Becky
Granada, Spain
19 June 2018
In the distance, the slowly setting sun makes the sky blush as a deep mournful tune is played on a flute nearby. As Becky gets to the higher caves, she feels a different vibe, more insular … more serious. People talk in low voices, stopping when they see her approach. Others seem deep into whatever it is they’re doing: one woman sits at the edge of the cliff, rocking back and forth as she writes. Another weaves a basket, seemingly in her own world. Becky searches for someone who looks like the girl from the article in their faces but many of them have dark hair and eyes.
‘Do you know this girl?’ she asks each person she crosses. They all shake their heads and her disappointment mounts. Her sister must have left with Idris.
She pauses before she gets to the very top cave. It sits like a small ramshackle castle at the peak of a mountain. When she draws closer, she sees an old man standing outside, whittling a figure out of wood with a small Stanley knife.
It’s Julien; she recognises him from the article. His greying beard is tangled and down to his chest and there are wrinkles around his brown eyes which are narrowed as they observe her. She thinks of how the Italian girl and Dean had described him. She needs to be patient, gentle. Her grandfather had Alzheimer’s, she remembers how confused he would get, angry too sometimes.
He stops abruptly when he sees Becky.
‘I’m Becky,’ she says walking up to him with her hand out. ‘Becky Rhys.’
‘Thought I recognised you.’ He places his knife on the table next to him. His movements are slow, laboured. He must be in his seventies. He takes her hand in his rough one.
‘What do you mean, recognised?’ she asks him, her hand still in his.
‘Your mum,’ he says. ‘You have her face.’
Becky takes a deep breath. ‘I’m really sorry to say she passed away a couple of weeks ago.’
His face whitens.
‘Here, sit down,’ she says, taking him into the cave and helping him sit in a chair. He looks ahead of him for a while, clearly shocked.
Eventually, he looks up at Becky. ‘Who did it?’ he asks.
It sends a chill through Becky. But then she remembers how confused he must get.
‘Nobody did anything,’ she says gently. ‘It was cancer.’
The old man’s shoulders relax. ‘Oh. Well, that’s a shame. I liked her. Let’s light a candle for her.’
He gets a wax candle from a box full of them, lighting it with trembling fingers. The spark lights and the cave is illuminated. Becky looks around her. It’s smaller than Dean’s, with a roll-out bed, a small kitchen and table, two battered armchairs … and a wall full of paintings: people’s faces, stars and moons, solitary eyes staring out at them.
Are these Idris’s paintings? They look just like them.
Becky’s own eyes alight on a small painting in the corner of the cave of a woman kneeling down, her long dark hair trailing down her back, the sun above her. It’s her mum. She walks up to it, puts her fingers against the face. She looks so sad.
‘What brings you here?’ Julien asks, gesturing to the other armchair.
She sits, feels old springs creak beneath her thighs. ‘I’m looking for my sister. She would have been very young when she was here.’
Julien frowns, as though he’s grappling with a memory. Then he nods. ‘Yes, yes, the baby. Solar.’
Solar. So that was her sister’s name.
‘When Idris left this place, did he take her with him?’ she asks Julien.
He nods again. Disappointment threads through Becky. So she definitely wouldn’t be meeting her sister today.
‘Where did they go?’ she asks.
‘Italy.’ He frowns. ‘Or was it Slovenia? No, France … I think.’
Becky’s heart goes out to him. He’s very confused.
‘Are those Idris’s paintings?’ she asks Julien.
‘Yes, this was once Idris’s cave. He said I could take it over when they left.’
‘Why didn’t you go with him?’
‘I fell in love.’ His face softens as he looks at a photo of a woman with long red plaited hair. It seems to have been taken many years ago.
‘Is she still here?’ Becky asks gently.
He shakes his head sadly. ‘She was older than me. Was taken last year.’
Becky leans over, squeezing his hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugs. ‘Such is life.’
‘Why did Idris leave?’ Becky asks delicately. ‘Dean mentioned something about him running from something, someone?’
