The Hideaway Page 10

  ‘I’m sure it hurts a lot,’ I said in English as I ran my fingers gently over the injury to see if I could detect any further damage.

  The boy screamed louder and my heart went out to him. A dislocated shoulder is one of the most painful traumas that can happen to you.

  Rosa turned up at that moment and I quickly explained what had happened.

  ‘Honestly,’ she muttered. ‘It’s a wonder that child is still alive. Xavi’s only eight but he’s already broken his arm and his ankle.’

  ‘And now his shoulder,’ I told her. ‘I’m pretty confident he hasn’t fractured his arm too, but we need to ice it as quickly as we can and get him to A&E.’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but I have emergency response training, and I’ve X-rayed lots of dislocated shoulders,’ I said. ‘Is there a hospital nearby?’

  ‘Benidorm,’ she said. ‘He knows it well, don’t you, Xavi?’

  The boy’s screams had reached hysteria level at this point and the other children were starting to get upset. A woman came hurrying across the plaza and kneeled down beside him, trying to comfort him.

  ‘Get ice,’ I said to Rosa. ‘And some plastic bags to put it in. And towels or pillowcases or some kind of fabric. I’ll strap it up for him and that’ll make it easier to get him to hospital.’

  I hunkered down beside Xavi.

  ‘You’re OK.’ I hoped he’d be comforted by my tone even if he didn’t understand my words. ‘Honestly you are. I’m going to help you.’

  Rosa said something to both the woman and the boy and then disappeared into the café. She returned with a basin full of ice, a couple of plastic bags and a selection of towels.

  ‘You’re very brave,’ I told him as I put the ice into one of the bags and then placed it on his shoulder. ‘This will help.’

  Rosa translated while I looked at the towels. None of them would make a decent sling but I really needed to immobilise Xavi’s arm. It would help lessen his pain as well as the damage to the surrounding tissue. I looked at Rosa again.

  ‘Would you have a spare T-shirt?’ I asked.

  She hesitated for a moment, before going back into the café and returning with a neon-pink cropped top. I looked at it speculatively for a moment then, in one fluid motion, pulled my own T-shirt over my head and replaced it with the one Rosa had brought. The top was tight and tiny and it just about covered my bra. Then, to a collective gasp from the assembled crowd, I ripped my own T-shirt along the seam.

  ‘Yours was too small,’ I said as I fashioned a sling for the little boy. ‘Better this way.’

  Rosa’s mouth was open in surprise. It wasn’t the only one. But I ignored the crowd around us.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ I said as I positioned Xavi’s arm across his body and secured it with my improvised sling. ‘We’ll soon have you fixed, and then we’ll get you to the hospital.’

  His screams died down and the woman, who’d been stroking his hair, took out her phone and made a call.

  ‘She can’t get hold of Xavi’s mum,’ Rosa told me when the woman ended the call and spoke to her. ‘the woman is his next-door neighbour. Catalina, his mum, is a security guard at the airport, so she probably can’t take the call at the moment.’

  ‘If someone can come with me to give me directions, I’ll drive him to the hospital myself,’ I said. ‘It’s no problem.’

  ‘Would you?’ Rosa looked relieved and spoke to Maribel again. The other woman nodded, and Rosa told me that Maribel would accompany me.

  ‘Can you give me directions in English?’ I asked her. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish.’

  ‘Yes. A little in English,’ she said.

  I lifted Xavi up, taking care to guard his damaged shoulder, and brought him to the car.

  The drive to the hospital wasn’t too difficult, although the road twisted and turned through the hillside and I knew the occasional bumps were painful for the little boy. When we arrived at A&E, we only had to wait about fifteen minutes before he was seen. Xavi, courtesy of having broken bones before, wasn’t frightened by the hospital or the equipment when he was X-rayed, although he was still white with pain. The radiographer, a pleasant man in his thirties, showed us the film, where I could clearly see Xavi’s anterior dislocation but, fortunately, no other breaks or injuries.

