‘Just a feeling . . .’ Amy said. ‘I can’t be sure, but, you know . . . They had matching shorts. Really nice shorts, too, so . . .’
I sipped my juice and watched Lucy buttering her toast. She was a bit manic about toast-buttering, and didn’t like any corner to be spared.
‘They’re in the house down the end,’ Amy continued. ‘The one with the olive trees. They just arrived this morning. They’re French, but they speak good English. And they want us to go to their place for a drink.’
‘Oh?’ Ant said, wrinkling his nose. ‘Really? When?’
Amy shrugged. ‘Sometime,’ she said. ‘Whenever. But in the meantime, they said there’s a lake less than an hour away. And it sounds beautiful.’
By ten, we were all in the car, on our way to Lake Negratin. We’d only been in the house for two days, but it felt good to be on the road again, to watch the parched Spanish countryside rolling past the windows. With seven of us in the car, sitting in three rows, it felt like a proper holiday excursion.
Joe was driving, with Amy in the passenger seat. Ant was with Ben and Lucy in the middle row, while Sarah and I were in the back. At one point Joe switched on the radio, and the station it was tuned to was playing that awful ‘Macarena’ song. But when Joe changed stations, Lucy complained and begged him to put it back on. By the second chorus, Ben and Lucy were singing along, clapping and smiling, and by the third Sarah, Amy and Joe had joined in too.
Ant glanced back at me and pulled a face, but though I agree it’s a pretty awful song, I refused to join him in his cynicism. The joy on the kids’ faces was real, and it felt like a perfect holiday moment. I admired Joe and Amy’s ability to be silly for the children’s sake too, so, instead, I raised my hands and clapped along, grinning at Anthony manically.
It took about an hour to reach the lake, and when we got there the vista was quite breathtaking – a vast expanse of turquoise water surrounded by an arid landscape of cratered weather-worn sandstone.
We clambered down to the water’s edge and immediately all stripped to our swimming costumes. There were a few other couples dotted across the vast expanse of rocky beach, but it was far less crowded than I would have expected. When I commented on this, Joe said, ‘Probably too hot for the locals. Mad dogs and Englishmen, and all that.’
‘Do you think there’s fish?’ Sarah asked nervously, as we waded into the shallows holding hands. Ben and Lucy were already in deeper, splashing around.
‘You see?’ Ant said, laughing. ‘That’s your fault, that is. That’s how they end up paranoid.’
‘No, I don’t think there’s any fish here,’ I told Sarah to reassure her, because, in a way, Ant was right. ‘And if there are, I’m sure they’re tiny, friendly ones.’
‘There’s monsters, apparently,’ Ben said. ‘Like the Loch Ness monster. It’ll probably eat us all alive.’
Sarah looked up at me with a worried expression on her face, but a simple wink and a shake of the head was enough to reassure her that he was joking.
The water was clear but surprisingly chilly, so we soon returned to the beach, whereupon Ben and Lucy ran off into the distance to ‘find sticks’.
‘Don’t go too far!’ I shouted out, but they ignored me completely, and quite soon had all but vanished from view.
I made to stand in order to follow them, but Amy jumped up. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll go. I fancy a wander, anyway.’
Saying, ‘I’ll come too,’ Ant then stood as well.
‘Really?’ Amy asked, glancing from Ant to me, worried, I think, that I might disapprove.
‘He can never sit still on a beach,’ I told her.
‘Oh, right,’ Amy said. ‘Well, me neither.’
Joe started to read on his Kindle but paused when Sarah began piling up stones. He jumped up, collected some nice flat ones for her to play with, and then lay back down beside me. ‘It’s like being on the moon,’ he said, looking out over the lake. ‘Amazing landscape.’
‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘It really could be a different planet.’
‘Mummy!’ Sarah said.
I leaned over and counted out loud the number of stones she’d piled up. ‘Seven!’ I said. ‘I bet you can get at least one more on there before it falls over. Try that one.’ I pointed to the flattest of her reserve stones.
‘No water on the moon, though,’ Joe said.
‘Isn’t there?’ I asked. ‘I thought they’d found some. I’m sure I read that somewhere.’
