ANA'S mood improved the moment they turned the corner and she saw the sea.  There it lay, beyond the stony beach, the steep rock face of an uninhabited island about a hundred metres offshore. All her bad feelings, her contradictory thoughts about the evening  disappeared when she saw the beach she had loved as a child. Cala Blanca.

Under the cliffs at the edge of the beach stood the small stone cottages painted white with blue window frames, known as baraccas, fishermen’s huts. It was a particular favourite of her father, who brought her here for fishing expeditions, after he had acquired a car. Ana took Daniel’s hand as they stood for a moment, breathing in the soft evening air. It was good to be adding shared memories with Daniel to the childhood ones with her father.

She and Daniel were the last of the group to arrive. A strategic picnic spot had been claimed by Carole and Ivan Hepworth, who had apparently been the first to arrive.  Good sites, where the pebbles were small and even enough to support tables in reasonable stability were in great demand and by half-past nine other groups were rapidly arriving. This was one of the most popular beaches for evening picnics in the summer. If you arrived early, by Spanish standards anyway, it was possible to park quite near the beach, and that was important, as there was usually a lot to carry. Spanish families set high standards for equipment. Their large family parties sat at long tables with comfortable chairs and sometimes, if they could park close enough, ran cables from their cars to provide electric lamps.

The much smaller number of foreigners, mostly British, who had taken up the idea felt it was incumbent on them to show they too could organise elegant picnics with tablecloths, wine coolers, and proper glasses. In local British folk legend, Daniel told her, a posh English group had once arrived on the beach for a picnic, the men in dinner jackets, and the women in long evening dresses, but although Daniel said he had heard the story many times, he had never met anyone who had seen it with their own eyes, or even spoken to someone who had.

As they walked across the beach Ana saw that Carole Hepworth was swimming close in to the shore.  She called out a greeting from the sea, inviting them to join her. Jonathan, meanwhile, was striking out for the island and Ana identified the head in a white swimming cap next to him as that of Sarah Harris. She admired their swimming styles and was glad that she had decided not to go in the water; she was the first to admit that while she loved swimming and could move quite quickly, her style was less than elegant. Another man – Jeff Guy, perhaps? – was also heading for the island, not far behind the other two.

 

The greetings were a little awkward; Ana was never sure what the protocol was with your husband’s ex-wife but decided that, being Spanish, she would kiss Lynette on each cheek. Lynette smiled broadly as she said hello but Ana saw her eyes take in all the details of the olive green dress which Daniel had told her, as they left the house, fell into the category of “a sexy little number.” She noticed that Daniel did not kiss Lynette but patted her on the shoulder in the way he usually greeted male friends. Lynette was looking, Ana thought, particularly glamorous tonight.

She turned to speak to Holly Guy who, with Mark Harris, was arranging food on the table. Before setting out she had made a vow to discover a new piece of information about everyone there tonight, to help her form a mental picture directory. This was a technique she had been taught on a London training course  when she had worked for one of the big Spanish banks. It would help her to identify and recall the new faces – useful too as a simultaneous interpreter in the European Commission in Brussels. People loved being remembered. 

When she asked where they should put the food and wine they had brought, Holly called her over to the larger table where a huge amount of food was already on display.

“That is delicious looking ham,” Holly said. “ Somehow I don’t think it came out of plastic wrapping.”

Ana told her that she always bought her ham from Castello, one of the oldest stalls in the covered market in the town, and the cheese as well, which was a Manchego that Daniel particularly liked. Hearing his name, he joined them and helped her take the plates and glasses they had brought out from the cool bag. As they were looking at the food the others had brought, Ana asked Daniel for the names of some of the dishes. Pork pies were a novelty to her.  She overheard Mark and Holly talking as they were opening bottles and pouring glasses of cava. 
“Is Sarah okay at the moment, Mark? I thought she seemed a bit, well, I don’t know, down these last few days.”

 “Yes, she does seem a bit off colour at the moment, but I don’t think it’s anything serious.” 

“Well, I am sure Jonathan is cheering her up out there,” Holly said. “He is a lovely person to have around, especially if you are feeling a bit low. Mark, I just wanted you to know that Jeff and I are here, if we can do anything to help.” 

