Then. Now. Always.

by Isabelle Broom

  ‘Nothing,’ she says over her shoulder as she goes towards her bedroom. ‘Except everything.’

  I’m still replaying Claudette’s words in my head three hours later, when I arrive at the beach restaurant to meet Tom. I followed her into her bedroom and asked her what she meant, but she refused to elaborate, telling me to bugger off because she had to get ready for her date with Carlos. How you can really get ready to wear nothing is beyond me, but there’s no arguing with Claudette.

  I can’t shake the feeling that she knows a lot more than she’s prepared to tell me, and that none of it will be stuff I want to hear. It doesn’t help that I haven’t heard from Theo all morning. Despite my resolution to remain aloof and let him do the chasing now, I’m still hurt that he hasn’t even sent another text to check up on me. That, coupled with Claudette’s cryptic throwaway comment, has left me on edge, and the next person I see is definitely not going to get the best version of me.

  ‘Hi.’

  Nancy is sitting alone at one of the tables inside the restaurant, her phone in her lap and her beach bag hanging on the back of her chair. She looks up at my greeting and braves a smile.

  ‘Hi.’

  There’s an uncomfortable silence, and Nancy looks back down at the screen of her phone. From where I’m standing, it looks like she’s going through someone’s photo album on Facebook.

  ‘Where’s Tom?’ I enquire, pulling out the chair furthest from her and sitting down.

  She raises her eyes, her expression sheepish, and I immediately understand.

  ‘He’s not coming, is he?’

  ‘He thought it would be better if we …’ She stops, frowning momentarily at something she’s seen on her phone. I don’t need her to finish the sentence, because I know what Tom thought. I can’t believe I didn’t realise that this was his plan all along. Normally we know exactly what each other is thinking, but all the confusion of the past few days has clearly had an effect on my already weary brain.

  The waiter scurries over to take our order, tapping his pencil against his little pad of paper as I faff around with my own phone and purse. Having not even glanced at the menu, I ask for the same barbecued sardines that I had the last time I was here, plus a large bottle of agua sin gas. Nancy mumbles something about a salad and points to the menu, and before long we’re alone again. I wonder why she’s chosen to sit inside on such a nice day – and with a view as captivating as the one outside on the sand. The napkins on the table are twitching ever so slightly in the breeze coming from the ceiling fan above us, and the silence is punctuated by the sound of pots crashing together and shouts of Spanish coming from the open door of the kitchen.

  Clearly Nancy is not going to apologise for getting her claws into my best friend or for disappearing for hours with a strange man, but I’m damned if I’m going to make her feel better by filling the hush that’s fallen over the table. The more minutes that pass by, the heavier the silence feels, and soon it’s practically gooey. Even if I opened my mouth to say something innocuous now, the words would be swallowed up like a bug into the mouth of a Venus flytrap. There are almost too many things for me to ask Nancy, and now that I’m here facing her, I don’t know where to begin.

  The bread arrives, and for want of anything better to do, I break a chunk apart and dip it into the mayonnaise, only remembering about the garlic when it’s already in my mouth.

  Great. Theo’s bound to invite me round again now.

  ‘I think Dad’s pissed off with me,’ Nancy says suddenly, helping herself to a roll from the basket, but then abandoning it on her plate.

  ‘Welcome to my world,’ I reply, and she gives me the hint of a smile.

  ‘He’s never cross with you,’ she tells me. ‘All he ever talks about is how proud he is of you.’

  This is news to me, and it sounds so unlike him that I almost cough up my bread.

  ‘Honestly!’ Nancy says, plaiting her napkin with nervous fingers. ‘He tells everybody that his daughter works in television – he loves boasting about it.’

  ‘I barely speak to him,’ I tell her honestly. ‘We always end up arguing whenever I do, so I’ve stopped bothering.’

  ‘You should see him,’ she says, picking up her knife and putting it down again. She looks so agitated today, I realise, as if there are not just ants, but beetles, worms and butterflies in her pants. I’m used to her giggling and flirting, being all coy and peering up at people through her thick, dark lashes. This new Nancy feels like a stranger. Perhaps this row she’s had with Dad was worse than she’s letting on.

