The Residents (part 1 of 2)

From 1980 to 1985 my family always holidayed at one of uncle Harry's houses in Portugal. 

I remember uncle Harry as a large, playful, generous man, moustached and always in a dark suit and tie, more often than not with a gin and tonic in hand, a habit about which he joked but I suppose now must have been a genuine dependence. He was not actually any sort of real uncle but had been a family friend of my mother's and she had grown up calling him uncle and so did we. He had no close family of his own and used to adopt other people's wherever he went.

Where he went was all over. Most of what I know of his life I learned at his funeral. I was the only one who went; my parents were both in ill health by then, my brother Mark was busy with a medical degree, and my sister Katie refused to travel to Portugal because of what happened on that last holiday. I was between career attempts so I had the time but not the funds, and my mother provided those. Uncle Harry, it turned out, had served in the navy during the war, then been a clerk to the naval attaché to Brazil. He returned to the UK in the sixties, disappeared into the far east for a bit, and finally ended up in Portugal where he started his own business selling villas to wealthy Brits.

It was at these properties, while he held them vacant, that we holidayed. He would instruct us in his Christmas letter not to book anything that year, then, as summer started, we would start receiving postcards containing intelligence such as 'a villa near Vale de Lobo will be free in early July,' or 'there will be an apartment in Albufeira available in August.' My parents would choose one of the options and arrange the final dates over the phone. Then we would travel by ferry and car, driving all the way down through France and Spain, staying at campsites on the way, to arrive bedraggled and exhausted at some luxury accommodation we could never in all our dreams have afforded to rent.

The last of these holidays was in the Quinta Parreira, somewhere in the hills of the Algarve. We were aware that this was to be a particularly special place, a large luxury vineyard estate with its own swimming pool and tennis courts. We would be living, uncle Harry told us, like the aristocracy of old. Nevertheless when we drove up, late in the evening, to what was little short of a manor house, there was some doubt if we had the right place. Fortunately there was a note pinned to the enormous front door addressed to 'Lawrences', which was us.

The contents of the note I can remember, because it was read out to us children more than once.

Lawrences, it began. Do not be alarmed, all is well. But do not go into the east of the building (left as you come in the door) – the old servant quarters. The de Queirozes are resident there.

They are the owners (or some of the owners) and are forced to stay here because a disaster in their Lisbon apartment. They are fully aware of the situation and happy for you to stay and run around and make noise and act as if you owned the place. They do not mind children at all. They are old, will not go out, and will mostly sunbathe during the day but you are to pay them no heed.

They ask only that you do not attempt to talk to them. They have no English and would be embarrassed. A friendly wave in the morning would be plenty.

Other than that you have the run of the place. Work will keep me in Porto till the end of the week but I shall see you then.

Enjoy your holiday,

Harry

Armed with this information we entered the house with slowly growing confidence. Inside was a double height entry hall with arched windows looking out at the garden beyond and a mosaic of a woman cuddling a swan on the floor. 'Oh look, Leda,' my father remarked, and then had to explain the reference to three embarrassed children. The forbidden door to the left was nondescript, almost hidden in the corner. Two other more impressive doors led away to the right either side of a staircase heading up, and through these three avenues we explored with increasing excitement.

The Quinta was big, spacious and cool, with tiled floors and pink plaster walls throughout. It was shaped in a sort of haphazard horseshoe wrapping partly around an enormous patio which was tiled in rusty terracotta and contained the large, teardrop shaped swimming pool. On the ground floor there were two lounges, a dining room, a games room with a pool table, and a huge kitchen. Above there were, I think, six bedrooms. My parents chose one with a westerly facing window, saying they planned to lie in and did not want the morning sunshine, Katie chose the largest, replete with four-poster bed, and me and Mark chose the only one with twin beds. It seems odd to me now that we did not take a room each, but Mark was eight and I was ten and we shared a bunk bed at home and it never even occurred to us to be parted.

Afterwards we sat out on the patio and drank the wine that uncle Harry had left for us in the fridge and revelled in our good fortune. My father found the controls to turn the underwater lights on in the swimming pool but refused us permission to use it right then. Instead we were given small glasses of wine to try because it was apparently special and, although I cannot remember if I liked it or not, it is one of those childhood experiences that has unshakably fixed in mind the fact that a Portuguese Malvasia is the very height of wines, regardless of any subsequent adult experience.

