Chapter Forty-Nine
By the time they have crossed the good old Puente de Isabel II into Triana, Luisa has her high-heeled slingbacks in her hand and an expression of total disbelief on her face.
“Usually when I do marathons I wear the proper shoes,” she moans.
“I never think of you doing marathons.”
“I never think of you at all.”
William realises that he is taking a massive risk in bringing this new Luisa here.
But he is pretty certain that the young couple are by now happily settled into their own special café, lingering for hours over the single drink they can afford, until urges that are even less costly nudge them lyrically onwards.
He knows instinctively that here is the one place – the only place – he should be with this particular Luisa right now.
The ornate gates are closed but not locked.
Through them he can see, with some relief, that the small courtyard is deserted.
The only sounds are those of the ever-trickling fountain and the festivities far away.
Smiling at the bemused and weary woman sighing beside him, he pushes open the familiar portals of Hostal Esmeralda yet again and beckons her to join him.
“What is this place?” she asks, following him through the gate without much enthusiasm. “Why do you bring me all the way across the bridge to here, William?”
He looks around the courtyard, although by now he reckons he knows every plant and tile, then turns back to confront an expression of utter bewilderment. “Oh. Well. It’s just – pretty,” he hazards. “Don’t you think it’s pretty, Luisa?”
She is not indifferent to beauty but she clearly doesn’t feel she has to tramp across entire cities at unearthly hours to find it. He slumps down on the narrow rim of the fountain, sensing the tiny splashes of water on his hands and the chill of her disdainful shrug.
Luisa Montero of Madrid is clearly not going to work with him on this.
“I think I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life,” he confesses.
“The hair?”
“Worse.”
The woman has no idea what he is talking about.
Nor, William suspects, has she the least interest in finding out.
Yet she does at least walk gracefully towards the fountain, on those small, bare feet he still finds so attractive, even with their vivid turquoise toenails glistening under the twinkly, courtyard lights.
She settles herself comfortably on the cool marble rim, albeit some distance away from him.
For a while they say nothing: Luisa because she is most probably waiting for him to elaborate, William because he finds he has nothing much else to say and sees even less point in saying it.
Suddenly – and it is as if he watches himself doing this, from some distant spiritual or perhaps not so spiritual plane – he moves closer to her.
Very gently he lays his arm around her shoulders, his trembling fingers lightly brushing the skin where her soft red shawl has slipped down.
The feel of her is so familiar, yet he can’t actually remember when he last did this, when he last touched her with such affectionate intimacy. And indeed love.
How curious. This old sensation, with this new person.
Unfortunately the shock of an unbidden advance from a virtual stranger, however affectionate, almost sends Luisa into the fountain.
Yet even as she hurriedly rebalances herself, William believes – perhaps just for one brief, glorious moment – that he can sense her hesitation.
But, of course, he may be wrong, as she swiftly follows it up by drawing herself firmly away, pulling up her shawl and shoving him off with such force that he has to prevent himself from toppling over the edge.
“What do you think you are doing? William! How do you believe that you have this right? After twenty-eight years!”
“Seems like yesterday,” he says weakly.
“Oh, por favor!”
William Sutherland reckons that he has never felt more hopeless and utterly lost than he does right now. Sitting beside this shocked, angry and totally perplexed person whom he knows so well, he realises with a sudden start that he clearly doesn’t know her at all.
Is this what I’ve become, he wonders. And is this how I’m destined to remain – embracer of strangers, seducer of young women? A person abundant in hair and bling but utterly lacking in self-respect?
He looks at the woman. She is rubbing her weary feet and gazing anywhere but at him. If, for just one moment, Luisa, he tortures himself, you could remember what we once had, while I can still recall how much I have lost.
And then it strikes him.
The last and probably most futile gesture of a dying man. And a sudden memory he thought he had quite forgotten.
He leaps up from his perch by the fountain and rushes over to the nearest orange tree.
Reaching up as high as he can, he selects the largest, juiciest orange he is able to liberate, noticing again that he no longer appears to have a back problem.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he aims his open mouth towards the glistening fruit and takes a giant bite.
But this time he relishes it, bravely allowing its jolting sharpness to play tricks on his unsuspecting taste buds, as the guileful juice slithers between his teeth and out of his mouth.
“Mmmmm! Tart,” he says, bravely relishing it. “Not you. I mean—”
She looks at the man as if he is totally insane.
