No Place in the Sun (8 page)

‘Senor Murphy, I am Juan, come with me please.’ He led the way to the car park where the small Seat was parked, two wheels on the pavement. The formalities were completed on the bonnet of the car, rubbing the credit card docket with the cap of a pen to make the imprint, no fancy zip-zap machine here. Tom felt like he was on familiar ground, this operation reminded him of City Auto.

Juan went to the pay machine and paid the parking ticket, wished him a buen viaje, and he was on his way. Walter had written out the directions, and he glanced at the sheet on the passenger seat. Through the roundabout, ok, then pass the brewery, that must be it on the right, you could smell the hops, then join the highway. So far so good.

Hard to go wrong with these directions, right at the BMW dealership and join the motorway, then stay on it all the way. ‘Keep the sea on your left’ Walter had said, ‘and you can’t get lost.’

Tom had never seen such a clear sky; not a single cloud marked the perfect expanse of dark blue. The Mediterranean glittered like a blue mirror that had been sprinkled with a million diamonds, and Tom felt his spirits lift. He was here in this sunny paradise, money in his pocket and the sun shining. How much better could it get? The road ran parallel to the coast, uphill from the string of holiday resorts that seemed to merge into each other along the shoreline. For the first time since the call from Kevin, he felt a lightness in his heart, a feeling of being on holiday and the excitement of being in a new and different place.

The highway split in two, one branch going towards the coast and a toll road that bypassed all the towns. He kept on the tolled branch as Walter had told him, and followed the road that cut through the mountains and lost sight of the coast. He paid the toll and kept his eye out for the exit that Walter had told him to take. Avoid the next toll road, keep right and through the tunnel, follow the signs for San Pedro.

There it was, the road split and the tunnel went under the highway, just as he had described. He switched on the lights as he drove into the gloom, blinking in the glare as he emerged again into the bright sunlight. Second exit after the casino, there it is on the right, so far so good. He talked himself through the directions Walter had given him. Fair play to old Walter, knows his way here all right, there’s the office.

The young woman was gorgeous, something about Spanish women with their sallow skin and the natural suntan.

‘Hola, Senor Murphy. I am Carmen, follow me please.’

Tom followed behind the girl with her jangling keys. What a stunner; I wonder are they all like her? I’d follow her anywhere.

Carmen opened the gate and led him through a garden with a blue swimming pool, then selected a key from the bunch to enter a clean marble corridor that led to the lift. He was conscious of her attractiveness, tried to avoid looking directly at her but it was difficult to avoid the view of her slender figure with the mirrored sides of the lift. She caught his eye in the mirror and flashed a winning smile at him.

‘We get a lot of Irish here, they like Puerto Banus. You have stayed here before, no?’

‘No, I have never been here before, first time in this area or in Spain at all actually.’

‘I hope you enjoy very much your stay.’ She opened the door to the small apartment and showed him where everything was. He loved the way she pronounced English words, with a slight lisp that was very appealing. She made ‘enjoy’ sound like ‘enhoy’; he could listen to her all day.

He started to call Walter’s number, then remembered to add the country code and dialled again. Walter answered on the first ring.

‘You got there all right so?’

‘Thanks, found it no problem, great directions.’

‘How do you like the apartment?’

‘Looks good, not expensive either, I expected somewhere a lot more slummy for that money but it’s actually brilliant.’

‘They do good deals this time of year; we stayed there a few times, love the place. It’s handy for the port too, and the shops are close by, just go out the front and turn left, then cross under the main road at the casino, you can’t miss it.’

‘Walter, I really appreciate this; thanks for all your help. I won’t forget it.’

‘That’s what friends are for, anyway I feel a bit guilty; I introduced you to Kevin in the first place.’

‘Not your fault, I reckon it will all work out well, I have a good feeling about it.’

‘Mind yourself, Tom, keep in touch.’

‘I will. Thanks again.’

The evening was warm, just weather for shirt sleeves still. Tom closed the gate and walked down to the main road, turning left as Walter had described. The traffic was heavy, not too safe to cross by the look of it, and he walked back towards the casino. There was no sign of an underpass and he was considering making a dash across the dual carriageway, but the security man at the front of the casino motioned him to the tunnel entrance, hidden in the shrubbery just inside the gates. Nice friendly people, he thought to himself, I’m starting to like it here.

The underpass was a clean white pedestrian tunnel that brought him into an upmarket residential area; large marble floored apartment buildings with doormen and a few fashionable clubs and restaurants. This looked like a hangout for the rich and famous, the place had the unmistakable stamp of wealth about it.

Puerto Banus was spectacular; a large yacht harbour had been created in the sheltered water that was enclosed by a long breakwater that curved around in a semicircle to end at a stone lighthouse. Every berth seemed to be occupied, with some serious pieces of the shipwright’s art moored along the quay wall. Tom had never seen such boats; these were floating palaces, most locked up but a few with groups of people sitting on deck, enjoying drinks or tucking into food. The parking spaces along the wall were filled with Porches and Ferraris and all kinds of luxury cars; this place seemed to attract some very rich people indeed.

It was also a magnet for lots of onlookers who strolled along the promenade, admiring the boats and the toys of the rich. It seemed to Tom as if there were two kinds of willing participants in the show; the wealthy were blatantly showing off their possessions, and the tourists were staring open-mouthed at this orgy of conspicuous consumption. Tom loved it immediately.

