by Jo Thomas
He puts the money on the bar. ‘That’s just a start. I’ve got work. I’ll be able to pay you back, in time.’
‘Work? Here?’ The words slip out as a squeak.
‘In the club, with the band. Now the season is about to start up. We saw the owner this afternoon.’
My brain is still slowly processing the fact that Will is here. Will is here and my world is slowing tilting back to where it’s meant to be. But now it’s shaken violently again when I realise that this isn’t just about the money. He’s here with somebody else. He’s not here for me.
‘And Freya?’ I finally manage to say.
‘Freya, yeah . . . we just sort of got together . . . once you and I had finished . . .’
‘After you’d texted me, you mean?’ I feel the fire in my belly again, beginning to roar into life, the flames reaching higher and higher, like something inside me has been unlocked.
‘I should have called you . . . waited. Told you what I’d done. I just panicked and ran . . . Look, Beti, if I could turn back the clock . . . I’m an idiot!’
‘Yes, you are,’ I can’t help but say, and I look at his bed-head hair and his apologetic blue eyes and just for a moment our gazes lock, like a compass resetting to the home position.
‘Everything OK?’ Freya saunters into the bar, her slinky hips swaying from side to side, making Will spin away from me. Outside, the band members have returned to their noisy, boisterous banter as they greet a passing group of locals they’ve obviously met before. Everything and everyone in Spain is noisy, I’ve discovered. It’s how they say I hate you, I love you, I’m happy, I’m sad. They say it loud and clear and don’t keep it bottled up.
‘Thought you’d got lost.’ Freya smiles and wraps herself around Will, who looks as uncomfortable as I feel.
‘No, just helping with the drinks. Here, let me.’ He goes to step around the bar and take the tray.
‘No thank you,’ I say firmly, putting the boundaries back in place. ‘I’m fine. Just fine on my own.’ And I thought I was. I was fine on my own, here in the Butterfly Bar . . . until you turned up again!
‘You seem right at home here,’ Will says with a smile of admiration and regret as Freya goes back out to join the group.
‘I am,’ I reply, and realise I mean it.
I carry the tray outside, pass round the drinks and leave the bill on the table. Then I return to the bar, pick up the money that Will has left on the counter and stick it in my money jar. It’s looking really quite healthy now.
I watch the group outside the patio doors. Freya is holding Will’s hand tightly, and it makes me feel a bit light-headed. That’s my fiancé’s hand, the hand that has been mine for five years. But we’re like strangers now. Will looks as if he’s listening to the group and laughing at the right moments, but then suddenly he glances straight through the open patio doors at me, our eyes once again resetting to the home position. I catch my breath, and my treacherous heart does a double skip. Damn it! I’m not over him at all. I think I might still love him.
They don’t stay for a second drink. As they stand up to leave, I go out to collect the glasses. Freya turns and flicks her head for Will, who seems to linger as they start to move off.
‘I’ll catch you up,’ he tells her, his Bristolian accent suddenly strong. Freya wanders off reluctantly to join the group, laughing and trying just a little too hard to look as if all is well in her world. Slowly they move towards the Pink Flamingo’s open doors.
‘Beti, I am so sorry,’ Will says quickly, and he grabs my hand, taking me by surprise.
‘For what?’ I hear the bold voice coming out of me again and barely recognise it. ‘For stealing my money, for cheating on me, for sabotaging my dreams?’ The last bit catches in my throat and I find myself lifting my chin a little higher again. I’ve discovered that that way, the tears don’t fall.
‘For everything.’ His face softens. ‘If I could do anything to make up for it, I would.’
I look at his familiar face, the face I woke up to every day for five years. I have dreamed of it so often in the eight, nearly nine weeks since he’s been gone. He may be an idiot, but he was my idiot! Maybe that’s why I held on to his stuff from the apartment: the Batman socks and the hair wax and all the other things that are still in the bottom of my wardrobe in the finca. Because I couldn’t quite let go.
