The Women Who Ran Away: Will their secrets follow them?

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  She chose another photo and uploaded it.

  Photo is not a match.

  For crying out loud! She looked at the screen in irritation. It had to be a match. She tried a third.

  Photo is not a match.

  She snapped the computer closed and flung herself on the bed.

  Her headache had returned.

  ‘I hope she’s OK,’ Deira said after Grace had hurried out of the bar. ‘She’s behaving oddly for her.’

  ‘Do you want to go after her?’

  Deira shook her head. ‘She has her reasons for acting oddly from time to time. I should stay out of her space.’

  ‘Oh?’ Charlie looked at her enquiringly, but Deira had no intention of sharing personal information about Grace with a perfect stranger. Even if he was a perfect stranger whose baby she wanted. So she said it was nothing really, and that Grace would be fine.

  ‘Would you like to have a peek at Amaya’s gallery now?’ Charlie glanced at his watch. ‘I’m due to meet her in ten minutes and it’s not far from here.’

  ‘I . . . Well, yes, that’d be great.’ She’d thought she might go to the gallery in the morning, but given that Grace had abandoned the treasure hunt and gone back to the hotel, this was as good a way of spending her time as any. Besides, she wanted to find out more about the possible future father of her child.

  She drained her glass and slid off the high stool she’d been sitting on, then followed Charlie out of the café and across the plaza. She was acutely conscious of him alongside her, aware of the height of him, the bulk of him – the very maleness of him – so close to her that their arms were almost touching. Would he be good in bed? she wondered. Not that his technique would matter. The only important thing would be that he was strong and virile and could make her pregnant.

  She glanced at him, but he was striding forward, not taking any notice of her. Which was a good thing. Sometimes she feared that people could read her thoughts. If Charlie could read hers, he’d think she was a crazy person. She supposed he wouldn’t be the only one. But she wasn’t crazy. Just desperate.

  He continued to lead the way before turning onto a narrow pedestrianised street lined with artisan shops and stopping outside a building with a maroon awning, the words Galería de Arte stamped on it in gold. A large landscape painting in a vibrant mix of blues and greens was displayed in the window. Deira recognised Jennifer Roache’s work immediately.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Charlie. ‘Amaya’s gallery.’

  Deira took a deep breath and focused on the here and now rather than the thoughts that had been swirling around in her head.

  A bell jingled as they stepped inside. In contrast to the shaded street, the room was carefully lit, and the high-gloss marble floor gave it an elegant air.

  ‘Fabulous,’ said Deira as she looked around. She smiled to see another of Jennifer’s paintings, this one a seascape, prominently displayed.

  ‘Hola – oh, Charlie, it’s you. How are you?’ A slight woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her dark hair tied up in a ponytail, walked into the gallery.

  ‘I’m good. Sorry if I’m a bit late. I’ve brought a visitor.’ He introduced Deira and explained that she knew Jennifer.

  ‘How lovely!’ Amaya’s brown eyes lit up. ‘It’s so nice to meet people who like the same things as you.’ She spoke briefly about her delight in Jennifer’s work and then showed Deira some of the other paintings, explaining her plan to exhibit artists from different countries. The two women continued to chat about art while Charlie leaned against Amaya’s glass desk and scrolled through his phone. Then the doorbell jingled again and an older woman, accompanied by a young teenager, entered.

  ‘How’s my boy?’ Charlie put away his phone and embraced the teenager, while the older woman kissed Amaya on both cheeks.

  Charlie, his hand still on the boy’s shoulder, introduced him to Deira as his son, Iñaki, and the older woman as Amaya’s mother. She smiled at Deira before turning and speaking to Charlie in Spanish. He laughed and shook his head, while Amaya gave him an amused look

  ‘She wanted to know if we were an item,’ he explained to Deira. ‘I told her that we’re travellers who keep meeting on the road.’

  ‘And it was lovely to meet you again, but I’d better be off.’ Deira was feeling slightly uncomfortable under the speculative eye of Amaya’s mother. ‘It was great to meet you too, Amaya. Best of luck with the Jennifer Roache paintings. I can’t wait to tell her I met you.’

