The Mask and Other Stories

by Nesta Tuomey

  “Eureka!” she cried, holding it out. “I knew we’d find it.”

  “Brilliant! Oh, thank you, thank you, dear Sandy,” Millie cried humbly, slipping it lovingly back on her finger. “You’re a real friend!” And then she was off back upstairs to celebrate its return with the last of the brandy. Kneeling on the bed she tenderly proposed a toast in much of her old besotted manner, “To Spanish men, and to one in particular - José Luis.”

  “To Spanish men!” echoed Carol and Sandy, exchanging meaningful looks. ‘Oho! Maybe Millie is really serious about this one,’ they mused, in bed at last. ‘He may even be the one!’

  However, if Millie had forgiven José Luis it seemed that he had not forgiven her. The next day came and went without even a glimpse of him. Millie’s mood, which had bordered on the wildly confident, gradually became brittle and don’t-carish. Endless post-mortems took place and there were replays of conversations in which she told him exactly what she thought of him and went through the charade all over again of taking off his ring and flinging it back in his face.

  A happy, sunny Millie with everything going her way could at times be hard to bear. An edgy, slighted Millie, while undeniably more humble and inclined to tolerance, was virtually no less difficult to live with. Her friends sighed and exchanged long-suffering looks as they trailed her in and out of the discos, firmly discouraging the advances of the muscular young Spaniards eagerly following in their wake. Better not add any more complications to their lives, they had wearily decided beforehand, generously prepared to put their own love life on hold. “Well, at least,” they amended, “until Millie no longer has need of our support.” After all, it was no big deal. Merely what friends did for each other.

  And then, as suddenly as it had flared up, the quarrel was over. José Luis was waiting for them when they got back to the apartment that night full of abject apologies and involved explanations about some family bereavement in Cadiz which had prevented him from calling these past two days on his “preciosa Millee.”

  “¡Mi querida! I have missed you. Mucho tiempo,” he whispered, after a polite bow in the girls’ direction, always so courteous. Tactfully, they went on upstairs leaving Millie to him, wondering if she would soon follow or whether she would give José Luis the second chance they had urged.

  Thankfully, Millie opted for magnanimity and, after an initial show of coolness, she allowed herself be wooed back to the happy, frivolous Millie of before, José’s name ever on her lips. And now, a day later, she was telling the girls how he was bringing her home to meet his mother, an amazing revelation invoking cries of surprise, quickly turning to envy. Oh lucky, lucky Millie!

  Yet, for a girl so favoured, Millie was showing none of the joy associated with so thrilling an event. Even the announcement itself came almost reluctantly from her lips, “He says he wants me to meet his mother,” uttered doubtfully, without any of the usual coy complacency with which she was in the habit of revealing proofs of José Luis’s devotion. And following it with another that was equally out of character. “She’ll probably hate me.”

  Not like Millie to denigrate herself. The others smiled in uneasy sympathy.

  “Nonsense!’’ they protested. “She’ll adore you.” How could she not! The sight of the dark good-looking Spaniard beside the elegant golden ripeness that was Millie’s could only cause a lump in the throat of any Spanish matron possessing a modicum of sympathy with the desires of her darling son.

  “Do you really think so?” Millie seemed in need of reassurance as she listlessly turned her attention to what she would wear. All at once the light-hearted holiday romance begun with only one object in mind, to prove to herself that Pierre was not the only man on her beach, had suddenly taken a turn she had never, except in fun, predicted. For the first time in her confident young life Millie was unsure. The prospect of actually committing herself to a promise of marriage, serious at the best of times and in Spain attended by all the rigid taboos and ancient customs of a patriarchal society, was beginning to daunt her.

  What am I letting myself in for, she wondered, as well she might.

  They don’t understand, was her next thought, as she regarded her friends’ elated faces with something like hate. All they could see were diamond rings and bridal veils. Admittedly, Millie had already spent quite a considerable amount of time envisaging such things herself. But now, practical rather than romantic aspects of a foreign marriage burdening her spirits, she would have given anything just then to be one of them again, with nothing more challenging planned for that afternoon than a stroll through the town. I’m too young, she thought in panic. I have so many wonderful things to achieve, so many marvellous places yet to see.