  I smiled encouragingly at him as the doctor gave him a sedative and then worked the shoulder back into place. A couple of hours after arriving, with Xavi a little woozy but no longer in pain, we were ready to leave.

  Maribel directed me back to her house, which was near the town and just two doors down from Xavi. On the way she finally got to speak with his mum. I didn’t know what she was saying but I knew she mentioned me because I saw her glance at me a couple of times as she spoke – and I also heard the word inglesa, which I knew meant English. The distinction between English and Irish was irrelevant to the people of Beniflor so I didn’t try to correct her.

  ‘You like coffee?’ Maribel asked as we pulled up outside the small single-storey house.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll go home now,’ I said.

  ‘Or tea? I have tea.’

  ‘Honestly, no,’ I assured her. ‘But thank you very much for the offer. And for your directions.’

  ‘It is not a trouble. The trouble is yours,’ she said.

  ‘It was no trouble at all,’ I said. ‘I was happy to do it.’

  Then I told a sleepy Xavi to take care of himself, allowed Maribel to kiss me on the cheek, and drove back to the Villa Naranja, thinking that I’d taken a step towards being a part of the community today, even if it would only be for a short time.

  Chapter 10

  I was varnishing the first of the newly sanded shutters the following morning when I was disturbed by a loud electronic buzz. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that it was the bell at the Villa Naranja’s gate. It was the first time that anyone had rung it. The only person to have visited since my arrival was Pep Navarro, and he had a fob. I balanced my paintbrush carefully on the tin of varnish and then walked towards the entrance.

  A small green car had stopped outside and a woman of around my own age was standing beside it. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and her butter-blonde hair was pulled back into a pert ponytail.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘You are Juno?’ she asked in English. ‘I am Catalina, the mother of Xavi.’

  ‘Oh, Xavi’s mum.’ I beamed at her as I pressed the release button and the gate slid open. ‘How is he?’

  ‘He is well,’ she said. ‘I came to thank you for bringing him to the hospital.’

  ‘No problem.’

  She didn’t bother to get back into the car, but simply walked inside and followed me to the back of the house.

  ‘He was unlucky,’ I added. ‘I guess reaching for the branch wrenched his shoulder and then when he fell . . .’

  ‘He was not unlucky.’ She made a face. ‘He was very disobedient. He has been told – they have all been told – that the plaza is not a playground for their silly game.’

  ‘Kids think everywhere is a playground,’ I said.

  ‘You are right.’ She shrugged. ‘But boys do not listen. They are so much harder work than girls.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t have any children myself. Would you like a coffee?’ I added. ‘Or water? Maybe juice?’

  ‘Water would be nice,’ she replied.

  I went into the kitchen and got water for both of us. When I returned, she was sitting at the stone table in the shade of the striped umbrella.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said as she accepted the water. ‘I came also to give you this.’ She opened her bag and took out two lemon-scented candles in jars. ‘I make them myself,’ she said when I’d sniffed them and told her they were beautiful. ‘I thought you might like them.’

  ‘You didn’t have to give me anything,’ I said. ‘It was no trouble t
o bring him.’

  ‘Maribel told me how you tied up his arm.’ She looked at me, suddenly doubtful. ‘Is that the right word? Tied up? It sounds odd.’

  ‘Strapped up is what we’d say,’ I told her. ‘I’m impressed by your English!’

  ‘I worked in London for three years, and my husband lived there for even longer,’ she said. ‘I have forgotten a lot, though.’

  ‘Everyone here seems to have worked abroad,’ I said. ‘And you all speak fantastic English. Maybe I’ll improve from gracias and por favor after a few more weeks. Though I doubt it.’

  She smiled. ‘I am sure you will learn. How long will you spend here?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ I replied. ‘It’s a lovely place and I like it very much. But even if I wanted to, I couldn’t afford to stay for a long time.’