  ‘Keep in touch, especially if you see anything I might be interested in,’ said Amaya. She took one of the business cards that Charlie had already given her, and scribbled on it before handing it to her. ‘That’s my personal mobile.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Deira slipped it into her bag.

  ‘How long do you plan to stay in Pamplona?’ asked Charlie as he walked to the door with her.

  ‘Only till tomorrow,’ replied Deira. ‘We’re actually driving to Cartagena and this was one of our designated stops along the way. I think Grace will want to head off sometime in the early afternoon.’

  ‘Sounds fun,’ Charlie said. ‘Though it’s a shame you’re leaving so soon because you really need a couple of days to get the most from the city. Would you like to meet up in the morning before you leave? I could show you around.’

  I could meet you for sex, thought Deira. We could spend the morning shagging each other senseless and I could end up pregnant at the end of it.

  ‘I . . . I think Grace has plans,’ she said. ‘But thank you.’

  ‘Here’s my own card.’ He handed her a slightly more battered one than Amaya’s. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything. Also, if you’re looking for a nice place to stop . . .’ He reached into his pocket and took out yet another card, ‘can I recommend this? It’s owned by an Irish couple. I’ll be interviewing them for the documentary too. If you get the chance, you should definitely stay a night.’

  Deira looked at the card, which was pale green with a sketch of an old-fashioned well and the words ‘El Pozo de la Señora’ written on it. Below that it said ‘Retreat, Relax, Recharge’ and ‘Wellness Centre’.

  ‘I’m not sure it fits in with Grace’s itinerary,’ said Deira. ‘Or that we have time to retreat and relax. But thanks.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Charlie. ‘We all need time to do those things.’

  Ask me again about tomorrow morning, thought Deira. Ask me and this time I’ll say yes. I don’t know what held me back before.

  But then his phone rang, and after a moment, Deira walked out of the shop, closing the door behind her.

  She’d left without another word because she was afraid of embarrassing herself by saying out loud the things that were in her head. She walked rapidly, not caring what direction she was taking and not noticing what was around her, until suddenly she found herself on a wide street and saw the city’s famous bullring directly in front of her. There were hordes of tourists outside the gates, but Deira had no interest in going inside, so she made an abrupt turn and walked back towards the old quarter of the city.

  She was hungry now, so she stopped at a table outside one of the many bars and ordered a glass of wine and some tapas. She’d just finished eating when she got a message from Bex.

  Hi, Deira. I don’t want to freak you out or anything but I’m pretty sure I saw Gavin outside the house earlier today. He was standing on the far side of the street looking at it. I know you two have split up and it seemed really weird. It’s probably me being silly, but if you dumped him and he doesn’t know you’re away, is he being a bit stalker-ish? B x

  She read the text through a couple of times.

  She’d thought Gavin wasn’t due back until the following day, but clearly she’d been mistaken. Why had he come to the house? To see if the car was parked in front of it? Had he already decided she must have taken it? Had she been caught on CCTV at his apartment? She hadn’t seen any cameras, but then again, she hadn’t looked.

  If he thought she
’d had something to do with it, he could have called her. It would have been rational for him to phone rather than stand outside the house exactly, as Bex had said, like a stalker. So why hadn’t he? Why had he gone to the home they’d shared and waited outside? To scare her? He had no need to do that. Maybe he’d wanted to check it out, to see if the convertible was there before he called to yell at her.

  Don’t worry, she texted to her niece. I think I know what it’s about. I’ll get in touch with him.

  Even though he’d definitely yell at her then.

  Much to Grace’s surprise, after her earlier siesta, her night’s sleep had been deep and refreshing, without the nightmares that still often plagued her. They’d been nightly immediately after Ken’s death – dreams in which she was with him in the car, trying to save him but drowning alongside him as water poured through the open windows and seaweed entangled itself around their bodies. She would wake up gasping for breath, her heart and her head pounding. But this morning her eyes had flickered open gently and she’d had a few moments of complete restfulness before becoming fully awake.

