The Man From Madrid

by Anne Weale

  ‘You’d be welcome to stay here permanently—if the business would support all three of us. Unfortunately it won’t and, once the hotel on the other side of the valley gets going, it may not support the two of us,’ Mrs Haig said gloomily.

  They were halfway back to the village before she said, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. You’ve been asked out tonight. After you rang to say you were coming, I had a call from Mrs Dryden. She’s giving a dinner party for some Spanish artist who doesn’t speak English, so the guests have to speak Spanish. Bloody cheek to ring up at the last moment, if you ask me. But I said I’d get you to call her as soon as you arrived. I suppose one of her guests has dropped out at the last moment and she’s clutching at straws. The Drydens’ parties are good, so I’ve heard. Not that we’ve ever been asked.’ She glanced at her daughter. ‘If you don’t want to go, you can easily make an excuse.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Cally. The invitation puzzled her. Mrs Dryden had always been friendly when they met in the village, but she and her husband socialised with their own age group. Why should they want to invite someone of her generation? Whatever their reason, she had always been curious about the inside of their house, and going to a party would be better than spending the evening worrying about the future.

  In Spain Cally rarely used any cosmetics apart from sunscreen and lipstick. But that evening, having rung Leonora Dryden and accepted the last-minute invitation, she spent half an hour putting on what she thought of as her book-launch-party face. Luckily she had some evening separates in her wardrobe, brought south the year before when her parents had been fully booked for the Christmas holiday period and she had needed to dress up a bit more than usual at night.

  The black silk-velvet trousers were classics inherited from Deborah who was a fashion victim and never wore anything for more than a season. The black lace top might be considered a trifle décolleté by the stuffier sort of older person, but the Drydens did not have the reputation of being stuffy and anyway she was in a what-the-hell mood. At the last moment she decided to add a little black sequinned beret bought on a weekend in Paris. A black pashmina shawl, bought when pashminas were coming down from the luxury price bracket to more affordable levels, would hide her décolletage from anyone she passed on her way to the party. The beret would cause enough comment without a display of cleavage.

  Predictably, her mother liked her outfit, but her father looked disapproving. He didn’t object to the girls in skimpy, clinging outfits who postured and pouted on Spanish TV shows, she had noticed. But he didn’t want his daughter to look sexy and most of the time she didn’t. Tonight she was feeling a rare urge to cut a dash.

  The sequinned beret triggered a fit of the giggles among a group of village children she passed after leaving the house. Further on an old man who knew her by sight stared as if he were seeing a stranger. As they exchanged good evenings, he stopped to watch her pass. Cally couldn’t resist giving her hips an extra swing for his benefit. Before turning the corner into the next street, she looked back. The old man was still staring after her. She gave him a saucy wave. If I’m feeling like this now, after a couple of drinks I’ll be ready to dance on the table, she thought, with a grin.

  The Drydens’ front door was opened by a girl in a white blouse and black skirt who asked if Cally would like to leave her wrap with her, and then, indicating a staircase, said the party was taking place upstairs.

  At the top of the stairs was a landing with an open door giving a view of a large room lit by shaded table lamps and ceiling spotlights beamed onto paintings. As she was hovering on the threshold, admiring the book-filled alcoves, the comfortable sofas and beautiful oriental rugs spread on the rustic-tiled floor, her hostess came to welcome her.

  ‘Miss Haig…how kind of you to come at such short notice. One of our guests does speak English, but the others don’t and it’s terribly hard to find foreigners who are comfortable speaking Spanish. I’ve heard that you speak Valenciano as well. First, let me get you a drink, and then you must meet some of the others.’ She swept Cally to a side table being used as a bar and then, when her guest had a glass of white wine in her hand, started the introductions.

  Cally had never found meeting strangers a problem and was pleasantly surprised to discover that not all the other guests were in the Drydens’ age group. The first couple she met were in their early forties, the husband a doctor and his wife an amateur artist who had met Leonora Dryden at painting classes given by a professional.

