‘Whatever you think.’ Tom is dismissive. He’s wearing a cap today to keep the sun out of his eyes, and his hair is sticking out above his ears. I reach up to tuck it in for him as I press the button to call, but as soon as I do, a ringing sound comes from directly behind us, causing both Tom and me to jump round in surprise. Claudette, of course, hasn’t even flinched.
‘That was me, sorry!’ I tell Theo, getting to my feet so quickly that I don’t notice the fact that my skirt is stuck inside my bikini bottoms.
‘She was worried about you,’ puts in Tom, yanking it back out for me.
‘Worried? Why?’ Theo looks distracted, and steps past us before I have a chance to answer.
‘Tom!’ he barks.
‘Boss?’
‘Get the camera set up. We should capture these fishermen here.’
That’s Theo all over, noticing the human element of the setting while the rest of us are merely hypnotised by the view of the landscape. Well, I say the rest of us – Claudette has had her eyes resolutely shut since she arrived.
The fishermen are, in fact, fisher-boys, judging by their skinny little limbs and unlined faces, which break open in wide grins as I make my way along the concrete jetty to ask if it’s okay to include them in our film.
‘Sí, sí, sí!’ they trumpet happily, taking it in turns to flex their non-existent muscles and swing their rods into the air.
‘You’ll scare the fish!’ I tell them, but this only causes even more laughter, and I can sense Theo’s irritation burning a hole in the back of my skull. By the time I’ve managed to explain that all we want them to do for us is to sit or stand still, exactly as they were doing before, and quelled the inevitable demonstrative outpouring of argument that they all put up, a good fifteen minutes have passed. Add that to the forty-five or so that we were already behind schedule this morning and you’ve got yourself one grumpy Greek director.
‘Someone got out of bed on the wrong side,’ mutters Tom under his breath as we eventually break for lunch. Theo has grudgingly agreed to stop for a quick bite to eat at a bakery-cum-café on the opposite side of the road to the beach, but not even the smell of freshly deep-fried churros seems able to rouse him from his melancholy. I wish I could cheer him up with a kiss, but I know it’s a bad idea. It’s as if his ill temper is holding up a hand, telling the three of us not to come any closer under any circumstances. Could it all be down to the fact that I refused his offer last night? I don’t have enough of an ego to believe it. So what, then?
Tom has apparently forgotten that he ate a pizza the size of a tractor wheel for dinner last night and has ordered himself another slice for lunch. I find that I can’t face food, which is very unlike me, so I order a fruit salad in a panic and then have to endure Claudette talking at length about how fortunate she is that she never has to diet.
‘I just don’t gain weight,’ she says breezily, and I’m sure I can hear the sound of twenty thousand or so women gritting their teeth in unison.
Theo ignores her and rubs his temples with two long, tanned fingers.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask at last, being sure to keep my voice at a murmur level.
Theo stops rubbing and sighs.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, but he shakes his head a fraction.
The waitress arrives with our second round of drinks and a bowl of salted almonds to go with them, which Tom dives into despite the fact he’s still chewing on a mouthful of his main course.
‘Ah, almonds,’ Claudette cries, clapping her hands together. ‘Theo, shall we ask for some Manchego to go with them?’
There’s a loud crash as my spoon hits the bowl of fruit salad.
‘If you want,’ Theo says, eyeing his coffee but not picking it up, and Claudette lifts an arm to attract attention.
Manchego and almonds! my brain shouts at me, stamping its feet for effect.
‘Man …’ I begin, but the word withers and dies before it’s out of my mouth. Tom stops tackling the large, stringy lump of mozzarella that he was attempting to swallow and frowns at me.
She knows about the Manchego and almonds, my memory pipes up, this time settling for a large metaphorical elbow in the ribs. I haven’t picked up my spoon from where I dropped it, and now my cheeks have turned the same colour as the watermelon chunks in my salad.
