Chapter Forty-Two
William Sutherland has never been so scared in his life.
He had assumed that the whisky would calm his nerves.
Or, if this didn’t quite work, the second or third shot, along with those disgusting cigarettes, might just dull the edges.
Yet, if he had to describe himself at this moment, the words “intensely sober” would spring to mind.
A descriptor he has not hitherto found necessary nor the least bit useful.
There is something in the air and this time it isn’t the Ducados.
The sky is as relentlessly blue and cloudless as ever, the Andalusian sun scorching believers and apostates alike, yet he can sense within the outward calm a definite trembling.
It is as if the world is gearing up for something, or a vigorous storm is due, but he knows that this is more of a British thing, where it seems you can’t have three days of fierce and clammy heat without the heavens getting all overwhelmed and teary.
Yet the universe does appear disturbingly askew right now, unsettled, an elemental mirroring of how he himself feels inside.
Or perhaps, in his arrogance, he is simply globalising his own, small-scale but intensely real panic.
William is almost relieved to see the familiar purple minivan parked outside the hotel as he begins his walk up the pebbled drive.
His old pal Pablo is there too, gently ushering in the latest visitor, hefting her expensively smart leather case with the spryness of a man half his age.
He notices William and waves in recognition.
William feels inordinately pleased to see the old guy, although if he mentions Manchester United one more time he may just rip his lungs out.
This new guest looks rather elegant, he thinks, even from the back, as a set of well-manicured fingers dip crisply into a large and expensively soft, leather bag.
She is not young: her clothes are too smart and timeless.
Yet she is clearly fit and agile, the firm muscles in her tanned legs made more striking by the height of her heels, as she takes the steps to the door with a noticeable briskness.
Here is someone who obviously looks after herself, he reckons, because she clearly feels she is worth looking after. And who, judging by the instantly deferential look on the doorman, expects others to do the same.
As she disappears, this person who seems so at ease and at home, in a way he recognises he seldom is, William finds himself remaining in the courtyard, almost paralysed with anxiety.
Is the Luisa Sutherland he will very soon encounter going to be unchanged – when he turns up again, after so many hours, in their ‘second honeymoon suite’?
Or have her memories (and his too, presumably), alongside their histories and their lives, been irrevocably altered by today’s not so subtle nudges.
Transmuted by what he might just possibly have caused to come to pass thirty long years ago.
His head is reeling too much to ascertain what is really going on inside there. Or to consider any possible ramifications.
Perhaps, he thinks, he should simply prepare himself for one suitcase less, in a suddenly stark hotel room formerly occupied by a wife who, not unreasonably, grew tired of waiting.
She could be on her way to the airport right now, for all he knows, with that same angry cabbie. To be met just a few hours later by her duplicitous, crooked-nosed, smooth-talking lover. And, indeed, how could he blame her?
Or perhaps not. If all has gone according to what he could hyperbolically term a plan.
He suddenly feels an alarming, almost sexual rush of excitement, as it surges with terrifying speed, like an electric charge, through his veins.
An oddly primal yet curiously illicit thrill rattles his frame, energising yet disturbing, like nothing he has ever experienced.
His heart begins to thump, his breathing becomes more rapid.
Sweat forms on his brow, as a fiery contest between overweening ego and genuine apprehension starts to play itself out in his head.
Then, just as swiftly, the ‘symptoms’ recede.
What the hell?
Not for the first time this week, William Sutherland wonders whether he is slowly going insane.
*
The room is pleasantly dark as William opens the door.
He is not surprised to find the shutters drawn on such a dazzling day. The sounds of the nearby shower in full flow are comfortingly reassuring.
Closing the door, he calls into the bathroom. “Only me!”
The shower finishes and a few seconds later the bathroom door opens.
Into the bedroom steps a shapely young woman, naked save for the large bath-towel she is draping casually around her head. Back-lit to perfection, she skips lightly on damp and immaculately pedicured bare feet to the shutters and sends them flying open.
“Hi, babe,” she says, smiling over her shoulder at William. “Get those extra pillows?”