A Meeting in Seville Read online

  His only consolation is that, for probably the first time in his life, somebody else understands how he feels. Or, if this is not quite possible – he wonders indeed if this could ever truly be so – at least allows him the right to feel it.

  And that same somebody’s hand has hardly been untwined from his since the entire journey began.

  2

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

  William knows that he should probably replace his old Blackberry. But what can he do – he loves it and it seems to like him reasonably well. So he would defy anyone to respond less vociferously should a rowdy group of guys with “Kevin’s Stag Shag Do!!!” crudely printed on identical white T-shirts come roaring through the concourse of Gatwick North Terminal and knock their beloved phone out of their hands with a loaded trolley. (But not as loaded as they will be when they pour off the plane in Prague or Krakow or one of the other premarital, cultural high spots.)

  He only just manages to catch the cascading object before it can be crushed, like its juicier namesakes, under foot. He looks up to see two small children staring at him, huddled into the folds of their unimpressed mum.

  “Sorry,” he mutters, in contrition, because these days he is usually quite able to hold himself together and his temper in check. “So sorry.”

  Apology unaccepted, the family twirls back to face the line. Unaware that this exchange is being watched from a distance by a smartly dressed and wearily attractive, Mediterranean-looking woman, a short, middle-aged traveller with medium-length, expressively cut dark hair and a figure that hovers precariously between voluptuous and BMI red flag, who moves with curiosity towards them.

  “Making friends?” she says to William. Despite the earliness of the hour and the strain of the occasion, her chestnut eyes still sparkle, should anyone care to notice.

  Before he can answer – not that it merits a response – or look up, because he knows who she is, Luisa hangs a small plastic-bag on his hand. Puzzled, he opens it apprehensively, as if it might suddenly ignite, and removes a brand-new copy of The Little Drummer Girl, by John le Carré.

  “Didn’t I read this…?”

  “Back then? Only the half of it. You left it at our café.”

  “Our—?” William glances at Luisa with irritated yet genuine admiration. “How do you remember it all – like it was yesterday?”

  She looks down at the rescued Blackberry, now clutched tightly in his hand like a wandering child. “Perhaps because I am not always thinking about tomorrow.”

  ***

  Coming across William and Luisa Sutherland, of Richmond, Surrey, as they stroll silently through the final passport control and along the wrinkled corridor that leads, like a birth canal, towards their waiting plane, one would be forgiven for thinking they were strangers simply walking in the same direction. The balding, slightly stooped, middle-aged man, grabbing more complimentary newspapers than he or his politics could possibly absorb. The fetchingly mature woman in her tailored navy raincoat, shuffling patiently behind.

  Or perhaps the onlooker might just assume they were so long-married that they had no further need to make those wearisome shows of togetherness that younger couples feel obliged to affect.

  “I have to make a wee phone call,” mutters William. “When we—”

  “Of course you do.”

  He senses the urge to respond, but it would be nothing he hasn’t said or snapped out before. And – to be honest – he doesn’t have the energy. Nor has he the least desire right now to prolong conversation, which even he thinks does not exactly augur well for the sort of holiday that traps two people together, like some sort of experiment with mice, without access to friends, family, proper television or, of course, work colleagues. Not that mice watch a lot of TV or have a particularly cordial working environment, but he still sees a parallel and wonders if the object in both cases isn’t to watch as they tear each other apart.

  Which is why William clings to his Blackberry and prays that his laptop hasn’t mysteriously uncharged itself between home and Boeing.

  The silence continues on the plane.

  William reads the reports that his dutiful PA Suzy has prepared and prioritised for him, whilst Luisa absorbs herself in her brand-new guidebook. A glossy tourist Bible to a city she knows only too well and which William is pretty convinced hasn’t changed that much in three decades. Or indeed in several centuries. Isn’t this why people come here in the first place?

  Isn’t this why he and Luisa are trundling back?

  Yet, even within this familiar silence and almost defining it, Luisa is doing that thing William feels she does so well. He wonders whether she has always done it. Whether she was doing it when they first met, in Glasgow of all places, so many years ago. Wonders if she is, in truth, one long, drawn-out, Iberian sigh.

  Right now she is sighing over the number of Scotch whisky miniatures William orders from the British Airways steward. An order accomplished with the traditional “waving of the empty” so familiar to catering staff of all nations, except perhaps Muslim ones. She sighs as a small child in the seat in front of them leans over and emits a sticky dribble onto William’s not very smart, yet not especially casual, M&S trousers – and which he won’t let her wipe away, although she has the tissue waiting in her hand. She sighs again as he taps out yet another polite email to someone even he is convinced won’t respond.

  She sighs loudest when the professionally chirpy announcement finally drifts through the plane. Before they know it they will be arriving at their destination and thank you for travelling with us. But William, by now a connoisseur of sighs, knows that this time the expressive exhalation of stale and unwanted air has a certain continental tinge and the faintest hint of an excitement that wasn’t there before.

