***
“Senor Sanchez has invited us to his villa tomorrow evening for dinner,” Uwe said from the front passenger seat, as the taxi sped along the auto-pista.
“That’s very nice of him,” Lucy replied, wondering if she had been invited too as she had never seen inside a Spanish villa.
“We will meet his family,” said Heiko, his voice sounding happy at the prospect. “ His wife, who I hear is an excellent cook and he has two sons and his daughter we saw this morning.”
“His daughter?” said Lucy. “ Was that the young woman who came in with Mr. Sanchez?”
“Yes, she is a very beautiful lady, don’t you think?”
***
“I saw a sign up on the dining room window saying that they’re having a Quiz in the Sunlight Bar at eleven. Do you want to go?” asked Betty, as she and Nobby came out after a late breakfast.
“I don’t think there’ll be much else to do, Betty. Shall we sit over there by the patio doors and read our books for now?”
“Seems like a good idea, just look at that rain sheeting down the window. Oh, but do you think you can fetch my postcards from the bedroom and I can write them while we wait?”
“Is there anybody sitting here?” asked a tall, slim, white haired gentleman to Betty, after Nobby had settled her on the settee, whilst she rootled through her handbag looking for her address book and pen.
“Not at the moment,” Betty replied pleasantly. “ My husband has gone to get me my postcards, so I think you can perch for a little while.”
“Well thank you,” said Harry, lowering his self beside her. “ Have you been here long? I don’t seem to have seen you around.”
“We got in on Tuesday, but as you can see from my wheelchair I haven’t got a lot of mobility, so we tend to stay in our room a lot, mostly on the balcony.”
“Which is not a place to be on a day like this,” said Harry, commiserating. “ I go home on Friday. In fact, I think this place will be quite empty once our contingent has gone. Unless of course there will be replacements arriving off the aeroplanes.”
“You sound like a military man,” Betty smiled. “ My father used to talk like that.”
“Yes, I’ve done my share in defending our country. I saw action in Egypt and was based in Cyprus for a while.”
“Oh, you must meet my husband. He did a short spell of service at Dekelia Barracks. Now isn’t it a small world?”
***
“I thought there wouldn’t be much room in the foyer, Gary,” said Tracy, as they too came out of the dining room, looking for somewhere to sit while they decided what to do.
“We’ll move up for you if you like, love,” said a chap, sitting with a dark curly haired young woman on one of the settees. “ Me and Cindy can cuddle up, can’t we, sweetheart?”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Gary, offering Tracy the choice of where she would like to sit. “ No fun indoors if the entertainment is usually outdoors, is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, a couple of young lovers like us can usually find something to do. Isn’t that right, Cindy?”
“You’re pushing it,” said Cindy wryly.
“Have you been here long?” asked Phil, who found himself next to Tracy, while Gary perched on the arm of the settee.
“Since last Friday,” said Gary proudly. “Tracy and I are a honeymoon couple.”
“Are you now?” said Phil, leering at them and nudging Cindy. “ Then I don’t have to tell you what you should be doing on a rainy day.”
“Phil!”, said Cindy, watching Tracy’s face that had gone quite pink. “ Not everyone has the same brand of humour as you.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, putting his hand on Tracy’s knee, which he felt flinch beneath her peach joggers. “She’s right, I apologize.”
“And when did you arrive?” asked Gary, trying to keep the conversation going, because he had to admit the last few days with Tracy had been quite trying, when there had just been each other to talk to.
“Tuesday. Has the weather been this bad while you’ve been here?”
“Well, this is the first day of rain. It’s been quite hot really since we came.”
“How do you fancy making up a foursome at the quiz later?” asked Cindy, suddenly thinking that it would be quite nice to share the morning with another couple. Phil was being a pain at the moment, wasn’t texting his ex-wives and children and trying his hardest to make up to her. It got on her nerves quite frankly, she wasn’t used to having his sole attention.
“A foursome?” said Tracy. “What do you think Gary?”
