The Dragon's Cave

by Isobel Chace

Megan would have gone at once, but Pilar was made of sterner stuff. ‘So that’s it!’ she stormed. ‘Dios mio, do you dislike Carlos so much?’

  ‘It isn’t a matter of liking or disliking anyone,’ Margot retorted grimly. ‘Don’t you understand that everything was left to Carlos? If he marries someone like Inez, Senor de la Navidades will insist that he settles a proper amount on Pepe, you and Isabel, and on me too! The Spanish are realistic about family loyalties. Can you imagine someone like Megan doing anything for us? Oh no! She immediately set about reinforcing Carlos’ obsession over his mother! It didn’t take her long to discover that most of the money in the family is Llobera money! I thought the old Senora would make short work of her, she never did like the English—look at the way she treated me!—and one look at Tony Starlight should have been enough to tell her what sort of girl she is!’ She laughed shortly. ‘The old lady is more gullible than I thought! But Carlos had his eyes opened for once! He won’t stop Megan going back to England now!’

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ Pilar sighed. Her mouth was white and pinched and, without her usual vivacity, she looked suddenly faded and older than her years. ‘Oh, Mother!’

  Megan felt cut off from them both, alone as she had never been alone before. Was it possible, she wondered without much interest, that Margot had engineered Tony’s embrace as well? It seemed more than likely. He had been invited for that very purpose. She giggled, glad that her emotions had frozen into insensibility. The funny thing was that Tony had come out of the affair better than any of his detractors. He had been angry with her, but he had not been malicious. Nor had he patronised her, or tried to change her into something that she was not. Why, oh, why, if she had had to fall in love, hadn’t she fallen in love with him? But she knew the answer to that, she thought drearily. She could say goodbye to Tony without a second thought, but now that she had to say goodbye to Carlos, it would be like tearing out her heart.

  ‘Megan, you must see Carlos in the morning!’ Pilar begged, the tears streaming down her face.

  Megan turned and looked at her. She even smiled. ‘I don’t think I want to,’ she said. And she went slowly up to her room, to the bed that Carlos had had as a small boy, pulling off her dress and allowing it to fall unheeded to the floor. From habit, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth, before she got into bed, pulled the bedclothes up over her head, and cried herself to sleep.

  CHAPTER XII

  Megan could hear Pilar and her mother arguing late into the night. She tried not to listen to their raised, angry voices, knowing that they were discussing her, but she couldn’t have understood them anyway, for Pilar had lapsed into her native Spanish, which she found much easier than English. When at last they went to bed, Megan still couldn’t sleep. She tossed restlessly back and forth, waiting for the dawn and the new day when she would go away from Carlos for ever.

  It was nearly dawn when she heard him come in, banging the door behind him with a lack of consideration that was far from his usual manner. She lay, tense and scarcely daring to breathe, listening to his footsteps as he came up the stairs. She waited for him to go past her door, but he didn’t. The footsteps paused and he rapped lightly on her door.

  ‘Megan?’

  ‘Go away!’ she whispered back.

  ‘Amada, my grandmother wishes for us to have lunch with her tomorrow—’

  Megan pulled the bedclothes back over her head. ‘Go away!’ she repeated.

  He laughed shortly. ‘Good night, mi queridissima mujer!’

  Megan lay completely still, then she sat up suddenly. ‘You’ve forgotten that I’m not a woman in your eyes! I’m still a child, to be laughed at, scolded and summoned into your presence whenever you’re angry! You can’t have it both ways, senor!’

  He was silent for a long minute, until she thought he had gone away. Then he said, his voice very dry.

  ‘Your Spanish is improving, hija, but then didn’t I hear you say earlier that Spanish is the loving tongue?’

  ‘Oh! Go away!’ she snapped again.

  His laughter rang unkindly in her ears. ‘For now, my love,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Convenido?’

