by Anne Weale
He said quietly, ‘If you decide to marry me, I will be faithful to you. That’s a promise. I’m not in favour of open marriages either.’
She looked up at him. He could read the uncertainty verging on disbelief in her eyes and he cursed the fact that, the first time they met, he had had Fiona with him. Obviously meeting one of his former girlfriends had confirmed all the gossip Liz had picked up about him. If she hadn’t met Fiona, she might have taken it less seriously.
‘My grandmother used to quote a saying about reformed rakes making the best husbands,’ he told her. ‘You wouldn’t expect me, at my age, not to have had any relationships, would you?’
‘No…but it does sound as if you’ve had rather a lot of them.’
It wasn’t often that he found himself lost for words. Words were his stock in trade. But explaining his past life to Liz was a great deal harder than explaining the complexities of the Middle East or African politics to several million television viewers.
‘You must have seen films or read about World War Two,’ he said. ‘When men didn’t know if they were going to come back from their next bombing mission, or their next Atlantic convoy, they grabbed life with both hands while they had the chance. Women did too, even in those days when normal codes of behaviour were a great deal stricter than they are now.’
She nodded, listening intently.
‘Reporters who cover war zones tend to feel the same way,’ he went on. ‘It’s a high-risk occupation so they live for the present. Tomorrow may never happen. But now, unless I’m very unlucky, I can expect to live as long as my grandparents did. I can plan for the future.’ He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. ‘I’m hoping to spend it with you…raising a family and enjoying life together.’
He had hoped that she might react by turning her hand palm upwards and curling her fingers round his. But her hand remained motionless.
She said, ‘Nowadays most people have a trial run before they marry. Don’t you think that might be wiser than rushing into matrimony straight away?’
‘Did you have a trial run with your husband?’
As he had noticed before, any mention of her husband lit a flicker of pain in her eyes.
Liz knew it was natural for Cam to be curious about her marriage and perhaps, one day, she would tell him the whole story, but not now, not yet.
She shook her head. ‘Our families were very conventional. We both lived at home till we married. A trial run wasn’t an option. I was never a rebel and neither was Duncan.’
‘What was his job?’
‘He was an accountant with an insurance company.’ To Cam, she felt sure, such an occupation would seem the nadir of dullness.
‘Was it what he wanted to do?’
‘He wasn’t unhappy doing it. I think he accepted that most people don’t find their work exciting. Somebody has to do the dull jobs. He did enjoy his hobby—coin-collecting. He belonged to several collectors’ clubs and wrote articles on numismatics.’ That probably made Duncan sound even duller, she thought.
Rather to her surprise, Cam said, ‘That’s a fascinating field. I know next to nothing about it, but I can understand its appeal. My grandfather collected stamps but he didn’t attempt to interest me in them. He believed that a passion for collecting couldn’t be instilled but had to spring up naturally. However, getting back to the question of trial runs, I think, in a village like this, there’s no point in inviting critical comment. In London and New York, no one gives a damn what anyone does. But here they have different values.’
Liz had no doubt he was right as far as the older women were concerned. Most of them would have been virgin brides. But, according to what Alicia had told her, Spanish girls were rapidly catching up with their peers in northern Europe, even to the extent of setting up house with their boyfriends.
Alicia had also confided that, for her own generation, sexual relations ended with the menopause—and a good thing too, she had added, suggesting that her own experience of physical love had been a tiresome duty rather than the delight it was supposed to be.
In her still far from fluent Spanish, Liz had ventured to ask what their husbands thought about that. Alicia had shrugged her plump shoulders, at the same time pulling down the corners of her mouth and rolling her eyes. ‘Men are men and will find their pleasures where they can,’ she had said dismissively.
Deborah, when Liz had relayed this comment to her, had said, ‘Haven’t you noticed the “clubs” all along the main coast road? Club is a euphemism for brothel. I expect that’s where they go. Don’t look so shocked. Men are like that. If your husband wasn’t, you were lucky.’
And, in that respect, she had been, Liz knew. There was no doubt in her mind that Duncan had always been faithful to her. He had disapproved of promiscuity and avoided colleagues who went boozing together or played the field. He would not have got on with Cam. They were poles apart.
Cam had withdrawn his hand and was drinking his wine and watching her with a faintly amused expression.
‘It’s not so long since you were warning me not to step out of line. Now you’re the one suggesting we go to bed together, and you haven’t made the decision to marry me yet—or have you?’
She felt herself flushing. ‘No, I haven’t. I still think the idea is mad.’
‘On the contrary…eminently sane. But we won’t argue about it. Bring me up to date with your online life.’
They didn’t get back to the village until late afternoon, after looking round some more of Gata’s shops and then having a late lunch during which Cam steered the conversation away from personal matters and made Liz laugh more often than she could ever remember laughing at a meal table.
When he dropped her outside her house, he got out to open the boot and give her the vase she had bought.
‘Thank you for lunch,’ she said, as he handed it over.
‘Thank you for being my shopping adviser. Are you going to Benissa tomorrow?’
