Chapter 5
Love in the Time of Carnations
Ed did not return Lourdes’ car immediately. He had too much to do, too many places to go in a hurry.
His first stop was the British Consulate, located on one of the city’s many hills. He found a parking space close by. The Consulate had a relaxed and sleepy air, as did the man on duty, who seemed pleased to have a fellow Brit to chat with. Together with his opinions on the outlook for the coming cricket season, he gave details of the documents Ed would need in order to get married in Portugal, and produced a Certificate of Marital Capacity then and there, sharing a chuckle over the title.
That was the easy bit. Ed was glad he had brought a whole raft of documents with him from England, but it was a question of getting them to the right people in the right offices, with certified translations into Portuguese, and fast. He drove to the docks to see Hélder, the business contact who was most like a friend, and asked him if, for a fee, he would see to it all. Hélder had installed a comfortable modern office for himself in a dilapidated waterfront building. He beamed at Ed’s request.
“Ed, it will be my wedding present to you, and my pleasure. You just need to leave me some grease for the palms that my requests will undoubtedly open like carnations in Spring.”
He asked for a relatively small sum for the purpose.
Hélder put the money in a drawer, then ambled to the office’s noisy fridge, from which he pulled a bottle of white port and poured two small measures.
“To the health, wealth and happiness of Edward Scripps and Maria da Conceição dos Santos e Cunha!” Ed would drink to that any day.
One small measure followed another, and it was mid-afternoon before Ed left the docks, after much hugging, back-slapping and hand-shaking. Feeling pleased with the world, he stopped at the first snack-bar he found on the road back into the city centre, and got some food inside him to counter the effects of the alcohol. Then he drove very carefully home.
His late-afternoon series of business phone calls ended when Ção arrived. The phone was in what they called the party room, a name which sparked good memories for both of them. As they embraced, Ção pressed her teeth into Ed’s shoulder, then pulled him through the connecting door into his bedroom. She closed the curtains on the cool April evening, then turned to Ed.
“How quickly do you think you can take my clothes off”?
“One minute.”
“Come on, then.”
It took longer than that, with frequent interruptions. They were under the covers by the time Ed freed Ção of her last remaining item, a choker, leaving her as naked as she had made him. Twenty minutes later, the covers were littering the floor. Both of them were lying back against the pillows. Ed watched Ção as she rubbed his sperm into her breasts. Ção caught sight of the engagement ring on the bedside table, reached across Ed, lifted it off the table and slipped it over her sticky ring finger. She got off the bed and waved it in the air.
“How do I look?”
“Magnificent!”
She had let her hair grow since the day they met. In Ed’s eyes, that made her even more seductive.
“What else?”
“Good enough to eat!”
“Again?”
“Again and again and again!”
“What else?”
“Good enough to marry!”
“When?” She pouted.
“Monday, April the Twenty-second.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“Oh, Ed, that is wonderful!”
She really did jump for joy.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!”
She skipped to the door.
“Your flatmate isn’t here, is she?”
“Joséphine? No, she’s away. Says she can’t follow her diet when she’s here. Too much temptation to steal my food.”
“There’s a clean towel in the bathroom, I hope.”
Ed nodded. Ção let herself out into the corridor. Ed heard her light but energetic and vocal progress along it.
Well after dusk, they went out to eat in the neighbourhood. Ed did not want to drive Ção anywhere in the car Lourdes had lent him. Ção tackled him about the car over their dinner.
“You see, Ção, my love, I’m going to need it over the next couple of weeks. I have to get to as many small towns as I can – the ones that aren’t served properly by public transport. I need to see their supermarket managers and enrol them for my loyalty card scheme. If I can convince them to join. After that, I can hand back the car and concentrate on the big cities again.”
“Why don’t you just buy a car if you need one so badly?”
“Because my company is going to buy one for me - as soon as I start making some sales.”
“Oh, Ed, is that going to be soon?”
“Very soon, my love. I feel I’m on the verge of something big. So I’ll be travelling a lot this next month. Until the Twenty-second.”
