‘You want that I come in?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t be good company.’
‘That is OK. Another time.’
This time I nodded. ‘Another time.’
He didn’t try to give me any type of kiss, simply squeezed my hand and walked away.
I put some cream on my bites, then sat on the wicker chair on the patio and stared up at the sky. There was no moon but the stars were bright. When I was very small, my mother had told me that the stars were the souls of everyone who’d ever lived.
‘Like heaven?’ I’d asked.
‘Exactly,’ she’d replied.
And I’d thought about it for a long time because I couldn’t make sense of it. How could a living, breathing person turn into a star? How could that possibly happen? When I was old enough, I looked up stars in the library. And learned that they were objects that sent out their own light, producing energy by nuclear fusion. That didn’t sound much like a dead person to me. Or what a dead person might become. And so I studied more and learned more and decided that my mum had, as usual, been talking complete nonsense.
Only I wished she hadn’t. I wished it was true, that when people died they lit up the sky.
Banquo jumped on to my lap and began to purr contentedly.
When I’d asked about getting a cat as a child and Mum had refused, on account of them being arrogant and wilful, she’d also snapped that they were demons. Or spirits. I’d ignored her, because by then I knew she said stuff like that all the time. And yet sitting there, with Banquo purring loudly even as his claws dug into my stomach, I couldn’t help but feel that he was communicating with me on another level. Trying to tell me something. Which I knew was complete nonsense.
Spain was having a weird effect on me. All the things I didn’t believe in – ghosts and spirits and stuff that you can’t see and prove – seemed to be insinuating themselves into my life and my thoughts. And I was powerless to stop them.
‘Bat-shit crazy,’ I said out loud as I stood up, and Banquo gave me a disappointed look. ‘This is what I’ve become. And this is why women shouldn’t ever live alone with their cats.’
Chapter 15
The following morning, I seriously considered going home. Somehow the thought of staying on at the Villa Naranja, with its turbulent history and occasionally spooky vibe, as well as its devastatingly sexy neighbour, was less appealing than before. I’d taken time out, I’d moved on enough to shag the pool cleaner, and even if I hadn’t completely reached acceptance in the five levels of grief I could hardly classify myself as depressed.
But then I received an excited text from Cleo.
Coming to Spain, it said. Arrive Friday, depart Sunday. Woohoo!
I texted her back for more information. Cleo is a great woman for deals and special offers, and she subscribes to a multitude of bargain-hunting sites and apps – in this case, she’d seen a flash seat sale for flights to Alicante and had booked them for herself and Saoirse in the short window of opportunity before they sold out. They would be arriving on Friday morning, she told me, departing on Sunday night. As Cleo had the Friday and Saturday off, it wasn’t a problem for the radiology department, and Saoirse herself was simply taking a day’s annual leave.
Can’t wait to see you, my flatmate texted. Miss having you around.
No harm in having them stay for a few days before I went home myself, I thought. And it would be fun to indulge in some holiday-making stuff. It would totally get rid of the unwanted and unaccustomed thoughts I’d been having lately. Saoirse, Cleo and I always had a good time when we went away together. We would have fun this time too.
I told Pep about their imminent arrival, when he called around later that day. Not to clean the pool. Just to be with me.
‘I am glad you will have friends here,’ he said. ‘It is not good to be alone.’
‘But sometimes it’s necessary,’ I told him.
He rolled over in the bed. Whatever I’d been thinking about reclaiming my life, it had only taken the merest of touches from Pep’s fingers on my arm to reduce me to a puddle of desire. I wanted nothing more than to make love with him again. Now he regarded me thoughtfully from his mocha-brown eyes.
‘It is better to have people,’ he said seriously. ‘Better for everyone.’
‘I have you,’ I said.
‘Yes. But I am not yet your people.’
Not yet? I didn’t know if his words had been deliberate or accidental. Did he think he could be in my future? Did he want to be? Did I want him to be?
He pulled me towards him and kissed me.
I kissed him back.
