Sailing to Capri (19 page)

Montana had traced Rosalia’s whereabouts from the old letters. Now he drove the small rented Renault west out of Málaga airport on Spain’s sunny Andalusian coast and along the heavily trafficked road linking the tourist towns that were by now so built up they almost merged into one. Torremolinos … Fuengirola … Marbella …

He turned off before he reached Marbella, following a dusty road through sparkling white red-roofed pueblos newly built for foreigners from cold northern countries, who came here seeking the sun and cheap wine and the sweet life. On through ever-smaller villages, the real thing now, with narrow cobbled streets of flat-fronted whitewashed houses with iron-grilled windows and massive wooden front doors leading into the courtyards around which Spanish life revolved.

It was noon and an air of somnolence hung over the village where Montana finally pulled over opposite the local bar. Dogs
lazed on doorsteps and men took their ease out of the heat of the sun, drinking cold San Miguel beer and passing the time of day.

The bar was basic, as all the bars in small Spanish villages seem to be. The terrazzo floor was littered with the shells of fava beans and nuts and the squares of paper that served as napkins, and a zinc counter held an array of tapas, the bite-size snacks that are a feature of Spain. Montana ordered a small dish of
boquerones
—tiny white anchovies marinated in oil and vinegar—as well as the pork with red peppers stewed to melting softness and the shrimp
pil pil
—small, garlicky, and spicy. With a hunk of crusty bread to scoop up the juices and a chilled San Miguel, he was perfectly happy.

He stood at the counter with half a dozen other guys, eavesdropping as they speculated about him and his tattoo. They didn’t realize he spoke their language, and he didn’t enlighten them. It always amused him to hear himself talked about like this. “A mystery man” was what they were saying, eyeing him covertly.

Finishing his beer, he paid his tab then asked in perfect Spanish if they could direct him to the La Finca de los Pastores. It was near the next village, they told him, astonished. Take the left turn past the cemetery, they said, then drive on up the hill, you can’t miss it.

Montana drove on a road that wound around the hill where a massive billboard of a bull perched on the hillside advertised Soberano brandy, on past citrus groves and vineyards and woods of chestnut trees with glimpses of vast cork forests be
yond. And then there was La Finca de los Pastores, shimmering in the sun atop its own hill.

A thick white wall ran around the property and the ten-foot-tall wooden doors were flanked by a pair of fountains tiled, Andalusian style, in patterns of cobalt blue and yellow, the colors of the sea and the sun.

Montana parked in the shade of a trellised overhang and walked into the courtyard. Flowers scented the air, crickets chirruped and another circular fountain splashed delicately. All was quiet, as if the whole world was taking a siesta. If he were lucky, he thought with a smile, he would find Sleeping Beauty here and wake her with a kiss. But what he found instead was a pretty little girl in a sugar pink flamenco dress, who ran around the corner and bumped into him.

“Oh!” She stared up at him with glossy brown eyes as he held her by the shoulders, steadying her. “Sorry,” she added in Spanish. “I’m getting ready for the
feria
and I’m in a hurry. Mamaita wants me to take off the dress, she says it’s too early, but I want to go now.”

“I’ll bet you do, and anyhow you look very pretty,” Montana replied gallantly.

“Bella, where are you?” An exasperated voice preceded its owner into the hall; then she too came dashing around the corner. “Oh,” she said, stopping short when she saw Montana. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here.”

“I only just arrived,” Montana said. “I was met by your little girl on her way to the
feria
.”

The woman laughed as she came forward, hand out
stretched. “Wishful thinking,” she said. “The
feria
is not until next week, so you could say she’s a little early. Hello, I’m Magdalena Ruiz, the manager of the Finca de los Pastores. I’m not sure we were expecting you, Señor …?”

“Harry Montana.” He shook her hand. “And no, you weren’t expecting me. I dropped in on the off chance you would have a room.”

“Then you’re lucky. We had a cancellation today and one of our nicest rooms is available.”

