A Meeting in Seville

by Paul A. Mendelson

Nor are the young couple, nooks and nookie excluded, at the Casa Pilatos. This grand Andalusian palace, with its precious azulejos, permanent residence of the Dukes of Medinacelli, is infuriatingly not even an extremely temporary home for Will and Lu Sutherland.

  “Bloody waste of time!” he says aloud, as he rushes out of the stunning grounds. A middle-aged couple at the gate, overhearing this, immediately swivel on their brand-new FitFlops to find the next item on their unmissable ten list. (TripAdvisor: There can be queues. Be prepared to stand.)

  ***

  William tells himself that he can’t believe where the time is going, but of course the disbelief is minimal. There are clocks everywhere to remind him and he could never resist a clock. He has something the size of a clock on his wrist, taunting him with its sadistic, solid gold accuracy.

  Inevitably, he finds himself back at the Yellow Café, hours later but none the wiser. His triple espresso grows cold as he pores over a tourist map and tries to remember what the hell he – they – might have been up to on their final day. A day that by now has precious little day left in it. It feels beyond hopeless.

  Looking up from his map, he sees the attractive woman of his own age, whom he had noticed the day before as she coquettishly flaunted her newly bought fan. This time it is her turn to laugh, as her playful husband juggles with a couple of oranges he has clearly just plucked from a tree. William can’t decide whether he finds them utterly delightful or a potent incentive to lose his breakfast.

  Until an outlandish thought suddenly strikes him.

  With the immediacy of a spike through his chair, he launches himself upright, spilling cold coffee all over his plastic-coated map and onto his stupidly expensive trousers.

  There is something so madly delusional in the notion that has just occurred to him that, of course, it feels totally appropriate in the context of this week.

  52

  When he turns up yet again at Hostal Esmeralda, William is just as exhausted from the street-pounding and procession-weaving, from rushing and pushing and scrambling, as he would have been in his old life. Which only confirms that Mr Hot Shot “TV” Sutherland pays someone to do his workouts for him.

  The handyman is up his usual ladder, fixing yet another broken shutter.

  William strides towards him and grabs the lower rungs. Before the stocky man can protest, William is shouting up at him, ignoring for the moment whether the object of his wrath can follow a single word he yells.

  “Remember me, pal? I sure remember you! YOU’RE FROM THEIR TIME!” William can’t believe he is saying this, and he’s rather glad they’re quite alone in the courtyard. Yet he knows that he is right. And that the long-buried memory for which he was scavenging this morning, after last night’s orange-munching visit, has just kicked right back in.

  “Señor?” says the apparently puzzled Sevillian, in that wary manner universally recognised as a prelude to summoning the authorities.

  William decides to shake the ladder quite violently, although he knows in his heart that killing the man right now might not necessarily further his cause.

  “Listen, amigo, I don’t know what the hell is going on, or who you are – and I’m too bloody petrified to ask. But if I don’t find those two innocent youngsters by midnight tonight and set them back on track – undo the damage I’ve done – I am totally screwed. Trapped for eternity in game show hell.” He points to the small bedroom that he and Luisa once shared. “Please – this isn’t about me! Forget about me. Do you want to split up that sweet young couple?” He pauses for a moment, his passion way outrunning his logic. “One of whom, of course, is me.”

  The handyman moves down a couple of rungs and stamps hard on William’s fingers with the heel of his old leather boot. William yelps in agony and leaps back out of range. “Jesus!” he moans. “Just because you’re surreal doesn’t mean you have to be nasty with it!”

  “Plaza de Espana,” mutters the handyman, under William’s curses.

  William believes that he has heard the man correctly – if indeed it is a man and not a spectre or a phantom or a product of his own, deluded brain. He certainly isn’t going to hang around and re-pose the question. “Yeah? Gracias. Bit unnecessary, but mucho… gracias!”

  He rushes off and out the gate, rubbing his injured hand. He doesn’t see the handyman shake his head, nor does he hear him repeat “Plaza de Espana!” with a wicked laugh in his throat.