  As the massive wheels impact with God knows what force onto the near-to-melting tarmac, the whole plane joins in with the sighing. William finds himself doing it. But with the distinctive timbre that only a dour Caledonian, on a particularly grumpy day, in a city he would rather bite off his legs than revisit, can summon up.

  He is glad that he has packed his book at the top of his rucksack.

  In fact, he has treated it with far more respect than his shirts or his trousers, despite her kind and repeated offers to do that perfect folding. The sort, with its wee pats and tucks, that only women appear able to achieve. Including his ma, which always surprised him, as the rest of the tenement flat was a bomb-site.

  He loves to read, of course he does, but he has had little opportunity so far. Or – more importantly – to write. They have either been talking or eating or making love (and, on one notable occasion, all three). But, now that she is jabbering so fast to the older Madrilenas sitting opposite, with their bulging handbags and equally overflowing sandwiches, he can probably devour a few chapters before the train pulls in to wherever. He loves the author but this isn’t the guy’s usual setting or style, so he hopes he won’t be disappointed.

  And, who knows, he may even scribble the odd word. No “may” about it. He has set himself a certain number of words per day, as he has it on the best authority that this is what you do. But he is already behind and it is making him cross.

  The trouble is that Spaniards talk so bloody loud.

  He is sure that this isn’t just him and his prejudices, etched even deeper by what has happened over the preceding days. Days that mean they are on the train to their real destination earlier than intended.

  He cannot understand or even make out a single word. He wonders if this is because they also speak faster than any other nation. Or perhaps you always think this when you can’t make out a single word.

  Then two words suddenly sing out, because they are already familiar to him and the jabbering women keep repeating them over and over again. Semana and Santa. Semana Santa. Semana Santa! It is almost as if they are warning them. Why the hell should we beware
of Easter?

  Semana Santa!

  Finally she turns to him. “They are saying us we will not find the place to stay this Holy Week. They are saying us everywhere will be completo – filled.”

  “Full. We should have booked. I told you we should have booked. I even marked out some nice cheap places in that new guidebook. We should have phoned ahead. We should’ve…”

  “Is okay, cariño. It will be fine.”

  “It might not be,” he insists. Because he knows things often aren’t.

  She just grabs his hand and continues to talk to the concerned older women, fast and loud. He thinks that, curiously, where this impenetrable, unshared language should form a barrier between them, it actually adds to the enchantment and draws them even closer. He feels immensely proud of her, having this wondrous facility that he lacks.

  “Gracias,” he says, and opens his book.

  3

  By the time William has settled his bulky laptop back in its bag, alongside his unopened paperback, and locked his phone onto the local network, Luisa is at the top of the staircase, her upturned face equally locked onto the already scorching Andalusian sun.

  Ignoring the smiley platitudes of the crew and blocking egress for a planeload of over-agitated passengers, acting as ever like they’re on the Titanic, her warm eyes slowly close in what anyone observing would recognise as an almost cartoon-like bliss.

  “Hell’s teeth,” says William, squeezing through to join her. “Feel that bloody heat.”

  As this is exactly what she is doing, Luisa sees no need to respond. Instead she glides down the steps, beaming at the huge sign ahead that says SEViLLA. She almost wishes she could claw up the burning runway with her elegant hands, like an ancient warrior returning triumphantly home after years in battle.

  This time it is she who strolls ahead towards the glistening terminal, raincoat well-folded into her bag. The sleeves of her maize-yellow blouse, newly bought to kick-start an optimistic joyfulness barely apparent at the time of purchase, are now briskly rolled up, revealing firm wrists and sturdy forearms in desperate need of warmth.

  William has issues with foreign sun. It isn’t that he is totally against it; he has had enough continental holidays over the years to have gradually mellowed and built up some pale-skinned, factor 50 resistance. Yet he still finds the relentlessness with which it assails its addled victims from a cloudless sky both enervating and tiresome. And he has forgotten to bring a bloody hat.

  At least the terminal itself is beautifully air conditioned. He recalls, as he usually does on such occasions, that he once had a client who designed precision air conditioning systems. So, naturally, he has a professional appreciation. In fact, rarely does William Sutherland go anywhere or do anything without it summoning up a business he advises, did so in the past or would dearly love to be doing so in the future.

  Right now, however, he is more focussed on the speed with which Luisa is making her way through passport control. He can’t quite see why she is in such a rush. Baggage takes its own sweet time. And, anyway, he’ll be the one ripping the cases away from the carousel and probably ripping his tricky back in the process. Luisa has long ago stopped suggesting that they grab a porter, as he would rather endure scoliosis than penury. And, of course, they’re never anywhere to be seen.

  When they finally emerge into the packed arrivals hall, William immediately scours the attendees. But a croaky voice right beside him still takes him by surprise.

  “Señor Sutherland.”

  It’s clearly an old voice, yet firm and unwavering. But what most unsettles William is how its owner has managed in seconds to single him out so definitively from all the other pale and nondescript British travellers streaming into the concourse. It isn’t like one of his tedious conferences, where dangling neck-tags give the name away.

