A Spanish Honeymoon

by Anne Weale

‘If you don’t mind I’d rather wait till we get to where we’re going.’

  ‘I hope it lives up to my friend’s recommendation. I haven’t been there before.’

  ‘If we don’t like it, we can always push on.’ His tone was relaxed.

  Half an hour later, they were the only patrons at a small country restaurant. This establishment was far more rustic than the one where he had taken Liz. Here, in the middle of nowhere, the place was run by a middle-aged woman and her mother. Inside the building were several long trestle tables, outside four metal tables. As it was a lovely day they chose to sit outside.

  Cam filled their glasses from a jug of red vino de mesa they had seen filled from a cask inside the restaurant. ‘It’ll take them a while to cook our paella so I’ll do my presentation now, shall I?’

  ‘I wish you would. I’m seething with curiosity.’

  ‘Have a swig of wine before I start. This could come as a slight shock.’ He drank from his own glass. ‘Mmm…this is good. I wonder where it comes from?’

  ‘What could come as a shock?’ Liz demanded impatiently.

  ‘I think we should get married,’ he told her calmly. ‘When, last night, I called it a proposal, that’s exactly what I meant. You and I have a lot to offer each other.

  ‘Before you tell me I’m mad, let me explain my view of marriage,’ he went on. ‘I’ve seen a lot of marriages go wrong, including my parents’, and a few that have been successful. The successful ones all seem to have a common denominator. They are basically intimate friendships between people prepared to make trade-offs. In marriages that last, both partners will give up something they want if it will benefit their partner. But it has to work both ways. It’s no use one person making all the sacrifices.’

  By now Liz was recovering from her initial stupefaction.

  ‘I’m sure all that’s true,’ she said, ‘but I can’t relate it to us. We hardly know each other. We come from completely different backgrounds. We have different temperaments. We—’

  He cut her short. ‘Let’s take those first three items and deal with the others later. You feel we hardly know each other. What does a woman need to know about a man before she marries him? Take five minutes to think about it and then tell me your conclusions.’

  Wine glass in hand, he rose from his chair and strolled across the rough turf to where the land fell away so that from where she was sitting Liz could only see the distant sea with the Peñon de Ifach rising out of it.

  Marriage, she thought, still dazed. Marriage. Why should he offer me, of all people, the thing that he has never offered to any of those other women?

  Or maybe he has, and the one he wanted refused him. Could that be the reason he has played the field so intensively? Because someone has broken his heart?

  She looked at his long straight back, the taut backside and the set of his head on his neck. Physically, everything about him was attractive. But what was he like inside?

  Presently Cam came back. ‘Have you worked it out?’

  She nodded. ‘I think so. She needs to know that he’s kind, that he has a sense of humour, and that he won’t bore her.’ There was a fourth essential—that he was a considerate lover—but it wasn’t something she could discuss with him.

  ‘And how do I rate?’

  ‘You rate well…as far as I can tell. But I think it takes time to be sure…more time than we’ve known each other.’

  The younger of the two women came out with a basket of bread, a bowl of olives and a dish of mussels, their black shells piped with what looked like fine squiggles of icing sugar but what turned out to be a corraline trail left on them by some other sea creature.

  ‘Do you like mussels?’ Cam asked. They had not been offered a choice of starters, only the option to have lamb chops or paella for their main course.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried them before. They’re a beautiful colour.’ Before she ate, she added, ‘This is all pretty basic compared with the restaurants you took me to. But my friend said it was a glimpse of the way Spain used to be, before it was colonised by northerners. But of course you were here as a schoolboy so you know what it was like then.’

  He said, ‘But now I am a man who has missed a lot of the best things life has to offer, and who wants to make up for lost time. Liz, I don’t want to seem intrusive, but were you and your husband childless by choice or chance?’

  ‘Certainly not by choice. We both wanted children, but it wasn’t possible. Duncan had had orchitis in his teens. His family doctor didn’t warn him that, occasionally, it leaves men infertile.’ Though she had always suspected that Duncan’s possessive mother had known it was a possibility. ‘Not that it would have made any difference if we had known. I loved him. I would have married him regardless.’

  “‘Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds…O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark”,’ Cam quoted.

  For a moment she was tempted to confide in him. Instead she said, ‘There’s no guarantee that I can have children now. I passed all the tests at the time, but it was a long time ago and the chances don’t get better as women get older.’

  ‘You’re not that old,’ he said, smiling. ‘Lots of women don’t start their families until forty is on the horizon. The pattern of life has changed since our parents’ time. I know a number of couples who’ve decided not to have children. They feel procreation should be an option, not a convention. I agree with that point of view. But, for myself, I’d like to have a crack at parenthood.’

  ‘Is that your main reason for deciding to marry?’

  ‘Certainly not. If I arranged my reasons in order, it would be well down the list.’

  ‘What would come first?’

  He drank some wine before he answered. ‘Two things: companionship and sex. Someone to share my thoughts and my bed.’

  ‘Rumour says there’s never been any shortage of bed partners.’

  ‘Rumour tends to exaggerate. I’m not denying that my past has not been monastic, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of fidelity in a permanent relationship.’

