Then. Now. Always.

by Isabelle Broom

  ‘You go ahead,’ I tell Tom. ‘I’ll wait on the beach and watch the bags.’

  We walk along until we reach a beachside bar offering sun loungers – or hamacas, as the Spanish call them – for five euros, then Tom whips his T-shirt off over his head and lollops away across the sand.

  I watch until he’s happily splashing about in the water, then lie back against my towel and release an audible sigh of contentment. I can hear the wind making the beach umbrellas creak with the effort of standing upright, and somewhere a child is giggling. Music filters down from the bar, a Spanish song that I’ve never heard but which sounds familiar all the same, and I smile as the notes hover around my ears like a persistent bee.

  I’ve already applied sun cream on all my exposed areas, but I realise now that I didn’t remind Tom that he should, too. He won’t be feeling the heat in the water, but it’s definitely at its peak at this time of day. Just as I’m contemplating getting up and calling him back in to shore, a shadow falls across me.

  ‘A drink for the lady?’

  Theo is smiling down at me, his eyes obscured by his sunglasses but his smile as clear as the sky above his head. The clouds from this morning are long gone.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, shuffling up into a sitting position.

  He’s holding a jug of sangria in one hand and three small glasses in the other, and has a rolled-up towel clamped under one arm. He’s also changed into shorts and – be still, my throbbing loins – taken off his shirt.

  ‘You can’t very well have an afternoon off without some sangria,’ he says, sitting down on Tom’s vacated sun lounger and slipping his feet out of his flip-flops.

  ‘You’re the boss,’ I joke lamely, holding out my hand to accept a glass. The sangria is packed with slices of orange, strawberry and lemon, and there’s a wooden spoon poking out from the top of the jug.

  Until today, I have never been physically close to Theo and he has never seen me in a state of undress. Now the two things have happened in the space of a few hours, and it’s a wonder that I’m managing to remain so calm. Thank goodness I chose my one bikini with the padded bra top this morning. Not that a few centimetres of foam are going to convince anyone – let alone Theo – that I’ve got much up there to show off. Tall, skinny girls just aren’t made that way.

  ‘Thanks again for earlier,’ I say now, taking a sip of my drink. It’s delicious – fruity and sweet and dangerously non-alcoholic-tasting – and I quickly chase the first gulp down with another.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Theo regards me for a few seconds. ‘I feel responsible for you,’ he admits. ‘For all of you, really. You are my team and it’s up to me to make sure you’re well looked after while we’re over here.’

  I feel myself deflate a fraction at his words. How foolish I’d been to assume that he’d wanted to put his arms around me and comfort me. Of course he was just being nice, like a concerned older brother or something. Or worse, like a dad.

  ‘You always look as if you are lost in thought,’ Theo says now, laughing when I immediately go bright red. ‘You do! What is going on inside that head of yours, Miss Hodges?’

  What it would be like to kiss you, I think, but obviously don’t say.

  ‘I was just thinking how much more fun the beach is when you’re a child,’ I say, which is a half-truth because I was thinking that exact thing a few days ago.

  ‘How so?’ Theo has settled himself on Tom’s lounger now, his legs stretched out and his glass of sangria balanced against the soft nest of hair on his chest. I wish I could run my fingers through it.

  ‘Well, when you’re a kid you build sandcastles and collect shells. Play chase with the waves and eat ice cream until you’re sick,’ I tell him.

  ‘You could do all those things now, if you really wanted to,’ he says, clearly amused.

  ‘You could,’ I allow. ‘But it’s not the same now, is it? When I was a child, the shells I collected at the beach were my most prized possessions. And just digging a hole would keep me entertained for hours.’

  I go on to tell him about Chewy, and how my scruffy dog friend used to help me in my hole-digging endeavours, but then end up getting told off for flicking wet sand in everyone’s faces. It turns out that Theo had a pet dog when he was growing up in Greece, too, and again I’m struck with how similar we are.

  ‘Would you ever get another one?’ I ask, as he tops up both our glasses for the third time.

  ‘I always said that I would if I had a family,’ he says. ‘But that didn’t happen for me.’

  ‘There’s still time,’ I reply, probably with a little bit too much enthusiasm. ‘You’re a young man.’

