The Dragon's Cave (5 page)

‘
Don’t you find it romantic?’ Pilar asked anxiously.
‘
I should love someone to sing songs to me outside my window!’ She caught her brother’s eye and coloured a little. ‘Someone I—like,’ she ended lamely.

Megan rubbed her nose with her forefinger. ‘I should find it embarrassing,’ she said gruffly.

‘That is because you are not in love,’ Carlos told her.

‘I’d feel a fool!’

‘
He’d be a brave man
!’
Carlos said thoughtfully.

Megan’s defences dropped from her. ‘Why?’ she
demanded, sounding as hurt as she felt. ‘I suppose you think I’d sing right back at him? Stealing his thunder?’

He looked surprised. ‘No, that hadn’t occurred to me. I was thinking of the scorching you’d give him for not daring to speak to you face to face. A dragon indeed
!’

She blushed. ‘I’m not as unromantic as you think
!’
she protested.

‘No?’

Her eyes fell before the teasing look in his. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I
h
ave my moments like everyone else
!’

‘Is that a promise?’ he drawled.

Megan pretended she hadn’t heard him. She jumped to her feet and looked out at the white, winter scene and the grey sky that threatened yet more snow.

‘
It’s going to snow again,’ she said.

‘Then we had better be going,’ he said amiably. ‘I will return for you here on Tuesday?’

She shook her head.
‘
I’ll meet you in London
,’
she told him.

She thought he was going to argue with her, but he only nodded in a businesslike way. ‘Very well. What’s your address?’

She wrote it down for him, together with the telephone number. He accepted the slip of paper, putting it carefully away in his leather wallet.

‘You will not fail me?’ he said finally, as he eased himself into his coat.

Megan shook her head.
‘
I’ll—
I’ll
try to make your mother happier
,’
she promised earnestly. ‘But I haven’t much experience—’

He laid a finger on her cheek. ‘Be happy yourself, that’s all that’s needed!’

She sniffed.
‘
That’s easy
!
’ she scoffed.

He looked down at her for a long moment.
‘
I hope so,’ he said at last. ‘I wonder if I’m wise to let you loose in the dragon’s cave?’

She wrinkled up her nose, not sure that she knew what he meant. ‘I can look after myself
!’
she assured him.

‘Without getting your fingers burned?’

‘That was an accident!
Dragons
don’t frighten me
!
’

‘
I
f you recognise them in time!’

She chuckled. ‘Are you sure you’re not talking about wolves?’ she asked him demurely.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You have wolves in your cold climate, we have fiery breathed dragons in the sun
!
’ He laughed suddenly.
‘
They say you must fight fire with fire, but I think you are too young,
amada,
for us to find out, no?’

Megan put her hands behind her back like a child.

‘
I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

‘
Obviously not,’ he said on a sigh. ‘I’ll see you on Tuesday?’

She nodded, relieved that they were going. She went with them to the car and waved to them as they disappeared down the drive, Pilar’s scarlet coat showing up as a bright splash of colour in the black and white scene. She was glad they had gone, but she felt inexpressibly lonely at their going.

On the telephone, Carlos’s Spanish accent was clearly discernible. He sounded foreign and more alien than she had remembered him. She thought, with a feeling of rising panic, that she didn’t understand him at all, and that she probably wouldn’t even like his mother! She was mad to be going to Majorca at all! She should have stayed exactly where she was and got on with her career by finding another singing engagement somewhere. Jobs didn’t grow on trees, of course, but she would have found
something,
sooner or later.

‘Megan? I have booked you to fly to Mallorca at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. I will be at your address at seven. That will give us time to get to the airport before eight. You will be ready?’

‘Yes,’ Megan said simply.

There was a short pause at the other end.
‘
I shall be travelling to Mall
o
rca with you,’ his voice came again, sounding unexpectedly diffident.

‘I thought you were going to Barcelona
!
’

‘I was,’ he said fla
tl
y. ‘My stepmother wishes me
to help her open up the house in Palma, however.’

‘But can’t I do that?’ Megan suggested, a little overcome that he should change his plans at his stepmother’s whim.

‘My stepmother requires someone who can speak Spanish to be with her for a few days,’ he explained. ‘Apparently she is planning to change the decorations and to put in an extra bathroom. She wishes me to deal with the workmen for her.’

‘Oh, I see
,’
Megan said inadequately.

‘
I thought you might be pleased?’

She was glad that he couldn’t see her face, for she could feel herself blushing.

‘I am
!’
she said.

‘Good. That is better than I hoped
!
’

‘
Oh?’ She sounded shocked and rather pleased.

‘Tomorrow you must tell me exactly how pleased you are
,’
he continued, his voice edged with laughter.

‘
Oh
!’
she said again.

‘
Hasta luego,
Megan Meredith
.’

Megan giggled, sufficiently encouraged to try out her own Spanish.
‘
Hasta la vista, senor
,’
she said demurely, and replaced the receiver quickly before he had a chance to make any further remark.

She stood for a long moment, looking into space, trying to still her whirring thoughts. Then she put on her coat and hurried out before the shops closed to buy a Spanish grammar and a phrase book to help her over those first awkward days. If she applied herself, she thought, she might be able to say something more to Senor Carlos Vallori Llobera in his own language. She could imagine his dark green eyes crinkling with pleased surprise and the thought warmed her as she hurried down the street. In a few weeks she would be able to say anything, anything at all!

Megan felt heavy-eyed after an almost sleepless night. She carried her suitcase down the numerous flights of stairs that led up to the room she shared with her ex-school friend and dropped it with a bang on to the lino-covered floor of the main hall. When she opened the front door, she saw that it was snowing again.

