A Meeting in Seville

by Paul A. Mendelson

  The young man checks his watch, as he always does, but it appears to have died on his wrist. He shakes it, listens to it, winds it and even thumps it against a readily available tile. Nothing. So he discards it crossly into the fountain. “Time to go.”

  “Will!”

  “One day,” he vows, with a sudden seriousness that takes her by surprise, “one day, Lu, I am buying myself a solid gold, lager-proof Rolex. And a sherry-resistant Cartier for my girl.”

  “Oh, gracias, Señor. But it is not me who is spilling the drink at my wedding.”

  She holds up the camera and frames her photo. Flame-haired, pale-faced husband and trusty, black folding brolly.

  Will knows how much in love with her camera she is – he has teased her that it’s almost as much as she’s in love with him. So he plays up to it and adopts a sequence of poses, his personal favourite being to take a mouthful of water and mirror the naked cherub in the fountain. Spitting out the liquid in a perfect stream, he pulls down his pants to reveal more than a hint of pale, Scottish buttock.

  So intent is he on making his new bride laugh that he doesn’t notice an elderly Spanish couple emerge from the hostel.

  “We are lucky it is not Michelangelo’s David,” says the old man, with a twinkle, as he leads his equally amused wife out of the courtyard.

  Will is struck by a sadness that is almost like an old friend as he watches them go. “Why couldn’t they be your parents?” he mutters. He sees Lu wince at this and can’t help but feel some small satisfaction. She gently frees the collar of his fraying shirt, where it is curling beneath itself.

  “What’s that smell?” he says, sniffing the air and changing the subject.

  At first she thinks he means her, but then the familiar aroma hits her. “Churros!” she cries, with childlike glee.

  “Okay,” says Will, who has no idea what she is talking about but knows an excuse to move on when he hears one. He taps his bare wrist, where the apology for a watch once sat. “Come on then, Señora Sutherland. Let’s take a wee shufti.”

  Lu waves adios to the handyman, who still watches them unashamedly.

  They move through the wrought-iron gates to join those happy many who have suddenly congregated outside in anticipation of an approaching procession. But not before Will manages a courteous “Thanks for the orange, knobhead.”

  A few seconds later a young receptionist comes out into the courtyard and starts to look around. “Telefono – Señor Sutherland?” she announces, without great enthusiasm, to no one in particular. The handyman shrugs at her, as if to say they’re long gone, if they were ever here at all, and goes back to his tending.

  The scraggy white cat finds some shade under a tree laden with oranges.

  Now (2018)

  and

  Now (1988)

  9

  William Sutherland does not have the slightest interest in ceramics.

  But he knows of a man who does. Which is why he is on his Blackberry in one of Seville’s smartest stores, right opposite the cathedral, giving the informed assistants heart failure as he swings his laptop bag millimetres from their well-stacked but vulnerable shelves.

  He has done his homework sufficiently to know that Seville is especially celebrated for her exquisitely decorated tiles. He now reckons you would have to be registered blind not to know, as you can’t move for the bloody things. They’re brightening up every wall and floor in town, including half of the ceilings, and enhancing house and garden furniture in neighbourhoods rich and poor. You’ll find them in the best (and worst) homes and restaurants, public toilets and private palaces, cemented into pavements and even hanging in ladies’ pendants.

  Azulejos is apparently the buzzword and William reminds himself to use it whenever the opportunity presents itself. He is on his phone this very moment to ensure that opportunity comes knocking with pipes and drums within the next seventy-two hours.

  His world depends on it.

  “So – maybe I could take you for a meal,” he invites the recorder of Spain’s longest answer-phone message. “You and Señora. A night on the tiles, as we – Oh, are you sure? Well, gracias… No, no, you choose… Of course I know your product. It’s of the highest quality. And, as for your azulejos, Señor Barbadillo… mm? … Oh, okay… Cristobal. Well then, you must call me—”

  William stops talking mid-sentence. His words dangle in the humid air.

