She had no reason to complain. She said so out loud.
Grace looked at her in surprise.
‘I’m lucky,’ said Deira. ‘Despite everything. I have options. Choices. Maybe not the ones I want, but I have them all the same.’
‘Just because we have choices doesn’t mean we should make bad ones,’ observed Grace.
‘I know,’ said Deira. ‘And you were right about El Pozo de la Señora and Charlie Mulholland. I guess I was thinking with some primal part of my consciousness and not my actual brain.’
‘I do understand,’ said Grace. ‘I honestly do. I just don’t think it’s fair to . . . well . . .’
Deira nodded. ‘I feel so . . . so pushed for time,’ she said. ‘Like I’m crumbling in front of my own eyes.’
‘Which is sort of how I’ve felt myself these last few months,’ admitted Grace.
‘We’re a right pair, aren’t we,’ said Deira. ‘Wounded birds.’
Grace glanced upwards. ‘Storks?’ she suggested, nodding towards the high steeple of a nearby church, where two enormous birds were sitting in a nest.
‘Goodness!’ Deira looked surprised. ‘They’re actually real. I saw a couple earlier and thought it was some kind of art installation.’
Grace laughed. ‘Not everything is art. Sometimes it’s real life.’
Deira took out her phone and snapped a couple of pictures. Then she checked her photo stream and made a sound of disgust.
‘What?’ asked Grace.
‘My flipping hair!’ Deira ran her fingers through her curls. ‘It’s a mess. And look at all those bloody greys.’
‘Embrace them,’ said Grace. ‘I have.’
‘With all due respect, Grace, you have the loveliest unicorn-silver hair. My greys are all dingy pepper. And to be perfectly honest,’ Deira made a face, ‘I’m not ready to embrace it. In my head I’m still brunette.’
‘In that case, get it done,’ said Grace.
‘Here?’
‘Why not?’
Deira looked at her watch. ‘It’s a bit late for the hairdresser, surely.’
‘You’re in Spain,’ Grace reminded her. ‘Most of them will still be open. And if you don’t mind me saying, you’d look great with it cut a bit shorter. Maybe straight across the ends.’ She smiled. ‘Back in my air-hostessing days, when we were all told how to look, we got lots of advice on hair and beauty. I’ve remembered it.’
‘And you think I’d look good with short hair?’
‘Shorter,’ said Grace. ‘More styled.’
Deira shrugged. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘If we see a hairdresser’s, I’ll do it.’
Less than ten minutes later, they stopped in front of a salon. Deira pushed the door open and a young woman, her own hair a vivid orange, smiled at her.
‘Cut?’ asked Deira, miming the action. ‘And colour?’
The girl nodded and waved her to a seat.
‘It’ll take about an hour, I guess,’ Deira said to Grace.
‘Excellent,’ Grace said. ‘That might be enough time for me to solve the clue of Sister Iñez and Sister Julia.’
‘OK,’ said Deira. ‘Will we meet back at the hotel? Or at a bar? If I have my hair done, we have to go out,’ she added.
‘Text me when you’re finished,’ said Grace. ‘I’ll meet you wherever you like.’
‘Will do,’ said Deira as the hairdresser put a gown around her.
Grace was quite happy to have some time alone to solve the clue. She had a very good idea of how to find the answer, although she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure of where it lay. Nevertheless, she felt confident as she walked back to the hotel.
She went up to her room immediately and took out the hotel information pack.
The Convent of Santa Ana was founded in 1652 as a Dominican convent dedicated to the devotion of St Anne, mother of Mary. She is the patron of unmarried women, women who want to be pregnant, grandmothers and teachers. The convent offered refuge to women in difficult circumstances. It flourished until the late nineteenth century, when the nuns moved to another location closer to Madrid. The building fell into disrepair but has been restored under the UNESCO heritage plans for the city of Alcalá de Henares and is now an intimate boutique hotel.
Given that Ken had booked her to stay in a convent, Grace was pretty sure that Sister Iñez and Sister Julia had been members of it. There must be more information about them somewhere in the building. All she had to do was find it.