‘I think they found ice,’ Joe said. ‘So that is water, I guess.’
I scanned the sky in case it was possible to see the moon, because sometimes you can; sometimes you can see it in broad daylight. ‘It was a full moon last night, wasn’t it?’ I asked, that thought leading to this one.
‘I think so,’ Joe said.
‘How far did you walk?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry?’ he asked distractedly. He was fiddling with his Kindle again.
‘I thought you went for a walk last night – after I fell asleep.’
‘Oh, no,’ Joe said. ‘Not me.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Ant did, and I just assumed . . .’
‘Nope,’ Joe said again. ‘No, I threw a blanket over you and crashed pretty early. They were out there chatting and drinking till late, I think.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘It must have just been Ant and Amy, then.’
‘They were probably vampiring,’ Joe said.
‘Vampiring?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, you know . . .’ He mimed having two pointy teeth and tipped his head sideways to bite an imaginary neck.
‘Oh, vampiring!’ I said. ‘Yes, I expect that’s exactly what they were up to. Those cute neighbours had better watch out.’
‘We’ll have to move soon,’ Joe said, glancing around. ‘There’s no shade.’
I scanned the horizon, but the only tree that provided any real protection had been taken by a family with a dog. ‘True,’ I said. ‘But I don’t mind. These stones aren’t that comfortable anyway. Plus, Ant can never sit still for long, so . . .’
‘Yes, I noticed that,’ Joe said. ‘But is he having a good holiday all the same? Despite the place being so isolated, and no Internet and everything?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And you?’ Joe asked, with a strange intensity.
I nodded again. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, this is heaven. I’ve never been anywhere much, so this is all really exciting for me.’
‘Good,’ Joe said. ‘I’m glad.’
‘And you don’t mind having us?’ I asked. ‘We’re not getting on your nerves?’
‘Nope,’ Joe said. Then, with a cheeky grin, he added, ‘Not yet, anyway. But I’ll keep you posted.’
At the top of the hill, not far from where we’d left the car, was a hotel-restaurant called La Alcanacia, so when the heat got too much for us that’s where we went, lured by the shady tables beneath their vines.
Initially, we were intending to have drinks, but when we got a glimpse of the next table’s delicious-looking food order, this quickly morphed into lunch.
Amy ordered a selection of tapas dishes, which we all eagerly sampled. There was tortilla (such a big hit with the kids that we had to reorder it twice) and olives, cheese, calamari, aubergine caviar, mushroom croquettes and – a special request by Joe – octopus salad.
‘It’s naughty, I know,’ he said. ‘But I have this terrible weak spot for octopus.’
‘Why’s it naughty?’ I asked, thinking he must be meaning that it was fattening or something.
‘Well, it’s quite a long way from being vegan,’ Joe said, shooting an embarrassed glance at Amy.
‘It’s about as far from vegan as you can go,’ Amy said. ‘Octopi are some of the most intelligent animals on the planet.’
‘Oh, of course!’ I laughed. I’d actually forgotten that they were supposed to be vegan.
‘Hardly any of this is vegan,’ Amy said. ‘May
be the aubergines, but otherwise . . . I wanted you to taste the local food, though. It would be a shame to come to Spain and not eat Spanish once.’
‘It would,’ I agreed, biting into one of the mushroom croquettes. ‘These have got to be vegan, haven’t they?’
‘They almost certainly have egg in them,’ Amy said. ‘Possibly a bit of cheese too.’
‘You know, it’s octopuses,’ Joe told Amy. ‘Everyone thinks it’s octopi, but it isn’t.’
‘Is that true?’ she said.
‘It is.’ Then, addressing me, he said, ‘You should try some.’
I wrinkled my nose and refused politely. ‘I’ve never much liked those sucker bits,’ I admitted.
‘I’ll have a taste,’ Ant said, shocking me by forking a lump of octopus.
‘These onion rings are nice,’ Lucy told me, and we all laughed.
‘They’re calamari rings,’ Ant told her, ‘not onion.’
‘What’s carr-alari?’ she asked.