“Yes, we’ll have a little wife swap,” said Phil roguishly. “Are you up for that?”
***
“Oh no,” said Lucy, as she, Uwe and Heiko walked into the booking hall at Loro Parque. “ Look, there’s a notice up there saying that two of the shows have been cancelled.”
“You’ve noticed it then?” said one of the men from the large group, as he came over to the rep’.
“Are they going to give us a refund, do you think?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Lucy, her spirits plunging as she saw the dismayed faces around her.
“I suppose because the shows are in the open air, the management think that no one will want to watch them if they have to sit outdoors. There’s the Aquarium and the Orchid House that are under cover and there are plenty of restaurants and cafes for you to shelter in.”
“Trust us to pick a rainy day,” said an older woman, who looked as if she was the grandma. “ But come on everybody let’s make the best of it, I’m sure it’s not going to rain all day.”
With typical British fortitude the group moved off, sharing umbrellas and gathering the kids together, who didn’t mind puddle jumping or getting their clothes and shoes wet.
Lucy thanked her lucky stars that Mr. Keegan and his family had already gone ahead of the others, or he would be another one who would be asking for a refund too.
***
“So Lucy,” Uwe said, after he and Heiko had looked on while listening astutely to the rep’s way of handling the grumbles. “Where shall we start to view the inmates of this animal kingdom?”
“I have a guide here,” she said, spreading it out on a ledge under a window sill. “ We could walk the route if you don’t mind getting wet, or we could go to the cafe which is just by the Aquarium.”
“We’ll walk the route,” said Uwe. “ A little rain is not going to melt us. So first we will see the Koi carp and continue on to see the gorillas, then onto the Planet Penquin. That’s under cover as well.”
***
“Question 1,” said Mikey, sitting on the stage in the Sunlight Bar, looking over at the quite large group of guests, who were taking advantage of his impromptu quiz game.
“Question 1. Write down the names of the three members of Rat Pack.”
“Easy,” said Nobby, smiling at Harry who had joined him and Betty at their table. “ It’s Frank…”
“Shush,” said Betty, “ someone will hear you.”
“Question 2. Are the clocks turned back or forward in Autumn?”
“Spring forward, jump back,” said Sonya quietly to Greg.
“Question 3. What is the name of the capital of the Azores?”
“Ponta Delgardo,” whispered Tracy to Phil’, because her mother had once called in there on a cruise ship.
“These are too easy,” Lesley whispered to Maureen and Rita, who had asked her to join them when they saw she was alone.
“Speak for yourself,” smiled Rita, who had been given the job of holding the pen.
Mikey went on to read out a total of thirty questions, punctuating his flow with silly little jokes. He felt up beat this morning as Sonya had promised to help him with the afternoon Tea dance and hopefully she might also ask him to share her bed tonight.
***
Paul and Cheryl had decided to tour the estate agents in Los Christianos, seeing it was a rainy day and neither of them w
ere interested in taking part in the Quiz. They had put the children into Kid’s club, although Annabelle still trying to be on her best behaviour, wasn’t very keen on the idea.
“I can help you decide on what house you want to buy, Mummy,” she had said authoritatively. “It would be far more educational for me, than playing jigsaws with Anna. Mummy, please do let me come.”
Cheryl though had been firm, as she had realized that once Paul got home he would be too busy to trail around property exhibitions at the weekend and would use it as an excuse to snatch away her dream.
***
Kath sat glumly at the rep’s desk. There wasn’t a guest in sight as everyone seemed to be in the Sunlight Bar or had gone out on a tour.
She felt she had been given the short straw by her boss at Periquito Travel. She was more than capable of showing the Germans around. Indeed she had more experience than Lucy had. What was the travel industry coming to, when a new recruit was chosen before a woman who had served so many dedicated years? She got up to rearrange leaflets and tour brochures, then pressed the key on her mobile to see if she had missed any calls.
