8
The next few days pass by in a blur of productive activity. We spend the afternoons up in Mojácar Pueblo, collecting footage of the village fortress and conducting interviews with a number of bemused local inhabitants, so my mornings are always packed full of tasks from Theo ahead of that day’s filming.
I’m relishing being busy, though there’s just one dicey moment on the second day when I turn a cobbled corner in the Jewish Quarter and walk literally right into Diego, who is coming the other way with a large box of tomatoes in his hands.
‘Hola, Hannah – qué tal?’ he’s quick to ask.
‘Bueno – gracias,’ I reply, scuttling away in the other direction without bothering to ask him how he is in return. It’s so strange to remember how besotted I was with him, even if some of the emotions are still acute. The way I behaved around him as a teenager seared me with a humiliating pain that has never really dimmed, and I hate the way I feel when I’m around him – small and insignificant.
We’ve been working such long hours that by the time evening arrives, Claudette is content simply to sit on our balcony with her feet up on the wall, sipping a glass of wine and reading over her script notes for the following day. Theo, meanwhile, has taken to vanishing back down to his villa to review and edit the day’s recordings, leaving Tom and me to explore the many quirky little restaurants and bars nestled amongst the cube-shaped houses of the village. Mojácar is well and truly under my skin again, and I’m already dreading the thought of having to leave behind the wonderful sleepy atmosphere and the veritable kaleidoscope of greens, blues, whites and sunshine-yellows that I see every time I let myself stop and look around.
Today is Wednesday, and we are all packed into Theo’s car heading out of Mojácar on the Carboneras Road towards Macenas, where there are two centuries-old watchtowers – the Perulico and the Castillo de Macenas – that he’s keen to include in our film. If we get everything done by lunchtime, then Theo’s promised us the treat of an afternoon off, so there’s a definite buzz in the air.
‘I cannot wait to work on my tan,’ Claudette is now saying. She’s slipped off her shoes in the back seat next to me and has stretched out her legs so that her toes are poking through the gap between Tom and Theo.
‘Can anyone else smell cheese?’ Tom jokes, earning himself a poke from Claudette’s big toe.
As usual I’m splitting my time between staring out of the window at the unfolding landscape and gazing at the back of Theo’s head. Every now and again, he glances in the rear-view mirror and catches my eye. We haven’t had a moment alone together since the other day at lunch, so our conversation about his older lady lover has not been continued. Not that I want to hear all about how great some other woman was in the sack, anyway.
For something that was built in the eighteenth century, the Castillo de Macenas is in pretty good nick, and I say as much as we sweep into the nearby parking area in a cloud of dust.
‘Spoken like a true intellectual,’ remarks Tom, winking at me as he clambers out of the car.
Almost like a small castle in shape and design, the Castillo is constructed from brown and gold stone, its cylindrical edges drawing my eyes up and around. I find it bizarre to think of guards sitting up on the battlements all those years ago, looking out across the vast expanse of sea in search of any vessels that could herald a potential attack or invasion. Then again, what a view they must have had. There’s something about being close to a large body of water that makes me feel more invincible, as if the usual limitations of everyday life have slipped away and the possibilities have multiplied tenfold. Perhaps that’s why London can feel so relentless and stifling – it’s because my mind is subconsciously trapped between all those ugly man-made structures.
Having already coached Claudette through her lines and helped Tom set up the camera, I stroll a few metres away from the group so that I won’t be in the way. Today, clouds have joined us for the first time since we arrived, and they add a pleasing new dimension to the dense blue veil of the sky. The scenery in this area is far more rugged than the coast a few miles behind us, with craggy cliffs leaning over the water and clusters of dried plants rotting in the heat. The dust is still here, though, blowing up around me and working its way into my nostrils, ears and probably even my belly button. It never ceases to amaze me just how much dirt I manage to pick up throughout the course of a single day.
Claudette is talking to the camera now, her light French accent sounding mellifluous yet authoritative. Usually she would still be faffing around at this stage, demanding to check how she looks on screen and how she’s been framed in the shot, but today she is determined to get the job done. As she remarked to me this morning on our way up the steps outside our apartment, she’s planning to spend the few hours we have to ourselves hunting the beach bars for a man, telling me quite brazenly, ‘If I don’t have sex soon, someone will be murdered.’
I actually don’t doubt her for one second.
‘Can we try that again, but with a little less haste, please?’ Theo is now saying, and as he turns his back I see Claudette stamp her foot with frustration. Tom is quiet when he’s working, ever the professional, but I know he must secretly be gritting his teeth at her histrionics.
Leaving my colleagues to it, I wander across the makeshift car park to where the derelict shell of a building is just about still standing. Surrounded by dead shrubbery and tagged with lots of rather artistic graffiti, it’s oddly alluring, and I slip my phone out of my pocket to take a few pictures.