  “I’ll never be ready.” Now Millie was in a panic over her looks. For some reason she had taken it into her head to wash her already perfect hair. Why, she didn’t quite understand except that she was nervous and to do so always soothed her. Only this time it was not doing its usual magic. Her head was wet for nothing and would never be dry before he came. It’s so unfair, she thought. I should be the happiest girl in the world. But I am really, she silently protested. Or will be when I get more used to the idea. If only José Luis had given me more notice, she fretted, but he hadn’t said a word until that morning when she had met him for their usual coffee and pastry brunch. Oh, but how carefree I was then, mourned Millie, willing back the clock.

  “I’ll never be ready,” she said again in despair.

  It’s as if she doesn’t want to be ready, the other two thought, uncertain how to react to this strange Millie, so nervy and unsure.

  “Put something on for the love of Mike,” Carol, ever practical, instructed. “I’ll lend you my hairdryer.” She went to rummage in her case, emerging a moment later with it in her hand.

  “It’s no good, it won’t fit,” Millie groaned, as she tried in vain to push the three-pin plug into the two-pin wall socket, which like everything electrical in the apartment hung by a frayed wire. The others saw that she was right but it was not something any of them had been concerned about until then. Always before, they had allowed the sun to do the work for them.

  “What we need is a screwdriver,” Carol said, realizing that the plugs from the table lamp and the hairdryer were interchangeable. She delved in her handbag and, having found what she sought, wiggled ineffectually at the screws with her nail file.

  “It’s all hopeless,” cried Millie in tragic accents. She might have been decrying something other than a non-functioning hairdryer.

  “José’s here,” warned Sandy, keeping watch on the stair.

  “Look, it’s no use,” Millie declared. “I’m not going.”

  “But you must!” Sandy was shocked. “His mother’s expecting you.”

  “Oh, hang his mother.” Uncharacteristically, Millie burst into tears.

  Sandy turned back in embarrassment to block the Spaniard’s way as he arrived in the doorway, reproach in his velvet glance. Almost certainly he had heard.

  “Is Millee ill?” José Luis asked in alarm, trying to see beyond into the room.

  “I don’t think you should go in,” Sandy weakly advised, remembering how Millie had looked only minutes before, half-naked, water dripping on her neck. But when she put her head round the door she found to her relief that Millie was decently attired in a blue gingham dress and apparently quite recovered from her hysteria.

  José brushed impatiently past. “Millee,” he cried. “Mi preciosa, what on earth is the matter?”

  Wordlessly, Millie pointed to the hairdryer.

  The Spaniard looked from her to it in astonishment.

  “My hair is wet,” she told him, as though imparting some great truth. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be ready in time.”

  “Is that all?” José Luis was nonplussed. “¡Madre di Dios! I thought it was a serious matter.” He took a penknife from his pocket and, in seconds, had the hairdryer gently buzzing. “My mother is not a gorgon, you know,” he murmured gently, bu
t with a gleam of understanding in his brown eyes. “She will not turn us to stone if we are a minute late.” Reverently, he directed the heat at Millie’s dark gold tresses.

  “Oh, you know how it is,” Millie said vaguely, and gave an exaggerated shudder as the hot air blew on her neck. “Ooh, you’re scorching me. Here, let me have that.” With something of her old self-possession she took the dryer out of his hand and firmly pushed him towards the door leading to the balcony.

  “Go sit in the sun,” she bossed. “Go on! I’ll be ready in a minute.”

  Obediently, the Spaniard allowed himself to be evicted. The other two eyed each other. “Crises over!” whispered Carol in relief, and Sandy nodded tremulously, only glad Millie was herself again.

  The Millie who swept out of the apartment on José Luis’s arm some time later, with her gleaming tresses falling silkily to her shoulders, was very much herself again, in control of the situation and her emotions. Her friends warmly waved her off, not unlike parents overseeing the departure of their beloved only child on her very first trip abroad without them. Proud and anxious by turns, wanting only for her safety and happiness. And then, as one, they rushed onto the balcony to watch Millie emerging into the courtyard, and leaning precariously far over the rail to chart her progress up the street with the adoring José Luis in tow. Wistfully, they watched the closely entwined figures until they were out of sight, and then wandered back inside unable to settle to anything, overcome by a sense of anti-climax.

