A Night To Remember

by Anne Weale

  So it was a shock when a voice behind her said, ‘What the hell have you done to your heel, girl?’

  Cassia gasped and whirled round. ‘What are you doing—sneaking up on me?’

  ‘I was coming to get your boots. New boots need going over with dubbin.’ Jack had on a clean white T-shirt and a pair of black jeans. The reason she hadn’t heard him coming was that he was barefoot.

  ‘What’s dubbin?’

  ‘It’s a leather dressing. Makes boots waterproof and softens them. How long were you walking on that bloody great blister?’

  ‘It looks worse than it is. It’s nothing to make a fuss about.’

  ‘Are you kidding? It looks like raw steak. If that isn’t dealt with properly it could go septic on you. You’d better come up to my room and let me sort it out for you.’

  ‘If you’ll lend me your first-aid stuff, I can do it myself.’

  ‘I’ll do it better. I’ve had some training in first aid. Have you?’

  ‘No, but it’s just common sense.’

  ‘If you had any of that you wouldn’t have walked all the skin off your heel,’ he informed her. ‘But you’ve plenty of guts, I’ll say that for you. Most girls would have been in tears long before it had got that bad.’

  Again taking her by surprise, he stepped forward and scooped her off her feet.

  ‘I don’t need to be carried!’ she protested.

  ‘The way you were walking, you do.’ He settled her against his chest. ‘Put your arm round my neck.’

  She was wearing a clean pair of briefs under her thin cotton robe, but her clean bra was in her room, where the underwear she had put on that morning was soaking in the hand basin. Fortunately her toilet bag had a wristloop at one end of the zipper. She was able to put her left arm round Jack’s solid shoulders while holding the front of her robe securely together with her other hand.

  ‘If you’d been in my company in the Legion, I’d have put you on a charge,’ said Jack.

  ‘Do they have women soldiers even in the French Legion now?’ she asked incredulously. ‘I’d have thought it was the last bastion of masculine solidarity.’

  ‘It is…and it always will be,’ Jack said with grim satisfaction. ‘Women are useless as soldiers. The army’s a man’s world.’

  ‘There are quite a few armies which do recruit women,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t catch me serving in them. Fighting is a man’s life. Women should stick to nursing and jobs like that.’

  Cassia had already decided that among male chauvinists Jack was a fundamentalist. She wasn’t planning to try to open his mind to less reactionary ideas. There might be some committed feminists among the girls coming in who would attempt to convert him. She doubted if they would succeed. It was a waste of breath to reason with people like him. They had a fixed view of the world, and no amount of argument would budge them from their beliefs.

  ‘I thought in the Legion a soldier would be expected to ignore a minor flesh-wound,’ she said as they reached the stairs to the floor above.

  ‘Depends on the circumstances. In action he might have to. What you did was plain bloody stupid.’

  She said in French, ‘Watch your language, please, Captain. I’m not one of your soldiers. You can’t have it both ways. If you want us to be ladylike, you have to remember to behave like gentlemen towards us.’

  He took the reproof in good part. ‘I didn’t know you spoke French. Where did you learn it—at school?’

  ‘Like you, I picked it up out of necessity. My father was an artist. We spent a few years in France, mostly at Collioure near the border with Spain.’

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Jack reached the top of the flight with no obvious sign of exertion. Considering she weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds, it was not something any man could do. But she had the feeling that he had been showing off a little. She wondered who, if he and Simón had to fight each other, would win the contest. Jack was more heavily built, and presumably trained in all forms of hand-to-hand combat, but Simón was a powerful man with a more subtle mind. At least, that was her impression. He would think faster than Jack and perhaps beat him that way.

  At the door of his room Jack said, ‘Open it, will you?’

  Cassia let go of her robe and reached down to turn the doorknob.

  He set her down by his bed. ‘Lie on your face so I can get at you heel.’

