by Fanny Blake
He looked so mortified she felt sorry for him. ‘Oh, I can pay. Of course. I’d like to. Think of it as a thank you for today.’
‘Are you sure?’ He passed over the bill.
‘Of course,’ she said, controlling her expression so it didn’t register her surprise when she saw the total. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
As soon as she’d paid, Dan was on his feet. ‘Let’s go. Or do you want coffee?’ He hesitated.
‘No, I’m ready.’ She didn’t want to leave this idyllic spot but at the same time she wanted to see more of what the island had to offer.
At Deià, they parked on the side of the main road. Dodging the through traffic and the dozens of tourists wandering the pavements, they crossed the road and were soon walking up a hill through a much quieter part of the old town. On the walls of houses were occasional ceramic wall tiles depicting the stations of the cross. As they climbed, sweat trickled down her temple. They stopped for water at a drinking fountain where Dan splashed some over the back of his neck and put his icy hands on hers, so she yelped. Just when she thought she couldn’t go any further, they reached a church.
She was standing looking out past two large cannons to the village falling away below them and the view that extended towards the limestone crags beyond, when he took her hand. ‘This way.’
She was so startled that she let him tug her in the direction of the church door. Once there, he let her go. She entered the dim interior and planted herself on a pew, pretending nothing unusual had happened. Just the touch of a hand. What was the matter with her? Did he feel the same flash of something between them that she had? She hadn’t felt anything for a new man for years. She had written herself off as undesirable, too old, and anyway, she hadn’t wanted to open herself to anyone new. The only men she came across were married to her friends – no-go areas even if she had any inclination. But this … this felt dangerous and unexpected and … wrong. She cleared her throat and concentrated on the music being piped quietly through the church – Allegri’s Misereri. The notes calmed her as she considered the baroque altarpiece, the elaborate tiling and a figure of Christ with what looked like a red tablecloth girding his loins.
Dan was standing in the doorway, waiting for her. Composing herself, she joined him and they stepped outside into the heat of the day again. Around the side of the church, he showed her through two tall grey gates in a wall. Inside, a modest cemetery contained gravestones both vertical and flush with the ground, shaded by yews, olive trees and shrubs. Some of them simply had names and dates scratched in cement, others were more elaborate and finished off with photos of the dead.
Dan sat on a low wall where several English expats were memorialised while Kate explored. They climbed down the vertiginous steps to the terrace below and walked along to the steps back up. When they reached the opposite side of the cemetery, they sat on another wall, looking across the village and surrounding mountains, enjoying the peace.
‘Not a bad place to end up,’ he said.
‘I hope you’re not thinking of ending up here soon,’ she said.
‘I’ve a few things left to do yet.’ His hand rested on the wall just inches from her hip.
When the gate opened to admit a group of chatting tourists, they got up to leave. ‘Like minds,’ he said. ‘And now for something completely different.’
‘I’m not sure I can take in any more.’ She didn’t want too many memories overlaying one another or she wouldn’t remember each one clearly.
‘I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with this.’ He set off down the hill, taking a different path to the one that had brought them up there And she, like a sheep, followed him, hoping, despite herself, that he might take her hand again. After all, it wouldn’t be so very wrong if he was making sure she was steady on the cobbles. But she was disappointed.
Fifteen minutes later, they were walking up a tarmac drive flanked with gnarled olive trees while the greenest manicured lawns she had seen since being in Spain spread out to their left. They arrived at the long wide terrace of a beautiful building. Elegant couples sat at well-spaced tables in the sun or under parasols.
‘Welcome to how the other half live,’ Dan said in an undertone, then flung out his arms in a dramatic gesture. ‘Once manor houses, now a hotel. The hotel. The Residencia. Or The Resi to those of us who have drunk here for decades.’
Kate couldn’t help comparing her dusty shorts and crumpled shirt with the expensive-looking floaty garment on the woman walking past her on immaculately pedicured feet in expensive strappy sandals. She curled her toes inside her dusty Converses.
‘Are we allowed here?’
‘Why not? We have as much right as anyone else.’
They were shown to a table at the edge of the terrace, looking towards the hill they had just climbed, the church at its summit. The waitress didn’t blink at their appearance although Kate felt an impostor, sitting by the balustrade, pouring tea from a silver-plated pot, offering him a sugared fruit jelly sweet. But nobody questioned their presence, and she began to enjoy herself. ‘I could get used to this,’ she said.
‘I don’t meet many women like you.’
The tea splashed into her saucer. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you,’ she said, hiding her fluster by mopping up the spill with a napkin.
‘You’re different.’
‘You should come to the Dales. There are plenty more like me there.’ Her heart was pounding so hard he must be able to hear it.
He was leaning back against the white cushion, hands clasped behind his head. He smiled that smile again. ‘I don’t believe that for a moment.’
They were headed somewhere dangerous, tempting but not somewhere she had an inkling she’d be visiting on this short break. She had to change the subject despite admitting to herself she was enjoying flirting with him – perhaps she wasn’t quite as past it, as she had imagined. ‘Where now?’
