Sleeping Tiger (7 page)

“It is too difficult. You would never find it. But,” he added, “I can find someone to take you there.”

“That is kind of you. Thank you so much, Mr.… I'm afraid I don't know your name.”

“Rudolfo. Not Mr. anything. Just Rudolfo. If you wait here for a moment, I will see what I can arrange.”

He went out through the curtains, across the square and into the shop opposite. Toni slumped on his stool, his bulk sagging on either side of the inadequate seat, and his mood obviously darkening. Selina began to be nervous. She said, trying to placate him, “It's annoying to be delayed, when you've been so kind.…”

“We do not know that Señor Dyer will be at the Casa Barco. They have not seen him return from San Antonio yet.”

“Well, if he isn't, we can always wait a little.…”

It was the wrong thing to say. “I cannot wait. I am a working man. Time is money to me.”

“Yes, of course. I do understand.”

He made a sound as if to indicate that she could not possibly understand, and half turned his back to her like any overgrown and sulky schoolboy. It was a relief when Rudolfo returned. He had arranged for the son of the woman who ran the grocery store to take them to Casa Barco. The boy had a large order for Señor Dyer, which he was about to deliver on his bicycle. If they liked they could follow the bicycle in the taxi.

“Yes, of course, that will be splendid.” Selina turned to Toni, and said, with a brightness she did not feel, “And he will pay your fare, and then you will be able to go straight back to San Antonio.”

Toni did not look convinced, but he heaved himself off the bar stool, and followed Selina out into the square. By the taxi, a skinny boy waited by his bicycle. The handle-bars were slung with two enormous baskets, of the type used by all Spanish peasants. Badly-wrapped parcels of all shapes and sizes protruded from these baskets. Long loaves of bread, a bundle of onions, the neck of a bottle.

Rudolfo said, “This is Tomeu, the son of Maria. He will show you the way.”

Like a little pilot fish, Tomeu weaved ahead, down the white-rutted road that wound with the convolutions of the coast. The island was pierced with inlets of peacock-blue water, and above the rocks could be glimpsed delectable white villas, small gardens spilling with flowers, sunbathing terraces and diving-boards.

Selina said, “I wouldn't mind living here,” but Toni's mood was rapidly worsening and he would make no reply. The road was a road no longer, merely a lane winding between the mesembryanthemum-covered walls of other people's gardens. It crested a slight rise, then sloped towards a final and much larger inlet, where a tiny harbour sheltered a few fishing-boats, and quite big yachts were moored out in deep water.

The lane ran down to the backs of houses. Tomeu, ahead of them, waited. When he saw the taxi edge over the crest of the hill, he got off his bicycle, laid it against a wall, and began to unload the baskets.

Selina said, “That must be the house.”

It did not look large. The back wall was white-washed and blank, except for a tiny slit of a window and a shuttered door, shaded by a thick, black pine. Behind the house the road branched, and ran to left and to right, along the backs of other houses. Here and there a narrow alley of stairs sliced down between the buildings towards the sea. There was a pleasantly haphazard look about it all, with washing flapping on lines and some nets put out to dry, and one or two skinny cats sitting in the sun and washing themselves.

Toni's taxi bumped and slithered the last few yards, Toni complaining meanwhile that there would be nowhere to turn, his taxi was not meant for such bad roads, he would put in a claim if any of his paintwork was scratched.

Selina scarcely listened. Tomeu had opened the green shutter door and disappeared into the house, lugging his heavy baskets. The taxi lurched to a halt and Selina scrambled out.

Toni said, “I will go and turn and come back for the money.”

“Yes,” said Selina absently, watching the open door. “Yes, you do that.”

He accelerated so swiftly that she had to step back into the gutter to avoid having her toes run over, but when he had gone, she crossed the lane, and went, under the shade of the pine, cautiously in through the open door of the Casa Barco.

She had thought it would be a little house, but instead found herself in one large high-ceilinged room. The shutters were all closed, and it was dark and cool. There was no kitchen, but a small counter enclosed a galley, like a little bar, from the main living-space, and behind this she found Tomeu, on his knees, stacking the provisions into a refrigerator.

He looked up and smiled as she leaned over the counter. She said, “Señor Dyer?”

