Under the Sun Read online

  Now, Anna watched Caz step onto the terrace of her rival bar, Sweeney’s, and sit at a table, the dogs sinking to the ground at her feet. Most of the establishments in the square were shuttered up today, including Anna’s, but Sweeney was joylessly hardworking. She watched him now bring out meals to a couple on his terrace, holding the plates with a dishcloth and depositing them with the briefest of smiles, before dropping a laminated menu on Caz’s table.

  Maybe Anna should have opened today: she’d have sold a few Irish coffees to this crowd. She supposed it wasn’t too late – it was simply a matter of walking across to her bar, lifting the shutters, warming up the coffee machine. But she remained where she was, leaning against the railings, looking around.

  Down on the beach below her, a small band of metal detectorists were combing the sand. Anna identified one of the figures as Graeme, a regular, who had a stiff knee. The men reminded Anna of a pack of ageing wild animals on a hunt – sticking together for efficiency and safety, but essentially, each working for himself. Whoever happened upon that hoard of Armada gold would not be sharing it out. Along from Anna, an elderly couple had also stopped at the railings to watch. The woman glanced over at Anna and smiled guilelessly, as if to say, ‘Well, how about this, then!’ as if they had happened upon a shoot for the new Bond film, rather than four pensioners inching along the sand.

  Often, Marea’s perpetual Sunday atmosphere made Anna feel as if she was at a dead stop, trapped in resin that was slowly hardening around her, sealing her off from the things that made existence worthwhile: history, progress, culture, wit, conversation, nuance. But on occasion, out of nowhere, she was ambushed by a strong, exhilarating sense of inhabiting the present. She smiled back at the woman, then closed her eyes and lifted her face to let the sun’s weak heat soak through her lids. Maybe Jess wasn’t being sincere when she said she wished she were here, but lots of others did yearn for exactly this. Look at all those planes. All those series of A Place in the Sun.

  She knew by now that this feeling shouldn’t be trusted: after all, it was a similar state of mind that had led to her buying the bar. She had stood close to this spot, intoxicated, feeling not unpleasantly marooned, and had noticed a Se Vende sign on the little bar across the square, citing an extremely modest figure that was almost exactly what she had left in her savings. The sun and booze fuzzed her discernment, and masked her other reasons for staying in Marea.

  She wasn’t going to think about all that. The verdejo had now settled in a sweet spot: she felt energized and invulnerable. She looked towards the ocean. The spume lapped the sand as gently as champagne froth. Maybe she should go for a swim. That would be a stylish thing to do, wouldn’t it, to jump into the sea on Christmas Day? She didn’t have her stuff with her, of course, but she could go in in her underwear. Give the promenaders something to look at.

  Yes, she thought, that’s exactly what she’d do. Plunge into the bracing, briny ocean. Commune with the elements. Maybe she’d start swimming every day. To her shame, she’d only been in the sea once since moving to the town.

  Buoyed by the plan, she started down the beach steps, taking them two at a time. The African hawkers were stationed halfway down as ever, their Louis Vuitton knock-offs laid out on blankets, ready to be scooped up if the police came along, but they seemed to be taking the day off from the hard sell and didn’t call out to her as she passed. Further down was a trio of Spanish youths, smoking; she was hit by the smell of weed as she passed.

  Down on the beach, Anna pulled off her shoes and headed for the water, but by the time she got there, her enthusiasm had waned. Undressing, getting in, the chilly water clamping her legs, then her waist . . . getting out, getting dry . . . it all suddenly seemed far too much effort. She stalled by the water’s edge, her toes scratching at the damp sand. What now?

  She looked around, at the neat pile of banana boats and the ranks of thatched beach umbrellas, patiently waiting for the season to start. The jumble of apartments and hotels behind the beach, like a load of boxes in a shoe shop’s storeroom. The scene had barely changed in thirty years, she knew; she’d seen pictures. Even the typeface on the signs was the same. Marea didn’t update for the sake of it.

