A Wedding in the Sun

Chapter 7

‘Did you sleep at all?’

Jo’s pity was something else he couldn’t take that morning. He’d been up since six phoning the airports in Lourdes and Zaragoza and Gatwick and the central customer service number for the airline. None of them had been able to tell him anything, although the man from the airline had promised to do some more searching and call him back.

One thing was certain: the guitar wasn’t in Zaragoza. It was nine o’clock and they were outside the hotel with the Godspeed bikers, who were packing their saddle bags for the journey over the Pyrenees to a soundtrack of distant thunder and a backdrop of billowing clouds.

‘I slept,’ he lied. He’d probably had a few hours, but he’d rolled around a lot, his mind turning over with thoughts of the wedding, the guitar and Jo in the little shorts she’d bought to sleep in.

When that lock of blonde hair fell over her forehead, he wanted to smooth it away – and then cup her cheek and brush his thumb over the ring in her nose and maybe kiss her until her eyes glazed over. He should have been more surprised by how much he liked Joanna Watters, but he wasn’t.

Although perhaps it wouldn’t have been so clear to him how much he liked her if it wasn’t also self-evident that nothing was going to happen between them. On the way to the nuptials of their exes, where their thoughts were consumed with the wellbeing of their children or the impending wedding from hell, it was enough of a miracle they’d developed such camaraderie – perhaps thanks to Our Lady of Lourdes. He didn’t think the saints were concerned with whether he would get to kiss her or not.

The miracle they should be praying for was to stay dry as far as Zaragoza – and hopefully find his guitar when they arrived.

‘I’m not quite sure how we will fit your bag, but I have some of these.’ Georg held up a few bungee cords that didn’t fill Adrián with confidence. At least Georg and Claudia and their gang had located some extra helmets. It had been no trouble, apparently, with so many biker-pilgrims in town. They’d also produced spare jackets with protective panels and Adrián was sweltering in his already.

Adrián had ridden a motorbike throughout music school in Madrid and Seville, although the engine of his had puttered rather than roared and he’d rarely been a passenger, but he swallowed his own nervousness for Jo’s sake. Her frown grew deeper and deeper as she stowed her crumpled suit bag in one of Claudia’s storage boxes. Her small rucksack seemed the more sensible option today, even though it had meant buying emergency clothes.

‘This will be one of the most beautiful rides of my life,’ Georg said cheerfully as Adrián climbed on between the German motorcyclist and the trolley bag strapped to the back.

That part was definitely true, as they followed the river out of Lourdes, rumbling through a valley with views of wooded hills and the occasional glimpse of the taller mountains. After several towns that were little more than a cluster of houses with pitched roofs and pale blue shutters, plus a small grocer and a grand town hall, the road opened out before them and straight ahead rose the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees.

Buildings were sparse along the road; a handful of camping grounds, a chapel or two and a café and souvenir shop by a dark turquoise lake. It was a route full of soothing scenery – until the road narrowed and started to climb. The small group of motorbikes zoomed along the winding trail through a narrow valley, sometimes with a dramatic rock face on one side and a drop-off on the other. Stony crags ranged overhead, ominous under the grey sky.

The first set of hairpin curves made Adrián’s stomach lurch and he hated to think how Jo was feeling. A drop of rain landed on his thigh. Due to late spring snow, there was still a dusting on the summits up ahead and he fought against a sense of doom that probably had more to do with their imminent arrival in Zaragoza than their slow progress into the mountains.

Did he even want to arrive? He needed to get to Oscar, but the day stuck in Lourdes had been a blessing. Perhaps this journey through the mountains would turn out to be too.

He almost believed his own reassurances when the sun briefly broke through the swelling clouds as they passed another lake, this one alpine aqua with forested slopes rising behind and a bright green meadow above. Soon after, they pulled into a little restaurant in a rustic chalet-style cabin for an early lunch. There was an inviting trail head nearby and the sound of the river rushing over the rocks. The temperature at that altitude was several degrees cooler than in the sweltering Lourdes and Adrián was glad of the motorcycle jacket.

