The Man From Madrid

by Anne Weale

  Nicolás, who had been targeted by match-makers before, recognised Juanita’s motive for praising Cally and was even more amused. He wondered how the cook would react if he confided to her that he had already attempted to get Cally to share his bed. She would profess to be shocked, but it was possible that her own marriage had been the result of illicit couplings.

  Despite their tut-tutting about the deterioration in manners and morals among today’s young people, their parents and grandparents had not always obeyed the stricter codes in place when they were young. Human nature did not change, and he wouldn’t mind betting that quite a few of the old boys who sat gossiping in the plaza mayor, and the portly housewives coming and going with their baskets and bread bags, had been conceived before their parents were married in the village church.

  ‘When is Señora Haig expected back?’ he asked.

  Juanita told him, adding, ‘She’s visiting her friend in England. She’ll come back with a cold. She always catches a cold when she goes there. Thank goodness I don’t have to live in that terrible climate. No wonder so many of them come to Spain when they retire. It’s bad enough getting old without having to put up with endless rain and cold weather for months on end.’

  ‘English weather isn’t always bad, and they have very comfortable houses.’

  ‘You’ve been there, have you?’

  ‘Several times. I have friends in England.’

  ‘Spain is the best place to live, and this is the best part of Spain,’ said Juanita with conviction.

  ‘It certainly has a lot to recommend it,’ Nicolás said tactfully. A cosmopolitan himself, he was accustomed to his compatriots’ fierce devotion to their own particular region and its customs and cuisine, which they always considered superior to those of all other regions.

  In the evening two Spanish representatives checked in for an overnight stay and the three men had a long chat. Listening to snatches of it, Cally noticed that, although the reps talked freely about themselves and their jobs, Nicolás said almost nothing about himself or his occupation.

  All day she had been picking up email every two hours, each time expecting to download a redundancy notice. But although corporate publishers were famous for the ruthlessness of their dismissals, and would not feel bound to wait for an employee to return from holiday before sacking her, the email she dreaded did not come and she went to bed no wiser than when she got up.

  But she had to admit to herself that it hadn’t been only her job that had been on her mind. A lot of her thoughts had been about Nicolás: how much longer he intended to stay, whether he had written her off or would try to kiss her again, whether in six months’ time she would regret turning him down.

  Cally’s first intimation that Nicolás had come to Valdecarrasca for a purpose he had not disclosed to her, and that was very different from his apparent reason, came on the way back from a visit to a produce market in a larger village.

  She was driving home when she saw, returning on foot, a woman laden with carrier bags whom she knew by sight but not by name. Cally stopped to give her a lift.

  After some general conversation, her passenger said, ‘You’ve heard about the hotel, I expect.’

  ‘What hotel is that?’ asked Cally.

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it when the man in charge has been staying at your place. But I suppose he thought it wouldn’t do to mention it. I mean it’s not going to be good for your business, is it?’ said the woman, in a sympathetic tone.

  ‘Where did you hear this rumour?’ Cally asked.

  ‘It’s not a rumour, my dear. They were seen together at the house…the old house across the valley—’ with a wave of the hand in the direction of the wooded knoll on the far side of the plana. ‘The man who is staying with you, and another man who is an architect…quite a famous architect. The last hotel he designed won a prize. He was interviewed on TV. I didn’t see him myself, but a lot of people did. It’s the talk of the village. You can’t run a hotel without staff, can you? They’ll be looking for people to work there. So it won’t help your business, but it will bring opportunities for other people.’

  Cally listened, aghast. She felt as if, without any warning, someone had punched her in the stomach.

  ‘It can’t be the talk of the village,’ she said. ‘If it were Juanita who cooks for us would have heard about it. Who is the person who’s supposed to have seen this famous architect over there?’

  ‘It was old Diego Perez. He wanders about all over the place. They didn’t see him but he saw them. He recognised them both…one from the television, and the other from seeing him about the village these past few days. The fellow who is staying with you had a key to the main door. Diego saw him unlock it. He must be the agent for the owners.’