Whatever I felt about the future, I thought as his hand slid slowly along my thigh, I was completely undone by his part in my present.
Cleo and Saoirse’s flight arrived into Alicante at eleven o’clock on Friday morning. I stood among the crowd at the terminal building and waited impatiently for them to appear. I hadn’t realised just how homesick I’d been starting to feel until I saw Saoirse waving at me, a broad beam on her face.
‘You’d swear it’d been years since we’d seen each other!’ I cried as I embraced them both and then wiped a happy tear from my eye. ‘I don’t know what I’m getting so emotional about.’
‘It’s a bit mad, isn’t it?’ agreed Saoirse, who had her arm around my waist. ‘It’s good to be here, Juno.’
‘And it’s good to have you.’
The journey to the Villa Naranja was very different to my night-time drive a few weeks earlier. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the occasional glimpses of the aquamarine sea were enough to send my friends into raptures.
‘It’s a pity Pilar couldn’t come,’ I remarked. ‘I bet she would’ve loved to be home.’
‘Maybe she’ll get here sometime before you come back,’ said Cleo. ‘It’s manically busy at the hospital right now, though.’
I glanced at her. ‘How’s the temp getting on?’
‘Great,’ she said. ‘Like I told you, very experienced. But it’s not the same as having you there.’
‘That’s nice to know.’
I took the motorway exit and then the twisting road through the mountains to Beniflor.
‘You did this at night!’ Cleo cried as I turned on to the narrow track to the house. ‘On your own! Weren’t you freaked out?’
‘Juno doesn’t freak out,’ Saoirse reminded her. ‘Remember when we all went to see that Cloverfield movie? I thought I was going to have a heart attack but Juno kept on eating popcorn.’
‘Because it wasn’t real,’ I said.
‘It seemed real enough to me,’ muttered Cleo. ‘I don’t know what persuaded us that it’d be a good idea to see it.’
‘Danny Shaw in phlebotomy,’ I said. ‘It was a bet.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She snorted. ‘Those guys and their flippin’ blood samples. They think they’re so cool. Whereas the radiology department really is cool.’
I laughed. ‘They look at blood. We see right through people.’
‘Like ghosts,’ said Saoirse.
I said nothing. I was remembering how uncool I actually had been when I’d been on my own on this road, thinking about ghosts and marauders myself.
‘Oh, how pretty!’ cried Cleo as I pulled up in front of the gates and clicked the fob. ‘It’s like a proper country house.’
‘It is a proper country house,’ I said. ‘Not a huge amount of furniture, but amazing rooms. Actually,’ I added, remembering what Pilar’s mum had told me, ‘it was built for a Spanish nobleman, back in the day.’
‘Wow,’ said Saoirse. ‘How amazing is that.’
‘I thought Pilar said it was neglected,’ Cleo said. ‘It could do with a lick of paint maybe, but those shutters are fabulous.’
I told them about my sanding and varnishing efforts, and they laughed at me. Then, as we got out of the car, they spotted the pool and shrieked with delight.
‘This is even better than I expected!’ cried Saoi
rse. ‘Why didn’t you say anything about the pool?’
Because I hadn’t thought to, at first. And then because the pool was tied up in my mind with the man who cleaned it. And I hadn’t told them about Pep Navarro either.
I showed them the rooms upstairs, and there were more appreciative comments. It was lovely to hear chatter and laughter echoing around the house, and I was feeling de-mob happy as I popped open the bottle of Freixenet that I’d bought at the supermarket the day before.
‘How posh!’ Cleo grinned as I handed her a glass with a strawberry perched on the side. ‘Have you been doing this every day?’
‘Not quite every day,’ I told her. ‘I’ve rolled out the big guns for you.’
There were only two wicker chairs on the patio but I dragged one of the indoor ones outside and we toasted each other with cava. My two best friends kept up a steady stream of anecdotes and conversation, which carefully avoided the reason why I was here in the first place.
‘Beniflor is in fiesta at the moment,’ I told them as I refilled the glasses. ‘There have been events going on in the town since last week. This evening there’s a flower parade.’
