A Forbidden Love Read online

  About the Author

  KERRY POSTLE left King’s College London with a distinction in her MA in French Literature. She’s written articles for newspapers and magazines, and has worked as a teacher of Art, French, German, Spanish, and English. Kerry’s first novel, The Artist’s Muse, about the relationship between Wally Neuzil and the artist Egon Schiele, came out in 2017.

  She lives in Bristol with her husband. They have three grown-up sons.

  Kerry is currently working on her third novel about the artist Raphael.

  A Forbidden Love is her second novel.

  Follow her on twitter @kerry_postle

  A Forbidden Love

  KERRY POSTLE

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

  Copyright © Kerry Postle 2019

  Kerry Postle asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008330798

  E-book Edition © April 2019 ISBN: 9780008310271

  Version: 2019-02-25

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Acknowledgements

  Extract

  Dear Reader …

  Keep Reading …

  About the Publisher

  To Paloma

  and all the women who lost their lives during the Spanish Civil War

  ‘The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink – and in drinking understand themselves.’

  Lorca

  Prologue

  March 1940, Malaga

  Luis de los Rios ran out of the university building onto the Avenida de Cervantes, black jacket in one hand, tan leather folder in the other. The porter called after him, ‘Running late today, Seňor?’ But the unlikely academic had already been swallowed up by the bushes on the other side of the road.

  He was on the Paseo del Parque, a long pathway shaded by trees that ran between the harbour and Malaga’s old town. Every Friday morning between ten and eleven Luis walked up and down it. Always on the same day, always at the same hour. He never taught then. He’d insisted it be written into his contract. No one knew why. And today he was running late.

  At 9.50 a.m. a student had turned up at his door. Luis’ instinct had been to brush him aside but the better part of him had won out. He’d sat back, listened to the boy. Or tried to. He’d looked at his watch – 9.52 – and rolled his eyes. Looked at his watch again: 9.57. He thrummed his fingers loudly on the desk. Why was he not able to focus on anything the boy was saying? By seven minutes past ten Luis had had enough. The wooden chair he’d been sitting on went crashing to the floor. ‘I must go,’ he’d said, running to the door, hurtling along the corridor and flying out of the building. And wishing he’d listened to his instinct in the first place.

  It was ten minutes past ten by the time Luis set foot on the path in the park. Lined by tall plane and palm trees, it felt like a cool, dark, cavernous cathedral and it calmed him instantly. He blinked. His eyes adjusted to make out strips of light and shade on the path beneath his feet. He looked upwards. The sun shot through the green ceiling above. He blinked again. His eyes focused further. He saw people as they walked back and forth under the high, fringed canopies, an optical illusion of unbroken movements bathed in radiance.

  Was she here?

  He was later than usual – ‘but not too late,’ he said to himself.

  He proceeded to walk along the path. Purpose pumped through his veins. His skin tingled, senses crackled, as parakeets flew through the air, their plumage igniting into a vivid green. Their fiery wings blazed a trail into his soul, lifting him on his way.

  He went past the old men, acknowledging them as he passed, just as he did every week; nodded to the widows, and the young women who shared their grief. They were here, survivors all, leading a semblance of a normal life, just as he was, refusing to let the past destroy them. They milled around, sat on benches, talked about the weather. Luis winced, moved by the dignity of the everyday in the face of a memory of the horror they all shared: civil war. A nation could not recover from it easily.

  Yet if innocence had gone forever, hope had not. That’s why he was here, making his way to a clandestine meeting, the details of which he’d written in a note and handed to a girl over four years ago.

  He didn’t even know if she’d read it.

  Meeting place: the Antonio Muñoz Degrain monument, Parque de Malaga

  Time: 10–11 a.m.

  Day: Friday

  I’ll wait for you.

  Luis sat on a bench and looked at his watch: 10.45. He thought back to the last time he’d seen her. He’d pushed her away. He’d had to. It was time for her to go. But he had given her the letter. She had it. He hoped she’d read it.

  He leant back against a bench and cast another glance down at his watch. 10.55. Time to start making his way back to the university. He’d always been a good timekeeper. A smile broke out across his face as he remembered that the girl he loved had not. He ran his fingers through his hair, resigned to the fact he’d not fou
nd her. This time.

  He went to pick up his jacket and folder when the screech of a parakeet overhead distracted him. Threat or warning, either way it was too late. The brilliantly coloured bird had already left its dull coloured deposit on the shoulder of his crisp, white shirt.

  ‘Filthy beast!’