“Don’t leave me, Ed, not all alone with my parents. And when is it you’re going to tell them?”
“Tell them what?”
“About us. That we’re getting married. Getting married next month, when they’re going to lose their little Conception.”
Ed had assumed they would present the stony couple with a fait accompli.
“Don’t worry. I’ll deal with it.”
He did not relish his infrequent visits to Ção’s family home. The only time they had invited him to eat with them, he had suffered symptoms of food poisoning afterwards. Since no-one else had been affected, Ed wondered if they had deliberately targeted him. He had not burdened Ção with his suspicions.
When they left the restaurant, Ção asked to be taken home, but then relented and accompanied Ed back to his flat. In bed, she seemed cool at first, but quickly warmed to their “not-quite” activities. Ed asked himself about the experience that she demonstrated, but held back from asking her. He hoped she would be as inventive, and as little restrained, when it came to the real thing.
The next morning, Ed Scripps rose from his empty bed and set off on a mission to conquer rural Portugal. He spent nearly three weeks making contacts and pushing his luck among the supermarket managers and storekeepers in the area within striking distance of Lisbon – the Alentejo to the south, the Ribatejo and Estremadura to the north and east. A few had no time for him, but most were welcoming, if slightly baffled by his proposals, and some were keen, though they tended to want more reassurance and guarantees than Retail Support Services was able or willing to provide.
Each evening, he phoned Ção and consoled her for his absence and the hard time her parents were giving her with their cold, authoritarian ways, times that he could assure her were coming to a rapid end. He also phoned Hélder regularly to ask about progress with the bureaucracy. Thanks to Hélder’s diligence and his extensive network, progress was smooth and relatively swift.
As he drove back to Lisbon, Ed reflected that those definitely on board for him to roll out a prototype of the scheme were nearing the critical number. He turned his thoughts to the make of car he would have the company buy for him. Not another Renault, he decided, as the one he was driving jerked him in and out of another pothole.
Back in his flat, Ed set aside his papers for a thorough going-over the following day, washed, ate, rested, and then phoned Lourdes.
“It’s been great driving around in your car, Lourdes. It’s helped me a lot, but now I’ve finished with it. My company is going to buy one for me. Can I bring yours back to you this evening?”
“No need, Ed. I’ll come and collect it. Are you sure you won’t still need it?”
“I’m sure, thanks. It’s been a tremendous help, really, but it’s actually become something of an embarrassment.”
“Oh, I see. I can imaging the kind of jealous bitchery you’re having to put up with.”
“Thanks, Lourdes. For everything.”
An hour later, she turned up at his flat, clutching a blanket.
“What’s that for?”
“It belongs in the car. Paulo dropped me off. He sends you his best regards and all that. No make-up girl tonight?”
“If you mean Ção, she’s being suffocated by a Sunday family evening.”
“Good.”
Ed thought it best to get Lourdes away from his flat. He took her down to inspect the car. She opened the rear, pushed the back seats down and spread the blanket over them. She gave Ed her seductive look, which he found hard to remain indifferent to.
“Why don’t we drive up into the hills and put this blanket to its proper use?”
Ed steeled himself.
“I find that suggestion distasteful.”
Lourdes laughed.
“Please yourself. You always do.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Forget it. Goodbye, Ed.”
She got into the car, started it, then rolled the window down.
“And good luck.”
Lourdes drove away in her mud-splattered Renault.
The wedding took place a week later.
Ed and Ção were married in a registry office in the city centre, with only Ção’s best friend and confidante, Estrela, as witness. The atmosphere was as jolly as such a small group could make it. Ção insisted on wearing white, though not a wedding dress. Afterwards, in the warm but humid air of the Spring morning, the photographer Ed had commissioned did his work, then the three of them piled into the hired Rolls that Ed had filled with roses and drove first to Estrela’s home, where they left her with thanks and instructions not to breathe a word to anyone, then headed to the railway station for trains to the Algarve. Ed had already bought the tickets, so the first thing they did was to get on a ferry and cross the broad estuary southwards.
Ção was ecstatic.
“Oh, Ed! We’ve done it! I’m free! I’m free!”