  The little blond boy, the one from that first procession, the one who he… that boy, he’s staring in through the window. Now. At William.

  The sun and the reflections it creates are quite blinding at first. To William’s confused eye it looks as though the boy is throwing delicate crockery up in the air. But no, it’s his small hand that is moving up and down. The crockery is still, of course, on the shelves behind William.

  Yet the boy is hurling something skywards. It’s like a ball of some sort but not smooth, nothing that a child could bat or bounce. Irregular and knobbly, it seems to contain different colours swirling haphazardly within. And quite suddenly he remembers.

  Wax! Yes, from the candles. Children – young kids and even teenagers – would hold out their tremulous hands in the darkness towards a candle’s flames. Dear Lord, that was such an age ago. And now the child is smiling. Or at least he is until his father comes along, sees William frozen in the window and snatches the boy away. Again. The purple birthmark on the man’s cheek, in the shape of a ragged star, looks almost as angry as he does.

  Without even thinking, or wondering if he is about to appear on some sort of watchlist, William wanders out of the shop. He doesn’t hear the sighs of relief from the petrified assistants. And barely even registers the words he himself employs to close this hitherto most critical of phone conversations.

  “We’ll – er – speak tomorrow then. Aye. Good to talk, Pedro… Sorry… Cristobal.”

  The heat hits him like a fist as he leaves the impressive air conditioning behind him. Hot and blinded, he changes his glasses to the ones he keeps for abroad, the old prescription with the expensive tinted lenses. An extra for which he couldn’t quite justify forking out again this time round. It’s a parsimony Luisa tuts about each time he slips them on, even though she knows that with his skin he tries to keep out of the sun as much as possible anyway. Beetroot isn’t as yet the new black.

  William has absolutely no idea why he is walking in the direction of the cathedral. Luisa must be back at the hotel by now; the parade can’t have taken that long to pass by. And, as the Gothic Catedral de Santa Maria de la Sede, along with its accompanying bell tower, is the most celebrated landmark in the entire city on this or any week, as indeed it was on that earlier Semana Santa, it would undoubtedly be somewhere she would wish for them to revisit together.

  Perhaps this is why he is going alone.

  10

  Even for a cathedral this one seems unusually dark.

  William wonders if perhaps they installed the stained glass to face in the wrong direction or they’re using ecologically friendly, low-wattage candles. It is only when he trips on the bulbous foot of an ancient wooden pew that he remembers how lazily his old sunglasses actually adjust to the shade.

  The flagstones are certainly cool but they’re far from giving. He manages by sheer luck, as he topples, to shield most of his head with his outstretched hand. But his efforts are finally thwarted by his own laptop bag, as it swings sharply around his neck and smacks its weightiest corner right into his ear. He finds himself deciding to stay just where he is for a while, prone on the ground like an overzealous pilgrim, until his universe rights itself once more.

  “Señor?”

  When he finally raises his throbbing head a few painful inches, all he can see through the dimness, aside from the offending stonework, are the delicate, sandalled feet of a young woman. A bit further and slender but firm legs fill his gaze: exquisitely sm
ooth legs, he still manages to remark despite the pain, leading gracefully up to the fluttering hem of a fresh, summery dress.

  “Señor…” comes the sweet voice again, like a fragrant echo.

  The wondrous legs begin to bend, deep brown knees move towards him and finally a small, elfin face looms into view, closing in on his. It’s a dark face with long, dark hair encasing it, but of course everything is still bloody dark. He removes his accursed glasses and exchanges them for the current model.

  Now he sees her.

  “JESUS CHRIST!” he says.

  He can hear the people around him gasp, for reasons he would be an idiot not to understand. But William Sutherland feels like an idiot right now. Or perhaps a madman. Because standing directly in front of him, or rather crouching purposefully to help him up, is his wife, Luisa Sutherland.

  Yet not as she is today.

  He is staring – well, of course he can’t be, but it certainly feels like it – into the perfectly entrancing face and chestnut eyes of Luisa Sutherland, circa 1988.

