Circles of Fate (7 page)

“How do you know?”

“I once asked Inez.”

How simple.

“I still don't know how that fellow does it.”

She laughed. “To each his own obsession. Don't worry, Edward. You'll find out.”

“Find out what?”

“Who Pilar's son is and how he earns his money. When you do, tell me. If it's this side of the law, I could do with taking a leaf out of his book. I could do with that sort of money. You were right about the house. It does have hotel possibilities. But the conversion will take quite a bit of money.”

“I know a man who's always interested in an investment prospect. Shall I sound him?”

“Yes, but tentatively. I haven't definitely decided. I might –”

“Might what?”

“Nothing.” She could hardly say, ‘Marry a Spaniard, settle down in a house with a grape-vine growing over the door, keep hens in the back yard, grow fat bearing liquid-eyed, olive-skinned babies'. It wasn't proper to say that to Edward. Not while she was wearing his ring.

After lunch, Anita went upstairs to lie down. A girl of half Spanish origin should take to siesta. But she couldn't sleep. So she got up. She put on her dress, having previously removed it to avoid creasing, and went to ask Edward to come for a walk. She knocked on his door, but got no reply. Obviously he'd gone out. Tiresome man, he would be ready for bed again at ten o'clock tonight. Unlike herself, Edward was one of those heavy, sluggish types who needed his full quota of sleep.

She meandered across the square, chose one of the side streets at random. It led into another square, the
plaza del rey.
Very courageously she went into a bar and ordered coffee, thinking how odd it was to order coffee over a bar counter. A young Spaniard gave her the eye. He wore a red sweater and black pants and his hair curled close to his head. She lowered her lashes at him and looked coy.

“Burnie, burnie, darling. Girls have been raped for less.” The voice, light and feminine, came on a whiff of perfume.

“You speak from experience, of course,” retaliated Anita.

“You're sharp, love. I like that. Hang on while I get my plate of omelette and chips and I'll join you.”

That is how Anita met Cathy Gray.

When she came back they exchanged names. Cathy had set her lunch down on the table, but she made no attempt to tackle it.

“You're real, aren't you?” she said. “You're not a mirage? You can't know what this means to me, being able to talk to someone English, straight out from England. All the people here talk Spanish. It's a dreadful bore.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Anita, warming to her new friend's exuberance.

“Eighteen months. I work for Claude Perryman, the export man. Best job I've had in my life. Easiest hours and if the pay isn't anything to write home about, the living is cheap. But, oh! If you knew how I've longed to hear and see and touch someone or something from the good old U.K.” She looked down at her plate. “I order chips with everything to make me feel at home. But it isn't the same.”

Claude Perryman, thought Anita, wondering how he was taking his wife's death. Poor man. Pushing her sympathy aside, she said: “You really are homesick. Why did you come in the first place?”

“My health. The old bronchial tubes were choked up and if that wasn't enough I was smoking myself into an early grave. Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Wise girl. I've given them up. I'm not sure I haven't bolted the stable door after the horse has gone. I used to prefer a cup of tea and a cigarette to a meal. I didn't so much mind the cough but when I started seeing red spots and green dragons before my eyes, I thought, this is it, Cathy girl!”

“And you stopped, just like that? What will-power!”

Cathy took a furtive right-left look. “Actually no. I cheat occasionally. I want taking in hand by someone male. That's the only stipulation I make. He can be tall or short, young or old, fat or thin.”

“You're incorrigible.”

“No, just hellishly lonely. Hello, Anita. Nice to meet you.”

“Hello, Cathy. Nice to meet you. Look, now that we have met, how about getting together again? This evening?”

“Are you on your own?”

“No, I have a friend back at the hotel.”

Cathy pointed to Anita's ring. “The friend who gave you that?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“No, then. If it's like that, I won't intrude.”

Anita took a deep breath. “It's not like that at all. Do come. By the way, I knew your employer's late wife. I was on Rock Bennett's plane, the one that crash-landed.”

Cathy's eyes widened and darkened. “
That
was dreadful.”

