Sunset over the Cherry Orchard

by Jo Thomas

  ‘And don’t forget to come back for a top-up of that tea,’ he reminds me firmly, just as he has done every day since I started working at Buster’s Burgers a week ago, here in the heart of the precinct in the harbour. Lado del Puerto – Harbourside – is now known for its high-rise holiday apartments, British bars and long stretch of crowded beach much more than for its traditional market and dwindling fishing industry.

  ‘Thanks, Craig.’ I want to thank him for everything, not just the tea and bap, but his concern too. But my treacherous bottom lip won’t let me. Instead I take my breakfast and sit in the shade of a raffia umbrella on the other side of the palm trees, as far away as possible from the hubbub of holidaymakers, some nursing hangovers and replaying last night’s parties, some not even having made it to bed by the looks of it. I look out to sea at the few fishing boats coming in, then hold my face to the mid-morning sun, drinking in its rays, hoping it will revive my exhausted eyes and spirits.

  I unwrap the bacon roll and draw in the smell, letting it fill my soul, reminding me with a stab of everything I’ve left behind. At least back in Bristol I had a home, a life, a job, and a wedding I was planning. I thought coming out here was going to make everything better, catapulting Will and me out of our rut. We’d have a new business, and a future to look forward to. I thought I was finally moving up life’s ladder. Instead, I’ve lost the lot.

  I take a sip of tea. Craig likes to make proper builder’s tea, as my dad would call it. God, it’s hot! Burning, in fact. But at least it takes my mind off the pain in my chest right now. I take another sip, followed by a tiny bite of the soft white bap and the salty bacon. It’s funny how the smell can sometimes be more tempting than the actual taste. A bit like life, I suppose, where the thought of something can often turn out to be quite different from the reality, and you end up wondering why you bothered with it in the first place.

  I thought coming to Spain was exactly what Will and I needed to break us out of the monotony of our life back home. Just the boost to rekindle things in the bedroom department and put us back on track wedding-wise. I mean, relationships are supposed to be worked at, aren’t they? I thought once we were here, doing something together, he’d finally notice me and look at me like he used to. I’d tried everything else: sexy underwear, trips to the supermarket armed with the Hairy Bikers cookbook, and a new hairstyle – which I’m desperately regretting now – with blonde highlights over my natural mousy-brown colour. I’m growing it out and can just about tie it back in a scrunchie again now, thank goodness.

  Will and I met in Spain when I was twenty-seven while I was on holiday . . . with my parents! Mum and Dad had had a small win on the premium bonds and thought I needed a break from looking after my nan. I’d been living with her since she had fallen and broken her hip. It was on that holiday too that I realised that one day I wanted to live here and run a place of my own. I could just see myself serving drinks and tapas and living each day in the sunshine. There was an empty bar there I used to see every day, and I would dream about what I would do with it: the colour schemes, the place settings. When I got home, I even started Spanish lessons with a four-CD box set. I wonder if that’s why I ended up working at the airport. It was one step nearer my goal. All I had to do was get on a plane one day. And that day finally came.

  Will, in fairness, was surprisingly easy to convince. He was fed up working in the holiday company’s offices, selling holidays and insurance over the phone, and jumped at the chance. Work even offered him a six-month sabbatical and his job back at the end of it if he wanted it. What could go wrong? I thought I had it all sewn up. A summer out here, running our own place, and then a winter wedding on a beach somewhere hot. We handed our notice in on our dark, noisy rented flat, which was always supposed to be a temporary measure but had ended up being the rut we got stuck in.

  The next few weeks were a whirl of decluttering and packing, wading through websites and making appointments to see bars, narrowing them down to a shortlist of those we thought could be ‘the one’. We were spending more time together, enjoying each other’s company, laughing, excited about the future.

  We even found our bar – the Butterfly Bar, the one I’d seen in the advert. It’s just across the way from where I’m sitting now, and it’s perfect: overlooking the harbour and just a short distance from the beach. Harold and Brenda, the current owners, are sitting outside it now. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt, stretched over his big belly like a drum, and has faded tattoos and a moustache. He waves over to me and I smile. He’s drinking a cold beer at ten o’clock in the morning. It seems to be par for the course round here! Brenda is wearing a floral dress, skin as dark as my nan’s piano. I wave back, whilst a hot rash of embarrassment runs up my chest and round my neck at the thought of what I’ve got to tell them.

