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happy together for the short time they had.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI once asked Inez.”
    How simple.
    â€œI still don’t know how that fellow does it.”
    She laughed. “To each his own obsession. Don’t worry, Edward. You’ll find out.”
    â€œFind out what?”
    â€œWho Pilar’s son is and how he earns his money. When you do, tell me. If it’s this side of the law, I could do with taking a leaf out of his book. I could do with that sort of money. You were right about the house. It does have hotel possibilities. But the conversion will take quite a bit of money.”
    â€œI know a man who’s always interested in an investment prospect. Shall I sound him?”
    â€œYes, but tentatively. I haven’t definitely decided. I might –”
    â€œMight what?”
    â€œNothing.” She could hardly say, ‘Marry a Spaniard, settle down in a house with a grape-vine growing over the door, keep hens in the back yard, grow fat bearing liquid-eyed, olive-skinned babies’. It wasn’t proper to say that to Edward. Not while she was wearing his ring.
    After lunch, Anita went upstairs to lie down. A girl of half Spanish origin should take to siesta. But she couldn’t sleep. So she got up. She put on her dress, having previously removed it to avoid creasing, and went to ask Edward to come for a walk. She knocked on his door, but got no reply. Obviously he’d gone out. Tiresome man, he would be ready for bed again at ten o’clock tonight. Unlike herself, Edward was one of those heavy, sluggish types who needed his full quota of sleep.
    She meandered across the square, chose one of the side streets at random. It led into another square, the plaza del rey. Very courageously she went into a bar and ordered coffee, thinking how odd it was to order coffee over a bar counter. A young Spaniard gave her the eye. He wore a red sweater and black pants and his hair curled close to his head. She lowered her lashes at him and looked coy.
    â€œBurnie, burnie, darling. Girls have been raped for less.” The voice, light and feminine, came on a whiff of perfume.
    â€œYou speak from experience, of course,” retaliated Anita.
    â€œYou’re sharp, love. I like that. Hang on while I get my plate of omelette and chips and I’ll join you.”
    That is how Anita met Cathy Gray.
    When she came back they exchanged names. Cathy had set her lunch down on the table, but she made no attempt to tackle it.
    â€œYou’re real, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re not a mirage? You can’t know what this means to me, being able to talk to someone English, straight out from England. All the people here talk Spanish. It’s a dreadful bore.”
    â€œHow long have you been here?” asked Anita, warming to her new friend’s exuberance.
    â€œEighteen months. I work for Claude Perryman, the export man. Best job I’ve had in my life. Easiest hours and if the pay isn’t anything to write home about, the living is cheap. But, oh! If you knew how I’ve longed to hear and see and touch someone or something from the good old U.K.” She looked down at her plate. “I order chips with everything to make me feel at home. But it isn’t the same.”
    Claude Perryman, thought Anita, wondering how he was taking his wife’s death. Poor man. Pushing her sympathy aside, she said: “You really are homesick. Why did you come in the first place?”
    â€œMy health. The old bronchial tubes were choked up and if that wasn’t enough I was smoking myself into an early grave. Do you smoke?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWise girl. I’ve given them up. I’m not sure I haven’t bolted the stable door after the horse has gone. I used to prefer a cup of tea and a cigarette to a meal. I didn’t so much mind the cough but when I started seeing red spots and green dragons before my eyes, I