Garden of Stars (16 page)

He took a swig from his glass. “We all have our own saudade.” There was a minute pause before he looked back up at her, into her eyes. “My saudade is about you, what I shared with you and lost.”

A knot formed, insidiously and painfully, in Sarah's stomach, accompanied by a sinking, sliding feeling.

“You left without telling me why. You stole my life and my soul. I will never forget the day you went away.”

Sarah shifted awkwardly in her chair and opened her mouth to speak, to say that she had wondered if he was going to bring it up, had wanted to talk about it.

Then Scott faltered, added, “It's really hard to keep up with what she's saying, you know. I'll buy you the CD – you'll be able to understand the lyrics if you see them written down.”

The knot untied itself, spontaneously. A wave of heat flooded over her.

For one crazy moment, I thought he was talking about us – about me. But it's just the words of the song. That's all.

The moment passed. “OK. Sorry, I didn't mean to be a pain.” Sarah grimaced apologetically.

Scott raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly. “All right, I'll carry on.”

The music had reached its climax now, the room throbbing with sound, Lucia's soaring voice reaching new heights.

“The fire of love has gone out because of the rain, and the rain knocks on my window bringing saudade.”

Wild clapping, whistling and stamping greeted the end of the song.

“So I suppose she mourns her lost lover to this day?” Sarah spoke quietly, to herself as much as to Scott, but despite the uproarious applause, he heard her.

“I think so, Sarah. This is fado. There are no happy endings.”

Walking back to the hotel, their footsteps fell into time upon the cobbles. They paused at the terreiro da Sé and sat in silence for a while in the darkness. Below them, the shadowy forms of cats picked their way across the red-tiled rooftops with delicate stealth. Sarah looked at Scott as he ran his hand through his thick brown hair and then down at her own hands, busily twisting the ends of her cardigan sleeves round and round. She studied the progress of an ant across the stone balustrade; it seemed to know exactly where it was going. She sensed Scott moving, in the corner of her eye glimpsed his hand reaching out to her, and then he was stroking her hair, a long, languorous movement that started at her crown and finished at her shoulder blades. Sarah shivered and bent her head forward to feel the full firmness of his touch. Did he really recall how much she loved him to do this?

And then they were kissing, and his lips were firm and warm as he kept on running his hands through her hair like silk through water. Afterwards, she couldn't remember if it were he or she who had started it. Afterwards, she couldn't remember if it mattered, or if anything mattered at all.

12

“I'll show you to your room.” Scott gestured her inside the lift ahead of him. Sarah avoided her own reflection in the mirror, not wanting to know if her mascara was halfway down her cheeks or her hair a mess, wanting to feel beautiful, desirable, even if she were not.

The lift doors clunked shut behind them. And then he was kissing her again and never, never before had she wanted so badly to be kissed. It was only a few seconds, the shortest of Sarah's life, before they got to the third floor. The bell dinged and the doors opened. Scott followed her out of the lift, and they walked to her room. Outside the door, he put his hands on her shoulders.

“Can I stay the night with you?”

Sarah's stomach back-flipped.

“I, I don't know… I mean, Scott, I can't…” Her hands, which had been gesticulating wildly, flopped wearily to her sides. “No. No, it's not possible. It wouldn't be
right
.”

Scott ran his fingers through his hair. “I just want to be with you. That's all. I want to hold you and be close to you.”

Sarah stepped towards him and he wrapped his arms around her body. To be held by him in this way felt wonderful. She loved how his height made her feel so small and safe. She craved it; the intimacy of him, the comfort he gave her.

“The problem is that it's not just about what you or I want, is it? You're married, I'm married. We're both married, and not to each other.” She repeated the words she had said that morning to Carrie, which already seemed half a lifetime ago. If she said them often enough, would it make them more, or less, real?

There was a long silence.

“Sarah?”

“Yes.”

“Could I at least just come in to take a leak? I'm bursting and it's a long walk back to my room.”