  Cally was beginning to recover from the initial shock. ‘Who are the owners?’

  ‘I don’t know who owns it now. Most likely some property developer,’ said her passenger. ‘But if you want to know about the people who used to own it, the person to talk to is Dolores Martinez’s grandmother. She’s in her nineties and doesn’t go out any more, but her mind is still clear so I’ve heard. Long ago she worked at that house as a kitchen maid.’

  By this time they were back at the village where the older woman got out, retrieved her shopping from the back seat, thanked Cally and said goodbye. No doubt it would not be long before another snippet of information was circulating on the village grapevine: the fact that the English girl whose parents owned the casa rural had had no idea that the Madrileño staying there was a snake in the grass, Cally thought angrily.

  She could hardly wait for Nicolás to come back from his day’s activities so that she could confront him with his infamous conduct. Indeed she was strongly tempted to go to his room, stuff his belongings into a bin bag and dump them outside the front door with a curt note informing him he was no longer welcome.

  Then she remembered that he had yet to pay his bill. It would be more prudent to insist on settlement of what he owed to date before telling him what she thought of him.

  She had printed out his account ready to give him and was sitting, bolt upright and tense, on one of the bar stools, waiting to present it to him, when he came in.

  Cally stepped down from the stool, inwardly trembling, outwardly calm. Ignoring his friendly, ‘Hi…how are you?’ she said coldly, ‘Good evening. It’s come to my ears that you are not here on holiday, as we thought…that you’re involved in the restoration of a property on the other side of the valley, for business purposes. Is that information correct?’

  Nicolás had taken off his backpack before he entered the building. Now he propped it against a chair and regarded her with an expression she could not interpret.

  ‘Yes, it’s true,’ he agreed. ‘But I wasn’t aware that business people were persona non grata. You’ve had a couple of reps here since I arrived.’

  ‘That’s entirely different. You can’t seriously expect us to welcome someone whose activities will undermine our livelihood. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave—immediately. This is your bill.’ She held it out to him.

  Nicolás moved forward and took it, his dark gaze still locked with hers. ‘Why will my project undermine your livelihood?’ he asked.

  Cally began to lose her cool. ‘If you can’t see that, you want your brains tested. A large hotel a couple of kilometres away is going to kill us stone dead. It may bring some employment, but it certainly won’t bring tranquillity. But why should you care if this valley is ruined like so much of the coast has been ruined? You don’t have to live here. You’ll go back to Madrid. It’s we who will have to suffer the consequences.’

  As he continued to fix her with that enigmatic stare, she was torn between wanting to continue her rant and feeling that it would be wiser to hold her tongue.

  Eventually he said, ‘Whatever I do, or don’t do, all the areas close to the airports and the autopista are going to change dramatically in the next ten years. Nothing can
alter that. I think you must resign yourself to it.’ He glanced down at the bill. ‘Can I pay this by Visa?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  He reached into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet, found the credit card and offered it to her. ‘You can be dealing with that while I go up and clear my room.’ He picked up his pack and disappeared up the stairs.

  Putting his card through the machine, Cally felt a twinge of unease about ejecting him at this time of day instead of requesting he leave first thing tomorrow. Still, he could easily hitch a lift to the nearest sizeable town where there was at least one hostal.

  She knew that the anger she felt was exacerbated by the fact that he had made what she now saw as an opportunistic pass at her, although at the time she had convinced herself that he had been motivated by tenderness as well as lust.

  For personal reasons, she wanted him out of her sight and the sooner the better.

  Within ten minutes she heard him coming downstairs.

  He came to the bar, signed the slip and said, ‘I’ve put the books I borrowed back where I found them. In case, for any reason, you should want to get in touch with me, I’ll give you my email address.’

