The mystery of the red ford

One autumnal Sunday, my grandmother invited my mother and I round to watch a film together. A girly afternoon. Grandfather and father were out, probably at some vital football match that couldn't be missed and that they'd been 'warming up for’ for several days. It was drizzling and the few remaining leaves on the trees were having their last dance before joining the soggy, limp carpet covering the pavement, lit by the elongated reflection of the streetlamps on the wet asphalt. My mother had a box of grandmother's favourite éclaires au chocolat and I was happy to try out my brand new wellington boots on the way from our house to hers. Those were the years we lived in Barcelona and I loved having them so close.

I'll never forget how my grandmother looked when she opened her grand modernista front door. She was dressed to the nines for one of her special receptions - utterly elegant in a silk floor-length gown with exotic flowers and her long silver hair done perfectly (had my grandmother been to the salon on a Sunday? Had the stylist who came to do her hair on special occasions come? On a Sunday? To watch a film with us? Should I feel bad that I was wearing wellies?).

Kissing her twice on the cheeks, my mother said something that I would understand later but that at the time only added to my confusion. ‘Gracious, mother! I didn't realise today was a red Ford day!’ and she shimmied off down the hallway. A red Ford day? Were we going out in the end? I was clearly missing something.

Bending down, my grandmother looked into my eyes (hers were shining much more than usual!), kissed me (she had put perfume on too) and said, ‘Manuela, darling, leave your boots at the door here.’ I followed her in my socks right through the house to the TV room. Her silk gown billowed, rustling quietly as she sashayed through the hallways and rooms. Its subtle swishing was in time with the click-clack of her shoes, which were kitten heels for the occasion. She looked like a film star! ‘Grandma,’ I asked as we walked, ‘do you have a new car?’ But she didn't reply. I ran through our cars in my mind: ours, theirs, their friends', but nothing red came to mind.

Just then mother reappeared. Hang on...had she put make-up on? She had! Apparently my mother had gone off to doll herself up, and rather alarmingly her eyes were shining now too. What on earth was going on with the women in my family?

Our traditional afternoon tea in my favourite tea set was brought in. At my grandmother's house they knew me well: the animal china and éclaires au chocolat for Manuela. I jumped on the éclaires as soon as the three of us were alone again, but nobody else joined me in our ritual worship of French patisserie. They were somewhere else, on another wavelength.

‘Hurry up mother,’ my mum said to grandmother, though she apparently didn’t need to as grandmother swiftly pressed play and turned off the coffee table lamp in a single click. The room went dark.

I got the answer to the question of what on earth was going on with the women in my family a few minutes later; exactly seven minutes after the lights went off to be precise. The film started, opening with a red sunset. A woman speaks, but I don't connect to what she says. The first sentence that I retain and that draws me in is: ‘I had a farm in Africa.’ In minute seven a blonde actor appears, and my mother and grandmother sigh in unison. From that moment on they had the same reaction every time the beautiful face of the blond actor was on the screen. It must be genetic, because I also started holding my breath whenever he was before us. I don't know if it was on that occasion or another when the three of us were alone with the handsome actor, when I stopped being a spectator and wanted to be her, the woman who falls into his arms with that landscape as the backdrop.

Even today I still dream of having poetry recited to me while my hair is washed at sunset. Such should all passions be, or perhaps I'm very demanding. That drizzly autumn afternoon, too dark to be so early, gave me the gift of a longing that I shared with the women in my family, and that somehow stirred in me the woman I am. I don't think I admitted it at the time, but on the way home I had only one thought on my mind, set to the African countryside: I want to be kissed by Robert Redford.

This rather indecent and shameful thought was the leitmotiv of my first -first of very many- trips to Africa. It's probably fair to say that on that autumn afternoon, and thanks to him, I fell carnally, viscerally, fiercely and insatiably in love with that wild continent. And that afternoon was also the first of many outings in the 'red Ford', as my mother and grandmother would say – which was their (and now our) secret code word to treat themselves (ourselves) to an evening with Robert Redford. So simple. So female. So familiar.

This is how the most important stories of our lives begin.