Quentins (8 page)

“And what do you do with the discs?” She was interested. “Surely you could lose a disc just as easily?”

“What have we here, Ella? An investigation, a tribunal?” He laughed, but his eyes weren't smiling.

Ella was annoyed with him and showed it. “Sorry, Don. Didn't know the little woman wasn't allowed to be interested. Forget it. Forget I even spoke.”

“Hey, Ella angel, you're being a little bit heavy,” he began.

“No, I'm not. If you asked me a question about school, I'd think you were interested and I'd answer you. I wouldn't accuse you of being part of a department of education hit squad.”

“I apologize.”

“No need to. Message received. Don't ask Don about his work. Okay, I'll remember.”

“You're very hurt,” he said.

“No, just a bit pissed off. I'll get over it.”

“Come here, please . . . I beg you.” His eyes were pleading.

“What?”

He opened his little computer. The one that fit in his briefcase. “First my password. I want you to know that.” His face was very serious.

“Don, this is silly.”

“My password is ‘angel.' It has been since I met you.” He typed it in and the program sprang to life. “Please, Ella, look at the headings. My life is your life. You are welcome to look at any of these at any time.”

“That wasn't what I wanted . . . you were short with me, that's all.”

“See, here's Killiney, all the details about bills and expenses are there. Here's the boys' school fees and trust funds under their names, James and Gerald . . . and here's travel, and here's Ella.”

“You have a file on me?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Angel, of course I have.” He pointed to a file called “Brady.”

She was in tears now, but he took no notice. He was
determined to explain everything, show her how open he was being with her.

“These are the day-by-day transactions in these files. These are the ones we put on disc, and since you wanted to know what we do with the discs, we post them back to the office. We all have little ready-stamped envelopes. Now, Ella, you know the password, anything you want to know is there, but don't ever tell me again that I am secretive. That's the last thing I am.”

“How can I tell you how sorry I am?” she asked through tears.

He stroked her hair. “Angel Ella, I'm the one to be sorry if I sounded sharp to you. I get people asking me questions day and night. It's such a relief to be with you, you don't.” His face was full of remorse.

“I'm such an eejit,” she sniffed.

“I love you, Ella.”

“I know,” she said. “I don't deserve you.”

“Your father wouldn't dream of asking you, but then, you know me. I'm such a busybody, Ella. It's just that we wondered, did you see a lot of that Don Richardson?” Barbara Brady's voice trailed away with the enormity of her intrusion into her daughter's life.

“Oh, I run into him a lot around the place, yes. Any problem with that?” Ella looked a long, clear look at her mother.

“No, no, none at all. It's just that he
is
married, and all that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing exactly?”

“Well, married, I suppose, and with children. Two sons, I heard.”

“Ah, that's nice for him, then.”

“Ella, you know we want the best for you.”

“As I do for you and for Dad too.” Ella's smile was radiant.

“Will you come to Spain at half term?” Don asked her.

“I'd love to, but won't it be . . . difficult?”

“No, not remotely. I'd love to show you the coast.”

“I'd love to see it. I pay my own ticket though.”

“That's silly, Angel. I have a ticket for you.”

“Leave me my pride and dignity. Won't I be staying in your house? Isn't that enough?”

“Well, no, I thought we'd stay in a hotel. Easier.”

“Sure.” But Ella was quiet.

“I chose it for you in case you were uneasy about staying in what is in many ways a family house.”

“
No
, I mean it, sure, that's very sensitive of you, but I have my own money, Don. I'd prefer to pay the ticket.”

“Fine, Angel,” he said.

“How many days?”

“You said you had six days. I booked for that.” He smiled at her.

“God, I love you, Don Richardson,” she said.

The airport was crowded with families, couples, lovers, groups of girls on package tours. None of them were remotely as happy as Ella. She had six days here. Like a honeymoon.

She almost hugged herself at the airport as they came out among the other passengers into the sunshine toward all the hoteliers and travel agents waving banners and shouting out names.

Don had booked a car in advance.

“Sit here, Angel. I'll go and do the boring bit,” he urged. So Ella sat minding their luggage and Don's briefcase. She admired him as he walked relaxed and easy to the car desk, his jacket over his arm.

She thought she saw him paying in cash. He seemed to have a fistful of notes. But that was unlikely. Maybe he was just changing money. He was coming back to her smiling.

“Enjoy your vacation, Señor Brady,” the man at the car desk called to him.

“I put your name on the rented car too. He obviously knows who is the important one here,” Don said with his arm around Ella's shoulder.

She was childishly pleased. “I've never driven on the wrong side of the road,” she began.

“A bright girl like you, of course you can do it,” he teased.

“It's very good of you, Don.”

“Not a bit of it anyway. Nice for you to have the car if I have to do a little work. Come on now, let's go find it and we'll toss a coin for who drives.”

“I think we've tossed it and you won,” she said, laughing and taking him by the arm.

It was a very luxurious hotel. They had a huge balcony, where room service delivered their meal, lit candles for them and gave Ella a great big white orchid, which she put in her hair. “I'm so happy here,” she said.

“Tomorrow I have to trek off and meet people, do things, set up things. Will you be all right on your own?”

“Of course I will. I'll just lie out here and read. And get suntanned. And maybe trip up and down to the pool.”

