When he’d handed in his notice, the head of the PR department, a very dependable man, had stared at him in exasperated astonishment. ‘Don’t you realize, Harry, you’re throwing in a job which could take you right up the ladder? And to a thumping good pension.’
How could anyone who was really alive and only twenty-seven worry about his pension?
As he’d wandered through Germany and France, he’d met a number of other people who were drifting before the winds, but most of them, he discovered, seemed to take themselves very seriously. They were, they claimed, searching for meaning. They seemed to view his motiveless drifting with contempt.
In Port Vendres, which he’d reached on a Tuesday when the sun had been shining and the Mediterranean had been a deep, deep blue, he’d discovered that a ferry sailed from there to Mallorca. He’d never been on a Mediterranean island, which was a perfectly good reason for buying a ticket and sailing to one.
He’d seen the concrete jungles, stretches of coast swamped by high rise hotels, apartment blocks, restaurants, tourist shops, and notices which read ‘Tea like Mum makes.’ He had seen the interior, where gaunt mountains reared up out of a moon-like terrain and black vultures and golden eagles rode the thermals. And he had seen Llueso, nestling on and among hills, not quite untouched by development, yet still master of it.
It wasn’t Shangri-la. Just as in anywhere else, there existed indifference, selfishness, hatred, cruelty . . . But it seemed to him as if here man had learned, in so far as he was ever going to, how to live for the greatest enjoyment.
A woman’s voice, pitched a trifle shrilly, with a touch of South Kensingtonitis, interrupted his memories and thoughts. ‘Hullo, Harry. I saw you sitting here so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I joined you for a bit.’
He stood and not for the first time thought what a pity it was that Betty didn’t have more taste. She could have been beautiful — an oval face with high cheekbones to hint at feminine mystery, blue eyes, a nose with a suggestion of a turned-up tip, a generous mouth, naturally curly ash blonde hair, and a slim figure — but she dressed ostentatiously and used far too much make-up. ‘Jolly nice to see you, Betty,’ he said and managed to sound as if he meant it. ‘Sit down and tell me what you’re going to drink.’
‘Can I have a sweet vermouth, please?’
A waiter had come over and Waynton gave the order, including another gin and tonic for himself. ‘How’s Bill today?’ he asked as the waiter left.
‘He seems to me to be a bit worse, but the doctor says he’s about the same. It can happen any moment.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He’d never met Bill Heron, who’d been ill from the day he arrived on the island, and he saw it as hypocritical to express any more than formally condolatory words.
She said, very abruptly: ‘Are you waiting for someone?’
‘I’m meeting Diana here. Although since she’s now well over half an hour late I’m beginning to have grave doubts on that score.’
‘D’you think she’s forgotten and gone off with someone else?’
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. ‘She’s over eighteen so who knows? If so, you’ve saved me from getting bored with my own company.’
The waiter brought them their drinks.
A couple came up the steps on to the level part of the square and looked across to the tables. He knew and liked them and waved and they waved back and seemed about to come over when they checked, then turned and crossed to one of the empty tables to the right. He was fairly certain they’d decided not to come because Betty was with him. He wasn’t sure whether people merely disliked her or whether they were reluctant to get close to tragedy: in the timeless, never-never land of Llueso, the stark reality of death was thrice unwelcome.
‘D’you think she’s gone out with Alex ?’ asked Betty suddenly.
‘Who?’ he asked, having forgotten what they’d been talking about.
‘Diana. Maybe she’s having lunch with him and that’s why she’s forgotten to come here.’
He laughed. ‘That’s one of the more unlikely combinations I can think up — at least from Diana’s point of view.’
‘He always tries to be so superior, yet he’s nothing to be superior about except he’s got money,’ she said, with sudden fierceness. ‘Keeps making out he’s from a big family. He hasn’t come from anywhere so why act like he was Lord Muck?’
