The Company of Strangers

‘Convento dos Capuchos,’ said Wilshere, turning his horse. ‘A monastery.’

‘Shall we take a look?’

‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘I took the wrong road.’

‘Why don’t we take a look now that we’re here?’

‘I said no.’

Wilshere turned her horse and set her off back down the track. His own mare kept settling back on her hindquarters, raising her forelegs off the ground, apparently uncomfortable with the rider. They danced while Wilshere tried to wrestle her back down. Then he dug in his heels and let her have her head. They careered down the track, almost sideways, Wilshere bent over the horse’s neck. They closed rapidly on the filly and, as they reached her, Wilshere leaned over and gave the animal a whack across the rump with his crop. Anne felt her horse start beneath her, tip back on its hind legs. Then the filly lunged forward, tearing the reins from her fingers and throwing Anne on to its neck so that the mane, coarse and bitter, was stuffed into her mouth.

The filly’s fast hooves rattled over the dry stones and the hard-baked track ripped past underneath. Anne hung on to the mane with her cheek pressed to the smooth skin, felt the thick beam of muscle in the horse’s neck, saw the animal’s eye wild and white-edged with panic.

The track narrowed, the trees closed in. The filly’s tongue was hanging out of its head as foam crept up her jaws. Branches snapped at their flanks, cracking against Anne’s flattened back, whipping against the horse’s chest, spurring it on. Adrenalin had burst into her system and yet she found herself detached – both on the horse and yet looking on, too.

They burst out of the trees and cloud into the brilliant sunshine, a rough brush underfoot. The wind crumpled in her ears. There was a clattering noise off to the right. A charging presence pursued by dust swirling in tight screws closed on her. The hot lathered flanks of the major’s black stallion pulled alongside and a thick wrist gripped the strap of the bridle and the fractions crunched into each other to make slow seconds until they stopped altogether.

She pushed herself up straight against the major’s arm, legs quivering.

‘Where’s Senhor Wilshere?’ asked the major, in English.

‘I don’t know…I…’ she ducked at the memory of him, crop raised, bearing down on her.

‘Something frightened the horse?’

Anne, gulping at the air, working at the events in her brain, searched for any possible reason for Wilshere’s bizarre action.

‘Whose clothes are these?’ she asked.

‘I don’t understand,’ said the major, squinting at her.

‘Mr Wilshere…did he come riding here with someone…before? Before me. Another woman?’

‘You mean the American?’

‘Yes, the American. What was her name?’

‘Senhora Laverne,’ he said. ‘Senhora Judy Laverne.’

‘What happened to her? What happened to Judy Laverne?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve been away some months. Perhaps she went back to America.’

‘Without her clothes?’

‘Her clothes?’ he asked, confused.

‘These clothes,’ she said, slapping her thigh.

The major wiped sweat out of his eyebrow.

‘How long have you known Senhor Wilshere?’ he asked.

‘I arrived in Portugal yesterday.’

‘You didn’t know him before?’

‘Before what?’

‘Before you arrived,’ he said, solid, calm.

Anne filled her lungs with air, unbuttoned her jacket. The filly turned and put its head to the stallion’s flank. High up on a ridge Wilshere appeared, white shirt against the blue sky, and waved at them. He worked the mare down through the brush and rocks and on to the path.

‘I lost you,’ said Wilshere, approaching them on the now subdued mare. As if that was all it had been.

‘My horse bolted,’ said Anne, not ready for confrontation, not in front of the major. ‘The major rescued me.’

Consternation crossed Wilshere’s face. It seemed so genuine that Anne almost accepted it, even though she’d seen he’d stripped off his jacket, which was strapped to the back of his saddle. Not the behaviour of an urgent man.

‘Well, thank you, Major,’ said Wilshere. ‘You must be rattled, my dear. Perhaps we should head back.’

Anne eased the filly out from under the stallion’s haunch. Wilshere gave the major a casual half-salute. They headed back down the path towards the dense cloud on the north side of the serra. The major stayed behind, motionless on his horse, solid as an equestrian statue in a city square.

They walked nose to tail back to the quinta, back into the gloom of the low cloud. Anne, mesmerized by the rhythm of the horses, replayed the incident; not Wilshere’s madness, but the exhilaration of the adrenalin rush on the back of the runaway horse – fear had not been as frightening as she’d imagined. It seemed to tell her something about the faces in the gaming room of the casino, about the thrill and fear of gain and loss. Perhaps there was more thrill in losing – the morbid draw of possible catastrophe. She shuddered, which turned Wilshere in his saddle. She gave him a smile torn from a magazine.

They dismounted in the courtyard of the quinta and the groom led the horses away. Anne’s buttocks and thighs felt like a cooling bronze’s, the heat deep within, the surface set hard. The sweat in her hair was now cold, her muscles seizing as she followed Wilshere under the arches and into a rustic stone-flagged room with heavy wooden furniture, a dark family portrait and English hunting prints on the walls. Stags’ horns pricked the palpable, mildewed air in the room. A macabre chandelier of antlers hung from the ceiling, unlit, over a refectory table set with plates of cheeses, chouriços, presunto, olives and bread. Wilshere poured himself a large tumbler of white wine from a clay jug and handed a clay goblet to Anne.

‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it after that.’

She was infuriated by his coolness and sank her wine. Questions backed up inside her. She wanted to find the join in his armour, prise it open, stick him with something sharp.

‘Care for anything to eat?’ he asked, diverting her, fluttering his hand over the food, not interested himself, gulping at the wine.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I didn’t eat breakfast.’

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have dragged you out…’

‘No, no, I was glad of it,’ she said, facing off his mask of infallible politeness. ‘I wanted to ask…’

‘What?’ he teased, an interruption to undermine her. ‘What did you want to ask?’

‘I wanted to ask about the major,’ she said, not that interested in him, but he could be a lever, man against man. She took an olive from the table.

‘What about him?’

‘He seemed a very…ah…noble man,’ she said, walking around to the opposite side of the table, grinding her teeth on the olive pit.

‘Noble?’ Wilshere asked himself. ‘Noble. Yes, noble’s…very apposite. He is a noble fellow.’