  As the afternoon and evening slowly passed they whiled away the hours wandering through the town and nibbling tapas in their favourite bars, all the time wondering how Millie was getting on with José Luis’s mother and speculating on how soon it would be before they heard all about it. “Or how long,” said Sandy, dolefully expressing what was in their minds. “Perhaps she won’t come back at all tonight.”

  But they need not have had any fears on that score for the visit had gone very well – fantastically well - and Millie had every intention of returning to the apartment while the memory of her triumph was still fresh, to give them a blow by blow account.

  Before that could happen, though, Millie needed to be alone with José Luis and to tell him a few things he was longing to hear. And while she did, the Nerja moon rode the high heavens and cast its luminous light over them as they stood close-pressed together on a promontory overlooking the sea.

  What an incredible moon, thought Millie dreamily, nowhere else in all her travels had she ever seen anything to match its brilliance. It was only equalled by the glow she felt in her heart for this tall young Spaniard in whose arms she rested and whose ruby and pearl betrothal ring she now wore proudly on her finger. For since the first approving smile from his mother, the friendly “Holas!” from his sisters and admiring “Guapas!” from his brothers, all of whom subsequently revealed hitherto unsuspected artistic and musical talent, Millie had felt so thoroughly at home with her lover’s family it was as though she had known them all her life; indeed, she was not a little awed by the similarity of their aims and ambitions to her own. And to think she had not realised that her José Luis was an artist in his own right.

  ‘Come with me, Bella,’ begged his doting mother when Millie had finished sipping the delicious limonada put before her, and leading the way into the sun-lit studio adjoining the patio. There she showed Millie the proofs of her son’s artistry, pointing out the Andalusian pottery on display, the hand-painted ceramics of striking and unusual design and murmuring proudly. “¡Que talento tiene mi hijo!”

  And now beside her the talented one, in turn, was murmuring, “Tengo mucha suerte!” acknowledging his good luck in having met her, the love of his life, and Millie, passionately returning his kiss, had to admit in her heart that she too, was lucky in so many ways, not least being given the opportunity of settling down with him in this wonderful inspiring country. No need to regret the Pyrenees, she told herself joyously, when not too far off there was the magnificent Sierra Blanca to feast her eyes upon, or to the north ‘the Snowy Mountains’ ranging between Granada and the sea, and all the exquisite examples of Moorish art and architecture just waiting to be captured on canvas. With new insight she wondered how it was she had ever entertained such foolish fears that to marry and settle in Spain would mean the death knell to her artistic dreams and aspirations when, in actual truth, it was the key to an exciting new creativity. Filled with optimism she saw herself producing her greatest artistic work yet for she was convinced now that all along the spirit of this unusual country had been powerfully working in her, and on her behalf, since her first moment of setting foot in Nerja.

  This exhilarating viewpoint was warmly shared by her friends later that evening when she danced into the apartment to show off her ring and fill them in on the exciting events of the afternoon. “We have felt its power too,” Sandy admitted in awe. “To be honest I don’t think any of us will be quite the same ever again.” And even Carol, who was the least fanciful of the three, confessed under the intoxicating influence of the celebratory Babycham (for want of the real thing) and which she’d had the foresight to buy earlier, her own earnest belief in the mystical quality of the amazing place.

  Sprawled comfortably on the balcony in the fragrantly scented night air, gazing at the same brilliant Spanish moon that had earlier prompted Millie to envision her future with her Spanish lover in a totally new and exciting way, they toasted the absent José Luis “the Spaniard who had achieved the impossible” and succeeded in bringing about Millie’s amazing volte-face; something that in her case none of her friends would have believed possible. Certainly not when they recalled the career-minded, headstrong Millie whose dream of an altogether different life she had so firmly mapped out since childhood.

  And when the last drop of the fizzy stuff had been carefully and fairly shared out between their glasses it was Sandy who dreamily put into words the irrefutable truth, “It could only have happened in Nerja!”

  ***