  Theo laughs at this and brings a foot across to nudge my leg.

  ‘You are very sweet,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘But forty is not that young. I think if children were going to happen, then they would have by now.’

  ‘Perhaps you just haven’t met the right person yet,’ I say, astounded at my own boldness. ‘You know, the right person to have a child with, I mean.’

  He smiles. ‘Perhaps.’

  I would have all your babies tomorrow, I tell him internally, watching as a plucky sparrow comes to rest right next to my bare feet.

  ‘What about you, Hannah?’ Theo keeps his voice low so as not to scare away the bird.

  ‘What about me?’ I play dumb.

  ‘Do you want to have children one day?’

  ‘Start with an easy one,’ I joke, but turning I see that his eyes are serious. ‘I guess so, but I wouldn’t want to end up raising a child alone, like my mum did.’

  ‘Your father?’ he asks, waiting while I drain my glass. This sangria is going straight to my head. I really shouldn’t be over-sharing like this, even if it is Theo asking the questions.

  ‘Buggered off before I was two,’ I say, trying and failing to keep the edge out of my voice.

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’ Theo has reached across again, but this time with his hand, which is now resting gently on my arm. I look down at it, then up at his expression, which is all concern.

  ‘It’s okay, you didn’t do it,’ I say stupidly. ‘He met someone else and that was that. At least he didn’t leave her, too, though – they’re still together now.’

  ‘A small comfort, I imagine,’ Theo guesses, spot on as always.

  ‘All my earliest memories are of my mum crying,’ I say now, the sangria sweeping over my carefully constructed floodgates. ‘She would always pretend she’d been chopping onions or that she’d seen something sad on TV, but I knew it was because she missed my dad. Even now I don’t really understand what happened.’

  ‘Love is a very complicated thing,’ Theo says. His hand is still on my arm, and he’s increasing the pressure. I know it’s wrong to be totally aroused while having a conversation about your darkest childhood memories, but I can’t help it. There are so few items of clothing between us, and he’s being so kind, so attentive. He’s actually interested in what I’m telling him, and he’s sympathetic, too.

  ‘I loved a girl for a long time, and we broke up,’ he says now. ‘Like your mother, I found it very difficult.’

  ‘That girl must have been an idiot,’ I fail to stop myself blurting, and Theo laughs, removing his hand at last and picking up the almost empty sangria jug.

  ‘Maybe.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Or maybe she is the opposite.’

  ‘What do you me—?’ I begin, but at that moment my phone starts ringing.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I swear. ‘Sorry, I better just check who it— Oh, it’s my mum. Hang on.’

  I stagger awkwardly to my feet and move away from the loungers, immediately burning my feet on the hot sand and lunging across to a patch of shade.

  ‘Mum – are you okay?’

  ‘Of course I am. How are you, darling? How is Mojácar? Is it as beautiful as before? Are you remembering to put sun cream on? Have you been bitten yet? You know mosquitoes can be dangerous.’

  ‘MUM!’

  ‘Yes
?’

  ‘Stop talking for a moment, will you?’

  ‘Sorry. But you know me. I can’t stop being your mother just because you’re all grown up now.’

  ‘I know. And thank you. But Mum?’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘Why did you call?’

  ‘I got your message earlier.’

  Of course she did. I had completely forgotten that I even sent it.

  ‘Has Nancy been in touch?’ she asks now.

  How the hell does she know that?

  ‘I had a missed call from her a few days ago,’ I say carefully, omitting to mention the other six or so calls I’ve ignored. ‘Why?’

  ‘She rang me,’ Mum says. ‘Wanted to know where you were staying and how long you’d be away. She sounded very impressed when I told her you were on your first location shoot. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? A shoot.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  Why the hell was Nancy suddenly so interested in my life, and what I was doing? She never usually bothers to ask.

  ‘She said that your dad had no idea you’d even left the country, so I told her she must be mistaken about that, because you’d said you were going to text him.’

  Busted.

  ‘Umm … I might have forgotten,’ I admit, silently cursing my half-sister and her huge stupid mouth. Now I’ll have to endure a lecture from Dad when I get home about how disappointed he is in me. Just what I need.

