‘Hannah,’ she says, smiling at me. ‘There you are at last.’
My rictus grin is starting to hurt.
‘You arrived just the right time, too,’ she adds, dropping her eyes from mine. ‘Diego here was just telling Tom and me about that time years ago when you declared your undying love to him and then threw up all over his shoes.’
No, I was right, she is a demon. If the humiliation wasn’t coursing through me like lava at this very moment, I’d even feel smug in the knowledge that I was correct about her.
‘Oh,’ is all I manage, and I feel Tom shift uncomfortably behind me.
‘Don’t worry,’ she prattles, her earlier confidence dissolving as she takes in the expression on my face. ‘It was a long time ago, right? I’m sure I’ve done much worse things.’
‘Have you?’ I ask, and she looks towards Diego.
‘Well … Okay, I haven’t done that exact thing, but that’s only because I was never allowed on holiday without Mum and Dad when I was growing up.’
She’s making a dig at me now. Of course she is.
‘It was very sweet,’ Diego pipes up, patting me on my rigid arm.
I snatch it away.
‘Drink, anyone?’ Tom says then, his tone betraying his discomfort. I don’t answer him, because I’m too busy wondering what to do first: cry or be sick.
When it becomes apparent that nobody is actually going to move or say anything, Diego stands up and promises to return with drinks for everyone. The shame of my besotted teenage secret being out is so acute that I can’t even look at him. I feel like I’m seventeen again, babbling about first love while cupping his face in my hands, trying to make him kiss me. Of course he hasn’t forgotten that – I just didn’t think Nancy of all people would be the one to make him recount it.
‘He’s a bit hot for an oldie, isn’t he?’ Nancy says, parroting Claudette from a few nights ago, as Tom ushers me gently into the vacated chair. I’m so tense that I fear I won’t be able to bend in the middle, and will have to lie rigidly against the seat like an ironing board.
Instead of replying, I just cough.
Tom, who can usually be relied upon to fill awkward silences with inoffensive chat, has fallen treacherously quiet beside me. I think about the day he must have had, driving all the way to Almería airport and back in the knowledge that he was collecting the one person I could not stand. As cross as I am about the situation, I feel my heart go out to him. While I was off eating paella and being fed chunks of lemon by Theo, Tom was most likely freaking out.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask Nancy, deciding not to bother with more small talk.
She giggles and sips her water, looking at me in apparent amusement. How she can find anything in this situation amusing is beyond me.
‘I fancied a holiday,’ she says, draining her plastic bottle. Diego has returned with a jug of sangria and an extra glass for me, but luckily he’s astute enough not to sit back down and join us, which makes Nancy pout at him in disappointment.
‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ I ask pointedly, deliberately making sure that Diego hears me.
For the briefest of seconds, Nancy’s eyes narrow, but she recovers quickly.
‘We broke up,’ she says, shaking her head as Tom offers her the sangria first. ‘It’s no big deal. He was a loser anyway.’
So, all those hundreds of photos of the two of them that I’ve seen on Facebook must have been simply for show. I’ll give the girl credit – she sure does a good impression of someone utterly besotted.
‘You do realise that I’m not on holiday,’ I tell her. ‘I’m here to work.’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing today?’ she asks, and I glare immediately at Tom.
‘What?’ he exclaims. ‘All I said was that you’d gone out for the day with Theo, which is true, isn’t it?’
‘We were researching other possible locations for the film.’ This is directed at Nancy, but she’s not even listening. Diego has reappeared to take the order from another table and she’s trying to catch his eye, all the while smiling like a wolf wearing a sheep’s overcoat.
‘I don’t think you’ll be able to stay with me,’ I add, glancing at Tom to gauge his reaction, and feeling dismayed when I see the corners of his mouth turn down.
Nancy looks at me in surprise. ‘What? Why not?’
‘There’s no room,’ I tell her firmly. ‘And anyway, like I said, I have to work. I don’t have time to look after you.’
