‘He’s a nice cat,’ Cleo remarked as she reapplied Factor 30 to her legs. ‘I was worried when you said you were alone with him that you might have tipped over the line into madwoman territory. But now that I’ve met Pep I have no fears for you at all.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said.
‘I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow when I’m propping my eyes open with matchsticks,’ she added. ‘I’ll be picturing you eating fresh oranges and drinking glasses of local wine.’
We’d shared a bottle after we’d arrived back from the fiesta, at about three o’clock that morning. (The fiesta would end at six with the ringing of the church bells, Pep had said, but I’d told him there wasn’t a hope in hell we could’ve stayed awake till then. Though, as it turned out, it was after four by the time we’d finished the wine and gone to bed, which is probably why the Arab baths idea was never going to be a runner.) The girls were complimentary about the wine and very impressed that I had it delivered.
‘Gran complains that we don’t even get milk delivered any more,’ observed Saoirse. ‘She’d be gobsmacked at wine!’
‘It’s a bit decadent all right,’ I agreed.
‘You deserve a bit of decadence,’ said Saoirse. ‘And even though I’m looking forward to you coming home, I’m glad that you’re having fun.’
‘I bet you’re having just as much fun at home,’ I said. ‘The flat to yourself every night!’
‘Which is nice, but I miss you,’ she said.
‘Don’t you have Conal over?’
‘Not every night,’ she said. ‘He’s got his own place, and I like my space.’
I frowned. ‘That doesn’t sound like you’re taking it to the next level.’
‘Oh, who cares about levels?’ said Saoirse. ‘I love being with Conal but I also love being on my own. And I love being with my girlfriends.’
‘I thought you guys were long-term,’ I said.
‘We might be.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s like . . . when he’s not around I miss him, but when he’s with me I’m also happy to see him go.’
‘Wow,’ said Cleo. ‘I thought you were in line for the engagement ring, Saoirse. I thought it was what you wanted.’
‘For a while I did,’ she admitted. ‘And then . . . well . . .’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I saw how broken up Juno was about Brad.’ She turned to look at me directly. ‘I wondered how I’d feel if it had been Conal who’d been killed. And, of course, I would have been devastated and heart-broken, but I wouldn’t have gone to pieces the way you did.’
‘I went to pieces because he was a lying bastard,’ I told her. ‘Not because he was dead.’
The three of us stared at each other.
‘God,’ I said. ‘That sounded terrible. I mean, I was distraught about him being killed. I shouldn’t even have to say that. I loved him. I was sure I had a future with him. But he was a liar and a cheat, and if he’d lived I would have dumped him.’ I stared at my friends. ‘I would have dumped him. Definitely.’
They were still staring at me. And at that moment I knew I truly had meant what I said. I would have left him. It would have been over and I would have moved on. Which meant that right there, and right then, I had. I’d reached acceptance. Just like that. All of a sudden.
So, to celebrate, they threw me into the pool.
It was good to feel good again. Good to feel able to laugh as I hauled myself out of the water. Good to joke with my friends. Good to be alive. We spent the rest of the afternoon gossiping like mad things and had dinner on the patio – my almost staple warm chicken salad.
‘I definitely should come home,’ I remarked to Cleo as I dropped them off outside the airport that evening. ‘If I’m OK again, there’s no good reason to stay.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ she demanded. ‘You’re on a break. Take it. Use the time. Why on earth would you rush back?’
‘I feel bad . . .’ I began, but she told me to shut up and smell the roses.
‘Besides, there’s Pep to consider,’ said Saoirse.
‘Well, yes,’ I agreed. ‘But really, girls, you’re absolutely right and I’m just using him for sex. Which, I suppose, makes me a total harlot.’
They laughed and I grinned, and then Saoirse gave me a more serious look.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Every time I’ve seen you two together, you seem pretty loved up – and not just in a can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other sort of way.’
