Under the Sun Read online

  But the bathroom was more than just organic, understated good taste: it was a love token, inspired by a room in a sultan’s palace Michael had admired during a trip to Istanbul, early in their relationship. More than anything else in the finca, she had created the space just for him.

  The room itself wasn’t large, just big enough for the vital furniture: a freestanding bath, wall-hanging cistern and sink, all vintage 1920s, plus a small armchair. There was a shuttered window and floating stone shelf holding a couple of paperbacks, an etching and a cup of wild flowers. The antique loo seat was a thing of austere beauty: square, treacle-coloured mahogany, like one in a medieval monastery.

  So far, so lovely. But what made the space extraordinary was the tiling behind the bath – a five foot square panel of antique tiles, some Arabic in design, others majolica and Delft, all various vivid shades of blue. They didn’t match, but that was the point: some were even broken, the grouting thick and obvious. The effect was glorious and unstudied, as if a sultan’s courier had accidentally smashed a section of priceless tiling in his master’s quarters and had quickly replaced it with whatever other blue tiles he could find to hand.

  In Istanbul, Michael had said, ‘that is my perfect room’, and she had recreated it for him. Yet there he was outside, with his hose.

  Keenly aware of how much he loathed domestic talk, she hadn’t mentioned his new habit for a while. Eventually she couldn’t help it – carefully framed, of course, in a jokey tone.

  ‘I drove all the way to Barcelona for that loo seat!’ she had said, sliding her hand under his T-shirt to feel his ribs (even after three years, she found it impossible to be near him without touching). ‘And had to endure a half-hour monologue from the guy in the antiques shop, about the anciana whose house it came from.’

  She was seriously downplaying the effort involved. The seat had actually come from Madrid – and that was the least of it. There were the World of Interiors back issues. The Internet research into how to make antique seats fit modern pans. The hours – dozens of hours – on eBay, waiting to pounce on exactly the right tiles. Even collecting the tiles took some effort: remote houses in the valley such as theirs had their post delivered only as far as a service station on the main road, nearly ten uncomfortable kilometres away. They were not alerted when post was waiting for them, so she would drive there every day on the off-chance of a delivery. She had told Michael that she had come across a box of tiles abandoned by the roadside – half driven over, to explain the smashed ones. What an amazing find!

  She also left out how much it all ended up costing: an eye-watering amount that she justified because Michael would love it so much, and they would appreciate it every day. Or so she had thought.

  ‘You must use it, Michael!’ she had said, in what she judged was the right tone: playful and archly overdramatic.

  But she had got it wrong. Or he had taken it wrong. He jerked away, so her hand slipped from his shirt, and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I must use the bathroom?’ he said, wilfully misinterpreting her. Surely he knew that she was using the imperative because that was how bold, assertive, exciting people spoke, and being emphatic was a sign of intimacy. She had spoken to him in a similar way in the past, she was sure: he must read The Old Man and the Sea; he must try the pesto from that deli in Farringdon.

  But now he had twisted the whole thing to become ridiculous and strangely prurient, and made her out to be the kind of person he knew she was not, who had nothing better to do than notice how many times he visited the bathroom. A small-minded, controlling woman.

  The memory of the incident, which was never mentioned again, made her insides clench. She put down the almonds and walked over to the barn. Michael was holding the hose above his head, eyes shut, wearing just his shorts. Not wanting to shock him she waited, watching him lasciviously, observing the muscles shifting under his skin as his hands moved the hose over his shoulders. How was it possible that Michael was almost forty – the same age as Kurt, with his widow’s peak and podgy, tapering fingers?

  Sensing another presence, Michael opened his eyes. He didn’t look too surprised to see her. She smiled broadly, to make clear her intentions weren’t hostile, and went over to him.