  ‘I’m sure Dad’s not cross with you,’ I tell her now, keen to reassure her despite my displeasure at what else she’s been up to. ‘You’re his favourite, his little angel – there’s no way he’d ever get angry with you.’

  ‘I’m definitely not his favourite!’ Nancy is indignant. ‘He thinks I’m stupid, I know he does.’

  ‘Where is all this coming from?’ I ask, my voice gentle now. She looks so young sitting there in that silly pink kaftan covered in sequins, her plastic sunglasses tangled up in her black hair. All this time I thought she had the role of Daddy’s Girl well and truly in her grasp, but it seems I was mistaken. What was it Mum told me yesterday about Nancy not telling anyone she was coming out here to join me? I’d assumed it was because she was being selfish, but perhaps there was a deeper reason.

  She hasn’t answered my question, so I ask another.

  ‘Did you and Dad have a fight?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Well then, what?’

  Another shake.

  ‘Nancy,’ I say, exasperated. ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.’

  She looks up at my words, her eyes searching my face, making sure I mean what I say, but her reply is halted by the arrival of our food. By the time the waiter has gone, she’s looking back down at her lap again.

  ‘Do you want a sardine?’ I ask, trying another tack. I’m trying to remember if I’ve actually seen her eat anything since she arrived, and I don’t think I have. Even now she’s merely staring at her plate of salad as if it has teeth.

  ‘I don’t like fish,’ she mutters.

  ‘We can order something else?’

  Another shake of the head.

  ‘Shall I just call Dad now?’ I ask, picking up my phone from the table and holding it up.

  ‘No!’ It’s almost a shout, and a passing waitress eyes us in concern.

  ‘If he’s cross, it’s only because he’s worried about you,’ I tell her. ‘Like I was the other night.’

  She drops her eyes at that, but still doesn’t apologise.

  ‘You don’t have to stay at Tom’s every night,’ I continue, my olive branch now so long that it’s in danger of taking out her eye. ‘You can stay with me and Claudette again.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She gives me the smallest of smiles and finally pops a cherry tomato into her mouth. From the expression on her face as she chews it, though, you’d think it was a pellet of dung.

  ‘Do you like Tom?’ I ask, looking not at her but at the fish on my plate. It’s a fiddly job, getting the blackened meat away from the fragile bones, and I don’t want to end up choking. If I’m totally honest, I also don’t want to know if her face lights up when she talks about him.

  A pause. ‘He’s really nice,’ she says. ‘He’s funny.’

  Both those facts are true, but she hasn’t answered my question.

  ‘But do you fancy him?’ I prompt, willing her with every ounce of hopefulness in my body to say no.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admits. ‘He’s been so sweet to me, but I …’

  ‘But you’ve been sleeping with him,’ I prompt, seeing her cheeks flame.

  ‘No,’ she stammers. ‘We only kissed. Just once, that night after we … When we stayed up talking.’

  I hate the mental picture of the two of them – of Tom, especially, going in for a kiss when he knew how I would react. It feels as if it’s come o
ut of nowhere, but clearly he’s had a thing for Nancy for quite some time.

  Nancy seems to read my mind, because the next second she says, ‘He didn’t take advantage, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was the next day. In the morning.’

  That’s even worse.

  ‘Right.’

  Suddenly the sardines taste like ash in my mouth.

  ‘Tom’s no Diego,’ I say then. Why, I have no idea – but Nancy glances up in what looks like amusement.

  ‘No, he’s definitely not.’

  ‘And have you heard from him – Diego?’

  She looks surprised by the question.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You looked pretty keen on him when you were eating each other’s faces last weekend,’ I point out.

  ‘It didn’t mean anything.’ That shrug again, so nonchalant. Diego just one of many in a line of men that she’s chewed up and tossed aside. I think about my dad again, how he so easily discarded my mother as if she and I meant nothing to him. At least I know where Nancy gets it from.