‘What does that entail?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ I admitted. ‘But it sounds lovely.’
‘What time?’
‘Around six,’ I said. ‘Every fiesta event seems to involve parading around a few streets, then ending up in the main square for a bit of a party. Most of it also takes place later at night – tomorrow there’s another parade and fireworks – but I thought this might be a fun thing to do.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Saoirse. ‘And in the meantime . . . we can just sit out by the pool and chill?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Chill time it is.’
Which is what we did. And it was lovely.
Cleo had bought a couple of books in the buy-one-get-one-half-price promotion at the airport and so she gave me the latest Michael Connelly to read. I’m more into crime and thrillers than either literary novels or romance, so I enjoyed it immensely. Much better to be caught up in crime and murder in LA than my own messy thoughts.
We were all stretched out on the sunloungers when we heard footsteps on the gravel. I looked up and saw Pep Navarro striding towards the pool, the big blue cleaning hose coiled over his arm.
‘Oh. My. God,’ murmured Saoirse. ‘Who the hell is that?’
‘The pool cleaner.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Hola, Pep.’
He’d said that he’d try to clean the pool while I was at the airport, so that he wouldn’t be in the way. I’d told him to clean it whenever it suited him. Clearly, he’d decided that this was a more suitable time.
‘Hola, Juno,’ he said. ‘I am sorry. I could not come earlier, as I had planned. I had to do some things for my father.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said.
‘I will not be long.’
‘Take as long as you like,’ murmured Cleo.
‘You never mentioned him.’ Saoirse swung her legs over the side of the lounger so that she was facing me accusingly. ‘You never said a word about a desirable hunk making visits to the house.’
‘Didn’t I?’ I tried to sound nonchalant.
‘I know you’ve been stressed,’ said Saoirse. ‘But how could you not have noticed him?’
‘If he was coming around every day to clean the pool, I wouldn’t leave,’ said Cleo. ‘Bloody hell, Juno. You’ve hit the jackpot.’
I didn’t trust myself to speak, especially with Pep only a few metres away, so I shrugged again.
‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry!’ Cleo gave me an anguished look as she totally misinterpreted my shrug. ‘I was being insensitive. I know you’re still . . . well . . . it’s been hard. And we’re making inappropriate comments.’
‘It’s fine. But could we not talk about it right now?’
‘Of course.’
The two girls lay back on the loungers.
I felt bad about misleading them, but I couldn’t say anything about me and Pep while he was nearby. I couldn’t tell them that last night, after sex in the bedroom, we’d done it again in the kitchen. He’d walked into the room behind me and put his arms around me, and I’d completely forgotten that I was supposed to be making a cup of tea. It had been hot and steamy, and Banquo – who’d been in the recycling box – had clearly found it all a bit much because he’d gone out and hadn’t returned until the morning.
‘Hasta luego,’ called Pep when he’d finished cleaning the pool.
‘Hasta luego,’ I said.
Three pairs of eyes watched him walk to his van.
And I sighed with relief when he finally drove away.
Chapter 16
After Pep had gone, I went into the house and returned with chilled bottles of water for everyone.
‘Actually, I was planning to get into the lovely clean pool to cool down,’ said Saoirse. ‘That was one seriously hot guy.’
‘I know,’ I said.
And this time they could tell from the tone of my voice there was more.
‘Juno Ryan! You didn’t!’ It was Cleo who spoke first.
I think my expression was a mixture of guilt and glee.
‘But that’s fantastic!’ cried Saoirse. ‘Although I can’t believe you didn’t tell us before now. How on earth could you sit there so calm and collected and not say a word? And he just kept on working – as though nothing had happened either.’
‘I hadn’t intended to . . . to . . .’
‘Hey, nobody in the world would pass up the opportunity to get closer to a man like that!’ said Cleo. ‘Nobody.’
‘He’s a nice person,’ I said.
The two of them snorted with laughter.
‘He is.’