“You’re not free, my love, you’re tied to me. Till death us do part!”
“Nothing and no-one will ever part us, will they, Ed?”
“Nothing and no-one!” They kissed; then Ção buried her face in a bunch of roses to blot out the acrid smell from the chemical plants on the south bank as they approached the ferry terminal.
The journey to Portugal’s south coast, the region known as the Algarve, lasted all afternoon. The train sauntered through the vast cork plantations of the Alentejo, then among the citrus farms of the northern Algarve. Ed had never felt happier. Singing for joy, they changed trains at a place called Tunes and eventually disembarked at the end of the line at the small resort town of Lagos, where they got straight into a taxi for their seaside hotel at a beach named “Dona Ana”, which, even so late in April, was almost deserted.
“The perfect place for a honeymoon!” Ção’s enthusiasm was infectious, and she took it into the bedroom with her.
They got up late the next morning. Ção was a little sore, and Ed had breakfast brought up to them.
After a bell-boy had collected the empty dishes, Ção had Ed get out of bed and rummage in her suitcase for the camera. Then she made him go out and get the day’s newspaper. When he came back with it, she asked him to pull down the covers from the bed.
“What on earth is this in aid of?”
“Tradition, Ed.”
Ção took several snaps of the blood-stained sheets, with the day’s paper propped on a clean patch. She was particularly concerned that the date should be legible.
Ed shook his head in disbelief. “Now I’ve seen everything!”
“Oh come on, darling, it’s just a little present for my dear ones. Proves to them I really was a good little daughter of theirs all these years.”
“Don’t I know it! Was it your mother who taught you –”
“Don’t make a fuss, Ed, my sweet. It’s just a little thing to please Mummy and Daddy. After all, they’re losing me. You never know, I might need them again some day.”
On the Wednesday night, Ção’s deep, contented snoring kept Ed awake. He got up, picked up a bottle of dark beer and his transistor radio and took them out on to the terrace with him. His watch told him it was nearly eleven. He listened to the radio for a while, relishing the joy of being wedded to Ção and in charge of his own fine destiny. Then the radio started on Portugal’s entry for the recent Eurovision song contest, and he quickly switched stations. With the sea air caressing his skin, and the beer calming his racing thoughts, he soon dozed off in his chair.
He was awakened by the sound of men crunching on gravel. Lots of them, rhythmically, as though they were marching. Ed leaped from his chair and looked down at the beach, but there was nobody below him. Then the men started singing and he realised it was the radio, which he had left on. The voices reminded him of a Welsh miners’ choir, and he listened intently until their song finished, though he made out few of the words. Then he went back inside, fastened the window, got back into bed and snuggled up beside the now-silent Ção. Within minutes, he was dreaming of mine shafts, excavations and red shirts.
Elsewhere in the country, men had taken the Eurovision song as confirmation of their plans, and the Alentejo miners’ song as a signal to put them into action.
The next morning, clean sea air pervaded the hotel as usual, but the atmosphere was different. The staff stood around in knots, talking animatedly among themselves and paying only perfunctory attention to their guests or their needs. Ed and Ção did not mind: they had eyes and ears only for each other, and nothing could sour the mood of their honeymoon. They spent the day on the beach, in the water, and in bed back at the hotel.
It was when they came down for dinner that it became impossible for Ed to ignore the news being broadcast on the television in the hotel dining room. The news had transfixed all the staff and most guests.
“Ção! Look at that. There are tanks in the centre of Lisbon!”
“It’s probably some boring military parade. Why haven’t they laid out the fresh fish today?”
“No, look! There are soldiers and civilians next to each other. Something big is going on. I want to know what it is.”
The live broadcast showed a man whom Ed recognised as the Prime Minister, and others he did not recognise, being driven out of a military building in the heart of Lisbon into a square packed tight with ordinary civilians. The crowd reluctantly parted for them. Lines of soldiers kept the people back as the convoy of armoured cars drove away.
“Oh, Ed, it looks like a military coup. We’re probably going to be ruled by some even worse fascists from now on.” She looked on the verge of tears.
