She read the main part of the e-mail he had written.
Dear Mrs Harris (or may I call you Liz?)
I’ve been looking round your website. I’m impressed. Maybe you should switch from needlework designs to website design. I’m told there’s a big demand for good site designers. How about making a start by designing a site for me? If you’re willing to have a crack at it, I’ll be happy to pay you the going rate.
Think it over.
Regards, Cam.
Liz printed out his e-mail and put it in her bag to re-read later. Today was the day she drove down to the coast to attend the weekly meeting of the Peñon Computer Club at Calpe.
According to elderly people who had known Spain before the tourist invasion, when she was a little girl Calpe had been a sleepy fishing village. Now it was a large resort with many tall blocks of apartments, most of them holiday flats or the year-round homes of retired expatriates.
Liz didn’t like Calpe but acknowledged that lots of people did, and it took all sorts to make a world. She did enjoy the club meetings, although most of the other members were old enough to be her parents or even grandparents. But their shared enthusiasm for computers made the age difference unimportant. One or two of the old men were inclined to ogle her, and one was a furtive groper. But she could cope with that.
After the meeting, she and Deborah, a divorcee in her late forties who kept in touch with her children by e-mail, had lunch at a Chinese restaurant not far from the port. It was close to the Peñon de Ifach, a massive rock, a thousand feet high, that reared out of the sea and was a mecca for rock climbers from all over Europe.
‘Have you ever walked up the path that goes up the other side of the Peñon?’ she asked her friend.
Deborah shook her head. ‘I don’t have a good head for heights. Living on the higher floors of some of the apartment blocks would worry me!’
‘Me too,’ said Liz. ‘I should feel uneasy sitting out on some of those tiny balconies. But a penthouse apartment with a garden might be nice. The views must be wonderful.’
After lunch she drove back to Valdecarrasca where, having no garage, she had to leave her seven-year-old vehicle in the car park near the building that had once been a lavadero, a public laundry with a stream running through it. Since then the stream had run dry and today, so Beatrice had told her, the water came from deep bore holes near a village at the far end of the valley. Nowadays everyone had mains water and washing machines but, in a country with little rainfall, the ever-increasing demand for water could not be met indefinitely.
After changing out of her good clothes into everyday things, she settled down to reply to Cameron Fielding’s e-mail.
She didn’t mind him calling her Liz, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to call him Cam yet. However, to start ‘Dear Mr Fielding’ sounded rather stuffy in response to his informality, so she stretched a point and started off.
Dear Cam,
I’m glad you like my website and I’m flattered that you’re willing to entrust the design of your site to me. As I have never done any designing for other people, I have no idea what the going rate is. But I can find out, and perhaps we can discuss the matter further next time you come down. I should have to ask you a lot of questions before I could create a site that satisfied us both. What would the purpose of the site be?
Liz.
After she had connected to the Spanish telephone company’s freebie server, and sent the message on its way, she had a spasm of doubt about the wisdom of becoming any more involved with Cam Fielding than she was already.
From the first moment of meeting him, she had been on her guard with him. That being so, was it foolish to take on a commitment that, inevitably, would involve more contact with him? Would it have been more sensible to politely decline his suggestion on the grounds that she had more work than she could handle?
CHAPTER TWO
Entre col y col, lechuga
Variety is the spice of life
UNTIL Cam put the idea into her head, it had not struck Liz that there might be a better income to be made from designing websites than from her present occupation. A site commissioned by a ‘name’ as big as Cameron Fielding would certainly give such a venture a splendid start.
But would there also be a downside? Would designing a site for him involve a lot more personal contact than she wished for?
Cam’s reply to her e-mail came into her Inbox the next time she logged on.
Liz,
In a couple of hours I’ll be flying to the Middle East to cover the latest outbreak of hostilities. Hope to be back next week. Meanwhile I’ll think about the kind of site I want. Maybe I’ll be able to get down to V. for a night or two so that we can put our heads together and get the basics sorted out.
Take care, Cam.
The phrase ‘put our heads together’ conjured up a degree of intimacy that she wasn’t comfortable with. At the same time she was increasingly curious to see him in his public persona.
Beatrice Maybury had not owned a television set. She considered TV a waste of time. Liz had had a set in England but had not brought it to Spain, or bought a new set here. She preferred reading anyway.
She was certainly not going to ask any of the foreigners she knew if she could watch a news programme on the channel Cam worked for. That would immediately trigger more gossip on the lines of— ‘Liz Harris has taken a shine to the heart-throb at La Higuera, we hear. I wonder how long it will take him to get her between the sheets?’ The thought of being the subject of lubricious speculations made Liz cringe.
It was in the middle of another wakeful night that she suddenly realised that his TV channel would have a site on the Web where she might find information about Cameron Fielding, foreign correspondent.
Although her computer was three years old, and not equal to handling the very latest technology, she could pick up the ordinary stuff. She sat up in bed and reached for the quilted dressing gown thrown over the footrail. The days were still mild and warm, but at this time of year there was a significant fall in the temperature after sunset.
With her feet tucked into cosy slippers, she went to her workroom and was soon online. It took only moments to find the website she wanted, and a few moments more to find a list of the channel’s presenters and reporters.
When she clicked on Cam’s name, up came a potted biography and a photograph. The sight of his face looking out at her from the screen had almost the same effect as when she had scrambled to her feet in his garden and looked into those amused grey eyes for the first time.
In an automatic reflex, she right-clicked with the mouse, bringing up a menu that included the option to save the picture to her hard drive. Then, not wanting to, yet compelled to continue, she saved the photograph in her My Documents folder where it would remain until she chose to delete it.
The bio at the side of the picture read:
Cameron Fielding is arguably the best-known of the élite group of internationally famous foreign correspondents who report world news for television. He has been awarded the CBE for his services to journalism.
In a career spanning almost 20 years, Fielding has worked for the BBC, CNN, ITN and Sky News. His reporting has won widespread critical acclaim and many awards including the Amnesty International Press Award, the Reporter of the Year award at the New York Festival of Radio and Television, the James Cameron Award for war reporting, and the One World Broadcasting Trust Award. He has also won the prestigious Emmy Award presented by the American National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Below this was a question-and-answer interview.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: