they?’ He placed his right hand flat on the front door and pushed. ‘Shall we?’

It didn’t smell like any old house I’d been in; no lavender polish, damp floorboards or cooking cabbage. Instead there was the scent of orange blossom, sun-hot wood and lemons. I stood at the threshold and breathed in the warm, fragrant air.

In the hall of midnight blue Castilian tiles, sunlight bounced off every surface. All around me, motes and midges glowed golden in the angled geometries of four great stained-glass windows. It seemed as if brightness was filtering in from everywhere; it flowed in pools across the floors and cast chromatic diagonals on the walls, so that they appeared to be lit from within. Windows are important clues to the purpose of a building. They provide personal vistas. These vast panes of glass were meant to raise serotonin levels, pure and simple.

On closer inspection, I saw that the bordering tiles were scattered with representations of stars. The sun and the moon were wrought in glass at opposite ends of the hall. Other representations of the heavens featured in the smaller panels and friezes, lunar symbols in shades of sapphire, solar signs in amber and citron, a cathedral of constellations, and all this in a hallway. It was like a church, designed to instil respect, wellbeing and a sense of calm.

‘My God,’ I said, turning about, ‘how could I have forgotten the light? Look at it!’

‘No wonder the old owner valued his privacy,’ said Mateo. ‘If this house ever got on the tourist trail…’

The astronomical theme continued into the rooms. With so much sky on display at every window, it was hardly surprising that the planets had been selected as part of Hyperion’s design.

I walked further into the largest of the front rooms. Around the central table, half a dozen crystal bowls were transformed into rainbow prisms, and the carpets and tapestries appeared sewn with gold thread.

‘It is especially good in spring and autumn, when the sun is lower,’ said a woman’s voice.

Even though her hair was leached of colour and worn in a tight chignon, there was something ageless about Rosita Delgadillo. She had the scrubbed look of someone in a Vermeer painting. Long-necked and small-featured, her skull-like face was free of lines or expression. Her white apron held starched creases and covered a black high-necked dress that must have been hot to wear every day. She wiped flour from her right hand and held it out. ‘Welcome to Hyperion House.’

‘Senora Delgadillo has been with the property a long time,’ said Mateo, his eyes full of meaning. ‘She’s seen many owners come and go.’

‘You make me sound so old,’ admonished the housekeeper. She was not predisposed to smiling, but seemed tentatively friendly. ‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘I’m sure we’re going to be great friends,’ I said uncertainly. ‘You speak English beautifully.’

‘My husband was from your country, God rest him. Perhaps you would like to tidy yourself before dinner. You will find your suite prepared at the top of the stairs.’ The interview was over. She turned and was gone a moment later. Mateo made a face.

‘Apparently Rosita has a very precise list of the things she does, and the times when she does them,’ he explained softly. ‘She’s already made it clear to me that she prefers not make friends with the owners. She says she’d rather consider herself a servant. I think she preferred life under Franco. She doesn’t carry bags or do any heavy lifting. She’s waiting for a hip replacement.’

‘Does she cook?’

‘Yup – and she says she’ll teach you.’

‘Oh God, I can see we’re going to be gutting fish together,’ I said, only half joking. ‘Leave the cases. I want us to see everything.’

Mateo grinned. ‘I went through the inventory and studied the surveyor’s report, wasn’t that enough?’

I playfully grabbed his hand and led the way. ‘No, I want you to show me around properly this time. Come on.’ Even the staircase and landings were bathed in brightly filtered light.

‘Have you even counted how many rooms there are?’ Mateo peered into the main drawing room.

‘I made it twenty-two, not including the servants’ quarters.’ I pushed the first door wider. ‘We don’t have to live in all of them.’

‘I seem to remember the ground floor has two drawing rooms,’ Mateo said.

‘The house was designed with distinct male and female areas, for the sake of propriety. The gentlemen’s quarters are larger and a bit more sombre. There was probably a billiard table there once.’

‘Hmm – maybe we should re-install it. I can see myself breaking out the cigars over a game.’

‘Don’t get any ideas about going back to pre-emancipation days.’ I followed him into a vast, dazzling room dominated by its window. ‘The view’s the same from almost everywhere in the house,’ I said. ‘The light gets right in, all the way to the back. Sometimes it’s reflected back by the mantelpiece mirrors. It’s very cleverly constructed.’

I walked to the glass and looked down. My view was framed by two amber mountains, one topped with an honest-to-God ruined fort. Between them were miles of green fields, and in the distance beyond those lay a cobalt ribbon of sea that separated Spain from the coast of Africa, with the tilted rock of Gibraltar visible through the haze.

‘That’s Tangiers on the far shore,’ Mateo pointed out. ‘At night it’s so brightly illuminated that sometimes it blots out the stars. What do you think?’

I struggled to find the words. ‘It feels – connected to the world,’ I said finally. ‘I don’t think I’d ever find it lonely here.’

‘Even a London girl like you?’

‘In London you’re never alone for more than a minute, even when you feel completely isolated.’

Even though there was not another human being within sight between here and the coastline, the shape of the house seemed specifically designed to draw in sunshine and bright colours, and prevent loneliness. The mountain at its back reached out arms of warm rock that embraced the building, cradling it into the landscape.

‘Okay, where to next?’

I checked the ring in my pocket. ‘That’s odd.’

‘What?’

‘The agent said there had been a mistake with the keys. She didn’t have the ones to the servants’ quarters. But they’re not on the master ring, either.’ I withdrew the set and counted them out. Numbers 15 to 18 were still missing.

We had purchased the house without seeing the small closed-off area at the back of the property. Although we had studied the floor plans together, the surveyor hadn’t managed to gain access, and neither of us had been able to visit the house again before flying back to London.

‘You can deal with this,’ he told me. ‘It will be good practice for you.’

I found Rosita emptying the oven, her face burnished to a coppery red by the flames. Above her, giant iron pans hung like instruments of torture. A lethal-looking jamon holder stood on the wooden worktop, its carving utensils still coated in shreds of dark meat.

‘Rosita, the servants’ section is sealed off and there are no keys on this ring.’

She set her trays down with a clatter. ‘Yes. I keep them.’

‘Why?’

‘I have always done so.’

‘Well, may I have them?’ I asked with some curtness.

‘The rooms never get any light, and there is no electricity, so there are rats. And the sinks – the taps never worked well. Sometimes there is standing water. It means there are – well, it is best to keep the doors shut.’

‘Then surely it’s time the rooms were aired and cleaned. When were they last used?’

Rosita had an evasive look in her eye that made me suspicious. ‘There have not been any servants here for many years,’ she said, clearly unhappy about being questioned in what she considered to be her domain.

I stood my ground. ‘Then I don’t understand what the problem is.’

‘There is no complete set of keys. I will have to find them.’

‘I’d like you to do so. I thought you were going to find a set for the surveyor.’

‘I thought I had some copies but I could not find them. The master keys were never properly labelled, and were put in different boxes.’

‘Well, I’ll need to get in there sooner or later, because I want to see what needs repairing.’

‘Nothing needs repairing,’ said Rosita firmly.

‘Senora Delgadillo, my husband and I bought the whole house, not part of it, and now we would like to see what we own.’

‘Very well,’ said Rosita finally. ‘I will speak to your husband about it.’

‘No, you can speak to me.’

Rosita sniffed in the subtlest of disapprovals, and continued with her work. I had an ominous feeling that this might turn into a battle of wills.