‘I’m not ready to rebound by jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire,’ I said. ‘Especially such a hot fire.’
‘Give it a chance, though,’ argued Saoirse. ‘You never know.’
‘Besides, the intern is with us till the end of the summer,’ Cleo said.
‘You don’t want me back?’ I asked.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You know we miss you. And even though Anji is good, she’s not half as good as you. But she needs the work.’
I hadn’t been thinking of my replacement. I’d only been thinking of myself. I might have moved on to acceptance but I was still horribly self-absorbed.
‘I don’t know what’ll happen if I stay,’ I said.
‘Think of it as an extended holiday romance,’ advised Saoirse. ‘If it turns into something else, great. If it doesn’t, at least you’ve had a fantastic time. And he’s helped you move on from Brad.’
But as I waved goodbye to them and drove away from the airport I couldn’t help thinking that I’d needed Brad to forget about Sean, and Pep to forget about Brad. Was I the kind of woman who couldn’t make it on her own? Who needed a man in her life to feel OK about herself? That wasn’t the person I wanted to be. It wasn’t the person I thought I was. And it wasn’t the person I would allow myself to become.
Darkness had fallen by the time I reached the exit from the motorway. I was using the satnav again, because although I now knew the local roads around Beniflor, I still wasn’t one hundred per cent sure about the exit. But with Jane guiding me I moved into the correct lane and on to the country roads again.
There was a sliver of moon but it wasn’t bright enough to light the way. Unlike the night I’d first arrived, though, I knew the lights in the distance were indeed the lights of the various fincas dotted around the countryside, and I knew too that Beniflor wasn’t far away, even though it wasn’t yet visible. I smiled to myself as I remembered stopping on the road, unsure of where I was going, and being terrified by the headlights of the van behind me. But I was relaxed about it now.
I was relaxed with myself too, I realised. At peace with who I was and where I was in my life. Broken relationships happened, I thought, as I stopped in front of the villa’s gates. They happened to everyone. And even though the earthquake and the subsequent revelations had been a shock, there was nothing to blame myself for. Brad’s tragedy wasn’t my tragedy. His life hadn’t been my life. I was over him.
The gates slid open. I caught sight of Banquo’s eyes reflected in the headlights of the car. I edged forward and parked outside the house.
The silence was absolute. I stood on the patio and gazed over the valley. There wasn’t a breath of a breeze. There wasn’t anybody around. I wasn’t being watched by anyone or anything.
I smiled to myself. Then I took out my phone and messaged Pep.
Thirty minutes later, we were in bed together again. Finally, I’d found a relationship where nothing could go horribly wrong.
Chapter 19
I hadn’t been in Beniflor since the last night of the fiesta, so the following Saturday, still feeling good after another night with Pep, I drove into town and went for a coffee in the Café Flor. The plaza was as busy as always, and I spent the time people-watching while I waited for Rosa to take my order. Mum is a great people-watcher – she sees someone and instantly makes up a story about their life – but I tend to take what I see at face value. However, it wasn’t hard to separate the locals (who, despite the climbing tem
peratures, hadn’t completely abandoned their jeans and long-sleeved shirts) from the tourists and the expats, who’d switched to full summer mode.
‘Hello.’ Rosa stood in front of me with her notebook and pencil, and her tone was unusually grumpy. ‘What can I get you?’
‘What do you recommend?’ I asked.
‘You should know what we have by now,’ she replied. ‘It’s all on the menu.’
I ordered coffee and a slice of apple pie, wondering what on earth was the matter with her.
She returned with the coffee and cake a few minutes later and put them silently on the table in front of me.
‘Are you all right?’ I looked at her with concern ‘You seem very . . . distracted. Is it because the fiesta is over?’
‘I suppose I’m tired.’ She hesitated for a moment before adding that I seemed to have enjoyed the fiesta, and so had my friends. But particularly me.
‘The star of the show,’ she said, and there was no mistaking the sourness in her voice.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You took over, didn’t you? Dancing in front of everyone like you did. It was very show-offy.’