Julien blinks and looks down at his tea. ‘He never said. But I know he had enemies in the UK. People didn’t like him, didn’t understand him, didn’t understand all of us. They accused him of taking their families away, their wives.’
Becky thinks of that summer, how the fascination for the people living in the cave and Idris in particular soon turned to anger. She heard it in the muttering at the café whenever her dad took her there. The funny looks people gave her mum when they met up. The articles in the papers she caught glimpses of. And her own dad’s anger too of course.
‘You think someone was after Idris?’ Becky asks.
Julien shrugs. ‘Maybe. Or maybe he was just paranoid. He wasn’t the same after we left the UK and your mum.’ He suddenly smiles. ‘He loved your mum. Never seen a love as strong as that.’
‘Then why did he take my sister away from her?’ Becky asks, a trace of frustration in her voice.
‘Life’s a mystery.’ A bell rings and Julien’s face lights up. ‘Feasting!’ he declares. He stands up. ‘Come on. Don’t want to be late.’
‘Feasting?’
‘It was your mum’s favourite part of the day.’
Curious, Becky follows him to a large cave with a huge table dominating it. It’s the biggest cave Becky has seen here, stretching across about fifty metres. Delicious smells waft from a small kitchen, a woman with a long grey plait down her back stirring what looks like fish stew in a pot as a man with an extravagant moustache pours red wine into a large carafe.
Hanging from the ceiling are faded paper flowers and more of Idris’s paintings adorn the walls, these ones of people eating. People are sitting around the table, chatting away. Becky assumes it must be a type of dining area for the people who dwell in the caves up there.
The woman at the stove turns and smiles at Becky. ‘Who do we have here then?’ She has an Italian accent, like the girl from the first cave.
Becky explains who her mum was and the woman’s face lights up. ‘How wonderful. I never met your mother but have heard all about her.’
‘She’s no longer with us,’ Julien says sadly.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Italian woman says, placing her hand on Becky’s shoulder and looking her in the eye.
‘Thank you,’ Becky replies, not sure what else to say. They all seem rather intense.
‘Will you join us for dinner?’ the man with the moustache asks.
‘No, it’s fine, I’d better head back to my hotel.’
‘Hotel food?’ the woman declares. ‘Pfft. Come,’ she says, walking to the table and patting a spare seat as those around the table smile in encouragement. ‘You will sit with us.’
Becky hesitates a moment. Maybe some of these people knew Idris and Solar too? ‘Okay, if you’re sure?’ she asks.
‘Of course,’ the woman says. ‘We have plenty.’
Becky takes the spare seat and smiles at the other people around the table. There are seven of them, ranging from a young skinny girl with a red bob to a deeply tanned older man.
The Italian woman wipes her hands on her red apron. ‘I am Berenice and this is my husband Mattia.’ She introduces everyone else as her husband sloshes wine into the glasses around the table, including Becky’s.
Becky takes a sip of hers. It tastes delicious and fruity. The tanned older man stands and helps Berenice bring the fish stew over, ladling it onto everyone’s plates.
‘You started already!’ a voice says. They all look up to see the Italian girl from the first cave holding a cake, Kai beside her. ‘I’ve brought another guest. This is Kai.’
‘All are welcome to the feast!’ Mattia declares.
‘Feast? Sounds good.’ Kai takes the seat across from Becky and winks. ‘All going okay?’
‘Fine,’ she replies. ‘You didn’t need to come check on me, I wouldn’t want you missing out on time with your cousin.’
‘Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t got attacked by a small black terrier. Anyway, I’m here a whole week, plenty of time to catch up with my cousin.’
She can’t help but smile. She’s pleased he’s here.
‘Your friend?’ Berenice asks Becky.
‘Yes, and Dean’s cousin,’ Becky replies.
The Italian girl who came with Kai sits next to him, and Berenice shouts something at her in Italian.
