There was no telephone call from Steve the next morning. He let her sleep. It was the birds that woke her up, and the glorious sunlight. She didn’t linger in bed, as she had expected to. Life, at the moment, was too precious to be wasted. There were only a few days left. And after that, who knew what would happen?
The Alhambra, with its long avenue of clipped hedges and stately poplars, was like a dream. It was not quite the Taj Mahal, but the nearest thing to it, a kind of kissing cousin, an Elysian kingdom. Great vistas opened out from flowering courtyards and atriums; cerulean water in sunken marble pools, fountains splashing in the sun, graceful statuary and arched doorways glistened in the tender, limpid light of southern Spain.
Minarets and snake-like columns abounded, countless, sun-drenched salas, brilliant with tiled walls, delighted the beholder. Everything was open to the sun; there were no windows in this place, and sitting side by side with someone you thought you probably loved, you could look out, through open space, to the perfection of the gardens below and dream of a perfect life, more perfect than ordinary man ever envisioned.
This was the palace of kings.
It was probably one of the most quintessentially lovely settings in all the world. “Have you read this?” Steve asked, holding up a small red, hard-bound book.
“What is that?”
“‘Tales of the Alhambra.’ Washington Irving’s impressions of Granada. Listen,” he said, and read to her.
“Beyond the embowered regions of the Vega you behold to the south a line of arid hills, down which a long train of mules is slowly moving. It was from the summit of one of these hills that the unfortunate Boabdil cast back his last look upon Granada and gave vent to the agony of his soul. It is the spot famous in song and memory. ‘The last sigh of the Moor’.
“Now raise your eyes to the snowy summit of yon pile of mountains shining like a white summer cloud in the blue sky. It is the Sierra Nevada, the pride and delight of Granada, the source of her cooling breezes and perpetual verdure and of her gushing fountains and perennial streams. It is this glorious pile of mountains that gives to Granada that combination of delights so rare in a southern city: the fresh vegetation and the temperature airs of a northern climate, with the vivifying ardor of a tropical sun and the cloudless azure of a southern sky. It is this aerial summer heat, sent down through rivulets and streams through every glen and gorge of the Alpujarras, diffusing emerald verdure and fertility throughout a chain of happy and sequestered valleys …”
He raised his head.
“Let me skip.”
He began reading again.
“But enough. The sun is high above the mountains, and is pouring his full fervour upon our heads. Already the terraced roof of the tower is hot beneath our feet; let us abandon it and descend and refresh ourselves under the arcades by the Fountain of the Lions.”
Steve held out his hand.
“Let us refresh ourselves,” he said quietly. “Under the arcades … by the Fountain of the Lions.”
CHAPTER 12
The jet left the Madrid airport at eleven fifty.
“Good-bye,” Lisa Comstock said coldly to her sister-in-law, as her flight was called.
“Good-bye, Lisa, darling …”
The vulgar blonde carolled her farewells. Dolores’ voice echoed through the air terminal. “Have a nice trip, darling.”
She didn’t turn round. She was seething. I’d like to see them both rot in hell, she thought. Dolores. And Constant. How dare they farm out her son to strangers?
How dare they!
She was not only furious, she was also frightened. That business in Rome … Constant had referred to it several times, under the guise of being solicitous.
“It must have been so humiliating for you,” he’d said.
An unfit mother … would he try to pull off something like that? I must be so careful, she thought fearfully. There mustn’t be anything like that again.
I have to watch myself.
She boarded the plane, and wondered if she was sick, or if it was only nerves. She felt so tired … so weak. And so terribly alone.
She should be in bed. After that bout with pneumonia in Italy. First it had been only a severe cold, and then her lungs had been infected. A week in the hospital, apathetic and her sputum examined every morning.
The scene in the hotel room, at the Excelsior, came back to her, like a crazy record playing over and over. “Room service …”
Only it hadn’t been room service.
A man in her room. A few hours of love. And then the knives flashing. Revenge, Italian style … the brother of the wife of her random lover.
No, don’t think about it, she told herself frantically. Don’t think about that filth.
I wish I were in bed, she thought.
I wish my mother was here.
Mother. Clubwoman and philanthropist. Mother?
I hate her, she thought. I hate everyone.
Nobody would have guessed her distress. She was wonderful looking, in a good knit suit by an Italian couterier, and her hair was shining and clean and carefully tended to. Almost every woman on the flight envied her. She knew that, and she was laughing inside, laughing bitterly.
She was so tired.
She waved aside the light lunch, had two stiff drinks instead, and then dozed lightly. How wonderful a few minutes of forgetfulness was! She dreamed of the Chapin School, where she had prepped; she was playing volley ball in the courtyard. The cries of the other girls came to her, and when she woke it was with a reminiscent smile on her lips.
Then her mouth quivered.
But that was a lifetime ago!
Dazed, she collected her things when the plane put down, her alligator handbag, her small flight carrycase. “Have a nice time,” the stewardess said at the exit door, with one of those sickening professional smiles.
A hell of a lot that insipid girl cared.
There was a cab almost immediately.
Others were waiting, but a driver spotted her unmistakable air of affluence.
