A Wedding in the Sun

Chapter 4

Jo had always liked to be the big spoon – well, not always, but since those days when Dec had awoken often with sleep terrors and she’d flung a tired arm and a leg over him and crooned for him to go back to sleep, she’d got used to sleeping that way.

If her little spoon seemed larger that morning, she was woozy enough to ignore it. There was a soft cotton shirt under her fingers. The temperature had dropped overnight and the mix of cool air on the back of her neck and warm human plastered to her front was heavenly.

It had been so long since either of the kids had let her snuggle like this. She tightened her arms as the daylight streaming through the crappy curtains roused her reluctantly awake. She refused to open her eyes as everything about the moment – the scent of clean sheets and sleepy person, the subconscious knowledge that she wasn’t at home and someone else was taking responsibility, the residual tiredness from the day before – worked to lull her back to sleep.

Until the little spoon gave a rasping sigh and groggily said, ‘Mónica?’

Jo scrambled out of the bed in a panic, wishing she could bury her head under the blankets the way Liss did. Instead, she plonked down onto the cot and rubbed her palms briskly over her face and through her hair. Phew, maybe he was still asleep.

‘Were you hugging me?’

She blinked her eyes open to find him peering at her over his shoulder.

‘Moment of weakness,’ she muttered. ‘I thought you were one of my kids.’ His brows shot up. ‘You thought I was your ex-wife, so let’s just forget it ever happened.’ If only that worked for her tactile memory. That shirt was incredibly soft.

That was when she realised she’d slipped off her tailored capris last night and she was sitting on the bed in her undies. Inwardly panicking, she inched her hand towards her trousers as casually as she could as Adrián yawned and stretched, only half awake.

After she’d slid into them surreptitiously, she snatched her phone from the windowsill and frowned when she couldn’t wake up the screen.

‘Shit, my phone didn’t charge,’ she said as she checked the cable and charger with the adapter. ‘What time is it?’

He checked his watch, an old-school number that actually ticked. ‘Eight forty-five,’ he said, his voice still scratchy.

‘Eight forty-five!’ she repeated in alarm. ‘Get up! We only have fifteen minutes to get the bus!’

‘That’s plenty of time,’ he insisted, giving himself one more stretch that showed off his tanned arms. ‘You don’t even need to change,’ he added, glancing at her in a way that made her wonder if he’d noticed she’d only been half-dressed five minutes ago.

‘You do!’

‘Fine!’ he said, hauling himself upright. ‘I’m not a morning person.’

‘Nobody is a morning person,’ she said, a little too forcefully, ‘but most of us adapt in adulthood.’

‘I see the truce didn’t survive the night. I’d just like to point out that the hugging wasn’t my fault.’

‘You could stop talking about it, though,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I just want to get out of here.’

With another long groan, he got to his feet. ‘I know. We won’t be late. I’ll be ready in a minute. What was it you said yesterday? “The coach won’t leave without us?”’ He hobbled to the bathroom like an old man and Jo thought he really could tone down the dramatics for both their sakes.

He was ready in more like seven minutes, meaning they didn’t have time for the buffet, but that didn’t stop Adrián from heading into the breakfast room to pour an espresso, holding up a hand when Jo opened her mouth to protest.

‘You don’t want to sit with me on the coach if I haven’t had a coffee,’ he said in his gravelly morning voice. ‘What’s the hurry? We have six minutes.’

‘I’m not sure I want to sit with you at all,’ Jo grouched, but she softened a little when he gave her the first mini cup of espresso. As she paused to appreciate the sharp aroma and creamy texture, she wondered whether Adrián really wanted to sit with her either. Why would he, when she’d been as friendly to him as a bear with a sore tooth? To make things worse, her prickly behaviour had been an oddly satisfying way to deal with her roiling emotions. As much as she wanted to see Liss and Dec, the kids unfortunately came with a dose of Ben today. She couldn’t blame Ben for the flight redirection and the awkward night with Adrián, but she wanted to.

‘Are you nearly finished?’

Shaking off the spiral of unhelpful thoughts, she remembered the time with a spike of panic. If Adrián was suggesting they needed to go, then they really needed to go. She remembered the number of times he’d turned up fifteen minutes late to a PTA meeting, missed some vital piece of context and made her or Annie Winters repeat everything they’d discussed.

‘What time is it?’

‘Relax, it’s three minutes to nine. I’ve been paying attention.’

‘Three minutes!’

‘It doesn’t take three minutes to walk twenty metres, Jo!’ he called after her as she rushed for the foyer.

‘If we miss the coach because you thought three minutes was early enough, the truce goes right out the window!’ she said when he caught up at the sliding doors to the street. Outside, the sun was already radiating hot over the city, even though the mountains that rose into view in the distance were still speckled with snow. The only sign of yesterday’s storm was the lingering heaviness in the air with a prickle of electricity.

‘Does no truce mean no more hugging?’

‘It was an accident! The hugging was not part of the?—’

His lips were twitching, despite his grave expression.

‘Oh, look, the coach is here,’ he said cheerfully.

