The Shell Seekers Read online

  “What a place” was all she could find to say.

  “Come indoors and I’ll show you around.”

  It was a confusion of a house. Random stairways led up and down, and no two rooms seemed to be on the same level. Once it had been a farmhouse, and upstairs still were living room and kitchen, while the rooms on the ground floor, which once had been byre and stable and sty, were the bedrooms.

  Inside, it was austere and cool, whitewashed throughout and furnished in the simplest of styles. A few coloured rugs on the rough wooden floors, locally made furniture, cane-seated chairs, scrubbed wooden tables. Only in the sitting room were there curtains, elsewhere the deeply embrasured windows had to make do with shutters.

  But as well there were delights. Deep-cushioned sofas and chairs, draped in colourful cotton blankets; jugs of flowers; rough baskets by the open fireplace, filled with logs. In the kitchen, copper saucepans hung from a beam, and there was the smell of spices and herbs. And everywhere were evidences of the obviously cultured man who had occupied this place for twenty-five years. Hundreds of books, not just on shelves, but spilling over onto tables, window-ledges, and the cupboard beside his bed. And there were good pictures and many photographs, and racks of long-playing records neatly stacked by the record player.

  At last, the tour of inspection finished, he led the way through a low door and down yet another flight of stairs, and so out again, by way of a red-tiled lobby, and onto the terrace.

  She stood, with her back to the view, and gazed up at the face of the house. She said, “It’s more perfect than I could have imagined.”

  “Go and sit down and look at the view and I’ll bring you a glass of wine.”

  There were a table and some basket chairs set about on the flags, but Olivia did not want to sit. Instead, she went to lean against the whitewashed wall, where earthenware tubs spilled lemon-scented ivy-leaved geraniums, and an army of ants, endlessly occupied, marched to and fro in well-regulated troops. The quiet was immeasurable. Listening, she caught the tiny muted sounds that were part of this quiet. A distant cowbell. The soft cackling murmur of contented hens, hidden away somewhere in the garden but clearly audible. The stirring of the breeze.

  A whole new world. They had driven only a few kilometers, but she could have been a thousand miles from the hotel, her friends, the cocktails, the crowded swimming pool, the bustling streets and shops of the town, the bright lights and the blaring discos. Farther away still were London, Venus, her flat, her job—fading into unreality; forgotten dreams of a life that had never been real. Like a vessel that has been empty for too long, she felt herself filled with peace. I could stay here. A small voice, a hand tugging at her sleeve. This is a place where I could stay.

  She heard him behind her, descending the stone stairway, the heels of his loose sandals slapping against the treads. She turned and watched him emerge through the dark aperture of the door (he was so tall that he automatically ducked his head). He was carrying a bottle of wine and two tumblers, and the sun was high and his shadow was very black. He set down the glasses and the frosty, beaded bottle and reached into the pocket of his jeans and produced a cigar, which he lit with a match.

  When this was going, she said, “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “Only these. Every now and again. I used to be a fifty-a-day man, but I finally kicked the habit. Today, however, seems to be a suitable occasion for self-indulgence.” He had already uncorked the bottle and now poured the wine into the tumblers; he picked one up and handed it to Olivia. It was icily cold.

  “What shall we drink to?” he asked her.

  “Your house, whatever it’s called.”

  “Ca’n D’alt.”

  “To Ca’n D’alt, then. And its owner.”

  They drank. He said, “I watched you from the kitchen window. You were so very still. I wondered what you were thinking.”

  “Just that … up here … reality fades.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “I think so. I’m…” She hesitated, searching for the right words, because all at once it became enormously important to use exactly the right words. “I’m not a domesticated creature. I’m thirty-three, the Features Editor of a magazine called Venus. It’s taken me a long time to get there. I’ve worked for my living and my independence ever since I left Oxford, but I’m not telling you this because I want you to be sorry for me. I’ve never wanted anything else. Never wanted to be married or have children. Not that sort of permanence.”

  “So?”

  “It’s just that … this is the sort of place where I think I could stay. I wouldn’t feel trapped or rooted here. I don’t know why.” She smiled at him. “I don’t know why.”

  “Then stay,” he said.

  “For today? For tonight?”

  “No. Just stay.”

  “My mother always told me never to accept an open-ended invitation. There must always be a date of arrival, she said, and a date of departure.”

  “She was quite right. Let’s say the date of arrival is today and the date of departure you can decide for yourself.”

  She gazed at him, assessing motives, implications. Finally, “You’re asking me to move in with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about my job? It’s a good job, Cosmo. Well paid and responsible. It’s taken me all my life to get as far as I have.”

  “In that case, it’s time you took a sabbatical. No man, or woman, for that matter, can work forever.”

  A sabbatical. A year. Twelve months could be called a sabbatical. Longer was running away.

  “I have a house as well. And a car.”

  “Lend them to your best friend.”

  “And my family?”

  “You can invite them out here to stay with you.”