‘It’s . . . never mind . . .’ Ant said. ‘Just enjoy it. It’s delicious. It’s all delicious, Amy, so well done. Good ordering there.’
Now, this annoyed me. Ant had always been one of the fussiest eaters I’d ever known, but here he was, digging in to aubergine caviar and spicy octopus salad . . . Even now, when I try to think about it, I can’t quite explain why the sudden change annoyed me so much, but it did. It really did.
‘Maybe we can eat Spanish from time to time when we get home, then!’ I said, being sassy. ‘It would certainly make a change from steak and chips.’
‘Ooh, you can’t eat steak,’ Ben said. ‘Steak’s disgusting.’
‘Why’s it disgusting?’ Lucy asked. ‘I like steak.’
‘Steak’s just dead cow,’ Ben told her, pulling a face. ‘It’s like killing a little cow and then just eating the poor thing.’
Sarah, who was on my lap, turned to look at Ben in horror. ‘That’s not true, is it, Mummy?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it sort of is, I’m afraid,’ I told her. ‘Well, it’s a bit of cow, anyway.’
‘Eww,’ she said, pulling a face.
We were home in time for the siesta, and we all slept quite soundly until four.
Lucy climbed on the bed and woke me up. ‘Can we go in the pool?’ she asked.
‘Mmm? Of course,’ I said, dragging myself from a rather pleasant dream.
‘The door’s locked,’ she said. ‘I can’t find the key.’
Ant rolled on to his back. ‘Joe took it,’ he explained through a yawn. ‘To stop them swimming without supervision.’
‘You have to get up, Mummy,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s too hot and I need to get in the pool right now!’
It was hotter than normal that afternoon – even the lounge felt stuffy. So everyone stayed indoors, merely nipping out to the pool from time to time in order to cool off: Amy, Ant and the kids playing snap, and Joe in his room, reading.
In spite of the heat, I wanted to be outside. I didn’t feel as if I was on holiday indoors and I wanted to experience Spain, even if experiencing Spain meant feeling overly sweaty. So I lounged in the hammock that Ant had found in the outhouse and suspended beneath the olive tree, while Sarah ran back and forth all afternoon, alternating between disrupting the indoor card game and interrupting my reading instead.
Just as the sun began to set, a welcome breeze arrived, and the temperature dropped quite rapidly so that by the time it was dark we’d all had to put on sweaters.
We ate bits and bobs from the fridge and then sat drinking and chatting as insects buzzed around the light that hung over the table.
Our new neighbours walked past at one point. They stopped and waved at us across the courtyard but declined Amy’s invitation to join us for a drink. ‘We’re going for a walk,’ the tall dark one said, and he indeed sounded quite French. In fact, Amy had been right about everything. They were French, good-looking, and if I was pushed to guess, I’d have to agree they were almost certainly a couple.
Once the kids had fallen asleep, Joe got out a proper pack of cards, and after a brief refresher course given by Amy, we started to play gin rummy. Other than snap with the kids, I hadn’t played cards for at least twenty years. It was far more fun than I remembered, though that may have had something to do with all the alcohol we were drinking. The problem was that everyone kept topping up my glass with white wine, and because it was warm and I was thirsty, and because there was no water on the table, I just kept drinking the damn stuff.
About eleven, I got up to go to the toilet, and realised that I could barely stand up. Though we were in the middle of a game, I decided to lie down for a bit, and from the moment my head hit the pillow I knew that I wasn’t going to make it back. Though I could hear Joe and Ant calling drunkenly for me to return to the game, I simply couldn’t move.
It was my body that woke me up initially. The wine had gone through me, and my bladder felt like it was about to explode. I was feeling thirsty, too, and had the beginnings of a headache.
The bedroom light was on and I was still fully clothed, which surprised me. But then I remembered the card game, the wine, my intention to rest and return to the game . . .
I listened for a moment, but the house was silent, so I stood, a little unstable still, and made my way through to the lounge, which was in darkness. Only the kitchen was lit, by the yellow bulb of the cooker hood.
