Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree (12 page)

‘The day after tomorrow. On Monday,’ she replied sadly, nuzzling her face into his hand and smiling up at him regretfully.

‘So soon!’ he exclaimed in horror. ‘Will I ever see you again?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, hoping that he would think of something.

‘Do you come to London often?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. Paco moved away from her and sat with his elbows on his knees, anxiously rubbing his face with his hands. At once Anna feared that he was going to tell her their romance had no point. She watched his body expand beneath his coat as he sighed deeply. In the yellow glow of the city lights his face looked melancholic and dejected; she wanted to wrap her arms around him. But she was afraid he might reject her so she stayed where she was, not even daring to move.

‘Then marry me,’ he said suddenly. ‘I cannot support life without you.’

Anna was overwhelmed and disbelieving. They had barely spent more than a few hours together. ‘Marry you?’ she stammered.

‘Yes, marry me, Anna,’ he told her seriously. He took her hand in both of his and pressed it fervently.

‘But you know nothing about me,’ she protested.

‘I knew I wanted to marry you the moment I saw you in the hotel. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. I’ve dated girls, hundreds of them. You’re not like anyone else I’ve ever met. You’re different. I can’t explain it. How can I explain

what’s in my heart?’ he said and his eyes glistened. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ ‘Can you hear the music?’ Anna asked him, standing up and suppressing the thought of Sean O’Mara and the commitment they were supposed to be making to one another. They both listened to the soft music that reverberated across the square from a club somewhere.

‘77
voglio bene,
¹
he murmured, repeating the words of the song.

‘What does that mean?’ she asked as he took her in his arms and started to dance with her around the fountain.

‘It means, I love you. It means, I love you,
Ana Melodia,
and want you to be my wife.’ They danced on in silence, listening to the sleepy music that carried them. Anna was unable to think clearly. Her mind was all in a muddle, like her Aunt Mary’s knitting wool, all tangled up. Had he really asked her to marry him? ‘I will take you to Santa Catalina,’ he said softly. ‘You will live in a beautiful white house with green shutters and pass the day in the sunshine, looking out over the
pampas.
Everyone will love you like I do.’

‘But Paco, I don’t know you. My parents will never allow it,’ she said, imagining Aunt Dorothy’s reaction with a sinking feeling in her stomach.

‘I will talk to them. I will tell them how I feel,’ he said, then he looked into

her fearful eyes and added, ‘Don’t you care for me, not even
un poquito?

She hesitated, not because she didn’t love him, she adored him, he overwhelmed her with an excitement that jolted her every sense into life, but her mother had always told her that love is something that grows. The urgent ‘love’ of two people attracted to one another was something altogether different.

‘I do love you,’ she said and the tremor in her voice surprised her. She had never said those words to anyone, not even to Sean O’Mara. ‘I feel like I’ve known you for ever,’ she added, as if to justify to herself that the way she loved him wasn’t the urgent, irrational ‘love’ of two people attracted to one another, but something much more profound and real.

‘So what is the problem? You can stay in London and we can get to know each other better, if that is what you wish.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ she objected, wishing it were.

‘Things are only complicated if you let them be. I will write to my parents and tell them that I have met a beautiful, innocent girl with whom I want to spend the rest of my life.’

‘And they’ll understand?’ she asked apprehensively.

‘They will when they meet you,’ he replied confidently, kissing her again. ‘I

don’t think you understand,
Ana Melodia.
I love you. I love the way you smile, the nervous way you play with your hair, the frightened look in your eyes when I tell you how I feel. The confident, spirited way you met me in the hotel tonight. I’ve never met anyone like you before. I admit, I don’t know you. I don’t know your favourite food, your favourite books. I don’t know your favourite colour or what you were like as a child. I have no idea how many brothers and sisters you have. I don’t even care. All I know is that here,’ he said, placing her hand on his coat, ‘is where my heart beats, and with every beat it tells me how I feel about you. Can you feel it?’ She laughed and tried to feel his heart beneath his coat, but only felt the quickness of the pulse in her thumb. ‘I will marry you,
Ana Melodia.
I will marry you because if I let you go, I will regret it for the rest of my life.’