Perhaps it was time to seriously consider handing in her notice. Perhaps she should be thinking of moving on. She would see how Lucy handled this assignment with the German businessmen and if the girl was lauded by Ralf Sanchez and in turn by Robert, she would book a flight back to England and stay with her married sister for a while. It would give her chance to have a rest and examine her options and it would serve Robert right if she left him in the lurch.
“Is this list here on the wall for Gatwick departures still correct?” asked a ginger haired woman in her forties, who had walked by Kath’s desk with her husband and had stopped to scrutinize the notice board. Kath nodded. “We get an update first thing tomorrow morning and if there was any change we’d announce it on the coach.”
“See I told you so,” said the woman, glaring at her husband. “Just ring our Josie tonight and tell her to meet us as we arranged. She could check the flight on Teletext anyway. I told him that you wouldn’t know until tomorrow if there were any changes,” she continued, addressing Kath with a shrug to her shoulders, “ but men don’t listen to they? Didn’t I say to you, Bert, that we wouldn’t know until tomorrow morning if there were going to be changes?”
“You did my love, you did.”
“Have you enjoyed your stay at the Valia?” asked Kath, not really interested whether the couple had or not, but they were a diversion for the time being. “I remember that you came with me on the coach here last Friday, the weather hasn’t been very pleasant though, has it?”
“It hasn’t bothered us,” said the woman, who Kath remembered was called Mrs Parfitt. “ We come to get away from the builders. Our roof blew off just after Christmas and we’ve been staying with our Josie. I said to you, didn’t I Bert, that I’d strangle one of those kids of hers if they kept messing with the remote control like they did. You know, I would just be settling down to watch Eastenders and they’d come in, grab the remote off the side of the armchair and go fishing through the channels for something else. Bert tried to tackle them over it, but our Josie got all huffy with him, didn’t she, Bert? So I said to Bert, that we should go on the Internet and try to find a cheap holiday. Anyway he came up with this one and we’re here now.”
“And will your roof be repaired by the time you get back to England again?”
“Oh, it was repaired a few weeks later, but we didn’t tell our Josie that. It’s cheaper us living at her house, what with the cost of heating our place. She only charged us the price of a couple of bags of groceries each week. But like I said to Bert, if Josie’s starting to get huffy, perhaps it’s time we went back to ours, but we’d have a bit of a holiday first with the money that we’d saved?”
Kath felt cheered up after the couple had wandered off arm in arm, to wait outside the door of the restaurant and be first in when it opened for lunch. What a pair of scroungers, Mr. and Mrs. Parfitt were.
***
“Now swap your papers with the people on the next table to mark, so there’s no cheating,” said Mikey, after he had finished asking all the questions. “ Don’t forget that we are putting on a Tea Dance for all you lovers of the waltz and tango. Come around three o’ clock and at four we’ll be serving refreshments for those who have worked up an appetite. Now, question one. The answer is Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr. You can have a mark for each one that you’ve wrote down.”
“There was another member as well, but the name escapes me for the moment,” said Nobby. “Ah well, it’ll come to me later.”
Mikey continued with the answers, until all thirty questions had been accounted for and there was a tie between Nobby and Lesley’s team.
“We’ll have to have a tie breaker,” said Mikey, who was reluctant to shell out for another bottle of champagne, as this one had been purchased out of the Bingo takings. “ First one to answer…which member of the Bronte sisters wrote Wuthering Heights?”
“Easy,” said Lesley, jumping up from her chair with glee, “ Emily Bronte!” She dashed up to Mikey, who was brandishing the bottle of champagne.
Nobby scowled and muttered that he probably would have said Charlotte.
***
Lucy, Uwe and Heiko came back to the hotel, just as the waiters were clearing the tables in the restaurant in readiness for the evening meal.
“Oh, Miguel,” said Lucy, out of breath from careering down the steps ahead of the two Germans.
“Is there anything left in the kitchen? These two men are guests of Senor Sanchez and I don’t think he would be too pleased if they weren’t given lunch.”