‘D’you think he really does? I know he’s a bit pompous at times, but that can be rather amusing.’ He’d never understood the resentment which social caste, or the lack of it, or the false assumption of it, seemed to raise in some people’s minds.
She said bitterly: ‘You know what the trouble is, don’t you? People won’t have anything to do with me because I’m not married to Bill.’
‘Come off it. If not being married were a social stigma, half the couples on the island would be out in the cold.’
‘You just don’t understand. It’s so different for a man: you only think it’s amusing. But Bill was going to marry me and then he fell so ill . . .’ She finished her drink in three quick swallows. ‘God, I’ll be glad to get away from this place. Nothing works, the natives rob you every time you open your purse . . .’
‘Have another drink and forget it all.’
She might not have heard him. ‘The electricity failed a couple of weeks ago and I tried to tell the landlord. He pretended he couldn’t understand, so I made him get hold of his wife who speaks a bit of English and told her. It was five days before he came up to see what was wrong. Five bloody days!’ .
‘Time never means much out here. That’s surely one of the charms of the place? Except when the electricity doesn’t work, perhaps.’
‘Charms? God, I’ve another word to describe what it’s like.’
‘I’ll bet . . . Let’s have that other drink and forget all the troubles.’ He signalled to the waiter and ordered another round of drinks.
‘Bill said that if he died I ought to stay here because I’ve friends who’ll help me. Friends!’
He tried to conceal his irritation at her complaining self-pity.
‘I wouldn’t stay on here if you paid me to. The moment I’ve sorted everything out I’m off and I hope it’s the last time I ever have to talk to a stuffy, stuck-up expatriate or a sullen native who’s only interested in how often he can swindle me.’ She picked up her glass, realized it was empty, and replaced it. She was silent for a moment, then she said: ‘Maybe she’s out with Gordon.’ It had been a question, yet she didn’t wait for an answer. ‘She leads a very social life. Knows everyone. She’s lucky.’
If she could have thrown the chips off her shoulder, he thought, she could have started to be lucky. Anyone as attractive as she was needed no social passport.
The waiter brought the drinks and took away their empty glasses.
The clock of the church at the far end of the square struck the hour and as if alarmed by the sound several pigeons rose from the roof of one of the surrounding buildings and, with clattering wings, flew off in the direction of Puig Antonia.
‘I’d better get back,’ she said suddenly. ‘I don’t like leaving Bill for longer than I have to.’ She drank so quickly it was impossible ·she could have enjoyed the vermouth. She left in a flurry of movement, clumsily knocking into a chair at the next table.
Here on the island she was a fish out of water, he thought. Some people never could or would fit into a way of life that was very different from the one they had been brought up in, but he felt certain that even in England she had constantly found cause for discontent.
It was five minutes later, when he’d decided that Diana wasn’t coming, that he saw her emerge from the narrow road by the side of the church. She was a striking woman. She wasn’t beautiful in the classical sense, but her oval face, framed by jet black hair, was filled with character, suggesting in part her headstrong, sometimes wilful nature. She had a quick, easy smile, but if she were bored she often made no attempt to hide the fact
and then her mouth had a disdainful curve to it. She was a person of moods, some of them inexplicable unless one understood that she was looking for something without really being certain what this was. She would accept a quiet, easy life for a time, then would suddenly demand movement and excitement. She could be intensely loyal in friendship, but also cynically critical. She professed a contempt for wealth at the same time as she enjoyed its trappings. The general feeling was that her marriage was bound to have broken up because of her character: but this was based on superficial judgement only.
She crossed the square, aware of the men’s interest but contemptuously careless about it. She was wearing a light cotton see-through shirt and tight jeans. She dressed as; she felt she wanted to, ignoring the dictates of convention. This was another cause of some people’s resentment.
She said, as she sat: ‘Am I late?’ Her tone of voice suggested she didn’t care whether she was or wasn’t.
‘Far from it. It’s not quite half past one yet.’
She looked at him. ‘Don’t be so bloody accommodating. You know I’m almost an hour late. I got tied up.’
