by Anne Weale
Greatly to her relief, she was told that no bones were broken but the wrist was badly sprained and would need to be put in plaster. Again, she had to wait before her wrist was wrapped in gauze and plaster applied to the upper side only. At last, three hours after her arrival, she was free to return to the waiting room.
She found Cam chatting to a young man in a blue boilersuit who appeared to have nothing wrong with him so presumably had come with a workmate. As soon as he noticed Liz, Cam excused himself to his companion and joined her.
‘It’s not broken, only sprained,’ she told him. ‘They’ve told me to see my doctor, to have the plaster removed, in ten days. I’m terribly sorry you’ve had this long wait.’
‘It hasn’t seemed that long. The guy I’ve been chatting to is a telephone engineer. I picked up some interesting stuff from him. You must be starving. Before we go back, let’s have a snack and some coffee…but not in the hospital’s cafeteria where the queue for service is probably as long as it is here.’
He put his hand under the elbow of her right arm and, with his other hand, pushed the exit doors open for her.
It was when they were in a nearby bar-restaurante, drinking coffee and waiting for slices of tortilla to be heated in the microwave, that Cam noticed the absence of her wedding ring and concluded it had been cut off. But he didn’t remark on it, guessing that it would have upset her to have the symbol of her marriage removed. He knew that some women never took their wedding rings off from a superstitious feeling that to do so was bad luck. Liz didn’t seem that type but, often, people’s natures were not all of a piece. He had come across sensible, down-to-earth personalities who, on closer acquaintance, had revealed all kinds of unexpected quirks.
While they were eating the tortilla, he said, ‘What are you doing for Christmas, Liz?’
‘I’m going to the UK to stay with my mother. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m spending it with some friends at a casa rural about forty kilometres inland. Do you know about the casas rurales?’
‘Only that the literal translation is country houses and that there’s one in our village run by an English couple. But I haven’t met them.’
‘In the context of places to stay in the Spanish countryside, they vary from houses to rent to small, simple hotels. The one where my friends and I have booked rooms is run by a French couple whose cooking is excellent. There are only six bedrooms, four doubles and two singles. I thought, if you had nothing better to do, you might like to come with us.’
‘It’s kind of you to think of it. I wish I could accept. I’m not looking forward to returning to English winter weather, or the hassle at Alicante airport.’
‘Is your mother on her own?’
‘No, my aunt shares the house with her since my parents separated. My father has moved to Florida with his American girlfriend.’
‘My parents have split up too,’ said Cam. ‘They’ve both remarried people with grown-up children and grandchildren, so I don’t feel it’s necessary to play the dutiful son. Also I have my sisters to do the filial thing. Most years I’ve been abroad anyway. But if you are an only child, the ties are stronger.’
She said, ‘Yes,’ but made no other comment, and he had the intuitive feeling that it was her sense of duty rather than strong affection that was making her go back.
‘Is it possible you’ll have to cancel your plans and fly off somewhere this year?’ she asked.
‘Not this year. My contract has almost run out. I’ve made it clear I won’t be available. You’ve booked your flight, I imagine? What day are you leaving?’
‘I’m going for two weeks—December eighteenth to January first.’
‘I’ll run you to the airport.’
‘I couldn’t possibly put you to that trouble. You’ve done enough for me already. I’ll go on the bus, or maybe that funny little train that runs between Denia and Alicante.’
‘What time is your flight?’
‘Not till early evening, so I have all day to get there.’
‘I want to do some Christmas shopping in Alicante. Why don’t we go down in the morning, browse in the two big department stores and have lunch at a restaurant I know? You won’t get a memorable dinner on the plane, that’s for sure.’
She gave him one of her doubtful looks. ‘I didn’t think men did Christmas shopping,’ she said.
‘Perhaps they don’t if they have women to do it for them, but I haven’t,’ said Cam. ‘Have you been to Alicante? Like Barcelona, it benefits from having a waterfront. Cities by the sea never seem as claustrophobic as inland cities.’
‘I’ve never been into Alicante, only passed it on the motorway,’ she told him.
‘Then why not grab the chance to explore it, with me as your guide?’ he said, smiling at her.
‘All right…thank you…thank you very much.’
‘Good, that’s settled.’
That night, sitting beside the butane gas estufa that heated her sitting room when she did not want to light the logs inside the closed stove, Liz wished she was not committed to going to London for Christmas. She would much rather have joined Cam and his friends at the casa rural.
She wished she knew why he had suggested it. To be kind? It didn’t seem likely he would go that far out of his way to befriend a newcomer to Spain, even one with whom he now had a professional involvement. He was paying her well for her services. Why would he feel the need to be friendly as well?
The longer she knew him, the more he was an enigma she could not fathom. Perhaps if she had not heard about his reputation, and had not seen for herself the kind of woman with whom he amused himself, she would have been able to judge him on the basis of his behaviour towards her. But the memory of him embracing Fiona by the bedroom window was hard to dismiss.
Remembering the last time Duncan had made love to her, Liz looked down at the bare third finger on her left hand and sighed. Perhaps it would be possible to have the break in the ring mended, but she did not think she would do that. Already her marriage seemed as distant as her schooldays.