This place must be a salesman’s dream, he mused. So much money and so many people, I’d love to be selling boats, or anything. What a place to live! He wandered along the street to find something to eat. A lot of the places were expensive, but Picasso’s looked promising and he joined the short queue outside.

The menu prices seemed like great value, much better than at home. Some of the other diners were tucking into giant pizzas, or pasta dishes, but Tom felt the need for something more substantial. He plumped for what looked like a hamburger and chips.

‘I’ll have the hamburgesa con huevo con patatas fritas,’ he pointed the menu item out to the waiter. ‘And a beer,’ he added, ‘a big one please, por favour.’

‘Cerveza grande.’ The waiter wrote down the order.

‘Whatever.’ Tom shrugged, he felt sorry he hadn’t learned Spanish in school. He puzzled at the menu and the waiter’s conversation. Not sure what that was all about, the meal looks like a hamburger and fries, no idea what ‘con huevo’ means, maybe it’s a kind of sauce, sure we’ll find out soon enough.

‘It’s ‘amburgesa,’ that’s how you pronounce it. You never pronounce the ‘H’.’ The man at the next table leaned over to speak to him. ‘On holidays then?’ He sounded English.

‘Yes.’ Tom didn’t want to appear too friendly, you never knew what a fellow’s angle might be, but he didn’t want to be rude either. ‘My first time in Spain, not a clue of the lingo. What does....’ He opened the menu and looked at the item he had ordered… ‘what does ‘con huevo’ mean?’

The Englishman laughed. ‘It’s pronounced ‘wave-oh’, not ‘hoo-ay-voh’. It just means ‘with an egg.’ Huevos are eggs, ‘Jamon con huevos’ is bacon and eggs. You’ll get used to it quick enough. Irish?’

‘Yes.’ Tom laughed at his own innocence, of course ‘huevo’ was an egg, sounded like it when you pronounced it the way the Englishman had said it. ‘Are you on holidays yourself?’

The Englishman smiled, ‘no such luck, I live here, ten years here now, not likely to go back to the bloody rain.’

‘Looks like a nice place to live.’ Tom was warming to the helpful stranger, ‘but I suppose everywhere has its good points, and maybe its bad points too.’

‘You have to weigh it up, take the good and bad, but I prefer it here. Went back for a week after the first year and found it too bloody depressing, never looked back after that. They’ll take me out of here in a box.’

The food arrived and Tom got stuck in to the hamburger and eggs; the food was tasty, just what he needed. The Englishman got up to leave.

‘Enjoy your meal; contact me if you ever want to put roots down in Western Marbella. Henry Williams is the name, I’m sales manager for one of the biggest property agencies in this area, be delighted to help if you ever need to buy or rent a place.’ He dropped a business card on the table and wended his way between the tightly packed tables to the street.

Tom finished off his food and leaned back, taking in his surroundings. The restaurant was open at the front, facing across the narrow street to the harbour. A constant parade of pedestrians strolled up and down, alternately looking at the boats and at the diners in the restaurants. The occasional luxury car detached itself from its parking space and squeezed through the throng of tourists. The background noise was overlain with a constant clanking of ropes against the hollow aluminium masts of the yachts in the marina, the babble of a dozen languages and the rattle of glasses and cutlery. It was a pleasant place to sit and consider a few options; it seemed a million miles away from the pressure of the sales yard and the troubles that had descended on his head over the last couple of days.

The best course of action was to enjoy the break and do nothing for a while; that was for sure. He owed himself a holiday, and he had plenty of money in his pocket and lots more in the bank. The last year working for Kevin had been lucrative, with a combination of long working hours and high earnings and little time to spend the money; he was now well ahead and could afford to do nothing for months. Even better, the rent here was less than at home, and the price of everything seemed to be a lot less if Picasso’s menu prices were anything to go by. Puerto Banus looked like a good place to lie low for a while.

His impressions of the cost of living were borne out a little later when he paid his bill and wandered further along the seafront. The promenade came to an end at a small beach, and he turned inland, intending to make his way home and get an early night. A huge department store faced him on a corner, and he strolled through the supermarket section and bought the basics for breakfast. ‘Wave-ohs’ he commented to the pretty cashier as she scanned the half dozen eggs and added up his purchases; she smiled and made some unintelligible comment that he assumed was the total. ‘How much?’ he still didn’t understand the Spanish answer. The pretty girl pointed to the digital display on the register and smiled, but it was a friendly smile and he didn’t have any sense that she might be mocking his lack of language skills.

It didn’t seem a lot for such a big basket of food, this was getting better and better. A ten minute walk should have brought him home, but a couple of minor wrong turns delayed him and it was another half an hour before he was walking through the small garden past the pool and heading for bed. Still, he mused, the only way to get to know an area is to walk, and to get a bit lost. If this is to be home for a while, I had better get used to the place.

Tom dived into the still water and surfaced, swam a few lengths and got out to dry himself. The pool was cold, just the job to wake a body up and to clear the head. The beer had been flowing the night before; the saxophone bar had been rocking and he had been drinking with the English gang who worked at the water park. They were a wild bunch, most of them just taking a couple of years out of their lives to party it up on the Costa del Sol, but they were good company and he enjoyed meeting up with them on Sunday nights. The park was closed on Mondays and they tended to party well into the night, but he had dropped out of the drinking games about four o’clock and made his way home.