Worthy of Marriage

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Worthy of Marriage Page 8

by Anne Weale


  ‘I can manage, thanks.’

  Watching them, Lucia thought the girl might as well have been a steward for all the notice he took of her. The immaculately lipsticked mouth maintained its smile, but Lucia knew she was piqued by his total indifference to her considerable charms. What would it take to make him exert his charm? Obviously more than Miss World looks.

  Another stewardess materialised. ‘A drink for you, sir?’

  ‘Thank you. The same as these ladies, please.’

  As he finished arranging his belongings, Lucia recovered from the shock of his arrival. She stood up. ‘Let me sit there and you sit here.’

  ‘No, no—you’re fine where you are.’

  He placed his hands on her shoulders to make her sit down. It was a light casual gesture that had an effect far beyond what he intended. The brief pressure of his palms and fingertips set up a frisson that went all the way to her toes.

  Shaken, she resumed her seat and Grey sat down alongside her, the generous seating space allowing even his long legs to stretch out in comfort.

  ‘Now we can really relax,’ Rosemary murmured happily, her aside not intended for her son’s ears. ‘If there are any complications, Grey can handle them.’

  Lucia managed to smile, but it wasn’t the way she felt about his arrival. She had been more relaxed before he showed up. Now the pleasure of her first visit to Spain was going to be tempered by the feeling of being under critical scrutiny.

  Finding the village wasn’t difficult. Finding the house, without Grey to ask directions, would have been. It was in a narrow street and, from outside, did not look anything to write home about, all its windows shuttered, its front door screened by a plastic blind.

  Grey had to roll this up out of the way before he could unlock the door. The two women entered a dark hall with several doors leading off it. The one Rosemary opened led into a large kitchen with, only dimly visible, a small window on the street side and another taller window at the other end.

  While Rosemary dealt with the shutters at the window above the sink, Lucia went to draw the long cotton curtains screening the second window. They hung from a wooden rail close to the ceiling and their hems almost touched the clay-tiled floor.

  Parting the curtains did not admit any light because outside the glass was a blind similar to the one on the front door. She was trying to fathom how to raise it when Grey came up behind her and located a length of strong tape hidden by the right-hand curtain. But when he pulled on it, the blind didn’t budge. He then opened one of the sliding glass panes, disturbing a scuttle of small spiders, and undid a couple of screws half hidden by cobwebs that were holding the blind in place.

  The scene now exposed to view made Lucia give a small gasp of pleasure. Outside was a narrow railed terrace and beyond it, at a lower level, a courtyard about the size of a tennis court. Its walls were covered with creepers and just visible above the top of one wall were the Roman-tiled roofs of the house in another street on a much lower level than the one outside No 12. Beyond the mellow old rooftops could be seen a large expanse of vineyards and, beyond them, a range of mountains.

  ‘Can’t fault the outlook,’ said Grey, bringing her back to a sharp awareness of how close together they were standing. Then he moved away. ‘What’s behind here, I wonder?’

  She turned to find him releasing the brass catches holding a pair of folding doors in place.

  ‘What an unusual ceiling,’ said Rosemary, making Lucia look up at the exposed rafters with the plaster between them forming a series of concave curves. The rafters were painted white and the ceiling and walls a pale terracotta colour.

  As Grey folded the doors back, an adjoining room was revealed. It also had two tall windows and now that she knew what to do, Lucia dealt with one while he did the other. Moments later the second room was filled with light, revealing it as an informal sitting room, the walls lined with books and pictures. Several large logs were visible behind the glass of a closed stove flanked by two comfortable-looking slip-covered sofas.

  ‘This is delightful,’ said Rosemary. ‘For a minute I was beginning to wonder what we had let ourselves in for. Let’s explore the bedrooms, shall we?’

  ‘While you’re doing that, I’ll bring in the luggage,’ said Grey.

  The house had a bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor, and two more bedrooms sharing a bathroom upstairs.