With a squeeze of my hand, he bids me goodnight and turns to lollop over to join the others, glancing over his shoulder as he goes with a look of a kicked puppy. I suddenly want to run after him and tell him it’s fine. We can work it out. I have a plan. But as he reaches the group, Freya wraps her arm around him territorially and flashes me a look that puts me in my place.
I carry the empty glasses inside, then take a cloth out and wipe down the table. The band are gathered outside the club, still jostling and joking with each other. Freya’s arm is hooked through Will’s. I stand and look. He has his head down, not joining in. I wonder . . . I wonder if he meant it. If he wants to go back to what we had. For everything to be as we planned. Could it be . . . is there a chance he would want to rub out this part of our story, look back on it one day as a blip and live the life we imagined together, here in the Butterfly Bar?
I wash the glasses, replaying his words, still trying to read between the lines. Was there anything there that said he missed me? He said he’d do anything to turn back the clock. But what am I thinking of? He’s with Freya now. He’s made his bed and he’s lying in it, for God’s sake. My hackles start rising. He abandoned me, emptied my bank account of my savings, and now he rocks up here with the woman he got straight into bed with the night he left. What am I thinking? There’s no way I should want him back.
I plunge the glasses into the soapy water. It’s too hot, but I don’t care; it distracts me from the pain in my heart right now. Will being here has brought it all back. I thought I was fine. I thought I was over him. But what if I’m not; what if he really is the one after all? I pour cold water over my hand and it stings. The shock makes me shake. My shoulders sag, my head droops over the sink in the little kitchen and I let out the tears I didn’t even know I had left in me.
Suddenly I hear a noise, and my heart lurches. I sniff back the tears and run my hand under my nose. Someone has come into the bar. There’s only one person who pops into my mind, and he’s been there, going round and round, for the last hour. What if it’s Will? What if he’s got things he still needs to say? Or what if he’s come back to tell me he and Freya are the real deal? Perhaps he wants to show me photographs of the new home he’s planning to buy with her, for the kids they’ll have and the dog I always wanted. Or could he . . . could he possibly be coming back to tell me he’s made a mistake and he realises I’m the one?
My heart thunders and bounces around inside my chest, not knowing which direction it’s supposed to be turning. I grab a tea towel and wrap it around my hand, then run the other hand under my nose again. I can’t let him see me like this.
‘We’re closed, sorry,’ I call, hoping he’ll go away and come back when I’m less of a mess; hoping he won’t realise it’s all because of him.
But there’s no reply.
‘I really can’t talk now, Will. Come back again tomorrow,’ I say, moving closer to the doorway to the bar.
‘I didn’t come for a drink,’ says a gravelly voice, and my heart seems to stop.
It’s not Will at all.
Chapter Forty-one
‘Antonio?’ I say, suddenly not caring how much of a mess I look. I step out from the kitchen, feeling awkward. The shame of our near kiss burns at my cheeks, and my anger when we rowed about Miguel is as fresh as if we’re still in the middle of it. He looks just as uncomfortable as I feel. We stand and stare at each other across the bar, my banging heart still feeling furious. Why is he here? Suddenly a thought strikes me and all my fury drains away.
&n
bsp; ‘Antonio? What is it? Is it Miguel?’ I scan his face quickly for clues.
‘Miguel is fine,’ he says with a nod, reassuring me, and my panic subsides. But then he frowns, concerned. ‘Unlike you, by the looks of it.’ He puts the case he’s carrying down by the table. ‘I came to apologise. You were right. I’m not much of a parent. I’m sorry I shouted at you. I am here to ask you to come back.’
My heart flick-flacks just like it did when Will turned up.
‘Actually, it was Miguel who told me to come,’ and I can hear the smile back in his voice. Good old Miguel, he has more sense than any of us. ‘I have apologised to him and been to see Sophia’s family. But I still have to insist: no flamenco on my land. I can’t risk losing him to it. Not when I’ve only just found him again. I just want to protect him. But I got it wrong.’
