Chapter 18
DAY THREE
BEN
Chloe snores. It could be because she was drunk and super tired but there was a deep resonating rattle that came off her as she drifted off.
Her whole body shook under me as she fell asleep, so much so that after Miguel had fished Jess and Zara out of the pool, he came to ask if there were any problems with the boiler.
I stayed with her for as long as I could survive the snoring, knowing that nothing could happen.
Even though she had put her legs in the air, whipped off her knickers and well, her flange was on show.
She was too poorly and vulnerable for anything to happen, so I did what she asked.
I pulled the bottom of her slip dress down to cover her up, I held her and even though the seismic snoring was hard to ignore, there was a moment as she drifted off where I felt her body under mine – the curve of her, not knowing whose legs were whose – and the touch of her sandy skin that felt right.
And when she finally fell asleep, I got up, tucked her in, then went over to the lamp where her knickers had landed and folded them neatly on a chair. It didn’t feel appropriate to stay.
‘Ben! Ben!’ I hear a loud whisper now and my eyes spring open to see Chloe crouched down next to my bed, her hair dripping wet. Sunshine is streaming through the windows of the cottage. I awake with a jolt to see her here. She shakes my arm. ‘You have to get up, please.’
The urgency in her hushed tone makes me leap out of bed. ‘You’re up,’ I say, surprised to see her so conscious and well after last night.
‘So are you,’ she replies, scanning down my body. I mean, I was sleeping twenty seconds ago, in my pants, and so there was always going to be a situation down there. I grab a pillow and hold it to my crotch.
‘Why the whispering, the panic?’ I ask.
‘There’s a lady by the gate and she’s got a gun and some rope. You have to come because Zara and Jess are mums and we can’t leave their children as orphans,’ she says dramatically.
I start to wonder if the Hierbas has had some sort of post-hallucinatory effect. I see her twitch the blinds, looking through them, and I bite my lip, trying to hold in my laughter. ‘Was the lady old? Maybe wearing a large smock dress?’
‘With an old, withered face like a shoe and wearing big boots?’ she replies, making the woman sound like some angry cowboy.
‘Yeah,’ I say, rolling a T-shirt over my head and reaching for some shorts. ‘Come with me.’
We exit the cottage and I see the figure of the lady by the gate. As soon as the woman sees me, she waves excitedly. I hope that gun isn’t loaded because it’s not wise to be so animated like that. ‘BENJI! BENJI!’ she calls.
‘Renata! Buenos dias! ?Cómo está?’ I say to see her, watching as Chloe side-eyes me cautiously as we walk up the drive.
‘This is Renata, she owns the neighbouring farm,’ I explain.
I met Renata in my first week here, she grows almonds and I also suspect she knew Uncle Lorenzo quite intimately from the way she talks about parties she attended here.
‘Benji – tienes novia?’ she says, noticing me beaming, obviously excited to see a woman on the premises and assuming her to be a love interest.
‘Renata, tienes un arma,’ I retort, referring to the rather large shotgun in her hands.
‘Inglesa?’ she asks, pointing to Chloe who stands back a bit.
‘Inglesa.’
‘Es guapa,’ Renata replies. ‘Pero sus tetas son diminutas, no como mis melones.’
‘RENATA!’ I shout, trying not to laugh.
‘What did she say?’ Chloe asks.
She said you had tiny tits compared to her melons, but I won’t translate that, especially as Renata is still being quite casual about hoisting a giant gun around.
‘The men come to shoot the goats,’ Renata says in her broken English. ‘Big truck. I take gun,’ she says in a low, excited growl.
I’m confused. Is that Renata’s gun or has she stolen their gun so they can’t shoot the goats? ‘?Y la cuerda?’ I say, pointing to the rope in her hands. Has she tied these men up somewhere? It’s a hilarious image to hold on to anyway.
‘I tie goats to house so they cannot find,’ she tells me.
Chloe looks at her strangely with fear in her eyes. I turn to her to calm her down. ‘The goats are wild, sometimes hunters come up here to shoot them because they eat crops and Renata is against the cull.’
‘CUL?’ Renata barks at me. ‘?Por qué estás hablando de mi culo?’
I realise I’ve said the Spanish word for ass. ‘Por supuesto, tienes un culo estupendo.’ I won’t tell Chloe I’ve complimented the old lady’s bum. Renata laughs. I wish she’d put the gun down.
‘Renata, how can I help?’ I ask.
‘You come? Girl, you come also… You help with cabras.’
Chloe looks at me, still trying to work this all out. ‘She wants help with the goats.’
‘I can help,’ Chloe says, nodding, possibly still in fear of this badass old Spanish lady. ‘What will I need to do?’
It turns out Renata wasn’t joking. She has herded about fifteen of the local wild goats who regularly reside in the space between my villa and her farm, and let them hang out next to her farmhouse instead so they can be safe from the hunters.
I knew there was a reason she and my uncle got on so well.
I can imagine Uncle Lorenzo going completely guerilla in the Spanish bracken, stealing guns and protecting the wildlife.
‘He looks really angry,’ Chloe tells me, looking up at a black goat who proudly stands on a wooden bench, staring her down. ‘Can goats attack?’
