self-deprecation forever. As his sister said when he had won first prize in the Pridemounts, it was time he took himself more seriously. Well, perhaps, but did the world really need another conceited writer?
Before leaving her room, Rose checked her stars. Her horoscope predicted an increase in energy and the possibility of romance. After the bust-up with Steven, she needed a lift in energy and, as for romance, bring it on. The layout of the bedrooms was such that two artists had access to a shared patio. Last night, when she was getting ready for bed, Alfredo had appeared in the window on the other side of her terrace and she’d watched him, unseen.
The light was behind him as he gazed out as though engrossed in the scenery. She knew from her own scrutiny earlier there’d be nothing to see except for a distant light, a few washed-out stars and the dark mass of the mountain they’d talked about over dinner. Not really a mountain, Rose thought, despite everyone going on about it. More a flat, misshapen hill.
According to Mike, when he had finally spoken up, it was once the site of a village, set high purposefully in order to see enemy armies coming across the plain.
‘I believe the only thing left of it is an old water cistern. It’s very deep apparently.’
Why was it that some men had to bore everyone with their knowledge? She had no intention of listening to a history lesson, especially from Mike, but looking at that bleak hill, the idea of people ever living there seemed impossible. So too, though, did the present-day town of Cabrera she’d come through yesterday afternoon. All those houses crammed together on a mountain, clinging to one another for support.
Alfredo turned on his phone. She saw a tiny square of blue light and him keying in a message. To his wife probably. He had the look of a married man.
She closed her laptop on the thought, dressed in working clothes and went downstairs for breakfast. After that, she’d claim her studio, number 4. Wherever that was.
Mike saw Rose in the kitchen and watched her with a mix of admiration and distaste. She’d dropped his hand last night like it was diseased. Here was self-confidence in spades or conceit by the bucketload.
He’d looked her, and everyone else, up before leaving home. Her CV glowed and yet, to him at least, her work seemed muddy, confused by too many disparate elements. Not that he was a good judge of art. The paragraph that described it was a load of pretentious wank. Why artists buried the concept of their work in words he had no idea.
Jane was watching him and he flushed. He’d hate her to think he was interested in Rose, but nothing showed on her face.
‘So, this isn’t your first residency?’ he asked.
‘I went to one in America a few years ago. It was … interesting.’
He had the impression she wasn’t talking about the residency at all but personality, and with Rose in the kitchen the sentence seemed to say a lot.
Interesting. He smiled and she smiled back, which changed her face entirely, lighting up her eyes. He felt himself relaxing, as though the word had united them. Togetherness. Togetherness on the strength of a single word and a dazzling smile.
He finished his cornflakes, tipping the bowl to pour the last of the sweet liquid into his spoon. A habit that used to irritate Amanda.
‘Can I make you a cup of tea, Jane?’
He liked her name. ‘Jane Goodman’ was unfussy and a long way from Amanda Brigitte Catherine Downer and his ex’s pride in having an unworkable handle like that. The initials ABCD had been a family thing she had thought cute and he absurd. He shook his head. He hadn’t thought about Amanda for months now and here she was popping up all over the place.
‘Thanks. Black, no sugar.’
He was smiling when he walked into the kitchen. From small things bigger things grew. His mother had said that. His mother the professor, who had been careful to instil in him good diction and a love of language and literature. She had said a lot of things when he was growing up that flashed up even now. He used to think they were trite, but all these years on they seemed increasingly profound.
Alfredo consulted the list of residents that the Fundacion had sent him weeks earlier, but read just the one listing.
Rose Sinclair. Sydney, Australia. Pintora.
He had seen Sydney on TV when the Olympics were on. A city full of sunshine and sea and yachts. Rose would suit it, he thought, with her sea-green eyes and bright hair.
There were a few small images of her paintings that he studied closely. They showed a few clear objects looming out of an unclear background. A woman’s hand. Half a face. A dark curved shape, like a sickle.
Rose. The word was similar in Spanish. El Rosa. The most stunning of flowers. Last night, Rosa, until tiredness set in, had been alive and charming, holding her own in a conversation that moved between cities and things he couldn’t understand.
He liked the way she used her hands when she spoke, as if to demonstrate her point and include others in the conversation. He liked that when she asked a question, she turned her head to the side. A vain woman but captivating too. Every now and then she would turn to him and smile, as if commiserating over his exclusion.
Alfredo wrote a sentence in Spanish, and with the help of his phrasebook, transcribed it into English. He had a day to settle in before the stone arrived. Why not settle in with Rose?
Rose picked up her art case and went to find her assigned studio. Each studio was separated by a tidy stretch of gravel and an orange tree. Studio 4 was furthest from the house and, as such, the quietest. It was spacious and full of light and, all things permitting, she should work well here. She put her case on the bench.
Through the doorway, the orange tree was heavy with fruit which glowed in the morning light like Christmas baubles or tiny suns. Could she use them as a motif in a series of paintings or was that the worst cliché?
She had promised Veronica, the manager of the Terrace Gallery in Randwick, at least another five paintings to fill out her component of the ‘Exotic and Surreal’ exhibition that she was to share with Peter Lin at the end of April.
Sharing had been Veronica’s idea. Cross-pollination, she had called it. Rose had been persuaded because it guaranteed her more exposure in the art world. And Spain was surely the perfect place to come up with ideas on the exotic, even if the name of the exhibition was ridiculous.
There was some traction in the idea of oranges. That they thrived in a desert certainly seemed exotic, if not surreal, but a familiar voice sprang up in her mind.
Oranges, for Christ’s sake, Rose. Next you’ll be painting flowers. One step away from the mad world of your mother.
She shook the voice away and followed Silvia’s directions to the village. The path was uphill and led between a gully and an orange grove. When she’d come through Cabrera she felt it would take a while to appreciate it. All those whitewashed houses seemed almost too contrived to believe, although that also fitted her artistic brief. Only it was the last thing she wanted to paint.
From the village you could see the residence in the valley below. The wide low building with red roof tiles and ochre walls. In the other direction, down a long and sloping road, was the sea. The Mediterranean, that place of myth and story and fable. When she came to it finally, she
