by Anne Weale
‘I shall have to replace you. You can’t expect to come back if things go badly,’ he warned her.
‘I realise that. If it doesn’t work out I’ll go to England.’
‘A beautiful country with an impossible climate,’ said Señor Alvarez. ‘As a young man I spent a year in London. I couldn’t wait to get back to our better weather. You’re throwing away a promising career at the Castillo, Cassia. But young people nowadays will never listen to advice. They think they know it all.’
She spent a restless night, wondering if he was right. A key factor in her decision was the imminent end of her lease of the studio. But for that, she might have played safe and put off leaving Granada. But if she had to leave the Albaicín she might as well leave the city altogether.
The Marqués was leaving earlier than other guests on the list of those checking out the next day. Cassia had scrutinised his bill to make sure that it was in order when he came downstairs after breakfasting in his suite. His luggage and skis would be taken directly to the garage and stowed in his car for him before it was brought to the entrance.
‘Good morning, Cassia.’
‘Good morning, señor. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay with us.’
‘Very much, thank you.’ He took a wallet from the back pocket of his trousers, extracted a card and placed it on the counter while he cast an eye down the bill.
While Cassia placed his card in the machine he said, ‘What have you decided?’
She looked up. Taking a deep breath, she said, ‘I’d like to join your project.’
‘Good. In that case I’ll expect you to be ready to leave at the end of my next visit. In the meantime, if you have any queries you can fax them to this number.’ He produced a business card.
It wasn’t until after he had gone that she looked at it and found it wasn’t his own card but that of his secretary.
The following month was not an easy one. The hotel manager wasn’t the only person who thought that she was mad to throw in a good job with prospects for an insecure position somewhere in the backwoods of Pais Valencia, once the kingdom of Valencia but now, to judge by the way her granadino colleagues referred to it, a backward part of the country fit only for campesinos—a term they used with a much more scornful inflexion than the Marqués speaking of peasants.
It was not her first experience of the disdain that Spaniards from one part of the country felt for people of other regions, all of them wanting autonomy for their own region. But instead of undermining her confidence their attitude made her more resolute.
She had let her father rule her life, but from now on she was going to make her own decisions, be her own woman.
CHAPTER FOUR
AT FIVE minutes to nine on a sunny February morning, Cassia carried her suitcase to the top of the street to await the arrival of the Marqués at the place where he had left his car after driving her home a month earlier.
She had finished working at the hotel the day before yesterday, spending the previous day leaving the studio far cleaner than it had been when she and her father had moved in. His paintings and a trunk containing some of their other belongings were now in storage. All she had with her were her clothes and a few personal treasures to make her feel at home in her room at Casa Mondragón in Castell de los Torres.
Contrary to the belief that Spaniards had little regard for punctuality, the Marqués arrived as various church clocks in the area were chiming the hour. She had seen little of him during the past few days. This time he had come to Granada alone.
‘Good morning,’ he said through the open window as he pulled up beside her. ‘All ready for your adventure?’
‘Good morning. Yes, I’m looking forward to it.’
Before springing out he touched a button inside the car which caused the boot to open. Before she could lift her case he was looming over her, picking it up as easily as if it were empty. Having stowed her cheap case on top of his own expensive one, he opened the passenger door for her.
Apart from the night he had run her home, Cassia had never driven in a luxurious car before. Nor could she herself drive. She bent to sit down and then straightened again, saying anxiously, ‘I’ve just realised that you may be assuming I can drive. Shall I need to? Does the fact that I can’t rule me out?’
‘It’s a disadvantage, but not an insuperable one. You’ll have to take driving lessons. If I’d realised you couldn’t drive, I would have suggested that you start to learn right away. But it’s not essential…not at the outset anyway.’
The Albaicín being on the north side of the city, the road to Murcia—the next city on their route—ran close by. Within five minutes of Cassia fastening her seatbelt Granada was lost to view, and they were gliding smoothly up a serpentine hill road, leaving everything familiar behind.
A few kilometres on the Marqués stopped for gasolina. While the tank was filling he talked in his easy way to the pump attendant. She wondered if he would chat to her on the way along, or if he would play one of the tapes filling a special storage compartment under the dashboard.
The night they had dined together their conversation had ranged over various topics, and she hadn’t found it a strain or felt that he might be bored by someone whose horizons were more limited than his own.
As they were leaving the service area he said, ‘Your previous boss isn’t pleased with me for filching you from him. This morning, as I was leaving, he dropped the unctuous manner of all hoteliers to tell me, almost severely, that you are a girl of the highest character, deserving scrupulous kindness and consideration.’
‘He’s a very kind man himself. He takes a paternal interest in all his employees.’
‘I am not kind,’ said the Marqués. ‘Nor have I ever felt fatherly. But Alvarez seemed relieved when I told him the personnel on our project would include a middle-aged cook. No doubt that will ease your mind too,’ he added, with an amused sideways glance.
‘My mind was never uneasy. Is the cook a local person?’
