Again his sophisticated manners came into play when he drew out a chair for her before seating himself. None of the other men present had done it for their companions.
‘Thank you, but why don’t you sit next to Peggy? Then you’ll have someone to talk to when I’m helping Juanita,’ she suggested.
‘Yes, come and sit beside me, dear,’ said Peggy, patting the seat of the chair he had been holding for Cally and giving him a skittish look. She was old enough to be his mother but was refusing to surrender to late middle-age. Her hair was an unnaturally vivid auburn, her tan the result of hours of dedicated sun-bathing, her bosom a masterpiece of uplift.
For the first course there was a choice of fish soup or salad. Juanita ladled out the sopa de pescado for those who wanted it while Cally took round the plates of ensalada and small bowls of alioli sauce. Baskets of bread were already on the table, thick slices of the pan integral she preferred mixed with softer white bread, a concession to guests reared on steam-baked English factory bread whose teeth might not be equal to dealing with crusts.
Nicolás, as she was starting to think of him, was listening to some dramatic anecdote told by Peggy when Cally slipped into the chair on his other side. Casting an anxious eye in her father’s direction, she recognised—though no one else would—signs that his neighbours’ conversation was boring him. And when he was bored he reached for the carafe of wine more often than when he was interested.
She thought longingly of the day she was due to fly back to her real life in London. She didn’t mind giving up two weeks of her holiday allowance to give her mother a break from Valdecarrasca, and her parents a break from each other. In some ways she enjoyed being here, surrounded by vineyards and mountains instead of city streets and traffic jams.
But being a commissioning editor for a major publishing house was no longer the secure, lifetime job it had been in the days when publishing had been famously described as ‘an occupation for gentlemen.’ Today it was a far more cutthroat business with take-overs and redundancies being as commonplace as in most other occupations.
What was worrying her at the moment was that Edmund & Burke, the imprint she worked for, had been taken over by a global corporation which had a new CEO. Everyone was waiting to see how this formidable woman, Harriet Stowe, would restructure the UK segment of the company. She had the reputation of being a ruthless decision-maker in whose view literary merit was unimportant compared with profitability. Edmund & Burke were famous for the quality of their books, but they didn’t produce bestsellers. It was on the cards that Ms Stowe might decide to axe them.
This was not, therefore, a good time for Cally to be away from the office. But her mother’s plan to visit a friend had been fixed long before the future of Edmund & Burke became uncertain, and Cally knew that, had the trip been postponed, her parents’ marriage would also have reached a crisis point. She lived in dread of them deciding to separate for neither had the resources to survive on their own. They were not happy together, but apart they would be in deeper trouble, and the burden on Cally would be even heavier than it was already.
From the other side of the table, Fred, who was Peggy’s companion, leaned towards Cally and said, ‘I suppose the people in the village who own all the little vineyards are rubbing their hands at the thought of selling them off to property developers. They can see themselves getting rich, the way the Spanish who owned land on the coast did back in the sixties and seventies.’
‘If the vineyards become building plots, the valley will lose all its charm,’ said Cally. ‘They’ll make money, but they’ll lose their quality of life. It’s a pity there aren’t more stringent planning laws. I don’t think people should be allowed to spoil the mountains by putting up holiday villas wherever they want. There should be a limit above which nothing can be built.’
‘There probably is,’ Fred said, grinning. ‘But the builders can get round that with a little of the old…’ He demonstrated his meaning by rubbing his thumb against the tips of his fingers. Then, looking at Nicolás, he added, ‘No offence meant, señor. But we all know it happens. Always has…always will.’
‘My country is not the only place where graft is used to get round the regulations,’ Nicolás answered dryly. ‘Bribery exists everywhere. But I agree with Señorita Cally that it would be a pity if the uncontrolled development that has marred too many stretches of Spain’s coasts were allowed to continue inland. On the other hand, people like yourselves—’ with a gesture at the rest of the diners ‘—want to enjoy your retirement in a better climate, so some over-development here is inevitable.’
Turning to Cally, he asked, ‘What is your surname?’
‘Haig.’ She spelt it for him.
His black eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re half-British?’
‘I’m all-British. That’s my father at the end of the table.’
‘So that’s why you speak perfect English. I thought you were Spanish.’
‘Your English is perfect too. How does that come about?’
‘It’s a long story. I’ll explain some other time.’ Although his answer came smoothly, she had an intuitive feeling that somehow her question had put him on the spot. She couldn’t think of any reason why that should be the case, but she felt certain it was. For a moment she was tempted to press him, but she knew that it wouldn’t be right when he was a guest, albeit a paying guest.
In any case it was time to clear the first course and serve the second. This was one of Juanita’s specialities, berenjenas mudéjar.
‘I know berenjenas are what the Americans call eggplants and we call aubergines,’ Cally heard Peggy say to Nicolás, while she was taking the plates round. ‘But what does mudéjar mean?’
As no one else was speaking at that moment, everyone heard his reply.
‘Mudéjar refers to the Moors who stayed behind when Queen Isabella’s army had forced the Arabs who ruled a great part of Spain into retreat. The Moslems who stayed became slaves, but they were valued for their artistic gifts. You see their influence in what’s called the mudéjar architecture of the thirteenth century. This excellent dish is another reminder of how much this country owes to seven hundred years of Moorish culture.’
He lifted his glass of wine and looked at Juanita, still busy doling out steaming spoonfuls of baked sliced aubergines in a garlicky sauce. ‘A la cocinera…to the cook.’
As the others echoed his toast and Juanita beamed her gratification, Cally warmed to him on two counts: for his compliment to someone who was all too often ignored, and his grasp of his country’s history.
She wished it had been her father who had answered Peggy’s question and proposed the toast, but he never read books and he took the meals set before him, his clean clothes and all other creature comforts totally for granted. Perhaps it wasn’t his fault. He had been spoilt by his mother, her other grandmother, and was not the only man of his generation who thought it a woman’s duty to make things comfortable for the man in her life.
Which was one of the reasons why Cally had serious reservations about ever allowing another man into her life. She knew they were not all selfish encumbrances like her father, but many were, and it could be difficult to recognise a man’s true nature when, in the early stages of a relationship, he was on his best behaviour.
‘Hot plates. Now that is a treat,’ said Peggy. ‘So often, in Spanish restaurants, the plates are cold and it cools down the food before you’ve had time to enjoy it.’ She gave Nicolás a friendly nudge with her elbow. ‘I don’t mean to sound critical ’cos I love Spain. I wouldn’t go back to Birmingham if you paid me.’ She lifted her glass and looked round at the others. ‘Viva España!’
Cally had just placed a plate in