The Company of Strangers. Robert Thomas Wilson
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The wind was stronger out here, blowing sand across the road, which corrugated to washboard, hammering at the suspension.
The hump of the Serra de Sintra appeared with the lighthouse at its point. The road climbed, twisted and turned back on itself – a grim chapel and fortification high above on a wind-blasted peak, naked of vegetation, looked out over the surf-fringed coast, now far below, tapering off into the Atlantic.
At the highest point the road turned north and into a thick bank of cloud. The vapour condensed on their faces and hair. The light sunk to an autumnal grey. Homesickness and gloom descended with it.
At the hamlet of Pé da Serra Wilshere turned right up a steep climb and on the first bend stopped outside some wooden gates flanked by two large terracotta urns. A servant opened the gates and they rolled into a cobbled yard in which vines had been trained to form a green canopy over a right-angled arcade. Piles of dung littered the stones and a Citroën was parked with its nose under one of the arches.
As the Bentley pulled up alongside, a man mounted on a black stallion came from behind the building. The horse stepped daintily around the piles of ordure, its hooves ringing on the damp satin cobbles. The rider, seeing Wilshere, turned his animal, the musculature in the horse’s hindquarters straining to be out on the gallop. The horse snorted and tongued the bit. Wilshere shrugged into his jacket, introduced Anne to Major Luís da Cunha Almeida and tried to stroke the stallion’s head, but the horse shook him off. The major was powerfully built, his shoulders as restless as the animal underneath him. His hands and wrists toiled with the reins while his thick knees and thighs gripped the horse’s impatience. They exchanged a few words and the major turned his horse and trotted out of the yard.
The groom brought a large grey mare and a chestnut filly into the yard. Wilshere mounted the mare, took the reins of the filly and led it to some steps. The groom held the stirrup while Anne mounted. Wilshere arranged her reins for her, gave brief instructions, and they followed the major out on to the hills.
They walked the horses, climbing steadily through the pine on a sandy track through the forest. Wilshere retreated into himself, blended to the animal beneath him. Anne moved her body with the filly’s strides, trying to think of a way into Wilshere, looking at the man in his silent place – his hell, he’d said. After three-quarters of an hour they arrived at a stone fountain and a low, miserable grey rock building, with a cross on the apex of its roof, which was submerged in the surrounding vegetation with the green streaks of damp clinging to its walls. Wilshere seemed surprised and annoyed to find himself at this spot.
‘What is it?’ asked Anne.
‘Convento dos Capuchos,’ said Wilshere, turning his horse. ‘A monastery.’
‘Shall we take a look?’
‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘I took the wrong road.’
‘Why don’t we take a look now that we’re here?’
‘I said no.’
Wilshere turned her horse and set her off back down the track. His own mare kept settling back on her hindquarters, raising her forelegs off the ground, apparently uncomfortable with the rider. They danced while Wilshere tried to wrestle her back down. Then he dug in his heels and let her have her head. They careered down the track, almost sideways, Wilshere bent over the horse’s neck. They closed rapidly on the filly and, as they reached her, Wilshere leaned over and gave the animal a whack across the rump with his crop. Anne felt her horse start beneath her, tip back on its hind legs. Then the filly lunged forward, tearing the reins from her fingers and throwing Anne on to its neck so that the mane, coarse and bitter, was stuffed into her mouth.
The filly’s fast hooves rattled over the dry stones and the hard-baked track ripped past underneath. Anne hung on to the mane with her cheek pressed to the smooth skin, felt the thick beam of muscle in the horse’s neck, saw the animal’s eye wild and white-edged with panic.
The track narrowed, the trees closed in. The filly’s tongue was hanging out of its head as foam crept up her jaws. Branches snapped at their flanks, cracking against Anne’s flattened back, whipping against the horse’s chest, spurring it on. Adrenalin had burst into her system and yet she found herself detached – both on the horse and yet looking on, too.
They burst out of the trees and cloud into the brilliant sunshine, a rough brush underfoot. The wind crumpled in her ears. There was a clattering noise off to the right. A charging presence pursued by dust swirling in tight screws closed on her. The hot lathered flanks of the major’s black stallion pulled alongside and a thick wrist gripped the strap of the bridle and the fractions crunched into each other to make slow seconds until they stopped altogether.
She pushed herself up straight against the major’s arm, legs quivering.
‘Where’s Senhor Wilshere?’ asked the major, in English.
‘I don’t know…I…’ she ducked at the memory of him, crop raised, bearing down on her.
‘Something frightened the horse?’
Anne, gulping at the air, working at the events in her brain, searched for any possible reason for Wilshere’s bizarre action.
‘Whose clothes are these?’ she asked.
‘I don’t understand,’ said the major, squinting at her.
‘Mr Wilshere…did he come riding here with someone…before? Before me. Another woman?’
‘You mean the American?’
‘Yes, the American. What was her name?’
‘Senhora Laverne,’ he said. ‘Senhora Judy Laverne.’
‘What happened to her? What happened to Judy Laverne?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been away some months. Perhaps she went back to America.’
‘Without her clothes?’
‘Her clothes?’ he asked, confused.
‘These clothes,’ she said, slapping her thigh.
The major wiped sweat out of his eyebrow.
‘How long have you known Senhor Wilshere?’ he asked.
‘I arrived in Portugal yesterday.’
‘You didn’t know him before?’
‘Before what?’
‘Before you arrived,’ he said, solid, calm.
Anne filled her lungs with air, unbuttoned her jacket. The filly turned and put its head to the stallion’s flank. High up on a ridge Wilshere appeared, white shirt against the blue sky, and waved at them. He worked the mare down through the brush and rocks and on to the path.
‘I lost you,’ said Wilshere, approaching them on the now subdued mare. As if that was all it had been.
‘My horse bolted,’ said Anne, not ready for confrontation, not in front of the major. ‘The major rescued me.’
Consternation crossed Wilshere’s face. It seemed so genuine that Anne almost accepted it, even though she’d seen he’d stripped off his jacket, which was strapped to the back of his saddle. Not the behaviour of an urgent man.
‘Well, thank you, Major,’ said Wilshere. ‘You must be rattled, my dear. Perhaps we should head back.’
Anne eased the filly out from under the stallion’s haunch. Wilshere gave the major a casual half-salute. They headed back down the path towards the dense cloud on the north side of the serra. The major stayed behind, motionless on his horse, solid as an equestrian statue in a city square.
They walked nose to tail back to the quinta, back into the gloom of the low cloud. Anne, mesmerized by the rhythm of the horses, replayed the incident; not Wilshere’s madness, but the exhilaration of the adrenalin rush on the back of the runaway horse – fear had not been as frightening as she’d imagined. It seemed to tell her something about the faces