A Meeting in Seville

by Paul A. Mendelson

  She is nowhere to be seen.

  And then he remembers.

  Last night. The Yellow Café.

  Just before they were leaving that table of insanity, William noticed that a paperback had slithered out of his younger self’s somewhat tatty sports bag. So, of course, he had graciously tucked it back in. Who wouldn’t? Allowing the young man to continue its reading, hopefully to the dramatic end this time round. A pastime he clearly enjoyed and that William still does, given the time. Which, of course, he rarely is.

  He picks up the unfamiliar book again, but his hand trembles so violently that he is scared the chunky novel is going to slip right out and topple his not quite empty glass. So he gently sets the book back down on the table and drains his Scotch. For safety’s sake.

  The sweat that runs down his face has nothing to do with the temperature of a city on the boil. No fan is going to ease it.

  He has to speak to her.

  Now.

  24

  The two ladies from New York, seated at a nearby table on the pretty terrace of Hotel Herrera, watch the attractive, if somewhat worn, European lady with barely disguised interest. Why is she on her own, they wonder silently and not so silently, with her continental breakfast untouched? Staring at her iPhone as if it is about to bite her.

  With an urgency they can only assume has something to do with this same phone, the perturbed woman suddenly rises from the table. She nods politely, clearly recalling them from last night’s bizarre snub, but without overt embarrassment. At which they have taken no offence, because life is too short and they have suffered worse slights in their day.

  By the time Luisa returns to their bedroom, William has already let himself in. He always insists on at least two keys, even at a B&B, for this very reason. He is standing on the narrow balcony, holding a thick paperback in a grip that leaves his pale fingers even whiter.

  Before she can speak, not that she has any idea what she would like to say nor what he might even wish to hear, William reels round and barks at her. But with none of the words she is expecting.

  “When did I get this?”

  Luisa has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

  All right, he is waving a glossy novel in her direction, like a Bible-basher on a Sunday street corner, but it can hardly be this that is straining every muscle in his face to breaking-point. Nor causing the disquieting look of pure terror in his eyes. Not after what he has clearly just discovered on her phone.

  Her silence appears simply to fuel his panic.

  “The book, Luisa! The book!”

  She can hardly believe what she is hearing.

  “Oh, we talk about books now! The Semana Santa reading group. Then perhaps we move on to the weather. Will it rain on this Easter Sunday and spoil the processions? Hmm…”

  “This novel, Luisa. The book. Just answer me!”

  She looks around, as if God or someone closely connected might afford her guidance as to why her husband, so recently cuckolded, should be retreating into the safety of literature. Or at least literary phenomena.

  “Do you not remember even this?” she asks, a touch tentatively, as if her next question to him could well be about who is the current prime minister or the time to the nearest hour. “You are saying you are the only person on this planet who never reads this. Yes? So I buy for you at the airport. As a present. Jesu!”

  Now he is simply gawping at her. Dumbstruck.

  Luisa Sutherland does not know, at this critical point in her life and marriage, whether to be scared, sad or angry. Although she feels she ought to be at least one of these. Yet she finds herself opting for the purely practical. She will simply do her best to ignore the perversity that is being aimed in her direction and accept that it has been a most peculiar couple of days.

  “William,” she begins calmly, although she is patently feeling far from calm. “Now is the time we must talk, yes? And perhaps not about books today.” Her question doesn’t deflect the manic stare one bit, so she simply continues. “I know we do not do this so much these days, the talking. But if any time is the right time, with what has happened just yesterday, with what is happening today… ”

  She leaves it hanging. She really doesn’t need to spell it out in all its tawdry detail. The text that she is now certain he has picked up – and, who knows, perhaps somewhere deep down this was the intent – will have articulated it all too clearly.

  He moves towards her at some speed. She manages not to flinch. But he walks straight past her, making for the table in the centre of the room. So she simply carries on, afraid of the sudden silence.

  “When did we stop the talking, William? We used to – WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

  He has picked up her handbag.

  At this point it would not have totally surprised Luisa Sutherland if her husband of thirty years had temporarily forgotten his gender. She notices with surprise bordering on relief that it is the small photo album that has now attracted his goldfish-like attention.

  She can only watch in bemusement as he flicks through the carefully chosen mementos. Until he hits a happy snap of the two of them with Sandy at the Yellow Café. His pal’s right arm is draped around Lu’s bare shoulders. This is apparently all the proof William needs.

  “He was already coming on to you that night!”

  “What night? Who?”

  Luisa checks out the photo William is brandishing. And sighs.

  “Here? 1988! He is with Paloma!” The sigh becomes a groan. “She take the photograph! He has two wives since this day.”

  “Still found time for mine though, didn’t he?” He continues flicking.

  Luisa speaks very softly. She knows that it’s a forlorn hope but she also knows that if she can’t be forgiven she must at least be understood. “Yes, William, this is exactly what he found for me.” She doesn’t wait for him to process this. “Please, sit.”

  William has no intention of sitting. He is staring at the album. He doesn’t believe he will ever sit again. Perpetual motion is the effect he is going for, as if this will recharge some particular mechanism inside his body and make his suddenly broken-down life function and move on once more.