  The detectorists had moved on, and she was now the only one on the beach. No, wait. By the rocks at the far end, by the blue wooden fishing boat, was a man tending something on a fire. Paco! The famous Paco, who lived on the beach, crouched over his paella, even on Christmas Day.

  She realized she had never actually talked to Paco, the celebrity of Marea, the old man of the sea whose image adorned postcards. How could this be? Now was the time to make his acquaintance. She started off down the beach towards him, breaking into a run in her eagerness, enjoying the unexpected exercise. As she neared him, she saw that the receptacle Paco was tending was not the vast, thirty-tourist paella dish he used in the summer – of course it wouldn’t be – but a modest grill, on which he was roasting sardines. The old man had paused in his cooking and was watching Anna run towards him, his expression unreadable. She came to a halt and beamed at him.

  He must have been pushing seventy but was a good advert for a life on the sand: grizzled but barely withered, with a shiny, speckled bald head and an upper body dense with muscle. His white vest was luminous against his brown-black skin, the grey hairs on his chest exposed.

  ‘Feliz Navidad!’ she said. After a moment he nodded and returned the greeting, his voice raspy.

  ‘I had sardines too,’ she continued, in Spanish, pointing at the fire.

  He squinted at her. ‘Que?’

  Anna started to repeat herself but, suddenly, felt foolish. Giving him a quick smile, she raised a hand in farewell, and turned back up the beach.

  Paco said something else that she didn’t catch. She turned back and he repeated it, this time pointing to the fish on the grill, and she understood that he was asking her to join him. She shook her head and smiled and talked fast, using English words he probably couldn’t understand, to try and cover up her lack of real excuse.

  ‘Muchas gracias, señor,’ she said finally, putting her hands in a prayer position, before turning and heading back.

  Imagine, Anna thought, as she made her way to the steps, if that was the sole triumph of your life. One swim as a thirteen-year-old and the chance discovery of a wreck that became your town’s tourist attraction. It was the only notable thing Paco had ever done – well, so she imagined – and he had capitalized on it, buying his paella dish and getting into the guidebooks and managing to eke a lifetime’s living out of it. A modest, unassuming life, but probably no less fulfilled than that of a movie star or an explorer.

  Nearing the top of the steps, she had an idea. Why not? It was Christmas, after all. She sprang up the last few steps and back across the square to the bar and, keeping up the pace, up to her apartment, where she grabbed a screwed-up bunch of notes that she had left on the kitchen counter. Around thirty euros in total, change from a cash-and-carry trip. Then she hurried back down to the beach. This time, the Africans and Spanish youths watched her as she flew down the stairs and hit the sand, speeding back towards Paco. Breathing heavily, she reached the old man. He now had the sardines on a plate, ready to eat, holding a bottle of hot sauce as he stared at her.

  ‘Here, for you,’ she said, thrusting the pebble of cash into his hands.

  Paco looked at the money, and then back up at her, dark eyes narrowed. Then he took her hand with one of his and placed it over his heart. Her fingers pressed against his bed of chest hair, as stiff as nylon.

  ‘Gracias,’ he said, with deep solemnity. ‘Muchas gracias.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said. He released her hand and she smiled, embarrassed, before turning to head back up the beach towards home.

  As she reached her apartment, Anna remembered the verdejo had run out, and ducked into the bar for more supplies. The place was a sight. She hadn’t cleaned up since the last time she’d had customers in, three days before Christmas, when the
expats had gathered to watch the Spanish national lottery on TV. They’d all entered as a group, with a single ticket, and expectations were high. This, they were sure, would be the thing that saved them, that would wipe out the problem of their houses being worthless and the effects of the rotten euro on their pensions. The floor was littered with the plastic shells of party poppers and their sodden innards, like squashed worms; there was a discarded Santa hat and a pair of glittery novelty sunglasses. The air smelled sour from sticky pools of spilled drinks on the tables. The aftermath might have led an observer to think that the group had won, but of course they hadn’t. When the final ball had been pulled from the spinning gilded cage and its number atonally sung by the schoolchild chosen to deliver the bad news, Anna, fuelled by several coffees with brandy and unable to bear her customers’ collective naked disappointment, had insisted they all pop their poppers anyway.

