Bitter Memories

by Margaret Mayo

  One night Charlene drove her to a restaurant in the mountains high on the west coast, close to Masca. Tanya had been looking forward to it all day, but when their route took them along a series of extremely narrow and tight hairpin bends winding through the mountain like goat tracks, she began to wonder whether it was a good idea. And upon arrival she was horrified to discover Alejandro’s dark red Mercedes parked outside. She wanted to turn right round and go home.

  ‘Not on your life,’ exclaimed Charlene. ‘Not after I’ve driven all this way. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.’

  ‘I don’t need your protection,’ retorted Tanya. ‘I’m twenty-seven, not seven. But this place is so out of the way; I cannot believe I’m about to bump into him again.’

  ‘It has a good reputation,’ informed her sister, ‘And, judging by the number of cars, it’s already busy. Perhaps with a bit of luck he won’t even see us.’

  But luck wasn’t with them. The second they walked out on to the purple and red bougainvillaea-covered terrace perched on the mountainside Tanya saw Alejandro. Her heartbeats quickened, her throat tightened, and she looked across at his companion, giving a start of surprise when she discovered that it was not his wife.

  The woman had black hair, the same, but it was short and thick and cut on a level with her chin. She wore a white low-cut dress and a chunky green necklace and was beautiful in a different sort of way to Juanita. She had eyes only for her companion, her hand touching his arm across the table in a proprietorial, familiar gesture.

  Tanya felt her blood begin to boil. He was two-timing his wife again! Although he hadn’t been married when he was in England, it amounted to the same thing. What a swine, what a cheat, what a bastard! How many other women had he had affairs with? At that moment he looked up and saw her.

  If looks could kill he should have dropped dead; instead he offered her a surprised smile. Tanya glared icily and turned to her sister, who had been frantically looking for an empty table. ‘There don’t seem to be any,’ she muttered. ‘We ought to have booked.’

  Then let’s get out of here,’ hissed Tanya. ‘I’ve just seen Alejandro—and he’s with another woman.’

  ‘Where?’ Charlene scanned the room, and at the same time Alejandro rose from his table and came over to them.

  His easy smile belied the fact that he had been caught deceiving his wife. ‘As there are no tables perhaps you’d care to join us.’

  ‘Like hell we would,’ hurled Tanya. ‘We’ll find somewhere else to eat. It would be criminal to spoil your pleasure.’

  Her deliberate emphasis on the last word caused a swift frown of annoyance. ‘You’re being extremely childish, Tanya. Inocente and I would be more than pleased to have your company.’

  Inocente! Tanya glanced across at the black-haired girl and thought, Who are you trying to fool? This girl in no way wanted their presence at the table; it was there in her expression, in the hostility in her eyes, and Tanya could not believe it when Charlene accepted gracefully.

  ‘Thank you, Alejandro. I really did want Tanya to experience this place.’

  He gave a pleased smile and led the way back to their corner table. ‘What did you do that for?’ Tanya whispered fiercely to her sister as she trailed behind. ‘This is the last thing I want.’

  Charlene grinned. ‘I thought it would be fun to ruin his evening.’

  And ruin mine too, thought Tanya, though she relaxed a mite. Charlene’s evil pleasure was infectious.

  Introductions were made and the dark-haired girl smiled, though it was a surface smile only. She clearly wished them a thousand miles away, and must have wondered why her companion had insisted on inviting them to their table.

  Inocente’s English was good, and she listened attentively while Alejandro explained how he had met Tanya and Charlene, though her eyes were sharp as she looked from one sister to the other, evidently wondering whether either of them had been his lover.

  A waiter came and set their places, handing each of them a menu, enquiring whether they would like an aperitif. Charlene declined, and Alejandro offered Tanya some of their wine. It was an excellent Marqués de Cáceres red, and Tanya drank half of it straight away, needing the courage it would give her to get through the rest of the evening. Alejandro raised an eyebrow and topped up her glass.

