Anne Weale - The Man From Madrid

For reasons of his own, this morning he had left his car in the care of a reputable garage in a town ten kilometres away and spent the day following tracks through the mountains which eventually had led him here, to the village of Valdecarrasca, where he intended to stay for as long as was necessary to achieve his several objectives.

As the girl who had let him in had promised, there was an ample supply of hot water. Removing the fiddly little freebie of wrapped soap from the soap rack, he replaced it with his own larger bar, and enjoyed an all-over lather to remove the sweat brought on by a long tramp under a hot sun.

Although it was October, and the leaves on the vines he had passed on the road leading into the village were turning brown or dark red, the weather was still very hot by northern European and North American standards.

Thinking about the girl, as he used the freebie mini-bottle of shampoo on his hair, he was puzzled by her. All the people in these parts spoke two languages: Valenciano, the language of this region of Spain, and castellano or Castilian, the lingua franca of all Spain.

She had welcomed him in castellano, speaking it with an accent that would not have surprised him in his own milieu in Madrid but was unusual coming from a cleaner in a small village environment. But then her whole manner had surprised him: her self-possession, amounting almost to an air of authority, and her total lack of what he categorised as girly come-ons. He might have been sixty for all the personal interest she had shown in him.

Accustomed to a level of interest that might have flattered him when he was eighteen but that he could do without now, Nicolás found her indifference to him refreshing.

Thinking about her narrow waist and trim but rounded backside going ahead of him up the staircase, he found himself becoming aroused. Amusing oneself with country girls had been acceptable in his father’s and grandfather’s time. But it was not his style. There were plenty of sophisticated young women in Madrid willing to co-operate when he needed feminine companionship, and perhaps, one day, he would marry one of them. But unlike his brother he was under no obligation to choose a bride. Also having seen at close quarters the uncomfortable relationships into which marriage usually deteriorated after a few years, he was in no hurry to try it.

Turning the shower’s control from hot to cold, he also switched his thoughts to the reasons he was here.

At six o’clock, Cally was laying the long table where everyone staying with them would eat, when she heard male footsteps on the stairs. Moments later she heard the Spaniard asking if anyone was about.

She went round the corner from the dining area of the ground floor into the lounge area. ‘I’m here. How can I help you?’

He had shaved, she noticed, and changed into light-coloured chinos and a check cotton shirt in place of the jeans and navy T-shirt he had been wearing on arrival.

‘I suppose it would be too much to hope that, in a building of this age, you have a socket where I can plug in the modem of my computer?’ He was carrying a small black case.

When she was in Spain, a computer was Cally’s lifeline. But she didn’t tell him that. She said, ‘The office has a modem socket. We’re too rural to have broadband here, but we do have two telephone lines so you won’t be blocking incoming calls. Just make a note of how long you’re online, please.’

She showed him the small room, off the lounge, she had fixed up as an office. As it had no window, she switched on a wall light and desk lamp. The desk was clear of clutter. She gestured for him to use it.

‘If your cable isn’t long enough to reach the socket—’ pointing to where it was ‘—there’s an extension lead you can use.’

‘Thanks, but that won’t be a problem. Do you have many guests who want to use the Internet?’ He sounded surprised.

‘Not many, but we do have business people staying here on week nights. Until you arrived with your backpack, I thought you were probably one of them. If you have any problems, just call. My name is Cally.’

When she would have left him, he forced her to pause by asking, ‘What is Cally short for?’

‘Calista…but no one uses it.’

‘Would you rather they did?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve been used to the short form since childhood. Can I get you something to drink while you’re picking up your mail?’

‘A lager would be good.’

‘Coming up.’ She went to fetch it.

Like him, she had changed, he had noticed. Now she was wearing a black skirt that hugged her hips but was full at the hem and a T-shirt that showed the shape and size of her breasts, neither too small nor too heavy. Her waist was cinched by a red belt, and her shoulder-length hair, which earlier had been secured by one of those stretchy things, was now held by a red plastic clip. Like all Spanish women, she had pierced ears. He hadn’t noticed her earrings earlier, but this evening she was wearing small silver beads that caught the light when she turned her head.

By the time she came back with a tall glass and a bottle of San Miguel on a small tray, Nicolás had logged on and was waiting for his emails to finish downloading.

He looked up at her and said, ‘Gracias.’

Without glancing at him or the bright screen, she murmured, ‘De nada,’ and turned away.

She had a musical voice and good ankles, he noticed before she disappeared. Then, starting to open the emails, he forgot about her.

As Cally finished laying the table, her father came home. Shortly before Señor Llorca’s arrival, he had gone to the ferretería in a neighbouring village to buy some screws. She knew why the errand had taken so long but, unlike her mother, she wouldn’t make a sarcastic comment and he wouldn’t make an excuse.

Cally had learnt long ago that her father and mother were not like ordinary parents. They were the adult equivalent of juvenile delinquents: irresponsible, bolshie, sometimes endearing, more often exasperating.

She had loved them when she was small but gradually, over the years, her affection had been eroded by the realisation that neither of them loved anyone but themselves.

Fortunately she had also had a grandmother—dead now—who had rescued her from some of her parents’ worst excesses by paying for her to go to a boarding school in England and having her to stay for much of the holidays.

‘Have all the punters shown up?’ her father asked. When they were not in earshot, he always referred to his paying guests as the punters.

It had not been Douglas Haig’s idea to take on a casa rural. As with most of their attempts to make money, or at least keep a roof over their heads, it was Cally’s mother who had been the driving force. But he didn’t mind running the bar and playing the genial host.

‘Yes…all present and correct,’ said Cally. ‘I expect they’ll be down before long.’

As she spoke, the wicket door opened and a small plump woman with an old-fashioned cotton wraparound pinafore over her dress came in. This was Juanita, a widowed neighbour who cooked the evening meal when Mary Haig had one of her migraines or, as now, was away.

Juanita and Cally were chatting in Valenciano when a couple who had introduced themselves as Jim and Betty came down the stairs. Their room had been booked by Jim whose surname was Smith. But it wouldn’t have surprised Cally to learn that Betty had a different surname. That they might be in a partnership rather than a marriage mattered not a jot to her. She had never had a long-term partner or relationship herself. What other people did was their business. But Jim and Betty were of the generation who had grown up when ‘living in sin’ was something people frowned on, and it might be that they did not feel entirely comfortable about their present status. There has been an occasion when two elderly couples who hadn’t met before had been staying at the casa rural and one of the women had made a remark about ‘your husband’ to the other, causing visible embarrassment. Since then, Cally had been careful never to jump to conclusions that might not be correct.