It seemed the hotel staff supported the coup, for they broke into an almighty cheer when the television announced that both the Prime Minister and the President of the régime were on their way to the airport to be flown to the Atlantic Island of Madeira. Then someone started singing the song that had woken Ed up during the night. Soon everyone was singing it.
“Ção, I heard this on the radio last night! Who’s the singer?”
“I think it’s Zeca Afonso. His songs are usually banned, because he is too left-wing.”
“Ção, my love, this is not a right-wing coup.”
“Then maybe we’re all going to be free!”
“Maybe we’ll find Jorge. Or, at least, find out what happened to him.”
The mood in the dining room grew increasingly jolly and exuberant. It was as if everyone present had made each other into new friends for life. Then came news that sobered people up like a cold shower: the secret police, holed up in their headquarters, had opened fire on the crowd of civilians massed outside. People had died; scores were injured. For a while, in Lisbon, it seemed as if the situation might get out of hand, but gradually it became clear that those murders had been the last brutal act of fury of a dying régime. A new leader was announced: General Spínola, who had been fired from the Army just months before for opposing the colonial wars. A National Salvation Council, with Spínola at its head, promised peace, freedom and justice.
Ed thought this was all very exciting, but what he really wanted was to get that fish grilled and Ção back into bed. It was past midnight when he fulfilled that wish. Ção was on fire.
“Ed, this is the first day of the rest of our lives! From now on everything is going to be better. Ed, promise you’ll always love me like tonight.”
Ed did not need to promise anything so obvious, but he said the words, lest there should be even a speck of doubt. When they paused in their love-making, he had Ção teach him the chorus of Zeca Afonso’s song.
The black and white television images made clear the disbelief in the men’s faces as they walked quickly along the corridors, as though a heavy hand might fall upon their shoulder if they paused. They descended a flight of steps, some with difficulty, some with bravado, and emerged into light and the flashlights.
Ed searched the pallid faces on the screen for that of Jorge, but he was not among the first prisoners whom the television showed repeatedly on Saturday evening, emerging from Caxias, the political prison on and below the banks of the River Tagus, making light of the beatings they had received and the psychological torture that the PIDE had inflicted on them with techniques taken straight out of their American cousins’ new training manual.
It had been a day between two new worlds for Ed and Ção. Throughout it, they had indulged alternately in sand, sea and sun at Dona Ana beach, and in honeymoon sex at their hotel.
At dinner, staff and customers were again glued to the news broadcasts. The Armed Forces Movement had confirmed its grip on power across the nation. Everywhere, it seemed people were in the streets to support them and to celebrate freedom. They had made carnations, plentiful that Spring, the symbol of the Revolution. No soldier could refuse a carnation placed in the barrel of his rifle by a young woman in full public view. The two hundred soldiers who had unsuccessfully marched on Lisbon from Caldas the month before, testing the régime’s reaction, were released from the fortress prison of Trafaria. Then came the release of the long-term political prisoners from Caxias, and from the fort at Peniche, on the windswept Atlantic coast. The joy of those who came to greet them, and the evidence that the prisoners’ spirit had not been broken, affected everyone.
The following day, Saturday, was their last in the Algarve. As the light faded, Ed and Ção took a taxi into Lagos. The driver refused a tip. They strolled around the town, and were caught up in the enthusiasm of a large rally in a small square near the sea front. A stage had been improvised. So, too, had banners, speeches and music. It became clear that people were going to take full advantage of the new-found freedom to speak their minds. The repetition of fine words stimulated the young lovers’ appetites, and they soon left the square to seek an open restaurant. Ed was elated, but Ção was pensive.
“Did you notice how few women were in that crowd? That is something we will simply have to change.”
“We?”
“We Portuguese women.”
Ed had not seen this side of Ção before. He was happy to endorse it.
“The sooner the better. Get women into business, too.”
Later, he added: “And waiting on tables.”
“And driving taxis. This Revolution has a lot of work ahead of it.”
On Sunday evening, they were standing in the hallway of Ção’s parents’ home. The lines in her mother’s face bent her mouth firmly downwards.