Magdalena Ruiz told him the story of how the Finca de los Pastores came about as they walked through cool hallways, then out into a leafy garden.

“And Doña Rosalia still lives here?” Montana asked the question casually.

“Indeed she does.” Magdalena opened the door of a guest cottage overlooking a cool green pool. “Dinner is served from eight-thirty on,” she told him. “The bar is always open. I’m sure you’ll find your way around quite easily.”

His cottage was dominated by an ebony-colored four-poster draped in white muslin. The floors were the classic polished terra-cotta Spanish tiles scattered with traditional Andalusian rugs. A rustic white-painted desk stood under one window and French doors led onto a wisteria-scented patio.

Smiling, Montana dialed Daisy’s London number on his cell phone. She picked it up on the first ring and said hello rather breathlessly.

“Caught you on the run, have I?” he asked, imagining her green eyes flashing as she answered haughtily that of course he had not.

“I’m in Andalusia,” he said, “in a beautiful old finca turned into a hotel, and it’s so peaceful I think I can hear my own heart beating.”

“I didn’t think you had one,” Daisy said, which made him laugh.

“A cheap shot,” he said, “when in fact what I was going to say was it’s the perfect place for a honeymoon. You might want to bear that in mind when the time comes.”

“Montana,” she said severely, “I’m not thinking of marriages and honeymoons, and anyway, I thought Rosalia lived in Málaga.”

“She used to. She was married and ran a little café there, doing the cooking herself, even though she had three children.”

“She had three children? Oh, Montana, you don’t think they might be
Bob’s?”

“We checked. The dates don’t match, and besides, all the birth certificates state that their father was her husband, Juan Delgado. When he died, she moved up here into the backlands. She and her children rebuilt this place from scratch, and it’s now a very successful small hotel. I haven’t tried the food yet, but you can bet dinner is going to be great. Don’t you wish you were here with me?” He grinned as he said it; he knew which of her buttons to push.

Daisy ignored him. “So what about Rosalia?”

“I’m hoping I’ll get to see her tonight.”

“She’s going to be so shocked to hear about Bob, and getting the invitation to his … you know, his
wake.”
She spoke in a horrified whisper. “First love is something you never forget,” she added.

“Have you forgotten yours?”

“Of course not,” she said, taken by surprise, and then she laughed, remembering. “I was sixteen and he was my prom date. He gave me an orchid for my wrist, and I wore a pale green silk dress that rustled when I walked. He had blond hair and blue eyes and looked like a California surfer adrift on the shores of Lake Michigan, and he was the handsomest guy I’d ever seen. We danced every dance together, then made out in the back of somebody’s Buick Monte Carlo. I thought I’d die of happiness with that first kiss.”

“And how long did this great love last?”

“About three weeks,” she admitted with a sudden giggle. “Anyhow, what about you?”

“I’m not telling,” Montana said over her outraged protests. “I’ll be back in London in a couple of days,” he added. “Will you still be there?” She told him she would and that Bordelaise was flying over to join her.

As they said good-bye, Montana was surprised by how Daisy lingered in his memory. As if to banish her, he went outside and swam fifty laps of the long pale green pool, then took a shower and headed off to explore Doña Rosalia’s world.

The bar was a shadowy vaulted room with a curved marble counter. The walls were half-tiled in colorful Andalusian patterns that owed much to their Moroccan heritage and tile-topped tables were set out in another jewel of a courtyard where yet another fountain bubbled. Crickets hummed in the background and small cheeky birds twittered on the backs of the chairs, begging for crumbs.

Montana sat in a high-backed white wicker armchair, sip
ping a glass of cold, pale amontillado sherry and nibbling on small sweet biscuits, contemplating the darkening blue of the sky. La Finca de los Pastores was the kind of place where you felt at home; it was an ideal world, even if only temporary.