In the following week, Cam called at her house every day to see if she needed help with tasks that were hard or impossible with only one hand in use.
After a week, rather than going to the doctor, Liz decided to take off the plaster herself. It was a simple matter of cutting through the gauze bandaging on the underside of her wrist.
The next time Cam called and found her using both hands normally, he said, ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the inadvisability of wandering around in the mountains on your own. Earlier this year, an artist I know had an unpleasant experience while she was painting somewhere on Montgo, the mountain to the north of Jávea. Some guy appeared and started exposing himself. She’s twenty years older than you are, but it scared her and she grabbed her equipment and made a dash for her car. I think she panicked unnecessarily. Flashers aren’t usually a serious threat to women’s safety. But, that said, they can be alarming. The other hazard of solitary hill-walking is running into a herd of cattle, including some toros.’
‘Surely not the bulls used in bullfights?’ Liz exclaimed in surprise. ‘I thought they were bred in the south of Spain, not in these parts.’
‘The most famous herds supplying bulls to the top-level fights are bred in the south,’ he agreed. ‘But all over Spain there are less important corridas, and many local fiestas have bull-running. Certain streets are closed off and the youths of the town show off in front of the girls. I’ve seen those beasts in the mountains.’
‘Goodness…how scary. I had no idea they were wandering around loose up there. I’d rather meet a flasher than a bull any day,’ Liz said, with feeling.
Cam laughed. ‘The cattle aren’t wandering around loose in the sense you mean. They graze as a group and sometimes there’s a herdsman with them. Personally I wouldn’t walk through the middle of a herd. The cows can be dangerous if they have young calves. But it’s easy enough to skirt round them.’
‘What if you were going up a track and they were on their way down?’
‘Then the thing to do would be to get off the track till they’d passed. Probably the wisest thing, if you want to explore the mountains, is to join a walking group. There are plenty of them. If you had sprained your ankle instead of your wrist, getting back to base could have been a problem.’
That night Liz had a strange dream in which Deborah, her computer club friend, persuaded her to take the train from Alicante to Madrid to do some Christmas shopping. On arrival, Deborah announced she had tickets for an important bull fight. Liz was reluctant to go. Although she knew that in Spain bull-fighting was regarded as an art form as well as a sport, she disliked the idea of animals being tormented for entertainment, even though the matadors also risked injury and death.
But Deborah overruled her objections and she found herself attending the fight at which the star turn was going to be a famous bullfighter called El Macho. When he appeared in the ring, he came straight to where Liz and Deborah were sitting. Looking up at Liz and speaking English, he said, ‘You are the most beautiful woman here, señorita. If I bring you the bull’s ears, will you reward me with a kiss?’
Before she could make up her mind what to answer, she woke up.
What disturbed her about the dream, and kept her awake for a long time, was that the matador had been Cam in a suit of lights. The dream was still on her mind when, next day, she resumed her work in his garden. He had told her he was going to have lunch with a man who, during his professional life, had directed some fine documentaries and now, in retirement, lived somewhere inland from Gandia. Liz delayed her stint in the courtyard until she judged Cam had left the house.
To have dreamed about him troubled her. She did not want him invading her subconscious mind. Yet within a few minutes of thinking this, she found herself daydreaming about him: thinking how well a suit of lights would become him. As she knew from the pages of Hola!, the Spanish magazine which had inspired Hello, not all matadors were men of imposing stature, but even the short, stocky ones looked good in the traditional costume with its embroidered epaulettes, short jacket and tight-fitting britches.
Cam’s broad shoulders and long legs needed no enhancement. They would set off the costume. In her mind’s eye, she saw again him striding across the sand to the barricade in front of her seat, and the teasing glint in his eyes as he asked her to reward him with a kiss.
Stop it! she told herself angrily. Once before, a long time ago, her imagination had led her down dangerous paths into a world of misleading illusions. She was not going to let that happen a second time. For the rest of her life she would keep her feet firmly on the ground.
CHAPTER FOUR
Amar y saber, todo junto no puede ser
To love and to be wise are incompatible
ON THE day of her flight to England, they drove down the autopista to the provincial capital in Cam’s new Mercedes. Previously he had rented cars, but now that he was going to be in Spain more often, he needed a car of his own.
Liz had never been a car-conscious person, but she had noticed Mercedes sports cars whenever they whipped past her because of their broad wheel-base and their look of being fast but safe.
‘I like the sweeping curves of this road,’ said Cam, as they headed south. ‘There’s a place on the shortcut from Valdecarrasca to the coast where you get a terrific view of the autopista, supported by tall columns, crossing a dry river valley. It’s a masterpiece of engineering and artistry. In February, when the almond groves on either side of the backroad are in blossom, I must remember to photograph it for the website.’
‘The almond blossom season is something I’m looking forward to,’ said Liz. ‘Spring in February is a concept that people who grow up in northern countries find it hard to get their mind round.’
‘That reminds me, do you have a key-holder…someone in the village who could get into your house in your absence?’
‘No, I don’t. Should I?’ she asked.