Two men apologising to me in one day, I think, and sniff again. I try and smile back, but end up wincing.
‘What is it, what’s happened?’ He moves towards me, round the bar, and I don’t stop him like I did with Will.
‘Nothing, nothing, just scalded my hand,’ I say, holding the tea towel around it.
He takes hold of my hand, and at first I resist, but he looks at me firmly and I stop protesting. He takes the tea towel from around it and studies it closely, just like I’ve seen him studying the water pump, searching for answers.
‘How was the big drop? All finished?’ I ask, trying to distract myself from his intense gaze and the fact that my insides seem to be melting and I have no idea why. Must be Will’s arrival still having an effect on me.
‘Muy bien,’ he looks up, not letting go of my hand. ‘Very good,’ he translates. ‘We are going to have a good harvest, really good. There may even be enough to make some more cherry brandy this year.’
‘Great!’ I say, suddenly realising that I won’t be there to see it. I’ll be here, I tell myself firmly, in the Butterfly Bar. ‘You’ll have to bring me some.’
He looks at me, and then glances around the bar, but says nothing more on the subject. Instead he turns his attention back to my hand.
‘It’s fine. Here, more cold water,’ he says, leading me to the sink and turning on the tap, holding my hand under the stream. ‘So, now are you going to tell me what’s really upsetting you?’
He lets go of my hand and goes to the bar, where he locates the brandy bottle – the good one under the counter – and pours two large measures of the amber liquid into large balloon-shaped glasses. I finish up at the sink and then follow him to the table in front of the patio doors looking out on to the precinct. He takes down two chairs from the stacked pile and holds his hand out for me to sit.
I do as he instructs, though I have no idea why. I have no idea why I do half the things that Antonio tells me to do. Why didn’t I stop him from coming behind the bar like I did with Will? This is my space, no one else’s. But I do sit down, my hand still red but not stinging any more.
‘Here, drink.’ He slides a glass across the shiny tabletop towards me.
I pick it up and hold it up to the light. Just beyond, I can see Will and Freya about to step through the club doors. Suddenly Will turns and looks back at me, and my cheeks burn. I take a big swig of the brandy to cover my blushes, and cough. Antonio doesn’t miss it, following my gaze over to where Will is now disappearing into the doorway, one hand in the small of Freya’s back, like he used to do to me.
‘So?’ Antonio picks up his glass. ‘Who is Will?’
I take another sip of my brandy, smaller this time, and find the words I’m looking for.
‘He was my fiancé . . . the reason I moved out here. The reason I ended up working in your restaurant. He’s why I can’t admit to my family that I’ve lost everything. That I’ve messed everything up.’ I take another sip of brandy and snatch a look over at where Will was standing.
‘He’s back,’ Antonio says economically.
I nod.
‘And not alone, by the looks of it.’
This time I don’t even nod.
‘And do you want him back?’ he asks, and suddenly tears leap into my eyes again and my disloyal heart starts to pick up its pace.
‘It’s too late.’ I shake my head, trying to get rid of the last of the best-laid plans that were lying dormant in there.
‘Is he sorry?’ Antonio asks. I swallow and nod again.
‘But like I said, it’s too late.’
‘But would you want him back if you could have him, even after everything?’
The silence hangs between us.
‘I want . . .’ I finally croak, and my heart beats even faster. ‘Yes. Even after everything. I think I still . . .’ I trail off and then start again. ‘I want him to notice me. To look at me like he used to. I want my world back. Will, me, this place. I want to show everyone I can be like all the others, getting life sorted.’
‘Then I can help you,’ Antonio says, lifting the case off the floor and moving the glasses to put it on the table.
‘How?’ I recognise the case: battered leather with mottled bronze clasps that he pops open with effort. It was in the barn when I was clearing it out.
‘You have proved yourself to be an excellent flamenco student,’ he says.
Really? I think, surprised.