“The Hotel Madrid,” she told the driver.
“Si, Senora.”
“And hurry, please.”
“Si.”
She knew he would. Anyone looking at her realized she was good for a sizeable tip. It had always been that way. Money and privilege was part of her background. You paid for it; you got it.
Her face was set. She wasn’t all that eager to see her son; she was only determined to drag him away from her husband’s brother. The gall of the man! And that tarty wife of his …
Smoldering, she lit a cigarette. In the rear view mirror she saw the driver’s curious glance. His eyes were bright and inquisitive.
She glared back at him, and his eyes slewed away.
There was a bottle — several bottles — in her bags. She was dying to get one out, take a drink. But that would have to wait. It was very hot, and the perspiration dewed her forehead and the back of her neck.
What am I and where am I going? she asked herself desolately, and leaned despondently against the leather of the seat.
“Is it much farther?”
“Very soon now,” he said.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
“But, perdon. There is a speed limit, Senora.”
“All right, but as fast as you can,” she said, and pulled out her cigarettes.
Why couldn’t she be happy? Others were happy. Why did she have to feel so wretched?
He didn’t have to die, she thought, blaming her dead husband for leaving her all alone. She had never loved him, but … he had taken care of her, kept her from —
An old, ghastly fear returned to her. It was a commonplace in these latter days. I’ll end up in the gutter, she thought. I know it. I always knew it.
Why should she think things like that?
She saw the driver looking back at her again. This time she didn’t glare. Because there was such open admiration and respect in his eyes. The man thought she wa
s beautiful, was aristocratic. There was veneration in his look. He could tell she was a superior person.
For a moment she felt a little better.
“Is there anything the Senora wishes?” the driver asked, fawning.
“Thank you. No. Just get me to the hotel as fast as you can. It’s a very hot day.”
“Very hot, yes. I will do the best I can.”
All he wanted was money, she thought, her mood shifting again. A big, fat tip. Well, he’d get it. What did all that matter?
Her hands gripped the seat. That bitch, Dolores.
And Constant …
The final showdown.
“You don’t deserve to have a boy like that.”
“Why, why?” she had screamed. “I have a life to live! I’m a young woman. Are you any better, with that woman from the Basura …”
“My brother would turn in his grave.”
I’m so tired, she thought. So God damned tired.
Her head lolled, and if she had guessed what she looked like, as she fell asleep, she would have been horrified. Her young face was suddenly haggard; her mouth fell open and her jaw dropped. The circles under her eyes became puffs, ugly and disfiguring. Her whole aspect changed, became shocking.
The driver saw the transformation, felt pity, and put his foot on the gas pedal. Poor woman, he thought vaguely. Poor American woman. They lived such crazy lives, in that insane country.
• • •
The Hotel Madrid in Seville, a former monastery, was very lovely. It leaned on simplicity, was a little like the fine, quiet hotels in the Provence of France. There was the feeling of being in a retreat, due to its monastic aspect.
An inner courtyard with great old trees was one of its most beautiful features, and before starting out on their sightseeing tour the travelers refreshed themselves there. Richard with his coke and Steve and Kelly with a tonica. They had arrived in Seville at just after one. The change in temperature was immediately apparent. Seville was the heart and capital of Andalusia; here the heat really scorched. You could feel it burning, thickening your tongue and slowing up speech.
Their investigatory tour of the city was faintly apathetic. Richard yawned constantly, complaining that he was terribly thirsty, and after visiting the Torre de Oro, the Tower of Gold on the banks of the Guadalquivir River, they went into a nearby posada and had more liquids.
“What else is there to see here?” Richard asked, his eyes half closed.
“We should go to the Plaza de Espana. Wake up, Rich.”
“It’s just so hot.”
“Stop grousing.”
“I’d like to take a dip in a pool.”
“Sorry, the Hotel Madrid doesn’t have a pool. Drink your coke and let’s get going.”
The Plaza de Espana was worth it, however, with its subsections celebrating, in gorgeous tiles, the medieval kingdoms and historical provinces of Spanish Iberia: Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Old and New Castile, Estramadura, Galicia, Leon, Murcia, Navarre and Valencia.
The sun beat down, but there were interior spaces where the sheltering stone formed cool oases, where you began to perk up … until you went outside again, and wilted in the hot glare.
Even Steve was glad to call it a day after that.
“Too muggy,” he said. “Let’s get back to that air conditioning.”
They went to their rooms and did as the natives did; observed siesta.
At seven in the evening, it was better. There was a slight breeze stirring in the courtyard. Kelly, tanned and her nose peeling, sipped her martini, looking pensively at the tiny colored lights strung from the trees. It was still strong daylight, but the foliage darkened the garden.
The little colored lights were so pretty, so festive.
This was the last stopping-off point. In a few days she would be going home.
Steve was laughing at Richard’s attempt at the Spanish “c”, the lisped consonant that threw so many Americans.
“Andaluthia,” he said. “It sounds as if you had a tooth missing.”
Felipe, one of the men at the desk, came out and looked around, spotted them and walked over to the table.
“Buenas noches.”
“Same to you,” Steve said.