  Back upstairs, she glanced at her phone, and saw that her mother had called. After listening to the voicemail – an overly detailed description of the dog-shaped charm that her husband had bought her for her bracelet, and an unfunny joke about Anna having tapas for lunch – Anna sent a bland text in return, before turning off the phone and climbing back into the chair. When Lost ended she went straight onto 24. The hours passed seamlessly, stupefied, one episode and copita bleeding into another, slivers of manchego every so often. Her unwashed hair grew stiff and her scalp itched. Her laptop was only for watching the TV; she hadn’t any desire to go online and read the news or, worse, look on Facebook. No, the only way through was to keep her old life at bay. Far from home, starved of details, anaesthetized by wine, she could endure. From the wall Holly Golightly in her tiara, cigarette holder aloft, gazed down at her, bemused at how different women could be.

  At some point on the 28th or 29th, the doorbell rang. Anna was dozing and jolted awake, unfolding herself stiffly and moving across to the window. The hair below was unfamiliar; male, dark and glossy as a seal’s. Spanish.

  A rep for a soft drinks brand? Last month, she’d had an inspection visit from the company who had loaned her a display fridge, checking that she was using it only for their products, as their contract stipulated.

  Before Anna could retreat, the man tilted his head and looked straight up at her. He smiled, apparently unsurprised to see her there at the window, and with a single wave summoned her downstairs.

  There was something about his manner – as if he was expected – that made her follow his command and go to the door. When she opened it he addressed her by name and added, in English, ‘I hope this isn’t inconvenient.’

  It didn’t sound like a sincere concern. The physical authority she’d glimpsed from above had been an illusion: the man was short and slight, no bigger than her. Anna shook his hand, conscious of the contrast between her sweatshirt sleeve and his cufflinks. He had the kind of blandly handsome, symmetrical face used to advertise dating sites. He didn’t look as if he wanted to jet-wash her terrace.

  ‘I knew this place when it was a bakery,’ he said in English, indicating the bar. ‘When I was a boy. I used to come down here to get the bread, I was always first in the queue in the morning. Once the bread was so hot, by the time I got home my chest was burnt pink, this perfect oval.’

  He mimed hugging a loaf of bread to his chest.

  ‘Ah,’ said Anna, smiling. So he was a local boy made good; a businessman now living in Madrid or somewhere who had come home to visit his parents and succumbed to nostalgia as he passed his old haunts.

  ‘You own it now?’ he said.

  She shrugged yes, embarrassed, as if she was personally responsible for the English invasion of his town and the replacement of hot loaves with cheap pints.

  ‘I was going to make it into a little cafe,’ she explained, apologetically. ‘Or anyway, that was the idea.’

  It seemed a long time ago now, that plan to bring down some of the furniture from the finca; paint the beams; put in bookshelves; source really good coffee.

  ‘Not much profit in tea,’ said the man, in the tone of someone who knew.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that much in beer, either, it turns out.’

  ‘But you like it here? In Marea?’

  ‘Oh yeah, it’s great,’ she said, not wanting to insult his hometown.

  ‘Really?’ he said, with genuine curiosity. ‘You like it?’

  She nodded, smiling. She couldn’t gauge his tone.

  ‘I like to be by the coast. I swim, you see,’ she said. By now she was almost believing her own hype, that she was a frequent, enthusiastic swimmer. She wanted him to think she was different from the other expats, sealed off in their sterile urban developments. ‘And I like the people here. The local people. I talked to Paco on Christmas Day. You know Paco? The guy on the beach?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, holding his palms to the sky. ‘El Tio.’

  Anna had heard the word before, but couldn’t recall exactly what it meant. An endearment of some kind.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Forgive my sentimentality. The business I am here for – that is your property up at Yalo?’

