by Anne Weale
Gata de Gorgos was a small town that straddled the main coast road and was famous for its cane furniture and basket-work shops. As well as going to the cinema there, Liz had browsed in the shops. She would have liked to go again, but she felt it was wiser to say, ‘I really need to work tomorrow.’
‘And you’re still in shock and want time to recover…yes?’
She knew without glancing at him that there would be the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
‘Yes, that too,’ she admitted.
The car was not locked and he opened the driver’s door for her. ‘OK, I’ll give you a breathing space. How about going to Gata on Friday? I really would be glad of your advice on this house-warming gift…and we do need to spend more time together to help you come to a decision.’
‘All right…Friday,’ she agreed.
Next morning she had a call from Leonora Dryden.
‘Liz, do you have an hour to spare this afternoon? I’d like to make a start on the portrait.’
At three o’clock, taking the party dress in a carrier, Liz walked round to the Drydens’ house to be met by Leonora wearing one of her husband’s cast-off shirts and a pair of paint-stained cotton trousers.
‘It’s good of you to come at short notice.’ Leonora took her upstairs to her bedroom where Liz changed into the dress.
For the first half an hour of the sitting they chatted about general subjects until, suddenly, the older woman said, ‘There’s tension about you that wasn’t there the other night. Is there something on your mind today?’
Liz hesitated and then, on impulse, said, ‘Yes, there is, but I didn’t know it showed.’
Leonora, who had been looking from her subject to the canvas at fifteen-second intervals ever since, satisfied with the pose, she had started work, now gave her sitter a longer look.
‘Is it something you can discuss? A problem shared is a problem halved, as the saying goes.’
Again Liz hesitated before deciding to confide her dilemma. ‘Cam has asked me to marry him.’
Much to her surprise, Leonora showed no sign of being startled by this information.
‘I could see he was very taken with you at the party. I discussed it with Todd afterwards. He thought I was being over-imaginative, but men are less sensitive to nuances than women. But he did agree it was high time Cam took a wife and that you seemed an ideal person to take on that role. Why are you hesitating? Because you haven’t known him long?’
‘That’s one of the reasons,’ said Liz. ‘How long did you and Todd know each other before you decided to marry?’
‘We’ve known each other since we were children, so although we married very young it wasn’t as rash a step for me as it would have been for most girls of twenty. Generally speaking I think women need to be twenty-five and men around thirty before they’re sufficiently mature to commit themselves to a lifelong partnership. You and Cam know who you are and what you want from life.’
‘He does…but I’m not sure that I do…except that I’d like to have children. But is that a good enough reason to marry someone?’
‘Does Cam want children?’
‘He says so.’
Leonora lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Eventually, she said, ‘The question you have to ask yourself is, How will this man enhance my life and how can I enhance his? The feminists would have my guts for garters if they heard me but, generally speaking, I think being a wife—given that one’s husband isn’t a brute or a slob—is always preferable to being single. Men are so useful. If I didn’t have Todd, I should have to read the bank statements and paint the seats in the garden and recharge the car’s battery when, occasionally, it goes flat. I could do all those things if I had to, but I’d rather not, just as Todd doesn’t want to be bothered with Christmas cards and duty letters to distant relations and choosing the fabric for new slipcovers.’
‘But surely a marriage should be more than a matter of mutual convenience?’ said Liz.
‘Absolutely—but the day-to-day practicalities are an important part of life so it’s crucial to be sure that you see eye to eye on the mundane matters. An obsessively neat person is unlikely to be happy with an untidy partner, and so on. Given roughly the same sort of personal habits, the next thing to consider is mind-sets. A free-thinker is never going to get along with someone extremely conventional. Todd and I have vigorous arguments on all sorts of topics, but in the important areas we’re pretty much in agreement.’
‘What do you see as the important areas?’ Liz asked.
‘Money, religion, politics and sex. Neither of us is extravagant, but nor are we mean. We’re both atheists, but enjoy church architecture and music. We’re both apolitical—despising all politicians impartially. We both take the view that fidelity is one of the keystones of marriage and affairs on the side are strictly off-limits. Have you discussed those areas with Cam?’
‘Not yet. There hasn’t been time to discuss anything much.’
Leonora took two steps backward and studied her canvas through narrowed eyes. ‘I’d recommend thrashing them out as soon as possible. Cam’s not the sort of man who will mind if you ask him point-blank what he thinks. What’s more he’ll tell you the truth and not just what he thinks you want to hear. He has one of the best-organised minds of anyone I know. There are not many subjects he doesn’t have a point of view on.’
It was clear that she meant this comment to be encouraging, but Liz found it daunting, knowing that her own mind was far from well organised and there were lots of subjects about which she knew too little to have any firm opinions.
‘I think that’s enough for today. Time for a cup of tea,’ said Leonora. ‘I’ll make it while you are changing. Would you mind leaving the dress here? I’d like to study that lovely shimmery effect.’
When Liz returned to her house, she opened her front door to find a bunch of flowers wrapped in florist’s paper on the table inside it. There was only one person who could have left them there. Cam must have called while she was out and used the key she had given him to unlock the door.
