Under the Sun Read online

  Her memory leaped over that awful weekend to a happier time. Michael stretched along the sofa, shirtless, reading. As she came in from the garden, he put his book down on his chest to smile at her.

  She shook her head, to dislodge the memory, and went back to the front door to pick up the two gas bottles. Struggling under their weight, she lugged them to the outdoor kitchen and set about replacing the empty one in the cupboard beside the oven. Crouched, she stared inside it, at the unsightly pipework. She had bought those valves herself; she could remember the particular plumber’s yard. Pinned up by the cash register had been a calendar – not pictures of girls, as you’d expect, but of horses. Anna had made a joke about it to the plumbers, proud of her rapidly improving Spanish.

  Everything in the finca – from the sink valve to the roof tiles to the sofas and butter dish – had been chosen and paid for by her. Some items were directly associated with the pain of Michael leaving: the oak refectory table where she had found the note informing her the car was in the airport’s long-stay car park and that he was not coming back; the toothbrush in the enamel pot in the barn, where he retreated to escape her, where globules of paint had hardened on the soil. But the entire place was infected. When she was telling him about her finding those nineteenth-century wine glasses at the market in Analonda, was he thinking about how dull she was? Was he despising her when she came in with a straining plastic bag of sand she had collected from the beach to mix in with the wall paint, in order to make the finish look authentically uneven? At what point exactly, whilst she was working to create the perfect house for them – organic, artless, stylish, timeless – did he stop giving her the benefit of the doubt? Why did she not see it? Why did she not stop it?

  She heard a noise behind her and started. Tommy was standing a few feet away, looking sheepish.

  ‘Sorry to disturb,’ he said, wincing. ‘It’s just – could I have a pee?’

  She stood up, feeling his embarrassment at being thrust into this new domestic setting. They had never been in the realm of banal bodily functions. She showed him to the bathroom. He went in and, a moment later, reappeared.

  ‘Darling, I’m so sorry, but I think your bathroom has been vandalized.’

  His face was creased with concern. She followed him in, and Tommy pointed at the shards of broken tiles over the bath.

  ‘Why would someone do that?’ he said.

  At any other time Anna might have laughed. Now, she just shook her head.

  ‘They’re meant to look like that,’ she said, and retreated, softly closing the door. She went into the main bedroom. Their bedroom. In the corner of the room, she noticed a semi-fossilized sock. Unthinkingly she picked it up and sat down on the clammy eiderdown. Her body had done odd things in here, on those nights after Michael left. Lying on her back she felt her limbs and cheeks inflate, until her flesh seemed to touch all four walls. She had started to hear the traffic on the motorway, even though it was twenty kilometres away. The birds scratching on the roof felt like they were landing on her head.

  The cistern groaned. She heard Tommy’s steps across the flagstones stop, then start up again, and watched as the bedroom door was gently pushed open. Tommy stood in the doorway, with an uncertain smile on his face. He was almost as discombobulated here as she was, she realized.

  ‘Come here,’ she said, motioning to him with her head.

  He approached hesitantly.

  ‘Are you alright, darling?’

  ‘I want to fuck your brains out.’

  She had never talked to him like this before. She watched as Tommy’s excitement overcame his confusion, and he did what he was told.

  Twenty minutes later, they were inching back down the narrow, rutted road when a truck approached. It was Alfonso, the finca’s nearest neighbour. Of course they wouldn’t get out of here without being noticed. Alfonso was claustrophobically concerned with everything that happened on the mountain. Somehow, he had even got wind of the fact that Michael had left, and, the day after, his wife had turned up on Anna’s doorstep with a bag of oranges and a naked desire to get the gossip.

  Alfonso pulled up beside Anna and leaned out of the window, his dog’s face appearing beside him. Anna braced herself for one of his long chats about the problems with his septic tank, or the erratic timetable of the truck that delivered their fresh water. But instead he told her that he had seen men lurking around the house the previous week.

  ‘Hero saw them off,’ he said, proudly. ‘You know Mariana, down in the valley? She had her trailer taken.’