‘Oh yum,’ Claudette says happily as the waitress returns with the cheese. ‘Cumin seeds as well – très bon!’
I watch in horrified awe as she snatches up Theo’s side plate and spoons a selection of nuts and Manchego on to it, before returning to her own lunch.
How does she know about this odd flavour sensation? Theo only told me – that night at the villa, the night that we kissed for the very first time.
But she knows about it, too. Claudette knows and either Theo told her, or she taught him. I’m not sure which is worse, but at this moment the idea of either explanation is making me feel like I want to throw up the few pieces of orange I managed to eat.
‘Hannah?’
I glance in Tom’s direction.
‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I’m fine,’ I parrot automatically, reminding myself acutely of Nancy.
Why do people always say that? Is it just the inbred nature of all British people to tell another person that they’re fine when in reality they’re absolutely anything but? You could be in an ambulance with your torso on one stretcher and your legs on another, and you’d still try to persuade the bloke driving the thing to hospital that you were ‘fine to walk there’. Lunacy.
The thing is, Tom knows me far better than Theo or Claudette do, and therefore he knows that for some reason the bottom has just fallen out of my world, and now he’s trying to communicate with me across the table through the medium of mime.
‘Why are you flapping your arms?’ Claudette enquires, her words seasoned with a large spoonful of disdain.
Tom stops doing an impression of an injured pigeon and looks at me knowingly. What does he want me to do, stand up and announce loudly that I think Theo and Claudette have been having it off in between feeding each other nuts and cheese? That she knows things that he shared with me in an intimate setting?
In the end, I don’t get to say or do anything, because Claudette is suddenly up on her feet and is rushing towards the door.
‘Mon dieu!’ she exclaims, turning back to face us. ‘It is raining.’
‘It hardly ever rains here,’ I say stupidly, echoing what Elaine told me by La Fuente the very first time we met. It is raining, though. I can hear it. And now that Claudette has pushed open the doors, I can smell it, too.
‘There’s nothing like rain in a hot country to remind you just how hot it really is,’ marvels Tom, pointing down at the steaming pavement tiles on the other side of the glass. I have a sudden and utterly ridiculous urge to run out and start dancing in it, but of course I don’t. Not here, not when Theo is watching.
‘Shall we film it?’ Claudette wants to know, but our director shakes his handsome head.
‘No, I don’t think so. I think the magic of the rain here is as Tom says, in the smell and the feel. It will be difficult to translate that into film. I fear that it will simply look like rain, and the audience will associate it with the coldness they are used to in England. I don’t want that.’
It’s the most Theo’s said all day, and both Tom and I look at him in surprise.
I’m torn between reaching across the table to hold his hand and upending the bloody Manchego cheese with cumin seeds on his head. In the end, I settle for neither, which it turns out is a good decision because as soon as it becomes clear that this rain isn’t going anywhere fast, Theo looks me in the eye for the first time all day and tells me he’ll drive me over to Elaine’s studio for my next interview.
‘Oh no, I’ll be fine,’ I say. Predictable as ever.
He fixes me with one of those no-nonsense gazes of his.
‘I insist.’
31
>
Theo wraps his arm around my shoulders as we leave the cover of the café and head out into the rain. He’s managed to conjure up a newspaper from somewhere and holds it up over our heads like a makeshift umbrella. It’s a noble gesture, but totally ineffectual against the onslaught, and by the time we’ve slipped and slid across the road to where the car is parked, the two of us are drenched.
‘Bloody hell!’ I exclaim as soon as the doors are shut behind us, laughing as I wring out my hair. The rain is crashing down on the roof of the car so loudly that Theo has to shout his reply.
‘Crazy!’
We look at each other, and finally, blissfully, Theo cracks a smile. His wet fringe is plastered to his forehead and the shoulders of his pale blue shirt are navy where they got soaked. Feeling all of a sudden very brave and totally unlike myself, I launch my body across the space between us and kiss him, gratified when he responds with an enthusiasm that I had feared he was no longer feeling.
