Chapter Forty-Four
As if to reassure William that God is in Seville and all’s right with the world, Pablo is there, waiting inside the open lift. He smiles at William, who manages to produce a small yet quite relieved smile in return, from his rapidly diminishing stock.
To the old man’s surprise, this expensively dressed, professionally tanned and scientifically coiffeured guest suddenly grabs him by the wrist, his seizing-arm weighed down with the most massive gold watch the shocked employee has ever seen.
“Senora Sutherland?” yells William, into the man’s face.
Pablo’s eyes light up and he gives William a grin that is one part envy, one part admiration and a good slug of friendly disapproval. “Ah! Senora Sutherland. Ooh. Bonito!”
“Eh?” says William, confused. Until it registers.
“No. No! Senora! … Senora Luisa! Older – maybe not quite as bon—” He tries to describe Luisa with his hands, in a vaguely geometrical way that Luisa, had she been here, might not find totally flattering.
But then, of course, were Luisa still occupying room 381, he most probably wouldn’t be outside it, clamping onto a poor hotel porter in total desperation, correcting him on the exact dimensions of his wife.
After the confused man has shaken his head a few too many times, William releases him.
“No, of course you haven’t seen her. She’s probably still back in Richmond, or wherever we live these days.
” He presses the lift-button himself. “This isn’t the story I meant to write, Pablo.
Cheating on the poor woman with some perky young – clone.
OMG – how many times have I done this?! And when did I start saying OMG? !”
He catches himself in the mirror that takes up the entire rear of the lift and has to smile. “Mind you, I am bloody successful. Check out the TV in the lobby, pal. When you get the chance.”
*
William knows that he can’t stay away from that steamy hotel bedroom for too long.
It feels like the only place in town where he might be able to figure out what on earth is going on, although he already has a rough idea and it scares the hell out of him.
And there is still a sense, albeit sadly receding, that if he flops onto that comfy bed and falls into the sleep he so desperately needs, he may just wake up to find that this has all been a product of his not-yet-quite-moribund imagination.
Or simply another out-of-body episode in the lunacy that consumes this particular week.
Yet something tells him that if he does actually make the tempting glide between those newly pressed, snowy-white sheets back in habitacion 381, he is not going to be enjoying much sleep.
As he walks past the old cathedral, stern and inscrutable as ever, he looks up once more at the towering La Giralda.
William has no idea why his eyes are constantly drawing him towards this particular monument, with its seamless blend of the Moorish and the Christian.
He simply supposes that this is what landmarks are designed to do or else they wouldn’t take up valuable postcard space.
He recalls that Luisa would often take him to an excellent but not inexpensive restaurant called La Giralda, in the leafy London suburb of Pinner, when she had an atavistic yearning for Spanish food but no desire to brave the West End to sate it. It seems like such a lifetime ago.
He burrows into his hip pocket for his trusty mobile, as he usually does every five minutes, albeit in less tight-fitting trousers, yet this time it is for different and markedly uncommercial reasons.
He is surprised to discover, although by now he really shouldn’t be, that the phone in his newly burnished hand is the fruit of a rather different vine.
He finds himself rather liking the look and the heft of this unfamiliar machine, undoubtedly at the very summit of its range (he’s Willo Sutherland, for God’s sake!), at the same time as he is horrified by it.
Once he has fathomed out its functions, he checks his list of contacts, which is pretty extensive, although none of the names mean a thing at first glance.
Which is not to say he hasn’t actually heard of any of them but the fact they may also have heard of him smacks of new, yet not entirely unflattering, information.
He wonders if this is what schizophrenia or dissociative personality feels like, although he suspects those poor folk don’t dress quite so snappily.
Without thinking, he dials a number he has known for years, which has previously been accessible at the simple touch of a button. A woman answers but he doesn’t recognise the voice.
“Hello?” he says, anxiously. “Who’s that? … Can I speak to Suzy, please? … My PA! … Oh – I must have the wrong… Sorry.”
As he is clearly in a totally different line of work these days, there is no reason in the world why Suzy should still be his loyal PA.
Still, he will miss her. He wonders what she is doing now.