“Good girl. I'll be back by seven at the latest.” He smiled lazily at her over his Spanish brandy.

“Will you take the car?” she asked innocently.

She saw his eyes narrow momentarily. “I might, Angel, I might not. I'll see, okay?”

“Sure. I didn't want you to tire yourself out, that's all.”

He relaxed.

Next morning she watched from the balcony as he went off on his list of meetings. A woman picked him up in the forecourt of the hotel. A woman who looked very like his wife, Margery.

The day seemed endless. There were just so many times you could swim up and down a pool. The thriller she had bought at Dublin airport didn't hold her attention. She wasn't hungry enough for the hotel buffet.

She took a taxi into town to the harbor and had a glass of wine, some cheese and olives as she looked at the boats bobbing up and down and the tourists walking up and down. She would not ask him. It could have been anyone. She would not call Margery Richardson's house back in Killiney. What would it prove if she were not there? Either you trusted someone or you did not. It was as simple as that. And she must have been mistaken, he would have told her if Margery were in Spain. But suppose just for a moment that Margery
were
here. After all, she was still involved in her father's business. She had a right to be here. The marriage was over. How often had he told her this? He had taken her on this magical holiday because he loved her and wanted to be with her . . . Wouldn't Ella be very silly to make a big scene about it? However much it cost her, she would say nothing.

It was very hard not to ask innocent questions that could sound like an interrogation. So when he returned in time for a swim in the sunset, Ella asked nothing. He was very loving. She had been insane to imagine that he had met up with his ex-wife or estranged wife or whatever she was. Nobody who loved her the way Don did so passionately could have spent the day with another woman. Then he said he had to do a bit of work, check that he had all the notes of today's work in his computer and make the backup disc. She sat and watched him dreamily.

“Order up some supper, Angel. I'll be through in half an hour,” he said.

She ordered asparagus and a plate of grilled prawns to follow.

“Was it a tiring day?” she asked.

She had considered the remark for a long time. There was surely no way he could take offense at that.

He looked at her and took her hand. “It was, Angel, very tiring. People are very greedy, you know. A lot of my clients want the sun, moon and stars, and then some more. They think they own me.”

“You don't need them that badly, do you?”

“We do, really, Angel. Ricky always says that they are the most demanding, the ex-pats, they have nothing to do all day except play golf, swim and read their portfolios.”

“Why can't they come back to Dublin to see you?” she asked innocently.

“Why do you think?” His face was hard.

She realized that a lot of them were tax exiles, some of them might have even more pressing need to stay away.

“Sorry,” she said.

He got up and went over to kneel beside her. “No, I'm the one that's sorry. One of these guys just insists I spend a couple of nights in his hacienda, as he calls it . . . He won't let me stay all alone in a hotel!”

“No!”
She was shocked.

“Yes, I'm afraid I have to. What do I tell Ricky, that I won't go out to a huge place with two swimming pools, billiard room and the works . . .”

“He can't eat into your private time, Don . . .”

“He doesn't see it as private time. Please don't make a scene, Ella. I'm so upset myself already, I couldn't bear it if you—”

“No, of course I won't.”

“Thank you.” He kissed her on the forehead. Then she saw him moving toward the big carved chest of drawers.

“Not tonight, Don?”

“He insists. I'm so very sorry. You know how little I want it. This was meant to be our time.” He said it with his hands spread out in mystification.

She must be very careful not to upset him, but she was so annoyed she could barely speak. Imagine her sitting here like a fool in a big posh hotel while Don played billiards and swam with some tax dodger, or worse. To please his father-in-law.

“Don't be silent on me, Angel.”

“No, of course not. Let's get you packed. The sooner you're gone, the sooner you're back.”

He looked very relieved. A row averted.

She watched him pack. Don Richardson, the fastidious man who was going away for three days, took one shirt, one change of underwear. And his laptop computer.

She told him she would be just fine and that she would dress up and cruise the swimming pool and find a new companion. She would have forgotten his name when he got back.

“Don't forget me, Angel. I am the great love of your life. As you are of mine. One of the reasons I'm doing all this nonsense is so that we can be free to spend long years together, in places like this, where I can throw the laptop out into the sea and we never have to go and be nice to boring old clients who are semi-crooks. Do you believe me?”

Ella did. Why else would he have taken her to Spain if he didn't love her?

It was a long two and a half days, but she kept busy. She went on a bus tour of the area. They passed a cluster of very wealthy homes.

“They all have two swimming pools and billiard rooms and mountain views from one side and sea views from the other,” the guide said proudly. “Mainly English and Irish people, who come very often here,” he added.

It could be the very place where Don was playing billiards to please his father-in-law, Ella thought. She noted what it was called. Playa dos Angeles. Place or beach of the Angels. How ironic it would be if he had to leave his own Angel for a place with the same name.

“Did you find a new love?” Don asked when he came back two and a half days later.

“No, did you?” she laughed.

“No, but I'm weary. Can our vacation begin now, Angel?”

So she knew there would be no chat about the client who insisted on taking up all his time and wrecking their holiday.

Don spent a lot of time at the laptop, more than she would have liked. When she woke he was tapping away. Often, after they made love in the evening, he slipped from the bed and seemed to come to life again at the little screen. That's today's world, she told herself. He is doing it so that we can have all those years together when the time comes.