  Actually, no circa about it. This would be Lu Sutherland, April 1988. If it indeed were her, which obviously it isn’t, despite that long forgotten yet all too recognisable glow. Easter 1988, to be exact. Or Semana Santa, as she would say. If the apparition could speak, which he very much doubts, as of course she isn’t actually there, despite earlier evidence to the contrary.

  “Señor? ¿Estás herido? English? ARE – YOU – BUMPING – YOUR – HEAD?”

  “Huh?” mutters William, who is rather impressed that he can mutter anything at all.

  He tries to process exactly what this “person” is saying, in a voice of pure velvet that is beginning to stir vague and not wholly comfortable memories. He finds that he can’t venture much beyond the fact that she is actually making far more recognisable sounds than he is. So he lets the gentle creature, this unexpected doppelgänger, assist him slowly upwards from his awkward, leg-worshipping position, while he forms an appropriate response. Wondering vaguely, as he rises, how come you can feel a hallucination’s touch.

  “English?” he answers her, finally. “Aye. Well, no. Glasgow. So not really. At all. But I speak the English. Of sorts. I’m sorry. To be staring, I mean. It’s just that you look so like—”

  “Like?” she repeats, with a slight smile.

  “Just – someone I know. Used to know. Well, I still do, but – a long time ago. I’m so sorry. Again. Had a bit of champagne. Quite a… They say everyone has a double somewhere. And I had a few doubles, on the plane, I’m afraid. I’m talking gibberish.”

  The young woman seems bemused. “I am sorry – my English it is not so good.” She stares back at William now and is looking quite disturbed, although probably not nearly as disturbed as he is. “You shiver! You are shocking, I think. No – you are shocked. Si.” She offers her arm. “Perhaps we walk—”

  William can only nod. She really does look so like Luisa. As was. She even sounds like young Luisa, with that alluring vocal combination of the dulcet and the earthy. Although, of course, young Spanish women all sound very much alike to him now.

  He takes her arm.

  “Are you on your own, sir?”

  Sir?

  “Yes. No. Well, sort of. My wife and I are—”

  “Lost?”

  “Aye,” he nods. “Lost.”

  “My husband and I too!” she yelps in delight. “He always walk everywhere so fast. Even on the holiday. But I tell him, if it happen, if we are losing each other in all the peoples, then we meet here. In catedral. Even Will, he cannot miss a catedral!”

  If William was shivering before, he is going way off the Richter scale now. They can probably feel his heart tremors in Catalonia.

  “W-Will? YOUR HUSBAND’S NAME IS WILL?”

  William is shouting. He knows this but he can’t seem to stop.

  He watches the solid, decorum-abiding, cathedral-respecting people around him and even way off in the distance turn as one to stare. Yet, disturbingly, the stares have the quality of those you would direct at someone who is totally insane, rather than simply disruptive or over-exuberant. Even the guys wandering around in the conical hats seem dumbstruck and he can only see their eyes.

  “Si,” says the young woman, who appears just a tad disconcerted herself. “Will. Is little for William. He is a Glasgow-wegian also. We meet when I am au pair in Newton Mearns—”

  “No. NO!” he begs. “Please. God! This isn’t happening.”

  William staggers away, trying desperately not to pass out or collapse onto the hard stone again. He cleaves a ragged path down the longest, most awe-inspiring nave in Spain and into the beating heart of the massive cathedral, heading towards the great, boxlike choir-loft.

  Not that he is heading anywhere. Or appreciating anything. Just reeling.

  Crowds are beginning to sweep in. The next float is clearly expected to arrive, after its slow journey from some honoured neighbourhood chapel, and they’re after ringside seats. William feels like he is about to career into each and every one of the innocent bystanders, like a helpless driver whose brakes have just been severed. Or an errant float powered by too much sangria.