Jo was too relieved to even process the fact that he’d been teasing her and approached the vehicle with a sigh. It was a posh-looking coach with air-conditioning and a wheelchair-friendly section in the middle and she was pleasantly surprised she wasn’t going to spend the four-hour drive suffocating in the stinky, carpeted relic of the 1990s she’d expected. The driver greeted her with a brilliant smile that didn’t seem appropriate to the situation, but she appreciated it.

He first spoke in another language that sounded like Italian rather than French and Jo had to ask him to repeat himself in English. ‘Perhaps you and your husband could take seats in the back? It’s difficult for some of the others to reach those seats,’ he suggested.

‘Oh, he’s not my?—’

Adrián grasped her elbow and propelled her forward, giving the friendly driver a curt ‘thank you’. ‘What were you going to say to him? That we’re strangers again? That’s just confusing. And I assume you don’t want to explain that we’re the ex-partners of a couple who are about to get married?’

‘Urgh, that’s so weird,’ she grumbled as she tugged her arm out of his grip and headed for the back of the coach. As she took her seat with her rucksack on her lap, she tried not to think of Ben and Mónica, of the flowery invitation with a quote about true love, how everything about this wedding felt like a personal affront, but the only other thing she had to think about was that she was wearing dirty underwear and yesterday’s clothes and had snuggled a stranger in her sleep.

Except Adrián didn’t feel like a stranger. That must have been what happened when you ran your mouth at someone on the worst day of your life.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked after he’d squeezed his trolley bag between his legs.

She wanted to snap that of course she wasn’t and she was allowed to not be okay today of all days, but she’d just decided she shouldn’t rail at him the way she had yesterday.

‘Yes,’ she insisted, busying herself searching for her phone cable to plug into the USB slot on the seat in front of her. ‘Damn it,’ she muttered when the blasted thing still wouldn’t charge.

‘Do you want to try my cable? Maybe it will work when the bus is running.’

‘I hope so.’

It took fifteen minutes for everyone to board, fraying Jo’s nerves further.

‘Do you think…?’ Adrián began, studying the other passengers.

‘Don’t say it,’ Jo warned him. ‘I’m sure people with disabilities travel just as much as everyone else.’

He tilted his head as though he wanted to agree, but couldn’t. ‘But on the plane, I didn’t see…’

‘This won’t be everyone. Remember most of the passengers ended up at another hotel.’

‘You’re right. I just wish we’d eaten breakfast, if we’d known it would take this long. By the time we get to Zaragoza, I’m going to be—’ He cut himself off, glancing warily at her. ‘Quite hungry. And I’m not begging for a muesli bar. Given our terrible luck, we should save them for when we get stranded in the Pyrenees and it takes the mountain rescue team three days to reach us.’

‘Even I don’t have that many,’ Jo said with a faint smile.

The engine started and she breathed a sigh of relief, especially when the charging symbol appeared on her phone. The driver said something in Italian, which seemed to please the other passengers. Then they set off through the low-rise stone apartment buildings of the city centre, past green spaces planted with begonias and blooming pink roses, dotted with palms that were the only reminder of how far south they were.

Jo glimpsed the hills that ringed the city, a glowing green with fresh spring grass. Low clouds hid the more distant mountains, a hint of the crushing humidity that awaited them that afternoon in the unseasonably warm June weather. An imposing fortress on a hill looked down over the city and Jo was just beginning to think Lourdes was a cute sort of place and she was glad to have glimpsed it when the coach pulled into a car park, only five minutes from the hotel.

Those passengers who could stand independently did so, grasping for their walking sticks or the arm of a loved one. The doors of the coach opened with a hiss and Jo shared an anxious look with Adrián. Only after all the other passengers had disembarked did they stand and trudge to the doors in dismay.

The car park was right by a shallow river, gurgling peacefully. On the other side, gleaming white in a sunbeam sparkling with moisture, stood an ornate church. Even as Jo’s mind raced with the many possible explanations for what had gone wrong, the view struck her with a deep sense of mystery – the church nestled in the green hills, the mist of clouds behind, swirling and changing, the flowing turquoise water.

The peace was only interrupted by the intermittent rumble of an engine from one of the numerous motorbikes parked densely along the river. Among the leather-clad people milling in the car park there were almost as many beards as vehicles and Jo remembered what the hotel receptionist had said about motorbike pilgrims. One strode past in a creased jacket featuring an embellished image of Mary, her halo emitting beams of light and embroidered tears dotting her cheeks. Another had ‘God Squad’ emblazoned across his shoulders.

‘Excuse me, I believe there’s been a mistake,’ she heard Adrián saying to the coach driver behind her as she grappled for focus.

‘Don’t worry,’ the man continued in a soothing tone that could have convinced a lion to retract its claws. ‘I’ll find an English-speaking guide for you. There are always many English-speaking pilgrims and the next Mass will take place soon. You could always walk the stations of the cross while you wait.’