‘I . . . They asked,’ I said.
‘Pep asked. But then what Pep wants you give him, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘Oh, come on.’ She gave me a disdainful look. ‘You and Pep. You were all over each other like the plague. I’d heard rumours but until then I didn’t believe them. But when I saw you together, I knew.’
‘I . . .’
‘If you had to throw yourself at someone, it should’ve been Luis. He’s the right age for you, after all. But Pep! I can’t believe you and Pep. He’s not for you. He was never for you.’ She shook her head and walked away from me.
I stared after her retreating back as the realisation hit me. Rosa had some kind of past with Pep. And here I was, suddenly caught in another person’s relationship again. It didn’t matter how tenuous it might have been. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known. Or that I hadn’t meant it.
Somehow, I’d become the other woman.
It was getting to be a bad habit.
I drank my coffee but I wasn’t hungry any more. I left enough money to cover the pie and the coffee, as well as a tip, then hurried out of the square without seeing Rosa again. There was nothing I could do about her feelings for Pep Navarro, but I wished I’d known about them before now. I recalled the tightness in her voice the very first time she’d spoken to me about him. I should’ve guessed. But I’d been oblivious.
Complete disregard for other people’s feelings was clearly a fatal flaw in my character. My mother had told me, more than once, that I was totally lacking in empathy. That wasn’t strictly true. I was very empathic when it came to the patients who presented themselves at the radiology department. I was good with them. I knew how to talk to them, to ease their very real fears. But maybe I was only good in a hospital environment. And the real world was still a mystery to me.
Mum rang me again later that night.
‘You’re still in Spain, then,’ she said when I answered. ‘I knew by the dialling tone. Have you been doing anything interesting?’
Mum hardly ever speaks in less than entire paragraphs. But she was clearly still bemused by my recent actions and was trying to get to the bottom of them. I wondered where on her scale of ‘interesting’ having amazing sex with a Spanish Greek god would be. But obviously I wasn’t going to tell her about the sex. So instead I told her about Saoirse and Cleo coming to visit and the fun we’d had at the fiesta and the fact that I’d danced for the entire town.
‘Goodness!’ She sounded taken aback. ‘You danced? For everybody?’
‘It was that kind of night,’ I said.
‘Maybe you were right.’ She still sounded a little bemused. ‘Maybe you did need a bit of time out to find yourself properly. And that’s a good thing, Juno. Because you’ve never really embraced mindfulness before.’
‘I’m not embracing it now!’ I exclaimed. ‘I danced because everyone was dancing.’
‘Of course, if you’re away to find yourself, you must find yourself completely.’ Mum continued as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘There’s a wonderful website – I can’t remember the name of it now, but I have it saved on my computer – and it helps you with ways of reaching deep inside your psyche. I’ll send you a link after we finish talking.’
‘Thank you.’ I’d no intention of checking out the website. That sort of claptrap is totally not me.
‘So have you made any friends?’ asked Mum. ‘That’s something else you’re not good at.’
‘Did you ring specifically to lecture me on the things I’m not good at?’ I demanded. ‘Because that’s what it sounds like.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’m just trying to take care of you from a distance. I’m happy that you finally seem to be learning to enjoy life, though I’m not convinced you really know how to go about it. I’m going to send you a link to another website that is really good with chakras. I’ve never been truly convinced that your root chakra is properly balanced, and I worry about your third eye.’
‘My what?’
‘Oh, come on, Juno. You must know about chakras. It’s important to be centred and secure in the world. If your root is unbalanced, you won’t be. And your third eye helps you to see the big picture. It looks after your intuition, it makes everything work together and helps you to make the right decisions.’
‘Well, they must both be fine because I made the decision to come here and everything’s working out OK.’ Although I wasn’t sure about that. Not now, not after speaking to Rosa.
‘Have you met a man? Are you getting some sex?’