What’s this? Another missed call from Nancy. Bloody hell – when is that girl going to take a hint? I stubbornly ignore the small voice in my head, which whispers to me that it might be important, that Nancy hardly ever calls me these days and surely she only would if something bad had happened. I refuse to believe that, though. If anything had happened to my parents, then someone else would have been in touch by now. All the same, I fire off a quick text to my mum just to check in.
I was only six when Nancy was born, but I’ve never forgotten it. She arrived so fast that my dad’s new wife Susie didn’t even make it as far as the hospital and Nancy, ever the drama queen, was born on the back seat of a taxi halfway there. My dad took me to visit her a week later, and apparently I was enchanted at first. I thought of her as a doll, I suppose, so I was very miffed when I was told in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t, and that I was not allowed to swing her around my head by one arm like I did with all my other dolls. Babies may look cute, but they aren’t half boring to hang out with, and I hated the way that my dad cooed over Nancy. It was as if now he had her, he no longer needed me, and that feeling has never really left me. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he didn’t love Mum any more, now it felt like he didn’t love me, either.
To make matters worse, Nancy was a very clingy toddler and hugely attached to our dad. She would muscle in on any games the two of us might be playing and cry if she wasn’t allowed to join in; she would pick up the pieces of my beloved jigsaws and chew them until the cardboard shapes warped and no longer fitted together properly. When I was nine, I was given the much-coveted role of Mary in the school nativity play, but on the day of the performance, Nancy threw a colossal tantrum and screamed herself sick. My dad was so worried about her that he stayed at home instead of coming to watch me on the assembly hall stage, and I have never forgotten how it felt to look down and see an empty chair where he was supposed to be sitting.
Nancy desperately wanted me to pay her attention, but even as a child I knew that ignoring her was the best way to punish her. She had this need to be watched, adored and idolised by everyone, and I simply refused to go along with it. She had everyone wrapped around her chubby little finger except me, and I know it drove her mad. Why she was suddenly so keen to talk to me now was a mystery, but it was one that I didn’t have time to deal with at the moment.
Angry with myself for letting my corrosive resentment affect my mood yet again, I take aim and kick a stone through the tumbledown doorway of the building, only to leap about fifteen feet into the air with a scream so loud that several birds fly up from the undergrowth.
‘Hannah – are you okay?’ Theo is beside me in under a minute, out of breath and palpably concerned.
‘A snake,’ I say, my voice still quivering with shock, as I point to the clear patch of ground where the stone once sat.
‘There, there,’ Theo says, pulling me against him and sending my senses reeling. ‘It’s gone now. It cannot hurt you.’
‘Sorry,’ I mumble against his shirt, my arms dangling down by my sides like laundered tights. ‘It just gave me a fright.’
‘I won’t let it get you,’ Theo soothes.
Bloody hell – he’s even started stroking my hair. He smells so good, and his chest feels so firm against my cheek. Now I can hear his heart beating. Oh my God, I think I’m going to faint.
Theo gently pushes me away so that he can look into my eyes.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks, so quietly that I almost don’t hear him. ‘It didn’t bite you, did it?’
I shake my head. ‘No.’
‘Thank God,’ he mutters, releasing my shoulders so that my cheek can again press against the buttons of his shirt. His hands are working their way down my back, his fingers rubbing small circles as they go, leaving me burning with such an overwhelming need that I almost whimper.
‘What the hell is going on over here?’
Claudette has marched over and is glaring at us, a graceful hand on her hip and an expression on her face that’s easily explosive enough to topple what’s left of the ramshackle reptile hotel behind me.
‘There was a snake,’ I mumble, forcing myself to take a step backwards out of Theo’s embrace. ‘It just startled me, that’s all.’
For the briefest of seconds, I see a shudder pass through Claudette, but she quickly recovers herself.
‘Can we get a move on, please? It’s almost lunchtime.’
‘Come on,’ Theo says, turning to me with a smile. ‘You can help me direct.’
Somehow I make it through the next hour without melting into a puddle of lustful goo all over the floor, and we’re soon back at Theo’s villa having dropped Claudette off at a beach bar on the way.
‘Fancy a swim before we head back?’ Tom asks me.
I hesitate, looking over at Theo who has just returned from taking some equipment inside. I can’t stop thinking about how his hands felt, and I absurdly don’t want to wash away the sensation of him in the sea.
‘You go ahead,’ I tell Tom. ‘I’ll wait on the beach and watch the bags.’
We walk along until we reach a beachside bar offering sun loungers – or hamacas, as the Spanish call them – for five euros, then Tom whips his T-shirt off over his head and lollops away across the sand.
