Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree (43 page)

After lunch in the musty dining room, served by a rotund lady called Mrs Berniston, Gilbert and Miche disappeared off to their rooms for a siesta. ‘That chocolate pudding and wine has made me
tre
s,
tres fatigue,’
Gilbert said, taking his petite wife by the hand and leading her up the stairs. Jake decided to go jogging-

‘Is that such a good idea after a heavy meal?’ Sofia queried.

‘I didn’t go this morning and I’d like to do so before it gets dark,’ he replied, running upstairs two at a time.

‘Well, why don’t we go for a walk? Then we’ll get some exercise too,’ suggested Zaza enthusiastically. ‘Will you join us, David?’

The air was icy and yet the sun shone down warmly from a clear, cerulean sky. The gardens were wild though they eerily echoed the order of a past era when David’s ex-wife, a fanatical gardener, had looked after them and loved them. The four of them, Tony, Zaza, Sofia and David wandered up the stone path that cut through the garden to the back of the house, laughing about how full and lethargic they felt after such a large lunch. The trees were bare and frozen due to the February frosts and the undergrowth wet and rotting beneath their feet.

Sofia gulped in the country air and realized it had been a long time since she had been in such a beautiful place. She remembered Santa Catalina in winter and thought that if she closed her eyes and breathed in the scents of damp earth, rich with the sweet smell of winter foliage, she could almost convince herself that she was there.

She liked David. He had that English nonchalance that so appealed to her foreign nature. He was very attractive in an intellectual way, not beautiful but handsome. He was strong, knew his mind, and was charismatic, yet his pale blue eyes had depth to them, revealing that he too had experienced life’s struggles. When they walked down a small hill towards a cluster of stables, Sofia felt her heart lurch.

‘If anyone wants to ride, I have a couple of horses,’ David said casually. ‘Ariella used to breed them. When she left, the stud farm was closed down and I had to sell off all the mares. It was tragic. Now I just keep a couple for my own amusement.’

Sofia found herself walking faster and faster until she had left the others behind on the hill. She felt her throat constrict as she fumbled the bolt on one of the stable doors. When the sound of rustling straw indicated that there was a horse inside she sniffed back her emotions. The smell of warm hay struck her at once and she held out her hand, smiling sadly as the animal’s velvety muzzle nudged it curiously. She ran her fingers down his white face, all the time gazing lovingly into the horse’s shiny marble eyes. It was only now, with the unique scent of horse clinging to her nostrils, that Sofia realized how much

she’d missed them. She pressed the animal’s head to hers and used its fur to wipe away her melancholy.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, stroking his ears. ‘Aren’t you beautiful. So beautiful.’ She felt a tear on her lip and licked it away. The horse seemed to sense her unhappiness and puffed into her face. She closed her eyes and imagined she was home again. Leaning against her new friend and feeling his silky warm coat against her skin she was briefly transported back to the humid
pampa.
But it was all too real and she opened her eyes suddenly and blinked away the memory.

When David walked around the corner he saw Sofia’s head buried in Safari’s neck. He wanted to approach her and yet sensed the moment was a private one. Tactfully he led Tony and Zaza around to the other side.

‘Is she all right?’ hissed Zaza who noticed everything.

‘I don’t know,’ David said, shaking his head anxiously. ‘A curious girl, isn’t she?’

‘She didn’t want to talk about her home when I asked her about it earlier,’ Zaza noted.

‘Perhaps she just misses it,’ Tony said sensibly. ‘She probably feels

homesick.’

‘David!’ They all turned to see Sofia, running eagerly towards them. ‘I need to - I mean I’d
love
to go for a ride. May I?’

Zaza and Tony continued their walk alone, leaving David and Sofia to saddle up the horses and embark on a long ride that wouldn’t see them back before sundown. As Sofia and David cantered over the Cotswolds Sofia felt as if a constricting weight had been lifted off her chest. She was able to breathe again and she drank in large lungfuls of air. Her mind cleared; suddenly she knew who she was, she knew where she belonged. She felt she had come home, riding up there on those hills, able to see for miles the patchwork of fields and woods that undulated out before her like a rough sea of green. She smiled again; not just on the outside but she smiled broadly and genuinely on the inside. Her whole body was injected with an energy, a high she hadn’t felt since she had last been at Santa Catalina.

