A Meeting in Seville

by Paul A. Mendelson

  “Touch the—?”

  It takes only a couple of seconds to go from wondering what the hell she is talking about to knowing what the hell she is talking about. And he realises that the latter is so much worse.

  “I’m so sorry,” he explains/lies. “It’s this arm. I injured it once, on a detecting job, and sometimes, you know, it has a life of its own.” He waves it around to furnish credence to this rubbish. “The nun – did she notice?”

  “I do not think this. You are very gentle.”

  “That’s the one consolation. Aren’t these paintings interesting?” He waves an all-encompassing arm around at whatever art is in the vicinity. “You can see the paintings?”

  “Si. Of course. I do not wear the bad sunglasses. Ah, you like the art, yes?”

  “I’ve learned to,” William confesses. “I used to hate it. Totally. It was my wife who taught me to really appreciate…” This makes him pause, just for a moment. “Aye, she did. Dragging me to galleries until I finally succumbed. Until I really ‘got’ it.” Again, he seems lost in thought. “Well, she used to. We haven’t actually—”

  The young woman nods, as if sensing a meander onto rockier terrain. Or maybe she just sees the sadness on his face.

  “So. If you are okay, Señor…”

  “DON’T GO, LUISA!”

  A gasp. “How you know my name?”

  “Aah,” he mumbles, the “shit!” unspoken, hearing the drums in the distance and hoping they’re coming to drag him away. “Your bracelet!” Thank you, God. She looks at her bracelet, on which her name is indeed engraved into the silver, but he would have needed eyes like a bat. “Eyes like a bat,” he explains. “Could I maybe just take a wee look at your guidebook? Please. I-I need to find my wife again.”

  The young woman burrows into her bright red shoulder bag and he suddenly recalls, as if memory is like a sharp knee to the groin or the stirrings of a migraine, how she so used to love the colour red. Do we go through phases, he wonders, and did I somehow get stuck in sepia? She removes a glossy new guide to Seville. A wedding gift, he recalls, from an old schoolfriend of his, presented to them and gleefully unwrapped at the occasion.

  As Lu passes the book to him, it immediately ages and crinkles in his hands.

  Oh – Jesus!

  William thinks he is going to pass out again, but he manages to look into her face, expecting to see a mask of pure horror swiftly overlay those beautiful, untested features. But, mercifully, she is looking not at the newly worn and yellowed pages but in the other direction.

  “Ah, I think I see my husband.”

  “Oh no,” says William quietly. “Oh, dear Lord, no.”

  Without saying another word, fearing he might crumple or simply expire in the chapel, he stumbles out through a convenient but unnecessarily heavy side door.

  When young Luisa finally looks round again to say goodbye, the man is gone.

  Will she ever understand the Scottish?

  ***

  He reels into the screaming sunlight without any sense of where he is going.

  It is some minutes later, and on the other side of the river, before he realises that he still grips the young apparition’s guidebook. Warily, he begins to flick through its pages, now quite well-thumbed and weary with age.

  A few specs of ancient confetti drop out onto his trembling hand.

  11

  Luisa is also staring at confetti.

  But not, this time, in her hand. She sits in a pretty, shaded square that she still remembers from her student days, barely a stone’s throw from the river. With a café cortado and her favourite golden fino on the table beside her, she flicks through the small album she has put together, somewhat tentatively, for this unpredictable week.

  The first picture is of her far younger self – could she ever really have looked so young and slender – as she leaves the Central Registry Office in Glasgow’s George Square with her brand-new husband. She’s ducking playfully under a shower of coloured paper and a less colourful shower of Scottish drizzle. Not the wedding she had been hoping for. But then, of course, he was not the husband her family had been hoping for. They would sooner have travelled to hell than to Glasgow (in fact, they had suspected the two were much the same) and William’s ailing mother couldn’t have made the journey to Spain, had this even been an option.

  Luisa finds her hand instinctively moving towards her neck, as it so often does, searching for the tiny silver chain she hasn’t worn or even owned for years.

