THE phone call came, as Ana knew it would. 

 

Daniel left early for a meeting in Madrid, calmer after their evening on the terrace.  Remembering that time, she was surprised at how little they had talked about his revelation. She had felt no revulsion at the news, nor could she possibly condemn him. How could she, she who had a secret affair with a married man? Although she felt no jealousy of Sarah, she did worry that Daniel wanted his affair with a Sarah kept secret from Lynette.   She hoped she was wrong.  In any case, the most important thing was to protect Mark from the knowledge, if that were at all possible.  She thought he would be very hurt. Daniel was his friend. As for Lynette, it might be good for her to discover the consequences of her selfish behaviour. 

 

She was in the garden watering the flowers when her phone rang. Mayte’s voice was serious. “Ana cariño,  I wanted to tell you this news straightaway; this morning we received a phone call with some new information possibly relating to the death of Señora Harris. The call came from a Swiss resident, who owns a house on the edge of the urbanisation Bella Vista. The houses are nearest to the cross where Señora Harris and Señor Somerset usually met for their morning swim. Senor Schmidt told Luis he has information that might be useful to us; the man and his wife have only just returned after their Swiss vacation and knew nothing of the tragedy. We may need to talk again to all the people involved. Can you inform Señor Harris, Ana? I would like him to hear the news before the local gossip network gets going.”

 

There was nothing to be gained by telling Mayte it was she who had given Erik Schmidt the news of Sarah’s death and most certainly not by giving her the reason for her failure to tell Mayte what Erik had said.  

 

So Ana told Mayte she would ring Mark right away, and warn him that the police would be in touch. She also explained she had arranged to drive inland to see George and Juana Rutherford that morning, but would take her mobile, and could return very quickly if needed for interpreting. Mayte said the police would interview Senor Schmidt immediately and then, depending on what he had to say, the other people closely involved with Sarah.

 

Ana rang Mark and, managing a matter-of-fact tone, told him the police would be in touch soon with new information about Sarah’s death. She had never felt able to discuss Sarah’s death in any detail with him; their relationship was not sufficiently close for her to bring the subject up. Now was not the time to begin so she warned him that she would be away during the day but available on her mobile if needed.

 

As she drove to the Rutherford’s house in a small town forty minutes away in the hills, George and Juana were in her thoughts. Juana had been her rock when she was a young girl and, when they quarrelled; she told Juana things she never told her mother. Juana and George’s sixty-fifth wedding anniversary was approaching, and they had asked Ana to help arrange the party.

 

Ana was amazed at their appetite for celebrations at their advanced age t, full of admiration for their continuing joie de vivre. Hers was definitely flagging.

 

As soon as Ana arrived, Juana sent George to make coffee, taking Ana to sit with her on the patio. Juana’s stories from about 1960s Spain were legendary, and her dry, wry style was perfect for the task. Today though, there were no stories.  

 

“How is dear Mark? It must be so hard to get down to the business of grieving when you don’t know the cause of death. My heart went out to him at the funeral, having no family to stand around him. I know you and all his other friends were there but, I don’t know, it is not quite the same, is it?” 

 

Ana wanted to tell Juana all the thoughts spinning round in her head. But most of them concerned other people’s secrets and although she trusted Juana to keep any and every secret it would not be fair, Ana thought, to tell her these rather terrible ones.  And she had her own secret, held deep in her heart, that she thought she was pregnant. It was much too soon to know for certain but her body, and her heart, told her it was so. And that weekend when they had made love so often, it had been an oasis of calm and love. And she had thought the worst was over. But it wasn’t and now fear was her first reaction to something she had so longed for. 

 

Fear of the responsibility of bringing a child into the world, because her belief in goodness had been shaken to the core by Sarah’s sadness and death. Ana had lived in enough different places to get a feel for the world, its blessings and its horrors. But now she knew people often hid from others the truly bad things that had happened to them. Perhaps she, like Sarah’s birth mother, would not be able to protect her child;  Sarah had never forgiven her mother.  Ana had not yet told Daniel of her hope about the baby and in any case, who knew what might happen now? 

 

Juana broke into her thoughts. “My dearest child, I do hope you will sort out the things on your mind. I can see how troubled you are, and I know it must be important because you can’t tell me. You have had very few secrets from me since you were small. I remember explaining to you what periods were, fortunately, before you started to have them.”