  Her family, here. She imagined Nancy broiling by the swimming pool while George sat indoors, wearing a hat for fear of getting sunburnt. She imagined Noel taking himself off to prowl the topless beaches and returning for dinner with the spoils of the day, probably some blonde and nubile girl speaking no known language. She imagined her mother … but that was different, not ridiculous at all. This was exactly her mother’s environment; this enchanting, meandering house, this tangled garden. The almond groves, the sun-baked terrace, even the bantams—especially the bantams—would fill her with delight. It occurred to Olivia that perhaps, in some obscure way, this was why she, instantly, had taken such a liking to Ca’n D’alt and felt so at ease and totally at home.

  She said, “I am not the only one with a family. You too have commitments to be considered.”

  “Only Antonia.”

  “Isn’t that enough? You wouldn’t want to upset her.”

  He scratched the back of his neck and looked, for an instant, slightly embarrassed. He said, “Perhaps this isn’t exactly the right moment to mention it, but there have been other ladies.”

  Olivia laughed at his discomfiture. “And Antonia didn’t mind?”

  “She understood. She’s philosophical. She made friends. She’s very self-contained.”

  A silence fell between them. He seemed to be waiting for her reply. Olivia looked down into her glass of wine. “It’s a big decision, Cosmo,” she said at last.

  “I know. You must think about it. How would it be if we got ourselves something to eat and talked the matter over?”

  Which they did, returning to the house where he said that he would make pasta, with a mushroom-and-ham sauce, and as he was obviously a much better cook than she, Olivia took herself off and back into the garden. She found her way to his vegetable patch, picked a lettuce and some tomatoes, and discovered, deep in shady leaves, a cluster of baby courgettes. These spoils she bore back to the kitchen, where she stood at the sink and made a simple salad. They ate their meal at the kitchen table, and afterwards Cosmo said it was time for a siesta, so they went to bed together and it was even better than it had been the time before.

  And at four o’clock, when the heat of the da
y had eased a little, they went down to the pool and swam, naked, and then lay in the sun to dry.

  He talked. He was fifty-five. He had been called up the day he left school, and had been on Active Service for most of the war. He found that he enjoyed the life, and so, when the war was over and he could think of nothing else that he wanted to do, he signed on as an officer in the Regular Army. When he was thirty, his grandfather died and left him a little money. Financially independent for the first time in his life, he resigned his commission, and without ties or responsibilities of any sort, set out to see the world. He travelled as far as Ibiza, unspoiled in those days and still amazingly cheap, fell in love with the island, decided that this was where he would put down his roots, and travelled no farther.

  “What about your wife?” Olivia asked.

  “What about her?”

  “When did she happen?”

  “My father died, and I went home for his funeral. I stayed for a bit, helping my mother to sort out his affairs. I was forty-one by then, not a young man any longer. I met Jane at a party in London. She was just about your age. She ran a flower shop. I was lonely—I don’t know why. Perhaps it was something to do with losing my father. I’d never felt lonely in my life before, but I did then, and for some reason, I didn’t want to come back here by myself. She was very sweet, and very ready to get married, and she thought Ibiza sounded madly romantic. That was my biggest mistake. I should have brought her out here first, rather like taking your girl-friend to meet your family. But I didn’t. We were married in London, and the first time she set eyes on this place it was as my wife.”

  “Was she happy here?”

  “For a bit. But she missed London. She missed her friends and the theatre and concerts at the Albert Hall and shopping and meeting people and going away for weekends. She got bored.”

  “What about Antonia?”

  “Antonia was born out here. A proper little Ibecenco. I thought having a baby would calm her mother down a bit, but it only seemed to make matters worse. So we agreed, quite amicably, to part. There wasn’t any acrimony, but then there wasn’t anything much to be acrimonious about. She took Antonia with her and kept her until she was eight, and then, once she’d started proper school, she started coming out here, in the summer and at Easter time, to spend her holidays with me.”

  “Didn’t you find that something of a tie?”

  “No. She was no trouble at all. There’s a nice couple, Tomeu and Maria, who have a little farm down the lane. Tomeu helps me in the garden and Maria comes in to clean the house and keep an eye on my daughter. They’re all the best of friends. Antonia’s bilingual as a result of this.”

  Now, it was much cooler. Olivia sat up and reached for her shirt, put her arms into the sleeves and did up the buttons. Cosmo also stirred, announcing that all this conversation had made him thirsty and he needed something to drink. Olivia said that she felt like a nice cup of tea. Cosmo told her that she didn’t look like one, but he got to his feet and ambled off, disappearing up through the garden towards the house in order to put the kettle on. Olivia stayed by the pool, revelling in being alone, because she knew that in a little while he would be back. The water of the swimming pool was motionless. At the far end of this stood a statue of a boy playing a pipe, his image reflected in the water as though in a mirror.

  A sea-gull flew overhead. She tipped back her head to watch its graceful passage, wings painted pink by the light of the setting sun, and she knew, in that instant, that she would stay with Cosmo. She would give herself, like some wonderful gift, a single year.

  * * *

  Burning your boats, Olivia discovered, was more traumatic than it sounded. There was much to do. First they made the journey back to the hotel, Los Pinos, to pack up her belongings, pay the bill, and check out. They did all this in the most clandestine fashion, terrified of being spotted, and instead of seeking out her friends and explaining the situation, Olivia took the coward’s way and left an inadequate letter at the reception desk.