  Anna stared at him, thrown by the change of tack.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The finca. Your phone number is on the sign outside. I have called you several times since Christmas.’

  She said nothing, suddenly wary. He must be an official. She’d forgotten to pay some bill on the finca, or another arcane tax had been quietly introduced. She tilted her head and smiled noncommittally, the way she did in the bar when the talk turned to immigration.

  ‘The sign outside says your house is for sale,’ he said, ‘but is it also available to rent? I would like to rent it.’

  ‘Perdón?’ Anna frowned. She repeated his question in Spanish, to make sure he was saying what he meant to.

  ‘Sí, sí,’ said the man impatiently, ‘alquilar.’ Then, switching back to English, he explained that he wanted to rent the house for three months, possibly longer, and could pay 600 euros a month.

  ‘I wish I could afford more,’ he said, with an exaggerated sigh. ‘But times are tough, are they not?’

  He was looking at her steadily. Anna broke from his gaze, looking at a desiccated bougainvillea gripping the wall of the building opposite. Her brain felt locked, unable to process this turn of events. Was this a scam? A mistake?

  ‘Starting on the first of January,’ he pressed on. ‘We can pick up the keys on Friday. New Year’s Eve. You will be here?’

  Anna saw he was flicking his fingers against his thumb; beneath his suave exterior, the man had the energy of a street hustler. She nodded, to break the tension, telling herself I’m just agreeing that I’ll be here on New Year’s Eve, but knowing that she was really consenting to the whole bewildering thing. She was rewarded with a full-beam smile.

  ‘Fantastic!’ he said, leaning to touch the top of her arm, like a politician. ‘I am very happy.’

  Then, with the hint of a frown, as if he’d just remembered something, he added, ‘I suppose you’ll want a contract?’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ she heard herself saying. ‘We don’t need to bother with that.’ She didn’t want to displease him, or interrupt the momentum of the deal.

  He nodded to signal his approval of her lack of dreariness, of not needing to do things by the book. She smiled back, and the man held out his tiny, fine-boned hand.

  ‘Well, we will see you on Friday then,’ he said. She shook his hand and he held it for a brief moment before turning to walk away, towards a large BMW parked up a few yards up.

  ‘Hey,’ called Anna, ‘what’s your name?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, turning back. ‘I am Simón.’

  See-mon. A business card appeared from his pocket, and he passed it to her with a magician’s speed before walking briskly back to the car.

  Belatedly, thoughts and questions crowded into her head. She called after him, ‘I haven’t been up there for a while, you know. I think it’s not that clean?’

&
nbsp; ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said, glancing back, as if, again, such concerns were for other people.

  ‘You know there’s no pool?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Simón, over his shoulder, as he reached down for the door handle. ‘We don’t need that.’

  Anna watched him climb into the driver’s seat, too big for him. He had left his engine running and the car’s wing mirrors folded in protectively as he reversed down the narrow street. She looked at his business card – Simón Ruiz and a number, nothing else – and thought of all the things she hadn’t asked him, and all the things he hadn’t asked her.

  But 600 euros. The same amount she had once spent on curtains for the finca’s guest room, or two nights in a so-so boutique hotel. Now, it was enough to ease the constant, low-level unease that emanated from that foot-long wedge of unopened mail under the bar counter. A thin cushion for her life.

  It had been months since she had been up to the finca. Almost a year. Cleanliness was one thing, but what if it had been ransacked or invaded? She imagined rats’ nests, insect swarms, vines breaking through broken roof tiles. Blood stains on the windows, from confused birds flying into the glass.

  Back upstairs, she plugged in her phone and texted Tommy, asking for a lift when he got back to Marea the next day. And then, finally, she started to think about what it might feel like to go up to the finca again.

  2

  The following afternoon, Tommy pulled up outside the bar in his Rover. The insignia sticker on the side read Marea Minicabs. Tommy’s insistence on running his business above-board was affectionately mocked by the others; every other expat with a car had a sideline in unofficial airport runs.