  Luisa sits on the unmade bed. She wonders briefly if she should have hung the no molestar sign on the door. And she recalls how, so many years ago in this same town, a younger version of the man she has recently betrayed had hung a similar sign quite effectively from a place for which it wasn’t strictly intended.

  “I do not do this to hurt, William.” She ignores the scoff from above. “You must believe me. No, why should you? It happened. You were on another ‘new business’ trip. Two days before your own daughter’s wedding! I was so angry and so – sad.” She sighs, as ever. “Sandy is coming with a gift for her.” And again, the biggest sigh yet. “I am not proud of this. It is not – who I am. But where were you, William? Where have you been, for so much time?”

  William doesn’t even have to think about this. “Working? Supporting all of us? Doing a job I hate? I sure wasn’t out screwing your best pal.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “He introduced us, Luisa!”

  She gently pats the bed beside her, as she looks at him, but she might as well be doing some housekeeping.

  “I had the hopes, William,” she says sadly. “Perhaps, that this place – this week – could, who knows, make things better. For us. You and me.” She shakes her head at the sheer futility. “Change something.”

  Luisa has no idea if it is this that galvanises William, delivering him in an instant from his angry stupor, or if he is simply on another bizarre trajectory of his own. Like that weirdness with the book. But as she hears the drums down below intrude on their painful awkwardness, she can only watch as he revolves at some speed, like the little man on an elaborate Swiss clock, and propel himself towards the door.

  He suddenly s
tops and takes another glance at the photo album, lying open on the bed. What was it he saw, as he swiftly flicked through just now? Something that surely wasn’t there when she first put it together. Something absent when she showed it to him just yesterday.

  Something that is everything.

  “I – won’t be long,” he mumbles.

  Because, even now, with his head swirling and a madness in his eyes, he thinks it inappropriate to leave a room without at least saying something.

  ***

  William isn’t surprised to find the lift open for him. Seeing Pablo spruce and waiting patiently within simply confirms that this really isn’t an ordinary morning.

  The descending guest stares straight ahead, as he quotes from something he once read on a very educated wall. “‘It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend’.”

  The older man reels off something in Spanish. It sounds like another quote, something poetic that William obviously can’t place. But when he looks blankly at the ubiquitous retainer, all the latter says is “Manchester United.”

  25

  “Yes… yes… no… bollocks!”

  There is a skill to pouring cheap Spanish wine down your forehead, from a glass pitcher or porron, and allowing it to glide past your eyes and along your nose and trickle into your waiting mouth. Sandy Matheson has yet fully to perfect this skill.

  As the young women at the table laugh, along with some of the more indulgent onlookers at the Yellow Café this pleasant spring evening, the misdirected red wine spills gently across the table and onto Will’s open notepad. The pad sits right next to him, alongside his trusty ballpoint, so that, should the muse decide to strike, her victim will have the tools neatly to hand. Unfortunately, the previous strike now looks like being alcoholically blurred or at least partially sodden. Its creator can only moan in anguish, as the more practical Sandy quickly grabs the dripping page and begins to lick it dry.

  “Mm!” he enthuses. “Sutherland. His fruitful Rioja period.” Will finally manages to retrieve the precious pad. “I tell you, Wullie,” says the erstwhile best man, wiping his damp face with a napkin, “I’d bite my arms off to be a writer—”

  “—But you ‘never had my disadvantages’. Yeah – yeah. Your bloody wedding speech. I was there pal, remember?”

  “Only just! I had to dance with the bride for you! Crap job but—”

  “Tough Guys Don’t Dance. Ask Norman Mailer.”

  Lu and Paloma laugh, accepting that this is their role, just as it is the guys’ job description to prance around like overgrown schoolboys and chatter in an English neither young woman could possibly understand. Paloma, almost as dark as Luisa and a good six inches taller, drapes a long, slender arm lovingly around her old art school friend, delighting in the occasion that has brought them together, first in a wet and chilly Glasgow and now proudly back here in this bridesmaid’s own home town.

  Sandy begins to talk in his unaccented Spanish and Lu immediately responds. Closely followed by raucous laughter from all but the slightly irritated groom.

  “Queen’s English, por favor!” Will insists, taking another swig of wine from his glass.

  Sandy turns to him and whispers softly, “She says she loves a canny linguist. Least I think that’s—”

  Will roars and spits his half-gulped wine back over his notepad. It is the girls’ turn to look baffled. He simply smiles at them and pours more cheap Rioja.

  Lu, realising that no translation will be forthcoming and suspecting that she might not appreciate it anyway, hands Paloma her camera with detailed instructions. She manages at the same time to pick up most of the ensuing conversation between the hombres, which is now quieter and appears to have taken a more serious turn.

  “Listen, amigo, I wasn’t kidding,” she overhears Sandy inform her husband. “What I ‘telt’ you back home. If the old novellas don’t pay off. I mean, I hope they do, but awful tricky. The two of us could always team up and make a pile. Maybe not day one, but bloody soon thereafter. My business skills and impeccable family contacts, your – Hey, matey, you can still write. Ad copy… press releases… invoices!”