And then Felipe bent to him and said something in his ear.
Kelly didn’t pay much attention. She was writing postcards. “I don’t know,” she said to Richard, when he wondered what was up. She had no sense of drama unfolding; so much for telepathy and extra sensory perception. “Dear Mother,” she wrote on the back of a highly-colored postcard view of the Giralda. “Andalusia is very charming and we’ve all had a marvelous time. I don’t know how this will end, but — ”
She looked up abstractedly. How would it end? Was it just a summer romance?
There had been other summer romances.
Richard sucked on his coke, bottoms up. It was only an hour away from dusk, and the birds were getting ready for their night’s roosting. They were chirping madly. She sipped her martini and pushed the postcards aside. How could you keep your mind on mundane things?
“I gotta have another coke,” Richard said. “This heat makes me thirstier than — ”
“You’ll turn into a coke,” Kelly said absently.
And then Steve came out from inside the darkening hotel. In his wake was a tall, stunning girl … woman. A woman with very dark hair and a too-controlled face. As if she had a stomach ache but wasn’t going to let anybody know it. Her clothes were fabulous … a navy knit with a red belt. A huge alligator handbag in that expensive shade of cherry-red.
A very beautiful woman, walking just in back of Steve.
There was no way she could know, but somehow she knew.
She sat up straight. And saw Richard’s open mouth, his wide, unbelieving eyes. He looked quickly at Kelly and then flushed.
“It’s my mother,” he said in a low voice. “Jaysus … how did she ever find me here?”
CHAPTER 13
Steve was marvelous. That was a man, Kelly thought, who knew how to handle a situation. Good or bad. Anything. He was at present ordering a third very, very dry martini for Mrs. Comstock. He had already seen to à room for her. He was all but holding her hand, and she loved it. Her eyes kept going to him.
Halfway through the third drink her voice slurred a bit. She was telling them of her misfortunes. “Imagine,” she said. “I called home, to New York, and found that Richard wasn’t there. Imagine!”
She turned in her chair so that she was facing Steve, with her back more or less to the others. “The child was sent over here without my knowledge or consent, and I only found out about it because I called my housekeeper.”
“That must have been upsetting,” Steve said soothingly.
“Everything was upsetting. There was … a little trouble … in Rome. And then I learned that my child was in Spain. With strangers!”
She had the grace to lower her eyes apologetically. “But please forgive me. You’ve been so … you’ve been better than his uncle! Imagine foisting a young boy off on perfect strangers, just like that.”
She swigged a little bit more of the drink and set the glass sharply down on the table.
“I’ll never forgive him. My lawyer will hear about this.”
Nobody else was saying anything; except for an occasional sympathetic grunt from Steve, Mrs. Comstock was doing all the talking. Richard had his eyes down. His face was tight; he looked, suddenly, like a little old man.
I suppose I should help Steve cope, Kelly thought. But how? What could you say?
What could you say when the son looked so distressed and the mother was getting tighter by the minute? The heat, of course, made heavy drinking inadvisable, to say the least. Even Steve had been going light since they’d hit Seville. But Mrs. Comstock was packing them away, not sipping but frankly guzzling.
Her heart went out to Richard, who only a minute before had been laughing, relaxed and happy. Oh, poor child.
With the fourth drink Mrs. Comstock realized her own plight, got to her feet unsteadily but made no gaffes. She simply said, “My word, I must get some sleep. I think it would be friendly if someone would show me up to my room.”
Kelly got up right away.
“I’ll go with you,” she said easily, and took the woman’s arm.
Not that Richard’s mother really needed help. She managed very well. Her eyes might be glazed and slightly watery, but she handled herself creditably. Her room was a good room, and the air conditioner hummed pleasantly.
“You’re very nice,” the woman said. “Now let’s see … I just need my travel case. The little one, the Vuitton. A nightie, that’s all. Can you find it?”
“Is this it?”
“Yes. Oh, thank you. You’re so sweet. What’s your name, dear?”
“Kelly Jones.”
“I must remember that.”
She started shedding garments. The dress, the underwear. The body underneath was rail-thin, but elegantly put together. A good, strong body … but for how long?
“That’s a nice man,” Mrs. Comstock murmured, pulling the nightgown over her head. “Who is he, anyway?”
“A friend of ours.”
“Ours?”
“Richard’s and mine.”
For a second a good, sound intelligence flickered in the liquor-dazed eyes. “I see,” Mrs. Comstock said dryly, and pointed to another small case. “Could I ask you to be an angel and open that?”
When opened, the case revealed a cache of liquor. There were several flasks. “That one,” Mrs. Comstock said, pointing, and Kelly obediently took the flask out.
“It’s vodka,” the woman said, with a defiant smile. “That’s always the best, you know. Maybe you don’t know yet, but some day you will.”
She unscrewed the cap, tipped up the flask and drank.
There was a quick little shiver of the slender shoulders in the beautiful, frothy nightgown. Then she got into bed. Her eyes, looking up from the pillows, were dark, long-lashed, unfocussed.
“I’ll be all right now,” she said.
“Sure there’s nothing else I can get you?”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 61