Hot Basque: A French Summer Novel 2 (15 page)

She’d been a bit worried about toilet facilities for their day out, Antoine had said they’d be stopping for lunch ‘in the mountains,
chez Tatie
, very wild’, she’d half been expecting a Turkish thing with a hole in the ground. The last time she’d used one of them, it had been on a Spanish motorway, she’d had such a problem balancing that she’d inadvertently clutched at the door to stop herself falling backwards into the black hole only to shoot forwards and send the door flying open, exposing herself to a queue of tourists with her trousers round her ankles.

Antoine’s aunt served a simple but delicious lunch out on the terrace, grilled lamb chops and salad. Jill was relieved not to be faced with another gastronomic hurdle, she was sure she had put on pounds since her arrival only two days ago.

Antoine stuck to drinking water but, as usual ate like a horse.
Tante Marie
had brought an enormous platter of fried potatoes with the meat and salad which Jill managed to resist but which Antoine polished off with no problem. She smiled as she remembered him tucking into the beef yesterday. Then afterwards, when the others ordered fruit and ice cream for dessert, he’d gone for the waffles served with poached apricots and almond ice cream. And he still didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh round his middle.

Jill, sipping her wine, examined him from underneath her lashes. What a man. She was getting over-heated just looking at him. She must remember to undo a couple of buttons on her blouse before they set off for the trip back this afternoon. So far he’d been remarkably restrained and well-behaved. Was the old O’Toole magic losing its potency?

They joined Marie indoors for a coffee.

As Antoine and his aunt chatted away at the bar exchanging the latest family gossip, Jill sat back in her chair and let her eyes wander round the room.

On one of the walls hung a reproduction of the Picasso painting, ‘Guernica’, the one she’d remembered earlier. It was the most extraordinary work, full of anguish and violence and suffering. She remembered discussing it in one of her history of art classes. There were various interpretations of the symbols, but the consensus seemed to be that the horse, in the middle of the painting symbolised the people of Spain, victims of Franco’s oppressive regime. The animal’s head was thrown back, mouth open in agony, eyes rolling, a spear thrust through its body. A decapitated soldier lay at its feet. Another symbol of the
corrida
, the bull, represented the brutal aggressor, Franco. It was shown in the left of the picture, menacing, its ears like twin daggers, its head almost touching that of the woman below whose mouth gaped open in a howl of despair. In her arms she clutched her dead child. On the right another woman was burning, her hands thrown up in agony. The effect was so powerful that Jill shuddered and turned away.

She remembered Antoine’s words in the cemetery. His grandfather had died in the war the Spanish Civil war, killed in Guernica.

Marie had excused herself to see that all was ready for new arrivals due that afternoon.

‘Is it far from here? Guernica?’

Antoine glanced at her face, then at the painting.

‘No, close, near Bilbao. That’s the big port, just the other side of the frontier.’

‘What happened there, exactly?’

A cloud passed over Antoine’s face.

‘The town was destroyed in ‘37 by the Germans. Completely flat. The 26 April. You know the Germans, the Nazis, were helping Franco, also the Italians of Mussolini.’

He went on to explain that the attack was carried out by the Condor legion of the Luftwaffe, on Franco’s orders. At the time, aerial bombing was a relatively unknown phenomenon. But by the time the raid had finished, a new and horrifying instrument of terror had been revealed.

‘It was the day of the market. The farmers from the countryside came to the town with things to sell, there were many people, civilians, women and children. The streets were full. In the afternoon, at 16h30, the planes arrived. They dropped the bombs for more than three hours before they leave.’

Guernica, the old Basque capital, symbol of freedom and autonomy, lay in ruins. Hundreds of defenceless civilians lay dead and dying amidst the fire and smoke. Franco’s punishment for resisting his forces. A message to the Basques and to all Republicans who tried to oppose the Nationalists.

When news of the horrific attack spread throughout the world, there was an outcry.

‘And your grandfather?’

‘He was in the Basque army. Normally he would not have been in the town. But he had returned to his, how do you say, battalion?’

Antoine stopped. They were both silent, looking at the painting.

Jill reached out, took his hand once more. There was a lump in her throat and tears had come into her eyes imagining the terrible event.

‘You know what he said, Picasso?’ Antoine had turned his hand over, was holding Jill’s hand tightly. ‘When the painting was how do you say, exposed? Ah yes, exhibited, in Paris, the same year. There was a man, a German officer who said to him ‘You did this?’ And Picasso, he look at him and he reply ‘No,
you
did this.’

Marie, bustling back into the room, paused at the sight of the two of them, hand in hand.

Antoine jumped up, gave his aunt a hug.

‘A moment for reflection,’ he said. ‘Finished,
Tatie.
Now I take Jill to see the beautiful mountains.’

‘You will show her the
cascade,
on the way back?’

Antoine nodded.

‘It is our local secret.’

‘Wait.’ Marie went into the kitchen, came back with a bottle.

‘Here.’

‘Just one drink mind. You are driving that monster. But it is a shame to view the
cascade
without making a special toast. And the wish. Jill it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope you will come back. With Antoine.’

They embraced warmly, then Marie stepped back, gave a little nod to Antoine.

Now what was that about? thought Jill, as they walked back to the bike. Had she been reading things into
Tante Marie’s
parting words? And what was this
cascade
that necessitated a special toast?

‘Ready Irish?’

Antoine grinned down at her.

‘You have a sweater in your bag? I think maybe you put it on. We are going up.’

They set off, climbing higher into the mountains through the green and azure hills. Jill was glad she’d taken Antoine’s advice and put on her sweater. The air was cool where they dipped through forests of pine, warming up again as they came out into sweet-smelling meadows carpeted with wildflowers.