I continued to the bathroom and then returned to the kitchen, where I gulped down three glasses of water, remembering belatedly that we weren’t supposed to drink the tap water here. I peeped into the kids’ room and saw that the nightlight was on and that all three beds were occupied, before returning to our bedroom, where I started to undress. But I got no further than removing my shoes and my jumper before Ant’s absence began to bother me, so I returned to the kitchen, then stepped outside.
The moon seemed even bigger, so perhaps it hadn’t been a full moon last night after all. The light outside was as bright as dawn, only cooler, giving a spooky bluish tinge to everything. Unusually, the table was still covered with the debris of the evening – numerous empty bottles, sparkling in the moonlight.
The air was quite cool now, almost cold in fact, but the paving slabs underfoot were still hot from all the sunshine they’d received during the day, so as I crossed the courtyard towards the track, I had the strange sensation of feeling chilly, with the exception of my feet. When I reached the track, I looked out at the plain. It appeared particularly strange in the moonlight, a bit like a dream sequence from a film.
Other than the non-stop cicadas and a dog barking wildly in the distance, all was quiet. I briefly considered walking to the end house to see if maybe everyone had gone to the neighbours’ place for drinks. But as I didn’t have my shoes on, and as it seemed unlikely, and mainly because I was simply feeling too sleepy, I sighed and turned back towards the house.
As I passed the pool, something caught my eye: a glint of orange light reflected at the spot where a jet of water created ripples, and that was strange because there were no sources of warm-coloured light outside at all. Everything looked chilly and blue.
I scanned the surroundings, trying to spot where the light was coming from, but I couldn’t find it, and when I looked back at the pool the shimmer had vanished, so I started again towards the house, only for a noise to make me stop once more. I held my breath until I had located the origin. The sound was coming from the outhouse.
I approached the window and saw a tiny glint of light leaking out at the bottom of the blind – the same orange light I’d seen reflected in the pool. I was about to crouch down to peer in when I recognised the sound I was hearing, that regular thud, thud, thud . . .
Blushing, I returned to the house. You idiot, I thought. Just because you don’t have sex any more, you assume that nobody else does. But of course they do!
Thinking that it was considerate of them at least to do it in the outhouse, I returned to the bedroom, but Ant’s absence was still botherin
g me. My brain was working pretty slowly that evening, I’ll admit, and I can only assume it was to do with all the alcohol I still had sloshing around my veins.
I went back to the kitchen and looked out at the unlit courtyard and tried to think. There was no way that Ant would have gone to the neighbours’ place alone, of that much I was sure. I returned to the children’s room and inspected the beds more closely, but other than the fact that Ben and Lucy had swapped places, all was as it should be.
I checked the two unused bedrooms, but they were both untouched and musty smelling. Finally, I hesitated outside Joe and Amy’s room. I listened for a moment and heard the sound of snoring coming from within. It sounded a lot like Ant, so – smiling and thinking, Lord, how drunk was he? – I pushed the door open. The hinges creaked loudly but the occupant of the bed continued to snore.
I opened the door further until a little light from the kitchen fell across the bed, and then crept across the room to look. As I leaned over, I could smell wine and unfamiliar sweat – it was Joe lying there, smiling as he snored. I wondered what he was dreaming about.
I closed the creaky door once again and pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to think. Perhaps the two neighbours were ‘at it’ in our shed? But I couldn’t come up with any reason why it would be them. Perhaps it was some local kids, or maybe the owners?
I returned to the front door, let myself out and crossed the warm paving stones to the outhouse. The rhythmic thudding from within was still ongoing, and wasn’t that a grunt I’d heard? I brushed the doorknob with my fingers, but then imagined bursting in on the boys from down the road or perhaps some strangers, so I walked to the window instead. Feeling like a peeping Tom, I crouched down to press my nose against the pane, but the chink of visibility was tiny and all I could see was a vague blur of flesh.
I straightened and returned to the door, where, after taking a deep breath, I reached for the handle. My heart was beating so fast and so hard that I could hear the blood surging through my veins as I pushed at the door. It was locked. Strangely, I hadn’t imagined that possibility. I rattled the door handle, but the only thing that happened was that the noises stopped. A voice inside whispered something.
From Something Old Page 16