‘We are both a
little
early,’ Carlos greeted her, doffing his hat to her. ‘Is your luggage upstairs? Shall I fetch it?’

‘It’s here,’ she said awkwardly. She lifted the heavy suitcase and shoved it through the doorway, sl
amming
the front door behind her. ‘I hope it isn’t overweight. I seem to have packed just about everything I possess
!’

Carlos looked down at the suitcase. ‘In that?’ he asked.

‘
It’s my father’s case really,’ she confessed.
‘
It’s the largest one we have.’

He took it from her, carrying it with the greatest of ease, and put it in the back of the car.

‘
Is that really all you possess in the world?’ he asked her, as he held the door for her to get in.

She nodded shyly, very conscious of his long length standing so close to her.

‘I suppose you have not had long to collect much clutter from living,’ he teased her. ‘I cannot remember a time when all I possess would have fitted into one suitcase
!’

‘That’s different,’ she said.

‘
Is it?’ He slammed her door shut and went round to the driving seat, jumping in beside her and turning on the ignition key in the one easy movement.

‘I don’t own any houses, or furniture, or anything like that,’ Megan said simply. She smiled suddenly.

‘
I’m
not the eldest son of a Spanish family
!’

‘I’m glad you’re not
!’
he said gravely.

‘I don’t know—
’
she began, then stopped.
‘
You mean, you’re glad I’m not a boy—that I’m a girl?’ She stopped again, looking resolutely out of the window at the falling snow. ‘I mean, I’m an only child,’ she said.

‘I meant that I am glad you are a girl,
pequena
,’
he agreed, smiling.

Megan was silent, savouring the moment. The car started forward, the tyres slipping a little on the crushed snow.

‘
Do you think any planes will be taking off in this?’ she asked him.

‘
Will you mind waiting, Meganita, if we have to?’

‘
The endearment added to her name pleased her.

‘
N-no,’ she said uncertainly.
‘
I find airports rather exciting places. I like to hear the names of all the different places being called out.’

But in the end their plane was not held up. The snow had been brushed off the wings and the snowploughs had been busy all along the length of the airstrip. The Comet IV heaved itself into the air and climbed up above the snow clouds and into the pale, wintry sunshine.

‘All right,
amada
?’

Megan nodded eagerly.
‘
What will the weather be like when we land?’ she asked him.

‘It will be sunny, with the temperature about fifteen degrees. That will take the shadows away from under your eyes
!’

‘I haven’t got any
!’
she denied. ‘Fifteen,’ she mused.
‘
That’s about sixty, isn’t it?’

He shrugged his shoulders, producing a whole lot of papers out of his briefcase. ‘Have you something to read?’ he asked meaningly.

She smiled and produced a paperback out of her handbag, but she had no intention of reading anything so dull as the thriller she had with her. Instead, she watched, fascinated, as the stewardesses hurried up and down the aisle, selling their tax-free wares, serving breakfast to the passengers and tending to their needs, as the plane raced onwards towards warmer climes.

After a while, Megan felt sleepy and she sat well back in her seat, finding that she could study Carlos’ profile without even moving her head. She found she
liked looking at him. His clean, tanned skin pleased her as much as she liked the green of his eyes and the tough springiness of his black hair. Then, quite suddenly, he felt her eyes on him and he looked up enquiringly. She was hotly embarrassed and returned quickly to her neglected book. Without a word, he stretched out a hand and took it from her, stuffing it into the pocket in the rear of the seat in front of her.

‘
Your breakfast,’ he told her.

She accepted the cardboard tray from the stewardess, suddenly aware that she was hungry, and broke into the plastic cover eagerly. The rolls were fresh and crisp and she spread them with butter and jam, eating them quickly while she waited for another stewardess to bring their coffee.

‘
I didn’t eat much last night
,’
she explained, wriggling a little under Carlos’ amused gaze.

‘It doesn’t look as though you slept much either
,’
he said frankly. ‘What were you doing? Packing? Or painting the town red one last time?’

She winced. ‘The girl-friend I share with was away,’ she said fla
tl
y. ‘I didn’t do anything in particular.’

‘
I thought your mother might come up for the night and to see you off this morning?’ he said curiously.

Megan shook her head.
‘
She would never leave my father.’

He looked at her curiously.
‘
Are you often alone?’ he asked.

She made an attempt to laugh off his enquiry, but in the end she couldn’t.
‘
It works both ways,’ she said at last. I can’t imagine myself cancelling all my arrangements because my mother wanted to put in an extra bathroom either
!’

‘
But that is family life!’ he exclaimed.

‘In S
pain,’ she said. ‘In England it’s different.’

‘
Perhaps, he said, but she could tell that he didn’t believe her. She smarted a
little
under his implied
criticism of her own family and longed to defend them, though quite what from she didn’t know.

‘In the last resort they’d do anything for me
!’
she declared.

‘I am sure they would,’ he smiled.
‘
But one does not live continually in the last resort
!
’

That struck her as funny and she laughed.
‘
Speak for yourself
!’
she admonished him.
‘
I’m not sure that
I
don’t!’

He smiled and collected up their empty breakfast trays, pointing out of the window to the grey mountains beneath them. ‘Mallorca
!’

With mounting excitement, Megan stared down at the island below her. It was considerably bigger than she had thought, and it was hard to see much of what it was really like, for the clouds drifted beneath them, hiding the land from her eager eyes. Then, unexpectedly, the sun broke through the clouds and she was able to see literally hundreds of windmills beneath them.

A few minutes later, Palma appeared, together with the long, sandy beach, edged from end to end with hotels. The engine note changed and there was a faint bump as they landed. Just two hours and twenty minutes after leaving England, they had arrived in Majorca.