House of the Blue Sea (2 page)

Mar Azul reminded Sandra of photos she’d seen of Spanish seaside villas. In fact, it was what had drawn her here in the first place. Four years before, on her second night in Mexico, she’d stopped at a small hotel and a brochure in their lobby caught her attention. It had an image of a white and blue villa, sitting right at the edge of the sea. Ever since she’d written a report on the Mediterranean in junior high, Sandra had wanted to visit Spain, but when she swore off flying in her early twenties, she gave up the idea of travel to Europe, unless she wanted to drive across North America and take a boat over the Atlantic.
Visit Casa del Mar Azul and drink in serenity
was written below the photo. It had called to her four years ago, and every year since.

Sandra leaned into the car and adjusted the rear view mirror so she could see herself. The humidity was playing havoc with her straw-coloured hair so she tucked it behind her ears in an attempt to tame the curls and waves. The hours on the road had painted faint shadows under her green eyes, but the heat had given her high cheekbones a natural blush so, all-in-all, she looked presentable.

She pulled her purse and a leather shoulder bag from the passenger seat and took the pebbled pathway to the hotel entrance, the tiny white stones crunching under her canvas deck shoes. The bougainvillea hung thick and fragrant from the roof’s overhang, and its bright pink blossoms brushed Sandra’s shoulder as she passed. She stopped and leaned her face toward a cluster of flowers and inhaled their honeysuckle-like scent. She closed her eyes, the feel of the air surrounding her like loving arms.

“Ms. Lyall, so good to see you again. Welcome back.” Paul was standing in the doorway to the lobby, watching her.

Sandra took the final steps to the hotel, reaching for his outstretched hand. “And it is very good to be back. I’ve been looking forward to visiting Mar Azul since ... well, since I left last year. I was just enjoying the captivating aromas of Cortez.”

“Ah yes.” He tilted his head back and inhaled. “It’s easy to become complacent. Thanks for the reminder. Come in, come in.” Paul led her inside and took up his station behind the front desk.

There was something about Paul’s face that said
welcome
even before he spoke the word; and the lobby of Casa del Mar Azul reflected his warm nature. Two overstuffed chairs sat along one wall with a rattan table between them covered in magazines, while the walls were decorated with art and keepsakes from Paul’s life and travels.

Sandra gestured to the open windows along the side of the lobby. “The weather is perfect, as always.”

“I order it up special for your visits. No rain, no storms off the Pacific, and enough wind to keep you cool.”

“Well, thank you. This northerner appreciates the refreshing breeze.”

Paul Hutchings was an ex-pat from England and his face showed the telltale signs of fifty-plus years of smiling. Sandra’s first exposure to British culture had been through her older brother William’s passion for everything Monty Python, and Paul reminded her of one of the Python actors, the fair-haired one with the incredibly happy face. (Although Paul’s fair hair appeared to be exiting stage left.) When she’d first met him four years earlier, she’d half expected him to break into a chorus of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from behind the hotel desk. Staying at Mar Azul felt like visiting the home of an old friend who was ever so happy to see her; exactly what she needed four years ago and a pleasure that hadn’t worn off.

“I’ve given you the room on the west corner at the front. I recall you being rather a sunset junkie.” Paul pushed a key card across the desk.

“Yes, and sunrise. I guess I like the sun, period. And those moments when it’s coming up or going down are the most magical. Don’t you think?”

“Indeed.” Paul nodded and smiled as he typed something into the computer.

“Especially here in Baja where sun means warm. At home the sun can shine beautifully on a day that’s minus thirty.”

Paul shook his head. “I have no idea how you Canadians do it.”

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. At least that’s what we tell ourselves.”

“But do you believe it?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Not really. If we did you wouldn’t find so many of us here in the south for the winter. It would be simpler and less expensive to buy another sweater.”

Paul chuckled. “Well, you know your way around so make yourself at home.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Sunset is in about half an hour if you want to catch the show before coming downstairs for dinner. I’ll send Arturo to get the rest of your bags. Your car is unlocked?”