  ‘Let me,’ she said, taking the hose. Such was the heat, his shoulders were already almost dry. Anna aimed the plume of water at his chest, and traced its passage with her finger, running from the hollow at his neck down to his concave stomach. Inching closer, so the water caught her dress, instantly drenching the thin cotton, she raised her right foot and slid her bare toes up and down his damp calf. The heat from the sun seemed to intensify and the sound of the insects grew louder. She looked up at him and he returned her gaze, unreadable. As always with Michael, her desire welled up: if he had touched her, she would have come in seconds. She would have fucked him right there, on the ground, in view of the house.

  But instead he reached for the hose, turning it away from them, and gently disengaged himself from her grasp.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘I have the right angle when I do it.’

  But rather than continue with his wash, he walked over to turn off the tap. Anna remained standing where she was, looking down at the water pooling on the parched, resistant earth. Although the rejection wasn’t unexpected, she still felt unable to absorb it. After a moment she looked up. Michael was standing ten feet away, still, his back to her. He could have walked back into the barn, but instead he turned.

  ‘Why can’t you speak?’ he said, suddenly. ‘Can’t you say anything?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Anna replied. ‘I have been.’ She lowered her voice, mindful of their guests in their room nearby. ‘You know what it’s like with those two.’

  They had talked before about Farah’s fondness for the sound of her own voice. It was accepted that that was how she was, loud and opinionated, and had bound them together in the past. But, it seemed, that observation could no longer be made.

  ‘Farah’s a good friend,’ he said.

  ‘I know!’ cried Anna. ‘I know she is. But you know what she’s like.’

  ‘You’re scared of her because she’s strong,’ said Michael. Though shocked, Anna was grateful that he was finally engaging with her, even in this way.

  ‘That’s not fair!’ said Anna. ‘We’re just different. We’ve always been different.’

  When did he start wanting her to be more like Farah? Surely, the point of her was that she was not like Farah.

  Michael shook his head and turned away.

  ‘I’ve got to do some work,’ he said.

  Anna watched as he headed back towards the barn, and paused for a moment before ducking into the dark interior. As if he had briefly considered just carrying on walking, past the barn, through the almond grove and into the mountains, never to be seen again.

  Finally, it was the evening, and they could start drinking. Although it was still warm and light Anna lit the fire, a pit over which they had placed an antique iron gate to act as a grate. Farah positioned herself at the edge of the table beside the rosemary bush, snapping off branches and throwing them onto the flames, the smell of the roasting herb filling the air. Anna, having refused Farah’s offer of help, was in the kitchen, making more fuss than was needed over the food. They were having soup, stew, salad and a tart: she had already done all the hard work. She watched Michael’s shoulder blades move under his T-shirt as he uncorked the red, that body that was no longer hers, and closed her eyes in shame at the thought of the moment with the hose.

  Kurt was telling Michael about Twitter, a new social networking service.

  ‘I can’t see it rivalling Facebook,’ he said. ‘But it’s not uninteresting in its potential as a self-promotional tool and news disseminator.’

  ‘You must use it, Michael,’ said Farah, with what was obviously the right sort of airy, emphatic tone for the phrase. She had changed into a white salwar kameez, as if to atone for her too-brief shorts during the day. No
t, of course, that Farah would ever feel the need to atone for anything. ‘For your work. Build the Michael Mizrahi brand.’

  Anna, safe behind the kitchen counter, laughed at the joke. Michael, the least commercially minded person they knew!

  But Michael appeared to be taking the proposition seriously.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he said, nodding. ‘I’ll look into it.’

  Anna sighed, and retreated back to the almond soup, as the others talked.

  Michael and Farah had now moved on to something to do with economics. Northern Rock being returned to the private sector. Dow Jones industrial index. Indy Mac Bancorp going down. She didn’t have a clue what they were on about.

  After checking the seasoning, she poured the creamy, oil-flecked liquid into an earthenware bowl, and added some ice cubes and apple wafers. Ajo blanco, the speciality of the region. The almond grove was where she went each day to deposit her Pill, secretly dropped from her palm as she checked on their crop. The soil must be full of hormones – maybe the soup would be, too. Then, in her reverie, she heard her name, and looked up.

  ‘What about you, Anna?’

  From the table, Farah was smiling at her.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Getting any work done?’