Ana moved away, embarrassed at overhearing what was obviously a private conversation. She wondered if Daniel had heard it too, but he was now busy talking to Ivan.

The beach was crowded with picnicking groups, children playing on the edge of the water, often looked after by grandparents, while their parents were putting out the food, or sitting back relaxed with a glass of wine and a cigarette.  It struck her that one of the big differences of her group was that they were are all from the same generation, no children, no grandparents. She supposed this was because they were mostly immigrants, away from their countries of birth and several were retired, even though they were, by Spanish standards anyway, so young. One of her reasons for returning home, and the one closest to her heart, was so that their children, when they had them, would grow up close to their grandparents. Daniel’s parents were both dead, and he had been an only child, so it would be on her parents, her family, that their children would depend for the warmth, the links with past generations, the continuity that family meant to her.  She wanted Papi to bring his grandchildren here to fish, as he’d brought her.

 

Then, as she watched Daniel talking to Lynette, she was reminded that their children would also have two half-brothers, Dominic and Tony, more than twenty years older. How strange that would be.
 She saw Holly going to the edge of the sea with towels for the swimmers who were emerging from the water and walked down to join her. Holly helped Carole who was first out, giving her an arm as she scrambled up the pebbles, wrapping a large beach towel around her. Even with rubber surfing shoes, it was not easy to get out of the water gracefully. 

Holly hugged Carole. “I’m so happy I managed to get the curtains up before we came out. You are such a star.”  She explained to Ana that Carole was the best curtain maker she knew and that she had spent the morning hemming Holly’s new curtains, “which seemed such a bargain when I bought them but of course turned out to be miles too long”.

Surprised that apparently well-off people would alter curtains themselves, Ana compared this information with life in the old town, where many of her mother’s friends and relatives earned their living by sewing - making and altering clothes and curtains. A sewing machine was a really important tool and the man who serviced their machines was a key figure in their lives.
“I didn’t realise you sewed,” she said to Carole, as they walked up the beach together. “I thought you ran an Inmobiliaria, that you were an estate agent.”

“Well, I am, although that’s rather a posh word for what I do – you know,  finding houses for clients and helping them buy them, arranging mortgages and so on. No, sewing is what I do for fun. It helps me relax, but I doubt I could make a living at it.”
As they neared the picnic tables, she and Carole discussed the enormous number of new properties being built in the area, and how easy or not it was to sell them.

Then a hand touched her shoulder and a voice in her ear said, “At last.”

She turned around and there was Sarah Harris, her white-blonde hair shaken free from the swimming hat, which she was twirling in one hand. A towel was draped over her shoulder. She looked, Ana thought, like one of the Hollywood stars from the 1950s, her black halter neck swimming costume adding to the impression. Betty Grable? No – Betty Grable was cuddly, more a Lauren Bacall perhaps, although that wasn’t quite right either.

“ You should have joined us, Ana, the water was fantastic tonight. Perfect temperature.”

“You and Jonathan are such elegant swimmers. I would have felt like a porpoise splashing along by your side. But tell me where you got that swimsuit? Not, I think, in one of our local shops?”

Sarah took them to two chairs alongside some glasses of Cava on the smaller table, put a glass into Ana’s hand, touched glasses and said, “Before I answer, you must tell me what a nice Spanish girl like you is doing in a group like this?”

Ana was completely taken aback, not knowing how to respond, and Sarah laughed.

“Sorry, darling, you look so shocked. The English sense of humour doesn’t always travel well. What I really meant is that you are so innocent. Here we all are, with our past secrets, moving to another country to reinvent ourselves.”
Before Ana could say anything, Holly Guy joined them, a glass and a bottle in her hand.
“What has Sarah been saying to you, Ana? You really mustn’t believe everything she says.”