  I want to ask her again if anything else happened with Tom, whether or not they’ve kissed more – or worse. I can’t quite seem to get the words out, however, and instead turn my attention back to my lunch. I can just about hear the faint sound of the sea, churning and pounding as it always is in Mojácar, stirred into a frenzy by the wind.

  I’m sure Tom’s plan when he arranged this lunch was for Nancy and me to have a proper heart-to-heart – after all, he’s known for years what I think of her, and how strained our sibling bond has become – and I suppose we have managed it, in a small way. I had no idea that my dad talked about me in glowing terms. In fact, I had no idea he even thought about me that often, let alone brought me up in conversation. It’s not quite enough to make me think fondly of him, but I am tempted to get in touch now, mostly because I’m intrigued to know what has happened between him and Nancy to make her distance herself from him. The positive thing is that my anger has eased a bit. Now that I know Nancy is unsure about Tom, I also feel convinced that a kiss is all that has happened. I feel as if I can look him in the eye now and see my friend again, not the horrible boy who hurt me. I’m going to try, at any rate.

  The waiter removes our plates, enquiring in broken English if there was anything wrong with Nancy’s salad, which is still sitting limp and untouched. I reassure him as best I can, then order myself a bowl of chocolate ice cream out of guilt. Nancy vanishes to the toilet with her phone for so long that I think she’s done another disappearing act, but eventually she returns to the table, her eyes all red and squinty.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing.’ A sniff. I watch as she stows her phone in her bag and fights the tears.

  ‘It’s clearly not nothing,’ I say. I know I should go over to her chair and put an arm around her, but I don’t. We’ve never really been demonstrative with each other. I don’t actually think I’ve laid a finger on her since she was about five, and that was only because she tried to throw herself in the pond when we were taken to feed the ducks.

  Watching someone cry always unsettles me, and instead of acting on the compassion I feel, I grow impatient – and it’s no different this time. I don’t say anything, but I know Nancy can sense my discomfort because she’s fighting hard to keep it together. When the waiter passes by a few minutes later, I order a jug of sangria, and Nancy looks up in surprise.

  ‘Nothing that booze can’t solve,’ I tell her as cheerily as I can manage, my head on one side. ‘It’s only Dad, you know. He’ll come around. Nothing is bad enough to cry about in a place as gorgeous as this, is it?’

  Nancy blinks away her fresh tears and looks past me out towards the beach, where children are building sandcastles and decorating them with pebbles and shells, dogs are collecting soggy driftwood and depositing it at the sand-covered feet of their owners, their tails wagging with excitement at the prospect of a game, and the blue of the sea stretches away into the distance, its endless motion so strong yet soothing. She looks to me as if she’s taking it all in for the first time, and so I let her, enjoying the feel of the breeze stroking my bare skin. By the time our order arrives, Nancy has stopped crying and has a glazed expression on her face.

  ‘Truce?’ I say, holding a spare spoon out to her and pushing my bowl of ice cream across the table.

  She hesitates for a second, then takes it from me.

  ‘Truce.’

  22

  I adore the way the Old Town comes alive at sundown. Locals emerge from their little white homes post-siesta, stretching rested limbs above their heads and taking deep breaths of warm late-afternoon air into their lungs in an attempt to wake themselves up for the evening. For many people living here in Mojácar, this is the time of day when they make most of their living, opening up their shops, bars and restaurants to travellers from all across the world. The smell of paella wafts out from open windows, ordered that morning to be slow-cooked to perfection for families, couples and large groups of friends. Fairy lights that have been hung up like bunting outside boutiques and gift shops twinkle in the fading light, and the sound of contented chatter rises in volume as more people spill into the narrow cobbled streets.

  From up here, on the roof terrace of a jazz bar not far from Diego’s restaurant, I can see and hear all of this going on below me, and the sounds are interspersed with strains of music – a lone saxophone, a woman singing sleepily in Spanish and the more traditional and upbeat pop songs coming from the bars. The atmosphere feels charged, and I imagine that I can hear the hum of energy in the air.