  When she got up and opened the curtains, she was cheered by the blue sky and the sound of people already going about the business of the day. As she showered and then dressed in her travelling clothes of T-shirt and capri pants, she thought of Deira and the feelings of jealousy she’d harboured towards her the previous evening. In the bright light of the morning, she found it hard to believe that she’d resented her for being younger and prettier and catching the attention of a man. Why should she care? Besides, Deira was going through a trauma of her own. And in Grace’s opinion, she was a lot less well equipped to cope than Grace herself was. While not being part of the so-called snowflake generation, the younger woman hadn’t had the tough-love upbringing of Grace, who’d been told from an early age that life wasn’t fair, that she could never have everything she wanted and – one of her father’s favourite sayings – that there were more important people in the world than her. Of course there were more important people, she acknowledged, but you were the most important person to yourself. The trick, she reckoned, was not always behaving as though that were the case.

  She’d raised her three children with a lot more demonstrations of affection than her own parents had shown towards her and her siblings. She’d raised them as though they were the most important people in her life, because that was true. She hoped it had been a better way of doing things. She hoped that it meant they could cope with whatever life threw at them, and still feel loved and cherished. Somehow she got the impression that Deira didn’t feel that way, which was sad.

  It was shortly after nine when she went to the breakfast room. As she selected fruit, coffee and croissants, she allowed herself to think about the clue that she hadn’t yet been able to solve, the clue Ken had said he couldn’t make any easier if he tried. She knew the number of the room was right. But how could the statue of Hemingway be wrong?

  She poured herself a second coffee and texted Deira. But there was no reply. She wondered if Deira was annoyed with her for rushing away the previous evening. But there was no reason for her to be annoyed. She didn’t know the thoughts that had been going through Grace’s head.

  Going to see if I can find a photo of Hemingway to upload, she texted when she’d finished her breakfast. It’s not the one I took of him at the café yesterday. Let me know when you want to meet up. I thought we could leave about midday provided we manage to solve the clue. It’s a four-hour drive to Alcalá de Henares. She put her phone in her bag, took an information leaflet from the stand in the hotel’s reception area and went outside.

  There was a Hemingway route through the town that took in various locations relating to the writer’s time in Pamplona, so she crossed the plaza and walked along the Paseo Sarasate – a wide street with a paved rambla where people could walk and sit. The apparent significance of the street was an old restaurant where Hemingway used to eat that was now a chocolate shop, but other than the fact that the chocolate looked amazing, there was nothing remarkable about it. Nor was there anything noteworthy about the next stop on the map either. She was beginning to think that every business in Pamplona had a tenuous Hemingway connection simply to draw business their way.

  Five minutes later she was in front of the bullring. That was where she saw Deira, phone in hand, taking photos.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ she said as she caught up with her.

  ‘Grace.’ Deira smiled. ‘I’ve just seen your text. Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Much,’ said Grace. ‘And Deira, listen, I’m sorry about last night.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Deira.

  ‘I kind of left you in the lurch with Charlie,’ said Grace. ‘I—’

  ‘You were feeling a bit frazzled. Don’t worry about it. I went to the art gallery and it was lovely.’

  Grace had been so sure that Deira would have picked up on her irrational jealousy about Charlie that she couldn’t quite believe the other woman hadn’t a notion what she was talking about. She exhaled in relief.

  ‘What d’you think about the clue?’ she asked. ‘I’m completely gobsmacked that it wasn’t the statue at the Iruña.’

  ‘Let’s recap,’ said Deira. ‘The Old Man’s room—’

  ‘The number of my room at the hotel – 201,’ Grace interrupted her. ‘So that’s not a problem. It’s as easy as Ken said. But I was convinced the upload of Hemingway was the bronze statue of him at the café. I keep getting a “photo doesn’t match” message when I try. I can’t understand it.’

  ‘The statue is the most obvious answer, that’s for sure,’ agreed Deira, ‘but you know how precise the professor was. If it’s not right, I think we need to focus on the fact that he mentioned a sign.’