  When I saw the Butterfly Bar, I fell in love with it straight away. I knew it was the one. It has plenty of passing trade. There’s room for a small band to play, and tables and chairs outside. And they’re throwing everything in with the rental: glasses, optics, the lot! We’d just have to open up and hit the ground running. It’s even got a small one-bedroom apartment upstairs. We were so excited, we shook on it there and then. Harold and Brenda seemed delighted too; said they wanted to hand it over to a young couple who reminded them of themselves, especially when they heard I was from Wales originally, like them. They thought we were perfect. We went out and celebrated, and plastered selfies of us drinking fizz all over Facebook. Life really was on the up. I was about to live my dream at last.

  That night, there was a fiesta in the harbour to celebrate Easter. There were firecrackers going off everywhere; music and drinking; a brass band and a procession of floats with bejewelled performers dancing on them. I’m not sure what half of them had to do with Easter, mind. After far too much sangria, Will saw me back to our holiday apartment; then, while I face-planted into my pillow, he went back to the precinct for a few more beers with a band we’d met in the Pink Flamingo nightclub. And then, well . . . I take another sip of my tea, which has now gone cold. I still feel sick at the thought of it. He came back to the apartment at some point. Packed his stuff, and left. Just like that. And then he texted me.

  I pull my phone from my bag, check for any new messages and reread that last text.

  I’m so sorry, Beti. I know I can’t ask you to forgive me for what I’ve done. I think it would be better if we went our separate ways. I’m sorry.

  I take another gulp of cold tea, but I don’t taste it.

  It was the bank that first alerted me to ‘suspicious movements’ on our joint account, and I realised he’d practically emptied it. The deposit money for the bar, the few thousand from my nan’s inheritance, was gone.

  I must have rung his number a hundred times. Each time it goes to voicemail. I’ve checked his Facebook status as many times too. But there’s nothing. Like mine, it’s stuck in time on the day we celebrated finding our bar and the start of our new life in the sun.

  I asked around, of course. It was Craig who told me about Will’s new travelling companions. A band, Itchy Feet, playing where they can, and a six-foot Swedish backing singer called Freya. According to Craig, Will got involved in a card game with a bunch of Scottish lads. There was too much sangria, and in one evening my nan’s money was gone. He had to go to the cashpoint at least three times; I checked. I can still hear the whirring of the machine as I tried to withdraw money without success.

  So that was it. Will picked up his guitar and his belongings, hitched a lift with the band in their battered camper van, and disappeared. And I’ve stayed here, waiting, making increasingly feeble excuses to Harold and Brenda about Will’s whereabouts. I got this job in the meantime. I thought he’d be back by now. But he isn’t and it’s been nearly two weeks. I guess Freya just had something I didn’t . . . Well, she has now. She has my fiancé.

  So this is me, Beti Winter. Feeling foolish and sworn off Fa
cebook for ever. My last status was ‘Found my dream bar! Life just doesn’t get any better.’ I can’t bear to put up ‘Single and skint in Spain.’ Uncle Paul would have a field day. He’d tease my dad mercilessly. Apparently it’s ‘banter’. Not to my dad it’s not. He hates the way his brother makes me the butt of his jokes. But I have given him plenty of fodder. Not one of my weddings has come off, and now this, the bar in Spain that never was . . . Worst of all, I feel I’ve let my nan down. She trusted me with her china cow to make good use of it, and now it’s gone. What I do know is that I have to tell Harold and Brenda I can’t take over their bar, and I’m dreading it.

  They’re going to be disappointed, I know. They’re planning to move back to the UK, to retire there. Their daughter’s expecting another baby any time now, and they think it’s time to be with the family. If there was any way I could make this work, I would. But as it is, I’ve been left high and dry, up shit creek without a paddle, and I have no idea how to get back to dry land without being an absolute laughing stock.

