A Meeting in Seville

by Paul A. Mendelson

  “Where did you go for it – the North fucking Pole?!”

  Luisa appears to recoil, taken aback by the anger or perhaps simply by Tazmin. The considerably younger woman stares disdainfully back.

  “Ah,” says William, loudly yet pathetically. “Er – Tamzin…”

  “Close but no Cuban cigar! I’ve got the Andalusian shits and yes, it looks like the biggest one is right here with me.” She glares at Luisa, who can’t hide the tiny smile on her face. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Me? I am nobody.”

  “Well, stop staring!”

  “Taz-min, sorry – guess what? This is my ex-wife!” William announces it with a smile, as if Tazmin is bound to relish this happy coincidence as much as the next abandoned mistress. “She’s staying right next door! What are the chances, eh?”

  “YOUR EX-WIFE!! Did I die and wake up in a Seventies sitcom?”

  William has a feeling that nothing he could possibly say would improve the situation in any meaningful way. He looks helplessly to his ex-wife next door.

  “Is like your programme, William,” she says. “But would I choose you – Tazmin? Si, perhaps I might.”

  He is still staring open-mouthed at Luisa, as she smiles and slips quietly into her room.

  “And you left me alone – for that!”

  He turns back angrily to the wronged yet patently wrong woman. “That, Tazmin, is someone I’ve loved and lost. Twice.”

  “Eeughh!” says Tazmin, unimpressed. “Well, not to worry.” She segues into what he immediately recognises as gameshow mode and most probably one of his. “Congratulations, Mr Sutherland of Virginia Water. It’s your turn to play Second Chance!”

  She slams the door so violently that William can feel the aftershock through his hair weave. He remains staring at his own barred room and then at the equally impenetrable one beside it.

  A squeak of wheels finally draws his attention away.

  Pablo approaches, pushing a large, room service trolley. The old man just nods to William, as if he has seen it all before, although William doubts that in this case he has.

  “Couldn’t put a pillow on that, pal?” asks William.

  “Manchester United,” says Pablo, with sad yet somehow almost welcome inevitability.

  50

  William can hear the church bells pealing around the city.

  He slides open the windows to his balcony and staggers out into the morning sunlight, narrowly avoiding the huge potted cycas plant, which he can’t actually recall having been there before. But then Luisa has always had to point out anything she’s planted at least four times before it becomes part of his world view. Or at least she used to.

  The tiles on the balcony already feel warm to his bare feet, although it is still far too early in the morning. It was six o’clock before he was able to gain access to his room, now angrily vacated by its other guest. He thinks he feels more wretched than he ever has in his lives, yet he knows that this is, of course, not quite true.

  Something bothers him about last night, something which the curious events of the evening have somehow neatly parcelled up and lodged in the attic of his mind. Ready for him to unwrap when the time is right. Which clearly isn’t yet.

  A rustle of newspaper from the adjoining balcony tells him he is not alone. He doesn’t even turn, but simply leans forward and rests his elbows on the wooden rail.

  “Knew all the time, didn’t you?” he says.

  “‘William Sutherland Productions’. Your name is all over it.”

  “I know! How about that! – Er, yeah.”

  Luisa sets down yesterday’s copy of El Mundo on her table. “There were no novels, were there?”

  He still can’t look at her. He raises an unfamiliar, bronzed hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “Didn’t have the talent.”

  “You had the talent, William, but not the patience. This is why we part, I think. Where is your little girlfriend?”

  “She lost her faith.”

  “And on Easter Sunday! … Did you think she looked a little like—?”

  “NO!” he protests. “Not a bit! No way.”

  Luisa shrugs, unfazed by his vehemence. “Well, tonight it is all over. Semana Santa. Pouff – terminado! As if this has never been.”

  He swivels round to gaze at her. The expression of horror on his face shocks her out of her easy complacency. Luisa finds herself rising and moving towards him. He is shaking his head wildly, as he processes her words.

  “But you’ll still be here, won’t you, Luisa? For a little while. You’re not – terminado.”

  She smiles, a touch sadly. He notices that she is still in her dressing gown and also how good she looks, although she’d probably look even better, he reckons, if she gave up the cigarettes. When she speaks, he has to strain to hear above the bells. “William, my meeting here tomorrow. Is not for business.” He looks confused. “Sandy.”

  It takes him a moment to make sense of this single word, as if it’s simply a random sound and not the most devastating thing she could say.

  “He LIVES here?”

  She shakes her head. “Barcelona. But we had the good times here. As students. Perhaps we try again.”

  He gazes into her eyes, which seem softer now in her clear morning face and so much more vulnerable. “And this would make you happy, Luisa?”

  “Are we not a bit long-in-the-face for happiness, my old friend?”

  He has no firm evidence to counter this – God knows, his own life hasn’t been one of unalloyed bliss – yet, curiously, he doesn’t quite believe it. Which makes him even more desolate.

  William shakes his head helplessly and goes back into his room.

  ***

  By the time he registers the gentle but persistent knocking on his door, William is almost dressed and trying to make some sort of sense of all the “stuff” from his pockets. He has no idea into what magical – or, more likely, appalling – worlds these keys will permit access, nor the high-flying ailments so many pills are holding at bay.