‘Hannah,’ he says, when we pull apart for air, but I don’t let him finish. I kiss him again and again until the windows turn white with condensation and the two of us are clawing at each other.
Take me back to the villa! I want to scream at him, but I don’t. I may be brave enough to kiss him, but I draw the line at telling him what to do. He is a proud Greek man, and I get the impression he wouldn’t appreciate me issuing him with instructions. In the moment, though, I don’t care about the fact that Elaine is waiting for me or that Tom and Claudette can probably see us from over the road – I’m simply consumed by what I’m feeling. I needed this kiss as a reassurance from him that everything is okay, and that it’s just pure coincidence that the day after Claudette crashed out at his villa she started talking about almonds and Manchego. I can’t bear to consider the alternative – I’m just not ready for my idyllic Theo bubble to be burst yet.
‘Hannah,’ he tries again, and this time I drop my hands down from the sides of his face into my lap.
‘Yes?’
‘We have to go.’
Really? He’s really going to make me go and sit with Elaine when all I want him to do is tear off my clothes and ravage me?
‘Hannah.’
‘Yes, okay. Let’s go.’ I don’t mean to sound peeved, but my mouth betrays my brain as usual and Theo puts his head on one side and frowns at me.
‘You need to tell me where I am going,’ he points out, his hands on the steering wheel. ‘I don’t know which way to drive.’
Of course he doesn’t. Why would he? I’m such an idiot.
‘Sorry, sorry!’ I tell him, braving a squeeze of his slightly damp thigh.
He doesn’t say anything this time, and so I begin issuing directions, trying not to feel upset by the abrupt way he’s distanced himself from me. When I’m kissing Theo, or when I’m in bed with him, I get these flashes where I feel as if he’s devouring me, that I’m the only thing he’s thinking about and that together the two of us are invincible. It never translates into the everyday, though, because as soon as his hands or mouth aren’t on me and there are other people around, that closeness evaporates and I’m left trying desperately to scrabble it back.
I think about what Elaine said on the bus all those weeks ago, about the nature of love – isn’t love by its very essence all-consuming and mutually passionate? How can I be in love with Theo when I’m constantly having to reach for that feeling, only to find it always just out of my grasp?
I mull this over as we drive, Theo being extra-cautious on the roads because of the still-pounding rain. It’s ridiculous for me to think that he shares my feelings. I may have been lusting after him for years, but clearly he’s only caught up with me since we’ve been here in Mojácar and he’s got to know the Spain version of me. Plus, he’s Theo and I’m me. He could take his pick from all the women in the world, so why would he settle for someone like me, with hardly any sophistication and even less sexual prowess?
‘Is this it?’ Theo asks, snapping me back to the present moment.
The entrance to Elaine’s studio is just ahead of us on the right, and I try not to groan as Theo indicates and turns the car. I just want a few more minutes alone with him. I need to feel that he wants me again, that he cares about me.
‘I will see you later?’ he says as I unbuckle, and relief floods over me even more powerfully than the rain that’s still hammering the roof of the car.
‘Yes, please,’ I say, and he smiles at that.
As I hurry towards the studio, however, I realise that he didn’t say when or what time, and I almost run back to flag him down. It’s never occurred to me to feel annoyed about the fact that Theo is always the one in charge, but at this particular moment it does rankle a little bit. Now I know that I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon and this evening checking my phone for a text from him, and that I can’t make dinner plans, go shopping or even take a nice long shower without worrying that I’ll miss it. As much as I want to be the person that Theo desires, I can’t help but feel miffed about the unfairness of it all.
‘You’re soaked!’ is the first thing Elaine says to me as she opens the door, and she hurries off in search of a towel while I begin unpacking the equipment. Luckily, Tom had the foresight to order a waterproof bag for his camera – not that any of us ever expected this sort of weather to descend.
‘Here.’ Elaine has returned and hands me a bright pink beach towel with a picture of Barbie on it.