He shook his head. “No
aquí.
”

No
aquí.
Not here. Her heart sank. He wasn't back from San Antonio, and somehow she was going to have to fob Toni off with excuses, and suggestions that he be patient, when neither of them had any idea for how long they would have to wait.

Tomeu said something. Selina stared uncomprehending. To show what he meant, he came out from the little galley and went over to the far wall and began to undo the shutters and fling them wide. A blast of light and sunshine invaded the house and everything sprang into colour. The south wall, that faced out over the harbour, was almost all window, but louvred double doors opened out on to a terrace, shaded by a split-cane awning. There was a low wall, and a few battered crocks and urns, containing geraniums, and beyond the wall, the shimmering blue of the sea.

The house itself was divided in a novel way. There were no interior walls, but the roof of the galley formed a little gallery with a wooden railing and this was reached by an open flight of steps like a ship's ladder. Beneath the ship's ladder another door led into a minuscule wash-room. A hole high in the wall provided light and ventilation, and there was a sink and a lavatory and a primitive-looking shower, and a shelf with bottles and toothpaste and stuff, and a mirror, and on the floor a round washing-basket.

The rest of the space was a lofty living-room of singular charm, white-washed, and with a stone floor, scattered with bright rugs. In one corner of the room was a wide triangular fireplace, filled with fragrant wood ashes, which looked as though they needed only the lightest puff of air to bring them back to burning life. The hearth was perhaps eighteen inches from the floor, just the right height for a comfortable seat, and this continued along the wall in a sort of shelf which was scattered with cushions and rugs, piles of books, a lamp, a piece of rope in the process of being spliced, a pile of papers and magazines and a box of empty bottles.

In front of the fireplace, with its back to the terrace and the sea, was an enormous sagging couch, with room for six and no trouble at all. It was loose-covered in fading blue linen, and draped in a red-and-white-striped blanket. On the other side of the room, at right angles to the light, stood a cheap knee-hole desk, laden with more paper, a typewriter, an open box of what looked like unopened letters, and a pair of binoculars. There was a sheet of paper in the typewriter and Selina could not resist a peep.

“George Dyer's New Novel,” she read. “The lazy fox jumped over the something or other hound.”

And than a row of asterisks and an exclamation mark.

She turned down the corners of her mouth. So much for Mr. Rutland's hopes!

Between the galley and the door was a well, with a wrought-iron hook for the bucket and a wide shelf on which stood a half-empty bottle of wine and a cactus plant. Selina looked down and saw the dark gleam of water, and smelt it, sweet and good, and wondered if it was fit to drink; but Grandmother had always said you must never drink water abroad unless it was boiled, and this was no time to risk getting gastro-enteritis.

She left the well and came to stand in the middle of the room, looking up at the gallery. The temptation to investigate proved irresistible, and she climbed the ladder, and found a beguiling slope-ceilinged bedroom with an immense carved double bedstead (how had they ever got it up here?) placed, in state, beneath the high pitch of the gable. There was little room for more furniture, but a pair of sea-chests had been fitted in against the low walls, and a bulging curtain did duty as a wardrobe. There was an upended orange box for a bedside table, its shelves filled with books, and a lamp and a transistor radio, and a ship's chronometer.

From the terrace Tomeu called “Señorita!” and Selina went down the ladder to join him. He was sitting on the wall, in the company of an enormous white Persian cat. He turned to smile at Selina, gathering up the cat in his arms as though to give it to her.

“Señor Dyer,” he said, indicating the cat, which mewed pathetically, and after a struggle, leapt lightly away, stalking into a sunny corner to settle itself in dignity, wrapping its tail around its front paws.

“It is very big,” said Selina. Tomeu frowned. “Big,” she said again, indicating with her arms a cat the size of a tiger. “Big.”

Tomeu laughed.
“Sí. Muy grande.”

“It's Señor Dyer's cat?”

“
Sí.
Señor Dyer.”

She went to join him, leaning out over the wall. There was a little triangle of rocky garden with a gnarled olive tree or two, and Selina realised that, like any house built on a steep slope, the Casa Barco went in stages and the terrace was, in fact, the roof of a boathouse, with slipways which ran down to the water. A flight of steps led from the terrace to the lower level, and directly below them two men squatted, cleaning fish. Their knives sliced precisely, the blades glinting in the sunlight. They rinsed the fish in the sea, stirring up the still, jade water. Tomeu stooped to pick up a chip of stone, and threw it down at the men, and the two faces turned up to see who it was, and saw Tomeu and smiled.