  He ignores the knocking. Until he knows for certain that it is not going to stop.

  As he opens the door, Luisa – still in her dressing gown, but gripping her huge designer handbag as though her entire life rests inside it – looks up at him for a brief moment, then slips past and into the lonely room.

  “I have made you sad, I think,” she says, to silence. “Come – I buy you the big breakfast.” He shakes his head but she is already moving on. “I remember you like it when I make the tortillas. See, William, I do remember some things.”

  She looks around the room and her quick, sharp eyes find ample evidence that someone has left in a hurry. She bends to pick up a single red castanet, stamped for some reason with the head of a bull, from beside the carved leg of the table. As she does so the little ball of candle wax dislodges itself from behind a crumpled handkerchief and rolls towards the table’s edge.

  “Souvenir?” she smiles, catching it before it falls.

  William takes it from her hand and stares at it. “Some poor wee fella must have lost it last night. He’ll be wondering where on earth it’s got to. Probably been collecting it for years, poor lamb. With his dad. Every Semana Santa, just growing right there alongside—”

  He begins to cry.

  Without any warning or preamble.

  Not just tell-tale moisture around the eyes, token indicators of a middle-aged man’s basic humanity. Huge, loud, clumsy sobs, screamingly discordant primal wrenching, as if his body’s reservoir has been breached and there is no way he can calm the surge. The force is so great, the pummelling the body inflicts on itself so relentless, chest in spasm as it fights for breath, that he can’t stand up any longer. It seems he is trying to gasp into himself all the air in the musty room, all the air in the world, and there just isn’t enough. Can neve
r be enough.

  William shuffles backwards until his calves find the end of the bed, then seems to crumple down. Yet he doesn’t flop. He just sits. The cries don’t cease.

  Luisa says nothing. She simply sinks down next to him, their bodies gently touching. And she waits.

  After some minutes, his breath slows and he is able to speak. He offers her the explanation he feels that he owes.

  “His name was Jamie. Jamie Eduardo Sutherland. You see, Luisa!” William doesn’t pick up the confusion on her face. He isn’t looking at her now. He is somewhere a long time ago, yet as vivid as yesterday. “Five years old. Just started ‘big’ school.” He smiles, as his breathing becomes more even. “He was so proud, bless him. In his wee uniform. With his plastic Jurassic Park lunch-bag. He so loved his dinosaurs.” He shakes his head, as he remembers. “It was meningitis. So quick. So bloody quick. We didn’t even recognise… Perhaps today—”

  “Oh, William.” She takes his nearest hand, the one not gripping the mislaid, waxen treasure.

  “I couldn’t stop it, Luisa. I couldn’t. If we’d had more money. If I’d—”

  “What does money have to do with this?”

  “Everything!” he cries. “Oh, Jesus, I don’t want to forget him! I never have, Luisa.” He turns to stare at her. “But I will, won’t I? Bound to. After all this bloody – tampering.”

  She shakes her head, although she understands so little of what he is saying. But she holds him tighter, as if she understands it all.

  “I never did, you know, Luisa. Forget. Not for a single moment. Despite what you – well, the last Luisa—” He sounds almost accusatory in his ramblings, as he swivels round on the unmade bed to glare at her. “Somebody had to keep things going! Somebody had to stay strong and ‘win the bread’.” He sighs an almost Spanish sigh. “Love may be a team game, Luisa – but grief’s a competitive sport.”

  Luisa can see that William, in his angry desolation, is confusing her with someone else. The mother of his lost son, most probably, whoever she was. Wherever the poor woman is.

  “And – Claire?” she asks, nudging him on, away perhaps from the hopelessness.

  “We couldn’t have any more kids. Ironic, eh? Niños. We found Clairey in that godawful children’s home. But she was smiling. She was the only one smiling, Luisa. Wee gap-toothed smile. She’s still got that.” He begins to take deeper breaths, restoring equilibrium. “Clairey brought the fun back. And we did have fun – the three of us. Really. I wasn’t always like… I dunno what happened to us. AND NOW CLAIRE’S GONE TOO!”

  “They grow up, William. They move away.”

  He shakes his head. How can he explain? How can he possibly explain? He doesn’t even try. He moves his hand away from hers and levers himself up.

  On his way to the bathroom, he chugs some pills from the small jar on the table, whatever the hell they are.

  Luisa remains on the bed but the bathroom door is open and she can see him suddenly shout at himself in the mirror.

  “WHAT IF NO ONE EVER CAME TO GET HER? OH GOD! WHAT IF NO ONE EVER CAME!”

  He catches her unblinking eye and she takes this as an invitation of sorts to move towards him. “I do not understand all you say, William. I am sorry. But to lose a child. This I can only imagine.” She shakes her head. “No – I cannot imagine this.”

  William notices that she is holding the wax ball and realises that he must have left it on the bed. She is stroking it so gently. This reminds him of something, but he can’t quite – yes, he can. It’s the same caring, loving, almost maternal way that Lu was stroking the scraggy hostel cat. And he feels something shift deep inside of him.