For which he can’t honestly blame her, as he suspects she may well be right. With a sadness that tastes more bitter than any dubious orange, he gulps down the remainder of his mouthful, concluding the fruitless gesture.
He is still gazing hopelessly at her uncomprehending face as it slowly changes.
Her glance rests first on him as he deals manfully with his impromptu snack. Gradually it ascends to the small, first-floor bedroom, now shuttered and unlit. After a few interminable seconds she turns to him, with a softness he knows he will never forget. A recognition that almost breaks his heart.
And he gives a nod.
For a moment neither speaks, lost in their own thoughts and memories. But William is not totally bereft of reason. He knows that it cannot last.
“I suppose we should be getting back to the hotel,” he says.
She nods, still looking at him. “Yes. It is very late, isn’t it?”
They stroll once again through the open gates and towards the ancient bridge.
Uncomplicated sounds of people enjoying the tail ends of their evening echo from the banks.
William and Luisa walk a few feet apart.
But very gradually – almost despite themselves – they find that they are both moving just that bit closer.
As the timeless and uncomprehending river flows beneath their feet.
*
The night receptionist is watching the TV on the wall behind his head, next to an array of clocks showing the current time in a random selection of countries.
Another Sooner You Than Me beams out, compensating for its lack of volume with an unsubtle barrage of colours.
William can’t help but be quietly impressed.
“That programme!” says Luisa. “They are showing it all of the time.” He smiles but remains sensibly quiet. “You and I should be on it.”
“I’m sorry?”
Luisa walks towards the lift but doesn’t say anything more until they are travelling up to their floor.
“They find the couples who are doing the splitting up – yes?” He nods as new memories that don’t totally thrill him come rolling in through the fog.
“And they must each help with the choosing of the next partner, sí. For the other one!” He watches her, as she rolls her eyes. “What sort of a horrible mind—?”
He shakes his head in utter disgust as the lift releases them and they walk slowly to their adjoining doors. When she stops at number 383, he remains beside her, looking both desperate and quietly hopeful. The empty ice bucket is still there.
“Luisa—”
Before he can complete a thought that hasn’t quite formulated in his fuzzy head, the door to number 381 opens. The extremely pale and seriously angry countenance of Tazmin Whatserface glares out, like a gargoyle from the cathedral. William immediately picks up the ice bucket.
“Where did you go for it – the North fucking Pole?!”
Luisa appears to recoil, taken aback by the anger or perhaps simply by Tazmin. The considerably younger woman stares disdainfully back.
“Ah,” says William, loudly yet pathetically. “Er – Tamzin…”
“Close but no Cuban cigar! I’ve got the Spanish shits and yes, it looks like the biggest one is right here with me.” She glares at Luisa, who can’t hide the tiny smile on her face.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Me? I am nobody.”
“Well, stop staring!”
“Taz-min, sorry – guess what? This is my ex-wife!” William announces it with a smile, as if Tazmin is bound to relish this happy coincidence as much as the next abandoned mistress. “She’s staying right next door! What are the chances, eh?”
“YOUR EX-WIFE!! Did I die and wake up in a seventies sitcom?”
William has a feeling that nothing he could possibly say would improve the situation in any meaningful way. He looks helplessly to his newly discovered ex.
“It is like your programme, William,” she says. “But would I choose you – Tazmin? Sí, perhaps I might.”
He is still staring open-mouthed at Luisa, as she smiles and slips quietly into her room.
“And you left me alone – for that!”
He turns back angrily to the wronged yet patently wrong woman. “That, Tazmin, is someone I’ve loved and lost. Twice.”
“Eeughh!” says Tazmin, unimpressed. “Well, not to worry.” She segues into what he immediately recognises as gameshow mode and most probably one of his. “Congratulations, Mr Sutherland of Virginia Water. It’s your turn to play Second Chance!”
She slams the door so violently that William can feel the aftershock through his hair weave. He remains staring at his own barred room and then at the equally impenetrable one beside it.
A squeak of wheels finally draws his attention away.
Pablo approaches, pushing a large, room service trolley. The old man just nods to William, as if he has seen it all before, although William doubts that in this case he has.
“Couldn’t put a pillow on that, pal?” asks William.
“Manchester United,” says Pablo, with sad yet now almost welcome inevitability.