  An old gypsy woman dressed in tattered clothes, a black shawl wrapped around her wiry grey hair, smiled at him through cataract-misted eyes. ‘Supposed to be lucky,’ she laughed at him. In the haze of her fading sight Luis had something of the angel about him. To Luis, she looked like a fat, old bird, too large and heavy for the tree above, sat as she was on a nest made of cloth, her skirts billowing up all around. He watched as she plunged her hand in amongst the many layers that surrounded her. She pulled out a dull-coloured patch with frayed edges and waved it at him.

  For want of anything better to clean himself up with, Luis accepted her tattered offering. He rubbed away at his shirt as quickly as he could, his head nodding in the gypsy woman’s direction, grateful that all that was left of the parakeet’s slimy gift was a suspicious, damp stain on his left shoulder. She flashed her crucifix at him in response with a smile that made her eyes disappear. But now he really had to go. He walked swiftly back along the dry, dusty path, shouting back his thanks.

  He’d very nearly packed all the emotions he’d allowed to spill out over this last hour back into the neat compartments he’d allotted them in his mind when he lurched backwards, pulled back by a familiar voice. ‘Don’t run off now, Paloma!’ A little girl, swift as a comet, hurtled past him, her flaming hair dragging his eyes along with her. When the speeding ball of fire screeched to a halt back along the path, not far from the Antonio Muñoz Degrain monument, Luis’ heart missed a beat.

  The child clung on to a young woman with long, dark hair.

  It was her. It was Maria.

  Chapter 1

  ‘What are you going to do when you grow up?’ It was a clear spring day in 1936 and Maria lay back under the gnarled, black branches of the olive tree and looked up at the Andalucian sky above: vivid blue, and as cloudless as the future she saw for herself. She and her friend Paloma often sought shade and solace in this grove, under this tree, far away from the dust and heat of the village. And here they would dream.

  ‘When I grow up, I’m going to …’ Paloma began. She flicked out her fingers in frustration, brushing Maria’s own. ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ she cried in answer to the older girl’s question – but she did. She would grow up to do the same as her mother, and her mother’s mother before her. A husband would be found for her, she would have children, and both she and her husband would work up on the landowner’s estate. That was the way it was; that was the way it had always been. Paloma’s fate was as set as if written in the stars. It was only Maria who saw a future full of possibilities for her friend as she gazed into the bright, limitless sky above. And Paloma loved her for it.

  Instinctively she turned on her side to wrap her limbs around Maria’s. Legs, arms, fingers interlaced, a tangle as fixed and as complex as the roots of the olive tree beneath.

  The girls’ skins squelched, mollusc-like, as Maria pulled herself away. Pushing herself up to sitting, she propped her back up against the solid trunk of the tree.

  She looked at Paloma, cheek squashed against forearm. The skin, usually so plump and firm, gathered in folds and pushed her left eye closed. It struck Maria that in that moment her friend took after her mother Cecilia, whose skin cascaded in folds all over her body; ill-fitting, stretched and worn out, through overuse no doubt. Maria’s father would often sing the woman’s praises – how she fed her children well, repaired their clothes, kept a spotless home, worked hard – but the fact remained that Paloma’s mother was irritable, illiterate and limited. There. Maria had thought it again. Guilt ran a feather over her skin, causing her to shiver. Perhaps she’d judged Paloma’s mother too harshly – her father was always telling her so – but the fact remained: if she didn’t show Paloma there was another way to live, a future other than the one she saw mapped out for herself, then her dear, sweet-natured friend would slowly but surely turn into a beast of burden, just like poor old Cecilia.

  And Maria wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she allowed that to happen.

  ‘Sit up,’ she snapped. ‘So, what do you want to do when you grow up?’ She would have a response.

  Paloma rubbed her eyes and sighed.

  ‘If you don’t answer I’ll have to ask somebody else.’ Maria’s voice was sharp and vaguely menacing. Her eyes scanned the olive grove for possible candidates. They alighted upon a herd of goats resting under a nearby tree. She recognised her own stupidity.

  Thankfully Paloma did not.

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’ll play,’ the gentle soul said, her tone one of quiet resignation. Two years younger than Maria, she always felt grateful the older girl had chosen her and not her sister Lola to confide in. Lola was sixteen, the same age as Maria. It would have made sense for the two older girls to be close. But they weren’t. Never had been. They were fond enough of each other, and the fact that they were opposites in every single way was not, in itself, insurmountable. But that Paloma was so easy to be with, so innocent and good-natured, made her a perfect companion. Lola’s little sister had become the little sister that Maria had always wanted. She could love and protect her, and teach her about all the great and good things in life. Lola, on the other hand, came fully formed with a tongue as sharp as a knife.