  It was not easy to concentrate on the menu; she was far too aware of Alejandro at her side. She and her sister had effectively split him and his companion up. Inocente remained opposite him, while she and Charlene were opposite each other. Tanya knew that Alejandro always liked his girlfriend to sit facing him so that he could look at her while they ate and talked, but the way it had turned out this evening Tanya wished she hadn’t been forced to sit so close.

  ‘I certainly never expected to see you two here tonight,’ said Alejandro.

  I bet you didn’t, she wanted to scream. I bet you thought you’d be nice and safe here in this out-of-the-way place. Her eyes flashed daggers, but somehow she managed to keep her tone even. ‘We seem to be meeting a lot in unexpected circumstances.’

  ‘Indeed we do.’

  His leg brushed hers as he spoke, maybe accidentally, maybe not. Tanya quickly tucked her feet beneath her chair. He was the world’s worst louse, she decided, and yet, despite her adverse feelings, she could not ignore the very real triggers of sensation that chased through her. Even knowing he was deceiving his wife, she still felt an incredible awareness. She was no better than the girl sitting next to her, she concluded angrily. ‘It’s strange that Charlene’s been here for two years and you’ve not met, and now I’ve come we seem to be bumping into each other all the time.’

  ‘Very strange,’ he admitted, and then in a voice so low neither of the others heard, ‘Or kismet.’

  Tanya wanted to yell at him, to ask him what the devil he thought he was doing. Casanova had nothing on him. But she did not want to cause a scene in the restaurant and so she pretended not to have heard, and when the waiter came for their order she turned to him with relief.

  It was a very long, tense next few hours. Inocente kept trying to dominate Alejandro’s attention, but he insisted on bringing Tanya and Charlene into the conversation, and in the end the Tinerfeño girl lapsed into sullen silence.

  Charlene insisted on talking about Tanya’s husband, Peter. ‘They were so much in love,’ she concluded.

  Tanya had tried to tell her sister to shut up by flashing her messages with her eyes, but Charlene either did not see or did not want to see, and by the end of the evening tempers were beginning to get short all round—except for Charlene’s; she was thoroughly enjoying the situation. She could see by the tightening of Alejandro’s face that he did not want to hear about Peter, but deliberately went on stressing his and Tanya’s perfect relationship.

  Tanya was glad when it was all over, when they pushed back their chairs and stood up to leave, though not so happy when Alejandro insisted on settling their bill. It made her feel indebted to him, and she did not want that; she did not want to feel any obligation whatsoever.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t said anything about Peter,’ she said crossly to her sister as they made their way back down the mountain. Alejandro had sped off in front of them and was already well out of sight.

  Charlene grimaced cheerfully. ‘It’s what he deserves. I hope it put him strictly in his place; the man’s dissolute. I wonder if Inocente knows he’s married. I felt like telling her, except that I didn’t want to cause a scene, and I’m certainly glad that it all ended between you two. Imagine if you’d married him and he carried on like this.’

  Tanya had already thought of that. The person she felt sorry for was Juanita. ‘I guess that was never on the cards. I was just one of many.’

  There must have been something in her voice that gave her away, because Charlene looked at her sharply. ‘Hey, You’re not still carrying a torch for him?’

  ‘Charlene! Keep your eyes on the road,’ screeched Tanya as they veered dangerously close towards th
e edge. The mountainside dropped sharply away and there were no barriers.

  ‘Whoops!’ exclaimed her sister, correcting the car. ‘But if you do feel something for Alejandro, then you’d better get rid of it straight away. That man is bad news without a doubt.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ replied Tanya, ‘I know exactly what he’s like, and don’t worry, I have no intention of getting involved with him again. I learned my lesson a long time ago.’ She closed her eyes as Charlene negotiated another sharp bend. This wasn’t her idea of fun at all. She hadn’t enjoyed it coming up, but it was even more scary going down, especially when all they had to guide them was the moon and the stars. Charlene seemed to have no qualms, but as far as she was concerned it was distinctly perilous.

  They lapsed into silence, and she could not get Alejandro out of her mind. She kept thinking of him with Inocente while his wife sat unsuspectingly at home. There was no doubt that he was having an affair with the girl; it was there in the way she looked at him, the way he spoke to her, the way they had walked out to his car with their arms around each other. Tanya felt quite sick at the thought.

