The Youngest Sister

‘She thinks, as I did at first, that you’re far too young to deal with the situation. She says Miss Dexter is an obstinate woman who needs someone more authoritative to take control,’ said Nicolas.

‘Please tell her I have a lot of experience in dealing with old and sick people,’ Cressy said firmly. ‘When exactly did the accident happen? Could she tell us as much as she knows? Perhaps while you’re talking I could take a look inside.’ She indicated the key and then touched her chest and pointed at the house.

Instead of handing it over, the Spanish woman mimed that the lock wasn’t easy to open. It took several attempts, accompanied by muttered imprecations, before she got it to work and stepped inside.

Cressy had already noticed that the electricity poles along the side of the minor road didn’t branch off up this lane. If there was no electricity there wouldn’t be mains, drainage or any other modern amenities.

As she followed the Señora inside she noticed that the place had the musty odour of neglect. Even before one pair of shutters was thrown open, the sun coming in through the door showed it was a long time since the floor had been swept. More light revealed more disorder: a wind-blown film of powdered earth lying thickly on all horizontal surfaces and clutter everywhere. Dusty cobwebs, made by long-dead spiders, draped the rafters supporting the upper floor, which was reached by an unrailed staircase in a corner of the living room.

While the others talked Cressy took in the signs of a solitary life which perhaps had never been orderly and now had descended into squalor. She had had to deal with it before—visiting old men and women who had either given up on the effort or become too infirm to cope.

Presently Nicolas said, ‘The accident happened early on Sunday morning. The old lady fell down the stairs, breaking her wrist and her thigh. She might have lain here till she died, but luckily the noise made by the goat, which is milked morning and evening, made Senora Guillot realise something was wrong. Equally luckily, she had a nephew visiting her who did his military service in the Cruz Roja—the Red Cross. So he knew what to do until the ambulance arrived. He was also bright enough to search for some clue to the whereabouts of Miss Dexter’s next of kin. He didn’t have far to look—there was an envelope nailed to the wall above her bed with “Instructions in the event of my death” written on it in Spanish. Inside was your family’s London telephone number.’

The señora was mounting the stairs, beckoning them to follow her.

‘What about water and sewage?’ Cressy asked over her shoulder as Nicolas followed her up. ‘Will there be a well?’

‘If not there’ll be a cisterna—an underground water store. Sewage will be dealt with by a pozo negro, a cesspool. Depending on its construction, it will either be pumped out into a tanker or will drain itself.’ After a pause, he added, ‘You can’t stay here, that’s for sure. The place is a dump.’

‘It only needs a good spring clean,’ Cressy said cheerfully. ‘I’ve dealt with a lot worse in London.’

The bedroom, when light had been admitted, revealed itself as even more chaotic than the room below. Here there were signs that when the island had rain the roof leaked. An array of old family photographs, some in tarnished silver frames, stood on top of a chest of drawers: sepia prints of people in the clothes of the Twenties and earlier stood behind black and white snaps of more recent vintage. There was one of Cressy and her family, taken about nine years ago.

But she didn’t point it out to Nicolas, partly because she had looked a mess at that age and partly in case he might recognise her mother.

Fortunately most of his attention was given to Senora Guillot, who was still chattering nineteen to the dozen.

It wasn’t until they were driving away that he gave Cressy a condensed version of the little woman’s outpourings.

‘She’s been worried about the old lady living there alone for a couple of years. She would have been glad to do some cleaning and cooking for her, but Miss Dexter wouldn’t hear of it. She kept herself to herself. The only time she was seen was on market day in Pollensa, but she only went to buy provisions, not to socialise with other expatriates. She speaks fluent Spanish and has nothing to do with the foreign community.’

As they came to the road Cressy said, ‘Pollensa’s quite near, I gather. Will there be a car-hire firm there?’

‘Yes, but if you’re going to suggest that I run you over there and leave you to tackle this mess on your own, forget it. We’ll go back to my place to freshen up before going to the hospital together. This is a situation where you need local advice. You can’t handle it on your own any more than a Spanish girl with no English could cope with a similar situation in England.’

Cressy could tell from his tone that he would ignore her protests. He had made up his mind to be helpful and that was that.

Her sisters, accustomed to giving instructions rather than taking them, would undoubtedly have resented having their wishes overridden in that authoritative voice. It didn’t worry Cressy. She knew he was absolutely right. She did need his help and was deeply grateful he was prepared to give it.

‘Thank you,’ she said warmly. ‘Let’s hope if a Spanish girl ever finds herself in this sort of situation she’ll meet an Englishman who’ll be as obliging as you are.’

The glance he shot at her held a gleam of amusement. ‘You speak as if I were Spanish.’

‘As you live here, I assumed you felt more Spanish than English.’