She closed the folder and walked along the corridor, not towards reception but following a sign to the restaurant. This led to yet another courtyard, this time surprisingly large, surrounded by a cloister. One side was taken up by the restaurant, and another led to a lounge. Tables and chairs were placed along the third. Like the two smaller courtyards, this one also had a fountain in the centre, with paving stones leading from it, dividing the area into quarters made up of flagstones. There were stone slabs set into the flagstones.
Grace looked at them more closely.
They were tombstones. Old tombstones, some dating back to shortly after the convent had been opened. And although she couldn’t understand every word, it was obvious that they were the tombstones of nuns who had lived here. It should have been eerie, and yet it wasn’t.
She walked slowly, looking at them individually. There were Marias and Isadoras and Teresas and Anas . . . And then she saw the one she wanted. Sister Iñez, who’d died at a mere twenty-three years old. Grace swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. She wondered if Iñez had had a vocation, or if her family had sent her to the convent because she was a burden. Perhaps she wouldn’t marry the man they’d chosen. Or maybe, for some reason, her parents were ashamed of her. She wondered what life had been like at the convent for a young woman of twenty-three; if there had been any fun, any joy in it. If Iñez had ever run along the cloisters or sat here on a chair, shaded from the sun. She hoped so. And she also hoped that whatever illness had taken the young woman’s life, she hadn’t suffered too much.
It took another minute to find Julia’s tombstone. The nun had died in June of the following year, at the age of twenty-five. Had she and Iñez been friends? wondered Grace. Had they laughed together? Joked together? Shared stories with each other? And were they, as the inscription on Julia’s tombstone seemed to suggest, at peace in heaven?
Grace didn’t believe in an afterlife, certainly not the one of angels and saints she’d been taught about as a child. It didn’t make sense to her. But here, in the quiet of the courtyard and the shade of the cloisters, she wondered if it might not be possible. And if it was, and she saw Ken there, what would she say to him? What would he say to her?
That was the thing, wasn’t it? People talked about reuniting with their loved ones, but what if their loved ones had done awful things during their lives? And what if you’d found someone else after they’d gone? What sort of set-up was that for all eternity?
Heaven and all its conundrums could wait, she decided; meantime, she’d solved the clue and all she had to do was upload the photo of Don Quixote to get the last number. She could do it now, she supposed, but Deira had been there for every other clue reveal, and even if things between them had been a bit strained lately, she’d feel bad about continuing without her.
She sat at one of the tables and ordered a water from the waiter who’d been hovering around since she’d arrived. Then she texted Deira to say she’d solved the clue and asked if she wanted to come back to the hotel to unlock it when she was finished at the hairdresser’s, or would she prefer to meet in town.
It was about fifteen minutes later when Deira replied, congratulating her on solving the clue and suggesting they meet at the Plaza Cervantes again.
Grace was suddenly quite happy to get away from the silence of the cloisters.
Reading the next clue could wait.
When she got to the plaza, she looked around for Deira, but it took a moment before she saw her, standing near the statue and wav
ing at her.
‘You look amazing!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s fabulous.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ Deira looked pleased. ‘I thought about what you said and I reckoned that you always look great, so I followed your advice.’
Her curls, which had fallen to her shoulders before, had been chopped to just below the nape of her neck. The cut was more even than previously, but not harsh, and it gave her an edgier appearance.
‘You need bright-red lipstick and some cool sunglasses for a bit of Parisian chic,’ declared Grace, which made Deira laugh and remind her that she hadn’t made it to Paris yet.
‘Seriously,’ Grace said. ‘Red lipstick would look great on you.’
‘I’m not really a lipstick person,’ said Deira. ‘I’m not a make-up person at all, to be honest. I try, but I never really get it right.’
‘When I worked for the airline, you wouldn’t have been allowed to fly without a full face of slap,’ said Grace. ‘But the lessons I learned have been really useful, especially now, when I need to spend twice the time to look half as good. You’re naturally pretty, Deira, and you’ve got great skin. You wouldn’t need much. Maybe a little bit of a tint and some eyeshadow and mascara to bring out your eyes. They’re such an amazing shade of green.’