 

Always amazed at Juana’s ability to read her thoughts, the urge to confide became even stronger. She hugged her instead. “If I could tell you, I would, Tia Juana. Next to Daniel and Papi, you know you are the person I trust most in the entire world. For now, let’s get on with organising the party. How many people are you going to invite, where do you want to hold it, and is Uncle George going to play with the band?” 

 

Until recently, when problems with George’s hip had got in the way, he had played the double bass once a week with a local British traditional jazz band. She knew the band would be sure to want to play at any celebrations involving Juana and George, so the venue would need to reflect that. Her aunt Filo, who had been the Rutherford’s housekeeper when Ana was young,  would know what old friends to invite, assuming they they were still alive.   

 

On the way home, she stopped to walk by the beach, hoping that the sight, sound and smell of the sea would work its usual magic, and help her clear her thoughts. One of her favourite places in the world was the coast between the fishing port and the tourist sandy beach, where the sea ended in a stretch of rocks and scrub vegetation. The rocks were made of porous sandstone, the colour of warm biscuit, known locally as Tosca, and much prized. From Roman times until the mid-twentieth century they had been quarried to provide stones for building local houses. The remaining rock clusters were cut in a series of steps, with pools in between. In rough weather, the sea sometimes covered them completely.  

 

As a child, she had loved weekend adventure walks with her father, her child’s eye seeing the rocks as steep and mysterious. Her father was a big fan of western films, popular in Spain in the 1960s and, during the walks, they would imagine they were there, in the American Wild West, in Arizona sometimes. 
 

“Papi, tell me about the cowboys,” she would say. “Where they are going now, where are the Indians hiding?” 
 

Her father would make up stories which they enacted; scouting the territory and tracking Indians, in reality local walkers; imagining the seagulls as eagles. 
 

Then there had been an old cinema in the centre of the old town and she was sad to see it now closed and falling into disrepair. Going to the movies with her father on Sunday afternoons had been the highlight of her week and, as she got older, she had been allowed to go with her friends to the children’s matinées. Her mother had not shared this passion, but Ana kept her love of films and cinema visits had been some of the happiest times of her life. She loved talking cinema and seeing old film posters, listening to film music, it was something she and Daniel shared.

 

She remembered her father telling her about the grand opening night of the old town cinema in 1952, when The Greatest Show on Earth was the attraction. Was it her father’s ability to transport her to other lands through books and films that had inspired her sense of adventure? Was this why she had escaped to Cataluña for a university education, then lived and worked abroad; an experience rare amongst her cousins and school friends? Home again, she was aware of the closeness of family, school friends and all things familiar which, although comforting, could also be limiting. She had been slightly shocked to find Laura, her 17-year-old niece, was happy to have left school that summer to work in her uncle’s shop. 

 

Laura already had a steady boyfriend, her horizons set on marriage and children. Last year, she had been chosen as a Fiesta queen. Perhaps this was the limit of her ambition, success in small town terms. Ana wondered whether she ever wished to wander the wider world, in the way Ana had and that she wanted her children to do.

 

Even in August, there were few people on the rocky coast where she walked and, feeling somewhat renewed, she reached one of the summer beach bars, set up at intervals along the seashore for the holiday period. She ordered a coffee and sat down, watching the sea, and listening to Brazilian music.

 

It reminded her of Max and how they had loved dancing. What must have his wife thought, back home in Rome with their children, while he was in Brussels? He had made it clear to Ana that he had no intention of leaving his family and she had, except for one brief period, been happy with the freedom of a relationship solely based on pleasure. But they had gone away for a weekend, to Deauville, in France, and she had been so happy that she wished, albeit briefly, that his wife would discover their affair and leave him, to her. But even while she was wishing this she knew they could never sustain a long-term relationship. The sex was the draw - she could never settle down with a man who read so few books and didn't enjoy the cinema. 

 

Her thoughts returned to Mark. What would this new information do to him? How would he cope if Carole had been in some way responsible for his wife’s death? Since the funeral, she felt he had retreated back into his shell; always polite, thoughtful, always concerned for everyone else. Not that she was in any way surprised he wanted to protect his feelings; she wondered if anyone could ever recover from such shattering events. Imagine, she thought repeatedly, your wife dying, no one knowing how or why, finding out about her sad detective work on her computer, and that she had kept knowledge to herself, knowledge which you were not given, that you had a son living in India. 

 

She finished her coffee and got up to leave. There was nothing more she could do about Sarah’s death and who else it might have involved.  She sighed and the waiter she was paying for the coffee looked at her sympathetically. Well, she wanted to say to him, the die is cast now, fate will do as it will.

 

But, of course, she didn’t.