  Beside her, Tommy smiled blankly.

  Anna thanked Alfonso profusely, as was expected, and added that, for the next few months at least, there would be no problem with burglars, as the finca would have tenants.

  Alfonso raised his eyebrows. She said adiós before he could start interrogating her.

  ‘Did he ask whether you had a machete for that garden?’ said Tommy, with a wink, as he pulled away. He had recovered his spirits and there was no need for them to talk about the awkwardness up at the finca, Anna thought. She rested her cheek against the car window – she was in the back seat, now – whilst he manoeuvred around the hairpin bends. As they neared the main road, the radio clicked in. The ‘shapes that are not what they seem’ phone-in was still on air.

  ‘Ovaltine,’ said a listener.

  ‘Ha, that’s a good one!’ said the DJ. ‘Everyone secretly likes Ovaltine, don’t they?’

  They passed by the greenhouses. The opacity and near-silence of the structures reminded Anna of the abattoirs near where she grew up. The calima haze had lifted now, and the opaque plastic was spotted with red stains from the dust mixing with the water from the irrigation systems. Blood rain, they called it, this after-effect.

  ‘You’d think they could spare one of those sprinklers for the course,’ said Tommy. Non-essential irrigation had been banned for months, because of the drought, and the golf course his villa overlooked was beige and desiccated: a source of much concern.

  They fell silent until, ten minutes later, Tommy drew up at the bar.

  ‘Well, thanks so much,’ she said, reaching for the door. ‘See you tomorrow night. Put on your party shirt.’

  ‘Ah, Anna,’ said Tommy, looking away, flushing. ‘I’m so sorry to ask, but . . . Karen is doing the books now and she might wonder . . . of course it doesn’t have to be the full amount, I’ll sub it, but just a little contribution . . .’

  When she cottoned on Anna dug for her wallet, flustered, and gave him twelve euros, all she had on her. The money was earmarked to pay for grapes for the New Year’s Eve party tomorrow night; now she’d have to get them on tick. As Tommy drove off, she remained standing where she was and the thought slid from her mind. She was back sitting on the bed at the finca, alone, her finger stroking the eiderdown as she stared at the wall; its authentically uneven finish the result of sand mixed in with the paint, sand that she brought all the way up from the beach.

  3

  The following evening, New Year’s Eve, Anna opened her doors at seven. By eight the bar was a quarter full. Her regulars – Tommy, Mattie, Graeme, Eddie – had been joined by various better halves and friends from the urbanization. The balcony drinkers, little seen in bars. The group had defected from Sweeney’s for the occasion; he had been here for thirteen years and usually had the claim on big, potentially lucrative events. Anna knew she had Tommy to thank for that. She imagined him initiating the subject during one of the endless round of dinners he and Karen attended. ‘Be nice to have a bit of change. And the poor girl’s all alone, isn’t she?’ Even Caz the dog saviour was here, sitting at the bar by herself with a red wine and lemonade.

  News of Anna’s finca rental had got out. Their congratulations were qualified by barely concealed jealousy at her 600 euros a month. Not the jackpot of a sale, but a nice little prize nonetheless.

  ‘And this bloke said he was interested in buying it too?’ said Graeme, leaning heavily against the bar.


  ‘Er, yes,’ said Anna. And maybe Simón would. A little mountain retreat for him and his family; an escape from Madrid, or wherever he was from.

  ‘He knows you don’t have a pool?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Anna, giddily. ‘And he doesn’t care!’

  ‘You should dig one out, if you want to sell,’ interjected Caz, ignoring what Anna had just said. ‘People expect it. Even in character properties.’

  It was the most Anna had ever heard her speak.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Anna. ‘It’d cost forty thousand euros. The place is so cheap, they can make one themselves.’

  Caz shrugged. Beneath her heavy fringe, Anna spotted a smudge of mascara on her lids.

  ‘All I’m saying is, it might be an issue.’

