The Catalan House

Prologue

Last night Isabel Pelham dreamt of her cousin Ricardo. In those brief seconds before waking and while clinging to sleep, she once again felt the scorching sun on her back and his hands as they brushed her shoulder. Unsure if she was still dreaming, she could smell the overpowering perfume of gardenia that hovers in the heat after a sudden downpour. Raindrops slid to her face from the palm trees above and she watched, half fearful, as small scorpions scuttled towards the shade. Willing herself to stay asleep, to place her lips against his smooth dark neck, she was reluctantly dragged to wakefulness.

Intermittently over the years and often after a long absence, Ricardo appeared in her dreams as if to make sure he was not forgotten. In the morning, Isabel would wake with a face that was wet with tears, yet strangely comforted and while she knew that the dream was delicious and left her with a delicious feeling, she could never remember what it had actually been about - the tears she could only conclude, were tears of longing. It was uncanny but Ricardo seemed to know just when he was needed and she would wake feeling completely enveloped by his being, comforted after an inexplicable hurt, as if healing hands had reached into her very soul. But the shockwaves such dreams left behind resounded in her for a while after and were unsettling. For a few days after a Ricardo dream, Isabel found it difficult to concentrate on anything, darting from one project to another, unable to shake off the persistent feeling that she should be somewhere else. And while she could not allow herself to really think about him, to

remember everything, longing for Val Negra, her grandmother and cousins and the house in which they had spent so much time together, gnawed at her heart. Sometimes the yearning to be with Ricardo was so great she thought she would go mad. But then, after a few days, the strange restlessness would pass and in time the longing too subsided.

Did Ricardo ever dream of Val Negra she often wondered. Did his body physically yearn as hers did, to revisit their childhood and take in the unearthly beauty of Val Negra with its vineyards purple against grey hills? Did he hope to hold on to that memory while it was still intact before they all grew up and were damaged?

Did he ever dream of her?

“Anyone here to sign?”

Isabel looked up from her computer at the sight of the leather clad biker as he weaved his way through the crowded office, past the 2 metre mock ups of coca cola bottles, airplane seats and oversize lipsticks- all work in progress. She sincerely hoped he didn’t have anything for her. She was running late as it was, to meet her boyfriend for a drink and her stomach told her at every opportunity that it was tapas time. At the thought of a dwarf size plate of manchego cheese and pan tomacat, Isabel literally licked her lips. A strong whiff of petrol jolted her back to reality.

“Yes?”

The biker was standing in front of her, pushing up his visor. He dropped a large jiffy bag onto her cluttered desk which sent stray papers fluttering to the floor. She bent double to pick them up.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “You Ruble?” he added pushing a clipboard under her face. She took the offered pen.

“Roble,” she corrected rolling the r, coming up breathless.

“Whatever.” The biker motioned to the room. “You guys don’t have homes or something?”

Apparently not, thought Isabel watching as a team of giggling Americans took it in turn to wear the giant sized sunglasses they’d constructed from wine corks. The biker snapped closed his helmet and creaked out of the office. She rested the package on her lap irritated that anything should arrive so late. She glanced at the franking with disinterest. It was probably just another proposal. Her work station was already cluttered with the like. Most came from Spanish wine companies but there were brochures and paperwork of every description. There was also a clay bull with a copper ring through its nose which she used as a paperweight and a hideous flamenco doll with dust ingrained in the folds of its synthetic skirt, neither of which she could quite bring herself to get rid of.