A Spanish Honeymoon

‘Nothing in particular, but—’

‘Then we’ll go out to lunch. There’s a lot to discuss. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes, OK?’

Taking her consent for granted, he rang off.

Liz flew upstairs to her room, whipped off her house clothes and scrambled into grey gabardine trousers and a grey and white striped silk shirt. Slotting a belt through the loops on the waistband, she stepped into suede loafers, then put on her favourite gold knot earrings, hurriedly slapped on some make-up and re-brushed her hair before pulling it through a black scrunchy.

It was only when she was ready, with a couple of minutes to spare, that she asked herself, What am I doing, making an effort to look good for a man I don’t even like?

There wasn’t time to consider the answer to that question because, remembering that once summer was past the interior of Spanish restaurants could sometimes be chilly if they didn’t have an open fire, she had to whizz back upstairs and grab her red shawl.

She was running downstairs when she heard a knock on the door. She had thought he would pip his car’s horn to alert her to his arrival, but when she stepped into the street he was waiting to open the door for her. Quickly, Liz locked up and slid into the passenger seat. No doubt it was part of a womaniser’s armoury to have impeccable manners, she thought as he bent to pull the safety belt out of its slot and handed her the buckle.

‘Thank you.’ She tried to recall a previous occasion when a man had performed that small extra courtesy but could not remember it ever happening before.

‘So what’s new in Valdecarrasca?’ he asked, as he got in beside her and pulled the other belt across his own broad chest.

‘Nothing…as far as I know. How did your trip go?’

‘I’ve been dashing around the world, covering outbreaks of mayhem, for too long,’ he said, checking his rearview and wing mirrors before pulling away from the kerb. ‘It no longer gives me a buzz, which means it’s time to call it a day and find something more rewarding to do.’

‘What have you in mind?’

‘It would be fun to do a Gerald Seymour.’

‘The name rings a bell but I can’t place him.’

‘He used to be a war reporter. Now he writes excellent thrillers.’

‘Oh, yes…I remember now. My husband used to like his books.’ Not that Duncan had been a bookworm, but when they were going on holiday he would buy a thriller at the airport and often would still be reading it on the flight home.

‘Unfortunately I don’t think I have Seymour’s imaginative powers,’ said Cam, ‘and, although there are exceptions, not many non-fiction writers make a comfortable living. By the way, the house is in the best shape it’s been in since it was new. Your relationship with Alicia is obviously going well.’

‘My Spanish is improving too,’ said Liz. ‘It’s hard to get her to speak really slowly, but we’re managing. I’ve started buying the Saturday edition of El Mundo. It has very good health and history supplements. It takes me all week to read them, but it’s good for my Spanish vocabulary.’

‘There are some Spanish novels on the shelves in the sitting room. If you want to borrow them, or any of the books, feel free,’ Cam told her.

‘That’s very kind of you. If I do, I’ll take good care of them.’

‘If I had any doubts about that, I wouldn’t have suggested it.’ He took his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at her. ‘I don’t give many people the freedom of my library.’

The flattering implication that they were two of a kind, at least as far as books were concerned, was a small breach in her defences that she couldn’t afford to let him repeat.

‘If there are any wonderful restaurants around here, I haven’t discovered them,’ he went on. ‘But Vista del Coll has a good view and the food is passable. Do you know it?’

‘I’ve passed it. I haven’t eaten there.’

‘The clientele is an odd mix of elderly expats and Spanish workmen. At weekends and on fiestas it’s packed with Spanish families. Young couples are reducing the number of children they have, but the different generations of the family still go out in a bunch in a way you don’t often see in the UK,’ he said. ‘I like that.’

Liz made no comment. That she had no children, and probably never would have, was a sadness she had learned to live with. But sometimes, seeing other women with theirs, she felt an ache inside her.

It was only a short drive to the restaurant where, although it was early for lunch by Spanish standards, there were already several cars parked.

‘Would you prefer to eat inside or outside?’ Cam asked, as they mounted the steps to the terrace.

‘It’s such a lovely day, it seems a pity not to make the most of it.’ Liz had left her shawl on the back seat of the car.

‘That’s my feeling too. How about there?’ He indicated a table for four where they would both be able to sit facing the mountains.

Cam was drawing out a chair for her when the proprietor bustled out to greet them. Evidently he remembered Cam from previous visits and the two men—one short and rotund, the other tall and lean—had a conversation in rapid Spanish.

Then the other man gave a smiling bow to Liz and presented her with one of the two menus he was carrying.

‘What about a drink while we’re choosing what to eat?’ Cam said. ‘A glass of vino blanco, perhaps?’

‘I’d rather have a glass of sparkling water.’ She wanted to keep a clear head.

Cam’s left eyebrow rose a fraction, but he didn’t try to persuade her to change her mind.

The menu, she discovered, was set out in several languages. She read the Spanish page, keeping her finger in the English page in case there were dishes she could not translate.

With her bottle of spring water came a glass of white wine for Cam, a basket of crusty bread and a dish of alioli to spread on the bread.

‘When I was in my teens, alioli was always made on the premises,’ he told her. ‘But then an increase in salmonella caused several bad cases of food-poisoning and restaurant hygiene regulations became a lot stricter. Now it’s not homemade any more and doesn’t have the same flavour.’

Liz sipped the refrigerated water and looked at the view. There was no denying that it was nicer being here, sitting in the sun with an interesting companion, than having lunch by herself at home.

‘Were your father and grandfather journalists?’ she asked, remembering what he had told her before, and what she had read about him online.

The question seemed to amuse him. ‘Definitely not, and they didn’t approve of my choice of career. They wanted me to follow them into the foreign service but fate decreed otherwise. Do you believe in fate?’

‘I don’t know. Do you?’

‘No, actually I believe in chance. The chance that led me to break the family tradition happened in Addis Ababa…if you know where that is?’

‘Of course…it’s the capital of Ethiopia in north east Africa.’

‘Your geography is above average. You’d be surprised by how many people I meet who have only the haziest idea where places are outside their own country. It happened during a vacation while I was at college. I was in Ethiopia when a munitions dump blew up, killing a TV reporter and leaving the cameraman and sound recordist without a front man. I persuaded them to let me stand in for the guy who was dead. I had beginner’s luck. The reports we did were good enough to get me a place on the payroll as soon as I got my degree. How did you get your start?’

‘As an office dogsbody. Then I worked up to being PA to the magazine’s crafts editor. Needlework was my hobby. They were always short of good projects and they took some of my ideas. After a bit I was promoted to assistant crafts editor. I might, eventually, have succeeded her. But after…There came a point when I suddenly realised I hated the twice-daily commute and the whole big city thing. I’d had enough of northern winters and unreliable summers.’

‘That’s the way I feel. I’d like to spend nine or ten months of the year here, and the rest of the time networking in London, New York and wherever else I needed to keep up my contacts. That said—’ He broke off as the proprietor came back, expecting to take their order.

When Cam explained they hadn’t decided yet, he gave an accommodating shrug and turned away to greet some new arrivals.

‘We had better make up our minds. What do you fancy?’ said Cam.

‘I’d like to start with a salad and then have the roast lamb, please.’