  He put his part of the Visa slip in his wallet and extracted a card which he put on the counter followed by a twenty-euro note.

  ‘You forgot to include my Internet use while I’ve been here. I think that should cover it.’

  ‘It’s too much.’

  He shrugged. ‘Anything over you can put in the charity box. Goodbye, Cally. I won’t offer you my hand. I’m sure you don’t want to shake hands with someone you obviously despise.’ His smile mocked her hostile expression.

  He walked out of the house and out, she hoped, of her life.

  Going upstairs to strip his bed, Cally would have been less sanguine on that score had she known that Nicolás wasn’t on his way out of the village but was knocking on Juanita’s door.

  After the Spanish woman had invited him into her house, he said, ‘Señora, I am thinking of staying in Valdecarrasca for some time—but not at the casa rural where the accommodation is good but not suitable for a long stay. Do you know of any houses to rent in the village, or near it?’

  Juanita looked thoughtful. After a pause, she said, ‘I’ve heard that La Higuera can be rented, but it’s one of the finest houses in the village and is sure to be expensive. It depends what you can afford.’

  ‘Where is La Higuera?’

  ‘It’s on the other side of the village. It belongs to an Englishman who works in television. He’s famous, so they say. If you’re interested, you will have to talk to Señora Dryden. She is also English, but her husband is an American. If you like, I’ll take you to their house and introduce you.’

  ‘You are very kind.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. May I ask why you want to spend longer in such a small, unimportant place as Valdecarrasca?’

  ‘The village is charming. I find it very much to my liking.’ Nicolás knew the conclusion she would draw—at least until Cally told her she had thrown him out.

  The door of the Drydens’ house was opened by an elderly man wearing a cotton shirt with a silhouette of a polo-player embroidered on the chest. Nicolás recognised it as the logo of an American designer who specialised in the ‘old money’ look.

  He waited for Juanita to present him.

  ‘Señor Dryden, this young man has been staying at the casa rural but now he would like to rent a house and I thought perhaps La Higuera might suit him. Señor Llorca is from Madrid.’

  The two men shook hands, the elder giving the younger a shrewd appraisal. ‘You had better come in and talk to my wife,’ he said. ‘Will you take a glass of wine with us, señora?’

  Although visibly gratified by the invitation, Juanita declined on the grounds of having things to do.

  A few moments later Nicolás was ushered into a large living room where a woman a few years younger than the owner of the house was sitting on a comfortable sofa drinking what looked like Campari and soda.

  ‘Leonora, this is Señor Llorca who is looking for a house to rent…Señor Llorca, my wife.’

  Mrs Dryden rose and greeted him pleasantly in Spanish. ‘We know of a house to rent but it is rather large for one person…or will there be others joining you?’

  Switching to English, Nicolás said, ‘It’s possible I might have visits from friends, but mainly I shall be on my own. But I’m used to a good deal of space. The size of house, provided it’s comfortable, is immaterial.’

  He saw their brief exchange of glances—the silent communication of people who had known each other a long time and could read each other’s mind—and knew that his fluent English and, even more, his accent had reassured them. They were of the generation and type who tended to feel more at ease with people from their own milieu whereas he, despite or perhaps because of his origins, was comfortable in any company.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ asked his host. ‘Gin and tonic? Wine?’

  ‘Gin and tonic would be excellent. Ice but no lemon, please.’

  ‘Do sit down.’ Mrs Dryden indicated a large armchair set at right angles to the sofa where she was sitting. ‘What brings you to this part of Spain?’

  Half an hour later, Nicolás said goodbye, leaving his card with them and taking the email address of the owner of La Higuera.

  From the telephone box in the plaza mayor he rang for a taxi to take him to Alicante. Then he went into a nearby bar to drink coffee and read the paper until the taxi arrived.

  In her living room, Mrs Dryden was poring over a copy of the Almanach de Gotha which her husband, knowing her interest in the complex relationships of European royalty and nobility, had given her as a birthday present.

