Duplicity Read online

  Roselle lazily shifted the slice of lemon with her tongue to get the last drops of sangria out of the glass.

  If only the girls could see her now - sitting drinking by the blue Mediterranean, while the rest of the world passed by. But that was the whole trouble; they kept on passing by. She had hoped, dreamed, when she made up her mind to go to Spain on this Singles trip, that she would at last meet her Prince Charming, and find Romance (with a capital R) - no, True Love (also with capital letters) that would last for ever. But every likely lad seemed to have a girl glued to his side, and there were no unattached males to be seen.

  As though to prove the point she was making to herself, a young couple sauntered past, arms linked. Roselle heard them talking softly to each other, in German she thought, but as she watched them stop and kiss tenderly, she reflected that it didn’t matter what nationality you were. Love was the same in any language. If you could find it, that is.

  She hadn’t been able to find it back home in South Norwood. Not that she hadn’t had boyfriends. There had been quite a few, but she hadn’t once felt THIS IS LOVE!

  She’d been quite fond of them at the time, but when they moved on, dropped her for another girl, her heart hadn’t been broken or anything like that. Rather, she’d found herself looking expectantly for somebody else, in the hope that this time it would be the real thing. But it had never been.

  The last time had been the nearest. She probably could have fallen in love with Derek, given time. It hadn’t been the love-at-first-sight, legs-turning-to-jelly, fluttering-heart sort of business, but she had dreamt about him at nights, and thought tenderly of him when she should have been concentrating on her word processor, so there must have been a spark of something there. All it would have needed to fan it into a flame was … what? That was what she didn’t know.

  She remembered how surprised and disappointed she’d been when Derek had stood outside her door that Saturday night. ‘No, Roselle, I’m not coming in. I’m not even going to kiss you. I thought I’d be able to make you love me, but I’ve tried everything.’ He had ignored her spluttering protests. ‘No, it seems to me you’re waiting for somebody to sweep you off your feet and carry you off to an enchanted castle, or something along that line. Well, it doesn’t happen like that in real life, Roselle, and I’m no fairy prince. I’ve got very human emotions, so it had better be goodbye. I really hope you meet your Prince Charming some time, somewhere.’

  She had cried after he left. Had she been expecting too much? Was he right? Was it only in fairy tales that love was instantaneous and all-consuming? Later on, she had remembered that he had said ‘some time, somewhere’, and her heart, not broken, just slightly bruised, had made a miraculous recovery.

  Why should she expect love to come to her? Why shouldn’t she go and search for it herself? That was why, three weeks later, she was here on the Costa del Sol. Her parents had been horrified when she told them what she intended doing. She recalled the conversation as if it had been the dialogue in a play.

  ROSELLE: I was lucky there was a last-minute cancellation.

  MOTHER: You can’t go off to the south of Spain on your own.

  FATHER: You know the kind of things that could happen - a young vulnerable girl on her own in a foreign country.

  MOTHER: What’ll the neighbours think?

  FATHER: Never mind what the neighbours think, woman. Think of your daughter, alone over there, a prey to any disreputable Casanova.

  MOTHER: I am thinking of her. What if … Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

  Surprisingly, she had felt quite stimulated as their argument reached a crescendo, and waited for a lull to make her solo contribution. ‘I’m unattached, I’m over eighteen and I can look after myself. No wolf in sheep’s clothing can pull the wool over my eyes. Besides, it’s all paid for.’

  That had clinched it, as she had known it would.

  Neither of them liked to waste money under any circumstances. She’d been here nearly a week now, though, and was no nearer to realising her dreams. She toyed with the empty glass and looked around her. The French family at the next table were chattering and gesticulating violently to each other, while two small Italian girls in their dainty frilly sun-suits were pestering their mother for money to go to the amusement arcade. At least, that’s what it looked like. This was the first time she had come to the open air lounge bar, and it was like sitting in the stalls watching a drama unfold before her eyes. ‘Pardone me, senorita.’

  A waiter hovered anxiously. Roselle shook her head, then decided in favour of another drink after all. ‘Sangria, por favor.’