  Paloma brought her chin to nestle in the curve between her knees, her black hair still curled up flat with perspiration around her face. A stray lock misbehaved and draped itself like a dark rope against the deep pink of a cheek that was soft and plump once more. If Cecilia had ever looked like this Maria could not imagine it. She leant over towards her friend and pushed the dark unruly coil back with tenderness and waited for an answer.

  ‘Well,’ Paloma began, unsure how to proceed. To get married was the pinnacle of her life, and the thought of a wedding with an abundance of flowers, food, finery, and all the froth that went with it, had started to fill many a quiet moment. But to admit this, Paloma knew, would displease her friend. She waited for guidance.

  ‘Will you have children?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Y-yes,’ Paloma answered. ‘Once I’m married.’

  ‘Why?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Why? Why what?’

  ‘Why would you get married before having children?’

  Paloma’s dark brown eyes widened; Maria’s creased with satisfaction. ‘In fact,’ Maria ventured, emboldened by the surprise in Paloma’s eyes, ‘why would you get married … at all?’ Her young friend’s already wide eyes turned into the fullest of moons.

  The evening before, Seňor Suarez, the village teacher who used to work in Madrid and still had family and friends in the capital, had come to eat with Maria and her father, Doctor Alvaro.

  The winds of change were blowing and whistling their sinewy path around Spain and though they’d barely touched Fuentes de Andalucía in any significant way, the more travelled citizens, of which Seňor Suarez was one, often brought back stories from the outside world whenever they returned to the sleepy little village. Suarez was teacher, philosopher, and general do-er of good deeds (mostly political), and a frequent dinner guest at Maria’s home where the precarious state of the government and how to best help workers in the area were his topics of choice. But last night, as he had smiled over at Maria and realised for the first time that she was a young woman, his conversation had taken a new turn.

  ‘You know, in Madrid, and I hear it’s the same in Malaga, things are so very different for women now. They have more freedom. More choice.’ He’d looked over at Doctor Alvaro who’d nodded for him to continue. Suarez had already told them that night about a growing vegetarian movement in the capital. Nothing his friend had to say, Alvaro thought to himself as he chewed on a particularly gristly bit of sausage, could be more challenging for both he and his da
ughter to swallow than that.

  But then again.

  ‘A woman no longer has to get married if she wants to live with a man.’

  The doctor had choked on the wine he’d just poured into his mouth. He’d expected talk of work opportunities, education … not co-habitation. But he was open-minded, fair, forward-thinking; he knew his good friend to be so too. ‘Please, carry on,’ he’d spluttered, waving his hands around as he struggled to keep his eyebrows from arching.

  ‘And it’s true that some women no longer want to have children.’

  This time it had been Maria who’d choked, though her father’s eyebrows, try as he might to stop them, now leapt up to meet his fast receding hairline. This was a strange conversation indeed. Fascinating and embarrassing for Maria in equal measure. The teacher’s words had slapped her full in the face like a wave, waking her from her romantic dreams; as they receded, she’d taken in their meaning.

  ‘To have or not to have children, women see it as their right, their right to choose. Times are changing.’ And with that Seňor Suarez had coughed most dramatically, prompting the doctor to slap him hastily and heartily on the back while pointing his daughter towards the door with his eyes.

  Maria hovered around the old oak table, topping up wine glasses and clearing away dishes as if she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘How’s the reading programme going up at El Cortijo del Bosque?’ Doctor Alvaro asked his friend.

  El Cortijo del Bosque was the name of the local estate owned by Don Felipe, principal employer in the area. Work on his estate was agricultural. His workers were paid a pittance. Don Felipe himself was fabulously wealthy. And that was how it had been for centuries.

  But things weren’t only changing in Madrid.

  In February 1936 the left-wing coalition, known as el Frente Popular, had won the general election in Spain. This had allowed the good doctor and teacher to push through much needed reforms in Fuentes de Andalucía in general, and up at El Cortijo del Bosque in particular. In the early months of the year both had worked tirelessly to secure better pay and conditions for the estate’s workers, Suarez at the negotiating table, Alvaro behind the scenes. Guido, the estate manager, represented his employer’s interests, at times most savagely. But, snarl as he might, there was little he could do against what was legal; he had the will, but not the right, to resist.