by Iris Danbury
‘Queer fish, isn’t he? Likes to put up a nonce, as it were, “Keep out!” Still, we don’t mind. He occupies a villa all the year round and that’s one useful rent. Of course, if the time comes, as I hope it will, when all our villas are let right through the year, we shall put his villa to better use or put up the rent.’
Caran allowed this prospective threat to slide by. Brooke Eldridge might have finished his work on the irrigation scheme by that time.
‘I gather he works here on irrigation,’ she remarked. ‘Somewhere up in the hills. Free and easy sort of job, apparently, for I believe he goes off pottering about the district for days at a time.’
‘Maybe he studies other irrigation schemes elsewhere,’ she suggested. ‘Compares notes.’
Paul laughed derisively. ‘Compares notes about the girls, more likely. Oh. I know he pretends here that he’s not interested in feminine society, but that’s probably a blind.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ she murmured lamely. Then she tried to draw the conversation around to Gabriela and Felipe. ‘The husband, Felipe, works here as a waiter, although he’s apparently not here tonight. If we could find them somewhere else to go, they’d be off like a shot. They’re very proud and independent, and it’s only sheer bad luck and illness and so on that’s brought them to their present plight.’
‘One must never waste too much sympathy with people of that kind,’ he said curtly. ‘They just take advantage of any consideration.’
‘I’m sure this family would not. I told Don Ramiro—’
‘Don Ramiro?’ he echoed. ‘The Mendosa fellow?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘Then you’ve already made his acquaintance? How?’ Caran recounted how Don Ramiro had driven her from Granada and lodged her with one of his friends partly because of the late hour of arrival, partly on account of the flooded path.
‘The wily old devil I’ murmured Paul softly. ‘I wonder how he knew you were coming.’
‘But surely he couldn’t know. Anyway, why would it matter?’
Paul chuckled. ‘There isn’t much that goes on in Albarosa that the good Don Ramiro doesn’t know. He has his spies everywhere.’
‘For what purpose?’ asked Caran.
‘Oh, he regards himself as Albarosa’s feudal lord. He owns large estates around here.’
‘Yes, he showed me some of the land he owns.’
Paul’s needle glance immediately warned her that her remark had been incautious. ‘Then you’ve seen him again? Since you arrived?’
She nodded. ‘He came one afternoon to lock at the villas.’
‘He would. What was his impression?’
‘He criticised the structure, said it was shoddy and so on, but all the same he promised to help in various ways—to get the workmen to come and—perhaps—find a place for Gabriela and Felipe.’
‘That was handsome of him!’ Paul spoke with derision. ‘Have I done something wrong in becoming acquainted with Don Ramiro?’ she asked. Apprehension of disastrous consequences made her voice tremble slightly. ‘In the first place, I’d no option about letting him drive me here, other than staying the night in Granada. I’d no idea at all who he was. I thought he was just a car-driver going my way.’
Paul was silent for a few moments. He rocked the wine in his glass so that the restaurant lights caught in its crimson glow.
His silence now disconcerted her, for she was already abashed by the fact that so early in her employment he had been forced to come. ‘I know you’ve had to come here to straighten out the tangles, but that was mostly due to money problems,’ she said defensively. ‘I could have coped quite well apart from the bills.’
Paul glanced up and gave her a warm smile. Then he stretched out his hand and lightly placed it over hers. ‘Caran, my girl, your meeting with Don Ramiro is the most fortunate thing in the world. Between us, we shall be well on the way to becoming millionaires.’
Between us? Who did that include? Himself and Don Ramiro? Or did he mean to include her in a trio of capitalists? This latter possibility caused her to laugh spontaneously at the fantastic idea.
He joined her in laughter, unaware that they were laughing for probably quite different reasons.
The next few days were extremely busy while Paul chased up the various workmen and Caran attended to all the correspondence. Paul’s Spanish was only roughly conversational and it was left to Caran to struggle with the dictionary or Spanish grammar.
On some evenings Paul took her to dinner in the town at one of the restaurants; at other times they stayed at home and Caran cooked a simple meal for the two of them.
Paul, she noticed, was the kind of man who sat in the living room and read the newspaper while the cooking was going on. Brooke would have come uninvited into the kitchen, lifting pot lids and sniffing appreciatively or critically. He’d probably tell her what was wrong or insist on adding a dash of this or that seasoning.
Although he had been at Albarosa so short a time, Paul had drifted into the casual habit of kissing Caran good night in a rather absent-minded manner or walking about the villa gardens with his arm about her waist. She was not particularly disturbed by these slight attentions, for she regarded him as at least her deputy boss, since he was Mrs. Parmenter’s nephew.
Yet one occasion caused her a certain uneasiness. She and Paul had alighted from his hired car which he parked at the back of the villas. As they walked down the steps into the gardens, Paul suddenly swung her towards him in a close embrace, kissed her cheek, then the corner of her mouth. Then, still with his arm around her waist, he called cheerily, ‘Hallo there, Eldridge!’
Brooke was coming towards them, probably on his way to the car parking space. He nodded briefly as he passed and his face was unsmiling.