  Her knowledge of Spanish was very limited, but she had managed to get by so far. She watched him as he walked towards the bar. His rear view was rather nice, in a Spanish sort of way, with the dark curly hair and the short white jacket trimmed with blue. Could this be him? She hadn’t noticed him before and found herself waiting impatiently for him to return.

  He was back in a few minutes and she looked up into his face as he set the glass in front of her. ‘Gracias,’ she murmured, meeting the full force of his dark brown eyes. Her heart fluttered manically, her legs turned to jelly - it was love! Love at first sight, as she had always hoped for. Her shy smile was rewarded by a toothpaste commercial.

  ‘Ramon!’ The summons came from the bartender, competently shaking cocktails.

  ‘Si.’ He gave her a sketchy salute and hurried off.

  So his name was Ramon. It suited him. She watched him covertly as he glided between the tables. Like all Spaniards, his movements held no sense of urgency. Mariana, manana. It was a good maxim, one to which she could quite easily be converted.

  Once or twice, he caught her watching him and smiled a sweet, secret smile for her alone. Wait till she told the girls back home about this! She could fabricate a bit and tell them he had kissed her hand before introducing himself. He would have to be the son of a rich, visiting Spanish family, though, not a poor waiter. They wouldn’t think that was so romantic. His family could be from Madrid, down here on holiday from the overpowering heat of central Spain. He had fallen in love with her and swept her off her feet. He had taken her to Torremolinos and Marbella, wined and dined her and then made love to her.

  ‘Ramon’s so passionate,’ she would tell them. ‘A true Spaniard, but so gentle and tender.’ They would be sick with envy.

  ‘Say, Ramon, d’ya speak any English - Inglasia?’ It was the massive American at the corner table with his wife, a striking blonde in a green kaftan with gold embroidery round the low neck and down the front.

  ‘Si, seior, I spik English good.’

  Roselle couldn’t help smiling. She wouldn’t have much of a language barrier with him after all. The conversation in the corner went on, while she spun more romantic fantasies with which to regale her friends at home. ‘Ramon said he first noticed me at the swimming pool, as I was so bronzed and radiant,’ she would tell them. She’d go straight on to explain that, although she wanted to stay on with him in the hotel, she’d said she must go home to tell her parents. He could make the wedding arrangements and she would join him later. She was quite sure within herself that before her holiday was over he would propose to her, and the question of parental opposition never entered her mind. No technicalities were ever allowed to interfere in her daydreams.

  Ramon was still talking to the Americans. ‘I - student -here for summer only.’

  Ah now, that bit would be all right. She wouldn’t need to tell fibs about that. He went out of sight for a few moments and came back with pots of coffee for the Americans. When he left them, heading in her direction, she decided to jump in. After all, what better place than Spain to take the bull by the horns?

  ‘By the way, I’m English.’ She spoke very slowly and deliberately so that he could understand her. ‘I’d like to find out about the entertainments in town, for youn
g people, you know? Could I talk to you after you finish work?’

  His eyes lit up. ‘I finish … er …’ He held up three fingers.

  ‘Three o’clock? That’s great. Where can we talk?’

  He made as if to say something, but obviously changed his mind and said instead, ‘Kiosko on beach?’

  She barely had time to nod eagerly before he turned and walked off, and Roselle picked up her canvas bag and floated up to her room to shower before lunch.

  Prince Charming Ramon, she laughed to herself as she stepped on to the bath mat. It was worth travelling all this distance to find him … to find real love.

  She settled on her white seersucker sundress to show off her tan. She was very proud of her bronzed skin. She had spent most of her first week lying on a sunbed by the pool, looking, she had hoped, beautiful and exciting, but nobody had noticed. No brown-skinned Adonis had stopped to chat her up, not even a callow, pimply-faced youth, and there were plenty of them about, too. Still, her trip abroad was about to pay its dividend, in the shape of a six-foot tall Spanish student-waiter. Her heart accelerated at the thought of what the afternoon might hold for her.