‘Look after me?’ Nancy repeats. ‘I am twenty-two, you know. I don’t need anyone to look after me.’
‘You can stay with me,’ Tom offers, and I’m forced to swallow a yelp of indignation.
‘No, she can’t,’ I counter, just as Nancy is thanking him. The only thing worse than Nancy staying with me is Nancy staying with Tom. I can’t bear the thought of that. He’s my best friend, not hers, and I don’t like the way he keeps gazing at her.
‘You can stay with me tonight,’ I tell her. ‘But tomorrow we’re booking you a flight home.’
‘Oh, come on, Han,’ Tom begins, but I raise a hand in warning.
‘Claudette said earlier that I was welcome at your place for as long as I like,’ Nancy simpers. ‘She’s really nice, isn’t she?’
‘It’s not up to her,’ I argue, kicking Tom under the table accidentally as I cross and uncross my ankles. ‘It’s up to Theo – he’s the one paying for the place.’
‘Is he your boss?’ Nancy asks. ‘The hot one? I’ve seen photos of him on Facebook.’
‘I don’t think he’ll appreciate you turning up and sponging off him,’ I continue, cursing the colour that’s just flooded into my cheeks at the mention of Theo’s name. The truth is, I’m more worried about Theo falling under Nancy’s spell than him being cross with me about her arrival. Clearly she’s already wriggled herself into the affections of Tom, Diego and even Claudette, like the grubby little worm that she is, and I simply could not bear it if Theo started mooning over her as well.
‘I’ll talk to him in the morning,’ I mutter, thinking that it’s wise for me to get to him first and explain the situation. If I tell him how awful she is, perhaps he’ll back me up and encourage her to leave.
‘Oh no!’ I suddenly cry, and Tom chokes on his sangria.
‘What?’
‘I’d forgotten I’ve got my second session with Elaine in the morning,’ I wail. ‘I can’t cancel on her – I don’t even have her phone number.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Tom is quick to reassure. ‘I’ll talk to Theo. I’m sure he’ll be fine about it, as long as nothing gets in the way of the schedule. It’s not as if it’s going to cost anything for Nancy to sleep on the sofa, is it?’
‘The sofa?’ Nancy is pouting. ‘Isn’t there a spare bed?’
‘No.’ I throw her a thunderous look.
‘You know how bad my back can get,’ she says, making a face that I’m sure even the most Christian of pacifists would happily punch.
‘I used to do dance and gymnastics when I was younger,’ she explains to Tom. ‘I got to competitive level, but then had a nasty fall off the beam and had to wear a neck brace for weeks.’
‘Oh no, you poor thing,’ he cries.
I roll my eyes.
‘My neck healed fine, but my back still plays up sometimes,’ she goes on, rubbing it to illustrate her point.
I can still remember the Saturday that Nancy had her tumble, because it was the exact same day that I needed our dad to give me a lift to Rachel’s birthday party. As it was her sixteenth, her parents had splashed out and hired a stately home in the countryside, and everyone from our school year had been invited – including my unobtainable crush at the time, Greg, who was planning to perform live with his band, the Frazzle Rockers. I had been plotting for months about how to seduce him, and was more than willing to relinquish my virginity to him in one of those grand stately bedrooms. Dad assured me that he’d pick me up by six, but he never showed up. My mum didn’t have a
car then, and it was too far away for me to go by taxi, so I simply sat in the living room of our house in my party dress, crying my eyes out until ten o’clock, when my dad finally called and explained that he’d had to rush to hospital, as Nancy had injured herself. It was later that I discovered she hadn’t broken anything, just badly strained some muscles, and that she only actually spent an hour in the accident and emergency department. My dad could have easily still taken me to the party, only Nancy wouldn’t let him leave the house, and in his worry for her, he simply forgot all about the promise he’d made to me. Even in a neck brace, drugged up to the eyeballs with painkillers, she’d still taken the opportunity to get one over on me, and I’ve never forgiven her for being the reason I missed that party. It was so good that people were still talking about it when we did our A-levels.