‘Just don’t look him in the eye,’ I say. ‘Renata wants them in the barn so let’s—’
‘Herd?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, smiling at her.
She goes up to a goat. ‘Go in the barn. Please. It’s for your own safety,’ she says politely.
It stares at her like she’s mad and I laugh, letting out a primal yelp to scare them to attention, pushing one on the hind legs, dodging a few like I might tackle them.
She looks back at me and claps her hands. ‘Please do as the man says.’
‘They are Spanish goats, maybe you’re not speaking their lingo,’ I say, mimicking her words to me when she tamed our villa cat.
Chloe laughs. Like the fighting last night, this activity was also not on the flyer, but she doesn’t seem to mind, she’s taking it all on in good spirits, laughing even, her wet hair scraped back from her face, a ruddy glow in her cheeks.
In the farmhouse, I can hear Renata speaking on the phone in hurried Spanish, complaining about the men with guns and saying how she’s going to shoot their bollocks off if they come near her farm. I’m glad Chloe can’t understand her.
‘I’m amazed that you’re still standing after last night,’ I say to her.
‘Oh, I feel like ass, but I woke up at six so I had a very long shower to revive myself and a super-strong coffee.’
‘I feel bad. I’m the host, I’m supposed to be the one making the coffee,’ I tell her.
‘You have nothing to be sorry about. Thank you for carrying me to my bed,’ she says, smiling. ‘You even folded my knickers.’
‘That I did.’
‘That was very considerate. Flashes of last night keep coming to me,’ she says, wide-eyed. ‘The knicker flinging… And I think I made you spoon me. I really am very sorry.’
‘Oh, it was a day of surprises. The snake, the fight, you telling me you had a sandy flange,’ I say, hoping my humour hits.
Chloe throws her head back and the sound of her laughter is hugely satisfying. A goat looks at her strangely and trots away.
‘You know that a flange is used to strengthen piping. It’s like a joint. I have no idea where that word came from. I’m so sorry,’ she says, trying to contain her laughter. ‘I feel like a fool.’
‘You shouldn’t apologise. I wouldn’t have let it go there anyway,’ I tell her.
‘Go where?’ she asks.
‘You were out of your mind. I’m not like that.’
She takes a moment to digest what that means. ‘Well, I assumed that anyway. Because of Miguel and because you’re…’
I crease my eyes at her. ‘A gentleman?’
‘Is that a term for it here? Because that’s cool.’
‘You mean a term for being a respectful man?’ I ask.
We both stand there for a moment looking at each other and trying to work the other one out.
I was raised by four women, they would hang my guts for garters if I was any other way.
That’s not to say I don’t want to be close to Chloe.
I do. Right now, in the middle of this awkward apology, my urge to kiss her is strong.
Or have I just been single for too long?
Am I reading something that isn’t there?
Before we can iron out our misunderstanding, a goat barges into her and she shrieks, moving so it runs past. The goat comes back and she doesn’t quite know what to do. ‘Get in the barn, you dopey git!’ she yells.
I have to admit that it’s kind of funny as the goat does what it’s told.
A few more run past and this time Chloe runs into me as she tries to dodge them, folding her body into mine.
I put an arm around her and she looks up.
This feels right. But she wants me to be a gentleman.
That I can do. I stand back from her and hear the rusty gate of Renata’s farm scrape across the floor.
‘Bueno, bueno… the goats are all seguros,’ Renata says excitedly.
She blows kisses towards us. She’s got food and water waiting for them.
The goats are safe. I still don’t know why she has so much rope but I hope those hunters are alive too.
‘Agua?’ she asks us and we nod at the offer of a drink.
We’ve got up and run down here without breakfast or sustenance and the goat-chasing in the rising heat has taken its toll.
She ushers us into the kitchen of her beautiful farmhouse with its big stone sink and bundles of lavender and rosemary hanging above the oven.
I’ve never been in here before, but I like its simplicity, the coolness of the terracotta tiles under my feet.
I see Chloe gazing at the archways before looking at some bottles on the side of the kitchen, some cheesecloth and white mixture waiting to be sieved.
‘You make cheese? Queso?’ Chloe asks, looking at the apparatus as Renata pours us two glasses of water from a jug in the fridge.
‘No. Leche. Milk. I milk nuts,’ she says.
Even though as a chef, I’m intensely curious about the process, I do have to look away and bite my tongue, seeing Chloe blush and look so surprised. ‘With the almonds, of course,’ she says, downing some of her water.
‘Nuts in bag,’ Renata says, going over to the apparatus to demonstrate. ‘And then squeeze bag to get leche.’
Chloe’s eyes widen at her grip. Renata is getting every last drop there.
You go, girl. I bet Lorenzo liked that.
‘You try. Healthy,’ she tells Chloe, pouring her a shot glass of it.
‘Is it pasteurised?’ Chloe whispers to me.
‘I don’t know the Spanish word for that. Go on, drink your nut milk like a good girl,’ I say, smirking. She downs the shot then looks me in the eye, using her tongue to lick a bit off her lips. I pause. Heavily. I am a gentleman. I must remember to be a gentleman.