  She was chatting to them, and had just helped herself to an olive from a tray of nibbles offered by a waiter, when she saw her companions looking past her towards the door. What had attracted their attention was the arrival of a woman in a vivid red dress. She was escorted by a small rotund man.

  Behind him was another, taller man. It took Cally a moment to register that she knew him because he looked so different wearing an elegant city suit with an immaculate shirt and a discreet silk tie.

  Always a commanding presence by virtue of his height and build, tonight Nicolás Llorca looked like the kind of man who flew round the world in a private jet, spent his life making decisions, and exacted high levels of excellence from everyone under his dominion.

  What was he doing here? she wondered. And how was he going to react when he recognised the wearer of the sequinned beret as the woman who, not long ago, had told him to get lost?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHILE the people who had arrived ahead of him were being welcomed by Todd Dryden, Nicolás was greeted by his hostess. Watching him kiss her hand, Cally felt a catch in her throat.

  The graceful way he performed the gesture conjured up earlier times when it had been a customary act of homage by chivalrous men to beautiful women. She wondered if women like Mrs Dryden felt a pang of regret for their lost youth when they talked to someone as dynamic and virile as Nicolás. But presumably, forty years ago, Mr Dryden had been equally gorgeous.

  As she realised that seeing Nicolás again had reactivated all the feelings she had had before discovering his duplicity, she pulled herself together, determined not to succumb to his charm a second time. Not that, after the way she had upbraided him, he was likely to waste any charm on her tonight. Hopefully they wouldn’t have much contact. It was even possible that, in a party this size—she estimated there were now about twenty-four people in the room—they might have no contact at all.

  Whether it was going to be the kind of party where people ate a series of tapas standing up, or slightly more substantial lap-food wherever they could find a perch, there was no way of knowing.

  Having been up since six and eaten little since break-fast—the snack served on the plane had been typical economy flight fare—Cally was beginning to feel ravenous. When a waiter came round with a tray of hot chorizo puffs, she seized one with unseemly eagerness and could barely restrain herself from swallowing it whole and grabbing another before the waiter moved on.

  ‘Señora Dryden is a marvellous cook. I wonder what English speciality she is giving us tonight?’ said a voice at her elbow.

  Cally turned to find a Spaniard of about forty smiling at her. She said, ‘I haven’t been here before. Does she always serve English specialities?’

  ‘She has on my previous visits. The first time it was steak and kidney pie, and the next time a “hot pot” from the northern part of England. I am Luis Alvarez from Valencia.’ He offered his hand.

  ‘Cally Haig from London.’

  ‘You are British?’ He looked surprised. ‘I thought you might be French. I know our host and hostess have many French friends. How is it that you speak Spanish so well and dress with such panache?’

  Amused by his flirtatious flattery, she said, ‘I was born in Spain. Are you driving back to Valencia tonight, Señor Alvarez?’

  ‘No, I am invited for breakfast as well as dinner so that I can enjoy Todd Dryden’s wines which are always excellent.’

  While they were talking there was a gradual shift in the grouping a
s people moved to make room for the waiter to circulate and their hosts made introductions. Suddenly Cally found herself looking at Nicolás at the same time that he was scanning the room.

  Their eyes met and, for a moment, she felt as if everyone else had evaporated, leaving only the two of them. Afterwards, she had no idea what reaction, if any, she had shown. She only knew that Nicolás’s gaze rested on her without any sign of recognition and, after a fleeting pause, passed on.

  Was it possible that he really hadn’t recognised her? Or had she just received a deliberate cut?

  Soon after this Leonora rang a bell and, as people stopped talking, announced that dinner was being served in a room downstairs and there was a table plan taped to the door to help everyone find their places.

  ‘I happen to know that I am to have the pleasure of sitting next to you,’ said Luis Alvarez. ‘Shall we go down?’