‘I either do too much or too little,’ confessed Deira.
‘You can’t go wrong with lipstick.’
‘Red, though. I’m not sure about red.’
‘Nothing ventured.’
Deira laughed. ‘OK. If we see somewhere, I’ll have a look.’
‘There was a beauty shop in that street we walked down earlier,’ Grace said.
‘Was there?’ Deira looked surprised. ‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Beauty shops and pharmacies are my thing,’ confessed Grace. ‘I love them. I spent hours in the duty-free on the ferry.’
‘Did you?’ Deira frowned. ‘There wasn’t much there.’
‘Five different serums,’ said Grace. ‘Hours of fun for me.’
Deira laughed again. ‘In that case, let’s go and have fun!’
They linked arms as they walked to the shop, which, though it looked small from the outside, was considerably more spacious within. Grace led Deira through the displays of L’Oréal and Rimmel and Bourjois to the Chanel counter.
‘This is the best,’ she said as she selected a shade called Pirate. ‘It looks good on everyone and it’ll be spectacular on you.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ said Deira.
‘Like I said.’ Grace nodded approvingly after she’d used a cotton bud from the display area to apply it to Deira’s lips. ‘Spectacular.’
‘You like it?’ An assistant who’d been watching them asked the question in English. ‘There is also a good foundation,’ she added. ‘With sun protection. Although I always say you should wear extra sun protection and not depend on a cream or foundation. Save your skin, no?’
‘I’m only here for lipstick,’ said Deira, even as Grace picked up a dark eyeshadow.
‘Try this,’ she said.
‘I usually go for nudes,’ said Deira. ‘They work with my eyes.’
‘But not with scarlet lipstick.’
Deira gave a resigned shrug and allowed Grace to apply the product, as well as a swirl of blush to her cheeks.
‘Oh,’ she said when the older woman had finished. ‘That’s me . . . but not me.’
‘A different version of you,’ said Grace. ‘We can do a nude one, though, if you prefer.’
She handed Deira a wipe and told her to remove the lipstick and eyeshadow. Then she selected another shade and applied it.
‘That’s more recognisably me,’ said Deira when she looked at her reflection. ‘But less . . . less wow.’
‘You don’t always have to go for wow,’ said Grace. ‘But there are times you definitely should.’
‘OK.’ Deira smiled. ‘Can we wow me up again and go for a drink?’
‘We absolutely can,’ said Grace as she reached for the Pirate once more.
Deira groaned when she opened her eyes the following morning, because not only did they feel gummed together, but her head was aching. She tapped her phone to see the time and groaned again when she realised it was after nine.
It had been past two in the morning when they’d come back to the hotel. She remembered giggling as she’d taken off her shoes so that the heels didn’t make too much noise on the tiled floors. And she remembered sitting in the cloister with Grace, gazing at the night sky, drinking water and talking about Sister Iñez and Sister Julia. They hadn’t tried to look at the next clue. Grace had been afraid that because she’d had two glasses of wine and a very large gin and tonic, she’d accidentally input the wrong numbers and lock herself out.
Deira didn’t remember how much she’d had to drink herself. She recalled going to a bar and sitting at a high table outside. She knew Grace had ordered the bottle of wine. But after that . . .
She pushed away the duvet and walked unsteadily to the bathroom. A glance in the mirror startled her – she’d forgotten about her shorter hairstyle and, despite clearly having drunk a lot, the scarlet lipstick still stained her lips.
She put on the disposable shower cap to protect her new hairdo and stood under the hot water, allowing it to massage the back of her neck. The sensation was soothing and she felt better afterwards, but she was still shaky when she walked downstairs.
Grace was already seated at one of the tables in the cloister, a cup of coffee in front of her. She looked up as Deira approached.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
‘Did I lose it completely?’ Deira pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Because I’m a delicate flower this morning. I can’t believe I’m hung-over. I haven’t been hung-over in months.’
‘You were fine until the shots,’ Grace told her.
‘Shots!’ Deira looked aghast. ‘I don’t drink shots.’