David noticed the change in her immediately. Like an actor in a play she had discarded her costume and revealed the real person beneath. By the time they shut the stable doors and hung the tack up in the tackroom they were laughing like old friends do, from the pit of their bellies.

As Jake drove Sofia back to Queen’s Gate she reflected on David’s offer.

‘I would dearly love to get this place going again,’ he had said, referring to the stud. ‘You obviously have a good understanding of horses. My ex, Ariella, bred racehorses. She produced top-class yearlings. When she walked out, that was the end of that - I sold them all except for Safari and Inca. I’d pay you, of course, and hire anyone you required. You wouldn’t have to be stuck in the country all week, you could oversee it. The place is dead without people looking after it. It’ll go to ruin before too long and I’d hate to have to sell the horses.’

Sofia recalled his phlegmatic tone. He was matter-of-fact, yet there had been a warmth in his expression. She found herself smiling as she remembered him. It was a nice idea but Jake would never allow it; he wouldn’t want her to work out in the country. He was way too possessive, but Jake was all she had.

By April the play had been running for a couple of months when Sofia opened the door to Jake’s dressing room to find him screwing Mandy Bourne, his leading lady, up against the wall. He had pulled down his trousers and what later stuck in Sofia’s mind was his white bottom thrusting aggressively against a dishevelled, sweaty Mandy still in eighteenth-century costume. She had even stood there for a couple of minutes before they had noticed her. Mandy was grunting like a hungry pig, her face twisted into an expression of pain, but Sofia took it that she was enjoying it by the mewing sounds she made between grunts. Jake was murmuring, ‘I love you, I love you,’ in time to his thrusts and appeared to be arriving at the
moment critique
when Mandy opened her eyes and screamed. Jake buried his face in her flabby breasts and exclaimed, ‘Christ!’ when he saw Sofia standing stiffly in the doorway. Mandy had fled in tears.

There was no apology, no penitence. Jake had blamed Sofia, saying he had only slept with Mandy because he was unable to get through to her. ‘You don’t love me!’ he had shouted accusingly.

Sofia had responded coolly, ‘I have to trust you first.’

When she left the theatre that night she did so for the last time. She never wanted to see Jake Felton again. Picking up the telephone she hoped that David Harrison would remember the offer he had made back in February.

‘You’re leaving us?’ cried Anton in despair. ‘I can’t bear it!’

I’m going to set up a stud farm for David Harrison,’ she explained.

‘Devious man,’ Maggie snarled, drawing on her cigarette.

‘Oh Maggie, it’s got nothing to do with that. Though, you
were
right about Jake Felton. Men-who needs ’em!’

‘Ooh no, you’re out of date! Maggie’s taken a lover, haven’t you, duckie? A client. I think her Maggie dust may have worked after all.’ Maggie grinned a self-satisfied smile.

‘Well done, Maggie. Oh God, I’m so sad to leave you all,’ Sofia waited, ‘but I won’t be down at Lowsley all the time. We’ll keep in touch.’

‘You’d better. Anyhow, we’ll hear all the gossip from Daisy. Just don’t forget to ask us to the wedding.’

‘Maggie,’ laughed Sofia. ‘He’s too old.’

‘Careful, I’m in my forties too, you know,’ she replied, then added throatily, ‘We’ll see.’

Daisy was devastated that she was going. Not only because she would miss her friend, but also because, if things worked out for Sofia, she’d have to find someone else to share the flat with. She didn’t want to share with anyone else.

She and Sofia had become as close as sisters.

‘So if you like it, you’ll just move down there permanently?’ she asked, horrified at the thought of being stuck in the country, however luxurious the house was.

‘Yes, I love the countryside. I miss it,’ said Sofia. Lowsley had awakened her dormant senses to her affinity with nature; now the smell of the city appalled her.

‘I’ll miss you. Who’s going to do your nails now?’ Daisy asked, pushing her bottom lip out grumpily.

‘No one. I’ll bite them again.’

‘Don’t you dare, just when I’ve got them looking so pretty.’

‘I’m going to be using my hands for farmwork, so I won’t need pretty nails any more,’ laughed Sofia happily, anticipating days filled with horses and dogs and those endless green hills. The two girls embraced.

