Garden of Stars Read Free Page A

who has just been at the door.” Inês gave a grim smile. “Time has taken its toll on my mind along with everything else.”
    She looked down at herself, at the loose skin and brown spots on the backs of her hands, seeming to be seeking confirmation, however reluctantly, of her own ageing. “But I’ll tell you what I can recall.”
    She looked towards her tall sash windows as if beyond them lay the expansive plains of the montado , filled with glades of ancient cork oaks, instead of the chilly acres of Hampstead Heath.
    â€œStripping the cork bark from the trees is hard work, Sarah – skilled work – in the sweltering heat of summer. We always threw a huge party for the men – the tiradors – and their families, once every tree had been harvested. Music and dancing under the stars… They were wonderful times. There seemed to be so much more colour there, in Portugal, than there is here. Cowslips, purple heather, the blazing red of the strawberry tree fruits. Or maybe that’s just how I remember it.”
    â€œIt sounds idyllic,” responded Sarah, wanting Inês to carry on painting the picture of her youth.
    â€œWe spent our summers at the beach, all the cousins together, sometimes at Zambujeira do Mar, but usually Melides. Oh, the sea was cold, but we swam and swam like dolphins. I always loved to swim.”
    Inês paused, her thoughts lost in those faraway times and Sarah joined her there, in the wild, sparkling sea under the intense glare of the southern sun.
    â€œIt was all so different when I married and moved to Porto. Grapes dictated the pace of life there, not cork; nearly everyone seemed to have something to do with producing the port wine. There were good times, too, though. One Easter, John and I joined a family party on their estate in the high Douro. The family booked an entire railway carriage to get there, and they even took their piano! You could do things like that, then.”
    An image of a baby grand balanced on the seats of an Intercity train to Manchester popped into Sarah’s mind, and she smiled to herself. These were the stories that she had grown up with and when she’d finally got there herself, she’d discovered the truth was twice as good. Portugal’s sounds and tastes had assailed her senses and overwhelmed her: the roar of the scooter engines that raced up and down Lisbon’s ancient streets; the pungent, exotic aroma of fresh coriander; the thick, sensual sweetness of a sun-ripened peaches. And then love – the kind of love that tears the heart apart with its intensity, that makes the world turn faster, brighter.
    The sudden, harsh clatter of Inês’s teaspoon sliding from her saucer and onto the wooden floor was exacerbated by the deep silence that had preceded its descent. The discordant sound echoed Sarah’s emotions, the bittersweet nature of her Portuguese memories.
    She picked up the spoon and put it on the tray. “Is there anything else you’d like, before we go?” she asked.
    But Inês wasn’t listening, lingering as she was in decades past.
    â€œOf course, I was still very young when I moved away,’ she murmured, her voice and demeanour almost trance-like. “I had fallen in love with John, married him and moved to the north, all by the time I was twenty.” She pulled her shawl tighter around her as if suddenly cold although the temperature had not changed. “It’s strange to think now how little I knew him when I bound my life to his. The innocence of youth, I suppose.”
    Inês’s gaze wandered from the tall windows back to Sarah and she started slightly, as if surprised to find her still there. It seemed to remind her of something.
    â€œI have something that might help you, my dear,” she said.
    Sarah looked at her questioningly but said nothing, waiting patiently for Inês to carry on. Her speech was very slow these days.
    â€œMy