After lunch, John took me to the Chiado. It is the most exclusive shopping street in Lisbon – and the steepest. I was quite out of breath by the time we reached a shop door surrounded by blue, white and orange tiles. John told me that I was to choose some new shoes. Well, what he actually said was, “You won’t need those old clodhoppers you wear on the farm any more.” Really! But when I looked down at the toes of my brown, practical shoes where the Alentejan dust still lay in a thin film, I saw his point. The bell chimed as we entered and the shop assistant appeared from some inner room. She was immaculate and when I caught sight of myself in the mirror, all windblown hair, wine-reddened cheeks and out of town clothes, I felt rather queasy and regretted eating the pudim.
But then I became distracted by the problem of having to choose when there was so much choice. The shelves in the shop stretched from floor to ceiling and were filled with box after box. I couldn’t think where to begin. So I went over to the window to examine the display and as soon as I saw them, I knew. I picked out a pair of shoes from the careful arrangement that lay behind the glass and showed them to John.
Gold, high-heeled evening sandals, shiny and bejewelled, completely and utterly different from any shoe I’ve ever owned before and surely a shoe that no country bumpkin would ever wear.
“No more clodhoppers for me,” I said to John as I tried them on. And he laughed and bought them for me, despite the price tag, plus another pair of reddish-brown court shoes for everyday. He didn’t so much as flinch as he wrote the cheque and we walked back to the car through streets bedecked with washing hanging out to dry like prosaic bunting, John carrying the box stiffly in front of him as if it were a regal offering.
We set off for Estoril, and as we progressed along the coast road, a vast number of masts came into view, and then the boats that they belonged to, three and four-masted schooners moving gently side to side with the swell of the ocean. John stopped the car and we got out to take a look. Approaching them, we saw that the boats were full of activity; men loading crates of food and sack after sack of salt, their voices snatched by the same wind that would soon be taking them to their destination. For we had happened upon the bacalhoeiro, the fishing fleet about to set off to the cod banks of Newfoundland and Greenland, from where it would return in many months’ time with its cargo of bacalhau, our national dish.
John explained that the little boats piled on the deck of each ship are called dories. These are winched over the side with one or two men aboard who spend all day, up to twelve hours, fishing by hand with a line. Some days they might catch a glimpse of an ocean liner crossing from America to Europe or back again – but most of the time there won’t be another sign of human life anywhere on the planet.
It made me shudder to think of it, just you and your little boat in the middle of all that water. Imagine it - the grey-black sea, the choppy waves, the fishermen in their woollen jumpers and hats, their hands sore and calloused from the sharp fishing lines, and the big, ugly cod flailing and twitching in the bottom of the boats as they die. And then add to that the knowledge that every year, there’ll be those who go out and never come back.
I studied John as we stood on the quayside, and thought of all the newly married brides who each and every springtime say goodbye to their husbands and are left to wait at home for long months, hoping and praying that they might see them again. The wind was forcing back John’s hair, revealing his neat ears and strong forehead. In profile, he looks so solid and determined. I love him so much and I’m so glad that he does not have to go away, that his life will never hold the dangers that the fishermen of the bacalhoeiro face.
London, 2010
As the innocence and charm of Inês’s words reeled her further and further in, Sarah found herself increasingly entranced, but also discomfited. It was a while before she recognised the negative feelings niggling at the back of her mind and even longer until she forced herself to put a name to them, ashamed as she was to find herself harbouring jealousy. How lucky for Inês to have been so young and so in love, a lifetime with the man of her dreams to look forward to. What she herself had longed for at the same age, had held in her hands but lost. She could deny to herself no longer that the real motivation for returning to Portugal was not just about a good job, a reassertion of her independence or to kick back against Hugo’s neglect.
It was about Scott.
Her first boyfriend, love of her life, the man who she could hardly bear the thought of seeing again, but equally could not get out of her mind or from under her skin. He had populated her dreams for two decades and around his memory she had spun an elaborate web of fantasies of what might have been, what could and should have been – if only. With him, she had always convinced herself, her life would have been so very different. So much better? Sometimes, and more and more frequently these days, it was compellingly beguiling to believe so. Now, having spent so many years trying, and failing, to forget about him, the moment of reckoning had arrived. Should she contact him? How could she? How could she not?
The network of friends and acquaintances from the year she had spent in Portugal had fragmented and dispersed over the two decades since. She was in regular touch only with Carrie, her vivacious, irrepressible, confrontational crony, with whom she had shared many adventures and experiences. Carrie and Scott had continued to correspond for a while and so Sarah knew that, after a few years back home in his native Canada, he had returned to live in Portugal, and that in all likelihood he was still there, working for the same Canadian/Portuguese shipping company. A similar career to Inês’s John, another thing that, at the time, Sarah had felt tied her even more tightly to her beloved great-aunt, her country and her heritage.
She would find his email, she told herself – so easy to do, these days, with the internet; she knew his firm’s name. She could send him a message, friendly but casual, announcing her impending presence in Lisbon and enquiring as to whether he would like to meet. She should do this to put to rest twenty years of regret, to close a door that had been left wide open.
Her stomach churned and flipped at the thought.
She found his company’s website in just a few seconds online. Closed it again, without clicking on the ‘our staff’ tab, or the ‘contact us’ button, though they boldly advertised themselves on the home page, inviting her. She reasoned with herself that she didn’t know if she was going to have time to fit in anything else but work, wouldn’t know her schedule for a few days yet, not until she’d firmed everything up and gone through all her checklists. There was no point contacting him and then having to cancel; that would be embarrassing, and simply a waste of time. And conversely, the later she got in touch, the more likely that he wouldn’t be able to make it, wouldn’t be in town or available, and then the whole thing would just go away and she’d know that it wasn’t because she had lacked the balls to do it, but just due to a simple matter of logistics, of busy lives and prior engagements. And anyway, how to explain a pre-planned meeting to Hugo? He might easily misinterpret such an action, and even if he didn’t, wouldn’t it be tantamount to throwing in his face the fact that their marriage was worn and crumbling, otiose? And would not that, in turn, draw to both of their attentions that they had let it get this way and that neither seemed able to diagnose the sickness nor prescribe the cure? Fiddling with the mouse at the same time as staring into space, a hot rush of shame engulfed Sarah. No matter what the hardship, she must stay true. If there were to be a meeting, it would be a chance one, organised whilst there, suitably impromptu.
Satisfied with this non-decision for the moment, Sarah concentrated on making preparations amidst dealing with all the mundanity of everyday life. The short amount of time leading to her departure date flew by in a whirl of planning and grocery shopping, chores and organisation, precluding too much introspection.
On her last day, she and Inês walked to the top of Kite Hill as they had so many times over the years. A stiff breeze blew down