  She stepped out of her flip-flops and, after a moment’s hesitation, did as he told her, raising herself on her elbows to watch him going to the cupboard for a large plastic box of the kind sold in DIY stores for storing nails and screws.

  He put this on the foot of the bed and then crossed the room to the washbasin. On the way there he swung the door closed.

  This made Cassia slightly uneasy. Why did the door need to be closed if all he had in mind was to attend to her heel?

  CHAPTER SIX

  TELLING herself not to be foolish, while being at the same time aware that they were a long way away from the two other people in the house, or any workmen who might still be about, Cassia noticed that this room of Jack’s was much the same as hers in size and appointments.

  But while she had tried to personalise her room—draping a Spanish shawl over the bed and tucking picture postcards and snapshots under the frame of the large mirror over the writing-cum-dressing table—this room had no individual touches. Only his toothbrush and shaving kit on the glass shelf over the washbasin, and a magazine, a book and a rubber-clad torch on the bedside table showed that someone was sleeping here. All his other possessions were in the cupboards and drawers.

  She angled her head to read the title of the book—Climbing in Patagonia. The magazine underneath was called High and subtitled Mountain Sports.

  Jack finished washing his hands, which must have been clean already. While he had been carrying her she had smelt the aroma of soap or shower gel on him. If his hair had been longer it would still have been damp, as hers was.

  Jack grasped the back of the upright chair at the table and moved it to the foot of the bed.

  ‘Move further down, will you? So your foot’s sticking over the edge.’

  She obeyed, rucking up her robe above the backs of her knees. She was not showing any more leg than if she had been wearing a short skirt, but somehow, in these circumstances, she felt over-exposed. But to try to pull her robe down would only draw attention to it.

  ‘I’m going to swab this with antiseptic,’ he told her.

  ‘OK. Whatever you say.’

  Considering the size of his hands, he was surprisingly deft and gentle. Presently he said, ‘You could do with a pair of clogs to wear until this has healed. D’you know the things I mean? Thick soles and no backs to ‘em.’

  ‘Mules,’ said Cassia. ‘Hospital nurses wear them, but I don’t know where I’d get a pair around here. Anyway, it wouldn’t be worth buying them for the short time my heel will be sore.’

  ‘You were stupid to get in this state…but I’ll give you credit for pluck. Stamina too. You kept up with us better than I expected. You don’t look what I’d call sturdy, but I reckon you are.’ For the first time he sounded friendly.

  ‘My word, that is a compliment,’ she said, with a teasing glance over her shoulder.

  Jack gave her one of his rare smiles. ‘Don’t let it go to your head, kid.’

  Suddenly she felt certain that he wasn’t the type to try anything unwelcome.

  At that moment someone knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Jack called.

  The door opened and Simón stood on the threshold, one black eyebrow shooting up when he saw Cassia lying on the bed.

  ‘Would you look at what this silly girl’s done to herself?’ said Jack.

  He seemed oblivious of a change in the atmosphere, but she was instantly aware that although it wasn’t apparent in his manner their employer was seriously displeased at finding her there. To her, the glacial vibes were so strong that they were almost palpable
.

  Simón moved forward to inspect the damage. ‘You don’t get a blister this size in five minutes, Cassia. Why didn’t you say you were in trouble?’

  ‘I didn’t realise it was as bad as it is.’

  ‘An air-head, but she gets ten for grit,’ said Jack.

  ‘Not from me,’ Simón said curtly. ‘I’ve no sympathy for self-inflicted injuries. It’s going to take at least a week for that to heal.’

  Apparently forgetting the reason he had come to Jack’s room, he walked out, leaving the door open behind him.

  Jack said nothing, and neither did Cassia. He gave her a pat on the back of her calf. ‘You can get up now. I’ll take another look tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’ Being careful not to let her robe gape open, she rolled over and swung her feet to the floor. The whole of her heel was now neatly sealed by a large, ventilated dressing.

  ‘Any time.’ Jack was replacing the things he had used in the well-stocked box. ‘We’d better find out what the facilities are, in case the kids need professional medical attention. I’ll check that out in the morning.’