  But Megan refused to answer and, after a few minutes, he went away, whistling the tune of the folk song she had sung earlier, the sound of it mocking her as she tried to hate him. If she saw him again, she thought, he would persuade her to stay, and she couldn’t stay, loving him as she did. He didn’t love her, she knew that. If he did, he would have made sure that she knew it, and would have claimed her love in return. He was not an inexperienced, gauche teenager like herself! He knew what he was doing and what he wanted, and what he wanted obviously wasn’t her! But then why, oh, why had he brought her here? The answer, she thought, had been staring her in the face all along. She was no more than a pawn in the long-standing feud between Carlos and his stepmother, to be used and then rejected as soon as she had served her purpose. They had both used her to hurt the other, without affection for her, or interest in her as a person. She hated them both! She even hated herself, for allowing them to make her feel cheap when Tony had kissed her. Why shouldn’t he kiss her? At least he was genuinely fond of her!

  The night crept by. When it was only just light, Megan pulled herself out of bed, refusing to give way to the weariness that engulfed her, and dressed, defiantly, in a mauve tweed trouser suit. She had only one thought and that was to get away from the house, and anything that reminded her of Carlos, until she could find a travel agent and buy a ticket on the next plane to London. She wondered how much it would cost, and felt very sorry for herself when she thought of the lonely homeward journey and compared it with the comfort of travelling with Carlos on the way out.

  The only thing to do was to get as far away as possible before anyone else got up. She hurried downstairs, carrying her shoes in her hand in case anyone heard her moving about, trying to make up her mind where she should hide until the plane went. She hadn’t really come to any decision when she let herself out of the patio into the street, but when she found herself looking at Margot’s car she didn’t hesitate. She got into the driving seat, found the ignition key in the front pocket, and drove off down the street. Margot, of course, would not be pleased to find her car gone, and without her permission, but Megan didn’t care. She felt curiously light-headed and unlike herself.

  She took the motorway out of Palma, not caring where she went, driving on and on into the rising sun. The almond blossom went unnoticed and she barely saw the towns that she went through, until she realised that she was completely lost, without the slightest idea of which way she should go next. Not that it mattered, she reminded herself with a sob. Who cared where she was? Or what she did?

  A signpost told her that she was near the sanctuary of San Salvador, which she thought she had read something about, though she couldn’t remember what. She turned up the narrow road that led to the foot of a massive hill, the sole peak that rose some fifteen thousand feet above the surrounding plain. No one, she thought, would think of looking for her there—if they were looking for her, which she very much doubted.

  The road wound upwards, climbing steadily to the top where a handful of monks still lived in the ancient hermitage, earning their living in the modern restaurant they had built there, with its fantastic view right across the south of the island.

  Megan parked the car and sauntered through the buildings, peering into the church and browsing through the memorials and tokens of thanksgiving that hung, in the way that they do in much of the continent, in a chapel dedicated to San Salvador. The faded photographs of sailors lost at sea, children dead before their time, and the promises of pilgrimages to be made and prayers to be said in return for favours received, fitted in with her mood of forlorn unhappiness. Afterwards, she went out into the sunshine again, studied the splendid view and the prickly pear with moody interest, and wondered what she should do next.

  The car sailed down the road to the bottom of the hill, almost without her having to do
anything at all. At the bottom, she took a last look at the statue at the top that stood overlooking the plain, blessing all that came and went past the ancient hermitage.

  As she paused to turn into the main road again, she thought she saw Carlos’ car going fast in the opposite direction. Her heart knocked against her ribs and her hands trembled on the steering wheel. He was looking for her! Supposing he were to find her? She couldn’t bear it if he argued with her, worse, disapproved of her again. She tore out into the road, almost colliding with a horse and cart that she hadn’t even seen. The driver yelled an insult at her and Megan offered a fleeting apology, putting her foot right down on the accelerator and allowing the car to rip up the road ahead of her in sheer panic in case Carlos should be following her.

  She had reached Porto Cristo before she had pulled herself together sufficiently to slow down and make some effort to drive properly. There was nowhere now to go, except into the sea, and she stopped the car, brushing the tears out of her eyes, jumping as each car went past her, sure that it would be Carlos, angry and menacing, behind the wheel.