‘With Alex ?’
‘With that PP? Do you mind?’
‘PP?’
‘Provincial Percy, with emphasis on the euphemism.’
He laughed. ‘Then was it Gordon ?’
‘If you’re going to be insulting, at least try to be subtle.’
‘They’re not my idea. Betty saddled herself on me before you got here and she seemed very interested in who you were with. It’s she who suggested either Alex or Gordon.’
‘It’s a great pity she didn’t stay in Southgate, or whatever Godforsaken desert she came from. The men there must just about have been her mark.’
‘Don’t be too cutting. She was in a bit of a state.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t you ever feel any sympathy for anyone else? You’re in a right royal bitchy mood today.’
She seemed about to reply angrily, then suddenly relaxed. ‘You know something, Harry? I think there are times when you’re good for me. I always have the feeling that if you get too fed up with me you’ll revert to cave man style to vent your annoyance and that keeps me from becoming too obnoxious.’ She leaned back in the chair, tilted her head to the sun and closed her eyes. ‘I’m late because I ran into Hugh and he wanted to buy me a drink. I was feeling bloody depressed so I accepted. Then I lost count of time. I’m sorry.’
‘You realize you’ve just apologized?’
‘I do have my moments of weakness.’
He said, in a neutral tone: ‘Hugh seems to be a nice bloke.’
‘He is when he stops concentrating on bed.’
‘Like that, is he?’
She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘Aren’t all men?’
‘I can only speak subjectively.’
‘And?’
‘Yes.’
She laughed.
CHAPTER IV
Francisca pedalled harder, because now the road was slightly uphill. She passed a field, set lower than the road, in which a friend, bent double, was weeding beans. She shouted a greeting. To see someone working in the fields was to be reminded of her husband. He, with her help, had farmed just over ten thousand square metres on a share cropping basis. The owner of the land had been a real bitch. She’d demanded 50 per cent of all the produce and the first choice: the biggest strawberries, the fattest peaches, the juiciest oranges, the densest lettuces, the tastiest artichokes. If she had been content with just a third her husband would not have had to work so hard and then he might have been alive today. But perhaps not. It was impossible for a poor peasant to understand the will of God.
She turned off the tarmac road on to the bouncy dirt track. Miguel, her son, had asked the parents of his girl if he might have permission to call at their house without being invited. Then in four or five years, when they had a home and had furnished it, they would be marrying. How was she going to find the money to provide her share of the wedding feast, like the one Damian and Teresa had been given?
When she rounded the pigsty, she saw that there was a car by the side of the lean-to garage of Ca’n Ibore and a few metres further on she identified this car as Dr Roldán’s.
Poor Señor Heron. Life could be so unmerciful.
She entered the house, called out, ‘Good morning, señorita,’ and carried on through the sitting-room to the kitchen.
The kitchen was in a terrible mess, with dirty crockery and cutlery heaped everywhere. Ah well, she was paid to clear up, but couldn’t the señorita at least have stacked things? She seemed to be a woman without pride in her house.
After a while the doctor came into the kitchen. ‘Good morning, señora.’
‘Good morning, señor,’ she answered, with the respect due to a man of great education.
‘I’m afraid the señor has just died.’
‘Merciful Mother of God protect his soul,’ she said, and crossed herself.
‘Get on your bike and go and tell Arturo Gomez to come up here immediately.’
‘Old Gomez? But surely Señor Vazquez is now the undertaker?’
Roldán ignored her.
She took off her apron and carefully folded it up and placed it on one of the chairs.
‘Hurry it up,’ he said testily.
She had known Dr Roldán’s parents well. They had been ordinary villagers, just like anyone else. But their son had been clever and had become a doctor and he’d seemed to think that this made him a different man. Then he’d married a Frenchwoman, beautiful, true, but so expensive. And he’d needed a great deal of money and so had turned more and more to doctoring the foreigners because they paid so much more than the villagers. Now it was as if he had not been born in Llueso, but had come from afar. Ah well, that was the way the world turned.
