‘Not for years yet. Tom is only fifteen!’
‘And when he’s twenty you’ll still only be forty-five. I bet Vicky gets married young. She’s so pretty, she’s going to be swamped with men. When they’re both gone, what will you do? You could live to be eighty—all on your own!’
A shiver ran down Bianca’s back.
Judy saw the change in her face and said coaxingly, ‘Do something about yourself—change your hairstyle, stop wearing those boring pale pink lipsticks, get some sexy clothes.’ She leaned over to sniff. ‘I like that scent, by the way—that’s more like it—something musky and mysterious, not that wishy-washy lavender or rosewater you’ve been using for years! You could have men dropping from the trees if you took some trouble.’
Bianca thought of that as she walked down the busy street to lunch at a small bistro later, leaving Judy to take care of the shop. As she passed under a bare-branched poplar tree amusement lit her blue eyes at the idea of men floating down from it to land at her feet, like a Magritte painting.
By one of those strange coincidences life threw at you, a second later she looked into a travel agent’s window and there was the same image again.
The window was dominated by a large poster advertising holidays in Spain; out of a bright blue sky floated men in bowler hats and dark suits, carrying umbrellas, coming down to land on a golden beach, a blue sea foaming up on the sand, with girls in revealing swim-suits sunbathing under striped umbrellas, and in the background were white hotels, black bulls, glasses of red white, a pair of flamenco dancers, the man all in black, with a tricorn hat, the girl in a bright red flared dress, her black high heels tapping out the rhythm of the dance.
It was so colourful and vivid, full of sunshine. Shivering in the cruel wind, Bianca pulled her warm coat closer and longed for the sun.
Maybe Judy was right. Perhaps it was time she did something about herself. Oh, she wasn’t looking for a man—but she must do something about the way she felt, shake herself out of this grey depression.
Was that what her dream had meant? She went red again and hurried into the travel agent’s.
That evening she didn’t get home until half-past six; she was tired and cold. As she parked her car she remembered that she had agreed to go out to dinner at the Chinese restaurant a couple of streets away, and was grateful that she wouldn’t have to cook dinner tonight as she did most other nights.
She stepped out of her wet boots and left them to drain in the porch. She was so sick of this endless winter. She had to get some sunshine soon or she would go crazy. She hung up her dark pink woollen coat before putting her head round the door of the lounge.
Her two children were watching a video and didn’t even look up. Bianca considered them wryly for a second. There was no family resemblance between them; a stranger would never guess they were brother and sister. Fifteen-year-old Tom, sprawled on a sofa, as relaxed as if he were boneless, his long, slim body limp, had changed out of his school uniform and was now wearing the inevitable jeans and a blue sweater, his hair the same colour as her own, his eyes the same widely spaced dark blue, and Vicky was sitting in an armchair carefully painting her nails a strange dark plum. She was far more like her father than her mother, with corn-coloured hair and hazel eyes, except that she had a petite, pocket Venus figure instead of Rob’s height.
‘Hello, Mum, have you had a good day? Isn’t it cold outside? You must be frozen; come and sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a lovely cup of coffee,’ Bianca said loudly.
Her son, Tom, did look round then, grinning as he tossed his untidy hair out of his eyes. ‘The little men in white coats will come for you if you keep talking to yourself.’
‘I have to. Nobody else around here will. Are you both ready to go out for this Chinese meal?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Tom said, his attention riveted on the screen again. ‘Do you really want some coffee?’
‘Not if we’re going out at once. Are you ready, Vicky?’
Vicky stirred, blew on her fingers. ‘I’m ready, but I can’t go yet—it would ruin my nails and I only just painted them.’ She looked round, waving a plum-tipped hand at a small table on which lay a red-foil-wrapped box. ‘Oh, that’s your present there, Mum. Happy Birthday.’
Bianca unwrapped a box of Chanel make-up, her eyes widening. ‘Why, thank you, Vicky, that’s wonderful.’ She hoped Vicky hadn’t spent too much on the expensive cosmetics; it had been very generous of her.