Caran flushed, realising that Paul had deliberately intended Brooke to see him on familiar terms with her. She was more than willing to be on amicable terms with Paul; in fact, it was in her own best interests. At the same time she objected to becoming a piece of property that Paul could flaunt whenever he chose.
She was not displeased when a day or two after the incident Paul returned from collecting the mail at the post office and handed her a telegram addressed to herself.
‘My friend Julie is coming tomorrow,’ she told him.
Julie would at least provide a diversion for Paul if only on a temporary basis.
‘Tomorrow,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘Did you tell her to stay the night at Granada and come on here the next day?’
‘No. I wasn’t sure of the date she was coming.’
Typical of Julie, thought Caran, to give the shortest possible notice of her intended visit. At the same time, Caran blamed herself for not pointing out the difficulties of transport at this time of year.
Paul smiled. ‘We can’t depend on Don Ramiro to be at the airport a second time and convey our passengers to Albarosa. I’d better meet her at Granada and drive her here.’
‘No need for that, surely.’ Caran was conscious of the time Paul would waste, most of a day and evening. ‘I can telegraph her to stay in Granada for the night. Which hotel would you recommend?’
‘I stayed at the Nevada Palace, She’d be all right there.’ Caran wrote out a telegram, but then it occurred to her that she did not know if Julie was still at the flat. ‘I can send it to the airport at Granada.’
Paul looked dubious. ‘Look, all this is more trouble than my going to meet her. What’s she like? Young and pretty?’
‘Both,’ Caran agreed. ‘She’s about average height, has an animated face and the most glorious reddish-gold hair.’
‘M’m. Sounds a dish.’
‘She needs to be. She’s a photographer’s model—advertising and all that.’
Caran had been almost on the point of offering to accompany Paul on the day trip, so that there would be no difficulty in identifying Julie, but now she hesitated. It was quite obvious that he wanted the zest of meeting a new girl visitor. Perhaps since his broken e
ngagement he was ever on the look-out for a girl who might adequately replace his lost fiancée. For all Caran knew, he might even be sizing her up.
After Paul had left the villa and she was alone ostensibly busy with the correspondence, she stopped typing and allowed her thoughts to roam. Paul was attractive in many ways with his cheerful personality, his sharp business acumen that would undoubtedly steer him towards reasonable wealth, yet she could not acknowledge to herself that she was attracted to the man. Somewhere underneath his brisk, genial exterior was an elusive quality that she could not identify, a ruthless indifference to the hurts he might inflict on others.
Besides, Caran told herself, she could hardly accompany him to Granada, even if he had asked her. Someone had to stay here at the villas to see that the workmen carried out their instructions.
When Paul set off next morning on the long journey to Granada, Caran saw him off and waved as his car climbed the road. ‘You can’t miss her I’ she had told him a few moments ago. ‘Julie shines like a candle flame in a dark room.’
As she walked back to her villa, she smiled to herself, wondering what impact Paul and Julie would have on each other. This was something that would have to emerge in the next few days and in the meantime, there was work to do this morning.
She had to tackle Brooke Eldridge on a delicate mission. Would he please move out of his villa for two or three days and occupy one of the others while his own, the Zafiro, was repainted?
Caran wrote the politest little note, for she assumed he would not be at home until the evening. She looked in first at the Villa Esmeralda where two Spaniards were applying white paint to the outside walls. As she called a greeting, one stepped back hastily and upset his bucket of paint all over the floor of the porch.
‘Oh, quickly!’ she cried. ‘Clean it up quickly or it will spoil the floor.’
‘Si, senorita,’ said the man unhurriedly. ‘Momento.’ He dabbed at the floor with a cloth little larger than a handkerchief and Caran became impatient. ‘You should have a fregadero grande,’ she said, hoping she was using the right word for ‘mop’, "but the man smiled charmingly, went round a corner of the villa and reappeared with a bucket of dirty water and what looked like a bundle of rags tied to a stick.
‘All will be clean in three minutes,’ he told her. ‘Come back and see, senorita.’
In the most delicately polite manner he was dismissing her so that she should see the result of his labours and not the questionable methods.
She smiled at the man and took the hint. ‘I’ll come back later,’ she promised. She walked down to the main path that connected the villas and up towards Brooke’s. As she rounded a magnolia tree she heard voices and a moment later saw Benita in her flamenco costume apparently posing while Brooke took photographs.
Caran stood still, not wishing to interrupt the proceedings, but Brooke swung round, camera in hand. ‘Oh, come on, Caran, if you’re coming! You’ve distracted Benita anyway and she’s changed her expression.’
‘I’m terribly sorry about that,’ Caran said coolly. ‘I didn’t mean to barge in.’
Benita, in her red and white spotted flounced dress, seemed rather apprehensive and on the point of flight.
‘All right, Benita,’ said Brooke in Spanish. ‘You can go now. I’ve probably taken all the photographs I want.’
The girl picked up her flowing skirts and ran down the path.
‘You needn’t have dismissed her like that merely because I came on the scene,’ objected Caran.
