The Snow Gypsy(4)

Sometimes she felt as if she’d crammed a whole lifetime into her twenty-two years. At fourteen she had witnessed something no child should ever see. And she had brought up Nieve on her own, with only a little help from her cousin and his wife. She had been looking out for herself for the past eight years, and she was finally earning good money. If Cristóbal thought she was about to give that up for some dough-faced muleteer, he must be tonto. Stupid.

“Come on,” she said, arching her back and yawning as she stood up. “We’d better get these children to their beds.”

“I might stay for a while,” Cristóbal replied. “Juanita won’t be waiting up—she’s been falling asleep at the dinner table these past few nights.”

Lola gave him a hard look. She knew exactly what he had in mind. He would go on drinking into the small hours, pick up a woman, then stagger home to find his pregnant wife on her knees, building a fire to make breakfast.

She lifted the still-sleeping Nieve into her arms and shooed the other two ahead of her. If they hadn’t been within earshot, she would have warned their father that he’d better be on his best behavior in Provence. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to lie to Juanita about what he might get up to at the fiesta.

Why was it, she wondered, that men were allowed to get away with that kind of thing while she was mocked for not wanting a husband? No one would dream of teasing a nun for choosing not to marry, so why did they curl their lips at her? Was dancing so very different from praying? Flamenco was about surrendering to the duende. It was about allowing your body to be taken over by something you couldn’t see, only feel. And when you were doing it well, it felt like a religious experience. Sacred and precious.

“Perhaps we will find you a husband at the fiesta,” Cristóbal called after her. “A big, strong Húngaro who’ll drag you off and make love to you on a wolf-skin rug!”

“Over my dead body!” Lola whispered the words into the lavender-scented hair of the child in her arms.





Chapter 4

Sussex marshes, England: May 2, 1946

The sun was dipping below the horizon when Rose found Bill Lee. She had first met him the same year that Nathan had set off for Spain—and in the decade since, she had made an annual visit to the place where he could always be found in the months of summer.

His vardo was in a different place from the one he usually chose. Its carved front, painted with red and yellow roses, was hidden by a thicket of willow trees. Rose found it only when she spotted one of Bill’s dogs—a black-and-white mutt called Bess—roaming along the riverbank. Bess came running up, recognizing the smell of two old friends, and after frolicking in the long marsh grass for a while with Rose’s Afghan, she led them straight to her master.

Bill was sitting on the steps of the Gypsy caravan, whittling wood for pegs. A pipe stuck out from his mouth, the smoke curling up from beneath the brim of an ancient felt hat with a peacock feather poked through a tear in the side of it. His long hair, as black as a Gypsy kettle, was tied back with a thin strip of leather. Rose watched him reach down to the pile of wood shavings at his feet and toss a handful onto a smoldering fire. The crackle of the flames stifled the sound of the dog coming through the trees. It was only when Bess leapt up against his legs that he glanced up with wild, dark pony eyes.

The expression in those eyes transported Rose back in time to the day she had first encountered him out on the marshes. It was a look of suspicion mingled with fear. Bill had been out with his three younger sisters, Constance, Patience, and Mercy, collecting watercress to sell at Chichester market. Rose’s dog had gone running up to them before she could stop him and overturned one of their baskets. She had apologized for his bad behavior, explaining that he was still just a puppy. And she had caught puzzled looks passing between them as they took in her bare feet, the mud-stained hem of her skirt, and the hazelnut hue of her face and arms.

She looks like us.

Rose had sensed what they were thinking. And it was true. Walking through Chichester, she had often heard people whisper “Gypsy!” as she passed by. The black hair and dark complexion came from her Turkish father. Her French mother had bequeathed the high cheekbones and deep-set gray eyes.

But suspicion had lingered on the faces of Bill and his sisters as they asked what breed of dog Gunesh was and reached out to pat him. Their faces had tightened when she told them she was interested in finding out about the natural remedies Gypsies used for their animals. They had gathered up their baskets and moved on, away down a bend in the river.

A few days later she had spotted Bill on his own, collecting moorhen eggs. She’d had her two goats with her this time as well as Gunesh. Bill had tipped his hat and wished her good morning, but pulled a cloth over his basket, as if he were afraid she would challenge him for taking eggs from the nests of wild birds. Realizing how tactless she had been at that first meeting, she had tried a different way into conversation. She’d asked him if he liked goat cheese—and when he said he’d never tasted it, she’d offered him some as a present.

Before long she had been invited to spend an evening with Bill and his sisters. They had picnicked by the river around a fire of willow branches and eaten soup made of seaweed and snails, followed by elderflower blossoms fried in batter.

Later they’d walked her back to her tent. When they disappeared into the night, she’d had no idea where they were going or how far they would have to walk to wherever they were living. She hadn’t asked, because it had dawned on her that the treatment meted out to them by non-Gypsies had made them wary of giving themselves away.