‘I know you don’t usually wear those colours, but I think you should—you need an image change!’ Vicky said. ‘My friend Gaynor is on the Chanel counter; she picked out the colour scheme for you; she said they’d suit you.’
Bianca fingered them all in their matching packaging: a glossy dark red lipstick, eyeshadow boxes in a trio of shades, from light blue to brown, a cream foundation, and loose powder in a compact.
‘I can’t wait to try them.’ Somebody else trying to do an image change on her! she thought crossly. First Judy, now her own daughter... What was so wrong with the way she looked?
She opened her shopping bag and took out a holiday brochure, her blue eyes brightening. ‘How do you two feel about a winter holiday? Two weeks in Spain... sunshine, beach life, flamenco dancing?’
‘Great—when?’ asked Tom without looking round.
‘As soon as we can fix it!’
‘What...now?’ He looked round then, aghast. ‘You’re joking, Mum. I’ve got matches fixed every Saturday for weeks. I can’t go away. We’d lose if I wasn’t there.’
‘Big head,’ Vicky told him.
‘It’s true,’ he insisted indignantly. ‘I’m their best striker! Ask anyone. I get all the goals. I can’t go away during the season—they’d kill me.’
Vicky said casually, ‘I can’t go either, Mum. Actually, Drew and I were thinking of going to Majorca some time in the spring—’
‘Drew can come with us!’ Bianca interrupted.
Vicky’s look revealed first blank incredulity, then scornful amusement. ‘Drew and me...go away with you? Come off it, Mum! You don’t think I want my mother around, do you? Anyway, we were thinking of going on one of these under-thirty holidays. No old people can go on them.’
‘Old people?’ repeated Bianca, outraged.
Vicky gave her a quick, half-laughing look. ‘Well, you’re not old, of course; I didn’t mean you, I meant... Well, you know what I meant.’
Oh, yes, she knew what Vicky had meant. Her daughter did not want her around when she went on holiday; she was the wrong age group. Her son was too absorbed in his own life to want to go away at all. Her spirits sank. She had been looking forward to getting away to the sun, but she couldn’t go alone; she hadn’t had a holiday alone for... She stopped, frowning, realising with a shock of surprise that she had never had a holiday alone. Before she met Rob she had gone away with her parents, and then she had always gone with Rob and the children. She had never once gone anywhere alone.
Well, it’s time I did, she thought. Judy was right-she had to start adjusting to the idea that Tom and Vicky were growing up, would one day leave home. She had to build a life which did not revolve around them.
‘I’ll go away alone, then,’ she said, and they both turned to stare at her, mouths wide open in disbelief.
‘Alone?’ Vicky repeated.
‘You mean you’re going to leave us on our own here?’ Tom’s eyes sparkled. ‘For two whole weeks?’
She could read his mind; he was looking forward to two weeks without supervision, without anyone nagging him to do his homework, do his daily chores. Tom hated doing housework, but Bianca insisted that he helped out, did as much as his sister. She had been determined not to bring up a useless boy who expected women to do everything for him. She had a brother like that. Jon had never had to lift a hand at home; their mother had waited on him hand and foot, and after Jon had married he’d expected his wife to do the same. Sara had resented it; the marriage had broken up after a few years, with Jon co
mplaining that Sara was unreasonable, and Sara bitterly accusing him of being selfish. Jon had married again, but his second marriage was far from contented; it seemed to be drifting on to the rocks exactly the way the first one had.
Bianca didn’t want her son turning out like Jon. She had shared out work equally between her two children. In the kitchen was a computer-printed rota pinned up on the wall; Vicky and Tom each had jobs to do every day.
Bianca expected them to keep their own bedrooms tidy, and inspected them once a month to make sure they were actually doing the work, but they also had to help her keep the rest of the house tidy, do the shopping, help prepare meals for them all. Bianca, too, had a rota, which was pinned up next to theirs, so that they should know that she did twice as much as the two of them put together. Which was more or less what they expected, of course, but it put a stop to claims that she was asking them to do too much.