Other guests began to arrive; they smiled and nodded a good evening, and a young man played Rodrigo’s haunting Concierto de Aranjuez very softly on the guitar.

A woman entered, tall, erect, stately in that Spanish way, with her shiny black hair pulled into a knot at the nape of her long neck. She wore an ankle-length red skirt, very gypsyish with a white shirt and a heavy necklace of coral beads, and with a fringed red silk shawl thrown over her shoulders.

Montana knew instantly this had to be Rosalia. She looked every inch the aristocratic Spanish lady as she smiled a greeting to her guests.

At her side was a man with a heavy-jowled face, piercing dark eyes, a mustache, and slick dark hair. He wore a shirt that Montana recognized as being custom-made and narrow black pants tucked into Spanish riding boots. He looked like an elegant gypsy.

The two walked over to him. “Señor Montana, I am Doña Rosalia. Welcome to La Finca des los Pastores,” she said, giving him a smile of such sweetness he understood why Bob had been so smitten. Rosalia was not a beauty, but she was special; she had her own look, and even though Montana knew she must be around sixty, there were few lines on her face. With her large dark eyes under perfectly arched brows, her arrogant nose, and her tall, rounded body, she resembled the portraits of Spanish grandees in the Prado, and with her slightly old-fashioned
look and her gentle demeanor, she made every guest feel she was their friend.

“This is my good friend Hector Gonzalez,” Rosalia introduced him. “Hector looks after all my business,” she said, then with a wry smile, “He’s also my interpreter. You see, I’m deaf.” She sighed. “It’s odd how the world treats a deaf person. If you’re blind, people can understand, but deafness is hidden and people think you’re stupid when you don’t respond. So, now my Hector takes care of me. I can read lips, but Hector will tell me every word you say, Señor, so best be careful,” she added with a laugh as she excused herself to greet more arriving guests.

Before he went in to dinner, Montana wrote Rosalia a note asking if she would see him—alone—afterward. She must not be alarmed, he said, but he had an important message for her. He asked one of the young women servers, crisply smart in a simple pale blue cotton dress, to deliver it personally to her; then he went and ate one of the best meals of his life, alone under the stars at a table for two.

Rosalia was waiting for him on her patio, sitting in a carved wooden chair. “Welcome, again, Señor Montana,” she said.

He stepped closer. “Can you understand me, Señora? Or would you prefer me to write down what I have to say?”

“You speak good Castilian Spanish, I can read your lips perfectly.”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Señora Ybarra.”

“It’s Ybarra Delgado,” she corrected him, “though somehow I have the feeling you already know that.”

Her brown eyes met Montana’s and he saw she was nervous. “I’m a messenger from a man you once knew,” he said. “A man who loved you dearly. A man who missed you to the end of his days.”

“Of course you mean Roberto.”

“Sir Robert Hardwick. Yes.”

“I read about the accident,” she said quietly. “I knew he died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is the second time I’ve lost Roberto,” she said. “It doesn’t get any easier, which just goes to prove the old saying ‘Time heals all things’ is quite wrong.”

“Bob was a remarkable man.”

“You knew him well?”

“For more than ten years. I admired him, and I respected his honesty.”

“He was a Yorkshireman; he was always true to his roots and to his code of honor.” She looked steadily at Montana. “We were very much in love, all those years ago. You never lose that feeling for a man, not even when you’re an older woman like me. But there was no way we could stay together. Roberto had this terrible ambition, and I was a simple girl from an Andalusian hill village. All I wanted was what every other girl I knew wanted. A husband who loved her, children of her own … to be ‘a family.’” Rosalia sighed. “It became obvious it would never work.”

“This may sound strange,” Montana said, “but I come bearing an invitation from Robert.” He handed her the envelope. “He hoped you would join a cruise on a private yacht. It’s to celebrate Robert’s life, and he asked only people whose lives he had touched. You were the most important name on that short list.”

She looked bewildered. “On a yacht? To celebrate Roberto’s life?”