  “I am so sorry, Luisa.”

  She raises her eyes to his face and sees something there that surprises her. Her ex-husband, from a brief, unhappy marriage so many years ago, a marriage she truly believed would last a lifetime but lasted no time at all, is gazing at her with an expression she can only describe as remorse. No, not simply remorse. Sympathy. Pity.

  And she finds that this makes her really angry.

  Luisa moves swiftly back into the bedroom, shaking her head rather too vehemently. He can only watch her as she practically disappears inside her vast red bag and grabs her phone. In practised yet still somehow frantic moves, she searches for something. What – a number? Surely not another email!

  “William. Por favor. Do not be sorry, please,” she mutters, head down, fingers swiping. “My life is so full! Si. I have my books. My tours. My readings. I have two houses.” She thrusts some photos in front of him. Look. Look! Now he understands. Sort of. More swiping. More thrusting. “Oh and see – all my lovely nieces and my wonderful nephews. My family. SEE! I am so—”

  She ceases as dramatically as she began.

  And suddenly this fine, intelligent, beautiful woman seems to William so much gentler and so crushingly vulnerable. Yet still quite different from the Luisa he only just left and harder still to believe as a later version of the young Lu, with whom he’s been so sweetly and devastatingly reacquainting.

  She begins to pick mercilessly at her fingers. After a moment he reaches over and gently parts her hands. This time she doesn’t resist.

  But now, like a badly cut film, the scene has abruptly changed. William is banging his head with his fists.

  “William?”

  “Aaaarrghhh!! The old stuff’s going – from my head. It’s disappearing, Luisa! I’m remembering new stuff. My first TV show. It was great! No, it was crap!”

  “You surprise me.”

  Holding her shoulders in both his trembling arms, he talks directly and excessively loudly into her face. As if giving her the final briefing for a mission, on which the slightest error could be fatal. “We’ve only a few hours, Luisa. Until everything goes back to – normal. New normal. This normal. Until the music stops.” She has never witnessed a man in such desperate panic. How did all this happen? “The clock’s ticking, Luisa!”

  “For you, it always was.” He is already grabbing his things, throwing on his blouson and making for the door. “Where do you go?”

  He stops.

  “Er – not a bloody clue. But I have to do something, don’t I?”

  Turning back to her, he takes her hands. Tightly, as if some part of him wants never to let them go. When he talks, she is taken both by the intense sincerity in his voice and the fact that his words are total gibberish. “I have to find them, Luisa. And – and make things right again. Lord knows how. Not just for me. For you!”

  For her?

  He kisses her gently. And says again what he has already said not so very long before. “Goodbye, Luisa.”

  For some reason that he can’t explain, William picks up the wax ball. And leaves Luisa Montero alone in hotel room 381, stroking the little silver cross that has never left her throat.

  51

  William has absolutely no idea what he intends to do.

  No change there, he thinks. But he does know that whatever needs doing has to be done before his memory fades and Easter Sunday dies like the snuff of a candle. He hasn’t a clue as to which may come first.

  It is the old waitress who approaches him at the Yellow Café. Do all elderly people in this city work 24/7? With a smilingly expansive gesture she offers him the choice of available tables. William shakes his head and takes the small waxen ball from his still-unfamiliar blouson.

  “Someone left this here last night,” he tells her. “The poor niño will be missing it.”

  The woman takes the ball with a knowing nod. He notices the surly young waiter roll his eyes.

  William wonders if this tiny yet important mission has really been the best use of his strictly limited time.

  ***

  Where to start?

  He traces his steps back to the cathedral. Naturally, the old place is even more the hub of fervent
attention this special day – Easter Sunday – when its particular crowd-pleasing pasos process solemnly through the jam-packed streets and onwards through their grandest and most spiritual of passing places. Final performance this season, no encores, no eleven o’clock number. Resurrection same time next year. But no Will or Lu.

  He checks his Rolex, which tells him with merciless accuracy just how little time he has left before the week ends and his entire world along with it. They could be anywhere in this infuriating city, crammed to riotous bursting point with myriad excitable strangers, none of whose histories he imagines have been quite as reversed and overthrown as his own.

  Needles. Haystacks!

  He decides to try the Real Alcazar, the celebrated royal palace that he still can recall as Moorish and breathtaking – and which he knows for certain he and his new bride visited at some late point in the week.

  Or at least he thinks he knows for certain.

  Whilst the oldest working palace in Europe doesn’t summon up memories that are anything close to sharp and crystal-clear, he recognises with far greater clarity, as he walks around the shaded cloisters and courtyards at three times the speed of any fellow visitor, that his genuine appreciation of the palace and its magnificent gardens, even now, owes much to Luisa.

  But, of course, Will and Lu aren’t bloody here either.

  At least not so far as he can tell.

  Yet how can he possibly know that, like the worst kind of farce, the moment he turns a corner, they aren’t slipping away around a similar corner and onto a sunken garden just a few feet ahead. Or perhaps they’ve discovered a secluded Moorish alcove, notorious for trysts amongst couples long dead, and are having a surreptitious knee-trembler (a delightful expression and experience he remembers sharing with his bride).