Benissa was a cathedral town where, on Saturdays, a picturesque street market supplied Spaniards, expats and tourists with excellent produce.
‘Probably.’
‘Why don’t we go together and free a car parking space for someone else to use?’
Against her better judgement, she said, ‘All right. What time?’
‘Is half past nine too early?’
‘No, that would be fine.’
‘Hasta mañana.’ Seeing that a heavy lorry was coming down the narrow street and would not be able to pass his car, he quickly returned to the wheel.
Presently, as she was rearranging his flowers in the new vase, Liz knew it would have been wiser to avoid his company for a few days and give herself time to think more clearly than she could when she was with him.
That evening, intending to do some work, she could not resist looking at the photo of him she had saved from the TV channel website. By using a photographic program, she was able to enlarge it and print it on a small colour printer she had bought at a special offer price. When used with special paper that was more expensive than ordinary paper, the printer produced prints of a quality as good as regular photographs.
Later, lying in bed, she spent a long time studying every detail of Cam’s physiognomy, from the way his hair sprang from his broad, high forehead in an almost straight line with the hint of a peak in the centre, to the exact shape of his incisors.
She found that, if she covered his left eye with her hand, the right eye looked curiously stern. When she covered his right eye, the left had the sexy glint that she found so disturbing. With both eyes exposed it was less noticeable, as was the sternness.
She got out of bed for a hand mirror and studied her own eyes. Their expression seemed identical. Perhaps a difference was only noticeable in a photograph, but the only portrait photograph she had was in her passport and it was too small to be studied in the same way.
What worried her was that she remembered studying a picture of Duncan in just this way when
she was in her late teens. Was she any wiser than she had been then? Older, yes—but not necessarily any more sensible.
She remembered some lines read at school. Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Duncan, mildest of men, had not been a tyrant. Nevertheless her marriage had been a kind of slavery, a bondage from which there had seemed to be no escape until, suddenly, she was free—and sick with shame because the price of her freedom had been his life.
At midnight, unable to sleep, she went up to the flat roof for the first time since the night Cam had brought Fiona to La Higuera and she had seen them embracing by the guest room window.
Now the only room alight was the sitting room, but its occupant wasn’t visible. Perhaps he was sitting on the sofa that had its back to the windows. If the television had been on, she would have seen the blue glow of its screen. But it wasn’t so he must be reading.
At least they had that in common. They were both insatiable readers. But was it enough to build a marriage on?
Benissa market was already bustling when they arrived at the street where it took place. On either side was a row of terraced houses, some tall, some smaller, but all with black-painted iron rejas protecting the ground-floor windows, narrow balconies at the windows above, and black or well-polished brass knockers on the doors. Each terrace had a narrow pavement and a roadway. One road was at a slightly lower level than the other and between them was a narrow railinged garden with palm trees towering above shrubs and daisy bushes.
Today the two roadways were occupied by stalls displaying piles of shiny purple aubergines, ruby-red and dark green peppers, garlic, mushrooms, strawberries, artichokes, oranges and many other fruit and vegetables. Crowding the fronts of the stalls were local housewives, some pulling shopping trolleys and others with small dummy-sucking children in push-chairs. The air was loud with voices, most of them speaking Valenciano, the language of the region. But foreigners speaking German, Dutch, French, English and various Scandinavian languages added to the babel. Several children were eating churros from a stall at one end of the market, and a teenage girl was managing to navigate through the crowd on Rollerblades.
Many curious and interested glances were directed at Cam, Liz noticed, for not only was he taller than most of the shoppers, but he had the air of being someone special. She wondered if he would be recognised, though this was not the kind of place where people would expect to find someone well-known on TV. Despite its superior climate, the Costa Blanca had never had the once fashionable and now somewhat disreputable image of the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain.
‘These piel de sapo melons are good—if you like melon,’ she said, picking up one shaped like a rugby ball, its name deriving from the fact that the green rind with darker blotches did resemble the skin of a toad.
Cam bought one and insisted on putting them both in the rucksack he had slung over one broad shoulder. Though the local people were always well-mannered, once or twice, on previous visits to the market, Liz had been jostled or elbowed aside by the kind of foreigner who felt he or she had the right to be served before other shoppers.
With Cam beside her, she knew this would not happen. His presence was like a shield. She felt an atavistic pleasure in being with someone larger and stronger who, in the unlikely event of an affray breaking out, would see it as his duty to protect her. Being a man’s equal was good in many ways, but there were still circumstances in which any sensible woman would welcome a strong male arm around her, or a tough masculine body stepping in front of her to ward off whatever the threat was.
Just as she was thinking this, Cam, now standing behind her, leaned forward to pick out a grapefruit, the movement bringing his chest into contact with the back of her shoulder. At the same time she caught an aroma of soap, or shaving cream, or shower gel, that was more subtle than the fragrance of aftershave.
In that instant she knew that, however misguided it might be, she was going to accept his proposal of marriage. She was as incapable of resisting her feelings for him as she had been helpless to resist her girlish love for Duncan. All she could do was pray that, this time, it would turn out differently.
