Read Online An Artistic Way to Go by Roderic Jeffries - Free Book Online

mind taking a turn to give you a break.’
    â€˜And smash my plough?’
    â€˜I can still draw a neat furrow.’
    â€˜When there’s not a tree to run into.’
    Alvarez took a pack of Celtas from his pocket. ‘D’you smoke?’
    Caimari took a cigarette. He had always been a small man; age was beginning to shorten him still further. Lines in his face formed a map of hardship and suffering, and the quiet cunning that had enabled him to overcome both.
    Alvarez flicked open a lighter, held it out. ‘How are the oranges looking?’
    They both stared at the nearest trees, whose fruit could only just be distinguished. ‘Could be better,’ Caimari said.
    Alvarez had not really expected any other answer. Only a farmer who was a fool allowed that his crops were good – the gods of drought, rain, wind, and pest, were always ready to punish optimism. ‘I’ve been told Javier’s giving up. Says he can’t make money out of sheep any more, not with all the lamb coming from abroad that’s in the shops cheaper than it costs to rear.’
    Caimari snickered. ‘He’s giving up because he’s taking so much money from the government he doesn’t need to work any more.’
    Alvarez was not surprised to hear that. It had not taken the local farmers long to discover that the Common Agricultural Policy was a horn of plenty – there were grants for more sheep than one owned, for buying tractors that were never delivered, for modernizing barns that didn’t exist. ‘What’s he going to do with the land?’
    â€˜Leave it fallow. The only person willing to rent it was Virgilio and Javier wasn’t having any of him!’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜You can ask? You didn’t know that his grandfather and Virgilio’s came to blows?’
    The rich mixture that was the peasant, Alvarez thought, proud to see himself as one. The traditionalist and the opportunist. The grandsons who prolonged a feud even though they’d probably no clear idea what it was about, who made a fortune out of bureaucrats so stupid they would pay others to do what had always been done.
    They smoked, the air so still that the smoke hardly rippled until a metre above their heads.
    â€˜There’s something I’d like to know,’ Alvarez said.
    Caimari’s expression became blank.
    â€˜You told me earlier you were surprised Señora Cooper had bothered to report her husband was missing. Why?’
    â€˜How should I know why he’s disappeared?’
    â€˜I’m asking why you’re surprised?’
    Caimari smoked. Alvarez waited, knowing that impatience would merely earn the other’s amused contempt.
    â€˜Did you know Narcis Serra?’ Caimari finally asked.
    â€˜To talk to, that’s all.’
    â€˜Who’d want to do anything more when someone’s daft enough to gamble away his land?’ Caimari spoke with brief anger. To lose one’s land through stupidity was the ultimate sin. ‘His place was bought by a German who spent more pesetas than there are stars in the skies on a house and swimming pool. He wanted a huge garden and Jorge looked after it. When the German sold, Jorge stayed on.’
    â€˜Jorge?’
    â€˜Amoros. He talked to Eduardo and Eduardo talked to me. The señor was away and only the señora was there. Jorge went to fetch something he’d forgotten – more like to pinch some flowers to sell – and saw the señora in the swimming pool.’
    â€˜What was unusual about that?’
    â€˜She’d no costume on.’
    â€˜That must have cheered him up!’
    Caimari sniggered. ‘Not much he could do about it.’
    â€˜He’s not that old.’
    â€˜Maybe he ain’t, but the man in the pool with her was a lot younger.’
    â€˜Was he naked?’
    â€˜Would you keep your clothes on if she was flashing it around?’
    So his intuition,