I watch until he’s happily splashing about in the water, then lie back against my towel and release an audible sigh of contentment. I can hear the wind making the beach umbrellas creak with the effort of standing upright, and somewhere a child is giggling. Music filters down from the bar, a Spanish song that I’ve never heard but which sounds familiar all the same, and I smile as the notes hover around my ears like a persistent bee.
I’ve already applied sun cream on all my exposed areas, but I realise now that I didn’t remind Tom that he should, too. He won’t be feeling the heat in the water, but it’s definitely at its peak at this time of day. Just as I’m contemplating getting up and calling him back in to shore, a shadow falls across me.
‘A drink for the lady?’
Theo is smiling down at me, his eyes obscured by his sunglasses but his smile as clear as the sky above his head. The clouds from this morning are long gone.
‘Hi,’ I say, shuffling up into a sitting position.
He’s holding a jug of sangria in one hand and three small glasses in the other, and has a rolled-up towel clamped under one arm. He’s also changed into shorts and – be still, my throbbing loins – taken off his shirt.
‘You can’t very well have an afternoon off without some sangria,’ he says, sitting down on Tom’s vacated sun lounger and slipping his feet out of his flip-flops.
‘You’re the boss,’ I joke lamely, holding out my hand to accept a glass. The sangria is packed with slices of orange, strawberry and lemon, and there’s a wooden spoon poking out from the top of the jug.
Until today, I have never been physically close to Theo and he has never seen me in a state of undress. Now the two things have happened in the space of a few hours, and it’s a wonder that I’m managing to remain so calm. Thank goodness I chose my one bikini with the padded bra top this morning. Not that a few centimetres of foam are going to convince anyone – let alone Theo – that I’ve got much up there to show off. Tall, skinny girls just aren’t made that way.
‘Thanks again for earlier,’ I say now, taking a sip of my drink. It’s delicious – fruity and sweet and dangerously non-alcoholic-tasting – and I quickly chase the first gulp down with another.
‘You’re welcome.’ Theo regards me for a few seconds. ‘I feel responsible for you,’ he admits. ‘For all of you, really. You are my team and it’s up to me to make sure you’re well looked after while we’re over here.’
I feel myself deflate a fraction at his words. How foolish I’d been to assume that he’d wanted to put his arms around me and comfort me. Of course he was just being nice, like a concerned older brother or something. Or worse, like a dad.
‘You always look as if you are lost in thought,’ Theo says now, laughing when I immediately go bright red. ‘You do! What is going on inside that head of yours, Miss Hodges?’
What it would be like to kiss you, I think, but obviously don’t say.
‘I was just thinking how much more fun the beach is when you’re a child,’ I say, which is a half-truth because I was thinking that exact thing a few days ago.
‘How so?’ Theo has settled himself on Tom’s lounger now, his legs stretched out and his glass of sangria balanced against the soft nest of hair on his chest. I wish I could run my fingers through it.
‘Well, when you’re a kid you build sandcastles and collect shells. Play chase with the waves and eat ice cream until you’re sick,’ I tell him.
‘You could do all those things now, if you really wanted to,’ he says, clearly amused.
‘You could,’ I allow. ‘But it’s not the same now, is it? When I was a child, the shells I collected at the beach were my most prized possessions. And just digging a hole would keep me entertained for hours.’
I go on to tell him about Chewy, and how my scruffy dog friend used to help me in my hole-digging endeavours, but then end up getting told off for flicking wet sand in everyone’s faces. It turns out that Theo had a pet dog when he was growing up in Greece, too, and again I’m struck with how similar we are.
‘Would you ever get another one?’ I ask, as he tops up both our glasses for the third time.
‘I always said that I would if I had a family,’ he says. ‘But that didn’t happen for me.’
‘There’s still time,’ I reply, probably with a little bit too much enthusiasm. ‘You’re a young man.’
Theo laughs at this and brings a foot across to nudge my leg.
‘You are very sweet,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘But forty is not that young. I think if children were going to happen, then they would have by now.’
‘Perhaps you just haven’t met the right person yet,’ I say, astounded at my own boldness. ‘You know, the right person to have a child with, I mean.’
He smiles. ‘Perhaps.’
I would have all your babies tomorrow, I tell him internally, watching as a plucky sparrow comes to rest right next to my bare feet.
‘What about you, Hannah?’ Theo keeps his voice low so as not to scare away the bird.
‘What about me?’ I play dumb.
‘Do you want to have children one day?’
‘Start with an easy one,’ I joke, but turning I see that his eyes are serious. ‘I guess so, but I wouldn’t want to end up raising a child alone, like my mum did.’