The girl flings her hands up in the air. ‘Mamma! Abbastanza! Chill!’ She looks at Becky. ‘She’s angry because I’m late for dinner. Papa’s only just started serving!’ she adds, giving her mother an exasperated look.
Her parents start arguing, and Becky exchanges a look with Kai.
‘Oh don’t worry!’ the girl says. ‘They’re always arguing. I’m Carina by the way.’
Becky thinks of her own parents. They didn’t really argue much. More brooding silences. There was just one time she overheard her mum losing her temper. It was just before she left for good, and Becky’s dad had accused her of being just like the grandmother Becky had never met but only seen photos of. Her mum had exploded with anger. She’d always been touchy about her mum, like the time Becky found a photo of her grandmother in an old shoebox.
‘Is that you, Mummy?’ she’d asked her mum.
Her mum had snatched the photo away from Becky. ‘I’m nothing like her!’
But the truth was, her mum did look like her: the same glossy dark hair, full red lips, curves. Like a Hollywood actress, was how her dad would describe her, in the days when they were still together.
‘It’s cool you’re here with your parents,’ Kai says to Carina now, Becky’s memories dispersing. ‘Did you come here together?’
Carina shook her head. ‘They came here first, while I was at university. I followed. Luckily, there was a free cave going far away from this one.’ She gives her mum an affectionate wink and her mother flaps her tea towel at her, smiling. Becky looks at the two of them. If her mum had gone to live in the cave when Becky was older, would Becky have done the same and followed her? She’d had no power as a child to do that. But as a teenager …
She shakes her head, taking a sip of wine. Pointless thoughts. And who would want to live in a cave anyway? She’s sure it is perfect for everyone here, but not her.
Carina’s mother stands at the head of the table, her husband sitting down beside her.
‘Tonight, we have new guests,’ she says, smiling at everyone. ‘So tonight, we shall be our guests.’
Becky and Kai frown.
‘It’s a tradition,’ Carina explains. She looks up at her mother. ‘We don’t know them enough, Mamma.’
‘Pah,’ her mother says, waving her hand about. She walks to the back of the room, rummaging about in a drawer, then brings back some gem stickers, a long string of blue wool and scissors. ‘We will pass this around,’ she instructs, ‘and each person must cut off some wool and tie their hair up with it like Becky’s.’ She gestures towards Becky’s blue hairband, ‘and use this gem as a nose stud, like Kai,’ she says.
Carina laughs, shaking her head. ‘Inventive, Mamma, very inventive.’
Mother and daughter smile at each other. Becky looks between them. The two women clearly have a fiery relationship, but they somehow make it work. Maybe she would have found a way to make things work with her mum if she’d given it a chance. She’d always thought, even if her mum had stayed, they would have grown apart anyway due to being so different. Her dad had told her that when she’d got upset about her mum not attending her graduation. ‘You would never have been close, Becky,’ he’d said. ‘You’re so different.’
But Becky hadn’t given their relationship much of a chance, had she? Maybe they would have got on.
‘Where does this ritual come from?’ Kai asks, taking some wool and tying it around his hair.
‘There was a man here once, many years ago,’ Carina explains. ‘His ways were passed from one person to the next.’
‘Idris,’ Becky says.
Carina nods. ‘I would have loved to meet him,’ she said dreamily.
‘Do you know if anyone else lived here when he did, apart from Julien?’ Becky asks.
Berenice shakes her head, smiling affectionately at Julien. ‘Just this old man.’ He smiles back.
Becky drinks more wine, enjoying how it makes her head swim, easing the disappointment of not finding her sister here. She takes a forkful of the stew, tastes bursting on her tongue: ripe tomatoes, citrus, spices, fish and pasta.
‘This is amazing,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ Berenice says with a smile. ‘So where is home for you, Becky?’
‘A little village in Sussex,’ she replies, suddenly missing her cottage and her dogs.
‘And you?’ Mattia asks Kai.
‘I’m a bit of a nomad,’ he replies. ‘Travel wherever my job takes me.’