  A coach, full of waving tourists, pulled out to pass her and she slowed almost to a stop to let it go. But it did not go on down the hill into Porto Cristo. Instead it turned off into what looked like a picnic area, well-wooded, and showing the signs of any much visited place. Megan followed the coach very slowly, allowing it to get well ahead of her. She saw then that she had arrived at the Cuevas de Drach and remembered the Englishwoman’s enthusiasm at the barbecue. Of course, she thought, she had come to the Dragon’s Cave.

  She might not have gone in. She bought a ticket largely by accident, thinking that she was only asking how much the ticket was. The man took her purse from her, counted out the right number of pesetas and put the ticket in her hand, telling her not to lose it, for it would be more than half an hour before the next batch of visitors could be taken down to the caves.

  There was a short walk to the entrance, crowded with tourists of all nationalities, and Megan walked along it with the rest of them, turning her head every now and again, almost as if she expected someone to be following her. She saw Carlos long before he saw her. He was asking the man at the ticket office if he had seen her. His description of her brought forth a voluble and enthusiastic discourse, assuring him that she would not yet have gone into the caves, but that, if he hurried, he could easily catch her up. Megan knew exactly what was being said, just as though she could hear and understand every word. But she had eyes only for Carlos’ face, and it was every bit as angry and menacing as she had imagined it would be.

  She turned and ran. A few steps led down to the caves below and she hurtled down them, almost throwing her ticket at the guardian who was vainly trying to gather his group of tourists together before they made their descent.

  ‘Senorita!’ he called after her. She looked back and smiled at him when he shrugged his shoulders and let her go on. She almost fell down the last few steps as she met the warm, wet atmosphere of the caves and felt the crush of the tourists coming on behind her. She felt safe then. There were so many of them, building an insurmountable barrier between herself and Carlos. She took a deep breath of relief, sure that he couldn’t possibly have seen her, and began to look about her at the glories of the most spectacular caves in an island of caverns and hollow hills.

  Perhaps it was because they progressed so slowly that Megan found her feet dragged along the rough path and up and down the steps that led from one brilliantly lit cavern to the next. The hanging stalactites, known as the hanging pins, intrigued her. They were small and delicate by comparison with some of the great columns that went between roof and floor in magnificent shapes, fashioned over who knew how many thousands of years. Somebody exclaimed over a stalagmite that resembled a hooded monk, and she herself was entranced by the clarity of the water in what was known as ‘Diana’s Baths’.

  It grew hotter as they went along. Megan supposed it was the hot breath of countless tourists that made the atmosphere so close. Her trousers clung to her damp legs and her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep. However long did it take to walk through these caves? She should have enquired, she thought. She didn’t want Carlos to be waiting at the exit when she finally surfaced back into the fresh air.

  Then, just as she was beginning to despair, they reached the final and largest cave, which had been turned into a theatre. Rows and rows of wooden forms had been bolted to the floor, facing the lit up underground Lake Martel. Megan would have gone on, forgoing the concert in an effort to get out of the caves and away before Carlos could catch up with her, but the attendant ushered her brusquely into a seat on the far side of the makeshift auditorium. She sat down reluctantly on the wooden form, sliding along it until she came up against a bar that was the only barrier between her and the water below. Someone sat down beside her with a faint smile of apology, and the auditorium slowly filled up with laughing and chattering tourists. Megan’s eyes searched up and down the rows, looking for Carlos, but he wasn’t there. She slouched down in her seat, more miserable even than before, wondering why it wasn’t relief that she was feeling.

  The lights went down and they sat in darkness. The bright red of a moving pinpoint of light told her that someone was smoking despite the various notices asking one not to. Everyone waited in silence, their conversations cut short except for the occasional, excited whisper, and then the music began, a slow murmur of violins that grew gradually louder.