  Grace nodded. ‘I thought there might be a plaque somewhere with Hemingway’s picture. That’s more of a real sign, isn’t it?’

  ‘Near a place he loved,’ Deira reminded her. ‘Which is why I thought of here.’

  ‘And is there a sign?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Not on the bullring itself,’ said Deira. ‘But just as you arrived, I saw this.’

  She took Grace by the shoulder and rotated her so that she was looking at a large granite street sign. It said ‘Paseo de Hemingway’.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!’ Grace shook her head. ‘D’you think this is it?’

  ‘It’s his name on a sign near a place he loved,’ said Deira. ‘I hope it’s right, because otherwise I’m out of ideas.’

  ‘Did you take a photo?’ asked Grace.

  Deira shook her head. ‘You go ahead.’

  Grace took a few pictures of the sign, then put her phone back in her bag and looked towards the bullring.

  ‘I can nearly smell it, you know,’ she said. ‘The sand and the sawdust and the blood and the sweat.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Deira. ‘It’s very atmospheric, but I wouldn’t like to go to a bullfight.’

  ‘Oh God, no.’ Grace shuddered.

  ‘You said the professor came for the bull run. Did he go to a fight?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ confessed Grace.

  ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘No.’ Grace shook her head. ‘We rarely talked about his trips; any conversations we did have were about the lectures and the people he met more than the things he did. Ken was all about the knowledge and the people. I’m sure experiences were part of that, but he didn’t share them.’

  ‘Maybe he knew you’d disapprove of bullfighting,’ said Deira as they made their way back to the hotel.

  ‘My disapproval wouldn’t have mattered,’ said Grace. ‘He did what he liked.’

  Deira stayed silent.

  ‘Not in a bad way,’ Grace added. ‘Ken was Ken, that’s all.’

  When they arrived back at the hotel, Grace invited Deira to see the Hemingway suite.

  ‘Wow, it’s fabulous,’ said Deira when she stepped inside.

  ‘I also thought the photo might have been th
e bust on the shelf there,’ Grace remarked as she opened the laptop. ‘But given that the room number was a clue, I didn’t think the bust could be as well.’

  ‘If the street sign doesn’t work, then we should try that,’ suggested Deira. ‘And at least we don’t get locked out of uploading photos, so we can try as many as we like.’

  ‘You’re right that the clue is in the word “sign”,’ Grace said. ‘I’m pretty confident.’

  She began the upload, and both of them waited anxiously for the progress bar to complete.

  The screen faded, and then, much to their relief, the message appeared: Congratulations, your photo is a match. Your final number is 3.

  ‘Yay!’ Deira waved her hands over her head in celebration. ‘Well done us.’

  Grace smiled and entered the numbers in the Alcalá de Henares document.

  They both looked at the next clue.

  And then at each other.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Grace. ‘Now he’s showing off!’

  Chapter 23

  Pamplona to Alcalá de Henares: 357 km

  ‘Todos nuestras locuras proceden del estomago vacio y una cabeza llena de aire’ – he was right and he was born here. Enhorabuena (congratulations) on getting this far. Your reward letter is A. Now I want you to upload a photo of his most famous character – you’ll find him near his house. Also, how old was Sister Iñez when she died? It’s easier than you think. And what month was it when Sister Julia joined her? Seven guesses. Good luck, Hippo.

  ‘What on earth does all that mean?’ asked Deira.

  ‘I said he was showing off, and he is,’ said Grace. ‘It’s from Cervantes and he used to quote it all the time. It means that all of our craziness comes from having an empty stomach and a head full of air.’

  ‘He might be right.’ Deira laughed. ‘I always make my silliest decisions when I’m hungry. I’m glad you understood it. OK, there must be a statue – or a sign, like Hemingway’s – around somewhere. But Sister Iñez and Sister Julia? Obviously they’re nuns. Have you any idea what that’s all about? Is there a convent in the city that’s associated with Cervantes?’