  ‘Don’t you think you might get bored in a permanent relationship?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I’m not bored by my favourite books, my favourite music, my favourite paintings. While I hope to go on making new friends for the rest of my life, I don’t expect to lose interest in my first close friends.’ He paused. ‘To be blunt about it, freewheeling girls like Fiona were a pleasant expedient while I was footloose, with a good chance of being blown to bits. You may think that reprehensible, but making love is a fundamental human need. You married young. If you hadn’t, are you sure you wouldn’t have had some pleasant but temporary relationships while you waited for a permanent partner to show up?’

  ‘I expect I might have,’ she agreed. ‘Though I can’t imagine ever going to bed with anyone unless I had some feelings for them…unless I had hopes that it would last. But, I suppose, if you’re in a job that involves serious risks you probably look at it differently…the way people do in wartime. Live for today in case there is no tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, as you know better than most, tomorrow is never a sure thing for anyone. But I’m certain that your husband, if he could have foreseen the premature ending of his life, would not have wanted you to spend the rest of yours in mourning for him.’ Cam said quietly. ‘Romantic love isn’t the only basis for a successful marriage, you know. In a lot of cultures it starts as a practical arrangement and affection grows on the way along.’

  ‘But not in our culture.’

  ‘Our culture is in the melting pot. Who can say where it’s heading? I think we are all on the threshold of enormous, exciting changes. I also think you and I would enjoy them more if we faced them together.’

  At this point the restaurant’s owner came out to collect their plates and the dish of empty shells and squeezed halves of lemon.

  ‘Bien?’ she enquired.

  ‘Muy bien, señora.’ Cam chatted to her as easily as if the conversa
tion she had interrupted had been of no special consequence.

  Did he take it for granted that she would accept his proposal? Liz wondered. But really why should he not? He had a great deal to offer. There must be any number of women who, given the chance, would jump at becoming Mrs Cameron Fielding, wife of a well-known man who was also exceptionally attractive. He was everything most women dreamed of, except that he didn’t believe in love and perhaps was incapable of feeling it.

  ‘Have you never been in love?’ she asked, when they were alone again.

  ‘Yes…in my youth…of course,’ he said, looking amused. ‘Between seventeen and twenty-three I fell in love several times, but fortunately the girls didn’t feel the same way or their parents intervened.’

  ‘Fortunately?’

  He shrugged. ‘I didn’t see it as fortunate at the time, but I do now. Generally speaking people in their teens and early twenties are far too immature to embark on a serious relationship. They need to find out who they are before they can tell who will suit them for the rest of their lives. You may have known who you were when you got married, but most people don’t till much later.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know who I am even now,’ she said, in a wry tone. ‘Life seems to happen to me. I don’t feel I’m in control.’

  ‘You made the decision to come here, to make a fresh start.’

  ‘It was more of an impulse than a considered decision…something that happened by chance rather than by design. I didn’t decide in advance that I wanted to live abroad.’

  ‘Well, now there is a decision to make and I think we should fix a time limit. I’ll give you until the mimosa in my garden comes out. What could be more romantic?’ he said, with a teasing smile.

  ‘When does that happen?’ She had heard there were seven varieties of mimosa growing in Spain, some flowering earlier than others.

  ‘Depends…usually in March, but sometimes earlier if the winter has been particularly mild. Meantime we can spend a lot of time together and do an in-depth check for incompatibilities.’

  ‘I can spot one big one already. You take the idea of marriage a lot less seriously than I do,’ she retorted, rather brusquely.

  The paella was brought in a large shallow metal pan and set on the end of the table. The yellow rice, coloured with saffron, glistened in the sunlight. Half a dozen prawns were arranged round the edge of the dish and there were chunks of chicken and possibly rabbit half hidden in the rice.

  ‘I’ll serve it, shall I?’ said Cam, and he performed this task as expertly as a Spanish waiter.

  As was customary in small Spanish restaurants, the plates had not been heated, so they concentrated on eating and did not talk. Fortunately the paella in the pan stayed hot. They both had second helpings and Cam finished up what was left.

  ‘Mmm…very good,’ he said, patting his flat midriff in a gesture of appreciation. ‘Why does food always taste better out of doors, I wonder?’

  Considering that he had probably eaten at some of the world’s best restaurants, Liz felt his comments owed more to politeness than truth.

  A car arrived and parked near hers under the pine trees. Two middle-aged couples got out and came to the table next to the one where Cam and Liz were sitting. The newcomers greeted them in Spanish, then continued their conversation in a language she didn’t recognise and thought must be something Scandinavian.

  The already large and still expanding expatriate community included many nationalities from all parts of Europe and also from North America. There had also been an influx of people from North Africa and South America, but they were mostly to be seen working on the land or selling goods in the street markets and rastros. Some were illegal immigrants, striving to make a better life for themselves. Many of the comfortably off expats disapproved of them, but Liz felt sorry for anyone forced, by poverty, to uproot themselves from their homelands.

  ‘Shall we go for a stroll and have our fruit and coffee a little later?’ Cam suggested.

  ‘Won’t the señora mind if we walk off without paying? Perhaps I should pay her first?’