‘You will settle one day?’ Berenice asks.
‘Maybe it’ll be here?’ her husband adds.
‘I wouldn’t call this settling,’ Becky says.
Berenice frowns. ‘Why not? Homes can be discovered by accident, like here many centuries ago. When Granada was recaptured from the Arabs, the Arabs fled but buried their treasures here on the hills on their way, hoping one day they would come back. Their slaves, once free, came to these very hills to dig for the treasure.’
‘Legend has it this is how the caves were formed,’ Carina adds. ‘Holes from the slaves digging here.’
Berenice nods. ‘Soon they grew bored of digging …’
‘And they ended up living in the holes they dug,’ Carina says. ‘Their caves …’
‘… their homes,’ her mother finishes for her.
They both laugh.
Carina smiles. ‘I’m so used to my mamma telling me this story, we end up telling it together when guests are here.’
Becky thinks of her own mum’s stories, elaborate imaginings about princesses in snowy woods and flying unicorns, told with such drama each night Becky would beg for more. She feels an aching grief in her heart for her mum then and takes yet another slug of wine to bury it away.
As they eat, she learns the people she saw writing and weaving baskets earlier were in what they called ‘the current’, another ritual passed down by Idris and his followers. She can see why her mum may have been drawn to that, the act of completely immersing herself in her writing, no distractions … no needy child.
After they’ve eaten, they gather all their plates up and pretty Spanish music is turned on as they drink more. Becky and Kai find a floor cushion just outside the cave, sitting together and watching the caves below.
‘This place is great, isn’t it?’ Kai asks.
‘It is. I could see you living here actually.’
‘Not you?’
‘Nope. Wouldn’t feel like home. Plus I wouldn’t fit my three dogs in.’
‘Three?’ Kai asks, laughing. Becky digs her phone out and shows him a photo of the dogs. ‘Wow, they are big, gorgeous dogs.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So what made you decide to become a vet?’ Kai asks her.
‘There were horses behind the house I grew up in,’ she says. ‘I became a little obsessed with them. I guess it came from that.’
As she says that, an image comes to her. A brown and white dog. The sound of waves. A cave in the distance. And Idris, his hand on her shoulder, blood on his fingertips.
She shakes the memory away. Where did that come from?
‘What about you?’ she asks Kai. ‘How did you get into caving?’
Kai takes a sip of his wine, licking his full lips. ‘My dad’s Jamaican. He grew up near the Gourie Cave, the longest cave in Jamaica. He’d always talk about it, make up stories about it. He brought me this amazing book about caves and I read it every night, the same pages over and over.’
Becky remembers her mum giving her a book on caving. It had been just after she left the house for the first time. Becky had treasured it. But when it became clear her mum wasn’t coming back, she’d torn it to pieces.
‘When Dad earned enough money,’ Kai continues, ‘he took me, my mum and all my sisters back to Jamaica when I was ten. First chance he got he took me to the cave. No turning back after that.’
‘All your sisters?’
He smiles. ‘Yeah. I have five of them.’
Becky laughs. ‘Jesus! Do you still go back to Jamaica?’
‘Yeah, when I can. Whenever I speak to my dad on the phone, he bangs on about me going to live out there with him.’
‘Will you?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know, maybe one day. What about your parents?’ he asks. ‘How come you only just found out about this sister of yours?’
Becky thinks for a moment about telling him everything. But she barely knows him. So she shrugs. ‘Long story.’
Kai sprawls his long legs out. ‘We have all evening.’
‘Maybe another time.’
‘I hope there is another time,’ Kai says, smiling. ‘Don’t want you disappearing into nowhere after we leave Spain.’
Becky smiles back at him. ‘I might give you my email address.’
‘Might.’ He sighs. ‘Cruel, dangling a carrot like that.’
Becky finds herself smiling some more. It’s just an exchange of emails. And there’s nothing Kai has said that suggests he’s attracted to her. Maybe that’s what she likes so much, how friendly he is without trying to hit on her.
