Today she would find the cemetery Mike had told her about. With any luck there’d be a funeral. She could position herself out of the way and use her long lens to capture faces and clothes and expressions. She imagined the women dressed in black, grave with grief. The men, sharp-faced and resolute.
Using people’s grief for art was callous, Jane thought, but she had worried about this before and let it go. Besides, weren’t all artists callous? If detachment was a virtue it was just as well it came to her naturally, even if she had honed it to an art form.
Mike collected his breakfast and went out on the patio. Jane was sitting with her face tilted to the sun again. Her hair was wet and he could smell the clean scent of her shampoo. Even though the morning was cold, it reminded him of sunlight and summer. Tendrils of damp hair curled around her ears. He would like to reach out and touch one.
‘I wondered—’
‘If I’d like a cup of tea,’ Jane finished. ‘Thanks.’
‘Well, that too, but something else.’ How to ask? Even in his twenties he’d been tongue-tied when it came to moving things along. Amanda, characteristically, had taken care of all that. ‘I wondered if you’d like to have a drink at El Techo after dinner? Escape from this place for a while. It has music.’
She looked at him for a long moment and he wondered what she was thinking. Was he pushing too hard to expect her company at breakfast and after dinner?
‘Why not?’
Mike’s pleasure at her acceptance was diminished by two thoughts. His pushiness and his opting out. He might have secured Jane’s company for the night, but he had made his motivation an escape from the residency rather than appreciation of her.
He didn’t much like himself for that small cowardice. He needed to be more courageous. This time, at least, there were compensations. He still had weeks to get it right and Jane had flashed him a brilliant smile.
Rose woke slowly, taking in the shaft of sunlight spilling into the room, wondering where she was and feeling pleasantly content. The memory of last night flooded in and she stretched in delight. It had indeed been memorable. Good sex. The warmth of sleeping together, the comfort of Alfredo’s belly against her back in the narrow bed. The way he held her through the night, as if protecting her.
Alfredo had gone, but there was a note on his bedside table, written out in neat lettering, her name at the top. Beside it was a yellow daisy.
It was interesting to be in his room without him. It was tidy and ordered and on his desk was a tiny photo of a woman in an exquisite silver frame. She had soft brown hair and eyes. The word Isabella was inscribed on the frame. The wife, she assumed.
But last night he had been lost in passion, drowning in her like a starving man. Just how married was he? Inside his wallet a driver’s licence told her he was Alfredo Riera of Calle Flores 16, Valencia. His photo showed a younger version of the face that had hovered above hers last night.
His writing was fluid and this time he hadn’t bothered with an English translation.
Mi Rosa querida, gracias por esta fantastica noche. Caminara la Vieja Cabrera fue maravilloso al igual que el estupendoregalo que me diste. Una noche encantadora en brazos de unamujer maravillosa. Alfredo
‘Mi Rosa querida,’ she said out loud, liking the sound of it.
Alfredo Riera. Wonderful in bed. Hopeless romantic. She recognised a few words and took out her phrasebook to translate a few more. No need to do it word for word. Enough to know he liked what was on offer and was eager for more. Exotic, though, to have a love letter in another language.
She dashed off her own note and placed it on his bedside table, next to the photo and a packet of Ducados cigarettes in their blue and white box.
My pleasure. Rose
In his studio, Alfredo regarded the block of stone and whistled. He was full of regret not to be with Rosa when she first opened her eyes, but the delivery had to be supervised and she had his note to explain his absence and tell her how he felt about her. Rosa querida.
He slid his hand over the stone’s cool surface, pleased by its smoothness, and replayed the feel of the woman he had spent the night with.
Isabella, who had sat within his bones for the last four years, loosened her grip slightly. In place of a familiar desolation, warmth spread within him, soft and fluid as air. The stone had offered something up. He could see where Rosa’s head would fit, the shape of her limbs, one hand curled slightly like a flower.
Love made everything possible, Alfredo thought. In a rosy glow he saw the month ahead laid out before him. He would learn English. He would fall in love again. He would complete this new and special work.
He arranged his tools, setting them up in groups, largest to smallest, and took out his new sketchbook. He would ask Rosa to model for him, sketch her in various poses to help reveal her in the stone. He had a name for the piece. A simple one-word name that said it all. Amor.
He sent a brief message to Paola.
Inspiration has struck. Much love.
Rose might have dug in over the studio allocation, but she hadn’t yet picked up a brush. Instead she drifted around the place, taking in the landscape absently, her thoughts all over the place. In the afternoon, she settled with a book on her reader and napped for a while, justifying her laziness as tiredness after the journey, or last night’s lack of sleep.
Dressing for dinner, she selected a low-cut top that made the most of her breasts. Skimpy tops were a bonus, she decided. They took up hardly any space in a suitcase and gave an instant glamour. It was just as well she could look glamorous on a shoestring, and she’d had plenty of practice over the years.
A diamond on a chain drew the eye to her cleavage. It was her mother’s diamond and the only thing she had of hers. That and a string of pearls were the only things of value her mother hadn’t hocked before she died. Towards the end, her brain had turned to mush and the concept of hocking had been beyond her.
After a bit of persuasion, Lily had taken the pearls. Rose didn’t like pearls, with their insipid passive glow. She wasn’t mad about diamonds either, but it was valuable and well set and bright enough to draw attention.
Rose took her seat opposite Alfredo and considered the pleasures and pitfalls of the dinner table. It was vaguely amusing that Jane was trying to divert the conversation away from Marion, who was still going on about the wonders of New York that no one gave a rat’s arse about. Why either of them bothered she couldn’t imagine.
For her part, she was enjoying every well-cooked mouthful of a chicken dish that the Americans were trying to translate into English. No doubt, when that was done, they’d go on to translate every bloody thing on the table. Rose’s interest was that it tasted delicious and that, across the table, Alfredo was watching her closely.
To his great surprise, Mike was having a good time. He had lived on his own now for eighteen months and, apart from four shifts a week at his local, was forced out to find snatches of human behaviour to weave into his stories. Some of the exchanges around the table held his interest. And, at other times, the topic of New York left him free to pursue his own thoughts.
‘The best paella I ever had was in a restaurant in Brooklyn.’ This was Marion again, oblivious to the idea that paella was Spanish and she was in Spain. ‘The saffron was genuine. I know because I asked the chef. Most of the time it’s the artificial stuff they use. Even here, I imagine.’
Jane winked at him and he grinned. Annette knew the same restaurant and the conversation got bogged down in geography and cuisine. Rose and Alfredo had eyes only for each other. From time to time Marion scratched the back of her neck as if embarrassed. There were people who couldn’t stop talking. One of the teachers at Mike’s last school