‘Why not?’ His piercing blue eyes demanded a sensible answer. ‘I suppose I’m the best judge of how many photographs I want to take.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Caran. It was an unfortunate beginning to her morning’s errand when she had to ask him a favour. ‘I suppose Benita has the morning off from her work in the shop?’ She made the remark merely to gain time and put off explaining the real reason for her call.
Brooke, who had been replacing his camera in its case, now looked up suddenly. ‘Does her absence there inconvenience you?’
‘No. Why should it?’
He gave her that slightly lopsided smile that meant he was trying to score off her or that he was amused by her discomfiture.
‘Do you also want to know why I’m not working this morning?’
‘I’m not curious about it,’ she retorted.
‘Splendid. I wondered what excuse I’d be able to give you apart from fooling around with Benita for an hour or two.’
‘Mr. Eldridge—’ she began with what dignity she could summon.
‘Oh, you were calling me Brooke a few days ago. Why this formal address, or is it meant to be a most formal call?’
‘Yes, I came with a purpose,’ she told him.
‘I didn’t believe you were making a spontaneous call because you longed for the sight of me.’
‘Would you mind listening?’ Her voice had become icy and she regretted it, but the way he goaded her was beyond endurance.
‘Go ahead. Perhaps you’d like to step inside. It’s rather chilly out here this morning.’
That, of course, was a two-edged remark indicating her manner as well as the weather, but she made no answer.
His sitting room was littered with papers and books everywhere and he swept a pile off one of the easy chairs so that she could sit down.
‘A glass of wine to warm you?’ he offered.
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’ She was almost tempted to rush out of the villa and say she’d come another day, but the matter of the repainting was becoming urgent. What should have been no more than an incidental request had now become inflated into a tiresome, formal interview.
‘I want to ask you a favour,’ she began, thus putting herself in the position of one who makes a request, without appearing to compel.
‘Yes?’ His oblique glance revealed a suspicious wariness.
‘As you know, we are repainting all the villas ‘
‘I saw that you’d persuaded the workmen to start again. Was that due to the efforts of the redoubtable Paul Fernwood.’
‘Perhaps it was. He brought the money to pay the bills,’ she snapped. ‘Would you be prepared to move out of your villa into one of the others, so that yours can be redecorated?’
‘Move out!’ he echoed, turning away and thrusting his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘I couldn’t possibly collect all this stuff and take it somewhere else and then hope to lay hands on it again! Quite impossible! In any case,’ he swung back towards her, ‘does it matter whether the Zafiro is painted sapphire blue or any other colour? I’m the only one who lives in it. I rent it permanently, so why should you worry if the walls are none to clean?’
‘We should prefer not to have one of the villas looking really shabby,’ she pointed out quietly.
‘You mean I might be letting down the side? Well, that’s too bad. If I prefer my own brand of chaos, that’s my business. You get my cheque for the rent regularly on the first of every month and you must let me stew in my appalling untidiness.’
‘You’re very unco-operative,’ she grumbled. ‘We would undertake to have the job done very quickly indeed for you.’
He laughed harshly. “Oh, I know what would happen. The men would start, then for some reason, they’d be shifted elsewhere and there I’d be with the work half done and with no prospect of ever getting straight again.’
Caran rose. ‘There’s no point in arguing, then, Mr. Eldridge,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ll tell Paul that you refuse point blank to be disturbed.’
Brooke grinned. ‘Is that a threat that you’ll send him along to put a pistol at my head?’
Caran smiled coldly. ‘He might have more persuasive powers than I have.’
‘And why didn’t our brave Paul come this morning or at least accompany you?’
‘He’s gone to Granada to meet a friend of mine,’ Caran replied.
‘Friend? Masculine or feminine? No, that’s a silly question. Obviously feminine gender. On
ly women are met at Granada and conveyed here. Men have to fend for themselves in hired cars. In any case, Paul would never bother to drive all that way to meet another man.’
‘How well do you know Paul?’ she asked.
‘Oh, he’s been here at various times,’ Brooke answered indifferently. ‘Poked his nose in here a day or two ago to see if I was still surviving or if I’d met a watery grave up in the hills on the dam.’
‘I’ll be going now,’ Caran reminded him. ‘If you change your mind about the repainting, perhaps you’ll let me know.’
She was walking towards the outer door when the edge of her skirt caught on a pile of photographs and the whole batch slithered to the floor.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ she apologised, stooping to pick them up.
‘No damage done.’ He knelt to gather the scattered glossy prints. ‘No damage, that is, to these. But I can see that the whole sordid story is now going to come tumbling out.’
She could see that many of the photographs were those of girls or women in various Spanish costumes; others depicted processions, landscapes or odd corners of villages.
With a gracious gesture she handed him back half a dozen photographs. ‘I never probe if I can help it or force an unwilling confidence,’ she said sententiously.
Brooke sat back on his heels and rocked with laughter. ‘But you’re dying to know all the same. In any case, I shall insist on telling you.’
‘Don’t make me a party to any of your iniquities!’ she mocked.