He smiles. ‘You have shown your passion on more than one occasion. You have shown you have the duende, the day you left, back there in the orchard.’
I remember it only too well and sink into the chair with embarrassment.
‘You have the heart and the passion for this. It is time you learned the final part of the song.’
‘Are you sure? You really want me to try still?’
‘We cannot go down without a fight. You will learn this dance, and in return,’ he looks back in the direction of the open club door, ‘I will show you how to get your boyfriend back. Deal?’
I look at him. Could I really go back to where I left off with Will? The man I have loved for five years. The man who, granted, made a total mess of things, but realises what an idiot he’s been.
‘Deal?’ he asks again, staring straight at me.
I nod slowly. ‘Deal,’ I agree and a smile spreads across my face.
Then he says, ‘The date has been set for the dance-off.’
‘What?’
‘Now that the big drop has happened, we know roughly when we’ll harvest. The second week of June. In just over two weeks. The dance-off can happen the weekend before. Then it will be out of the way and I can focus on the harvest the following week.’
‘But that’s next weekend! The same weekend as the party!’
‘There’s nothing we can do to change it.’ He shakes his head. ‘Esmeralda and Felipe already think I am trying to stall. I need it to be over. I need to be able to concentrate and judge when to pick. I cannot let the dance-off or the party interfere with the harvest. Nothing must disrupt it. Not like last time . . .’
‘Last time?’ I frown. ‘What happened last time?’
He ignores the question. ‘It has to be that weekend,’ he says firmly, shaking his head.
I suddenly feel totally unprepared for all of this.
‘Don’t worry. We will keep the dance-off and the party far apart. Like I say, no one must know about the flamenco. We will do it when no one else is around and they are all distracted in the barn. No one from the village will suspect anything; they will think it’s just noise from the party. It will be the perfect cover for it.’
My jaw opens and closes, but no words come out.
‘I brought you a present,’ he says, pushing open the lid of the suitcase. ‘It’s what I was going to the barn to look for . . . when I found Miguel . . .’ He trails off and flips the old leather lid of the case back. It flops on to the table, and slowly he unfurls the pile of black fabric within.
I catch my br
eath. I recognise it straight away. ‘The dress!’ is all I can say.
He pulls it out carefully, the big ruffles, trimmed with a tiny line of red, unfolding as he holds it up. It is the dress in the photograph. The photograph I dropped and cracked when I was clearing out the storeroom.
‘It was my grandmother’s. My grandparents, as I told you, were well-known flamenco dancers. My grandmother, well, she was a bit of a maverick. She would push the boundaries, upset the traditionalists, excite the pioneers. I learned my dancing from her. She was a strong, proud woman. Sometimes even terrifying!’ He smiles, seemingly enjoying unlocking these memories. ‘Flamenco was in her blood. She couldn’t give it up. So they set up the peña, the flamenco club in the barn, and people came from all over to see them perform. I grew up with it; it was food for the soul. I grew up with her maverick ways too. I travelled for a while when I was a young man with Esmeralda, but when Miguel came along I wanted to settle, give him the upbringing I’d had. But Esmeralda decided she wanted to stay true to tradition. She wanted to travel and be with a more conventional dancer.’
‘Felipe.’
He gives a single sharp nod and throws the rest of his brandy down his throat.
‘That night at the peña, in the barn, she told me she was pregnant, but leaving with Felipe. There was a fight between me and Felipe. She left and I . . . well, I went off the rails. The harvest nearly didn’t happen. My grandparents couldn’t do it on their own; I was worse than useless, and we nearly lost the contract. The villagers had to pitch in. I let everyone down that year. It was then that the club was closed down and flamenco was banned in the village. So you see, the ban is because of me. It is why no one must know what’s going on. I rely on local trade, and if they think I have brought trouble back to their door, they will shun me and I’ll have to close down and sell up anyway. The horses will all have to be rehomed. The odds are against me at the moment.’