She bicycled back along the bumpity dirt track. She was surprised she was to call in Arturo Gomez, who had had precious little work over the past few years because people now went to Vazquez who had expensive coffins and the biggest car in the village to carry the coffin in . . . Señor Heron could not have been nearly as rich as she’d always imagined. Would there, then, ‘be any money for the señorita? She wasn’t the kind of woman who would know how to live on little. Or perhaps she was thinking only of the money and that was why she was denying her lover the kind of funeral that would have honoured his memory.
Over one hundred people attended the funeral of William Miles Heron. The English vicar, from Palma, read the burial service and the very plain coffin was lifted by four men into the sepulchre where it would stay for seven years before being opened so that the bones could be removed and buried in the corner plot of land reserved for heretics. Betty Stevenage asked all the mourners back to a funeral tea at Ca’n Ibore. None of the wealthy or the socially elite accepted the invitation because they had shown the necessary respect towards the dead and they did not wish there to be any confusion about their feelings towards the living.
CHAPTER V
June was a month of constant sunshine and each day the thermometer reached a little higher until all previous temperature records had been broken. During the day the holidaymakers in their hundreds lay and sunbathed and during the evening they suffered from sunburn. It was ideal weather for doctors, chemists, soft drinks and ice-cream manufacturers.
Jose Sanchez’s only response to the unusual heat was to drink more. His wife frequently called him a drunken lay-about, good at nothing but swilling and gambling in the bars, but as he invariably replied, perhaps after a blow or two to quieten her down, it was his money so no one was going to stop him doing what he wanted with it.
He’d always been a lucky man. Almost from the day he’d been born, his father had recognized him as being a lazy good-for-nothing. His father had known when death was coming, so he’d taken great care to see that each of his three sons obtained his just deserts. To his wife he left his house in the village, to Adolfo and Bernado his land because land
was more valuable than gold and they were wonderful sons, to Jose he left the half-ruined house on one of the fields because the law said he must leave something to each of his children and that was the most worthless thing he possessed. He hadn’t been dead a year when foreigners began to arrive on the island, all searching for somewhere to buy or rent. One day a ruin was worth just a few pesetas, the next (or so it seemed) hundreds of thousands, even millions. Before long Jose Sanchez’s house was worth so much more than his brothers’ fields that he laughed every time he watched them laboriously tilling the soil.
Instead of succumbing to the lure of a million pesetas, which was the sum a German offered him for the broken-down Ca’n Ibore, he’d persuaded a builder to reform the house, using the cheapest available materials. Naturally, he never paid many of the builder’s bills. When the house was finished, he’d offered it at a rent which all his acquaintances delightedly told him was much too high — and a simple foreigner paid it. At the end of that first let he’d raised the rent and all his acquaintances had rushed to tell him that now he was just being completely crazy – and another simple foreigner paid it, again without even trying to haggle. And these inflated rents were all profit because he’d discovered how to avoid all maintenance costs. When the tenants complained because the plaster peeled off the walls, shutters fell, the water-pump burned out, the water-heater failed, the water supply became clogged up with muck from the estanqui which he was too lazy to clean, and the worm-eaten furniture collapsed, he merely failed to understand what they were shouting about and in the end, in desperation, they usually themselves paid to have the repairs effected.
He drove up to Ca’n Ibore in his battered, ailing car, not quite as happy as he usually was when he approached the house that was his. Annoyingly, in a way one of the foreigners had managed to get the better of him; or, to be strictly honest, he had failed to take the foreigner for quite as much as he ought to have been able to. The man had died and the woman had said she was leaving the island, so everything had been set for his regaining possession of the house inside the period of the lease (paid in advance). But then the woman, with deplorable stupidity, had handed the keys of the house to her solicitor and said that the landlord. was not to be let into the place until the term of the lease was up. A mean, spiteful action.
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