‘Just getting a feel for the place.’
She talked about her day. Her marking out of certain places to return to at first light. The small carved figures she had seen in the gift shops, which held a rainbow and were meant to bring good luck to people’s houses.
‘Indalos,’ Mike said. He’d seen them too. They ranged from cheap plastic to delicate glass and heavy, carved stone.
‘The village is pretty but touristy,’ Jane said. ‘What did you make of it?
‘I liked it.’ He’d felt a tourist himself, basking in the sun of the plaza and a transitory feel of affluence. ‘Have you found the cemetery? That wasn’t touristy.’
He told her about the long rows of crypts along the outside wall and the inner blocks in their neat patterns. An orderly warehouse of the dead and so different to the cemeteries at home; he’d been fascinated. He didn’t know how Australia arranged such things, but to his mind the cemetery had been utterly Spanish. He paused. Did he sound macabre?
‘Go on.’
When he forgot to be self-conscious, Jane thought Mike described things well. The writer’s eye, she supposed, similar to the photographer’s, looking for patterns and things that stood out. He had a formal way of speaking, which was intriguing, and his voice was soft and pleasant to listen to. Both Jane and her daughter, Charlotte, were suckers for an English accent, and had, embarrassingly, swooned over Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice countless times.
It was restful to listen to Mike and it left her free to study him.
He was tall and thin and slightly gangly. Beneath his dull green jumper she could make out pointy elbows and sharp shoulderblades. She guessed he was a few years younger than her. She would like to strip him down and capture the fine knotty bones of his collar and rib cage. He’d be winter-pale and against a sunlit ochre wall the image could be strong. She suppressed a smile at the thought of asking him to strip. He’d be shocked to the core.
‘I could show you if you like?’
She thought momentarily he’d read her mind, but of course he was still talking about the cemetery.
She gestured to the darkening sky, and they both laughed.
‘Stupid of me,’ he said, but without embarrassment.
‘Another day.’
‘Another day.’ He looked content.
Already she was enjoying this residency much more than the last. Ten days in America with travel time had meant a long absence from Charlotte. Two weeks of feeling pulled and torn. And then the love affair between two of the artists, which had been distracting and ridiculous. But Charlotte was older now and independent, and she could afford to relax.
Alfredo was dressed in a leather coat and solid boots that, to Rose’s mind, made him look like a bear. At the base of the mountain, there was a fine sprinkling of cactus and pale, tall grasses. They found the main path, picked out by other walkers, and some smaller tracks running here and there. Goats, perhaps, but if so there was no sign of them.
Every now and then Alfredo offered his hand and they would stop to catch their breath and look out over the landscape and each other. Was the language barrier a problem or a boon? After Steven, who didn’t know how to be quiet, the silence between them felt restful.
When they reached the top, half an hour later, there was only dust and shale and rocks and the crater they had heard about last night at dinner.
She dropped a stone into its mouth and listened to it scurrying through bushes and vegetation and then a long silence before it clattered onto rock. Just how deep was it? It sounded as if it went all the way to the valley floor.
Alfredo spread his coat on the ground and lit up a cigarette. They sat together, taking in the view. An aerial view, like being in a plane. The valley below them was flushed gold in the late-afternoon light, a mix of desert and plantations and harshness.
‘Bonita,’ Alfredo said. His shoulder was against hers and she could feel his warmth against the cooling air.
‘Bonita,’ she replied, not sure what it meant, but it was easy enough to guess.
Andalucía, Rose thought, besides its odd-shaped hills, reminded her of the countryside near her grandparents’ farm in New South Wales. Those childhood visits that were both holiday and safety. The simple pleasure of riding horses with her sister Lily, a passion that had lasted for half a decade. A long time in a child’s life.
Far below, she could see Mike and Jane in the narrow lane near the residence. Even from this distance and with dusk gathering they looked easy together. From what she’d seen so far, they were both hopeless and tedious and perfect for each other. Only she’d back it in, given Alfredo’s warm proximity, that she’d be the one having the most fun.
Lights went on in sequence. The gardener’s house. The streetlight in the lane. The residence itself in a sudden blaze of illumination. It reminded Rose of the pointer stars to the Southern Cross, the lesser lights leading the eye to the main constellation.
A faint fingernail of moon appeared in the sky and Alfredo stood up and reached for her hand. ‘Come, Rosa.’ It wasn’t dark yet, but it would be soon. She had anticipated the cold, but not the short winter days. If they came again, they’d need a torch.
Thirty minutes later and nearly at the house, Alfredo paused and loomed above her. Inside her jacket, Rose felt suddenly almost too warm.
‘Gracias, Rosa.’
What was it the Spanish said after thank you? De nada? But that seemed to say it was nothing when the experience was a long way from that. She had got lost up there in the colours and the silence and the vastness. As a first date, if that’s what it was, it had been more than she had expected.
Rose took his hand in her own and held it for a long moment. She liked the way he called her Rosa.
A whole fish, cooked in foil. Mike avoided looking at the head, but his stomach rolled anyway. The hazards of the meal apart, he seemed to have found the more comfortable role of observer and was handling the second dinner far better than the first.
There was definite hostility from Marion towards Rose and vice versa. The result, no doubt, of the row this morning over the studios. He’d been too slow to see it – by the time he’d come downstairs the shouting was all over. Rose, he knew, had come out on top and didn’t she look self-satisfied as a result? He wondered what Jane had made of the row.
Rose was less talkative than last night and he wondered if there was more to her smugness than getting one over Marion. Her focus was completely fixed on Alfredo.
For himself, it had been a good day. Courtesy of his indolent hour in a bar listening to various conversations, and a bit of effort with the phrasebook, some Spanish from the old holiday with Amanda had returned. Not much, but enough to give him the confidence to try a few words on Alfredo.
Jane, at the head of the table, was busy passing plates. She looked wonderful, he thought, with her ready, engaging smile. She was a plain dresser, but the colour of her shirt brought out the blueness of her eyes and suited her down to the ground. Cornflower blue. He knew this because he’d described it in his first completed novel, currently doing the rounds of the publishers with who knew what success. He closed off the thought, knowing it was like the proverbial kettle. If you watched it too closely it would never boil.
Not that he could talk about plain dressing. His habitual attire consisted of various shades of green that Amanda had bought for him and which he wore to the last inch of life, supplemented by his own thrift shop purchases. Maybe when he got home he’d ask his sister about that colour thing she’d mentioned a few times. That whole vast spectrum reduced to a comprehensible range that suited you. But then again, second-hand shops didn’t offer much in the way of choice.
Alfredo