‘You can have my bed,’ Tom is now telling Nancy gallantly. He’s being so obvious that I’m beginning to feel sorry for him.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I interrupt, before he can dig himself into an even bigger embarrassment hole. ‘I’ll sleep on the bloody sofa, okay?’
We stay until the jug of sangria is empty, and then Nancy excuses herself on the pretext of needing the toilet, only to slip inside the restaurant to where the bar used to be.
Tom glances at me sheepishly. His hair is a mess today, as if he’s been running his hands through it constantly, but he’s starting to get a nice tan now. Freckles have appeared on his nose, and the hair on his forearms is bleached white.
‘So,’ I begin, using my straw to destroy the soggy pieces of fruit in the bottom of my glass. ‘How long have you been stalking my sister on Facebook?’
‘Hardly stalking!’ he argues, but I detect colour in his cheeks. ‘It’s not like we talk all the time. It’s only been three or four times since the last time we met, which was over a year ago.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I can’t help but ask. I’m not sure why the idea of them talking bothers me so much, but it emphatically does. It feels like a betrayal.
‘You know why,’ he says simply. ‘You have to admit; you are a bit mental when it comes to Nancy.’
This is true, but it’s very hard to own up to.
‘What do you talk about?’ I ask instead, abandoning my straw and tapping my fingers on the table top.
Tom lifts his shoulders. ‘Oh, nothing much. Just work and stuff.’
‘Stuff?’ I enquire.
‘She wants to go travelling, same as me, so we talked about that.’
‘I wish she’d travelled somewhere other than here,’ I say grumpily.
Tom takes a deep breath and rests both his elbows on the table, bringing down his hands until they’re less than an inch from mine.
‘You’re going to bite my head off for saying this,’ he says. ‘But how about you use this time with Nancy to try and build some bridges?’
‘Come closer,’ I beckon him with a finger.
Tom is bemused. ‘Why?’
‘Because I am going to bite off your head,’ I inform him, refusing to join in when he laughs. ‘Seriously, Tom – I know in your world everyone has rainbows and sunbeams coming out of every orifice, but sometimes things are too broken to be fixed. I honestly don’t know what Nancy’s doing here, but it can’t be to see me. She hasn’t shown a single bit of interest in me and my life since she was about six years old – why would she suddenly start now?’
Tom leans back in his chair and folds his arms. ‘She asks me about you when we chat,’ he says. ‘She always wants to know how you’re doing, what we’re both working on, whether you’re seeing anyone.’
‘Tchuh,’ is all I manage, and he frowns at me.
‘I’m not saying be her best friend,’ he continues. ‘Just that you try to draw a line under past events and give her a chance. I like both of you, and I know you’re both good people.’
‘Pah,’ I say this time, but his words are working their way through the rhino-like hide of my resistance.
‘Please try,’ he says. ‘For me.’
Wow. He’s resorting to emotional blackmail now.
I grit my teeth. ‘Fine. I’ll try. That’s if she ever comes back from the toilet.’
We give Nancy another five minutes, then my patience runs out and I stomp up the steps into the restaurant, only to be confronted by the sight of Diego’s hands clamped around Nancy’s bottom and her face turned up towards his. The two of them are kissing each other as if it’s in danger of going out of fashion, and bile rises up in my throat. All of a sudden, I’m a rejected seventeen-year-old again, and it feels horrible.
‘Nancy, we’re leaving,’ I announce loudly, and tumble back out into the courtyard. Tom, who is counting out some euros for the waitress, looks at me in concern.
‘Are you all right?’
‘No, Tom, I’m not all right. My stupid half-sister is inside, eating the face off a man who thinks I’m a total moron.’
‘Nancy’s snogging Diego?’ Tom looks far more upset than I’m comfortable with.