  ***

  The Plaza de Espana is, of course, bloody miles away.

  Or at least it feels like this, as William struggles and barges his way once more through the chattering, surging crowds. All doggedly tramping the streets in search of the week’s final processions, even though they have probably witnessed incredibly similar processions all week.

  He stops and ponders, just for a moment. For whom exactly is he doing this? Then he realises he doesn’t have the luxury of stopping and pondering. And, anyway, he sort of knows.

  The sun is sending meaningful hints about going down, after another steamy, full-on day, as William finally rolls up at Seville’s confusingly grand contribution to the 1929 Exposition and begins his search. Alcoves and all. The haunting theme music from Lawrence of Arabia crawls unbidden, like an ear-worm, into his head.

  William finds himself, forty-five fruitless minutes later, sitting on yet another trickling fountain, in front of the Plaza de Espana, alternately sobbing and cursing. “Marmalade-eating bastard!”

  He has totally run out of options. The unsuspecting couple he seeks so desperately through the decades could be anywhere. Yet anywhere is not on the maps in his pocket, his smartphone, his memory or his mind.

  His expensive head has almost sunk into his chest when he glimpses them.

  Strolling towards him, Easter Sunday smart, are his expansive hosts from the bullring. Señora Barbadillo looks particularly radiant, flashing those sturdy, flamenco legs in sheer black stockings, beneath a respectfully dark yet still summery dress. Her raven hair is jauntily topped off with a bulls-blood, pillbox hat.

  William can’t believe how delighted he is to see them again.

  “Señor Barbadillo! Señora!” He is immediately thrown off course by the utter bafflement on both their faces. “It’s me. William! …We just went to the bullfight together.”

  “No, Señor, we did not,” responds the portly man, gently but firmly.

  “No, of course we didn’t,” admits William, sadly. “Sorry to—”

  Before he can finish, Señora Barbadillo suddenly grabs hold of his arm. To no one’s surprise, she is extremely strong.

  “How you know our name?” she challenges him.

  Good question. “Er – flamenco! Everyone knows your name in Sevilla, Señora.” He turns to go. “And your legs.”

  “Your name too, William Sutherland.”

  William swings back in amazement. The older couple are smiling and pointing excitedly to his blouson. He pulls it out like a flabby fold of skin and twists his neck round until he can make out “William Sutherland Productions”, emblazoned on the reverse in gold script. He reckons he must come across like a dog chasing its tail, but it doesn’t appear to bother his onlookers.

  “The more soon you are than I am!” they cry exultantly.

  “May we have the photograph, Señor?” implores his new, old acquaintance. “Today is birthday of my wife.”

  “Of course it is!” cries William. “You’re sixty!” He can sense the Señora isn’t thrilled with this. “So hard to believe,” he adds hurriedly. “So hard. Doing anything special tonight?”

  Señor Barbadillo’s eyes take on the naughtiest gleam. “Hotel,” he announces. “Is best and oldest in Sevilla. With only our family. Very quiet.” He then steps forward and proceeds to give William a huge and bewilderingly conspiratorial wink, one that his wife cannot see.

  William is attempting to process this
nonsense when the flash of a camera, or perhaps a light suddenly going on behind, just nicks his peripheral vision. And moments later something flashes in William too.

  A red glow?

  He knows this means something. It has to do with the honeymoon, with Will and Lu, he is certain. But he can make no sense of it.

  Until he catches the Señora smiling at him. And watches her red hat bobbing.

  A hat. Something about a hat. A red hat?

  And now he remembers. Or he thinks he does. It isn’t much, in fact it’s light years from much. But it’s a start.

  He begins to move off, but then turns back and shakes both their hands. “Gracias. Muchas. Happy Birthday.”

  As he picks up speed, he calls back “Felicitations!” out of politeness and then, for some obscure reason, adds “See you on the show!” because it sounds the sort of thing TV folk like him say.

  He can feel their puzzlement searing into the back of his limited-edition, corporate blouson.

  53

  “Mission bloody impossible!”

