Chapter Sixty-Two
The Hotel Herrera buzzes with the sounds of Monday morning goodbyes.
A discerning ear might pick up the nobly restrained sighs of relief from the staff, particularly those behind the reception desk, weary from a week of impossible demands (“Can the processions come nearer to the hotel?”) and an unholy ignorance about the host country (“Where can I buy a sombrero?”).
Tired too of the casual waves and cries of “hasta la vista, baby!” that so many visitors think is incredibly witty, its originality curiously building on repetition.
As suitcases crammed with half of Seville rumble precariously away on unprepared wheels.
The casual observer might suspect that Marilyn and Shelby would be included in the Herrera staff’s yearn-to-hit list, but the truth is that everyone adores them and is sad to see them go.
Perhaps a generosity of spirit transcends boundaries or maybe people whose lives are possibly far from easy recognise kindred spirits beneath the bling and the bounce.
So, whilst cries of “Next year – Yom Kippur in the Vatican!” and “Purim in Mecca!” aren’t instantly accessible, the staff are happy to share in the joke, as the contented lovers from another faith and continent make their farewells.
Three floors higher, the man referred to by his more perceptive guests as “the ubiquitous Pablo” is proving he’s not as ubiquitous as all that, by being in just the one place.
He’s strolling down the corridor, whistling a tune from his childhood and nodding to his various charges as they trundle contentedly away.
He drums out a brusque knuckle-roll on the door of number 381.
William hears it like a klaxon through the more calming sounds of his sleep and wakes up in a panic. He is immediately aware of smoothly soft legs, as they become even more tightly entangled around him.
The sleepy Sutherlands struggle to separate their conjoined bodies, like two people disengaging after a heady yet still exploratory one-night stand. They turn to face each other, breath catching breath, and somehow, quite suddenly, they feel at home,
Only, of course, they’re not. They’re well over a thousand miles away and their plane leaves in just a few short hours.
“Oh my God!” cries William, as if he has just discovered a corpse in his bed and has no memory of the night before. “We’ve slept in! I never ever—”
“Was it not worth it?” His sleeping partner smiles, in no hurry to leave.
He considers this. “Beats dancing.” He kisses her lips softly, then taps her warm shoulder with businesslike efficiency. “Come on, old girl! Time and tide.”
Although she has no idea what tide has to do with it, Luisa Sutherland lies back languorously, almost coquettishly, a mischievous smile on her face. “I thought we had another thirty years… Willy.”
She sighs pleasantly and at some volume.
He realises how appealing he still finds this.
Why did he ever consider it irritating? William knows that there will be times in the future when he will find it intensely so, as indeed she will find his own trivial idiosyncrasies, but he’s not going to mull on it right now.
This moment is all that matters. For the moment.
He starts to get up, avoiding his naked reflection in the full-length mirror, one of those mirrors Luisa always demands or at least hopes for in a hotel room and which he would far prefer omitted from the inventory.
But then he does sneak a look and is not altogether repelled.
Not after last night. And not after the memories of that long-ago honeymoon, which are floating back with increased definition, like one of Luisa’s old cameras pulling focus, and in which he could consider himself a contender.
After all, he satisfied a beautiful woman, didn’t he?
And looking through his glasses at the contented face a few feet away from his own, now even more sharply defined, he reckons he might just have played a blinder once again.
The room phone rings. William stares at Luisa, as anxiety shoots back through his stomach and into his throat like bile. He stretches over to lift the receiver, although he is pretty sure that he doesn’t want to.
They both know who it will be.
“He ask me last night if you are going to hit him again,” says Luisa.
“Didn’t work the first time,” he responds, not wanting to contemplate this nor whatever else he has “rearranged” on this brief but epic visit. No doubt there will be more than broken noses awaiting him on his return home and not all of the alterations external.
He picks up the phone and shouts into it: “And the Willy ye know’s come back again!”
Setting the phone down again, he smiles contentedly at Luisa. Who sighs.
*
When old Pablo grabs his heavy cases from him, just beyond the revolving doors, and hurls them into the boot of the hotel minivan, William Sutherland feels just as guilty as he did a few days earlier.
Yet he can’t say he is totally unrelieved, as his back is no better than it was on his arrival.
If only that bit of his alternate reality could have remained with him, he thinks, wishing that he could have asked his other self for the name of his chiropractor.
Another employee is moving into the driver’s seat. Clearly Pablo isn’t accompanying them this time. William is fine with this, as he would quite like to talk to his wife on the journey home, rather than share her with a chatty compatriot. The two of them have a lot to catch up on.
Yet, even once the cases are loaded, Pablo lingers.
Like an ageing dog, thinks William, waiting for a treat.
He grabs a clutch of euros from his wallet and is about to stuff the lot into the old man’s hand when reason intervenes and he restores half to his empty pocket.
No point in being stupid about it; he’s not a TV producer any more.
He swiftly persuades himself that an excess of generosity might almost be insulting.
“Gracias, Pablo,” he says, before realising that he genuinely means it.
“No problem, Senor,” beams Pablo, deftly pocketing the cash. “Have the safe journey home. Give my regards to United. ‘We are the champ—’”
“Aye – okay. Enough now.”
Luisa kisses Pablo with warmth and a real affection. As he watches her, an emotion William has begun to rediscover this fateful trip surges up from nowhere once again and catches him unaware. A genuine pride in his wife.
Well, that’s it, he thinks, moving on. Hasta la vista, Pablo.
William helps Luisa into the rear of the minivan, then turns for a final moment to watch the old guy amble away, happily counting his tip.
William Sutherland won’t ever quite believe this and it is most probably a trick of his reeling mind, which is naturally still in some turmoil after recent events.
Yet he is almost convinced that, just for a moment, on this surprisingly ordinary Monday morning in the crown jewel of Andalusia, he sees the slightly bent, elderly man from the hotel suddenly stand straighter and taller, look up towards the cloudless sky and transform into someone different.
The handyman from Hostal Esmeralda.
Just for a second.
Almost as if that stocky, taciturn, burnished man of mischief has somehow been looking out for them all these years, just waiting for them to return. But no, of course, this is fanciful. How can one man be two? Stay the same age, yet – wizen. It would take a miracle.
And the next time William blinks, it is just old Pablo there. Still counting.