‘Valldemossa?’ he suggested, his smile widening as he winked. Again. He knew exactly the effect he was having on her. And yes, more than anything, she wanted to be back on the bike, speeding through the mountains, clinging on to him, the sun on her arms and legs, his smell in her nostrils.
‘I think we should go back,’ she said, exerting every ounce of self-control she possessed. ‘The others will be wondering where we are.’
16
Jane was sitting on the edge of the pool, legs in the water, the sun bright on her face, the conversation from the night before racing through her brain, when her phone rang. Stretching behind her, she picked it up. She had been miles away, not only preoccupied by the previous night but also that night decades earlier when she came home from school and told her mother Amy had lied about Mr Wilson wanting sex for results. Now she’d been prompted, she could recall quite clearly her mother’s outrage. Seeing their art teacher again – if that’s really who he was – had triggered more memories than she cared to admit. She hadn’t behaved well, that was for certain, and she wasn’t sure what she should do about it now.
The ringing of the phone was relentless. She glanced down. David. The thought of her husband was a comfort. She too easily dismissed women who talked about their man being their ‘rock’, but she understood what they meant. David was such a solid presence in her life and provided her with stability and love. Without him, she would be adrift. So why risk it all by continuing her relationship with Rick? This was the question she had asked herself so many times yet failed to find a definitive answer. She was only too aware how wrong and chancy it was. After Barcelona, she would finish with Rick for the last time. After. She lifted her phone. ‘Darling.’
‘Where are you?’ Nothing affectionate, nothing personal. That was unlike him.
‘You know where I am. In Mallorca at Amy’s, my old school friend’s, remember? I told you.’
‘I know that’s what you said.’
‘Do I? Is that all that surprising?’
‘I don’t know until you explain.’ She picked up her suntan oil and sprayed it on both legs, switched her phone to her other hand so she could rub it in more easily.
‘I was at the hospital today.’
‘Are you OK?’ She stopped rubbing and sat still, waiting for his answer.
‘I went with Paul to cheer him on during his chemo.’ He paused as if he was about to say something momentous.
‘You’re such a good friend to him,’ she said, breaking the tension. The two men had known each other since university and had always remained close. ‘How is he?’
‘I bumped into Jonas Fleetwood.’
Jane didn’t know the recent addition to the oncology team well but she could envisage him, dark, bearded, committed. ‘Nice guy.’ They’d all met socially at a party given by one of the other consultants a few weeks earlier.
‘Didn’t you say you were going on to a conference in Barcelona this week when you left Mallorca?’ A chilly finger traced a path down Jane’s spine.
‘Yes. You know I did.’ She shifted position on the lounger.
‘He told me the conference was last week and you opted out of it weeks ago so he could go.’ His voice was icy calm.
She thought fast. ‘This is a different one.’ Would he believe her?
‘Really?’ He didn’t sound one hundred per cent convinced.
‘I’m not sure Jonas would necessarily know about it. It’s a much smaller affair.’ She picked at the cuticle of her thumb until a drop of blood appeared. ‘Honestly, darling. What on earth did you think I was doing?’
‘Who was that text and photo really for?’
Oh God.
‘I told you. For you.’
‘Honestly.’
She could tell how much he wanted to believe her.
‘Honestly. Cross my heart.’
There was a pause. Eventually David broke it. ‘Well then, why don’t I change things round and fly out to join you? There’s a flight I could get on tomorrow morning. I can take the time off and we could spend a few days together.’
Jane’s phone slipped from her hand and cracked on the paving. As she scrabbled to pick it up, her mind was racing. They had reached the point that she had always dreaded. This was the writing on the wall for her and Rick. She couldn’t risk losing David. She had to stop things now before it was too late. She would get hold of Rick the moment this call was over. Or …
‘Why don’t we wait till after the tribunal? We could go somewhere together then when all this isn’t hanging over us?’ The words were out of her mouth before she’d even thought them.
‘But when do you think we’ll hear?’ ‘We’, not ‘you’. The question of a man who supported her in everything she did.
She was ashamed of what she was about to do, despite everything, knowing how devastated he would be if he ever found out. But she had to finish things with Rick face to face. She owed him that. ‘Immediately after the tribunal itself. Just let me get through that and then we’ll take a long weekend wherever you like.’
‘We-ell.’ He didn’t sound entirely convinced.
‘I’ll be working anyway. We’ll hardly see each other.’ The lies fell from her lips as easily as ever. ‘You choose where we go. We can book it when I get back.’
By the time she ended the call, her hand was shaking. If she cancelled Rick, she didn’t trust him not to say or do something that would reach David’s ears. She was also a firm believer that dumping someone by a phone call was a coward’s way out. Her duty was to see him one more time and make things quite clear. They were through. After that the tribunal and its result. Then she would be free to start her life with David again. No more deceit. She lay back in the sun, arms by her side. There was nothing she had to do except wait for the others to return at the other end of the day. But despite the beauty of the morning, her head spun with persistent nagging anxieties.
David and Rick.
She would call Rick and prepare him. She would devote herself to David from next week on. She would. Decision made.