  Night has fallen and William can hardly move. In fact, he can hardly breathe. When he doesn’t have someone’s hair in his mouth or a meaty shoulder in his eye, his nose is clogged up with the heady scent of industrial-strength incense, garnished with sweat, rancid orange blossom and a thousand semi-digested tapas.

  The frenzy of the masses to catch the last of the pasos as they make their way towards and through the great cathedral is palpable. The life-giving transfusions of wine and sangria provide the turbaned ones beneath the wobbly floats with new energy and a different sense of rhythm. William is certain that he can detect the hitherto stately drums and brass attempting to pepper a last-minute flavouring of New Orleans into the mix, but of course his sanity has been in question for a while.

  And the Spanish are shouting.

  To their partners, to their children, to Jesus and to whoever is at the other end of their mobile phones shouting back. Lights beam up at the cathedral, with a far from medieval brilliance, and down also on those passing solemnly or curiously or aimlessly through its massive and ornate Door of Assumption. Rich, black, Spanish hair, some of it under starched white or black mantillas, shimmers and glints, reflecting the rainbow glow. As does the incendiary garb of this band of torch-bearing Nazarenos, making William think that perhaps these really are the only flame-red mementos that he has been summoning up in his scattergun panic.

  And that his life-changing, sanity-restoring quest is very shortly about to come to a messy and fruitless end.

  One of the scarlet Nazarenos steps out of rank and stoops down. William strains to follow his descent, peeking through a gap in the crowd, which now appears to be pulsating like some multi-headed, short-sleeved organism. His eyes finally find a small boy with unexpectedly blond hair. William recognises him as the wee lad whom he rescued from an unstoppable and totally non-existent Eighties bus and whom he later followed dumbly towards the cathedral.

  Is the little chap an unwitting part of this torturous Passion play, William wonders, with that painful resemblance to someone never out of his head? Although even this, the most searing memory of all, is slowly losing its sharpness.

  Shouldn’t this be a blessing and not the curse that it feels?

  The kindly Nazareno is allowing red-hot wax to drip slowly from the massive candle he holds towards the boy’s tiny, trembling hand. For a moment William wonders if this could be the same knobbly ball he returned earlier today, already amplified. Stranger things, of course, have happened.

  The boy suddenly turns towards William and their eyes meet, through a tiny chink in the crowd. There is no look of surprise here, in the excruciatingly innocent, blue-eyed stare, and thankfully no fear. William thinks he might just have detected a rapid blink of – recognition? Gratitude? He feels his stomach quiver.

  The crowd moves to the beat of the drums, as if in one throbbing, congealing lump, and the child is gone.

  William strains urgently to catch just one more glimpse, to retain the image, as if this is suddenly the most important thing in his life. But he can no longer see the boy, or the kindly Nazareno, although of course the latter all look the same under there. Yet he does catch the blessedly non-judgemental eye of Christ, on this, his special day, looking indulgently down on one confirmed non-believer’s helpless, hopeless despair. For a moment William thinks he sees him shrug.

  A flash of a large – and, by now, classic – camera changes everything.

  William looks up swiftly in the direction of the flash, although naturally it is far from the only one going off right now. Yet, somehow it is. Perhaps because it is of a different vintage or simply the way it travels over decades right into his reeling head – like that flash he now recalls outside the pricey restaurant.

  People are clambering onto ancient walls, railings and each other to snatch a better view, however obscured and fleeting. Some are being pulled away in a manner quite un-Christian.

  William decides to weave through the crowd and, where weaving has its limits, to push and shove and gouge. Picking up speed, as he simultaneously summons up reserves of barely used muscle, cursing the ridiculous tightness of his trousers, he keeps his eyeline tilted skyward. At least he knows now what he is looking for, just as he knows the unlikeliness of his ever finding it.

  Or them.

  He catches the briefest glint of red.

  It could be anything.

  Yet this time it resonates inside his pulpy brain in a manner that has recently become so familiar, with its surreal sense of superimposition, like a dodgy palimpsest over the present. So that he knows it could not be anything else.