  And everywhere he looks there are scenes from the life, or more usually death, of the Christ. Carved, painted, sculpted, etched and scribbled. By old masters and the youngest disciples. Hardly unexpected but nonetheless taunting. He knows this is probably deeply sacrilegious but he feels that somebody out there is bent on crucifying him too.

  “I’m not even Catholic,” he mutters, before noticing that the concerned young woman, this impossible visitor from another lifetime, is once again directly beside him.

  He decides to make a stirring effort to appear vaguely normal, even though the current situation is about as far from normal as an alien invasion of Richmond. “Lost, is he? Young… Will. Och, well, there’s an old saying. Coleridge? Tennyson? Someone dead, anyway. ’Tis better to have loved and lost—”

  “‘Than two in the bush!’ Will, he tell me this!”

  “Away ye go!” William wonders briefly why he is finding himself so utterly charmed by a situation that might have come straight out of Satan’s playbook. It’s like meeting Godzilla and offering him a biscuit. “So – er – so, how are you finding Seville?”

  “By the train.”

  She sees him chuckle at this and he can tell from the glow in her eyes that she considers it a friendly, uncritical laugh. So she giggles too, as she slowly gets the joke. “Oh. Perdón. We are just arriving today. From Madrid. We see my parents there. But I have been student in this place. Here – in Sevilla.”

  “Aye. At the art school.”

  The young woman is quiet. The whole vast, Gothic edifice appears to go mute with her. How the hell am I supposed to have known that, he wonders.

  “You have artist’s hands!” he explains swiftly.

  Oh, brilliant, William. And now she’s inspecting her wee hands, the dear thing. Hands that he fondly recalls. Smooth, unadorned hands, that once seemed hardly ever to leave his own. So, we might as well go the extra mile. “I used to be a detective.”

  What?

  “Like your Sherlock Holmess!” she cries with glee, her marvellously long, shiny hair swinging around her face and picking up every colour from the glorious, sunlit windows.

  William is about to reply, with God knows what further nonsense, when without warning the great organ of the Catedral de Santa Maria de la Setes suddenly launches into something excessively loud and suitably sombre. He reacts with an involuntary but massive jolt, as if the sonorous notes have been injected directly into his system.

  He notices, however, with some puzzlement, that the young woman – okay, Lu; he has to accept that somehow this is Lu – doesn’t appear to register any surprise or awareness at all. But, of course, she is Catholic and he knows that the delicate, silver cr
oss she wears at all times around her alluring neck bears witness to some serious cathedral-going and organ-listening. Even if her recent choice of husband is testament to an unfortunate and, as many hope, merely temporary lapsing. (William reckons they would have willingly loosened up their views on divorce just to see the back of him. Or honour-killing.)

  They find themselves strolling together towards one of the smaller chapels, away from the crowds and the clamour.

  He can’t, in all honesty, flatter himself that this is because, despite her lyrical, four-day-old marriage, she has suddenly found a considerably older, balding stranger with eye-bags and a business paunch utterly irresistible. Yet the knowledge that she may simply be needing to assure herself he isn’t about to slip into a coma doesn’t appear to diminish his excitement. Even though this is the weirdest, creepiest, scariest thing that has ever happened to him in his life and may hopefully just turn out to be a result of that unfortunate bang on the head.

  “Will, my husband, yes – he say he is trying to make the big surprise for me this week.” William knows exactly what the big surprise is, but he is damned if he is going to let himself slip again. “I am sure it is bullfight.” There you go. “I cannot tell him I hate the corrida, can I?”

  “Er, no,” says William safely, if anything is safe in this madhouse. “But you’re fine. I tried to get bullfight tickets here years ago. Hopeless! The bulls’ relatives buy up all the best seats.”

  He can see her struggling with this one, so he taps a nearby information console, with superb digital close-ups of the cathedral’s hottest features, as a way to change the subject. Yet, to his surprise, her expression has turned from vague puzzlement to shocked incomprehension.

  “Why do you do this?” she says.

  “What? Make a joke? Check the info?”

  “No. Touch this nun. They do not like this.”