“
Hombre,
Tomeu!”

He replied with some impudent back-chat, for they laughed and then went back to their work. Beneath Selina's hands the stone wall was warm, and some of the white-wash had smudged off on to the front of her dress, like chalk from a blackboard. She turned to sit on the wall, with her back to the sea, and saw the washing-line, slung between two hooks, with a row of bone-dry wrinkled clothes. A faded blue work-shirt, a pair of bathing-trunks, some white ducks with patches on the knees, and a pair of old tennis shoes worn to a shred and tied over the line by their laces. The terrace also sported a few articles of furniture, but not the
House & Garden
type. A ratty old cane chair and a wooden paint-chipped table and the sort of booby-trap deck-chair that collapses when you sit in it. She wished that she could speak Spanish and talk to the friendly Tomeu. She wanted to ask about Señor Dyer. What sort of a man was he? Which of the yachts was his? When did Tomeu think he would be back from San Antonio? But before she could start up any sort of communication with him, the sound of Toni's returning taxi came like a knell of doom. It stopped by the door and in a moment Toni came into the house, looking ill-tempered and more villainous than ever. Selina had to tell herself that he couldn't eat her. She said, firmly, “Señor Dyer is not back.”

Toni received this information in frigid silence. Then he produced a toothpick and delved about at a troublesome back molar. He wiped the toothpick on the seat of his pants, put it back into his pocket and said, “What the hell we do now?”

“I shall wait here. He can't be long. Rudolfo said that he wouldn't be long. And you can either wait here too, or you can leave me your name and address and return to San Antonio. Either way I shall see that you get paid.”

Unconsciously she spoke in her grandmother's voice, and to her own surprise, it worked. Toni resigned himself to the situation. He sucked his teeth for a moment or two more and than announced his decision.

“I shall wait too. But not here. At the hotel.”

There was cognac at the hotel and he could have a siesta in the taxi, beneath the shade of the tree. It was half past two already and he did not enjoy being awake at half past two. “When Señor Dyer is here, you can come and tell me.”

Selina could have hugged him in relief, but she only said, “Very well, I'll certainly do that.” And then added, because he looked so despondent, “I am sorry this has happened, but it will be all right.”

He shrugged hugely, sighing, and went back to his car. They heard him start up and drive back over the hill towards the Cala Fuerte hotel. Selina had time to think “Poor Rudolfo,” and then she went back to Tomeu.

“I stay here,” she told him.

He frowned.
“Usted aquí.”

“Yes. Here.” She pointed to the ground. Tomeu grinned his comprehension and went to collect his empty baskets.

“Good-bye, Tomeu, and thank you.”

“
Adiós,
Señorita.”

He was gone, and Selina was alone. She went out on to the terrace and told herself that she was waiting for her father, but it was still not quite believable. She wondered if he would know, without being told, who she was. And if he did not know, she wondered how she would tell him.

It was very hot. The sun beat down on to the sheltered terrace, and she could not remember ever having been so hot. Her nylon stockings and her leather shoes and her woollen dress became, all at once, unbearable. They were no longer sensible, but unsuitable to a degree that was lunatic.

But Grandmother couldn't stand bare legs, even with a summer dress, and gloves she considered essential.
You can tell a lady by her gloves. Such an untidy-looking gel, going about without a hat.

But Grandmother was dead. Loved, mourned, but undoubtedly dead. The voice was stilled, the dogmatic opinions would never be uttered again, and Selina was on her own, to do what she wanted, in her father's house and a world away from Queen's Gate. She went into the house, and stripped off her stockings and her shoes, and then, feeling cool and delightfully free, went in search of food. There was butter in the refrigerator, and she put some on a slice of bread, and took a tomato and a bottle of cold soda water. This picnic she ate on the terrace, perched on the wall, and watching the boats in the harbour. Afterwards, she began to be sleepy, but she did not want to be found asleep. There was something very unguarded about being found asleep. She would have to sit somewhere hard and uncomfortable and stay awake.