“It is. Thank you, Paul. But tonight it will be the sunset, a bath and then bed. I’m exhausted, and I had dinner up the road with my Baja caravan companions.”

“Still travelling down with the RVers, are you? I guess we’ll see you in the morning then. Rest well.”

An arched doorway led to a hallway that doubled as Paul’s gallery, its white stuccoed walls displaying pieces in watercolour, oil, acrylic, and pastel. Each fall the hotel was taken over by a group of artists led by their British instructor, a friend of Paul’s, and many of the pieces had been gifted by the visiting artists. At the end of the hallway was a large open porthole that looked out to the Sea of Cortez. Sandra stopped for a moment to take in the magnificent view: shimmering water, azure sky, the pale beige sand of the beach. She turned left and walked past doors with ceramic signs reading
“Picudos”
,
“Dorado”
and
“Cabrilla”
for some of the fish in the area, and smiled as she arrived at the final door, its indigo sign reading
“Pez Vela”
, Spanish for sailfish. She pushed her card into the slot, turned the handle and entered what would be her home for the next two months. Dropping her bags to the floor, she again closed her eyes to inhale the fragrance of the sea as it blew in through the open French doors.
Heaven
.

W
hat in bloody hell were they squabbling about this morning?
He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, its balloons of goose down pushing up around his ears. The jackhammer in his head was relentless and his mouth felt like the Mojave—much like most mornings these past few weeks. A few weeks? Was that all? It seemed his life had been over longer than that.

Mark turned his head and opened one eye toward the bedside table. He blinked a few times until the red bars of the LED display formed the numbers 10:10. He’d been in bed for—he scrunched his eyelids, trying to sort the numbers in his head—seven hours. At least, he thought he’d called it a night around half-three, but the wee hours of the morning were a bit foggy. Coffee ... that’s what the situation called for. The coffee machine should have performed its merciful magic by now.

He spread his fingers and pushed his hands into the mattress, raising his torso ... and dropped back to the pillow with a groan. If he were at home he’d simply call for Marcia (or was it Marissa?), to fetch him a cup; in this tropical hellhole he was on his own. He rolled onto his side and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting upright. It was then he realized he was still wearing his chinos from the night before. “Sleeping in our clothes now are we? A new high.” He rubbed his face with both hands and pushed his fingers through a nest of graying brown hair.

Outside, the squawking of the gulls hit a new crescendo. “Shut up you blasted birds! Get off my verandah!” Mark picked up a shoe and hurled it at the open window, tearing a corner of the screen from its plastic frame. “Messy, noisy, winged demons!” The seagulls continued, seemingly unperturbed by the sudden appearance of flying footwear. He threw the second shoe, striking the wall next to the window. “Flying vermin!”

Mark leaned forward and pulled a shirt from the stack of clothing on a chair next to the bed. Holding it in front of him, he appraised its level of wrinkled-ness and sniffed each of the armpits. “Good enough for this day.” With the buttons still fastened, he pulled the shirt over his head as he stood and shuffled toward the living area. His left arm shot through the sleeve opening just as he walked through the bedroom doorway, slamming his hand into the frame. “Damn!” He yanked the garment the rest of the way on and surveyed his throbbing hand, exploring it with the fingers of the other. No blood, nothing broken. He could still hold a cup of coffee.

There was no familiar aroma of Jamaican Blue drifting from the kitchen and no orange rescue light on the coffee machine. He walked to the counter and smacked the side of the machine, hoping for one small miracle in an otherwise dismal morning. Nothing. His eyes drifted left to the scene in the kitchen. Empty wine bottles stood upright on the counter like the last surviving soldiers of the battle surrounded by casualties: oyster shells, a half-eaten plate of fish and rice, a wine glass stained red, a cell phone, and paper, lots of paper. Reams of type-covered paper were strewn everywhere—on the counter, the floor, the stove top, even in the sink.

He stood amidst the rubble and turned a slow circle.
Right. Best get this ruddy mess cleaned up. But first, must have coffee.
He opened the cupboard and observed the space on the shelf that normally housed a bag of coffee beans. “Damn it!” He slammed the door and stood staring at it, daring it to open and again reveal its dearth of coffee. He squeezed his eyes tight and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. The gesture seeming to trigger the first pleasant thought in his day:
Paul would have coffee on.