  When they got back home she feigned tiredness and went straight to her room. It had been bad enough discovering that she had meant nothing to Alejandro all those years ago, but to find out that he was still two-timing Juanita was devastating in the extreme. She had never thought in those early days that Alejandro was a womaniser. It was hard to believe that he had set out on this treacherous path of deceit at the early age of twenty-three. The saying that a leopard never changed its spots was certainly true where he was concerned. She wondered how many other girls there had been.

  The next day Matilde came home and Alejandro turned up to collect the dress. This time Tanya had been half expecting him, knowing that he would want to make some sort of excuse for the night before.

  She was outside when he came, sitting on a chair in the tiny square of back garden, soaking up the sun-shine, Matilde’s tan and white dog keeping her company, although he lay in the shade of the wall. She was out of sight of the front door, and although she had heard Alejandro’s car had thought herself relatively safe. Until she heard him call her name.

  Ought she to pretend not to hear? Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily, pulses jerked, and she knew there was no way she could ignore him. Like him or hate him, it was all the same; the animal magnetism was there—getting stronger by the day!

  Slowly she turned her head. ‘Señora Guerra’s in the house.’ Her tone was hard, belying her tumultuous feelings.

  ‘I’d like a word with you first.’ He pushed open the gate and strode the few feet to her side.

  ‘If it’s about last night I don’t want to hear.’ There was irritation in her tone, and her sloe-shaped blue eyes were cold and distant. ‘You’ll never change, will you, Alejandro?’ He loomed over her, tall and somehow threatening, putting her at a distinct disadvantage. She jumped to her feet and faced him.

  He frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t come the innocent with me,’ she cried. ‘How many other women have there been?’

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘Yes, affairs on the side. It’s a good job you didn’t bring your wife along today or I might have been tempted to tell her.’ Fury added strength to her words, and she was speaking much more loudly than she intended. Matilde popped her head out of the door, frowned in their direction, and disappeared again.

  Tanya was so uptight that she missed the shadow that crossed Alejandro’s face, saw only the tightening of his jaw, the suppression of his anger. ‘My words have struck home, have they?’

  ‘You don’t know what You’re talking about, Tanya.’ His normally generous lips were clamped thinly, his dark eyes as hard as polished jet.

  ‘Don’t I?’ She lifted her fine brows and eyed him coldly. ‘How can I not know when you flaunt your girlfriends under everyone’s nose?’

  ‘You’re talking about Inocente?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And Beatriz, I presume?’

  Tanya frowned. ‘Beatriz? Who’s she?’

  ‘You seem to think that she’s my girlfriend too,’ he rasped coldly. ‘Can you tell me what gave you that idea?’

  ‘If You’re talking about the woman whose dress Matilde’s making, I didn’t think she was your girlfriend,’ snapped Tanya. ‘I thought she was your wife, but if she isn’t then You’re simply confirming my already rock-bottom opinion of you.’

  He looked at her sharply, questioningly. ‘You’d heard I was married?’

  ‘Yes, I had.’ Tanya’s tone was bitter. ‘And I think what You’re doing to her is diabolical. You want stringing up.’

  ‘When did you hear? How did you hear?’ He seemed not to notice her harsh words.

  ‘Is it important?’ she snapped.

  ‘I’d like to know.’ His eyes were narrowed on hers, his expression unreadable.

  Tanya lifted her shoulders in a careless gesture. ‘Someone Charlene met in the hotel told her. He came from Tenerife, knew you, apparently.’

  ‘Was this before or after you’d married Peter?’

  Suddenly she could see the way his mind was working. ‘Heavens,’ she cried sharply, ‘I didn’t marry him on the rebound, if that’s what You’re thinking. I didn’t marry him because I’d heard you’d got married; it was a long time afterwards. And as Charlene said last night, we were extremely happy together. I would never have dreamt of seeing another man behind his back.’

  She was so indignant that she was out of breath, her chest heaving as she looked at him belligerently and coldly, her fingers curled into her palms so tightly that her nails dug in and hurt, but she did nothing about it; in fact she welcomed the pain.