  Before she flicks onwards, she calls William again. He hasn’t been picking up his phone, which can only mean he has fallen asleep after all those whiskies, although even this doesn’t usually stop him. He would most probably answer the phone from his coffin, she reckons, or at least check the Wi-Fi. She leaves another message.

  She should be making her way back to the Hotel Herrera, to begin their gifted time together, but there’s just one more stop she wants to make en route.

  Another, sunnier photo. This time of a café, but not the one she sits at now. This picture is of their café, the pretty one so near the cathedral, the one with the bright yellow awning. The café to which they kept returning, wherever they had visited and whatever they had been up to that day. Doubtless it has gone now or at least changed colour, yet she still recalls exactly where it was. And there’s Will sitting outside, waving. She can hardly remember him looking so happy and finds herself shivering, because this makes her feel so sad.

  Another wedding now. This time far less fraught.

  She can see that the husband, once so cruelly disapproved of, is captured this time manfully affording his own son-in-law at least a modicum of respect, even if it can’t really be mistaken for affection. But there’s no mistaking the love in the older man’s eyes for the bride, that intensely joyful young woman, blended to perfection from a mixture of races, letting loose her expansive, gap-toothed smile. Those satin-sheathed, fist-pumping arms are upraised in pure triumph. Got him! The spark never seems to diminish, thinks Luisa with a grateful smile, and she prays that it never will.

  One more photo, one she knows she cannot overlook this week, of all weeks. And then she must move on.

  “You are very pretty lady.”

  She looks up with a start. The handsome African man is selling jewellery. It’s curling over his outstretched arms like a family of lazy snakes and is quite beautiful, but she’s not in a buying mood.

  “And you are full of shit,” she says.

  “Si,” the smiling man agrees. “But you are still pretty lady.”

  She nods a brief, amused thank you. At my age, she thinks ruefully, you take what you can get.

  12

  He would like to say that the old hostel has hardly changed over all the years.

  But William can’t honestly swear, hand on heart, that he recalls how it used to look in the first place. Yet, after his mind-bending experience just a half-hour earlier, William Sutherland is delighted he has even the wherewithal to push open the heavy gate.

  He wouldn’t have paused here at all, especially now that he has finally picked up all Luisa’s missed calls and texts. But the name Hostal Esmeralda had been highlighted in felt-tip in the purloined guidebook. And he had spotted, with some satisfaction, the (inevitably) tiled nameplate as he came off the bridge. He just hopes he doesn’t meet anyone he used to know.

  Such as himself.

  The courtyard, which even he has to admit is rather appealing, with its trickling stone fountain and abundant orange trees, is empty, save for a stocky, deeply tanned man in his forties, fixing a downstairs shutter. William gazes around and finally up at a first-floor bedroom, whose own perfectly functional blue shutters are open to the day. He senses the handyman staring fixedly at him and looks away.

  “William?”

  “AHH!!” The old guidebook slips out of his hand
, as he turns slowly around. “Oh, dear God, it’s you. Luisa.”

  “Who else knows you in Seville?” she asks, reasonably. “The Virgin Mary?” She looks at him – something is wrong. “William, you’re trembling. Are you okay?”

  “No, not really,” he admits, retrieving the curious book. “Luisa, the most surreal thing has just happened. Possibly.”

  “You have been drinking,” she interrupts. He has no idea whether this is a response or a new question.

  “NO! Well, just some champagne.” He stares at her. “It was from Sandy.” He notices that she looks vaguely uneasy, just before she smiles.

  “Oh. Well, this is kind. Why are you here, William?”

  “Here?” He is momentarily confused, as if the question is unexpectedly existential. “Oh, this place. Well, I was just passing and – You see! I do remember stuff, Luisa! Hostal Esmeralda! As in, you know, Quasimodo and Esmeralda. The Lunchpack of Notre Dame.” He laughs but she doesn’t join him. She is looking up at that same little first-floor bedroom.