When Paco kissed her she wanted more than anything a happy ending like in the films she watched at the flicks. When he put his arms around her and hugged her against him she felt sure that he could protect her from all that was unpleasant in the world. If she married Paco she could leave Glengariff for ever. She’d be with the man she loved. She’d be Mrs Paco Solanas. They’d have children as beautiful as him and be happier than she ever dreamed possible.

When he kissed her she remembered Sean O’Mara’s limp kiss, the fear of her wedding night, the bleakness of the future that stretched out before her like a monotonous grey road leading to nothing but hardship and stagnation, but most importantly a future without true love. With Paco it was different. She desired nothing more than to belong to him, to give herself to him, to allow him to claim her body for himself so he could love her wholly.

‘Yes, Paco, I will marry you,’ she whispered, overcome with emotion. Paco wrapped his arms so tightly around her she found herself laughing into his neck. He laughed too, with relief.

‘I am so happy, I want to sing!’ he exclaimed, lifting her off the ground so that her feet dangled in the air.

‘Paco, put me down,’ she giggled. But he proceeded to dance with her like that around the fountain.

‘I will make you so happy,
Ana Melodia
, you will not regret your choice,’ he said, placing her feet back on the wet stones. ‘I want to meet your parents tomorrow. I want to ask your father for your hand in marriage.’

‘I’m afraid they won’t let us marry,’ she said apprehensively.

‘Leave it all to me,
mi amor.
Leave everything to me,’ he said, stroking her

worried face. ‘Let’s meet at Gunther’s Tea Shop.’

‘Gunther’s Tea Shop?’ Anna repeated, looking up at him blankly.

‘Gunther’s Tea Shop on Park Lane. Five o’clock,’ he said, before kissing her again.

Anna stayed up with Paco until the dawn streaked the sky with gold. They talked about their future together, made plans, sewed their dreams into the fabric of their destiny. The only problem was how she was going to explain it all to her mother and Aunt Dorothy.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Anna Melody, have you gone mad?’ her aunt objected when she heard the news. Emer took a deep breath and sipped her tea with a trembling hand.

‘Tell us about him, Anna Melody,’ she asked faintly. So Anna told them how they had spent the night wandering the streets of London. She omitted the kiss; she didn’t feel it was fair in front of Aunt Dorothy who had never married.

‘You spent the night alone with him in the streets?’ spluttered Aunt Dorothy. ‘Good God, girl, what would people think? Poor Sean O’Mara. Sneaking out of yer bedroom like that in the middle of the night, like some tramp from the back streets. Oh Anna!’ She patted her sweating brow with a lace hanky. ‘You’ve only known him for a few hours. You know nothing about him. How can you trust him?’

‘Aunt Dorothy’s right, dear. You don’t know this man. I’m only thankful he didn’t harm you,’ Emer said tearfully. Aunt Dorothy sniffed her approval that her sister was for once seeing sense and agreeing with her.

‘Harm me?’ Anna cried in exasperation. ‘He didn’t harm me. We danced around the fountain. We held hands. He told me I was beautiful. He told me he had loved me from the moment he saw me sitting in the lobby. Harm me indeed! He’s captured my heart, that’s all he’s guilty of,’ she said, sighing melodramatically.

‘What will yer father say?’ Emer said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t think he’ll sit back and let you run off to a foreign land. Yer father and I want you near us in Ireland. Yer our only child, Anna Melody, and we love you.’

‘Why don’t you at least meet him, Mam?’ suggested Anna hopefully.

‘Meet him? When?’

‘Today at Gunther’s Tea Shop on Park Lane,’ she said breezily.

‘My my, you’ve got this all worked out, haven’t you, young lady,’ huffed Aunt

Dorothy disapprovingly, pouring herself some more coffee. ‘What are his parents going to think, I wonder.’