And she deftly turned the conversation, asking Ana what her family were doing tonight, to celebrate the solstice. Ana needed little encouragement to describe the wonderful experience it had always been for her, from the time she was a small child, to be in an enormous group of people, thousands even, mothers and fathers, grandparents, babies in pushchairs, children of all ages, walking together, flower wreaths on their heads, dancing to the bands playing, all the way around the town, stopping to jump over the fires that were at strategic points along the streets, the strongest young men jumping when the fires were first lit and the flames high and the smallest children and the grandparents waiting until only the embers were glowing and it was safe for them. Ana saw that Jonathan and Jeff had joined the group while she was telling her story and they asked why this ritual was carried out, what it was for.

“It’s basically a way of clearing out the debris of winter, making fires of it, to create clean houses and new luck for the summer.”
“So nothing really to do with religion at all then,” said Jonathan, and Ana, laughing, agreed.

“ We call it La Nit Màgica,” she said. “I always felt myself part of a celebration taking place all over the world, not just here in my little town. In school we were taught to say that we are celebrating the arrival of summer and thanking the Sun for his force, heat and light, and the Earth for all the fruits she gives us.”

She felt herself blushing. Then Jonathan who seemed to have drunk his cava rather quickly, told them he had been in love with the sea all his life and that on a night like this his mood became romantic, stirred by the beauty of the evening. As he swam, he told them, he saw the pebbles on the seabed as jewels beneath him, glittering in the setting sun, and the small fish, which darted away as the shadows of swimmers passed over them, as magical creatures, celebrating the gift of summer. That’s pretty poetic, she thought, imagining her mother’s reaction if one of the two Lopez brothers, younger than Ana, had said something similar. It would probably not have gone down well, Spanish mothers of the older generation preferred their sons to be more macho than poetic. But it was the poet in Jonathan which had drawn her to him when they first met in Brussels.

Then Ivan Hepworth rapped a glass with a spoon, calling them all to the large table for a toast, and the spell was broken

Ana admired the smooth way Holly had organised the seating at the table; no one was told where to sit but somehow Ana found herself between Holly and Mark Harris, opposite Ivan Hepworth. Daniel and Lynette were at opposite ends. Her longing to ask Sarah more about the secrets of these people who were laughing and talking so freely was temporarily frustrated, and she vowed to move as soon as it was politely possible.

“Weren’t you a teacher in another life?” Ana asked Holly as she was offered some ham.
“I was indeed. Is it that obvious? Am I being impossibly bossy? Jeff is always telling me off.”
“Jonathan told me, but you remind me a little of a teacher in the Institute, the high school, that I really liked.” Ana told her that this teacher had taught English and Spanish literature, and although her English accent was a little eccentric, she had been a great teacher. Inspiring in her pupil a love of the books she taught. The mark of a good teacher Ana thought.

“Certainly is, and thanks for the compliment. I hope some of my ex pupils still remember the things I taught them. Social sciences, though, not quite as romantic as literature. Do you still read in English?”

When Ana told her she did, although the move hadn’t left much time for reading, Holly told her how popular reading groups had become.

“I belong to one you might like. We’re trying to read Spanish books at the moment, in translation of course, so a native take on the book would be so helpful. I’ll send you the info. What about Danny? Would he like to come, do you think?”

Reading Ana’s thoughts, Holly but a hand on her arm and said “oh, my dear, I am sorry, I forgot you always call him Daniel, and he said so clearly he wants to be called Daniel now, it just slipped out, force of habit. It must be so difficult…”

A call went up from the other side of the table for the plate of pork pie slices and Holly broke off. Ana detected that she’d been genuinely upset at causing hurt, and gave her a reassuring smile. Then she turned to Mark Harris and they began talking about the beach, the evening, the wonder of Mediterranean nights and Mark told her that when he and Sarah had lived in India they had been struck by the absence of twilight, by the sudden change from light to dark.

“We must have been mad, we took an old wind up gramophone with us, afraid there would be no electricity, which of course there was, as we lived in a city, but we wanted to sit in the garden to watch darkness fall and play “stardust” on the gramophone.”
His face relaxed as he spoke and Ana saw that his mouth could be soft and quick to laugh, a change from the thinner, grimmer line which she had assumed was habitual. Hadn’t Jonathan said that he was the civil servant par excellence, who looked as if he could never put a foot wrong?

Had he, though? Did he have a secret? Could Sarah have been implying something like that about her own husband?