  Then there were cables to be sent, letters to be written, telephone calls made to England on crackling incoherent lines. When all was accomplished, she thought that she would feel elated and free, but instead found herself trembling with panic and sick with fatigue. She was sick. She kept this fact from Cosmo, but when later he found her prone on the sofa weeping tears of exhaustion that she could not stop, all was revealed.

  He was very understanding. He put her to bed in Antonia’s little room where she could be alone and quiet, and left her to sleep for three nights and two days. She only stirred to drink the hot milk he brought her, and to eat a slice of bread and butter or a piece of fruit.

  On the third morning, she awoke and knew it was over. She was recovered, refreshed, filled with a wonderful sense of well-being and vitality. She stretched, got out of bed and opened the shutters to the early morning, pearly and sweet, and smelt the dew damp earth and heard the crowing cocks. She put on her robe and went upstairs to the kitchen. She boiled a kettle and made a pot of tea. With the teapot and two cups on a tray, she went through the kitchen and down the other flight of stairs to Cosmo’s room.

  It was still shuttered and dark, but he was awake.

  As she came through the door, he said, “Well, hello.”

  “Good morning. I’ve brought you early-morning tea.” She set down the tray beside him and went to fling wide the shutters. Slanted rays of early sun filled the room with light. Cosmo stretched out an arm for his watch.

  “Half past seven. You’re an early bird.”

  “I came to tell you that I am better.” She sat on his bed. “And to say I’m sorry that I’ve been so feeble, and to say thank you for being so understanding and kind.”

  “How are you going to thank me?” He asked her.

  “Well, one way had occurred to me, but perhaps it’s too early in the morning.”

  Cosmo smiled and shunted himself sideways to make space for her.

  “Never too early,” he said.

  Afterwards, “You are very accomplished,” he told her.

  She lay, content in the curve of his arm. “Like you, Cosmo, I have had some experience.”

  “Tell me, Miss Keeling,” he said, in the voice of someone doing a bad imitation of Noel Coward, “when did you first lose your virginity? I know our listeners would love to be told.”

  “My first year at University.”

  “What college?”

  “Is it relevant?”

  “It could be.”

  “Lady Margaret Hall.”

  He kissed her. He said, “I love you,” and he didn’t sound like Noel Coward any longer.

  The days slipped by, cloudless, hot, long and idle, filled with only the most aimless of occupations. Swimming, sleeping, strolling down to the garden to feed the bantams or collect the eggs, or to do a little harmless weeding. She met Tomeu and Maria, who appeared quite unruffled by her arrival and greeted her each morning with broad smiles and much handshaking. And she learned a little kitchen Spanish and watched Maria make her massive paellas. Clothes ceased to matter. She spent her days with no make-up, slopping around, barefoot, in old jeans or a bikini. Sometimes they ambled up to the village with a basket to do a little shopping, but by tacit agreement they did not go near the town or the coast.

  With time to consider her life, she realized that this was the first time she had not been working, striving, hauling her way up the ladder of her chosen profession. From the earliest age, her ambition had been to be, quite simply, the best. Top of her class, top in the list of examination results. Studying for scholarships, for O levels, for A levels, revising into the small hours in order to achieve the sort of grades that would ensure her a place at University. And then Oxford, with the whole process starting all over again, a gradual buildup to the final nerve-racking peak of Finals. With First Class Honours in English and History, she could reasonably have taken a bit of time off, but her built-in driving force was too strong; she was terrified of losing m
omentum, of missing chances, and went straight to work. That was eleven years ago, and she had never let up.

  All over. Now, there were no regrets. She was suddenly wise, realizing that this meeting with Cosmo, this dropping out, had happened just in time. Like a person with a psychosomatic illness, she had found the cure before diagnosing the complaint. She was deeply grateful. Her hair shone, her dark eyes, thick-lashed, were lustrous with contentment, and even the bones of her face seemed to lose their stressful angles and become rounded and smooth. Tall, rake-thin, tanned brown as a chestnut, she looked in the mirror and saw herself, for the first time ever, as truly beautiful.

  * * *

  One day, she was alone. Cosmo had gone down to the town to collect the papers and his mail and to check up on his boat. Olivia lay on the terrace and watched two small, unknown birds flirting together in the branches of an olive tree.

  As she idly observed their capers, she became aware of a strange sense of vacuum. Analysing this, pinning it down, she discovered that she was bored. Not bored with Ca’n D’alt, nor with Cosmo, but bored with herself and her own emptied mind, standing bare and cheerless as an empty room. She considered this new set of circumstances at some length, and then got up out of the chair and went indoors to find something to read.

  When Cosmo returned she was so deep in her book that she did not even hear him, and was quite startled when he suddenly appeared beside her. “I’m hot and thirsty,” he was telling her, but then stopped short to stare. “Olivia, I didn’t know you wore spectacles.”

  She laid down the book. “Only for reading and working and having business lunches with hard-headed men I’m trying to impress. Otherwise I wear contact lenses.”

  “I never guessed.”

  “Do you mind them? Are they going to change our relationship?”

  “Not at all. They make you look enormously intelligent.”