  In the huge dining room, at her little table set for one, Roselle craned her neck to see into the bar where Ramon was working. Occasionally she caught sight of him, laughing with some of the world’s most beautiful girls. Now it was a tall black-haired Amazon in the briefest of brief bikinis; now he was talking to the French brunette with the poodle; now a ravishing redhead with a cleavage that would have made Roselle’s mother hurriedly avert her eyes. Where were all the husbands or boyfriends? She gave herself over to the old green-eyed monster and made a poor show of eating her lunch.

  Five minutes before the appointed time, she went along the beach to the small wooden cafe called The Kiosko, imagining while she walked that Ramon had been making dates with all the girls he’d been flirting with. He’s just a philanderer, she thought, and probably never intended turning up.

  She fumed silently until half past three, then decided to call it a day and go for a walk. There was no point in waiting any longer; she would just make herself look ridiculous. It wasn’t very pleasant being left in the lurch like this in public. But just as she stood up, she saw him hurrying over the sand.

  ‘Perdoneme, por favor, senorita. The people and more people they come.’ He gave an apologetic shrug.

  ‘That’s all right. I didn’t even notice that you were late. I’ve only been here a few minutes myself.’ She made light of the past thirty minutes of agonizing uncertainty.

  ‘Come.’ He took her hand. ‘Quiet place - over there.’

  Roselle’s spirits took a high jump. He wanted to take her away from the crowds, to get her in an isolated spot, to pour out his love for her, the love he had kept secret for a few days in case she spurned him.

  They walked slowly, it was too hot to hurry, away from the little tables clustering under their thatched umbrellas - past the mini-golf course, the tennis courts, the beautiful gardens with their giant cacti and palm trees; past all the hordes of campers from the site on the hill. Very few locals were about. They had the sense to take a siesta during the hottest part of the day.

  They took off their sandals and splashed through the sea, gently lapping at the sand, and clambered over the rocks. Beyond this point, as Ramon had said, quietness reigned in a small secluded beach, hidden from the view of any ‘peeping toms’. They found a flat stone and squatted down. ‘What is your name, please?’ Ramon asked now, looking at her in a way that made her heart lurch.

  She always enjoyed telling people her name, grateful that her parents had chosen it so thoughfully. ‘It’s Roselle. Roselle Harrison.’

  ‘Is good. Perfect for English rose. When I see you by the pool, I think you so pale and sad. I think to make you happy. The hair - like silk. The lovely eyes - blue like the sky.’

  The soft voice carried on, the words caressing her soaring spirits. This was it! Her prince really was charming. Then her thoughts stopped roller-coasting as he made a grab for her, but his kisses were too demanding, altogether too passionate.

  ‘Stop, Ramon.’ She pushed him away, but he pulled her to him roughly again.

  ‘Come to my room tonight,’ he whispered against her hair.

  No, no, she thought. This isn’t Prince Charming. This is the Big Bad Wolf in person, and she laughed aloud as he was about to kiss her again.

  Looking astonished, Ramon stopped in mid pout. ‘Why you laugh, please?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all,’ she managed to say, struggling out of his embrace. ‘It’s just that you’re exactly the kind of man my father warned me about.’ She ran back along the beach, leaving her perplexed Casanova standing forlornly on the rocks, his mouth gaping.

  When she reached the hotel, she locked herself in her room and flopped down on the bed. She didn’t care for that kind of behaviour at all. She longed to be back home with good, safe Derek. At least she could depend on him, predictable, protective and loving. Yes, that was really love. She’d been wrong all along, always reaching out for something more. She hoped that Derek hadn’t found someone else while she was away.

  In the tiny en suite bathroom, she splashed her face with cold water, then sat down to write a letter to her mother. Maybe, if she was lucky, it would reach home before she did.

  By the time she went down for dinner, she had composed her thoughts and was glad that Ramon kept his eyes away from the dining room. She needn’t speak to him again. She would never go back to the lounge bar, that was for sure. She must have given him the wrong impression by asking to meet him in his off-duty time, and she’d certainly been too trusting - naive.