‘Mum!’ I was outraged.’That’s so not an appropriate question to ask me.’
‘Allow yourself to love,’ she told me, as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘Lose yourself to it. That’s what you’re not good at, Juno. You think about it too much. You over-analyse. You did with the Dolt, you know. I could see it in your eyes.’
Maybe I had overthought it with Sean. But not with Brad. With him it had been all heart and no head – and it had been the worst mistake of my life.
‘Nothing to say?’ she asked.
‘Trying to figure out which one of your gems of wisdom is most appropriate,’ I told her.
‘Did I tell you that I’m going to play Lady Bracknell again?’
Her change of topic threw me for a moment. She does it all the time. I think it’s to check you’ve been listening to her. When I gathered my thoughts, I remembered that she’d played the role about ten years previously in a stage production of The Importance of Being Earnest. It was an award-winning role for her and she uses the rather gaudy trophy she received as a doorstop. Of all her plays I’ve ever gone to, it’s the one I’ve genuinely enjoyed the most; though when I first said this to her, she sniffed and told me that it was probably because it was a comedy. And it didn’t really have soul. ‘But it’s witty,’ I’d replied. ‘And I love Lady Bracknell.’ Which pleased her.
‘A short run at the Gate,’ she told me when I asked about it now. ‘I hope you’ll be back for that.’
‘It’s hardly in the next few weeks, is it?’
‘The end of November,’ she told me.
‘I’ll be home well before then!’ I cried. ‘I have to go back to work, you know. I can’t afford to swan around forever.’
‘Perhaps I’ll see you sooner,’ she said. ‘If I come to stay.’
‘You’d be more than welcome, but it’s getting hotter by the day, and you don’t like the heat,’ I reminded her. ‘You said it drains your soul.’ Nevertheless, I felt I’d be more able to cope with a visit from her now than a few weeks ago. Because I’d found acceptance. And Pep.
‘I could do with warming my bones,’ she said. ‘It’s rained for the past three days. I hate it when the sky is grey.’
I glanced up at the midnight blue of the night sky.
‘So do I,’
I said. ‘I’d be happy to see you. Truly.’
‘I’ll see about it,’ she said. ‘But in the meantime, take care of yourself.’ There was real affection in her voice as she spoke. ‘Look after those chakras. I mean it.’
‘I will,’ I said.
She ended the call.
I stayed where I was, still looking up at the sky. It had been a different type of conversation with my mother.
Maybe we were moving on too.
Chapter 20
I stayed away from Beniflor for a while because I didn’t want to bump into Rosa again. Instead, I finally made the trip to the Arab baths, which were amazingly well preserved. I sat on one of the stone benches, imagining what life had been like in the thirteenth century, when people would spend several hours in the various hot and cold rooms, chatting about their day. According to the information leaflet, a trip to the baths was a social outing, and I thought to myself that the old walls had probably heard plenty of gossip over the years. I supposed that a lot of the conversation was very different to now, but there was no reason to think that there weren’t just as many broken hearts and deceptions eight hundred years ago. What had happened in my life was really nothing out of the ordinary. And just as it had happened in the past, it would, unfortunately, happen in the future too. But not to me. Never again to me.
Eventually, having exhausted Beniflor’s history and cultural offerings and spent more time on some minor repairs to the Villa Naranja, I had no option but to go into the town for some shopping. After picking up my supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, I made a decision to go to the Café Flor for my usual coffee. It was ridiculous to feel unable to sit in the plaza, which was the focal point of everything, and equally ridiculous to feel intimidated by Rosa for something that wasn’t my fault.
As I walked out of the supermarket, I bumped into Catalina Ruiz. Xavi was with her, dressed in his Barça gear.
‘Hola,’ she said. ‘How are you, Juno?’
‘I’m great,’ I replied. ‘And you, Xavi? Your shoulder is OK?’ I hunkered down to his level and felt it experimentally.
The Hideaway Page 17