A Night To Remember

by Anne Weale

  However, although the new arrival seemed unaware of such niceties as drawing out the women’s chairs for them, or waiting until they had everything they needed before starting to eat, at least he didn’t do it noisily or with his mouth open.

  After he had answered four or five questions with curt monosyllables, Laura gave up trying to draw him out and ignored him, except to offer second helpings.

  At the end of the meal he surprised and mollified her by complimenting her on her cooking, albeit in less gracious terms than the Marqués would have used. The Englishman’s Spanish, while fluent, was the crude speech of the mean streets rather than the cultured Castilian spoken by Simón.

  When he had left them, to unload the equipment he had brought with him, Laura said, ‘At least he won’t have any trouble keeping the young ones in order. That’s something to be thankful for. But as company for us…’ She finished the sentence with a negative gesture.

  Presently, from the kitchen window, as Laura washed and Cassia wiped the dishes, they saw Jack unloading and then, stripped to the waist, hosing down the Range Rover.

  ‘Such muscles!’ Laura exclaimed. ‘He’s built like that creature Rambo.’

  She sounded half repelled, half excited by the sight of Jack’s brawny torso. Although several inches shorter in the leg than the Marqués, he was equally broad of shoulder, and obviously tuned to a high degree of fitness.

  ‘You’ll have to take care of that one,’ Laura went on in a warning tone. ‘You saw the way he devoured his lunch. He’ll be the same with women. You’d better lock your door tonight.’

  Cassia couldn’t help laughing. ‘I don’t think he’s going to pounce on me without some encouragement, Laura.’

  ‘You don’t know as much about men as I do,’ said the older woman. ‘I can tell you’re not as experienced as many girls of your age. Men are not like us, my dear. They have appetites which must be satisfied. When they’re in that mood they forget all finer feelings. It’s not altogether their fault. It’s the way nature made them.’

  The statement cast an unflattering light on her late husband, thought Cassia. Aloud she said, ‘I expect when Jack’s in that mood he’ll drive to the coast and find himself a pretty tourist who’s looking for a holiday romance. I’m sure there are plenty around.’

  ‘Very likely…but I still wouldn’t put it past him to try his luck with you,’ said Laura. ‘You’re very attractive, and to some men every girl they meet is a challenge to their virility.’

  ‘Jack hasn’t indicated any interest in me so far,’ she said. ‘The way he’s sprucing the Range Rover, I should think that means more to him than any woman ever could. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were a misogynist.’

  ‘Even they feel the lusts of the flesh,’ was Laura’s comment. ‘Sometimes all the more powerful for being repressed,’ she added darkly, her eyes on the strapping figure in the courtyard.

  Cassia was on the roof, enjoying a magnificent sunset over the mountains to the west, when she heard the toottoot of a horn and looked over the parapet to see Simón’s car gliding into the rear courtyard.

  She watched him climb out, stretch himself, and then go to close the tall gates, left open for him after the builders had finished for the day. In the heat of summer they probably took a longer lunch break and would have been working later. At this time of year they spent an hour at the village bar before resuming operations.

  While the Marqués was locking the gates Jack came out of the house. As they shook hands she was struck by the contrast between them—the tall, elegant, self-assured Spanish aristocrat and the stockier, plebeian Englishman, with his own brand of assurance but very few social graces.

  It was he who, while they were talking, suddenly seemed to sense that they were being observed and, looking up, saw her peering down.

  She had noticed at lunch that his eyes were a good shade of grey. What colour his hair might be if grown to a normal length was hard to guess, except that around his ears the stubble was noticeably silvery.

  When Simón also looked up she waved to them both and withdrew. She had come to the roof to retrieve some underwear hung out to dry on a line strung between the chimney stacks. There was also a weather-bleached cane chair and table on the roof, suggesting that the last caretaker had sometimes sat up here.