  Now she asked? In all the evenings Anna had spent with Michael’s friends in London, rarely had anyone shown interest in her work or treated her as if she was anything more than Michael’s plus one. Back then it rankled, because she had something to say. Now, she didn’t. Although the plan had been to establish a freelance graphic design business, and she’d had images of herself designing a new typeface whilst sitting underneath a wisteria-carpeted pergola, the truth was that the finca – and Michael – had been her full-time occupation, and she hadn’t even begun to think about other work.

  She opened her mouth to say something but the words withered, and instead she just shook her head. Farah turned back to the table, and Anna looked down at the soup. She had a sudden, disquieting sense that all her past achievements no longer existed; if she opened the cupboard in which she’d stored them, she would find them turned to dust.

  She brought the bowl over to the table and, although it was still not yet dark, decided to light the candles. Kurt was telling them how he was now refusing media invitations to opinionate on various topics of the day; although it was easy money, he didn’t want to be seen as a hack. He started telling a story about an old university friend of theirs who wanted to be a novelist and had asked Kurt to read her manuscript. He didn’t let the arrival of his bowl of soup interrupt his flow.

  ‘I had a spare hour so I read the thing and of course it was dreadful, meretricious and middlebrow. A few weeks later we met at a launch and she asked, had I had a chance to read her novel? And I said yes, I had. And that was that, I went off to get a drink. Then, the next day, came this long email saying how upset she was that I hadn’t said anything about her book, that I could have just lied and said that I liked it or found something nice to say about it, or lied and said I hadn’t read it. Anything rather than making it so clear that I didn’t think much of it.’

  He put down his spoon, his voice rising.

  ‘I had to explain to her: look, I didn’t tell you what I thought because I didn’t want to upset you but I am not going to lie to you, I am not going to say your book has merit when it’s not true. I can’t do that. My opinion means something, it’s how I earn my living, you must understand that? Ask your mother if you want to be flattered.’

  Farah had already finished her soup and now resumed snapping off bits of the rosemary bush and chucking them onto the fire. Couldn’t she stop doing that?

  ‘I can’t believe Meredith ever got into Oxford,’ Farah said. ‘She was so dreary and third-rate. The kind of person who clings to the fact she’s “nice” and “kind”, and a good listener and loyal friend, as evidence that she’s worthwhile. Always remembering birthdays, sends thank-you cards for dinner before you’ve even had time to clear up the dishes.’

  ‘God, yes,’ said Michael, ‘those grand gestures of thoughtfulness. Something to hide behind because they either don’t have the balls to say what they really think, or aren’t capable of formulating anything original at all.’

  He was looking at Farah as he spoke, but the words hit Anna hard. She had his family’s birthdays marked in her diary. She sent handmade thank-you cards. But he was talking about this Meredith, right? Her boyfriend and his friends, sitting in the house she had built, eating the soup she had made, from almonds she had picked – of course they couldn’t be talking about her?

  The fact she had had a few glasses of wine emboldened her to speak.

  ‘But maybe she doesn’t have an opinion,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to have an opinion on everything. What about doubt? An underated virtue. I think it should be celebrated.’

  Anna was pleased with this: it felt like the kind of conversation the others would have: counterintuitive, abstract, provocative. But it fell flat. All Kurt said was, ‘The most important thing is that people do their own thinking.’

  ‘Niceness is often a front for having nothing to contribute,’ Farah added, as if this was the last word on the subject.

  God, she loathed these people. Michael cleared the empty bowls. No one had commented on the soup: all those almonds, grown and picked with such effort. Anna stood up and walked over to the kitchen with him, but Michael said nothing, keeping his attention trained on Farah and Kurt. He fetched another bottle of wine and sat back down. Anna dished up the beef and chorizo stew. Over the valley, the sun was finally sinking, staining the mountains peach. The air was still sultry but a cooler breeze blew. The tree frogs had begun their non-stop evening chatter; no worry about one of them being left out.

  As they ate Farah talked about the dissident’s case she was working on and then, as was her habit, abruptly changed the subject.