Sarah couldn't help but laugh. She opened the door and turned on the lights. Once he'd left again, she flicked the lock decisively behind him.

On her pillow lay the ancient, shapeless T-shirt she wore to bed. She took it into the bathroom to put on, glad of its dreary unsexiness that was the perfect prophylactic against straying. All the ingredients were in place – the solitary business trip, the lonely hotel room with too-large bed begging to be filled, the handsome…what was Scott? Not a stranger, but… Sarah threw water onto her face, picked up the flannel and roughly scrubbed her skin. Whatever Scott was, she had not fallen prey to temptation; she had not become a cliché.

But however hard she tried, she could not stop thinking of the hand that had so assuredly held hers in the dark alleyway when danger threatened, how she had wanted to seize it, lift it to her face, brush it against her cheek. Had wanted to clasp it tightly the way she always used to, stroke it, feel the life coursing through every sinew, nerve and vein, had wanted to possess his vitality and intensity.

Her skin throbbed to recall his caress.

It had done so on the very first night she had slept with him, when she had lost her virginity. Take off your watch, she recalled him telling her so clearly, in the one room of the tiny pink and blue house in Alcantâra. And her reply, But I feel naked without it that had led him to gently undo the strap himself whilst whispering in her ear, That's the general idea, isn't it?

Tears pricked afresh behind Sarah's eyes. She looked around the room, distracting herself by checking that her mini voice recorder and notebook were ready for her visit to the port wine lodge the next day, the final appointment of the assignment, that she could just fit in before she flew home. Everything was in order. Sitting on the edge of the bed in the stuffy hotel room, she reached for Inês's journal. She needed it, needed Inês near her, Inês who had always been her confidante and her champion and whom she was beginning to realise she knew so little about, but whose troubles could perhaps help Sarah find a way through her own.

Porto, 1936

Edmund came for our lesson today, on time as usual. I couldn't stop myself from flinging my arms around him and hugging him, crying “I loved it! I loved it so much!” all the while. He was, understandably, somewhat taken aback – and in those situations I have noticed that he always reverts to extreme Britishness, expressing himself in a reticent and understated way which on this occasion manifested itself as, “Steady on, Mrs Mor…I mean, Inês, I really don't know to what you are referring.”

Once I had explained that it was my recently completed reading of the novel
Jamaica Inn
, which I had found utterly gripping, that had so transfixed me, he unwound enough to enter fully into my ebullience. For a while, we both talked nineteen to the dozen, outdoing each other in expressing our enjoyment of the book and the craft and skill with which it was written. Edmund asked me what John had thought of it and I had to inform him that John thought it a woman's book and had not read it – he favours biographies and military histories. It was noticeable that Edmund became rather quieter after I had revealed this fact, and I asked him why. I did not get a clear answer but I fancy that perhaps he felt that his own enthusiasm marked him out as less masculine than John, too fey and feminine. I tried to reassure him that a love of literature in a man is the most powerful aphrodisiac in the world. That seemed to make him feel much better.

Eventually, we both calmed down and then Edmund announced that he had some news. There was to be an event in the city today, something quite remarkable. He suggested that we take a break from our English lessons and go to watch. I was happy to agree but I demanded to know more. Patience is not one of my virtues.

“A young American man is in town,” Edmund explained. “He's a sort of athlete or gymnast, and he climbs steeples. He's going to climb the Torre dos Clérigos today, at half-past eleven. He uses no ropes or clamps or anything – just climbs with his bare hands and feet.”

I could not see how that were possible and having articulated this, I left the door wide open for Edmund to insist that we find out by seeing with our own eyes. It was only as we were getting ready to leave the apartment that I thought about what John would say about me being out in such a crowd without him, about me being with Edmund and missing my English lesson.

“We'll speak English the whole time,” said Edmund, eagerly, as if reading my mind. “You'll still be learning – we'll call it a conversation class.”

With that, I was persuaded. I would worry about what to say to John later.