  Provided the timbers would stand the additional weight of plant pots, it could be made into a roof garden, Cassia thought. One which, unless a helicopter or a microlight passed overhead, was as private as the main patio. There were many flat roofs in the village, but all on a lower level. Even the bell tower of the church didn’t overlook the roof of the Casa Mondragón.

  At supper that evening, discussing the project which had brought him to Castell de los Torres, Jack showed that he could be talkative on a subject of interest to him. In spite of their disparate lives and backgrounds, he and Simón seemed to have more in common than Cassia had expected.

  It turned out that the Marqués was not only a skier but a climber and scuba-diver. He had also tried paragliding and free-fall parachute jumping—a sport which made Laura shudder with horror at the thought of it.

  After declining coffee, saying that he never drank it, Jack leaned back in his chair and gave a hippopotamussized yawn, only remembering to hide a healthy set of teeth with his hand when he noticed the housekeeper’s disapproving expression.

  ‘Why don’t you turn in, my friend?’ said the Marqués in Spanish—the language they had been speaking throughout the meal. ‘Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the terrain around here. We’ll take a packed lunch and spend the day “on the hill” as the Scots say.’

  The remark reminded Cassia of his description of Jack the first time he’d mentioned him to her. She was beginning to feel that Jack might not be dour by nature. It could be merely a façade he put up in the company of people with whom he wasn’t at ease, such as women like Laura and herself.

  ‘I’ll do that.’ The feet of his chair scraped on the worn clay tiles as he rose to his feet. ‘Goodnight all.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d be good enough to prepare substantial packed lunches for us, Laura,’ said the Marqués as Jack was leaving the room. ‘The bakery here makes excellent barras negras which I prefer to their white bread, especially for picnics.’

  ‘I’ll fetch them for you, Laura,’ Cassia offered. ‘I love the smell of new bread in the bakery when they take the first batch of loaves out of the oven.’ She turned to the Marqués. ‘But I find it very frustrating to listen to people talking in the shops and not understand what they’re saying. They speak Castilian to me, but only Valenciano among themselves. It’s like being in another country.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll soon pick it up, but whether you’ll find their conversations worth listening to is another matter,’ he said drily. ‘Most of the locals have very narrow horizons. Television could open their minds…if they watched the better programmes and there were more of them. Mostly they watch the soaps, imported and home-grown.’

  This prompted Laura, who was missing the French soap operas, to ask if he’d mind if she had an aerial erected for a TV in her room.

  ‘Not as long as you don’t allow any of our guests to watch it. While they’re here the emphasis will be on active rather than passive entertainments.’

  ‘I shall keep my room locked once they arrive,’ she assured him.

  After drinking his coffee, Simón said, ‘I’m going to stroll up to the mirador by the cemetery. Will you join me, Cassia?’

  Although expressed as a suggestion, she had a feeling the question might be a directive.

  ‘I’ll get my jacket.’

  The days since her arrival had been mild and, at midday in the sun, warm. But once darkness fell the temperature took a sharp drop.

  They left the house by the imposing main door, the Marqués wearing a quilted gilet over his sweater with a canary-yellow scarf wound round his neck, and Cassia in her old anorak.

  They walked in silence as far as the pla
za in front of the church. As they began to climb the steep, sloping way to the cemetery, bordered on one side by tall cypresses and the whitewashed pillars representing the first stations of the Cross, he said, ‘Would you like to come with us tomorrow? We shan’t be doing any serious climbing. I’m sure you can cope with some easy rock scrambling.’

  Although she suspected that Jack wouldn’t be pleased to have her with them, she said, ‘I’d like to come.’

  ‘Now you’ve met him, what do you make of Jack Locke?’

  ‘It’s too soon to say. He was much less forthcoming at lunch than he was at supper. I don’t think he’s too keen on Laura, or she on him.’

  ‘They’re opposite poles,’ he agreed. ‘How are you getting on with her?’

  ‘From my point of view, very well. I hope from hers too.’