‘He said they’d be happy for him.’

‘I’ll bet he did,’ she said, digging her chins into her neck and nodding her head sagely. ‘I’m sure they’ll be over the moon that their son has fallen in love with a strange girl from Ireland with not a penny to her name. A girl he’s met only once.’

‘Twice,’ interjected Anna crossly.

‘Twice if you count the brief introduction in the hotel. He should be ashamed of himself and run after someone from his own class and culture.’

‘Perhaps we should at least meet him, Dorothy,’ Emer suggested, smiling kindly at her daughter who had pinched her lips together in fury and was glaring at her aunt venomously.

‘Well, that’s typical. One sniff from Anna Melody and you’ll give her anything she wants, like you always have,’ said Aunt Dorothy. ‘I suppose you think they’ll welcome you into their family with open arms, do you? I bet you do. Life is never that simple. His parents are probably hoping he’ll marry someone from Argentina, someone with class and connections. They’ll be suspicious of you because they’ll know nothing about you. You think yer cousins call you horrid names, well how does “gold digger” sound to you - hmm? Oh yes, you may say I’m being harsh and unfair, but I’m only teaching you now what life will teach you later. Think about it hard, Anna Melody, and remember that the grass is always greener on the other side.’

Anna folded her arms in front of her and looked imploringly at her mother. Aunt Dorothy sat stiffly in her chair and slurped her coffee, but without her usual gusto. Emer stared into her tea and wondered what to do.

‘What if you could stay on in London - get a job, perhaps, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a way that will enable you to get to know him properly. Perhaps he can come over to Ireland and meet Dermot?’ suggested Emer, trying to find a middle way.

‘No!’ said Anna quickly. ‘He can’t go to Glengariff. He can’t. Dad can come over here and meet him in London.’

‘Afraid he’ll no longer want you when he sees where you come from?’ snapped Aunt Dorothy. ‘If he truly loves you, he won't care where you come from.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Anna Melody. I don’t know what to do,’ Emer sighed

sadly.

‘Please come and meet him. When you see him, you’ll know why I love him like I do,’ she said, directing her words to her mother and deliberately ignoring Aunt Dorothy.

Emer knew there was very little she or anyone could do to stop Anna Melody if she was set on something. She had inherited that stubborn streak from her father.

‘All right,’ she conceded wearily. ‘We’ll meet him.’

Emer and Aunt Dorothy sat stiffly at the table in the corner of the tea room. Aunt Dorothy had thought it more discreet to sit as far away from the other guests as possible. ‘You can never be sure who’s listening,’ she had said. Anna was nervous. She played with the cutlery and went to the cloakroom twice in the space of ten minutes. When she came back the second time she announced that she would wait for him outside. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort!’ sniffed Aunt Dorothy. But Emer told her to go. ‘Whatever makes you feel more comfortable, dear,’ she said.

Anna stood outside in the cold, looking anxiously down the street to see if she could spot Paco among the unfamiliar faces that walked towards her. When she finally saw him, tall and handsome beneath the sharp brim of his hat, she thought, this is the man I’m going to marry, and grinned with pride. He walked with confidence, looking around at the people about him as if they were there to make life comfortable for him. He had the languid insouciance of a dashing Spanish viceroy who believed his supremacy would never be undermined. Money had put the world at his feet. Life had been generous to him. He expected nothing less.

Paco smiled at Anna, took her by her hands and kissed her cheek. After telling her she shouldn’t be waiting outside in the cold in such a thin dress they entered the hot steaming tea shop together. Briefly she explained that her father wasn’t there, he had had business in Ireland to attend to. Paco was disappointed. He had hoped to ask for Anna’s hand immediately. He was as impatient as he was ardent.

Emer and Aunt Dorothy watched them approach the table, weaving their way through the clusters of small round tables that were tightly grouped about the room like lily pads on a pond, laden with silver pots and china cups, pyramids of teacakes and scones around which the most distinguished and elegant