‘No, you don’t understand. We’re not?—’

‘It’s not a problem if you didn’t pay for the bus. Please, go on to the sanctuary. The hospitaliers are here to help everyone, even the able-bodied.’ With a twinkle in his eye, he continued on a whisper, ‘And most of us don’t mind if you’re not married either. God sees into your heart.’ He made an upward gesture with his hand. ‘Trust me. You will find what you are looking for at the sanctuary.’

The fake smile Adrián gave him almost made Jo laugh.

‘Would you mind?’ the coach driver said, indicating the handles of a wheelchair where an older man sat, his legs wrapped in pressure bandages.

‘Would we mind what?’ Jo asked in confusion, distracted by the flicker of emotions on Adrián’s face, from dismay to dread to defeat.

‘Pushing him, obviously!’ Adrián said, grasping the handles and taking off in the direction of the other passengers. They had gathered around a woman in a white linen dress with a blue apron and a conspicuous lanyard that identified her as someone who knew what she was doing. She greeted the group in Italian, gesturing for them to follow her, and the passengers walked and limped and rolled in the direction of a narrow bridge.

Adrián and his new charge followed along, leaving Jo staring after him in disbelief.

‘What are you doing? We’re not supposed to be here. We have to get back to the hotel!’ she called, grasping the handle of his trolley bag and hurrying after him.

‘And which one of the other passengers will push him? The one with the walker? The youngest person here is that lady and she’s using crutches! Or do you think we should ask one of these biker gangs?’

‘Are you crazy? You can’t just join a pilgrimage!’

‘Actually,’ said the bus driver, who was pushing another wheelchair, ‘you can.’ Both Jo and Adrián just blinked at him.

‘What about the kids?’ Jo pointed out urgently. ‘The family party?’

Adrián stopped suddenly, giving the poor man in the wheelchair a jerk. ‘Do you really think the coach will still be there?’ he cried, holding her gaze.

‘Maybe we can catch it up if we know which way it went. They could wait for us.’ Even as she said it, Jo realised how unlikely that solution was. It must be past nine-thirty now. Resentment rose in her throat. If Adrián hadn’t been so relaxed about the time?—

His jaw was moving, his eyes even more fiery than usual and Jo realised with a start that he was holding himself together by the slightest thread. His Adam’s apple bobbed as she swallowed.

‘Give me your phone,’ she instructed.

After carefully setting the brake, he rummaged in his shoulder bag for his phone and handed it over, rattling off the code which she guessed was Oscar’s birthday. The wallpaper showed a grinning toddler wearing a princess dress and a cape and holding up a toy pizza. The photo was a few years old, but it had been an age since Jo’s kids were that small.

‘I’ll call the airline. You look after Mr…’

‘Bonetti,’ the man in the wheelchair said in a raspy voice, gazing straight ahead.

Adrián clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, Signor Bonetti, would you like slow and sedate or warp speed?’

She faintly heard Mr Bonetti’s chuckle as she searched for the phone number of the airline.

After the initial inquiry, waiting for the customer service agent to call her back was nerve-racking. She fell into step beside Adrián, dragging his bag behind her, as they navigated the long ramp up to the bridge. All eyes were on the sanctuary church, built on a rock above the riverbank.

‘You are English?’ the man in the wheelchair asked quietly.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

‘My wife was English.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Jo said automatically.

‘She should have come on this pilgrimage,’ the man added, which caught Jo unexpectedly in the chest. ‘We were married for sixty-four years. She looked after me when I couldn’t use my legs any more. When she died six months ago, I wanted to cancel this trip. I didn’t have anyone to help. But something stopped me.’

He gazed at the church, still in sunshine despite the clouds gathering behind. ‘Now I see the Santuario, I can already taste the water on my lips and I know I was supposed to come.’

Despite her worries about Liss and Dec, the heartache about the wedding she was putting off, a moment of reprieve stole over Jo courtesy of the frail Signor Bonetti and she dragged in a few much-needed breaths.

‘I’m glad you made it,’ she said earnestly. She was strangely glad Adrián was there to push him.

She felt her reluctant travelling companion’s gaze and found him studying her doubtfully. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in the virgin who reveals herself in a cave,’ he said out of the side of his mouth.

‘Shh,’ she hissed in reply, giving him a sharp look.

His phone rang, rending the stillness, and Jo’s anxiety ramped up again. But the phone call contained no good news. ‘It’s already on the motorway?’ she parroted. ‘You can’t ask the other passengers to wait.’

Adrián threw his head back and stared up at the sky with an agitated moan, as though divine intervention hadn’t already happened – to drag them here in the first place.

‘We’re… on our own?’ she asked the customer service agent, although she already knew the answer. For this calamity they had no one to blame but themselves. After a polite farewell, she let the phone drop from her ear in slow motion. ‘We’re stuck here. We have to make our own way to Zaragoza.’

Adrián’s eyelids crashed closed and he muttered something she suspected wasn’t appropriate for one of the holiest places in European Catholicism. ‘What are we supposed to do?’ he spluttered.

Signor Bonetti piped up. ‘Perhaps you should be pilgrims for the day.’