“How is he taking it?”

“He's demented, almost out of his mind. They were a devoted couple, you know.”

Anita frowned. No, she didn't know. They were a couple on the verge of splitting up. When Monica Perryman went to visit her sister, Claude Perryman must have known her state of mind. A woman can't hide that sort of thing, and besides which she had hinted at lots of little quarrels and one massive one. On second thoughts, perhaps he did know and was left with the legacy of knowing he had not made his wife as happy as he might have done. He had been financially capable of making some suitable compromise, surely? This could only increase his agony. Now, Monica Perryman's confidence was more than a secret, it was a sacred trust. She would never let anything slip to hurt him more than he was already hurt. She would never tell.

“I met a rather zany girl this afternoon,” she told Edward later. “She's coming to the hotel for drinks, after dinner. You'll like her” – spoken hopefully, but dubiously.

Amazingly Edward did like her. It must have been the attraction of opposites. Catherine, or Cathy as she said she preferred to be called, was a fireball, with (no pun intended) a Catherine-wheel approach to life. Appropriately enough she had red hair and you were conscious of her all the time, as you would be of a comet or summer lightning or anything bright and explosive. With Cathy it was carnival time all the time. She didn't masquerade as anything she wasn't, but she did wear a mask over her features so that you were never quite sure what she was thinking, or what pain she had suffered. She was in her thirty-sixth year and nature had been kind to her and had drawn only flattering lines on her face, but occasionally there was something undisguisable and hurt in her eyes.

The three of them left the hotel to wander into one of the many bars. Inevitably some friends of Cathy's drifted in and she went over to talk to them. Her absence was utilized in the time-honoured way.

“What do you think of her?” asked Anita.

“She's – different.”

“Edward,” she scolded. “Don't be so cautious. She's absolutely fascinating and you can't take your eyes off her.”

His grin was sheepish, non-committal.

She fingered her ring. “Isn't it time we ended this charade? It was never a proposal in the sense of the word. I think you only wanted to protect me, didn't you, Edward? Well, now I want to protect you. Cathy mustn't get the wrong idea about us.”

“If – and I'm not admitting to anything – the time does come, I'll tell Cathy about us. Perhaps you don't want to wear the ring for reasons of your own?”

“Perhaps I don't.”

“Take it off then. Wear it on the other hand or put it in your handbag. But keep it. It's your ring. It could belong to no other woman. There's a story attached to that ring, which some day I'll tell you.”

“Some day?” She put her hand up to push her hair off her forehead.

“Don't you start spinning intrigues. I can do enough of that on my own. I envy Cathy. She lives slap bang in the middle of today. I vacillate between yesterday and today.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow too.” She giggled. “Just a dizzy blonde, that's me.”

He gave her his stern Edwardian look. “And that, young lady, is your last Bacardi and Coke.”

“Have I missed something?” said Cathy, who chose that moment to return.

“We were just wondering what to do tomorrow,” said Edward. He sounded so smooth and bland that Anita blinked.

“Tomorrow's no problem,” said Cathy, sitting down and resting her pixie chin in her hands. “It is fiesta. You're lucky to be here at this time. It's the island's big day. It starts at half-past four with the bullfight, then there's the procession, dancing in the streets and, of course, fireworks. No fiesta is truly complete without fireworks.”

“It sounds wonderful,” said Anita. She shuddered. “All except the bullfight.”

“You must come to the bullfight,” said Cathy. “It's the highlight of the year. People come from all over, they charter boats and planes especially to see the
corrida de toros.
The other celebrations are just incidental.”

“I couldn't. It's too strong within me, this revulsion. I abhor killing in any form and I think the bullfight is the most vile, the most sadistic method I know. How men, and women for that matter, can condone it never mind applaud –”

“All right,” said Cathy, dryly but sympathetically, “you've made your point. I'm not going to argue with you. I never argue about politics, religion and bullfights and I keep my friends. At least you'll enjoy the procession. Everyone, from the smallest son of the shoemaker to the parish priest, wears fancy dress. Well, perhaps not the parish priest. But anyone who can afford a length of cloth and can sew straight, attends in costume.”