  ‘It would be nice to do only the things we want to do,’ said Catalina. ‘I am fortunate that you are here now. And so is Xavi. My other reason for coming was to say that we would be honoured if you would join us at our table in the plaza on Friday night.’ She looked at me earnestly. ‘I hope you say yes.’

  ‘Oh . . . that’s very kind of you . . .’ I was about to add that I hadn’t decided on whether or not I was even going to go to the fiesta, but her words had been so genuine that I couldn’t say no. And so I told her I’d be delighted.

  ‘My husband, José, will come for you in the car,’ she said. ‘He will bring you home. You do not have to worry about a thing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘You will have fun. The fiesta is always fun. And,’ she added with a shrewd glance at me, ‘I think you need more fun while you are here than painting Doña Carmen’s shutters and bringing my son to the hospital.’

  Put like that, she had a point.

  The sunny weather meant that I was able to wash and return Rosa’s cropped top to her the following day.

  ‘You could’ve kept it,’ she said as I handed it over.

  ‘I’m slim, but I think my cropped-top days are behind me.’ I grinned. ‘The doctors in the hospital were giving me some very funny looks.’

  ‘They were probably just awed by your sling,’ she told me with a laugh. ‘Anyhow, thanks for bringing it back. Everyone’s dead impressed by how you dealt with Xavi.’

  ‘No problem,’ I told her. ‘I was glad to help. His mum has asked me to join them for the fiesta on Friday, which is really kind.’

  ‘You’ll be on their Christmas card list forever.’

  I smiled goodbye and then walked around to the DIY store, where I bought another pot of varnish. My fame as a first-aider had reached there too, and the owner, Sergio, praised me for my quick thinking.

  ‘It wasn’t really quick thinking,’ I said as I handed over the money. ‘It’s my job to know how to deal with stuff like that.’

  ‘Xavi was very lucky you were there,’ he told me. ‘Maybe in the future he will be more careful. But I doubt it. He is loco, that one.’

  The Greek god, Pep Navarro, had heard about my exploits too.

  ‘They said you took off your clothes,’ he told me when he turned up to clean the pool. ‘In the middle of the square!’

  ‘I did not!’ I felt myself go bright red. ‘I changed my T-shirt because Rosa’s was too small to make a sling.’

  ‘I would have liked to see that,’ he said with a grin, and then returned to his pool cleaning.

  I bathed in the warm glow of the town’s acceptance, and by Friday afternoon I was looking forward to the fiesta. Even though I’d come to Beniflor to be alone, I wasn’t used to spending so much time not talking to anyone. The hospital is always busy with lots of talk going on. Obviously my one-sided chats with Banquo didn’t count as conversation.

  Nevertheless, the idea of being in a crowd of people was a little unnerving. This was partly because of the language barrier and partly because – outside of an emergency situation like Xavi’s – I didn’t entirely trust myself not to burst into tears at exactly the wrong moment. However, I hadn’t burst into tears in ages, and I couldn’t imagine how anyone here was going to do or say anything that might provoke them. As I got ready that evening, I wondered if I’d skipped over the fourth stage of grief, which is depression. Because at that moment I wasn’t feeling depressed. I was feeling excited. All the same, I very definitely hadn’t moved on to the fifth stage. Acceptance. I still wasn’t ready to accept that Brad was gone. I wasn’t ready to accept that I couldn’t challenge him about how he’d cheated on both Alessandra and me.

  I made myself forget about Brad as I looked at myself in the full-length mirror in my bedroom. I was wearing a pale lilac sundress with a border of yellow flowers around the hem, and my favourite wedge sandals. I still needed the tortoiseshell hairband to keep my hair in place but I suddenly realised that, despite the lashings of sunscreen, my face was lightly tinted by the sun, and my arms and legs sported a healthy glow. I looked better than when I’d first arrived. A lot better. Almost normal.

  My phone pinged with a message from Cleo.

  Having drinks in town. Thinking of you. Hoping you’re well.

