Page 157 of The Moon Sister
‘Here, Tiggy, look in the mirror.’ Marcella turned me to face it.
I glanced at myself and was shocked at the woman who looked back me. This Tiggy was brown from the Spanish sun, eyes sparkling, the dress accentuating my tiny waist and smooth décolletage.
‘Linda!’ Marcella declared. ‘Beautiful! Now, you need shoes. Angelina has given me these for you – I doubted they would fit, but now that I have seen your tiny feet, I know she is right.’ She held out a pair of red leather shoes with a slim buckled band. The sturdy Cuban-shaped heels were only about five centimetres high – but as I never wore anything but flats, that was enough for me. I took them from her, and tried them on, feeling rather like Cinderella. As they slid perfectly onto my feet, I felt a prickle on the back of my neck.
‘Marcella, whose shoes are these?’ I asked.
‘Why, they are your grandmother Lucía’s, of course,’ she said.
*
At nine o’clock that night, Marcella and I walked down the hill to one of the larger caves, although I would have known where to find it without her, for the music echoed through the whole of Sacromonte, and it felt as though the very air was alive with it. I patted my hair self-consciously as Marcella pulled me inside the already crowded cave. She had oiled my locks into submission, and had affixed a central curl onto my forehead, just like Lucía’s in the pictures I had seen of her.
At my entrance, a sea of people began clapping and cheering, and I was drawn from one person to another by a beaming Angelina and Pepe, who were both dressed in their finest flamenco clothes, like everyone else.
‘Erizo, this is your mother’s cousin’s granddaughter, Pilar – and here are Vicente and Gael . . . Camila . . . Luis . . .’
With my head spinning, I let myself be guided through the crowd, overwhelmed by the genuine warmth of everyone’s embraces. Vicente – or was it Gael? – handed me a glass of manzanilla wine, and I saw Pepe at the back of the cave, perched on a chair with his guitar in his lap, next to a man sitting on a box.
‘¡Empezamos!’ he called. ‘Let’s begin!’
‘¡Olé!’ cried the audience as two young dancers sashayed onto the floor. They began to dance what Angelina told me was a ‘chufla bulerías– a simple dance’, but as I watched the women tap their heels and balls of their feet in a fast rhythm, their hands guiding their skirts so the cave was awash with bright colours, their chins tipped proudly in absolute unison, I was in awe of their skill.
And I was a part of this; thegitanoculture was in my blood and soul. When a young man reached to take my hand, I didn’t resist, but let my body relax and be carried along by the rhythm of Pepe’s guitar, and what everyone here called theduendeinside me.
I don’t know how long I danced for, but Lucía’s shoes seemed to guide me, and I didn’t care if I looked stupid as I copied my partner and stamped down on the ancient floor of the cave with the rest of my new family around me. The floor vibrated as every single man, woman and child danced for sheer joy, the beat of the music irresistible.
‘¡Olé!’ Pepe called.
‘¡Olé!’ I shouted with everyone else, then left my partner to go and drink some water.
‘Tiggy!’
I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. And was pretty sure that the alcohol I’d drunk combined with all the twirling had made my brain dizzy, for as I turned round I thought how like Charlie Kinnaird the voice sounded.
‘Hello, Tiggy,’ Charlie said as he grabbed my arm and unceremoniously pulled me through the crowd of stamping, clapping dancers.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the noise. ‘Let me go!’
But he wouldn’t, and no matter how much I wriggled and complained, I was attached to him until he chose to let me go.
No one seemed to bat an eyelid at us – what I’d learnt tonight was thatgitanoswere a vociferous and emotional breed, and our behaviour was probably normal to them.
‘I’ll have to take you outside, I can’t hear myself think in here,’ Charlie said, taking off his jumper and wrapping it round my bare shoulders.
Once outside, he looked around, spied the wall opposite and led me to it. Only when we reached it did he let go of my arm, then he put his hands around my waist, picked me up and sat me on top of the wall.
‘Charlie, what on earth are you doing here?!’
‘You have to sit down, Tiggy.’ Having let go of my waist, he then grabbed my wrist to feel my pulse.
‘Charlie, enough!’ I raised my other hand to slap his fingers away.
‘Your pulse is racing, Tiggy!’
‘Yes, because I’ve just spent the last hour dancing my feet off,’ I retorted. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Because I and the rest of the world have been trying to get hold of you.’