  We’re currently filming a segment about Mojácar’s Moorish history, and Claudette is standing in front of Tom, whose shoulders are frozen in concentration as he watches her through the camera. Theo is off to one side, taking in every word, his focus fully on the task and a rolled-up script in one of his tanned hands. I think about what his hands were doing to me just a few days ago, and smile to myself. While he hasn’t invited me back to the villa since Saturday, he did run a lone finger down my spine earlier today, when he knew the others were distracted, then dropped a single kiss on my bare shoulder. I’ve been tingling in that same spot – and others – ever since.

  Nancy isn’t up here with us. Much to Tom’s dismay, she agreed to Diego’s offer of a drink downstairs in the bar. It was him who convinced the owner of this jazz club to let us in to do some filming before the official opening time, and we’re all very glad he did, given the stunning views we’ve been able to capture. Well, I say all of us, but I’m sure Tom would have preferred it if Diego was not involved. He’s still lapping up every word Nancy utters and hanging around her like cling film, but as far as I can tell, she’s treating him as just a friend. I know I should simply pull him to one side and ask him to explain the whole truth about what’s happened between them, but I’m still unsure whether or not I want to hear it. And anyway, something has shifted in our friendship since Nancy turned up. I feel as if he’s judging me every time he looks at me, and I can’t relax around him in the way that I once did. I know Tom senses the awkwardness, too, because I keep catching him staring at me with those big, sorrowful eyes of his. It’s as if Nancy’s arrival has cut a swathe in the very air between us, and now we can’t find a way back across to each other.

  Claudette has stopped talking, and Tom stands up straight, rubbing his back with a big hand as Theo crosses over to review the footage. A few days ago, he asked to see everything I have recorded with Elaine, too, but I’m yet to get any feedback. If I was bolder, I’d see if he wanted to discuss it over dinner. If I was Claudette, I’d probably suggest a full review in his bed. But I’m neither, so of course I haven’t mentioned it since Sunday evening when I handed over the memory sticks.

  They’re about to commence filming again when a plane comes into view overhead and Theo lifts up a hand to halt proceedings. Looking up at the unblemished blue sky, I grin in delight – there’s a large banner stretched out behind
the aircraft advertising what looks like melons. Only in Spain, I think, just as the church bells chime in the near-distance.

  The image of melons brings back a memory, too, of Rachel and myself sunbathing down at the beach that last summer we visited Mojácar together. There was a man who strolled up and down the sand every day selling little plastic tubs of fruit salad, and each time he came into view we would giggle in unison at his odd bellow.

  ‘Fresh, fresh, fresh fruit. Fresh fruit. Fruit salad!’ he would yell, tripping over his own words as he stumbled into a hole near the shoreline.

  One day he glanced sideways at us as he passed, noticed our laughter and immediately headed in our direction.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Rachel squealed, quickly lying back against her lounger and closing her eyes.

  ‘Pretend to be asleep,’ she hissed.

  It was too late for me, though, because Fruit Salad Man was already standing over me, his shadow blocking out the sun.

  ‘Hola,’ I said politely, somehow managing not to laugh, even though I could see Rachel’s body shaking with silent mirth beside me.

  A sniff.

  ‘Do you want?’ he asked, motioning to the tray balanced up on his shoulder.

  ‘No, thank you. I mean, gracias,’ I mumbled back at him, trying my best to smile without giggling.

  He sighed at this, and crouched down on his haunches next to me. He was older than I’d thought, the lines around his eyes and the flecks of grey in his stubble a contrast to his thick head of dark curls and lurid pink shorts.

  ‘You think me funny,’ he said, and although it wasn’t a question, I shook my head quickly from side to side.

  ‘No!’

  He regarded me for a few seconds, a bead of moisture running down from his forehead to his jaw. I could sense that we’d annoyed him with our giggling, and in that moment, I saw us as he must have: two silly girls with nothing to do all day but lounge around laughing at him.

  ‘Do you want some water?’ I offered, taking both of us by surprise. Rachel opened one eye, but didn’t move to sit up.