Hannah, Ed and Dean appear from the path then. Kai jumps up and gives them high fives. The rest of the evening descends into drunken fun, but Becky feels as though she’s watching from inside a bubble. She wraps her arms around herself, staring out at the setting sun and yearning for the warmth of her dogs by her feet.
After a while, she notices Berenice walk outside, picking up a flute and playing a sorrowful tune to the moon above.
So it was her who’d been playing that beautiful music earlier.
Becky goes out to her, watching her until she finishes playing. It makes her think of her mum, of those sad last moments in the cave with her, and her eyes fill with tears.
‘You play beautifully,’ she tells Berenice after.
‘Thank you.’
Becky leans against a small wall that’s been created from stones. ‘It’s lovely here,’ she says.
‘It is, isn’t it?’
They both survey the town for a few moments, silent as they take in the flickering lights against twilight skies, the glimpses of white caves below and the distant sound of flamenco music and cheering tourists.
‘Do you visit the gypsy caves much?’ Becky asks Berenice.
‘Sometimes. But I prefer it here.’ She turns to Becky, looking her in the eye. ‘Did you live with Idris and your mother?’
Becky shakes her head. ‘My mum and I had a … difficult relationship. She left when I was eight.’
Berenice is quiet for a few moments then she smiles sadly. ‘Yes, I left Carina’s father once.’
Becky looks at her in surprise.
‘It was when Carina was at university,’ she explains. ‘I left Mattia to come here. I’d spent so long being just a mother, I needed to get away. I have four children, you see, three of them are still in Italy. It is hard, often thankless work.’ She looks Becky in the eye. ‘Your mother may have felt the same.’
‘Still difficult. You’ll see when you have children.’ She looks back out over the city again. ‘It was good to be free, to live in a cave with another woman, something I’d never done before since I was with my mamma.’
‘Another woman?’
Berenice laughs. ‘Not what you think! Just a friend, a free spirit. Then my husband came to find me. I still remember him walking up there with his suitcase,’ she says, gesturing towards the winding path. ‘He said to me, “I know you still love me. So I’ve come to live with you.”’ She laughs a beautiful laugh. ‘I was happy to see him. It was a moment of madness for me. But it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to us.’
Becky imagines her dad doing the same. How different would her childhood have been?
‘Dean told me about your quest,’ Berenice says. ‘My friend was here when Idris was.’
Becky peers around her. ‘Is she still here?’
Berenice shakes her head. ‘She has gone back to France. Come, I want to show you something.’
She starts walking down the path and Becky follows her until they reach the charred cave she’d seen when she first arrived. They stop at the entrance.
‘My friend told me there was a fire here,’ Berenice explains. ‘It was where Idris stored his paints. See, he’d built a gate across it,’ she adds, gesturing towards nails drilled into the sides. ‘One night, my friend says they all woke to see flames in the sky. She found Idris here, crying as he looked into the cave, watching as all of his paints and brushes turned to ash. The next day, they all left. But not before he painted that over the charred walls.’
She points towards a large face, one side white, one side black. Next to the face is a solitary eye.
‘Mal de Ojo,’ Berenice says, pointing to the eye. ‘The evil eye. Julien often talks of someone Idris was running from. My friend tells me, when Idris left with his followers, the child with them was wearing an amulet bracelet with the same evil eye on it to ward off danger.’
‘That would have been my sister,’ Becky says. ‘Do you know where they went when they left?’
Berenice nods. ‘My friend told me one of the followers, Darja, would often talk of the Postojna caves in Slovenia where she grew up.’
Hadn’t Julien mentioned Slovenia?
‘The day of the fire,’ Berenice continues, ‘Idris declared that was where they would all go next. My friend decided to stay but the others went, including the child. If you are searching for your sister, then that might be where you need to go.’
Becky looks back at the evil eye, its whiteness stark against the blue. If Idris had given Solar a bracelet with it on, did he think she was in danger too?
There is only one way to find out. Becky has to go to Slovenia.