I doubt after the long drive we made a strong case that bedtimes should be relaxed, and I doubt my parents stayed up much later than us children, although I do recall coming downstairs in my pyjamas for a drink of water and finding the two of them listening at the door to the east of the building. I thought nothing of that at the time, it seemed to me a perfectly natural thing for them to do.

The following morning Mark and I changed straight from our pyjamas into our swimming costumes and rushed outside to use the pool. We were stopped in our tracks by the sight of the de Queirozes.
They were already on their sun loungers at the far end of the patio. They were both astonishingly small and quite extraordinarily old. I remember most their thin and dark brown wrinkled arms and legs, the knees and elbows prominent and bony. In later years I have seen the mummies of children, in those museums which do not hide such things away, trussed up and bound into squatting positions, tiny, black and dessicated. Always when I see them I think first of the de Queirozes. Their limbs protruded incongruously from bright white shorts and white touristy t-shirts. Even laying down it was obvious they were tiny. I doubt they would stand much taller than me, certainly they would be dwarfed by Katie. Their faces were entirely in shadow beneath a pair of tattered wide straw hats but we could see that 'Mrs de Queiroz,' as we thought of her, had long snow white hair. 

More than anything else it was their stillness, I think,which unnerved us. They did not even turn their heads when we ran, whooping, onto the patio. We beat a hasty retreat and my father, who was trying to decipher the instructions for the coffee machine at the time, went out to see while we peered unsubtly from the doorway. He waved and called 'Ola,' which I remember because the instruction that a friendly wave would be plenty had been drilled into us the previous night, and if a wave would be plenty then a wave and an 'Ola' was implicitly too much.

Nevertheless the de Queirozes replied with a very slow raising of their arms and we were hustled outside and told to swim. This we did timidly at the far end of the pool for probably about two minutes before, being children, we entirely forgot about the strange old couple on their sun loungers and splashed about with complete abandon until called back for breakfast.

The reason my father could manage these short notice vacations was because he was a lecturer in English literature and his summer commitments were few and often re-arrangeable. He always brought along two or three formidable looking books to read, of which it was a running joke that he made very little progress. The reason my mother could manage them was because she was a freelance technical author with a specialism in medical equipment, and she could normally organise her workload such that a two week break would be possible. On the years when she could not, and this holiday was one of those years, she brought along two or three ring binders of documents and a yellow foolscap pad on which to write, and would find some quiet spot to work for a few hours every morning. 

In the Quinta Parreira my mother took her work to a writing desk in one of the lounges, and my father took his to a seat beneath some trees at the end of the garden. The duty of watching Mark and I fell then, often, to Katie. Katie was fourteen that year and although she certainly appreciated the luxury of the quinta, the fact that it was isolated in the hills, and there was no beach of town centre to disappear to and find companions her own age, was a blow for her. There was a row early on when it became apparent that our parents were not going to allow her to take the bus to more exciting places. I think an accommodation was reached where she would be recompensed for spending her time babysitting, whether by money or some other promise I do not know; we believed that she had been put on earth, albeit misguidedly, entirely for our benefit, and would have been astonished at the idea, and Katie refuses to discuss that holiday now.

And that is how I remember that first week. We barely left except on occasional trips to the shops. My parents worked some of the time, but by no means all. Us children mostly played in the pool or were given tennis lessons by my father, who had been competitive in his youth and I appreciate now was an excellent tutor, focussed entirely on our enjoying the game at the expense of ambitions he must surely have had for us. A bizarre version of the rules for doubles was developed that allowed all five of us on the court at the same time and we kept a running score for this but I cannot remember who won. Bedtimes became very relaxed and often we were allowed up till long after dark. My favourite memory though is laying, sleepy, in bed with the window open, listening to Katie and our parents talk while they sat on the patio below.

Throughout all this the de Queirozes remained prone and motionless on their sun loungers. We were never up early enough to see them arrive and somehow they always slipped away in the evening without us noticing to spend their nights in their own rooms where they apparently stayed up late because the lights were left on and we could see their shadows move behind the window blinds. Obviously it was remarked on how strange they were, but that there was anything eerie or worrisome about their behaviour was kept strictly from Mark and me.

The only hint I recall, which I did not pick up on at the time, was one I overheard while laying in bed in the evening. Katie suddenly exclaimed, 'My god! How do they move so fast?'

'Ignore them Katie,' my mother said. 'It's not our business. Sit round here with me.'

Part 2: https://www.abctales.com/story/maddan/residents-part-2-2