  ‘I thought so,’ she exclaimed triumphantly, beckoning her husband to come and see what she had found.

  When he was sitting beside her, she moved the book from her lap to his and indicated the entry she wanted him to read. ‘I’m sure that’s who he is—not plain Señor Nicolás Llorca but His Excellency El Conde Nicolás Llorca, younger son of the Duquesa de Baltasar.’

  Todd Dryden read the entry. ‘You may be right. He certainly has an air of distinction about him. But if he is a Grandee, I don’t think he’ll want it advertised. If it got to Mrs Haig’s ears, she would shout it from the housetops of course. How that couple produced such a sensible, intelligent daughter is a mystery to me.’

  ‘My dear Todd, I have never been a blabbermouth, and my interest in the Spanish aristocracy has nothing to do with snobbery,’ his wife retorted. ‘I should be equally interested in the family trees of the village people if they had been recorded.’ After a pause, she added, ‘If and when we see him again, I shall ask him if he is who I think he is. But even if he isn’t, he’s still a very likeable young man, didn’t you think?’

  ‘He has very good manners,’ said her husband. ‘But whether his character matches them, who can say? There’ve been plenty of rogues who were charm personified. Llorca’s looks will endear him to most women, but looks can be very deceptive.’

  ‘You have a suspicious mind,’ said Leonora. ‘You never trust anyone till you’ve known them for years.’

  Cally returned to London on a Sunday. The following afternoon she was summoned to the company’s boardroom and informed that her services were no longer required. It was not as brutal a shock as it had been for her friend Nicola Russell who had not expected to be sacked. Cally had been prepared for the axe to fall.

  She did not return to her desk but went back to the small house in Chelsea where she and Deborah, who worked behind the scenes in TV, had bedsits and shared a bathroom while the rest of the house was occupied by its owner, Olivia, a literary agent who needed lodgers in order to pay her mortgage.

  Olivia and Deborah were full of sympathy for Cally’s predicament. The three of them sat up late, talking and drinking wine.

  For the next two weeks, Cally networked. She had several meals with the Russells an
d knew they would do their utmost to help relocate her. But it was a period when the market was difficult, no one was expanding and there were many people, some better qualified than herself, competing for every publishing vacancy that came up.

  One evening, after yet another day of pouring rain, she decided she might just as well go back to Valdecarrasca for a while. She found a cheap flight on the Internet, booked it and rang her mother to say she was coming and would catch the bus that, from Alicante bus station, passed through a town on the N322 which was only a short run from the village.

  When Cally climbed down from the bus, she couldn’t see either of her parents’ cars parked nearby. Fortunately there was a bar close to the bus stop. She went in and ordered a coffee, wondering why, when she was habitually punctual and often early for appointments, her parents were invariably late.

  Nearly a quarter of an hour later, she saw her mother’s car pulling into a parking space. Having already paid for the coffee, Cally went out to join her.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. It’s been non-stop today,’ said Mrs Haig, as her daughter got into the car. After they exchanged kisses on both cheeks, she said, ‘We weren’t expecting to see you again so soon. Is everything all right?’

  ‘No,’ said Cally. ‘I’ve lost my job.’ She spoke matter-offactly but, for a moment, she longed for her grandmother with whom she could have burst into tears and had a good howl.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mrs Haig, frowning. ‘Do you think you’ll be out of work long?’

  ‘I don’t know. The prospects aren’t good. I may have to do something different. I can keep an eye on the job market as easily from here as there. At least here I can give you a hand. That’s better than watching the rain in London.’

  ‘But what about your rent?’ said her mother. ‘How will you pay it if you’re not earning?’

  ‘They gave me a golden handshake. I can survive for six months. Don’t worry about it, Mum. It’s a matter of what’s called regrouping. I’m not going to be a strain on your budget. I just need a week or two to rethink my future in case I can’t get another post as an editor.’