‘Does he?’ Tom is surprised.
I nod, tasting my coffee for the first time. It’s rich and thickly layered with flavour, and the bitterness immediately makes me feel more alert.
‘So, you two talked about me on your little date?’
‘It wasn’t a date!’ I correct, although the colour of my face is in danger of betraying my real feelings.
‘He took you for a day out, just the two of you,’ Tom replies. ‘Sounds a lot like a date to me.’
‘I don’t think he saw it that way,’ I admit, sounding like a grumpy teenager. ‘I honestly think he was just trying to be nice.’
Tom looks at me without speaking, his concerned expression filling in the gap.
‘Just be careful,’ he says eventually, keeping his eyes fixed on the flat-topped hill in the middle distance. ‘I know how much you like him.’
‘Don’t be silly!’ I reply, but it’s obvious Tom suspects me. For a beat, I consider telling him about the kiss Theo gave me, the buzz of electricity that I felt in the air as he looked at me, but the words grind to a halt in the back of my throat. If it were any other man, I probably would, but this feels different somehow. Theo is Tom’s boss, too, and the thought of confessing makes me feel mildly sick. The more people who know about my crush on Theo, the harder it will become to conceal, and I take so much comfort from keeping it as my own little secret. If it gets out, it could end up hurting me, and I can’t risk that.
‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ I say instead, finishing my coffee and looking around for a bin. ‘I’m a big girl.’
‘If you say so.’ Tom shrugs as we make our way back down the steps. ‘But promise me you’ll tread carefully around Theo?’
The way he’s saying it, you’d think Theo was an irritable alligator rather than the sexiest man to ever walk the Earth, but I promise anyway just to cheer him up. Privately, however, my mind is taking a very different path, and as I send Tom off to clean his teeth and brush his ridiculous hair, I let myself relive that kiss one more glorious time.
17
‘There is no way that Walt Disney was born here.’
I open one eye and use it to shoot scorn in Tom’s direction.
‘He was.’
‘According to who?’
‘According to this book,’ I point out, holding up the tattered paperback that Theo has very kindly lent me. The man himself isn’t here, sadly. He had some incredibly boring permit paperwork that needed to be sorted out, so he’s given us the afternoon off while he drives back to Almería. Because we were filming at the beach all morning, we decided to stay here, and now Tom and I are lying side by side on a pair of sun loungers, two empty cerveza bottles nestled in the sand between us.
‘It says here that the young Walt – whose real name is José Guirao, by the way – used to help his father, who worked at the docks in Villaricos. When his dad passed away, a ship captain took pity on the man’s widow and her young son, and agreed to take them to America to start a new life.’
‘I don’t buy it,’ Tom sniffs. ‘If it was true, why wouldn’t there be a statue up or something?’
‘Shush,’ I scold, eager to finish telling him the story. ‘Once in America, the same captain found José and his mother a job on a farm in California—’
‘Convenient,’ interrupts Tom.
‘Oi! And the farm owner was called Walt Disney. When José’s mum eventually died a few years later, the farm owner adopted the boy.’
‘Of course he did.’ Tom is starting to annoy me.
‘And then,’ I continue, gritting my teeth as Tom laughs, ‘about thirty-odd years later, Walt Disney’s secretaries turned up in Mojácar saying they’d come for his birth certificate so he could get married.’
‘Why isn’t it common knowledge, then?’ Tom wants to know.
‘Walt Disney never confirmed it,’ I tell him, putting the book down and closing my eyes. ‘Whenever he was asked the question, he would shrug and say, “Chi lo sa,” which means, “Who knows?” ’
‘A man of mystery,’ croons Tom, but I can tell that he doesn’t believe anything I’ve just said. The way I see it, the truth isn’t the part that really matters anyway – it’s a good story, and Theo agrees with me that it needs to be in our film.
‘Where do you think Nancy got to?’ Tom asks now, twisting his long, lean body around so he can see into the bar. We’re back at the place where Carlos works again, more out of habit than anything, and Nancy went inside a while ago to get herself a drink. She’s not keen on sunbathing, preferring to keep her pale skin covered beneath a garish flowing kaftan covered in pink sequins, which I think looks like fairy vomit, but Tom pretends to find enchanting.