‘No. Her husband was French and she’s lived in France for twenty years. She is now a widow and wants to return to Spain. Her name is Laura Boisson. Until she arrives in a few days’ time we shall have to manage as best we can.’
She wondered who ‘we’ referred to, and if it included himself. But instead of asking she said, ‘When do you expect the project to become operational?’
‘If things go to plan—which in any small village is highly unlikely—we could be ready for action in six weeks.’ He selected a tape and slotted it into the player. ‘I hope you won’t dislike this. My musical taste is the result of early brainwashing by my mother, who might have become a professional pianist if she hadn’t married young.’
Cassia said, ‘I liked the music you played the night I had dinner with you.’
‘I can’t remember what it was. This is Rachmaninov.’
Her first glimpse of their journey’s end was six hours later when they came to the crest of a hill and, the road being deserted, the Marqués stopped the car to let her take in the vista directly ahead of them—a long, shallow valley sheltered on three sides by mountains and encompassing several small villages, the most distant being their destination.
In the afternoon light of a warm day the long valley presented a pleasant picture of vineyards interspersed with orchards of almond trees, and in places some orange groves.
The modern world had encroached to the extent that one of the villages they passed had a large petrol station on its outskirts, but the valley had so far escaped the incursions of tourism. Here, instead of the colonies of villas to be seen nearer the coast, the lower slopes of the mountains were still either bare or terraced with dry-stone walls, some crumbling from long neglect, others supporting land still in use.
A roadside sign—‘Castell de los Torres’—announced that they had arrived at the next addition to the many places where she had lived—so many she had lost count. She wondered how long she would stay here, and if it would be a happy ex
perience or one she would later regret having embarked on.
There were not many people about, and those they saw stared curiously at the car and its occupants. Only one old man raised his hand, but perhaps from habit rather than recognition that although the car had a Madrid registration number its driver was not altogether a stranger here.
‘That’s the Plaza Mayor—the hub of the village,’ said the Marqués, with a gesture at a square with the Spanish flag flying from one of its buildings, and a couple of small dark bars. Even here there were few signs of life.
The Casa Mondragón stood in a smaller square, occupying the whole of one side and towering over its neighbours although they were substantial houses. While they were well kept, with no dust on the wrought-iron rejas guarding the windows, and brightly burnished knockers and knobs on their doors, the larger house looked neglected, if not deserted.
‘Don’t be put off. It won’t look like this for much longer,’ said the Marqués as he parked the car. ‘Luckily this isn’t the only way in,’ he went on, unlocking the Judas-door in one of the two huge double doors. ‘There’s a road at the rear, and the builders use that way in.’
Cassia had lived in Spain long enough to know that the fronts of apparently modest Spanish houses often concealed surprisingly roomy interiors. As soon as she stepped inside the Casa Mondragón, she realised that it was even more palatial than its façade suggested. Beyond the wide hall with its stately stairway was a window wall, and beyond it a large patio.
After she had followed the Marqués on his tour of the building to see how the builders were progressing, he said to her, ‘We shan’t be spending the night here. I’ve arranged for you to stay at the pharmacist’s house, and I’ll be at a hostal a few miles away where they cater to botanists and walkers. Manners and mores in Castell are some way behind the times. We don’t want to raise any eyebrows by sleeping here on our own, without Laura to make it respectable.’
This announcement was a relief to her. With its thick walls and shuttered windows, except where the builders were working, the house was both cold and spooky, and would be more so at night. She wouldn’t have fancied sleeping here on her own, but would have been equally uneasy at being alone with him—not because she thought that he might take advantage of the situation, but because she knew how the villagers would view it. It was a point in his favour that although unconventional himself he did sometimes respect other people’s sense of propriety.
Madame Boisson returned to her homeland by coach, in the company of a French friend who had an apartment in Benidorm, once a quiet fishing village but now a resort whose skyscraping profile Cassia had glimpsed from the autopista on their way to the valley.
Simón had arranged to drive to Benidorm and collect the cook after she had spent a couple of nights with her friend, helping her to put the flat in order for a winter holiday.
As the daily bus service from the valley to and from the city of Alicante passed through Benidorm, many employers would have expected the housekeeper to come to Castell by public transport. It threw an unexpected light on Simón’s character that he was prepared to put himself out to fetch her.
‘That’s Continente, one of the big supermarkets where you’ll be buying some supplies,’ he said, indicating a large, modern structure flying the flags of many nations on the outskirts of Benidorm. ‘Which reminds me—we must fix up some driving lessons for you. Perhaps I’ll give you the basic lessons myself.’
‘Oh, no…please don’t,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It’s kind of you to suggest it, but it would make me nervous to learn in a car like this. I’d hate to damage it.’
‘I shouldn’t let you,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘But maybe you’re right…Teaching women to drive is notoriously difficult for anyone but a qualified instructor. Perhaps women can teach each other, but when a man attempts it usually it ends with his blood pressure going up ten points and his pupil in tears.’