  ‘She won’t mind if I explain. She’s not a worrier like you are,’ he said, before going inside the building.

  Am I a worrier? Liz wondered. If I am, why does he want me in his life instead of some carefree butterfly like Fiona?

  Cam reappeared. ‘Let’s go that way.’ He indicated a rough track on the opposite side of the road passing the restaurant.

  ‘You didn’t pay her yourself, did you?’ asked Liz, prepared to be angry if he had.

  ‘You said you wanted to pick up the bill today.’

  ‘Yes, but I know what men are. They like to be in charge.’

  ‘Sometimes…not always,’ he said mildly. ‘There’s a hawk.’ He pointed at a bird hovering in the bright air.

  They walked as far as a small deserted stone building that might once have been a dwelling in the time when all the terraces in this area were still under cultivation.

  ‘It’s hard for us to imagine spending our whole lives, from birth to death, in one small corner of the world,’ said Cam, as they looked through what had once been the doorway to a single room. ‘I don’t think I could have stood it…day after day, year after year of relentless labour to scrape a living. I’d have had to go off and find out what was on the other side of the sierra—’ waving his arm at the mountainside looming above them. ‘But perhaps, having seen it, I would have come back and settled. There’s a peacefulness here that you never find in a city or even a town.’

  He turned to her. ‘You’ve gone very quiet. What are you thinking about?’

  ‘About your bombshell, of course. What else would I be thinking of?’

  He came to where she was standing, putting his hands lightly on her shoulders.

  “‘Bombshell” implies something unpleasant. I can understand you being surprised, if you took me for a dedicated loner. But is the idea of being my wife so completely unacceptable that you can’t believe I’ve suggested it?’

  Then, before she could form her reply, he bent his head and kissed her mouth.

  It was the lightest and most fleeting of kisses but, in an instant, it reactivated the feelings she had experienced in his garden after their first lunch together. Powerful sensations surged through her. In that moment she recognised the truth that her brain had been trying to deny. She had fallen in love with him.

  As if that were not enough to cope with, Cam took his hands from her shoulders, but not to leave her free to step back if she wanted to. Instead he slipped his arms round her, gathered her close and kissed her again, this time with less restraint.

  Some immeasurable time later—it might have been seconds or minutes, she only knew it was too brief to satisfy her body and far too long for her peace of mind—he brought the kiss to an end.

  Still holding her, he said, ‘I liked that. How about you?’

  Stumped for a suitable answer, Liz freed herself. ‘I think we should go back.’

  It amazed her that her voice was steady when the rest of her felt like jelly. With a single kiss he had made her want him so badly that she couldn’t believe the strength of the urges aroused in her.

  ‘Whatever you say. It’s your party.’ He gestured for her to go ahead of him.

  In a daze of conflicting emotions, she set out along the path.

  Following her, Cam was pretty sure he knew what was going on in her mind. The kiss had made her understand what she hadn’t taken in before: that her physical needs hadn’t atrophied in the years she had been on her own but had merely been dormant and were now back in action and clamouring for satisfaction.

  He noticed she was treading on stones that she would have avoided if she had been concentrating on the path instead of thinking about, and probably regretting, her response to his kiss.

  Deliberately, he had not turned up the heat as high as it could have gone if he hadn’t kept control. It would take time and patience to get her to the point when she wouldn’t feel
uneasy about the attraction between them.

  He looked at her narrow waist and the feminine shape of her backside and he wished he could take her home and go to bed with her. But he was not going to do that—not today, not yet. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready. He would have to be patient.

  Back at the restaurant, they finished their meal with fresh fruit and coffee before driving back to Valdecarrasca. On the way, Cam suggested a detour to a planterista as he wanted some pots of geraniums for the sill of his street-side kitchen window.

  ‘I thought geraniums needed sun, but there’s a house near the bakery where they seem to thrive on a north-facing window ledge,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps the owner has a sunny patio and swops them around,’ said Liz.

  He was the tallest, broadest passenger she had ever had in her small car and she was uneasily conscious of the long hard thighs on the other side of the gearstick and the rock-like chest that, not long ago, she had felt against her breasts.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  He had pushed the passenger seat as far back as it would go so that his backrest was several inches further back than hers. She knew he was watching her.

  She forced herself to concentrate on driving, keeping an eye out for cars that, visible half a mile downhill, might vanish behind a bend just before the point when they met.

  ‘Do you like driving?’ Cam asked.

  ‘I like country driving, but even that can be scary occasionally. I passed a van the other day whose driver was holding a mobile in one hand and making gestures with the other. He was on a straight stretch of road, but even so…’

  ‘Maniac!’ was Cam’s comment. After a pause, he added, ‘It makes a nice change to be driven…lets me look at the scenery in a way I can’t at the wheel.’

  The planterista they stopped at was not well-organised and some of the plants and shrubs on sale were in less than first-class condition. Cam decided to look for geraniums at one of the larger establishments catering to the thousands of villa-owners in the coastal belt.

  ‘We could do that tomorrow,’ he suggested, as they returned to the car. ‘Also I wouldn’t mind looking round the shops in Gata. I’ve been asked to a house-warming and I need to find a suitable present.’