“I can bring you salat and cold meats, Senorita,” Miguel replied, smiling politely and bowing slightly to Uwe and Heiko, who had caught up with Lucy. He knew that these men were very important to the continued success of the hotel, though whether he would be still here when they started sending their clients from Germany he wasn’t sure. Jenny had not returned the telephone message that he had left with her mother, so with a heavy heart, he was thinking of going back home again.
“Gracias,” murmured Lucy to him thankfully, taking her coat off as she said so, then leading the men to a table where it had already been set up for dinner.
“I felt so sorry for those guests at Loro Parque today,” she said, once plates of food had been brought over by Miguel and Juan and a bottle of red wine had been placed before them. “The coach wasn’t leaving until three, so it wouldn’t have been pleasant having to dodge the showers until then.”
The two men nodded sympathetically, as they helped themselves to cheese, ham and a tomato and cucumber salad. They had been glad that Lucy had been able to call for a taxi on her mobile, once they had seen enough to satisfy themselves that Loro Parque could be added to their excursion literature. Even the animals had been loathe to come out of their dens or lairs, to amble in the pouring rain.
“Never mind, they’ll be back soon,” said Lucy brightly. “What would you like to do with the rest of your day?”
“Do you have any suggestions?” asked Uwe. “ Although I think more sight seeing today would not be amenable.”
“I should imagine that the Animacion team would have put on an activity for the guests this morning and probably something will have been planned for this afternoon. When we have finished our meal and taken our coats back to our rooms, we can go to the Rep’s desk and I’ll introduce you to my supervisor. Her name is Kath and she’s been with Periquito Travel since it was started. She’ll know if there’s anything going on.”
***
“Would you like a glass of champagne with us?” asked Lesley, as she appeared at Nobby and Betty’s table in the Sunlight Bar, bearing a tray with six glasses and her bottle of bubbly, followed closely by Rita and Maureen who had made up her Quiz team. “ I thought I would save it until after lunch and we could have a glass to put us in the mood for the Tea dance. Would you mind if we came and joined
you?”
“Not at all,” said Nobby, pleased that the young lady who had won the tie breaker had considered sharing her winnings with them. “ As you can see my wife is unable to dance, but I’m sure she won’t mind if I have my pick of the dances with three gorgeous ladies.”
Rita and Maureen tittered at his forwardness, then made sympathetic noises to Betty.
“Oh, I won’t be in the wheelchair forever,” she said optimistically, to put them at their ease. “ Just a blip in life’s rich tapestry. This time next year I’ll be dancing with Nobby at our local Social club. Anyway, let’s hope that the weather is better tomorrow and we can feel a bit of sunshine on our bones.”
“We’re going home tomorrow,” said Rita. “ Back to rainy old England, though today has acclimatized us somewhat.”
“Have you enjoyed yourself anyway?” asked Nobby, “ that’s the important thing.”
“Oh yes, me and Maureen like getting away together when we can. We’ve got another holiday planned to Cala D’or in May, haven’t we, Maureen?”
Maureen nodded, but her eyes were on Harry who had just walked into the Sunlight Bar.
“Ah, all my favourite ladies in the same room together,” he said to them in his usual charming manner, as he came up to their table. “ And champagne as well, is there a drop left for me?”
“Just a little, enough to wet your whistle, Harry,” Nobby replied. “ Lesley here shared her winnings from the Quiz this morning. Pity you missed it because we could have had you on our team.”
“Some last minute shopping during my constitutional,” Harry said, raising the glass that Lesley had handed to him in a salute to the others. “An egg timer with Costa Adeje on it for my cleaner, a bottle of plonk for my next door neighbour and a little shell jewellery box for my dancing partner, whom I meet once a week at the village bop.”
Rita’s heart sank. If he had a dancing partner back home, he was probably already spoken for.
“Well, this is nice, Nobby,” Harry continued. “A bevy of beautiful ladies to dance with at this impromtu tea dance, begging your pardon, Betty. Ah, here come the M.C ready to start the proceedings. Lesley will you have the first dance with me?”
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