‘And while I’m away there are to be no wild parties, or hordes of your friends wrecking the house!’ she told Tom, who looked at her innocently, blue eyes wide as a child’s.
‘No, Mum.’
‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Vicky said with suspicious sweetness.
‘It applies to you too, Vicky. I’ll hold you both responsible for anything that happens, remember.’
She had been encouraging them both to be responsible ever since their father died. Before she made any decision she had carefully asked their opinions, and listened to them seriously.
After Rob’s death she had had the choice of living, with difficulty, on a small fixed income for the rest of her life—or taking the risk of investing some of the money from Rob’s insurance in a business which might give them all a comfortable income.
After talking it over with Vicky and Tom, she had decided on the latter course. Judy, who was a close friend and long-time neighbour, had enthusiastically offered to put up fifty per cent of the money and share the work in running the business. She had recently inherited money from her father, and wanted to put it to work in a more interesting way than simply investing it in stocks and shares. Her husband, Roy, was a travelling salesman who was away a good deal, her children were grown-up, and Judy was tired of working in other people’s shops; she’d wanted to run her own.
Bianca had explained to Tom and Vicky that she could only manage to work six days a week if they were prepared to help in the house, and they had both agreed. They had more or less kept their bargain, too, even if reluctantly at times.
‘Are we going to the Chinese or not?’ she asked them both crossly now. ‘Or shall I make some beans on toast?’
They gave each other a silent but eloquent look, then smiled soothingly at her, getting up.
‘We’re ready, Mum!’
Now they were going to be indulgent, as if she were a half-wit. A pathetic old half-wit. Resentment churned inside Bianca as she drove them to the restaurant. Some birthday she had had! It had begun with depression in bed that morning and it was ending in much the same mood. And now I’m forty, she thought. Forty! She had a terrible feeling that from now on life was going downhill all the way.
* * *
A week later she landed at Malaga airport in very different weather. She came out of the airport building into a world of blue skies, sunlight and palm trees, and stood there for a moment feeling her winter-chilled skin quiver in disbelief. Then she hurried off to collect the hire car she had booked in advance before setting out on the motorway to Marbella. The drive took longer than she had expected, largely because of heavy traffic, but eventually she found the hotel.
Bianca would not be staying in the hotel itself; she had booked an apartment in the grounds, which were extensive, with large white adobe-style buildings scattered among trees and lawns intersected by winding narrow streams running under arched wooden bridges in something like the Chinese style. Each building contained half a dozen separate apartments, each with its own front door and a balcony looking over blue swimming-pools and gardens down to the sunlit blue sea.
The apartments were spacious; Bianca found she had a bedroom, bathroom and sitting-room, one corner of which was a tiny kitchen area, with everything you might need to prepare a meal.
She unpacked rapidly, explored her new domain, showered and put on a stylish green linen dress and white sandals. The hotel served a buffet lunch at one o’clock and it was just after twelve now. She would take a walk through the grounds before going to lunch. As she was on holiday she wouldn’t want to spend her time cooking—she was going to eat out a good deal.
She went out on to her balcony and leaned on the rail, staring down over a pool right below the building.
There was someone swimming in it. Through the blue glare of the light on the water Bianca saw a shape moving, a black seal’s head, a powerful, gold-skinned body cutting through the pool.
Shading her eyes, she watched as the swimmer slowed to a standstill, at the edge of the pool, before hauling himself out of the water. He stood on the blue and white tiles for a moment, raised his hands to slick back his dripping black hair. She stared at the wide, smoothly tanned shoulders, the deep, muscular chest, the slim waist and strong hips, the powerful thighs and long legs. His wet black swimming-trunks clung to him, almost transparent in the strong sunlight, so that he might as well have been naked.
She couldn’t look away. Her mouth went dry and her skin prickled with heat.
At that instant, as if some primitive instinct warned him that he was being watched, the stranger lifted his head to stare in her direction.
Her face burning, Bianca guiltily turned and almost ran back into her apartment.
