Chapter Three
By the time William has settled his bulky laptop back in its bag, alongside his unopened paperback, and locked his phone onto the local network, Luisa is already at the top of the staircase, her upturned face equally locked onto the already scorching Andalusian sun.
Ignoring the smiley platitudes of the crew and blocking egress for a planeload of over-agitated passengers, acting as ever like they’re on the Titanic and the lifeboats are filling, Luisa’s warm eyes slowly close in what anyone observing would recognise as almost cartoon-like bliss.
“Hell’s teeth,” says William, squeezing through to join her. “Feel that bloody heat.”
As this is exactly what she is doing, Luisa sees no need to respond.
Instead she glides down the steps, beaming at the huge sign ahead that says SEViLLA.
She almost wishes she could claw up the burning runway with her elegant hands, like an ancient warrior returning triumphantly home after years in battle.
This time it is she who strolls ahead towards the glistening terminal, raincoat neatly folded into her bag.
The sleeves of her maize-yellow blouse, newly bought to kick-start an optimistic joyfulness barely apparent at the time of purchase, are now briskly rolled up, revealing firm wrists and sturdy forearms in desperate need of warmth.
William has issues with foreign sun. It isn’t that he is totally against it; he has had enough continental holidays over the years to have gradually mellowed and built up some pale-skinned, factor 50 resistance.
Yet he still finds the relentlessness with which it assails its addled victims from a cloudless sky both enervating and tiresome.
And he has forgotten to bring a bloody hat.
At least the terminal itself is beautifully air-conditioned.
He recalls, as he usually does on such occasions, that he once had a client who designed precision air-conditioning systems. So, naturally, he has a professional appreciation.
In fact, rarely does William Sutherland go anywhere or do anything without it summoning up a business he advises, did so in the past or would dearly love to be doing so in the future.
Right now, however, he is more focussed on the speed with which Luisa is making her way through passport control.
He can’t quite see why she is in such a rush.
Baggage takes its own sweet time and he’ll be the one ripping the cases away from the carousel, probably ripping his tricky back in the process.
Luisa has long ago stopped suggesting that they grab a porter, as he would rather endure sciatica than penury.
And, of course, such functionaries are never anywhere to be seen.
When they finally emerge into the packed arrivals hall, William immediately scours the attendees. But a croaky voice right beside him still takes him by surprise.
“Senor Sutherland.”
It is clearly an old voice, yet firm and unwavering.
But what most unsettles William is how its owner has managed in seconds to single him out so definitively from all the other pale and nondescript British travellers streaming into the concourse.
It isn’t like one of his tedious conferences, where dangling lanyards give the name away.
“Aye?” he says suspiciously, turning, along with Luisa, to face the prescient greeter. “Mebbe.” Although, of course, there’s no mebbe about it.
The man – who offers them a warm and crinkly smile, as though they’re already quite well-acquainted – is indeed old, although not perhaps quite as aged as his deeply lined skin, like the grain of an old church pew, might lead observers from a fresher, more temperate clime to presume.
He wears a crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt, a comfortable pair of blue denims above sandalled feet and holds in his strong, calloused hands a card that reads “Hotel Herrera”, the hotel that the kids – at God knows what expense – have generously and unnecessarily booked for them.
Before William can enquire as to how he was picked out so effortlessly from the cohort of equally pallid Englishmen, the elderly man has grabbed both their cases and is wandering jauntily off.
Luisa looks at William and smiles, made proud perhaps by an elderly compatriot’s Herculean energy. William is too busy attempting to snatch back the cases to notice. An unseemly tug-of-war ensues, observed by one and all, which – despite his years – the more practised hotel employee finally wins.
“Aye, okay then,” concedes William, with disgruntled magnanimity. “Gracias, Senor.”
He watches as the nameless retainer strolls away, accompanied this time by Luisa. She is already chatting to him in their unnecessarily loud and rapid native tongue.
“I’m William,” mutters the empty-handed Scot, wearing his laptop bag and his abandonment. “My – senora, Luisa. Special occasion. Let the celebrations begin!”
*
The comfortable rear seat of Hotel Herrera’s magenta Fiat minivan suits William just fine.
Luisa, who doesn’t want to make the aged Spaniard feel like a driver, although this is of course exactly what he is or he wouldn’t be driving, has plumped for the passenger seat up front.
William notices that the two new pals haven’t paused for breath since they met, but has no idea what they’re jabbering about.
Actually, he doesn’t really care, as he is on the phone to his PA before they are even out of the crowded car park.
He is also smoking, which he suspects breaks all sorts of Andalusian ordinances.
If he doesn’t exactly crave a cigarette now, he is enjoying one in anticipation of all those he will most definitely crave, but may not be permitted, as this holiest of weeks progresses.
And, as an optional extra, it really pisses off Luisa.
What he doesn’t do is pay the least attention to all the distinctly un-British stuff carrying on right outside his dusty window.
The stuff that most newly arrived visitors embrace with a glee totally disproportionate to the actual content – a single palm tree, some excitable arm-waving locals, left-hand drives.
This would be to concede that he is on holiday and not just working from van.
“Uh huh. Did Sandy get back to… Yes, the sun is shining. Very hot. The frying-pan of Europe, apparently. Do you have that number, Suzy? I really need that number.” To anyone else he might already sound like the heat is getting to him.
To Luisa, were she even bothering to listen, it would just be normal William-temperature.
“Zero three five… Aye, really pretty, gorgeous… Seven two… And historical. If we ever get out of this bloody traffic…”
He opens the window, then swiftly closes it, as the heat roars in.
“…Four eight – No, no oranges yet… I know that Seville is famous for… and barbers, but I won’t be needing one of them either…
three six two… If I could just get to see this guy while we’re here, Suzy – it’d make the whole bloody trip worthwhile. ”
The jabbering in the front seat stops.
Luisa, who has been doing the lion’s share of it, looks round at William and glares.
From her handbag, she slides out a compact but clearly expensive camera, the camera of someone who most probably knows what she’s doing.
William knows what she’s doing. His spouse of thirty years is telling him she’s going to have a bloody good second honeymoon, regardless of who she is having it with.
She begins to take photos of everything around her, even though Seville – or at least the Seville for which they apparently came – hasn’t really begun.
All he can see are relatively old but as yet undistinguished buildings, huddled together in the heat; people doing what people do everywhere, only more noisily; small family cars carrying anything but small families.
“Can’t you go down a side road, Senor – please – por favor?” says William, who has already had quite enough of sluggish, Southern European traffic. “Diversione!” he hazards, his Spanish still consisting mainly of English words pronounced wrongly and loud.
“Sí, sí,” says the driver, taking no notice.
Luisa continues her homeland conversation. “My husband is forever in a hurry. He always wishes he is somewhere else.”
“And you,” asks the driver, whose name she now knows is Pablo, “what do you wish?”
She turns to look at the old man. Caught out by the pointed question from this timeless-looking stranger with the half-closed, yet somehow bottomless, grey eyes.
“What are you saying? Luisa?” demands her husband, who, whilst never over-keen on being involved in conversation, can still feel quite marginalised when left out of one.
“I say you should not smoke.” He can hear the smile that in good times is so much a part of her voice and knows she is saying no such thing.
But, before he can challenge her, if he can even be bothered, the smile grows louder and considerably less wry.
“You know, William, when I come back to this place, it feels like the time has stood still.”
William glares at the long line of cars in the rippling heat.
“Feels like every bloody thing’s stood still,” he says. “Except the exchange rate.”