  His eyes glittered with a cold light that Tanya had never seen before; his nostrils dilated. ‘After all we had going for us, Tanya, I would never have believed that you could think so harshly of me.’

  ‘All we had going for us?’ she echoed loudly. ‘We had nothing. It was a brief, glorious fling that was over the moment you left England.’ And she was lying again! But what the hell—she refused to succumb to the indignity of confessing that she had spent hours and hours crying, pining, longing, wondering.

  ‘You forgot me so instantly?’

  His expression was so incredulous that she almost laughed. ‘Indeed I did. What did you expect? It was fun while it lasted, I admit, but once you were out of sight, Alejandro, you were out of mind. And why am I telling you all this when it’s your wife who’s the person I feel sorry for? You really are a swine, aren’t you? What do you tell her—that it’s business keeping you away from home? Or have you some other fancy excuses?’

  Alejandro looked at her long and hard. ‘I hardly feel you deserve the truth.’

  ‘Truth?’ Tanya’s brows slid up. ‘You mean a pack of lies? Some way of attempting to absolve yourself? I don’t think I want to hear it.’ He had lied by omission nine years ago, proving he wasn’t a man of integrity. Why should she believe anything he tried to tell her now? And lord, she wished he would move. Her hostility was mixed with an awareness that was proving a very real threat to her sanity.

  ‘In that case there is nothing else I have to say.’ He turned abruptly and marched towards the house, and perversely Tanya wished she hadn’t been so sharp. It would have been interesting to hear what sort of an excuse he came up with. It was too late now, though. Matilde had appeared in the doorway and was beaming a smile of welcome. He was obviously a great favourite of hers.

  Tanya sat down again and closed her eyes. She looked completely relaxed, as though she hadn’t a care in the world, no hint on her face of her rioting body and mind. Not only was she battling with a desire to know what he had been going to say, but she was struggling with feelings that set her on fire, feelings she had thought long since dead. Why, when she knew only too well how immoral he was, did she respond like this? What was there about him that drew her like a moth to a flame?<
br />
  He had said that it was kismet that drew them together and she had scorned the idea, but was there something in it? Why, after all these years apart, had they met again like this? Each occasion had been accidental—at the airport, the first time he came here, last night. Was there truly some hidden force behind it? Was it their destiny?

  He obviously wasn’t happy with his wife or he wouldn’t be seeking the company of other women. On the other hand, he hadn’t exactly been true to her before their marriage. He was a philanderer, a Don Juan, a man to be avoided at all costs. How many hearts he had broken she hated to think. Hers had been shattered. It had taken years to find the pieces and put it back together, and she was darn sure she wasn’t going to risk it being damaged again.

  It seemed an age that he remained indoors with the older woman. Tanya wondered whether he would come and speak to her once more or whether he would leave by the front door and that would be an end to it. She hoped for the latter, and since the costume was ready he would have no excuse for calling again.

  She heard them talking, Matilde sounding excited, Alejandro’s deep voice amused, and they were coming towards her. Tanya knew she could not pretend to be asleep, so she opened her eyes as they drew near.

  Alejandro looked down at her. ‘I’ve just given Matilde her usual invitation to our annual masked ball—well, maybe “ball” is too grand a word, it’s a party really; everyone has them around carnaval time—and she thought it would be nice if you and your sister came too.’

  Tanya’s heartbeats grew heavy and rapid, her eyes widened, and she looked quickly from one to the other. Matilde was nodding and smiling, and Tanya could see that she genuinely wanted them to accompany her. Alejandro had no expression at all on his face.

  ‘It’s not really up to Matilde, is it?’ she asked a trifle sharply.

  Alejandro gave a wry smile. ‘In that case, the invitation comes directly from me. Would you and Charlene do me the pleasure of attending?’

  Tanya wanted to say no, definitely not, but she did not want to offend Matilde, who obviously thought it a brilliant idea. Besides, it would give her the opportunity to find out where Alejandro lived—she was curious about that—and what sort of a lifestyle he had, and—more interestingly—whether he had invited any other ex- or current girlfriends. ‘I’ll have to ask Charlene first,’ she countered.