Swathed in stiff dark green paper, the bunch of pale pink roses, cream carnations and various types of greenery that she didn’t know the name of had a small envelope attached to it. Inside was a card on which he had written—
Thank you for yesterday.
Looking forward to tomorrow. C
Liz took the flowers to the kitchen. The only thing she had to put them in was a earthenware wine jug that was too rustic for the sophisticated flowers. As she snipped the tapes holding the stalks together, she wondered how much the flowers had cost. Probably a lot more than the price of yesterday’s lunch. The envelope bore the name and address of the floristería. It was not the shop in the next village up the valley, but a florist in one of the coastal resorts. She wondered what other errand had taken him there. He would not have gone all that way just to buy flowers for her.
When the flowers were arranged, she went upstairs and sent him an e-mail.
Cam—I found your flowers when I got home from the first portrait session with Leonora. They are gorgeous. How kind of you—Liz
All evening she mulled over Leonora’s advice. She had half expected the older woman to ask her about her marriage and wondered why she hadn’t. Not that Liz would have wanted to talk about it. The past was better left undisturbed.
When, soon after ten, they set out for Gata, there were still long streamers of mist lying over parts of the valley, waiting to be dispersed by the sun. Most of the village streets were still in shade, and the people they saw were warmly wrapped up. One woman, returning from the panadería with bread in a cotton bag with pan embroidered on it, was wearing a quilted dressing gown, a garment often seen about the village during the morning.
Guessing that it might be cold inside the shops in Gata, Liz had taken the precaution of wearing a quilted gilet over a sweater over a shirt.
‘What sort of house are you looking for a present for?’ she asked, as they l
eft the outskirts of the village.
‘A converted farmhouse about ten miles further inland. It should be habitable by Easter, possibly sooner. As soon as it is, they’ll be throwing a party. I suspect they’ll be inundated with stuff they don’t really want and I don’t want to add to the junk.’
‘Ornaments are the worst things to give,’ said Liz, remembering a couple of horrors among her wedding presents. ‘Not that you would, but some people can’t believe that what they think is beautiful might be seen as hideous by someone else.’
She was looking at him as she spoke. When he laughed, it deepened the line down his cheek and gave her a momentary glimpse of his teeth. She had never thought of teeth as being sexy, but his were. Seeing them made her insides turn over. His hands had a similar effect. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the easy way he changed gear and his light handling of the wheel. Yet she had the feeling that, should an emergency occur, his reaction would be instantaneous and exactly right for the circumstances.
There were two ways to get to Gata and he chose the back road that followed the meandering course of a dry riverbed. Ahead, in the distance, they could see the massive outline of the mountain she had driven over with Deborah. Presently, a bend in the road opened the view of the impressive modern viaduct carrying the coastal autopista that Cam had mentioned when he was driving her to Alicante.
How incredulous she would have been, then, if someone had suggested that, within a few weeks, he would ask her to marry him.
As this seemed a good opportunity to broach the subjects Leonora had mentioned yesterday, she said, ‘I read an article somewhere that said people contemplating marriage should make sure their minds are in tune on four subjects.’
‘Which are?’
‘Money, religion, politics…and sex.’ She hesitated slightly before adding the fourth subject, the most difficult one for her to discuss with him.
‘Having eye-witnessed some of worst excesses committed in the name of religion and politics, I don’t have much time for zealots or politicians,’ he answered. ‘If the world is ever going to be a peaceful place, it will probably be the result of scientists finding ways to correct genetic problems. I’m very excited by the latest research into the human genome. I think that’s where our best hopes lie.’
‘That’s exactly my view.’ During a sleepless night she had worked out where she stood on three of the issues raised by Leonora.
‘Good…then no problems there. Where do you stand on money?’
‘As I’ve never had much, I don’t really stand anywhere. I don’t like people who are stingy, but I’m certainly not a member of the “buy now, pay later” brigade.’
‘How do you feel about pre-nuptial settlements?’
‘I don’t approve of them at all,’ she said, with vehement emphasis. ‘But then I don’t see the point of getting married if you think it might not be permanent.’
‘But sometimes, despite both parties’ good intentions, it isn’t permanent and there are children to be provided for.’
‘The moral of that is not to have children by a man unless you are certain he will stand by his obligations,’ Liz said briskly.
‘That’s an idealist’s view…sounds good in theory but often doesn’t work out in practice.’
‘I know…but I still think a pre-nuptial agreement makes it clear that there’s no real love or trust in the marriage, that it’s actually a cold-hearted exchange of assets, usually youth and beauty for fame and fortune.’
‘You’re thinking of showbiz alliances, I imagine. Like anyone who works in front of the TV cameras, I have a small amount of fame and some modest assets in a trust that was set up by my grandparents when I was a small boy. They were more prudent than my parents who are both incurably extravagant. Is your mother comfortably off?’
‘She has a nice bungalow and enough to live on. I don’t have to help her,’ said Liz, in case he had been wondering whether her mother would be a liability he would have to shoulder. ‘But I don’t think my mother and yours would have anything in common. My background is very ordinary.’