  ‘Grey had better have the downstairs room,’ said his mother. ‘We’ll sleep up here. I’m used to a double bed, so I’ll have this room.’

  Lucia was pleased to be given the twin-bedded room because, while both rooms had two windows, hers were on different walls, giving different views of the surrounding mountains. She was looking at a framed collage of postcards from around the world, when she heard Grey coming up the stairs. After putting his mother’s case in her room, he came along the landing with Lucia’s suitcase.

  Placing it on the bed nearest the door, he glanced round the room. ‘I shouldn’t care to have strangers in my house. Would you?’

  ‘Perhaps they need the money they get from letting it,’ she suggested.

  ‘Perhaps, though the way it’s appointed doesn’t suggest any shortage of funds.’ He tapped the antique tall-boy near where he was standing.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But perhaps they’ve had some reverses since they bought and furnished the house. Plans don’t always work out. Things go wrong for people. Sharing your house with strangers must be better than having to sell it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Grey said, with a shrug.

  As he left the room, she thought how difficult it must be for a man who, all his life, had been cushioned by wealth, to understand what it felt like to be pinched for money.

  The next day, while the two women were painting, Grey drove to the coast to see how much a small fishing port he remembered from his gap year had changed in the interval. It proved to be almost unrecognisable. Then scarcely more than a village, it was now a large and still-growing resort with new roads and roundabouts to accommodate the increased traffic.

  But the small cove beyond the harbour was still much the same as it had been eighteen years ago. He spent an hour swimming and snorkeling before returning to the main seafront to have coffee in one of the many pavement cafés catering to tourists and to the elderly foreigners, obviously spending their retirement here, of whom he saw a large number.

  On his way back to where he had parked the car, he noticed a bookshop, its window full of second-hand paperbacks, mostly with English titles. It crossed his mind that they might have a copy of a book his mother had been talking about at breakfast and Lucia had said she would like to read when they got back to England. He went inside and enquired.

  Grey had gone to bed early, because he had bought a book he wanted to read in private, when there was a tap on his door. He closed the book and put it face down on the night table, taking another from the small stack before calling, ‘Come in.’

  His mother entered, wearing the blue cotton kimono he had brought back from a business trip to Japan.

  ‘It’s not like you to turn in so early, darling. Are you feeling off colour?’ she asked.

  He smiled at her. ‘I’m feeling fine. I was up earlier than you were.’

  He had gone out at first light and walked for an hour, following a track alongside the dry bed of the river. Large oleander bushes growing among the stones showed how rarely water flowed there.

  Mrs Calderwood sat down on the end of the bed. ‘It was nice of you to buy that book for Lucia. Are you feeling more kindly disposed towards her than you were at first?’

  ‘You know I can’t pass a bookshop. I happened to spot it when I was looking round.’

  ‘That’s dodging the question,’ said his mother.

  ‘Not so. I haven’t examined my feelings about her. Men don’t spend the hours in self-analysis that women do,’ he said dryly. ‘Not unless it’s to do with something important such as business.’

  ‘Human
relationships are very important,’ said Mrs Calderwood. ‘If you weren’t liking Lucia better than you did at first, I don’t think you’d have bothered to buy the book for her. I don’t see how anyone could fail to like her, once they get to know her.’

  ‘I haven’t spent as much time with her as you have. She seems a more acceptable person than I would have supposed a year ago,’ he conceded.

  ‘Sooner or later, I think you ought to have it out with her…why she did what she did. It would clear the air between you.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned all that matters is that she makes herself useful to you. As long as she serves that purpose, she won’t have any problems with me. If she steps out of line, she will. It’s as simple as that.’

  Mrs Calderwood sighed. ‘I suppose your attitude is natural. At least you aren’t as rigidly unforgiving as your father and grandfather. They never transgressed themselves, and they both had draconian views on punishing people who did.’ She wrinkled her forehead. ‘What is the origin of that expression? I ought to know but I don’t.’

