âWhat do you say about meeting me in a weeks time at Ofir?â
âOh that would be super! You could meet my Aunt and friends â¦â
He said gently, âWhatâs the matter, Jenny?â
I stared unspeaking at the white breakers as they crashed relentlessly on the beach. If I didnât tell him, Rozalinda would. If not Rozalinda, then someone else. Besides I wanted no secrets from Jonathan. Now was the time to tell him.
âYou donât know everything about me, Jonathan. Thereâs things in my past that might make you change your mind about marrying me.â
âJenny Wren, there is nothing, nothing that could make me change my mind about that.â
âThen Iâd like to tell you now.â
âNo. Not now. I can see that itâs going to distress you. I donât intend having the memories of tonight spoilt. Thereâll be enough time at Ofir for us to tell each other whatever we need to about our past lives.â He took me in his arms, silencing my weak protests with kisses that drove every other thought away.
Chapter Six
He left after breakfast the following morning. An hour or two later I finished my packing, paid my bill, and eased the Volkswagen onto the now familiar road into Viana. I drove south with a light heart, waving cheerily to the children as they helped in the fields or led enormous looking cows to graze, rocking through the dusty villages, painfully aware that the Volkswagenâs springs did not match up to those of the Lamborgini.
It was just after midday when I reached the road sign for Ofir. I turned right, narrowly avoiding a peasant woman sat on a stool in the middle of the road, hopefully holding up a repellant looking eel. On one side of me a river ran broadly towards the sea, on the other were the beginnings of the lush pinewoods Aunt Harriet so enjoyed. Very soon the woods were on either side, enticing pathways leading into their depths. I emerged to overlook sand dunes ⦠and the large four star hotel that Harold had tried so unsuccessfully to buy. A sandy track barely wide enough to take the car, led away from the hotel, bumping unevenly into the woods. After a few hundred yards I caught a glimpse of white stucco and a roof of gleaming beechwood. It was sufficiently unlike anything else I had seen in Portugal to convince me that I had at last reached Rozalindaâs âEnclaveâ. Slowly I bumped nearer and then stopped. There was no-one about. The woods were silent except for the sound of the birds that flashed between the branches in a dazzle of colour.
The villa was set high overlooking the sea, the gardens at the rear, that ran down to the track and the woods, a feast of flowers and miniature fountains, with a small stream falling from pool to pool, its banks thick with yellow and pink lilies. Large picture windows gave a glimpse of white painted walls, and what looked at a distance to be a gigantic Picasso. Stone steps curved down, leading through the garden into the villa close by. This was much smaller but far prettier. Here the walls were covered in the Portuguese way, with richly coloured tiles, wooden shutters were thrown back to reveal window ledges crammed with begonias and trailing lobelia. The upper storey was surrounded by a narrow wooden balcony, and beside a wicker chair and table I could see a sun-hat that belonged to Aunt Harriet and her knitting bag, balls of wool cascading over the wooden slats. I stepped out of the car and instead of going straight to what was presumably Rozalindaâs villa, walked around and passed the smaller one. A cluster of trees shielded it from the rest of the enclave, but the stone steps swirled round in a picturesque arc from Aunt Harrietâs front door fading into a path between the trees and then leading up in a fresh meandering series of steps to two pink washed villas with wrought iron balconies and scarlet tiled roofs. I climbed the steps and turned seawards, catching
Michael Bracken, Elizabeth Coldwell, Sommer Marsden