Page 44 of Under a Spanish Sky

Luke and Amy didn’t reach Ponferrada until early evening.

The weather had changed and the day spent driving over the mountains brought back memories of the Pyrenees.

Both of them had to dig out jackets they hadn’t expected to use again that trip.

The temperature at the top was close to zero and piles of dirty snow at the sides of the road attested to the long hard winter the region had suffered.

Luckily, the rain stopped long enough for them to be able to add their stones to the huge cairn at the top.

Alerted to the tradition by his guidebook, they had collected one each from a dried-up stream bed a few hours earlier.

Up here in the unrelenting downpour, all the stream beds were anything but dried up.

‘They don’t call this region Green Spain for nothing.

North-west Spain has more rainfall than some parts of England.

’ Luke had to shout to make himself heard over the roar of the wind.

In the distance he spotted a couple of stalwart pilgrims, struggling up the hill towards them, enveloped in bulky yellow capes.

‘There are two pilgrims over there.’ He gave Amy a brief description. ‘They’re heading east. That means they’ve been to Compostela already and are on their way home. At least they’ll have the wind behind them.’

‘Is there a good view from up here?’ Amy was hanging onto his arm with her free hand.

‘View? Maybe on a clear day, but, today, about one or two hundred yards at most. I think we’ve ascended into the cloud base.

Here’s the cairn. It’s enormous.’ He helped her scramble up the massive pile of rocks, until they were on top of it.

The mound was made up of thousands upon thousands of stones of all shapes and sizes, deposited there over the centuries.

‘So, is this the top of the pile?’ She raised her face towards him, her expression bright and cheerful.

He reflected that her face had been bright and cheerful for the last few weeks now, so different from only a month before.

Mind you, he thought to himself, he couldn’t remember being so happy for years either.

Particularly since summoning up the courage to tell her about the events in Nigeria, he felt a weight had somehow been lifted from him. He gave her hand a squeeze.

‘This is it. You’re at the top of the cairn.’

‘Do we just drop the stones on the pile?’

‘Unless you want to say a few words.’ He was joking. The weather conditions didn’t invite lingering in the open. To his surprise, that was exactly what she intended to do. She took his stone from him and crouched down. After laying both on the pile she stood up again, her head bowed.

‘We know you got this far. Only a few more days, and you’ll be at your journey’s end.’ She turned back to Luke and caught hold of his arm with both hands. ‘We owe them that. They deserve a bit of good luck for the last part of what’s been a long, hard journey.’

He marvelled at her involvement with the story. But then, he thought to himself, didn’t he also feel the presence of their medieval counterparts? He dropped his eyes to the stones and murmured, ‘Good luck to you both.’

‘It must have been tough for them having to trek all the way up here. But this is the top, isn’t it? Is it all downhill from here to Ponferrada?’

‘As far as the road’s concerned, yes. This is the top of the pass, but the mountain stretches on up into the mist. I don’t know how much higher. Here, we’re at fifteen hundred metres. That’s almost the same as the Somport pass.’

At that moment, a squall came rushing across the mountainside, bringing another downpour.

Luke grabbed Amy round the waist and together they rushed back to the shelter of the car.

He received a wave from the stoical pilgrims, whose pace didn’t falter, in spite of the rain.

He waved back with his free hand, part of him wishing he, too, were making the journey on foot.

However, the more rational part of him welcomed the blessed warmth and protection as they slammed the Range Rover doors behind them.

Amy struggled out of her jacket and threw it onto the back seat.

She raised her arms and fiddled with her ponytail, the curve of her throat and the outline of her breasts producing an instant reaction in him.

For once, he didn’t lift his eyes from her.

He just sat there looking at her, a feeling of happiness spreading throughout his body.

At long last, after five years of grieving, he knew he could now move on and there was only one person with whom he wanted this to be.

Deep down inside he had known this for weeks, but he was finally able to admit it to himself and act upon his feelings.

He cleared his throat. ‘Amy.’ He reached across and took her hand in his.

She turned her head towards him in surprise, but he took heart from the smile on her face.

A blast of wind rocked the big vehicle on its suspension and rain battered the windscreen.

Amy hardly felt the movement. She sensed that the time had come and her whole body, her whole being was desperate for his touch, desperate for his love.

She found herself having to struggle to control her racing heart and spinning head.

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you for a long time now, Amy.

I’ve been putting it off for fear of what you’ll think, but it’s no good, I’ve got to tell you.

’ His voice was hesitant, even shy. ‘We share so much, get on so well, and I think about you all the time.’ She felt a rush of emotion and had trouble keeping from jumping out of her seat as she heard him begin to say the words she had been waiting to hear.

‘Even when I was lying in my bed in Jaca feeling like death, I was still thinking of you. I find you fascinating, beautiful and…’ he hesitated, searching for the right word ‘…and desirable, very, very desirable. After Nicole’s death, I never thought I’d ever feel that way again, and yet, it’s happened.

It’s a very disconcerting feeling. I want you to believe that. ’

He stopped and she held her breath, wondering what was going to happen. After a few agonisingly long seconds she heard his voice once more. ‘I just had to tell you.’

She reached across towards his face, letting her hands rest against his cheeks for a few moments, before pulling him gently towards her until their lips met.

It wasn’t a sensuous, passionate kiss; rather a soft and tender joining of two people.

Even so, the intimacy of the touch drained the depths of her emotions and she felt her head swim.

As she pressed against him, she felt tears start to trickle down her cheeks.

Here, at last, after five long dark years, was her return to happiness.

Then she felt him take a deep breath and heard his voice, chock full of emotion.

‘Oh, Amy…’ She felt a movement and his hands caught hers and squeezed them gently. They sat there in silence for some time until she felt she had better say something.

‘If you only knew just how long I’ve been dying to do that.’ She sensed his relief at the sound of her voice. Then he surprised her.

‘Amy, but there’s something else I’ve really got to say.

’ He stopped again and she heard him take another deep, apprehensive breath.

For a moment she found she couldn’t breathe, terrified that he might be about to plunge her back into loneliness and misery.

She tried hard not to squirm in her seat as she waited for what he might have to say.

She heard him clear his throat. ‘I have to warn you that this may well be a big, big mistake for both of us. For you in particular.’ She didn’t release his hands, but she was listening keenly.

‘You’re in a very impressionable state and I may well appear to be much more appealing than I really am.

This is, after all, just about the first outing of any length that you’ve had since the accident.

I speak the same language as far as our interest in history’s concerned, we like many of the same things, and, of course, I’m your guide.

Did you ever have a crush on any of your teachers as a young girl?

Well, that could be what’s happening here. Are you with me?’

She had started breathing again some seconds earlier and she now felt almost relaxed once more. She found herself smiling at him. She heard him swallow hard and try to finish.

‘What I’m trying to tell you is that this may be nothing more than an inevitable and predictable mistake for either or both of us.

’ She made no comment, letting him say what he wanted to say, knowing how she felt and becoming more and more confident that he felt the same way.

‘What we feel for each other now, what I feel for you and whatever you may feel for me, may well turn out to be just the product of the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves. What I’m trying to say is that you, we, have both got to think this thing through carefully.

Try to think logically about our situation before we do something we might regret.

’ His voice tailed off, his words at odds with his feelings.

She ran her hands back up to his face, passing her fingers gently over his eyes, then his ears and then she slipped them around his neck. She pulled gently and he bent forward, making no attempt to resist as she kissed him again. Then she crushed her face into his collar and spoke.