David E Balaam - Columbus Day

Senora Torres looked him up and down and muttered something to herself which George was not able to understand, but on reflection, was obvious.

She walked past George into the kitchen. She placed her large Jute shopping bag on the counter and unpacked a wide array of cleaning materials, cloths and brushes.

George was suddenly awake. "Ahh, sorry Senora. Forgot you were coming. Perdone. Si, I will get dressed."

He turned and ran upstairs and threw on shorts and a T-Shirt.

Back downstairs Senora Torres was making coffee for him and placing the receipts for the items she has brought on the counter. George looked at the receipts and understood. "Of course. I will give back the Euros, Si no problem." She looked at him without smiling and gave him the coffee.

"This is very good of you but not necessary." George gave a deep sigh. "There must be a better way to communicate." Then he remembered the laptop again. He got up quickly from the kitchen stool, which gave Senora Torres a fright. She watched him go over to his office and open the louvre doors by entering a passcode in the digital padlock.

He returned to the kitchen with the laptop and opened up Word. "This is how we will communicate again, and leave messages for each other, Si." He said smiling at Senora Torres who was not too sure what was going on. He typed the following and pressed ‘translate’:

"We can talk to each other by typing a message here and translate it."

"Podemos hablar entre sí escribiendo un mensaje aquí y traducirlo."

Again, not perfect grammar, but Senora Torres understood what he was on about.

"You have a go", he said pointing to the keyboard. "Si, go on. Just type."

Senora Torres typed gingerly with one finger. "Con que quiere que empiece?"

George showed her how to highlight the sentence and press translate.

"With what wants to start?" appeared in the translation box.

"Excellent – we have contact." George was about the give Senora Torres a celebratory hug but thought better of it.

They spent the next half hour agreeing on what needed to be done and showing her around the house. The only exception was she was not to go into the office. He was happy to clean there. He explained the equipment was sensitive and he would look after it. Not that she could do any real damage, but just to be safe.

Later, George learnt Senora Torres proudly announced in El Tango she was now an expert on the computer. Her husband said she should ask for more money with these extra skills.

Over the next few weeks, the house took shape nicely. All precious knick-knacks had been found and unpacked. He and Aimee would collect, where possible, a flyer or program from the many shows and concerts they loved to go to and frame them.

George stared at the line of familiar artist’s faces and remembered each concert with affection. Rabih Abou-Khalil, Jan Garbarek, e,s,t, Richard Bona, Hiromi, Paolo Conte, Joe Zawinul, Trilok Gurtu, and for old time sake, Leonard Cohen from his World Concert in 2006, the last one he and Aimee went to see together.

This is one thing I will resume now he promised himself – he had not been to a concert in over three years. It was time to start again.

Panic had struck George one day when he couldn’t find some favourite CD's he knew he had packed. They were, in fact, Aimee’s favourites as well. She particularly liked pianist Keith Jarrett, and the Irish group, The Corrs. George was normally a focused sort of guy but somehow, now, in this new environment, he was distracted. New surroundings, new sounds, new colours, smells, light; everything was new to him, and he found he was enjoying the experience of going against the norm. The other problem, or advantage, of being alone to do what he wanted to do, and when he wanted to do it, with no particular agenda, was that he had time to think a lot.

He had done plenty of that during the twelve months he was under investigation, but that was a case of being more obsessed with the facts of the case, and being very angry at what had happened to him. Of course, he thought of Aimee during that time, but in a different way – wishing she was there with him, giving him moral support and telling him everything would be OK in the end, as she always did. There was no one now to turn to each day to just let it all out.

Now, alone in his new house, he stopped to think of what Aimee would have made of it. Would she have agreed to the move? She loved England for all its faults but she liked to travel, and they had had many happy holidays in Spain with the children, but she was always pleased to be back home.

George was glad in a way she did not have to suffer the trauma of that long year he was under investigation. The anguish of not knowing if he was going to be prosecuted and hearing whispers behind her back about her husband ‘the thief'. And 'was she in on it' as well?

He opened the patio doors and walked out onto the cool flagstones. The sun had not come around to the patio side, but it would do in about thirty minutes, and the stone would be much warmer, and last all day.

George smiled and allowed himself to think Aimee was watching over him, and she was enjoying seeing him happy – alone maybe - but happier than he had been for a long time. He looked up to the clear blue sky and blew it a kiss. "You’ll be my someone to watch over me, won't you, my love?"

He could hear the tune playing in his mind – her favourite version of course, by Keith Jarrett.

With Senora Torres’s help, George spent the rest of the month putting the house in order and getting to know his new home, the town and the locals.

The most difficult part was settling into a different time-zone. He had been used too late mornings and late nights over the past year or so - there had been nothing to get up for, and nothing to go to bed for, and there was no work as he was banned from working. He read novels, watched films, and sometimes worked on a laptop Christopher had lent him. Only a few loyal friends kept in touch. Funny, how suddenly your friends and relatives pre-judge you when they have been close to you for many years. George could count on one hand the good friends that have stood by him, including his in-laws, Thomas and Eilidh.

They were sorry to hear his decision to move to Spain, but understood, and promised to keep in touch, either directly, or via their grand-children. George hoped they could visit one day, but although Thomas was a sprightly seventy-five, Eilidh was rather frail now and suffered from arthritis, but said they would look forward to reading all about Calabaza and the new house and seeing lots of photographs. George had enjoyed the walks with Thomas that cold January weekend before he left England, and was happy to sit with him in the Old Thistle Hotel bar and talk about his lost daughter over a pint of ale. Thomas could never bring himself to say ‘dead’. She was 'lost to them', and therefore one day will return. George would place his hand on Thomas’s hand and nod silently, wishing to hell if only that were true.

His parents had died ten years ago, two years apart. Aimee had been very close to them and really missed them. Christmas was never the same again – and never can be now Aimee has been taken from him as well.