  Before Will can respond, Lu is there. Friendly but firm. “No, Sandy! Will and me – Will and I, yes – we make the big deal. I do the working – I am good teacher, I think; I have assisting job in Glasgow school – Spanish and art. While he is doing the book writing.”

  Will shrugs to Sandy. What can he do – the boss has spoken.

  They hear Paloma whistle and the three of them turn as one, smiling broadly, to be captured forever in a memory that will survive the years.

  But Sandy isn’t letting go so easily. “I’m just saying, Lu – classy Madrileno like you deserves all the happiness money can buy.”

  “Ayy!” shrieks Paloma, her statuesque body made even taller by both bronzed arms waving dramatically into the air. “Is bad time! I must go – to my work!”

  Sandy, for reasons best known to himself, takes this as a cue. Leaping up – and narrowly avoiding another major spill – he segues into a rarely performed rock version of a heartfelt historical plea to Bonnie Prince Charlie to return from France. As taught more traditionally to disinterested Scottish schoolboys of a certain vintage.

  “Will ye no come back again?

  Will ye no come back again?”

  Will is not going to be out-sung on his own honeymoon, having already been out-danced at his wedding. Luisa only just stops him from clambering onto his chair.

  “—Better loved ye canna be,—

  Will ye no come back again?”

  Paloma laughs at the duo as she scuttles off with an elegant wave.

  The young friends are totally unaware of a new voice now entering the mix.

  It is a gruffer, some might say more mature voice, with a Scottish accent only slightly tempered by years of Home Counties conversation. Yet this particular voice can only be heard, whether they might wish it or not, by strollers chancing on a certain square in the Barrio Santa Cruz, on a sultry spring evening in Seville, during Holy Week 2018.

  “Will ye no come back again?” sings William Sutherland, ageing marketing consultant and erstwhile tartan rocker, as he observes his younger self, who he knew would turn up here if he waited long enough, joining in vigorously with someone this older version can’t see at all (but can picture only too well). Someone whose impromptu performance is being enjoyed, alongside that of her husband, by a beautiful young woman with a radiantly hopeful smile. A woman from whom this uneasy William finds extraordinary difficulty in removing his gaze. “ – Will ye no come back again?”

  The trio conclude their curious, time-defying performance to audience responses that are much the same in both eras. Onlookers simply roll their eyes and shake their heads. Although a suspicion, by those encountering William singing totally on his own, of serious mental health problems adds a certain piquancy to the mix.

  William watches as a thoroughly satisfied Will lifts his replenished glass and starts to move away from the table, towards the interior of the café. The older man even manages a smile, almost as if he has enjoyed being transported for a few moments back to what was clearly a more liberating, less burdensome time.

  Yet the nostalgic glow is short-lived, replaced almost immediately by a searing blast of anger that rages through William and scalds him at his core. Sparked by nothing less than his being obliged to watch, in pure helplessness, as his young wife shuffles up too damn close to – well, to nothing William can actually see.

  But then he doesn’t actually need to.

  26

  William Sutherland has absolutely no recollection as to what the Café Amarillo toilet facilities were like on the week he first encountered the great cathedral city of Seville. Hardly surprising as he barely remembers the great cathedral. But he is gratified to find that, at least, like the cathedral, they haven’t changed l
ocation.

  He knows this because the first thing he sees as he enters the empty chamber is Will, standing thoughtfully at the urinal, glass of Rioja in his free hand, making room for further intake.

  “Like me to hold it for you?” offers William.

  “LIKE TO HOLD YOUR FUCKING TEETH, PAL?!” counter-offers the young man, before turning to take in his pervy offeree. “Oh – er – Gordon, isn’t it? Sorry, I thought for a wee moment you were – say, how’s it going?”

  William gently takes the full glass from Will’s hand. Of course, it immediately turns old and dusty, a few pathetic pink granules above a fragile stem. The younger man is, as William had hoped, too preoccupied to notice. (William is rather gratified, in fact, by how generally unobservant humanity can be.)

  “Going as well as can be expected,” says William.

  “Glaswegian for fantastic. Were you sitting out there? You should have come over.” Will appears quite genuine but William just shakes his head, struggling to keep the now vintage Rioja out of the light. “Och, you don’t want an old fart around. You’re with your friend.” He stares at Will as hard as he dares, without it seeming creepy. “At least I think he’s your friend.”

  Will may be a student of English literature but William remains unimpressed by his appreciation of subtext. “Not just a friend, Gordon. You wouldn’t believe it – the guy was my best man!”

  “Away ye go! Well, you know what they say about best men, Will.” This time he stares even harder. “They always win in the end.” William can’t help feeling he is employing the sort of dialogue that would have them both walking out of a cinema, but desperate times… “He’s a very good-looking guy,” he adds, without considering that maybe he shouldn’t.

  William is so involved in his dialogue of the deaf that he fails to become aware that another customer has entered. A customer who has been watching this balding, middle-aged Brit hold an intense conversation with an empty urinal. But William does hear the sound of a lock firmly turning, as the visitor sensibly puts a solid door between them.