  He grabs the opportunity to stare directly at her, examining her upturned face with the most intense scrutiny. Something he is certain he hasn’t done in years. She flinches disconcertedly when she becomes aware of this, as if finding herself suddenly married to an overzealous dermatologist. So he judiciously dims down the glare.

  “Luisa,” he implores, “forget the drink. Please! It wasn’t the drink. At least I – You will not believe who – what – I just – huh?”

  She has noticed the old guidebook in his still-trembling hand. Taking it from him, she flicks through its well-thumbed pages. He can only watch as she begins to read aloud.

  “‘There are 115 processions during Semana Santa. They each proceed from their parish church right through the cathedral. But if it rains really badly, a procession can be cancelled.’ Now this you underline!”

  “Yes, okay! But Luisa, the guidebook. You notice how old it is? About thirty years old. Well—”

  “‘BECAUSE some of the floats date from the thirteenth century. So the people have to wait until the next year, when the sun is shining.’ Only you would write under this – ‘pack umbrella’. You and your bloody rain!” Yet she says this with at least half a smile and indeed appears curiously touched. “William – you keep the book all this time?”

  William nods, sentimental old fool and shameless liar that he is. But the triumph is short-lived.

  “No – you did not just ‘remember’ this hostal! It has the big circle here in red. Where you write ‘cheap ’n’ cheerful’ with two ticks! Si – I have the memory now. There was a guy here, at the station. With a postcard!”

  “Our hotel’s nice,” says William. “It’s got Wi-Fi.” He can sense that this is neither a cultural nor emotional highlight. “Oh, and the kids sent nice flowers. Well, Claire did. I tried to thank her but she was busy.” He grabs her arm, startling her. “Luisa, just now, back in the cathedral—”

  “William. We have to talk.”

  “What am I bloody trying to do?”

  The handyman suddenly coughs. They turn to see him point suggestively towards the upstairs rooms. William and Luisa both vehemently shake their heads.

  In harmony for once.

  13

  “Semana Santa – is very romantic in this time of evening, no?”

  Will is too busy for Andalusian dusk or romance. He is checking the menu outside a classy restaurant, in a narrow, lopsided building on the winding old Calle Sierpes. A second later he collapses onto the cobbled pavement, clutching his chest. Lu looks down at the writhing figure and gasps.

  “Will – querido!”

  People hover around, faces showing a mixture of horror and fascination, but mostly fascination. Music plays obliviously from lively pavement cafés up and down the busy, tree-lined street. As Lu kneels down beside her stricken lover, the onlookers graciously stand just a few millimetres back.

  “Brandy, quick,” he mumbles, grimly. “But not that Fundador stuff. Cognac – as it’s a special occasion.”

  He’s not sure whether his new wife is going to laugh or cry. Happily, she decides on the lighter option and smacks him.

  “Bet your pal Pope John Paul gets his cut this week,” continues an encouraged Will, standing up, unscathed. “‘Luigi, I weel take the tapas bars, you do ze marzipan nuns.’”

  “You are idiot,” she says, smacking him. “And el Papa, he is Polaco, not Italian.”

  People wander away, looking for tapas, chopitos, processions – anything but young love making a fool of itself in their wondrous city.

  “Details. Have you seen these bloody prices, Lu?” He laughs but when he looks at her his smile has gone. “Mind you, one fine day—”

  “We do not have to eat in the expensive restaurants, cariño,” she protests, because she already knows this tune by heart. “We have only to eat together.”

  He brushes the long, shiny hair from her face and kisses her with a gentleness that surprises even him. What is it about this person that makes his anger, an emotion he truly feels he must have imbibed with his mother’s milk, fuelled with his father’s kicks and nurtured since with unwavering passion, seem to diffuse like incense into the balmy, orange-blossomed air?

  They don’t notice the man who now approaches, speaking in a fluent Spanish that makes Lu spin round in wonder.

  “¡Dios mío!” she cries, in the city where He is most probably listening.