‘Probably just sitting in the shade with Claudette,’ I reply, not bothering to move. Unlike my half-sibling, I’ve become a big fan of lying out in the sun – especially now that I definitely have a sort-of tan. It may be pale gold rather than mahogany like Theo’s, but it’s still better than the milk-bottle white that I was twelve days ago.
‘I can’t see her,’ bleats Tom.
I take a deep breath in through my nose and sit up, clamping my undone bikini top to my chest with my hand.
There is no sign of Nancy or Claudette at any of the tables within my eyeline, or up at the bar, and I wrinkle up my nose and squint in an effort to see right back to the cluster of smaller tables furthest away.
‘Maybe they went to the shop?’ I suggest, resuming my sun-worshipping position and trying my best to quell the unfathomable unease that has just crept through me. What is it about Nancy that makes me feel so on edge? It doesn’t make sense.
‘I’m going to check,’ decides Tom, snatching up the empty bottles and swinging his discarded T-shirt over one shoulder. I listen to his flip-flops as they flap up the wooden walkway between the loungers, then I hear his voice as he asks after Nancy and Claudette at the bar. The couple who run this place – Sofia and Camila – are quite taken with our French friend, and the three of them have started to drink together occasionally.
‘Camila says they left with Carlos about ten minutes ago,’ Tom announces, passing me a fresh cerveza as he sits back down.
I feel my skin prickle despite the heat.
‘Did she say where they were going?’
‘Probably to meet that idiot, Ignacio,’ mutters Tom, taking a swig of his drink only to have it bubble over the lip of the bottle and dribble down his chin.
‘I’m sure they’ll be back in a bit,’ I tell him, but I’m saying it more to reassure myself than him. There’s no real reason for me to worry, I know that, but for some reason I don’t like the idea of Nancy being with Claudette. She may pretend to be street-smart, my sister, but I can tell that she’s in awe of the older and far more worldly Claudette. Hell, before this trip, I felt the same way. I don’t like the idea of Nancy being led astray, or being persuaded to do something just to impress her new idol.
‘I’ll give them half an hour, and then I’ll call,’ I say out loud, and Tom nods in agreement. Is he worried for the same reason as me, I wonder, or is it purely because he doesn’t want her getting off with Ignacio?
I try to close my eyes and be lulled by the sound of the wind stirring up the surface of the sea, the waves crashing against the shore and the music drifting down from the bar behind us. It’s some sort of jazz singer, and the lyrics are Spanish and soothing in tone. It makes me think of glamorous ladies in wide-brimmed hats and navy bathing suits, a cigarette nestled in one of those fancy holders in their hands and a tall glass of Pimm’s in the other. I should be more relaxed than I have been in months, but I’m not. Thanks to Nancy and Claudette buggering off without telling me, I’m now starting to feel nauseous with anxiety.
To kill some time, I scoop up my sarong and knot it across my front, leaving Tom to guard our stuff while I head to the toilet and throw cold water across my face. The sun has coaxed out a scatter of freckles across my cheeks and nose, but my eyes look sore, with large bag
s beneath them. Spending each night on the sofa is definitely not a long-term solution. If I don’t get some decent sleep soon, it will start to affect my ability to work, and I’m damned if I’m going to allow that to happen. Why did Nancy have to turn up like this? I hate feeling sorry for myself, I really do, but I keep coming back to the same conclusion: things would be so much easier if she wasn’t here.
I pull my hairband off and rake my fingers through my messy mop. It feels coarse, and I attempt to flatten it with water, but that does little to improve its appearance. I must buy myself one of those conditioning treatments and actually remember to use it. Salt water coupled with hours of exposure to the sun every day has bleached it even blonder and sucked out everything that used to make it shine. I think enviably of Nancy’s glossy shoulder-length locks. Her hair shines so much that you can almost see your face in it, and it’s a huge injustice that she inherited Dad’s fabulous barnet, while I got stuck with his big ears and long toes.