CHAPTER TWO
Bianca went into Marbella itself that evening, in the hotel courtesy coach, to tour the local tapas bars with a guide. The other guests in the party were all married couples, which made Bianca feel left out and kept reminding her of Rob, and what wonderful holidays they had once had. Even before they arrived at the first bar in the old town she was beginning to wish she hadn’t come, because nobody much spoke to her. It wasn’t until they moved on to another bar that she got into conversation with another of the party—a woman of about her own age with short blonde hair and blue eyes.
She was sitting on a bar stool beside Bianca studying the contents of a tapas saucer. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ she asked Bianca, who peered at it too.
‘Squid?’
The bartender was watching them—he suddenly leaned over and grinned. ‘Calamares a la plancha!’ he explained, then went off to serve someone else.
‘You speak Spanish?’ the German woman asked Bianca, who shook her head.
‘But I think plancha means plate.’
They called out to their Spanish hotel guide for a translation.
‘Squid cooked on a hotplate!’ he called over. ‘Don’t be scared. Try some! You don’t have to fight the bulls to be brave, you know!’
Bianca and the other woman laughed, tried the squid and had to agree it was good, if a little rubbery.
‘Too much garlic in it for me, though.’ The German turned to smile at Bianca. ‘We ought to introduce ourselves—I’m Friederike Schwartz; please call me Freddie—everyone does.’
‘I’m Bianca Fraser.’
Freddie stared and laughed. ‘Bianca... that means white, doesn’t it? And Schwartz means black in German. How funny.’
‘Your English is amazing! I’m terribly impressed. I barely know six words of German.’
‘My husband works for a big German company—we travel the world with him, my children and I. He once spent two years in America, so we all learnt English.’
‘Is he here with you?’ Bianca glanced around the crowded little bar trying to guess which of the men belonged to Friederike.
‘He is the guy with a red tie, playing dominoes at that table,’ Freddie told her. Bianca inspected him, smiling.
‘He’s very attractive! Lucky you!’ He was clearly older than his wife, a man approaching fifty, bronzed and slim, brown-haired,
brown-eyed, with a touch of silver at the temples, and still very good-looking.
‘Yes, I am, but he is cross tonight. He didn’t want to come on this bar cruise. Karl does not like to be out late. He wanted to stay in our suite looking after our children, but I talked him into coming.’
‘How old are your children?’
‘Teenagers. I keep telling him they don’t need babysitters any more. We have two sons, twins aged fourteen, Franz and Wolfgang, and my daughter Renata, who is seventeen and getting prettier all the time. When I walked around with her men used to stare at me—now they stare at her! I feel like the wicked queen in Snow White. I look into my mirror and grind my teeth every day.’
Bianca did not take her too seriously—she was laughing as she said it and was much too lovely to feel threatened even by a daughter who was half her age. Freddie was probably in her early forties but she looked ten years younger—her skin was smooth and unlined and her eyes were bright and clear. Her figure was slim and her clothes classy.
Karl looked up and saw them watching him and beckoned to his wife. Freddie groaned. ‘He’s going to ask when we can go back to the hotel! He’s bored already.’ She slid down from her bar stool and smiled at Bianca. ‘Nice talking to you. See you later.’
Bianca sipped her glass of red wine doubtfully—it tasted like red ink. She couldn’t help feeling that she sympathised with Freddie’s husband—she wasn’t enjoying this evening much either. But it would have been depressing to stay in her apartment by herself.
‘You are alone, señora?’ asked the Spanish guide, sliding into the seat beside her.
She gave him a wary look, nodding, hoping he was not going to make some sort of pass. A short, dark-skinned man in his thirties with a distinct paunch, he was not her type. But all he said was, ‘Then please be careful not to leave the group. Keep with us at all times. I am afraid handbags have been snatched lately. There are some gangs in town, from other big towns—they work in pairs, going around on motorbikes, and they’re so quick—they come up behind you and snatch your bag, and they’ve gone before you know what is happening.’
Dark Fever Page 2