  She spent the rest of her second week lying near the pool, reading and trying to deepen her tan. Pale and sad, Ramon had called her, when she had thought she was bronzed and radiant. That hurt!

  While she was packing on Friday night, Roselle found that she was just as excited at the thought of seeing Derek again as she had been about coming here to look for a Prince Charming. How could she have been so immature?

  In Heathrow, waiting for her luggage to come on the roundabout, she decided to take a taxi home. She still had enough money left; she hadn’t spent all that much in Fuengirola. In a few moments, she spotted her suitcase at the far side of the conveyor belt, but before she could move an inch, she was spun round and there was Derek. All five foot ten of him, laughing and hugging her.

  ‘Your mum phoned to tell me when you were arriving and asked if I’d come to meet you.’ He didn’t say that her mother had added, ‘I don’t know what happened there, but I think she realises how she feels about you, so now’s your chance. Good luck!’

  ‘Oh, Derek, I’m so glad to see you,’ Roselle sighed blissfully.

  ‘No more running off in search of a Prince Charming?’ ‘I don’t want any princes, only you.’ ‘Not very flattering,’ he grinned.

  ‘You know what I mean. Dash! My case must have gone round again. I saw it just before you arrived.’

  ‘And you forgot everything in the joy of having me here?’

  Roselle had never seen him like this before, so self-assured and happy. ‘Yes, darling,’ she told him. ‘You see, I really do love you.’

  And so she did, her wobbly legs and fluttering heart confirmed it, with a deep new meaning to Love, with a capital L.

  Who needed a Prince Charming, anyway?

  ***

  Word count: 2850

  Sent to My Weekly 13.2.86 - rejected 28.2.86

  Sent to Woman’s Story 4.4.86 - rejected 30.4.86

  Sent to Blue Jeans 22.5.86 - rejected 1.6.86

  Sent to Romance 3.6.86 - never returned

  Four rejections? I think I gathered that this story was an F-L-O-P.

  The Arches

  Archie Murchie opened his Observ
er with no premonition of what it contained. He had gone out with the dog to collect the local ‘rag’ before breakfast, but liked to leave the reading of it until Alice was clearing up. He may have been retired, but washing dishes was woman’s work.

  He had filled his pipe, taken his glasses down off the mantelpiece, before he settled back in his armchair to find out if anything interesting had happened in Kilstrath since last week. The news was sometimes days old, but it was a change from all the strikes and disasters that filled the national dailies and blasted out at him from the television and radio.

  ‘I see the Flower Show’s to be on the 23rd of next month,’ he called through to his wife. ‘I hope my dahlias winna be past.’

  ‘They’ll be fine.’ Alice knew that he hoped to lift the prize one year, but so far he had been unsuccessful.

  ‘I see young Billy Williamson’s got promotion again,’ he remarked in a few minutes. ‘He’s fairly got on in that bank in Inverness. Manager now, would you believe? And he was a real scallywag when he was a lad, mind?’

  Alice laughed. ‘Aye, he used to chase the hens and put them off laying. I was forever raging at him.’

  ‘Och, he was a likeable enough laddie though.’ Archie had always had a soft spot for their neighbour’s youngest son. He smiled as he turned the page. He would have liked a son like Billy Williamson. His mind suddenly stopped wandering, as a heavily outlined item caught his eye. He sat up, took the pipe from his mouth and read the two paragraphs under their heading ‘KILSTRATH TO BE SOLD?’ When he came to the end, his eyes went back to the beginning and he read it through again, hardly able to believe what he saw.

  He was still staring at the page when Alice came through, pulling down the sleeves of her old cardigan. ‘What is it, Archie?’ she asked anxiously, noticing the set expression on his lined face. Silently, he handed her the paper and pointed to the place. Alice read it aloud, slowly. ‘Lord Kilstrath died at his London home early on Monday morning. The estate and the title are inherited by his nephew, who lives in Montreal.’ She looked up, in surprise. ‘But this winna affect us, surely?’