The tribunal.
There was nothing she could do but wait it out. But what if they didn’t find in her favour? What if her action born from her concern for Paul ruined not only her reputation but her career? Surely the tribunal and her colleagues would be lenient when they understood the circumstances, that she had acted in a moment of madness brought on by concern for her son.
Amy and Mr Wilson.
What did happen? She had buried the events of that summer so long ago that it was hard to remember. Had Amy really told her she had lied to Miss Milton? She thought so. She clearly remembered Amy coming out of school the day after ‘it’ had happened. She hadn’t bothered to take her hair out of its school plait or put on any make-up. Instead she had been white with rage, so furious and upset she could barely speak. As she forced herself back to that afternoon, Jane recalled listening to Amy’s almost incoherent account of what had happened, and of her mother’s phone call to Milters asking for Mr Wilson to be suspended. Worse had been her own reaction of frustrated anger that she couldn’t explain.
Even now, lying by the pool, she could feel that sense of powerless frustration all over again. She clenched her fists against the memory. But her anger hadn’t been for Amy, had it? If honest with herself, it had been because Mr Wilson had come on to Amy and not to her. She could barely bring herself to admit the truth. Even now. To this day, none of the others had really cottoned on to the brightness of the torch she’d carried for him.
She had done her best to keep it hidden.
Every art class, she’d wait, eager for his attention, jealous of anyone whom he helped or advised for too long. She would never confess that she was the one who’d buried the sharp modelling tool in a lump of clay so that when Linda, who kept calling him back to explain again the principles of hand-building a clay bowl, banged her hand down on it, the tool went straight through the fleshy bit between her thumb and index finger. Only her scream shocked Jane into realising what a dreadful thing she’d done. And for what? She had thought punishing her friend who was asking for help with her work would be funny. But it wasn’t. It was terrible and shamed her.
It hadn’t occurred to her that the tool would do anything more than bruise Linda’s hand. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to have the attention of a teacher whom she fancied and who didn’t give her the attention she wanted. How flattered he must have been, being worshipped by a classroom of teenage girls awash with rampaging hormones. All except Amy, and perhaps Linda, both of whom were focused on their academic success to the exclusion of almost everything else. Amy’s lack of inerest must have made her a challenge.
How hazy and unreliable memory is.
But what had she, Jane, done? Remembering Amy’s outrage was one thing. But when had Amy confided to her that she had exaggerated what had happened because she thought Mr Wilson’s predatory (not a word she’d have used then, but it would have been the right one) attitude to her and the other girls was out of order, and wanted him shocked out of it? That Jane shouldn’t tell a soul. She must have done, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember the actual moment when that confidence was made.
But that was certainly what she’d told her mother. A couple of days after the event, rumours were travelling all round the school: Mr Wilson was suspended; Mr Wilson was hauled up in front of Miss Milton and they’d had a blazing row as he defended himself; Mr Wilson had left the school; Mr Wilson protested his innocence; Amy lied; Amy only said what other girls could have said; the girls were going to stage a protest on his behalf.
Gradually her memories slipped into place. How desperately she ha
dn’t wanted him to leave. The idea of not seeing him again was unbearable. And the watch. He had taken it off and left it on his desk while he went to wash his hands. It had been the work of a moment to take it and slip it under the books in the nearest desk – Amy’s. An act of simple jealousy and fury because Mr Wilson’s future at the school was under threat. Nobody had seen her. But the fuss that ensued … When no one owned up, Mr Wilson insisted on making it a police matter.
She used to hang around the classroom at lunchtime or at the end of the day, hoping to catch him. But having seen him last night at William’s party, she was hard-pressed to imagine what she once saw in him. Then, he had been handsome, arty in his jeans, a shock of sandy hair, tank top and open-necked shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Compared to the other three male teachers who stuck to traditional suits and rarely joked, he had been a breath of fresh air. He was sex on legs. He smoked cigarettes in a holder, his pinkie crooked. He wore an aftershave that lingered on after he’d moved to the next pupil. When she’d heard the rumour he was leaving, she had been as distraught as everyone else, all caught up in a minor mass hysteria. She remembered going home the day she’d heard. Her mother had been in the kitchen and looked up from the newspaper she was reading. Taking in Jane’s distress, she immediately looked alarmed. ‘Whatever’s the matter? Come and sit down.’
By the time she was at the table with a cup of tea and a custard cream, Jane was shaking with sobs.
‘Jane, darling. Pull yourself together. Nothing’s that bad. Tell me what’s happened.’ Her mother was typically to the point.
Interrupting her explanation with loud sniffs, Jane explained. ‘Our art teacher … he’s going to be sacked … didn’t do anything … Amy Green’s lying … didn’t get good marks …’
When she’d finally grasped the full story and felt the injustice of an innocent man being wronged, her mother was up in arms. She’d been impressed and charmed by Mr Wilson at parents’ day, enjoyed how he’d flattered Jane’s artistic abilities (which decades later, Jane realised had in fact been limited) and her own, commenting on her sensitive choice of colour in the scarf she wore.