‘Focus on me, please!’ I demand, but he can’t quite wipe the look of potent disappointment off his face.
‘Now do you see?’ I rant. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing she always does. She’s a nightmare.’
Tom looks as if he might reply, but before he gets the chance Nancy totters down the steps next to us, her skirt pulled around the wrong way and all her lipstick kissed off her face.
‘Sorry,’ she says dreamily. ‘I took a wrong turn on the way to the ladies.’
While Nancy and Tom stroll ahead of me through the darkening streets of the village, her chatting and him laughing nervously along, I mooch behind them doing my best not to breathe actual fire. I know that alcohol is the absolute worst fuel that you can pour on to a bad temper, but at the moment it’s all I want. What I need is obliteration. I want to drink so much booze that the pain of Nancy being here is washed away. I want to forget what I just saw back at the restaurant – the sight of my little sister being devoured by my teenage crush – and most of all I want Tom to stop being so nice to her. He should be on my side, so why is he on hers?
Just a few hours ago, everything seemed so perfect. I was sharing such a special day with Theo, listening as he talked about his time growing up in Greece, about his father’s love of the ocean and how he’d struggled when he first moved to England. It had felt in those moments as if it was finally my turn to be happy, as if all the dreaming I’d been doing might actually have been the foundation of something real between the two of us. But now, with Nancy turning up like this and ruining everything, that glimmer of hope has been trodden unceremoniously into the dirt, and not even the mystical sight of the cobbled streets bathed in moonlight can lift my spirits.
There’s only one thing for it – I need to get Nancy the hell out of Mojácar, and I need to do it fast.
13
Elaine is waiting for me in the courtyard of La Fuente the next morning, a bunch of yellow flowers hanging limply in one of her hands. I take a deep breath before approaching her, trying my hardest to expel all the hurt, anger and confusion that are simmering away in my gut like emotion stew, and her smile as she sees me is so enchanting that I almost cry with gratitude.
‘I picked these for you on the way down,’ she says, kissing each of my cheeks in turn and handing over the bouquet. ‘But I’m afraid they’ve already started to wilt. It’s so hot today, isn’t it?’
She’s not wrong. I was woken by the sunlight streaming in through the balcony doors of the apartment a few hours ago. There are no curtains in the main living space, and of course I had banished myself to the sofa all night.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I say, genuinely touched, but Elaine looks immediately concerned.
‘Are you feeling okay, Hannah?’ she asks.
No, I’m not. I’ve got a bad case of sister hatred coupled with a raging hangover.
‘Of course, I’m fine.’
‘You look a bit peaky,’ she says, peering into
my no doubt bloodshot eyes. ‘We can reschedule if you like?’
I think about going back up to the apartment to face Nancy and her latest number one fan, also known as Claudette, and hurriedly shake my head.
‘No,’ I tell her, smiling with what I hope is enthusiasm. ‘I’d honestly rather spend my morning with you than with anyone else.’
And it’s true, I would. Even the thought of Theo’s company is not as alluring now that Nancy’s here. He’s bound to say that she can stay, but he’ll inevitably also think it’s highly unprofessional, and all the steps I’ve taken with him since we arrived in Mojácar will be forgotten. I’ll go back to being the lowly researcher that he has to leave in the office rather than take on location. It’s so horribly unfair that I feel like throwing myself down on to the dusty tiles and wailing like a toddler in a tantrum, but instead I let Elaine lead me away towards the road.
‘Do you still want to go over to the artists’ studio?’ she asks, pausing by the crossing.
I nod, and she points ahead of us down the hill.
‘We’ll need to get the bus,’ she says, and I see the stop in the distance.
‘Fine by me.’
Luckily we don’t have a long wait, and it’s actually a relief to clamber into the air-conditioned vehicle and put the heavy camera bag on the floor. The bus moves away and I close my eyes, resting my hot head against the cool glass of the window.
Then. Now. Always. Page 11