  I stand up and toss the uneaten bacon bap in the nearby bin. It lands on top of the rubbish from the night before. The irony of it isn’t lost on me. I look across at Harold and Brenda. I have to go and explain.

  No more plans of owning my own bar in the Spanish sunshine for me. It’s back to the real world. This silly dream is well and truly over.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Oh Beti, come over.’ Brenda waves enthusiastically as I approach. The sun is warming up the paving stones of the precinct. The shops and cafés are open and there are plenty of people milling around, ordering coffees and pints. People are pulling out chairs and sitting at the chrome tables at the Butterfly Bar, enjoying the sun. Everyone is chatting, some are smoking, the white smoke curling up to meet the azure sky.

  I slow down and stop when I realise quite how busy the bar is getting. Maybe now isn’t such a good time to deliver my news after all.

  ‘I’ll come back later,’ I call over, my throat still a little tight. ‘After my shift.’ I point back to the burger bar. I’ll be done by two, after the lunchtime rush.

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’ve got a few people I want you to meet.’ Brenda navigates her tiny hips around the tables as more chairs are pulled up and shuffled around to accommodate the group. All eyes turn to me. I swallow hard. My cheeks flush and my tired eyes sting. I can’t turn away now.

  ‘Hey!’ An arm slips around my shoulders, making me jump; my heart leaps, and just for a moment, I catch my breath hopefully. Then I turn and see Craig standing there smiling his bright white smile, and my heart drops back to its regular sluggish beat, my face falling with it.

  ‘Sorry, hen, didn’t mean to scare you,’ he says, smiling kindly. ‘Or make you think . . . y’know. That it was yer man.’

  I wave away his apology. Although just for a second, that was exactly what I thought.

  ‘Looks like Brenda wants you to meet some of the locals.’ Craig pulls me to him by way of support, his arm still round my shoulders. ‘Lucky you! Shame she can’t introduce me to someone. Preferably tall and tanned, like George Michael.’ He gives a sad little sigh. ‘He was my ideal man. He could have given me his heart any day,’ and he starts singing ‘Last Christmas’, making me laugh and banishing my nerves. In only a short time, he’s become such a good friend. He seems to know everyone around here, and everything that goes on, too, by the sounds of it. He gets to see it all from his vantage point behind his breakfast bar. That could have been me too, here in the Butterfly Bar, but it isn’t going to happen now, and the quicker I tell Harold and Brenda, the better.

  ‘Come on.’ Craig gives me a squeeze, his silver and leather jewellery sparkling in the spring sunshine. ‘Time to meet the welcoming committee.’

  Brenda starts introducing people to me whilst trying to remember a big round of drinks. ‘That’s a G and T for you, Moira. Sun is over the yardarm, after all.’

  ‘Just!’ says Craig loudly, and they all laugh.

  ‘Moira’s a writer. She teaches creative writing and Spanish, and lives with Eric in an apartment on the front there.’ She points from a man with a ponytail to a block of flats. ‘A jug of sangria for Dan and Lynn – they run boating day cruises round the harbour.’ She indicates a young woman in hat and sunglasses, with a scarf around her shoulders, and a man wearing a baggy sun-bleached T-shirt. They wave at me.

  ‘And a cava for you, Maxine?’ Brenda asks. ‘Maxine runs the Pink Flamingo. She’s worked here for years. A Cher lookalike, as you can see. She runs flamenco nights on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.’

  Craig takes over from Brenda, who is getting her drinks order mixed up. ‘And that’s Pedro and Alexis, who work in their family restaurant. One of the oldest families in the port.’ He points to the two Spanish men, their hair smartly cut and slicked back, who raise their coffee cups to me and smile widely. ‘And that’s Jackie, she’s a hairdresser from Tyneside . . . and Sue and Sandra, who have a cheese and honey stall at the market . . . and Dick and Bev, who run a ready-meals business . . .’

  ‘Hola!’ comes a shout. A man with a big sack is heading for Pedro and Alexis’s restaurant. He’s a fisherman by the looks of it, straight from the boat. Pedro calls him over and looks in the sack. They nod, shake hands, then Pedro orders another round of coffees and a white wine for the fisherman.