We set off, walking briskly to the open space in front of the Torre, dodging the trams and cars, pony carts and donkeys that thronged the streets at this busy time of day. By the time we got there, the area was already packed, the jostling crowd expectant, everyone talking excitedly about what was about to happen.

At seventy-five metres high, the tower dominates the Porto skyline. When it was first built in 1763 it was the tallest building in the city. There are two hundred steps inside which anyone can climb if they are willing to make the effort and attracted enough by the thought of the view from the top. I wondered why I had never done it – I was in the church of Clérigos only the other week, after all – and resolved to do so before too long.

But this cloudy morning everyone was eagerly waiting to watch someone climb in quite a different way. There was a stirring amongst the crowd and a cheer went up. Three men had appeared on the steps in front of the tower; two older men, one in a suit and trilby, and a young man dressed in shirt-sleeves and braces and wearing strange white shoes. The man in the trilby patted the younger one on the shoulder, and shook his hand. Then without further delay, the young man turned towards the tower, gave a quick look upwards and started to climb.

Another, enormous, cheer rang out as he ascended. He climbed effortlessly, scaling the stonework as if on suction pads, using the elaborate carvings and window architraves to give a foothold wherever possible. Hardly pausing for breath or to assess the next move, he appeared to instinctively know the best route to follow, never faltering, showing no sign of nerves. The crowd fell into an unnatural silence as he slowly, surely, steadily worked his way further and further up the tower. The day was dull and cloudy; better for us spectators as it made it easier to look upwards towards the sky. And better for the young man, too, I thought, as at least his hands would not be slippery with sweat as they might if the weather were hotter.

As I strained my eyes to make out his every move, he reached the tiered section near to the top, where the tower widened out to a viewing balcony and each layer of stone overhung the one below. This appeared from the ground to be impossible to scale. I could hardly bear to watch and without realising what I was doing, I found myself clasping Edmund's hand and gripping it harder every time I thought the young man was slowing down or tiring, terrified that he might slip, that any minute now I was going to be witness to a horrific accident, that a death would occur right there before my eyes on this overcast day.

But the young man continued upwards, the overhang presenting no obstacle. He seemed utterly oblivious to both the tense atmosphere and to his own precarious position clinging to a lump of stone on a church tower somewhere between heaven and earth. He climbed and climbed, as if it were no more taxing than taking a stroll down a familiar country road, where you might sometimes step wider to avoid a rock, or jump sideways around a pothole.

Then suddenly he lost his footing and for one heart-stopping second he was hanging by his hands, legs dangling in mid-air and frantically pedalling as they tried to find a place to lock on to. The huge crowd, myself and Edmund included, took a collective gasp of breath. The tension was tangible and unbearable; I thought I might be sick and could barely suppress a scream of anguish. Edmund let go of my hand and put his arm around me to better comfort me.

“It's all right. He knows what he's doing. Look, he's fine again already.” His eager eyes darted from the man on the steeple to me and back again, and he smiled reassuringly. I looked up at him, something that is only possible because I am rather small, as Edmund is not tall, and smiled back. At that moment his stature seemed to grow, commensurate with his position as my protector.

Instinctively, I moved in closer to his sheltering body.

When I dared to raise my eyes again I saw that by some miracle the young man had reached the top of the tower now and was on his way up to the elaborately carved cupola. It was topped by a giant ball out of which extended a flagpole. I was sure he would end his climb there, prayed that he would, that he would climb down and be safe. But the man continued upwards, right to the very top of the flagpole, where finally he stopped. Stopped and slowly turned to the crowd, one arm extended in triumph, inviting applause. A wave of clapping erupted from the spectators and grew louder and louder, every now and again momentarily subsiding, and then restarting even more enthusiastically than before.

After five or ten minutes taking in the adulation, the young man climbed back down the flagpole, over the cupola and onto the viewing balcony, from where he disappeared inside. I breathed a sigh of relief; after the nervous stress of the ascent, I didn't think I could have borne to watch him descend the entire seventy-five metres of the tower as well.