  The way Caz pronounced the word – iss-ue, with a long first syllable – nudged a memory in Anna; not forceful enough for actual recall. She looked at Caz, but Caz had lowered her head to suck noisily on her straw, and the moment passed.

  The conversation around them moved onto the generalities of house-selling; a subject the expats needed no excuse to pile onto. Someone said they were thinking about installing glass bricks in the bathroom, to give their place an edge. Another man, who had a ‘strong expression of interest’ on his place, started dispensing wisdom like a lifer who’d been granted parole, offering tips lifted from property shows.

  ‘Declutter, declutter, declutter,’ he told them, solemnly. ‘You must have neutral décor, so buyers can project onto it.’

  Anna had checked out the others’ villas and apartments online and knew that this advice was hardly needed: their properties were united by an absence of personality. Three bedrooms, one en-suite. A terracotta tiled floor, orange pine dining table and veneered wardrobes. In the kitchen, obscure brand white goods and exactly six sets of supermarket white plates and cutlery and those too-small wine glasses. For decoration, a sprig of fake flowers in a glass vase and a single print. Outside, a seating area with a plastic table set and a defeated mini palm tree.

  The expats’ identikit interiors had bemused Anna – did they not care at all, or were they all expressing themselves but just happened to have the same bland taste? – until she learned that many of them, Tommy and Karen included, hadn’t even chosen their furnishings themselves. Rather, when buying their new builds from the developers, they had taken up the option of purchasing a furniture package for 10,000 euros, which included everything from bed linen to coffee cups to artwork.

  Tommy and Karen were here now, mingling with friends. Tommy had swapped his polo shirt for one with a snazzy pattern; Karen was in a glittery top and embroidered jeans, and Anna saw she had had her hair done with a handful of judicious highlights. As he talked with his friends, Tommy kept his back to Anna; he had to do this when in company, he’d told her, so that he didn’t stare at her.

  Conversation around the bar moved on, to the value of the euro that day – the expats watched the exchange rate like Wall Street hawks – and a juicy trial in the news, of an American girl charged with the murder of her friend in an Italian town. Mattie came up to charge her glass. She was relatively dressed down, for her: the last time Anna had seen her, on the lottery day, Mattie had worn a tennis dress on which she had pinned dozens of photocopies of their ticket, overlapping like scales. This evening, she had merely wrapped plaits of her waist-length, blue-black hair around her head, German-style, and was wearing a short, flippy skirt and a leotard top. Her interest was piqued by Anna’s description of Simón.

  ‘I like short men,’ she said. ‘We’re on the same level.’

  ‘I think he’s married, Mattie,’ Anna said, with unearned sanctimony.

  Mattie shrugged, and then winked at Anna. Did she suspect Anna and Tommy? Impossible to tell. She presented herself as a cartoon, and kept her actual level of acuity close to her chest. She was similarly evasive on the facts of her life: her age, her background, why she had come to Spain; what was wrong with the never-seen mother she lived with and cared for.

  ‘Your tits look fantastic in that top!’ Anna said. It occurred to her that she may have started on the booze too early, but Mattie coyly accepted the compliment.

  ‘Well, that’s the advantage we have, isn’t it,’ she said. ‘You and me. No udders.’

  She nodded towards a huddle of wives from the urbanization, and Anna realized that she was referring to their lack of children. She would not be plunged into despair by this comment, the idea of her and Mattie as two of a kind. She had, quite often, had uncharitable thoughts about her customers, but this evening, she was determined to be bountiful and see the best in them. In everything. To stay in the moment.

  Her high spirits weren’t entirely forced. The prospect of Simón renting the finca, that tear in the ordinary fabric of her days, had buoyed her: it seemed a symbol of hope, that someone might want what she had to offer. Earlier, when she was getting ready upstairs, she found herself unearthing a bag of clothes she hadn’t touched since coming to Spain and putting on a dress from her past. Dark green wool, knee length and high-necked, its apparent primness was undermined by the tight cut and leather panels at the shoulders. Subtle and sexy; quite un-Marea. As she’d put on some lipstick and clipped up her hair, it occurred to her that she saw her remaining stock of attractiveness like an expensive candle, only to be lit for a few hours on special occasions.