  Cassia returned to her room. Before dressing, she blow-dried her hair. She had a feeling that Simón’s terse comment in Jack’s bedroom wouldn’t be his last word on the subject.

  When she went downstairs to help Laura with the supper, the housekeeper said it had been put back an hour because ‘Excellency’ had had to go out. Referring to Simón in the official style seemed to give her a buzz. She didn’t approve of the others using his first name. She herself always called him Don Simón.

  While all Spain’s duques were grandees, she had explained to Cassia, not all the marquéses were. Because he was so informal himself, it was easy to forget that Excellency’s title was very old and illustrious, she had added, glancing at Jack, whose manner towards their employer she didn’t consider sufficiently respectful.

  The first part of the house to be modernised had been the old-fashioned kitchen and the adjoining refectory. This didn’t yet have its tables and benches installed but did have some easy chairs grouped round the corner fireplace. Jack had fetched in some logs cut from an old olive tree from the woodstack left by the caretaker, and had a cheerful blaze going by the time Simón returned.

  The others were sitting round it having a glass of wine, and there was a savoury smell emanating from a large pan on top of the kitchen stove when Excellency returned.

  ‘You look very cosy,’ he said. ‘It’s much colder out now. I’m told there’s often a spell of bad weather at this time of year. But it doesn’t usually last more than three or four days.’

  ‘A glass of wine for you, jefe?’ Jack asked him. ‘Or something stronger?’

  ‘Wine will be fine.’

  After taking off his leather jacket Simón opened a carrier and took out what looked like a shoe box. He handed it to Cassia.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘If you open it, you’ll see.’ There was an edge in his tone which might not have been audible to the others but was to her. She knew that he was still annoyed with her.

  She opened the box, turned back a fold of coarse tissue and uncovered a pair of dark blue leather mules of the kind suitable for street wear.

  ‘You can’t go about in those flimsy rubber things at this time of year.’ Evidently he had noticed her flip-flops on the floor by Jack’s bed.

  ‘You didn’t go out specially to get these, did you?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘I also needed some stationery. You told the man at the boot shop you normally wore size thirtyseven, so those ought to fit you. Try them on.’

  This evening Cassia was wearing a pair of red and pink carpet slippers with the backs folded down. She slipped them off and replaced them with the cork-soled mules.

  ‘They fit perfectly. It was very good of you to go out and get them for me.’ She didn’t ask him what she owed him. The price would be on the box. She would put the money in an envelope and slip it under his door.

  He dismissed her thanks with the customary ‘De nada‘ and turned away to talk to Jack.

  Laura had bought cocas from the village baker. They resembled small pizzas, usually topped with slices of tomato and red pepper, or perhaps snippets of tinned anchovy or whatever else the baker had to hand. Laura had embellished them with some additions of her own, and the discs of hot dough with their savoury toppings made an appetising start to the meal.

  The cocas were followed by a French dish of pork with potatoes and mushrooms in a rich garlicky gravy.

  While they ate Simón made pleasant conversation, but addressing himself to the others, never to Cassia. His behaviour baffled her. To make a special trip to the nearest town to buy footwear which would enable her to move about comfortably while her heel healed, and yet now to ignore her seemed strangely inconsistent.

  During the afternoon two dishwashers had been delivered and plumbed in. When the meal was over Simón said, ‘If you’d help Laura load the machine, Jack, I want to speak to Cassia in private. We’ll talk in the office, Cassia.’

  She followed him from the room, telling herself that it was absurd to feel like a miscreant schoolgirl about to be given a carpeting by a severe headmaster. She had done nothing wrong.

  It was cold in the rest of the house. In the office Simón switched on an electric radiator before waving her to a chair and lifting one long, hard thigh onto the front edge of the desk, with his other leg stretched out straight.