‘It’s been twenty minutes,’ Tom announces, as soon as I return to the loungers, and I sit down and take a deep breath.
‘Fine, I’ll call her now, then. Pass my bag, could you?’
I know it’s going to go straight to voicemail before I even press the buttons. Call it half-sisterly intuition.
‘I’ll try Claudette,’ Tom says, immediately extracting his own phone from inside my bag and frowning a few seconds later.
‘Voicemail.’ He holds it up to show me. ‘What the hell are they playing at?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say grimly. ‘But I wish whatever it is they would stop.’
We hang around on the loungers until the wind picks up and the sun begins to sink, eventually moving from the beach up to a table and ordering an array of tapas, which we pick at rather than eat. Neither Claudette nor Nancy has returned or switched on their phones, and Camila can’t get hold of Carlos either. As I keep telling Tom, we really shouldn’t be worrying, because they’re both grown-ups, and for all her faults, Claudette is responsible enough not to let anything bad happen to Nancy. Of course, I am still fretting, though, and with every hour that passes and we hear nothing, my mood is worsening. Nancy’s not even here with us and she’s still managed to sabotage my day. It’s absolutely bloody typical.
‘We should head up to the village after this and check the bars,’ Tom says, spearing a chunk of patatas bravas and dunking it in the oil surrounding the chorizo.
‘I don’t see why we should run around looking for them when they clearly don’t want to be found,’ I say with a sniff, using my fork to scrape the creamy feta filling out from a plump Peppadew pepper and then pushing it around my plate. Privately, I’m half hoping that Theo will arrive at the bar looking for me after his return from Almería, but I’m not about to tell Tom that. I know that if we’re down here by the beach, then there’s far more chance of bumping into him than there will be up in the pueblo, and I’m loath to put any unnecessary distance between the two of us.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Tom says, standing up and dropping his knife on the table. ‘There’s Carlos. CARLOS!’
‘Hola,’ the curly-haired Spaniard says as he approaches us, horizontally casual in the face of Tom’s obvious impatience.
‘Where’s Claudette?’ I ask, not even bothering to greet him properly first. If Carlos is bemused by this, he doesn’t show it; he merely yawns and stretches his short arms above his head.
‘Sleeping,’ he says, smirking. ‘I leave her at your place.’
‘What about Nancy?’ Tom puts in, and Carlos looks a little less sure of himself.
‘She is … Er.’ He pauses, looking from Tom’s concerned features to mine, which I hurriedly arrange into a smile.
‘It’s okay,’ I assure him. ‘She’s not in trouble – I just need to know where she is.’
Carlos looks uneasily at Tom. ‘Ignacio, he take her for a drive,’ he admits, his eyes widening at Tom’s grunt of disapproval.
‘Where?’ I ask. ‘Dónde?’
‘Around. Not very far. I don’t know, but it will be okay.’ Carlos smiles at the two of us in encouragement. ‘Ignacio, he is my best friend for many years. He is a good boy – you understand?’
I picture Nancy’s face the other night, her eyes secretly pleading with me to rescue her from the over-familiar arms of her Spanish admirer. Why the hell would she agree to go off in a car with a strange man in a strange country? It was stupid behaviour, even for her.
Carlos looks crestfallen that his admission has gone down so badly with us, and starts walking backwards away from the table, muttering something about going back to work.
Tom and I exchange a look.
‘I told you she was selfish,’ I mutter, pushing my plate away.
Tom sits back down and reaches for his drink. He doesn’t look angry so much as upset, which only serves to make me even more furious with my errant sister.
‘She’s just young,’ he begins, but stops when he sees the venom in my eyes.
‘That’s no excuse!’ I rage, reaching for my phone and then swearing as it yet again goes straight through to Nancy’s voicemail. ‘If she ends up mangled at the bottom of a cliff then it will be all her own fault.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ Tom argues.
‘I do!’ I snap right back. ‘It will be her fault, but I’ll be the one who gets the bloody blame for it, just like I always have for anything that Nancy has ever done wrong in her entire life. I didn’t ask her to come out here to Spain, I didn’t want her anywhere near me, and now she’s gone and done this. I’m going to wring her bloody neck!’