I’d already told them a bit about the night of the storm and the leak and the blackout, but this time I detailed Pep’s role in events.
‘That is soooo romantic,’ breathed Cleo. ‘Thunder. Lightning. Naked in the rain. Oh, Juno. You lucky, lucky thing.’
‘We weren’t naked in the rain!’ I cried. ‘And it wasn’t romantic. It was . . . it was . . .’
‘It was what?’ asked Saoirse. ‘Is this going somewhere, Juno?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘I like him. But I don’t speak Spanish – and although his English is pretty good, it’s not conversational, so . . .’
‘So it’s all about the sex?’ finished Cleo.
‘I guess.’
‘It’s a good start,’ Saoirse insisted. ‘I mean, remember me and Stan McCrae? On paper we were totally compatible, but in bed . . . it was a disaster. And there was no way it was going to work. At least you wouldn’t have to worry about that part of it, Juno.’
‘I’m not at the stage of worrying about any part of it,’ I said. ‘I’m . . . oh, look, I still don’t know where I am, to be honest. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get Brad and what happened out of my head, and . . . and . . .’
Then, to my horror, I burst into tears.
I hate women who cry at the drop of a hat, I really do. I’d been one of them over the last few months but I thought I’d come out the other side. So I couldn’t understand why I was suddenly sobbing as though my heart would break, while my two friends did their best to comfort me.
‘I’m sorry.’ I sniffed. ‘It seems that I’ve spent more than my fair share of time snivelling on your shoulders lately.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Saoirse. ‘It really is.’
‘It’s not.’ I sniffed again, a bit more vigorously this time. ‘It’s been months. I should be at acceptance, not bawling like a baby.’
‘You went through a terrible time,’ said Cleo. ‘You’re entitled to cry.’
I scrubbed at my eyes. ‘I was going out with a cheat. He lied to me. He lied to his wife too. Dammit, if he hadn’t been killed I would’ve killed him myself.’
They looked at me sympathetically. I’d said this before. More than once. But this was the first time I’d said it with a real spark
of anger. Until now, it had been in bewilderment.
‘More cava?’ suggested Saoirse, looking at the almost empty bottle.
I shook my head. ‘I’ll be driving you into town later. I’ve had enough.’
‘Maybe—’
‘Honestly.’ My voice was firm and my eyes dry. ‘I’m fine now, really. And I have accepted it, I truly have.’
They smiled at me. But I could see in their eyes that they didn’t really believe me. And how could I blame them, when it wasn’t hard to see that I didn’t entirely believe myself?
We arrived at the town square just after six o’clock. Additional planters filled with multicoloured hibiscus, vibrant hypericum and spiky yuccas had been dotted around it, and a heady floral scent filled the air. Young girls in white dresses, with garlands in their hair, were lined up near the stage. Their excited chatter would have made magpies jealous.
‘The flower parade is for the children,’ explained Rosa when we sat down at the last available table outside the Café Flor. ‘They all get a posy to carry, and they walk around the town singing.’
‘It’s all so . . . so communal,’ said Saoirse. ‘I wish we did stuff like this at home.’
‘In the lashing rain?’ Cleo raised an eyebrow.
‘It doesn’t always rain,’ objected Saoirse.
‘And of course it lashed rain here the other day. It was . . . it was . . . lloviendo a cántaros!’ I finished triumphantly as I remembered the expression.
They continued to joke about the weather and what they called my colloquial Spanish while I watched the little girls, who – at the arrival of an adult – had stopped chattering and were now standing solemnly in front of the stage. They’d been joined by boys dressed in white shirts and trousers, who looked equally solemn. I pointed out Xavi Ruiz, his arm now out of the sling, to the girls.
‘You’ve really got involved, haven’t you?’ said Cleo. ‘Bonking the pool guy, acting as an ambulance service for that kid, renovating the house, speaking Spanish – plus you’re clearly a regular here, because the waitress seems to know you very well.’
‘It was the first place I came,’ I said. ‘And she’s English, so it made things easier.’
The Hideaway Page 15