‘It’s not mine,’ she adds, as I raise an eyebrow, and the two of us exchange a smile. She seems slightly subdued today, though – not her usual warm self – and answers my flurry of polite questions with monosyllables. I hope she hasn’t changed her mind about allowing us to use the footage. Elaine’s story is the human glue keeping the unique dynamic of this film together, and it won’t be as good without her input. Claudette may be beautiful, but even the most dedicated admirer needs more than one voice of authority in a documentary like ours.
‘Sorry,’ she apologises, as yet another of my probing questions fails to elicit more than a few words from her. ‘It’s the rain, it always makes me feel out of sorts.’
‘Good thing you no longer live in England, then,’ I joke, but she merely pulls a face.
‘Are you okay, Elaine?’ I ask, shoving thoughts of Theo aside so I can concentrate fully on her. ‘Shall I switch off the camera and we can just talk?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, leave it on.’
‘There’s no pressure on you to say anything you’re not comfortable with,’ I remind her. ‘I would never put anything into this film that you haven’t agreed on beforehand.’
‘Oh, I know you wouldn’t.’ She gives me a watery smile. ‘You’re a good girl.’
I notice now that there’s no easel set up in this part of the studio today, and that Elaine herself isn’t dressed in her usual paint-splattered smock. Instead she is wearing a shapeless black dress, and it makes her look older somehow.
‘Why does the rain make you sad?’ I ask gently, and she sighs. For a short time, we simply sit in a companionable silence, and I’m just about to offer to make us both a cup of tea when she starts talking.
‘The last summer that I spent in England, it rained almost every day,’ she says, looking at the camera rather than me. ‘At first people complained about it, but then it seemed to unify everyone. There was a kind of Blitz spirit in and around London – that uniquely British “we’re all in it together” feeling. Do you know what I mean?’
I nod. ‘I do.’
‘I used to walk around in it all day long,’ she continues. ‘I would arrive home in the evening, drenched right through and shivering, and my mother would barely notice.’
Again, I picture the house that Elaine described to me, graffiti daubed on the walls and the strung-out bodies of random strangers piled up on old furniture.
‘He was still there,’ she says then, and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to attention.
‘Who’s he?’ I ask, m
y tone light.
Elaine sighs again and closes her eyes, her internal struggle clear as it distorts her features.
‘I told you, didn’t I, how it was for me growing up?’ she says, and there’s an urgency in her voice that I haven’t heard before.
‘Yes, you told me,’ I soothe. ‘You said people were always passing through, and that your mother had an open-door policy to waifs and strays.’
She nods feverishly. ‘Yes. And I think that sometimes, these people thought of me as …’ She stops again and wrings her hands in her lap, her nails digging at the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger. I hate seeing her like this, so obviously in distress as she digs up the past.
‘I’m going to make us both some tea,’ I announce, standing up before she can argue. I assume that she’ll follow me out into the corridor and along to the little kitchen, but she doesn’t, and when I return she takes the hot mug from me with a grateful smile.
‘Sorry,’ she says again, shaking her head as I tell her not to worry. ‘It’s just that I haven’t talked about what happened for a long time. Not since it happened, in fact.’
I know now that she’s going to tell me something bad, and I get the same sensation that I used to as a child, when I’d sit peeling scabs off my knees. I was a clumsy kid and forever falling over, but I was also impatient. I would pick at the edges of my scabs and wince as the skin began to bleed, but that would never be enough to stop me. I’d pick and pick until I could see the wet pink flesh beneath the scab, by which time it would be too late, and the whole process would begin all over again.
‘His name was Robert,’ Elaine recounts, more matter-of-fact now than emotional. She obviously used the time that I was making tea to get her thoughts in order. ‘He was a lot older than even my mother, but he was almost like a child in the way that he talked and behaved. He started following me around the house like I imagine a puppy would, and I was happy to let him tag along in the beginning.’
Then. Now. Always. Page 26