  ‘Her outlook could be more flexible. I hope she’s going to be good with the youngsters. From what I’ve read, most of the teenagers we’ll be dealing with have very little sense of self-worth. They won’t respond to disapproval. What they need is encouragement to develop their best qualities…and praise when they succeed.’

  ‘I’m sure when Laura actually meets them they’ll appeal to her motherly instincts. She’s been very nice to me,’ said Cassia.

  ‘Being nice to you isn’t difficult. Are you warm enough?’ He surprised her by taking her hand. Finding her fingers cold, he said, ‘No, you aren’t. Here, have this. I don’t need it.’

  Pulling off his scarf, he curled it into a loose roll and tucked her hands inside it, as if it were a muff. It was very soft—perhaps cashmere—and warm from being round his neck.

  At the top of the slope, where a hairpin bend led up to a hilltop Calvary, they came to the wrought-iron gates of the enclosure where the village dead were interred in rows of vaults which were built into the white walls and sealed with slabs of marble engraved with the occupants’ names, and in most cases accompanied by a photograph.

  ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought you here. It must remind you of your father,’ Simón said quietly.

  ‘Yes, but I like this place. I’ve been up here before,’ she answered. ‘I don’t find it sad or depressing. It seems part of the natural cycle of birth, life and death. I think this is the way people are meant to live—in small communities where everyone knows each other and their forebears’ graves are close by.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think that if you’d lived here since you were born. You’d be itching to spread your wings and escape all the watchful eyes and the tattling tongues. It’s because you’ve never had a permanent home that you envy these people their more restricted existence. We all tend to want something different from whatever life has assigned to us.’

  They were standing beside the low wall surrounding the mirador, looking out at the moonlit valley, ringed by the mountains whose names she had yet to learn.

  ‘I shouldn’t think you do…do you?’ she asked, glancing up at him.

  Behind him the high lime-washed wall of the cemetery made his dark hair look even darker. The moonlight accentuated the forceful structure of his face.

  ‘I used to when I was your age. I wanted to be free to go where I pleased and do as I chose.’

  ‘But surely you are free…far more than most people. You’re rich, you’re educated, you’re a grandee of Spain, you’re—’

  She had been about to add ‘very good-looking’ but stopped short, substituting, ‘You have it all, as they say.’

  ‘You may not realise it, but being a marqués has its downside,’ he told her drily. ‘When I was twenty it felt like a strait-jacket. The price of privilege is responsibility, and young men don’t want to be lumbered with a load of baggage handed down from their ancestors. My inheritance was a burden—half a dozen houses, some of them falling apart, numerous dependent relations and even more numerous retainers…’

  The broad shoulders shrugged, the hard mouth twisted sardonically. ‘I wanted to pack a rollbag and get the hell out of all that. Sometimes I did…and do. But only for short spells—like my visits to Granada.’

  Something impelled her to say, ‘How is Señorita Sanchez? Completely recovered, I hope?’

  ‘I believe so. I saw her dancing at a party in Madrid last week. We are not on close terms any more. She has found other fish to fry.’

  ‘Only because you ditched her, I should imagine.’ As soon as the words were out Cassia regretted speaking her thought aloud.

  Tensely, her eyes on the moonlit rooftops below them, she waited for his reaction.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘AM I to conclude from that combative statement that you think I treat women badly?’ Simón asked, with an edge in his voice.

  ‘I spoke out of turn,’ said Cassia. ‘Your relationships with other people are none of my business. I’m sorry I said that. It was impertinent of me.’

  ‘Having said it, you can’t retrieve it. I’d like to know your reasoning. Is it based on something you heard from other members of the staff?’

  As he wasn’t going to let her off the hook, she said, ‘The thing which caused talk was the damage to the antique mirror. Naturally everyone thought you and Señorita Sanchez had a major row before she walked out or you sent her packing. What other conclusion would they draw? The staff at the hotel are very discreet. It would cost them their jobs if they weren’t. But you can’t expect them not to gossip among themselves when something unusual happens.’