‘I live here because I have a house here...and I prefer the climate. I don’t feel Spanish or English. My roots here were broken when I was sent away to school. Now I feel comfortable in most places. If I hadn’t been left Ca’n Llorenc, my base would have been a very small flat in London I share with a guy who’s hardly ever in it. We were at school together, and he now earns his living as an expedition guide.’

She didn’t ask where it was because then he might ask her where she lived. If he knew London well her answer might give the game away. Her parents lived close to the Houses of Parliament, in a neighbourhood occupied almost exclusively by MPs.

To divert the conversation into a safer channel, she said, ‘Does the island have a good medical service?’

‘I can’t answer that. I’ve never needed to use it and fortunately no one at Ca’n Llorenc has had any illnesses or accidents that I can remember. When they have minor aches and pains they consult a pharmacist in Pollensa. It’s cheaper and quicker than going to a doctor. But I can make some enquiries.’

‘I was thinking it might be better to have Aunt Kate flown back to England.’

‘It would be very expensive. She’s unlikely to have any medical insurance to cover repatriation by air.’

‘Most unlikely!’ Cressy agreed, remembering the state of the cottage. ‘But I’m sure my father will pay for whatever is necessary. On the other hand, she may be receiving first-class treatment where she is.’

By this time they were re-entering the gateway of Ca’n Llorenc. As they entered the courtyard for the second time Cressy’s anxiety about her aged relative was temporarily supplanted by intense curiosity to see how Nicolas lived.

The door was open and he ushered her through it, not into a hall but into an enormous room with another large double door on the far side of it. Like the living room at Miss Dexter’s cottage, this much grander room also had a bare stone staircase in one corner. But here the stairs were protected by a rail on one side and a thick black rope attached to the wall on the other.

The next thing to catch her eye was the painting on the chimney-breast of the huge fireplace, at present occupied by a large wicker basket crammed with a mass of dried flowers. With their small mustard-coloured heads, they looked like some kind of herb.

‘What a wonderful picture,’ said Cressy, moving towards it.

As she gazed at the deep blue mountain peaks in the background, and the pink and white blossom on the trees in the foreground, Nicolas, standing behind her, said, ‘It’s called Noria entre Almendros, which means “noria among almond trees”. A noria is a water wheel, worked by a donkey plodding round in a circle, with buckets attached to the rim for raising water from a well into irrigation canals. You saw them all over Spain when I was a child. They must have been introduced by the Moors because the name comes from the Arabic “na’ ara” which means to creak.’

‘Who is the painting by?’ asked Cressy.

‘An artist born in Pollensa called Dionís Bennássar. Here’s his signature.’ Nicolas pointed to the left-hand corner where the painting was signed in red.

She said, ‘The way the blossom is painted reminds me of Samuel Palmer. He painted my favourite picture, The Magic Apple Tree.’

‘I like that picture too,’ said Nicolas. ‘I first saw it in the Fitzwilliam Museum when I was at Cambridge.’

‘At the university?’

‘Yes. I didn’t really want to spend three years there—it’s viciously cold in winter—but it seemed a good idea to have a geography degree to fall back on if I couldn’t earn a living as a travel writer.’ He moved away and, raising his voice, called, ‘Catalina.’

Almost at once the woman Cressy had glimpsed earlier came from a room leading off the main room.

Nicolas introduced her and, like Señora Guillot, she smiled and shook hands. But behind the show of friendliness Cressy sensed she was being subjected to a critical appraisal.

‘Catalina will show you a bathroom where you can have a shower before we go to the hospital. I need to get into clean clothes, and I also have some telephone calls to make. I’ll be down in forty minutes,’ said Nicolas. ‘If you’re ready sooner Catalina will bring you tea or a cold drink out on the terrace.’ He gestured towards the door at the rear of the house, then translated all this into Mallorquín for the housekeeper’s benefit.

A few minutes later, mounting the stairs behind her, Cressy smiled to herself at the memory of her dismay when the travel agent had said there were no economy seats left on the flight to Palma. For, although all her expenses were being paid by her father, she had learnt thrift from Maggie and never liked wasting money.

However, as things had turned out, being obliged to travel more expensively had actually been a stroke of luck. If she hadn’t met Nicolas it would have been a major problem to locate her great-aunt’s cottage, let alone find out what had happened and discover Miss Dexter’s present whereabouts.

The window of the bathroom where Catalina left her overlooked the roof of a single-storey part of the building. Patches of golden lichen spattered the weathered clay tiles, and a creeper with orange flowers had climbed the wall at the end of it and was spreading up the gable of another wing of the building.

When Cressy started running a bath she found that almost boiling water gushed from the hot tap with a vigour suggesting that, in matters of mod cons, Ca’n Llorenc was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Miss Dexter’s primitive living quarters.

Having adjusted the flow to lukewarm, Cressy added some bath oil from a selection of toiletries Catalina had indicated were for visitors’ use.

While the bath filled she sat on the window ledge and thought how lovely it must be to live here, surrounded by beauty and peace, instead of in noisy, fume-ridden central London.