The Mermaid Garden(48)

Both Jennifer and Rose were also in the hall, trying to look like they had something official to do there, but deceiving no one. They resembled a pair of curious cows with their long eyelashes and dumb expressions, jostling each other as they moved slowly around the display of lilies.

“Right, ready. Let’s go,” Clementine announced, holding up the car keys.

“I’m looking forward to this,” said Rafa, following her outside.

She stood in front of her red Mini Cooper, excited that it was just the two of them. “Are you sure you don’t mind my car?” she asked, unlocking it with the remote.

“It’s a charming little car. Why would I mind?”

“Dad’s too long-legged for it.”

“Your father is very tall. I am not.”

“Well, isn’t that lucky, then?”

“For today, yes.”

Clementine climbed in, hastily gathering up the empty coffee cartons, Cadbury’s Flake wrappers, and magazines that had collected on the passenger seat. She tossed them into the back and adjusted Rafa’s seat to give him more leg room. He sat down, and she felt a sudden prickle of electricity for their arms almost touched across the hand brake.

“Now for the fun part,” she said, turning the key and pressing a button on the dashboard. Slowly the roof folded away, leaving them drenched in sunshine, the breeze gently sweeping through the car to carry away the smell of warm leather and any residue of Clementine’s irritation. Without her family to hamper her, she felt her confidence grow. “Isn’t this a joy?”

“It certainly is. So, where to first?”

“I’m going to take you on a magical mystery tour.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“It is. Marina can take you to the beach, and Dad can drive you around so you get your bearings. Jake can take you to the Wayfarer. But I’m not going to take you there. No, I’m going to take you to a secret little place of mine that holds no interest to anyone else in the county but me.”

“They said you didn’t like Devon.”

“They’re right,” she replied, driving up the avenue of pink rhododendrons. “I don’t like their brand of Devon, but I have my own secret Devon that I like very much, and I’m going to show it to you if you promise not to tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

She glanced at him and he grinned back. “You might even like to paint it sometime.”

They drove up the windy lanes lined with phosphorescent green leaves and delicate white cow parsley. The air was rich with the scent of regeneration and the hedgerows alive with young blue tits and goldfinches. With the wind in their hair and a sense of elation from the sight and smell of the sea, they chatted away with the ease of old friends. He told her of his love of horses and the rides he enjoyed across the Argentine pampa; of the vast, flat horizon that glows like amber in the dying light at the end of the day and the dawn in early spring, when the land is veiled with mist. He told her of the prairie hares that play in the long grasses, and the smell of gardenia that would always remind him of home. And he told her of his mother, who worried about him constantly, even though he was in his thirties, and his dead father whom he still mourned, and his siblings who were so very much older than he that he barely knew them at all.

By the time they reached their destination Clementine felt like a different person. Her usual defensiveness had been carried off by his enthusiasm, and in its place there remained a growing sense of confidence. Rafa had lifted her out of herself with stories of his life in Argentina, and she had listened intently, her heart swelling with compassion—and surprise that he had chosen to confide in her.

She parked the car by the gate at the top of a field and got out. Below them, on the top of the cliff, stood a pretty little church with a turreted tower and gray slate roof.

“Here we are,” she announced. “It doesn’t look like much …”

“Oh, but it does. It’s the house that God forgot.”

She smiled, pleased he liked it. “You’re so right. That’s exactly what it is, the house that God forgot, and doesn’t it look sad and forlorn?”

They climbed over the gate and walked down the hill. The grass was long and lush, scattered with bright yellow buttercups that gleamed in the sun. Fat bees buzzed around the flowers, and a pair of butterflies fluttered about them in a flirtatious dance. As they got closer Rafa could see that the windows were boarded up. The church did indeed look sad and forlorn.

“No one comes here. Everyone’s forgotten it. You can’t even see it from the lane. I spotted it from the sea when I went out fishing with Dad as a child, and it pulled at me somehow. As soon as I could drive I found it. I’ll show you inside.”