  He finished the wine in his glass and, when Cally had done the same, took both glasses and, when they reached the doorway, put them on a table with other discarded glasses.

  Nicolás watched them leave the room and wondered who the man was.

  Since his abrupt departure from the casa rural, he had tried not to think about Cally. But although he had had many other things on his mind, images of her kept intruding: her coolness when he arrived, her gradual warming towards him, her passionate response to his kiss, her angry, accusing face when she told him to leave.

  He had not expected her to be here tonight and, for an instant, hadn’t recognised the glamorous creature on the far side of the room who had looked through him for a few seconds before turning to smile at her visibly captivated companion.

  Who would not be captivated by that luscious mouth and the curves enticingly revealed by the black lace top? thought Nicolás, while listening with apparent interest to a commentary on Spanish politics, a subject high on his list of tedious party topics.

  He had known that Cally had style, in an understated way, but that she was capable of looking the acme of sophisticated allure was a revelation.

  His desire to possess her revived. Not that it had been diminished by her fury the last time they met. He had merely put it on hold while organising the lease of La Higuera and attending to matters to do with his latest business venture.

  ‘We are at the Red Table,’ said Luis, as he and Cally reached the bottom of the staircase. ‘I was given a preview. It’s the second table on the right.’

  Instead of joining the line-up to see the table plan, he steered her around it and into the large dining room where four round tables were each set with six places. Each table had a different colour scheme, the others being yellow, green and white.

  At all the tables, place cards indicated where guests were to sit. Luis was on Cally’s right. To her dismay, she saw that Nicolás was going to be on her left. Had she been the firstcomer at the table, she would quickly have switched his card with that of the third man at the table. But she couldn’t do that with Luis watching…or could she?

  Acting on a powerful desire not to be elbow-to-elbow with Nicolás for the next couple of hours, she whipped his place card out of its antique silver holder and made the changeover.

  Seeing Luis raising his eyebrows and looking intrigued, she said, ‘I particularly want to sit next to Señor Bermejo. I’ve wanted to meet him for ages.’

  ‘Does that mean you are going to cold-shoulder me?’ he asked teasingly.

  ‘Of course not. But there will be times when you’ll want to talk to your other neighbour,’ she said, with a gesture at the place on his right.

  ‘The others may be some minutes. Let’s sit down and chat.’ He did not draw out her chair before his own as Nicolás would have done, she noticed. ‘I’m an art dealer. What are you? Let me guess…something to do with the fashion world?’

  ‘I’ve been in publishing in London for the past five years.’

  ‘The UK has some excellent art publishers.’ He named three. ‘You are not with any of them, are you?’

  Cally shook her head. ‘Biographies and memoirs are my field.’

  When he asked her the name of her publisher, to avoid going into details that couldn’t be of any interest to him and would be painful to her, she simply gave him the name of Edmund & Burke.

  At this point they were joined by Señor Bermejo, a man in his late fifties accompanied by his wife who gave Cally’s outfit the disapproving glance of someone who saw younger women as a threat to her marital security. Perhaps her husband was rich, thought Cally. There was certainly no other reason why anyone should make eyes at him. She was surprised to find such a dull-looking pair on the Drydens’ guest list.

  The next person to arrive was the woman placed next to Luis. She looked more lively than the Bermejos. She introduced herself as Gabriela, a physiotherapist who painted in her spare time.

  The last to find his way to the table was Nicolás. As he bowed to the women on either side of him, Luis murmured in Cally’s ear, ‘Now if you had wanted him beside you I could have understood it.’ In a louder voice, looking at the younger man, he said, ‘Welcome to our group, señor.

  You find yourself with a physiotherapist—’ with a gesture at Gabriela ‘—a publisher from London—’ another gesture to his left ‘—and I am an art dealer. We have yet to learn how Señor Bermejo occupies himself.’