  ‘Draco laid down a legal system in ancient Athens. The punishment for almost everything was death,’ said Grey. ‘About a century later another statesman called Solon brought in a more lenient code and founded Athenian democracy.’

  ‘How well-read you are! I’m a terrible ignoramus by comparison…but at least I understand people which I don’t think you always do. “Judge not, that ye be not judged”, my dear.’

  She rose and moved closer to him, bending to kiss his forehead as she had when he was a small boy and she came in to tuck him up.

  ‘It’s lovely to have you here. You’re such a joy to me, Grey. Goodnight. Sleep tight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mum.’

  He watched her leave the room without looking back. There had been a catch in her voice when she said, ‘You’re such a joy to me.’ He guessed that, when she didn’t turn to smile from the doorway, it was because there were tears in her eyes.

  She had always been easily moved but, for much of her life, had kept her feelings under wraps because his father had been embarrassed by emotion. Once, speculating on what their parents’ sex life had been like, Jenny had remarked that it could never have been very satisfactory for their mother. He had agreed with her. But although he could discuss most things with Jenny, there was one thing he had never confided to her, a burden he could not share with anyone.

  Closing his mind to it, he re-opened the book he had been starting before his mother’s knock. It was the autobiography of a man who had spent his life imitating drawings and paintings by the old masters, and selling his work for large sums. He had done it so cleverly he had never been prosecuted. Grey hoped the book might help him to understand the mind of the woman in the bedroom above his own.

  Lucia had heard the faint murmur of voices. Now, lying in bed with the book Grey had bought for her in her hands, she stopped taking in the words on the page and began to wonder how much, if at all, his kindness could be taken as indication that he was relenting towards her.

  She could no longer pretend that his attitude was a matter of indifference to her. Slowly, reluctantly, she had come to realise that gaining his good opinion was increasingly important.

  Perhaps all-important.

  In her bedroom at the other end of the landing, Rosemary also had a book lying open on the turned-back sheet. It was a biography of her favourite cookery writer, but tonight it could not distract her from anxious thoughts about her son. She knew Grey wasn’t happy and the only reason she could find was his failure, so far, to meet the right woman for him.

  Apart from a wife and children, it seemed to her he had everything a man could wish for. He was at the top of his tree in the business world, had the means to maintain an enviable lifestyle and, although he had to work hard, he was able to take frequent breaks in the world’s most exclusive holiday places.

  Probably no one in his large circle of friends suspected that all was not well with him. But, being his mother, she knew there was something amiss.

  Jenny, when Rosemary had broached the subject, had said, ‘You’re imagining it, Mum. Grey has it all, as they say. Most likely he has more and better sex than the average husband. His generation are chary of getting married…and being taken to the cleaners a few years later. If he had to split his assets, the amount his ex would walk away with would be in telephone numbers. And why would he want to have children when he has ours to amuse him…and can hand them back when he’s bored with them?’

  Remembering that conversation, Rosemary had to agree there was a lot of force in Jenny’s observations. Today’s world was utterly different from the time when she had been young.

  ‘But everyone needs to be loved, Jenny,’ she had reminded her daughter. ‘That’s a universal human need.’

  ‘Women need to be loved. Most men would be happy to swop love for power, money and a new trophy wife whenever they’re bored with the current model,’ Jenny had replied. ‘There are exceptions to the rule, but I don’t think Grey is one of them. He’s a realist, not a romantic.’

  The exchange had left his mother depressed. She didn’t want to believe that her adored son had everything but a heart.

  At first, his arrival in Spain had made her wonder if he might be interested in Lucia. But tonight’s brief chat with him had scotched that worrying idea. Rosemary liked the girl very much, and was glad she had been in a position to help her. But, élitest as it might sound to the younger generation, she felt it would be a disaster if Grey started taking a personal interest in Lucia. She had none of the qualities his future wife would need. She was from a different background. Above all, her fall from grace, though forgivable, would never be forgotten. For the rest of her life, there would always be someone raking up her past, reviving the gossip about her. That might not matter to a man who was not in the public eye, but it would be an embarrassment to anyone, like her son, whose activities did attract media attention.