  And finally he sees her.

  Lu Sutherland, his wee, lithe, graceful Lu, perched precariously on an ornate railing, short skirt rising over impossibly slim, brown legs, as she strains and stretches. He spots her bright red and finally permitted ‘Easter-bonnet’, firmly fixed on that dark, shimmering mane.

  As she tries for the one perfect shot.

  Her equally bright red bag must, he reckons, be rattling with rolls of used film. He recalls the albums that the old Luisa curated; expertly taken pictures, to be just as studiously ignored by his unsentimental self.

  William finds himself longing to pore over those glossy, bulging, repetitive, non-existent albums just one more time.

  Now young Will is there, standing directly below his intrepid wife. He holds onto a wiry ankle, supporting with infinite care this slender frame. As entranced as ever by her spirit and her form.

  William moves towards them, along the packed street.

  As he turns, he catches his reflection in a compact but well-stocked shop window. Through the serried ranks of tiny, take-home clay Nazarenos (the purpose of which is still lost on him, unless local kids battle with them in holy wars) he finds that slightly smarmy stranger staring back. Instinctively, he runs a Rolexed hand through his still alien hair and wonders what the hell to do now.

  A powerful whiff of rosemary, nicotine and undigested beer, some six inches from his face, causes him to turn.

  The wild little Romany lady seizes on his attention, as if her breath has been a genuinely persuasive calling card, and thrusts her newly plucked sprigs almost up his nose. Without a moment for doubt, William wrenches the Rolex from his wrist and hands it to her. He watches her stunned, rheumy eyes as they flash between him and the passing Christ, as if these miraculous men are simply two sides of the same, divinely provident coin.

  “Ayyyy! Muchas gracias, Señor!”

  She pushes her entire stock of rosemary down the front of his shirt, then snatches a few sprigs back. No mileage in being over-grateful.

  William has forgotten her already. He is too busy attempting to yank out his hair weave. Anything to drag him back, in Lu and Will’s eyes, to the already-strange person they seem to like and into whom they appear inevitabl
y to bump. He has a feeling that the new Willo Sutherland will only freak them out and that this would hardly further his cause. Whatever the hell that cause is.

  But the hair-yanking only makes him yelp.

  William reckons that whoever did it must have been amongst the best in their field. He wonders how much it cost him and whether he was able to put it down to the business. Then, terrified that the young couple will disappear forever from his gaze, he looks around for a less painful option.

  He spots a man his own age a few ragged rows behind him, wearing a battered panama hat. Struggling back to reach him, amidst shoves and curses, he offers up a big wad of euros, notes he discovers, without excess surprise, on a silver money clip in his trouser pocket. “Señor? Er… hat? Panama? Sombrero? Quanta—?”

  The man immediately grabs the euros and joyously pops his hat onto his new friend’s new hairdo. “On your head be it, boyo,” he laughs, in an accent more Rhondda than Ronda.

  Resembling a tad more the prototype William Sutherland, he turns back towards Will and Lu’s wobbly perch, in anticipation of a heroic plough through the decades.

  They’re no longer there.

  Perhaps they are flowing with the crowds now, or at least their own contemporaneous, pre-selfie crowd, following the massive, candlelit procession in anything but silence towards the cathedral. Or maybe they are walking in an entirely different direction, towards the proud band of brothers from another hermandad. Or even snatching a swift break, a drink, some low-budget tapas…

  Shopping… strolling… lingering…

  They could be bloody anywhere!

  William knows all too well that they won’t have returned to their little room just yet. Not on this pivotal Easter Sunday night.

  He has no idea in which direction to jostle and shove. Towards the cathedral or away from it, in the direction of Triana, or along the riverbank? Families with wizened grandmothers in black and little girls in starched white communion dresses, are laughing and celebrating and falling asleep, because the night is balmy, the day is holy and they happen to be Spanish. Tourists watch the locals in delighted wonder and tourists from Britain wonder how people can be so full of joy and free from inhibitions whilst remaining relatively sober.