  Megan was hardly aware of the movement beside her. Her neighbour moved away from her and someone else slipped into the vacated seat beside her.

  ‘Hullo, Megan,’ he said.

  It was Carlos.

  She sat as far away from him as was humanly possible, the wooden bar biting into her ribs. It didn’t make any difference. He sat a little closer to her, his thigh tight against hers, a hand on her far shoulder, pulling her closer still.

  ‘Dejeme!’ she whispered in Spanish. ‘Oh, Carlos, please leave me alone!’

  ‘Not until you promise you won’t run away again,’ he answered her. ‘I’ve spent a wretched morning following you around this island and I don’t intend to spend the better half of the afternoon doing the same thing!’

  ‘You can’t,’ she reminded him. ‘You’re having lunch with your grandmother!’

  ‘We are having lunch with her,’ he retorted. ‘You and I together—’

  ‘It’s too late to go there now,’ she objected.

  He grinned, and she could see his teeth shining white in the darkness. ‘My grandmother is very Spanish, mi corazon. She won’t expect us much before three.’

  Slowly, from behind an island column in the middle of the lake, a boat slipped into view, outlined in tiny lights. The music swelled, taking a light-hearted turn, and another boat followed and then another, dancing with each other in the darkness in time to the music. It was just possible to make out the dark shapes of the men who were playing the music in the first boat as it glided by, quite close to them. In the other boats there was only the oarsman, his movements kept to a minimum as he soundlessly dipped his oar into the gleaming water.

  The music changed and the audience, recognising the tune, began to hum, swaying in time to the music. It was a moment of sweetness that would linger with Megan all her life, bound up as it was with the hard feel of Carlos beside her, and the tang of his aftershave lotion in her nostrils as he bent his head to hers.

  She had not meant to allow him to kiss her. She shut her eyes when his lips met hers and, when she opened them again, the boat carrying the musicians had gone out of sight and the music had changed again.

  ‘I won’t!’ Megan whispered indignantly, just as he kissed her again.

  The feel of his laughter made her heart pound within her. She held back for as long as she could and then, with a gesture of surrender, she put a hand on his shoulder and gave herself up to the agonising ecstasy of his kiss. It wouldn’t hurt Inez—or anyone!—if she had that to remember for the rest of her
life.

  The lights came on slowly and Megan pulled herself away from Carlos, startled by the audience about her coming to life. The boats had already waltzed their way round to the back of the column and out of sight. The performance was over.

  Megan leapt to her feet, hurrying over more tardy feet than her own with a muttered apology here and there. Carlos caught her by the hand and pulled her back against him. forcing her to slow down.

  ‘Carlos, leave me alone!’

  ‘Ni hablar!’

  ‘I—I don’t understand.’

  He chuckled. ‘You wouldn’t, it wasn’t a term of endearment. I said, not on your life!’

  ‘It isn’t fair!’ Megan protested. ‘Carlos, let’s get out of here. I’m going back to England and that’s that! Everyone will be pleased!’

  ‘Everyone?’

  ‘Everyone. Margot and—and Inez—’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh, Carlos, that isn’t a fair question!’ Her voice broke and she swallowed desperately to keep from crying.

  ‘Isn’t it, pequena? But can’t you see that it all depends on that?’

  Megan wiped her face with the back of her hand, hoping that he wouldn’t notice in the poor lighting.

  ‘Oh, look!’ she bade him. ‘Isn’t—isn’t the water clear down there?’

  He looked down to where she was pointing with complete indifference. ‘Last time I came, this path wasn’t here,’ he told her. ‘It took much longer to come out. Judging by the change of atmosphere, we’re nearly there.’ He took her hand in his, to help her up the last flight of stairs, running his thumb over the dampness that was all that was left of her tears. ‘The prospect of going back to England doesn’t seem to have made you very happy, hija,’ he remarked.

  The slow-moving group came to a complete halt. Megan looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting Carlos’ ironic gaze fleetingly.

  ‘You don’t understand!’ she began.

  ‘What don’t I understand?’