  ‘Oh, Hannah.’ My mum is clearly disappointed, too, but at least she doesn’t dwell on it. Instead, she tells me a long story about how she and Beryl went clay-pot painting for the afternoon and ended up drinking two bottles of Prosecco.

  ‘I was that merry, I had to ask Bill from next door to show me which key to use when I got home,’ she trills. ‘I hope he didn’t think I was coming on to him. No offence to the man, but he does rather remind me of a toad.’

  It’s another five minutes before I get her off the phone, and by the time I’ve hung up, taken a very deep breath and turned back around, Theo has been replaced by a soaking wet, very pink-shouldered Tom. I knew I should have reminded him to put on more sun cream.

  ‘That your mum?’ he guesses, as I sit back down.

  ‘She’s mental,’ I say, before adding casually, ‘did Theo go to get more sangria?’

  ‘He said he had to go.’ Tom shrugs, yanking his towel out from under himself and rubbing it over his dripping hair. ‘Wants to start editing.’

  I resist the urge to lie on the sand and weep.

  ‘Why the face?’ Tom has reappeared from beneath his towel, but even his new Boris Johnson-style hairdo doesn’t cheer me up.

  ‘We can’t exactly get pissed with the boss watching over us,’ he says, jabbing me with a big foot. ‘And look – I found you a present while I was swimming.’

  Beaming with pride, he presents me with an enormous and very beautiful conch shell.

  ‘I trod on it,’ he adds happily. ‘So there might be some blood.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I deadpan, but I have to hand it to the big goon – he’s got me smiling again.

  9

  I don’t know who I offended so badly in a past life, but karma is definitely out to get me today. First a snake tries to attack me – okay, so that’s a slight exaggeration, but it easily could have – then my mum calls right in the middle of the best conversation I’ve ever had with the love of my life, and then I arrive back at the apartment at the same time as Claudette, who is not alone.

  ‘This is Carlos,’ she announces, vanishing into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her, leaving the two of us standing mutely in the hallway. Carlos is short and stocky, with masses of light brown curly hair and a grinning, impish face.

  ‘Hola,’ I say, peering down at him, as a woman of five feet and nine inches can at a man who is clearly not much over five feet.

  A flood of Spanish is his reply, and I have to hold my hand up to stop him.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumble. ‘I don’t speak much Spanish.’

  Now he just looks confused, the poor little hobbit, so I go to the kitchen, thrust some bottled water at him, and hurry out on to the balcony to hang up my towel. I should have taken Tom up on his offer to stroll back up the hill stopping at bars along the way, but I was feeling tired when he suggested it and the bus rolled up at just the right moment.

  ‘Are you going out?’ I ask hopefully when Claudette reappears, wafting toothpaste and what smells suspiciously like my perfume.

  She looks at me as if that’s the stupidest question anyone could ever ask another human.

  ‘I think not,’ she says, reaching for Carlos. He’s been back into the fridge since my back was turned and the two of them are now toasting each other with my bottles of cerveza.

  ‘Right,’ I say, averting my eyes as Claudette slides a hand around and rests it on Carlos’s bottom. ‘I’ll just. I’ll leave you to it, er, leave you alone, then.’

  I doubt they even hear me over the sound of their tongues thrusting together, and a few minutes after I’ve shut the door to my bedroom, I hear Claudette dragging her visitor into her room. Oh, now they’re giggling. And now? Yep, that was definitely the sound of bedsprings.

  ‘Oh baby!’

  Oh hell.

  ‘Baise-moi,’ I hear Claudette say. I know that term, I’m sure I do. It means …

  There’s a crash, followed by more laughter.

  Pretty sure it means ‘kiss me’. Of course it does.

  ‘Mmmm …’

  That’s definitely not Spanish.

  ‘Oooh!’

  I need to get out of here.

  A loud slapping noise and a shriek.

  Kill me now.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Oh yes! Oh baby!’

  That’s it!

  I don’t even bother to change out of my beach clothes before slamming the front door of the apartment shut behind me and legging it up the steps as fast as I can. It’s depressing enough not having any sex yourself without being forced to listen to other people having it through a wall. Still, it is pretty impressive all the same. Claudette certainly knows how to get what she wants.