  Lucia was driving the hire car to the nearest small town in quest of fresh fish for supper when something shot out in front of her. She couldn’t stamp on the brake because there was a red sports car close behind her. Feeling the impact as the creature was hit by her nearside front wheel, she flinched and switched on her indicator light, tapping the brake pedal hard enough to bring on the brake lights without reducing her speed significantly until the car behind had got the message that she was about to stop.

  It was a straight stretch of road and she was aware of the sports car pulling out and passing, but most of her mind was focussed on the casualty. As soon as the handbrake was on, she sprang out and ran back to see if the animal had been killed or severely injured.

  It was a small grey cat. At first she thought it was dead. Then it opened its eyes and gave an agonised yowl, scrabbling with its front paws in a vain attempt to get up, despite badly injured back legs.

  For a second or two Lucia froze with horror. She had no idea what to do. If she tried to lift it, it might claw her. There were no houses nearby. Where was a vet to be found?

  The sound of running feet made her glance over her shoulder. The driver of the sports car was coming. Relief flooded through her, to be almost immediately replaced by fresh horror as she saw he was carrying a heavy metal implement.

  He spoke to her in rapid Spanish. The only word she understood was señorita.

  Scrabbling around in her memory, she dredged up a sentence she had learned by heart to explain her minimal command of the language.

  Apparently guessing her nationality from her accent, the man said, ‘Never mind, I speak English. Go back to your car, señorita. I will attend to this animal.’

  ‘But you’re going to kill it. Perhaps, if we took it to a vet, he could save it,’ she protested.

  The Spaniard looked doubtful. ‘It may not be a domestic cat. Many kittens are dumped in the country by people who don’t want them. They either starve or learn to fend for themselves. If they are injured, they can’t hunt. I saw it ru
n in front of your car. It may have been after a mouse.’

  Wondering how he came to speak such idiomatic and almost accentless English, Lucia said, ‘In case it does belong to someone, I think we should try to save it.’

  His shrug and the movement of his free hand was a gesture that, already, she recognised as quintessentially Spanish. ‘Very well…if you insist. Wait here while I get some thick gloves. Even to bring a smile to those beautiful eyes, I will not risk having my hands torn to pieces.’

  For an instant, his own almost black eyes held the teasing gleam of the incorrigible flirt. Then he ran back to his car, leaving her thankful for the luck that had brought him along this road at such an opportune moment.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HALF an hour later, when the cat had been admitted to the nearest veterinary clinic, Julian Hernandez, her rescuer, insisted on taking Lucia for a restorative cup of coffee in a nearby bar.

  She welcomed the chance to have a proper conversation with a Spanish person. When, in answer to his questions, she had explained what she was doing in Spain, she asked, ‘Do you live in this area?’

  ‘No, no, in Barcelona. Have you been there?’

  ‘This is my first time in Spain. I had a glimpse of Alicante as we passed it on the autopista on the way here from the airport.’

  ‘Alicante is nice, but a small unsophisticated place compared with Barcelona. It’s the finest city in Spain.’

  ‘Better than Madrid?’ she asked.

  ‘Much better!’ His dark eyes twinkled. ‘I am a Catalan. For me Barcelona is the best city in the world.’

  ‘What brings you down here?’ she asked.

  ‘The reason I speak such good English is because I had an English nanny when I was a little boy. She didn’t marry until she was fifty-three when she met a man she had loved since she was sixteen. He had married someone else. By the time they met in Barcelona, his wife had died. They came to live on the coast here, the Costa Blanca as it’s called. About ten years ago, Harry died and Nanny decided to move inland. She speaks fluent Spanish and preferred what she calls “real Spain” to the expatriate communities on the coast. But now she is over seventy and I’m trying to persuade her to come back to Barcelona where we can keep an eye on her in her old age.’

 

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