Twenty minutes after they had left the
Auberge
, Antoine began to slow down, looking for something. Peering over his shoulder, Jill saw a wooden sign, and immediately Antoine veered off the main road on to a small track leading down through the forest. As he rolled to a stop, she heard the sound of the waterfall even before she took off her helmet.

He helped her off the bike, then opened the saddlebag, pulling out the bottle that Marie had wrapped in newspaper to keep cool, two glasses, and a blanket. Jill gave her hair a good shake, breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the heady resinous air. The only sounds were the rushing of water, and the song of birds.

They made their way down to a clearing that opened out on to the banks of a wide stream. The grass was a tender green, warmed by the sun that shone unimpeded on to the banks.

‘Come.’

Antoine took her hand and led her along the bank in the direction of the waterfall. It was a short distance upstream, a sparkling, fairy fall of water casting a thousand rainbows into the sunlit air.

He spread the blanket on the grass near a flat rock and they sat silently for a few minutes, listening to the music of the water, marvelling at the play of light and shade. She liked the way they could be silent together, sharing a feeling of companionship, maybe thinking the same thoughts.

Finally he broke the silence.

‘We call it
la cascade des fées
, the fairy cascade, you say? Waterfall, yes. The fairy waterfall.’

He told her that in olden days, the local girls used to leave their villages, make their way up here and bathe naked. It was said that in accordance with the zodiacal signs, if they made a wish, they would see their future lover, appearing in a vision out of the waterfall.

He explained all this with lots of gestures and an eye roll when he said the girls were naked. He was sitting close enough so that Jill could feel the warmth of his body next to hers. She was still slightly tipsy from the wine she had drunk at lunch, drowsy from the delicious food, but at the same time her body tingled, her senses were on full alert, alive, tuned in to the sensations flooding through her from the proximity of that warm male presence.

Antoine uncorked the bottle and poured them each a glass.

‘
Splancha!
’

They touched glasses. She took a sip of the white wine, it was sharp and tasted of gooseberries.

‘And now you must do a wish.’

Antoine was looking at her; she turned her head to meet his gaze. His eyes were almost black except where the sun slanted through his thick lashes, lightening them to the colour of dark chocolate.

‘Do you have a wish, Irish?’

He raised one hand, touched her cheek, gently.

She felt an unexpected rush of shyness, bordering on panic. All her confident plans to flirt, to tease, to beguile him with provocative looks, an unbuttoned blouse, a lipsticked mouth, all fled. She was here, alone with him, the first time they had been alone together. He seemed to be looking into her very soul with those sombre eyes, past all her tricks and pretences, right down to who she really was. She bit her lip, swallowed.

He took the glass out of her hand, placed it carefully on the rock. Then, very slowly, he moved in towards her until his lips brushed hers. At the same time one hand slid into her hair, the other grasped her waist. He pulled her against him, hard yet tender. She felt her lips part, his tongue slid into her mouth, her breasts were pressed against his chest, nothing separating them from each other except a flimsy blouse and a cotton T-shirt. The kiss went on forever, she felt as though she was spinning off into space, anchored only by the hardness of his body, the strength of those muscled arms.

He drew back, slightly, so that their faces were still almost touching.

‘You want to know my wish, Irish?’

She nodded, unable to speak.

The white teeth gleamed, briefly.

‘I want to take you. Now. By the
cascade
. I want to love you, your face, your body, all of you. I want...’

He paused, began to unbutton her blouse slowly, still looking into her eyes. Her breathing had stopped.

‘I want to kiss your breasts, your beautiful white breasts. I want to taste them.’

He bent his head, pushed her blouse open, ran his tongue across her skin, down into her cleavage.

A moan of pure pleasure broke from her lips. She pressed her breasts up, against his tongue.

As her mouth opened he took it again, she could taste her own sweat on his tongue, the sweat that had trickled down between her breasts, that was now trickling down her belly.

He pulled back again. Those black eyes. She could not escape them.

‘So, now I have told you. It is your turn to say your wish.’

All her witty repartee had fled. She could only look up at him, wordless, face aflame.

His hand caressed the back of her neck, rubbing slowly, massaging.

‘Your wish, my Irish Jill, tell me...’

She opened her mouth, stammered the words

‘It’s, it’s my wish too Antoine, your wish is my wish...’

He stopped her words with his lips while he lifted her as though she weighed no more than a feather and laid her, with infinite care, on her back. His fingers undid the buttons, slipped the blouse off her shoulders; his lips moved from her mouth to her breasts, licking, caressing, while he unfastened her bra. Then he sat up, and looked down at her naked torso. The flame in her face had now spread to her neck and chest, she felt as though her whole body must be scarlet. A scarlet woman.

‘So beautiful, so beautiful.’

He cupped her breasts, they were large and round and spilled over the sides of his hands. Big hands, he thought, but these breasts, they filled them like fruit, like peaches, like melons. He pressed his face into their ripeness, inhaling her silky smell, her perfume, her female smell. He marvelled at her skin, like ivory satin, tinged with a faint rose blush. Her green eyes were closed. He wanted her to open them, wanted to look into their depths, feel himself being pulled in, bewitched.

‘Mon amour, ma petite chérie.’

He pressed his face against her stomach with a groan, feeling the pulse beat fast, her chest rise and fall ever faster.

Ah those crazy trousers, those bright red things that clashed with her hair that moulded her behind so that every time she’d walked in front of him he’d felt his body respond. He unzipped them, lifted her hips, slid them down, just a little at first.