  ‘So that was a beer for Moira . . . no, a V and T. Or was it just a coffee? Oh, bugger it!’ Brenda waves her pad and pen and laughs a chesty laugh. ‘Everybody?’ She tries to get their attention, ready to introduce me properly.

  ‘Actually, Brenda, I need to talk to you,’ I say quickly. I have to break the news before she tells everybody who I am . . . or who I was going to be. But I’m too late.

  ‘This is Beti,’ she announces. ‘She and her fiancé, the gorgeous Will, are taking this place over. So I want you all to be kind to them and behave yourselves!’ She hoots with laughter while various people say hello in English and Spanish and smile welcomingly. Harold looks misty-eyed and pats me on the shoulder proudly.

  Oh God! It’s like that film, Sliding Doors! If only my life could have been this. My sore eyes sting even more and my cheeks are positively on fire. I have to tell them now. I follow Brenda into the cool interior, across the burgundy tiled floor to the high bar.

  ‘You can give me a hand with the drinks,’ she tells me. ‘Get you used to it! You’ll be doing it all yourself soon.’ She beams from behind the highly polished bar and shiny beer pumps.

  ‘Actually, Brenda,’ I say, ‘I need to have a word.’ I look at the busy crowd outside as I wonder how to begin. Every journey starts with the first step, as my nan used to say. I take a deep breath. ‘It’s probably not the right time, but you need to know . . .’

  Brenda lets me talk until I’m done. When I’ve finished, she reaches for one of the light chrome chairs and plops herself into it, her hand over her mouth. The butterfly tattoo on her upper arm wobbles.

  My mind is racing as I picture what might have been. I see myself winding up the metal shutters of a morning, pushing back the big glass doors and standing there with a café con leche in my hand as the world wakes up. I’d watch the late-night revellers going home, the Monday market being set up and the fishermen bringing in their hauls. I’d work out a simple menu to start with: toasted sandwiches, chicken wings, quiche maybe, the kind of things that I could cook in the tiny kitchen out the back. I’d string fairy lights and bunting around the doorways and the awning. There isn’t anything that can’t be made better with fairy lights; you can get all kinds these days – flowers, stars, and of course my favourites, chillis. I even brought my ones from the flat back home. They were the first thing I planned to put up when we moved in here. I also brought my wedding file, foolishly thinking that we were going to plan ours when the summer season was over. My chest tightens as the reality of this turn of events suddenly sinks in.

  ‘You a
ll right, love?’ I hear Brenda say, but I can’t see her. Everything is blurry. My chest hurts, and I know it’s because my heart is finally catching up with the news now that I’ve said it out loud. Everything I wanted was within touching distance, and now it has disappeared overnight, quite literally.

  ‘Get some water, Harold. And a cherry liqueur. Sit down, love. It’s probably the shock. I know, I’ve had a few of those in my lifetime. Our daughter Mandy being one of them. Didn’t think I could have children, see. Then . . . poof! These things always happen when you least expect it.’

  ‘Here we are,’ says Harold, putting two glasses in front of me. I have a drink of water, and then take a sip of the liqueur. It’s sweet, creamy and cold, and tastes of cherries and anisette. It’s weird but strangely delicious and seems to be having the right effect on my galloping heart rate.

  ‘It comes from up in the hills where they grow the cherries,’ Brenda tells me. ‘Black-market stuff, that! One of the reps brings it for me. Says it’s precious. Made from a special type of cherry that’s left over when the picking is finished. They say those are the cherries they steal back from the birds. I get a bottle every year.’

  I think about how many years these two have been out here, and wish with all my heart that Will and I could have taken over from them.

  With the water and the cherry liqueur having done the trick, I say goodbye to Harold and Brenda, explaining that I’ve got to move out of our holiday apartment tomorrow and leave Spain. I can feel my shattered heart crumpling to dust.

  ‘I’m so sorry it wasn’t meant to be,’ says Brenda. ‘I was sure it was. What with you being a fellow Welsh girl. You’re so like my daughter. Isn’t she, Harold?’

  ‘She is,’ he agrees, watery-eyed again. ‘Just like her.’

  ‘A great girl, but a dreadful picker when it comes to blokes!’ Brenda gives a little laugh.