‘Are you an inverted snob, Liz?’ He gave her a quizzical glance. ‘One thing that any journalist learns early on is that a person’s worth has nothing to do with their place in the pecking order. I once spent time with a man who cleaned London’s sewers. In all the ways that really matter, he was a far better person than a man with a seat on several boards whom I interviewed shortly afterwards.’
‘So he may have been, but that isn’t to say they would have been comfortable in each other’s company,’ she pointed out.
‘Possibly not. Although if they had been holed up together in some tricky situation they’d have probably got along fine…with the sewer man taking command and the board-room guy glad to let him, I shouldn’t wonder. But that’s beside the point. All that matters in our case is that you and I are on the same wavelength. Whether our family members like each other is their problem, not ours.’
By this time they were on the outskirts of Gata. The streets behind the main thoroughfare had been built when traffic consisted of mule-drawn carts and Cam needed to give his full attention to passing lines of closely parked cars and turning tight corners.
He was able to find a parking spot not far from the main through road and soon they were in one of the many shops selling cane and basketware and glass and pottery. Here, and in other shops they visited, there was usually a middle-aged or elderly woman who emerged from the rear of the premises to keep an eye on them. When they found Cam spoke fluent Spanish, they seemed glad to gossip with him while Liz roamed the aisles between the crowded displays.
It was in the fourth shop that she noticed a set of sturdy wine goblets made from glass with a greenish tinge and bubbles of air in the stems that she thought would be perfect for the house he had described. Cam agreed with her and bought twenty of them and two matching jugs.
While they were being wrapped in newspaper and packed in a carton, Liz saw a square glass vase that was perfect for the flowers he had given her.
As he stowed their shopping in the back to the car, Cam said, ‘Time for coffee…if you don’t mind having it in a bar. I don’t think Gata runs to anything smarter.’
‘A bar is fine by me.’
On days out with Deborah, she had been into places they wouldn’t have used back in England but found acceptable here, where small-town and village bars were mainly men’s places, lacking the refinements of cafés and tea rooms designed to suit a feminine clientele.
The first bar they came to was empty apart from the barman who was sweeping up the litter of sugar wrappers and cigarette ends on the floor beneath the bar stools. The television was on and two fruit machines were flashing their lights, but the noise level wasn’t intolerable as it sometimes could be in bars.
Liz chose a table away from the fruit machines and watched Cam’s back view as he leaned against the bar while the man behind it dealt with his order. If she had needed any confirmation of her feelings about him, this moment would have been proof. Because he was with her, she would rather be here, in this scruffy Spanish bar, than anywhere on earth.
He carried two cups of coffee to the plastic-imitating-wood table with its ashtray, plastic pot of toothpicks and plastic container for the squares of paper napkin that, in Liz’s experience, were never very absorbent.
‘Not the most glamorous ambience, I’m afraid,’ he said dryly, before turning away to fetch two glasses of white wine.
‘You’re used to more glamorous places than I am,’ said Liz, when he came back.
‘Sometimes…not always.’ He pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Anyway it’s the company that counts.’ He smiled at her.
If only it counted for him as much as it did for her, she thought, with a pang. If only there was a chance that he might come to love her.
Cam drank some coffee. ‘Now, where had we got to with your list of things to discuss? We’ve done religion and politics. As far as money is conce
rned, my view is that when people marry they should pool their resources, allocate themselves some spending money and confer about all their other expenses. Does that seems sensible?’
‘Perfectly,’ Liz agreed, aware that her pulse-rate had quickened with anticipated nervousness.
‘Right, so that leaves only one more item on the agenda,’ said Cam. ‘But perhaps the most key of them all.’ He paused, and there was a gleam in the steel-grey eyes that made her pulse beat even faster. ‘Sex. What aspects of it are we supposed to discuss?’
CHAPTER SIX
Donde no hay amor, no hay dolor
Where there is no love, there is no pain
‘I THINK fidelity is the big issue. I know I couldn’t cope with an “open” marriage. But is fidelity possible for someone like yourself who’s been used to…to variety?’
‘Not only possible, but preferable. It was asking someone to marry me when I was a nomad, and there was always a chance I wouldn’t come back, that was impossible.’
‘But don’t you think you might get bored with only one partner? A lot of men do.’
‘A lot of men have unsatisfactory sex lives. They don’t understand women’s needs so they don’t get the response they need and start looking elsewhere. They don’t realise the problem lies with them.’
She wanted to ask, How come you understand? But this wasn’t a subject she was comfortable with. Her unease was a hangover from her childhood when sex had never been discussed. Even when her father was not present, her mother had dealt with Liz’s questions awkwardly, making her realise that, if she wanted satisfactory answers, she would have to find another source of information.
In the end, most of what she had learnt had come from books and magazines. But knowing the theory and putting it into practice were two different things, she had discovered.
From the other side of the table Cam watched Liz apparently studying the imitation wood grain of the tabletop. There was a slight frown between her eyebrows. He guessed that she wasn’t seeing the pattern on the plastic but had retreated into a private part of her mind which he might never penetrate.