‘Sorry, am I crowding you?’ said Cam, looking down at the same moment that she looked up at him.
‘Everyone’s crowding everyone,’ Liz said, with attempted lightness. But her heart was thudding against her ribs and her voice came out husky instead of cool. How was it possible to feel these intensely private and personal sensations in such a public place?
Still holding the grapefruit out towards the stall-holder, Cam bent his head towards hers. In a low voice, speaking close to her ear, he said, ‘But these well-padded amas de casa and hausfraus don’t have the same effect on me that you do. I’m controlling a strong desire to kiss you.’
She repressed an impulse to say, Why don’t you? knowing he wasn’t a man to resist a challenge, however inappropriate the setting.
Before she could think of another answer, his teasing expression changed and he said quietly, ‘You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?’
His discernment stunned her. How could he read her mind so quickly and clearly? It was only moments since she had made the decision.
Then the stall-holder took the grapefruit from his hand and asked, ‘Algo más, señor?’
‘Nada mas.’ Cam handed over some coins and was given change. Turning to Liz, he said, ‘Why don’t I take our shopping back to the car while you have a browse round the other street? I’ll join you there and then we’ll go for a coffee.’
Taking her assent for granted, he took charge of the plastic carrier she was holding and turned away.
She watched him till he disappeared from view, and then she made her way slowly to a street at right angles to the market, where clothing and shoes were sold. There were also stalls selling cheap watches and jewellery or colourful rugs. The vendors of these were usually Africans or North Africans, their ebony or lighter brown skins adding a cosmopolitan touch to the small town atmosphere.
Usually Liz enjoyed browsing, but today her mind was focused on the shift about to take place in her relationship with Cam. Only yesterday she had told him a marriage between them was madness and now, as soon as he came back, she would have to admit she was ready to go ahead. Not only ready but eager—although she wouldn’t tell him that.
When Cam rejoined her she was watching, with a couple of small children, a wind-up toy frog swimming around in a blue plastic bowl.
‘Hi,’ he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘If you’d like one of those for your bath, I’m in a spending mood.’ Before she could stop him, he had asked the stall-holder, in Spanish, to wrap one up for her.
‘Cam, you’re crazy,’ she protested.
‘No, just happy,’ he answered, smiling. ‘How would it be if we put a jacuzzi in the courtyard and took outdoor tubs…you and me and the frog? I saw one advertised in the Costa Blanca News, or it may have been that freebie paper the Entertainer.’
‘A jacuzzi would ruin the courtyard. It would be an eyesore. How can you even suggest such a thing?’
‘For the pleasure of seeing you look horrified.’ He presented her with the frog, now wrapped in gift paper. ‘He’s a place-holder until I can enjoy the privilege of sharing your bath.’
Place-holder was a computing term she had already explained to him. She said, ‘You don’t know for sure that I’ve decided to marry you. You’re only assuming that.’
‘Am I wrong?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘Then let’s find a secluded corner and start making plans.’ He took her free hand in his and led the way through the crowd.
The bar most popular with the expats who shopped in Benissa was on the main square, near the fountain. But it was a noisy establishment where the tables often had to be shared. Cam took her to a quieter place where they could sit by themselves.
Having ordered coffee and cava, he said
, ‘I bought something else in the market. Another place-holder.’ He felt in his trouser pocket and brought out something wrapped in coloured tissue paper fastened with sticky tape.
‘A place-holder for what?’ she asked, as he handed it to her.
‘For something I need to discuss with you.’
Normally Liz was a person who unwrapped parcels carefully, patiently unfastening knots and trying not to tear the paper. This time she unwrapped the package quickly and, when she saw what was in it, gave a gasp of surprise.
Apart from the frog, the only thing in the market that had caught her eye for more than a moment had been an inexpensive bracelet of transparent blue and green beads. It was the sort of thing that looked pretty on the suntanned wrist of a teenage girl but she had felt was too young for her. It seemed extraordinary that Cam should have spotted the one thing she had liked.
He took it and put it on for her. ‘It’s a place-holder for an engagement ring. I don’t know what kind of jewellery you like so we’ll need to choose that together. Meanwhile you can wear this nonsense.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss on her knuckles. ‘And that is also a placeholder until we can seal our bond in the traditional way.’
At this point the bar waiter brought their coffee, two glasses of champagne and some little dishes of nibbles. He released her hand and leaned back in his chair. But, as the waiter arranged the things on the table, Liz was aware that Cam was continuing to watch her.
She put her hands in her lap and looked down at the delicate web of beads. They were the colour of sea water.
‘To us,’ said Cam, raising his glass.
‘To us,’ she echoed. ‘But, Cam, I don’t need an engagement ring. I’m perfectly happy with this pretty bracelet.’
For a second or two, he frowned. Then the hint of displeasure vanished and he said easily, ‘As you wish. How soon can we be married? From my point of view, the sooner the better. I’d prefer the quietest possible civil marriage. But you may have other ideas.’
