Anne Weale - A Spanish Honeymoon

But he had chosen a career that demanded he pack his bags at short notice and go to wherever the headlines were being made, usually somewhere bloody uncomfortable, from which there was always a chance he might not return. The casualty rate was high among war reporters and photographers. It wasn’t a life to share with a wife and children. Some of his colleagues had tried, but usually it ended in divorce. It was wiser not to attempt it, or not until one retired. Which was what he was thinking of doing.

For almost twenty years he had run the gauntlet of violence in all the world’s worst trouble spots and got through with only a graze from a bullet on his arm. His luck might not hold out much longer. Too many colleagues had died, or been badly injured, or resorted to dangerous forms of Dutch courage. It was time to call it a day and become a desk-bound presenter or, failing that, find some other way of earning his living.

He had a hunch the Internet held the key to his future and, if that hunch proved correct, he could live where he pleased, perhaps here in this peaceful village, so remote from the war zones where he had spent recent years that it might be on another planet.

Early one morning, a week after the persianas came down at La Higuera, Liz opened the Inbox on her e-mail program to find a message from Cameron Fielding. In the subject line, he had typed ‘Congratulations on your website’.

Although the e-mail address she had written down for him was what was known as a dot com address, she was slightly surprised that he had bothered to check that the last part led to a website. But then she remembered he was a journalist, and curiosity was their stock in trade.

She read the main part of the e-mail he had written.

Dear Mrs Harris (or may I call you Liz?)

I’ve been looking round your website. I’m impressed. Maybe you should switch from needlework designs to website design. I’m told there’s a big demand for good site designers. How about making a start by designing a site for me? If you’re willing to have a crack at it, I’ll be happy to pay you the going rate.

Think it over.

Regards, Cam.

Liz printed out his e-mail and put it in her bag to re-read later. Today was the day she drove down to the coast to attend the weekly meeting of the Peñon Computer Club at Calpe.

According to elderly people who had known Spain before the tourist invasion, when she was a little girl Calpe had been a sleepy fishing village. Now it was a large resort with many tall blocks of apartments, most of them holiday flats or the year-round homes of retired expatriates.

Liz didn’t like Calpe but acknowledged that lots of people did, and it took all sorts to make a world. She did enjoy the club meetings, although most of the other members were old enough to be her parents or even grandparents. But their shared enthusiasm for computers made the age difference unimportant. One or two of the old men were inclined to ogle her, and one was a furtive groper. But she could cope with that.

After the meeting, she and Deborah, a divorcee in her late forties who kept in touch with her children by e-mail, had lunch at a Chinese restaurant not far from the port. It was close to the Peñon de Ifach, a massive rock, a thousand feet high, that reared out of the sea and was a mecca for rock climbers from all over Europe.

‘Have you ever walked up the path that goes up the other side of the Peñon?’ she asked her friend.

Deborah shook her head. ‘I don’t have a good head for heights. Living on the higher floors of some of the apartment blocks would worry me!’

‘Me too,’ said Liz. ‘I should feel uneasy sitting out on some of those tiny balconies. But a penthouse apartment with a garden might be nice. The views must be wonderful.’

After lunch she drove back to Valdecarrasca where, having no garage, she had to leave her seven-year-old vehicle in the car park near the building that had once been a lavadero, a public laundry with a stream running through it. Since then the stream had run dry and today, so Beatrice had told her, the water came from deep bore holes near a village at the far end of the valley. Nowadays everyone had mains water and washing machines but, in a country with little rainfall, the ever-increasing demand for water could not be met indefinitely.

After changing out of her good clothes into everyday things, she settled down to reply to Cameron Fielding’s e-mail.

She didn’t mind him calling her Liz, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to call him Cam yet. However, to start ‘Dear Mr Fielding’ sounded rather stuffy in response to his informality, so she stretched a point and started off.

Dear Cam,

I’m glad you like my website and I’m flattered that you’re willing to entrust the design of your site to me. As I have never done any designing for other people, I have no idea what the going rate is. But I can find out, and perhaps we can discuss the matter further next time you come down. I should have to ask you a lot of questions before I could create a site that satisfied us both. What would the purpose of the site be?

Liz.

After she had connected to the Spanish telephone company’s freebie server, and sent the message on its way, she had a spasm of doubt about the wisdom of becoming any more involved with Cam Fielding than she was already.

From the first moment of meeting him, she had been on her guard with him. That being so, was it foolish to take on a commitment that, inevitably, would involve more contact with him? Would it have been more sensible to politely decline his suggestion on the grounds that she had more work than she could handle?

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