  ‘Listen, I can’t come to Spain and not swim. Can’t we go down to the coast tomorrow?’

  ‘I have to work,’ said Michael. ‘I can drive you at tea time, but not before.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Anna take us?’ said Farah.

  Anna shuddered at the prospect of those bumpy hours in the car with them before remembering that it wouldn’t be possible at all. She opened her mouth to make an excuse as to why she couldn’t take them: but Michael got there first.

  ‘Well, Anna can’t, you see, because . . .’

  ‘Michael!’ said Anna, cutting him off, aghast.

  Michael looked at her, challengingly, but didn’t continue.

  For the rest of dinner Anna didn’t speak, and didn’t care if her silence was noticed. As soon as she had finished her stew, Farah started breaking off the rosemary bush again, and Anna felt the anger growing until she opened her mouth to stop her. Just in time, Michael suggested that they take their tart indoors, so they could listen to some music. He put on some of his ghastly, alienating jazz and sat on the Josef Frank chair; the other two took a sofa each. Anna lit an unnecessary fire and then positioned herself on the floor between Michael’s legs, leaning on his thighs, which had as much emotional connection as a cushion, and less comfort.

  She closed her eyes and half-listened as the old friends talked – about books and American politics and Kurt’s work and old friends – and her absence from the conversation remained unremarked-upon. Once or twice she thought of saying something but simply didn’t have the energy and sat there, slumped.

  Eventually, she miserably raised her head, flushed by the fire, heavy with wine, and announced she was turning in. She got to her feet, leaned over to kiss Michael, and went into the bedroom, where she lay fully clothed on the bed. She heard the burr of their conversation, Farah’s laughter passing easily through the paper-thin walls. It went over her head, as she drifted in and out of sleep. The cistern groaned once or twice.

  Then she heard Farah say, quite clearly, ‘She’s sweet, but I can’t pretend I’m interested in anything she has to say.’


  Immediately, Anna was alert, senses tingling. They weren’t talking about her, surely? It was Meredith again?

  Someone – Michael? – said something, at length. Anna couldn’t quite make it out.

  Farah again. ‘I’m not sure what she brings to the table.’

  Anna closed her eyes. And then, with some effort, she sat up in bed and shouted at the wall, as loud as she could muster:

  ‘I bought the fucking table!’

  1

  Southern Spain, December 2009

  Not everyone in Marea went home for Christmas. Of Anna’s customers from the bar, Mattie had no ties left in the UK. Richard went back only to buy used mobility scooters which he shipped over and resold at the big resorts down the coast. Graeme vowed, publicly and repeatedly, he would only leave Spain in a box.

  And there was the modest legion of old troupers who clung on year-round, couples who had been together so long they had morphed into the same size and who spent their days circuiting the promenade, holding hands as if plugged into a power source. When David and Rose, who lived in the building along from Anna, heard that she would be alone they timidly asked if she’d like to join them for Christmas lunch.

  ‘We’re sure you’ve got something far better to do,’ said Rose, looking at David as she spoke, ‘but we thought, just in case . . .’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Anna, meaning it, ‘but I’ve got plans.’ She didn’t add that these involved a box set of Lost, some fresh sardines and, her present to herself, two bottles of good verdejo. Eight euros a bottle was an extravagance, but she justified it: decent wine was necessary to soften the experience of spending three days in her apartment. A former holiday let above the bar that had been included in the sale by the tearfully grateful vendor, it was a desultory space, even by the standards of its previous existence. No one, Anna felt certain, had ever walked in and said anything more fulsome than ‘Well, looks clean enough.’ The living room was three metres wide and meanly furnished, with a dining table for four and a faux-leather sofa for two. The walls were stucco and the floor tiled in the bloodied peach colour that was the Spanish builders’ equivalent of magnolia. On one wall was a small window overlooking the square, grilled despite being a storey above the ground; on the other a Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster, which seemed to be de rigueur in Spanish holiday lets. Anna imagined a warehouse somewhere full of surplus stock: thousands of Holly Golightlys twinkling in the gloom.