‘Your father?’ he asks, waiting while I drain my glass. This sangria is going straight to my head. I really shouldn’t be over-sharing like this, even if it is Theo asking the questions.
‘Buggered off before I was two,’ I say, trying and failing to keep the edge out of my voice.
‘Sorry to hear that.’ Theo has reached across again, but this time with his hand, which is now resting gently on my arm. I look down at it, then up at his expression, which is all concern.
‘It’s okay, you didn’t do it,’ I say stupidly. ‘He met someone else and that was that. At least he didn’t leave her, too, though – they’re still together now.’
‘A small comfort, I imagine,’ Theo guesses, spot on as always.
‘All my earliest memories are of my mum crying,’ I say now, the sangria sweeping over my carefully constructed floodgates. ‘She would always pretend she’d been chopping onions or that she’d seen something sad on TV, but I knew it was because she missed my dad. Even now I don’t really understand what happened.’
‘Love is a very complicated thing,’ Theo says. His hand is still on my arm, and he’s increasing the pressure. I know it’s wrong to be totally aroused while having a conversation about your darkest childhood memories, but I can’t help it. There are so few items of clothing between us, and he’s being so kind, so attentive. He’s actually interested in what I’m telling him, and he’s sympathetic, too.
‘I loved a girl for a long time, and we broke up,’ he says now. ‘Like your mother, I found it very difficult.’
‘That girl must have been an idiot,’ I fail to stop myself blurting, and Theo laughs, removing his hand at last and picking up the almost empty sangria jug.
‘Maybe.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Or maybe she is the opposite.’
‘What do you me—?’ I begin, but at that moment my phone starts ringing.
‘Bloody hell,’ I swear. ‘Sorry, I better just check who it— Oh, it’s my mum. Hang on.’
I stagger awkwardly to my feet and move away from the loungers, immediately burning my feet on the hot sand and lunging across to a patch of shade.
‘Mum – are you okay?’
‘Of course I am. How are you, darling? How is Mojácar? Is it as beautiful as before? Are you remembering to put sun cream on? Have you been bitten yet? You know mosquitoes can be dangerous.’
‘MUM!’
‘Yes?’
‘Stop talking for a moment, will you?’
‘Sorry. But you know me. I can’t stop being your mother just because you’re all grown up now.’
‘I know. And thank you. But Mum?’
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Why did you call?’
‘I got your message earlier.’
Of course she did. I had completely forgotten that I even sent it.
‘Has Nancy been in touch?’ she asks now.
How the hell does she know that?
‘I had a missed call from her a few days ago,’ I say carefully, omitting to mention the other six or so calls I’ve ignored. ‘Why?’
‘She rang me,’ Mum says. ‘Wanted to know where you were staying and how long you’d be away. She sounded very impressed when I told her you were on your first location shoot. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? A shoot.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
Why the hell was Nancy suddenly so interested in my life, and what I was doing? She never usually bothers to ask.
‘She said that your dad had no idea you’d even left the country, so I told her she must be mistaken about that, because you’d said you were going to text him.’
Busted.
‘Umm … I might have forgotten,’ I admit, silently cursing my half-sister and her huge stupid mouth. Now I’ll have to endure a lecture from Dad when I get home about how disappointed he is in me. Just what I need.
‘Oh, Hannah.’ My mum is clearly disappointed, too, but at least she doesn’t dwell on it. Instead, she tells me a long story about how she and Beryl went clay-pot painting for the afternoon and ended up drinking two bottles of Prosecco.
‘I was that merry, I had to ask Bill from next door to show me which key to use when I got home,’ she trills. ‘I hope he didn’t think I was coming on to him. No offence to the man, but he does rather remind me of a toad.’
It’s another five minutes before I get her off the phone, and by the time I’ve hung up, taken a very deep breath and turned back around, Theo has been replaced by a soaking wet, very pink-shouldered Tom. I knew I should have reminded him to put on more sun cream.
‘That your mum?’ he guesses, as I sit back down.
‘She’s mental,’ I say, before adding casually, ‘did Theo go to get more sangria?’
‘He said he had to go.’ Tom shrugs, yanking his towel out from under himself and rubbing it over his dripping hair. ‘Wants to start editing.’
I resist the urge to lie on the sand and weep.
‘Why the face?’ Tom has reappeared from beneath his towel, but even his new Boris Johnson-style hairdo doesn’t cheer me up.
‘We can’t exactly get pissed with the boss watching over us,’ he says, jabbing me with a big foot. ‘And look – I found you a present while I was swimming.’
Beaming with pride, he presents me with an enormous and very beautiful conch shell.
‘I trod on it,’ he adds happily. ‘So there might be some blood.’
‘Lovely,’ I deadpan, but I have to hand it to the big goon – he’s got me smiling again.