Suspecting him of teasing her, Cassia said, ‘So they say. I’d certainly feel a lot happier learning to drive in a small car belonging to an auto school.’ The environs of Benidorm offering an easy change of subject, she went on, ‘Did you ever see this place before they put up the high-rise hotels?’
‘No, we never used to come here. But these are only baby skyscrapers compared with the ones in New York and Hong Kong and Rio.’
To find the address that Madame Boisson had given him, he had to ask a policeman for directions. The town was teeming with foreigners, most of them grey-haired but with healthy tans and happy faces.
‘I wonder if they realise how much nicer it is only a few miles inland,’ said Cassia as they drove along a wide boulevard lined with hotels and cafés and shops full of tourist tat.
‘They probably wouldn’t agree with you. Life in Castell isn’t to everyone’s taste. You may get bored with it yourself when you’ve been there a bit longer.’
Two days after Laura’s arrival Simón returned to Madrid, saying that he would come and go as his other commitments permitted.
No doubt he was bored with them, thought Cassia after his departure. In spite of his obvious enthusiasm for the project he was setting up, Castell was a very different environment from his natural milieu, and she and Laura were not the sort of women he was accustomed to spending time with.
Small, overweight and vivacious, Laura was a natural chatterbox who had begun the story of her life on the drive back from Benidorm and every day, at every meal, related some more of the details. Cassia didn’t mind this. She was interested in other people’s lives. What she found mildly tiresome were Laura’s frequent criticisms of the way things were done in Spain compared with the superior methods in force in her adopted country. But perhaps the attitude would wear off as she settled down.
One morning, after Cassia had been to the Plaza Mayor to post some letters to Granada, she was on her way back to the house when a vehicle pulled up and the man in it spoke to her.
‘I’m looking for the house of Mondragón,’ he said, in Spanish.
He was on the other side of the road, leaning out of the offside window of a right-hand-drive, travel-dusty Range Rover. That and his accent told her he was the man they were expecting.
She crossed the street and said in English, ‘You must be Jack Locke?’
If he was surprised he didn’t show it. ‘That’s right. Who are you?’
‘Cassia Browning…another member of the team. I’m the dogsbody,’ she added, smiling.
She got no smile in response, although he did take the hand she offered in a large paw with oil-stained nails and calluses on the palm. Unlike the Marqués he hadn’t learned to moderate his grip when shaking hands with women, but she managed not to wince as he ground her knuckles together.
‘You’d better hop in,’ he said, opening the door for her.
‘Turn left at the end of the street, and then first right and second left,’ she said as she settled herself beside him. ‘How was your journey?’
‘OK. When did you get here?’
‘Two weeks ago. When the Marqués recruited me I was working in a hotel in Granada. I don’t know this part of Spain, but already I’m getting to like it. Where did you stop last night?’
‘Dossed down in the back,’ he said, jerking a thumb at the space behind them.
‘You’ll be glad to have a shower and stretch your legs.’
He made no comment, perhaps because he was steering his large, high vehicle between a parked car and a moped propped on the opposite kerb, making the narrow street almost impassable.
While his attention was engaged Cassia made a quick study of him. She had seen at first glance that his hair was cut close to his scalp, giving him the look of a Victorian gaolbird. Usually earrings and even noserings went with that brutal crop, but the man beside her wore no adornment; nor did the sleeves of his shirt, rolled high above his biceps, reveal any tattoos.
All the same, he looked a tough, rough type, who could pass the night by the roadside or in a mot
orway lorry park without fear of being molested by the pirateson-wheels who had made random camping unsafe for more vulnerable travellers.
A scruff he was not. The pugnacious jaw had been shaved before he’d set out and his clothes, though cheap and well-worn, were clean. Even his heavy-soled, crosslaced rough-country boots had been polished recently. At the moment she couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were. They were hidden by dark glasses with wide sidepieces.
‘Left, right and second left…correct?’ he said, checking her directions.
‘Correct,’ she said, equally briskly. Was he always so laconic? She wondered how he would get on with the garrulous Laura.
‘Is the jefe here?’
It was a term with many meanings, ranging from boss to commanding officer. Concluding that he meant the Marqués, she said, ‘He’s gone to Madrid for a few days. We’re expecting him back tonight or tomorrow.’
‘Where’s your base in the UK?’ he asked.
‘I’ve never lived in the UK. My father was an artist…a nomad. We moved round the Mediterranean as the fancy took him. Where are you from?’
‘London…the East End. The wrong end of town,’ he said tersely.
Was this the first sign of a chip on his shoulder? she wondered. Chippy people could be a bore, always sniping at those they considered to have unfair advantages.
Moments later they turned the last corner into the street behind their employer’s house. After Jack had parked the Range Rover in a corner of the back patio—at present looking more like a builders’ yard—Cassia explained about Laura.
‘Come and meet her. Then I’ll show you your room and leave you to freshen up before lunch.’
Laura, when her plump hand was compressed by his large, rough paw, gave a stifled squeak.
‘What a brute!’ she said, with a grimace, when Cassia returned to the kitchen after taking him upstairs. ‘I hope his table manners are not going to put us off our lunch.’