  ‘What was the consensus?’

  ‘I don’t think there was one. Everyone saw it differently.’

  ‘Your sympathies being with Isa?’

  ‘I’m not in sympathy with anyone damaging other people’s property—particularly something irreplaceable—in a fit of temper. But some people aren’t brought up to control their emotions, and I don’t know what provoked her to hurl something at you. You may have driven her to it. I should think you could, if you felt like it,’ she added, with impulsive candour.

  In a corral somewhere below them three or four Spanish hunting dogs began barking in unison, perhaps because one of the village cats had walked along the wall of their enclosure. A lot of the men in Castell kept a pair or a pack of the large ginger dogs. Friendly enough when not hunting, they were as lean as greyhounds but with larger ears, like the dogs of the ancient Egyptians. In her first few nights in the village Cassia had found their occasional outbursts—and the half-hourly chiming from the bell-tower—disturbing. But already she was used to both noises and no longer woke up.

  Simón waited for the barks to subside before he said, ‘Could I provoke you into letting your emotions off the leash? Or are they so tightly controlled that you never lose your temper?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never have so far. But I suppose everyone has a breaking-point. I can imagine getting pretty angry if someone ill-treated a child or an animal in front of me.’

  ‘What about if someone kissed you—someone you didn’t approve of?’

  A long time ago with her father Cassia had flown on a cheap flight to the Canary Islands, where John Browning had thought that he might settle in preference to mainland Spain. Part of the flight had been alarmingly bumpy.

  The sensations she was feeling now—expecting that at any moment the man beside her would kiss her—were remarkably similar to the inner turmoil experienced in those scary moments at thirty-nine thousand feet.

  But instead of doing what she expected, Simón answered the question for her.

  ‘No, I don’t think that would be enough provocation,’ he said reflectively. ‘My guess is that you’d handle the situation with outward hauteur but be inwardly seething…even if you had liked it.’

  While the aircraft had been bouncing its way through ten minutes of strong air turbulence, and other passengers had shown varying degrees of alarm, Cassia had managed to continue reading her book, while inwardly longing for a reassuring smile and pat on the hand from her father.

  Now, although her heart was behaving like a yo-yo and she was aware o
f other disturbing reactions, she said with assumed self-possession, ‘I think I’ll be able to cope if any of the boys who come here try getting out of line. But why should they bother with me when they’ll have girls of their own age to make passes at?’

  ‘Under the macho posturing, teenage boys are often a lot less confident than they appear, and teenage girls can dish out some nasty put-downs. The skills you used to keep the hotel guests happy could be balm to these boys’ fragile egos—an aphrodisiac balm,’ he added, in an amused tone. ‘If you haven’t had much to do with adolescent males, I should warn you they live in an almost permanent state of arousal. It doesn’t take a lot to start them snorting and pawing as excitably as young bulls.’

  Seeing a chance to change the subject, she seized it. ‘Are you an aficionado of bullfighting?’

  ‘I admire the courage of the matadors. I don’t go to the corrida. I’m not keen on any spectator sports. Have you been to a bullfight?’

  She shook her head. ‘I know I shouldn’t enjoy it. I’ve seen bits of fights on television at the hotel, but watching a man risk his life doesn’t excite me, and I felt the horses must be terrified, even with protective padding.’ The church clock chimed the half-hour. ‘I think it’s time I turned in.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Near the house she returned his scarf. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. I’m not used to country hours so I’ll go for a walk. I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow. Sleep well.’

  Taking her by surprise, he took one of her hands and brushed a kiss on the knuckles before turning to cross the plaza and disappear round the corner.

  Cassia was almost at the door of her room when she changed her mind and went up to the roof. Simón had turned in a direction which led to the lanes through the vineyards. A few minutes later, as she stood in the shadow of the chimmey-stack, she saw him come into view, and would have recognised him even if she hadn’t been expecting to see him.