  I took my bag from the bed and went downstairs. Then, with the orange trees behind me, I took a selfie and sent it to her.

  You wagon! The reply came instantly. You look amazing.

  I kind of did. All summery and holiday-ish and carefree. Which wasn’t really how I felt inside. But it was how I appeared at that exact moment. So perhaps I was moving on towards acceptance, after all. No matter how remote that option still seemed to be.

  The plaza was buzzing with life. Coloured lights had been strung around the square and the adjoining streets, and music blared from speakers on the balcony of the town hall – or ayuntamiento, as Catalina called it. In front of the ayuntamiento, three large red velvet thrones awaited the Fiesta Queens on a stage decorated with masses of flowers. Meantime, the trestle tables, which had been placed in the plaza earlier, were nearly all occupied by the townspeople who’d brought their own food and drink and were happily tucking in.

  Catalina, José and I, along with Xavi and his baby sister, Agata, were at one corner of the plaza with quite a good view of the stage. Agata was asleep in her pram – she was less than a year old but that hadn’t stopped her parents bringing her out for the night, and I could see that there were plenty of other babies in prams at the fiesta, apparently untroubled by the light and the noise. There were lots of other children too, some running around but many sitting at the tables with their families and neighbours. Xavi’s arm was still supported by a sling and he wasn’t doing any running about. But he was having a heated conversation with one of his friends, which I gathered had something to do with football. Xavi was wearing a Barcelona shirt. His friend’s – according to José – was Real Madrid.

  José and Catalina were being very attentive towards me – having introduced me to their neighbours, they made sure that I wasn’t stuck behind my language barrier and kept up a running commentary on everything that was going on, including the parading of San Bernardo’s statue and the arrival of the Fiesta Queens.

  By the time the crowning ceremony took place I’d already downed a couple of glasses of Catalina’s home-made sangria, which was cold, refreshing and very fruity.

  ‘Made with wine from the Navarro bodega,’ she told me. ‘They produce the best wines in the region.’

  I still hadn’t tried the ones Pep Navarro had left me. But I promised myself that I would.

  Catalina had just poured more sangria for everyone when the crowning ceremony began. Beatriz was every bit as beautiful as people had said – a stunning girl with a tumble of dark hair, and equally dark, seductive eyes. The older Fiesta Queen, Señora Sotomayor, looked younger than her seventy years, although not in the glamorous way that my own mother did, but simply because of her beaming smile and outgoing nature. The young Queen, a little girl named Linda, was petite and pretty and equally smiley. Actually, the delightful thing about the whole Fiesta Queen scenario was t
hat it wasn’t like a beauty contest at all, despite Beatriz’s undoubted glamour, it was all just family fun.

  The three Queens presided over some speechifying, which naturally I didn’t understand. Then some firecrackers were set off in an unbelievable cacophony of noise. Little Agata slept through it all.

  I was finding it difficult to keep any kind of conversation going because, although Catalina and José spoke excellent English, it was harder for them and for me over the gabble of other people talking as well as the hip-hop music that was now playing. I was sure they were exhausted with looking after me and so during a lull in the conversation I excused myself from the table. They immediately began talking to their neighbours while I started to stroll around the plaza.

  ‘Is fun for you?’

  I whirled around at the touch on my shoulder and found myself facing Pep Navarro. He was wearing a plain white shirt and blue jeans and, quite honestly, looked even more like a Greek god than ever.

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled easily at him, even though my heart had skipped a beat. ‘I’ve never been to anything like this before.’

  ‘You have fiesta in Ireland,’ he said. ‘St Patrick’s Day?’

  ‘You know about St Patrick’s Day?’

  ‘There is an Irish pub in Beniflor Costa,’ he said. ‘Every year they have green beer.’

  ‘I’ve never actually drunk green beer,’ I admitted. ‘I’m not sure I’d want to.’

  ‘I do not think it would taste very good.’ Pep laughed. ‘I have not tried it myself. But I have been in this pub and seen the dancing. Riverdance.’