‘It’s a sensible precaution against unforeseen emergencies. The Drydens have a key to my house. If you like, I’ll do the same for you. I don’t suppose you have a spare key with you, but it wouldn’t take long to get one cut in Alicante. One or both the department stores may have a key-cutting service.’
Sooner than Liz had expected, the city appeared on the skyline. Glancing at the speedometer, she realised that they had been travelling much faster than she had realised. The car’s superior road-holding made it seem to be going more slowly than it was.
Although she had passed her test soon after her eighteenth birthday, and normally enjoyed being at the wheel, she would not have wanted to negotiate the streets of a busy city in a new and expensive vehicle. But Cam seemed unconcerned by Alicante’s congested streets and one-way system. He drove along the waterfront, past the palm-lined pedestrian esplanade, before turning into the heart of the city where the pavements were crowded with fashionably dressed women and dapper men.
Living quietly in Valdecarrasca, Liz had forgotten what a city felt like. But in any case Alicante, under a cloudless blue sky with the sun shining, was very different from a typical December day in London. However, as far as the Spanish were concerned it was winter and many of the men were wearing smart overcoats and the women furs which here, it seemed, were still acceptable.
Cam parked the car in an underground parking lot belonging to El Corte Inglés, one of Spain’s most famous department stores.
‘I don’t think they’d call it “the English cut” today,’ he said dryly, as they entered the lift. ‘A fashion journalist I know says the Germans have the edge for fine materials and tailoring. That’s a very nice suit you’re wearing—’ with a downward glance at her classically simple fine wool jacket and skirt. ‘Where was it made?’
‘In Germany.’ She would have travelled in something more casual but, because they were going to have lunch in the city, had decided to cut a dash. It was unlikely the suit would have many airings in future.
The last time Liz had gone shopping with a man had been with her father, an extravagant shopper who enjoyed chatting up pretty salesgirls. Duncan, indoctrinated by his mother, had regarded all shops as women’s places. Uninterested in his appearance, he had even left it to Liz to pick out his suits.
She was curious to see what kind of shopper Cam was. Today he was wearing a long-sleeved light blue shirt and well-cut navy blue trousers with black socks and black calf loafers. On leaving the car, he had taken from the back seat a light-coloured sports coat. She knew by the way it fitted him that it had to be custom-made. No off-the-peg jacket would have fitted his shoulders and broad back so perfectly.
By lunch time they had toured the entire store and Liz had learnt a lot more about him. Unlike her father, he didn’t flash numerous credit cards, nor did he ogle the female sales staff. It was they who looked appreciatively at him. Unlike her husband, he was obviously at ease in this environment, even on the fashion floors where he looked for gifts for the women he was spending Christmas with. He didn’t ask Liz for advice, but picked out the presents himself, all of them things she would have been happy to receive.
At half past one, leaving their shopping to be picked up later, they strolled down to the esplanade she had glimpsed earlier. By now most of the benches were occupied by people chatting while others strolled back and forth. In a pavilion, a uniformed band played middlebrow music.
‘Are you wilting? We should have had a coffee break,’ said Cam. ‘Our table is booked for two so there’s time for a glass of wine in one of the pavement cafés, if we can find any free seats.’
‘I’m not wilting. It’s been great fun. What a beautiful pavement,’ said Liz, indicating the tessellated marble surface they were walking on.
‘Red, cream and black are the city’s colours. This undulating design represents the waves of the sea,’ he explained, looking towards the harbour.
He did not notice, as Liz did, a couple of expensively dressed wom
en both looking him over and exchanging a glance that meant the Spanish equivalent of ‘I wouldn’t mind spending time with him!’
It was an unwelcome reminder that, although they might think her lucky to have such a personable man in tow, in fact he was only being neighbourly and she wasn’t the type of woman he usually escorted.
‘Quick…I’ve spotted some empty chairs.’ He grabbed her arm to steer her to a nearby café where people were drinking aperitivos.
‘Where does your mother live, Liz?’ he asked, after a waiter had taken his order. When she told him, he said, ‘Never been there.’
‘You haven’t missed much. It’s the epitome of everything that’s boring about the outer suburbs.’
‘To a journalist, nowhere is boring. Suburbia is full of interesting stories and people.’
‘Not in the street where my mother lives,’ Liz said dryly. ‘Respectability is the watchword.’
He gave her a penetrating look. ‘But what about your mother’s daughter, who broke out and went to Spain? I could get a story out of her, couldn’t I?’
The waiter came back with two glasses of champagne and some little dishes of tapas.
‘Couldn’t I?’ Cam persisted.
‘I suppose an expert journalist can make a story out of almost anything. But even you would find it difficult. Coming to Spain isn’t particularly adventurous. Thousands of people do it every year.’
‘Yes, but most of the expats are retired. For someone of your age to come is a lot more enterprising.’ He picked up his glass. ‘I won’t say Merry Christmas because it doesn’t sound as if it will be merry for you. Let’s drink to the New Year…and to our new directions.’
‘To new directions,’ she echoed.
As she drank some of the pale golden wine, it occurred to her that this was one of life’s golden moments that she would remember when she was old.