‘Calm down,’ soothes Tom, his hand on my shoulder.
I shrug him away.
‘Shall we go and talk to Claudette, then?’ he suggests, having also given up on his food. ‘Or I can ask Carlos to call Ignacio and tell him to bring Nancy back?’
‘NO!’ I growl, then feel contrite when I see his bruised expression. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to have a go at you. I’m just pissed off with her for vanishing like this, that’s all.’
‘I see that.’
‘Please, Tom – just be on my side for once.’
‘I’m always on your side, Han.’
He looks mutinous now and I swallow my next comment, washing it away with the last dregs from my water glass.
‘Come on,’ I tell him, standing up. ‘Let’s go and interrogate Claudette. I’ll enjoy being the one to wake her up for a change.’
By the time we get all the way back to the apartment and I’ve given Claudette the third, fourth and fifth degree, it’s almost nine o’clock and there’s still no sign of Nancy. We don’t find her in any of the bars in the Old Town, and I’m so worried that I even force myself to pay a visit to Diego’s pizza restaurant in the hope that she’s somehow ended up back there again.
To Diego’s credit, he’s very nice to me, and promises to call me if Nancy does show up. I refuse his offer of a drink, however, telling him honestly that I have to meet Tom, but as I leave, I file it with all the other reasons I have to be fed up with my half-sister. It would have been nice to sit and chat with Diego. Now that I’m able to face him again without turning into a radish, I’d like him to get to know the Hannah that I am now, as opposed to the one he rejected all those years ago. He would be such a good person to interview for the film, too, I realise. As well as being incredibly handsome, he has an impressive command of English. If I was channel-flicking and came across his bronzed features and dark, almond-shaped eyes, I’d be drooling all over my sofa cushions.
I find Tom at our pre-arranged meeting spot near the main square and we search the local bars again, subdued into silence by our mutual concern. I’m starting to feel guilty for ever mentioning the idea of Nancy being in an accident, because now it’s all I can picture in my head – twisted metal and angry flames, the policía turning up at the door of the apartment in the early hours to break the news, and me having to call my dad and tell him, admit that it happened on my watch. For the fir
st time in a very long while, I feel dangerously close to crying.
‘Are you okay?’ Tom asks, taking in my trembling bottom lip and shining eyes.
Unable to reply, I just shake my head, and he pulls me against him. We always hug so awkwardly, Tom and I, like two stalks of corn leaning against each other.
‘Will you walk me back to the apartment?’ I murmur into his ear.
‘Of course.’
We walk down the hill without speaking, Tom’s long left arm wrapped around my shoulders, and I watch the shape of our conjoined shadows bending in the light from the street lamps. There’s a flicker as a bat passes in front of one, and the tinny sound of moped engines as a convoy of teenagers zip past us. We reach the steps leading down to the apartment in what feels like barely minutes, and I’m suddenly anxious at the thought of Tom leaving.
I move out of his embrace and turn to face him, waiting until he looks down and our eyes meet in the half-darkness. This is usually the point at which one of us would make a joke or say something stupid, but neither of us do. Instead, Tom just looks at me as if he’s seeing me properly for the first time in years, his frown of concern merging slowly into a reassuring smile. I’m scared and he’s here for me, just as he always is, but this time it feels different. This time it feels as if there are unsaid words in the air between us, and I have no idea what to say to him. I close my eyes for a fraction of a second and lift my chin higher, but just as Tom is moving a hand towards my face, we hear a loud giggling sound.
‘Nancy?’
I swivel around in the direction of the road to find that it is, indeed, my sister who was laughing. She’s swaying slightly on her high-heeled sandals and her hair looks messed up, as if somebody’s been running their hands through it. I can’t tell from where I’m standing, but it looks to me as if she’s also very drunk.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been all day?’ I demand.
Now that I know she isn’t lying dead in a ditch, the relief has instantly turned into anger, and I storm along the pavement towards her.
‘I said, where have you been?’ I ask again, coming to a halt just in front of her.
Then. Now. Always. Page 15