‘Don’t forget to call often and visit occasionally. I don’t want to lost touch,’ said Daisy, wagging her finger at her friend to hide her sadness. Sofia was used to leaving places, leaving people, making new friends. She was accustomed to it by now. She had taught herself to switch off her emotions in order to avoid

hurting so she promised Daisy that she would call weekly, then she left, moved on. Like a nomad she looked ahead to the next adventure without dwelling too much on the human ties she was leaving behind.

Once Sofia was happily installed in a small cottage at Lowsley she realized she wouldn’t be sad at all if she never went to London again. She had missed the countryside more than she had realized and now she had found it again she never wanted to let it go. She spoke to Daisy most days on the telephone and laughed at the latest gossip from Maggie’s. She didn’t have much time, though, to think of her old friends. She was too busy setting up David’s stud farm. He had said she could ‘oversee’ it. She had no intention of‘overseeing’ it. She wanted to be as involved as possible and what she didn’t know she would learn.

She found out from Mrs Berniston that when Ariella had walked out, they had had to close down the stables, making Freddie Rattray, known as Rattie, redundant. Rattie had been the stud manager, looking after the foals and running the farm. He was an expert, Mrs Berniston informed her. ‘You won’t find a better man than Rattie,’ she said.

Sofia wasted no time in tracking down and hiring Rattie and his eighteen-year-old daughter Jaynie, with the help of Mrs Berniston who used to write regularly to Freddie’s late wife, Beryl. As Beryl had recently died, Freddie was anxious to come back to Gloucestershire and take up his old life.

When David came down for the weekends he was greeted by Sofia’s wide smile and infectious sense of humour. She always wore jeans and a T-shirt, often with the old beige jersey of his that she had borrowed and never returned, wrapped around her waist. The country air had changed her complexion; it now glowed with rude health and she let her long glossy hair fall about her shoulders rather than tying it back like she used to. Her eyes shone and her irrepressible energy made him feel younger in her presence. He looked forward to his time with her and felt heavy in spirit when he had to leave for London on Sunday evenings. He was pleased that she was making progress with the help of Rattie, whom she adored. ‘He’s so English - he’s like a garden gnome from a fairytale,’ she said.

‘I don’t think Rattie would be very pleased with that description,’ David chuckled.

‘Oh, he doesn’t mind. I call him “the gnome” sometimes and he just smiles. I think he’s so happy to be back, I could call him anything.’

Rattie was also a keen gardener and David was astounded by the transformation of his grounds in the short time he had employed them. Sofia was tireless. She awoke early and made herself breakfast in the big house as Mrs Berniston, who came three days a week to cook and clean, suggested she might as well use Mr Harrison’s kitchen as the fridge was always full. Then she would take one of the horses for a ride across the hills before starting the day’s chores in the stables.

Rattie knew everything about horses and she had a great deal to learn. As a child at Santa Catalina she hadn’t even been required to put a saddle on a horse as everything was done for her by the
gauchos.
Rattie teased her, saying she was spoilt and he’d bring her down to size and she told him that he was only there because of her, so he should treat her with more respect. With his crooked smile and wise face he reminded her in a small way of Jose. She wondered whether Jose missed her, whether Soledad’s gossip had reached him, whether he thought less of her.

Under Rattie’s guidance they bought six top-class mares and hired two grooms to work with his daughter, Jaynie. ‘It’ll take time to get the place up and running,’ he warned Sofia. ‘The breeding cycle is eleven months, you see,’ he said, wrapping his leathery hands around a cup of steaming coffee. ‘Autumn is the time to look for stallions for our mares, stallions with good pedigree and conformation, you understand?’ Sofia nodded. ‘You want top-class racehorses, you need top-class stallions.’ She nodded again with emphasis. ‘In August and September you put in an application for a stallion - we do this by using a bloodstock agent. He’ll negotiate with the owner of the stallion for a nomination. Now I’ve been out of it for a few years, but Willy Rankin used to be my man and I believe he still is.’ He slurped another gulp of coffee. ‘January the fourteenth is the start of the season. That’s when we take the mares off to the stud until they’re scanned in foal.’