  “Aye?” he says suspiciously, turning, along with Luisa, to face the prescient greeter. “Mebbe.” Although of course there’s no mebbe about it.

  The man – who offers them a warm and crinkly smile, as if they’re already quite well-acquainted – is indeed old, although not perhaps quite as aged as his deeply lined skin, like the grain of an old church pew, might lead observers from a fresher, more temperate climate to presume. He wears a crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt and a comfortable pair of blue denims and holds in his strong, calloused hands a card that reads “Hotel Herrera”, the hotel that the kids – at God knows what expense – have generously and unnecessarily booked for them.

  Before William can enquire as to how he was picked out so effortlessly, the elderly man has grabbed both their cases and is wandering jauntily off. Luisa looks at William and smiles, made proud perhaps by a compatriot’s Herculean energy. William is too busy attempting to snatch back the cases to notice. An unseemly tug-of-war ensues, observed by one and all, which – despite his years – the more practised hotel employee finally wins.

  “Aye, okay then,” concedes William, with disgruntled magnanimity. “Gracias, Señor.”

  He watches as the nameless retainer strolls away, accompanied this time by Luisa. She is already chatting to him in their unnecessarily loud and rapid native tongue.

  “I’m William,” mutters the empty-handed Scot, wearing his laptop bag and his abandonment. “And yon’s Luisa. We’re – celebrating.”

  ***

  The comfortable rear-seat of Hotel Herrera’s small, magenta minibus suits William just fine.

  Luisa, who doesn’t want to make the aged Spaniard feel like a driver, although this is of course exactly what he is or he wouldn’t be driving, has plumped for the passenger seat up front. William notices that the two new pals haven’t paused for breath since they met, but has no idea what they’re gabbling about.

  Actually, he doesn’t really care, as he is on the phone to his PA before they are even out of the crowded car park. He is also smoking, which he suspects breaks all sorts of Andalusian ordinances. If he doesn’t exactly crave a cigarette now, he is enjoying one in anticipation of all those he will most definitely crave, but may not be permitted, as this holiest of weeks progresses. And, as an optional extra, it really pisses off Luisa.

  What he doesn’t do is pay the least attention to all the distinctly un-British stuff carrying on right outside his dusty window. The stuff that most newly arrived visitors embrace with a glee totally disproportionate to the actual content – a single palm tree, some arm-waving locals, left-hand drives. This would be to concede that he is on holiday and not just in Fiat Office.

  “Uh huh. Did Sandy get back to… Yes, the sun is shining. Very hot. The frying-pan of Europe. Do you have that number, Suzy? I really need that number.” To anyone else he might already sound like the heat is getting to him. To Luisa, were she even bothering to listen, it would just be normal William-temperature. “Zero three five… Aye, really pretty, gorgeous… Seven two… And historical. If we ever get out of this bloody traffic…”

  He opens the window, then swiftly closes it, as the heat roars in. “… four eight – No, no oranges yet… I know that Seville is famous for… and barbers, but I won’t be needing one of them either… three six two… If I could just get to see this guy while we’re here, Suzy – it’d make the whole bloody trip worthwhile.”

  The jabbering in the front seat stops.

  Luisa, who has been doing the lion’s share of it, looks round at William and glares. From her handbag she slides out a compact but clearly expensive camera, the camera of someone who most probably knows what she’s doing. William knows what she’s doing. She’s telling him she’s going to have a bloody good second honeymoon, regardless of whom she’s having it with.

  She begins to take photos of everything around her, even though Seville – or at least the Seville for which they apparently came – hasn’t really started yet. All he can see are relatively old but not over-distinguished buildings, huddled together in the heat; people d
oing what people do everywhere, only more noisily; small family cars carrying anything but small families.

  “Can’t you go down a side road?” says William, who has already had quite enough of sluggish, Southern European traffic. “Diversione!” he hazards, his Spanish still consisting mainly of English words pronounced wrongly and loud.

  “Si, si,” says the driver, taking no notice.

  Luisa continues her homeland conversation. “My husband is forever in a hurry. He always wishes he is somewhere else.”

  “And you,” asks the driver, whose name she now knows is Pablo, “what do you wish?”

  She turns to look at the old man. Caught out by the pointed question from this timeless-looking stranger with the half-closed, yet somehow bottomless, grey eyes.

  “What are you saying? Luisa?” demands her husband, who, whilst never over-keen on being involved in conversation, can feel quite marginalised when left out of one.

  “I say you should not smoke.” He can hear the smile that in good times is so much a part of her voice and knows she is saying no such thing. But, before he can challenge her, if he can even be bothered, the smile grows louder and considerably less wry. “You know, William, when I come back to this place, it feels like the time has stood still.”

  William glares at the long line of cars in the rippling heat.

  “Feels like every bloody thing’s stood still,” he says. “Except the exchange rate.”

  The tall, unshaven man hands out the postcards as they come off the train. Most of the arrivals – the ones with excess baggage and bewilderment, who are the only ones he targets – shake their heads or avoid the object like it is a recklessly lunged knife.