S
andra had risen early to get started on her first painting of the trip, setting up her easel and paint box on the upper deck of the hotel. The rooftop offered a better view and more privacy, but the breeze was up this morning and she didn’t want it pushing canvas and easel face-first onto the floor. A group of visitors from Denmark had just checked out and the hotel was temporarily quiet, reducing the chance of an audience. She didn’t really mind people watching her work, but she was aware of how it changed her focus, especially in the early stages of a painting. She would inevitably worry that the person looking over her shoulder was critiquing her unfinished work and her tendency was then to paint faster, or fill in areas that were undeveloped.

Just after she’d arrived the day before, Sandra had stood on her balcony and watched a man and a woman on the beach, walking toward one another—her long, brown hair cascading out of her sun hat onto her shoulders, his shirt hanging open and catching the wind. Arturo had arrived just then with the luggage so she’d not had a chance to see if the two people had come together, if they knew one another. She somehow felt they had, but there were other late afternoon beach-goers who could have belonged to each of them. In her painting it was morning and they had the beach to themselves, their expressions hidden by her sun hat and his down-turned face. In the sea Sandra had captured that particular blue of tropical waters, the azure of Cortez, and in the sky drifted salmon-toned clouds, coloured by the rising sun.

“It’s very good.”

Sandra dropped her brush, sending it clattering to the concrete floor.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She picked up the brush, leaving a splotch of blue paint on the white-washed floor, and turned to see who belonged to the voice.

He was tall, over six feet, and stood at the top of the stairs with his hands in his pockets. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes, and his hair was an unkempt mass of brown curls above a face overgrown with many days, or likely weeks, of untended beard. If he was a guest here at the hotel perhaps the airline had lost his luggage? The man’s appearance was in stark contrast to his very proper English accent.

“It’s not a problem. It’s acrylic and will clean off.” Sandra wiped up the smear of paint with her rag. “I didn’t hear you come up. I was ... absorbed in my work.”

“It’s very good—your painting.” He inclined his head toward her canvas. “Is it for sale?”

“Sorry, I don’t sell my work.”

“Oh. So what do you do with it then? Isn’t selling rather the point?”

She shook her head. “No, not for me. It’s more about the process, the learning. Mostly I keep my paintings—some I hang, the others are stored.” Sandra glanced at the painting and then down at her feet. She was feeling a bit awkward at this line of questioning by a complete stranger. “A few I give away to friends or family.”

“I see. So you wouldn’t make an exception; just this once? I’ve recently moved into a house in the village and the walls are unbearably dull.”

Something behind the mat of facial hair seemed familiar. Did she know this guy? Maybe he’d stayed at the hotel before. Paul frequently had British guests. Her mind rolled back over her previous four visits but no one came to mind that fit the man before her.

“Have I offended you?” he asked.

“No, not at all. I’m flattered. Really. It’s just that I’m not sure what I’d even charge ... if I were to sell it to you. And, it’s not finished ...” She gestured toward the canvas with her paintbrush.

“I can come back. Paul is a friend so I’m here often.” He pronounced it of-ten, rather than the North American version of the word that dropped the “t”. “As for price, I would be willing to offer you $1,500 American, if you think that’s fair.”

Sandra was stunned; $1,500 sounded like a generous price for an unknown artist’s work, from a man who looked like he might have to scrounge up the change for his next cup of coffee. Although, he did say he’d recently acquired a house, and his sunglasses looked expensive. Maybe the scruffy dude thing was just a look ... and a smell. Nothing quite like the odour of last night’s alcohol coming out through a man’s pores.

“That sounds like a lot of money for an unfinished piece. I’m not sure I’m comfortable—”

“I’ve purchased a lot of original art, and for a piece this size, $1,500 is quite fair. But, if $1,400 would ease your conscience ...” His head bowed forward and he peered at her over the tops of his sunglasses.