“What do you want, young man?”
“I’ve come to tell you and your husband how happy I am to be your son-in-law.”
She screamed. Her husband appeared at her shoulder.
“What the hell have you done to my wife? And my daughter?”
“Daddy, can’t you be a bit nice to my husband?”
“Your what?”
“My husband. Daddy, we got married last Monday morning.”
“That’s not possible! I won’t allow it! You, get out of here, and leave my daughter alone! Do you hear me?”
“Come on, Ção, let’s go. You don’t have to listen to this, and neither do I.”
“OK, just help me with some bags.”
“I’ll set the police on you! I’ll have you arrested!”
They collected the suitcases that Ção had prepared well in advance and carried them past the now-speechless man and the wailing woman, out onto the landing and down the stairs. Ed was grim-faced but Ção was giggling. In the taxi, though, her laughter turned to tears.
“Oh, Ed, they’re my Mummy and Daddy. What if they never speak to me again?”
“Don’t worry, my darling. Anyone can see that they love you. They just have to accept the facts and get used to them. They’ll come round.”
Now that it was her home, Ção did not find Ed’s flat as enticing as she once had. She claimed that it was too small for all her things. Ed was aware that it was no palace. He mollified her by saying he would pay to rent the spare room as well.
“In any case, we’ll be out of here as soon as I start earning some decent money. We can start thinking now about where we’d like to live.”
Despite her misgivings, Ção set to work to make the flat as clean and comfortable as she could. Ed appreciated her willingness to pull her weight, and tried to adjust his domestic standards to match hers.
Wrapped up in each other as they were, the outside world was still very much with them. Ed tuned in to radio stations broadcasting in English and French. Many of them relayed fears of a counter-coup by the deposed fascists, or else a bloody struggle for power among left-wing factions.
Events on the streets belied such fears. The most prominent fascists packed their bags and left the country. Others decided to shut up and put up with the waves of freedom washing over the land, at least for the time being. Many of the lower-ranking supports of the old régime deemed it expedient simply to switch colours and embrace socialism more blindly than Karl Marx ever had. The leaders of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party returned from exile to massive popular welcomes. May 1st, International Workers’ Day, was declared a national holiday.
May Day, indeed, was the Revolution’s public party.
In Lisbon, the previously clandestine trade unions organised the biggest demonstration in Portugal’s history. People flooded onto the streets, not only to support the idea that workers should have rights, but also to show that they identified with the soldiers who had toppled the old régime, and simply to enjoy a holiday, the Spring air, the carnival atmosphere.
Ed and Ção were swept up in the general euphoria. They met up with a group of Ção’s classmates from the Sussex School, none of whom failed to notice the two adornments on her ring finger. Although the main route followed the broadest of the city’s avenues, they quickly got detached from Ção’s friends. Ed made sure that her arm was firmly linked with his all the time, and avoided spots where the crowd got too thick. When they approached the stadium where speeches were due, newly baptised in honour of the day, he guided them away altogether.
“There’s somewhere special I want to go to celebrate this day. It’s quite a walk.”
“Today, as long as I’m with you, I could walk to the ends of the earth!”
The walk was made longer, but no less enjoyable, by their having to keep to side roads to avoid going against the biggest flow of human traffic the city had ever witnessed. Eventually, they found themselves in a small square with a monkey-puzzle tree at its centre. The square was full of exuberant people. There were banners and animated conversations, but no speeches.
“Stage One, Praça da Alegria – Happiness Square.”
From there, Ed led Ção down a steep hill and on to a familiar main artery of the city centre.
“Stage Two, Avenida da Liberdade. At last it can live up to its name!”
Indeed, the Avenue was packed with celebrants drunk on freedom. They had driven off the motorists who normally monopolised its cobbled pavements, and caused consternation among the black swans which thrived along its narrow internal lakes. At the top, where it met the Park, Ção found a spot where they could rest and talk on a stone bench.
“Ed, this is lovely, but what’s going to happen? Every day can’t be like this. What’s going to hap