‘You did last night,’ said Grace. ‘After the second bottle of wine.’
‘Didn’t we eat?’ asked Deira. ‘I don’t usually get wasted if I eat.’
‘The barman brought us some free tapas,’ said Grace. ‘We didn’t bother about food after that.’
‘Obviously I didn’t eat enough of them. Weren’t we talking to people, too?’
‘A group of men,’ said Grace. ‘They heard us speaking English and they wanted to chat. They bought the second bottle because we’d finished ours, and then the shots afterwards. But they weren’t trying to get us drunk or anything.’
‘I didn’t say or do anything awful, did I?’ asked Deira as it started to come back to her. ‘There was someone called Roberto, and . . . Leo, was it? They were lecturers at the university. Not literature.’
‘Architecture,’ supplied Grace.
‘I can’t remember the last time I did something like this,’ said Deira.
‘Me neither, to be honest.’
‘But you’re not hung-over.’
‘Well, I didn’t have the shots,’ said Grace. ‘But my secret non-hangover weapon comes with age. I know it’s generally the case that the older you get, the worse your reaction to a late night is, but since the menopause, I don’t get hangovers.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope,’ said Grace. ‘It’s a compensation for the hot flushes and memory loss. Mind you, I limit myself to a couple of glasses of wine any time I go out. And maybe a G&T afterwards. So I’m not exactly lashing it back. Doesn’t affect me, though.’
‘You should’ve saved me from myself,’ said Deira.
‘Why?’ Grace smiled. ‘You were having a good time. We both were.’
Deira got up from the table and helped herself to some fresh fruit from the buffet.
‘I remember laughing a lot,’ she said as she sat down again. ‘So that was a good thing.’
‘The guys knew Dublin,’ Grace said. ‘One of them had worked as a barman in the city when he was at college. They got the humour.’
/>
‘When he was at college!’ Deira stared at her. ‘Don’t tell me we got drunk with a bunch of graduates.’
Grace took out her phone and scrolled to a photo. It showed the two of them raising glasses of wine to the four men behind them.
‘Thank God,’ said Deira. ‘At least they don’t look like kids.’
‘In their thirties, I think,’ said Grace. ‘Which is young enough for them all to be my sons. Something I find hard to grasp even though I have a son who’s thirty. And his sister is older!’
‘We were talking a lot about Alcalá de Henares and its history.’ Deira’s memories were becoming clearer now. ‘And the storks. We had a big discussion about storks!’
‘That’s because the bar was called La Cigüeña. Which means stork,’ said Grace. ‘They’re one of the symbols of the city, apparently.’
‘Right. Well, I’m sorry if it was my fault we ended up out half the night,’ said Deira. ‘Just because I wanted to flaunt my red lipstick and new hairdo.’
‘I enjoyed myself mightily,’ Grace told her. ‘I haven’t been out like that since long before Ken was diagnosed. I don’t have many girlfriends. It’s crazy really, but somehow I was never one for having groups of girls I was close to. There’s a few, of course, but even then we wouldn’t go out on the complete lash. I suppose it wouldn’t be the done thing for women of a certain age to totter out of a pub.’
‘It depends on the women,’ said Deira. ‘And the pub.’
Grace laughed. ‘Are you feeling up to unlocking the clue?’
Deira nodded, and Grace took the laptop from the bag beside her.
‘Hopefully we’ve got it all right,’ she said.
She uploaded the photo and was rewarded with the message that it was a match, and that the number she needed was 5. So she typed in 5236 and waited.
Chapter 26
Alcalá de Henares to Toledo: 105 km
Good that you’re still with me, Hippo. Your reward is the letter T. Did you like Alcalá de Henares? It’s an amazing place, the history, the culture, the learning . . . I hope you had time to take a proper tour. Anyhow, moving on, you’re going to have to find and upload a picture of our previous scribe in Toledo. Easy pickings, don’t you think? It’s not only about the literature, though; another creative artist did some of his best work here. How old was he when he died? And what month? Six guesses in case you need them, but I’m sure you won’t. Easy-peasy!
The Women Who Ran Away: Will their secrets follow them? Page 24