  The sun is just beginning to droop down behind the honeycomb mosaic of the village as I make my weary way up the hill. During siesta time, it’s almost eerily quiet up here, with only a few cafés staying open to welcome exploring tourists, but now that it’s nearing seven thirty, the place is beginning to wake once again. There’s a natural disarray to Mojácar that I love: the way that plants spill out from window sills and houses sit one atop another, as if they’ve been balanced there by a child playing with bricks. Ordered chaos reigns supreme here, and it’s the very haphazard yet perfect design of the Old Town that makes it so endlessly fascinating.

  I reach the Plaza Nueva and take the steps up to the viewing platform. There’s no Theo here this time, but there are plenty of empty tables and chairs in front of the café-cum-bar, so I choose one close to the outer railings and order myself a cerveza. A gentle breeze is chasing a scatter of twigs and dry leaves around in a circle on the ground, and I can detect the aroma of paella drifting down from one of the open windows above the square.

  The waitress brings over a bowl of complimentary nuts, and I mindlessly begin to post them into my mouth, realising as I do just how hungry I am. There are ingredients for pasta or salad back at the apartment, but there’s no way I’m risking going back there yet. I think about sending Tom a message and telling him to come and meet me, but I don’t. It’s actually quite nice to have an impromptu evening to myself, and to have the freedom to explore all the charming twists and turns of Mojácar that I have yet to rediscover.

  The beer is tangy and tastes fresh, the perfect accompaniment to the salty nuts, and I let myself enjoy the sensation of it slipping over my taste buds. Drinking here is so different to how it is back at home, where everything always feels so rushed and urgent. The very reason you get a free snack with your beer in Mojácar is to encourage you to linger at your table and take
your time. I watch as an older couple sit down a few tables away and study their menus. They both look dressed for dinner, and the woman has clearly spent some time getting her hair just so. The man leans across and points to something he’s just read, and his wife chuckles in appreciation.

  I want that one day, I think. I want someone to love that I can trust. It’s okay to admit it to myself, even though I wouldn’t dream of confessing such a thing to Tom or Claudette. Nowadays everyone seems afraid to admit that finding someone to love is a desirable goal. It marks you out as weak and uncool. Young women should be independent, focusing on their careers and becoming happy in themselves before entering into a serious relationship. But regardless of what other people might think, if I’m being brutally honest with myself I’m more worried about getting hurt. This infatuation I have with Theo might be fruitless, but at least it’s safe.

  Am I just being silly about Theo? I don’t let myself think about it in a serious way very often, because in the past the idea of Theo ever showing an interest in me has seemed so remote – ludicrous even. But over the past few days – and especially this afternoon – I feel as if something has changed between us. He looks at me differently, and keeps touching me. Could it be that he’s simply getting to know me better at last, or could he genuinely be flirting with me? I don’t think I’d recognise what flirting was if it skipped over wearing a rainbow tutu and slapped me over the head with a wet fish, so I don’t have the faintest hope of ever knowing if that’s what Theo has been doing. I can hope, though. There’s nothing wrong with hoping.

  I finish my first cerveza and ask for another, along with some grilled sardines, which arrive blackened and swimming in olive oil. I developed a real taste for these slippery little blighters after that first lunch at the beach, and now I can’t seem to get enough of them. Pulling apart some bread that’s still warm from the oven, I mop up a generous helping of the oil and smile as some of it dribbles down my chin.

  The view from up here continues to awe me, and as I eat my dinner I let my eyes sweep lazily across the horizon, taking in the mountains, the greenery, those strange desert-like patches of earth, scattered houses and orchards. The sea has changed colour in the approaching dusk, a navy curtain outlined by the deep golden sand of the beach, and I can see pockets of birds coasting through the warm evening air, their wings outstretched as they dip, dive and spin. What a magical unison of nature it all is, I think, emotion temporarily getting the better of me, and I use a napkin to dab away the rogue tears that have appeared on either cheek. I think of Elaine, who still seems to love this place as much as she did forty years ago, and I wonder what it really was that drove her out of England. People don’t just up and leave their homes behind for no reason, do they? I have the feeling that there’s a lot more to Elaine’s story than she’s letting on.