  “Bloody hell!” cries her husband, ignoring the occasion. But the young woman already has her arms around the beaming interloper and is chattering excitedly in Spanish. The young man grins at Will.

  “Away ye go!” continues the deserted husband. “And remind me again of the Spanish for ‘what in buggery are you doing here, you posh Scottish tosser?’”

  The young man, who’s clearly too tall and fair to be a local, favours Will with a reply that is so posh and Scottish that it barely sounds Scottish at all.

  “Didn’t actually learn that in my year here.”

  “Bet you heard it often enough.”

  “I tried to call you at your digs. Must have just missed you.”

  Will looks puzzled. “We only just found our ‘digs’!” He separates his wife from the newcomer and puts his own arm around him. “I know it was your first time, Sandy, old chum,” he says quietly, “but the best man’s job usually ends with his speech.”

  “Damn,” says the taller guy, smacking his own forehead.

  “Paloma!” yelps Lu, in delight. “Is Paloma! I speak to her from telephone in hostal but she never say this thing!”

  Now Will gets it too. “Jesus! The sodding bridesmaid!”

  “But never the blushing bride,” smiles Sandy, winking at Lu. Will clocks this, but she is already scouring the crowds at the pavement cafés.

  “Paloma is here, Sandy?”

  “Aye. Well not here exactly, but I’m staying with her folks. We’re meeting up again later on.” He can see his friends staring at him. “She invited me, at the wedding! For Easter. Would’ve been so insulting to refuse. Could’ve caused a diplomatic incident.” If Will rolls his eyes any more, they will spin out onto the cobbles. “Now don’t you fret, oor Wullie, I won’t cramp your hard man of the Gorbals style.”

  “Govan, actually,” mutters Will. “Different class of squalor,” but Sandy is already kissing Lu goodbye and starting to dance his way down the heaving street.

  “Efters,” he cries. “Flamenco, casino, disco. Och, no, you dinna dance, do you, Guillermo?”

  “Don’t you worry, pal,” calls Will, “I’ve got all the moves.” He looks at Lu, who is laughing. “Can you believe that guy? My ma used to practically curtsey when I brought him home from uni.” He shrugs. “Bet even your mama would approve of him.”

  Lu doesn’t say anything, because there’s nothing she can say that would help.
She wishes she could have changed the last few days, that her parents could have seen what she sees, tried even for a moment, just for her, to locate what it is that she loves. But, more than anything, she wishes that their opinions didn’t matter. She is sure that they don’t matter to her, well, she’s pretty sure, or at least they don’t matter to her as much as they clearly do to the man she has chosen. Perhaps because, for Will, they are simply another part of a sad pattern that is now almost a part of him.

  She watches him as he looks back longingly into the smart restaurant, with its huge hams hanging from the dark wooden beams and the fashionably cracking azulejo tiles on the walls.

  “Well, mebbe not today,” he concedes. “But here’s a promise, darling. On our last night here we’ll – we’ll go to a real snazzy place, with a rooftop-terrace open to the sky and a rare view over the whole of Sevilla. There’s one I ticked in yon book of ours. And we’ll share a huge bloody cocktail.”

  “With the cherry on the top, si?” says Lu, realising with a start that she no longer has the guidebook. No matter – she knows the city by heart. She must tell Will about that poor, sweet man she met. The one who made off with their brand-new gift.

  “Aye. And one of those wee, wooden brollies!” he enthuses. “But, for now, I saw this nice, cheap caff in a square just down the road.” He takes one final look into the cool, darkened restaurant. He can make out a middle-aged couple near the window, sitting in total silence, with their most probably exorbitant bottle of fine red wine. “We’ll come back here when we’re unspeakably rich – and famous. Won’t be long, my darling! Won’t be long.”

  Lu just sighs and points her camera at Will.

  14

  “Damn paparazzi!” says the balding man, as the flash goes off.

  The restaurant is already quite full, mostly with tourists who aren’t inclined to wait until the absurdly late hours at which the indigenous population chooses to eat. Yet only one couple appears to register the flash of a camera on the street outside.