Chapter Twenty-Four
The two friends from New York, seated at a nearby table on the pretty sunbathed terrace of Hotel Herrera, watch the attractive, if somewhat worn, European lady with barely disguised interest. Why is she on her own, they wonder silently and not so silently, with her continental breakfast untouched, staring at her phone as if it is about to bite her?
With an urgency the couple can only assume has something to do with this same phone, the perturbed woman suddenly rises from the table.
She nods politely, clearly recalling them from last night’s bizarre snub, but without overt embarrassment.
At which they have taken no offence, because life is too short and they have suffered worse slights in their day.
By the time Luisa returns to their bedroom, William has already let himself in. He always insists on at least two keys, even at a B but it can hardly be this that is straining every muscle in his face to breaking-point, nor causing the disquieting look of pure terror in his eyes.
Not after what he has clearly just discovered on her phone.
Her silence appears simply to fuel his panic.
“The book, Luisa! The BOOK!”
She can hardly believe what she is hearing.
“Oh, we talk about books now! The Semana Santa reading group. Then perhaps we move on to the weather. Will it rain very hard this Easter Sunday and stop the processions? Hmm…”
“This novel, Luisa. The paperback. Just answer me!”
She looks around, as if God or someone closely connected might afford her guidance as to why her husband, having only just discovered his cuckolding, should be retreating into the safety of literature. Or at least literary phenomena.
“Do you not remember even this?” she asks, a touch tentatively, as if her next question to him could well be about the name of the current prime minister or the date of his next birthday.
“You are saying to me you are the only person on the planet who has never read this book. Yes? So I buy it for you at the airport. As a present. Jesucristo!”
Now he is simply gawping at her. Dumbstruck. The airport?
Luisa Sutherland does not know, at this critical point in her life and marriage, whether to be scared, sad or angry.
Although she really feels she ought to be at least one of these.
Yet she finds herself opting for the purely practical.
She will simply do her best to ignore the perversity that is being aimed in her direction and accept that it has been a most peculiar couple of days.
“William,” she begins calmly, although she is patently feeling far from calm.
“Now is the time we must talk, yes? And perhaps not about airport books?” Her question doesn’t deflect the manic stare one bit, so she simply continues.
“I know we do not do this so much these days, the talking. But if any time is the right time, with what has happened just yesterday, with what is happening today…”
She leaves it hanging. She really doesn’t need to spell it out in all its tawdry detail, does she? The text that she is now certain he picked up – and, who knows, perhaps somewhere way deep down this was her intent – will have articulated it all too clearly.
He moves towards her at some speed. She manages not to flinch. But he walks straight past her, making for the table in the centre of the room. So she simply carries on, afraid of the sudden silence.
“When did we stop the talking, William? We used to talk so much – WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
He has picked up her handbag.
At this point it would not have totally surprised Luisa Sutherland if her husband of thirty years had temporarily forgotten his gender. She notices with surprise bordering on relief that it is the small photo album that has now attracted his goldfish-like attention.
She can only watch in bemusement as he flicks through the carefully chosen mementos.
Until he hits a happy snap of the two of them so long ago, sitting with Sandy at the Yellow Café.
His old pal’s right arm is draped casually around Lu’s bare shoulders.
This is apparently all the proof William needs.
“He was already coming on to you that night!”
“What night? Who?”
Luisa checks out the photo William is brandishing. And sighs.
“Here? 1995! You crazy? He was with Paloma!” The sigh becomes a groan. “It was Paloma taking the photograph! He has had two wives since this day.”
“Still found time for mine though, didn’t he?” He continues flicking. “Still found time for my fucking wife! Or for fucking my—”
Luisa speaks very softly. She knows that it’s a forlorn hope but she also knows that if she cannot be forgiven she must at least be understood. “Yes, William, this is exactly what he found for me.” She doesn’t wait for him to process this. “Please, will you sit?”
William has no intention of sitting. He is staring at the album. He doesn’t believe he will ever sit again. Perpetual motion is the effect he is going for, as if this will recharge some particular mechanism inside his body and make his suddenly broken-down life function and move on once more.
Luisa sits on the unmade bed. She wonders briefly if she should have hung the no molestar sign on the door. And she recalls how a younger version of the man currently circling around her had hung a similar sign quite effectively from a place for which it wasn’t strictly intended.
“I do not do this to hurt, William.” She ignores the scoff from above.
“You must believe me. No, why should you? It happened. You know this now. Four years ago – you were on another ‘new business’ trip. Two days before your own daughter’s wedding!
Two bloody days! Leaving me to—” She is finding it difficult to breathe, so she slows down, in the hope he will too.
“Sandy he is coming with his gift for her. For them. He could see how sad I was. How sad and angry. And so – alone.”
“And since the Samaritans don’t make house calls…”
“Oh por favor! I am not proud of this. It is not – who I am. Not who I want to be. Sandy, he is still – a good friend. Not more than this.”
“A friend with benefits. A friend who texts – sexts – on ‘second honeymoons’…”
“A friend who listens! Who cares. But where were you, William? Where have you been, for so much of the time?”
William doesn’t even have to think about this. “Working? Supporting us all through a pandemic? Doing a job I hate? I sure wasn’t out screwing your best pal.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “He introduced us, Luisa!”
She gently pats the bed beside her, as she looks at him, but she might as well be doing some housekeeping.
“I had the hopes, William,” she says sadly. “That this place – this week – could make things better. For us. For you and me.” She shakes her head at the sheer futility. “Could perhaps maybe, you know, change something.”
Luisa has no idea if it is these few so very halting words that galvanise William, delivering him in an instant from his angry stupor, or if he is simply on another bizarre trajectory of his own.
Like that weirdness with the book. She hears the drums down below, as they intrude on their painful awkwardness.
And she can only watch while he revolves at some speed, like the little man in shorts on an elaborate Swiss clock, before propelling himself towards the door.
Yet suddenly he stops and takes another glance at the photo album, lying open on the bed.
Hadn’t he noticed something, as he swiftly flicked through it just now.
What was it? Something that surely wasn’t there when she first put the album together, nor even when she tried to show it to him in the restaurant just last night.
Something that is suddenly everything.
“I – won’t be long,” he mumbles.
Because, even now, with his head swirling and a madness in his eyes, he thinks it inappropriate to leave a room without at least saying something.
*
William isn’t surprised to find the lift opening for him. Seeing Pablo inside, spruce and waiting patiently, simply confirms that this really isn’t an ordinary morning.
The descending guest stares straight ahead at the closing door, as he quotes from something he once read on a very educated wall. “‘It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend’.”
The older man reels off some words in Spanish. It sounds like something about the weather. And nothing that indicates the older man is responding to anything that has gone before.
“Aye. That’s as may be, Pablo. But hey, what if it’s not too late? What then? The Senora wants change – I’ll bloody give her change! What do you think?”
But when he looks hopefully at the retainer, all the latter says is, “Manchester United.”