  It was a characteristic posture. When he was talking to the workmen, she had noticed, he often stood with his fingers thrust into the back pockets of his jeans. Unlike most Spaniards, he didn’t usually gesticulate when he was talking. Only rarely did he illustrate a point with a graphic gesture. Now he sat with one hand in his pocket and the other resting on his thigh.

  ‘The day I brought you away from Granada I told you that Señor Alvarez had charged me with being responsible for your welfare,’ he began. ‘He said you had been more sheltered than most of your peers and had no experience of discos or boyfriends. You knew the theory of sex, he said, from reading and listening to your colleagues. But he didn’t think you had any practical knowledge. After finding you in Jack’s bedroom this evening, I wonder if you know the theory as well as you should.’

  Sitting very straight, with her chin up, Cassia said, ‘Jack took me to his room to attend to my heel. Perhaps you can’t envisage having a girl in your room without making a pass at her. I don’t think it occurred to him.’

  ‘It occurred to him,’ Simón said sardonically. ‘That he did nothing about it only shows he has more sense than you have. But if I hadn’t come in he might have done something about it. When a girl lies down on a bed, in a flimsy dressing-gown, she’s putting a lot of strain on a man’s self-control—especially a guy like Jack who’s in peak condition and may not have had a roll in the hay for some time.’

  Cassia sprang to her feet. ‘That’s how you think of us, isn’t it? Rolls in the hay…on a par with a meal or a drink. If the world was run to suit you, we’d all be slaves and concubines.’

  Simón said coldly, ‘You’re losing your temper over nothing. I didn’t set out to provoke a tirade on equality and all the rest of that claptrap. I was merely explaining what you appear not to know—that most single men spend a lot of time starving for sex. Therefore it’s neither fair nor sensible to excite needs you aren’t going to satisfy. Your mother would have explained that to you. Perhaps your father didn’t discuss such matters.’

  ‘My father set an example of how decent men treat women…with respect and consideration…not as playthings,’ Cassia retorted.

  ‘In general men give women the treatment they invite,’ he answered. ‘If they walk down the street showing their cleavage and wearing a tight miniskirt, they get whistles and lewd remarks. If they dress in a more modest style but have very good figures, they may still get the whistles without the coarse commentary. Going to Jack’s room in your dressing-gown was g
iving a misleading signal. You should have got dressed first.’

  ‘I didn’t go to his room. As a matter of fact I was going to consult the chemist. Jack saw me leaving the shower. I was limping and he insisted on carrying me. I didn’t have a lot of option.’

  Simón’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Was that exciting?’ he asked her.

  ‘It saved me a lot of discomfort climbing the stairs.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question. Did it excite you?’

  ‘The question doesn’t make sense to me. Where does excitement come in when someone has a painful foot?’

  ‘You didn’t have a broken leg. I wouldn’t have thought your heel was sufficiently painful to make you indifferent to being swept off your feet by Jack in caveman mode,’ Simón said drily.

  ‘He wasn’t. He was just being kind…as you were when you went into town to get me those mules,’ she added, suddenly remembering that he was her employer and she shouldn’t have flared at him.

  If the hotel manager had read her a homily, she wouldn’t have answered back. She had momentarily forgotten that Simón was paying her wages.

  ‘Sit down and listen to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Jack has changed his mind about you. This morning you were an encumbrance. He would have preferred to leave you behind. Perhaps you knew that.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Today, although you behaved like what he calls “an air-head”,’ he went on, ‘you also showed you had grit—the quality he admires above everything else. That could create problems.’

  ‘Surely it’s better for your staff to be on good terms with each other?’

  ‘Good terms—yes. But not too close. I know more about Jack than you do. Nothing to his discredit, but he was brought up in a children’s home and he’s led a tough, lonely life. I’m telling you this to make you realise that under his rugged exterior he may be extremely vulnerable. I don’t want him falling in love with you, which he might very easily do.’

  Cassia was taken aback. After a pause, she said, ‘I think that’s most unlikely. I’m not his type.’