“What's your costume?”

“Well, I shouldn't tell you, but since you'll both be coming with me anyway, I'm going as the Empress Josephine. You must borrow my last year's costume,” she told Anita. “I went as an Arab girl. I wasn't as clever with a needle then, so I wore a simple ankle-length dress, put masses of
koh'l
on my eyes and covered my arms and ankles with slave bangles. Sorry I can't accommodate you,” she said, smiling over Edward's great height. “But you're not my size. I fancy you as Hercules.” It seemed to Anita that she put a slight stress on the first three words of that sentence.

Before they parted they arranged to meet again the next day.

“After the bullfight, then?” said Cathy, looking persuasively at Anita. All to no avail, because Anita nodded firmly and said: “Definitely after.”

“Not after for me,” said Edward. “I don't share Anita's squeamishness. I don't intend to miss the event of the year. I'll pick you up from home, if you tell me where home is, and then after the bullfight we can both collect Anita from the hotel. You two girls can squabble it out where you are going to change.”

“No squabble,” said Cathy. “We'll go back to my place to change. That will save transporting the costumes.” Then she went on to tell them about the family with whom she lived, who wouldn't mind the intrusion at fiesta, or any other time.

That night Anita lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake her. Although her bones were relaxed, her mind remained active. It had been such a surprise-sprung day. How enjoyable it had been to talk with Pilar and gain a clearer insight of her family. She yawned, too sleepy even to feel the chill of foreboding that usually accompanied such thoughts.

Cathy was nice. Edward thought so, too. Would anything develop between them? she wondered.

Her eyes began to close, her fingers slackened their grip on the coarse white sheet.

Too bad of them ... to like ... bullfighting.

Matadors weren't sportsmen, she thought on a last vicious revival of breath. They were bloodthirsty creatures, lacking in finer feelings, who killed for unscrupulous gain.

Cathy sat beside Edward, very conscious of his presence. They had managed to obtain excellent seats, in the shade and near the president of the bull-ring's box.

Usually Cathy was fully taken up with the procession, heralded by a fanfare of trumpets, but this time even the magnificent matadors had to fight to gain her attention. She knew it all off by heart, of course. The officers of the ring came first, mounted and dressed in rich velvets. Behind them walked the beautifully caped matadors, who were the actual killers of the bulls, followed by the banderilleros, and last of all came the picadors, who were also mounted.

The crowd rose to its feet, cheering and clapping in wild elation as the key to the bulls' stall was thrown down.

Now it was the man beside her who melted into insignificance as the ring was cleared of all but the first matador and his team of assistants.

There was a breathless, fear-building moment of waiting, then in rushed the bull in a blur of feet and tail as he pawed up the dust and snorted in suppressed fury. No actor could have made a better entrance. It was magnificent. Frightening. Wonderful.

The assistants made the first passes, fluttering their capes to attract the bull and make him charge, while the matador observed the bull's movements and planned his own stratagem accordingly. Chance must be completely eliminated.

The matador stepped forward and there was a tremendous
Ole
from the crowd. He started off with a right-hand pass and the others, the Veronica, the Mariposa followed in rapid succession. He'd done his preliminary summing-up well, and each pass was flawlessly executed. Man and beast were perfectly matched in technique and bravery.

Unconsciously Cathy sighed an expressive: “Oooh!” as the deadly horns shaved his hip, but his expression registered only scorn because the bull had blundered and missed, and this drew delighted screams from the crowd. He was matador, showman, victor, all rolled into one!

The trumpets blew and the screams heightened to delirium as the matador left the ring and the picadors trotted in on their horses, carrying long lances.

“I always hate this part,” said Cathy, thrusting her hand into Edward's. “I once saw a horse fall and the helpers failed to distract the bull and the horse was badly gored. The picador ran for the barrier, but he was weighted down with his heavy leg armour and didn't make it. It was gruesome.”