But he doesn’t wonder for long, as he is already checking through the bank of stored photos in his new toy.
He employs his curious, yet increasingly confident game-show producer walk to weave through the distinctly less confused visitors to old Seville.
Most of these are also using their phones for photographic purposes but they probably have at least some knowledge as to what photos they have already taken.
There aren’t actually many pictures on his phone, so he obviously hasn’t become any more interested in photography than he was before.
Luisa is the photographer in the family, he thinks, not without some genuine warmth and pride.
Especially considering he is cheating on her in a major way and the evidence of his deceit is currently riveted to a noisy TV programme, in a language she doesn’t understand, not so many metres from here.
(He feels thankful that his own daughter isn’t involved with a dirty old man like him and wonders why on earth this clearly bright but demonstrably young person in room 381 would be.
Although, let’s be honest, he tells himself – you do have a certain mature, man-of-the-world appeal, Willo. And you’re not that old.)
What does surprise William – along with all the other major shocks to his system – is that he doesn’t actually feel quite as guilty towards Luisa as he reckons he should.
As the William Sutherland he believes he still knows certainly should.
Perhaps contrition is simply sidelined right now by that far more potent driver, revenge, considering her own past dalliance.
Yet even this urge doesn’t appear to be inflaming him with the same red-hot fury as so very recently.
Maybe, he surmises, not unpleasurably, it didn’t even happen this time round.
Or it could simply be that deep down he’s just shallow.
His attention is suddenly captured by a photo that knocks him sideways. Hey, look at this – me with the late, great Michael Jackson! Both of us giving a beaming thumbs-up into the camera.
“Now we are talking!” says William Sutherland, out loud.
When people begin to stare, he feels a curious urge to show them the photo. Who wouldn’t? Yet he wisely resists and simply slips the classy new phone back into his classy new pocket.
Intrigued, yet still some good way from undisturbed, William seeks out what other treasures may be in there, as if it’s some sort of amnesiac lucky dip.
Ooh, car keys – to an Aston Martin! Some white pills in an unlabelled container – no idea what they are, but he should probably keep taking them, and finally, in another pocket of his shiny blouson (who wears blousons?
I do!) a Cuban cigar in its slim, tin tube. So that’s his errand completed.
He feels it’s time to check out his new image once more before he heads back, just in case another change is in progress. A shop window provides him with much to reflect on.
William Sutherland Mark Two still takes him by surprise and still scares him more than a little, even as it slowly begins to impress.
Something deep inside, a thought screaming to be heard within the demented soundscape of his mind, tells him that he really ought to fight off the getting too accustomed to this new and startling biography.
And that, unlike the city where it is happening, this particular mystical blending of the ancient and modern is leading to madness rather than harmony.
The shop window is a riot of hand-painted fans, some clearly very old.
Sensibly displayed wide open, in an array of colours, they proudly reveal their finely detailed craftsmanship.
Not the least interested in decorative fans but drawn by reflective glass, he decides to check his reflection once again.
An attractive woman of around Luisa’s age skips out of the shop with her husband.
She is clasping a brand-new fan in evident delight.
With a jubilant flourish she raises it above her head and makes a jokey, cod-sultry flamenco movement, which causes her husband to laugh and William to feel painfully wistful, although he can’t compute exactly why.
He has to get back to that room. But there is one burning question he must ask on the way.
*
The young receptionist smiles at him as he approaches her desk.
“Room 381,” says William. “The lady I am with—”
“There is a problem, Senor?”
“No, no. Not at all. Do you happen to know her name?”
*
Sooner You Than Me, a sentiment William endorses to the hilt, has finished by the time he returns to the room.
The excitable young woman is looking fresh and lovely, in a bright and very short summery dress, long slim legs tapering down to what seem to William the sort of shoes Luisa might own, only a bit glitzier, attached to heels of a height he knows she would never sport.
Not if she wanted to do a decent walk in a city without aching for days afterwards.
“You took your time,” she says.
“Sorry – Tazmin,” he replies, emphatically. “Had to go to Cuba! Ha!”
“So – what are we going to do today?”
“Er… what would you like to do, Tazmin?”
“Everything!” she declares. “William.”