  ‘I am Señor Dryden’s lawyer.’ the older man announced importantly.

  ‘We are honoured, sir,’ Luis said gravely. ‘And you?’ looking enquiringly at Nicolás.

  Cally had fixed her gaze on the flowers in the centre of the table, but when she heard him reply, ‘I work for a service provider,’ she couldn’t stop herself giving him a startled look. She had expected him to say either that he was in property or the hotel industry.

  ‘Is that something to do with the Internet?’ the lawyer asked, frowning.

  ‘It’s the means by which Internet users gain access to the Net,’ said Nicolás. ‘Around the world there are many service providers. But we like to think that we are the best in Spain. The other Spanish SPs wouldn’t agree of course,’ he added smiling.

  ‘If you ask me, it’s high time you people were brought under proper control,’ Señor Bermejo said brusquely. ‘Without adequate regulation…’ He launched on a long tirade against an environment that, in his view, encouraged every kind of criminality.

  This continued through the service of the first course and while everyone’s glass was filled with a white wine to accompany the poached salmon salad.

  ‘So what have you to say to that?’ the lawyer demanded, his appetite finally stemming his oratory.

  ‘Not a great deal,’ Nicolás said, his tone mild. ‘I personally believe the Net is the world’s best hope for understanding and tolerance…but not if politicians and the legal profession take control of it.’

  ‘I agree,’ Gabriela said warmly. ‘I think it’s a wonderful medium for creativity.’

  ‘It’s certainly an invaluable means of advertising,’ said Luis.

  ‘What do you think, señorita?’ Nicolás asked, looking at Cally. ‘Your publishing house has a website, I imagine?’

  ‘Of course…it’s a very important tool for promoting our authors’ books,’ she agreed.

  The discussion continued throughout the first course, with the lawyer refusing to be influenced by the others’ opinions and his wife supporting him on a subject of which she had even less knowledge than he.

  ‘Time for a change of topic, don’t you think?’ Luis murmured to Cally.

  Watching the dealer whisper something in her ear, Nicolás thought he looked as glib as a used car salesman. The strength of his antipathy towards a man he didn’t know surprised him.

  He was also surprised by the discovery that Cally was a publisher, though that was an elastic term that might mean anything from editor to publicist to marketing person. But the fact that she had a career and was not, as he had thought, a dogsbody for her parents, was good news. But why hadn’t she
told him earlier? What reason could she have had for keeping it quiet? Normally, people with interesting jobs talked about them, and their discussions about books had given her many cues to reveal that she was involved in their production.

  At close quarters—though he would have preferred to be sitting in the pompous ass lawyer’s chair—she was even more ravishing than from across the room upstairs. He would enjoy finding out how that black lacy thing unfastened…and she would enjoy it too, if only they were on terms that allowed him to ask her back to La Higuera for coffee after the party was over.

  Though, in his teens, he had heard other guys thinking out loud what they would like to do to alluring but out-of-reach girls, it had never been his own habit to share such daydreams, or indeed to imagine those scenarios. To find himself doing it now was disconcerting. But from the first time he saw her, Cally had exerted a strange pull on him. He felt sure it would eventually wear off and the best way to make it do that was to spend time in bed with her. But at the moment she despised him, and not without reason, given that he hadn’t explained that the rumour about the hotel was untrue.

  With hindsight, he ought to have done that. But he had been annoyed that she hadn’t liked him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  If he had known then that she was a publisher, he probably would have explained. But thinking, at the time, that she didn’t have the backbone to make an independent life for herself, he had felt that her ultimatum was probably all for the best.

  She hadn’t trusted him, and he hadn’t trusted her.

  The question he had to address now was whether to pursue her. At the moment, even though he wasn’t looking at her, merely being within a couple of metres of her threw his judgment out of kilter.

  Appearing to be listening attentively to a conversation between the women on either side of him, Nicolás switched off the private part of his mind and tuned in to what they were saying.