Jo stumbled as she dismounted and she let him take her arm for a moment while she shook feeling back into her wobbly legs. She struggled with the fastening of her helmet and consented with a grunt when he offered to help. As he fumbled with the strap, she swallowed and he remembered how vulnerable she’d sounded the night before talking about Ben. Her ex-husband had obviously hurt her badly and there was another feeling he’d have to hide when they arrived: protectiveness, maybe a hint of jealousy.

When he tugged her helmet off and her hair fell around her face in limp waves, her eyes wide, he wondered for a moment whether she’d let him gather her into his arms. But she drew away with a deep sigh, glancing around the valley, her eyes fixing on the snowy slabs of rock up in the mountains ahead.

‘Please tell me we’re halfway there,’ she said, her voice quavering.

‘Not quite, but we’ll be in Spain soon. Welcome home, hmm?’ Georg said with a smile for Adrián. ‘But first, our last French meal.’

The interior of the chalet restaurant was even more charming than the log-cabin exterior. One wall was packed full of local products for sale: jam and pickles, honey, wild tea and little tins of paté. Untreated logs formed the internal walls while curtains in rich fabrics, embroidered with patterns, provided accents in red and blue and white. Add in the scent of coffee and Adrián thought he’d gone to heaven.

‘Do you think they’ll let me live here?’ he murmured to Jo.

‘You’d play the guitar for the cows every night to earn your board?’ she joked in reply. He shared her grin, glad she seemed to be recovering.

As they lingered over enormous omelettes, a charcuterie board, fresh salad and then blueberry tartes and coffee, Adrián pushed away the sense of impending misfortune that intruded continually. It was a lovely meal in a beautiful location, with excellent company. In a little over two hours, he’d be reunited with Oscar. The sun was?—

Actually, the sun had completely disappeared. When they returned to the bikes, the clouds felt close enough to touch and looked heavy with gloom. Georg assured them there wasn’t much rain forecast and Adrián tuned out his thoughts about the unpredictability of the weather in the high mountains.

They pulled away from the restaurant as the first fat drops fell. Georg brought up the rear, trailing the rest of the group through little half-tunnels that protected the road from rockfalls, alongside a babbling stream, ever closer to the snow-caps and the mountain pass that would take them into Spain.

The landscape was wild and open, the peaks foreboding, especially when the cloud filled the valley with mist. The spatter of rain on his trousers grew stronger. A flash of lightning ripped through the sky without warning and Adrián flinched, wobbling the bike. A storm in the mountains was something to be taken seriously, but what could they do aside from keep going to reach the next town?

Slowing down, the motorcycles wound through the mist and the rain, their headlamps sending glowing rays ahead, illuminating the rocks and trees and one lone pony taking shelter in a thicket by a waterfall. Time slowed down for Adrián, his focus limited to the light and dark of the dim afternoon, the tipping motorcycle and the patter of rain on his helmet. It would have been better to stay in Lourdes or take the ten-hour train connection via Toulouse and Barcelona, even if it cost a week’s salary.

Whatever happened to that blessing from Our Lady?

He’d barely finished that sour thought when a sudden bang and a lurch of the bike ripped him out of his complacency. Georg swerved with a shout and shock sliced through Adrián. Too fast for him to have any idea what was happening, he sensed only movement – whooshing in his ears, falling, a distant crunch, panic rising in his throat. And then only pain – so much pain.

‘What?’ he mumbled, but his own voice sounded distant. ‘Oscar… guitar… Jo?’ His mind was listing, his thoughts slippery, but he held onto that last word. Jo… She was somewhere in the present. He needed to stay in the present, not in the past with Mónica or the future with Oscar – the present.

Stay… conscious. Jo is here.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ he heard distantly. He felt as though a bubble had swallowed him and struggled against the fastening pulling tight under his chin. He could only move one arm, but the other managed to wrench the bubble away, to be replaced by cool hands on his head. ‘Shhhh. Stay still. I’ve got you.’

The world began to come back into focus: the rain on his face, the dark sky above him, something hard and scratchy under him. He groaned, even the feel of gentle fingers in his hair not enough to banish the hazy black at the edge of his vision. ‘It hurts!’