  She’d beautified the bar too, with a string of fairy lights around the optics, some balloons on the dartboard and ceiling fan, and a foil Happy New Year! banner on the wall.

  The keys were sitting on a shelf behind the bar, waiting for Simón, and she found herself hovering close to them. Each time the door opened she expected him, striding in to give her 600 euros, but it was another Brit. It was getting on for a full house, actually, the best she’d ever done. Woozy and forgiving, she looked out at her customers. They may not be thrilling, or stylish, or clever, but they were decent folk making the best of things. They were all in the same boat: nursing dashed dreams, muddling through a situation beyond their control. Like a low-key Blitz, where the bombs came in the form of letters from the bank and reports of the daily euro exchange rate.

  Graeme came over and draped his arms heavily around her and Mattie’s shoulders.

  ‘How are my two favourite females?’

  Anna practised her benevolence by smiling at him, before twisting free in order to turn up the music – she had made sure to tune into the local radio station without presenters – and set about geeing up the room, offering around free cava. She had a surplus from the lottery day; although she couldn’t bring herself to collude in the delusion of joining the syndicate, she’d ordered two extra crates, just in case they won. Why this gesture of hope had been superior to going in on a ticket, she didn’t have the will or energy to explore.

  Graeme, stationed at the bar, joined in conversation with a Scottish couple. The wife was twittering away about her Christmas in the UK.

  ‘I never thought I’d actually be happy to see rain,’ the woman said.

  Graeme looked at her, eyes narrowed. This was dangerously close to treasonable talk. A former Merseyside policeman, Graeme was a self-appointed custodian of the expats’ collective pride: a whip to keep them on message. Even as their dream was falling to pieces beneath them, and they were desperate to sell up, they mustn’t admit out loud that coming here had been a mistake, or that they missed anything about home.

  ‘Next thing you’ll be saying you want to go back to live in the UK,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Oh no, no,’ said the wife, flustered. ‘Of course not.’

  Anna was about to defend the woman when the song ended and, on cue, like an ice-cream seller at a play interval, the door opened and in walked – not Simón, but a young African man shouldering a large bag. The hawkers generally kept to the steps leading down to the beach, but in lean months sometimes migrated up to the town centre.

  Graeme took charge.

  ‘No no no no no no,’ he said, waving his a
rms with the authority of an air traffic controller. But the man was quick off the mark and had already produced his wares: a doll of a Rasta man, complete with dreadlocks and spliff dangling from his grotesquely oversized lips. On the flick of a switch, the doll started gyrating and singing ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. The man pressed the doll towards Caz with a broad, beautiful smile, as if he felt honoured to be given the opportunity to offer her a racist toy giving inane advice.

  ‘I said no thank you,’ said Graeme. Putting his hands on the African’s shoulders, he steered him back towards the door. The man left with no protest, still smiling. Graeme rubbed his palms on his trouser legs.

  A moment later the door opened again. Anna perked up, but it was only Richard, the urbanization’s Mr Fixit. He was wearing a worn suit and his customary gelled quiff; he was proud of his full head of hair.

  ‘Here comes trouble!’ shouted someone.

  When Anna had bought the bar the year before, Richard had been first through the door, offering her a cut-price Sky Sports subscription and then asking her out for dinner at Pinocchio’s. She’d half-considered the latter, until Mattie had sidled over to inform her that she and Richard had had an on-off thing for years.

  Now, with a fanfare, Richard upended the bag he was carrying onto the bar. Out spilled numerous pairs of red socks.

  ‘Got a deal down the market,’ he said, although for him to be giving them away, Anna thought, he must have got them for free. Another Spanish New Year’s tradition, along with the grapes, was to wear a red undergarment, given as a gift. Richard ceremoniously handed the socks around and everyone put them on; even Caz, who laboriously unbuckled her walking sandals.